diff options
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 12195-0.txt | 8239 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12195-8.txt | 8663 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12195-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 185572 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12195.txt | 8663 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/12195.zip | bin | 0 -> 185530 bytes |
8 files changed, 25581 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12195-0.txt b/12195-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8af9163 --- /dev/null +++ b/12195-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8239 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12195 *** + + THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE + + BY EDWARD EGGLESTON + + AUTHOR OF "THE HOOGLEE SCHOOL-MASTER," "THE END OF THE WORLD," ETC + + 1888 + + + + +TO ONE WHO KNOWS WITH ME A LOVE-STORY, NOW MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS IN +LENGTH, AND BETTER A HUNDREDFOLD THAN ANY I SHALL EVER BE ABLE TO WRITE, +THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, ON AN ANNIVERSARY. + +MARCH 18TH, 1873. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +A novel should be the truest of books. It partakes in a certain sense of +the nature of both history and art. It needs to be true to human nature +in its permanent and essential qualities, and it should truthfully +represent some specific and temporary manifestation of human nature: that +is, some form of society. It has been objected that I have copied life +too closely, but it seems to me that the work to be done just now, is to +represent the forms and spirit of our own life, and thus free ourselves +from habitual imitation of that which is foreign. I have wished to make +my stories of value as a contribution to the history of civilization in +America. If it be urged that this is not the highest function, I reply +that it is just now the most necessary function of this kind of +literature. Of the value of these stories as works of art, others must +judge; but I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I have at least +rendered one substantial though humble service to our literature, if I +have portrayed correctly certain forms of American life and manners. + +BROOKLYN, March, 1873. + + + + +CONTENTS. + +PREFACE + +WORDS BEFOREHAND + + CHAPTER I. The Autocrat of the Stage-Coach + + CHAPTER II. The Sod Tavern + + CHAPTER III. Land and Love + + CHAPTER IV. Albert and Katy + + CHAPTER V. Corner Lots + + CHAPTER VI. Little Katy's Lover + + CHAPTER VII. Catching and Getting Caught + + CHAPTER VIII. Isabel Marlay + + CHAPTER IX. Lovers and Lovers + + CHAPTER X. Plausaby, Esq., takes a Fatherly Interest + + CHAPTER XI. About Several Things + + CHAPTER XII. An Adventure + + CHAPTER XIII. A Shelter + + CHAPTER XIV. The Inhabitant + + CHAPTER XV. An Episode + + CHAPTER XVI. The Return + + CHAPTER XVII. Sawney and his Old Love + + CHAPTER XVIII. A Collision + + CHAPTER XIX. Standing Guard in Vain + + CHAPTER XX. Sawney and Westcott + + CHAPTER XXI. Rowing + + CHAPTER XXII. Sailing + + CHAPTER XXIII. Sinking + + CHAPTER XXIV. Dragging + + CHAPTER XXV. Afterwards + + CHAPTER XXVI. The Mystery + + CHAPTER XXVII. The Arrest + + CHAPTER XXVIII. The Tempter + + CHAPTER XXIX. The Trial + + CHAPTER XXX. The Penitentiary + + CHAPTER XXXI. Mr. Lurton + + CHAPTER XXXII. A Confession + + CHAPTER XXXIII. Death + + CHAPTER XXXIV. Mr. Lurton's Courtship + + CHAPTER XXXV. Unbarred + + CHAPTER XXXVI. Isabel + + CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last + +WORDS AFTERWARDS + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK BEARD + + +The Superior Being + +Mr. Minorkey and the Fat Gentleman + +Plausaby sells Lots + +"By George! He! he! he!" + +Mrs. Plausaby + +The Inhabitant + +A Pinch of Snuff + +Mrs. Ferret + +One Savage Blow full in the Face + +"What on Airth's the Matter?" + +His Unselfish Love found a Melancholy Recompense + +The Editor of "The Windmill" + +"Git up and Foller!" + + + + +THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE. + + + + +WORDS BEFOREHAND. + + +Metropolisville is nothing but a memory now. If Jonah's gourd had not +been a little too much used already, it would serve an excellent turn +just here in the way of an apt figure of speech illustrating the growth, +the wilting, and the withering of Metropolisville. The last time I saw +the place the grass grew green where once stood the City Hall, the +corn-stalks waved their banners on the very site of the old store--I ask +pardon, the "Emporium"--of Jackson, Jones & Co., and what had been the +square, staring white court-house--not a Temple but a Barn of +Justice--had long since fallen to base uses. The walls which had echoed +with forensic grandiloquence were now forced to hear only the bleating of +silly sheep. The church, the school-house, and the City Hotel had been +moved away bodily. The village grew, as hundreds of other frontier +villages had grown, in the flush times; it died, as so many others died, +of the financial crash which was the inevitable sequel and retribution +of speculative madness. Its history resembles the history of other +Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take the trouble +to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble to read about it, if +the history of the town did not involve also the history of certain human +lives--of a tragedy that touched deeply more than one soul. And what is +history worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is not of +value on account of its temples and statues, but on account of its men +and women. And though the "Main street" of Metropolisville is now a +country road where the dog-fennel blooms almost undisturbed by comers and +goers, though the plowshare remorselessly turns over the earth in places +where corner lots were once sold for a hundred dollars the front foot, +and though the lot once sacredly set apart (on the map) as "Depot Ground" +is now nothing but a potato-patch, yet there are hearts on which the +brief history of Metropolisville has left traces ineffaceable by sunshine +or storm, in time or eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE STAGECOACH. + + +"Git up!" + +No leader of a cavalry charge ever put more authority into his tones than +did Whisky Jim, as he drew the lines over his four bay horses in the +streets of Red Owl Landing, a village two years old, boasting three +thousand inhabitants, and a certain prospect of having four thousand a +month later. + +Even ministers, poets, and writers of unworldly romances are sometimes +influenced by mercenary considerations. But stage-drivers are entirely +consecrated to their high calling. Here was Whisky Jim, in the very +streets of Red Owl, in the spring of the year 1856, when money was worth +five and six per cent a month on bond and mortgage, when corner lots +doubled in value over night, when everybody was frantically trying to +swindle everybody else--here was Whisky Jim, with the infatuation of a +life-long devotion to horse-flesh, utterly oblivious to the chances of +robbing green emigrants which a season of speculation affords. He was +secure from the infection. You might have shown him a gold-mine under the +very feet of his wheel-horses, and he could not have worked it +twenty-four hours. He had an itching palm, which could be satisfied with +nothing but the "ribbons" drawn over the backs of a four-in-hand. + +"_Git_ up!" + +The coach moved away--slowly at first--from the front door of the large, +rectangular, unpainted Red Owl Hotel, dragging its wheels heavily through +the soft turf of a Main street from which the cotton-wood trees had been +cut down, but in which the stumps were still standing, and which remained +as innocent of all pavement as when, three years before, the chief whose +name it bore, loaded his worldly goods upon the back of his oldest and +ugliest wife, slung his gun over his shoulder, and started mournfully +away from the home of his fathers, which he, shiftless fellow, had +bargained away to the white man for an annuity of powder and blankets, +and a little money, to be quickly spent for whisky. And yet, I might add +digressively, there is comfort in the saddest situations. Even the +venerable Red Owl bidding adieu to the home of his ancestors found solace +in the sweet hope of returning under favorable circumstances to scalp the +white man's wife and children. + +"Git up, thair! G'lang!" The long whip swung round and cracked +threateningly over the haunches of the leaders, making them start +suddenly as the coach went round a corner and dipped into a hole at the +same instant, nearly throwing the driver, and the passenger who was +enjoying the outride with him, from their seats. + +"What a hole!" said the passenger, a studious-looking young man, with an +entomologist's tin collecting-box slung over his shoulders. + +The driver drew a long breath, moistened his lips, and said in a cool and +aggravatingly deliberate fashion: + +"That air blamed pollywog puddle sold las' week fer tew thaousand." + +[Illustration: THE SUPERIOR BEING.] + +"Dollars?" asked the young man. + +Jim gave him an annihilating look, and queried: "Didn' think I meant tew +thaousand acorns, did ye?" + +"It's an awful price," said the abashed passenger, speaking as one might +in the presence of a superior being. + +Jim was silent awhile, and then resumed in the same slow tone, but with +something of condescension mixed with it: + +"Think so, do ye? Mebbe so, stranger. Fool what bought that tadpole lake +done middlin' well in disposin' of it, how-sumdever." + +Here the Superior Being came to a dead pause, and waited to be +questioned. + +"How's that?" asked the young man. + +After a proper interval of meditation, Jim said: "Sol' it this week. Tuck +jest twice what he invested in his frog-fishery." + +"Four thousand?" said the passenger with an inquisitive and surprised +rising inflection. + +"Hey?" said Jim, looking at him solemnly. "Tew times tew use to be four +when I larnt the rewl of three in old Varmount. Mebbe 'taint so in the +country you come from, where they call a pail a bucket." + +The passenger kept still awhile. The manner of the Superior Being chilled +him a little. But Whisky Jim graciously broke the silence himself. + +"Sell nex' week fer six." + +The young man's mind had already left the subject under discussion, and +it took some little effort of recollection to bring it back. + +"How long will it keep on going up?" he asked. + +"Tell it teches the top. Come daown then like a spile-driver in a hurry. +Higher it goes, the wuss it'll mash anybody what happens to stan' +percisely under it." + +"When will it reach the top?" + +The Superior Being turned his eyes full upon the student, who blushed a +little under the half-sneer of his look. + +"Yaou tell! Thunder, stranger, that's jest what everybody'd pay money tew +find out. Everybody means to git aout in time, but--thunder!--every piece +of perrary in this territory's a deadfall. Somebody'll git catched in +every one of them air traps. Gee up! G'lang! _Git_ up, won't you? Hey?" +And this last sentence was ornamented with another magnificent +writing-master flourish of the whip-lash, and emphasized by an explosive +crack at the end, which started the four horses off in a swinging gallop, +from which Jim did not allow them to settle back into a walk until they +had reached the high prairie land in the rear of the town. + +"What are those people living in tents for?" asked the student as he +pointed back to Red Owl, now considerably below them, and which presented +a panorama of balloon-frame houses, mostly innocent of paint, with a +sprinkling of tents pitched here and there among the trees; on lots not +yet redeemed from virgin wildness, but which possessed the remarkable +quality of "fetching" prices that would have done honor to well-located +land in Philadelphia. + +"What they live that a-way fer? Hey? Mos'ly 'cause they can't live no +other." Then, after a long pause, the Superior Being resumed in a tone of +half-soliloquy: "A'n't a bed nur a board in the hull city of Red Owl to +be had for payin' nur coaxin'. Beds is aces. Houses is trumps. Landlords +is got high, low, Jack, and the game in ther hands. Looky there! A +bran-new lot of fools fresh from the factory." And he pointed to the old +steamboat "Ben Bolt," which was just coming up to the landing with deck +and guards black with eager immigrants of all classes. + +But Albert Charlton, the student, did not look back any longer. It marks +an epoch in a man's life when he first catches sight of a prairie +landscape, especially if that landscape be one of those great rolling +ones to be seen nowhere so well as in Minnesota. Charlton had crossed +Illinois from Chicago to Dunleith in the night-time, and so had missed +the flat prairies. His sense of sublimity was keen, and, besides his +natural love for such scenes, he had a hobbyist passion for virgin nature +superadded. + +"What a magnificent country!" he cried. + +"Talkin' sense!" muttered Jim. "Never seed so good a place fer stagin' +in my day." + +For every man sees through his own eyes. To the emigrants whose white-top +"prairie schooners" wound slowly along the road, these grass-grown hills +and those far-away meadowy valleys were only so many places where good +farms could be opened without the trouble of cutting off the trees. It +was not landscape, but simply land where one might raise thirty or forty +bushels of spring wheat to the acre, without any danger of "fevernager;" +to the keen-witted speculator looking sharply after corner stakes, at a +little distance from the road, it was just so many quarter sections, +"eighties," and "forties," to be bought low and sold high whenever +opportunity offered; to Jim it was a good country for staging, except a +few "blamed sloughs where the bottom had fell out." But the enthusiastic +eyes of young Albert Charlton despised all sordid and "culinary uses" of +the earth; to him this limitless vista of waving wild grass, these green +meadows and treeless hills dotted everywhere with purple and yellow +flowers, was a sight of Nature in her noblest mood. Such rolling hills +behind hills! If those _rolls_ could be called hills! After an hour the +coach had gradually ascended to the summit of the "divide" between Purple +River on the one side and Big Gun River on the other, and the rows of +willows and cotton-woods that hung over the water's edge--the only trees +under the whole sky--marked distinctly the meandering lines of the two +streams. Albert Charlton shouted and laughed; he stood up beside Jim, and +cried out that it was a paradise. + +"Mebbe 'tis," sneered Jim, "Anyway, it's got more'n one devil into it. +_Gil_--lang!" + +And under the inspiration of the scenery, Albert, with the impulsiveness +of a young man, unfolded to Whisky Jim all the beauties of his own +theories: how a man should live naturally and let other creatures live; +how much better a man was without flesh-eating; how wrong it was to +speculate, and that a speculator gave nothing in return; and that it was +not best to wear flannels, seeing one should harden his body to endure +cold and all that; and how a man should let his beard grow, not use +tobacco nor coffee nor whisky, should get up at four o'clock in the +morning and go to bed early. + +"Looky here, mister!" said the Superior Being, after a while. "I wouldn't +naow, ef I was you!" + +"Wouldn't what?" + +"Wouldn't fetch no sich notions into this ked'ntry. Can't afford tew. +'Taint no land of idees. It's the ked'ntry of corner lots. Idees is in +the way--don't pay no interest. Haint had time to build a 'sylum fer +people with idees yet, in this territory. Ef you must have 'em, why let +me _rec_-ommend Bost'n. Drove hack there wunst, myself." Then after a +pause he proceeded with the deliberation of a judge: "It's the best +village I ever lay eyes on fer idees, is Bost'n. Thicker'n hops! Grow +single and in bunches. Have s'cieties there fer idees. Used to make money +outen the fellows with idees, cartin 'em round to anniversaries and sich. +Ef you only wear a nice slick plug-hat there, you kin believe anything +you choose or not, and be a gentleman all the same. The more you believe +or don't believe in Bost'n, the more gentleman you be. The +don't-believers is just as good as the believers. Idees inside the head, +and plug-hats outside. But idees out here! I tell you, here it's nothin' +but per-cent." The Superior Being puckered his lips and whistled. "_Git_ +up, will you! G'lang! Better try Bost'n." + +Perhaps Albert Charlton, the student passenger, was a little offended +with the liberty the driver had taken in rebuking his theories. He was +full of "idees," and his fundamental idea was of course his belief in +the equality and universal brotherhood of men. In theory he recognized +no social distinctions. But the most democratic of democrats in theory +is just a little bit of an aristocrat in feeling--he doesn't like to be +patted on the back by the hostler; much less does he like to be +reprimanded by a stage-driver. And Charlton was all the more sensitive +from a certain vague consciousness that he himself had let down the bars +of his dignity by unfolding his theories so gushingly to Whisky Jim. +What did Jim know--what _could_ a man who said "idees" know--about the +great world-reforming thoughts that engaged his attention? But when +dignity is once fallen, all the king's oxen and all the king's men can't +stand it on its legs again. In such a strait, one must flee from him who +saw the fall. + +Albert Charlton therefore determined that he would change to the inside +of the coach when an opportunity should offer, and leave the Superior +Being to sit "wrapped in the solitude of his own originality." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SOD TAVERN. + + +Here and there Charlton noticed the little claim-shanties, built in every +sort of fashion, mere excuses for pre-emption. Some were even constructed +of brush. What was lacking in the house was amply atoned for by the +perjury of the claimant who, in pre-empting, would swear to any necessary +number of good qualities in his habitation. On a little knoll ahead of +the stage he saw what seemed to be a heap of earth. There must have been +some inspiration in this mound, for, as soon as it came in sight, Whisky +Jim began to chirrup and swear at his horses, and to crack his long whip +threateningly until he had sent them off up the hill at a splendid pace. +Just by this mound of earth he reined up with an air that said the +forenoon route was finished. For this was nothing less than the "Sod +Tavern," a house built of cakes of the tenacious prairiesod. No other +material was used except the popple-poles, which served for supports to +the sod-roof. The tavern was not over ten feet high at the apex of the +roof; it had been built for two or three years, and the grass was now +growing on top. A red-shirted publican sallied out of this artificial +grotto, and invited the ladies and gentlemen to dinner. + +It appeared, from a beautifully-engraved map hanging on the walls of the +Sod Tavern, that this earthly tabernacle stood in the midst of an ideal +town. The map had probably been constructed by a poet, for it was quite +superior to the limitations of sense and matter-of-fact. According to the +map, this solitary burrow was surrounded by Seminary, DepĂ´t, Court-House, +Woolen Factory, and a variety of other potential institutions, which +composed the flourishing city of New Cincinnati. But the map was meant +chiefly for Eastern circulation. + +Charlton's dietetic theories were put to the severest test at the table. +He had a good appetite. A ride in the open air in Minnesota is apt to +make one hungry. But the first thing that disgusted Mr. Charlton was the +coffee, already poured out, and steaming under his nose. He hated coffee +because he liked it; and the look of disgust with which he shoved it away +was the exact measure of his physical craving for it. The solid food on +the table consisted of waterlogged potatoes, half-baked salt-rising +bread, and salt-pork. Now, young Charlton was a reader of the _Water-Cure +Journal_ of that day, and despised meat of all things, and of all meat +despised swine's flesh, as not even fit for Jews; and of all forms of +hog, hated fat salt-pork as poisonously indigestible. So with a dyspeptic +self-consciousness he rejected the pork, picked off the periphery of the +bread near the crust, cautiously avoiding the dough-bogs in the middle; +but then he revenged himself by falling furiously upon the aquatic +potatoes, out of which most of the nutriment had been soaked. + +Jim, who sat alongside him, doing cordial justice to the badness of the +meal, muttered that it wouldn't do to eat by idees in Minnesoty. And with +the freedom that belongs to the frontier, the company begun to discuss +dietetics, the fat gentleman roundly abusing the food for the express +purpose, as Charlton thought, of diverting attention from his voracious +eating of it. + +"Simply despicable," grunted the fat man, as he took a third slice of the +greasy pork. "I do despise such food." + +"Eats it _like_ he was mad at it," said Driver Jim in an undertone. + +But as Charlton's vegetarianism was noticed, all fell to denouncing it. +Couldn't live in a cold climate without meat. Cadaverous Mr. Minorkey, +the broad-shouldered, sad-looking man with side-whiskers, who complained +incessantly of a complication of disorders, which included dyspepsia, +consumption, liver-disease, organic disease of the heart, rheumatism, +neuralgia, and entire nervous prostration, and who was never entirely +happy except in telling over the oft-repeated catalogue of his disgusting +symptoms--Mr. Minorkey, as he sat by his daughter, inveighed, in an +earnest crab-apple voice, against Grahamism. He would have been in his +grave twenty years ago if it hadn't been for good meat. And then he +recited in detail the many desperate attacks from which he had been saved +by beefsteak. But this pork he felt sure would make him sick. It might +kill him. And he evidently meant to sell his life as dearly as possible, +for, as Jim muttered to Charlton, he was "goin' the whole hog anyhow." + +"Miss Minorkey," said the fat gentleman checking a piece of pork in the +middle of its mad career toward his lips, "Miss Minorkey, we _should_ +like to hear from you on this subject." In truth, the fat gentleman was +very weary of Mr. Minorkey's pitiful succession of diagnoses of the awful +symptoms and fatal complications of which he had been cured by very +allopathic doses of animal food. So he appealed to Miss Minorkey for +relief at a moment when her father had checked and choked his utterance +with coffee. + +Miss Minorkey was quite a different affair from her father. She was +thoroughly but not obtrusively healthy. She had a high, white forehead, a +fresh complexion, and a mouth which, if it was deficient in sweetness and +warmth of expression, was also free from all bitterness and +aggressiveness. Miss Minorkey was an eminently well-educated young lady +as education goes. She was more--she was a young lady of reading and of +ideas. She did not exactly defend Charlton's theory in her reply, but she +presented both sides of the controversy, and quoted some scientific +authorities in such a way as to make it apparent that there _were_ two +sides. This unexpected and rather judicial assistance called forth from +Charlton a warm acknowledgment, his pale face flushed with modest +pleasure, and as he noted the intellectuality of Miss Minorkey's forehead +he inwardly comforted himself that the only person of ideas in the whole +company was not wholly against him. + +Albert Charlton was far from being a "ladies' man;" indeed, nothing was +more despicable in his eyes than men who frittered away life in ladies' +company. But this did not at all prevent him from being very human +himself in his regard for ladies. All the more that he had lived out of +society all his life, did his heart flutter when he took his seat in the +stage after dinner. For Miss Minorkey's father and the fat gentleman felt +that they must have the back seat; there were two other gentlemen on the +middle seat; and Albert Charlton, all unused to the presence of ladies, +must needs sit on the front seat, alongside the gray traveling-dress of +the intellectual Miss Minorkey, who, for her part, was not in the least +bit nervous. Young Charlton might have liked her better if she had been. + +But if she was not shy, neither was she obtrusive. When Mr. Charlton had +grown weary of hearing Mr. Minorkey pity himself, and of hearing the fat +gentleman boast of the excellence of the Minnesota climate, the dryness +of the air, and the wonderful excess of its oxygen, and the entire +absence of wintry winds, and the rapid development of the country, and +when he had grown weary of discussions of investments at five per cent a +month, he ventured to interrupt Miss Minorkey's reverie by a remark to +which she responded. And he was soon in a current of delightful talk. The +young gentleman spoke with great enthusiasm; the young woman without +warmth, but with a clear intellectual interest in literary subjects, that +charmed her interlocutor. I say literary subjects, though the range of +the conversation was not very wide. It was a great surprise to Charlton, +however, to find in a new country a young woman so well informed. + +Did he fall in love? Gentle reader, be patient. You want a love-story, +and I don't blame you. For my part, I should not take the trouble to +record this history if there were no love in it. Love is the universal +bond of human sympathy. But you must give people time. What we call +falling in love is not half so simple an affair as you think, though it +often looks simple enough to the spectator. Albert Charlton was pleased, +he was full of enthusiasm, and I will not deny that he several times +reflected in a general way that so clear a talker and so fine a thinker +would make a charming wife for some man--some intellectual man--some man +like himself, for instance. He admired Miss Minorkey. He liked her. With +an enthusiastic young man, admiring and liking are, to say the least, +steps that lead easily to something else. But you must remember how +complex a thing love is. Charlton--I have to confess it--was a little +conceited, as every young man is at twenty. He flattered himself that the +most intelligent woman he could find would be a good match for him. He +loved ideas, and a woman of ideas pleased his fancy. Add to this that he +had come to a time of life when he was very liable to fall in love with +somebody, and that he was in the best of spirits from the influence of +air and scenery and motion and novelty, and you render it quite probable +that he could not be tossed for half a day on the same seat in a coach +with such a girl as Helen Minorkey was--that, above all, he could not +discuss Hugh Miller and the "Vestiges of Creation" with her, without +imminent peril of experiencing an admiration for her and an admiration +for himself, and a liking and a palpitating and a castle-building that +under favorable conditions might somehow grow into that complex and +inexplicable feeling which we call love. + +In fact, Jim, who drove both routes on this day, and who peeped into the +coach whenever he stopped to water, soliloquized that two fools with +idees would make a quare span ef they had a neck-yoke on. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +LAND AND LOVE. + + +Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman found much to interest them as the +coach rolled over the smooth prairie road, now and then crossing a +slough. Not that Mr. Minorkey or his fat friend had any particular +interest in the beautiful outline of the grassy knolls, the gracefulness +of the water-willows that grew along the river edge, and whose paler +green was the prominent feature of the landscape, or in the sweet +contrast at the horizon where grass-green earth met the light blue +northern sky. But the scenery none the less suggested fruitful themes for +talk to the two gentlemen on the back-seat. + +"I've got money loaned on that quarter at three per cent a month and five +after due. The mortgage has a waiver in it too. You see, the security was +unusually good, and that was why I let him have it so low." This was what +Mr. Minorkey said at intervals and with some variations, generally adding +something like this: "The day I went to look at that claim, to see +whether the security was good or not, I got caught in the rain. I +expected it would kill me. Well, sir, I was taken that night with a +pain--just here--and it ran through the lung to the point of the +shoulder-blade--here. I had to get my feet into a tub of water and take +some brandy. I'd a had pleurisy if I'd been in any other country but +this. I tell you, nothing saved me but the oxygen in this air. There! +there's a forty that I lent a hundred dollars on at five per cent a month +and six per cent after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage. The day I +came here to see this I was nearly dead. I had a--" + +Just here the fat gentleman would get desperate, and, by way of +preventing the completion of the dolorous account, would break out with: +"That's Sokaska, the new town laid out by Johnson--that hill over there, +where you see those stakes. I bought a corner-lot fronting the public +square, and a block opposite where they hope to get a factory. There's a +brook runs through the town, and they think it has water enough and fall +enough to furnish a water-power part of the day, during part of the year, +and they hope to get a factory located there. There'll be a territorial +road run through from St. Paul next spring if they can get a bill through +the legislature this winter. You'd best buy there." + +"I never buy town lots," said Minorkey, coughing despairingly, "never! I +run no risks. I take my interest at three and five per cent a month on a +good mortgage, with a waiver, and let other folks take risks." + +But the hopeful fat gentleman evidently took risks and slept soundly. +There was no hypothetical town, laid out hypothetically on paper, in +whose hypothetical advantages he did not covet a share. + +"You see," he resumed, "I buy low--cheap as dirt--and get the rise. Some +towns must get to be cities. I have a little all round, scattered here +and there. I am sure to have a lucky ticket in some of these lotteries." + +[Illustration: MR. MINORKEY AND THE FAT GENTLEMAN.] + +Mr. Minorkey only coughed and shook his head despondently, and said that +"there was nothing so good as a mortgage with a waiver in it. Shut down +in short order if you don't get your interest, if you've only got a +waiver. I always shut down unless I've got five per cent after maturity. +But I have the waiver in the mortgage anyhow." + +As the stage drove on, up one grassy slope and down another, there was +quite a different sort of a conversation going on in the other end of the +coach. Charlton found many things which suggested subjects about which he +and Miss Minorkey could converse, notwithstanding the strange contrast in +their way of expressing themselves. He was full of eagerness, +positiveness, and a fresh-hearted egoism. He had an opinion on +everything; he liked or disliked everything; and when he disliked +anything, he never spared invective in giving expression to his +antipathy. His moral convictions were not simply strong--they were +vehement. His intellectual opinions were hobbies that he rode under whip +and spur. A theory for everything, a solution of every difficulty, a +"high moral" view of politics, a sharp skepticism in religion, but a +skepticism that took hold of him as strongly as if it had been a faith. +He held to his _non credo_ with as much vigor as a religionist holds to +his creed. + +Miss Minorkey was just a little irritating to one so enthusiastic. She +neither believed nor disbelieved anything in particular. She liked to +talk about everything in a cool and objective fashion; and Charlton was +provoked to find that, with all her intellectual interest in things, she +had no sort of personal interest in anything. If she had been a +disinterested spectator, dropped down from another sphere, she could not +have discussed the affairs of this planet with more complete +impartiality, not to say indifference. Theories, doctrines, faiths, and +even moral duties, she treated as Charlton did beetles; ran pins through +them and held them up where she could get a good view of them--put them +away as curiosities. She listened with an attention that was surely +flattering enough, but Charlton felt that he had not made much impression +on her. There was a sort of attraction in this repulsion. There was an +excitement in his ambition to impress this impartial and judicial mind +with the truth and importance of the glorious and regenerating views he +had embraced. His self-esteem was pleased at the thought that he should +yet conquer this cool and open-minded girl by the force of his own +intelligence. He admired her intellectual self-possession all the more +that it was a quality which he lacked. Before that afternoon ride was +over, he was convinced that he sat by the supreme woman of all he had +ever known. And who was so fit to marry the supreme woman as he, Albert +Charlton, who was to do so much by advocating all sorts of reforms to +help the world forward to its goal? + +He liked that word goal. A man's pet words are the key to his character. +A man who talks of "vocation," of "goal," and all that, may be laughed at +while he is in the period of intellectual fermentation. The time is sure +to come, however, when such a man can excite other emotions than mirth. + +And so Charlton, full of thoughts of his "vocation" and the world's +"goal," was slipping into an attachment for a woman to whom both words +were Choctaw. Do you wonder at it? If she had had a vocation also, and +had talked about goals, they would mutually have repelled each other, +like two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity. People with +vocations can hardly fall in love with other people with vocations. + +But now Metropolisville was coming in sight, and Albert's attention was +attracted by the conversation of Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman. + +"Mr. Plausaby has selected an admirable site," Charlton heard the fat +gentleman remark, and as Mr. Plausaby was his own step-father, he began +to listen. "Pretty sharp! pretty sharp!" continued the fat gentleman. "I +tell you what, Mr. Minorkey, that man Plausaby sees through a millstone +with a hole in it. I mean to buy some lots in this place. It'll be the +county-seat and a railroad junction, as sure as you're alive. And +Plausaby has saved some of his best lots for me." + +"Yes, it's a nice town, or will be. I hold a mortgage on the best +eighty--the one this way--at three per cent and five after maturity, with +a waiver. I liked to have died here one night last summer. I was taken +just after supper with a violent--" + +"What a beauty of a girl that is," broke in the fat gentleman, "little +Katy Charlton, Plausaby's step-daughter!" And instantly Mr. Albert +Charlton thrust his head out of the coach and shouted "Hello, Katy!" to a +girl of fifteen, who ran to intercept the coach at the hotel steps. + +"Hurrah, Katy!" said the young man, as she kissed him impulsively as soon +as he had alighted. + +"P'int out your baggage, mister," said Jim, interrupting Katy's raptures +with a tone that befitted a Superior Being. + +In a few moments the coach, having deposited Charlton and the fat +gentleman, was starting away for its destination at Perritaut, eight +miles farther on, when Charlton, remembering again his companion on the +front seat, lifted his hat and bowed, and Miss Minorkey was kind enough +to return the bow. Albert tried to analyze her bow as he lay awake in bed +that night. Miss Minorkey doubtless slept soundly. She always did. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ALBERT AND KATY. + + +All that day in which Albert Charlton had been riding from Red Owl +Landing to Metropolisville, sweet Little Katy Charlton had been expecting +him. Everybody called her _sweet_, and I suppose there was no word in the +dictionary that so perfectly described her. She was not well-read, like +Miss Minorkey; she was not even very smart at her lessons: but she was +sweet. Sweetness is a quality that covers a multitude of defects. Katy's +heart had love in it for everybody. She loved her mother; she loved +Squire Plausaby, her step-father; she loved cousin Isa, as she called her +step-father's niece; she loved--well, no matter, she would have told you +that she loved nobody more than Brother Albert. + +And now that Brother Albert was coming to the new home in the new land +he had never seen before, Katy's heart was in her eyes. She would show +him so many things he had never seen, explain how the pocket-gophers +built their mounds, show him the nestful of flying-squirrels--had he +ever seen flying-squirrels? And she would show him Diamond Lake, and +the speckled pickerel among the water-plants. And she would point out +the people, and entertain Albert with telling him their names and the +curious gossip about them. It was so fine to know something that even +Albert, with all his learning, did not know. And she would introduce +Albert to _him_. Would Albert like _him_? Of course he would. They were +both such _dear_ men. + +And as the hours wore on, Katy grew more and more excited and nervous. +She talked about Albert to her mother till she wearied that worthy woman, +to whom the arrival of any one was an excuse for dressing if possible in +worse taste than usual, or at least for tying an extra ribbon in her +hair, and the extra ribbon was sure to be of a hue entirely discordant +with the mutually discordant ones that preceded it. Tired of talking to +her mother, she readily found an excuse to buy something--ribbons, or +candles, or hair-pins, or dried apples--something kept in the very +miscellaneous stock of the "Emporium," and she knew who would wait upon +her, and who would kindly prolong the small transaction by every artifice +in his power, and thus give her time to tell him about her Brother +Albert. He would be so glad to hear about Albert. He was always glad to +hear her tell about anybody or anything. + +And when the talk over the counter at the Emporium could not be farther +prolonged, she had even stopped on her way home at Mrs. Ferret's, and +told her about Albert, though she did not much like to talk to her--she +looked so penetratingly at her out of her round, near-sighted eyes, which +seemed always keeping a watch on the tip of her nose. And Mrs. Ferret, +with her jerky voice, and a smile that was meant to be an expression of +mingled cheerfulness and intelligence, but which expressed neither, +said: "Is your brother a Christian?" + +And Katy said he was a dear, dear fellow, but she didn't know as he was a +church-member. + +"Does he hold scriptural views? You know so many people in colleges are +not evangelical." + +Mrs. Ferret had a provoking way of pronouncing certain words +unctuously--she said "Chrishchen" "shcripcherral," and even in the word +evangelical she made the first _e_ very hard and long. + +And when little Katy could not tell whether Albert held "shcripcherral" +views or not, and was thoroughly tired of being quizzed as to whether she +"really thought Albert had a personal interest in religion," she made an +excuse to run away into the chamber of Mrs. Morrow, Mrs. Ferret's mother, +who was an invalid--Mrs. Ferret said "inva_leed_," for the sake of +emphasis. The old lady never asked impertinent questions, never talked +about "shcripcherral" or "ee-vangelical" views, but nevertheless breathed +an atmosphere of scriptural patience and evangelical fortitude and +Christian victory over the world's tribulations. Little Katy couldn't +have defined, the difference between the two in words; she never +attempted it but once, and then she said that Mrs. Ferret was like a +crabapple, and her mother like a Bartlett pear. + +But she was too much excited to stay long in one place, and so she +hurried home and went to talking to Cousin Isa, who was sewing by the +west window. And to her she poured forth praises of Albert without stint; +of his immense knowledge of everything, of his goodness and his beauty +and his strength, and his voice, and his eyes. + +"And you'll love him better'n you ever loved anybody," she wound up. + +And Cousin Isa said she didn't know about that. + +After all this weary waiting Albert had come. He had not been at home for +two years. It was during his absence that his mother had married Squire +Plausaby, and had moved to Minnesota. He wanted to see everybody at home. +His sister had written him favorable accounts of his step-father; he had +heard other accounts, not quite so favorable, perhaps. He persuaded +himself that like a dutiful son he wanted most to see his mother, who was +really very fond of him. But in truth he spent his spare time in thinking +about Katy. He sincerely believed that he loved his mother better than +anybody in the world. All his college cronies knew that the idol of his +heart was Katy, whose daguerreotype he carried in the inside pocket of +his vest, and whose letters he looked for with the eagerness of a lover. + +At last he had come, and Katy had carried him off into the house in +triumph, showing him--showing is the word, I think--showing him to her +mother, whom he kissed tenderly, and to her step-father, and most +triumphantly to Isa, with an air that said, "_Now_, isn't he just the +finest fellow in the world!" And she was not a little indignant that Isa +was so quiet in her treatment of the big brother. Couldn't she see what a +forehead and eyes he had? + +And the mother, with one shade of scarlet and two of pink in her +hair-ribbons, was rather proud of her son, but not satisfied. + +"Why _didn't_ you graduate?" she queried as she poured the coffee +at supper. + +"Because there were so many studies in the course which were a dead +waste of time. I learned six times as much as some of the dunderheads +that got sheepskins, and the professors knew it, but they do not dare to +put their seal on anybody's education unless it is mixed in exact +proportions--so much Latin, so much Greek, so much mathematics. The +professors don't like a man to travel any road but theirs. It is a +reflection on their own education. Why, I learned more out of some of the +old German books in the library than out of all their teaching." + +"But why didn't you graduate? It would have sounded so nice to be able to +say that you had graduated. That's what I sent you for, you know, and I +don't see what you got by going if you haven't graduated." + +"Why, mother, I got an education. I thought that was what a +college was for." + +"But how will anybody know that you're well-educated, I'd like to know, +when you can't say that you've graduated?" answered the mother +petulantly. + +"Whether they know it or not, I am." + +"I should think they'd know it just to look at him," said Katy, who +thought that Albert's erudition must be as apparent to everybody as +to herself. + +Mr. Plausaby quietly remarked that he had no doubt Albert had improved +his time at school, a remark which for some undefined reason vexed Albert +more than his mother's censures. + +"Well," said his mother, "a body never has any satisfaction with boys +that have got notions. Deliver me from notions. Your father had notions. +If it hadn't been for that, we might all of us have been rich to-day. +But notions kept us down. That's what I like about Mr. Plausaby. He +hasn't a single notion to bother a body with. But, I think, notions run +in the blood, and, I suppose, you'll always be putting some fool notion +or other in your own way. I meant you to be a lawyer, but I s'pose you've +got something against that, though it was your own father's calling." + +"I'd about as soon be a thief as a lawyer," Albert broke out in his +irritation. + +"Well, that's a nice way to speak about your father's profession, I'm +sure," said his mother. "But that's what comes of notions. I don't care +much, though, if you a'n't a lawyer. Doctors make more than lawyers do, +and you can't have any notions against being a doctor." + +"What, and drug people? Doctors are quacks. They know that drugs are good +for nothing, and yet they go on dosing everybody to make money. It people +would bathe, and live in the open air, and get up early, and harden +themselves to endure changes of climate, and not violate God's decalogue +written in their own muscles and nerves and head and stomach, they +wouldn't want to swallow an apothecary-shop every year." + +"Did you ever!" said Mrs. Plausaby, looking at her husband, who smiled +knowingly (as much as to reply that he had often), and at Cousin Isa, who +looked perplexed between her admiration at a certain chivalrous courage +in Albert's devotion to his ideas, and her surprise at the ultraism of +his opinions. + +"Did you ever!" said the mother again. "That's carrying notions further +than your father did. You'll never be anything, Albert. Well, well, what +comfort can I take in a boy that'll turn his back on all his chances, +and never be anything but a poor preacher, without money enough to make +your mother a Christmas present of a--a piece of ribbon?" + +"Why, ma, you've got ribbons enough now, I'm sure," said Katy, looking at +the queer tri-color which her mother was flying in revolutionary defiance +of the despotism of good taste. "I'm sure I'm glad Albert's going to be a +minister. He'll look so splendid in the pulpit! What kind of a preacher +will you be, Albert?" + +"I hope it'll be Episcopal, or any way Presbyterian," said Mrs. Plausaby, +"for they get paid better than Methodist or Baptist. And besides, it's +genteel to be Episcopal. But, I suppose, some notion'll keep you out of +being Episcopal too. You'll try to be just as poor and ungenteel as you +can. Folks with notions always do." + +"If I was going to be a minister, I would find out the poorest sect in +the country, the one that all your genteel folks turned up their noses +at--the Winnebrenarians, or the Mennonites, or the Albrights, or +something of that sort. I would join such a sect, and live and work for +the poor--" + +"Yes, I'll be bound!" said Mrs. Plausaby, feeling of her breastpin to be +sure it was in the right place. + +"But I'll never be a parson. I hope I'm too honest. Half the preachers +are dishonest." + +Then, seeing Isa's look of horrified surprise, Albert added: "Not in +money matters, but in matters of opinion. They do not deal honestly with +themselves or other people. Ministers are about as unfair as pettifoggers +in their way of arguing, and not more than one in twenty of them is brave +enough to tell the whole truth." + +"Such notions! such notions!" cried Mrs. Plausaby. + +And Cousin Isa--Miss Isabel Marlay, I should say for she was only a +cousin by brevet--here joined valiant battle in favor of the clergy. And +poor little Katy, who dearly loved to take sides with her friends, found +her sympathies sadly split in two in a contest between her dear, dear +brother and her dear, dear Cousin Isa, and she did wish they would quit +talking about such disagreeable things. I do not think either of the +combatants convinced the other, but as each fought fairly they did not +offend one another, and when the battle was over, Albert bluntly +confessed that he had spoken too strongly, and though Isa made no +confession, she felt that after all ministers were not impeccable, and +that Albert was a brave fellow. + +And Mrs. Plausaby said that she hoped Isabel would beat some sense into +the boy, for she was really afraid that he never would have anything but +notions. She pitied the woman that married _him_. She wouldn't get many +silk-dresses, and she'd have to fix her old bonnets over two or three +years hand-running. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CORNER LOTS. + + +Mr. Plausaby was one of those men who speak upon a level pitch, in a +gentle and winsome monotony. His voice was never broken by impulse, never +shaken by feeling. He was courteous without ostentation, treating +everybody kindly without exactly seeming to intend it. He let fall +pleasant remarks incidentally or accidentally, so that one was always +fortuitously overhearing his good opinion of one's self. He did not have +any conscious intent to flatter each person with some ulterior design in +view, but only a general disposition to keep everybody cheerful, and an +impression that it was quite profitable as a rule to stand well with +one's neighbors. + +The morning after Charlton's arrival the fat passenger called, eager as +usual to buy lots. To his lively imagination, every piece of ground +staked off into town lots had infinite possibilities. It seemed that the +law of probabilities had been no part of the sanguine gentleman's +education, but the gloriousness of possibilities was a thing that he +appreciated naturally; hopefulness was in his very fiber. + +Mr. Plausaby spread his "Map of Metropolisville" on the table, let his +hand slip gently down past the "Depot Ground," so that the fat gentleman +saw it without seeming to have had his attention called to it; then +Plausaby, Esq., looked meditatively at the ground set apart for +"College," and seemed to be making a mental calculation. Then Plausaby +proceeded to unfold the many advantages of the place, and Albert was a +pleased listener; he had never before suspected that Metropolisville had +prospects so entirely dazzling. He could not doubt the statements of the +bland Plausaby, who said these things in a confidential and reserved way +to the fat gentleman. Charlton did not understand, but Plausaby did, that +what is told in a corner to a fat gentleman with curly hair and a hopeful +nose is sure to be repeated from the house-tops. + +"You are an Episcopalian, I believe?" said Plausaby, Esq. The fat +gentleman replied that he was a Baptist. + +"Oh! well, I might have known it from your cordial way of talking. +Baptist myself, in principle. In principle, at least Not a member of any +church, sorry to say. Very sorry. My mother and my first Wife were both +Baptists. Both of them. I have a very warm side for the good old Baptist +church. Very warm side. And a warm side for every Baptist. Every Baptist. +To say nothing of the feeling I have always had for you--well, well, let +us not pass compliments. Business is business in this country. In this +country, you know. But I will tell _you_ one thing. The lot there marked +'College' I am just about transferring to trustees for a Baptist +university. There are two or three parties, members of Dr. Armitage's +church in New York City, that are going to give us a hundred thousand +dollars endowment. A hundred thousand dollars. Don't say anything about +it. There are people who--well, who would spoil the thing if they could. +We have neighbors, you know. Not very friendly ones. Not very friendly. +Perritaut, for instance. It isn't best to tell one's neighbor all one's +good luck. Not all one's good luck," and Plausaby, Esq., smiled knowingly +at the fat man, who did his best to screw his very transparent face into +a crafty smile in return. "Besides," continued Squire Plausaby, "once let +it get out that the Baptist University is going to occupy that block, and +there'll be a great demand--" + +[Illustration: PLAUSABY SELLS LOTS.] + +"For all the blocks around," said the eager fat gentleman, growing +impatient at Plausaby's long-windedness. + +"Precisely. For all the blocks around," went on Plausaby. "And I want to +hold on to as much of the property in this quarter as--" + +"As you can, of course," said the other. + +"As I can, of course. As much as I can, of course. But I'd like to have +you interested. You are a man of influence. A man of weight. Of weight of +character. You will bring other Baptists. And the more Baptists, the +better for--the better for--" + +"For the college, of course." + +"Exactly. Precisely. For the college, of course. The more, the better. +And I should like your name on the board of trustees of--of--" + +"The college?" + +"The university, of course. I should like your name." + +The fat gentleman was pleased at the prospect of owning land near the +Baptist University, and doubly pleased at the prospect of seeing his name +in print as one of the guardians of the destiny of the infant +institution. He thought he would like to buy half of block 26. + +"Well, no. I couldn't sell in 26 to you or any man. Couldn't sell to any +man. I want to hold that block because of its slope. I'll sell in 28 _to +you_, and the lots there are just about as good. Quite as good, indeed. +But I want to build on 26." + +The fat gentleman declared that he wouldn't have anything but lots in 26. +That block suited his fancy, and he didn't care to buy if he could not +have a pick. + +"Well, you're an experienced buyer, I see," said Plausaby, Esq. "An +experienced buyer. Any other man would have preferred 28 to 26. But +you're a little hard to insist on that particular block. I want you here, +and I'll _give_ half of 28 rather than sell you out of 26." + +"Well, now, my friend, I am sorry to seem hard. But I fastened my eye on +26. I have a fine eye for direction and distance. One, two, three, four +blocks from the public square. That's the block with the solitary +oak-tree in it, if I'm right. Yes? Well, I must have lots in that very +block. When I take a whim of that kind, heaven and earth can't turn me, +Mr. Plausaby. So you'd just as well let me have them." + +Plausaby, Esq., at last concluded that he would sell to the plump +gentleman any part of block 26 except the two lots on the south-east +corner. But that gentleman said that those were the very two he had fixed +his eyes upon. He would not buy if there were any reserves. He always +took his very pick out of each town. + +"Well," said Mr. Plausaby coaxingly, "you see I have selected those two +lots for my step-daughter. For little Katy. She is going to get married +next spring, I suppose, and I have promised her the two best in the town, +and I had marked off these two. Marked them off for her. I'll sell you +lots alongside, nearly as good, for half-price. Just half-price." + +But the fat gentleman was inexorable. Mr. Plausaby complained that the +fat gentleman was hard, and the fat gentleman was pleased with the +compliment. Having been frequently lectured by his wife for being so easy +and gullible, he was now eager to believe himself a very Shylock. Did not +like to rob little Kate of her marriage portion, he said, but he must +have the best or none. He wanted the whole south half of 26. + +And so Mr. Plausaby sold him the corner-lot and the one next to it for +ever so much more than their value, pathetically remarking that he'd have +to hunt up some other lots for Kate. And then Mr. Plausaby took the fat +gentleman out and showed him the identical corner, with the little oak +and the slope to the south. + +"Mother," said Albert, when they were gone, "is Katy going to be married +in the spring?" + +"Why, how should I know?" queried Mrs. Plausaby, as she adjusted her +collar, the wide collar of that day, and set her breastpin before the +glass. "How should I know? Katy has never told me. There's a young man +hangs round here Sundays, and goes boating and riding with her, and makes +her presents, and walks with her of evenings, and calls her his pet and +his darling and all that kind of nonsense, and I half-suspect"--here she +took out her breastpin entirely and began over again--"I half-suspect +he's in earnest. But what have I got to do with it? Kate must marry for +herself. I did twice, and done pretty well both times. But I can't see to +Kate's beaux. Marrying, my son, is a thing everybody must attend to +personally for themselves. At least, so it seems to me." And having +succeeded in getting her ribbon adjusted as she wanted it, Mrs. Plausaby +looked at herself in the glass with an approving conscience. + +"But is Kate going to be married in the spring?" asked Albert. + +"I don't know whether she will have her wedding in the spring or summer. +I can't bother myself about Kate's affairs. Marrying is a thing that +everybody must attend to personally for themselves, Albert. If Kate gets +married, I can't help it; and I don't know as there's any great sin in +it. You'll get married yourself some day." + +"Did fa--did Mr. Plausaby promise Katy some lots?" + +"Law, no! Every lot he sells 'most is sold for Kate's lot. It's a way he +has. He knows how to deal with these sharks. If you want any trading +done, Albert, you let Mr. Plausaby do it for you." + +"But, mother, that isn't right." + +"You've got queer notions, Albert. You'll want us all to quit eating +meat, I suppose. Mr. Plausaby said last night you'd be cheated out of +your eyes before you'd been here a month, if you stuck to your ideas of +things. You see, you don't understand sharks. Plausaby does. But then +that is not my lookout. I have all I can do to attend to myself. But Mr. +Plausaby _does_ know how to manage sharks." + +The more Albert thought the matter over, the more he was convinced that +Mr. Plausaby did know how to manage sharks. He went out and examined the +stakes, and found that block 26 did not contain the oak, but was much +farther down in the slough, and that the corner lots that were to have +been Katy's wedding portion stretched quite into the peat bog, and +further that if the Baptist University should stand on block 27, it would +have a baptistery all around it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LITTLE KATY'S LOVER. + + +Katy was fifteen and a half, according to the family Bible. Katy was a +woman grown in the depth and tenderness of her feeling. But Katy wasn't +twelve years of age, if measured by the development of her +discretionary powers. The phenomenon of a girl in intellect with a +woman's passion is not an uncommon one. Such girls are always +attractive--feeling in woman goes for so much more than thought. And +such a girl-woman as Kate has a twofold hold on other people--she is +loved as a woman and petted as a child. + +Albert Charlton knew that for her to love was for her to give herself +away without thought, without reserve, almost without the possibility of +revocation. Because he was so oppressed with dread in regard to the young +man who walked and boated with Katy, courted and caressed her, but about +the seriousness of whose intentions the mother seemed to have some +doubt--because of the very awfulness of his apprehensions, he dared not +ask Kate anything. + +The suspense was not for long. On the second evening after Albert's +return, Smith Westcott, the chief clerk, the agent in charge of the +branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., in Metropolisville, called at the +house of Plausaby. Mr. Smith Westcott was apparently more than +twenty-six, but not more than thirty years of age, very well-dressed, +rather fast-looking, and decidedly _blasĂ©_. His history was written in +general but not-to-be-misunderstood terms all over his face. It was not +the face of a drunkard, but there was the redness of many glasses of wine +in his complexion, and a nose that expressed nothing so much as pampered +self-indulgence. He had the reputation of being a good, sharp business +man, with his "eye-teeth cut," but his conversation was: + +"Well--ha! ha!--and how's Katy? Divine as ever! he! he!" rattling the +keys and coins in his pocket and frisking about. "Beautiful evening! And +how does my sweet Katy? The loveliest maiden in the town! He! he! ha! ha! +I declare!" + +Then, as Albert came in and was introduced, he broke out with: + +"Glad to see you! By George! He! he! Brother, eh? Always glad to see +anybody related to Kate. Look like her a little. That's a compliment to +you, Mr. Charlton, he! he! You aren't quite so handsome though, by +George! Confound the cigar"--throwing it away; "I ordered a box in Red +Owl last week--generally get 'em in Chicago. If there's anything I like +it's a good cigar, he! he! Next to a purty girl, ha! ha! But this last +box is stronger'n pison. That sort of a cigar floors me. Can't go +entirely without, you know, so I smoke half a one, and by that time I get +so confounded mad I throw it away. Ha! ha! Smoke, Mr. Charlton? No! No +_small_ vices, I s'pose. Couldn't live without my cigar. I'm glad smoking +isn't offensive to Kate. Ah! this window's nice, I do like fresh air. +Kate knows my habits pretty well by this time. By George, I must try +another cigar. I get so nervous when trade's dull and I don't have much +to do. Wish you smoked, Mr. Charlton. Keep a man company, ha! ha! Ever +been here before? No? By George, must seem strange, he! he! It's a +confounded country. Can't get anything to eat. Nor to drink neither, for +that matter. By cracky! what nights we used to have at the Elysian Club +in New York! Ever go to the Elysian? No? Well, we did have a confounded +time there. And headaches in the morning. Punch was too sweet, you see. +Sweet punch is sure to make your headache. He! he! But I'm done with +clubs and Delmonico's, you know. I'm going to settle down and be a steady +family man." Walking to the door, he sang in capital minstrel style: + +"When de preacher took his text + He looked so berry much perplext, +Fer nothin' come acrost his mine + But Dandy Jim from Caroline! + +"Yah! yah! Plague take it! Come, Kate, stick on a sun-bonnet or a hat, +and let's walk. It's too nice a night to stay in the house, by George! +You'll excuse, Mr. Charlton? All right; come on, Kate." + +And Katy hesitated, and said in a deprecating tone: "You won't mind, will +you, Brother Albert?" + +And Albert said no, that he wouldn't mind, with a calmness that +astonished himself; for he was aching to fall foul of Katy's lover, and +beat the coxcombry out of him, or kill him. + +"By-by!" said Westcott to Albert, as he went out, and young Charlton went +out another door, and strode off toward Diamond Lake. On the high knoll +overlooking the lake he stopped and looked away to the east, where the +darkness was slowly gathering over the prairie. Night never looks so +strange as when it creeps over a prairie, seeming to rise, like a +shadowy Old Man of the Sea, out of the grass. The images become more and +more confused, and the landscape vanishes by degrees. Away to the west +Charlton saw the groves that grew on the banks of the Big Gun River, and +then the smooth prairie knolls beyond, and in the dim horizon the "Big +Woods." Despite ail his anxiety, Charlton could not help feeling the +influence of such a landscape. The greatness, the majesty of God, came to +him for a moment. Then the thought of Kate's unhappy love came over him +more bitterly from the contrast with the feelings excited by the +landscape. He went rapidly over the possible remedies. To remonstrate +with Katy seemed out of the question. If she had any power of reason, he +might argue. Bat one can not reason with feeling. It was so hard that a +soul so sweet, so free from the all but universal human taint of egoism, +a soul so loving, self-sacrificing, and self-consecrating, should throw +itself away. + +"O God!" he cried, between praying and swearing, "must this alabaster-box +of precious ointment be broken upon the head of an infernal coxcomb?" + +And then, as he remembered how many alabaster-boxes of precious womanly +love were thus wasted, and as he looked abroad at the night settling down +so inevitably on trees and grass and placid lake, it seemed to him that +there could be no Benevolent Intelligence in the universe. Things rolled +on as they would, and all his praying would no more drive away the +threatened darkness from Kate's life than any cry of his would avail to +drive back the all-pervading, awesome presence of night, which was +putting out the features of the landscape one after another. + +Albert thought to go to his mother. But then with bitterness he +confessed to himself, for the first time, that his mother was less wise +than Katy herself. He almost called her a fool. And he at once rejected +the thought of appealing to his step-father. He felt, also, that this was +an emergency in which all his own knowledge and intelligence were of no +account. In a matter of affection, a conceited coxcomb, full of +flattering speeches, was too strong for him. + +The landscape was almost swallowed up. The glassy little lake was at his +feet, smooth and quiet. It seemed to him that God was as unresponsive to +his distress as the lake. Was there any God? + +There was one hope. Westcott might die. He wished he might. But Charlton +had lived long enough to observe that people who ought to die, hardly +ever do. You, reader, can recall many instances of this general +principle, which, however, I do not remember to have seen stated in any +discussions of mortality tables. + +After all, Albert reflected that he ought not to expect Kate's lover to +satisfy him. For he flattered himself that he was a somewhat peculiar +man--a man of ideas, a man of the future--and he must not expect to +conform everybody to his own standard. Smith Westcott was a man of fine +business qualities, he had heard; and most commercial men were, in +Albert's estimation, a little weak, morally. He might be a man of deep +feeling, and, as Albert walked home, he made up his mind to be +charitable. But just then he heard that rattling voice: + +"Purty night! By George! Katy, you're divine, by George! Sweeter'n honey +and a fine-tooth comb! Dearer to my heart than a gold dollar! Beautiful +as a dew-drop and better than a good cigar! He! he! he!" + +At such wit and such a giggle Charlton's charity vanished. To him this +idiotic giggle at idiotic jokes was a capital offense, and he was seized +with a murderous desire to choke his sister's lover. Kate should not +marry that fellow if he could help it. He would kill him. But then to +kill Westcott would be to kill Katy, to say nothing of hanging himself. +Killing has so many sequels. But Charlton was at the fiercely executive +stage of his development, and such a man must act. And so he lingered +about until Westcott kissed Katy and Katy kissed Westcott back again, and +Westcott cried back from the gate, "Dood night! dood night, 'ittle girl! +By-by! He! he! By George!" and passed out rattling the keys and coins in +his pocket and singing: + +"O dear Miss Lucy Neal!" etc. + +Then Albert went in, determined to have it all out with Katy. But one +sight of her happy, helpless face disarmed him. What an overturning of +the heaven of her dreams would he produce by a word! And what could be +more useless than remonstrance with one so infatuated! How would she +receive his bitter words about one she loved to idolatry? + +He kissed her and went to bed. + +As Albert Charlton lay awake in his unplastered room in the house of +Plausaby, Esq., on the night after he had made the acquaintance of the +dear, dear fellow whom his sister loved, he busied himself with various +calculations. Notwithstanding his father's "notions," as his mother +styled them, he had been able to leave his widow ten thousand dollars, +besides a fund for the education of his children. And, as Albert phrased +it to himself that night, the ten thousand dollars was every cent clean +money, for his father had been a man of integrity. On this ten thousand, +he felt sure, Plausaby, Esq., was speculating in a way that might make +him rich and respected, or send him to State's-prison, as the chance fell +out, but at any rate in a way that was not promotive of the interests of +those who traded with him. Of the thousand set apart for Katy's education +Plausaby was guardian, and Kate's education was not likely to be greatly +advanced by any efforts of his to invest the money in her intellectual +development. It would not be hard to persuade the rather indolent and +altogether confiding Katy that she was now old enough to cease bothering +herself with the rules of syntax, and to devote herself to the happiness +and comfort of Smith Westcott, who seemed, poor fellow, entirely unable +to exist out of sight of her eyes, which he often complimented by +singing, as he cut a double-shuffle on the piazza, + +"_Her eyes_ so bright + Dey shine at night +When de moon am far away!" + +generally adding, "Ya! ya! dat am a fack, Brudder Bones! He! he! +By George!" + +As Charlton's thoughts forecast his sister's future, it seemed to him +darker than before. He had little hope of changing her, for it was clear +that all the household authority was against him, and that Katy was +hopelessly in love. If he should succeed in breaking the engagement, it +would cost her untold suffering, and Albert was tender-hearted enough to +shrink from inflicting suffering on any one, and especially on Kate. But +when that heartless "he! he!" returned to his memory, and he thought of +all the consequences of such a marriage, he nerved himself for a sharp +and strong interference. It was his habit to plunge into every conflict +with a radical's recklessness, and his present impulse was to attempt to +carry his point by storm. If there had been opportunity, he would have +moved on Katy's slender reasoning faculties at once. But as the night of +sleeplessness wore on, the substratum of practical sense in his +character made itself felt. To attack the difficulty in this way was to +insure a great many tears from Katy, a great quarrel with a coxcomb, a +difficulty with his mother, an interference in favor of Kate's marriage +on the part of Plausaby, and a general success in precipitating what he +desired to prevent. + +And so for the first time this opinionated young man, who had always +taken responsibility, and fought his battles alone and by the most direct +methods, began to look round for a possible ally or an indirect approach. +He went over the ground several times without finding any one on whom he +could depend, or any device that offered the remotest chance of success, +until he happened to think of Isabel Marlay--Cousin Isa, as Katy called +her. He remembered how much surprised he had been a few days before, when +the quiet girl, whom he had thought a sort of animated sewing-machine, +suddenly developed so much force of thought in her defense of the clergy. +Why not get her strong sense on his side? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CATCHING AND GETTING CAUGHT. + + +Did you never notice how many reasons, never thought of before, against +having an aching tooth drawn, occur to you when once you stand on the +dentist's door-stone ready to ring the bell? Albert Charlton was full of +doubts of what Miss Isabel Marlay's opinion of his sister might be, and +of what Miss Isabel Marlay might think of him after his intemperate +denunciation of ministers and all other men of the learned professions. +It was quite a difficult thing for him to speak to her on the subject of +his sister's love-affair, and so, whenever an opportunity presented +itself, he found reason to apprehend interruption. On one plea or another +he deferred the matter until afternoon, and when afternoon came, Isa had +gone out. So that what had seemed to him in the watchfulness of the night +an affair for prompt action, was now deferred till evening. But in his +indecision and impatience Charlton found it impossible to remain quiet. +He must do something, and so he betook himself to his old recreation of +catching insects. He would have scorned to amuse himself with so cruel a +sport as fishing; he would not eat a fish when it was caught. But though +he did not think it right for man to be a beast of prey, slaughtering +other animals to gratify his appetites, he did not hesitate to sacrifice +the lives of creeping things to satisfy the intellectual needs of +humanity. Even this he did with characteristic tenderness, never leaving +a grasshopper to writhe on a pin for two days, but kindly giving him a +drop of chloroform to pass him into the Buddhist's heaven of eternal +repose. In the course of an hour or two he had adorned his hat with a +variety of orthoptera, coleoptera, and all the other opteras known to the +insect-catching profession. A large Cecropia spread its bright wings +across the crown of his hat, and several green Katydids appeared to be +climbing up the sides for an introduction to the brilliant moth; three +dragon-flies sat on the brim, and two or three ugly beetles kept watch +between them. As for grasshoppers, they hung by threads from the +hat-brim, and made unique pendants, which flew and flopped about his face +as he ran hither and thither with his net, sweeping the air for new +victims. Hurrying with long strides after a large locust which he +suspected of belonging to a new species, and which flew high and far, his +eyes were so uplifted to his game that he did not see anything else, and +he ran down a hill and fairly against a lady, and then drew back in +startled surprise and apologized. But before his hasty apology was +half-uttered he lifted his eyes to the face of the lady and saw that it +was Miss Minorkey, walking with her father. Albert was still more +confused when he recognized her, and his confusion was not relieved by +her laughter. For the picturesque figure of Charlton and his portable +museum was too much for her gravity, and as the French ladies of two +centuries ago used to say, she "lost her serious." Guessing the cause of +her merriment, Charlton lifted his hat off his head, held it up, and +laughed with her. + +"Well, Miss Minorkey, no wonder you laugh. This is a queer hat-buggery +and dangling grasshoppery." + +"That's a beautiful Cecropia," said Helen Minorkey, recovering a little, +and winning on Albert at once by showing a little knowledge of his pet +science, if it was only the name of a single specimen. "I wouldn't mind +being an entomologist myself if there were many such as this and that +green beetle to be had. I am gathering botanical specimens," and she +opened her portfolio. + +"But how did you come to be in Metropolisville?" + +"Why," interrupted Mr. Minorkey, "I couldn't stand the climate at +Perritaut. The malaria of the Big Gun River affected my health seriously. +I had a fever night before last, and I thought I'd get away at once, and +I made up my mind there was more oxygen in this air than in that at +Perritaut. So I came up here this morning. But I'm nearly dead," and here +Mr. Minorkey coughed and sighed, and put his hand on his breast in a +self-pitying fashion. + +As Mr. Minorkey wanted to inspect an eighty across the slough, on which +he had been asked to lend four hundred dollars at three per cent a month, +and five after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage, he suggested that +Helen should walk back, leaving him to go on slowly, as the rheumatism in +his left knee would permit. It was quite necessary that Miss Minorkey +should go back; her boots were not thick enough for the passage of the +slough. Mr. Charlton kindly offered to accompany her. + +Albert Charlton thought that Helen Minorkey looked finer than ever, for +sun and wind had put more color into her cheeks, and he, warm with +running, pushed back his long light hair, and looked side-wise at the +white forehead and the delicate but fresh cheeks below. + +"So you like Cecropias and bright-green beetles, do you?" he said, and he +gallantly unpinned the wide-winged moth from his hat-crown and stuck it +on the cover of Miss Minorkey's portfolio, and then added the green +beetle. Helen thanked him in her quiet way, but with pleased eyes. + +"Excuse me, Miss Minorkey," said Albert, blushing, as they approached the +hotel, "I should like very much to accompany you to the parlor of the +hotel, but people generally see nothing but the ludicrous side of +scientific pursuits, and I should only make you ridiculous." + +"I should be very glad to have you come," said Helen. "I don't mind being +laughed at in good company, and it is such a relief to meet a gentleman +who can talk about something besides corner lots and five per cent a +month, and," with a wicked look at the figure of her father in the +distance, "and mortgages with waivers in them!" + +Our cynic philosopher found his cynicism melting away like an iceberg in +the Gulf-stream. An hour before he would have told you that a woman's +flattery could have no effect on an intellectual man; now he felt a +tremor of pleasure, an indescribable something, as he shortened his steps +to keep time with the little boots with which Miss Minorkey trod down the +prairie grass, and he who had laughed at awkward boys for seeking the aid +of dancing-masters to improve their gait, wished himself less awkward, +and actually blushed with pleasure when this self-possessed young lady +praised his conversation. He walked with her to the hotel, though he took +the precaution to take his hat off his head and hang it on his finger, +and twirl it round, as if laughing at it himself--back-firing against the +ridicule of others. He who thought himself sublimely indifferent to the +laughter of ignoramuses, now fencing against it! + +The parlor of the huge pine hotel (a huge unfinished pine hotel is the +starting point of speculative cities), the parlor of the Metropolisville +City Hotel was a large room, the floor of which was covered with a very +cheap but bright-colored ingrain carpet; the furniture consisted of six +wooden-bottomed chairs, very bright and new, with a very yellow rose +painted on the upper slat of the back of each, a badly tattered +hair-cloth sofa, of a very antiquated pattern, and a small old piano, +whose tinny tones were only matched by its entire lack of tune. The last +two valuable articles had been bought at auction, and some of the keys of +the piano had been permanently silenced by its ride in an ox-cart from +Red Owl to Metropolisville. + +But intellect and culture are always superior to external circumstances, +and Mr. Charlton was soon sublimely oblivious to the tattered hair-cloth +of the sofa on which he sat, and he utterly failed to notice the stiff +wooden chair on which Miss Minorkey reposed. Both were too much +interested in science to observe furniture; She admired the wonders of +his dragon-flies, always in her quiet and intelligent fashion; he +returned the compliment by praising her flowers in his eager, hearty, +enthusiastic way. Her coolness made her seem to him very superior; his +enthusiasm made him very piquant and delightful to her. And when he got +upon his hobby and told her how grand a vocation the teacher's +profession was, and recited stories of the self-denial of Pestalozzi and +Froebel, and the great schemes of Basedow, and told how he meant here +in this new country to build a great Institute on rational principles, +Helen Minorkey found him more interesting than ever. Like you and me, +she loved philanthropy at other people's expense. She admired great +reformers, though she herself never dreamed of putting a little finger +to anybody's burden. + +It took so long to explain fully this great project that Albert staid +until nearly supper-time, forgetting the burden of his sister's unhappy +future in the interest of science and philanthropy. And even when he rose +to go, Charlton turned back to look again at a "prairie sun-flower" which +Helen Minorkey had dissected while he spoke, and, finding something +curious, perhaps in the fiber, he proposed to bring his microscope over +in the evening and examine it--a proposition very grateful to Helen, who +had nothing but _ennui_ to expect in Metropolisville, and who was +therefore delighted. Delighted is a strong word for one so cool: perhaps +it would be better to say that she was relieved and pleased at the +prospect of passing an evening with so curious and interesting a +companion. For Charlton was both curious and interesting to her. She +sympathized with his intellectual activity, and she was full of wonder at +his intense moral earnestness. + +As for Albert, botany suddenly took on a new interest in his eyes. He had +hitherto regarded it as a science for girls. But now he was so profoundly +desirous of discovering the true character of the tissue in the plant +which Miss Minorkey had dissected, that it seemed to him of the utmost +importance to settle it that very evening. His mother for the first time +complained of his going out, and seemed not very well satisfied about +something. He found that he was likely to have a good opportunity, after +supper, to speak to Isabel Marlay in regard to his sister and her lover, +but somehow the matter did not seem so exigent as it had. The night +before, he had determined that it was needful to check the intimacy +before it went farther, that every day of delay increased the peril; but +things often look differently under different circumstances, and now the +most important duty in life for Albert Charlton was the immediate +settlement of a question in structural botany by means of microscopic +investigation. Albert was at this moment a curious illustration of the +influence of scientific enthusiasm, for he hurriedly relieved his hat of +its little museum, ate his supper, got out his microscope, and returned +to the hotel. He placed the instrument on the old piano, adjusted the +object, and pedagogically expounded to Miss Minorkey the true method of +observing. Microscopy proved very entertaining to both. Albert did not +feel sure that it might not become a life-work with him. It would be a +delightful thing to study microscopic botany forever, if he could have +Helen Minorkey to listen to his enthusiastic expositions. From her +science the transition to his was easy, and they studied under every +combination of glasses the beautiful lace of a dragon-fly's wing, and the +irregular spots on a drab grasshopper which ran by chance half-across one +of his eyes. The thrifty landlord had twice looked in at the door in hope +of finding the parlor empty, intending in which case to put out the lamp. +But I can not tell how long this enthusiastic pursuit of scientific +knowledge might have lasted had not Mr. Minorkey been seized with one of +his dying spells. When the message was brought by a Norwegian +servant-girl, whose white hair fairly stood up with fright, Mr. Charlton +was very much shocked, but Miss Minorkey did not for a moment lose her +self-possession. Besides having the advantage of quiet nerves, she had +become inured to the presence of Death in all his protean forms--it was +impossible that her father should be threatened in a way with which she +was not already familiar. + +Emotions may be suspended by being superseded for a time by stronger +ones. In such case, they are likely to return with great force, when +revived by some association. Charlton stepped out on the piazza with his +microscope in his hand and stopped a moment to take in the scene--the +rawness and newness and flimsiness of the mushroom village, with its +hundred unpainted bass-wood houses, the sweetness, peacefulness, and +freshness of the unfurrowed prairie beyond, the calmness and immutability +of the clear, star-lit sky above--when he heard a voice round the corner +of the building that put out his eyes and opened his ears, if I may so +speak. Somebody was reproaching somebody else with being "spooney on the +little girl." + +"He! he!"--the reply began with that hateful giggle--"I know my business, +gentlemen. Not such a fool as you think." Here there was a shuffling of +feet, and Charlton's imagination easily supplied the image of Smith +Westcott cutting a "pigeon-wing." + +"Don't I know the ways of this wicked world? Haven't I had all the silly +sentiment took out of me? He! he! I've seen the world," and then he +danced again and sang: + +"Can't you come out to-night, +Can't you come out to-night, +And dance by the light of the moon?" + +"Now, boys," he began, again rattling his coins and keys, "I learnt too +much about New York. I had to leave. They didn't want a man there that +knew all the ropes so well, and so I called a meeting of the mayor and +told him good-by. He! he! By George! 'S a fack! I drank too much and I +lived two-forty on the plank-road, till the devil sent me word he didn't +want to lose his best friend, and he wished I'd just put out from New +York. 'Twas leave New York or die. That's what brought me here. It I'd +lived in New York I wouldn't never 've married. Not much, Mary Ann or +Sukey Jane. He! he!" And then he sang again: + +[Illustration: "BY GEORGE! HE! HE! HE!"] + +"If I was young and in my prime, +I'd lead a different life, +I'd spend my money-- + +"but I'd be hanged if I'd marry a wife to save her from the Tower of +London, you know. As long as I could live at the Elysian Club, didn' +want a wife. But this country! Psha! this is a-going to be a land of +Sunday-schools and sewing-societies. A fellow can't live here +without a wife: + +"'Den lay down de shubble and de hoe, +Den hang up de fiddle and de bow-- +For poor old Ned--' + +"Yah! Can't sing! Out of practice! Got a cold! Instrument needs tuning! +Excuse me! He! he!" + +There was some other talk, in a voice too low for Albert to hear, though +he listened with both ears, waiving all sense of delicacy about +eavesdropping in his anger and his desire to rescue Katy. Then Westcott, +who had evidently been drinking and was vinously frank, burst out with: + +"Think I'd marry an old girl! Think I'd marry a smart one! I want a sweet +little thing that would love me and worship me and believe everything I +said. I know! By George! He! he! That Miss Minorkey at the table! She'd +see through a fellow! Now, looky here, boys, I'm goin' to be serious for +once. I want a girl that'll exert a moral influence over me, you know! +But I'll be confounded if I want too much moral influence, by George, he! +he! A little spree now and then all smoothed over! I need moral +influence, but in small doses. Weak constitution, you know! Can't stand +too much moral influence. Head's level. A little girl! Educate her +yourself, you know! He! he! By George! And do as you please. + +"'O Jinny! git yer hoe-cake done, my dear! +O Jinny! git yer hoe-cake done!' + +"Yah! yah! He! he! he!" + +It is not strange that Charlton did not sleep that night, that he was a +prey to conflicting emotions, blessing the cool, intellectual, +self-possessed face of Miss Minorkey, who knew botany, and inwardly +cursing the fate that had handed little Katy over to be the prey of such +a man as Smith Westcott. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ISABEL MARLAY. + + +Isabel Marlay was not the niece of our friend Squire Plausaby, but of his +first wife. Plausaby, Esq., had been the guardian of her small +inheritance in her childhood, and the property had quite mysteriously +suffered from a series of curious misfortunes: the investments were +unlucky; those who borrowed of the guardian proved worthless, and so did +their securities. Of course the guardian was not to blame, and of course +he handled the money honestly. But people will be suspicious even of the +kindest and most smoothly-speaking men; and the bland manner and +innocent, open countenance of Plausaby, Esq., could not save him from the +reproaches of uncharitable people. As he could not prove his innocence, +he had no consolation but that which is ever to be derived from a +conscience void of offense. + +Isabel Marlay found herself at an early age without means. But she had +never seen a day of dependence. Deft hands, infallible taste in matters +of dress, invincible cheerfulness, and swift industry made her always +valuable. She had not been content to live in the house of her aunt, the +first Mrs. Plausaby, as a dependent, and she even refused to remain in +the undefined relation of a member of the family whose general utility, +in some sort, roughly squares the account of board and clothes at the +year's end. Whether or not she had any suspicions in regard to the +transactions of Plausaby, Esq., in the matter of her patrimony, I do not +know. She may have been actuated by nothing but a desire to have her +independence apparent. Or, she may have enjoyed--as who would +not?--having her own money to spend. At any rate, she made a definite +bargain with her uncle-in-law, by which she took charge of the sewing in +his house, and received each year a hundred dollars in cash and her +board. It was not large pay for such service as she rendered, but then +she preferred the house of a relative to that of a stranger. When the +second Mrs. Plausaby had come into the house, Mr. Plausaby had been glad +to continue the arrangement, in the hope, perhaps, that Isa's good taste +might modify that lady's love for discordant gauds. + +To Albert Charlton, Isa's life seemed not to be on a very high key. She +had only a common-school education, and the leisure she had been able to +command for general reading was not very great, nor had the library in +the house of Plausaby been very extensive. She had read a good deal of +Matthew Henry, the "Life and Labors of Mary Lyon" and the "Life of +Isabella Graham," the "Works of Josephus," "Hume's History of England," +and Milton's "Paradise Lost." She had tried to read Mrs. Sigourney's +"Poems" and Pollok's "Course of Time," but had not enjoyed them much. She +was not imaginative. She had plenty of feeling, but no sentiment, for +sentiment is feeling that has been thought over; and her life was too +entirely objective to allow her to think of her own feelings. Her +highest qualities, as Albert inventoried them, were good sense, good +taste, and absolute truthfulness and simplicity of character. These were +the qualities that he saw in her after a brief acquaintance. They were +not striking, and yet they were qualities that commanded respect. But he +looked in vain for those high ideals of a vocation and a goal that so +filled his own soul. If she read of Mary Lyon, she had no aspiration to +imitate her. Her whole mind seemed full of the ordinary cares of life. +Albert could not abide that anybody should expend even such abilities as +Isa possessed on affairs of raiment and domestic economy. The very tokens +of good taste and refined feeling in her dress were to him evidences of +over-careful vanity. + +But when his mother and Katy had gone out on the morning after he had +overheard Smith Westcott expound his views on the matter of marriage, +Charlton sought Isa Marlay. She sat sewing in the parlor, as it was +called--the common sitting-room of the house--by the west window. The +whole arrangement of the room was hers; and though Albert was neither an +artist nor a critic in matters of taste, he was, as I have already +indicated, a man of fine susceptibility. He rejoiced in this +susceptibility when it enabled him to appreciate nature. He repressed it +when he found himself vibrating in sympathy with those arts that had, as +he thought, relations with human weakness and vanity; as, for instance, +the arts of music and dress. But, resist as one may, a man can not fight +against his susceptibilities. And those who can feel the effect of any +art are very many more than those who can practice it or criticise it. It +does not matter that my Bohemian friend's musical abilities are slender. +No man in the great Boston Jubilee got more out of Johann Strauss, in +his "Kunstleben," that inimitable expression of inspired vagabondage, +than he did. And so, though Albert Charlton could not have told you what +colors would "go together," as the ladies say, he could, none the less, +always feel the discord of his mother's dress, as now he felt the beauty +of the room and appreciated the genius of Isa, that had made so much out +of resources so slender. For there were only a few touch-me-nots in the +two vases on the mantel-piece; there were wild-flowers and +prairie-grasses over the picture-frames; there were asparagus-stalks in +the fireplace; there was--well, there was a _tout-ensemble_ of coolness +and delightfulness, of freshness and repose. There was the graceful +figure of Isabel by the window, with the yet dewy grass and the distant +rolling, boundless meadow for a background. And there was in Isabel's +brown calico dress a faultlessness of fit, and a suitableness of color--a +perfect harmony, like that of music. There was real art, pure and +refined, in her dress, as in the arrangement of the room. Albert was +angry with it, while he felt its effect; it was as though she had set +herself there to be admired. But nothing was further from her thought. +The artist works not for the eyes of others, but for his own, and Isabel +Marlay would have taken not one whit less of pains if she could have been +assured that no eye in the universe would look in upon that +frontier-village parlor. + +I said that Charlton was vexed. He was vexed because he felt a weakness +in himself that admired such "gewgaws," as he called everything relating +to dress or artistic housekeeping. He rejoiced mentally in the +superiority of Helen Minorkey, who gave her talents to higher themes. And +yet he felt a sense of restfulness in this cool room, where every color +was tuned to harmony with every other. He was struck, too, with the +gracefulness of Isa's figure. Her face was not handsome, but the good +genius that gave her the feeling of an artist must have molded her own +form, and every lithe motion was full of poetry. You have seen some +people who made upon you the impression that they were beautiful, and yet +the beauty was all in a statuesque figure and a graceful carriage. For it +makes every difference how a face is carried. + +The conversation between Charlton and Miss Marlay had not gone far in the +matter of Katy and Smith Westcott until Albert found that her instincts +had set more against the man than even his convictions. A woman like +Isabel Marlay is never so fine as in her indignation, and there never was +any indignation finer than Isa Marlay's when she spoke of the sacrifice +of such a girl as Katy to such a man as Westcott. In his admiration of +her thorough-going earnestness, Albert forgave her devotion to domestic +pursuits and the arts of dress and ornamentation. He found sailing with +her earnestness much pleasanter than he had found rowing against it on +the occasion of his battle about the clergy. + +"What can I do, Miss Marlay?" Albert did not ask her what she could do. +A self-reliant man at his time of life always asks first what he +himself can do. + +"I can not think of anything that anybody can do, with any hope of +success." Isa's good sense penetrated entirely through the subject, she +saw all the difficulties, she had not imagination or sentiment enough to +delude her practical faculty with false lights. + +"Can not _you_ do something?" asked Charlton, almost begging. + +"I have tried everything. I have spoken to your mother. I have spoken to +Uncle Plausaby. I have begged Katy to listen to me, but Katy would only +feel sorry for him if she believed he was bad. She can love, but she +can't think, and if she knew him to be the worst man in the Territory she +would marry him to reform him. I did hope that you would have some +influence over her." + +"But Katy is such a child. She won't listen if I talk to her. Any +opposition would only hurry the matter. I wish it were right to blow out +his brains, if he has any, and I suppose the monkey has." + +"It is a great deal better, Mr. Charlton, to trust in Providence where we +can't do anything without doing wrong." + +"Well, Miss Marlay, I didn't look for cant from you. I don't believe that +God cares. Everything goes on by the almanac and natural law. The sun +sets when the time comes, no matter who is belated. Girls that are sweet +and loving and trusting, like Katy, have always been and will always be +victims of rakish fools like Smith Westcott. I wish I were an Indian, and +then I could be my own Providence. I would cut short his career, and make +what David said about wicked men being cut off come true in this case, in +the same way as I suppose David did in the case of the wicked of his day, +by cutting them off himself." + +Isabel was thoroughly shocked with this speech. What good religious girl +would not have been? She told Mr. Charlton with much plainness of speech +that she thought common modesty might keep him from making such +criticisms on God. She for her part doubted whether all the facts of the +case were known to him. She intimated that there were many things in +God's administration not set down in almanacs, and she thought that, +whatever God might be, a _young_ man should not be in too great a hurry +about arraigning Him for neglect of duty. I fear it would not contribute +much to the settlement of the very ancient controversy if I should record +all the arguments, which were not fresh or profound. It is enough that +Albert replied sturdily, and that he went away presently with his vanity +piqued by her censures. Not that he could not answer her reasoning, if it +were worthy to be called reasoning. But he had lost ground in the +estimation of a person whose good sense he could not help respecting, and +the consciousness of this wounded his vanity. And whilst all she said was +courteous, it was vehement as any defense of the faith is likely to be; +he felt, besides, that he had spoken with rather more of the _ex +cathedra_ tone than was proper. A young man of opinions generally finds +it so much easier to impress people with his tone than with his +arguments! But he consoled himself with the reflection that the _average_ +woman--that word average was a balm for every wound--that the average +woman is always tied to her religion, and intolerant of any doubts. He +was pleased to think that Helen Minorkey was not intolerant. Of that he +felt sure. He did not carry the analysis any farther, however; he did not +ask why Helen was not intolerant, nor ask whether even intolerance may +not sometimes be more tolerable than indifference. And in spite of his +unpleasant irritation at finding this "average" woman not overawed by his +oracular utterances, nor easily beaten in a controversy, Albert had a +respect for her deeper than ever. There was something in her anger at +Westcott that for a moment had seemed finer than anything he had seen in +the self-possessed Miss Minorkey. But then she was so weak as to allow +her intellectual conclusions to be influenced by her feelings, and to be +intolerant. + +I have said that this thing of falling in love is a very complex +catastrophe. I might say that it is also a very uncertain one. Since we +all of us "rub clothes with fate along the street," who knows whether +Charlton would not, by this time, have been in love with Miss Marlay if +he had not seen Miss Minorkey in the stage? If he had not run against +her, while madly chasing a grasshopper? If he had not had a great +curiosity about a question in botany which he could only settle in her +company? And even yet, if he had not had collision with Isa on the +question of Divine Providence? And even after that collision I will not +be sure that the scale might not have been turned, had it not been that +while he was holding this conversation with Isa Marlay, his mother and +sister had come into the next room. For when he went out they showed +unmistakable pleasure in their faces, and Mrs. Plausaby even ventured to +ask: "Don't you like her, Albert?" + +And when the mother tried to persuade him to forego his visit to the +hotel in the evening, he put this and that together. And when this and +that were put together, they combined to produce a soliloquy: + +"Mother and Katy want to make a match for me. As if _they_ understood +_me_! They want me to marry an _average_ woman, of course. Pshaw! Isabel +Marlay only understands the 'culinary use' of things. My mother knows +that she has a 'knack,' and thinks it would be nice for me to have a wife +with a knack. But mother can't judge for _me_. I ought to have a wife +with ideas. And I don't doubt Plausaby has a hand in trying to marry off +his ward to somebody that won't make too much fuss about his accounts." + +And so Charlton was put upon studying all the evening, to find points in +which Miss Minorkey's conversation was superior to Miss Marlay's. And +judged as he judged it--as a literary product--it was not difficult to +find an abundant advantage on her side. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LOVERS AND LOVERS. + + +Albert Charlton had little money, and he was not a man to remain idle. +He was good in mathematics, and did a little surveying now and then; in +fact, with true democratic courage, he turned his hand to any useful +employment. He did not regard these things as having any bearing on his +career. He was only waiting for the time to come when he could found +his Great Educational Institution on the virgin soil of Minnesota. Then +he would give his life to training boys to live without meat or +practical jokes, to love truth, honesty, and hard lessons; he would +teach girls to forego jewelry and cucumber-pickles, to study +physiology, and to abhor flirtations. Visionary, was he? You can not +help smiling at a man who has a "vocation," and who wants to give the +world a good send-off toward its "goal." But there is something noble +about it after all. Something to make you and me ashamed of our +selfishness. Let us not judge Charlton by his green flavor. When these +discordant acids shall have ripened in the sunshine and the rain, who +shall tell how good the fruit may be? We may laugh, however, at Albert, +and his school that was to be. I do not doubt that even that visionary +street-loafer known to the Athenians as Sokrates, was funny to those +who looked at him from a great distance below. + +During the time in which Charlton waited, and meditated his plans for the +world's advancement by means of a school that should be so admirable as +to modify the whole system of education by the sheer force of its +example, he found it of very great advantage to unfold his plans to Miss +Helen Minorkey. Miss Helen loved to hear him talk. His enthusiasm was the +finest thing she had found, out of books. It was like a heroic poem, as +she often remarked, this fine philanthropy of his, and he seemed to her +like King Arthur preparing his Table Round to regenerate the earth. This +compliment, uttered with the coolness of a literary criticism--and +nothing _could_ be cooler than a certain sort of literary criticism--this +deliberate and oft-repeated compliment of Miss Minorkey always set +Charlton's enthusiastic blood afire with love and admiration for the one +Being, as he declared, born to appreciate his great purposes. And the +Being was pleased to be made the partner of such dreams and hopes. In an +intellectual and ideal fashion she did appreciate them. If Albert had +carried out his great plans, she, as a disinterested spectator, would +have written a critical analysis of them much as she would have described +a new plant. + +But whenever Charlton tried to excite in her an enthusiasm similar to his +own, he was completely foiled. She shrunk from everything like +self-denial or labor of any sort. She was not adapted to it, she assured +him. And he who made fierce war on the uselessness of woman in general +came to reconcile himself to the uselessness of woman in particular, to +apologize for it, to justify it, to admire it. Love is the mother of +invention, and Charlton persuaded himself that it was quite becoming in +such a woman as the most remarkably cultivated, refined, and intellectual +Helen Minorkey, to shrink from the drudgery of life. She was not intended +for it. Her susceptibilities were too keen, according to him, though +Helen Minorkey's susceptibilities were indeed of a very quiet sort. I +believe that Charlton, the sweeping radical, who thought, when thinking +on general principles, that every human-creature should live wholly for +every other human creature, actually addressed some "Lines to H.M.," +through the columns of the _St. Paul Advertiser_ of that day, in which he +promulgated the startling doctrine that a Being such as was the aforesaid +H.M., could not be expected to come into contact with the hard realities +of life. She must content herself with being the Inspiration of the life +of Another, who would work out plans that should inure to the good of man +and the honor of the Being, who would inspire and sustain the Toiler. The +poem was considered very fine by H.M., though the thoughts were a little +too obscure for the general public and the meter was not very smooth. You +have doubtless had occasion to notice that poems which deal with Beings +and Inspirations are usually of very imperfect fluidity. + +Charlton worked at surveying and such other employments as offered +themselves, wrote poems to Helen Minorkey, and plotted and planned how he +might break up little Katy's engagement. He plotted and planned sometimes +with a breaking heart, for the more he saw of Smith Westcott, the more +entirely detestable he seemed. But he did not get much co-operation from +Isabel Marlay. If he resented any effort to make a match between him and +"Cousin Isa," she resented it ten times more vehemently, and all the +more that she, in her unselfishness of spirit, admired sincerely the +unselfishness of Charlton, and in her practical and unimaginative life +felt drawn toward the idealist young man who planned and dreamed in a way +quite wonderful to her. All her woman's pride made her resent the effort +to marry her to a man in love with another, a man who had not sought her. + +[Illustration: MRS. PLAUSABY.] + +"Albert is smart," said Mrs. Plausaby to her significantly one day; "he +would be just the man for you, Isa." + +"Why, Mrs. Plausaby, I heard you say yourself that his wife would have to +do without silk dresses and new bonnets. For my part, I don't think much +of that kind of smartness that can't get a living. I wouldn't have a man +like Mr. Charlton on any, terms." + +And she believed that she spoke the truth; having never learned to +analyze her own feelings, she did not know that all her dislike for +Charlton had its root in a secret liking for him, and that having +practical ability herself, the kind of ability that did not make a living +was just the sort that she admired most. + +It was, therefore, without any co-operation between them, that Isabel and +young Charlton were both of them putting forth their best endeavor to +defeat the plans of Smith Westcott, and avert the sad eclipse which +threatened the life of little Katy. And their efforts in that direction +were about equally fruitful in producing the result they sought to avoid. +For whenever Isa talked to little Katy about Westcott, Katy in the +goodness of her heart and the vehemence of her love was set upon finding +out, putting in order, and enumerating all of his good qualities. And +when Albert attacked him vehemently and called him a coxcomb, and a rake, +and a heartless villain, she cried, and cried, out of sheer pity for +"poor Mr. Westcott;" she thought him the most persecuted man in the +world, and she determined that she would love him more fervently and +devotedly than ever, _that_ she would! Her love should atone for all the +poor fellow suffered. And "poor Mr. Westcott" was not slow in finding out +that "feelin' sorry for a feller was Katy's soft side, by George! he! +he!" and having made this discovery he affected to be greatly afflicted +at the treatment he received from Albert and from Miss Marlay; nor did he +hesitate to impress Katy with the fact that he endured all these things +out of pure devotion to her, and he told her that he could die for her, +"by George! he! he!" any day, and that she mustn't ever desert him if she +didn't want him to kill himself; he didn't care two cents for life except +for her, and he'd just as soon go to sleep in the lake as not, "by +George! he! he!" any day. And then he rattled his keys, and sang in a +quite affecting way, to the simple-minded Kate, how for "bonnie Annie +Laurie," with a look at Katy, he could "lay him down and dee," and added +touchingly and recitatively the words "by George! he! he!" which made his +emotion seem very real and true to Katy; she even saw a vision of "poor +Mr. Westcott" dragged out of the lake dead on her account, and with that +pathetic vision in her mind she vowed she'd rather die than desert him. +And as for all the ills which her brother foreboded for her in case she +should marry Smith Westcott, they did not startle her at all. Such +simple, loving natures as Katy Charlton's can not feel for self. It is +such a pleasure to them to throw themselves away in loving. + +Besides, Mrs. Plausaby put all her weight into the scale, and with the +loving Katy the mother's word weighed more even than Albert's. Mrs. +Plausaby didn't see why in the world Katy couldn't marry as she pleased +without being tormented to death. Marrying was a thing everybody must +attend to personally for themselves. Besides, Mr. Westcott was a +nice-spoken man, and dressed very well, his shirt-bosom was the finest in +Metropolisville, and he had a nice hat and wore lavender gloves on +Sundays. And he was a store-keeper, and he would give Katy all the nice +things she wanted. It was a nice thing to be a store-keeper's wife. She +wished Plausaby would keep a store. And she went to the glass and fixed +her ribbons, and reflected that if Plausaby kept a store she could get +plenty of them. + +And so all that Cousin Isa and Brother Albert said came to naught, except +that it drove the pitiful Katy into a greater devotion to her lover, and +made the tender-hearted Katy cry. And when she cried, the sentimental +Westcott comforted her by rattling his keys in an affectionate way, and +reminding her that the course of true love never did run smooth, "by +George! he! he! he!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +PLAUSABY, ESQ., TAKES A FATHERLY INTEREST. + + +Plausaby, Esq., felt a fatherly interest. He said so. He wanted Albert to +make his way in the world. "You have great gifts, Albert," he said. But +the smoother Mr. Plausaby talked, the rougher Mr. Albert felt. Mr. +Plausaby felt the weight of all that Albert had said against the learned +professions. He did, indeed. He would not care to say it so strongly. Not +too strongly. Old men never spoke quite so strongly as young ones. But +the time had been, he said, when Thomas Plausaby's pulse beat as quick +and strong as any other young man's. Virtuous indignation was a beautiful +emotion in a young man. For his part he never cared much for a young man +who did not know how to show just such feeling on such questions. But one +must not carry it too far. Not too far. Never too far. For his part ho +did not like to see anything carried too far. It was always bad to carry +a thing too far. A man had to make his bread somehow. It was a necessity. +Every young man must consider that he had his way to make in the world. +It was a fact to be considered. To be considered carefully. He would +recommend that Albert consider it. And consider it carefully. Albert must +make his way. For his part, he had a plan in view that he thought could +not be objectionable to Albert's feelings. Not at all objectionable. Not +in the least. + +All this Plausaby, Esq., oozed out at proper intervals and in gentlest +tones. Charlton for his mother's sake kept still, and reflected that Mr. +Plausaby had not said a word as yet that ought to anger him. He +therefore nodded his head and waited to hear the plan which Plausaby had +concocted for him. + +Mr. Plausaby proceeded to state that he thought Albert ought to pre-empt. + +Albert said that he would like to pre-empt as soon as he should be of +age, but that was some weeks off yet, and he supposed that when he got +ready there would be few good claims left. + +The matter of age was easily got over, replied Plausaby. Quite easily got +over. Nothing easier, indeed. All the young men in the Territory who were +over nineteen had pre-empted. It was customary. Quite customary, indeed. +And custom was law. In some sense it was law. Of course there were some +customs in regard to pre-emption that Plausaby thought no good man could +approve. Not at all. Not in the least. + +There was the building of a house on wheels and hauling it from claim to +claim, and swearing it in on each claim as a house on that claim. +Plausaby, Esq., did not approve of that. Not at all. Not in the least. He +thought it a dangerous precedent. Quite dangerous. Quite so. But good men +did it. Very good men, indeed. And then he had known men to swear that +there was glass in the window of a house when there was only a +whisky-bottle sitting in the window. It was amusing. Quite amusing, these +devices. Four men just over in Town 21 had built a house on the corners +of four quarter sections. The house partly on each of the four claims. +Swore that house in on each claim. But such expedients were not to be +approved. Not at all. They were not commendable. However, nearly all the +claims in the Territory had been made irregularly. Nearly all of them. +And the matter of age could be gotten over easily. Custom made law. And +Albert was twenty-three in looks. Quite twenty-three. More than that, +indeed. Twenty-five, perhaps. Some people were men at sixteen. And some +were always men. They were, indeed. Always men. Always. Albert was a man +in intellect. Quite a man. The spirit of the law was the thing to be +looked at. The spirit, not the letter. Not the letter at all. The spirit +of the law warranted Albert in pre-empting. + +Here Plausaby, Esq., stopped a minute. But Albert said nothing. He +detested Plausaby's ethics, but was not insensible to his flattery. + +"And as for a claim, Albert, I will attend to that. I will see to it. I +know a good chance for you to make two thousand dollars fairly hi a +month. A very good chance. Very good, indeed. There is a claim adjoining +this town-site which was filed on by a stage-driver. Reckless sort of a +fellow. Disreputable. We don't want him to hold land here. Not at all. +You would be a great addition to us. You would indeed. A great addition. +A valuable addition to the town. And it would be a great comfort to your +mother and to me to have you near us. It would indeed. A great comfort. +We could secure this Whisky Jim's claim very easily for you, and you +could lay it off into town lots. I have used my pre-emption right, or I +would take that myself. I advise you to secure it. I do, indeed. You +couldn't use your pre-emption right to a better advantage. I am sure you +couldn't." + +"Well," said Albert, "if Whisky Jim will sell out, why not get him to +hold it for me for three weeks until I am of age?" + +"He wouldn't sell, but he has forfeited it. He neglected to stay on it. +Has been away from it more than thirty days. You have a perfect right to +jump it and pre-empt it. I am well acquainted with Mr. Shamberson, the +brother-in-law of the receiver. Very well acquainted. He is a land-office +lawyer, and they do say that a fee of fifty dollars to him will put the +case through, right or wrong. But in this case we should have right on +our side, and should make a nice thing. A very nice thing, indeed. And +the town would be relieved of a dissipated man, and you could then carry +out your plan of establishing a village library here." + +"But," said Albert between his teeth, "I hear that the reason Jim didn't +come back to take possession of his claim at the end of his thirty days +is his sickness. He's sick at the Sod Tavern." + +"Well, you see, he oughtn't to have neglected his claim so long before he +was taken sick. Not at all. Besides, he doesn't add anything to the moral +character of a town. I value the moral character of a settler above all I +do, indeed. The moral character. If he gets that claim, he'll get rich +off my labors, and be one of our leading citizens. Quite a leading +citizen. It is better that you should have it. A great deal better. +Better all round. The depot will be on one corner of the east forty of +that claim, probably. Now, you shouldn't neglect your chance to get on. +You shouldn't, really. This is the road to wealth and influence. The road +to wealth. And influence. You can found your school there. You'll have +money and land. Money to build with. Land on which to build. You will +have both." + +"You want me to swear that I am twenty-one when I am not, to bribe the +receiver, and to take a claim and all the improvements on it from a sick +man?" said Albert with heat. + +"You put things wrong. Quite so. I want to help you to start. The claim +is now open. It belongs to Government, with all improvements. +Improvements go with the claim. If you don't take it, somebody will. It +is a pity for you to throw away your chances." + +"My chances of being a perjured villain and a thief! No, thank you, sir," +said the choleric Charlton, getting very red in the face, and stalking +out of the room. + +"Such notions!" cried his mother. "Just like his father over again. His +father threw away all his chances just for notions. I tell you, Plausaby, +he never got any of those notions from me. Not one." + +"No, I don't think he did," said Plausaby. "I don't think he did. Not at +all. Not in the least." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABOUT SEVERAL THINGS. + + +Albert Charlton, like many other very conscientious men at his time of +life, was quarrelsomely honest. He disliked Mr. Plausaby's way of doing +business, and he therefore determined to satisfy his conscience by +having a row with his step-father. And so he startled his sister and +shocked his mother, and made the house generally uncomfortable, by +making, in season and out of season, severe remarks on the subject of +land speculation, and particularly of land-sharks. It was only Albert's +very disagreeable way of being honest. Even Isabel Marlay looked with +terror at what she regarded as signs of an approaching quarrel between +the two men of the house. + +But there was no such thing as a quarrel with Plausaby. Moses may have +been the meekest of men, but that was in the ages before Plausaby, Esq. +No manner of abuse could stir him. He had suffered many things of many +men in his life, many things of outraged creditors, and the victims of +his somewhat remarkable way of dealing; his air of patient +long-suffering and quiet forbearance under injury had grown chronic. It +was, indeed, part of his stock in trade, an element of character that +redounded to his credit, while it cost nothing and was in every way +profitable. It was as though the whole catalogue of Christian virtues had +been presented to Plausaby to select from, and he, with characteristic +shrewdness, had taken the one trait that was cheapest and most +remunerative. + +In these contests Albert was generally sure to sacrifice by his +extravagance whatever sympathy he might otherwise have had from the rest +of the family. When he denounced dishonest trading, Isabel knew that he +was right, and that Mr. Plausaby deserved the censure, and even Mrs. +Plausaby and the sweet, unreasoning Katy felt something of the justice of +what he said. But Charlton was never satisfied to stop here. He always +went further, and made a clean sweep of the whole system of town-site +speculation, which unreasonable invective forced those who would have +been his friends into opposition. And the beautiful meekness with which +Plausaby, Esq., bore his step-son's denunciations never failed to excite +the sympathy and admiration of all beholders. By never speaking an unkind +word, by treating Albert with gentle courtesy, by never seeming to feel +his innuendoes, Plausaby heaped coals of fire on his enemies' head, and +had faith to believe that the coals were very hot. Mrs. Ferret, who once +witnessed one of the contests between the two, or rather one of these +attacks of Albert, for there could be no contest with embodied meekness, +gave her verdict for Plausaby. He showed such a "Chrischen" spirit. She +really thought he must have felt the power of grace. He seemed to hold +schripcherral views, and show such a spirit of Chrischen forbearance, +that she for her part thought he deserved the sympathy of good people. +Mr. Charlton was severe, he was unchar-it-able--really unchar-it-able in +his spirit. He pretended to a great deal of honesty, but people of +unsound views generally whitened the outside of the sep-ul-cher. And Mrs. +Ferret closed the sentence by jerking her face into an astringed smile, +which, with the rising inflection of her voice, demanded the assent of +her hearers. + +The evidences of disapproval which Albert detected in the countenances of +those about him did not at all decrease his irritation. His irritation +did not tend to modify the severity of his moral judgments. And the fact +that Smith Westcott had jumped the claim of Whisky Jim, of course at +Plausaby's suggestion, led Albert into a strain of furious talk that must +have produced a violent rupture in the family, had it not been for the +admirable composure of Plausaby, Esq., under the extremest provocation. +For Charlton openly embraced the cause of Jim; and much as he disliked +all manner of rascality, he was secretly delighted to hear that Jim had +employed Shamberson, the lawyer, who was brother-in-law to the receiver +of the land-office, and whose retention in those days of mercenary +lawlessness was a guarantee of his client's success. Westcott had offered +the lawyer a fee of fifty dollars, but Jim's letter, tendering him a +contingent fee of half the claim, reached him in the same mail, and the +prudent lawyer, after talking the matter over with the receiver who was +to decide the case, concluded to take half of the claim. Jim would have +given him all rather than stand a defeat. + +Katy, with more love than logic, took sides of course with her lover in +this contest. Westcott showed her where he meant to build the most +perfect little dove-house for her, by George, he! he! and she listened +to his side of the story, and became eloquent in her denunciation of the +drunken driver who wanted to cheat poor, dear Smith--she had got to the +stage in which she called him by his Christian name now--to cheat poor, +dear Smith out of his beautiful claim. + +If I were writing a History instead of a Mystery of Metropolisville, I +should have felt under obligation to begin with the founding of the town, +in the year preceding the events of this story. Not that there were any +mysterious rites or solemn ceremonies. Neither Plausaby nor the silent +partners interested with him cared for such classic customs. They sought +first to guess out the line of a railroad; they examined corner-stakes; +they planned for a future county-seat; they selected a high-sounding +name, regardless of etymologies and tautologies; they built shanties, +"filed" according to law, laid off a town-site, put up a hotel, published +a beautiful colored map, and began to give away lots to men who would +build on them. Such, in brief, is the unromantic history of the founding +of the village of Metropolisville. + +And if this were a history, I should feel bound to tell of all the +maneuvers resorted to by Metropolisville, party of the second part, to +get the county-seat removed from Perritaut, party of the first part, +party in possession. But about the time that Smith Westcott's contest +about the claim was ripening to a trial, the war between the two villages +was becoming more and more interesting. A special election was +approaching, and Albert of course took sides against Metropolisville, +partly because of his disgust at the means Plausaby was using, partly +because he thought the possession of the county-seat would only enable +Plausaby to swindle more people and to swindle them more effectually, +partly because he knew that Perritaut was more nearly central in the +county, and partly because he made it a rule to oppose Plausaby on +general principles. Albert was an enthusiastic and effective talker, and +it was for this reason that Plausaby had wished to interest him by +getting him to "jump" Whisky Jim's claim, which lay alongside the town. +And it was because he was an enthusiastic talker, and because his entire +disinterestedness and his relations to Plausaby gave his utterances +peculiar weight, that the Squire planned to get him out of the county +until after the election. + +Mrs. Plausaby suggested to Albert that he should go and visit a cousin +thirty miles away. Who suggested it to Mrs. Plausaby we may not guess, +since we may not pry into the secrets of a family, or know anything of +the conferences which a husband may hold with his wife in regard to the +management of the younger members of the household. As an authentic +historian, I am bound to limit myself to the simple fact, and the fact is +that Mrs. Plausaby stated to Albert her opinion that it would be a nice +thing for him to go and see Cousin John's folks at Glenfleld. She made +the suggestion with characteristic maladroitness, at a moment when Albert +had been holding forth on his favorite hobby of the sinfulness of +land-speculation in general, and the peculiar wickedness of +misrepresentation and all the other arts pertaining to town-site +swindling. Perhaps Albert was too suspicious. He always saw the hand of +Plausaby in everything proposed by his mother. He bluntly refused to go. +He wanted to stay and vote. He would be of age in time. He wanted to stay +and vote against this carting of a county-seat around the country for +purposes of speculation. He became so much excited at what he regarded +as a scheme to get him out of the way, that he got up from the table and +went out into the air to cool off. He sat down on the unpainted piazza, +and took up Gerald Massey's poems, of which he never tired, and read +until the light failed. + +And then came Isa Marlay out in the twilight and said she wanted to +speak to him, and he got her a chair and listened while she spoke in a +voice as full of harmony as her figure was full of gracefulness. I have +said that Isabel was not a beauty, and yet such was the influence of her +form, her rhythmical movement, and her sweet, rich voice, that Charlton +thought she was handsome, and when she sat down and talked to him, he +found himself vibrating, as a sensitive nature will, under the influence +of grace or beauty. + +"Don't you think, Mr. Charlton, that you would better take your mother's +suggestion, and go to your cousin's? You'll excuse me for speaking about +what does not concern me?" + +Charlton would have excused her for almost anything she might have said +in the way of advice or censure, for in spite of all his determination +that it should not be, her presence was very pleasant to him. + +"Certainly I have no objection to receive advice, Miss Marlay; but have +you joined the other side?" + +"I don't know what you mean by the other side, Mr. Charlton. I don't +belong to any side. I think all quarreling is unpleasant, and I hate it. +I don't think anything you say makes any change in Uncle Plausaby, while +it does make your mother unhappy." + +"So you think, Miss Isabel, that I ought to go away from Wheat County and +not throw my influence on the side of right in this contest, because my +mother is unhappy?" Albert spoke with some warmth. + +"I did not say so. I think that a useless struggle, which makes your +mother unhappy, ought to be given over. But I didn't want to advise you +about your duty to your mother. I was led into saying so much on that +point. I came to say something else. It does seem to me that if you could +take Katy with you, something might turn up that would offer you a chance +to influence her. And that would be better than keeping the county-seat +at Perritaut." And she got up to go in. + +Charlton was profoundly touched by Isabel's interest in Katy. He rose +to his feet and said: "You are right, I believe. And I am very, very +much obliged." + +And as the straightforward Isa said, "Oh! no, that is nothing," and +walked away, Charlton looked after her and said, "What a charming woman!" +He felt more than he said, and he immediately set himself loyally to work +to enumerate all the points in which Miss Helen Minorkey was superior to +Isa, and said that, after all, gracefulness of form and elasticity of +motion and melodiousness of voice were only lower gifts, possessed in a +degree by birds and animals, and he blamed himself for feeling them at +all, and felt thankful that Helen Minorkey had those higher qualities +which would up-lift--he had read some German, and compounded his +words--up-lift a man to a higher level. Perhaps every loyal-hearted lover +plays these little tricks of self-deception on himself. Every lover +except the one whose "object" is indeed perfect. You know who that is. So +do I. Indeed, life would be a very poor affair if it were not for +these--what shall I call them? If Brown knew how much Jones's wife was +superior to his own, Brown would be neither happier nor better for the +knowledge. When he sees the superiority of Mrs. Jones's temper to Mrs. +Brown's somewhat energetic disposition, he always falls back on Mrs. +Brown's diploma, and plumes himself that at any rate Mrs. Brown graduated +at the Hobson Female College. Poor Mrs. Jones had only a common-school +education. How mortified Jones must feel when he thinks of it! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +AN ADVENTURE. + + +That Katy should go with Albert to see the cousins at Glenfield was a +matter easily brought about. Plausaby, Esq., was so desirous of Albert's +absence that he threw all of Mrs. Plausaby's influence on the side of the +arrangement which Charlton made a _sine qua non_. Albert felt a little +mean at making such a compromise of principle, and Plausaby felt much as +a man does who pays the maker of crank-music to begone. He did not like +Katy's going; he wanted to further her marriage with so influential a +person as Smith Westcott, the agent in charge of the interests of +Jackson, Jones & Co., who not only owned the Emporium, but were silent +partners in the town-site. But Katy must go. Plausaby affectionately +proffered the loan of his horse and buggy, which Charlton could not well +refuse, and so the two set out for Glenfleld with many kind adieus. +Westcott came down, and smoked, and rattled his keys, and hoped they'd +have a pleasant journey and get back soon, you know, Katy, by George! he! +he! he! Couldn't live long without the light of her countenance. 'S a +fact! By George! He! he! And when the carpet-bags and lunch-basket and +all the rest were stowed away under the seat of the buggy, Mrs. +Plausaby, with a magnificent number of streamers, kissed them, and she +and Cousin Isa stood by the gate and nodded their heads to the departing +buggy, as an expression of their feelings, and Mr. Plausaby lifted his +hat in such a way as to conceal his feelings, which, written out, would +be, "Good riddance!" And Smith Westcott blandly waved his good-by and +bowed to the ladies at the gate, and started back to the store. He was +not feeling very happy, apparently, for he walked to the store moodily, +rattling the coppers and keys in his right pantaloons-pocket. But he +seemed to see a little daylight, for just as he arrived in front of the +Emporium, he looked up and said, as if he had just thought of something, +"By George! he! he! he!" + +Owing to some delay in fixing the buggy, Charlton had not got off till +about noon, but as the moon would rise soon after dark, he felt sure of +reaching Glenfleld by nine in the evening. One doesn't mind a late +arrival when one is certain of a warm welcome. And so they jogged on +quietly over the smooth road, the slow old horse walking half the time. +Albert was not in a hurry. For the first time since his return, he felt +that for a moment he possessed little Katy again. The shadow had gone; it +might come back; he would rejoice in the light while he could. Katy was +glad to be relieved of the perpetual conflict at home, and, with a +feeling entirely childish, she rejoiced that Albert was not now reproving +her. And so Albert talked in his old pedagogic fashion, telling Katy of +all the strange things he could think of, and delighting himself in +watching the wonder and admiration in her face. The country was now +smooth and now broken, and Albert thought he had never seen the grass so +green or the flowers so bright as they were this morning. The streams +they crossed were clear and cold, the sun shone hot upon them, but the +sky was so blue and the earth so green that they both abandoned +themselves to the pleasure of living with such a sky above and such a +world beneath. There were here and there a few settlers' houses, but not +yet a great many. The country was not a lonely one for all that. Every +now and then the frightened prairie-chickens ran across the road or rose +with their quick, whirring flight; ten thousand katydids and grasshoppers +were jumping, fluttering, flying, and fiddling their rattling notes, and +the air seemed full of life. They were considerably delayed by Albert's +excursions after new insects, for he had brought his collecting-box and +net along. So that when, about the middle of the afternoon, as they +stopped, in fording a brook, to water old Prince, and were suddenly +startled by the sound of thunder, Albert felt a little conscience-smitten +that he had not traveled more diligently toward his destination. And when +he drove on a quarter of a mile, he found himself in a most unpleasant +dilemma, the two horns being two roads, concerning which those who +directed him had neglected to give him any advice. Katy had been here +before, and she was very sure that to the right hand was the road. There +was now no time to turn back, for the storm was already upon them--one of +those fearful thunderstorms to which the high Minnesota table-land is +peculiarly liable. In sheer desperation, Charlton took the right-hand +road, not doubting that he could at least find shelter for the night in +some settler's shanty. The storm was one not to be imagined by those who +have not seen its like, not to be described by any one. The quick +succession of flashes of lightning, the sudden, sharp, unendurable +explosions, before, behind, and on either side, shook the nerves of +Charlton and drove little Katy frantic. For an hour they traveled through +the drenching rain, their eyes blinded every minute by lightning; for an +hour they expected continually that the next thunder-bolt would smite +them. All round them, on that treeless prairie, the lightning seemed to +fall, and with every new blaze they held their breath for fear of sudden +death. Charlton wrapped Katy in every way he could, but still the storm +penetrated all the wrapping, and the cold rain chilled them both to the +core. Katy, on her part, was frightened, lest the lightning should strike +Brother Albert. Muffled in shawls, she felt tolerably safe from a +thunderbolt, but it was awful to think that Brother Albert sat out there, +exposed to the lightning. And in this time of trouble and danger, +Charlton held fast to his sister. He felt a brave determination never to +suffer Smith Westcott to have her. And if he had only lived in the middle +ages, he would doubtless have challenged the fellow to mortal combat. +Now, alas! civilization was in his way. + +At last the storm spent itself a little, and the clouds broke away in +the west, lighting up the rain and making it glorious. Then the wind +veered, and the clouds seemed to close over them again, and the +lightning, not quite so vivid or so frequent but still terrible, and +the rain, with an incessant plashing, set in as for the whole night. +Darkness was upon them, not a house was in sight, the chill cold of +the ceaseless rain seemed beyond endurance, the horse was well-nigh +exhausted and walked at a dull pace, while Albert feared that Katy +would die from the exposure. As they came to the top of each little +rise he strained his eyes, and Katy rose up and strained her eyes, in +the vain hope of seeing a light, but they did not know that they were +in the midst of--that they were indeed driving diagonally across--a +great tract of land which had come into the hands of some corporation +by means of the location of half-breed scrip. They had long since +given up all hope of the hospitable welcome at the house of Cousin +John, and now wished for nothing but shelter of any sort. Albert knew +that he was lost, but this entire absence of settlers' houses, and +even of deserted claim-shanties built for pre-emption purposes, +puzzled him. Sometimes he thought he saw a house ahead, and endeavored +to quicken the pace of the old horse, but the house always transformed +itself to a clump of hazel-brush as he drew nearer. About nine o'clock +the rain grew colder and the lightning less frequent. Katy became +entirely silent--Albert could feel her shiver now and then. Thus, in +numb misery, constantly hoping to see a house on ascending the next +rise of ground and constantly suffering disappointment, they traveled +on through the wretched monotony of that night. The ceaseless plash of +the rain, the slow tread of the horse's hoofs in the water, the roar +of a distant thunderbolt--these were the only sounds they heard during +the next hour--during the longer hour following--during the hours +after that. And then little Katy, thinking she must die, began to send +messages to the folks at home, and to poor, dear Smith, who would cry +so when she was gone. + +But just in the moment of extremity, when Charlton felt that his very +heart was chilled by this exposure in an open buggy to more than seven +hours of terrific storm, he caught sight of something which cheered him. +He had descended into what seemed to be a valley, there was water in the +road, he could mark the road by the absence of grass, and the glistening +of the water in the faint light. The water was growing deeper; just +ahead of him was a small but steep hill; on top of the hill, which showed +its darker form against the dark clouds, he had been able to distinguish +by the lightning-light a hay-stack, and here on one side of the road the +grass of the natural meadow gave unmistakable evidence of having been +mowed. Albert essayed to cheer Katy by calling her attention to these +signs of human habitation, but Katy was too cold and weary and numb to +say much or feel much; an out-door wet-sheet pack for seven hours does +not leave much of heart or hope in a human soul. + +Albert noticed with alarm that the water under the horse's feet +increased in depth continually. A minute ago it was just above the +fetlocks; now it was nearly to the knees, and the horse was obliged to +lift his feet still more slowly. The rain had filled the lowland with +water. Still the grass grew on either side of the road, and Charlton did +not feel much alarm until, coming almost under the very shadow of the +bluff, the grass suddenly ceased abruptly, and all was water, with what +appeared to be an inaccessible cliff beyond. The road which lost itself +in this pool or pond, must come out somewhere on the other side. But +where? To the right or left? And how bottomless might not the morass be +if he should miss the road! + +But in such a strait one must do something. So he selected a certain +point to the left, where the hill on the other side looked less broken, +and, turning the horse's head in that direction, struck him smartly with +the whip. The horse advanced a step or two, the water rose quickly to his +body, and he refused to go any farther. Neither coaxing nor whipping +could move him. There was nothing to do now but to wait for the next +flash of lightning. It was long to wait, for with the continuance of the +storm the lightning had grown less and less frequent. Charlton thought it +the longest five minutes that he ever knew. At last there came a blaze, +very bright and blinding, leaving a very fearful darkness after it. But +short and sudden as it was, it served to show Charlton that the sheet of +water before him was not a pool or a pond, but a brook or a creek over +all its banks, swollen to a river, and sweeping on, a wild torrent. At +the side on which Charlion was, the water was comparatively still; the +stream curved in such a way as to make the current dash itself against +the rocky bluff. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A SHELTER. + + +Albert drove up the stream, and in a fit of desperation again essayed to +ford it. The staying in the rain all night with Katy was so terrible to +him that he determined to cross at all hazards. It were better to drown +together than to perish here. But again the prudent stubbornness of the +old horse saved them. He stood in the water as immovable as the ass of +Balaam. Then, for the sheer sake of doing something, Charlton drove down +the stream to a point opposite where the bluff seemed of easy ascent. +Here he again attempted to cross, and was again balked by the horse's +regard for his own safety. Charlton did not appreciate the depth and +swiftness of the stream, nor the consequent certainty of drowning in any +attempt to ford it. Not until he got out of the buggy and tried to cross +afoot did he understand how impossible it was. + +When Albert returned to the vehicle he sat still. The current rippled +against the body of the horse and the wheels of the buggy. The incessant +rain roared in the water before him. There was nothing to be done. In +the sheer exhaustion of his resources, in his numb despondency, he +neglected even to drive the horse out of the water. How long he sat +there it would be hard to say. Several times he roused himself to utter +a "Halloo!" But the roar of the rain swallowed up his voice, which was +husky with emotion. + +After a while he heard a plashing in the water, which was not that of +the rain. He thought it must be the sound of a canoe-paddle. Could +anybody row against such a torrent? But he distinctly heard the +plashing, and it was below him. Even Katy roused herself to listen, and +strained her eyes against the blackness of the night to discover what it +might be. It did not grow any nearer. It did not retreat. At the end of +ten minutes this irregular but distinct dipping sound, which seemed to +be in some way due to human agency, was neither farther nor nearer, +neither slower nor more rapid than at first. Albert hallooed again and +again at it, but the mysterious cause of this dipping and dashing was +deaf to all cries for help. Or if not deaf, this oarsman seemed as +incapable of giving reply as the "dumb old man" that rowed the "lily +maid of Astolat" to the palace of Arthur. + +But it was no oarsman, not even a dumb one. The lightning for which +Albert prayed came at last, and illumined the water and the shores, +dispelling all dreams of canoe or oarsman. Charlton saw in an instant +that there was a fence a few rods away, and that where the fence crossed +the stream, or crossed from bank to bank of what was the stream at its +average stage, long poles had been used, and one of these long and supple +poles was now partly submerged. The swift current bent it in the middle +until it would spring out of the water and drop back higher up. It was +thus kept in a rotary motion, making the sound which he had mistaken for +the paddling of a canoeman. With this discovery departed all thought of +human help from that quarter. + +But with the dissipating of the illusion came a new hope. Charlton +turned the head of the horse back and drove him out of the water, or at +least to a part of the meadow where the overflowed water did not reach to +his knees. Here he tied him to a tree, and told Katy she must stay alone +until he should cross the stream and find help, if help there should be, +and return. It might take him half an hour. But poor Katy said that she +could not live half an hour longer in this rain. And, besides, she knew +that Albert would be drowned in crossing. So that it was with much ado +that he managed to get away from her, and, indeed, I think she cried +after he had gone. He called back to her when he got to the brook's bank, +"All right, Katy!" but Katy heard him through the roar of the rain, and +it seemed to her that he was being swallowed up in a Noachian deluge. + +Charlton climbed along on the precarious footing afforded by the +submerged pole, holding to the poles above while the water rushed about +his feet. These poles were each of them held by a single large nail at +each end, and the support was doubly doubtful. He might fall off, or the +nails might come out. Even had he not been paralyzed by long exposure to +the cold, he could have no hope of being able to swim in such a torrent. + +In the middle of the stream he found a new difficulty. The posts to which +these limber poles were nailed at either end sloped in opposite +directions, so that while he started across on the upper side he found +that when he got to the middle the pole fence began to slant so much up +the stream that he must needs climb to the other side, a most difficult +and dangerous performance on a fence of wabbling popple poles in the +middle of a stream on a very dark night. When at last he got across the +stream, he found himself in the midst of a hazel thicket higher than his +head. He hallooed to Katy, and she was sure this time that it was his +last drowning cry. Working his way out of the hazel-brush, he came to a +halt against a fence and waited for lightning. That there was a house in +the neighborhood he could not doubt, but whether it were inhabited or not +was a question. And where was it? + +For full five minutes--an eternal five minutes--the pitiless rain poured +down upon Charlton as he stood there by the fence, his eyes going forward +to find a house, his heart running back to the perishing Katy. At last +the lightning showed him a house, and from the roof of the house he saw a +stovepipe. The best proof that it was not a deserted claim-shanty! + +Stumbling round the fence in the darkness, Charlton came upon the house, +a mere cabin, and tried three sides of it before he found the entrance. +When he knocked, the door was opened by a tall man, who said: + +"Right smart sprinkle, stranger! Where did you come from? Must 'a' rained +down like a frog." + +But Albert had no time for compliments. He told his story very briefly, +and asked permission to bring his sister over. + +"Fetch her right along, stranger. No lady never staid in this 'ere shed +afore, but she's mighty welcome." + +Albert now hurried back, seized with a fear that he would find Katy dead. +He crossed on the poles again, shouting to Katy as he went. He found her +almost senseless. He quickly loosed old Prince from the buggy, and +tethered him with the lines where he would not suffer for either water or +grass, and then lifted Kate from the buggy, and literally carried her to +the place where they must needs climb along the poles. It was with much +difficulty that he partly carried her, partly persuaded her to climb +along that slender fence. How he ever got the almost helpless girl over +into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they +approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more +and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her +down in a swoon of utter exhaustion. + +The inhabitant of the cabin ran to a little cupboard, made of a +packing-box, and brought out a whisky-flask, and essayed to put it to her +lips, but as he saw her lying there, white and beautiful in her +helplessness, he started back and said, with a rude reverence, "Stranger, +gin her some of this 'ere--I never could tech sech a creetur!" + +And Albert gave her some of the spirits and watched her revive. He warmed +her hands and chafed her feet before the fire which the backwoodsman had +made. As she came back to consciousness, Charlton happened to think that +he had no dry clothes for her. He would have gone immediately back to the +buggy, where there was a portmanteau carefully stowed under the seat, but +that the Inhabitant had gone out and he was left alone with Katy, and he +feared that she would faint again if he should leave her. Presently the +tall, lank, longhaired man came in. + +"Mister," he said, "I made kinder sorter free with your things. I thought +as how as the young woman might want to shed some of them air wet +feathers of her'n, and so I jist venter'd to go and git this yer bag +'thout axin' no leave nor license, while you was a-bringin' on her to. +Looks pooty peart, by hokey! Now, mister, we ha'n't got no spar rooms +here. But you and me'll jes' take to the loff thar fer a while, seein' +our room is better nor our comp'ny. You kin change up stars." + +They went to the loft by an outside ladder, the Inhabitant speaking very +reverently in a whisper, evidently feeling sure that there was an angel +down-stairs. They went down again after a while, and the Inhabitant piled +on wood so prodigally that the room became too warm; he boiled a pot of +coffee, fried some salt-pork, baked some biscuit, a little yellow and a +little too short, but to the hungry travelers very palatable. Even +Charlton found it easy to forego his Grahamism and eat salt-pork, +especially as he had a glass of milk. Katy, for her part, drank a cup of +coffee but ate little, though the Inhabitant offered her the best he had +with a voice stammering with emotion. He could not speak to her without +blushing to his temples. He tried to apologize for the biscuit and the +coffee, but could hardly ever get through his sentence intelligibly, he +was so full of a sentiment of adoration for the first lady into whose +presence he had come in years. Albert felt a profound respect for the man +on account of his reverence for Katy. And Katy of course loved him as she +did everybody who was kind to her or to her friends, and she essayed once +or twice to make him feel comfortable by speaking to him, but so great +was his agitation when spoken to by the divine creature, that he came +near dropping a plate of biscuit the first time she spoke, and almost +upset the coffee the next time. I have often noticed that the anchorites +of the frontier belong to two classes--those who have left humanity and +civilization from sheer antagonism to men, a selfish, crabbed love of +solitude, and those who have fled from their fellows from a morbid +sensitiveness. The Inhabitant was of the latter sort. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE INHABITANT. + + +When Albert awoke next morning from a sound sleep on the buffalo-robe in +the loft of the cabin of the Inhabitant, the strange being who had slept +at his side had gone. He found him leaning against the foot of the +ladder outside. + +"Waitin', you know," he said when he saw Albert, "tell she gits up. I was +tryin' to think what I _could_ do to make this house fit fer her to stay +in; fer, you see, stranger, they's no movin' on tell to-morry, fer though +the rain's stopped, I 'low you can't git that buggy over afore to-morry +mornin'. But blam'd ef 'ta'n't too bad fer sech as her to stay in sech a +cabin! I never wanted no better place tell las' night, but ever sence +that creetur crossed the door-sill. I've wished it was a palace of +di'monds. She hadn't orter live in nothin' poarer." + +"Where did you come from?" asked Charlton. + +"From the Wawbosh. You see I couldn't stay. They treated me bad. I had a +idee. I wanted to write somethin' or nother in country talk. I need to +try to write potry in good big dictionary words, but I hadn't but 'mazin +little schoolin', and lived along of a set of folks that talked jes' like +I do. But a Scotchman what I worked along of one winter, he read me some +potry, writ out by a Mr. Burns, in the sort of bad grammar that a +Scotchman talks, you know. And I says, Ef a Scotchman could write poetry +in his sort of bad grammar, why couldn't a Hoosier jest as well write +poetry in the sort of lingo we talk down on the Wawbosh? I don't see why. +Do you, now?" + +Albert was captivated to find a "child of nature" with such an idea, and +he gave it his entire approval. + +"Wal, you see, when I got to makin' varses I found the folks down in +Posey Kyounty didn' take to varses wrote out in their own talk. They +liked the real dictionary po'try, like 'The boy stood on the burnin' +deck' and 'A life on the ocean wave,' but they made fun of me, and when +the boys got a hold of my poortiest varses, and said 'em over and over +as they was comin' from school, and larfed at me, and the gals kinder +fooled me, gittin' me to do some varses fer ther birthdays, and then +makin' fun of 'em, I couldn' bar it no ways, and so I jist cleaned out +and left to git shed of their talk. But I stuck to my idee all the +same. I made varses in the country talk all the same, and sent 'em to +editors, but they couldn' see nothin' in 'em. Writ back that I'd +better larn to spell. When I could a-spelt down any one of 'em the best +day they ever seed!" + +"I'd like to see some of your verses," said Albert. + +"I thought maybe you mout," and with that he took out a soiled blue paper +on which was written in blue ink some verses. + +"Now, you see, I could spell right ef I wanted to, but I noticed that Mr. +Burns had writ his Scotch like it was spoke, and so I thought I'd write +my country talk by the same rule." + +And the picturesque Inhabitant, standing there in the morning light in +his trapper's wolf-skin cap, from the apex of which the tail of the wolf +hung down his back, read aloud the verses which he had written in the +Hoosier dialect, or, as he called it, the country talk of the Wawbosh. In +transcribing them, I have inserted one or two apostrophes, for the poet +always complained that though he could spell like sixty, he never could +mind his stops. + +[Illustration: THE INHABITANT.] + +WHAT DUMB CRITTERS SAYS + +The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, + Ef nobody's thar to see. +The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, +But ef I say, "Sing out, green coat," + Why, "I can't" and "I shan't," says he. + +I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard + Of a man made outen straw. +I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard, +But laws! they warn't the least bit skeered, + They larfed out, "Haw! haw-haw!" + +A long-tail squir'l up in th' top + Of that air ellum tree, +A long-tail squir'l up in th' top, +A lis'nin' to the acorns drop, + Says, "Sh! sh-sh!" at me. + +The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb + With nary a wink nur nod, +The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb, +Is a-singin' a sort of a solemn hymn + Of "Hoo! hoo-ah!" at God. + +Albert could not resist a temptation to smile at this last line. + +"I know, stranger. You think a owl can't sing to God. But I'd like to +know why! Ef a mockin'-bird kin sing God's praises a-singin' trible, and +so on through all the parts--you see I larnt the squar notes oncet at a +singin'--why, I don't see to save me why the bass of the owl a'n't jest +as good praisin' ef 'ta'n't quite sech fine singin'. Do you, now? An' I +kinder had a feller-feelin' fer the owl. I says to him,' Well, ole +feller, you and me is jist alike in one thing. Our notes a'n't +appreciated by the public.' But maybe God thinks about as much of the +real ginowine hootin' of a owl as he does of the highfalugeon whistlin' +of a mockin'-bird all stole from somebody else. An' ef my varses is +kinder humbly to hear, anyway they a'n't made like other folkses; they're +all of 'em outen my head--sech as it is." + +"You certainly have struck an original vein," said Albert, who had a +passion for nature in the rough. "I wish you would read some of your +verses to my sister." + +"Couldn' do it," said the poet; "at least, I don't believe I could. My +voice wouldn' hold up. Laid awake all las' night tryin' to make some +varses about her. But sakes, stranger, I couldn' git two lines strung +together. You mout as well try to put sunshine inter a gallon-jug, you +know, as to write about that lovely creetur. An' I can't make poetry in +nothin' 'ceppin' in our country talk; but laws! it seems sech a rough +thing to use to say anything about a heavenly angel in. Seemed like as ef +I was makin' a nosegay fer her, and hadn't no poseys but jimson-weeds, +hollyhocks, and big yaller sunflowers. I wished I could 'a' made real +dictionary poetry like Casabianca and Hail Columby. But I didn' know +enough about the words. I never got nary wink of sleep a-thinkin' about +her, and a-wishin' my house was finer and my clo'es purtier and my hair +shorter, and I was a eddicated gentleman. Never wished that air afore." + +Katy woke up a little dull and quite hungry, but not sick, and she +good-naturedly set herself to work to show her gratitude to the +Inhabitant by helping, him to get breakfast, at which he declared that he +was never so flustrated in all his born days. Never. + +They waited all that day for the waters to subside, and Katy taught the +Poet several new culinary arts, while he showed her his traps and hunting +gear, and initiated the two strangers into all the mysteries of mink and +muskrat catching, telling them more about the habits of fur-bearing +animals than they could have learned from books. And Charlton recited +many pieces of "real dictionary poetry" to the poor fellow, who was at +last prevailed on to read some of his dialect pieces in the presence of +Katy. He read her one on "What the Sunflower said to the Hollyhock," and +a love-poem, called "Polly in the Spring-house." The first strophe of +this inartistic idyl will doubtless be all the reader will care to see. + + POLLY IN THE SPRING-HOUSE. + + Purtier'n dressed-up gals in town + Is peart and larfin' Polly Brown, + With curly hair a-hangin' down, +An' sleeves rolled clean above her elbow. + Barfeooted stan'in on the rocks, + A-pourin' milk in airthen crocks, + An' kiverin' 'em with clean white blocks-- + Jest lis'en how my fool heart knocks-- +Shet up, my heart! what makes you tell so? + +"You see," he said, blushing and stammering, "you see, miss, I had a sort +of a preju_dice_ agin town gals in them air days, I thought they was all +stuck up and proud like; I didn' think the--the--well--you know I don't +mean no harm nur nothin'--but I didn' expect the very purtiest on 'em all +was ever agoin' to come into my shanty and make herself at home like as +ef I was a eddicated gentleman. All I said agin town gals I take back. +I--I--you see--" but finding it impossible to get through, the Poet +remembered something to be attended to out of doors. + +The ever active Charlton could not pass a day in idleness. By ten +o'clock he had selected a claim and staked it out. It was just the place +for his great school. When the country should have settled up, he would +found a farm-school here and make a great institution out of it. The +Inhabitant was delighted with the prospect of having the brother of an +angel for a neighbor, and readily made a bargain to erect for Charlton a +cabin like his own for purposes of pre-emption. Albert's lively +imagination had already planned the building and grounds of his +institution. + +During the whole of that sunshiny day that Charlton waited for the waters +of Pleasant Brook to subside, George Gray, the Inhabitant of the lone +cabin, exhausted his ingenuity in endeavoring to make his hospitality as +complete as possible. When Albert saw him standing by the ladder in the +morning, he had already shot some prairie-chickens, which he carefully +broiled. And after they had supped on wild strawberries and another night +had passed, they breakfasted on some squirrels killed in a neighboring +grove, and made into a delicious stew by the use of such vegetables as +the garden of the Inhabitant afforded. Charlton and the Poet got the +horse and buggy through the stream. When everything was ready for a +start, the Inhabitant insisted that he would go "a piece" with them to +show the way, and, mounted on his Indian pony, he kept them company to +their destination. Then the trapper bade Albert an affectionate adieu, +and gave a blushing, stammering, adoring farewell to Katy, and turned his +little sorrel pony back toward his home, where he spent the next few days +in trying to make some worthy verses in commemoration of the coming to +the cabin of a trapper lonely, a purty angel bright as day, and how the +trapper only wep' and cried when she went away. But his feelings were +too deep for his rhymes, and his rhymes were poorer than his average, +because his feeling was deeper. He must have burned up hundreds of +couplets, triplets, and sextuplets in the next fortnight. For, besides +his chivalrous and poetic gallantry toward womankind, he found himself +hopelessly in love with a girl whom he would no more have thought of +marrying than he would of wedding a real angel. Sometimes he dreamed of +going to school and getting an education, "puttin' some school-master's +hair-ile onter his talk," as he called it, but then the hopelessness of +any attempt to change himself deterred him. But thenceforth Katy became +more to him than Laura was to Petrarch. Habits of intemperance had crept +upon him in his isolation and pining for excitement, but now he set out +to seek an ideal purity, he abolished even his pipe, he scrupulously +pruned his conversation of profanity, so that he wouldn' be onfit to love +her any way, ef he didn' never marry her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +AN EPISODE. + + +I fear the gentle reader, how much more the savage one, will accuse me of +having beguiled him with false pretenses. Here I have written XIV +chapters of this story, which claims to be a mystery, and there stand the +letters XV at the head of this chapter and I have not got to the mystery +yet, and my friend Miss Cormorant, who devours her dozen novels a week +for steady diet, and perhaps makes it a baker's dozen at this season of +the year, and who loves nothing so well as to be mystified by +labyrinthine plots and counterplots--Miss Cormorant is about to part +company with me at this point. She doesn't like this plain sailing. Now, +I will be honest with you, Miss Cormorant, all the more that I don't care +if you do quit. I will tell you plainly that to my mind the mystery lies +yet several chapters in advance, and that I shouldn't be surprised if I +have to pass out of my teens and begin to head with double X's before I +get to that mystery. Why don't I hurry up then? Ah! there's the rub. Miss +Cormorant and all the Cormorant family are wanting me to hurry up with +this history, and just so surely as I should skip over any part of the +tale, or slight my background, or show any eagerness, that other family, +the Critics--the recording angels of literature--take down their pens, +and with a sad face joyfully write: "This book is, so-so, but bears +evident marks of hurry in its execution. If the author shall ever learn +the self-possession of the true artist, and come to tell his stories with +leisurely dignity of manner--and so on--and so on--and so forth--he +will--well, he will--do middling well for a man who had the unhappiness +to be born in longitude west from Washington." Ah! well, I shrug my +shoulders, and bidding both Cormorant and Critic to get behind me, Satan, +I write my story in my own fashion for my gentle readers who are neither +Cormorants nor Critics, and of whom I am sincerely fond. + +For instance, I find it convenient to turn aside at this point to mention +Dave Sawney, for how could I relate the events which are to follow to +readers who had not the happiness to know Katy's third lover--or +thirteenth--the aforesaid Dave? You are surprised, doubtless, that Katy +should have so many lovers as three; you have not then lived in a new +country where there are generally half-a-dozen marriageable men to every +marriageable woman, and where, since the law of demand and supply has no +application, every girl finds herself beset with more beaux than a +heartless flirt could wish for. Dave was large, lymphatic, and conceited; +he "come frum Southern Eelinoy," as he expressed it, and he had a +comfortable conviction that the fertile Illinois Egypt had produced +nothing more creditable than his own slouching figure and +self-complaisant soul. Dave Sawney had a certain vividness of imagination +that served to exalt everything pertaining to himself; he never in his +life made a bargain to do anything--he always cawntracked to do it. He +cawntracked to set out three trees, and then he cawntracked to dig six +post-holes, and-when he gave his occupation to the census-taker he set +himself down as a "cawntractor." + +He had laid siege to Katy in his fashion, slouching in of an evening, and +boasting of his exploits until Smith Westcott would come and chirrup and +joke, and walk Katy right away from him to take a walk or a boat-ride. +Then he would finish the yarn which Westcott had broken in the middle, to +Mrs. Plausaby or Miss Marlay, and get up and remark that he thought maybe +he mout as well be a-gittin' on. + +In the county-seat war, which had raged about the time Albert had left +for Glenfleld, Dave Sawney had come to be a man of importance. His own +claim lay equidistant from the two rival towns. He bad considerable +influence with a knot of a dozen settlers in his neighborhood, who were, +like himself, without any personal interest in the matter. It became +evident that a dozen or a half-dozen votes might tip the scale after +Plausaby, Esq., had turned the enemy's flank by getting some local +politician to persuade the citizens of Westville, who would naturally +have supported the claims of Perritaut, that their own village stood the +ghost of a chance, or at least that their interests would be served by +the notoriety which the contest would give, and perhaps also by defeating +Perritaut, which, from proximity, was more of a rival than +Metropolisville. After this diversion had weakened Perritaut, it became +of great consequence to secure even so small an influence as that of Dave +Sawney. Plausaby persuaded Dave to cawntrack for the delivery of his +influence, and Dave was not a little delighted to be flattered and paid +at the same time. He explained to the enlightened people in his +neighborhood that Squire Plausaby was a-goin' to do big things fer the +kyounty; that the village of Metropolisville would erect a brick +court-house and donate it; that Plausaby had already cawntracked to +donate it to the kyounty free gratis. + +This ardent support of Dave, who saw not only the price which the squire +had cawntracked to pay him, but a furtherance of his suit with little +Katy, as rewards of his zeal, would have turned the balance at once in +favor of Metropolisville, had it not been for a woman. Was there ever a +war, since the days of the Greek hobby-horse, since the days of Rahab's +basket indeed, in which a woman did not have some part? It is said that a +woman should not vote, because she can not make war; but that is just +what a woman can do; she can make war, and she can often decide it. There +came into this contest between Metropolisville and its rival, not a Helen +certainly, but a woman. Perritaut was named for an old French trader, who +had made his fortune by selling goods to the Indians on its site, and who +had taken him an Indian wife--it helped trade to wed an Indian--and +reared a family of children who were dusky, and spoke both the Dakota and +the French _Ă la Canadien_. M. Perritaut had become rich, and yet his +riches could not remove a particle of the maternal complexion from those +who were to inherit the name and wealth of the old trader. If they should +marry other half-breeds, the line of dusky Perritauts might stretch out +the memory of a savage maternity to the crack of doom. _Que voulez-vous?_ +They must not many half-breeds. Each generation must make advancement +toward a Caucasian whiteness, in a geometric ratio, until the Indian +element should be reduced by an infinite progression toward nothing. But +how? It did not take long for Perritaut _père_ to settle that question. +_VoilĂ tout._ The young men should seek white wives. They had money. +They might marry poor girls, but white ones. But the girls? _Eh bien_! +Money should wash them also, or at least money should bleach their +descendants. For money is the Great Stain-eraser, the Mighty Detergent, +the Magic Cleanser. And the stain of race is not the only one that money +makes white as snow. So the old gentleman one day remarked to some +friends who drank wine with him, that he would geeve one ten tousant +tollare, begare, to te man tat maree his oltest daughtare, Mathilde. _Eh +bien_, te man must vary surelee pe w'ite and _re_-spect-_ah_-ble. Of +course this confidential remark soon spread abroad, as it was meant to +spread abroad. It came to many ears. The most utterly worthless white +men, on hearing it, generally drew themselves up in pride and vowed +they'd see the ole frog-eatin' Frenchman hung afore they'd many his +Injin. They'd druther marry a Injin than a nigger, but they couldn' be +bought with no money to trust their skelp with a Injin. + +Not so our friend Dave. He wurn't afeared of no Injin, he said; sartainly +not of one what had been weakened down to half the strength. Ef any man +dared him to marry a Injin and backed the dare by ten thousand dollars, +blamed ef he wouldn't take the dare. He wouldn' be dared by no Frenchman +to marry his daughter. He wouldn't. He wa'n't afeard to marry a Injin. +He'd cawntrack to do it fer ten thousand. + +The first effect of this thought on Dave's mind was to change his view of +the county-seat question. He shook his head now when Plausaby's brick +court-house was spoken of. The squire was awful 'cute; too 'cute to live, +he said ominously. + +Dave concluded that ten thousand dollars could be made much more easily +by foregoing his preferences for a white wife in favor of a red one, than +by cawntracting to set out shade-trees, dig post-holes, or drive oxen. +So he lost no time in visiting the old trader. + +[Illustration: A PINCH OF SNUFF.] + +He walked in, in his slouching fashion, shook hands with M. Perritaut, +gave his name as David Sawney, cawntracter, and after talking a little +about the county-seat question, he broached the question of marriage with +Mathilde Perritaut. + +"I hearn tell that you are willin' to do somethin' han'some fer a +son-in-law." + +"Varee good, Mistare Sonee. You air a man of bisnees, perhaps, maybe. You +undairstand tese tings. Eh? _Très bien_--I mean vary well, you see. I +want that my daughtare zhould maree one re-spect-_ah_-ble man. Vare good. +You air one, maybe. I weel find out. _Très bien, you_ see, my daughtare +weel marree the man that I zay. You weel come ovare here next week. Eef I +find you air respect-_ah_-ble, I weel then get my lawyare to make a +marriage contract." + +"A cawntrack?" said Dave, starting at the sound of his favorite word. +"Very well, musheer, I sign a cawntrack and live up to it." + +"Vare good. Weel you have one leetle peench of snuff?" said the old man, +politely opening his box. + +"Yes, I'm obleeged, musheer," said Dave. "Don't keer ef I do." And by way +of showing his good-will and ingratiating himself with the Frenchman, +Dave helped himself to an amazingly large pinch. Indeed, not being +accustomed to take snuff, he helped himself, as he did to chewing tobacco +when it was offered free, with the utmost liberality. The result did not +add to the dignity of his bearing, for he was seized with a succession of +convulsions of sneezing. Dave habitually did everything in the noisiest +way possible, and he wound up each successive fit of sneezing with a +whoop that gave him the semblance of practicing an Indian war-song, by +way of fitting himself to wed a half-breed wife. + +"I declare," he said, when the sneezing had subsided, "I never did see no +sech snuff." + +"Vare good," resumed M. Perritaut. "I weel promees in the contract to +geeve you one ten tousant tollars--_deux mille_--two tousant avery yare +for fife yare. _Très bien_. My daughtare is edu_cate_; she stoody fife, +seex yare in te convent at Montreal. Zhe play on piano evare so many +tune. _Bien_. You come Monday. We weel zee. Adieu. I mean good-by, +Mistare Sonee." + +"Adoo, musheer," said Dave, taking his hat and leaving. He boasted +afterwards that he had spoke to the ole man in French when he was comin' +away. Thought it mout kinder tickle him, you know. And he said he didn' +mind a brown complexion a bit. Fer his part, seemed to him 'twas kinder +purty fer variety. Wouldn' want all women reddish, but fer variety 'twas +sorter nice, you know. He always did like sompin' odd. + +And he now threw all his energy into the advocacy of Perritaut. It +was the natural location of a county-seat. Metropolisville never +would be nawthin'. + +Monday morning found him at Perritaut's house, ready to sell himself in +marriage. As for the girl, she, poor brown lamb--or wolf, as the case may +be--was ready, with true Indian stolidity, to be disposed of as her +father chose. The parties who were interested in the town of Perritaut +had got wind of Dave's proposition; and as they saw how important his +influence might be in the coming election, they took pains to satisfy +Monsieur Perritaut that Mr. Sawney was a very proper person to marry his +tawny daughter and pocket his yellow gold-pieces. The lawyer was just +finishing the necessary documents when Dave entered. + +"_Eh bien_! How you do, Mistare Sonee? Is eet dat you weel have a peench +of snuff?" For the Frenchman had quite forgotten Dave's mishap in +snuff-taking, and offered the snuff out of habitual complaisance. + +"No, musheer," said Dave, "I can't use no snuff of late yeers. 'Fection +of the nose; makes me sneeze dreffle." + +"Oh! _Eh blen! C'est comme il faut_. I mean dat is all right, vare good, +mistare. Now, den, Monsieur _l'Avocat_, I mean ze lawyare, he is ready to +read ze contract." + +"Cawntrack? Oh! yes, that's right. We Americans marry without a +cawntrack, you see. But I like cawntracks myself. It's my business, +cawntracking is, you know. Fire away whenever you're ready, mister." This +last to the lawyer, who was waiting to read. + +Dave sat, with a knowing air, listening to the legal phraseology as +though he had been used to marriage contracts from infancy. He was +pleased with the notion of being betrothed in this awful diplomatic +fashion. It accorded with his feelings to think that he was worth ten +thousand dollars and the exhaustive verbiage of this formidable +cawntrack. + +But at last the lawyer read a part which made him open his eyes. + +Something about its being further stipulated that the said David Sawney, +of the first part, in and for the consideration named, "hereby binds +himself to have the children which shall issue from this marriage +educated in the Roman Catholic faith," caught his ears. + +"Hold on, mister, I can't sign that! I a'n't over-pertikeler about who I +marry, but I can't go that." + +"What part do you object to?" + +"Well, ef I understand them words you've got kiled up there--an' I'm +purty middlin' smart at big words, you see--I'm to eddicate the children +in the Catholic faith, as you call it." + +"Yes, that is it." + +"_Oui_! vare good. Dat I must inseest on," said Perritaut. + +"Well, I a'n't nothin' in a religious way, but I can't stan' that air. +I'm too well raised. I kin marry a Injin, but to sell out my children +afore they're born to Catholic priests, I couldn't do that air ef you +planked down two ten thousands." + +And upon this point Dave stuck. There is a sentiment down somewhere in +almost any man, and there was this one point of conscience with Dave. And +there was likewise this one scruple with Perritaut. And these opposing +scruples in two men who had not many, certainly, turned the scale and +gave the county-seat to Metropolisville, for Dave told all his Southern +Illinois friends that if the county-seat should remain at Perritaut, the +Catholics would build a nunnery an' a caythedral there, and then none of +their daughters would be safe. These priests was a-lookin' arter the +comin' generation. And besides, Catholics and Injins wouldn' have a good +influence on the moral and religious kerecter of the kyounty. The +influence of half-breeds was a bad thing fer civilization. Ef a man was +half-Injin, he was half-Injin, and you couldn't make him white noways. +And Dave distributed freely deeds to some valueless outlots, which +Plausaby had given him for the purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE RETURN. + + +As long as he could, Charlton kept Katy at Glenfield. He amused her by +every means in his power; he devoted himself to her; he sought to win her +away from Westcott, not by argument, to which she was invulnerable, but +by feeling. He found that the only motive that moved her was an emotion +of pity for him, so he contrived to make her estimate his misery on her +account at its full value. But just when he thought he had produced some +effect there would come one of Smith Westcott's letters, written not as +he talked (it is only real simpleheartedness or genuine literary gift +that can make the personality of the writer felt in a letter), but in a +round business hand with plenty of flourishes, and in sentences very +carefully composed. But he managed in his precise and prim way to convey +to Katy the notion that he was pining away for her company. And she, +missing the giggle and the playfulness from the letter, thought his +distress extreme indeed. For it would have required a deeper sorrow than +Smith Westcott ever felt to make him talk in the stiff conventional +fashion in which his letters were composed. + +And besides Westcott's letters there were letters from her mother, in +which that careful mother never failed to tell how Mr. Westcott had come +in, the evening before, to talk about Katy, and to tell her how lost and +heart-broken he was. So that letters from home generally brought on a +relapse of Katy's devotion to her lover. She was cruelly torn by +alternate fits of loving pity for poor dear Brother Albert on the one +hand, and poor, dear, _dear_ Smith Westcott on the other. And the latter +generally carried the day in her sympathies. He was such a poor dear +fellow, you know, and hadn't anybody, not even a mother, to comfort him, +and he had often said that if his charming and divine little Katy should +ever prove false, he would go and drown himself in the lake. And that +would be _so_ awful, you know. And, besides, Brother Albert had plenty to +love him. There was mother, and there was that quiet kind of a young lady +at the City Hotel that Albert went to see so often, though how he could +like anybody so cool she didn't know. And then Cousin Isa would love +Brother Albert maybe, if he'd ask her. But he had plenty, and poor Smith +had often said that he needed somebody to help him to be good. And she +would cleave to him forever and help him. Mother and father thought she +was right, and she couldn't anyway let Smith drown himself. How could +she? That would be the same as murdering him, you know. + +During the fortnight that Charlton and his sister visited in Glenfield, +Albert divided his time between trying to impress Katy with the general +unfitness of Smith Westcott to be her husband, and the more congenial +employment of writing long letters to Miss Helen Minorkey, and +receiving long letters from that lady. His were fervent and +enthusiastic; they explained in a rather vehement style all the schemes +that filled his brain for working out his vocation and helping the +world to its goal: while hers discussed everything in the most +dispassionate temper. Charlton had brought himself to admire this +dispassionate temper. A man of Charlton's temper who is really in love, +can bring himself to admire any traits in the object of his love. Had +Helen Minorkey shown some little enthusiasm, Charlton would have +exaggerated it, admired it, and rejoiced in it as a priceless quality. +As she showed none, he admired the lack of it in her, rejoiced in her +entire superiority to her sex in this regard, and loved her more and +more passionately every day. And Miss Minorkey was not wanting in a +certain tenderness toward her adorer. She loved him in her way, it made +her happy to be loved in that ideal fashion. + +Charlton found himself in a strait betwixt two. He longed to worship +again at the shrine of his Minerva. But he disliked to return with Katy +until he had done something to break the hold of Smith Westcott upon her +mind. So upon one pretext or another he staid until Westcott wrote to +Katy that business would call him to Glenfield the next week, and he +hoped that she would conclude to return with him. Katy was so pleased +with the prospect of a long ride with her lover, that she felt +considerable disappointment when Albert determined to return at once. +Brother Albert always did such curious things. Katy, who had given Albert +a dozen reasons for an immediate return, now thought it very strange that +he should be in such a hurry. Had he given up trying to find that new +kind of grasshopper he spoke of the day before? + +One effect of the unexpected arrival of Albert and Katy in +Metropolisville, was to make Smith Westcott forget that he ever had any +business that was likely to call him to Glenfield. Delighted to see Katy +back. Would a died if she'd staid away another week. By George! he! he! +he! Wanted to jump into the lake, you know. Always felt that way when +Katy was out of sight two days. Curious. By George! Didn't think any +woman could ever make such a fool of him. He! he! Felt like ole Dan +Tucker when he came to supper and found the hot cakes all gone. He! he! +he! By George! You know! Let's sing de forty-lebenth hymn! Ahem! + +"If Diner was an apple, + And I was one beside her, +Oh! how happy we would be, + When we's skwushed into cider! + And a little more cider too, ah-hoo! + And a little more cider too! + And a little more cider too--ah--hoo! + And a little more cider too." + +How much? Pailful! By George! He! he! he! That's so! You know. Them's my +sentiments. 'Spresses the 'motions of my heart, bredren! Yah! yah! By +hokey! And here comes Mr. Albert Charlton. Brother Albert! Just as well +learn to say it now as after a while. Eh, Katy? How do, brother Albert? +Glad to see you as if I'd stuck a nail in my foot. By George! he! he! You +won't mind my carryin' on. Nobody minds me. I'm the privileged infant, +you know. I am, by George! he! he! Come, Kate, let's take a boat-ride. + +"Oh! come, love, come; my boat's by the shore; +If yer don't ride now, I won't ax you no more." + +And so forth. Too hoarse to sing. But I am not too feeble to paddle my +own canoe. Come, Katy Darling. You needn't mind your shawl when you've +got a Westcott to keep you warm. He! he! By George! + +And then he went out singing that her lips was red as roses or poppies +or something, and "wait for the row-boat and we'll all take a ride." + +Albert endeavored to forget his vexation by seeking the society of Miss +Minorkey, who was sincerely glad to see him back, and who was more +demonstrative on this evening than he had ever known her to be. And +Charlton was correspondingly happy. He lay in his unplastered room that +night, and counted the laths in the moonlight, and built golden ladders +out of them by which to climb up to the heaven of his desires. But he was +a little troubled to find that in proportion as he came nearer to the +possession of Miss Minorkey, his ardor in the matter of his great +Educational Institution--his American Philanthropinum, as he called +it--abated. + +I ought here to mention a fact which occurred about this time, because it +is a fact that has some bearing on the course of the story, and because +it may help us to a more charitable judgment in regard to the character +of Mr. Charlton's step-father. Soon after Albert's return from Glenfield, +he received an appointment to the postmastership of Metropolisville in +such a way as to leave no doubt that it came through Squire Plausaby's +influence. We are in the habit of thinking a mean man wholly mean. But we +are wrong. Liberal Donor, Esq., for instance, has a great passion for +keeping his left hand exceedingly well informed of the generous doings of +his right. He gives money to found the Liberal Donor Female Collegiate +and Academical Institute, and then he gives money to found the Liberal +Donor Professorship of Systematic and Metaphysical Theology, and still +other sums to establish the Liberal Donor Orthopedic Chirurgical +Gratuitous Hospital for Cripples and Clubfooted. Shall I say that the +man is not generous, but only ostentatious? Not at all. He might gratify +his vanity in other ways. His vanity dominates over his benevolence, and +makes it pay tribute to his own glory. But his benevolence is genuine, +notwithstanding. Plausaby was mercenary, and he may have seen some +advantages to himself in having the post-office in his own house, and in +placing his step-son under obligation to himself. Doubtless these +considerations weighed much, but besides, we must remember the injunction +that includes even the Father of Evil in the number of those to whom a +share of credit is due. Let us say for Plausaby that, land-shark as he +was, he was not vindictive, he was not without generosity, and that it +gave him sincere pleasure to do a kindness to his step-son, particularly +when his generous impulse coincided so exactly with his own interest in +the matter. I do not say that he would not have preferred to take the +appointment himself, had it not been that he had once been a postmaster +in Pennsylvania, and some old unpleasantness between him and the +Post-Office Department about an unsettled account stood in his way. But +in all the tangled maze of motive that, by a resolution of force, +produced the whole which men called Plausaby the Land-shark, there was +not wanting an element of generosity, and that element of generosity had +much to do with Charlton's appointment. And Albert took it kindly. I am +afraid that he was just a little less observant of the transactions in +which Plausaby engaged after that. I am sure that he was much less +vehement than before in his denunciations of land-sharks. The post-office +was set up in one of the unfinished rooms of Mr. Plausaby's house, and, +except at mail-times, Charlton was not obliged to confine himself to it. +Katy or Cousin Isa or Mrs. Plausaby was always glad to look over the +letters for any caller, to sell stamps to those who wanted them, and tell +a Swede how much postage he must pay on a painfully-written letter to +some relative in Christiana or Stockholm. And the three or four hundred +dollars of income enabled Charlton to prosecute his studies. In his +gratitude he lent the two hundred and twenty dollars--all that was left +of his educational fund--to Mr. Plausaby, at two per cent a month, on +demand, secured by a mortgage on lots in Metropolisville. + +Poor infatuated George Gray--the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, the +Trapper of Pleasant Brook, the Hoosier Poet from the Wawbosh +country--poor infatuated George Gray found his cabin untenable after +little Katy had come and gone. He came up to Metropolisville, improved +his dress by buying some ready-made clothing, and haunted the streets +where he could catch a glimpse now and then of Katy. + +One night, Charlton, coming home from an evening with Miss Minorkey at +the hotel, found a man standing in front of the fence. + +"What do you want here?" he asked sharply. + +"Didn' mean no harm, stranger, to nobody." + +"Oh! it's you!" exclaimed Charlton, recognizing his friend the Poet. +"Come in, come in." + +"Come in? Couldn' do it no way, stranger. Ef I was to go in thar amongst +all them air ladies, my knees would gin out. I was jist a-lookin' at that +purty creetur. But I 'druther die'n do her any harm. I mos' wish I was +dead. But 'ta'n't no harm to look at her ef she don' know it. I shan't +disturb her; and ef she marries a gentleman, I shan't disturb him nuther. +On'y, ef he don' mind it, you know, I'll write po'try about her now and +then. I got some varses now that I wish you'd show to her, ef you think +they won't do her no harm, you know, and I don't 'low they will. Good-by, +Mr. Charlton. Comin' down to sleep on your claim? Land's a-comin' into +market down thar." + +After the Poet left him, Albert took the verses into the house and read +them, and gave them to Katy. The first stanza was, if I remember it +rightly, something of this sort: + +"A angel come inter the poar trapper's door, + The purty feet tromped on the rough puncheon floor, +Her lovely head slep' on his prairie-grass piller-- + The cabin is lonesome and the trapper is poar, + He hears little shoes a-pattin' the floor; + He can't sleep at night on that piller no more; +His Hoosier harp hangs on the wild water-willer!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SAWNEY AND HIS OLD LOVE. + + +Self-conceit is a great source of happiness, a buffer that softens all +the jolts of life. After David Sawney's failure to capture Perritaut's +half-breed Atlantis and her golden apples at one dash, one would have +expected him to be a little modest in approaching his old love again; but +forty-eight hours after her return from Glenfield, he was paying his +"devours," as he called them, to little Katy Charlton. He felt confident +of winning--he was one of that class of men who believe themselves able +to carry off anybody they choose. He inventoried his own attractions with +great complacency; he had good health, a good claim, and, as he often +boasted, had been "raised rich," or, as he otherwise stated it, "cradled +in the lap of luxury." His father was one of those rich Illinois farmers +who are none the less coarse for all their money and farms. Owing to +reverses of fortune, Dave had inherited none of the wealth, but all of +the coarseness of grain. So he walked into Squire Plausaby's with his +usual assurance, on the second evening after Katy's return. + +"Howdy, Miss Charlton," he said, "howdy! I'm glad to see you lookin' so +smart. Howdy, Mrs. Ferret!" to the widow, who was present. "Howdy do, +Mr. Charlton--back again?" And then he took his seat alongside Katy, not +without a little trepidation, for he felt a very slight anxiety lest his +flirtation With Perritaut's ten thousand dollars "mout've made his +chances juberous," as he stated it to his friends. But then, he +reflected, "she'll think I'm worth more'n ever when she knows I +_de_-clined ten thousand dollars, in five annooal payments." + +"Mr. Sawney," said the widow Ferret, beaming on him with one of her +sudden, precise, pickled smiles, "Mr. Sawney, I'm delighted to hear that +you made a brave stand against Romanism. It is the bane of this country. +I respect you for the stand you made. It shows the influence of +schripcheral training by a praying mother, I've no doubt, Mr. Sawney." + +Dave was flattered and annoyed at this mention, and he looked at little +Katy, but she didn't seem to feel any interest in the matter, and so he +took heart. + +"I felt it my dooty, Mrs. Ferret, indeed I did." + +"I respect you for it, Mr. Sawney." + +"For what?" said Albert irascibly. "For selling himself into a mercenary +marriage, and then higgling on a point of religious prejudice?" + +Mrs. Ferret now focused her round eyes at Mr. Charlton, smiled her +deprecating smile, and replied: "I do think, Mr. Charlton, that in this +day of lax views on one side and priestcraft on the other, I respect a +man who thinks enough of ee-vangelical truth to make a stand against any +enemy of the holy religion of--" + +"Well," said Charlton rudely, "I must say that I respect Perritaut's +prejudices just as much as I do Dave's. Both of them were engaged in a +contemptible transaction, and both of them showed an utter lack of +conscience, except in matters of opinion. Religion is--" + +[Illustration: MRS. FERRET] + +But the company did not get the benefit of Mr. Albert's views on the +subject of religion, for at that moment entered Mr. Smith Westcott. + +"How do, Katy? Lookin' solemn, eh? How do, Brother Albert? Mrs. Ferret, +how do? Ho! ho! Dave, is this you? I congratulate you on your escape from +the savages. Scalp all sound, eh? Didn' lose your back-hair? By George! +he! he! he!" And he began to show symptoms of dancing, as he sang: + +"John Brown, he had a little Injun; +John Brown, he had a little Injun; +Dave Sawney had a little Injun; + One little Injun gal! + +"Yah! yah! Well, well, Mr. Shawnee, glad to see you back." + +"Looky hyer. Mister Wes'cott," said Dave, growing red, "you're a-makin' +a little too free." + +"Oh! the Shawnee chief shouldn' git mad. He! he! by George! wouldn' git +mad fer ten thousand dollars. I wouldn', by George! you know! he! he! Ef +I was worth ten thousand dollars live weight, bide and tallow throw'd in, +I would--" + +"See here, mister," said Dave, rising, "maybe, you'd like to walk out to +some retired place, and hev your hide thrashed tell 'twouldn' hold +shucks? Eh?" + +"I beg pardon," said Westcott, a little frightened, "didn' mean no harm, +you know, Mr. Sawney. All's fair in war, especially when it's a war for +the fair. Sort of warfare, you know. By George! he! he! Shake hands, +let's be friends, Dave. Don' mind my joking--nobody minds me. I'm the +privileged infant, you know, he! he! A'n't I, Mr. Charlton?" + +"You're infant enough, I'm sure," said Albert, "and whether you are +privileged or not, you certainly take liberties that almost any other man +would get knocked down for." + +"Oh! well, don't let's be cross. Spoils our faces and voices, Mr. +Charlton, to be cross. For my part, I'm the laughin' philosopher--the +giggling philosopher, by George! he! he! Come Katy, let's walk." + +Katy was glad enough to get her lover away fro her brother. She hated +quarreling, and didn't see why people couldn't be peaceable. And so she +took Mr. Westcott's arm, and they walked out, that gentleman stopping to +strike a match and light his cigar at the door, and calling back, "Dood +by, all, dood by! Adieu, Monsieur Sawney, _au revoir_!" Before he +had passed out of the gate he was singing lustily: + +"Ten little, nine little, eight little Injun; +Seven little, six little, five little Injun; +Four, little, three little, two little Injun; +One little Injun girl! + +"He! he! By George! Best joke, for the time of the year, I ever heard." + +"I think," said Mrs. Ferret, after Katy and her lover had gone--she spoke +rapidly by jerks, with dashes between--"I think, Mr. Sawney--that you are +worthy of commendation--I do, indeed--for your praiseworthy +stand--against Romanism. I don't know what will become of our +liberties--if the priests ever get control--of this country." + +Sawney tried to talk, but was so annoyed by the quick effrontery with +which Westcott had carried the day that he could not say anything quite +to his own satisfaction. At last Dave rose to go, and said he had thought +maybe he mout git a chance to explain things to Miss Charlton ef Mr. +Westcott hadn't gone off with her. But he'd come agin. He wanted to know +ef Albert thought her feelin's was hurt by what he'd done in offerin to +make a cawntrack with Perritaut. And Albert assured him he didn't think +they were in the least. He had never heard Katy mention the matter, +except to laugh about it. + +At the gate Mr. Sawney met the bland, gentlemanly Plausaby, Esq., who +took him by the hand soothingly, and spoke of his services in the late +election matter with the highest appreciation. + +Dave asked the squire what he thought of the chance of his succeeding +with Miss Charlton. He recited to Plausaby his early advantages. "You +know, Squire, I was raised rich, cradled in the lap of luxury. Ef I +ha'n't got much book-stuffin' in my head, 'ta'n't fer want of schoolin'. +I never larnt much, but then I had plenty of edication; I went to school +every winter hand-runnin' tell I was twenty-two, and went to singin' +every Sunday arternoon. 'Ta'n't like as ef I'd been brought up poar, +weth no chance to larn. I've had the schoolin' anyway, and it's all the +same. An' I've got a good claim, half timber, and runnin' water onter +it, and twenty acre of medder. I s'pose mebbe she don't like my going' +arter that air Frenchman's gal. But I didn't mean no 'fense, you +know--ten thousand in yaller gold's a nice thing to a feller like me +what's been raised rich, and's kinder used to havin' and not much used +to gittin'. I wouldn't want her to take no 'fense, you know. 'Ta'n't +like's ef I'd a-loved the red-skin Catholic. I hadn' never seed 'er. It +wasn't the gal, it was the money I hankered arter. So Miss Charlton +needn' be jealous, nor juberous, like's ef I was agoin' to wish I'd a +married the Injun. I'd feel satisfied with Kate Charlton _ef_ you think +she'd be with David Sawney!" + +"That's a delicate subject--quite a delicate subject for me to speak +about, Mr. Sawney. To say anything about. But I may assure you that I +appreciate your services in our late battle. Appreciate them highly. +Quite highly. Very, indeed. I have no friend that I think more highly of. +None. I think I could indicate to you a way by which you might remove any +unfavorable impression from Miss Charlton's mind. Any unfavorable +impression." + +"Anythin' you tell me to do, squire, I'll do. I'd mos' skelp the ole man +Perritaut, and his darter too, ef you said it would help me to cut out +that insultin' Smith Westcott, and carry off Miss Charlton. I don't know +as I ever seed a gal that quite come up to her, in my way of thinkin'. +Now, squire, what is it?" + +"Well, Mr. Sawney, we carried the election the other day and got the +county-seat. Got it fairly, by six majority. After a hard battle. A very +hard battle. Very. Expensive contest, too. I pay men that work for me. +Always pay 'em. Always. Now, then, we are going to have trouble to get +possession, unless we do something bold. Something bold. They mean to +contest the election. They've got the court on their side. On their side, +I'm afraid. They will get an injunction if we try to move the records. +Sure to. Now, if I was a young man I'd move them suddenly before they had +time. Possession is nine points. Nine points of law. They may watch the +records at night. But they could be moved in the daytime by some man that +they did not suspect. Easily. Quite so. County buildings are in the edge +of town. Nearly everybody away at noon. Nearly everybody." + +"Wal, squire, I'd cawntrack to do it" + +"I couldn't make a contract, you see. I'm a magistrate. Conspiracy and +all that. But I always help a man that helps me. Always. In more ways +than one. There are two reasons why a man might do that job. Two of them. +One is love, and the other's money. Love and money. But I mustn't appear +in the matter. Not at all. I'll do what I can for you. What I can. Katy +will listen to me. She certainly will. Do what you think best." + +"I a'n't dull 'bout takin' a hint, squire." And Dave winked his left eye +at the squire in a way that said, "Trust _me_! I'm no fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A COLLISION. + + +If this were a History of Metropolisville--but it isn't, and that is +enough. You do not want to hear, and I do not want to tell you, how Dave +Sawney, like another Samson, overthrew the Philistines; how he sauntered +into the room where all the county officers did business together, he and +his associates, at noon, when most of the officers were gone to dinner; +how he seized the records--there were not many at that early day--loaded +them into his wagon, and made off. You don't want to hear all that. If +you do, call on Dave himself. He has told it over and over to everybody +who would listen, from that time to this, and he would cheerfully get out +of bed at three in the morning to tell it again, with the utmost +circumstantiality, and with such little accretions of fictitious ornament +as always gather about a story often and fondly told. Neither do you, +gentle reader, who read for your own amusement, care to be informed of +all the schemes devised by Plausaby for removing the county officers to +their offices, nor of the town lots and other perquisites which accrued +to said officers. It is sufficient for the purposes of this story that +the county-seat was carted off to Metropolisville, and abode there in +basswood tabernacles for a while, and that it proved a great +advertisement to the town; money was more freely invested in +Metropolisville, an "Academy" was actually staked out, and the town grew +rapidly. Not alone on account of its temporary political importance did +it advance, for about this time Plausaby got himself elected a director +of the St. Paul and Big Gun River Valley Land Grant Railroad, and the +speculators, who scent a railroad station at once, began to buy lots--on +long time, to be sure, and yet to buy them. So much did the fortunes of +Plausaby, Esq., prosper that he began to invest also--on time and at high +rates of interest--in a variety of speculations. It was the fashion of +'56 to invest everything you had in first payments, and then to sell out +at an advance before the second became due. + +But it is not about Plausaby or Metropolisville that I meant to tell you +in this chapter. Nor yet about the wooing of Charlton. For in his case, +true love ran smoothly. Too smoothly for the interest of this history. If +Miss Minorkey had repelled his suit, if she had steadfastly remained +cold, disdainful, exacting, it would have been better, maybe, for me who +have to tell the story, and for you who have to read it. But disdainful +she never was, and she did not remain cold. The enthusiasm of her lover +was contagious, and she came to write and talk to him with much +earnestness. Next to her own comfort and peace of mind and her own +culture, she prized her lover. He was original, piquant, and talented. +She was proud of him, and loved him with all her heart. Not as a more +earnest person might have loved; but as heartily as she could. And she +came to take on the color of her lover's habits of thought and feeling; +she expressed herself even more warmly than she felt, so that Albert was +happy, and this story was doomed to suffer because of his happiness. I +might give zest to this dull love-affair by telling you that Mr. Minorkey +opposed the match. Next to a disdainful lady-love, the best thing for a +writer and a reader is a furious father. But I must be truthful at all +hazards, and I am obliged to say that while Mr. Minorkey would have been +delighted to have had for son-in-law some man whose investments might +have multiplied Helen's inheritance, he was yet so completely under the +influence of his admired daughter that he gave a consent, tacitly at +least, to anything she chose to do. So that Helen became recognized +presently as the prospective Mrs. Charlton. Mrs. Plausaby liked her +because she wore nice dresses, and Katy loved her because she loved +Brother Albert. For that matter, Katy did not need any reason for loving +anybody. Even Isa stifled a feeling she was unable to understand, and +declared that Miss Minorkey was smart, and just suited to Albert; and she +supposed that Albert, with all his crotchets and theories, might make a +person like Miss Minorkey happy. It wasn't every woman that could put up +with them, you know. + +But it was not about the prosperous but uninteresting courtship of two +people with "idees" that I set out to tell in this chapter. If Charlton +got on smoothly with Helen Minorkey, and if he had no more serious and +one-sided outbreaks with his step-father, he did not get on with his +sister's lover. + +Westcott had been drinking all of one night with some old cronies of the +Elysian Club, and his merry time of the night was subsiding into a +quarrelsome time in the morning. He was able, when he was sober, to +smother his resentment towards Albert, for there is no better ambush than +an entirely idiotic giggle. But drink had destroyed his prudence. And so +when Albert stepped on the piazza of the hotel where Westcott stood +rattling his pocketful of silver change and his keys for the amusement of +the bystanders, as was his wont, the latter put himself in Charlton's +way, and said, in a dreary, half-drunk style: + +[Illustration: ONE SAVAGE BLOW FULL IN THE FACE.] + +"Mornin', Mr. Hedgehog! By George! he! he! he! How's the purty little +girl? My little girl. Don't you wish she wasn't? Hard feller, I am. Any +gal's a fool to marry me, I s'pose. Katy's a fool. That's just what I +want, by George I he! he! I want a purty fool. And she's purty, and +she's--the other thing. What you goin' to do about it? He! he! he!" + +"I'm going to knock you down," said Albert, "if you say another word +about her." + +"A'n't she mine? You can't help it, either. He! he! The purty little +goose loves Smith Westcott like lots of other purty little--" + +Before he could finish the sentence Charlton had struck him one savage +blow full in the face, and sent him staggering back against the side of +the house, but he saved himself from falling by seizing the window-frame, +and immediately drew his Deringer. Charlton, who was not very strong, but +who had a quick, lightning-like activity, knocked him down, seized his +pistol, and threw it into the street. This time Charlton fell on him in a +thoroughly murderous mood, and would perhaps have beaten and choked him +to death in the frenzy of his long pent-up passion, for notwithstanding +Westcott's struggles Albert had the advantage. He was sober, active, and +angry enough to be ruthless. Westcott's friends interfered, but that +lively gentleman's eyes and nose were sadly disfigured by the pummeling +he had received, and Charlton was badly scratched and bruised. + +Whatever hesitancy had kept Albert from talking to Katy about Smith +Westcott was all gone now, and he went home to denounce him bitterly. +One may be sure that the muddled remarks of Mr. Westcott about Katy--of +which even he had grace to be a little ashamed when he was sober--were +not softened in the repetition which Albert gave them at home. Even +Mrs. Plausaby forgot her attire long enough to express her indignation, +and as for Miss Marlay, she combined with Albert in a bayonet-charge on +poor Katy. + +Plausaby had always made it a rule not to fight a current. Wait till the +tide turns, he used to say, and row with the stream when it flows your +way. So now he, too, denounced Westcott, and Katy was fairly borne off +her feet for a while by the influences about her. In truth, Katy was not +without her own private and personal indignation against Westcott. Not +because he had spoken of her as a fool. That hurt her feelings, but did +not anger her much. She was not in the habit of getting angry on her own +account. But when she saw three frightful scratches and a black bruise on +the face of Brother Albert, she could not help thinking that Smith had +acted badly. And then to draw a pistol, too! To threaten to kill her own +dear, dear brother! She couldn't ever forgive him, she said. If she had +seen the much more serious damage which poor, dear, dear Smith had +suffered at the tender hands of her dear, dear brother, I doubt not she +would have had an equally strong indignation against Albert. + +For Westcott's face was in mourning, and the Privileged Infant had lost +his cheerfulness. He did not giggle for ten days. He did not swear "by +George" once. He did not he! he! The joyful keys and the cheerful +ten-cent coins lay in his pocket with no loving hand to rattle them. He +did not indulge in double-shuffles. He sang no high-toned negro-minstrel +songs. He smoked steadily and solemnly, and he drank steadily and +solemnly. His two clerks were made to tremble. They forgot Smith's +bruised nose and swollen eye in fearing his awful temper. All the +swearing he wanted to do and dared not do at Albert, he did at his +inoffensive subordinates. + +Smith Westcott had the dumps. No sentimental heart-break over Katy, +though he did miss her company sadly in a town where there were no +amusements, not even a concert-saloon in which a refined young man could +pass an evening. If he had been in New York now, he wouldn't have minded +it. But in a place like Metropolisville, a stupid little frontier village +of pious and New Englandish tendencies--in such a place, as Smith +pathetically explained to a friend, one can't get along without a +sweetheart, you know. + +A few days after Albert's row with Westcott he met George Gray, the +Hoosier Poet, who had haunted Metropolisville, off and on, ever since he +had first seen the "angel." + +He looked more wild and savage than usual. + +"Hello! my friend," said Charlton heartily. "I'm glad to see you. What's +the matter?" + +"Well, Mister Charlton, I'm playin' the gardeen angel." + +"Guardian angel! How's that?" + +"I'm a sorter gardeen of your sister. Do you see that air pistol? Hey? +Jist as sure as shootin,' I'll kill that Wes'cott ef he tries to marry +that angel. I don't want to marry her. I aint fit, mister, that's a fack. +Ef I was, I'd put in fer her. But I aint. And ef she marries a gentleman, +I haint got not a bit of right to object. But looky hyer! Devils haint +got no right to angels. Ef I kin finish up a devil jest about the time +he gits his claws onto a angel and let the angel go free, why, I say it's +wuth the doin'. Hey?" + +Charlton, I am ashamed to say, did not at first think the death of Smith +Westcott by violence a very great crime or calamity, if it served to save +Katy. However, as he walked and talked with Gray, the thought of murder +made him shudder, and he made an earnest effort to persuade the +Inhabitant to give up his criminal thoughts. But it is the misfortune of +people like George Gray that the romance in their composition will get +into their lives. They have not mental discipline enough to make the +distinction between the world of sentiment and the world of action, in +which inflexible conditions modify the purpose. + +"Ef I hev to hang fer it I'll hang, but I'm goin' to be her +gardeen angel." + +"I didn't know that guardian angels carried pistols," said Albert, trying +to laugh the half-crazed fellow out of a conceit from which he could not +drive him by argument. + +"Looky hyer, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, coloring, "I thought you was a +gentleman, and wouldn' stoop to make no sech a remark. Ef you're goin' to +talk that-a-way, you and me don't travel no furder on the same trail. The +road forks right here, mister." + +"Oh! I hope not, my dear friend. I didn't mean any offense. Give me your +hand, and God bless you for your noble heart." + +Gray was touched as easily one way as the other, and he took Charlton's +hand with emotion, at the same time drawing his sleeve across his eyes +and saying, "God bless you, Mr. Charlton. You can depend on me. I'm the +gardeen, and I don't keer two cents fer life. It's a shadder, and a +mush-room, as I writ some varses about it wonst. Let me say 'em over: + +"Life's a shadder, + Never mind it. +A cloud kivers up the sun +And whar is yer shadder gone? + Ye'll hey to be peart to find it! + +"Life's a ladder-- + What about it? +You've clim half-way t' the top, +Down comes yer ladder ke-whop! + You can't scrabble up without it! + +"Nothin's no sadder, + Kordin to my tell, +Than packin' yer life around. +They's good rest under the ground + Ef a feller kin on'y die well." + +Charlton, full of ambition, having not yet tasted the bitterness of +disappointment, clinging to life as to all, was fairly puzzled to +understand the morbid sadness of the Poet's spirit. "I'm sorry you feel +that way, Gray," he said. "But at any rate promise me you won't do +anything desperate without talking to me." + +"I'll do that air, Mr. Charlton," and the two shook hands again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +STANDING GUARD IN VAIN. + + +It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again. Her practical intellect, +bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad +philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of +general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its +kindness to the individual. + +Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present +state of feeling. He saw how she would inevitably slip through his +fingers. But what to do he knew not. So, like most men of earnest and +half-visionary spirit, he did nothing. Unbeliever in Providence that he +was, he waited in the belief that something must happen to help him out +of the difficulty. Isa, believer that she was, set herself to be her own +Providence. + +Albert had been spending an evening with Miss Minorkey. He spent nearly +all his evenings with Miss Minorkey. He came home, and stood a minute, as +was his wont, looking at the prairie landscape. A rolling prairie is like +a mountain, in that it perpetually changes its appearance; it is +delicately susceptible to all manner of atmospheric effects. It lay +before him in the dim moonlight, indefinite; a succession of undulations +running one into the other, not to be counted nor measured. All accurate +notions of topography were lost; there was only landscape, dim, +undeveloped, suggestive of infinitude. Standing thus in the happiness of +loving and being loved, the soft indefiniteness of the landscape and the +incessant hum of the field-crickets and katydids, sounds which came out +of the everywhere, soothed Charlton like the song of a troubadour. + +"Mr. Charlton!" + +Like one awaking from a dream, Albert saw Isa Marlay, her hand resting +against one of the posts which supported the piazza-roof, looking even +more perfect and picturesque than ever in the haziness of the moonlight. +Figure, dress, and voice were each full of grace and sweetness, and if +the face was not exactly beautiful, it was at least charming and full of +a subtle magnetism. (Magnetism! happy word, with which we cover the +weakness of our thoughts, and make a show of comprehending and defining +qualities which are neither comprehensible nor definable!) + +"Mr. Charlton, I want to speak to you about Katy." + +It took Albert a moment or two to collect his thoughts. When he first +perceived Miss Marlay, she seemed part of the landscape. There was about +her form and motion an indefinable gracefulness that was like the charm +of this hazy, undulant, moonlit prairie, and this blue sky seen through +the lace of thin, milk-white clouds. It was not until she spoke Katy's +name that he began to return to himself. Katy was the one jarring string +in the harmony of his hopes. + +"About Katy? Certainly, Miss Marlay. Won't you sit down?" + +"No, I thank you." + +"Mr. Charlton, couldn't you get Katy away while her relations with +Westcott are broken? You don't know how soon she'll slip back into her +old love for him." + +"If--" and Albert hesitated. To go, he must leave Miss Minorkey. And the +practical difficulty presented itself to him at the same moment. "If I +could raise money enough to get away, I should go. But Mr. Plausaby has +all of my money and all of Katy's." + +Isabel was on the point of complaining that Albert should lend to Mr. +Plausaby, but she disliked to take any liberty, even that of reproof. +Ever since she knew that the family had thought of marrying her to +Albert, she had been an iceberg to him. He should not dare to think +that she had any care for him. For the same reason, another reply died +unuttered on her lips. She was about to offer to lend Mr. Charlton +fifty dollars of her own. But her quick pride kept her back, and, +besides, fifty dollars was not half-enough. She said she thought there +must be some way of raising the money. Then, as if afraid she had been +too cordial and had laid her motives open to suspicion in speaking thus +to Charlton, she drew herself up and bade him good-night with stiff +politeness, leaving him half-fascinated by her presence, half-vexed +with something in her manner, and wholly vexed with himself for having +any feeling one way or the other. What did he care for Isabel Marlay? +What if she were graceful and full of a subtle fascination of presence? +Why should he value such things? What were they worth, after all? What +if she were kind one minute and repellent the next? Isa Marlay was +nothing to him! + +Lying in his little unfinished chamber, he dismissed intellectual Miss +Minorkey from his mind with regret; he dismissed graceful but practical +Miss Marlay from his mind also, wondering that he had to dismiss her at +all, and gave himself to devising ways and means of eloping with little +Katy. She must be gotten away. It was evident that Plausaby would make no +effort to raise money to help him and Katy to get away. Plausaby would +prefer to detain Katy. Clearly, to proceed to pre-empt his claim, to +persuade Plausaby to raise money enough for him to buy a land-warrant +with, and then to raise two hundred dollars by mortgaging his land to +Minorkey or any other lover of mortgages with waiver clauses in them, was +the only course open. + +Plausaby, Esq., was ever prompt in dealing with those to whom he was +indebted, so far as promises went. He would always give the most solemn +assurance of his readiness to do anything one wished to have done; and +so, when Albert explained to him that it was necessary for him to +pre-empt because he wished to go East, Plausaby told him to go on and +establish his residence on his claim, and when he got ready to prove up +and pre-empt, to come to him. To come and let him know. To let him know +at once. He made the promise so frankly and so repetitiously, and with +such evident consciousness of his own ability and readiness to meet his +debt to Albert on demand, that the latter went away to his claim in +quietness and hopefulness, relying on Miss Marlay to stand guard over his +sister's love affairs in his absence. + +But standing guard was not of much avail. All of the currents that +flowed about Katy's life were undermining her resolution not to see +Smith Westcott. Katy, loving, sweet, tenderhearted, was far from being a +martyr, in stubbornness at best; her resolutions were not worth much +against her sympathies. And now that Albert's scratched face was out of +sight, and there was no visible object to keep alive her indignation, +she felt her heart full of ruth for poor, dear Mr. Westcott. How +lonesome he must be without her! She could only measure his lonesomeness +by her own. Her heart, ever eager to love, could not let go when once it +had attached itself, and she longed for other evenings in which she +could hear Smith's rattling talk, and in which he would tell her how +happy she had made him. How lonesome he must be! What if he should drown +himself in the lake? + +Mr. Plausaby, at tea, would tell in the most incidental way of something +that had happened during the day, and then, in his sliding, slipping, +repetitious, back-stitching fashion, would move round from one +indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over +Smith Westcott's name. + +"By the way," he would say, "poor Smith looks heartbroken. Absolutely +heart-broken. I didn't know the fellow cared so much for Katy. Didn't +think he had so much heart. So much faithfulness. But he looks down. +Very much downcast. Never saw a fellow look so chopfallen. And, by the +way, Albert did punish him awfully. He looks black and blue. Well, he +deserved it. He did so. I suppose he didn't mean to say anything against +Katy. But he had no business to let old friends coax him to drink. +Still, Albert was pretty severe. Too severe, in fact. I'm sorry for +Westcott. I am, indeed." + +After some such talk as this, Cousin Isa would generally find Katy crying +before bed-time. + +"What is the matter, Katy, dear?" she would say in a voice so full of +natural melody and genuine sympathy, that it never failed to move Katy to +the depths of her heart. Then Katy would cry more than ever, and fling +her arms about the neck of dear, dear, _dear_ Cousin Isa, and lavish on +her the tenderness of which her heart was full. + +"O Cousin Isa! what must I do? I'm breaking poor Smith's heart. You don't +know how much he loves me, and I'm afraid something dreadful will happen +to him, you know. What shall I do?" + +"I don't think he cares much, Katy. He's a bad man, I'm afraid, and +doesn't love you really. Don't think any more of him." For Isabel +couldn't find it in her heart to say to Katy just what she thought +of Westcott. + +"Oh! but you don't know him," Katy cries. "You don't know him. He says +that he does naughty things sometimes, but then he's got such a tender +heart. He made me promise I wouldn't throw him over, as he called it, for +his faults. He said he'd come to be good if I'd only keep on loving him. +And I said I would. And I haven't. Here's more than a week now that he +hasn't been here, and I haven't been to the store. And he said he'd go to +sleep in the lake some night if I ever, ever proved false to him. And I +lie awake nearly all night thinking how hard and cruel I've been to him. +And oh!"--here Katy cried awhile--"and oh! I think such awful things +sometimes," she continued in a whisper broken by sobs. "You don't know, +Cousin Isa. I think how cold, how dreadful cold the lake must be! Oo-oo!" +And a shudder shook her frame. "If poor, dear Smith were to throw himself +in! What if he is there now?" And she looked up at Isa with staring eyes. +"Do you know what an awful thing I heard about that lake once?" She +stopped and shivered. "There are leeches in it--nasty, black worms--and +one of them bit my hand once. And they told me that if a person should +be drowned in Diamond Lake the leeches would--oo!--take all their blood, +and their faces would be white, and not black like other drowned people's +faces. Oh! I can't bear to think about poor Smith. If I could only write +him a note, and tell him I love him just a little! But I told Albert I +wouldn't see him nor write to him. What shall I do? He mayn't live till +morning. They say he looks broken-hearted. He'll throw himself into that +cold lake to-night, maybe--and the leeches--the black worms--oo!--or else +he'll kill himself with that ugly pistol." + +It was in vain that Isabel talked to her, in vain that she tried to argue +with a cataract of feeling. It was rowing against Niagara with a +canoe-paddle. It was not wonderful, therefore, that before Albert got +back, Isa Marlay found Katy reading little notes from Westcott, notes +that ho had intrusted to one of his clerks, who was sent to the +post-office three or four times a day on various pretexts, until he +should happen to find Katy in the office. Then he would hand her the +notes. Katy did not reply. She had promised Albert she wouldn't. But +there was no harm in her reading them, just to keep Smith from drowning +himself among those black leeches in Diamond Lake. + +Isabel Marlay, in her distressful sense of responsibility to Albert, +could yet find no means of breaking up this renewed communication. In +sheer desperation, she appealed to Mrs. Plausaby. + +"Well, now," said that lady, sitting in state with the complacent +consciousness of a new and more stunning head-dress than usual, "I'll +tell you what it is, Isabel, I think Albert makes altogether too much +fuss over Katy's affairs. He'll break the girl's heart. He's got notions. +His father had. Deliver _me_ from notions! Just let Katy take her own +course. Marryin's a thing everybody must attend to personally for +themselves. You don't like to be meddled with, and neither does Albert. +You won't either of you marry to suit me. I have had my plans about you +and Albert. Now, Isabel, Mr. Westcott's a nice-looking man. With all his +faults he's a nice man. Cheerful and good-natured in his talk, and a good +provider. He's a store-keeper, too. It's nice to have a storekeeper for a +husband. I want Plausaby to keep store, so that I can get dresses and +such things without having to pay for them. I felt mad at Mr. Westcott +about his taking out his pistol so at Albert. But if Albert had let Mr. +Westcott alone, I'm sure Smith wouldn't a-touched him. But your folks +with notions are always troubling somebody else. For my part, I shan't +meddle with Katy. Do you think this bow's nice? Too low down, isn't it?" +and Mrs. Plausaby went to the glass to adjust it. + +And so it happened that all Isa Marlay's watching could not keep Westcott +away. For the land-office regulations at that time required that Albert +should live on his claim thirty days. This gave him the right to buy it +at a dollar and a quarter an acre, or to exchange a land-warrant for it. +The land was already worth two or three times the government price. But +that thirty days of absence, broken only by one or two visits to his +home, was enough to overturn all that Charlton had done in breaking up +his sister's engagement with Westcott. The latter knew how long Albert's +absence must be, and arranged his approaches to correspond. He gave her +fifteen days to get over her resentment, and to begin to pity him on +account of the stories of his incurable melancholy she would hear. After +he had thus suffered her to dream of his probable suicide for a +fortnight, he contrived to send her one little lugubrious note, +confessing that he had been intoxicated and begging her pardon. Then he +waited three days, days of great anxiety to her. For Katy feared lest her +neglect to return an answer should precipitate Westcott's suicide. But he +did not need an answer. Her looks when she received the note had been +reported to him. What could he need more? On the very evening after he +had sent that contrite note to Katy, announcing that he would never drink +again, he felt so delighted with what he had heard of its reception, that +he treated a crony out of his private bottle as they played cards +together in his room, and treated himself quite as liberally as he did +his friend, got up in the middle of the floor, and assured his friend +that he would be all right with his sweet little girl before the brother +got back. By George! If folks thought he was going to commit suicide, +they were fooled. Never broke his heart about a woman yet. Not much, by +George! But when he set his heart on a thing, he generally got it. He! +he! And he had set his heart on that little girl. As for jumping into the +lake, any man was a fool to jump into the drink on account of a woman. +When there were plenty of them. Large assortment constantly on hand. Pays +yer money and takes yer ch'ice! Suicide? Not much, by George! he! he! + +Hung his coat on a hickory limb, +Then like a wise man he jumped in, + My ole dad! My ole dad! + +Wondered what tune Charlton would sing when he found himself beat? Guess +'twould be: + +Can't stay in de wilderness. + In a few days, in a few days, +Can't stay in de wilderness, + A few days ago. + +Goin' to pre-empt my claim, too. I've got a month's leave, and I'll +follow him and marry that girl before he gets far. Bruddern and sistern, +sing de ole six hundredth toon. Ahem! + +I wish I was a married man, + A married man I'd be! +An' ketch the grub fer both of us + A-fishin' in the sea. + Big fish, + Little fish, + It's all the same to me! + +I got a organ stop in my throat. Can't sing below my breath to save my +life. He! he! + +After three days had elapsed, Westcott sent a still more melancholy note +to Katy. It made her weep from the first line to the last. It was full of +heartbreak, and Katy was too unobserving to notice how round and steady +and commercial the penmanship was, and how large and fine were the +flourishes. Westcott himself considered it his masterpiece. He punched +his crony with his elbow as he deposited it in the office, and assured +him that it was the techin'est note ever written. It would come the +sympathies over her. There was nothing like the sympathies to fetch a +woman to terms. He knew. Had lots of experience. By George! You could +turn a woman round yer finger if you could only keep on the tender side. +Tears was what done it. Love wouldn' keep sweet without it was pickled in +brine. He! he! he! By George! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +SAWNEY AND WESTCOTT. + + +David Sawney was delighted with the news that Albert Charlton and Smith +Westcott had quarreled. "Westcott's run of luck in that quarter's broke. +When a feller has a run of luck right along, and they comes a break, 'ts +all up with him. Broke luck can't be spliced. It's David Sawney's turn +now. Poor wind that blows no whar. I'll bet a right smart pile I'll pack +the little gal off yet." + +But if an inscrutable Providence had omitted to make any Smith Westcotts, +Dave Sawney wouldn't have stood the ghost of a chance with Katy. His +supreme self-complacency gave her no occasion to pity him. Her love was +close of kin to her tender-heartedness, and all pity was wasted on Dave. +He couldn't have been more entirely happy than he was if he had owned the +universe in fee simple. + +However, Dave was resolved to try his luck, and so, soon after Albert's +departure, he blacked up his vast boots and slicked his hair, and went to +Plausaby's. He had the good luck to find Katy alone. + +"Howdy! Howdy! Howdy git along? Lucky, ain't I, to find you in? Haw! haw! +I'm one of the luckiest fellers ever was born. Always wuz lucky. Found a +fip in a crack in the hearth 'fore I was three year old. 'Ts a fack. +Found a two-and-a-half gole piece wunst. Golly, didn't I feel _some_! +Haw! haw! haw! The way of't wuz this." But we must not repeat the story +in all its meanderings, lest readers should grow as tired of it as Katy +did; for Dave crossed one leg over the other, looked his hands round his +knee, and told it with many a complacent haw! haw! haw! When he laughed, +it was not from a sense of the ludicrous: his guffaw was a pure eruption +of delighted self-conceit. + +"I thought as how as I'd like to explain to you somethin' that might +'a' hurt yer feelin's, Miss Charlton. Didn't you feel a little teched +at sompin'?" + +"No, Mr. Sawney, you never hurt my feelings." + +"Well, gals is slow to own up that they're hurt, you know. But I'm shore +you couldn't help bein', and I'm ever so sorry. Them Injin goin'-ons of +mine wuz enough to 'a' broke your heart." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, my sellin' out to Perritaut for ten thousand dollars, only I +didn't. Haw! haw!" and Dave threw his head back to laugh. "You had a +right to feel sorter bad to think I would consent to marry a Injin. But +'tain't every feller as'll git ten thousand offered in five annooal +payments; an' I wanted you to understand 'twan't the Injin, 'twas the +cash as reached me. When it comes to gals, you're the posy fer me." + +Katy grew red, but didn't know what to say or do. + +"I heerd tell that that feller Westcott'd got his walkin' papers. Sarved +him right, dancin' roun' like a rang-a-tang, and jos'lin' his keys and +ten-cent pieces in his pocket, and sayin' imperdent things. But I could +'a' beat him at talk the bes' day he ever seed ef he'd on'y 'a' gi'n me +time to think. I kin jaw back splendid of you gin me time. Haw! haw! haw! +But he ain't far--don't never gin a feller time to git his thoughts +gethered up, you know. He jumps around like the Frenchman's flea. Put yer +finger on him an' he ain't thar, and never wuz. Haw! haw! haw! But jest +let him stay still wunst tell I get a good rest on him like, and I'll be +dog-on'd ef I don't knock the hine sights offen him the purtiest day he +ever seed! Haw! haw! haw! Your brother Albert handled him rough, didn't +he? Sarved him right. I say, if a man is onrespectful to a woman, her +brother had orter thrash him; and your'n done it. His eye's blacker'n my +boot. And his nose! Haw! haw! it's a-mournin' fer his brains! Haw I haw! +haw! And he feels bad bekase you cut him, too. Jemently, ef he don' look +like 's ef he'd kill hisself fer three bits." + +Katy was so affected by this fearful picture of poor, dear Smith's +condition, that she got up and hurried out of the room to cry. + +"What on airth's the matter?" soliloquized Dave. "Bashful little creeter, +I 'low. Thought I wuz a-comin to the p'int, maybe. Well, nex' time'll +do. Haw! haw! Young things is cur'us now, _to_ be shore. Mout's well be a +gittin' on, I reckon. Gin her time to come round, I 'low." + +With such wooing, renewed from time to time, the clumsy and complacent +Dave whiled away his days, and comforted himself that he had the +persimmon-tree all to himself, as he expressed it. Meanwhile, the notes +of Westcott were fast undoing all that Albert had done to separate him +from "the purty little girl." + +[Illustration: "WHAT ON AIRTH'S THE MATTER?"] + +Of course, when the right time came, he happened to meet Katy on the +street, and to take off his hat and make a melancholy bow, the +high-tragedy air of which confirmed Katy's suspicions that he meant to +commit suicide at the first opportunity. Then he chanced to stop at the +gate, and ask, in a tone sad enough to have been learned from the +gatherers of cold victuals, if he might come in. In three days more, he +was fully restored to favor and to his wonted cheerfulness. He danced, he +sang, he chirruped, he rattled his keys, he was the Privileged Infant +once more. He urged Katy to marry him at once, but her heart was now rent +by pity for Albert and by her eager anxiety lest he should do something +desperate when he heard of her reconciliation. She trembled every day at +thought of what might happen when he should return. + +"Goin' to pre-empt in a few days, Katy. Whisky Jim come plaguey near to +gittin' that claim. He got Shamberson on his side, and if Shamberson's +brother-in-law hadn't been removed from the Land Office before it was +tried, he'd a got it. I'm going to pre-empt and build the cutest little +bird's nest for you. + +"If I was young and in my prime, + I'd lead a different life, +I'd save my money, and buy me a farm, + Take Dinah for my wife. +Oh! carry me back-- + +"Psha! Dat dah ain't de toon, bruddern. Ahem! + +"When you and I get married, love, + How jolly it will be! +We'll keep house in a store-box, then, + Just two feet wide by three! + Store-box! + Band-box! + All the same to me! + +"And when we want our breakfast, love, + We'll nibble bread and chee-- +It's good enough for you, love, + And most too good for me! + White bread! + Brown bread! + All the same to me! + +"Dog-on'd ef 'tain't. White bread's good as brown bread. One's jest as +good as the other, and a good deal better. It's all the same to me, and +more so besides, and something to carry. It's all the same, only +'tain't. Ahem: + +"Jane and Sukey and July Ann-- + Too brown, too slim, too stout! +You needn't smile on this 'ere man, + Git out! git out! git out! + But the maiden fair + With bonny brown hair-- + Let all the rest git out!"-- + +"Get out yourself!" thundered Albert Charlton, bursting in at that +moment. "If you don't get your pack of tomfoolery out of here quick, I'll +get it out for you," and he bore down on Westcott fiercely. + +"I beg pardon, Mr. Charlton. I'm here to see your sister with her consent +and your mother's, and--" + +"And I tell you," shouted Albert, "that my sister is a little girl, and +my mother doesn't understand such puppies as you, and I am my sister's +protector, and if you don't get out of here, I'll kill you if I can." + +"Albert, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Plausaby, coming in at the +instant. "I'm sure Mr. Westcott's a genteel man, and good-natured to +Katy, and--" + +"Out! out! I say, confound you! or I'll break your empty head," thundered +Charlton, whose temper was now past all softening. "Put your hand on +that pistol, if you dare," and with that he strode at the Privileged +Infant with clenched fist, and the Privileged Infant prudently backed out +the door into the yard, and then, as Albert kept up his fierce advance, +the Privileged Infant backed out of the gate into the street. He was not +a little mortified to see the grinning face of Dave Sawney in the crowd +about the gate, and to save appearances, he called back at Albert, who +was returning toward the house, that he would settle this affair with him +yet. But he did not know how thoroughly Charlton's blood was up. + +"Settle it?" said Albert--yelled Albert, I should say--turning back on +him with more fury than ever. "Settle it, will you? I'll settle it right +here and now, you cowardly villain! Let's have it through, now," and he +walked swiftly at Westcott, who walked away; but finding that the +infuriated Albert was coming after him, the Privileged Infant hurried on +until his retreat became a run, Westcott running down street, Charlton +hotly pursuing him, the spectators running pell-mell behind, laughing, +cheering, and jeering. + +"Don't come back again if you don't want to get killed," the angry +Charlton called, as he turned at last and went toward home. + +"Now, Katy," he said, with more energy than tenderness, as he entered the +house, "if you are determined to marry that confounded rascal, I shall +leave at once. You must decide now. If you will go East with me next +week, well and good. If you won't give up Smith Westcott, then I shall +leave you now forever." + +Katy couldn't bear to be the cause of any disaster to anybody; and just +at this moment Smith was out of sight, and Albert, white and trembling +with the reaction of his passion, stood before her. She felt, somehow, +that she had brought all this trouble on Albert, and in her pity for him, +and remorse for her own course, she wept and clung to her brother, and +begged him not to leave her. And Albert said: "There, don't cry any more. +It's all right now. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. There, there!" +There is nothing a man can not abide better than a woman in tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +ROWING. + + +To get away with Katy immediately. These were the terms of the problem +now before Albert His plan was to take her to visit friends at the East, +and to keep her there until Westcott should pass out of her mind, or +until she should be forgotten by the Privileged Infant. This was not +Westcott's plan of the campaign at all. He was as much bent on securing +Katy as he could have been had he been the most constant, devoted, and +disinterested lover. He would have gone through fire and flood. The +vindictive love of opposition and lust for triumph is one of the most +powerful of motives. Men will brave more from an empty desire to have +their own way, than they could be persuaded to face by the most +substantial motives. + +Smith Westcott was not a man to die for a sentiment, but for the time he +had the semblance of a most devoted lover. He bent everything to the +re-conquest of Katy Charlton. His pride served him instead of any higher +passion, and he plotted by night and managed by day to get his affairs +into a position in which he could leave. He meant to follow Albert and +Katy, and somewhere and somehow, by working on Katy's sympathies, to +carry off the "stakes," as he expressed it. He almost ceased trifling, +and even his cronies came to believe that he was really in love. They saw +signs of intense and genuine feeling, and they mistook its nature. Mrs. +Ferret expressed her sympathy for him--the poor man really loved Kate, +and she believed that Kate had a right to marry anybody she pleased. She +did not know what warrant there was in Scripcherr for a brother's +exercising any authority. She thought Mrs. Plausaby ought to have brought +up her son to have more respect for her authority, and to hold +Scripcherral views. If he were her son, now! What she would have done +with him in that case never fully appeared; for Mrs. Ferret could not +bring herself to complete the sentence. She only said subjunctively: "If +he were _my_ son, now!" Then she would break off and give her head two or +three awful and ominous shakes. What would have happened if such a young +man as Albert had been her son, it would be hard to tell. Something +unutterably dreadful, no doubt. + +Even the charms of Miss Minorkey were not sufficient to detain Albert in +his eager haste and passionate determination to rescue Katy. But to go, +he must have money; to get money, he must collect it from Plausaby, or at +least get a land-warrant with which he could pre-empt his claim. Then he +would mortgage his land for money to pay his traveling expenses. But it +was so much easier to lend money to Plausaby, Esq., than it was to +collect it. Plausaby, Esq., was always just going to have the money; +Plausaby, Esq., had ever ready so many excuses for past failure, and so +many assurances of payment in the immediate future, that Charlton was +kept hoping and waiting in agony from week to week. He knew that he was +losing ground in the matter of Westcott and Katy. She was again grieving +over Smith's possible suicide, was again longing for the cheerful rattle +of flattery and nonsense which rendered the Privileged Infant so +diverting even to those who hated him, much more to her who loved him. + +Albert's position was the more embarrassing that he was obliged to spend +a part of his time on his claim to maintain a residence. One night, after +having suffered a disappointment for the fifth time in the matter of +Plausaby and money, he was walking down the road to cool his anger in the +night air, when he met the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, again. + +"Well, Gray," he said, "how are you? Have you written any fresh +verses lately?" + +"Varses? See here, Mr. Charlton, do you 'low this 'ere's a time +fer varses?" + +"Why not?" + +"_To_ be shore! Why not? I should kinder think yer own heart should orter +tell you. You don' know what I'm made of. You think I a'n't good fer +nothin' but varses. Now, Mr. Charlton, I'm not one of them air fellers as +lets theirselves all off in varses that don' mean nothin'. What my pomes +says, that my heart feels. And that my hands does. No, sir, my po'try 's +like the corn crap in August. It's laid by. I ha'n't writ nary line sence +I seed you afore. The fingers that holds a pen kin pull a trigger." + +"What do you mean, Gray?" + +"This 'ere," and he took out a pistol. "I wuz a poet; now I'm a gardeen +angel. I tole you I wouldn' do nothin' desperate tell I talked weth you. +That's the reason I didn' shoot him t'other night. When you run him off, +I draw'd on him, and he'd a been a gone sucker ef't hadn' been fer yore +makin' me promise t'other day to hold on tell I'd talked weth you. Now, +I've talked weth you, and I don't make no furder promises. Soon as he +gits to makin' headway agin, I'll drap him." + +It was in vain that Charlton argued with him. Gray said life wurn't no +'count no how; he had sot out to be a Gardeen Angel, and he wuz agoin' +through. These 'ere Yankees tuck blam'd good keer of their hides, but +down on the Wawbosh, where he come from, they didn't valley life a +copper in a thing of this 'ere sort. Ef Smith Westcott kep' a shovin' +ahead on his present trail, he'd fetch up kinder suddent all to wunst, +weth a jolt. + +After this, the dread of a tragedy of some sort did not decrease Albert's +eagerness to be away. He began to talk violently to Plausaby, and that +poor gentleman, harassed now by a suit brought by the town of Perritaut +to set aside the county-seat election, and by a prosecution instituted +against him for conspiracy, and by a suit on the part of the fat +gentleman for damages on account of fraud in the matter of the two watery +lots in block twenty-six, and by much trouble arising from his illicit +speculation in claims--this poor Squire Plausaby, in the midst of this +accumulation of vexations, kept his temper sweet, bore all of Albert's +severe remarks with serenity, and made fair promises with an unruffled +countenance. Smith Westcott had defeated Whisky Jim in his contest for +the claim, because the removal of a dishonest receiver left the case to +be decided according to the law and the regulations of the General Land +Office, and the law gave the claim to Westcott. The Privileged Infant, +having taken possession of Jim's shanty, made a feint of living in it, +having moved his trunk, his bed, his whisky, and all other necessaries to +the shanty. As his thirty days had expired, he was getting ready to +pre-empt; the value of the claim would put him in funds, and he +proposed, now that his blood was up, to give up his situation, if he +should find it necessary, and "play out his purty little game" with +Albert Charlton. It was shrewdly suspected, indeed, that if he should +leave the Territory, he would not return. He knew nothing of the pistol +which the Gardeen Angel kept under his wing for him, but Whisky Jim had +threatened that he shouldn't enjoy his claim long. Jim had remarked to +several people, in his lofty way, that Minnesoty wuz a healthy place fer +folks weth consumption, but a dreffle sickly one fer folks what jumped +other folks's claims when they wuz down of typus. And Jim grew more and +more threatening as the time of Westcott's pre-emption drew near. While +throwing the mail-bag off one day at the Metropolisville post-office he +told Albert that he jest wished he knowed which mail Westcott's +land-warrant would come in. He wouldn't steal it, but plague ef he +wouldn't heave it off into the Big Gun River, accidentally a purpose, ef +he had to go to penitensh'ry fer it. + +But after all his weary and impatient waiting on and badgering of +Plausaby, Albert got his land-warrant, and hurried off to the +land-office, made his pre-emption, gave Mr. Minorkey a mortgage with a +waiver in it, borrowed two hundred dollars at three per cent a month and +five after maturity, interest to be settled every six months. + +Then, though it was Friday evening, he would have packed everything and +hurried away the next morning; but his mother interposed her authority. +Katy couldn't be got ready. What was the use of going to Red Owl to stay +over Sunday? There was no boat down Sunday, and they could just as well +wait till Monday, and take the Tuesday boat, and so Albeit reluctantly +consented to wait. + +But he would not let Katy be out of his sight. He was determined that in +these last hours of her stay in the Territory, Smith Westcott should not +have a moment's opportunity for conversation with her. He played the +tyrannical brother to perfection. He walked about the house in a fighting +mood all the time, with brows drawn down and fist ready to clench. + +He must have one more boat-ride with Helen Minorkey, and he took Katy +with him, because he dared not leave her behind. He took them both in the +unpainted pine row-boat which belonged to nobody in particular, and he +rowed away across the little lake, looking at the grassy-green shores on +the one side, and at the basswood trees that shadowed the other. Albert +had never had a happier hour. Out in the lake he was safe from the +incursions of the tempter. Rowing on the water, he relaxed the strain of +his vigilance; out on the lake, with water on every side, he felt secure. +He had Katy, sweet and almost happy; he felt sure now that she would be +able to forget Westcott, and be at peace again as in the old days when he +had built play-houses for the sunny little child. He had Helen, and she +seemed doubly dear to him on the eve of parting. When he was alone with +her, he felt always a sense of disappointment, for he was ever striving +by passionate speeches to elicit some expression more cordial than it was +possible for Helen's cool nature to utter. But now that Katy's presence +was a restraint upon him, this discord between the pitch of his nature +and of hers did not make itself felt, and he was satisfied with himself, +with Helen, and with Katy. And so round the pebbly margin of the lake he +rowed, while they talked and laughed. The reaction from his previous +state of mental tension put Albert into a sort of glee; he was almost as +boisterous as the Privileged Infant himself. He amused himself by +throwing spray on Katy with his oars, and he even ventured to sprinkle +the dignified Miss Minorkey a little, and she unbent enough to make a cup +of her white palm and to dip it into the clear water and dash a good, +solid handful of it into the face of her lover. She had never in her life +acted in so undignified a manner, and Charlton was thoroughly delighted +to have her throw cold water upon him in this fashion. After this, he +rowed down to the outlet, and showed them where the beavers had built a +dam, and prolonged his happy rowing and talking till the full moon came +up out of the prairie and made a golden pathway on the ripples. Albert's +mind dwelt on this boat-ride in the lonely year that followed. It seemed +to him strange that he could have had so much happiness on the brink of +so much misery. He felt as that pleasure party did, who, after hours of +happy sport, found that they had been merry-making in the very current of +the great cataract. + +There are those who believe that every great catastrophe throws its +shadow before it, but Charlton was never more hopeful than when he lifted +his dripping oars from the water at half-past nine o'clock, and said: +"What a grand ride we've had! Let's row together again to-morrow evening. +It is the last chance for a long time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +SAILING. + + +On the Saturday morning after this Friday evening boat-ride, Charlton was +vigilant as ever, and yet Saturday was not a dangerous day. It was the +busy day at the Emporium, and he had not much to fear from Westcott, +whose good quality was expressed by one trite maxim to which he rigidly +adhered. "Business before pleasure" uttered the utmost self-denial of his +life. He was fond of repeating his motto, with no little exultation in +the triumph he had achieved over his pleasure-loving disposition. To this +fidelity to business he owed his situation as "Agent," or head-clerk, of +the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co. If he could have kept from +spending money as fast as he made it, he might have been a partner in the +firm. However, he rejoiced in the success he had attained, and, to +admiring neophytes who gazed in admiration on his perilous achievement of +rather reckless living and success in gaining the confidence of his +employers, he explained the marvel by uttering his favorite adage in his +own peculiar style: "Business before pleasure! By George! That's the +doctrine! A merchant don't care how fast you go to the devil out of +hours, if you keep his business straight. Business before pleasure! +That's the ticket! He! he! By George!" + +When evening came, and Charlton felt that he had but one more day of +standing guard, his hopes rose, he talked to Isabel Marlay with something +of exultation. And he thought it due to Miss Marlay to ask her to make +one of the boating-party. They went to the hotel, where Miss Minorkey +joined them. Albert found it much more convenient walking with three +ladies than with two. Isa and Katy walked on arm-in-arm, and left Albert +to his _tĂŞte-Ă -tĂŞte_ with Helen. And as Sunday evening would be the very +last on which he should see her before leaving for the East, he found it +necessary to walk slowly and say much. For lovers who see each other a +great deal, have more to say the more they are together. + +At the lake a disappointment met them. The old pine boat was in use. It +was the evening of the launching of the new sail-boat, "The Lady of the +Lake," and there was a party of people on the shore. Two young men, in a +spirit of burlesque and opposition, had seized on the old boat and had +chalked upon her bow, "The Pirate's Bride." With this they were rowing up +and down the lake, and exciting much merriment in the crowd on the shore. + +Ben Towle, who was one of the principal stockholders in "The Lady of the +Lake," and who had been suspected of a tender regard for Isabel Marlay, +promptly offered Albert and his party seats in the boat on her first +trip. There were just four vacancies, he said. The three ladies had +stepped aboard, and Albert was following, when the ex-sailor who held the +rudder touched his arm and said, "I don't think it's safe, Mr. Charlton, +fer nobody else to git in. She's got 'leven now, and ef the wind +freshens, twelve would be dangerous." + +"Oh! I'll stay out!" said Albert, retreating. + +"Come, Albert, take my place," said Towle. "You're welcome to it." + +"No, I won't, Ben; you sit still, and I'll stand on the shore and cheer." + +Just as the boat was about to leave her moorings, Smith Westcott came up +and insisted on getting in. + +"'Twon't do, Mr. Wes'cott. 'Ta'n't safe," said the helmsman. "I jest +begged Mr. Charlton not to go. She's got a full load now." + +"Oh! I don't weigh anything. Lighter'n a feather. Only an infant. And +besides, I'm going anyhow, by George!" and with that he started to get +aboard. But Albert had anticipated him by getting in at the other end of +the boat and taking the only vacant seat. The Privileged Infant scowled +fiercely, but Charlton affected not to see him, and began talking in a +loud tone to Ben Towle about the rigging. The line was thrown off and the +boat pushed out, the wind caught the new white sail, and the "Lady of the +Lake" started along in the shallows, gradually swinging round toward the +open water. Soon after her keel had ceased to grind upon the gravel, +Albert jumped out, and, standing over boot-top in water, waved his hat +and wished them a pleasant voyage, and all the ladies in the boat waved +their handkerchiefs at him, appreciating his efforts to keep the boat +from being overloaded, but not thinking of the stronger motive Charlton +had for keeping Smith Westcott ashore. They could not know how much +exultation Albert felt as he sat down on the green grass and poured the +water from his boots. + +There was a fine breeze, the boat sailed admirably, the party aboard +laughed and talked and sang; their voices made merry music that reached +the shore. The merry music was irritating discord to the ears of +Westcott, it made him sweur bitterly at Charlton. I am afraid that it +made Charlton happy to think of Westcott swearing at him. There is great +comfort in being the object of an enemy's curses sometimes--When the +enemy is down, and you are above and master. I think the consciousness +that Westcott was swearing at him made even the fine sunset seem more +glorious to Charlton. The red clouds were waving banners of victory. + +But in ten minutes the situation had changed. Albert saw Westcott walking +across the beaver-dam at the lower end of the lake, and heard him +hallooing to the young men who were rowing the "Pirate's Bride" up and +down and around the "Lady of the Lake," for the ugly old boat was +swiftest. The Pirate's Bride landed and took Westcott aboard, and all of +Albert's rejoicing was turned to cursing, for there, right before his +eyes, the Pirate's Bride ran her brown hull up alongside the white and +graceful Lady of the Lake, and Smith Westcott stepped from the one to the +other. The beauty of the sunset was put out. The new boat sailed up and +down the little lake more swiftly and gracefully than ever as the breeze +increased, but Albert hated it. + +By some change or other in seats Westcott at last got alongside Katy. +Albert distinctly saw the change made, and his anger was mingled with +despair. For Isabel and Helen were in the other end of the boat, and +there were none to help. And so on, on, in the gray dusk of the evening, +the boat kept sailing from one end of the lake to the other, and as it +passed now and then near him, he could see that Smith was in conversation +with little Katy. + +"You needn't worry, Mr. Charlton, I'll fix him." It was the voice of the +Guardian Angel. "I'll fix him, shore as shootin'." And there he stood +looking at Albert. For the first time now it struck Albert that George +Gray was a little insane. There was a strange look in his eyes. If he +should kill Westcott, the law would not hold him accountable. Nobody +would be accountable, and Katy would be saved. + +But in a moment Albert's better feeling was uppermost. The horribleness +of murder came distinctly before him. He shuddered that he should have +entertained the thought of suffering it. + +"You see, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, with eyes having that strange +mysterious look that only belongs to the eyes of people who are at +least on the borders of insanity, "you see this 'ere pistol's got five +bar'ls, all loadened. I tuck out the ole loads las' night and filled +her up weth powder what's shore to go off. Now you leave that air +matter to me, will you?" + +"Let me see your revolver," said Albert. + +Gray handed it to him, and Charlton examined it a minute, and then, with +a sudden resolution, he got to his feet, ran forward a few paces, and +hurled the pistol with all his might into the lake. + +"Don't let us commit murder," he said, turning round and meeting the +excited eyes of the half-insane poet. + +"Well, maybe you're right, but I'll be hanged ef I think it's hardly far +and squar and gentlemanly to wet a feller's catridges that-a-way." + +"I had to," said Albert, trembling. "If I hadn't, you or I would have +been a murderer before morning." + +"Maybe so, but they ain't nothin else to be done. Ef you don't let me +kill the devil, why, then the devil will pack your sister off, and that's +the end on't." + +The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake, +and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs, +and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the +rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless +dejection. And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy. What he said +need not be told: how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the +Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy's sympathies +by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they +must be married, and have it all over at once. Then, when it was all +over, Albert wouldn't feel bad about it any more. Brothers never did. +When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they'd get on +splendidly. By George! Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up +and down the lake. Just what it was will never be known, whether he +planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night +which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows. Isabel Marlay, who +saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points. He had convinced +the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for +Brother Albert as well as for themselves. + +And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over +his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got +in. The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully. + +Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to +Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over +the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the +little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened +suddenly and capsized. + +There was a long, broken, mingled, discordant shriek as of a dozen voices +on different keys uttering cries of terror and despair. There was the +confusion of one person falling over another; there was the wild grasping +for support, the seizing of each other's garments and arms, the undefined +and undefinable struggle of the first desperate minute after a boat has +capsized, the scream that dies to a gurgle in the water and then breaks +out afresh, louder and sharper than before, and then is suddenly +smothered into a gurgle again. There were all these things, there was an +alarm on the shore, a rush of people, and then there came stillness, and +those minutes of desperate waiting, in which the drowning people cling to +rigging and boat, and test the problem of human endurance. It is a race +between the endurance of frightened, chilled, drowning people, and the +stupid lack of presence of mind of those on shore. All the inmates of the +boat got hold of something, and for a minute all their heads were out of +water. Their eyes were so near to the water, that not even the most +self-possessed of them could see what exertions were being made by people +on shore to help them. Thus they clung a minute, no one saying anything, +when Jane Downing, who held to the rigging at some distance from the +boat, paralyzed by fear, let go, and slowly sank out of sight, saying +never a word as she went down, but looking with beseeching eyes at the +rest, who turned away as the water closed over her, and held on more +tenaciously than ever, and wondered whether help ever would reach them. +And this was only at the close of the first minute. There were +twenty-nine other minutes before help came. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SINKING. + + +Isabel Marlay's first care had been to see that little Katy had a good +hold. Helen Minorkey was quite as self-possessed, but her chief care was +to get into a secure position herself. Nothing brings out character more +distinctly than an emergency such as this. Miss Minorkey was resolute and +bent on self-preservation from the first moment. Miss Marlay was +resolute, but full of sympathy for the rest. With characteristic +practical sense, she did what she could to make herself and those within +her reach secure, and then with characteristic faith she composed her +mind to death if it should come, and even ventured with timid courage to +exhort Katy and Miss Minorkey to put their trust in Christ, who could +forgive their sins, and care for them living or dying. Even the most +skeptical of us respect a settled belief in a time of trial. There was +much broken praying from others, simply the cry of terror-stricken +spirits. In all ages men have cried in their extremity to the Unseen +Power, and the drowning passengers in Diamond Lake uttered the same old +cry. Westcott himself, in his first terror, prayed a little and swore a +little by turns. + +The result of self-possession in the case of Isa Marlay and Helen +Minorkey was the same. They did not waste their strength. When people +drown, it is nearly always from a lack of economy of force. Here was +poor little Katy so terrified at thoughts of drowning, and of the cold +slimy bed at the bottom of the lake, and more than all at thoughts of the +ugly black leeches that abounded at the bottom, that she was drawing +herself up head and shoulders out of the water all the time, and praying +brokenly to God and Brother Albert to come and help them. Isa tried to +soothe her, but she shuddered, and said that the lake was so cold, and +she knew she should drown, and Cousin Isa, and Smith, and all of them. +Two or three times, in sheer desperation, little Katy let go, but each +time Isa Marlay saved her and gave her a better hold, and cheered her +with assurances that all would be well yet. + +While one party on the shore were building a raft with which to reach the +drowning people, Albert Charlton and George Gray ran to find the old +boat. But the young men who had rowed in it, wishing to keep it for their +own use, had concealed it in a little estuary on the side of the lake +opposite to the village, so that the two rescuers were obliged to run +half the circumference of the lake before they found it. And even when +they reached it, there were no oars to be found, the party rowing last +having carefully hidden them in the deep grass of the slough by the +outlet. George Gray's quick frontiersman's instinct supplied the +deficiency with sticks broken from a fallen tree. But with the time +consumed in finding the boat, and the time lost in searching for the +oars, and the slowness of the progress made in rowing with these clumsy +poles, and the distance of the boat's starting-point from the scene of +the disaster, the raft had greatly the advantage of them, though Charlton +and Gray used their awkward paddles with the energy of desperation. The +wrecked people had clung to their frail supports nearly a quarter of an +hour, listening to the cries and shouts of their friends ashore, unable +to guess what measures were being taken for their relief, and filled with +a distrustful sense of having been abandoned by God and man. It just then +occurred to Westcott, who had recovered from his first fright, and who +for some time had neither prayed to God nor cursed his luck, that he +might save himself by swimming. In his boyish days, before he had +weakened his texture by self-indulgence and shattered his nerves by +debauchery, he had been famous for his skill and endurance in the water, +and it now occurred to him that he might swim ashore and save Katy +Charlton at the same time. It is easy enough for us to see the interested +motives he had in proposing to save little Katy. He would wipe out the +censure sure to fall on him for overloading the boat, he would put Katy +and her friends under lasting obligations to him, he would win his game. +It is always easy to see the selfish motive. But let us do him justice, +and say that these were not the only considerations. Just as the motives +of no man are good without some admixture of evil, so are the motives of +no man entirely bad. I do not think that Westcott, in taking charge of +Katy, was wholly generous, yet there was a generous, and after a fashion, +maybe, a loving feeling for the girl in the proposal. That good motives +were uppermost, I will not say. They were somewhere in the man, and that +is enough to temper our feeling toward him. + +Isa Marlay was very unwilling to have Katy go. But the poor little thing +was disheartened where she was--the shore did not seem very far away, +looking along the water horizontally--the cries of the people on the bank +seemed near--she was sure she could not hold on much longer--she was so +anxious to get out of this cold lake--she was so afraid to die--she +dreaded the black leeches at the bottom--she loved and trusted Smith as +such women as she always love and trust--and so she was glad to accept +his offer. It was so good of Smith to love her so and to save her. And so +she took hold of his coat-collar as he bade her, and Westcott started to +swim toward the nearest shore. He had swam his two miles once, when he +was a boy, testing his endurance in the waters of the North River, and +Diamond Lake was not a mile wide. There seemed no reason to doubt that he +could swim to the shore, which could not in any event be more than half a +mile away, and which seemed indeed much nearer as he looked over the +surface of the water. But Westcott had not taken all the elements into +the account. He had on his clothing, and before he had gone far, his +boots seemed to fetter him, his saturated sleeves dragged through the +water like leaden weights. His limbs, too, had grown numb from remaining +so long in the water, and his physical powers had been severely taxed of +late years by his dissipations. Add to this that he was encumbered by +Katy, that his fright now returned, and that he made the mistake so often +made by the best of swimmers under excitement, of wasting power by +swimming too high, and you have the causes of rapid exhaustion. + +"The shore seems so far away," murmured Katy. "Why don't Albert come and +save us?" and she held on to Smith with a grasp yet more violent, and he +seemed more and more embarrassed by her hold. + +"Let go my arm, or we'll both drown," he cried savagely, and the poor +little thing took her left hand off his arm, but held all the more firmly +to his collar; but her heart sank in hopelessness. She had never heard +him speak in that savage tone before She only called out feebly, "Brother +Albert!" and the cry, which revealed to Westcott that she put no more +trust in him, but turned now to the strong heart of her brother, angered +him, and helped him to take the resolution he was already meditating. For +his strength was fast failing; he looked back and could see the raft +nearing the capsized boat, but he felt that he had not strength enough +left to return; he began to sink, and Katy, frightened out of all +self-control as they went under the water, clutched him desperately with +both hands. With one violent effort Smith Westcott tore her little hands +from him, and threw her off. He could not save her, anyhow. He must do +that, or drown. He was no hero or martyr to drown with her. That is all. +It cost him a pang to do it, I doubt not. + +Katy came up once, and looked at him. It was not terror at thought of +death, so much as it was heart-break at being thus cast off, that looked +at him out of her despairing eyes. Then she clasped her hands, and cried +aloud, in broken voice: "Brother Albert!" + +And then with a broken cry she sank. + +Oh! Katy! Katy! It were better to sink. I can hardly shed a tear for +thee, as I see thee sink to thy cold bed at the lake-bottom among the +slimy water-weeds and leeches; but for women who live to trust +professions, and who find themselves cast off and sinking--neglected and +helpless in life--for them my heart is breaking. + +Oh! little Katy. Sweet, and loving, and trustful! It were better to +sink among the water-weeds and leeches than to live on. God is more +merciful than man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +DRAGGING. + + +Yes, God is indeed more merciful than man. There are many things worse +than death. There is a fold where no wolves enter; a country where a +loving heart shall not find its own love turned into poison; a place +where the wicked cease from troubling--yes, even in this heretical day, +let us be orthodox enough to believe that there is a land where no Smith +Westcotts ever come. + +There are many cases in which it were better to die. It is easy enough to +say it before it comes. Albert Charlton had said--how many times!--that +he would rather see Katy dead than married to Westcott. But, now that +Katy was indeed dead, how did he feel? + +Charlton and Gray had paddled hard with crooked limbs, the boat was +unmanageable, and they could with difficulty keep her in her coarse. As +they neared the capsized boat, they saw that the raft had taken the +people from it, and Albert heard the voice--there could be no mistake as +to the voice, weak and shivering as it was--of Isa Marlay, calling to him +from the raft: + +"We are all safe. Go and save Katy and--him!" + +"There they air!" said Gray, pointing to two heads just visible above +the water. "Pull away, by thunder!" And the two half-exhausted young men +swung the boat round, and rowed. How they longed for the good oars that +had sent the "Pirate's Bride" driving through the water that afternoon! +How they grudged the time spent in righting her when she veered to right +or left! At last they heard Katy's voice cry out, "Brother Albert!" + +"O God!" groaned Charlton, and bent himself to his oar again. + +"Alb--" The last cry was half-drowned in the water, and when the boat, +with half-a-dozen more strokes, reached the place where Westcott was, so +that he was able to seize the side, there was no Kate to be seen. Without +waiting to lift the exhausted swimmer into the boat, Charlton and Gray +dived. But the water was twenty feet deep, the divers were utterly out of +breath with rowing, and their diving was of no avail. They kept trying +until long after all hope had died out of their hearts. At last Charlton +climbed back into the boat, and sat down. Then Gray got in. Westcott was +so numb and exhausted from staying in the water so long that he could not +get in, but he held to the boat desperately, and begged them to help him. + +"Help him in," said Charlton to Gray. "I can't." + +"I'd like to help him out ef he wuz in, mighty well. I can't kill a +drownin' man, but blamed ef I gin him a leetle finger of help. I'd jest +as soon help a painter outen the water when I know'd he'd swaller the +fust man he come to." + +But Charlton got up and reached a hand to the sinking Westcott. He +shut his eyes while he pulled him in, and was almost sorry he had +saved him. Let us not be too hard on Albert. He was in the first +agony of having reached a hand to save little Katy and missed her. To +come so near that you might have succeeded by straining a nerve a +little more somewhere--that is bitterest of all. If Westcott had only +held on a minute! + +It was with difficulty that Albert and Gray rowed to the shore, where +Plausaby met them, and persuaded them to change their clothes. They were +both soon on the shore again, where large fires were blazing, and the old +boat that had failed to save little Katy alive, was now in use to recover +her body. There is no more hopeless and melancholy work than dragging for +the body of a drowned person. The drag moves over the bottom; the man who +holds the rope, watching for the faintest sensation of resistance in the +muscles of his arm, at last feels something drawing against the drag, +calls to the oarsmen to stop rowing, lets the line slip through his +fingers till the boat's momentum is a little spent, lest he should lose +his hold, then he draws on his line gently, and while the boat drifts +back, he reverently, as becomes one handling the dead, brings the drag to +the surface, and finds that its hooks have brought up nothing but +water-weeds, or a waterlogged bough. And when at last, after hours of +anxious work, the drag brings the lifeless body to the surface, the +disappointment is bitterest of all. For all the time you have seemed to +be seeking the drowned person, and now at last you have got--what? + +It was about eleven o'clock when they first began to drag. Albert had a +sort of vague looking for something, a superstitious feeling that by some +sort of a miracle Katy would yet be found alive. It is the hardest work +the imagination has to do--this realizing that one who has lived by us +will never more be with us. It is hard to project a future for +ourselves, into which one who has filled a large share of our thought and +affection shall never come. And so there lingers a blind hope, a hopeless +hope of something that shall make unreal that which our impotent +imaginations refuse to accept as real. It is a means by which nature +parries a sudden blow. + +Charlton walked up and down the shore, and wished he might take the +drag-line into his own hands; but the mistaken kindness of our friends +refuses us permission to do for our own dead, when doing anything would +be a relief, and when doing for the dead would be the best possible +utterance to the hopeless love which we call grief. + +Mrs. Plausaby, weak and vain though she was, was full of natural +affection. Her love for Albert was checked a little by her feeling that +there was no perfect sympathy between him and her. But upon Katy she had +lavished all her mother's love. People are apt to think that a love which +is not intelligent is not real; there could be no greater mistake. And +the very smallness of the area covered by Mrs. Plausaby's mind made her +grief for Kate all the more passionate. Katy occupied Albert's mind +jointly with Miss Minorkey, with ambition, with benevolence, with +science, with literature, and with the great Philanthropinum that was to +be built and to revolutionize the world by helping it on toward its +"goal." But the interests that shared Mrs. Plausaby's thoughts along with +Katy were very few. Of Albert she thought, and of her husband. But she +gave the chief place to Katy and her own appearance. And so when the blow +had come it was a severe one. At midnight, Albert went back to try to +comfort his mother, and received patiently all her weeping upbraidings +of him for letting his sister go in the boat, he might have known it was +not safe. And then he hastened back again to the water, and watched the +men in the boat still dragging without result. Everybody on the shore +knew just where the "Lady of the Lake" had capsized, and if accurate +information, plentifully given, could have helped to find the bodies, it +would soon have been accomplished. The only difficulty was that this +accurate information was very conflicting, no two of the positive +eye-witnesses being able to agree. So there was much shouting along +shore, and many directions given, but all the searching for a long time +proved vain. All the shouting people hushed their shouting, and spoke in +whispers whenever Albert came near. To most men there is nothing more +reverend than grief. At half-past two o'clock, the man who held the rope +felt a strange thrill, a sense of having touched one of the bodies. He +drew up his drag, and one of the hooks held a piece of a black silk cape. +When three or four more essays had been made, the body itself was brought +to the surface, and the boat turned toward the shore. There was no more +shouting of directions now, not a single loud word was spoken, the +oarsman rowed with a steady funereal rhythm, while Ben Towle, who had +held the drag-rope, now held half out of water the recovered corpse. +Albert leaned forward anxiously to see the face of Katy, but it was Jane +Downing, the girl who was drowned first. Her father took the body in his +arms, drew it out on shore, and wept over it in a quiet fashion for a +while. Then strong and friendly neighbors lifted it, and bore it before +him to his house, while the man followed in a dumb grief. + +Then the dragging for Katy was resumed; but as there was much more doubt +in regard to the place where she went down than there was about the place +of the accident, the search was more difficult and protracted. George +Gray never left Albert for a moment. George wanted to take the drag-rope +himself, but a feeling that he was eccentric, if not insane, kept those +in charge of the boat from giving it to him. + +When Sunday morning came, Katy's body had not yet been found, and the +whole village flocked to the lake shore. These were the first deaths in +Metropolisville, and the catastrophe was so sudden and tragic that it +stirred the entire village in an extraordinary manner. All through that +cloudy Sunday forenoon, in a weary waiting, Charlton sat on the bank of +Diamond Lake. + +"Mr. Charlton," said Gray, "git me into that air boat and I'll git done +with this. I've watched them fellers go round the place tell I can't +stan' it no longer." + +The next time the boat faced toward the place where Charlton stood he +beckoned to them, and the boat came to the shore. + +"Let Mr. Gray row a few times, won't you?" whispered Albert. "I think he +knows the place." + +With that deference always paid to a man in grief, the man who had the +oars surrendered them to the Hoosier Poet, who rowed gently and carefully +toward the place where he and Albert had dived for Katy the night before. +The quick instinct of the trapper stood him in good stead now. The +perception and memory of locality and direction are developed to a degree +that seems all but supernatural in a man who lives a trapper's life. + +"Now, watch out!" said Gray to the man with the rope, as they passed what +he thought to be the place. But the drag did not touch anything. Gray +then went round and pulled at right angles across his former course, +saying again, "Now, watch out!" as they passed the same spot. The man +who held the rope advised him to turn a little to the right, but Gray +stuck to his own infallible instinct, and crossed and re-crossed the same +point six times without success. + +"You see," he remarked, "you kin come awful closte to a thing in the +water and not tech it. We ha'n't missed six foot nary time we passed +thar. It may take right smart rowin' to do it yet. But when you miss a +mark a-tryin' at it, you don't gain nothin' by shootin' wild. Now, +watch out!" + +And just at that moment the drag caught but did not hold. Gray noticed +it, but neither man said a word. The Inhabitant turned the boat round and +pulled slowly back over the same place. The drag caught, and Gray lifted +his oars. The man with the rope, who had suddenly got a great reverence +for Gray's skill, willingly allowed him to draw in the line. The Poet did +so cautiously and tremblingly. When the body came above the water, he had +all he could do to keep from fainting. He gently took hold of the arms +and said to his companion, "Pull away now." And with his own wild, +longing, desolate heart full of grief, Gray held to the little form and +drew her through the water. Despite his grief, the Poet was glad to be +the one who should bring her ashore. He held her now, if only her dead +body, and his unselfish love found a melancholy recompense. Albert would +have chosen him of all men for the office. + +Poor little Kate! In that dread moment when she found herself sinking to +her cold bed among the water-weeds, she had, failing all other support, +clasped her left hand with her right and gone down to darkness. And as +she went, so now came her lifeless body. The right hand clasped tightly +the four little white fingers of the left. + +Poor little Kate! How white as pearl her face was, turned up toward that +Sabbath sky! There was not a spot upon it. The dreaded leeches had done +their work. + +She, whom everybody had called sweet, looked sweeter now than ever. Death +had been kind to the child at the last, and had stroked away every trace +of terror, and of the short anguish she had suffered when she felt +herself cast off by the craven soul she trusted. What might the long +anguish have been had she lived! + +[Illustration: HIS UNSELFISH LOVE FOUND A MELANCHOLY RECOMPENSE.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +AFTERWARDS. + + +The funeral was over, and there were two fresh graves--the only ones in +the bit of prairie set apart for a graveyard. I have written enough in +this melancholy strain. Why should I pause to describe in detail the +solemn services held in the grove by the lake? It is enough that the +land-shark forgot his illegal traffic in claims; the money-lender ceased +for one day to talk of mortgages and per cent and foreclosure; the fat +gentleman left his corner-lots. Plausaby's bland face was wet with tears +of sincere grief, and Mr. Minorkey pressed his hand to his chest and +coughed more despairingly than ever. The grove in which the meeting was +held commanded a view of the lake at the very place where the accident +occurred. The nine survivors sat upon the front seat of all; the friends +of the deceased were all there, and, most pathetic sight of all, the two +mute white faces of the drowned were exposed to view. The people wept +before the tremulous voice of the minister had begun the service, and +there was so much weeping that the preacher could say but little. Poor +Mrs. Plausaby was nearly heart-broken. Nothing could have been more +pathetic than her absurd mingling for two days of the sincerest grief and +an anxious questioning about her mourning-dress. She would ask Isa's +opinion concerning her veil, and then sit down and cry piteously the next +minute. And now she was hopeless and utterly disconsolate at the loss of +her little Katy, but wondering all the time whether Isa could not have +fixed her bonnet so that it would not have looked quite so plain. + +The old minister preached on "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy +youth." I am afraid he said some things which the liberalism of to-day +would think unfit--we all have heresies nowadays; it is quite the style. +But at least the old man reminded them that there were better investments +than corner-lots, and that even mortgages with waivers in them will be +brought into judgment. His solemn words could not have failed entirely of +doing good. + +But the solemn funeral services were over; the speculator in claims dried +his eyes, and that very afternoon assigned a claim, to which he had no +right, to a simple-minded immigrant for a hundred dollars. Minorkey was +devoutly thankful that his own daughter had escaped, and that he could go +on getting mortgages with waivers in them, and Plausaby turned his +attention to contrivances for extricating himself from the embarrassments +of his situation. + +The funeral was over. That is the hardest time of all. You can bear up +somehow, so long as the arrangements and cares and melancholy tributes of +the obsequies last. But if one has occupied a large share of your +thoughts, solicitudes, and affections, and there comes a time when the +very last you can ever do for them, living or dead, is done, then for the +first time you begin to take the full measure of your loss. Albert felt +now that he was picking up the broken threads of another man's life. +Between the past, which had been full of anxieties and plans for little +Kate, and the future, into which no little Kate could ever come, there +was a great chasm. There is nothing that love parts from so regretfully +as its burdens. + +Mrs. Ferret came to see Charlton, and smiled her old sudden puckered +smile, and talked in her jerky complacent voice about the uses of +sanctified affliction, and her trust that the sudden death of his sister +in all the thoughtless vanity of youth would prove a solemn and +impressive warning to him to repent in health before it should be with +him everlastingly too late. Albert was very far from having that +childlike spirit which enters the kingdom of heaven easily. Some +natures, are softened by affliction, but they are not such as his. +Charlton in his aggressiveness demanded to know the reason for +everything. And in his sorrow his nature sent a defiant _why_ back to +the Power that had made Katy's fate so sad, and Mrs. Ferret's rasping +way of talking about Katy's death as a divine judgment on him filled him +with curses bitterer than Job's. + +Miss Isa Marlay was an old-school Calvinist. She had been trained on the +Assembly's Catechism, interpreted in good sound West Windsor fashion. In +theory she never deviated one iota from the solid ground of the creed of +her childhood. But while she held inflexibly to her creed in all its +generalizations, she made all those sweet illogical exceptions which +women of her kind are given to making. In general, she firmly believed +that everybody who failed to have a saving faith in the vicarious +atonement of Christ would be lost. In particular, she excepted many +individual cases among her own acquaintance. And the inconsistency +between her creed and her applications of it never troubled her. She +spoke with so much confidence of the salvation of little Kate, that she +comforted Albert somewhat, notwithstanding his entire antagonism to Isa's +system of theology. If Albert had died, Miss Marlay would have fixed up a +short and easy road to bliss for him also. So much, more generous is +faith than logic! But it was not so much Isa's belief in the salvation of +Katy that did Albert good, as it was her tender and delicate sympathy, +expressed as much when she was silent as when she spoke, and when she +spoke expressed more by the tones of her voice than by her words. + +There was indeed one part of Isabel's theology that Charlton would have +much liked to possess. He had accepted the idea of an Absolute God. A +personal, sympathizing, benevolent Providence was in his opinion one of +the illusions of the theologic stage of human development. Things +happened by inexorable law, he said. And in the drowning of Katy he saw +only the overloading of a boat and the inevitable action of water upon +the vital organs of the human system. It seemed to him now an awful thing +that such great and terrible forces should act irresistibly and blindly. +He wished he could find some ground upon which to base a different +opinion. He would like to have had Isabel's faith in the Paternity of God +and in the immortality of the soul. But he was too honest with himself to +suffer feeling to exert any influence on his opinions. He was in the +logical stage of his development, and built up his system after the +manner of the One-Hoss Shay. Logically he could not see sufficient ground +to change, and he scorned the weakness that would change an opinion +because of feeling. His soul might cry out in its depths for a Father in +the universe. But what does Logic care for a Soul or its cry? After a +while a wider experience brings in something better than Logic. This is +Philosophy. And Philosophy knows what Logic can not learn, that reason is +not the only faculty by which truth is apprehended--that the hungers and +intuitions of the Soul are worth more than syllogisms. + +Do what he would, Charlton could not conceal from himself that in +sympathy Miss Minorkey was greatly deficient. She essayed to show +feeling, but she had little to show. It was not her fault. Do you blame +the dahlia for not having the fragrance of a tuberose? It is the most +dangerous quality of enthusiastic young men and women that they are able +to deceive themselves. Nine tenths of all conjugal disappointments come +from the ability of people in love to see more in those they love than +ever existed there. That love is blind is a fable. He has an affection of +the eyes, but it is not blindness. Nobody else ever sees so much as he +does. For here was Albert Charlton, bound by his vows to Helen Minorkey, +with whom he had nothing in common, except in intellect, and already his +sorrow was disclosing to him the shallowness of her nature, and the depth +of his own; even now he found that she had no voice with which to answer +his hungry cry for sympathy. Already his betrothal was becoming a fetter, +and his great mistake was disclosing itself to him. The rude suspicion +had knocked at his door before, but he had been able to bar it out. Now +it stared at him in the night, and he could not rid himself of it. But he +was still far enough from accepting the fact that the intellectual Helen +Minorkey was destitute of all unselfish feeling. For Charlton was still +in love with her. When one has fixed heart and hope and thought on a +single person, love does not die with the first consciousness of +disappointment. Love can subsist a long time on old associations. +Besides, Miss Minorkey was not aggressively or obtrusively selfish--she +never interfered with anybody else. But there is a cool-blooded +indifference that can be moved by no consideration outside the Universal +Ego. That was Helen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE MYSTERY. + + +I have before me, as one of the original sources of information for this +history, a file of _The Wheat County Weakly Windmill_ for 1856. It is not +a large sheet, but certainly it is a very curious one. In its day this +_Windmill_ ground many grists, though its editorial columns were chiefly +occupied with impartial gushing and expansive articles on the charms of +scenery, fertility of soil, superiority of railroad prospects, +admirableness of location, healthfulness, and general future rosiness of +the various paper towns that paid tribute to its advertising columns. And +the advertising columns! They abounded in business announcements of men +who had "Money to Loan on Good Real Estate" at three, four, five, and six +per cent a month, and of persons who called themselves "Attorneys-at-Law +and Real Estate Agents," who stated that "All business relating to +pre-emption and contested claims would be promptly attended to" at their +offices in Perritaut. Even now, through the thin disguise of +honest-seeming phrases, one can see the bait of the land-shark who +speculated in imaginary titles to claims, or sold corner-lots in +bubble-towns. And, as for the towns, it appears from these advertisements +that there was one on almost every square mile, and that every one of +them was on the line of an inevitable railroad, had a first-class hotel, +a water-power, an academy, and an indefinite number of etcaeteras of the +most delightful and remunerative kind. Each one of these villages was in +the heart of the greatest grain-growing section of the State. Each, was +the "natural outlet" to a large agricultural region. Each commanded the +finest view. Each point was the healthiest in the county, and each +village was "unrivaled." (When one looks at these town-site +advertisements, one is tempted to think that member serious and wise who, +about this time, offered a joint resolution in the Territorial +Legislature, which read: "_Resolved by the Senate and House of +Representatives_, That not more than two thirds of the area of this +Territory should be laid out in town-sites and territorial roads, the +remaining one third to be sacredly reserved for agricultural use.") + +But I prize this old file of papers because it contains a graphic account +of the next event in this narrative. And the young man who edited the +_Windmill_ at this time has told the story with so much sprightliness and +vigor that I can not serve my reader a better turn than by clipping his +account and pasting it just here in my manuscript. (I shall also rest +myself a little, and do a favor to the patient printer, who will rejoice +to get a little "reprint copy" in place of my perplexing manuscript.) For +where else shall I find such a dictionariful command of the hights and +depths--to say nothing of the lengths and breadths--of the good old +English tongue? This young man must indeed have been a marvel of eloquent +verbosity at that period of his career. The article in question has the +very flavor of the golden age of Indian contracts, corner-lots, six per +cent a month, and mortgages with waiver clauses. There, is also visible, +I fear, a little of the prejudice which existed at that time in Perritaut +against Metropolisville. + +[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF "THE WINDMILL."] + +I wish that an obstinate scruple on the part of the printers and the +limits of a duodecimo page did not forbid my reproducing here, in all +their glory, the unique head-lines which precede the article in question. +Any pageant introduced by music is impressive, says Madame de Stael. At +least she says something of that sort, only it is in French, and I can +not remember it exactly. And so any newspaper article is startling when +introduced by the braying of head-lines. Fonts of type for displayed +lines were not abundant in the office of the _Windmill_, but they were +very stunning, and were used also for giving prominence to the euphonious +names of the several towns, whose charms were set forth in the +advertisements. Of course the first of these head-lines ran "Startling +Disclosures!!!!" and then followed "Tremendous Excitement in +Metropolisville!" "Official Rascality!" "Bold Mail Robbery!" "Arrest of +the Postmaster!" "No Doubt of his Guilt!" "An Unexplained Mystery!" +"Sequel to the Awful Drowning Affair of Last Week!" Having thus whetted +the appetite of his reader, and economized in type-setting by nearly a +column of such broad and soul-stirring typography, the editor proceeds: + +"Metropolisville is again the red-hot crater of a boiling and seething +excitement. Scarcely had the rascally and unscrupulous county-seat +swindle begun to lose something of its terrific and exciting interest to +the people of this county, when there came the awful and sad drowning of +the two young ladies, Miss Jennie Downing and Miss Katy Charlton, the +belles of the village, a full account of which will be found in the +_Windmill_ of last week, some copies of which we have still on hand, +having issued an extra edition. Scarcely had the people of +Metropolisville laid these two charming and much-lamented young ladies in +their last, long resting-place, the quiet grave, when there comes like an +earthquake out of a clear sky, the frightful and somewhat surprising and +stunning intelligence that the postmaster of the village, a young man of +a hitherto unexceptionable and blameless reputation, has been arrested +for robbing the mails. It is supposed that his depredations have been +very extensive and long continued, and that many citizens of our own +village may have suffered from them. Farther investigations will +doubtless bring all his nefarious and unscrupulous transactions to light. +At present, however, he is under arrest on the single charge of stealing +a land-warrant. + +"The name of the rascally, villainous, and dishonest postmaster is Albert +Charlton, and here comes in the wonderful and startling romance of this +strange story. The carnival of excitement in Metropolisville and about +Metropolisville has all had to do with one family. Our readers will +remember how fully we have exposed the unscrupulous tricks of the old fox +Plausaby, the contemptible land-shark who runs Metropolisville, and who +now has temporary possession of the county-seat by means of a series of +gigantic frauds, and of wholesale bribery and corruption and nefarious +ballot-box stuffing. The fair Katy Charlton, who was drowned by the +heart-rending calamity of last week, was his step-daughter, and now her +brother, Albert Charlton, is arrested as a vile and dishonest +mail-robber, and the victim whose land-warrant he stole was Miss Kate +Charlton's betrothed lover, Mr. Smith Westcott. There was always hatred +and animosity, however, between the lover and the brother, and it is +hinted that the developments on the trial will prove that young Charlton +had put a hired and ruthless assassin on the track of Westcott at the +time of his sister's death. Mr. Westcott is well known and highly +esteemed in Metropolisville and also here in Perritaut. He is the +gentlemanly Agent in charge of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., +and we rejoice that he has made so narrow an escape from death at the +hands of his relentless and unscrupulous foe. + +"As for Albert Charlton, it is well for the community that he has been +thus early and suddenly overtaken in the first incipiency of a black +career of crime. His poor mother is said to be almost insane at this +second grief, which follows so suddenly on her heart-rending bereavement +of last week. We wish there were some hope that this young man, thus +arrested with the suddenness of a thunderbolt by the majestic and firm +hand of public justice, would reform; but we are told that he is utterly +hard, and refuses to confess or deny his guilt, sitting in moody and +gloomy silence in the room in which he is confined. We again call the +attention of the proper authorities to the fact that Plausaby has not +kept his agreement, and that Wheat County has no secure jail. We trust +that the youthful villain Charlton will not be allowed to escape, but +that he will receive the long term provided by the law for thieving +postmasters. He will be removed to St. Paul immediately, but we seize +the opportunity to demand in thunder-tones how long the citizens of this +county are to be left without the accommodations of a secure jail, of +which they stand in such immediate need? It is a matter in which we all +feel a personal interest. We hope the courts will decide the county-seat +question at once, and then we trust the commissioners will give us a +jail of sufficient size and strength to accommodate a county of ten +thousand people. + +"We would not judge young Charlton before he has a fair trial. We hope he +will have a fair trial, and it is not for us to express any opinions on +the case in advance. If he shall be found guilty--and we do not for a +moment doubt he will--we trust the court will give him the full penalty +of the law without fear or favor, so that his case may prove a solemn and +impressive warning that shall make a lasting impression on the minds of +the thoughtless young men of this community in favor of honesty, and in +regard to the sinfulness of stealing. We would not exult over the +downfall of any man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair +cropped, and finds himself clad in 'Stillwater gray,' and engaged in the +intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, +he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, +that honesty is generally the best policy." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE ARREST. + + +The eloquent editor from whom I have just quoted told the truth when he +said that Metropolisville was "the red-hot crater of a boiling and +seething excitement." For everybody had believed in Charlton. He was not +popular. People with vicarious consciences are not generally beloved +unless they are tempered by much suavity. And Charlton was not. But +everybody, except Mrs. Ferret, believed in his honesty and courage. +Nobody had doubted his sincerity, though Smith Westcott had uttered many +innuendoes. In truth, Westcott had had an uncomfortable time during the +week that followed the drowning. There had been much shaking of the head +about little Katy's death. People who are not at all heroic like to have +other people do sublime things, and there were few who did not think that +Westcott should have drowned with Katy, like the hero of a romance. +People could not forgive him for spoiling a good story. So Smith got the +cold shoulder, and might have left the Territory, but that his +land-warrant had not come. He ceased to dance and to appear cheerful, and +his he! he! took on a sneering inflection. He grew mysterious, and +intimated to his friends that he'd give Metropolisville something else to +talk about before long. By George! He! he! And when the deputy of the +United States marshal swooped down upon the village and arrested the +young post-master on a charge of abstracting Smith Westcott's +land-warrant from the mail, the whole town was agog. "Told you so. By +George!" said Westcott. + +At first the villagers were divided in opinion about Albert. Plenty of +people, like Mrs. Ferret, were ready to rejoice that he was not so good +as he might be, you know. But many others said that he wouldn't steal. A +fellow that had thrown away all his chances of making money wouldn't +steal. To which it was rejoined that if Charlton did not care for money +he was a good hater, and that what such a man would not do for money he +might do for spite. And then, too, it was known that Albert had been very +anxious to get away, and that he wanted to get away before Westcott did. +And that everything depended on which should get a land-warrant first. +What more natural than that Charlton should seize upon Smith Westcott's +land-warrant, and thus help himself and retard his rival? This sort of +reasoning staggered those who would have defended him on the ground of +previous good character. + +But that which shook the popular confidence in Albert most was his own +behavior when arrested. He was perfectly collected until he inquired +what evidence there was against him. The deputy marshal said that it was +very clear evidence, indeed. "The land-warrant with which you pre-empted +your claim bore a certain designating number. The prosecution can prove +that that warrant was mailed at Red Owl on the 24th of August, directed +to Smith Westcott, Metropolisville, and that he failed to receive it. +The stolen property appearing in your hands, you must account for it in +some way." + +At this Charlton's countenance fell, and he refused to make any +explanations or answer any questions. He was purposely kept over one day +in Metropolisville in hope that something passing between him and his +friends, who were permitted to have free access to him, might bring +further evidence to light. But Charlton sat, pale and dejected, ready +enough to converse about anything else, but declining to say one word in +regard to his guilt or innocence of the crime charged. It is not strange +that some of his best friends accepted the charge as true, and only tried +to extenuate the offense on the ground that the circumstances made the +temptation a very great one, and that the motive was not mercenary. +Others stood out that it would yet be discovered that Plausaby had stolen +the warrant, until half-a-dozen people remembered that Plausaby himself +had been in Red Owl at that very time--he had spent a week there laying +out a marshy shore in town lots down to the low-water mark, and also +laying out the summit of a bluff three hundred and fifty feet high and +sixty degrees steep. These sky and water lots were afterward sold to +confiding Eastern speculators, and a year or two later the owner of the +water privileges rowed all over his lots in a skiff. Whether the other +purchaser used a balloon to reach his is not known. But the operation of +staking out these ineligible "additions" to the city of Red Owl had +attracted much attention, and consequently Plausaby's _alibi_ was readily +established. So that the two or three who still believed Albert innocent +did so by "naked faith," and when questioned about it, shook their heads, +and said that it was a great mystery. They could not understand it, but +they did not believe him guilty. Isabel Marlay believed in Albert's +innocence as she believed the hard passages in the catechism. She knew +it, she believed it, she could not prove it, but she would not hear to +anything else. She was sure of his innocence, and that was enough. For +when a woman of that sort believes anything, she believes in spite of all +her senses and all reason. What are the laws of evidence to her! She +believes with the _heart_. + +Poor Mrs. Plausaby, too, sat down in a dumb despair, and wept and +complained and declared that she knew her Albert had notions and such +things, but people with such notions wouldn't do anything naughty. Albert +wouldn't, she knew. He hadn't done any harm, and they couldn't find out +that he had. Katy was gone, and now Albert was in trouble, and she didn't +know what to do. She thought Isa might do something, and not let all +these troubles come on her in this way. For the poor woman had come to +depend on Isa not only in weighty matters, such as dresses and bonnets, +but also in all the other affairs of life. And it seemed to her a +grievous wrong that Isabel, who had saved her from so many troubles, +should not have kept Katy from drowning and Albert from prison. + +The chief trouble in the mind of Albert was not the probability of +imprisonment, nor the overthrow of his educational schemes--though all of +these were cups of bitterness. But the first thought with him was to ask +what would be the effect of his arrest on Miss Minorkey. He had felt some +disappointment in not finding Helen the ideal woman he had pictured her, +but, as I said a while ago, love does not die at the first +disappointment. If it finds little to live on in the one who is loved, it +will yet find enough in the memories, the hopes, and the ideals that +dwell within the lover. Charlton, in the long night after his arrest, +reviewed everything, but in thinking of Miss Minorkey, he did not once +recur to her lack of deep sympathy with him in his sorrow for Katy. The +Helen he thought of was the radiant Helen that sat by his beloved Katy in +the boat on that glorious evening in which he rowed in the long northern +twilight, the Helen that had relaxed her dignity enough to dip her palm +in the water and dash spray into his face. He saw her like one looking +back through clouds of blackness to catch a sight of a bit of sky and a +single shining star. As the impossibility of his marrying Helen became +more and more evident to him, she grew all the more glorious in her +culture, her quietness, her thoughtfulness. That she would break her +heart for him, he did not imagine, but he did hope--yes, hope--that she +would suffer acutely on his account. + +And when Isa Marlay bravely walked through the crowd that had gathered +about the place of his confinement, and asked to see him, and he was told +that a young lady wanted to be admitted, he hoped that it might be Helen +Minorkey. When he saw that it was Isabel he was glad, partly because he +would rather have seen her than anybody else, next to Helen, and partly +because he could ask her to carry a message to Miss Minorkey. He asked +her to take from his trunk, which had already been searched by the +marshal's deputy, all the letters of Miss Minorkey, to tie them in a +package, and to have the goodness to present them to that lady with his +sincere regards. + +"Shall I tell her that you are innocent?" asked Isabel, wishing to +strengthen her own faith by a word of assurance from Albert. + +"Tell her--" and Albert cast down his eyes a moment in painful +reflection--"tell her that I will explain some day. Meantime, tell her to +believe what you believe about me." + +"I believe that you are innocent." + +"Thank you, Miss Isabel," said Albert warmly, but then he stopped and +grew red in the face. He did not give her one word of assurance. Even +Isa's faith was staggered for a moment. But only for a moment. The faith +of a woman like Isabel Marlay laughs at doubt. + +I do not know how to describe the feelings with which Miss Marlay went +out from Albert. Even in the message, full of love, which he had sent to +his mother, he did not say one word about his guilt or innocence. And yet +Isabel believed in her heart that he had not committed the crime. While +he was strong and free from suspicion, Isa Marlay had admired him. He +seemed to her, notwithstanding his eccentricities, a man of such truth, +fervor, and earnestness of character, that she liked him better than she +was willing to admit to herself. Now that he was an object of universal +suspicion, her courageous and generous heart espoused his cause +vehemently. She stood ready to do anything in the world for him. Anything +but what he had asked her to do. Why she did not like to carry messages +from him to Miss Minorkey she did not know. As soon as she became +conscious of this jealous feeling in her heart, she took herself to task +severely. Like the good girl she was, she set her sins out in the light +of her own conscience. She did more than that. But if I should tell you +truly what she did with this naughty feeling, how she dragged it out into +the light and presence of the Holy One Himself, I should seem to be +writing cant, and people would say that I was preaching. And yet I +should only show you the source of Isa's high moral and religious +culture. Can I write truly of a life in which the idea of God as Father, +Monitor, and Friend is ever present and dominant, without showing you the +springs of that life? + +When Isabel Marlay, with subdued heart, sought Miss Minorkey, it was +with her resolution fixed to keep the trust committed to her, and, as far +as possible, to remove all suspicions from Miss Minorkey's mind. As for +any feeling in her own heart--she had no right to have any feeling but a +friendly one to Albert. She would despise a woman who could love a man +that did not first declare his love for her. She said this to herself +several times by way of learning the lesson well. + +Isa found Miss Minorkey, with her baggage packed, ready for a move. Helen +told Miss Marlay that her father found the air very bad for him, and +meant to go to St. Anthony, where there was a mineral spring and a good +hotel. For her part, she was glad of it, for a little place like +Metropolisville was not pleasant. So full of gossip. And no newspapers or +books. And very little cultivated society. + +Miss Marlay said she had a package of something or other, which Mr. +Charlton had sent with his regards. She said "something or other" from an +instinctive delicacy. + +"Oh! yes; something of mine that he borrowed, I suppose," said Helen. +"Have you seen him? I'm really sorry for him. I found him a very pleasant +companion, so full of reading and oddities. He's the last man I should +have believed could rob the post-office." + +"Oh! but he didn't," said Isa. + +"Indeed! Well, I'm glad to hear it. I hope he'll be able to prove it. Is +there any new evidence?" + +Isa was obliged to confess that she had heard of none, and Miss Minorkey +proceeded like a judge to explain to Miss Marlay how strong the evidence +against him was. And then she said she thought the warrant had been +taken, not from cupidity, but from a desire to serve Katy. It was a pity +the law could not see it in that way. But all the time Isa protested with +vehemence that she did not believe a word of it. Not one word. All the +judges and juries and witnesses in the world could not convince her of +Albert's guilt. Because she knew him, and she just knew that he couldn't +do it, you see. + +Miss Minorkey said it had made her father sick. "I've gone with Mr. +Charlton so much, you know, that it has made talk," she said. "And father +feels bad about it. And"--seeing the expression of Isa's countenance, she +concluded that it would not do to be quite so secretive--"and, to tell +you the truth, I did like him. But of course that is all over. Of course +there couldn't be anything between us after this, even if he were +innocent." + +Isa grew indignant, and she no longer needed the support of religious +faith and high moral principle to enable her to plead the cause of Albert +Charlton with Miss Minorkey. + +"But I thought you loved him," she said, with just a spice of bitterness. +"The poor fellow believes that you love him." + +Miss Minorkey winced a little. "Well, you know, some people are +sentimental, and others are not. It is a good thing for me that I'm not +one of those that pine away and die after anybody. I suppose I am not +worthy of a high-toned man, such as he seemed to be. I have often told +him so. I am sure I never could marry a man that had been in the +penitentiary, if he were ever so innocent. Now, could you. Miss Marlay?" + +Isabel blushed, and said she could if he were innocent. She thought a +woman ought to stand by the man she loved to the death, if he were +worthy. But Helen only sighed humbly, and said that she never was made +for a heroine. She didn't even like to read about high-strung people in +novels. She supposed it was her fault--people had to be what they were, +she supposed. Miss Marlay must excuse her, though. She hadn't quite got +her books packed, and the stage would be along in an hour. She would be +glad if Isabel would tell Mr. Charlton privately, if she had a chance, +how sorry she felt for him. But please not say anything that would +compromise her, though. + +And Isa Marlay went out of the hotel full of indignation at the +cool-blooded Helen, and full of a fathomless pity for Albert, a pity that +made her almost love him herself. She would have loved to atone for all +Miss Minorkey's perfidy. And just alongside of her pity for Charlton thus +deserted, crept in a secret joy. For there was now none to stand nearer +friend to Albert than herself. + +And yet Charlton did not want for friends. Whisky Jim had a lively sense +of gratitude to him for his advocacy of Jim's right to the claim as +against Westcott; and having also a lively antagonism to Westcott, he +could see no good reason why a man should serve a long term in +State's-prison for taking from a thief a land-warrant with which the +thief meant to pre-empt another man's claim. And the Guardian Angel had +transferred to the brother the devotion and care he once lavished on the +sister. It was this unity of sentiment between the Jehu from the Green +Mountains and the minstrel from the Indiana "Pocket" that gave Albert a +chance for liberty. + +The prisoner was handcuffed and confined in an upper room, the windows of +which were securely boarded up on the outside. About three o'clock of the +last night he spent in Metropolisville, the deputy marshal, who in the +evening preceding had helped to empty two or three times the ample flask +of Mr. Westcott, was sleeping very soundly. Albert, who was awake, heard +the nails drawn from the boards. Presently the window was opened, and a +familiar voice said in a dramatic tone: + +"Mr. Charlton, git up and foller." + +Albert arose and went to the window. + +"Come right along, I 'low the coast's clear," said the Poet. + +"No, I can not do that, Gray," said Charlton, though the prospect of +liberty was very enticing. + +"See here, mister, I calkilate es this is yer last chance fer fifteen +year ur more," put in the driver, thrusting his head in alongside his +Hoosier friend's. + +"Come," added Gray, "you an' me'll jest put out together fer the Ingin +kedentry ef you say so, and fetch up in Kansas under some fancy names, +and take a hand in the wras'le that's agoin' on thar. Nobody'll ever +track you. I've got a Yankton friend as'll help us through." + +"My friends, I'm ever so thankful to you--" + +"Blame take yer thanks! Come along," broke in the Superior Being. "It's +now ur never." + +"I'll be dogged ef it haint," said the Poet. + +Charlton looked out wistfully over the wide prairies. He might escape and +lead a wild, free life with Gray, and then turn up in some new Territory +under an assumed name and work out his destiny. But the thought of being +a fugitive from justice was very shocking to him. + +[Illustration: "GIT UP AND FOLLER!"] + +"No! no! I can't. God bless you both. Good-by!" And he went back to his +pallet on the floor. When the rescuers reached the ground the Superior +Being delivered himself of some very sulphurous oaths, intended to +express his abhorrence of "idees." + +"There's that air blamed etarnal infarnal nateral born eejiot'll die in +Stillwater penitensh'ry jest fer idees. Orter go to a 'sylum." + +But the Poet went off dejectedly to his lone cabin on the prairie. + +And there was a great row in the morning about the breaking open of the +window and the attempted rescue. The deputy marshal told a famous story +of his awaking in the night and driving off a rescuing party of eight +with his revolver. And everybody wondered who they were. Was Charlton, +then, a member of a gang? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE TEMPTER. + + +Albert was conveyed to St. Paul, but not until he had had one +heart-breaking interview with his mother. The poor woman had spent nearly +an hour dressing herself to go to him, for she was so shaken with +agitation and blinded with weeping, that she could hardly tie a ribbon or +see that her breast-pin was in the right place. This interview with her +son shook her weak understanding to its foundations, and for days +afterward Isa devoted her whole time to diverting her from the +accumulation of troubled thoughts and memories that filled her with +anguish--an anguish against the weight of which her feeble nature could +offer no supports. + +When Albert was brought before the commissioner, he waived examination, +and was committed to await the session of the district court. Mr. +Plausaby came up and offered to become his bail, but this Charlton +vehemently refused, and was locked up in jail, where for the next two or +three months he amused himself by reading the daily papers and such books +as he could borrow, and writing on various subjects manuscripts which he +never published. + +The confinement chafed him. His mother's sorrow and feeble health +oppressed him. And despite all he could do, his own humiliation bowed his +head a little. But most of all, the utter neglect of Helen Minorkey hurt +him sorely. Except that she had sent, through Isabel Marlay, that little +smuggled message that she was sorry for him--like one who makes a great +ado about sending you something which turns out to be nothing--except +this mockery of pity, he had no word or sign from Helen. His mind dwelt +on her as he remembered her in the moments when she had been carried out +of herself by the contagion of his own enthusiasm, when she had seemed to +love him devotedly. Especially did he think of her as she sat in quiet +and thoughtful enjoyment in the row-boat by the side of Katy, playfully +splashing the water and seeming to rejoice in his society. And now she +had so easily accepted his guilt! + +These thoughts robbed him of sleep, and the confinement and lack of +exercise made him nervous. The energetic spirit, arrested at the very +instant of beginning cherished enterprises, and shut out from hope of +ever undertaking them, preyed upon itself, and Albert had a morbid +longing for the State's prison, where he might weary himself with toil. + +His counsel was Mr. Conger. Mr. Conger was not a great jurist. Of the +philosophy of law he knew nothing. For the sublime principles of equity +and the great historic developments that underlie the conventions which +enter into the administration of public justice, Mr. Conger cared +nothing. But there was one thing Mr. Conger did understand and care for, +and that was success. He was a man of medium hight, burly, active, ever +in motion. When he had ever been still long enough to read law, nobody +knew. He said everything he had to say with a quick, vehement utterance, +as though he grudged the time taken to speak fully about anything. He +went along the street eagerly; he wrote with all his might. There were +twenty men in the Territory, at that day, any one of whom knew five times +as much law as he. Other members of the bar were accustomed to speak +contemptuously of Conger's legal knowledge. But Conger won more cases and +made more money than any of them. If he did not know law in the widest +sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that +served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could +break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his +opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; +he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of +the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to +testimony on the other side, and try to get in irrelevant testimony on +his own; he would abuse the opposing counsel, crying out, "The counsel on +the other side lies like thunder, and he knows it!" By shrewdness, by an +unwearying perseverance, by throwing his whole weight into his work, +Conger made himself the most successful lawyer of his time in the +Territory. And preserved his social position at the same time, for though +he was not at all scrupulous, he managed to keep on the respectable side +of the line which divides the lawyer from the shyster. + +Mr. Conger had been Mr. Plausaby's counsel in one or two cases, and +Charlton, knowing no other lawyer, sent for him. Mr. Conger had, with his +characteristic quickness of perception, picked up the leading features of +the case from the newspapers. He sat down on the bed in Charlton's cell +with his brisk professional air, and came at once to business in his +jerky-polite tone. + +"Bad business, this, Mr. Charlton, but let us hope we'll pull through. +_We_ generally _do_ pull through. Been in a good many tight places in my +time. But it is necessary, first of all, that you trust me. The boat is +in a bad way--you hail a pilot--he comes aboard. Now--hands off the +helm--you sit down and let the pilot steer her through. You understand?" +And Mr. Conger looked as though he might have smiled at his own +illustration if he could have spared the time. But he couldn't. As for +Albert, he only looked more dejected. + +"Now," he proceeded, "let's get to business. In the first place, you must +trust me with everything. You must tell me whether you took the warrant +or not." And Mr. Conger paused and scrutinized his client closely. + +Charlton said nothing, but his face gave evidence of a struggle. + +"Well, well, Mr. Charlton," said the brisk man with the air of one who +has gotten through the first and most disagreeable part of his business, +and who now proposes to proceed immediately to the next matter on the +docket. "Well, well, Mr. Charlton, you needn't say anything if the +question is an unpleasant one. An experienced lawyer knows what silence +means, of course," and there was just a trifle of self-gratulation in his +voice. As for Albert, he winced, and seemed to be trying to make up his +mind to speak. + +"Now," and with this _now_ the lawyer brought his white fat hand down +upon his knee in an emphatic way, as one who says "nextly." "Now--there +are several courses open to us. I asked you whether you took the warrant +or not, because the line of defense that presents itself first is to +follow the track of your suspicions, and fix the guilt on some one else +if we can. I understand, however, that that course is closed to us?" + +Charlton nodded his head. + +"We might try to throw suspicion--only suspicion, you know--on the +stage-driver or somebody else. Eh? Just enough to confuse the jury?" + +Albert shook his head a little impatiently. + +"Well, well, that's so--_not_ the _best_ line. The warrant was in your +hands. You used it for pre-emption. That is very ugly, very. I don't +think much of that line, under the circumstances. It might excite +feeling against us. It is a very bad case. But we will pull through, I +hope. We generally do. Give the case wholly into my hands. We'll +postpone, I think. I shall have to make an affidavit that there are +important witnesses absent, or something of the sort. But we'll have the +case postponed. There's some popular feeling against you, and juries go +as the newspapers do. Now, I see but one way, and that is to postpone +until the feeling dies down. Then we can manage the papers a little and +get up some sympathy for you. And there's no knowing what may happen. +There's nothing like delay in a bad case. Wait long enough, and +something is sure to turn up." + +"But I don't want the case postponed," said Charlton decidedly. + +"Very natural that you shouldn't like to wait. This is not a pleasant +room. But it is better to wait a year or even two years in this jail than +to go to prison for fifteen or twenty. Fifteen or twenty years out of the +life of a young man is about all there is worth the having." + +Here Charlton shuddered, and Mr. Conger was pleased to see that his words +took effect. + +"You'd better make up your mind that the case is a bad one, and trust to +my experience. When you're sick, trust the doctor. I think I can pull you +through if you'll leave the matter to me." + +"Mr. Conger," said Charlton, lifting up his pale face, twitching with +nervousness, "I don't want to get free by playing tricks on a court of +law. I know that fifteen or twenty years in prison would not leave me +much worth living for, but I will not degrade myself by evading justice +with delays and false affidavits. If you can do anything for me fairly +and squarely, I should like to have it done." + +"Scruples, eh?" asked Mr. Conger in surprise. + +"Yes, scruples," said Albert Charlton, leaning his head on his hands with +the air of one who has made a great exertion and has a feeling of +exhaustion. + +"Scruples, Mr. Charlton, are well enough when one is about to break the +law. After one has been arrested, scruples are in the way." + +"You have no right to presume that I have broken the law," said Charlton +with something of his old fire. + +"Well, Mr. Charlton, it will do no good for you to quarrel with your +counsel. You have as good as confessed the crime yourself. I must insist +that you leave the case in my hands, or I must throw it up. Take time to +think about it. I'll send my partner over to get any suggestions from you +about witnesses. The most we can do is to prove previous good character. +That isn't worth anything where the evidence against the prisoner is so +conclusive--as in your case. But it makes a show of doing something." And +Mr. Conger was about leaving the cell when, as if a new thought had +occurred to him, he turned back and sat down again and said: "There _is_ +one other course open to you. Perhaps it is the best, since you will not +follow my plan. You can plead guilty, and trust to the clemency of the +President. I think strong political influences could be brought to bear +at Washington in favor of your pardon?" + +Charlton shook his head, and the lawyer left him "to think the matter +over," as he said. Then ensued the season of temptation. Why should he +stand on a scruple? Why not get free? Here was a conscienceless attorney, +ready to make any number of affidavits in regard to the absence of +important witnesses; ready to fight the law by every technicality of the +law. His imprisonment had already taught him how dear liberty was, and, +within half an hour after Conger left him, a great change came over him. +Why should he go to prison? What justice was there in his going to +prison? Here he was, taking a long sentence to the penitentiary, while +such men as Westcott and Conger were out. There could be no equity in +such an arrangement. Whenever a man begins to seek equality of +dispensation, he is in a fair way to debauch his conscience. And another +line of thought influenced Charlton. The world needed his services. What +advantage would there be in throwing away the chances of a lifetime on a +punctilio? Why might he not let the serviceable lawyer do as he pleased? +Conger was the keeper of his own conscience, and would not be either more +or less honest at heart for what he did or did not do. All the kingdoms +of the earth could not have tempted Charlton to serve himself by another +man's perjury. But liberty on one hand and State's-prison on the other, +was a dreadful alternative. And so, when the meek and studious man whom +Conger used for a partner called on him, he answered all his questions, +and offered no objection to the assumption of the quiet man that Mr. +Conger would carry on the case in his own fashion. + +Many a man is willing to be a martyr till he sees the stake and fagots. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE TRIAL. + + +From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he +began to lose peace of mind. His self-respect was impaired, and he became +impatient, and chafed under his restraint. As the trial drew on, he was +more than ever filled with questionings in regard to the course he should +pursue. For conscience is like a pertinacious attorney. When a false +decision is rendered, he is forever badgering the court with a bill of +exceptions, with proposals to set aside, with motions for new trials, +with applications for writs of appeal, with threats of a Higher Court, +and even with contemptuous mutterings about impeachment. If Isa had not +written to him, Albert might have regained his moral _aplomb_ in some +other way than he did--he might not. For human sympathy is Christ's own +means of regenerating the earth. If you can not counsel, if you can not +preach, if you can not get your timid lips to speak one word that will +rebuke a man's sin, you can at least show the fellowship of your heart +with his. There is a great moral tonic in human brotherhood. Worried, +desperate, feeling forsaken of God and man, it is not strange that +Charlton should shut his teeth together and defy his scruples. He would +use any key he could to get out into the sunlight again. He quoted all +those old, half-true, half-false adages about the lawlessness of +necessity and so on. Then, weary of fencing with himself, he wished for +strength to stand at peace again, as when he turned his back on the +temptations of his rescuers in Metropolisville. But he had grown weak and +nervous from confinement--prisons do not strengthen the moral power--and +he had moreover given way to dreaming about liberty until he was like a +homesick child, who aggravates his impatience by dwelling much on the +delightfulness of the meeting with old friends, and by counting the +slow-moving days that intervene. + +But there came, just the day before the trial, a letter with the +post-mark "Metropolisville" on it. That post-mark always excited a +curious feeling in him. He remembered with what boyish pride he had taken +possession of his office, and how he delighted to stamp the post-mark on +the letters. The address of this letter was not in his mother's undecided +penmanship--it was Isa Marlay's straightforward and yet graceful +writing, and the very sight of it gave him comfort. The letter was simply +a news letter, a vicarious letter from Isabel because Mrs. Plausaby did +not feel well enough to write; this is what Isa said it was, and what she +believed it to be, but Charlton knew that Isa's own friendly heart had +planned it. And though it ran on about this and that unimportant matter +of village intelligence, yet were its commonplace sentences about +commonplace affairs like a fountain in the desert to the thirsty soul of +the prisoner. I have read with fascination in an absurdly curious book +that people of a very sensitive fiber can take a letter, the contents and +writer of which are unknown, and by pressing it for a time against the +forehead can see the writer and his surroundings. It took no spirit of +divination in Charlton's case. The trim and graceful figure of Isa +Marlay, in perfectly fitting calico frock, with her whole dress in that +harmonious relation of parts for which she was so remarkable, came before +him. He knew that by this time she must have some dried grasses in the +vases, and some well-preserved autumn leaves around the picture-frames. +The letter said nothing about his trial, but its tone gave him assurance +of friendly sympathy, and of a faith in him that could not be shaken. +Somehow, by some recalling of old associations, and by some subtle +influence of human sympathy, it swept the fogs away from the soul of +Charlton, and he began to see his duty and to feel an inspiration toward +the right. I said that the letter did not mention the trial, but it did. +For when Charlton had read it twice, he happened to turn it over, and +found a postscript on the fourth page of the sheet. I wonder if the habit +which most women have of reserving their very best for the postscript +comes from the housekeeper's desire to have a good dessert. Here on the +back Charlton read: + +"P.8.--Mr. Gray, your Hoosier friend, called on me yesterday, and sent +his regards. He told me how you refused to escape. I know you well enough +to feel sure that you would not do anything mean or unmanly. I pray that +God will sustain you on your trial, and make your innocence appear. I am +sure you are innocent, though I can not understand it. Providence will +overrule it all for good, I believe." + +Something in the simple-hearted faith of Isabel did him a world of good. +He was in the open hall of the jail when he read it, and he walked about +the prison, feeling strong enough now to cope with temptation. That very +morning he had received a New Testament from a colporteur, and now, out +of regard to Isa Marlay's faith, maybe--out of some deeper feeling, +possibly--he read the story of the trial and condemnation of Jesus. In +his combative days he had read it for the sake of noting the +disagreements between the Evangelists in some of the details. But now he +was in no mood for small criticism. Which is the shallower, indeed, the +criticism that harps on disagreements in such narratives, or the +pettifogging that strives to reconcile them, one can hardly tell. In +Charlton's mood, in any deeply earnest mood, one sees the smallness of +all disputes about sixth and ninth hours. Albert saw the profound +essential unity of the narratives, he felt the stirring of the deep +sublimity of the story, he felt the inspiration of the sublimest +character in human history. Did he believe? Not in any orthodox sense. +But do you think that the influence of the Christ is limited to them who +hold right opinions about Him? If a man's heart be simple, he can not see +Jesus in any light without getting good from Him. Charlton, unbeliever +that he was, wet the pages with tears, tears of sympathy with the high +self-sacrifice of Jesus, and tears of penitence for his own moral +weakness, which stood rebuked before the Great Example. + +And then came the devil, in the person of Mr. Conger. His face was full +of hopefulness as he sat down in Charlton's cell and smote his fat white +hand upon his knee and said "Now!" and looked expectantly at his client. +He waited a moment in hope of rousing Charlton's curiosity. + +"We've got them!" he said presently. "I told you we should pull through. +Leave the whole matter to me." + +"I am willing to leave anything to you but my conscience," said Albert. + +"The devil take your conscience, Mr. Charlton. If you are guilty, and so +awfully conscientious, plead guilty at once. If you propose to cheat the +government out of some years of penal servitude, why, well and good. But +you must have a devilish queer conscience, to be sure. If you talk in +that way, I shall enter a plea of insanity and get you off whether you +will or not. But you might at least hear me through before you talk about +conscience. Perhaps even _your_ conscience would not take offense at my +plan, unless you consider yourself foreordained to go to penitentiary." + +"Let's hear your plan, Mr. Conger," said Charlton, hoping there might be +some way found by which he could escape. + +Mr. Conger became bland again, resumed his cheerful and hopeful look, +brought down his fat white hand upon his knee, looked up over his +client's head, while he let his countenance blossom with the promise of +his coming communication. He then proceeded to say with a cheerful +chuckle that there was a flaw in the form of the indictment--the grand +jury had blundered. He had told Charlton that something would certainly +happen. And it had. Then Mr. Conger smote his knee again, and said +"Now!" once more, and proceeded to say that his plan was to get the +trial set late in the term, so that the grand jury should finish their +work and be discharged before the case came on. Then he would have the +indictment quashed. + +He said this with so innocent and plausible a face that at first it did +not seem very objectionable to Charlton. + +"What would we gain by quashing the indictment, Mr. Conger?" + +"Well, if the indictment were quashed on the ground of a defect in its +substance, then the case falls. But this is only defective in form. +Another grand jury can indict you again. Now if the District Attorney +should be a little easy--and I think that, considering your age, and my +influence with him, he would be--a new commitment might not issue perhaps +before you could get out of reach of it. If you were committed again, +then we gain time. Time is everything in a bad case. You could not be +tried until the next term. When the next term comes, we could then see +what could be done. Meantime you could get bail." + +If Charlton had not been entirely clear-headed, or entirely in a mood +to deal honestly with himself, he would have been persuaded to take +this course. + +"Let me ask you a question, Mr. Conger. If the case were delayed, and I +still had nothing to present against the strong circumstantial evidence +of the prosecution--if, in other words, delay should still leave us in +our present position--would there be any chance for me to escape by a +fair, stand-up trial?" + +"Well, you see, Mr. Charlton, this is precisely a case in which we will +not accept a pitched battle, if we can help it. After a while, when the +prosecuting parties feel less bitter toward you, we might get some of the +evidence mislaid, out of the way, or get some friend on the jury, +or--well, we might manage somehow to dodge trial on the case as it +stands. Experience is worth a great deal in these things." + +"There are, then, two possibilities for me," said Charlton very quietly. +"I can run away, or we may juggle the evidence or the jury. Am I right?" + +"Or, we can go to prison?" said Conger, smiling. + +"I will take the latter alternative," said Charlton. + +"Then you owe it to me to plead guilty, and relieve me from +responsibility. If you plead guilty, we can get a recommendation of mercy +from the court." + +"I owe it to myself not to plead guilty," said Charlton, speaking still +gently, for his old imperious and self-confident manner had left him. + +"Very well," said Mr. Conger, rising, "if you take your fate into your +own hands in that way, I owe it to _myself_ to withdraw from the case." + +"Very well, Mr. Conger." + +"Good-morning, Mr. Charlton!" + +"Good-morning, Mr. Conger." + +And with Mr. Conger's disappearance went Albert's last hope of escape. +The battle had been fought, and lost--or won, as you look at it. Let us +say won, for no man's case is desperate till he parts with manliness. + +Charlton had the good fortune to secure a young lawyer of little +experience but of much principle, who was utterly bewildered by the +mystery of the case, and the apparently paradoxical scruples of his +client, but who worked diligently and hopelessly for him. He saw the flaw +in the indictment and pointed it out to Charlton, but told him that as it +was merely a technical point he would gain nothing but time. Charlton +preferred that there should be no delay, except what was necessary to +give his counsel time to understand the case. In truth, there was little +enough to understand. The defense had nothing left to do. + +When Albert came into court he was pale from his confinement. He +looked eagerly round the crowded room to see if he could find the +support of friendly faces. There were just two. The Hoosier Poet sat +on one of the benches, and by him sat Isa Marlay. True, Mr. Plausaby +sat next to Miss Marlay, but Albert did not account him anything in +his inventory of friends. + +Isabel wondered how he would plead. She hoped that he did not mean to +plead guilty, but the withdrawal of Conger from the case filled her with +fear, and she had been informed by Mr. Plausaby that he could refuse to +plead altogether, and it would be considered a plea of not guilty. She +believed him innocent, but she had not had one word of assurance to that +effect from him, and even her faith had been shaken a little by the +innuendoes and suspicions of Mr. Plausaby. + +Everybody looked at the prisoner. Presently the District Attorney moved +that Albert Charlton be arraigned. + +The Court instructed the clerk, who said, "Albert Charlton, come +forward." + +Albert here rose to his feet, and raised his right hand in token of +his identity. + +The District Attorney said, "This prisoner I have indicted by the +grand jury." + +"Shall we waive the reading of the indictment?" asked Charlton's counsel. + +"No," said Albert, "let it be read," and he listened intently while the +clerk read it. + +"Albert Charlton, you have heard the charge. What say you: Guilty, or, +Not guilty?" Even the rattling and unmeaning voice in which the clerk was +accustomed to go through with his perfunctory performances took on some +solemnity. + +There was dead silence for a moment. Isa Marlay's heart stopped beating, +and the Poet from Posey County opened his mouth with eager anxiety. +When Charlton spoke, it was in a full, solemn voice, with deliberation +and emphasis. + +"NOT GUILTY!" + +"Thank God!" whispered Isa. + +The Poet shut his mouth and heaved a sigh of relief. + +The counsel for the defense was electrified. Up to that moment he had +believed that his client was guilty. But there was so much of solemn +truthfulness in the voice that he could not resist its influence. + +As for the trial itself, which came off two days later, that was a dull +enough affair. It was easy to prove that Albert had expressed all sorts +of bitter feelings toward Mr. Westcott; that he was anxious to leave; +that he had every motive for wishing to pre-empt before Westcott did; +that the land-warrant numbered so-and-so--it is of no use being accurate +here, they were accurate enough in court--had been posted in Red Owl on a +certain day; that a gentleman who rode with the driver saw him receive +the mail at Red Owl, and saw it delivered at Metropolisville; that +Charlton pre-empted his claim--the S.E. qr. of the N.E. qr., and the N. +1/2 of the S.E. qr. of Section 32, T. so-and-so, R. such-and-such--with +this identical land-warrant, as the records of the land-office showed +beyond a doubt. + +Against all this counsel for defense had nothing whatever to offer. +Nothing but evidence of previous good character, nothing but to urge that +there still remained perhaps the shadow of a doubt. No testimony to show +from whom Charlton had received the warrant, not the first particle of +rebutting evidence. The District Attorney only made a little perfunctory +speech on the evils brought upon business by theft in the post-office. +The exertions of Charlton's counsel amounted to nothing; the jury found +him guilty without deliberation. + +The judge sentenced him with much solemn admonition. It was a grievous +thing for one so young to commit such a crime. He warned Albert that he +must not regard any consideration as a justification for such an offense. +He had betrayed his trust and been guilty of theft. The judge expressed +his regret that the sentence was so severe. It was a sad thing to send a +young man of education and refinement to be the companion of criminals +for so many years. But the law recognized the difference between a theft +by a sworn and trusted officer and an ordinary larceny. He hoped that +Albert would profit by this terrible experience, and that he would so +improve the time of his confinement with meditation, that what would +remain to him of life when he should come out of the walls of his prison +might be spent as an honorable and law-abiding citizen. He sentenced him +to serve the shortest term permitted by the statute, namely, ten years. + +The first deep snow of the winter was falling outside the court-house, +and as Charlton stood in the prisoners' box, he could hear the jingling +of sleigh-bells, the sounds that usher in the happy social life of winter +in these northern latitudes. He heard the judge, and he listened to the +sleigh-bells as a man who dreams--the world was so far off from him +now--ten weary years, and the load of a great disgrace measured the gulf +fixed between him and all human joy and sympathy. And when, a few minutes +afterward, the jail-lock clicked behind him, it seemed to have shut out +life. For burial alive is no fable. Many a man has heard the closing of +the vault as Albert Charlton did. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PENITENTIARY. + + +It was a cold morning. The snow had fallen heavily the day before, and +the Stillwater stage was on runners. The four horses rushed round the +street-corners with eagerness as the driver, at a little past five +o'clock in the morning, moved about collecting passengers. From the +up-town hotels he drove in the light of the gas-lamps to the jail where +the deputy marshal, with his prisoner securely handcuffed, took his seat +and wrapped the robes about them both. Then at the down-town hotels they +took on other passengers. The Fuller House was the last call of all. + +"Haven't you a back-seat?" The passenger partly spoke and partly coughed +out his inquiry. + +"The back-seat is occupied by ladies," said the agent, "you will have to +take the front one." + +"It will kill me to ride backwards," whined the desponding voice of +Minorkey, but as there were only two vacant seats he had no choice. He +put his daughter in the middle while he took the end of the seat and +resigned himself to death by retrograde motion. Miss Helen Minorkey was +thus placed exactly _vis-Ă -vis_ with her old lover Albert Charlton, but +in the darkness of six o'clock on a winter's morning in Minnesota, she +could not know it. The gentleman who occupied the other end of the seat +recognized Mr. Minorkey, and was by him introduced to his daughter. That +lady could not wholly resist the exhilaration of such a stage-ride over +snowy roads, only half-broken as yet, where there was imminent peril of +upsetting at every turn. And so she and her new acquaintance talked of +many things, while Charlton could not but recall his ride, a short +half-year ago, on a front-seat, over the green prairies--had prairies +ever been greener?--and under the blue sky, and in bright sunshine--had +the sun ever shone so brightly?--with this same quiet-voiced, thoughtful +Helen Minorkey. How soon had sunshine turned to darkness! How suddenly +had the blossoming spring-time changed to dreariest winter! + +It is really delightful, this riding through the snow and darkness in a +covered coach on runners, this battling with difficulties. There is a +spice of adventure in it quite pleasant if you don't happen to be the +driver and have the battle to manage. To be a well-muffled passenger, +responsible for nothing, not even for your own neck, is thoroughly +delightful--provided always that you are not the passenger in handcuffs +going to prison for ten years. To the passenger in handcuffs, whose good +name has been destroyed, whose liberty is gone, whose future is to be +made of weary days of monotonous drudgery and dreary nights in a damp +cell, whose friends have deserted him, who is an outlaw to society--to +the passenger in handcuffs this dashing and whirling toward a living +entombment has no exhilaration. Charlton was glad of the darkness, but +dreaded the dawn when there must come a recognition. In a whisper he +begged the deputy marshal to pull his cap down over his eyes and to +adjust his woolen comforter over his nose, not so much to avoid the cold +wind as to escape the cold eyes of Helen Minorkey. Then he hid his +handcuffs under the buffalo robes so that, if possible, he might escape +recognition. + +The gentleman alongside Miss Minorkey asked if she had read the account +of the trial of young Charlton, the post-office robber. + +"Part of it," said Miss Minorkey. "I don't read trials much." + +"For my part," said the gentleman, "I think the court was very merciful. +I should have given him the longest term known to the law. He ought to go +for twenty-one years. We all of us have to risk money in the mails, and +if thieves in the post-office are not punished severely, there is no +security." + +There spoke Commerce! Money is worth so much more than humanity, you +know! + +Miss Minorkey said that she knew something of the case. It was very +curious, indeed. Young Charlton was disposed to be honest, but he was +high-tempered. The taking of the warrant was an act of resentment, she +thought. He had had two or three quarrels or fights, she believed, with +the man from whom he took the warrant. He was a very talented young man, +but very ungovernable in his feelings. + +The gentleman said that that was the very reason why he should have gone +for a longer time. A talented and self-conceited man of that sort was +dangerous out of prison. As it was, he would learn all the roguery of the +penitentiary, you know, and then we should none of us be safe from him. + +There spoke the Spirit of the Law! Keep us safe, O Lord! whoever may go +to the devil! + +In reply to questions from her companion, Miss Minorkey told the story of +Albert's conflict with Westcott--she stated the case with all the +coolness of a dispassionate observer. + +There was no sign--Albert listened for it--of the slightest sympathy for +or against him in the matter. Then the story of little Katy was told as +one might tell something that had happened a hundred years ago, without +any personal sympathy. It was simply a curious story, an interesting +adventure with which to beguile a weary hour of stage riding in the +darkness. It would have gratified Albert to have been able to detect the +vibration of a painful memory or a pitying emotion, but Helen did not +suffer her placidity to be ruffled by disturbing emotion. The +conversation drifted to other subjects presently through Mr. Minorkey's +sudden recollection that the drowning excitement at Metropolisville had +brought on a sudden attack of his complaint, he had been seized with a +pain just under his ribs. It ran up to the point of the right shoulder, +and he thought he should die, etc., etc., etc. Nothing saved him but +putting his feet into hot water, etc., etc., etc. + +The gray dawn came on, and Charlton was presently able to trace the +lineaments of the well-known countenance. He was not able to recognize it +again without a profound emotion, an emotion that he could not have +analyzed. Her face was unchanged, there was not the varying of a line in +the placid, healthy, thoughtful expression to indicate any deepening of +her nature through suffering. Charlton's face had changed so that she +would not have recognized him readily had it been less concealed. And by +so much as his countenance had changed and hers remained fixed, had he +drifted away from her. Albert felt this. However painful his emotion was, +as he sat there casting furtive glances at Helen's face, there was no +regret that all relation between them was broken forever. He was not +sorry for the meeting. He needed such a meeting to measure the parallax +of his progress and her stagnation. He needed this impression of Helen to +obliterate the memory of the row-boat. She was no longer to remain in his +mind associated with the blessed memory of little Kate. Hereafter he +could think of Katy in the row-boat--the other figure was a dim unreality +which might have come to mean something, but which never did mean +anything to him. + +I wonder who keeps the tavern at Cypher's Lake now? In those old days it +was not a very reputable place; it was said that many a man had there +been fleeced at poker. The stage did not reach it on this snowy morning +until ten o'clock. The driver stopped to water, the hospitable landlord, +whose familiar nickname was "Bun," having provided a pail and cut a hole +through the ice of the lake for the accommodation of the drivers. Water +for beasts--gentlemen could meantime find something less "beastly" than +ice-water in the little low-ceiled bar-room on the other side of the +road. The deputy-marshal wanted to stretch his legs a little, and so, +trusting partly to his knowledge of Charlton's character, partly to +handcuffs, and partly to his convenient revolver, he leaped out of the +coach and stepped to the door of the bar-room just to straighten his +legs, you know, and get a glass of whisky "straight" at the same time. In +getting into the coach again he chanced to throw back the buffalo-robe +and thus exposed Charlton's handcuffs. Helen glanced at them, and then at +Albert's face. She shivered a little, and grew red. There was no +alternative but to ride thus face to face with Charlton for six miles. +She tried to feel herself an injured person, but something in the +self-possessed face of Albert--his comforter had dropped down now--awed +her, and she affected to be sick, leaning her head on her father's +shoulder and surprising that gentleman beyond measure. Helen had never +shown so much emotion of any sort in her life before, certainly never so +much confusion and shame. And that in spite of her reasoning that it was +not she but Albert who should be embarrassed. But the two seemed to have +changed places. Charlton was as cold and immovable as Helen Minorkey ever +had been; she trembled and shuddered, even with her eyes shut, to think +that his eyes were on her--looking her through and through--measuring all +the petty meanness and shallowness of her soul. She complained of the +cold and wrapped her blanket shawl about her face and pretended to be +asleep, but the shameful nakedness of her spirit seemed not a whit less +visible to the cool, indifferent eyes that she felt must be still looking +at her from under the shadow of that cap-front. What a relief it was at +last to get into the warm parlor of the hotel! But still she shivered +when she thought of her ride. + +It is one thing to go into a warm parlor of a hotel, to order your room, +your fire, your dinner, your bed. It is quite another to drive up under +the high, rough limestone outer wall of a prison--a wall on which moss +and creeper refuse to grow--to be led handcuffed into a little office, to +have your credentials for ten years of servitude presented to the warden, +to have your name, age, nativity, hight, complexion, weight, and +distinguishing marks carefully booked, to have your hair cropped to half +the length of a prize-fighter's, to lay aside the dress which you have +chosen and which seems half your individuality, and put on a suit of +cheerless penitentiary uniform--to cease to be a man with a place among +men, and to become simply a convict. This is not nearly so agreeable as +living at the hotel. Did Helen Minorkey ever think of the difference? + +There is little to be told of the life in the penitentiary. It is very +uniform. To eat prison fare without even the decency of a knife or +fork--you might kill a guard or a fellow-rogue with a fork--to sleep in a +narrow, rough cell on a hard bed, to have your cell unlocked and to be +marched out under guard in the morning, to go in a row of prisoners to +wash your face, to go in a procession to a frugal breakfast served on tin +plates in a dining-room mustier than a cellar, to be marched to your +work, to be watched by a guard while you work, to know that the guard has +a loaded revolver and is ready to draw it on slight provocation, to march +to meals under awe of the revolver, to march to bed while the man with +the revolver walks behind you, to be locked in and barred in and +double-locked in again, to have a piece of candle that will burn two +hours, to burn it out and lie down in the darkness--to go through one +such day and know that you have to endure three thousand six hundred and +fifty-two days like it--that is about all. The life of a blind horse in a +treadmill is varied and cheerful in comparison. + +Oh! yes, there is Sunday. I forgot the Sunday. On Sundays you don't have +to work in the shops. You have the blessed privilege of sitting alone in +your bare cell all the day, except the hour of service. You can think +about the outside world and wish you were out. You can read, if you can +get anything interesting to read. You can count your term over, think of +a broken life, of the friends of other days who feel disgraced at mention +of your name, get into the dumps, and cry a little if you feel like it. +Only crying doesn't seem to do much good. Such is the blessedness of the +holy Sabbath in prison! + +But Charlton did not let himself pine for liberty. He was busy with +plans for reconstructing his life. What he would have had it, it could +not be. You try to build a house, and it is shaken down about your ears +by an earthquake. Your material is, much of it, broken. You can never +make it what you would. But the brave heart, failing to do what it would, +does what it can. Charlton, who had hated the law as a profession, was +now enamored of it. He thought rightly that there is no calling that +offers nobler opportunities to a man who has a moral fiber able to bear +the strain. When he should have finished his term, he would be +thirty-one, and would be precluded from marriage by his disgrace. He +could live on a crust, if necessary, and be the champion of the +oppressed. What pleasure he would have in beating Conger some day! So he +arranged to borrow law-books, and faithfully used his two hours of candle +in studying. He calculated that in ten years--if he should survive ten +years of life in a cell--he could lay a foundation for eminence in legal +learning. Thus he made vinegar-barrels all day, and read Coke on +Littleton on Blackstone at night. His money received from the contractor +for over-work, he used to buy law-books. + +Sometimes he hoped for a pardon, but there was only one contingency that +was likely to bring it about. And he could not wish for that. Unless, +indeed, the prison-officers should seek a pardon for him. From the +beginning they had held him in great favor. When he had been six months +in prison, his character was so well established with the guards that no +one ever thought of watching him or of inspecting his work. + +He felt a great desire to have something done in a philanthropic way for +the prisoners, but when the acting chaplain, Mr. White, preached to +them, he always rebelled. Mr. White had been a steamboat captain, a +sheriff, and divers other things, and was now a zealous missionary among +the Stillwater lumbermen. The State could not afford to give more than +three hundred dollars a year for religious and moral instruction at this +time, and so the several pastors in the city served alternately, three +months apiece. Mr. White was a man who delivered his exhortations with +the same sort of vehemence that Captain White had used in giving orders +to his deck-hands in a storm; he arrested souls much as Sheriff White had +arrested criminals. To Albert's infidelity he gave no quarter. Charlton +despised the chaplain's lack of learning until he came to admire his +sincerity and wonder at his success. For the gracefulest and eruditest +orator that ever held forth to genteelest congregation, could not have +touched the prisoners by his highest flight of rhetoric as did the +earnest, fiery Captain-Sheriff-Chaplain White, who moved aggressively on +the wickedness of his felonious audience. + +When Mr. White's three months had expired, there came another pastor, as +different from him as possible. Mr. Lurton was as gentle as his +predecessor had been boisterous. There was a strong substratum of manly +courage and will, but the whole was overlaid with a sweetness wholly +feminine and seraphic. His religion was the Twenty-third Psalm. His face +showed no trace of conflict. He had accepted the creed which he had +inherited without a question, and, finding in it abundant sources of +happiness, of moral development, and spiritual consolation, he thence +concluded it true. He had never doubted. It is a question whether his +devout soul would not have found peace and edification in any set of +opinions to which he had happened to be born. You have seen one or two +such men in your life. Their presence is a benison. Albert felt more +peaceful while Mr. Lurton stood without the grating of his cell, and +Lurton seemed to leave a benediction behind him. He did not talk in pious +cant, he did not display his piety, and he never addressed a sinner down +an inclined plane. He was too humble for that. But the settled, the +unruffled, the unruffleable peacefulness and trustfulness of his soul +seemed to Charlton, whose life had been stormier within than without, +nothing less than sublime. The inmates of the prison could not appreciate +this delicate quality in the young minister. Lurton had never lived near +enough to their life for them to understand him or for him to understand +them. He considered them all, on general principles, as lost sinners, +bad, like himself, by nature, who had superadded outward transgressions +and the crime of rejecting Christ to their original guilt and corruption +as members of the human family. + +Charlton watched Lurton with intense interest, listened to all he had to +say, responded to the influence of his fine quality, but found his own +doubts yet unanswered and indeed untouched. The minister, on his part, +took a lively interest in the remarkable young man, and often endeavored +to remove his doubts by the well-knit logical arguments he had learned in +the schools. + +"Mr. Lurton," said Charlton impatiently one day, "were you ever troubled +with doubt?" + +"I do not remember that I ever seriously entertained a doubt in regard to +religious truth in my life," said Lurton, after reflection. + +"Then you know no more about my doubts than a blind man knows of your +sense of sight." But after a pause, he added, laughing: "Nevertheless, I +would give away my doubtativeness any day in exchange for your +peacefulness." Charlton did not know, nor did Lurton, that the natures +which have never been driven into the wilderness to be buffeted of the +devil are not the deepest. + +It was during Mr. Lurton's time as chaplain that Charlton began to +receive presents of little ornamental articles, intended to make his cell +more cheerful. These things were sent to him by the hands of the +chaplain, and the latter was forbidden to tell the name of the giver. +Books and pictures, and even little pots with flowers in them, came to +him in the early spring. He fancied they might come from some unknown +friend, who had only heard of him through the chaplain, and he was prone +to resent the charity. He received the articles with thankful lips, but +asked in his heart, "Is it not enough to be a convict, without being +pitied as such?" Why anybody in Stillwater should send him such things, +he did not know. The gifts were not expensive, but every one gave +evidence of a refined taste. + +At last there came one--a simple cross, cut in paper, intended to be hung +up as a transparency before the window--that in some unaccountable way +suggested old associations. Charlton had never seen anything of the kind, +but he had the feeling of one who half-recognizes a handwriting. The +pattern had a delicacy about it approaching to daintiness, an expression +of taste and feeling which he seemed to have known, as when one sees a +face that is familiar, but which one can not "place," as we say. Charlton +could not place the memory excited by this transparency, but for a moment +he felt sure that it must be from some one whom he knew. But who could +there be near enough to him to send flower-pots and framed pictures +without great expense? There was no one in Stillwater whom he had ever +seen, unless indeed Helen Minorkey were there yet, and he had long since +given up all expectation and all desire of receiving any attention at her +hands. Besides, the associations excited by the transparency, the taste +evinced in making it, the sentiment which it expressed, were not of Helen +Minorkey. It was on Thursday that he hung it against the light of his +window. It was not until Sunday evening, as he lay listlessly watching +his scanty allowance of daylight grow dimmer, that he became sure of the +hand that he had detected in the workmanship of the piece. He got up +quickly and looked at it more closely and said: "It must be Isa Marlay!" +And he lay down again, saying: "Well, it can never be quite dark in a +man's life when he has one friend." And then, as the light grew more and +more faint, he said: "Why did not I see it before? Good orthodox Isa +wants to preach to me. She means to say that I should receive light +through the cross." + +And he lay awake far into the night, trying to divine how the flower-pots +and pictures and all the rest could have been sent all the way from +Metropolisville. It was not till long afterward that he discovered the +alliance between Whisky Jim and Isabel, and how Jim had gotten a friend +on the Stillwater route to help him get them through. But Charlton wrote +Isa, and told her how he had detected her, and thanked her cordially, +asking her why she concealed her hand. She replied kindly, but with +little allusion to the gifts, and they came no more. When Isa had been +discovered she could not bring herself to continue the presents. Save +that now and then there came something from his mother, in which Isa's +taste and skill were evident, he received nothing more from her, except +an occasional friendly letter. He appreciated her delicacy too late, and +regretted that he had written about the cross at all. + +One Sunday, Mr. Lurton, going his round, found Charlton reading the New +Testament. + +"Mr. Lurton, what a sublime prayer the Pater-noster is!" exclaimed +Charlton. + +"Yes;" said Lurton, "it expresses so fully the only two feelings that can +bring us to God--a sense of guilt and a sense of dependence." + +"What I admired in the prayer was not that, but the unselfishness that +puts God and the world first, and asks bread, forgiveness, and guidance +last. It seems to me, Mr. Lurton, that all men are not brought to God by +the same feelings. Don't you think that a man may be drawn toward God by +self-sacrifice--that a brave, heroic act, in its very nature, brings us +nearer to God? It seems to me that whatever the rule may be, there are +exceptions; that God draws some men to Himself by a sense of sympathy; +that He makes a sudden draft on their moral nature--not more than they +can bear, but all they can bear--and that in doing right under +difficulties the soul finds itself directed toward God--opened on the +side on which God sits." + +Mr. Lurton shook his head, and protested, in his gentle and earnest way, +against this doctrine of man's ability to do anything good before +conversion. + +"But, Mr. Lurton," urged Albert, "I have known a man to make a great +sacrifice, and to find himself drawn by that very sacrifice into a great +admiring of Christ's sacrifice, into a great desire to call God his +father, and into a seeking for the forgiveness and favor that would make +him in some sense a child of God. Did you never know such a case?" + +"Never. I do not think that genuine conversions come in that way. A sense +of righteousness can not prepare a man for salvation--only a sense of +sin--a believing that all our righteousness is filthy rags. Still, I +wouldn't discourage you from studying the Bible in any way. You will come +round right after a while, and then you will find that to be saved, a man +must abhor every so-called good thing that he ever did." + +"Yes," said Charlton, who had grown more modest in his trials, "I am +sure there is some truth in the old doctrine as you state it. But is +not a man better and more open to divine grace, for resisting a +temptation to vice?" + +Mr. Lurton hesitated. He remembered that he had read, in very sound +writers, arguments to prove that there could be no such thing as good +works before conversion, and Mr. Lurton was too humble to set his +judgment against the great doctors'. Besides, he was not sure that +Albert's questions might not force him into that dangerous heresy +attributed to Arminius, that good works may be the impulsive cause by +which God is moved to give His grace to the unconverted. + +"Do you think that a man can really do good without God's help?" asked +Mr. Lurton. + +"I don't think man ever tries to do right in humility and sincerity +without some help from God," answered Albert, whose mode of thinking +about God was fast changing for the better. "I think God goes out a long, +long way to meet the first motions of a good purpose in a man's heart. +The parable of the Prodigal Son only half-tells it. The parable breaks +down with a truth too great for human analogies. I don't know but that +He acts in the beginning of the purpose. I am getting to be a +Calvinist--in fact, on some points, I out-Calvin Calvin. Is not God's +help in the good purposes of every man?" + +Mr. Lurton shook his head with a gentle gravity, and changed the subject +by saying, "I am going to Metropolisville next week to attend a meeting. +Can I do anything for you?" + +"Go and see my mother," said Charlton, with emotion. "She is sick, and +will never get well, I fear. Tell her I am cheerful. And--Mr. Lurton--do +you pray with her. I do not believe anything, except by fits and starts; +but one of your prayers would do my mother good. If she could be half as +peaceful as you are, I should be happy." + +Lurton walked away down the gallery from Albert's cell, and descended +the steps that led to the dining-room, and was let out of the locked and +barred door into the vestibule, and out of that into the yard, and +thence out through other locks into the free air of out-doors. Then he +took a long breath, for the sight of prison doors and locks and bars and +grates and gates and guards oppressed even his peaceful soul. And +walking along the sandy road that led by the margin of Lake St. Croix +toward the town, he recalled Charlton's last remark. And as he +meditatively tossed out of the path with his boot the pieces of +pine-bark which in this lumbering country lie about everywhere, he +rejoiced that Charlton had learned to appreciate the value of Christian +peace, and he offered a silent prayer that Albert might one day obtain +the same serenity as himself. For nothing was further from the young +minister's mind than the thought that any of his good qualities were +natural. He considered himself a miracle of grace upon all sides. As if +natural qualities were not also of God's grace! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MR. LURTON. + + +It was a warm Sunday in the early spring, one week after Mr. Lurton's +conversation with Charlton, that the latter sat in his cell feeling the +spring he could not see. His prison had never been so much a prison. To +perceive this balminess creeping through the narrow, high window--a mere +orifice through a thick wall--and making itself feebly felt as it fell +athwart the damp chilliness of the cell, to perceive thus faintly the +breath of spring, and not to be able to see the pregnant tree-buds +bursting with the coming greenness of the summer, and not to be able to +catch the sound of the first twittering of the returning sparrows and the +hopeful chattering of the swallows, made Albert feel indeed that he and +life had parted. + +Mr. Lurton's three months as chaplain had expired, and there had come in +his stead Mr. Canton, who wore a very stiff white neck-tie and a very +straight-breasted long-tailed coat. Nothing is so great a bar to human +sympathies as a clerical dress, and Mr. Canton had diligently fixed a +great gulf between himself and his fellow-men. Charlton's old, bitter +aggressiveness, which had well-nigh died out under the sweet influences +of Lurton's peacefulness, came back now, and he mentally pronounced the +new chaplain a clerical humbug and an ecclesiastical fop, and all such +mild paradoxical epithets as he was capable of forming. The hour of +service was ended, and Charlton was in his cell again, standing under the +high window, trying to absorb some of the influences of the balmy air +that reached him in such niggardly quantities. He was hungering for a +sight of the woods, which he knew must be so vital at this season. He had +only the geraniums and the moss-rose that Isa, had sent, and they were +worse than nothing, for they pined in this twilight of the cell, and +seemed to him smitten, like himself, with a living death. He almost +stopped, his heart's beating in his effort to hear the voices of the +birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, +and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the +clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the +wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next, +and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a +moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton befitting a criminal. + +Mr. Canton then handed him a letter, and seeing that it was addressed +in the friendly hand of Lurton, he took it to the window and opened +it, and read: + +"DEAR MR. CHARLTON: + +"I should have come to see you and told you about my trip to +Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town again. I send this by +Mr. Canton, and also a request to the warden to pass this and your answer +without the customary inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your +stepfather and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing very fast, +and I do not think it would be a kindness for me to conceal from you my +belief that she can not live many weeks. I talked with her and prayed +with her as you requested, but she seems to have some intolerable mental +burden. Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and, indeed, I +never saw a more faithful person than she in my life, or a more +remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a Christian life. She takes +every burden off your mother except that unseen load which seems to +trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the +way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends +the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating +circumstances, and we might be able to help you. + +"But I am writing about everything except what I want to say, or rather +to ask, for I tremble to ask it. Are you interested in any way other +than as a friend in Miss Isabel Marlay? You will guess why I ask the +question. Since I met her I have thought of her a great deal, and I may +add to you that I have anxiously sought divine guidance in a matter +likely to affect the usefulness of my whole life. I will not take a +single step in the direction in which my heart has been so suddenly +drawn, if you have any prior claim, or even the remotest hope of +establishing one in some more favorable time. Far be it from me to add a +straw to the heavy burden you have had to bear. I expect to be in +Metropolisville again soon, and will see your mother once more. Please +answer me with frankness, and believe me, + +"Always your friend, + +J.H. LURTON." + +The intelligence regarding his mother's health was not new to Albert, for +Isa had told him fully of her state. It would be difficult to describe +the feeling of mingled pain and pleasure with which he read Lurton's +confession of his sudden love for Isabel. Nothing since his imprisonment +had so humbled Charlton as the recollection of the mistake he had made in +his estimate of Helen Minorkey, and his preference for her over Isa. He +had lain on his cot sometimes and dreamed of what might have been if he +had escaped prison and had chosen Isabel instead of Helen. He had +pictured to himself the content he might have had with such a woman for a +wife. But then the thought of his disgrace--a disgrace he could not share +with a wife--always dissipated the beautiful vision and made the hard +reality of what was, seem tenfold harder for the ravishing beauty of what +might have been. + +And now the vision of the might-have-been came back to him more clearly +than ever, and he sat a long while with his head leaning on his hand. +Then the struggle passed, and he lighted his little ration of candle, +and wrote: + +"SUNDAY EVENING. + +"REV. J.H. LURTON: + +"DEAR SIR: You have acted very honorably in writing me as you have, and I +admire you now more than ever. You fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I +never had the slightest claim or the slightest purpose to establish any +claim on Isabel Marlay, for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did +not appreciate her until it was too late. And now! What have I to offer +to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A name tarnished forever! +No! I shall never share that with Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best +and most sensible of women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as +you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel. I love you +both. God bless you! + +"Very respectfully and gratefully, CHARLTON." + +Mr. Lurton had staid during the meeting of the ecclesiastical +body--Presbytery, Consociation, Convention, Conference, or what not, it +does not matter--at Squire Plausaby's Albert had written about him, and +Isa, as soon as she heard that he was to attend, had prompted Plausaby to +enter a request with the committee on the entertainment of delegates for +the assignment of Mr. Lurton to him as guest. His peacefulness had not, +as Albert and Isabel hoped, soothed the troubled spirit of Mrs. Plausaby, +who was in a great terror at thought of death. The skillful surgeon +probes before he tries to heal, and Mr. Lurton set himself to find the +cause of all this irritation in the mind of this weak woman. Sometimes +she seemed inclined to tell him all, but it always happened that when she +was just ready to speak, the placid face of Plausaby glided in at the +door. On the appearance of her husband, Mrs. Plausaby would cease +speaking. It took Lurton a long time to discover that Plausaby was the +cause of this restraint. He did discover it, however, and endeavored to +get an interview when there was no one present but Isabel. In trying to +do this, he made a fresh discovery--that Plausaby was standing guard over +his wife, and that the restraint he exercised was intentional. The +mystery of the thing fascinated him; and the impression that it had +something to do with Charlton, and the yet stronger motive of a sense of +duty to the afflicted woman, made him resolute in his determination to +penetrate it. Not more so, however, than was Isabel, who endeavored in +every way to secure an uninterrupted interview for Mr. Lurton, but +endeavored in vain. + +Lurton was thus placed in favorable circumstances to see Miss Marlay's +qualities. Her graceful figure in her simple tasteful, and perfectly +fitting frock, her rhythmical movement, her rare voice, all touched +exquisitely so sensitive a nature as Lurton's. But more than that was he +moved by her diligent management of the household, her unwearying +patience with the querulous and feeble-minded sick woman, her tact and +common-sense, and especially the entire truthfulness of her character. + +Mr. Lurton made excuse to himself for another trip to Metropolisville +that he had business in Perritaut. It was business that might have +waited; it was business that would have waited, but for his desire to +talk further with Mrs. Plausaby, and for his other desire to see and talk +with Isabel Marlay again. For, if he should fail of her, where would he +ever find one so well suited to help the usefulness of his life? Happy is +he whose heart and duty go together! And now that Lurton had found that +Charlton had no first right to Isabel, his worst fear had departed. + +Even in his palpitating excitement about Isa, he was the true minister, +and gave his first thought to the spiritual wants of the afflicted woman +whom he regarded as providentially thrown upon his care. He was so +fortunate as to find Plausaby absent at Perritaut. But how anxiously did +he wait for the time when he could see the sick woman! Even Isa almost +lost her patience with Mrs. Plausaby's characteristic desire to be fixed +up to receive company. She must have her hair brushed and her bed +"tidied," and, when Isabel thought she had concluded everything, Mrs. +Plausaby would insist that all should be undone again and fixed m some +other way. Part of this came from her old habitual vanity, aggravated by +the querulous childishness produced by sickness, and part from a desire +to postpone as long as she could an interview which she greatly dreaded. +Isa knew that time was of the greatest value, and so, when she had +complied with the twentieth unreasonable exaction of the sick woman, and +was just about to hear the twenty-first, she suddenly opened the door of +Mrs. Plausaby's sickroom and invited Mr. Lurton to enter. + +And then began again the old battle--the hardest conflict of all--the +battle with vacillation. To contend with a stubborn will is a simple +problem of force against force. But to contend with a weak and +vacillating will is fighting the air. + +Mrs. Plausaby said she had something to say to Mr. Lurton. But--dear +me--she was so annoyed! The room was not fit for a stranger to see. She +must look like a ghost. There was something that worried her. She was +afraid she was going to die, and she had--did Mr. Lurton think she would +die? Didn't he think she might get well? + +Mr. Lurton had to say that, in his opinion, she could never get well, and +that if there was anything on her mind, she would better tell it. + +Didn't Isa think she could get well? She didn't want to die. But then +Katy was dead. Would she go to heaven if she died? Did Mr. Lurton think +that if she had done wrong, she ought to confess it? Couldn't she be +forgiven without that? Wouldn't he pray for her unless she confessed it? +He ought not to be so hard on her. Would God be hard on her if she did +not tell it all? Oh! she was so miserable! + +Mr. Lurton told her that sometimes people committed sin by refusing to +confess because their confession had something to do with other people. +Was her confession necessary to remove blame from others? + +"Oh!" cried the sick woman, "Albert has told you all about it! Oh, dear! +now I shall have more trouble! Why didn't he wait till I'm dead? Isn't it +enough to have Katy drowned and Albert gone to that awful place and this +trouble? Oh! I wish I was dead! But then--maybe God would be hard on me! +Do you think God would be hard on a woman that did wrong if she was told +to do it? And if she was told to do it by her own husband? And if she had +to do it to save her husband from some awful trouble? There, I nearly +told it. Won't that do?" + +And she turned her head over and affected to be asleep. Mr. Lurton was +now more eager than ever that the whole truth should come out, since he +began to see how important Mrs. Plausaby's communication might be. +Beneath all his sweetness, as I have said, there was much manly firmness, +and he now drew his chair near to the bedside, and began in a tone full +of solemnity, with that sort of quiet resoluteness that a surgeon has +when he decides to use the knife. He was the more resolute because he +knew that if Plausaby returned before the confession should be made, +there would be no possibility of getting it. + +"Mrs. Plausaby," he said, but she affected to be asleep. "Mrs. Plausaby, +suppose a woman, by doing wrong when her husband asks it, brings a great +calamity on the only child she has, locking him in prison and destroying +his good name--" + +"Oh, dear, dear! stop! You'll kill me! I knew Albert had told you. Now I +won't say a word about it. If he has told it, there is no use of my +saying anything," and she covered up her face in a stubborn, childish +petulance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +A CONFESSION. + + +Mr. Lurton wisely left the room. Mrs. Plausaby's fears of death soon +awakened again, and she begged Isa to ask Mr. Lurton to come back. Like +most feeble people, she had a superstitious veneration for ecclesiastical +authority, and now in her weakened condition she had readily got a vague +notion that Lurton held her salvation in his hands, and could modify the +conditions if he would. + +"You aren't a Catholic are you, Mr. Lurton?" + +"No, I am not at all a Catholic." + +"Well, then, what makes you want me to confess?" + +"Because you are adding to your first sin a greater one in wronging your +son by not confessing." + +"Who told you that? Did Albert?" + +"No, you told me as much as that, yourself." + +"Did I? Why, then I might as well tell you all. But why won't that do?" + +"Because, that much would not get Albert out of prison. You don't want to +leave him in penitentiary when you're gone, do you?" + +"Oh, dear! I can't tell. Plausaby won't let me. Maybe I might tell Isa." + +"That will do just as well. Tell Miss Marlay." And Lurton walked out on +the piazza. + +For half an hour Mrs. Plausaby talked to Isa and told her nothing. She +would come face to face with the confession, and then say that she could +not tell it, that Plausaby would do something awful if he knew she had +said so much. + +At last Isabel was tired out with this method, and was desperate at the +thought that Plausaby would return while yet the confession was +incomplete. So she determined to force Mrs. Plausaby to speak. + +"Now, Mrs. Plausaby," she said, "what did Uncle Plausaby say to you that +made you take that letter of Smith Westcott's?" + +"I didn't take it, did I? How do you know? I didn't say so?" + +"You have told me part, and if you tell me the rest I will keep it secret +for the present. If you don't tell me, I shall tell Uncle Plausaby what I +know, and tell him that he must tell me the rest." + +"You wouldn't do that, Isabel? You couldn't do that. Don't do that," +begged the sick woman. + +"Then tell me the truth," she said with sternness. "What made you take +that land-warrant--for you know you did, and you must not tell me a lie +when you're just going to die and go before God." + +"There now, Isa, I knew you would hate me. That's the reason why I can't +tell it. Everybody has been looking so hateful at me ever since I took +the letter, I mean ever since--Oh! I didn't mean anything bad, but you +know I have to do what Plausaby tells me I must do. He's _such_ a man! +And then he was in trouble. There was some old trouble from Pennsylvania. +The men came on here, and made him pay money, all the money he could get, +to keep them from having him put in prison. I don't know what it was all +about, you know, I never could understand about business, but here was +Albert bothering him about money to pay for a warrant, and these men +taking all his money, and here was a trial about some lots that he sold +to that fat man with curly hair, and he was afraid Albert would swear +against him about that and about the county-seat, and so he wanted to get +him away. And there was an awful bother about Katy and Westcott at the +same time. And I wanted a changeable silk dress, and he couldn't get it +for me because all his money was going to the men from Pennsylvania. +But--I can't tell you any more. I'm afraid Plausaby might come. You won't +tell, and you won't hate me, Isa, dear--now, will you? You used to be +good to me, but you won't be good to me any more!" + +"I'll always love you if you only tell me the rest." + +"No, I can't. For you see Plausaby didn't mean any harm, and I didn't +mean any harm. Plausaby wanted Albert to go away so they couldn't get +Albert to swear against him. It was all Albert's fault, you know--he had +such notions. But he was a good boy, and I can't sleep at night now for +seeing him behind a kind of a grate, and he seems to be pointing his +finger at me and saying, 'You put me in here.' But I didn't. That's one +of his notions. It was Plausaby made me do it. And he didn't mean any +harm. He said Westcott would soon be his son-in-law. He had helped +Westcott to get the claim anyhow. It was only borrowing a little from +his own son-in-law. He said that I must get the letter out of the +office when Albert did not see me. He said it would be a big letter, +with 'Red Owl' stamped on it, and that it would be in Mr. Westcott's +box. And he said I must take the land-warrant out and burn up the letter +and the envelope. And then he said I must give the land-warrant to +Albert the next day, and tell him that a man that came up in the stage +brought it from Plausaby. And he said he'd get another and bring it home +with him and give it to Westcott, and make it all right. And that would +keep him out of prison, and get Albert away so he couldn't swear against +him in the suit with the fat man, and then he would be able to get me +the changeable silk that I wanted so much. But things went all wrong +with him since, and I never got the changeable silk, and he said he +would keep Albert out of penitentiary and he didn't, and Albert told me +I musn't tell anybody about taking it myself, for he couldn't bear to +have me go to prison. Now, won't that do? But don't you tell Plausaby. +He looks at me sometimes so awfully. Oh, dear! if I could have told that +before, maybe I wouldn't have died. It's been killing me all the time. +Oh, dear! dear! I wish I was dead, if only I was sure I wouldn't go to +the bad place." + +Isa now acquainted Lurton briefly with the nature of Mrs. Plausaby's +statement, and Lurton knelt by her bedside and turned it into a very +solemn and penitent confession to God, and very trustfully prayed for +forgiveness, and--call it the contagion of Lurton's own faith, if you +will--at any rate, the dying woman felt a sense of relief that the story +was told, and a sense of trust and more peace than she had ever known in +her life. Lurton had led her feeble feet into a place of rest. And he +found joy in thinking that, though his ministry to rude lumbermen and +hardened convicts might be fruitless, he had at least some gifts that +made him a source of strength and consolation to the weak, the +remorseful, the bereaved, and the dying. He stepped out of the door of +the sick-chamber, and there, right before him, was Plausaby, his smooth +face making a vain endeavor to keep its hold upon itself. But Lurton saw +at once that Plausaby had heard the prayer in which he had framed Mrs. +Plausaby's confession to Isa into a solemn and specific confession to +God. I know no sight more pitiful than that of a man who has worn his +face as a mask, when at last the mask is broken and the agony behind +reveals itself. Lurton had a great deal of presence of mind, and if he +did not think much of the official and priestly authority of a minister, +he had a prophet's sense of his moral authority. He looked calmly and +steadily into the eyes of Plausaby, Esq., and the hollow sham, who had +been unshaken till now, quailed; counterfeit serenity could not hold its +head up and look the real in the face. Had Lurton been abashed or nervous +or self-conscious, Plausaby might have assumed an air of indignation at +the minister's meddling. But Lurton had nothing but a serene sense of +having been divinely aided in the performance of a delicate and difficult +duty. He reached out his hand and greeted Plausaby quietly and +courteously and yet solemnly. Isabel, for her part, perceiving that +Plausaby had overheard, did not care to conceal the indignation she felt. +Poor Plausaby, Esq.! the disguise was torn, and he could no longer hide +himself. He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and +essayed to speak, as before, to the minister, of his anxiety about his +poor, dear wife, but he could not do it. Exert himself as he would, the +color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful +consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it, +was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was +indeed broken--the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And +even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same +rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the +gamut in a husky jangling. + +"Mr. Plausaby, let us walk," said Lurton, not affecting in the least to +ignore Plausaby's agitation. They walked in silence through the village +out to the prairie. Plausaby, habitually a sham, tried, to recover his +ground. He said something about his wife's not being quite sane, and was +going to caution Lurton about believing anything Mrs. Plausaby might say. + +"Mr. Plausaby," said Lurton, "is it not better to repent of your sins and +make restitution, than to hide them?" + +Plausaby cleared his throat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, but +he could not trust his voice to say anything. + +It was vain to appeal to Plausaby to repent. He had saturated himself in +falsehood from the beginning. Perhaps, after all, the saturation had +began several generations back, and unhappy Plausaby, born to an +inheritance of falsehood, was to be pitied as well as blamed. He was even +now planning to extort from his vacillating wife a written statement that +should contradict any confession of hers to Isa and Lurton. + +Fly swiftly, pen! For Isa Marlay knew the stake in this game, and she +did not mean that any chance of securing Charlton's release should be +neglected. She knew nothing of legal forms, but she could write a +straight-out statement after a woman's fashion. So she wrote a paper +which read as follows: + +"I do not expect to live long, and I solemnly confess that I took the +land-warrant from Smith Westcott's letter, for which my son Albert +Charlton is now unjustly imprisoned in the penitentiary, and I did it +without the knowledge of Albert, and at the instigation of Thomas +Plausaby, my husband." + +This paper Isa read to Mrs. Plausaby, and that lady, after much +vacillation, signed it with a feeble hand. Then Isabel wrote her own name +as a witness. But she wanted another witness. At this moment Mrs. Ferret +came in, having an instinctive feeling that a second visit from Lurton +boded something worth finding out. Isa took her into Mrs. Plausaby's room +and told her to witness this paper. + +"Well," said pertinacious Mrs. Ferret, "I'll have to know what is in +it, won't I?" + +"No, you only want to know that this is Mrs. Plausaby's signature," and +Isa placed her fingers over the paper in such a way that Mrs. Ferret +could not read it. + +"Did you sign this, Mrs. Plausaby?" + +The sick woman said she did. + +"Do you know what is in it?" + +"Yes, but--but it's a secret." + +"Did you sign it of your own free will, or did Mr. Plausaby make you?" + +"Mr. Plausaby! Oh! don't tell him about it. He'll make such an awful +fuss! But it's true." + +Thus satisfied that it was not a case of domestic despotism, Mrs. Ferret +wrote her peculiar signature, and made a private mark besides. + +And later in the evening Mrs. Plausaby asked Isa to send word to that +nice-looking young woman that Albert loved so much. She said she +supposed he must feel bad about her. She wanted Isa to tell her all +about it. "But not till I'm dead," she added. "Do you think people know +what people say about them after they're dead? And, Isa, when I'm laid +out let me wear my blue merino dress, and do my hair up nice, and put a +bunch of roses in my hand. I wish Plausaby had got that changeable silk. +It would have been better than the blue merino. But you know best. Only +don't forget to tell Albert's girl that he did not do it. But explain it +all so she won't think I'm a--that I did it a-purpose, you know. I +didn't mean to. What makes you look at me that way? Oh, dear! Isa, you +won't ever love me any more!" + +But Isa quieted her by putting her arms around her neck in a way that +made the poor woman cry, and say, "That's just the way Katy used to do. +When I die, Katy'll love me all the same. Won't she? Katy always did love +a body so." Perhaps she felt that Isabel's love was not like Katy's. For +pity is not love, and even Mrs. Plausaby could hardly avoid +distinguishing the spontaneous affection of Katy from this demonstration +of Isa's, which must have cost her some exertion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +DEATH. + + +Mrs. Plausaby grew more feeble. Her remorse and her feeling of the dire +necessity for confessing her sin had sustained her hitherto. But now her +duty was done, she had no longer any mental stimulant. In spite of Isa's +devoted and ingenious kindness, the sensitive vanity of Mrs. Plausaby +detected in every motion evidence that Isa thought of her as a thief. +She somehow got a notion that Mrs. Ferret knew all about it also, and +from her and Mr. Lurton she half-hid her face in the cover. Lurton, +perceiving that his mission to Mrs. Plausaby was ended, returned home, +intending to see Isabel when circumstances should be more favorable. But +the Ferret kept sniffing round after a secret which she knew lay not far +away. Mrs. Plausaby having suddenly grown worse, Isa determined to sit +by her during the night, but Plausaby strenuously objected that this was +unnecessary. The poor woman secretly besought Isa not to leave her alone +with Plausaby, and Isabel positively refused to go away from her +bedside. For the first time Mr. Plausaby spoke harshly to Isa, and for +the first time Isabel treated him with a savage neglect. A housekeeper's +authority is generally supreme in the house, and Isa had gradually come +to be the housekeeper. She sat stubbornly by the dying woman during the +whole night. + +Mr. Plausaby had his course distinctly marked out. In the morning he +watched anxiously for the arrival of his trusted lawyer, Mr. Conger. The +property which he had married with his wife, and which she had derived +from Albert's father, had all been made over to her again to save it from +Plausaby's rather eager creditors. He had spent the preceding day at +Perritaut, whither Mr. Conger had gone to appear in a case as counsel for +Plausaby, for the county-seat had recently returned to its old abode. Mr. +Plausaby intended to have his wife make some kind of a will that would +give him control of the property and yet keep it under shelter. By what +legal fencing this was to be done nobody knows, but it has been often +surmised that Mrs. Plausaby was to leave it to her husband in trust for +the Metropolisville University. Mr. Plausaby had already acquired +experience in the management of trust funds, in the matter of Isa's +patrimony, and it would not be a feat beyond his ability for him to own +his wife's bequest and not to own it at the same time. This was the +easier that territorial codes are generally made for the benefit of +absconding debtors. He had made many fair promises about a final transfer +of this property to Albert and Katy when they should both be of age, but +all that was now forgotten, as it was intended to be. + +Mr. Plausaby was nervous. His easy, self-possessed manner had departed, +and that impenetrable coat of mail being now broken up, he shuddered +whenever the honest, indignant eyes of Miss Marlay looked at him. He +longed for the presence of the bustling, energetic man of law, to keep +him in countenance. + +When the lawyer came, he and Plausaby were closeted for half an hour. +Then Plausaby, Esq., took a walk, and the attorney requested an interview +with Isabel. She came in, stiff, cold, and self-possessed. + +"Miss Marlay," said the lawyer, smiling a little as became a man asking a +favor from a lady, and yet looking out at Isa in a penetrating way from +beneath shadowing eyebrows, "will you have the goodness to tell me the +nature of the paper that Mrs. Plausaby signed yesterday?" + +"Did Mrs. Plausaby sign a paper yesterday?" asked Isabel diplomatically. + +"I have information to that effect. Will you tell me whether that paper +was of the nature of a will or deed or--in short, what was its +character?" + +"I will not tell you anything about it. It is Mrs. Plausaby's secret. I +suppose you get your information from Mrs. Ferret. If she chooses to tell +you the contents, she may." + +"You are a little sharp, Miss Marlay. I understand that Mrs. Ferret does +not know the contents of that paper. As the confidential legal adviser of +Mr. Plausaby and of Mrs. Plausaby, I have a right to ask what the +contents of that paper were." + +"As the confidential legal adviser--" Isa stopped and stammered. She +was about to retort that as confidential legal adviser to Mrs. Plausaby +he might ask that lady herself, but she was afraid of his doing that very +thing; so she stopped short and, because she was confused, grew a little +angry, and told Mr. Conger that he had no right to ask any questions, and +then got up and disdainfully walked out of the room. And the lawyer, left +alone, meditated that women had a way, when they were likely to be +defeated, of getting angry, or pretending to get angry. And you never +could do anything with a woman when she was angry. Or, as Conger framed +it in his mind, a mad dog was easier to handle than a mad woman. + +As the paper signed the day before could not have been legally executed, +Plausaby and his lawyer guessed very readily that it probably did not +relate to property. The next step was an easy one to the client if not to +the lawyer. It must relate to the crime--it was a solution of the +mystery. Plausaby knew well enough that a confession had been made to +Lurton, but he had not suspected that Isabel would go so far as to put it +into writing. The best that could be done was to have Conger frame a +counter-declaration that her confession had been signed under a +misapprehension--had been obtained by coercion, over-persuasion, and so +forth. Plausaby knew that his wife would sign anything if he could +present the matter to her alone. But, to get rid of Isabel Marlay? + +A very coward now in the presence of Isa, he sent the lawyer ahead, while +he followed close behind. + +"Miss Marlay," said Mr. Conger, smiling blandly but speaking with +decision, "it will be necessary for me to speak to Mrs. Plausaby for a +few minutes alone." + +It is curious what an effect a tone of authority has. Isa rose and would +have gone out, but Mrs. Plausaby said, "Don't leave me, don't leave me, +Isa; they want to arrest me, I believe." + +Seeing her advantage, Miss Marlay said, "Mrs. Plausaby wishes me to +stay." + +It was in vain that the lawyer insisted. It was in vain that Mr. Plausaby +stepped forward and told Mrs. Plausaby to ask Isabel to leave the room a +minute. The sick woman only drew the cover over her eyes and held fast +to Isabel's hand and said: "No, no, don't go--Isa, don't go." + +"I will not go till you ask me," said Isa. + +At last, however, Plausaby pushed himself close to his wife and said +something in her ear. She turned pale, and when he asked if she wished +Isabel to go she nodded her head. + +"But I won't go at all now," said Isa stubbornly, "unless you will go out +of the room first. Then, if Mrs. Plausaby tells me that she wishes to see +you and this gentleman without my presence, I shall go." + +Mr. Plausaby drew the attorney into one corner of the room for +consultation. Nothing but the desperateness of his position and the +energetic advice of Mr. Conger could have induced him to take the course +which he now decided upon, for force was not a common resort with him, +and with all his faults, he was a man of much kindness of heart. + +"Isa," he said, "I have always been a father to you. Now you are +conspiring against me. If you do not go out, I shall be under the painful +necessity of putting you out, gently, but by main strength." The old +smile was on his face. He seized her arms, and Isa, seeing how useless +resistance would be, and how much harm excitement might do to the +patient, rose to go. But at that moment, happening to look toward the +bed, she cried out, "Mrs. Plausaby is dying!" and she would not have been +a woman if she could have helped adding, "See what you have done, now!" + +There was nothing Mr. Plausaby wanted less than that his wife should die +at this inconvenient moment. He ran off for the doctor, but poor, weak +Mrs. Plausaby was past signing wills or recantations. + +The next day she died. + +And Isa wrote to Albert: + +"METROPOLISVILLE, May 17th, 1857. + +"MR. CHARLTON: + +"DEAR SIR: Your poor mother died yesterday. She suffered little in body, +and her mind was much more peaceful after her last interview with Mr. +Lurton, which resulted in her making a frank statement of the +circumstances of the land-warrant affair. She afterward had it written +down, and signed it, that it might be used to set you free. She also +asked me to tell Miss Minorkey, and I shall send her a letter by this +mail. I am so glad that your innocence is to be proved at last. I have +said nothing about the statement your mother made to any one except Miss +Minorkey, because I am unwilling to use it without your consent. You have +great reason to be grateful to Mr. Lurton. Ho has shown himself your +friend, indeed. I think him an excellent man. He comforted your mother a +great deal. You had better let me put the writing your mother left, into +his hands. I am sure he will secure your freedom for you. + +"Your mother died without any will, and all the property is yours. +Your father earned it, and I am glad it goes back to its rightful +owner. You will not agree with me, but I believe in a Providence, now, +more than ever. + +"Truly your friend, ISABEL MARLAY." + +The intelligence of his mother's death caused Albert a real sorrow. And +yet he could hardly regret it. Charlton was not conscious of anything but +a filial grief. But the feeling of relief modified his sorrow. + +The letter filled him with a hope of pardon. Now that he could without +danger to his mother seek release from an unjust incarceration, he became +eager to get out. The possibility of release made every hour of +confinement intolerable. + +He experienced a certain dissatisfaction with Isa's letter. She had +always since his imprisonment taken pains to write cordially. He had been +"Dear Mr. Charlton," or "My Dear Mr. Charlton," and sometimes even "My +Dear Friend." Isa was anxious that he should not feel any coldness in her +letters. Now that he was about to be released and would naturally feel +grateful to her, the case was very different. But Albert could not see +why she should be so friendly with him when she had every reason to +believe him guilty, and now that she knew him innocent should freeze him +with a stranger-like coolness. He had resolved to care nothing for her, +and yet here he was anxious for some sign that she cared for him. + +Albert wrote in reply: + +"HOUSE OF BONDAGE, May 20th, 1857. + +"MY DEAR, GOOD FRIEND: The death of my mother has given me a great deal +of sorrow, though it did not surprise me. I remember now how many times +of late years I have given her needless trouble. For whatever mistakes +her personal peculiarities led her into, she was certainly a most +affectionate mother. I can now see, and the reflection causes me much +bitterness, that I might have been more thoughtful of her happiness +without compromising my opinions. How much trouble my self-conceit must +have given her! Your rebuke on this subject has been very fresh in mind +since I heard of her death. And I am feeling lonely, too. Mother and Katy +have gone, and more distant relatives will not care to know an outlaw. + +"If I had not seen Mr. Lurton, I should not have known how much I owe to +your faithful friendship. I doubt not God will reward you. For I, too, am +coming to believe in a Providence! + +"Sometimes I think this prison has done me good. There may be some truth, +after all, in that acrid saying of Mrs. Ferret's about 'sanctified +affliction,' though she _does_ know how to make even truth hateful. I +haven't learned to believe as you and Mr. Lurton would have me, and yet I +have learned not to believe so much in my own infallibility. I have been +a high-church skeptic--I thought as much of my own infallibility as poor +O'Neill in the next cell does of the Pope's. And I suppose I shall always +have a good deal of aggressiveness and uneasiness and all that about +me--I am the same restless man yet, full of projects and of opinions. I +can not be Lurton--I almost wish I could. But I have learned some things. +I am yet very unsettled in my opinions about Christ--sometimes he seems +to be a human manifestation of God, and at other times, when my skeptical +habit comes back, he seems only the divinest of men. But I believe _in_ +him with all my heart, and may be I shall settle down on some definite +opinion after a while. I had a mind to ask Lurton to baptize me the other +day, but I feared he wouldn't do it. All the faith I could profess would +be that I believe enough in Christ to wish to be his disciple. I know Mr. +Lurton wouldn't think that enough. But I don't believe Jesus himself +would refuse me. His immediate followers couldn't have believed much more +than that at first. And I don't think you would refuse me baptism if you +were a minister. + +"Mr. Lurton has kindly offered to endeavor to secure my release, and he +will call on you for that paper. I hope you'll like Lurton as well as +he does you. You are the only woman in the world good enough for him, +and he is the only man fit for you. And if it should ever come to pass +that you and he should be happy together, I shall be too glad to envy +either of you. + +"Do shield the memory of my mother. You know how little she was to blame. +I can not bear that people should talk about her unkindly. She had such a +dread of censure. I think that is what killed her. I am sorry you wrote +to Helen Minorkey. I could not now share my disgrace with a wife; and if +I could marry, _she_ is one of the last I should ever think of seeking. I +do not even care to have her think well of me. + +"As to the property, I am greatly perplexed. Plausaby owned it once +rightfully and legally, and there are innocent creditors who trusted him +on the strength of his possession of it. I wish I did not have the +responsibility of deciding what I ought to do. + +"I have written a long letter. I would write a great deal more if I +thought I could ever express the gratitude I feel to you. But I am going +to be always, + +"Your grateful and faithful friend, + +"ALBERT CHARLTON." + +This letter set Isabel's mind in a whirl of emotions. She sincerely +admired Lurton, but she had never thought of him as a lover. Albert's +gratitude and praises would have made her happy, but his confidence that +she would marry Lurton vexed her. And yet the thought that Lurton might +love her made it hard to keep from dreaming of a new future, brighter +than any she had supposed possible to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +MR. LURTON'S COURTSHIP. + + +After the death of Mrs. Plausaby, Isa had broken at once with her +uncle-in-law, treating him with a wholesome contempt whenever she found +opportunity. She had made many apologies for Plausaby's previous +offenses--this was too much even for her ingenious charity. For want of a +better boarding-place, she had taken up her abode at Mrs. Ferret's, and +had opened a little summer-school in the village schoolhouse. She began +immediately to devise means for securing Charlton's release. Her first +step was to write to Lurton, but she had hardly mailed the letter, when +she received Albert's, announcing that Lurton was coming to see her; and +almost immediately that gentleman himself appeared again in +Metropolisville. He spent the evening in devising with Isa proper means +of laying the evidences of Charlton's innocence before the President in a +way calculated to secure his pardon. Lurton knew two Representatives and +one Senator, and he had hope of being able to interest them in the case. +He would go to Washington himself. Isa thought his offer very generous, +and found in her heart a great admiration for him. Lurton, on his part, +regarded Isabel with more and more wonder and affection. He told her at +last, in a sweet and sincere humility, the burden of his heart. He +confessed his love with a frankness that was very winning, and with a +gentle deference that revealed him to her the man he was--affectionate, +sincere, and unselfish. + +If Isabel had been impulsive, she would have accepted at once, under the +influence of his presence. But she had a wise, practical way of taking +time to think. She endeavored to eliminate entirely the element of +feeling, and see the offer in the light in which it would show itself +after present circumstances had passed. For if Lurton had been a crafty +man, he could not have offered himself at a moment more opportune. Isa +was now homeless, and without a future. If you ask me why, then, she did +not accept Lurton without hesitation, I answer that I can no more explain +this than I can explain all the other paradoxes of love that I see every +day. Was it that he was too perfect? Is it easier for a woman to love a +man than a model? People are not apt to be enamored of monotony, even of +a monotony of goodness. Was it, then, that Isa would have liked a man +whose soul had been a battle-field, rather than one in whom goodness and +faith had had an easy time? Did she feel more sympathy for one who had +fought and overcome, like Charlton, than for one who had never known a +great struggle? Perhaps I have not touched at all upon the real reason +for Isa's hesitation. But she certainly did hesitate. She found it quite +impossible to analyze her own feelings in the matter. The more she +thought about it, the more hopeless her confusion became. + +It is one of the unhappy results produced by some works of religious +biography, that people who copy methods, are prone to copy those not +adapted to their own peculiarities. Isabel, in her extremity of +indecision, remembered that some saint of the latter part of the last +century, whose biography she had read in a Sunday-school library-book, +was wont, when undecided in weighty matters, to write down all the +reasons, _pro_ and _con_, and cipher out a conclusion by striking a +logical balance. It naturally occurred to Isa that what so good and wise +a person had found beneficial, might also prove an assistance to her. So +she wrote down the following: + +"REASONS IN FAVOR. + +"1. Mr. Lurton is one of the most excellent men in the world. I have a +very great respect and a sincere regard for him. If he were my husband, I +do not think I should ever find anything to prevent me loving him. + +"2. The life of a minister's wife would open to me opportunities to do +good. I could at least encourage and sustain him. + +"3. It seems to be providential that the offer should come at this time, +when I am free from all obligations that would interfere with it, and +when I seem to have no other prospect. + +"REASONS AGAINST. + +"1."-- + +But here she stopped. There was nothing to be said against Mr. Lurton, or +against her accepting the offered happiness. She would then lead the +quiet, peaceful life of a village-minister's wife who does her duty to +her husband and her neighbors. Her generous nature found pleasure in the +thought of all the employments that would fill her heart and hands. How +much better it would be to have a home, and to have others to work for, +than to lead the life of a stranger in other people's houses! And then +she blushed, and was happy at the thought that there would be children's +voices in the house--little stockings in the basket on a Saturday +night--there would be the tender cares of the mother. How much better was +such a life than a lonely one! + +It was not until some hours of such thinking--of more castle-building +than the sober-spirited girl had done in her whole life before--that she +became painfully conscious that in all this dreaming of her future as the +friend of the parishioners and the house-mother, Lurton himself was a +figure in the background of her thoughts. He did not excite any +enthusiasm in her heart. She took up her paper; she read over again the +reasons why she ought to love Lurton. But though reason may chain Love +and forbid his going wrong, all the logic in the world can not make him +go where he will not. She had always acted as a most rational creature. +Now, for the first time, she could not make her heart go where she would. +Love in such cases seems held back by intuition, by a logic so high and +fine that its terms can not be stated. Love has a balance-sheet in which +all is invisible except the totals. I have noticed that practical and +matter-of-fact women are most of all likely to be exacting and ideal in +love affairs. Or, is it that this high and ideal way of looking at such +affairs is only another manifestation of practical wisdom? + +Certain it is, that though Isa found it impossible to set down a single +reason for not loving so good a man with the utmost fervor, she found it +equally impossible to love him with any fervor at all. + +Then she fell to pitying Lurton. She could make him happy and help him to +be useful, and she thought she ought to do it. But could she love Lurton +better than she could have loved any other man? Now, I know that most +marriages are not contracted on this basis. It is not given to every one +to receive this saying. I am quite aware that preaching on this subject +would be vain. Comparatively few people can live in this atmosphere. But +_noblesse oblige_--_noblesse_ does more than _oblige_--and Isa Marlay, +against all her habits of acting on practical expediency, could not bring +herself to marry the excellent Lurton without a consciousness of _moral +descending_, while she could not give herself a single satisfactory +reason for feeling so. + +It went hard with Lurton. He had been so sure of divine approval and +guidance that he had not counted failure possible. But at such times the +man of trustful and serene habit has a great advantage. He took the +great disappointment as a needed spiritual discipline; he shouldered +this load as he had carried all smaller burdens, and went on his way +without a murmur. + +Having resigned his Stillwater pastorate from a conviction that his +ministry among red-shirted lumbermen was not a great success, he armed +himself with letters from the warden of the prison and the other +ministers who had served as chaplains, and, above all, with Mrs. +Plausaby's written confession, and set out for Washington. He easily +secured money to defray the expense of the journey from Plausaby, who +held some funds belonging to his wife's estate, and who yielded to a +very gentle pressure from Lurton, knowing how entirely he was in +Lurton's power. + +It is proper to say here that Albert's scrupulous conscience was never +troubled about the settlement of his mother's estate. Plausaby had an old +will, which bequeathed all to him _in fee simple_. He presented it for +probate, and would have succeeded, doubtless, in saving something by +acute juggling with his creditors, but that he heard ominous whispers of +the real solution of the mystery--where they came from he could not tell. +Thinking that Isa was planning his arrest, he suddenly left the country. +He turned up afterwards as president of a Nevada silver-mine company, +which did a large business in stocks but a small one in dividends; and I +have a vague impression that he had something to do with the building of +the Union Pacific Railroad. His creditors made short work of the property +left by Mrs. Plausaby. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +UNBARRED. + + +Lurton was gone six weeks. His letters to Charlton were not very hopeful. +People are slow to believe that a court has made a mistake. + +I who write and you who read get over six weeks as smoothly as we do over +six days. But six weeks in grim, gray, yellowish, unplastered, limestone +walls, that are so thick and so high and so rough that they are always +looking at you in suspicion and with stern threat of resistance! Six +weeks in May and June and July inside such walls, where there is scarcely +a blade of grass, hardly a cool breeze, not even the song of a bird! A +great yard so cursed that the little brown wrens refuse to bless it with +their feet! The sound of machinery and of the hammers of unwilling +toilers, but no mellow voice of robin or chatter of gossiping +chimney-swallows! To Albert they were six weeks of alternate hope and +fear, and of heart-sickness. + +The contractor gave a Fourth-of-July dinner to the convicts. Strawberries +and cream instead of salt pork and potatoes. The guards went out and left +the men alone, and Charlton was called on for a speech. But all eulogies +of liberty died on his lips. He could only talk platitudes, and he could +not say anything with satisfaction to himself. He tossed wakefully all +that night, and was so worn when morning came that he debated whether he +should not ask to be put on the sick-list. + +He was marched to the water-tank as usual, then to breakfast, but he +could not eat. When the men were ordered to work, one of the guards said: + +"Charlton, the warden wants to see you in the office." + +Out through the vestibule of the main building Charlton passed with a +heart full of hope, alternating with fear of a great disappointment. He +noticed, as he passed, how heavy the bolts and bars were, and wondered if +these two doors would ever shut him in again. He walked across the yard, +feeble and faint, and then ascended the long flight of steps which went +up to the office-door. For the office was so arranged as to open out of +the prison and in it also, and was so adapted to the uneven ground as to +be on top of the prison-wail. Panting with excitement, the convict +Charlton stopped at the top of this flight of steps while the guard gave +an alarm, and the door was opened from the office side. Albert could not +refrain from looking back over the prison-yard; he saw every familiar +object again, he passed through the door, and stood face to face with the +firm and kindly Warden Proctor. He saw Lurton standing by the warden, he +was painfully alive to everything; the clerks had ceased to write, and +were looking at him expectantly. + +"Well, Charlton," said the warden kindly, "I am glad to tell you that you +are pardoned. I never was so glad at any man's release." + +"Pardoned?" Charlton had dreamed so much of liberty, that now that +liberty had come he was incredulous. "I am very much obliged to you, Mr. +Proctor," he gasped. + +"That is the man to thank," said the warden, pointing to Lurton. But +Charlton couldn't thank Lurton yet. He took his hand and looked in his +face and then turned away. He wanted to thank everybody--the guard who +conducted him out, and the clerk who was recording the precious pardon in +one of the great books; but, in truth, he could say hardly anything. + +"Come, Charlton, you'll find a change of clothes in the back-room. Can't +let you carry those off!" said the warden. + +Charlton put off the gray with eagerness. Clothes made all the +difference. When once he was dressed like other men, his freedom became a +reality. Then he told everybody good-by, the warden first, and then the +guard, and then the clerks, and he got permission to go back into the +prison, as a visitor, now, and tell the prisoners farewell. + +Then Lurton locked arms with him, and Charlton could hardly keep back the +tears. Human fellowship is so precious to a cleansed leper! And as they +walked away down the sandy street by the shore of Lake St. Croix, +Charlton was trying all the while to remember that walls and grates and +bars and bolts and locks and iron gates and armed guards shut him in no +longer. It seemed so strange that here was come a day in which he did not +have to put up a regular stint of eight vinegar-barrels, with the +privilege of doing one or two more, if he could, for pay. He ate some +breakfast with Lurton. For freedom is a great tonic, and satisfied hopes +help digestion. It is a little prosy to say so, but Lurton's buttered +toast and coffee was more palatable than the prison fare. And Lurton's +face was more cheerful than the dark visage of Ball, the burglar, which +always confronted Charlton at the breakfast-table. + +Charlton was impatient to go back to Metropolisville. For what, he could +hardly say. There was no home there for him, but then he wanted to go +somewhere. It seemed so fine to be able to go anywhere. Bidding Lurton a +grateful adieu, he hurried to St. Paul. The next morning he was booked +for Metropolisville, and climbed up to the driver's seat with the eager +impatience of a boy. + +"Wal, stranger, go tew thunder! I'm glad to see you're able to be aout. +You've ben confined t' the haouse fer some time, I guess, p'r'aps?" + +It was the voice of Whisky Jim that thus greeted Albert. If there was a +half-sneer in the words, there was nothing but cordial friendliness in +the tone and the grasp of the hand. The Superior Being was so delighted +that he could only express his emotions by giving his leaders several +extra slashes with his whip, and by putting on a speed that threatened to +upset the coach. + +"Well, Jim, what's the news?" said Charlton gayly. + +"Nooze? Let me see. Nothin' much. Your father-in-law, or step-father, or +whatever you call him, concluded to cut and run las' week. I s'pose he +calkilated that your gittin' out might leave a vacancy fer him. Thought +he might hev to turn in and do the rest of the ten years' job that's +owin' to Uncle Sam on that land-warrant, eh? I guess you won't find no +money left. 'Twixt him and the creditors and the lawyers and the jedges, +they a'n't nary cent to carry." + +"When did you hear from Gray?" + +"Oh! he was up to Metropolisville las' week. He a'n't so much of a +singster as he wus. Gone to spekilatin'. The St. Paul and Big Gun River +Valley Railroad is a-goin' t' his taown." + +Here the Superior Being stopped talking, and waited to be questioned. + +"Laid off a town, then, has he?" + +"Couldn' help hisself. The Wanosia and Dakota Crossing Road makes a +junction there, and his claim and yourn has doubled in valoo two or +three times." + +"But I suppose mine has been sold under mortgage?" + +"Under mortgage? Not much. Some of your friends jest sejested to Plausaby +he'd better pay two debts of yourn. And he did. He paid Westcott fer the +land-warrant, and he paid Minorkey's mortgage. Ole chap didn't want to be +paid. Cutthroat mortgage, you know. He'd heerd of the railroad junction. +Jemeny! they's five hundred people livin' on Gray's claim, and yourn's +alongside." + +"What does he call his town?" asked Albert. + +Jim brought his whip down smartly on a lazy wheel-horse, crying out: + +"Puck-a-chee! Seechy-do!" (Get out--bad.) For, like most of his class +in Minnesota at that day, the Superior Being had enriched his +vocabulary of slang with divers Indian words. Then, after a pause, he +said: "What does he call it? I believe it's 'Charlton,' or suthin' of +that sort. _Git_ up!" + +Albert was disposed at first to think the name a compliment to himself, +but the more he thought of it, the more clear it became to him that the +worshipful heart of the Poet had meant to preserve the memory of Katy, +over whom he had tried in vain to stand guard. + +Of course part of Driver Jim's information was not new to Albert, but +much of it was, for the Poet's letters had not been explicit in regard to +the increased value of the property, and Charlton had concluded the +claim would go out of his hands anyhow, and had ceased to take any +further interest in it. + +When at last he saw again the familiar balloon-frame houses of +Metropolisville, he grew anxious. How would people receive him? Albert +had always taken more pains to express his opinions dogmatically than to +make friends; and now that the odium of crime attached itself to him, he +felt pretty sure that Metropolisville, where there was neither mother nor +Katy, would offer him no cordial welcome. His heart turned toward Isa +with more warmth than he could have desired, but he feared that any +friendship he might show to Isabel would compromise her. A young woman's +standing is not helped by the friendship of a post-office thief, he +reflected. He could not leave Metropolisville without seeing the best +friend he had; he could not see her without doing her harm. He was +thoroughly vexed that he had rashly put himself in so awkward a dilemma; +he almost wished himself back in St. Paul. + +At last the Superior Being roused his horses into a final dash, and came +rushing up to the door of the "City Hotel" with his usual flourish. + +"Hooray! Howdy! I know'd you'd be along to-night," cried the Poet. "You +see a feller went through our town--I've laid off a town you know--called +it Charlton, arter _her_ you know--they wuz a feller come along +yisterday as said as he'd come on from Washin'ton City weth Preacher +Lurton, and he'd heern him tell as how as Ole Buck--the President I +mean--had ordered you let out. An' I'm _that_ glad! Howdy! You look a +leetle slim, but you'll look peart enough when we git you down to +Charlton, and you see some of your ground wuth fifteen dollar a front +foot! You didn' think I'd ever a gin up po'try long enough to sell lots. +But you see the town wuz named arter _her_ you know--a sorter moniment to +a angel, a kind of po'try that'll keep her name from bein' forgot arter +my varses is gone to nothin'. An' I'm a-layin' myself out to make that +town nice and fit to be named arter her, you know. I didn't think I could +ever stan' it to have so many neighbors a drivin' away all the game. But +I'm a-gittin' used to it." + +Charlton could see that the Inhabitant was greatly improved by his +contact with the practical affairs of life and by human society. The old +half-crazed look had departed from his eyes, and the over-sensitive +nature had found a satisfaction in the standing which the founding of a +town and his improved circumstances had brought him. + +"Don't go in thar!" said Gray as Charlton was about to enter the room +used as office and bar-room for the purpose of registering his name. +"Don't go in thar!" and Gray pulled him back. "Let's go out to supper. +That devilish Smith Wes'cott's in thar, drunk's he kin be, and raisin' +perdition. They turned him off this week fer drinkin' too steady, and +he's tryin' to make a finish of his money and Smith Wes'cott too." + +Charlton and Gray sat down to supper at the long table where the Superior +Being was already drinking his third cup of coffee. The exquisite +privilege of doing as he pleased was a great stimulant to Charlton's +appetite, and knives and forks were the greatest of luxuries. + +"Seems to me," said Jim, as he sat and watched Albert, "seems to me +you a'n't so finicky 'bout vittles as you was. Sheddin' some of yer +idees, maybe." + +"Yes, I think I am." + +"Wal, you see you hed too thick a coat of idees to thrive. I guess a +good curryin' a'n't done you no pertickeler hurt, but blamed ef it didn't +seem mean to me at first. I've cussed about it over and over agin on +every mile 'twixt here and St. Paul. But curryin's healthy. I wish some +other folks as I know could git put through weth a curry-comb as would +peel the hull hide offen 'em." + +This last remark was accompanied by a significant look at the rough board +partition that separated the dining-room from the bar-room. For +Westcott's drunken voice could be heard singing snatches of negro +melodies in a most melancholy tone. + +Somebody in the bar-room mentioned Charlton's name. + +"Got out, did he?" said Westcott in a maudlin tone. "How'd 'e get out? +How'd 'e like it fur's he went? Always liked simple diet, you know. + +"Oh! if I wuz a jail-bird, + With feathers like a crow, +I'd flop around and-- + +"Wat's the rest? Hey? How does that go? Wonder how it feels to be a +thief? He! he! he!" + +Somehow the voice and the words irritated Albert beyond endurance. He +lost his relish for supper and went out on the piazza. + +"Git's riled dreffle easy," said Jim as Charlton disappeared. "Fellers +weth idees does. I hope he'll gin Wes'cott another thrashin'." + +"He's powerful techy," said the Poet. "Kinder curus, though. I wanted to +salivate Wes'cott wunst, and he throwed my pistol into the lake." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +ISABEL. + + +What to do about going to see Isabel? + +Albert knew perfectly well that he would be obliged to visit her. Isa had +no doubt heard of his arrival before this time. The whole village must +know it, for there was a succession of people who came on the hotel +piazza to shake hands with him. Some came from friendliness, some from +curiosity, but none remained long in conversation with him. For in truth +conversation was quite embarrassing under the circumstances. You can not +ask your acquaintance, "How have you been?" when his face is yet pale +from confinement in a prison; you can not inquire how he liked Stillwater +or Sing Sing, when he must have disliked what he saw of Stillwater or +Sing Sing. One or two of the villagers asked Albert how he had "got +along," and then blushed when they remembered that he couldn't have "got +along" at all. Most of them asked him if Metropolisville had "grown any" +since he left, and whether or not he meant to stay and set up here, and +then floundered a little and left him. For most people talk by routine. +Whatever may be thought of development from monkeys, it does seem that a +strong case might be made out in favor of a descent from parrots. + +Charlton knew that he must go to see Isa, and that the whole village +would know where he had gone, and that it would give Isa trouble, maybe. +He wanted to see Isa more than he wanted anything else in the world, but +then he dreaded to see her. She had pitied him and helped him in his +trouble, but her letters had something of constraint in them. He +remembered how she had always mingled the friendliness of her treatment +with something of reserve and coolness. He did not care much for this in +other times. But now he found in himself such a hungering for something +more from Isa, that he feared the effect of her cool dignity. He had +braced himself against being betrayed into an affection for Isabel. He +must not allow himself to become interested in her. As an honorable man +he could not marry her, of course. But he would see her and thank her. +Then if she should give him a few kind words he would cherish them as a +comforting memory in all the loneliness of following years. He felt sorry +for himself, and he granted to himself just so much indulgence. + +Between his fear of compromising Isa and his feeling that on every +account he must see her, his dread of meeting her and his desire to talk +with her, he was in a state of compound excitement when he rose from his +seat on the piazza of the City Hotel, and started down Plausaby street +toward the house of Mrs. Ferret. He had noticed some women going to the +weekly prayer-meeting, and half-hoped, but feared more than he hoped, +that Isabel should have gone to meeting also. He knew how constant and +regular she was in the performance of religious duties. + +But Isa for once had staid at home. And had received from Mrs. Ferret a +caustic lecture on the sin of neglecting her duty for the sake of +anybody. Mrs. Ferret was afterward sorry she had said anything, for she +herself wanted to stay to gratify her curiosity. But Isabel did not mind +the rebuke. She put some petunias on the mantel-piece and some grasses +over the looking-glass, and then tried to read, but the book was not +interesting. She was alarmed at her own excitement; she planned how she +would treat Albert with mingled cordiality and reserve, and thus preserve +her own dignity; she went through a mental rehearsal of the meeting two +or three times--in truth, she was just going over it the fourth time +when Charlton stood between the morning-glory vines on the doorstep. And +when she saw his face pale with suffering, she forgot all about the +rehearsal, and shook his hand with sisterly heartiness--the word +"sisterly" came to her mind most opportunely--and looked at him with the +utmost gladness, and sat him down by the window, and sat down facing him. +For the first time since Katy's death he was happy. He thought himself +entitled to one hour of happiness after all that he had endured. + +When Mrs. Ferret came home from prayer-meeting she entered by the +back-gate, and judiciously stood for some time looking in at the window. +Charlton was telling Isa something about his imprisonment, and Mrs. +Ferret, listening to the tones of his voice and seeing the light in Isa's +eyes, shook her head, and said to herself that it was scandalous for a +Chrischen girl to act in such a way. + +If the warmth of feeling shown in the interview between Albert and Isa +had anything improper in it under the circumstances, Mrs. Ferret knew how +to destroy it. She projected her iceberg presence into the room and froze +them both. + +Albert had many misgivings that night. He felt that he had not acted +with proper self-control in his interview with Isabel. And just in +proportion to his growing love for Isa did he chafe with the bitterness +of the undeserved disgrace that must be an insurmountable barrier to his +possessing her. How should he venture to hope that a woman who had +refused Lurton, should be willing to marry him? And to marry his +dishonor besides? + +He lay thus debating what he should do, sometimes almost resolved to +renounce his scruples and endeavor to win Isa, sometimes bravely +determined to leave with Gray in the morning, never to come back to +Metropolisville again. Sleep was not encouraged by the fact that Westcott +occupied the bed on the other side of a thin board partition. He could +hear him in that pitiful state of half-delirium that so often succeeds a +spree, and that just touches upon the verge of _mania-Ă -potu._ + +"So he's out, is he?" Charlton heard him say. "How the devil did he get +out? Must a swum out, by George! That's the only way. Now her face is +goin' to come. Always does come when I feel this way. There she is! Go +'way! What do you want? What do you look at me for? What makes you look +that way? I can't help it. I didn't drown you. I had to get out some way. +What do you call Albert for? Albert's gone to penitentiary. He can't save +you. Don't look that way! If you're goin' to drown, why don't you do it +and be done with it? Hey? You will keep bobbin' up and down there all +night and staring at me like the devil all the time! I couldn't help it. +I didn't want to shake you off. I would 'ave gone down myself if I +hadn't. There now, let go! Pullin' me down again! Let go! If you don't +let go, Katy, I'll have to shake you off. I couldn't help it. What made +you love me so? You needn't have been a fool. Why didn't somebody tell +you about Nelly? If you'd heard about Nelly, you wouldn't have--oh! the +devil! I knew it! There's Nelly's face coming. That's the worst of all. +What does _she_ come for? She a'n't dead. Here, somebody! I want a match! +Bring me a light!" + +Whatever anger Albert may have had toward the poor fellow was all turned +into pity after this night. Charlton felt as though he had been listening +to the plaints of a damned soul, and moralized that it were better to go +to prison for life than to carry about such memories as haunted the +dreams of Westcott. And he felt that to allow his own attachment to Isa +Marlay to lead to a marriage would involve him in guilt and entail a +lifelong remorse. He must not bring his dishonor upon her. He determined +to rise early and go over to Gray's new town, sell off his property, and +then leave the Territory. But the Inhabitant was to leave at six o'clock, +and Charlton, after his wakeful night, sank into a deep sleep at +daybreak, and did not wake until half-past eight. When he came down to +breakfast, Gray had been gone two hours and a half. + +He sat around during the forenoon irresolute and of course unhappy. After +a while decision came to him in the person of Mrs. Ferret, who called and +asked for a private interview. + +Albert led her into the parlor, for the parlor was always private enough +on a pleasant day. Nobody cared to keep the company of a rusty box stove, +a tattered hair-cloth sofa, six wooden chairs, and a discordant tinny +piano-forte, when the weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or +to walk on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of associations of +the days in which he had studied botany with Helen Minorkey. And the +bitter memory of the mistakes of the year before, was a perpetual check +to his self-confidence now. So that he prepared himself to listen with +meekness even to Mrs. Ferret. + +"Mr. Charlton, do you think you're acting just right--just as you would +be done by--in paying attentions to Miss Marlay when you are just out +of--of--the--penitentiary?" + +Albert was angered by her way of putting it, and came near telling her +that it was none of her business. But his conscience was on Mrs. +Ferret's side. + +"I haven't paid any special attention to Miss Marlay. I called to see her +as an old friend." Charlton spoke with some irritation, the more that he +knew all the while he was not speaking with candor. + +"Well, now, Mr. Charlton, how would you have liked to have your sister +marry a man just out of--well, just--just as you are, just out of +penitentiary, you know? I have heard remarks already about Miss +Marlay--that she had refused a very excellent and talented preacher of +the Gospill--you know who I mean--and was about to take up with--well, +you know how people talk--with a man just out of the--out of the +penitentiary--you know. A _jail-bird_ is what they said. You know people +will talk. And Miss Marlay is under my care, and I must do my duty as a +Chrischen to her. And I know she thinks a great deal of you, and I don't +think it would be right, you know, for you to try to marry her. You know +the Scripcherr says that we must do as we'd be done by; and I wouldn't +want a daughter of mine to marry a young man just--well--just out +of--the--just out of the penitentiary, you know." + +"Mrs. Ferret, I think this whole talk impertinent. Miss Marlay is not at +all under your care, I have not proposed marriage to her, she is an old +friend who was very kind to my mother and to me, and there is no harm in +my seeing her when I please." + +"Well, Mr. Charlton, I know your temper is bad, and I expected you'd talk +insultingly to me, but I've done my duty and cleared my skirts, anyhow, +and that's a comfort. A Chrischen must expect to be persecuted in the +discharge of duty. You may talk about old friendships, and all that; but +there's nothing so dangerous as friendship. Don't I know? Half the +marriages that oughtn't to be, come from friendships. Whenever you see a +friendship between a young man and a young woman, look out for a wedding. +And I don't think you ought to ask Isabel to marry you, and you just out +of--just--you know--out of the--the penitentiary." + +When Mrs. Ferret had gone, Albert found that while her words had rasped +him, they had also made a deep impression on him. He was, then, a +jail-bird in the eyes of Metropolisville--of the world. He must not +compromise Isa by a single additional visit. He could not trust himself +to see her again. The struggle was not fought out easily. But at last he +wrote a letter: + +"MY DEAR MISS MARLAY: I find that I can not even visit you without +causing remarks to be made, which reflect on you. I can not stay here +without wishing to enjoy your society, and you can not receive the visits +of a 'jail-bird,' as they call me, without disgrace. I owe everything to +you, and it would be ungrateful, indeed, in me to be a source of +affliction and dishonor to you. I never regretted my disgrace so much as +since I talked with you last night. If I could shake that off, I might +hope for a great happiness, perhaps. + +"I am going to Gray's Village to-morrow. I shall close up my business, +and go away somewhere, though I would much rather stay here and live down +my disgrace. I shall remember your kindness with a full heart, and if I +can ever serve you, all I have shall be yours--I would be wholly yours +now, if I could offer myself without dishonoring you, and you would +accept me. Good-by, and may God bless you. + +"Your most grateful friend, ALBERT CHARLTON." + +The words about offering himself, in the next to the last sentence, +Albert wrote with hesitation, and then concluded that he would better +erase them, as he did not mean to give any place to his feelings. He drew +his pen through them, taking pains to leave the sentence entirely legible +beneath the canceling stroke. Such tricks does inclination play with the +sternest resolves! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE LAST. + + +The letter was deposited at the post-office immediately. Charlton did not +dare give his self-denying resolution time to cool. + +Isa was not looking for letters, and Mrs. Ferret ventured to hint that +the chance of meeting somebody on the street had something to do with her +walk. Of course Miss Marlay was insulted. No woman would ever do such a +thing. Consciously, at least. + +And after reading Charlton's letter, what did Isa do? What could she do? +A woman may not move in such a case. Her whole future happiness may drift +to wreck by somebody's mistake, and she may not reach a hand to arrest +it. What she does must be done by indirection and under disguise. It is a +way society has of training women to be candid. + +The first feeling which Isa had was a sudden shock of surprise. She was +not so much astonished at the revelation of Charlton's feeling as at the +discovery of her own. With Albert's abrupt going away, all her heart and +hope seemed to be going too. She had believed her interest in Charlton to +be disinterested until this moment. It was not until he proposed going +away entirely that she came to understand how completely that interest +had changed its character. + +But what could she do? Nothing at all. She was a woman. + +As evening drew on, Charlton felt more and more the bitterness of the +self-denial he had imposed upon himself. He inwardly abused Mrs. Ferret +for meddling. He began to hope for all sorts of impossible accidents that +might release him from his duty in the case. Just after dark he walked +out. Of course he did not want to meet Miss Marlay--his mind was made +up--he would not walk down Plausaby street--at least not so far as Mrs. +Ferret's house. There could be no possible harm in his going half-way +there. Love is always going half-way, and then splitting the difference +on the remainder. Isa, on her part, remembered a little errand she must +attend to at the store. She felt that, after a day of excitement, she +needed the air, though indeed she did not want to meet Charlton any more, +if he had made up his mind not to see her. And so they walked right up to +one another, as lovers do when they have firmly resolved to keep apart. + +"Good-evening, Isabel," said Albert. He had not called her Isabel before. +It was a sort of involuntary freedom which he allowed himself--this was +to be the very last interview. + +"Good-evening--Albert." Isa could not refuse to treat him with +sisterly freedom--now that she was going to bid him adieu forever. "You +were going away without so much as saying good-by." + +"One doesn't like to be the cause of unpleasant remarks about one's best +friend," said Charlton. + +"But what if your best friend doesn't care a fig for anybody's remarks," +said Isabel energetically. + +"How?" asked Albert. It was a senseless interrogatory, but Isa's words +almost took his breath. + +Isa was startled at having said so much, and only replied indistinctly +that it didn't matter what people said. + +"Yes, but you don't know how long such things might cleave to you. Ten +years hence it might be said that you had been the friend of a man who +was--in--the penitentiary." Charlton presented objections for the sake of +having them refuted. + +"And I wouldn't care any more ten years hence than I do now. Were you +going to our house? Shall I walk back with you?" + +"I don't know." Charlton felt his good resolutions departing. "I started +out because I wanted to see the lake where Katy was drowned before I go +away. I am ever so glad that I met you, if I do not compromise you. I +would rather spend this evening in your company than in any other way in +the world--" Albert hadn't meant to say so much, but he couldn't +recall it when it was uttered--"but I feel that I should be selfish to +bring reproach on you for my own enjoyment." + +"All right, then," said Isa, laughing, "I'll take the responsibility. I +am going to the lake with you if you don't object." + +"You are the bravest woman in the world," said Albert with effusion. + +"You forget how brave a man you have shown yourself." + +I am afraid this strain of talk was not at all favorable to the strength +and persistence of Charlton's resolution, which, indeed, was by this time +sadly weakened. + +After they had spent an hour upon the knoll looking out upon the lake, +and talking of the past, and diligently avoiding all mention of the +future, Charlton summoned courage to allude to his departure in a voice +more full of love than of resolve. + +"Why do you go, Albert?" Isa said, looking down and breaking a weed with +the toe of her boot. They had called each other by their Christian names +during the whole interview. + +"Simply for the sake of your happiness, Isa. It makes me miserable +enough, I am sure." Charlton spoke as pathetically as he could. + +"But suppose I tell you that your going will make me as wretched as it +can make you. What then?" + +"How? It certainly would be unmanly for me to ask you to share my +disgrace. A poor way of showing my love. I love you well enough to do +anything in the world to make you happy." + +Isa looked down a moment and began to speak, but stopped. + +"Well, what?" said Albert. + +"May I decide what will make me happy? Am I capable of judging?" + +Albert looked foolish, and said, "Yes," with some eagerness. He was more +than ever willing to have somebody else decide for him. + +"Then I tell you, Albert, that if you go away you will sacrifice my +happiness along with your own." + + * * * * * + +It was a real merry party that met at a _petit souper_ at nine o'clock +in the evening in the dining-room of the City Hotel some months later. +There was Lurton, now pastor in Perritaut, who had just given his +blessing on the marriage of his friends, and who sat at the head of the +table and said grace. There were Albert and Isabel Charlton, bridegroom +and bride. There was Gray, the Hoosier Poet, with a poem of nine verses +for the occasion. + +"I'm sorry the stage is late," said Albert. "I wanted Jim." One likes to +have all of one's best friends on such an occasion. + +Just then the coach rattled up to the door, and Albert went out and +brought in the Superior Being. + +"Now, we are all here," said Charlton. "I had to ask Mrs. Ferret, and I +was afraid she'd come." + +"Not her!" said Jim. + +"Why?" + +"She kin do better." + +"How?" + +"She staid to meet her beloved." + +"Who's that?" + +"Dave." Jim didn't like to give any more information than would serve to +answer a question. He liked to be pumped. + +"Dave Sawney?" + +"The same. He told me to-day as him and the widder owned claims as +'jined, and they'd made up their minds to jine too. And then he +haw-haw'd tell you could a-heerd him a mile. By the way, it's the widder +that's let the cat out of the bag." + +"What cat out of what bag?" asked Lurton. + +"Why, how Mr. Charlton come to go to the State boardin'-house fer takin' +a land-warrant he didn' take." + +"How _did_ she find out?" said Isa. Her voice seemed to be purer and +sweeter than ever--happiness had tuned it. + +"By list'nin' at the key-hole," said Jim. + +"When? What key-hole?" + +"When Mr. Lurton and Miss Marlay--I beg your pard'n, Mrs. Charlton--was +a-talkin' about haow to git Mr. Charlton out." + +"Be careful," said Lurton. "You shouldn't make such a charge unless you +have authority." + +Jim looked at Lurton a moment indignantly. "Thunder and lightnin'," he +said, "Dave tole me so hisself! Said _she_ tole him. And Dave larfed +over it, and thought it 'powerful cute' in her, as he said in his +Hoosier lingo;" and Jim accompanied this last remark with a patronizing +look at Gray. + +"Charlton, what are you thinking about?" asked Lurton when +conversation flagged. + +"One year ago to-day I was sentenced, and one year ago to-morrow I +started to Stillwater." + +"Bully!" said Jim. "I beg yer pardon, Mrs. Charlton, I couldn't help it. +A body likes to see the wheel turn round right. Ef 'twould on'y put some +folks _in_ as well _as_ turn some a-out!" + +When Charlton with his bride started in a sleigh the next morning to his +new home on his property in the village of "Charlton" a crowd had +gathered about the door, moved partly by that curiosity which always +interests itself in newly-married people, and partly by an exciting rumor +that Charlton was not guilty of the offense for which he had been +imprisoned. Mrs. Ferret had told the story to everybody, exacting from +each one a pledge of secrecy. Just as Albert started his horses, Whisky +Jim, on top of his stage-box, called out to the crowd, "Three cheers, by +thunder!" and they were given heartily. It was the popular acquittal. + + + + +WORDS AFTERWARDS. + +Metropolisville is only a memory now. The collapse of the land-bubble and +the opening of railroads destroyed it. Most of the buildings were removed +to a neighboring railway station. Not only has Metropolisville gone, but +the unsettled state of society in which it grew has likewise +disappeared--the land-sharks, the claim speculators, the +town-proprietors, the trappers, and the stage-drivers have emigrated or +have undergone metamorphosis. The wild excitement of '56 is a tradition +hardly credible to those who did not feel its fever. But the most +evanescent things may impress themselves on human beings, and in the +results which they thus produce become immortal. There is a last page to +all our works, but to the history of the ever-unfolding human spirit no +one will ever write. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Metropolisville, by Edward Eggleston + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12195 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..af3e9e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12195 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12195) diff --git a/old/12195-8.txt b/old/12195-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2b88f34 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12195-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8663 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Metropolisville, by Edward Eggleston + +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: The Mystery of Metropolisville + +Author: Edward Eggleston + +Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12195] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE *** + + + + +Produced by John Hagerson, Rick Niles, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE + + BY EDWARD EGGLESTON + + AUTHOR OF "THE HOOGLEE SCHOOL-MASTER," "THE END OF THE WORLD," ETC + + 1888 + + + + +TO ONE WHO KNOWS WITH ME A LOVE-STORY, NOW MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS IN +LENGTH, AND BETTER A HUNDREDFOLD THAN ANY I SHALL EVER BE ABLE TO WRITE, +THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, ON AN ANNIVERSARY. + +MARCH 18TH, 1873. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +A novel should be the truest of books. It partakes in a certain sense of +the nature of both history and art. It needs to be true to human nature +in its permanent and essential qualities, and it should truthfully +represent some specific and temporary manifestation of human nature: that +is, some form of society. It has been objected that I have copied life +too closely, but it seems to me that the work to be done just now, is to +represent the forms and spirit of our own life, and thus free ourselves +from habitual imitation of that which is foreign. I have wished to make +my stories of value as a contribution to the history of civilization in +America. If it be urged that this is not the highest function, I reply +that it is just now the most necessary function of this kind of +literature. Of the value of these stories as works of art, others must +judge; but I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I have at least +rendered one substantial though humble service to our literature, if I +have portrayed correctly certain forms of American life and manners. + +BROOKLYN, March, 1873. + + + + +CONTENTS. + +PREFACE + +WORDS BEFOREHAND + + CHAPTER I. The Autocrat of the Stage-Coach + + CHAPTER II. The Sod Tavern + + CHAPTER III. Land and Love + + CHAPTER IV. Albert and Katy + + CHAPTER V. Corner Lots + + CHAPTER VI. Little Katy's Lover + + CHAPTER VII. Catching and Getting Caught + + CHAPTER VIII. Isabel Marlay + + CHAPTER IX. Lovers and Lovers + + CHAPTER X. Plausaby, Esq., takes a Fatherly Interest + + CHAPTER XI. About Several Things + + CHAPTER XII. An Adventure + + CHAPTER XIII. A Shelter + + CHAPTER XIV. The Inhabitant + + CHAPTER XV. An Episode + + CHAPTER XVI. The Return + + CHAPTER XVII. Sawney and his Old Love + + CHAPTER XVIII. A Collision + + CHAPTER XIX. Standing Guard in Vain + + CHAPTER XX. Sawney and Westcott + + CHAPTER XXI. Rowing + + CHAPTER XXII. Sailing + + CHAPTER XXIII. Sinking + + CHAPTER XXIV. Dragging + + CHAPTER XXV. Afterwards + + CHAPTER XXVI. The Mystery + + CHAPTER XXVII. The Arrest + + CHAPTER XXVIII. The Tempter + + CHAPTER XXIX. The Trial + + CHAPTER XXX. The Penitentiary + + CHAPTER XXXI. Mr. Lurton + + CHAPTER XXXII. A Confession + + CHAPTER XXXIII. Death + + CHAPTER XXXIV. Mr. Lurton's Courtship + + CHAPTER XXXV. Unbarred + + CHAPTER XXXVI. Isabel + + CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last + +WORDS AFTERWARDS + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK BEARD + + +The Superior Being + +Mr. Minorkey and the Fat Gentleman + +Plausaby sells Lots + +"By George! He! he! he!" + +Mrs. Plausaby + +The Inhabitant + +A Pinch of Snuff + +Mrs. Ferret + +One Savage Blow full in the Face + +"What on Airth's the Matter?" + +His Unselfish Love found a Melancholy Recompense + +The Editor of "The Windmill" + +"Git up and Foller!" + + + + +THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE. + + + + +WORDS BEFOREHAND. + + +Metropolisville is nothing but a memory now. If Jonah's gourd had not +been a little too much used already, it would serve an excellent turn +just here in the way of an apt figure of speech illustrating the growth, +the wilting, and the withering of Metropolisville. The last time I saw +the place the grass grew green where once stood the City Hall, the +corn-stalks waved their banners on the very site of the old store--I ask +pardon, the "Emporium"--of Jackson, Jones & Co., and what had been the +square, staring white court-house--not a Temple but a Barn of +Justice--had long since fallen to base uses. The walls which had echoed +with forensic grandiloquence were now forced to hear only the bleating of +silly sheep. The church, the school-house, and the City Hotel had been +moved away bodily. The village grew, as hundreds of other frontier +villages had grown, in the flush times; it died, as so many others died, +of the financial crash which was the inevitable sequel and retribution +of speculative madness. Its history resembles the history of other +Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take the trouble +to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble to read about it, if +the history of the town did not involve also the history of certain human +lives--of a tragedy that touched deeply more than one soul. And what is +history worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is not of +value on account of its temples and statues, but on account of its men +and women. And though the "Main street" of Metropolisville is now a +country road where the dog-fennel blooms almost undisturbed by comers and +goers, though the plowshare remorselessly turns over the earth in places +where corner lots were once sold for a hundred dollars the front foot, +and though the lot once sacredly set apart (on the map) as "Depot Ground" +is now nothing but a potato-patch, yet there are hearts on which the +brief history of Metropolisville has left traces ineffaceable by sunshine +or storm, in time or eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE STAGECOACH. + + +"Git up!" + +No leader of a cavalry charge ever put more authority into his tones than +did Whisky Jim, as he drew the lines over his four bay horses in the +streets of Red Owl Landing, a village two years old, boasting three +thousand inhabitants, and a certain prospect of having four thousand a +month later. + +Even ministers, poets, and writers of unworldly romances are sometimes +influenced by mercenary considerations. But stage-drivers are entirely +consecrated to their high calling. Here was Whisky Jim, in the very +streets of Red Owl, in the spring of the year 1856, when money was worth +five and six per cent a month on bond and mortgage, when corner lots +doubled in value over night, when everybody was frantically trying to +swindle everybody else--here was Whisky Jim, with the infatuation of a +life-long devotion to horse-flesh, utterly oblivious to the chances of +robbing green emigrants which a season of speculation affords. He was +secure from the infection. You might have shown him a gold-mine under the +very feet of his wheel-horses, and he could not have worked it +twenty-four hours. He had an itching palm, which could be satisfied with +nothing but the "ribbons" drawn over the backs of a four-in-hand. + +"_Git_ up!" + +The coach moved away--slowly at first--from the front door of the large, +rectangular, unpainted Red Owl Hotel, dragging its wheels heavily through +the soft turf of a Main street from which the cotton-wood trees had been +cut down, but in which the stumps were still standing, and which remained +as innocent of all pavement as when, three years before, the chief whose +name it bore, loaded his worldly goods upon the back of his oldest and +ugliest wife, slung his gun over his shoulder, and started mournfully +away from the home of his fathers, which he, shiftless fellow, had +bargained away to the white man for an annuity of powder and blankets, +and a little money, to be quickly spent for whisky. And yet, I might add +digressively, there is comfort in the saddest situations. Even the +venerable Red Owl bidding adieu to the home of his ancestors found solace +in the sweet hope of returning under favorable circumstances to scalp the +white man's wife and children. + +"Git up, thair! G'lang!" The long whip swung round and cracked +threateningly over the haunches of the leaders, making them start +suddenly as the coach went round a corner and dipped into a hole at the +same instant, nearly throwing the driver, and the passenger who was +enjoying the outride with him, from their seats. + +"What a hole!" said the passenger, a studious-looking young man, with an +entomologist's tin collecting-box slung over his shoulders. + +The driver drew a long breath, moistened his lips, and said in a cool and +aggravatingly deliberate fashion: + +"That air blamed pollywog puddle sold las' week fer tew thaousand." + +[Illustration: THE SUPERIOR BEING.] + +"Dollars?" asked the young man. + +Jim gave him an annihilating look, and queried: "Didn' think I meant tew +thaousand acorns, did ye?" + +"It's an awful price," said the abashed passenger, speaking as one might +in the presence of a superior being. + +Jim was silent awhile, and then resumed in the same slow tone, but with +something of condescension mixed with it: + +"Think so, do ye? Mebbe so, stranger. Fool what bought that tadpole lake +done middlin' well in disposin' of it, how-sumdever." + +Here the Superior Being came to a dead pause, and waited to be +questioned. + +"How's that?" asked the young man. + +After a proper interval of meditation, Jim said: "Sol' it this week. Tuck +jest twice what he invested in his frog-fishery." + +"Four thousand?" said the passenger with an inquisitive and surprised +rising inflection. + +"Hey?" said Jim, looking at him solemnly. "Tew times tew use to be four +when I larnt the rewl of three in old Varmount. Mebbe 'taint so in the +country you come from, where they call a pail a bucket." + +The passenger kept still awhile. The manner of the Superior Being chilled +him a little. But Whisky Jim graciously broke the silence himself. + +"Sell nex' week fer six." + +The young man's mind had already left the subject under discussion, and +it took some little effort of recollection to bring it back. + +"How long will it keep on going up?" he asked. + +"Tell it teches the top. Come daown then like a spile-driver in a hurry. +Higher it goes, the wuss it'll mash anybody what happens to stan' +percisely under it." + +"When will it reach the top?" + +The Superior Being turned his eyes full upon the student, who blushed a +little under the half-sneer of his look. + +"Yaou tell! Thunder, stranger, that's jest what everybody'd pay money tew +find out. Everybody means to git aout in time, but--thunder!--every piece +of perrary in this territory's a deadfall. Somebody'll git catched in +every one of them air traps. Gee up! G'lang! _Git_ up, won't you? Hey?" +And this last sentence was ornamented with another magnificent +writing-master flourish of the whip-lash, and emphasized by an explosive +crack at the end, which started the four horses off in a swinging gallop, +from which Jim did not allow them to settle back into a walk until they +had reached the high prairie land in the rear of the town. + +"What are those people living in tents for?" asked the student as he +pointed back to Red Owl, now considerably below them, and which presented +a panorama of balloon-frame houses, mostly innocent of paint, with a +sprinkling of tents pitched here and there among the trees; on lots not +yet redeemed from virgin wildness, but which possessed the remarkable +quality of "fetching" prices that would have done honor to well-located +land in Philadelphia. + +"What they live that a-way fer? Hey? Mos'ly 'cause they can't live no +other." Then, after a long pause, the Superior Being resumed in a tone of +half-soliloquy: "A'n't a bed nur a board in the hull city of Red Owl to +be had for payin' nur coaxin'. Beds is aces. Houses is trumps. Landlords +is got high, low, Jack, and the game in ther hands. Looky there! A +bran-new lot of fools fresh from the factory." And he pointed to the old +steamboat "Ben Bolt," which was just coming up to the landing with deck +and guards black with eager immigrants of all classes. + +But Albert Charlton, the student, did not look back any longer. It marks +an epoch in a man's life when he first catches sight of a prairie +landscape, especially if that landscape be one of those great rolling +ones to be seen nowhere so well as in Minnesota. Charlton had crossed +Illinois from Chicago to Dunleith in the night-time, and so had missed +the flat prairies. His sense of sublimity was keen, and, besides his +natural love for such scenes, he had a hobbyist passion for virgin nature +superadded. + +"What a magnificent country!" he cried. + +"Talkin' sense!" muttered Jim. "Never seed so good a place fer stagin' +in my day." + +For every man sees through his own eyes. To the emigrants whose white-top +"prairie schooners" wound slowly along the road, these grass-grown hills +and those far-away meadowy valleys were only so many places where good +farms could be opened without the trouble of cutting off the trees. It +was not landscape, but simply land where one might raise thirty or forty +bushels of spring wheat to the acre, without any danger of "fevernager;" +to the keen-witted speculator looking sharply after corner stakes, at a +little distance from the road, it was just so many quarter sections, +"eighties," and "forties," to be bought low and sold high whenever +opportunity offered; to Jim it was a good country for staging, except a +few "blamed sloughs where the bottom had fell out." But the enthusiastic +eyes of young Albert Charlton despised all sordid and "culinary uses" of +the earth; to him this limitless vista of waving wild grass, these green +meadows and treeless hills dotted everywhere with purple and yellow +flowers, was a sight of Nature in her noblest mood. Such rolling hills +behind hills! If those _rolls_ could be called hills! After an hour the +coach had gradually ascended to the summit of the "divide" between Purple +River on the one side and Big Gun River on the other, and the rows of +willows and cotton-woods that hung over the water's edge--the only trees +under the whole sky--marked distinctly the meandering lines of the two +streams. Albert Charlton shouted and laughed; he stood up beside Jim, and +cried out that it was a paradise. + +"Mebbe 'tis," sneered Jim, "Anyway, it's got more'n one devil into it. +_Gil_--lang!" + +And under the inspiration of the scenery, Albert, with the impulsiveness +of a young man, unfolded to Whisky Jim all the beauties of his own +theories: how a man should live naturally and let other creatures live; +how much better a man was without flesh-eating; how wrong it was to +speculate, and that a speculator gave nothing in return; and that it was +not best to wear flannels, seeing one should harden his body to endure +cold and all that; and how a man should let his beard grow, not use +tobacco nor coffee nor whisky, should get up at four o'clock in the +morning and go to bed early. + +"Looky here, mister!" said the Superior Being, after a while. "I wouldn't +naow, ef I was you!" + +"Wouldn't what?" + +"Wouldn't fetch no sich notions into this ked'ntry. Can't afford tew. +'Taint no land of idees. It's the ked'ntry of corner lots. Idees is in +the way--don't pay no interest. Haint had time to build a 'sylum fer +people with idees yet, in this territory. Ef you must have 'em, why let +me _rec_-ommend Bost'n. Drove hack there wunst, myself." Then after a +pause he proceeded with the deliberation of a judge: "It's the best +village I ever lay eyes on fer idees, is Bost'n. Thicker'n hops! Grow +single and in bunches. Have s'cieties there fer idees. Used to make money +outen the fellows with idees, cartin 'em round to anniversaries and sich. +Ef you only wear a nice slick plug-hat there, you kin believe anything +you choose or not, and be a gentleman all the same. The more you believe +or don't believe in Bost'n, the more gentleman you be. The +don't-believers is just as good as the believers. Idees inside the head, +and plug-hats outside. But idees out here! I tell you, here it's nothin' +but per-cent." The Superior Being puckered his lips and whistled. "_Git_ +up, will you! G'lang! Better try Bost'n." + +Perhaps Albert Charlton, the student passenger, was a little offended +with the liberty the driver had taken in rebuking his theories. He was +full of "idees," and his fundamental idea was of course his belief in +the equality and universal brotherhood of men. In theory he recognized +no social distinctions. But the most democratic of democrats in theory +is just a little bit of an aristocrat in feeling--he doesn't like to be +patted on the back by the hostler; much less does he like to be +reprimanded by a stage-driver. And Charlton was all the more sensitive +from a certain vague consciousness that he himself had let down the bars +of his dignity by unfolding his theories so gushingly to Whisky Jim. +What did Jim know--what _could_ a man who said "idees" know--about the +great world-reforming thoughts that engaged his attention? But when +dignity is once fallen, all the king's oxen and all the king's men can't +stand it on its legs again. In such a strait, one must flee from him who +saw the fall. + +Albert Charlton therefore determined that he would change to the inside +of the coach when an opportunity should offer, and leave the Superior +Being to sit "wrapped in the solitude of his own originality." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SOD TAVERN. + + +Here and there Charlton noticed the little claim-shanties, built in every +sort of fashion, mere excuses for pre-emption. Some were even constructed +of brush. What was lacking in the house was amply atoned for by the +perjury of the claimant who, in pre-empting, would swear to any necessary +number of good qualities in his habitation. On a little knoll ahead of +the stage he saw what seemed to be a heap of earth. There must have been +some inspiration in this mound, for, as soon as it came in sight, Whisky +Jim began to chirrup and swear at his horses, and to crack his long whip +threateningly until he had sent them off up the hill at a splendid pace. +Just by this mound of earth he reined up with an air that said the +forenoon route was finished. For this was nothing less than the "Sod +Tavern," a house built of cakes of the tenacious prairiesod. No other +material was used except the popple-poles, which served for supports to +the sod-roof. The tavern was not over ten feet high at the apex of the +roof; it had been built for two or three years, and the grass was now +growing on top. A red-shirted publican sallied out of this artificial +grotto, and invited the ladies and gentlemen to dinner. + +It appeared, from a beautifully-engraved map hanging on the walls of the +Sod Tavern, that this earthly tabernacle stood in the midst of an ideal +town. The map had probably been constructed by a poet, for it was quite +superior to the limitations of sense and matter-of-fact. According to the +map, this solitary burrow was surrounded by Seminary, Depôt, Court-House, +Woolen Factory, and a variety of other potential institutions, which +composed the flourishing city of New Cincinnati. But the map was meant +chiefly for Eastern circulation. + +Charlton's dietetic theories were put to the severest test at the table. +He had a good appetite. A ride in the open air in Minnesota is apt to +make one hungry. But the first thing that disgusted Mr. Charlton was the +coffee, already poured out, and steaming under his nose. He hated coffee +because he liked it; and the look of disgust with which he shoved it away +was the exact measure of his physical craving for it. The solid food on +the table consisted of waterlogged potatoes, half-baked salt-rising +bread, and salt-pork. Now, young Charlton was a reader of the _Water-Cure +Journal_ of that day, and despised meat of all things, and of all meat +despised swine's flesh, as not even fit for Jews; and of all forms of +hog, hated fat salt-pork as poisonously indigestible. So with a dyspeptic +self-consciousness he rejected the pork, picked off the periphery of the +bread near the crust, cautiously avoiding the dough-bogs in the middle; +but then he revenged himself by falling furiously upon the aquatic +potatoes, out of which most of the nutriment had been soaked. + +Jim, who sat alongside him, doing cordial justice to the badness of the +meal, muttered that it wouldn't do to eat by idees in Minnesoty. And with +the freedom that belongs to the frontier, the company begun to discuss +dietetics, the fat gentleman roundly abusing the food for the express +purpose, as Charlton thought, of diverting attention from his voracious +eating of it. + +"Simply despicable," grunted the fat man, as he took a third slice of the +greasy pork. "I do despise such food." + +"Eats it _like_ he was mad at it," said Driver Jim in an undertone. + +But as Charlton's vegetarianism was noticed, all fell to denouncing it. +Couldn't live in a cold climate without meat. Cadaverous Mr. Minorkey, +the broad-shouldered, sad-looking man with side-whiskers, who complained +incessantly of a complication of disorders, which included dyspepsia, +consumption, liver-disease, organic disease of the heart, rheumatism, +neuralgia, and entire nervous prostration, and who was never entirely +happy except in telling over the oft-repeated catalogue of his disgusting +symptoms--Mr. Minorkey, as he sat by his daughter, inveighed, in an +earnest crab-apple voice, against Grahamism. He would have been in his +grave twenty years ago if it hadn't been for good meat. And then he +recited in detail the many desperate attacks from which he had been saved +by beefsteak. But this pork he felt sure would make him sick. It might +kill him. And he evidently meant to sell his life as dearly as possible, +for, as Jim muttered to Charlton, he was "goin' the whole hog anyhow." + +"Miss Minorkey," said the fat gentleman checking a piece of pork in the +middle of its mad career toward his lips, "Miss Minorkey, we _should_ +like to hear from you on this subject." In truth, the fat gentleman was +very weary of Mr. Minorkey's pitiful succession of diagnoses of the awful +symptoms and fatal complications of which he had been cured by very +allopathic doses of animal food. So he appealed to Miss Minorkey for +relief at a moment when her father had checked and choked his utterance +with coffee. + +Miss Minorkey was quite a different affair from her father. She was +thoroughly but not obtrusively healthy. She had a high, white forehead, a +fresh complexion, and a mouth which, if it was deficient in sweetness and +warmth of expression, was also free from all bitterness and +aggressiveness. Miss Minorkey was an eminently well-educated young lady +as education goes. She was more--she was a young lady of reading and of +ideas. She did not exactly defend Charlton's theory in her reply, but she +presented both sides of the controversy, and quoted some scientific +authorities in such a way as to make it apparent that there _were_ two +sides. This unexpected and rather judicial assistance called forth from +Charlton a warm acknowledgment, his pale face flushed with modest +pleasure, and as he noted the intellectuality of Miss Minorkey's forehead +he inwardly comforted himself that the only person of ideas in the whole +company was not wholly against him. + +Albert Charlton was far from being a "ladies' man;" indeed, nothing was +more despicable in his eyes than men who frittered away life in ladies' +company. But this did not at all prevent him from being very human +himself in his regard for ladies. All the more that he had lived out of +society all his life, did his heart flutter when he took his seat in the +stage after dinner. For Miss Minorkey's father and the fat gentleman felt +that they must have the back seat; there were two other gentlemen on the +middle seat; and Albert Charlton, all unused to the presence of ladies, +must needs sit on the front seat, alongside the gray traveling-dress of +the intellectual Miss Minorkey, who, for her part, was not in the least +bit nervous. Young Charlton might have liked her better if she had been. + +But if she was not shy, neither was she obtrusive. When Mr. Charlton had +grown weary of hearing Mr. Minorkey pity himself, and of hearing the fat +gentleman boast of the excellence of the Minnesota climate, the dryness +of the air, and the wonderful excess of its oxygen, and the entire +absence of wintry winds, and the rapid development of the country, and +when he had grown weary of discussions of investments at five per cent a +month, he ventured to interrupt Miss Minorkey's reverie by a remark to +which she responded. And he was soon in a current of delightful talk. The +young gentleman spoke with great enthusiasm; the young woman without +warmth, but with a clear intellectual interest in literary subjects, that +charmed her interlocutor. I say literary subjects, though the range of +the conversation was not very wide. It was a great surprise to Charlton, +however, to find in a new country a young woman so well informed. + +Did he fall in love? Gentle reader, be patient. You want a love-story, +and I don't blame you. For my part, I should not take the trouble to +record this history if there were no love in it. Love is the universal +bond of human sympathy. But you must give people time. What we call +falling in love is not half so simple an affair as you think, though it +often looks simple enough to the spectator. Albert Charlton was pleased, +he was full of enthusiasm, and I will not deny that he several times +reflected in a general way that so clear a talker and so fine a thinker +would make a charming wife for some man--some intellectual man--some man +like himself, for instance. He admired Miss Minorkey. He liked her. With +an enthusiastic young man, admiring and liking are, to say the least, +steps that lead easily to something else. But you must remember how +complex a thing love is. Charlton--I have to confess it--was a little +conceited, as every young man is at twenty. He flattered himself that the +most intelligent woman he could find would be a good match for him. He +loved ideas, and a woman of ideas pleased his fancy. Add to this that he +had come to a time of life when he was very liable to fall in love with +somebody, and that he was in the best of spirits from the influence of +air and scenery and motion and novelty, and you render it quite probable +that he could not be tossed for half a day on the same seat in a coach +with such a girl as Helen Minorkey was--that, above all, he could not +discuss Hugh Miller and the "Vestiges of Creation" with her, without +imminent peril of experiencing an admiration for her and an admiration +for himself, and a liking and a palpitating and a castle-building that +under favorable conditions might somehow grow into that complex and +inexplicable feeling which we call love. + +In fact, Jim, who drove both routes on this day, and who peeped into the +coach whenever he stopped to water, soliloquized that two fools with +idees would make a quare span ef they had a neck-yoke on. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +LAND AND LOVE. + + +Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman found much to interest them as the +coach rolled over the smooth prairie road, now and then crossing a +slough. Not that Mr. Minorkey or his fat friend had any particular +interest in the beautiful outline of the grassy knolls, the gracefulness +of the water-willows that grew along the river edge, and whose paler +green was the prominent feature of the landscape, or in the sweet +contrast at the horizon where grass-green earth met the light blue +northern sky. But the scenery none the less suggested fruitful themes for +talk to the two gentlemen on the back-seat. + +"I've got money loaned on that quarter at three per cent a month and five +after due. The mortgage has a waiver in it too. You see, the security was +unusually good, and that was why I let him have it so low." This was what +Mr. Minorkey said at intervals and with some variations, generally adding +something like this: "The day I went to look at that claim, to see +whether the security was good or not, I got caught in the rain. I +expected it would kill me. Well, sir, I was taken that night with a +pain--just here--and it ran through the lung to the point of the +shoulder-blade--here. I had to get my feet into a tub of water and take +some brandy. I'd a had pleurisy if I'd been in any other country but +this. I tell you, nothing saved me but the oxygen in this air. There! +there's a forty that I lent a hundred dollars on at five per cent a month +and six per cent after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage. The day I +came here to see this I was nearly dead. I had a--" + +Just here the fat gentleman would get desperate, and, by way of +preventing the completion of the dolorous account, would break out with: +"That's Sokaska, the new town laid out by Johnson--that hill over there, +where you see those stakes. I bought a corner-lot fronting the public +square, and a block opposite where they hope to get a factory. There's a +brook runs through the town, and they think it has water enough and fall +enough to furnish a water-power part of the day, during part of the year, +and they hope to get a factory located there. There'll be a territorial +road run through from St. Paul next spring if they can get a bill through +the legislature this winter. You'd best buy there." + +"I never buy town lots," said Minorkey, coughing despairingly, "never! I +run no risks. I take my interest at three and five per cent a month on a +good mortgage, with a waiver, and let other folks take risks." + +But the hopeful fat gentleman evidently took risks and slept soundly. +There was no hypothetical town, laid out hypothetically on paper, in +whose hypothetical advantages he did not covet a share. + +"You see," he resumed, "I buy low--cheap as dirt--and get the rise. Some +towns must get to be cities. I have a little all round, scattered here +and there. I am sure to have a lucky ticket in some of these lotteries." + +[Illustration: MR. MINORKEY AND THE FAT GENTLEMAN.] + +Mr. Minorkey only coughed and shook his head despondently, and said that +"there was nothing so good as a mortgage with a waiver in it. Shut down +in short order if you don't get your interest, if you've only got a +waiver. I always shut down unless I've got five per cent after maturity. +But I have the waiver in the mortgage anyhow." + +As the stage drove on, up one grassy slope and down another, there was +quite a different sort of a conversation going on in the other end of the +coach. Charlton found many things which suggested subjects about which he +and Miss Minorkey could converse, notwithstanding the strange contrast in +their way of expressing themselves. He was full of eagerness, +positiveness, and a fresh-hearted egoism. He had an opinion on +everything; he liked or disliked everything; and when he disliked +anything, he never spared invective in giving expression to his +antipathy. His moral convictions were not simply strong--they were +vehement. His intellectual opinions were hobbies that he rode under whip +and spur. A theory for everything, a solution of every difficulty, a +"high moral" view of politics, a sharp skepticism in religion, but a +skepticism that took hold of him as strongly as if it had been a faith. +He held to his _non credo_ with as much vigor as a religionist holds to +his creed. + +Miss Minorkey was just a little irritating to one so enthusiastic. She +neither believed nor disbelieved anything in particular. She liked to +talk about everything in a cool and objective fashion; and Charlton was +provoked to find that, with all her intellectual interest in things, she +had no sort of personal interest in anything. If she had been a +disinterested spectator, dropped down from another sphere, she could not +have discussed the affairs of this planet with more complete +impartiality, not to say indifference. Theories, doctrines, faiths, and +even moral duties, she treated as Charlton did beetles; ran pins through +them and held them up where she could get a good view of them--put them +away as curiosities. She listened with an attention that was surely +flattering enough, but Charlton felt that he had not made much impression +on her. There was a sort of attraction in this repulsion. There was an +excitement in his ambition to impress this impartial and judicial mind +with the truth and importance of the glorious and regenerating views he +had embraced. His self-esteem was pleased at the thought that he should +yet conquer this cool and open-minded girl by the force of his own +intelligence. He admired her intellectual self-possession all the more +that it was a quality which he lacked. Before that afternoon ride was +over, he was convinced that he sat by the supreme woman of all he had +ever known. And who was so fit to marry the supreme woman as he, Albert +Charlton, who was to do so much by advocating all sorts of reforms to +help the world forward to its goal? + +He liked that word goal. A man's pet words are the key to his character. +A man who talks of "vocation," of "goal," and all that, may be laughed at +while he is in the period of intellectual fermentation. The time is sure +to come, however, when such a man can excite other emotions than mirth. + +And so Charlton, full of thoughts of his "vocation" and the world's +"goal," was slipping into an attachment for a woman to whom both words +were Choctaw. Do you wonder at it? If she had had a vocation also, and +had talked about goals, they would mutually have repelled each other, +like two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity. People with +vocations can hardly fall in love with other people with vocations. + +But now Metropolisville was coming in sight, and Albert's attention was +attracted by the conversation of Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman. + +"Mr. Plausaby has selected an admirable site," Charlton heard the fat +gentleman remark, and as Mr. Plausaby was his own step-father, he began +to listen. "Pretty sharp! pretty sharp!" continued the fat gentleman. "I +tell you what, Mr. Minorkey, that man Plausaby sees through a millstone +with a hole in it. I mean to buy some lots in this place. It'll be the +county-seat and a railroad junction, as sure as you're alive. And +Plausaby has saved some of his best lots for me." + +"Yes, it's a nice town, or will be. I hold a mortgage on the best +eighty--the one this way--at three per cent and five after maturity, with +a waiver. I liked to have died here one night last summer. I was taken +just after supper with a violent--" + +"What a beauty of a girl that is," broke in the fat gentleman, "little +Katy Charlton, Plausaby's step-daughter!" And instantly Mr. Albert +Charlton thrust his head out of the coach and shouted "Hello, Katy!" to a +girl of fifteen, who ran to intercept the coach at the hotel steps. + +"Hurrah, Katy!" said the young man, as she kissed him impulsively as soon +as he had alighted. + +"P'int out your baggage, mister," said Jim, interrupting Katy's raptures +with a tone that befitted a Superior Being. + +In a few moments the coach, having deposited Charlton and the fat +gentleman, was starting away for its destination at Perritaut, eight +miles farther on, when Charlton, remembering again his companion on the +front seat, lifted his hat and bowed, and Miss Minorkey was kind enough +to return the bow. Albert tried to analyze her bow as he lay awake in bed +that night. Miss Minorkey doubtless slept soundly. She always did. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ALBERT AND KATY. + + +All that day in which Albert Charlton had been riding from Red Owl +Landing to Metropolisville, sweet Little Katy Charlton had been expecting +him. Everybody called her _sweet_, and I suppose there was no word in the +dictionary that so perfectly described her. She was not well-read, like +Miss Minorkey; she was not even very smart at her lessons: but she was +sweet. Sweetness is a quality that covers a multitude of defects. Katy's +heart had love in it for everybody. She loved her mother; she loved +Squire Plausaby, her step-father; she loved cousin Isa, as she called her +step-father's niece; she loved--well, no matter, she would have told you +that she loved nobody more than Brother Albert. + +And now that Brother Albert was coming to the new home in the new land +he had never seen before, Katy's heart was in her eyes. She would show +him so many things he had never seen, explain how the pocket-gophers +built their mounds, show him the nestful of flying-squirrels--had he +ever seen flying-squirrels? And she would show him Diamond Lake, and +the speckled pickerel among the water-plants. And she would point out +the people, and entertain Albert with telling him their names and the +curious gossip about them. It was so fine to know something that even +Albert, with all his learning, did not know. And she would introduce +Albert to _him_. Would Albert like _him_? Of course he would. They were +both such _dear_ men. + +And as the hours wore on, Katy grew more and more excited and nervous. +She talked about Albert to her mother till she wearied that worthy woman, +to whom the arrival of any one was an excuse for dressing if possible in +worse taste than usual, or at least for tying an extra ribbon in her +hair, and the extra ribbon was sure to be of a hue entirely discordant +with the mutually discordant ones that preceded it. Tired of talking to +her mother, she readily found an excuse to buy something--ribbons, or +candles, or hair-pins, or dried apples--something kept in the very +miscellaneous stock of the "Emporium," and she knew who would wait upon +her, and who would kindly prolong the small transaction by every artifice +in his power, and thus give her time to tell him about her Brother +Albert. He would be so glad to hear about Albert. He was always glad to +hear her tell about anybody or anything. + +And when the talk over the counter at the Emporium could not be farther +prolonged, she had even stopped on her way home at Mrs. Ferret's, and +told her about Albert, though she did not much like to talk to her--she +looked so penetratingly at her out of her round, near-sighted eyes, which +seemed always keeping a watch on the tip of her nose. And Mrs. Ferret, +with her jerky voice, and a smile that was meant to be an expression of +mingled cheerfulness and intelligence, but which expressed neither, +said: "Is your brother a Christian?" + +And Katy said he was a dear, dear fellow, but she didn't know as he was a +church-member. + +"Does he hold scriptural views? You know so many people in colleges are +not evangelical." + +Mrs. Ferret had a provoking way of pronouncing certain words +unctuously--she said "Chrishchen" "shcripcherral," and even in the word +evangelical she made the first _e_ very hard and long. + +And when little Katy could not tell whether Albert held "shcripcherral" +views or not, and was thoroughly tired of being quizzed as to whether she +"really thought Albert had a personal interest in religion," she made an +excuse to run away into the chamber of Mrs. Morrow, Mrs. Ferret's mother, +who was an invalid--Mrs. Ferret said "inva_leed_," for the sake of +emphasis. The old lady never asked impertinent questions, never talked +about "shcripcherral" or "ee-vangelical" views, but nevertheless breathed +an atmosphere of scriptural patience and evangelical fortitude and +Christian victory over the world's tribulations. Little Katy couldn't +have defined, the difference between the two in words; she never +attempted it but once, and then she said that Mrs. Ferret was like a +crabapple, and her mother like a Bartlett pear. + +But she was too much excited to stay long in one place, and so she +hurried home and went to talking to Cousin Isa, who was sewing by the +west window. And to her she poured forth praises of Albert without stint; +of his immense knowledge of everything, of his goodness and his beauty +and his strength, and his voice, and his eyes. + +"And you'll love him better'n you ever loved anybody," she wound up. + +And Cousin Isa said she didn't know about that. + +After all this weary waiting Albert had come. He had not been at home for +two years. It was during his absence that his mother had married Squire +Plausaby, and had moved to Minnesota. He wanted to see everybody at home. +His sister had written him favorable accounts of his step-father; he had +heard other accounts, not quite so favorable, perhaps. He persuaded +himself that like a dutiful son he wanted most to see his mother, who was +really very fond of him. But in truth he spent his spare time in thinking +about Katy. He sincerely believed that he loved his mother better than +anybody in the world. All his college cronies knew that the idol of his +heart was Katy, whose daguerreotype he carried in the inside pocket of +his vest, and whose letters he looked for with the eagerness of a lover. + +At last he had come, and Katy had carried him off into the house in +triumph, showing him--showing is the word, I think--showing him to her +mother, whom he kissed tenderly, and to her step-father, and most +triumphantly to Isa, with an air that said, "_Now_, isn't he just the +finest fellow in the world!" And she was not a little indignant that Isa +was so quiet in her treatment of the big brother. Couldn't she see what a +forehead and eyes he had? + +And the mother, with one shade of scarlet and two of pink in her +hair-ribbons, was rather proud of her son, but not satisfied. + +"Why _didn't_ you graduate?" she queried as she poured the coffee +at supper. + +"Because there were so many studies in the course which were a dead +waste of time. I learned six times as much as some of the dunderheads +that got sheepskins, and the professors knew it, but they do not dare to +put their seal on anybody's education unless it is mixed in exact +proportions--so much Latin, so much Greek, so much mathematics. The +professors don't like a man to travel any road but theirs. It is a +reflection on their own education. Why, I learned more out of some of the +old German books in the library than out of all their teaching." + +"But why didn't you graduate? It would have sounded so nice to be able to +say that you had graduated. That's what I sent you for, you know, and I +don't see what you got by going if you haven't graduated." + +"Why, mother, I got an education. I thought that was what a +college was for." + +"But how will anybody know that you're well-educated, I'd like to know, +when you can't say that you've graduated?" answered the mother +petulantly. + +"Whether they know it or not, I am." + +"I should think they'd know it just to look at him," said Katy, who +thought that Albert's erudition must be as apparent to everybody as +to herself. + +Mr. Plausaby quietly remarked that he had no doubt Albert had improved +his time at school, a remark which for some undefined reason vexed Albert +more than his mother's censures. + +"Well," said his mother, "a body never has any satisfaction with boys +that have got notions. Deliver me from notions. Your father had notions. +If it hadn't been for that, we might all of us have been rich to-day. +But notions kept us down. That's what I like about Mr. Plausaby. He +hasn't a single notion to bother a body with. But, I think, notions run +in the blood, and, I suppose, you'll always be putting some fool notion +or other in your own way. I meant you to be a lawyer, but I s'pose you've +got something against that, though it was your own father's calling." + +"I'd about as soon be a thief as a lawyer," Albert broke out in his +irritation. + +"Well, that's a nice way to speak about your father's profession, I'm +sure," said his mother. "But that's what comes of notions. I don't care +much, though, if you a'n't a lawyer. Doctors make more than lawyers do, +and you can't have any notions against being a doctor." + +"What, and drug people? Doctors are quacks. They know that drugs are good +for nothing, and yet they go on dosing everybody to make money. It people +would bathe, and live in the open air, and get up early, and harden +themselves to endure changes of climate, and not violate God's decalogue +written in their own muscles and nerves and head and stomach, they +wouldn't want to swallow an apothecary-shop every year." + +"Did you ever!" said Mrs. Plausaby, looking at her husband, who smiled +knowingly (as much as to reply that he had often), and at Cousin Isa, who +looked perplexed between her admiration at a certain chivalrous courage +in Albert's devotion to his ideas, and her surprise at the ultraism of +his opinions. + +"Did you ever!" said the mother again. "That's carrying notions further +than your father did. You'll never be anything, Albert. Well, well, what +comfort can I take in a boy that'll turn his back on all his chances, +and never be anything but a poor preacher, without money enough to make +your mother a Christmas present of a--a piece of ribbon?" + +"Why, ma, you've got ribbons enough now, I'm sure," said Katy, looking at +the queer tri-color which her mother was flying in revolutionary defiance +of the despotism of good taste. "I'm sure I'm glad Albert's going to be a +minister. He'll look so splendid in the pulpit! What kind of a preacher +will you be, Albert?" + +"I hope it'll be Episcopal, or any way Presbyterian," said Mrs. Plausaby, +"for they get paid better than Methodist or Baptist. And besides, it's +genteel to be Episcopal. But, I suppose, some notion'll keep you out of +being Episcopal too. You'll try to be just as poor and ungenteel as you +can. Folks with notions always do." + +"If I was going to be a minister, I would find out the poorest sect in +the country, the one that all your genteel folks turned up their noses +at--the Winnebrenarians, or the Mennonites, or the Albrights, or +something of that sort. I would join such a sect, and live and work for +the poor--" + +"Yes, I'll be bound!" said Mrs. Plausaby, feeling of her breastpin to be +sure it was in the right place. + +"But I'll never be a parson. I hope I'm too honest. Half the preachers +are dishonest." + +Then, seeing Isa's look of horrified surprise, Albert added: "Not in +money matters, but in matters of opinion. They do not deal honestly with +themselves or other people. Ministers are about as unfair as pettifoggers +in their way of arguing, and not more than one in twenty of them is brave +enough to tell the whole truth." + +"Such notions! such notions!" cried Mrs. Plausaby. + +And Cousin Isa--Miss Isabel Marlay, I should say for she was only a +cousin by brevet--here joined valiant battle in favor of the clergy. And +poor little Katy, who dearly loved to take sides with her friends, found +her sympathies sadly split in two in a contest between her dear, dear +brother and her dear, dear Cousin Isa, and she did wish they would quit +talking about such disagreeable things. I do not think either of the +combatants convinced the other, but as each fought fairly they did not +offend one another, and when the battle was over, Albert bluntly +confessed that he had spoken too strongly, and though Isa made no +confession, she felt that after all ministers were not impeccable, and +that Albert was a brave fellow. + +And Mrs. Plausaby said that she hoped Isabel would beat some sense into +the boy, for she was really afraid that he never would have anything but +notions. She pitied the woman that married _him_. She wouldn't get many +silk-dresses, and she'd have to fix her old bonnets over two or three +years hand-running. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CORNER LOTS. + + +Mr. Plausaby was one of those men who speak upon a level pitch, in a +gentle and winsome monotony. His voice was never broken by impulse, never +shaken by feeling. He was courteous without ostentation, treating +everybody kindly without exactly seeming to intend it. He let fall +pleasant remarks incidentally or accidentally, so that one was always +fortuitously overhearing his good opinion of one's self. He did not have +any conscious intent to flatter each person with some ulterior design in +view, but only a general disposition to keep everybody cheerful, and an +impression that it was quite profitable as a rule to stand well with +one's neighbors. + +The morning after Charlton's arrival the fat passenger called, eager as +usual to buy lots. To his lively imagination, every piece of ground +staked off into town lots had infinite possibilities. It seemed that the +law of probabilities had been no part of the sanguine gentleman's +education, but the gloriousness of possibilities was a thing that he +appreciated naturally; hopefulness was in his very fiber. + +Mr. Plausaby spread his "Map of Metropolisville" on the table, let his +hand slip gently down past the "Depot Ground," so that the fat gentleman +saw it without seeming to have had his attention called to it; then +Plausaby, Esq., looked meditatively at the ground set apart for +"College," and seemed to be making a mental calculation. Then Plausaby +proceeded to unfold the many advantages of the place, and Albert was a +pleased listener; he had never before suspected that Metropolisville had +prospects so entirely dazzling. He could not doubt the statements of the +bland Plausaby, who said these things in a confidential and reserved way +to the fat gentleman. Charlton did not understand, but Plausaby did, that +what is told in a corner to a fat gentleman with curly hair and a hopeful +nose is sure to be repeated from the house-tops. + +"You are an Episcopalian, I believe?" said Plausaby, Esq. The fat +gentleman replied that he was a Baptist. + +"Oh! well, I might have known it from your cordial way of talking. +Baptist myself, in principle. In principle, at least Not a member of any +church, sorry to say. Very sorry. My mother and my first Wife were both +Baptists. Both of them. I have a very warm side for the good old Baptist +church. Very warm side. And a warm side for every Baptist. Every Baptist. +To say nothing of the feeling I have always had for you--well, well, let +us not pass compliments. Business is business in this country. In this +country, you know. But I will tell _you_ one thing. The lot there marked +'College' I am just about transferring to trustees for a Baptist +university. There are two or three parties, members of Dr. Armitage's +church in New York City, that are going to give us a hundred thousand +dollars endowment. A hundred thousand dollars. Don't say anything about +it. There are people who--well, who would spoil the thing if they could. +We have neighbors, you know. Not very friendly ones. Not very friendly. +Perritaut, for instance. It isn't best to tell one's neighbor all one's +good luck. Not all one's good luck," and Plausaby, Esq., smiled knowingly +at the fat man, who did his best to screw his very transparent face into +a crafty smile in return. "Besides," continued Squire Plausaby, "once let +it get out that the Baptist University is going to occupy that block, and +there'll be a great demand--" + +[Illustration: PLAUSABY SELLS LOTS.] + +"For all the blocks around," said the eager fat gentleman, growing +impatient at Plausaby's long-windedness. + +"Precisely. For all the blocks around," went on Plausaby. "And I want to +hold on to as much of the property in this quarter as--" + +"As you can, of course," said the other. + +"As I can, of course. As much as I can, of course. But I'd like to have +you interested. You are a man of influence. A man of weight. Of weight of +character. You will bring other Baptists. And the more Baptists, the +better for--the better for--" + +"For the college, of course." + +"Exactly. Precisely. For the college, of course. The more, the better. +And I should like your name on the board of trustees of--of--" + +"The college?" + +"The university, of course. I should like your name." + +The fat gentleman was pleased at the prospect of owning land near the +Baptist University, and doubly pleased at the prospect of seeing his name +in print as one of the guardians of the destiny of the infant +institution. He thought he would like to buy half of block 26. + +"Well, no. I couldn't sell in 26 to you or any man. Couldn't sell to any +man. I want to hold that block because of its slope. I'll sell in 28 _to +you_, and the lots there are just about as good. Quite as good, indeed. +But I want to build on 26." + +The fat gentleman declared that he wouldn't have anything but lots in 26. +That block suited his fancy, and he didn't care to buy if he could not +have a pick. + +"Well, you're an experienced buyer, I see," said Plausaby, Esq. "An +experienced buyer. Any other man would have preferred 28 to 26. But +you're a little hard to insist on that particular block. I want you here, +and I'll _give_ half of 28 rather than sell you out of 26." + +"Well, now, my friend, I am sorry to seem hard. But I fastened my eye on +26. I have a fine eye for direction and distance. One, two, three, four +blocks from the public square. That's the block with the solitary +oak-tree in it, if I'm right. Yes? Well, I must have lots in that very +block. When I take a whim of that kind, heaven and earth can't turn me, +Mr. Plausaby. So you'd just as well let me have them." + +Plausaby, Esq., at last concluded that he would sell to the plump +gentleman any part of block 26 except the two lots on the south-east +corner. But that gentleman said that those were the very two he had fixed +his eyes upon. He would not buy if there were any reserves. He always +took his very pick out of each town. + +"Well," said Mr. Plausaby coaxingly, "you see I have selected those two +lots for my step-daughter. For little Katy. She is going to get married +next spring, I suppose, and I have promised her the two best in the town, +and I had marked off these two. Marked them off for her. I'll sell you +lots alongside, nearly as good, for half-price. Just half-price." + +But the fat gentleman was inexorable. Mr. Plausaby complained that the +fat gentleman was hard, and the fat gentleman was pleased with the +compliment. Having been frequently lectured by his wife for being so easy +and gullible, he was now eager to believe himself a very Shylock. Did not +like to rob little Kate of her marriage portion, he said, but he must +have the best or none. He wanted the whole south half of 26. + +And so Mr. Plausaby sold him the corner-lot and the one next to it for +ever so much more than their value, pathetically remarking that he'd have +to hunt up some other lots for Kate. And then Mr. Plausaby took the fat +gentleman out and showed him the identical corner, with the little oak +and the slope to the south. + +"Mother," said Albert, when they were gone, "is Katy going to be married +in the spring?" + +"Why, how should I know?" queried Mrs. Plausaby, as she adjusted her +collar, the wide collar of that day, and set her breastpin before the +glass. "How should I know? Katy has never told me. There's a young man +hangs round here Sundays, and goes boating and riding with her, and makes +her presents, and walks with her of evenings, and calls her his pet and +his darling and all that kind of nonsense, and I half-suspect"--here she +took out her breastpin entirely and began over again--"I half-suspect +he's in earnest. But what have I got to do with it? Kate must marry for +herself. I did twice, and done pretty well both times. But I can't see to +Kate's beaux. Marrying, my son, is a thing everybody must attend to +personally for themselves. At least, so it seems to me." And having +succeeded in getting her ribbon adjusted as she wanted it, Mrs. Plausaby +looked at herself in the glass with an approving conscience. + +"But is Kate going to be married in the spring?" asked Albert. + +"I don't know whether she will have her wedding in the spring or summer. +I can't bother myself about Kate's affairs. Marrying is a thing that +everybody must attend to personally for themselves, Albert. If Kate gets +married, I can't help it; and I don't know as there's any great sin in +it. You'll get married yourself some day." + +"Did fa--did Mr. Plausaby promise Katy some lots?" + +"Law, no! Every lot he sells 'most is sold for Kate's lot. It's a way he +has. He knows how to deal with these sharks. If you want any trading +done, Albert, you let Mr. Plausaby do it for you." + +"But, mother, that isn't right." + +"You've got queer notions, Albert. You'll want us all to quit eating +meat, I suppose. Mr. Plausaby said last night you'd be cheated out of +your eyes before you'd been here a month, if you stuck to your ideas of +things. You see, you don't understand sharks. Plausaby does. But then +that is not my lookout. I have all I can do to attend to myself. But Mr. +Plausaby _does_ know how to manage sharks." + +The more Albert thought the matter over, the more he was convinced that +Mr. Plausaby did know how to manage sharks. He went out and examined the +stakes, and found that block 26 did not contain the oak, but was much +farther down in the slough, and that the corner lots that were to have +been Katy's wedding portion stretched quite into the peat bog, and +further that if the Baptist University should stand on block 27, it would +have a baptistery all around it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LITTLE KATY'S LOVER. + + +Katy was fifteen and a half, according to the family Bible. Katy was a +woman grown in the depth and tenderness of her feeling. But Katy wasn't +twelve years of age, if measured by the development of her +discretionary powers. The phenomenon of a girl in intellect with a +woman's passion is not an uncommon one. Such girls are always +attractive--feeling in woman goes for so much more than thought. And +such a girl-woman as Kate has a twofold hold on other people--she is +loved as a woman and petted as a child. + +Albert Charlton knew that for her to love was for her to give herself +away without thought, without reserve, almost without the possibility of +revocation. Because he was so oppressed with dread in regard to the young +man who walked and boated with Katy, courted and caressed her, but about +the seriousness of whose intentions the mother seemed to have some +doubt--because of the very awfulness of his apprehensions, he dared not +ask Kate anything. + +The suspense was not for long. On the second evening after Albert's +return, Smith Westcott, the chief clerk, the agent in charge of the +branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., in Metropolisville, called at the +house of Plausaby. Mr. Smith Westcott was apparently more than +twenty-six, but not more than thirty years of age, very well-dressed, +rather fast-looking, and decidedly _blasé_. His history was written in +general but not-to-be-misunderstood terms all over his face. It was not +the face of a drunkard, but there was the redness of many glasses of wine +in his complexion, and a nose that expressed nothing so much as pampered +self-indulgence. He had the reputation of being a good, sharp business +man, with his "eye-teeth cut," but his conversation was: + +"Well--ha! ha!--and how's Katy? Divine as ever! he! he!" rattling the +keys and coins in his pocket and frisking about. "Beautiful evening! And +how does my sweet Katy? The loveliest maiden in the town! He! he! ha! ha! +I declare!" + +Then, as Albert came in and was introduced, he broke out with: + +"Glad to see you! By George! He! he! Brother, eh? Always glad to see +anybody related to Kate. Look like her a little. That's a compliment to +you, Mr. Charlton, he! he! You aren't quite so handsome though, by +George! Confound the cigar"--throwing it away; "I ordered a box in Red +Owl last week--generally get 'em in Chicago. If there's anything I like +it's a good cigar, he! he! Next to a purty girl, ha! ha! But this last +box is stronger'n pison. That sort of a cigar floors me. Can't go +entirely without, you know, so I smoke half a one, and by that time I get +so confounded mad I throw it away. Ha! ha! Smoke, Mr. Charlton? No! No +_small_ vices, I s'pose. Couldn't live without my cigar. I'm glad smoking +isn't offensive to Kate. Ah! this window's nice, I do like fresh air. +Kate knows my habits pretty well by this time. By George, I must try +another cigar. I get so nervous when trade's dull and I don't have much +to do. Wish you smoked, Mr. Charlton. Keep a man company, ha! ha! Ever +been here before? No? By George, must seem strange, he! he! It's a +confounded country. Can't get anything to eat. Nor to drink neither, for +that matter. By cracky! what nights we used to have at the Elysian Club +in New York! Ever go to the Elysian? No? Well, we did have a confounded +time there. And headaches in the morning. Punch was too sweet, you see. +Sweet punch is sure to make your headache. He! he! But I'm done with +clubs and Delmonico's, you know. I'm going to settle down and be a steady +family man." Walking to the door, he sang in capital minstrel style: + +"When de preacher took his text + He looked so berry much perplext, +Fer nothin' come acrost his mine + But Dandy Jim from Caroline! + +"Yah! yah! Plague take it! Come, Kate, stick on a sun-bonnet or a hat, +and let's walk. It's too nice a night to stay in the house, by George! +You'll excuse, Mr. Charlton? All right; come on, Kate." + +And Katy hesitated, and said in a deprecating tone: "You won't mind, will +you, Brother Albert?" + +And Albert said no, that he wouldn't mind, with a calmness that +astonished himself; for he was aching to fall foul of Katy's lover, and +beat the coxcombry out of him, or kill him. + +"By-by!" said Westcott to Albert, as he went out, and young Charlton went +out another door, and strode off toward Diamond Lake. On the high knoll +overlooking the lake he stopped and looked away to the east, where the +darkness was slowly gathering over the prairie. Night never looks so +strange as when it creeps over a prairie, seeming to rise, like a +shadowy Old Man of the Sea, out of the grass. The images become more and +more confused, and the landscape vanishes by degrees. Away to the west +Charlton saw the groves that grew on the banks of the Big Gun River, and +then the smooth prairie knolls beyond, and in the dim horizon the "Big +Woods." Despite ail his anxiety, Charlton could not help feeling the +influence of such a landscape. The greatness, the majesty of God, came to +him for a moment. Then the thought of Kate's unhappy love came over him +more bitterly from the contrast with the feelings excited by the +landscape. He went rapidly over the possible remedies. To remonstrate +with Katy seemed out of the question. If she had any power of reason, he +might argue. Bat one can not reason with feeling. It was so hard that a +soul so sweet, so free from the all but universal human taint of egoism, +a soul so loving, self-sacrificing, and self-consecrating, should throw +itself away. + +"O God!" he cried, between praying and swearing, "must this alabaster-box +of precious ointment be broken upon the head of an infernal coxcomb?" + +And then, as he remembered how many alabaster-boxes of precious womanly +love were thus wasted, and as he looked abroad at the night settling down +so inevitably on trees and grass and placid lake, it seemed to him that +there could be no Benevolent Intelligence in the universe. Things rolled +on as they would, and all his praying would no more drive away the +threatened darkness from Kate's life than any cry of his would avail to +drive back the all-pervading, awesome presence of night, which was +putting out the features of the landscape one after another. + +Albert thought to go to his mother. But then with bitterness he +confessed to himself, for the first time, that his mother was less wise +than Katy herself. He almost called her a fool. And he at once rejected +the thought of appealing to his step-father. He felt, also, that this was +an emergency in which all his own knowledge and intelligence were of no +account. In a matter of affection, a conceited coxcomb, full of +flattering speeches, was too strong for him. + +The landscape was almost swallowed up. The glassy little lake was at his +feet, smooth and quiet. It seemed to him that God was as unresponsive to +his distress as the lake. Was there any God? + +There was one hope. Westcott might die. He wished he might. But Charlton +had lived long enough to observe that people who ought to die, hardly +ever do. You, reader, can recall many instances of this general +principle, which, however, I do not remember to have seen stated in any +discussions of mortality tables. + +After all, Albert reflected that he ought not to expect Kate's lover to +satisfy him. For he flattered himself that he was a somewhat peculiar +man--a man of ideas, a man of the future--and he must not expect to +conform everybody to his own standard. Smith Westcott was a man of fine +business qualities, he had heard; and most commercial men were, in +Albert's estimation, a little weak, morally. He might be a man of deep +feeling, and, as Albert walked home, he made up his mind to be +charitable. But just then he heard that rattling voice: + +"Purty night! By George! Katy, you're divine, by George! Sweeter'n honey +and a fine-tooth comb! Dearer to my heart than a gold dollar! Beautiful +as a dew-drop and better than a good cigar! He! he! he!" + +At such wit and such a giggle Charlton's charity vanished. To him this +idiotic giggle at idiotic jokes was a capital offense, and he was seized +with a murderous desire to choke his sister's lover. Kate should not +marry that fellow if he could help it. He would kill him. But then to +kill Westcott would be to kill Katy, to say nothing of hanging himself. +Killing has so many sequels. But Charlton was at the fiercely executive +stage of his development, and such a man must act. And so he lingered +about until Westcott kissed Katy and Katy kissed Westcott back again, and +Westcott cried back from the gate, "Dood night! dood night, 'ittle girl! +By-by! He! he! By George!" and passed out rattling the keys and coins in +his pocket and singing: + +"O dear Miss Lucy Neal!" etc. + +Then Albert went in, determined to have it all out with Katy. But one +sight of her happy, helpless face disarmed him. What an overturning of +the heaven of her dreams would he produce by a word! And what could be +more useless than remonstrance with one so infatuated! How would she +receive his bitter words about one she loved to idolatry? + +He kissed her and went to bed. + +As Albert Charlton lay awake in his unplastered room in the house of +Plausaby, Esq., on the night after he had made the acquaintance of the +dear, dear fellow whom his sister loved, he busied himself with various +calculations. Notwithstanding his father's "notions," as his mother +styled them, he had been able to leave his widow ten thousand dollars, +besides a fund for the education of his children. And, as Albert phrased +it to himself that night, the ten thousand dollars was every cent clean +money, for his father had been a man of integrity. On this ten thousand, +he felt sure, Plausaby, Esq., was speculating in a way that might make +him rich and respected, or send him to State's-prison, as the chance fell +out, but at any rate in a way that was not promotive of the interests of +those who traded with him. Of the thousand set apart for Katy's education +Plausaby was guardian, and Kate's education was not likely to be greatly +advanced by any efforts of his to invest the money in her intellectual +development. It would not be hard to persuade the rather indolent and +altogether confiding Katy that she was now old enough to cease bothering +herself with the rules of syntax, and to devote herself to the happiness +and comfort of Smith Westcott, who seemed, poor fellow, entirely unable +to exist out of sight of her eyes, which he often complimented by +singing, as he cut a double-shuffle on the piazza, + +"_Her eyes_ so bright + Dey shine at night +When de moon am far away!" + +generally adding, "Ya! ya! dat am a fack, Brudder Bones! He! he! +By George!" + +As Charlton's thoughts forecast his sister's future, it seemed to him +darker than before. He had little hope of changing her, for it was clear +that all the household authority was against him, and that Katy was +hopelessly in love. If he should succeed in breaking the engagement, it +would cost her untold suffering, and Albert was tender-hearted enough to +shrink from inflicting suffering on any one, and especially on Kate. But +when that heartless "he! he!" returned to his memory, and he thought of +all the consequences of such a marriage, he nerved himself for a sharp +and strong interference. It was his habit to plunge into every conflict +with a radical's recklessness, and his present impulse was to attempt to +carry his point by storm. If there had been opportunity, he would have +moved on Katy's slender reasoning faculties at once. But as the night of +sleeplessness wore on, the substratum of practical sense in his +character made itself felt. To attack the difficulty in this way was to +insure a great many tears from Katy, a great quarrel with a coxcomb, a +difficulty with his mother, an interference in favor of Kate's marriage +on the part of Plausaby, and a general success in precipitating what he +desired to prevent. + +And so for the first time this opinionated young man, who had always +taken responsibility, and fought his battles alone and by the most direct +methods, began to look round for a possible ally or an indirect approach. +He went over the ground several times without finding any one on whom he +could depend, or any device that offered the remotest chance of success, +until he happened to think of Isabel Marlay--Cousin Isa, as Katy called +her. He remembered how much surprised he had been a few days before, when +the quiet girl, whom he had thought a sort of animated sewing-machine, +suddenly developed so much force of thought in her defense of the clergy. +Why not get her strong sense on his side? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CATCHING AND GETTING CAUGHT. + + +Did you never notice how many reasons, never thought of before, against +having an aching tooth drawn, occur to you when once you stand on the +dentist's door-stone ready to ring the bell? Albert Charlton was full of +doubts of what Miss Isabel Marlay's opinion of his sister might be, and +of what Miss Isabel Marlay might think of him after his intemperate +denunciation of ministers and all other men of the learned professions. +It was quite a difficult thing for him to speak to her on the subject of +his sister's love-affair, and so, whenever an opportunity presented +itself, he found reason to apprehend interruption. On one plea or another +he deferred the matter until afternoon, and when afternoon came, Isa had +gone out. So that what had seemed to him in the watchfulness of the night +an affair for prompt action, was now deferred till evening. But in his +indecision and impatience Charlton found it impossible to remain quiet. +He must do something, and so he betook himself to his old recreation of +catching insects. He would have scorned to amuse himself with so cruel a +sport as fishing; he would not eat a fish when it was caught. But though +he did not think it right for man to be a beast of prey, slaughtering +other animals to gratify his appetites, he did not hesitate to sacrifice +the lives of creeping things to satisfy the intellectual needs of +humanity. Even this he did with characteristic tenderness, never leaving +a grasshopper to writhe on a pin for two days, but kindly giving him a +drop of chloroform to pass him into the Buddhist's heaven of eternal +repose. In the course of an hour or two he had adorned his hat with a +variety of orthoptera, coleoptera, and all the other opteras known to the +insect-catching profession. A large Cecropia spread its bright wings +across the crown of his hat, and several green Katydids appeared to be +climbing up the sides for an introduction to the brilliant moth; three +dragon-flies sat on the brim, and two or three ugly beetles kept watch +between them. As for grasshoppers, they hung by threads from the +hat-brim, and made unique pendants, which flew and flopped about his face +as he ran hither and thither with his net, sweeping the air for new +victims. Hurrying with long strides after a large locust which he +suspected of belonging to a new species, and which flew high and far, his +eyes were so uplifted to his game that he did not see anything else, and +he ran down a hill and fairly against a lady, and then drew back in +startled surprise and apologized. But before his hasty apology was +half-uttered he lifted his eyes to the face of the lady and saw that it +was Miss Minorkey, walking with her father. Albert was still more +confused when he recognized her, and his confusion was not relieved by +her laughter. For the picturesque figure of Charlton and his portable +museum was too much for her gravity, and as the French ladies of two +centuries ago used to say, she "lost her serious." Guessing the cause of +her merriment, Charlton lifted his hat off his head, held it up, and +laughed with her. + +"Well, Miss Minorkey, no wonder you laugh. This is a queer hat-buggery +and dangling grasshoppery." + +"That's a beautiful Cecropia," said Helen Minorkey, recovering a little, +and winning on Albert at once by showing a little knowledge of his pet +science, if it was only the name of a single specimen. "I wouldn't mind +being an entomologist myself if there were many such as this and that +green beetle to be had. I am gathering botanical specimens," and she +opened her portfolio. + +"But how did you come to be in Metropolisville?" + +"Why," interrupted Mr. Minorkey, "I couldn't stand the climate at +Perritaut. The malaria of the Big Gun River affected my health seriously. +I had a fever night before last, and I thought I'd get away at once, and +I made up my mind there was more oxygen in this air than in that at +Perritaut. So I came up here this morning. But I'm nearly dead," and here +Mr. Minorkey coughed and sighed, and put his hand on his breast in a +self-pitying fashion. + +As Mr. Minorkey wanted to inspect an eighty across the slough, on which +he had been asked to lend four hundred dollars at three per cent a month, +and five after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage, he suggested that +Helen should walk back, leaving him to go on slowly, as the rheumatism in +his left knee would permit. It was quite necessary that Miss Minorkey +should go back; her boots were not thick enough for the passage of the +slough. Mr. Charlton kindly offered to accompany her. + +Albert Charlton thought that Helen Minorkey looked finer than ever, for +sun and wind had put more color into her cheeks, and he, warm with +running, pushed back his long light hair, and looked side-wise at the +white forehead and the delicate but fresh cheeks below. + +"So you like Cecropias and bright-green beetles, do you?" he said, and he +gallantly unpinned the wide-winged moth from his hat-crown and stuck it +on the cover of Miss Minorkey's portfolio, and then added the green +beetle. Helen thanked him in her quiet way, but with pleased eyes. + +"Excuse me, Miss Minorkey," said Albert, blushing, as they approached the +hotel, "I should like very much to accompany you to the parlor of the +hotel, but people generally see nothing but the ludicrous side of +scientific pursuits, and I should only make you ridiculous." + +"I should be very glad to have you come," said Helen. "I don't mind being +laughed at in good company, and it is such a relief to meet a gentleman +who can talk about something besides corner lots and five per cent a +month, and," with a wicked look at the figure of her father in the +distance, "and mortgages with waivers in them!" + +Our cynic philosopher found his cynicism melting away like an iceberg in +the Gulf-stream. An hour before he would have told you that a woman's +flattery could have no effect on an intellectual man; now he felt a +tremor of pleasure, an indescribable something, as he shortened his steps +to keep time with the little boots with which Miss Minorkey trod down the +prairie grass, and he who had laughed at awkward boys for seeking the aid +of dancing-masters to improve their gait, wished himself less awkward, +and actually blushed with pleasure when this self-possessed young lady +praised his conversation. He walked with her to the hotel, though he took +the precaution to take his hat off his head and hang it on his finger, +and twirl it round, as if laughing at it himself--back-firing against the +ridicule of others. He who thought himself sublimely indifferent to the +laughter of ignoramuses, now fencing against it! + +The parlor of the huge pine hotel (a huge unfinished pine hotel is the +starting point of speculative cities), the parlor of the Metropolisville +City Hotel was a large room, the floor of which was covered with a very +cheap but bright-colored ingrain carpet; the furniture consisted of six +wooden-bottomed chairs, very bright and new, with a very yellow rose +painted on the upper slat of the back of each, a badly tattered +hair-cloth sofa, of a very antiquated pattern, and a small old piano, +whose tinny tones were only matched by its entire lack of tune. The last +two valuable articles had been bought at auction, and some of the keys of +the piano had been permanently silenced by its ride in an ox-cart from +Red Owl to Metropolisville. + +But intellect and culture are always superior to external circumstances, +and Mr. Charlton was soon sublimely oblivious to the tattered hair-cloth +of the sofa on which he sat, and he utterly failed to notice the stiff +wooden chair on which Miss Minorkey reposed. Both were too much +interested in science to observe furniture; She admired the wonders of +his dragon-flies, always in her quiet and intelligent fashion; he +returned the compliment by praising her flowers in his eager, hearty, +enthusiastic way. Her coolness made her seem to him very superior; his +enthusiasm made him very piquant and delightful to her. And when he got +upon his hobby and told her how grand a vocation the teacher's +profession was, and recited stories of the self-denial of Pestalozzi and +Froebel, and the great schemes of Basedow, and told how he meant here +in this new country to build a great Institute on rational principles, +Helen Minorkey found him more interesting than ever. Like you and me, +she loved philanthropy at other people's expense. She admired great +reformers, though she herself never dreamed of putting a little finger +to anybody's burden. + +It took so long to explain fully this great project that Albert staid +until nearly supper-time, forgetting the burden of his sister's unhappy +future in the interest of science and philanthropy. And even when he rose +to go, Charlton turned back to look again at a "prairie sun-flower" which +Helen Minorkey had dissected while he spoke, and, finding something +curious, perhaps in the fiber, he proposed to bring his microscope over +in the evening and examine it--a proposition very grateful to Helen, who +had nothing but _ennui_ to expect in Metropolisville, and who was +therefore delighted. Delighted is a strong word for one so cool: perhaps +it would be better to say that she was relieved and pleased at the +prospect of passing an evening with so curious and interesting a +companion. For Charlton was both curious and interesting to her. She +sympathized with his intellectual activity, and she was full of wonder at +his intense moral earnestness. + +As for Albert, botany suddenly took on a new interest in his eyes. He had +hitherto regarded it as a science for girls. But now he was so profoundly +desirous of discovering the true character of the tissue in the plant +which Miss Minorkey had dissected, that it seemed to him of the utmost +importance to settle it that very evening. His mother for the first time +complained of his going out, and seemed not very well satisfied about +something. He found that he was likely to have a good opportunity, after +supper, to speak to Isabel Marlay in regard to his sister and her lover, +but somehow the matter did not seem so exigent as it had. The night +before, he had determined that it was needful to check the intimacy +before it went farther, that every day of delay increased the peril; but +things often look differently under different circumstances, and now the +most important duty in life for Albert Charlton was the immediate +settlement of a question in structural botany by means of microscopic +investigation. Albert was at this moment a curious illustration of the +influence of scientific enthusiasm, for he hurriedly relieved his hat of +its little museum, ate his supper, got out his microscope, and returned +to the hotel. He placed the instrument on the old piano, adjusted the +object, and pedagogically expounded to Miss Minorkey the true method of +observing. Microscopy proved very entertaining to both. Albert did not +feel sure that it might not become a life-work with him. It would be a +delightful thing to study microscopic botany forever, if he could have +Helen Minorkey to listen to his enthusiastic expositions. From her +science the transition to his was easy, and they studied under every +combination of glasses the beautiful lace of a dragon-fly's wing, and the +irregular spots on a drab grasshopper which ran by chance half-across one +of his eyes. The thrifty landlord had twice looked in at the door in hope +of finding the parlor empty, intending in which case to put out the lamp. +But I can not tell how long this enthusiastic pursuit of scientific +knowledge might have lasted had not Mr. Minorkey been seized with one of +his dying spells. When the message was brought by a Norwegian +servant-girl, whose white hair fairly stood up with fright, Mr. Charlton +was very much shocked, but Miss Minorkey did not for a moment lose her +self-possession. Besides having the advantage of quiet nerves, she had +become inured to the presence of Death in all his protean forms--it was +impossible that her father should be threatened in a way with which she +was not already familiar. + +Emotions may be suspended by being superseded for a time by stronger +ones. In such case, they are likely to return with great force, when +revived by some association. Charlton stepped out on the piazza with his +microscope in his hand and stopped a moment to take in the scene--the +rawness and newness and flimsiness of the mushroom village, with its +hundred unpainted bass-wood houses, the sweetness, peacefulness, and +freshness of the unfurrowed prairie beyond, the calmness and immutability +of the clear, star-lit sky above--when he heard a voice round the corner +of the building that put out his eyes and opened his ears, if I may so +speak. Somebody was reproaching somebody else with being "spooney on the +little girl." + +"He! he!"--the reply began with that hateful giggle--"I know my business, +gentlemen. Not such a fool as you think." Here there was a shuffling of +feet, and Charlton's imagination easily supplied the image of Smith +Westcott cutting a "pigeon-wing." + +"Don't I know the ways of this wicked world? Haven't I had all the silly +sentiment took out of me? He! he! I've seen the world," and then he +danced again and sang: + +"Can't you come out to-night, +Can't you come out to-night, +And dance by the light of the moon?" + +"Now, boys," he began, again rattling his coins and keys, "I learnt too +much about New York. I had to leave. They didn't want a man there that +knew all the ropes so well, and so I called a meeting of the mayor and +told him good-by. He! he! By George! 'S a fack! I drank too much and I +lived two-forty on the plank-road, till the devil sent me word he didn't +want to lose his best friend, and he wished I'd just put out from New +York. 'Twas leave New York or die. That's what brought me here. It I'd +lived in New York I wouldn't never 've married. Not much, Mary Ann or +Sukey Jane. He! he!" And then he sang again: + +[Illustration: "BY GEORGE! HE! HE! HE!"] + +"If I was young and in my prime, +I'd lead a different life, +I'd spend my money-- + +"but I'd be hanged if I'd marry a wife to save her from the Tower of +London, you know. As long as I could live at the Elysian Club, didn' +want a wife. But this country! Psha! this is a-going to be a land of +Sunday-schools and sewing-societies. A fellow can't live here +without a wife: + +"'Den lay down de shubble and de hoe, +Den hang up de fiddle and de bow-- +For poor old Ned--' + +"Yah! Can't sing! Out of practice! Got a cold! Instrument needs tuning! +Excuse me! He! he!" + +There was some other talk, in a voice too low for Albert to hear, though +he listened with both ears, waiving all sense of delicacy about +eavesdropping in his anger and his desire to rescue Katy. Then Westcott, +who had evidently been drinking and was vinously frank, burst out with: + +"Think I'd marry an old girl! Think I'd marry a smart one! I want a sweet +little thing that would love me and worship me and believe everything I +said. I know! By George! He! he! That Miss Minorkey at the table! She'd +see through a fellow! Now, looky here, boys, I'm goin' to be serious for +once. I want a girl that'll exert a moral influence over me, you know! +But I'll be confounded if I want too much moral influence, by George, he! +he! A little spree now and then all smoothed over! I need moral +influence, but in small doses. Weak constitution, you know! Can't stand +too much moral influence. Head's level. A little girl! Educate her +yourself, you know! He! he! By George! And do as you please. + +"'O Jinny! git yer hoe-cake done, my dear! +O Jinny! git yer hoe-cake done!' + +"Yah! yah! He! he! he!" + +It is not strange that Charlton did not sleep that night, that he was a +prey to conflicting emotions, blessing the cool, intellectual, +self-possessed face of Miss Minorkey, who knew botany, and inwardly +cursing the fate that had handed little Katy over to be the prey of such +a man as Smith Westcott. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ISABEL MARLAY. + + +Isabel Marlay was not the niece of our friend Squire Plausaby, but of his +first wife. Plausaby, Esq., had been the guardian of her small +inheritance in her childhood, and the property had quite mysteriously +suffered from a series of curious misfortunes: the investments were +unlucky; those who borrowed of the guardian proved worthless, and so did +their securities. Of course the guardian was not to blame, and of course +he handled the money honestly. But people will be suspicious even of the +kindest and most smoothly-speaking men; and the bland manner and +innocent, open countenance of Plausaby, Esq., could not save him from the +reproaches of uncharitable people. As he could not prove his innocence, +he had no consolation but that which is ever to be derived from a +conscience void of offense. + +Isabel Marlay found herself at an early age without means. But she had +never seen a day of dependence. Deft hands, infallible taste in matters +of dress, invincible cheerfulness, and swift industry made her always +valuable. She had not been content to live in the house of her aunt, the +first Mrs. Plausaby, as a dependent, and she even refused to remain in +the undefined relation of a member of the family whose general utility, +in some sort, roughly squares the account of board and clothes at the +year's end. Whether or not she had any suspicions in regard to the +transactions of Plausaby, Esq., in the matter of her patrimony, I do not +know. She may have been actuated by nothing but a desire to have her +independence apparent. Or, she may have enjoyed--as who would +not?--having her own money to spend. At any rate, she made a definite +bargain with her uncle-in-law, by which she took charge of the sewing in +his house, and received each year a hundred dollars in cash and her +board. It was not large pay for such service as she rendered, but then +she preferred the house of a relative to that of a stranger. When the +second Mrs. Plausaby had come into the house, Mr. Plausaby had been glad +to continue the arrangement, in the hope, perhaps, that Isa's good taste +might modify that lady's love for discordant gauds. + +To Albert Charlton, Isa's life seemed not to be on a very high key. She +had only a common-school education, and the leisure she had been able to +command for general reading was not very great, nor had the library in +the house of Plausaby been very extensive. She had read a good deal of +Matthew Henry, the "Life and Labors of Mary Lyon" and the "Life of +Isabella Graham," the "Works of Josephus," "Hume's History of England," +and Milton's "Paradise Lost." She had tried to read Mrs. Sigourney's +"Poems" and Pollok's "Course of Time," but had not enjoyed them much. She +was not imaginative. She had plenty of feeling, but no sentiment, for +sentiment is feeling that has been thought over; and her life was too +entirely objective to allow her to think of her own feelings. Her +highest qualities, as Albert inventoried them, were good sense, good +taste, and absolute truthfulness and simplicity of character. These were +the qualities that he saw in her after a brief acquaintance. They were +not striking, and yet they were qualities that commanded respect. But he +looked in vain for those high ideals of a vocation and a goal that so +filled his own soul. If she read of Mary Lyon, she had no aspiration to +imitate her. Her whole mind seemed full of the ordinary cares of life. +Albert could not abide that anybody should expend even such abilities as +Isa possessed on affairs of raiment and domestic economy. The very tokens +of good taste and refined feeling in her dress were to him evidences of +over-careful vanity. + +But when his mother and Katy had gone out on the morning after he had +overheard Smith Westcott expound his views on the matter of marriage, +Charlton sought Isa Marlay. She sat sewing in the parlor, as it was +called--the common sitting-room of the house--by the west window. The +whole arrangement of the room was hers; and though Albert was neither an +artist nor a critic in matters of taste, he was, as I have already +indicated, a man of fine susceptibility. He rejoiced in this +susceptibility when it enabled him to appreciate nature. He repressed it +when he found himself vibrating in sympathy with those arts that had, as +he thought, relations with human weakness and vanity; as, for instance, +the arts of music and dress. But, resist as one may, a man can not fight +against his susceptibilities. And those who can feel the effect of any +art are very many more than those who can practice it or criticise it. It +does not matter that my Bohemian friend's musical abilities are slender. +No man in the great Boston Jubilee got more out of Johann Strauss, in +his "Kunstleben," that inimitable expression of inspired vagabondage, +than he did. And so, though Albert Charlton could not have told you what +colors would "go together," as the ladies say, he could, none the less, +always feel the discord of his mother's dress, as now he felt the beauty +of the room and appreciated the genius of Isa, that had made so much out +of resources so slender. For there were only a few touch-me-nots in the +two vases on the mantel-piece; there were wild-flowers and +prairie-grasses over the picture-frames; there were asparagus-stalks in +the fireplace; there was--well, there was a _tout-ensemble_ of coolness +and delightfulness, of freshness and repose. There was the graceful +figure of Isabel by the window, with the yet dewy grass and the distant +rolling, boundless meadow for a background. And there was in Isabel's +brown calico dress a faultlessness of fit, and a suitableness of color--a +perfect harmony, like that of music. There was real art, pure and +refined, in her dress, as in the arrangement of the room. Albert was +angry with it, while he felt its effect; it was as though she had set +herself there to be admired. But nothing was further from her thought. +The artist works not for the eyes of others, but for his own, and Isabel +Marlay would have taken not one whit less of pains if she could have been +assured that no eye in the universe would look in upon that +frontier-village parlor. + +I said that Charlton was vexed. He was vexed because he felt a weakness +in himself that admired such "gewgaws," as he called everything relating +to dress or artistic housekeeping. He rejoiced mentally in the +superiority of Helen Minorkey, who gave her talents to higher themes. And +yet he felt a sense of restfulness in this cool room, where every color +was tuned to harmony with every other. He was struck, too, with the +gracefulness of Isa's figure. Her face was not handsome, but the good +genius that gave her the feeling of an artist must have molded her own +form, and every lithe motion was full of poetry. You have seen some +people who made upon you the impression that they were beautiful, and yet +the beauty was all in a statuesque figure and a graceful carriage. For it +makes every difference how a face is carried. + +The conversation between Charlton and Miss Marlay had not gone far in the +matter of Katy and Smith Westcott until Albert found that her instincts +had set more against the man than even his convictions. A woman like +Isabel Marlay is never so fine as in her indignation, and there never was +any indignation finer than Isa Marlay's when she spoke of the sacrifice +of such a girl as Katy to such a man as Westcott. In his admiration of +her thorough-going earnestness, Albert forgave her devotion to domestic +pursuits and the arts of dress and ornamentation. He found sailing with +her earnestness much pleasanter than he had found rowing against it on +the occasion of his battle about the clergy. + +"What can I do, Miss Marlay?" Albert did not ask her what she could do. +A self-reliant man at his time of life always asks first what he +himself can do. + +"I can not think of anything that anybody can do, with any hope of +success." Isa's good sense penetrated entirely through the subject, she +saw all the difficulties, she had not imagination or sentiment enough to +delude her practical faculty with false lights. + +"Can not _you_ do something?" asked Charlton, almost begging. + +"I have tried everything. I have spoken to your mother. I have spoken to +Uncle Plausaby. I have begged Katy to listen to me, but Katy would only +feel sorry for him if she believed he was bad. She can love, but she +can't think, and if she knew him to be the worst man in the Territory she +would marry him to reform him. I did hope that you would have some +influence over her." + +"But Katy is such a child. She won't listen if I talk to her. Any +opposition would only hurry the matter. I wish it were right to blow out +his brains, if he has any, and I suppose the monkey has." + +"It is a great deal better, Mr. Charlton, to trust in Providence where we +can't do anything without doing wrong." + +"Well, Miss Marlay, I didn't look for cant from you. I don't believe that +God cares. Everything goes on by the almanac and natural law. The sun +sets when the time comes, no matter who is belated. Girls that are sweet +and loving and trusting, like Katy, have always been and will always be +victims of rakish fools like Smith Westcott. I wish I were an Indian, and +then I could be my own Providence. I would cut short his career, and make +what David said about wicked men being cut off come true in this case, in +the same way as I suppose David did in the case of the wicked of his day, +by cutting them off himself." + +Isabel was thoroughly shocked with this speech. What good religious girl +would not have been? She told Mr. Charlton with much plainness of speech +that she thought common modesty might keep him from making such +criticisms on God. She for her part doubted whether all the facts of the +case were known to him. She intimated that there were many things in +God's administration not set down in almanacs, and she thought that, +whatever God might be, a _young_ man should not be in too great a hurry +about arraigning Him for neglect of duty. I fear it would not contribute +much to the settlement of the very ancient controversy if I should record +all the arguments, which were not fresh or profound. It is enough that +Albert replied sturdily, and that he went away presently with his vanity +piqued by her censures. Not that he could not answer her reasoning, if it +were worthy to be called reasoning. But he had lost ground in the +estimation of a person whose good sense he could not help respecting, and +the consciousness of this wounded his vanity. And whilst all she said was +courteous, it was vehement as any defense of the faith is likely to be; +he felt, besides, that he had spoken with rather more of the _ex +cathedra_ tone than was proper. A young man of opinions generally finds +it so much easier to impress people with his tone than with his +arguments! But he consoled himself with the reflection that the _average_ +woman--that word average was a balm for every wound--that the average +woman is always tied to her religion, and intolerant of any doubts. He +was pleased to think that Helen Minorkey was not intolerant. Of that he +felt sure. He did not carry the analysis any farther, however; he did not +ask why Helen was not intolerant, nor ask whether even intolerance may +not sometimes be more tolerable than indifference. And in spite of his +unpleasant irritation at finding this "average" woman not overawed by his +oracular utterances, nor easily beaten in a controversy, Albert had a +respect for her deeper than ever. There was something in her anger at +Westcott that for a moment had seemed finer than anything he had seen in +the self-possessed Miss Minorkey. But then she was so weak as to allow +her intellectual conclusions to be influenced by her feelings, and to be +intolerant. + +I have said that this thing of falling in love is a very complex +catastrophe. I might say that it is also a very uncertain one. Since we +all of us "rub clothes with fate along the street," who knows whether +Charlton would not, by this time, have been in love with Miss Marlay if +he had not seen Miss Minorkey in the stage? If he had not run against +her, while madly chasing a grasshopper? If he had not had a great +curiosity about a question in botany which he could only settle in her +company? And even yet, if he had not had collision with Isa on the +question of Divine Providence? And even after that collision I will not +be sure that the scale might not have been turned, had it not been that +while he was holding this conversation with Isa Marlay, his mother and +sister had come into the next room. For when he went out they showed +unmistakable pleasure in their faces, and Mrs. Plausaby even ventured to +ask: "Don't you like her, Albert?" + +And when the mother tried to persuade him to forego his visit to the +hotel in the evening, he put this and that together. And when this and +that were put together, they combined to produce a soliloquy: + +"Mother and Katy want to make a match for me. As if _they_ understood +_me_! They want me to marry an _average_ woman, of course. Pshaw! Isabel +Marlay only understands the 'culinary use' of things. My mother knows +that she has a 'knack,' and thinks it would be nice for me to have a wife +with a knack. But mother can't judge for _me_. I ought to have a wife +with ideas. And I don't doubt Plausaby has a hand in trying to marry off +his ward to somebody that won't make too much fuss about his accounts." + +And so Charlton was put upon studying all the evening, to find points in +which Miss Minorkey's conversation was superior to Miss Marlay's. And +judged as he judged it--as a literary product--it was not difficult to +find an abundant advantage on her side. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LOVERS AND LOVERS. + + +Albert Charlton had little money, and he was not a man to remain idle. +He was good in mathematics, and did a little surveying now and then; in +fact, with true democratic courage, he turned his hand to any useful +employment. He did not regard these things as having any bearing on his +career. He was only waiting for the time to come when he could found +his Great Educational Institution on the virgin soil of Minnesota. Then +he would give his life to training boys to live without meat or +practical jokes, to love truth, honesty, and hard lessons; he would +teach girls to forego jewelry and cucumber-pickles, to study +physiology, and to abhor flirtations. Visionary, was he? You can not +help smiling at a man who has a "vocation," and who wants to give the +world a good send-off toward its "goal." But there is something noble +about it after all. Something to make you and me ashamed of our +selfishness. Let us not judge Charlton by his green flavor. When these +discordant acids shall have ripened in the sunshine and the rain, who +shall tell how good the fruit may be? We may laugh, however, at Albert, +and his school that was to be. I do not doubt that even that visionary +street-loafer known to the Athenians as Sokrates, was funny to those +who looked at him from a great distance below. + +During the time in which Charlton waited, and meditated his plans for the +world's advancement by means of a school that should be so admirable as +to modify the whole system of education by the sheer force of its +example, he found it of very great advantage to unfold his plans to Miss +Helen Minorkey. Miss Helen loved to hear him talk. His enthusiasm was the +finest thing she had found, out of books. It was like a heroic poem, as +she often remarked, this fine philanthropy of his, and he seemed to her +like King Arthur preparing his Table Round to regenerate the earth. This +compliment, uttered with the coolness of a literary criticism--and +nothing _could_ be cooler than a certain sort of literary criticism--this +deliberate and oft-repeated compliment of Miss Minorkey always set +Charlton's enthusiastic blood afire with love and admiration for the one +Being, as he declared, born to appreciate his great purposes. And the +Being was pleased to be made the partner of such dreams and hopes. In an +intellectual and ideal fashion she did appreciate them. If Albert had +carried out his great plans, she, as a disinterested spectator, would +have written a critical analysis of them much as she would have described +a new plant. + +But whenever Charlton tried to excite in her an enthusiasm similar to his +own, he was completely foiled. She shrunk from everything like +self-denial or labor of any sort. She was not adapted to it, she assured +him. And he who made fierce war on the uselessness of woman in general +came to reconcile himself to the uselessness of woman in particular, to +apologize for it, to justify it, to admire it. Love is the mother of +invention, and Charlton persuaded himself that it was quite becoming in +such a woman as the most remarkably cultivated, refined, and intellectual +Helen Minorkey, to shrink from the drudgery of life. She was not intended +for it. Her susceptibilities were too keen, according to him, though +Helen Minorkey's susceptibilities were indeed of a very quiet sort. I +believe that Charlton, the sweeping radical, who thought, when thinking +on general principles, that every human-creature should live wholly for +every other human creature, actually addressed some "Lines to H.M.," +through the columns of the _St. Paul Advertiser_ of that day, in which he +promulgated the startling doctrine that a Being such as was the aforesaid +H.M., could not be expected to come into contact with the hard realities +of life. She must content herself with being the Inspiration of the life +of Another, who would work out plans that should inure to the good of man +and the honor of the Being, who would inspire and sustain the Toiler. The +poem was considered very fine by H.M., though the thoughts were a little +too obscure for the general public and the meter was not very smooth. You +have doubtless had occasion to notice that poems which deal with Beings +and Inspirations are usually of very imperfect fluidity. + +Charlton worked at surveying and such other employments as offered +themselves, wrote poems to Helen Minorkey, and plotted and planned how he +might break up little Katy's engagement. He plotted and planned sometimes +with a breaking heart, for the more he saw of Smith Westcott, the more +entirely detestable he seemed. But he did not get much co-operation from +Isabel Marlay. If he resented any effort to make a match between him and +"Cousin Isa," she resented it ten times more vehemently, and all the +more that she, in her unselfishness of spirit, admired sincerely the +unselfishness of Charlton, and in her practical and unimaginative life +felt drawn toward the idealist young man who planned and dreamed in a way +quite wonderful to her. All her woman's pride made her resent the effort +to marry her to a man in love with another, a man who had not sought her. + +[Illustration: MRS. PLAUSABY.] + +"Albert is smart," said Mrs. Plausaby to her significantly one day; "he +would be just the man for you, Isa." + +"Why, Mrs. Plausaby, I heard you say yourself that his wife would have to +do without silk dresses and new bonnets. For my part, I don't think much +of that kind of smartness that can't get a living. I wouldn't have a man +like Mr. Charlton on any, terms." + +And she believed that she spoke the truth; having never learned to +analyze her own feelings, she did not know that all her dislike for +Charlton had its root in a secret liking for him, and that having +practical ability herself, the kind of ability that did not make a living +was just the sort that she admired most. + +It was, therefore, without any co-operation between them, that Isabel and +young Charlton were both of them putting forth their best endeavor to +defeat the plans of Smith Westcott, and avert the sad eclipse which +threatened the life of little Katy. And their efforts in that direction +were about equally fruitful in producing the result they sought to avoid. +For whenever Isa talked to little Katy about Westcott, Katy in the +goodness of her heart and the vehemence of her love was set upon finding +out, putting in order, and enumerating all of his good qualities. And +when Albert attacked him vehemently and called him a coxcomb, and a rake, +and a heartless villain, she cried, and cried, out of sheer pity for +"poor Mr. Westcott;" she thought him the most persecuted man in the +world, and she determined that she would love him more fervently and +devotedly than ever, _that_ she would! Her love should atone for all the +poor fellow suffered. And "poor Mr. Westcott" was not slow in finding out +that "feelin' sorry for a feller was Katy's soft side, by George! he! +he!" and having made this discovery he affected to be greatly afflicted +at the treatment he received from Albert and from Miss Marlay; nor did he +hesitate to impress Katy with the fact that he endured all these things +out of pure devotion to her, and he told her that he could die for her, +"by George! he! he!" any day, and that she mustn't ever desert him if she +didn't want him to kill himself; he didn't care two cents for life except +for her, and he'd just as soon go to sleep in the lake as not, "by +George! he! he!" any day. And then he rattled his keys, and sang in a +quite affecting way, to the simple-minded Kate, how for "bonnie Annie +Laurie," with a look at Katy, he could "lay him down and dee," and added +touchingly and recitatively the words "by George! he! he!" which made his +emotion seem very real and true to Katy; she even saw a vision of "poor +Mr. Westcott" dragged out of the lake dead on her account, and with that +pathetic vision in her mind she vowed she'd rather die than desert him. +And as for all the ills which her brother foreboded for her in case she +should marry Smith Westcott, they did not startle her at all. Such +simple, loving natures as Katy Charlton's can not feel for self. It is +such a pleasure to them to throw themselves away in loving. + +Besides, Mrs. Plausaby put all her weight into the scale, and with the +loving Katy the mother's word weighed more even than Albert's. Mrs. +Plausaby didn't see why in the world Katy couldn't marry as she pleased +without being tormented to death. Marrying was a thing everybody must +attend to personally for themselves. Besides, Mr. Westcott was a +nice-spoken man, and dressed very well, his shirt-bosom was the finest in +Metropolisville, and he had a nice hat and wore lavender gloves on +Sundays. And he was a store-keeper, and he would give Katy all the nice +things she wanted. It was a nice thing to be a store-keeper's wife. She +wished Plausaby would keep a store. And she went to the glass and fixed +her ribbons, and reflected that if Plausaby kept a store she could get +plenty of them. + +And so all that Cousin Isa and Brother Albert said came to naught, except +that it drove the pitiful Katy into a greater devotion to her lover, and +made the tender-hearted Katy cry. And when she cried, the sentimental +Westcott comforted her by rattling his keys in an affectionate way, and +reminding her that the course of true love never did run smooth, "by +George! he! he! he!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +PLAUSABY, ESQ., TAKES A FATHERLY INTEREST. + + +Plausaby, Esq., felt a fatherly interest. He said so. He wanted Albert to +make his way in the world. "You have great gifts, Albert," he said. But +the smoother Mr. Plausaby talked, the rougher Mr. Albert felt. Mr. +Plausaby felt the weight of all that Albert had said against the learned +professions. He did, indeed. He would not care to say it so strongly. Not +too strongly. Old men never spoke quite so strongly as young ones. But +the time had been, he said, when Thomas Plausaby's pulse beat as quick +and strong as any other young man's. Virtuous indignation was a beautiful +emotion in a young man. For his part he never cared much for a young man +who did not know how to show just such feeling on such questions. But one +must not carry it too far. Not too far. Never too far. For his part ho +did not like to see anything carried too far. It was always bad to carry +a thing too far. A man had to make his bread somehow. It was a necessity. +Every young man must consider that he had his way to make in the world. +It was a fact to be considered. To be considered carefully. He would +recommend that Albert consider it. And consider it carefully. Albert must +make his way. For his part, he had a plan in view that he thought could +not be objectionable to Albert's feelings. Not at all objectionable. Not +in the least. + +All this Plausaby, Esq., oozed out at proper intervals and in gentlest +tones. Charlton for his mother's sake kept still, and reflected that Mr. +Plausaby had not said a word as yet that ought to anger him. He +therefore nodded his head and waited to hear the plan which Plausaby had +concocted for him. + +Mr. Plausaby proceeded to state that he thought Albert ought to pre-empt. + +Albert said that he would like to pre-empt as soon as he should be of +age, but that was some weeks off yet, and he supposed that when he got +ready there would be few good claims left. + +The matter of age was easily got over, replied Plausaby. Quite easily got +over. Nothing easier, indeed. All the young men in the Territory who were +over nineteen had pre-empted. It was customary. Quite customary, indeed. +And custom was law. In some sense it was law. Of course there were some +customs in regard to pre-emption that Plausaby thought no good man could +approve. Not at all. Not in the least. + +There was the building of a house on wheels and hauling it from claim to +claim, and swearing it in on each claim as a house on that claim. +Plausaby, Esq., did not approve of that. Not at all. Not in the least. He +thought it a dangerous precedent. Quite dangerous. Quite so. But good men +did it. Very good men, indeed. And then he had known men to swear that +there was glass in the window of a house when there was only a +whisky-bottle sitting in the window. It was amusing. Quite amusing, these +devices. Four men just over in Town 21 had built a house on the corners +of four quarter sections. The house partly on each of the four claims. +Swore that house in on each claim. But such expedients were not to be +approved. Not at all. They were not commendable. However, nearly all the +claims in the Territory had been made irregularly. Nearly all of them. +And the matter of age could be gotten over easily. Custom made law. And +Albert was twenty-three in looks. Quite twenty-three. More than that, +indeed. Twenty-five, perhaps. Some people were men at sixteen. And some +were always men. They were, indeed. Always men. Always. Albert was a man +in intellect. Quite a man. The spirit of the law was the thing to be +looked at. The spirit, not the letter. Not the letter at all. The spirit +of the law warranted Albert in pre-empting. + +Here Plausaby, Esq., stopped a minute. But Albert said nothing. He +detested Plausaby's ethics, but was not insensible to his flattery. + +"And as for a claim, Albert, I will attend to that. I will see to it. I +know a good chance for you to make two thousand dollars fairly hi a +month. A very good chance. Very good, indeed. There is a claim adjoining +this town-site which was filed on by a stage-driver. Reckless sort of a +fellow. Disreputable. We don't want him to hold land here. Not at all. +You would be a great addition to us. You would indeed. A great addition. +A valuable addition to the town. And it would be a great comfort to your +mother and to me to have you near us. It would indeed. A great comfort. +We could secure this Whisky Jim's claim very easily for you, and you +could lay it off into town lots. I have used my pre-emption right, or I +would take that myself. I advise you to secure it. I do, indeed. You +couldn't use your pre-emption right to a better advantage. I am sure you +couldn't." + +"Well," said Albert, "if Whisky Jim will sell out, why not get him to +hold it for me for three weeks until I am of age?" + +"He wouldn't sell, but he has forfeited it. He neglected to stay on it. +Has been away from it more than thirty days. You have a perfect right to +jump it and pre-empt it. I am well acquainted with Mr. Shamberson, the +brother-in-law of the receiver. Very well acquainted. He is a land-office +lawyer, and they do say that a fee of fifty dollars to him will put the +case through, right or wrong. But in this case we should have right on +our side, and should make a nice thing. A very nice thing, indeed. And +the town would be relieved of a dissipated man, and you could then carry +out your plan of establishing a village library here." + +"But," said Albert between his teeth, "I hear that the reason Jim didn't +come back to take possession of his claim at the end of his thirty days +is his sickness. He's sick at the Sod Tavern." + +"Well, you see, he oughtn't to have neglected his claim so long before he +was taken sick. Not at all. Besides, he doesn't add anything to the moral +character of a town. I value the moral character of a settler above all I +do, indeed. The moral character. If he gets that claim, he'll get rich +off my labors, and be one of our leading citizens. Quite a leading +citizen. It is better that you should have it. A great deal better. +Better all round. The depot will be on one corner of the east forty of +that claim, probably. Now, you shouldn't neglect your chance to get on. +You shouldn't, really. This is the road to wealth and influence. The road +to wealth. And influence. You can found your school there. You'll have +money and land. Money to build with. Land on which to build. You will +have both." + +"You want me to swear that I am twenty-one when I am not, to bribe the +receiver, and to take a claim and all the improvements on it from a sick +man?" said Albert with heat. + +"You put things wrong. Quite so. I want to help you to start. The claim +is now open. It belongs to Government, with all improvements. +Improvements go with the claim. If you don't take it, somebody will. It +is a pity for you to throw away your chances." + +"My chances of being a perjured villain and a thief! No, thank you, sir," +said the choleric Charlton, getting very red in the face, and stalking +out of the room. + +"Such notions!" cried his mother. "Just like his father over again. His +father threw away all his chances just for notions. I tell you, Plausaby, +he never got any of those notions from me. Not one." + +"No, I don't think he did," said Plausaby. "I don't think he did. Not at +all. Not in the least." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABOUT SEVERAL THINGS. + + +Albert Charlton, like many other very conscientious men at his time of +life, was quarrelsomely honest. He disliked Mr. Plausaby's way of doing +business, and he therefore determined to satisfy his conscience by +having a row with his step-father. And so he startled his sister and +shocked his mother, and made the house generally uncomfortable, by +making, in season and out of season, severe remarks on the subject of +land speculation, and particularly of land-sharks. It was only Albert's +very disagreeable way of being honest. Even Isabel Marlay looked with +terror at what she regarded as signs of an approaching quarrel between +the two men of the house. + +But there was no such thing as a quarrel with Plausaby. Moses may have +been the meekest of men, but that was in the ages before Plausaby, Esq. +No manner of abuse could stir him. He had suffered many things of many +men in his life, many things of outraged creditors, and the victims of +his somewhat remarkable way of dealing; his air of patient +long-suffering and quiet forbearance under injury had grown chronic. It +was, indeed, part of his stock in trade, an element of character that +redounded to his credit, while it cost nothing and was in every way +profitable. It was as though the whole catalogue of Christian virtues had +been presented to Plausaby to select from, and he, with characteristic +shrewdness, had taken the one trait that was cheapest and most +remunerative. + +In these contests Albert was generally sure to sacrifice by his +extravagance whatever sympathy he might otherwise have had from the rest +of the family. When he denounced dishonest trading, Isabel knew that he +was right, and that Mr. Plausaby deserved the censure, and even Mrs. +Plausaby and the sweet, unreasoning Katy felt something of the justice of +what he said. But Charlton was never satisfied to stop here. He always +went further, and made a clean sweep of the whole system of town-site +speculation, which unreasonable invective forced those who would have +been his friends into opposition. And the beautiful meekness with which +Plausaby, Esq., bore his step-son's denunciations never failed to excite +the sympathy and admiration of all beholders. By never speaking an unkind +word, by treating Albert with gentle courtesy, by never seeming to feel +his innuendoes, Plausaby heaped coals of fire on his enemies' head, and +had faith to believe that the coals were very hot. Mrs. Ferret, who once +witnessed one of the contests between the two, or rather one of these +attacks of Albert, for there could be no contest with embodied meekness, +gave her verdict for Plausaby. He showed such a "Chrischen" spirit. She +really thought he must have felt the power of grace. He seemed to hold +schripcherral views, and show such a spirit of Chrischen forbearance, +that she for her part thought he deserved the sympathy of good people. +Mr. Charlton was severe, he was unchar-it-able--really unchar-it-able in +his spirit. He pretended to a great deal of honesty, but people of +unsound views generally whitened the outside of the sep-ul-cher. And Mrs. +Ferret closed the sentence by jerking her face into an astringed smile, +which, with the rising inflection of her voice, demanded the assent of +her hearers. + +The evidences of disapproval which Albert detected in the countenances of +those about him did not at all decrease his irritation. His irritation +did not tend to modify the severity of his moral judgments. And the fact +that Smith Westcott had jumped the claim of Whisky Jim, of course at +Plausaby's suggestion, led Albert into a strain of furious talk that must +have produced a violent rupture in the family, had it not been for the +admirable composure of Plausaby, Esq., under the extremest provocation. +For Charlton openly embraced the cause of Jim; and much as he disliked +all manner of rascality, he was secretly delighted to hear that Jim had +employed Shamberson, the lawyer, who was brother-in-law to the receiver +of the land-office, and whose retention in those days of mercenary +lawlessness was a guarantee of his client's success. Westcott had offered +the lawyer a fee of fifty dollars, but Jim's letter, tendering him a +contingent fee of half the claim, reached him in the same mail, and the +prudent lawyer, after talking the matter over with the receiver who was +to decide the case, concluded to take half of the claim. Jim would have +given him all rather than stand a defeat. + +Katy, with more love than logic, took sides of course with her lover in +this contest. Westcott showed her where he meant to build the most +perfect little dove-house for her, by George, he! he! and she listened +to his side of the story, and became eloquent in her denunciation of the +drunken driver who wanted to cheat poor, dear Smith--she had got to the +stage in which she called him by his Christian name now--to cheat poor, +dear Smith out of his beautiful claim. + +If I were writing a History instead of a Mystery of Metropolisville, I +should have felt under obligation to begin with the founding of the town, +in the year preceding the events of this story. Not that there were any +mysterious rites or solemn ceremonies. Neither Plausaby nor the silent +partners interested with him cared for such classic customs. They sought +first to guess out the line of a railroad; they examined corner-stakes; +they planned for a future county-seat; they selected a high-sounding +name, regardless of etymologies and tautologies; they built shanties, +"filed" according to law, laid off a town-site, put up a hotel, published +a beautiful colored map, and began to give away lots to men who would +build on them. Such, in brief, is the unromantic history of the founding +of the village of Metropolisville. + +And if this were a history, I should feel bound to tell of all the +maneuvers resorted to by Metropolisville, party of the second part, to +get the county-seat removed from Perritaut, party of the first part, +party in possession. But about the time that Smith Westcott's contest +about the claim was ripening to a trial, the war between the two villages +was becoming more and more interesting. A special election was +approaching, and Albert of course took sides against Metropolisville, +partly because of his disgust at the means Plausaby was using, partly +because he thought the possession of the county-seat would only enable +Plausaby to swindle more people and to swindle them more effectually, +partly because he knew that Perritaut was more nearly central in the +county, and partly because he made it a rule to oppose Plausaby on +general principles. Albert was an enthusiastic and effective talker, and +it was for this reason that Plausaby had wished to interest him by +getting him to "jump" Whisky Jim's claim, which lay alongside the town. +And it was because he was an enthusiastic talker, and because his entire +disinterestedness and his relations to Plausaby gave his utterances +peculiar weight, that the Squire planned to get him out of the county +until after the election. + +Mrs. Plausaby suggested to Albert that he should go and visit a cousin +thirty miles away. Who suggested it to Mrs. Plausaby we may not guess, +since we may not pry into the secrets of a family, or know anything of +the conferences which a husband may hold with his wife in regard to the +management of the younger members of the household. As an authentic +historian, I am bound to limit myself to the simple fact, and the fact is +that Mrs. Plausaby stated to Albert her opinion that it would be a nice +thing for him to go and see Cousin John's folks at Glenfleld. She made +the suggestion with characteristic maladroitness, at a moment when Albert +had been holding forth on his favorite hobby of the sinfulness of +land-speculation in general, and the peculiar wickedness of +misrepresentation and all the other arts pertaining to town-site +swindling. Perhaps Albert was too suspicious. He always saw the hand of +Plausaby in everything proposed by his mother. He bluntly refused to go. +He wanted to stay and vote. He would be of age in time. He wanted to stay +and vote against this carting of a county-seat around the country for +purposes of speculation. He became so much excited at what he regarded +as a scheme to get him out of the way, that he got up from the table and +went out into the air to cool off. He sat down on the unpainted piazza, +and took up Gerald Massey's poems, of which he never tired, and read +until the light failed. + +And then came Isa Marlay out in the twilight and said she wanted to +speak to him, and he got her a chair and listened while she spoke in a +voice as full of harmony as her figure was full of gracefulness. I have +said that Isabel was not a beauty, and yet such was the influence of her +form, her rhythmical movement, and her sweet, rich voice, that Charlton +thought she was handsome, and when she sat down and talked to him, he +found himself vibrating, as a sensitive nature will, under the influence +of grace or beauty. + +"Don't you think, Mr. Charlton, that you would better take your mother's +suggestion, and go to your cousin's? You'll excuse me for speaking about +what does not concern me?" + +Charlton would have excused her for almost anything she might have said +in the way of advice or censure, for in spite of all his determination +that it should not be, her presence was very pleasant to him. + +"Certainly I have no objection to receive advice, Miss Marlay; but have +you joined the other side?" + +"I don't know what you mean by the other side, Mr. Charlton. I don't +belong to any side. I think all quarreling is unpleasant, and I hate it. +I don't think anything you say makes any change in Uncle Plausaby, while +it does make your mother unhappy." + +"So you think, Miss Isabel, that I ought to go away from Wheat County and +not throw my influence on the side of right in this contest, because my +mother is unhappy?" Albert spoke with some warmth. + +"I did not say so. I think that a useless struggle, which makes your +mother unhappy, ought to be given over. But I didn't want to advise you +about your duty to your mother. I was led into saying so much on that +point. I came to say something else. It does seem to me that if you could +take Katy with you, something might turn up that would offer you a chance +to influence her. And that would be better than keeping the county-seat +at Perritaut." And she got up to go in. + +Charlton was profoundly touched by Isabel's interest in Katy. He rose +to his feet and said: "You are right, I believe. And I am very, very +much obliged." + +And as the straightforward Isa said, "Oh! no, that is nothing," and +walked away, Charlton looked after her and said, "What a charming woman!" +He felt more than he said, and he immediately set himself loyally to work +to enumerate all the points in which Miss Helen Minorkey was superior to +Isa, and said that, after all, gracefulness of form and elasticity of +motion and melodiousness of voice were only lower gifts, possessed in a +degree by birds and animals, and he blamed himself for feeling them at +all, and felt thankful that Helen Minorkey had those higher qualities +which would up-lift--he had read some German, and compounded his +words--up-lift a man to a higher level. Perhaps every loyal-hearted lover +plays these little tricks of self-deception on himself. Every lover +except the one whose "object" is indeed perfect. You know who that is. So +do I. Indeed, life would be a very poor affair if it were not for +these--what shall I call them? If Brown knew how much Jones's wife was +superior to his own, Brown would be neither happier nor better for the +knowledge. When he sees the superiority of Mrs. Jones's temper to Mrs. +Brown's somewhat energetic disposition, he always falls back on Mrs. +Brown's diploma, and plumes himself that at any rate Mrs. Brown graduated +at the Hobson Female College. Poor Mrs. Jones had only a common-school +education. How mortified Jones must feel when he thinks of it! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +AN ADVENTURE. + + +That Katy should go with Albert to see the cousins at Glenfield was a +matter easily brought about. Plausaby, Esq., was so desirous of Albert's +absence that he threw all of Mrs. Plausaby's influence on the side of the +arrangement which Charlton made a _sine qua non_. Albert felt a little +mean at making such a compromise of principle, and Plausaby felt much as +a man does who pays the maker of crank-music to begone. He did not like +Katy's going; he wanted to further her marriage with so influential a +person as Smith Westcott, the agent in charge of the interests of +Jackson, Jones & Co., who not only owned the Emporium, but were silent +partners in the town-site. But Katy must go. Plausaby affectionately +proffered the loan of his horse and buggy, which Charlton could not well +refuse, and so the two set out for Glenfleld with many kind adieus. +Westcott came down, and smoked, and rattled his keys, and hoped they'd +have a pleasant journey and get back soon, you know, Katy, by George! he! +he! he! Couldn't live long without the light of her countenance. 'S a +fact! By George! He! he! And when the carpet-bags and lunch-basket and +all the rest were stowed away under the seat of the buggy, Mrs. +Plausaby, with a magnificent number of streamers, kissed them, and she +and Cousin Isa stood by the gate and nodded their heads to the departing +buggy, as an expression of their feelings, and Mr. Plausaby lifted his +hat in such a way as to conceal his feelings, which, written out, would +be, "Good riddance!" And Smith Westcott blandly waved his good-by and +bowed to the ladies at the gate, and started back to the store. He was +not feeling very happy, apparently, for he walked to the store moodily, +rattling the coppers and keys in his right pantaloons-pocket. But he +seemed to see a little daylight, for just as he arrived in front of the +Emporium, he looked up and said, as if he had just thought of something, +"By George! he! he! he!" + +Owing to some delay in fixing the buggy, Charlton had not got off till +about noon, but as the moon would rise soon after dark, he felt sure of +reaching Glenfleld by nine in the evening. One doesn't mind a late +arrival when one is certain of a warm welcome. And so they jogged on +quietly over the smooth road, the slow old horse walking half the time. +Albert was not in a hurry. For the first time since his return, he felt +that for a moment he possessed little Katy again. The shadow had gone; it +might come back; he would rejoice in the light while he could. Katy was +glad to be relieved of the perpetual conflict at home, and, with a +feeling entirely childish, she rejoiced that Albert was not now reproving +her. And so Albert talked in his old pedagogic fashion, telling Katy of +all the strange things he could think of, and delighting himself in +watching the wonder and admiration in her face. The country was now +smooth and now broken, and Albert thought he had never seen the grass so +green or the flowers so bright as they were this morning. The streams +they crossed were clear and cold, the sun shone hot upon them, but the +sky was so blue and the earth so green that they both abandoned +themselves to the pleasure of living with such a sky above and such a +world beneath. There were here and there a few settlers' houses, but not +yet a great many. The country was not a lonely one for all that. Every +now and then the frightened prairie-chickens ran across the road or rose +with their quick, whirring flight; ten thousand katydids and grasshoppers +were jumping, fluttering, flying, and fiddling their rattling notes, and +the air seemed full of life. They were considerably delayed by Albert's +excursions after new insects, for he had brought his collecting-box and +net along. So that when, about the middle of the afternoon, as they +stopped, in fording a brook, to water old Prince, and were suddenly +startled by the sound of thunder, Albert felt a little conscience-smitten +that he had not traveled more diligently toward his destination. And when +he drove on a quarter of a mile, he found himself in a most unpleasant +dilemma, the two horns being two roads, concerning which those who +directed him had neglected to give him any advice. Katy had been here +before, and she was very sure that to the right hand was the road. There +was now no time to turn back, for the storm was already upon them--one of +those fearful thunderstorms to which the high Minnesota table-land is +peculiarly liable. In sheer desperation, Charlton took the right-hand +road, not doubting that he could at least find shelter for the night in +some settler's shanty. The storm was one not to be imagined by those who +have not seen its like, not to be described by any one. The quick +succession of flashes of lightning, the sudden, sharp, unendurable +explosions, before, behind, and on either side, shook the nerves of +Charlton and drove little Katy frantic. For an hour they traveled through +the drenching rain, their eyes blinded every minute by lightning; for an +hour they expected continually that the next thunder-bolt would smite +them. All round them, on that treeless prairie, the lightning seemed to +fall, and with every new blaze they held their breath for fear of sudden +death. Charlton wrapped Katy in every way he could, but still the storm +penetrated all the wrapping, and the cold rain chilled them both to the +core. Katy, on her part, was frightened, lest the lightning should strike +Brother Albert. Muffled in shawls, she felt tolerably safe from a +thunderbolt, but it was awful to think that Brother Albert sat out there, +exposed to the lightning. And in this time of trouble and danger, +Charlton held fast to his sister. He felt a brave determination never to +suffer Smith Westcott to have her. And if he had only lived in the middle +ages, he would doubtless have challenged the fellow to mortal combat. +Now, alas! civilization was in his way. + +At last the storm spent itself a little, and the clouds broke away in +the west, lighting up the rain and making it glorious. Then the wind +veered, and the clouds seemed to close over them again, and the +lightning, not quite so vivid or so frequent but still terrible, and +the rain, with an incessant plashing, set in as for the whole night. +Darkness was upon them, not a house was in sight, the chill cold of +the ceaseless rain seemed beyond endurance, the horse was well-nigh +exhausted and walked at a dull pace, while Albert feared that Katy +would die from the exposure. As they came to the top of each little +rise he strained his eyes, and Katy rose up and strained her eyes, in +the vain hope of seeing a light, but they did not know that they were +in the midst of--that they were indeed driving diagonally across--a +great tract of land which had come into the hands of some corporation +by means of the location of half-breed scrip. They had long since +given up all hope of the hospitable welcome at the house of Cousin +John, and now wished for nothing but shelter of any sort. Albert knew +that he was lost, but this entire absence of settlers' houses, and +even of deserted claim-shanties built for pre-emption purposes, +puzzled him. Sometimes he thought he saw a house ahead, and endeavored +to quicken the pace of the old horse, but the house always transformed +itself to a clump of hazel-brush as he drew nearer. About nine o'clock +the rain grew colder and the lightning less frequent. Katy became +entirely silent--Albert could feel her shiver now and then. Thus, in +numb misery, constantly hoping to see a house on ascending the next +rise of ground and constantly suffering disappointment, they traveled +on through the wretched monotony of that night. The ceaseless plash of +the rain, the slow tread of the horse's hoofs in the water, the roar +of a distant thunderbolt--these were the only sounds they heard during +the next hour--during the longer hour following--during the hours +after that. And then little Katy, thinking she must die, began to send +messages to the folks at home, and to poor, dear Smith, who would cry +so when she was gone. + +But just in the moment of extremity, when Charlton felt that his very +heart was chilled by this exposure in an open buggy to more than seven +hours of terrific storm, he caught sight of something which cheered him. +He had descended into what seemed to be a valley, there was water in the +road, he could mark the road by the absence of grass, and the glistening +of the water in the faint light. The water was growing deeper; just +ahead of him was a small but steep hill; on top of the hill, which showed +its darker form against the dark clouds, he had been able to distinguish +by the lightning-light a hay-stack, and here on one side of the road the +grass of the natural meadow gave unmistakable evidence of having been +mowed. Albert essayed to cheer Katy by calling her attention to these +signs of human habitation, but Katy was too cold and weary and numb to +say much or feel much; an out-door wet-sheet pack for seven hours does +not leave much of heart or hope in a human soul. + +Albert noticed with alarm that the water under the horse's feet +increased in depth continually. A minute ago it was just above the +fetlocks; now it was nearly to the knees, and the horse was obliged to +lift his feet still more slowly. The rain had filled the lowland with +water. Still the grass grew on either side of the road, and Charlton did +not feel much alarm until, coming almost under the very shadow of the +bluff, the grass suddenly ceased abruptly, and all was water, with what +appeared to be an inaccessible cliff beyond. The road which lost itself +in this pool or pond, must come out somewhere on the other side. But +where? To the right or left? And how bottomless might not the morass be +if he should miss the road! + +But in such a strait one must do something. So he selected a certain +point to the left, where the hill on the other side looked less broken, +and, turning the horse's head in that direction, struck him smartly with +the whip. The horse advanced a step or two, the water rose quickly to his +body, and he refused to go any farther. Neither coaxing nor whipping +could move him. There was nothing to do now but to wait for the next +flash of lightning. It was long to wait, for with the continuance of the +storm the lightning had grown less and less frequent. Charlton thought it +the longest five minutes that he ever knew. At last there came a blaze, +very bright and blinding, leaving a very fearful darkness after it. But +short and sudden as it was, it served to show Charlton that the sheet of +water before him was not a pool or a pond, but a brook or a creek over +all its banks, swollen to a river, and sweeping on, a wild torrent. At +the side on which Charlion was, the water was comparatively still; the +stream curved in such a way as to make the current dash itself against +the rocky bluff. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A SHELTER. + + +Albert drove up the stream, and in a fit of desperation again essayed to +ford it. The staying in the rain all night with Katy was so terrible to +him that he determined to cross at all hazards. It were better to drown +together than to perish here. But again the prudent stubbornness of the +old horse saved them. He stood in the water as immovable as the ass of +Balaam. Then, for the sheer sake of doing something, Charlton drove down +the stream to a point opposite where the bluff seemed of easy ascent. +Here he again attempted to cross, and was again balked by the horse's +regard for his own safety. Charlton did not appreciate the depth and +swiftness of the stream, nor the consequent certainty of drowning in any +attempt to ford it. Not until he got out of the buggy and tried to cross +afoot did he understand how impossible it was. + +When Albert returned to the vehicle he sat still. The current rippled +against the body of the horse and the wheels of the buggy. The incessant +rain roared in the water before him. There was nothing to be done. In +the sheer exhaustion of his resources, in his numb despondency, he +neglected even to drive the horse out of the water. How long he sat +there it would be hard to say. Several times he roused himself to utter +a "Halloo!" But the roar of the rain swallowed up his voice, which was +husky with emotion. + +After a while he heard a plashing in the water, which was not that of +the rain. He thought it must be the sound of a canoe-paddle. Could +anybody row against such a torrent? But he distinctly heard the +plashing, and it was below him. Even Katy roused herself to listen, and +strained her eyes against the blackness of the night to discover what it +might be. It did not grow any nearer. It did not retreat. At the end of +ten minutes this irregular but distinct dipping sound, which seemed to +be in some way due to human agency, was neither farther nor nearer, +neither slower nor more rapid than at first. Albert hallooed again and +again at it, but the mysterious cause of this dipping and dashing was +deaf to all cries for help. Or if not deaf, this oarsman seemed as +incapable of giving reply as the "dumb old man" that rowed the "lily +maid of Astolat" to the palace of Arthur. + +But it was no oarsman, not even a dumb one. The lightning for which +Albert prayed came at last, and illumined the water and the shores, +dispelling all dreams of canoe or oarsman. Charlton saw in an instant +that there was a fence a few rods away, and that where the fence crossed +the stream, or crossed from bank to bank of what was the stream at its +average stage, long poles had been used, and one of these long and supple +poles was now partly submerged. The swift current bent it in the middle +until it would spring out of the water and drop back higher up. It was +thus kept in a rotary motion, making the sound which he had mistaken for +the paddling of a canoeman. With this discovery departed all thought of +human help from that quarter. + +But with the dissipating of the illusion came a new hope. Charlton +turned the head of the horse back and drove him out of the water, or at +least to a part of the meadow where the overflowed water did not reach to +his knees. Here he tied him to a tree, and told Katy she must stay alone +until he should cross the stream and find help, if help there should be, +and return. It might take him half an hour. But poor Katy said that she +could not live half an hour longer in this rain. And, besides, she knew +that Albert would be drowned in crossing. So that it was with much ado +that he managed to get away from her, and, indeed, I think she cried +after he had gone. He called back to her when he got to the brook's bank, +"All right, Katy!" but Katy heard him through the roar of the rain, and +it seemed to her that he was being swallowed up in a Noachian deluge. + +Charlton climbed along on the precarious footing afforded by the +submerged pole, holding to the poles above while the water rushed about +his feet. These poles were each of them held by a single large nail at +each end, and the support was doubly doubtful. He might fall off, or the +nails might come out. Even had he not been paralyzed by long exposure to +the cold, he could have no hope of being able to swim in such a torrent. + +In the middle of the stream he found a new difficulty. The posts to which +these limber poles were nailed at either end sloped in opposite +directions, so that while he started across on the upper side he found +that when he got to the middle the pole fence began to slant so much up +the stream that he must needs climb to the other side, a most difficult +and dangerous performance on a fence of wabbling popple poles in the +middle of a stream on a very dark night. When at last he got across the +stream, he found himself in the midst of a hazel thicket higher than his +head. He hallooed to Katy, and she was sure this time that it was his +last drowning cry. Working his way out of the hazel-brush, he came to a +halt against a fence and waited for lightning. That there was a house in +the neighborhood he could not doubt, but whether it were inhabited or not +was a question. And where was it? + +For full five minutes--an eternal five minutes--the pitiless rain poured +down upon Charlton as he stood there by the fence, his eyes going forward +to find a house, his heart running back to the perishing Katy. At last +the lightning showed him a house, and from the roof of the house he saw a +stovepipe. The best proof that it was not a deserted claim-shanty! + +Stumbling round the fence in the darkness, Charlton came upon the house, +a mere cabin, and tried three sides of it before he found the entrance. +When he knocked, the door was opened by a tall man, who said: + +"Right smart sprinkle, stranger! Where did you come from? Must 'a' rained +down like a frog." + +But Albert had no time for compliments. He told his story very briefly, +and asked permission to bring his sister over. + +"Fetch her right along, stranger. No lady never staid in this 'ere shed +afore, but she's mighty welcome." + +Albert now hurried back, seized with a fear that he would find Katy dead. +He crossed on the poles again, shouting to Katy as he went. He found her +almost senseless. He quickly loosed old Prince from the buggy, and +tethered him with the lines where he would not suffer for either water or +grass, and then lifted Kate from the buggy, and literally carried her to +the place where they must needs climb along the poles. It was with much +difficulty that he partly carried her, partly persuaded her to climb +along that slender fence. How he ever got the almost helpless girl over +into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they +approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more +and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her +down in a swoon of utter exhaustion. + +The inhabitant of the cabin ran to a little cupboard, made of a +packing-box, and brought out a whisky-flask, and essayed to put it to her +lips, but as he saw her lying there, white and beautiful in her +helplessness, he started back and said, with a rude reverence, "Stranger, +gin her some of this 'ere--I never could tech sech a creetur!" + +And Albert gave her some of the spirits and watched her revive. He warmed +her hands and chafed her feet before the fire which the backwoodsman had +made. As she came back to consciousness, Charlton happened to think that +he had no dry clothes for her. He would have gone immediately back to the +buggy, where there was a portmanteau carefully stowed under the seat, but +that the Inhabitant had gone out and he was left alone with Katy, and he +feared that she would faint again if he should leave her. Presently the +tall, lank, longhaired man came in. + +"Mister," he said, "I made kinder sorter free with your things. I thought +as how as the young woman might want to shed some of them air wet +feathers of her'n, and so I jist venter'd to go and git this yer bag +'thout axin' no leave nor license, while you was a-bringin' on her to. +Looks pooty peart, by hokey! Now, mister, we ha'n't got no spar rooms +here. But you and me'll jes' take to the loff thar fer a while, seein' +our room is better nor our comp'ny. You kin change up stars." + +They went to the loft by an outside ladder, the Inhabitant speaking very +reverently in a whisper, evidently feeling sure that there was an angel +down-stairs. They went down again after a while, and the Inhabitant piled +on wood so prodigally that the room became too warm; he boiled a pot of +coffee, fried some salt-pork, baked some biscuit, a little yellow and a +little too short, but to the hungry travelers very palatable. Even +Charlton found it easy to forego his Grahamism and eat salt-pork, +especially as he had a glass of milk. Katy, for her part, drank a cup of +coffee but ate little, though the Inhabitant offered her the best he had +with a voice stammering with emotion. He could not speak to her without +blushing to his temples. He tried to apologize for the biscuit and the +coffee, but could hardly ever get through his sentence intelligibly, he +was so full of a sentiment of adoration for the first lady into whose +presence he had come in years. Albert felt a profound respect for the man +on account of his reverence for Katy. And Katy of course loved him as she +did everybody who was kind to her or to her friends, and she essayed once +or twice to make him feel comfortable by speaking to him, but so great +was his agitation when spoken to by the divine creature, that he came +near dropping a plate of biscuit the first time she spoke, and almost +upset the coffee the next time. I have often noticed that the anchorites +of the frontier belong to two classes--those who have left humanity and +civilization from sheer antagonism to men, a selfish, crabbed love of +solitude, and those who have fled from their fellows from a morbid +sensitiveness. The Inhabitant was of the latter sort. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE INHABITANT. + + +When Albert awoke next morning from a sound sleep on the buffalo-robe in +the loft of the cabin of the Inhabitant, the strange being who had slept +at his side had gone. He found him leaning against the foot of the +ladder outside. + +"Waitin', you know," he said when he saw Albert, "tell she gits up. I was +tryin' to think what I _could_ do to make this house fit fer her to stay +in; fer, you see, stranger, they's no movin' on tell to-morry, fer though +the rain's stopped, I 'low you can't git that buggy over afore to-morry +mornin'. But blam'd ef 'ta'n't too bad fer sech as her to stay in sech a +cabin! I never wanted no better place tell las' night, but ever sence +that creetur crossed the door-sill. I've wished it was a palace of +di'monds. She hadn't orter live in nothin' poarer." + +"Where did you come from?" asked Charlton. + +"From the Wawbosh. You see I couldn't stay. They treated me bad. I had a +idee. I wanted to write somethin' or nother in country talk. I need to +try to write potry in good big dictionary words, but I hadn't but 'mazin +little schoolin', and lived along of a set of folks that talked jes' like +I do. But a Scotchman what I worked along of one winter, he read me some +potry, writ out by a Mr. Burns, in the sort of bad grammar that a +Scotchman talks, you know. And I says, Ef a Scotchman could write poetry +in his sort of bad grammar, why couldn't a Hoosier jest as well write +poetry in the sort of lingo we talk down on the Wawbosh? I don't see why. +Do you, now?" + +Albert was captivated to find a "child of nature" with such an idea, and +he gave it his entire approval. + +"Wal, you see, when I got to makin' varses I found the folks down in +Posey Kyounty didn' take to varses wrote out in their own talk. They +liked the real dictionary po'try, like 'The boy stood on the burnin' +deck' and 'A life on the ocean wave,' but they made fun of me, and when +the boys got a hold of my poortiest varses, and said 'em over and over +as they was comin' from school, and larfed at me, and the gals kinder +fooled me, gittin' me to do some varses fer ther birthdays, and then +makin' fun of 'em, I couldn' bar it no ways, and so I jist cleaned out +and left to git shed of their talk. But I stuck to my idee all the +same. I made varses in the country talk all the same, and sent 'em to +editors, but they couldn' see nothin' in 'em. Writ back that I'd +better larn to spell. When I could a-spelt down any one of 'em the best +day they ever seed!" + +"I'd like to see some of your verses," said Albert. + +"I thought maybe you mout," and with that he took out a soiled blue paper +on which was written in blue ink some verses. + +"Now, you see, I could spell right ef I wanted to, but I noticed that Mr. +Burns had writ his Scotch like it was spoke, and so I thought I'd write +my country talk by the same rule." + +And the picturesque Inhabitant, standing there in the morning light in +his trapper's wolf-skin cap, from the apex of which the tail of the wolf +hung down his back, read aloud the verses which he had written in the +Hoosier dialect, or, as he called it, the country talk of the Wawbosh. In +transcribing them, I have inserted one or two apostrophes, for the poet +always complained that though he could spell like sixty, he never could +mind his stops. + +[Illustration: THE INHABITANT.] + +WHAT DUMB CRITTERS SAYS + +The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, + Ef nobody's thar to see. +The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, +But ef I say, "Sing out, green coat," + Why, "I can't" and "I shan't," says he. + +I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard + Of a man made outen straw. +I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard, +But laws! they warn't the least bit skeered, + They larfed out, "Haw! haw-haw!" + +A long-tail squir'l up in th' top + Of that air ellum tree, +A long-tail squir'l up in th' top, +A lis'nin' to the acorns drop, + Says, "Sh! sh-sh!" at me. + +The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb + With nary a wink nur nod, +The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb, +Is a-singin' a sort of a solemn hymn + Of "Hoo! hoo-ah!" at God. + +Albert could not resist a temptation to smile at this last line. + +"I know, stranger. You think a owl can't sing to God. But I'd like to +know why! Ef a mockin'-bird kin sing God's praises a-singin' trible, and +so on through all the parts--you see I larnt the squar notes oncet at a +singin'--why, I don't see to save me why the bass of the owl a'n't jest +as good praisin' ef 'ta'n't quite sech fine singin'. Do you, now? An' I +kinder had a feller-feelin' fer the owl. I says to him,' Well, ole +feller, you and me is jist alike in one thing. Our notes a'n't +appreciated by the public.' But maybe God thinks about as much of the +real ginowine hootin' of a owl as he does of the highfalugeon whistlin' +of a mockin'-bird all stole from somebody else. An' ef my varses is +kinder humbly to hear, anyway they a'n't made like other folkses; they're +all of 'em outen my head--sech as it is." + +"You certainly have struck an original vein," said Albert, who had a +passion for nature in the rough. "I wish you would read some of your +verses to my sister." + +"Couldn' do it," said the poet; "at least, I don't believe I could. My +voice wouldn' hold up. Laid awake all las' night tryin' to make some +varses about her. But sakes, stranger, I couldn' git two lines strung +together. You mout as well try to put sunshine inter a gallon-jug, you +know, as to write about that lovely creetur. An' I can't make poetry in +nothin' 'ceppin' in our country talk; but laws! it seems sech a rough +thing to use to say anything about a heavenly angel in. Seemed like as ef +I was makin' a nosegay fer her, and hadn't no poseys but jimson-weeds, +hollyhocks, and big yaller sunflowers. I wished I could 'a' made real +dictionary poetry like Casabianca and Hail Columby. But I didn' know +enough about the words. I never got nary wink of sleep a-thinkin' about +her, and a-wishin' my house was finer and my clo'es purtier and my hair +shorter, and I was a eddicated gentleman. Never wished that air afore." + +Katy woke up a little dull and quite hungry, but not sick, and she +good-naturedly set herself to work to show her gratitude to the +Inhabitant by helping, him to get breakfast, at which he declared that he +was never so flustrated in all his born days. Never. + +They waited all that day for the waters to subside, and Katy taught the +Poet several new culinary arts, while he showed her his traps and hunting +gear, and initiated the two strangers into all the mysteries of mink and +muskrat catching, telling them more about the habits of fur-bearing +animals than they could have learned from books. And Charlton recited +many pieces of "real dictionary poetry" to the poor fellow, who was at +last prevailed on to read some of his dialect pieces in the presence of +Katy. He read her one on "What the Sunflower said to the Hollyhock," and +a love-poem, called "Polly in the Spring-house." The first strophe of +this inartistic idyl will doubtless be all the reader will care to see. + + POLLY IN THE SPRING-HOUSE. + + Purtier'n dressed-up gals in town + Is peart and larfin' Polly Brown, + With curly hair a-hangin' down, +An' sleeves rolled clean above her elbow. + Barfeooted stan'in on the rocks, + A-pourin' milk in airthen crocks, + An' kiverin' 'em with clean white blocks-- + Jest lis'en how my fool heart knocks-- +Shet up, my heart! what makes you tell so? + +"You see," he said, blushing and stammering, "you see, miss, I had a sort +of a preju_dice_ agin town gals in them air days, I thought they was all +stuck up and proud like; I didn' think the--the--well--you know I don't +mean no harm nur nothin'--but I didn' expect the very purtiest on 'em all +was ever agoin' to come into my shanty and make herself at home like as +ef I was a eddicated gentleman. All I said agin town gals I take back. +I--I--you see--" but finding it impossible to get through, the Poet +remembered something to be attended to out of doors. + +The ever active Charlton could not pass a day in idleness. By ten +o'clock he had selected a claim and staked it out. It was just the place +for his great school. When the country should have settled up, he would +found a farm-school here and make a great institution out of it. The +Inhabitant was delighted with the prospect of having the brother of an +angel for a neighbor, and readily made a bargain to erect for Charlton a +cabin like his own for purposes of pre-emption. Albert's lively +imagination had already planned the building and grounds of his +institution. + +During the whole of that sunshiny day that Charlton waited for the waters +of Pleasant Brook to subside, George Gray, the Inhabitant of the lone +cabin, exhausted his ingenuity in endeavoring to make his hospitality as +complete as possible. When Albert saw him standing by the ladder in the +morning, he had already shot some prairie-chickens, which he carefully +broiled. And after they had supped on wild strawberries and another night +had passed, they breakfasted on some squirrels killed in a neighboring +grove, and made into a delicious stew by the use of such vegetables as +the garden of the Inhabitant afforded. Charlton and the Poet got the +horse and buggy through the stream. When everything was ready for a +start, the Inhabitant insisted that he would go "a piece" with them to +show the way, and, mounted on his Indian pony, he kept them company to +their destination. Then the trapper bade Albert an affectionate adieu, +and gave a blushing, stammering, adoring farewell to Katy, and turned his +little sorrel pony back toward his home, where he spent the next few days +in trying to make some worthy verses in commemoration of the coming to +the cabin of a trapper lonely, a purty angel bright as day, and how the +trapper only wep' and cried when she went away. But his feelings were +too deep for his rhymes, and his rhymes were poorer than his average, +because his feeling was deeper. He must have burned up hundreds of +couplets, triplets, and sextuplets in the next fortnight. For, besides +his chivalrous and poetic gallantry toward womankind, he found himself +hopelessly in love with a girl whom he would no more have thought of +marrying than he would of wedding a real angel. Sometimes he dreamed of +going to school and getting an education, "puttin' some school-master's +hair-ile onter his talk," as he called it, but then the hopelessness of +any attempt to change himself deterred him. But thenceforth Katy became +more to him than Laura was to Petrarch. Habits of intemperance had crept +upon him in his isolation and pining for excitement, but now he set out +to seek an ideal purity, he abolished even his pipe, he scrupulously +pruned his conversation of profanity, so that he wouldn' be onfit to love +her any way, ef he didn' never marry her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +AN EPISODE. + + +I fear the gentle reader, how much more the savage one, will accuse me of +having beguiled him with false pretenses. Here I have written XIV +chapters of this story, which claims to be a mystery, and there stand the +letters XV at the head of this chapter and I have not got to the mystery +yet, and my friend Miss Cormorant, who devours her dozen novels a week +for steady diet, and perhaps makes it a baker's dozen at this season of +the year, and who loves nothing so well as to be mystified by +labyrinthine plots and counterplots--Miss Cormorant is about to part +company with me at this point. She doesn't like this plain sailing. Now, +I will be honest with you, Miss Cormorant, all the more that I don't care +if you do quit. I will tell you plainly that to my mind the mystery lies +yet several chapters in advance, and that I shouldn't be surprised if I +have to pass out of my teens and begin to head with double X's before I +get to that mystery. Why don't I hurry up then? Ah! there's the rub. Miss +Cormorant and all the Cormorant family are wanting me to hurry up with +this history, and just so surely as I should skip over any part of the +tale, or slight my background, or show any eagerness, that other family, +the Critics--the recording angels of literature--take down their pens, +and with a sad face joyfully write: "This book is, so-so, but bears +evident marks of hurry in its execution. If the author shall ever learn +the self-possession of the true artist, and come to tell his stories with +leisurely dignity of manner--and so on--and so on--and so forth--he +will--well, he will--do middling well for a man who had the unhappiness +to be born in longitude west from Washington." Ah! well, I shrug my +shoulders, and bidding both Cormorant and Critic to get behind me, Satan, +I write my story in my own fashion for my gentle readers who are neither +Cormorants nor Critics, and of whom I am sincerely fond. + +For instance, I find it convenient to turn aside at this point to mention +Dave Sawney, for how could I relate the events which are to follow to +readers who had not the happiness to know Katy's third lover--or +thirteenth--the aforesaid Dave? You are surprised, doubtless, that Katy +should have so many lovers as three; you have not then lived in a new +country where there are generally half-a-dozen marriageable men to every +marriageable woman, and where, since the law of demand and supply has no +application, every girl finds herself beset with more beaux than a +heartless flirt could wish for. Dave was large, lymphatic, and conceited; +he "come frum Southern Eelinoy," as he expressed it, and he had a +comfortable conviction that the fertile Illinois Egypt had produced +nothing more creditable than his own slouching figure and +self-complaisant soul. Dave Sawney had a certain vividness of imagination +that served to exalt everything pertaining to himself; he never in his +life made a bargain to do anything--he always cawntracked to do it. He +cawntracked to set out three trees, and then he cawntracked to dig six +post-holes, and-when he gave his occupation to the census-taker he set +himself down as a "cawntractor." + +He had laid siege to Katy in his fashion, slouching in of an evening, and +boasting of his exploits until Smith Westcott would come and chirrup and +joke, and walk Katy right away from him to take a walk or a boat-ride. +Then he would finish the yarn which Westcott had broken in the middle, to +Mrs. Plausaby or Miss Marlay, and get up and remark that he thought maybe +he mout as well be a-gittin' on. + +In the county-seat war, which had raged about the time Albert had left +for Glenfleld, Dave Sawney had come to be a man of importance. His own +claim lay equidistant from the two rival towns. He bad considerable +influence with a knot of a dozen settlers in his neighborhood, who were, +like himself, without any personal interest in the matter. It became +evident that a dozen or a half-dozen votes might tip the scale after +Plausaby, Esq., had turned the enemy's flank by getting some local +politician to persuade the citizens of Westville, who would naturally +have supported the claims of Perritaut, that their own village stood the +ghost of a chance, or at least that their interests would be served by +the notoriety which the contest would give, and perhaps also by defeating +Perritaut, which, from proximity, was more of a rival than +Metropolisville. After this diversion had weakened Perritaut, it became +of great consequence to secure even so small an influence as that of Dave +Sawney. Plausaby persuaded Dave to cawntrack for the delivery of his +influence, and Dave was not a little delighted to be flattered and paid +at the same time. He explained to the enlightened people in his +neighborhood that Squire Plausaby was a-goin' to do big things fer the +kyounty; that the village of Metropolisville would erect a brick +court-house and donate it; that Plausaby had already cawntracked to +donate it to the kyounty free gratis. + +This ardent support of Dave, who saw not only the price which the squire +had cawntracked to pay him, but a furtherance of his suit with little +Katy, as rewards of his zeal, would have turned the balance at once in +favor of Metropolisville, had it not been for a woman. Was there ever a +war, since the days of the Greek hobby-horse, since the days of Rahab's +basket indeed, in which a woman did not have some part? It is said that a +woman should not vote, because she can not make war; but that is just +what a woman can do; she can make war, and she can often decide it. There +came into this contest between Metropolisville and its rival, not a Helen +certainly, but a woman. Perritaut was named for an old French trader, who +had made his fortune by selling goods to the Indians on its site, and who +had taken him an Indian wife--it helped trade to wed an Indian--and +reared a family of children who were dusky, and spoke both the Dakota and +the French _ŕ la Canadien_. M. Perritaut had become rich, and yet his +riches could not remove a particle of the maternal complexion from those +who were to inherit the name and wealth of the old trader. If they should +marry other half-breeds, the line of dusky Perritauts might stretch out +the memory of a savage maternity to the crack of doom. _Que voulez-vous?_ +They must not many half-breeds. Each generation must make advancement +toward a Caucasian whiteness, in a geometric ratio, until the Indian +element should be reduced by an infinite progression toward nothing. But +how? It did not take long for Perritaut _pčre_ to settle that question. +_Voilŕ tout._ The young men should seek white wives. They had money. +They might marry poor girls, but white ones. But the girls? _Eh bien_! +Money should wash them also, or at least money should bleach their +descendants. For money is the Great Stain-eraser, the Mighty Detergent, +the Magic Cleanser. And the stain of race is not the only one that money +makes white as snow. So the old gentleman one day remarked to some +friends who drank wine with him, that he would geeve one ten tousant +tollare, begare, to te man tat maree his oltest daughtare, Mathilde. _Eh +bien_, te man must vary surelee pe w'ite and _re_-spect-_ah_-ble. Of +course this confidential remark soon spread abroad, as it was meant to +spread abroad. It came to many ears. The most utterly worthless white +men, on hearing it, generally drew themselves up in pride and vowed +they'd see the ole frog-eatin' Frenchman hung afore they'd many his +Injin. They'd druther marry a Injin than a nigger, but they couldn' be +bought with no money to trust their skelp with a Injin. + +Not so our friend Dave. He wurn't afeared of no Injin, he said; sartainly +not of one what had been weakened down to half the strength. Ef any man +dared him to marry a Injin and backed the dare by ten thousand dollars, +blamed ef he wouldn't take the dare. He wouldn' be dared by no Frenchman +to marry his daughter. He wouldn't. He wa'n't afeard to marry a Injin. +He'd cawntrack to do it fer ten thousand. + +The first effect of this thought on Dave's mind was to change his view of +the county-seat question. He shook his head now when Plausaby's brick +court-house was spoken of. The squire was awful 'cute; too 'cute to live, +he said ominously. + +Dave concluded that ten thousand dollars could be made much more easily +by foregoing his preferences for a white wife in favor of a red one, than +by cawntracting to set out shade-trees, dig post-holes, or drive oxen. +So he lost no time in visiting the old trader. + +[Illustration: A PINCH OF SNUFF.] + +He walked in, in his slouching fashion, shook hands with M. Perritaut, +gave his name as David Sawney, cawntracter, and after talking a little +about the county-seat question, he broached the question of marriage with +Mathilde Perritaut. + +"I hearn tell that you are willin' to do somethin' han'some fer a +son-in-law." + +"Varee good, Mistare Sonee. You air a man of bisnees, perhaps, maybe. You +undairstand tese tings. Eh? _Trčs bien_--I mean vary well, you see. I +want that my daughtare zhould maree one re-spect-_ah_-ble man. Vare good. +You air one, maybe. I weel find out. _Trčs bien, you_ see, my daughtare +weel marree the man that I zay. You weel come ovare here next week. Eef I +find you air respect-_ah_-ble, I weel then get my lawyare to make a +marriage contract." + +"A cawntrack?" said Dave, starting at the sound of his favorite word. +"Very well, musheer, I sign a cawntrack and live up to it." + +"Vare good. Weel you have one leetle peench of snuff?" said the old man, +politely opening his box. + +"Yes, I'm obleeged, musheer," said Dave. "Don't keer ef I do." And by way +of showing his good-will and ingratiating himself with the Frenchman, +Dave helped himself to an amazingly large pinch. Indeed, not being +accustomed to take snuff, he helped himself, as he did to chewing tobacco +when it was offered free, with the utmost liberality. The result did not +add to the dignity of his bearing, for he was seized with a succession of +convulsions of sneezing. Dave habitually did everything in the noisiest +way possible, and he wound up each successive fit of sneezing with a +whoop that gave him the semblance of practicing an Indian war-song, by +way of fitting himself to wed a half-breed wife. + +"I declare," he said, when the sneezing had subsided, "I never did see no +sech snuff." + +"Vare good," resumed M. Perritaut. "I weel promees in the contract to +geeve you one ten tousant tollars--_deux mille_--two tousant avery yare +for fife yare. _Trčs bien_. My daughtare is edu_cate_; she stoody fife, +seex yare in te convent at Montreal. Zhe play on piano evare so many +tune. _Bien_. You come Monday. We weel zee. Adieu. I mean good-by, +Mistare Sonee." + +"Adoo, musheer," said Dave, taking his hat and leaving. He boasted +afterwards that he had spoke to the ole man in French when he was comin' +away. Thought it mout kinder tickle him, you know. And he said he didn' +mind a brown complexion a bit. Fer his part, seemed to him 'twas kinder +purty fer variety. Wouldn' want all women reddish, but fer variety 'twas +sorter nice, you know. He always did like sompin' odd. + +And he now threw all his energy into the advocacy of Perritaut. It +was the natural location of a county-seat. Metropolisville never +would be nawthin'. + +Monday morning found him at Perritaut's house, ready to sell himself in +marriage. As for the girl, she, poor brown lamb--or wolf, as the case may +be--was ready, with true Indian stolidity, to be disposed of as her +father chose. The parties who were interested in the town of Perritaut +had got wind of Dave's proposition; and as they saw how important his +influence might be in the coming election, they took pains to satisfy +Monsieur Perritaut that Mr. Sawney was a very proper person to marry his +tawny daughter and pocket his yellow gold-pieces. The lawyer was just +finishing the necessary documents when Dave entered. + +"_Eh bien_! How you do, Mistare Sonee? Is eet dat you weel have a peench +of snuff?" For the Frenchman had quite forgotten Dave's mishap in +snuff-taking, and offered the snuff out of habitual complaisance. + +"No, musheer," said Dave, "I can't use no snuff of late yeers. 'Fection +of the nose; makes me sneeze dreffle." + +"Oh! _Eh blen! C'est comme il faut_. I mean dat is all right, vare good, +mistare. Now, den, Monsieur _l'Avocat_, I mean ze lawyare, he is ready to +read ze contract." + +"Cawntrack? Oh! yes, that's right. We Americans marry without a +cawntrack, you see. But I like cawntracks myself. It's my business, +cawntracking is, you know. Fire away whenever you're ready, mister." This +last to the lawyer, who was waiting to read. + +Dave sat, with a knowing air, listening to the legal phraseology as +though he had been used to marriage contracts from infancy. He was +pleased with the notion of being betrothed in this awful diplomatic +fashion. It accorded with his feelings to think that he was worth ten +thousand dollars and the exhaustive verbiage of this formidable +cawntrack. + +But at last the lawyer read a part which made him open his eyes. + +Something about its being further stipulated that the said David Sawney, +of the first part, in and for the consideration named, "hereby binds +himself to have the children which shall issue from this marriage +educated in the Roman Catholic faith," caught his ears. + +"Hold on, mister, I can't sign that! I a'n't over-pertikeler about who I +marry, but I can't go that." + +"What part do you object to?" + +"Well, ef I understand them words you've got kiled up there--an' I'm +purty middlin' smart at big words, you see--I'm to eddicate the children +in the Catholic faith, as you call it." + +"Yes, that is it." + +"_Oui_! vare good. Dat I must inseest on," said Perritaut. + +"Well, I a'n't nothin' in a religious way, but I can't stan' that air. +I'm too well raised. I kin marry a Injin, but to sell out my children +afore they're born to Catholic priests, I couldn't do that air ef you +planked down two ten thousands." + +And upon this point Dave stuck. There is a sentiment down somewhere in +almost any man, and there was this one point of conscience with Dave. And +there was likewise this one scruple with Perritaut. And these opposing +scruples in two men who had not many, certainly, turned the scale and +gave the county-seat to Metropolisville, for Dave told all his Southern +Illinois friends that if the county-seat should remain at Perritaut, the +Catholics would build a nunnery an' a caythedral there, and then none of +their daughters would be safe. These priests was a-lookin' arter the +comin' generation. And besides, Catholics and Injins wouldn' have a good +influence on the moral and religious kerecter of the kyounty. The +influence of half-breeds was a bad thing fer civilization. Ef a man was +half-Injin, he was half-Injin, and you couldn't make him white noways. +And Dave distributed freely deeds to some valueless outlots, which +Plausaby had given him for the purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE RETURN. + + +As long as he could, Charlton kept Katy at Glenfield. He amused her by +every means in his power; he devoted himself to her; he sought to win her +away from Westcott, not by argument, to which she was invulnerable, but +by feeling. He found that the only motive that moved her was an emotion +of pity for him, so he contrived to make her estimate his misery on her +account at its full value. But just when he thought he had produced some +effect there would come one of Smith Westcott's letters, written not as +he talked (it is only real simpleheartedness or genuine literary gift +that can make the personality of the writer felt in a letter), but in a +round business hand with plenty of flourishes, and in sentences very +carefully composed. But he managed in his precise and prim way to convey +to Katy the notion that he was pining away for her company. And she, +missing the giggle and the playfulness from the letter, thought his +distress extreme indeed. For it would have required a deeper sorrow than +Smith Westcott ever felt to make him talk in the stiff conventional +fashion in which his letters were composed. + +And besides Westcott's letters there were letters from her mother, in +which that careful mother never failed to tell how Mr. Westcott had come +in, the evening before, to talk about Katy, and to tell her how lost and +heart-broken he was. So that letters from home generally brought on a +relapse of Katy's devotion to her lover. She was cruelly torn by +alternate fits of loving pity for poor dear Brother Albert on the one +hand, and poor, dear, _dear_ Smith Westcott on the other. And the latter +generally carried the day in her sympathies. He was such a poor dear +fellow, you know, and hadn't anybody, not even a mother, to comfort him, +and he had often said that if his charming and divine little Katy should +ever prove false, he would go and drown himself in the lake. And that +would be _so_ awful, you know. And, besides, Brother Albert had plenty to +love him. There was mother, and there was that quiet kind of a young lady +at the City Hotel that Albert went to see so often, though how he could +like anybody so cool she didn't know. And then Cousin Isa would love +Brother Albert maybe, if he'd ask her. But he had plenty, and poor Smith +had often said that he needed somebody to help him to be good. And she +would cleave to him forever and help him. Mother and father thought she +was right, and she couldn't anyway let Smith drown himself. How could +she? That would be the same as murdering him, you know. + +During the fortnight that Charlton and his sister visited in Glenfield, +Albert divided his time between trying to impress Katy with the general +unfitness of Smith Westcott to be her husband, and the more congenial +employment of writing long letters to Miss Helen Minorkey, and +receiving long letters from that lady. His were fervent and +enthusiastic; they explained in a rather vehement style all the schemes +that filled his brain for working out his vocation and helping the +world to its goal: while hers discussed everything in the most +dispassionate temper. Charlton had brought himself to admire this +dispassionate temper. A man of Charlton's temper who is really in love, +can bring himself to admire any traits in the object of his love. Had +Helen Minorkey shown some little enthusiasm, Charlton would have +exaggerated it, admired it, and rejoiced in it as a priceless quality. +As she showed none, he admired the lack of it in her, rejoiced in her +entire superiority to her sex in this regard, and loved her more and +more passionately every day. And Miss Minorkey was not wanting in a +certain tenderness toward her adorer. She loved him in her way, it made +her happy to be loved in that ideal fashion. + +Charlton found himself in a strait betwixt two. He longed to worship +again at the shrine of his Minerva. But he disliked to return with Katy +until he had done something to break the hold of Smith Westcott upon her +mind. So upon one pretext or another he staid until Westcott wrote to +Katy that business would call him to Glenfield the next week, and he +hoped that she would conclude to return with him. Katy was so pleased +with the prospect of a long ride with her lover, that she felt +considerable disappointment when Albert determined to return at once. +Brother Albert always did such curious things. Katy, who had given Albert +a dozen reasons for an immediate return, now thought it very strange that +he should be in such a hurry. Had he given up trying to find that new +kind of grasshopper he spoke of the day before? + +One effect of the unexpected arrival of Albert and Katy in +Metropolisville, was to make Smith Westcott forget that he ever had any +business that was likely to call him to Glenfield. Delighted to see Katy +back. Would a died if she'd staid away another week. By George! he! he! +he! Wanted to jump into the lake, you know. Always felt that way when +Katy was out of sight two days. Curious. By George! Didn't think any +woman could ever make such a fool of him. He! he! Felt like ole Dan +Tucker when he came to supper and found the hot cakes all gone. He! he! +he! By George! You know! Let's sing de forty-lebenth hymn! Ahem! + +"If Diner was an apple, + And I was one beside her, +Oh! how happy we would be, + When we's skwushed into cider! + And a little more cider too, ah-hoo! + And a little more cider too! + And a little more cider too--ah--hoo! + And a little more cider too." + +How much? Pailful! By George! He! he! he! That's so! You know. Them's my +sentiments. 'Spresses the 'motions of my heart, bredren! Yah! yah! By +hokey! And here comes Mr. Albert Charlton. Brother Albert! Just as well +learn to say it now as after a while. Eh, Katy? How do, brother Albert? +Glad to see you as if I'd stuck a nail in my foot. By George! he! he! You +won't mind my carryin' on. Nobody minds me. I'm the privileged infant, +you know. I am, by George! he! he! Come, Kate, let's take a boat-ride. + +"Oh! come, love, come; my boat's by the shore; +If yer don't ride now, I won't ax you no more." + +And so forth. Too hoarse to sing. But I am not too feeble to paddle my +own canoe. Come, Katy Darling. You needn't mind your shawl when you've +got a Westcott to keep you warm. He! he! By George! + +And then he went out singing that her lips was red as roses or poppies +or something, and "wait for the row-boat and we'll all take a ride." + +Albert endeavored to forget his vexation by seeking the society of Miss +Minorkey, who was sincerely glad to see him back, and who was more +demonstrative on this evening than he had ever known her to be. And +Charlton was correspondingly happy. He lay in his unplastered room that +night, and counted the laths in the moonlight, and built golden ladders +out of them by which to climb up to the heaven of his desires. But he was +a little troubled to find that in proportion as he came nearer to the +possession of Miss Minorkey, his ardor in the matter of his great +Educational Institution--his American Philanthropinum, as he called +it--abated. + +I ought here to mention a fact which occurred about this time, because it +is a fact that has some bearing on the course of the story, and because +it may help us to a more charitable judgment in regard to the character +of Mr. Charlton's step-father. Soon after Albert's return from Glenfield, +he received an appointment to the postmastership of Metropolisville in +such a way as to leave no doubt that it came through Squire Plausaby's +influence. We are in the habit of thinking a mean man wholly mean. But we +are wrong. Liberal Donor, Esq., for instance, has a great passion for +keeping his left hand exceedingly well informed of the generous doings of +his right. He gives money to found the Liberal Donor Female Collegiate +and Academical Institute, and then he gives money to found the Liberal +Donor Professorship of Systematic and Metaphysical Theology, and still +other sums to establish the Liberal Donor Orthopedic Chirurgical +Gratuitous Hospital for Cripples and Clubfooted. Shall I say that the +man is not generous, but only ostentatious? Not at all. He might gratify +his vanity in other ways. His vanity dominates over his benevolence, and +makes it pay tribute to his own glory. But his benevolence is genuine, +notwithstanding. Plausaby was mercenary, and he may have seen some +advantages to himself in having the post-office in his own house, and in +placing his step-son under obligation to himself. Doubtless these +considerations weighed much, but besides, we must remember the injunction +that includes even the Father of Evil in the number of those to whom a +share of credit is due. Let us say for Plausaby that, land-shark as he +was, he was not vindictive, he was not without generosity, and that it +gave him sincere pleasure to do a kindness to his step-son, particularly +when his generous impulse coincided so exactly with his own interest in +the matter. I do not say that he would not have preferred to take the +appointment himself, had it not been that he had once been a postmaster +in Pennsylvania, and some old unpleasantness between him and the +Post-Office Department about an unsettled account stood in his way. But +in all the tangled maze of motive that, by a resolution of force, +produced the whole which men called Plausaby the Land-shark, there was +not wanting an element of generosity, and that element of generosity had +much to do with Charlton's appointment. And Albert took it kindly. I am +afraid that he was just a little less observant of the transactions in +which Plausaby engaged after that. I am sure that he was much less +vehement than before in his denunciations of land-sharks. The post-office +was set up in one of the unfinished rooms of Mr. Plausaby's house, and, +except at mail-times, Charlton was not obliged to confine himself to it. +Katy or Cousin Isa or Mrs. Plausaby was always glad to look over the +letters for any caller, to sell stamps to those who wanted them, and tell +a Swede how much postage he must pay on a painfully-written letter to +some relative in Christiana or Stockholm. And the three or four hundred +dollars of income enabled Charlton to prosecute his studies. In his +gratitude he lent the two hundred and twenty dollars--all that was left +of his educational fund--to Mr. Plausaby, at two per cent a month, on +demand, secured by a mortgage on lots in Metropolisville. + +Poor infatuated George Gray--the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, the +Trapper of Pleasant Brook, the Hoosier Poet from the Wawbosh +country--poor infatuated George Gray found his cabin untenable after +little Katy had come and gone. He came up to Metropolisville, improved +his dress by buying some ready-made clothing, and haunted the streets +where he could catch a glimpse now and then of Katy. + +One night, Charlton, coming home from an evening with Miss Minorkey at +the hotel, found a man standing in front of the fence. + +"What do you want here?" he asked sharply. + +"Didn' mean no harm, stranger, to nobody." + +"Oh! it's you!" exclaimed Charlton, recognizing his friend the Poet. +"Come in, come in." + +"Come in? Couldn' do it no way, stranger. Ef I was to go in thar amongst +all them air ladies, my knees would gin out. I was jist a-lookin' at that +purty creetur. But I 'druther die'n do her any harm. I mos' wish I was +dead. But 'ta'n't no harm to look at her ef she don' know it. I shan't +disturb her; and ef she marries a gentleman, I shan't disturb him nuther. +On'y, ef he don' mind it, you know, I'll write po'try about her now and +then. I got some varses now that I wish you'd show to her, ef you think +they won't do her no harm, you know, and I don't 'low they will. Good-by, +Mr. Charlton. Comin' down to sleep on your claim? Land's a-comin' into +market down thar." + +After the Poet left him, Albert took the verses into the house and read +them, and gave them to Katy. The first stanza was, if I remember it +rightly, something of this sort: + +"A angel come inter the poar trapper's door, + The purty feet tromped on the rough puncheon floor, +Her lovely head slep' on his prairie-grass piller-- + The cabin is lonesome and the trapper is poar, + He hears little shoes a-pattin' the floor; + He can't sleep at night on that piller no more; +His Hoosier harp hangs on the wild water-willer!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SAWNEY AND HIS OLD LOVE. + + +Self-conceit is a great source of happiness, a buffer that softens all +the jolts of life. After David Sawney's failure to capture Perritaut's +half-breed Atlantis and her golden apples at one dash, one would have +expected him to be a little modest in approaching his old love again; but +forty-eight hours after her return from Glenfield, he was paying his +"devours," as he called them, to little Katy Charlton. He felt confident +of winning--he was one of that class of men who believe themselves able +to carry off anybody they choose. He inventoried his own attractions with +great complacency; he had good health, a good claim, and, as he often +boasted, had been "raised rich," or, as he otherwise stated it, "cradled +in the lap of luxury." His father was one of those rich Illinois farmers +who are none the less coarse for all their money and farms. Owing to +reverses of fortune, Dave had inherited none of the wealth, but all of +the coarseness of grain. So he walked into Squire Plausaby's with his +usual assurance, on the second evening after Katy's return. + +"Howdy, Miss Charlton," he said, "howdy! I'm glad to see you lookin' so +smart. Howdy, Mrs. Ferret!" to the widow, who was present. "Howdy do, +Mr. Charlton--back again?" And then he took his seat alongside Katy, not +without a little trepidation, for he felt a very slight anxiety lest his +flirtation With Perritaut's ten thousand dollars "mout've made his +chances juberous," as he stated it to his friends. But then, he +reflected, "she'll think I'm worth more'n ever when she knows I +_de_-clined ten thousand dollars, in five annooal payments." + +"Mr. Sawney," said the widow Ferret, beaming on him with one of her +sudden, precise, pickled smiles, "Mr. Sawney, I'm delighted to hear that +you made a brave stand against Romanism. It is the bane of this country. +I respect you for the stand you made. It shows the influence of +schripcheral training by a praying mother, I've no doubt, Mr. Sawney." + +Dave was flattered and annoyed at this mention, and he looked at little +Katy, but she didn't seem to feel any interest in the matter, and so he +took heart. + +"I felt it my dooty, Mrs. Ferret, indeed I did." + +"I respect you for it, Mr. Sawney." + +"For what?" said Albert irascibly. "For selling himself into a mercenary +marriage, and then higgling on a point of religious prejudice?" + +Mrs. Ferret now focused her round eyes at Mr. Charlton, smiled her +deprecating smile, and replied: "I do think, Mr. Charlton, that in this +day of lax views on one side and priestcraft on the other, I respect a +man who thinks enough of ee-vangelical truth to make a stand against any +enemy of the holy religion of--" + +"Well," said Charlton rudely, "I must say that I respect Perritaut's +prejudices just as much as I do Dave's. Both of them were engaged in a +contemptible transaction, and both of them showed an utter lack of +conscience, except in matters of opinion. Religion is--" + +[Illustration: MRS. FERRET] + +But the company did not get the benefit of Mr. Albert's views on the +subject of religion, for at that moment entered Mr. Smith Westcott. + +"How do, Katy? Lookin' solemn, eh? How do, Brother Albert? Mrs. Ferret, +how do? Ho! ho! Dave, is this you? I congratulate you on your escape from +the savages. Scalp all sound, eh? Didn' lose your back-hair? By George! +he! he! he!" And he began to show symptoms of dancing, as he sang: + +"John Brown, he had a little Injun; +John Brown, he had a little Injun; +Dave Sawney had a little Injun; + One little Injun gal! + +"Yah! yah! Well, well, Mr. Shawnee, glad to see you back." + +"Looky hyer. Mister Wes'cott," said Dave, growing red, "you're a-makin' +a little too free." + +"Oh! the Shawnee chief shouldn' git mad. He! he! by George! wouldn' git +mad fer ten thousand dollars. I wouldn', by George! you know! he! he! Ef +I was worth ten thousand dollars live weight, bide and tallow throw'd in, +I would--" + +"See here, mister," said Dave, rising, "maybe, you'd like to walk out to +some retired place, and hev your hide thrashed tell 'twouldn' hold +shucks? Eh?" + +"I beg pardon," said Westcott, a little frightened, "didn' mean no harm, +you know, Mr. Sawney. All's fair in war, especially when it's a war for +the fair. Sort of warfare, you know. By George! he! he! Shake hands, +let's be friends, Dave. Don' mind my joking--nobody minds me. I'm the +privileged infant, you know, he! he! A'n't I, Mr. Charlton?" + +"You're infant enough, I'm sure," said Albert, "and whether you are +privileged or not, you certainly take liberties that almost any other man +would get knocked down for." + +"Oh! well, don't let's be cross. Spoils our faces and voices, Mr. +Charlton, to be cross. For my part, I'm the laughin' philosopher--the +giggling philosopher, by George! he! he! Come Katy, let's walk." + +Katy was glad enough to get her lover away fro her brother. She hated +quarreling, and didn't see why people couldn't be peaceable. And so she +took Mr. Westcott's arm, and they walked out, that gentleman stopping to +strike a match and light his cigar at the door, and calling back, "Dood +by, all, dood by! Adieu, Monsieur Sawney, _au revoir_!" Before he +had passed out of the gate he was singing lustily: + +"Ten little, nine little, eight little Injun; +Seven little, six little, five little Injun; +Four, little, three little, two little Injun; +One little Injun girl! + +"He! he! By George! Best joke, for the time of the year, I ever heard." + +"I think," said Mrs. Ferret, after Katy and her lover had gone--she spoke +rapidly by jerks, with dashes between--"I think, Mr. Sawney--that you are +worthy of commendation--I do, indeed--for your praiseworthy +stand--against Romanism. I don't know what will become of our +liberties--if the priests ever get control--of this country." + +Sawney tried to talk, but was so annoyed by the quick effrontery with +which Westcott had carried the day that he could not say anything quite +to his own satisfaction. At last Dave rose to go, and said he had thought +maybe he mout git a chance to explain things to Miss Charlton ef Mr. +Westcott hadn't gone off with her. But he'd come agin. He wanted to know +ef Albert thought her feelin's was hurt by what he'd done in offerin to +make a cawntrack with Perritaut. And Albert assured him he didn't think +they were in the least. He had never heard Katy mention the matter, +except to laugh about it. + +At the gate Mr. Sawney met the bland, gentlemanly Plausaby, Esq., who +took him by the hand soothingly, and spoke of his services in the late +election matter with the highest appreciation. + +Dave asked the squire what he thought of the chance of his succeeding +with Miss Charlton. He recited to Plausaby his early advantages. "You +know, Squire, I was raised rich, cradled in the lap of luxury. Ef I +ha'n't got much book-stuffin' in my head, 'ta'n't fer want of schoolin'. +I never larnt much, but then I had plenty of edication; I went to school +every winter hand-runnin' tell I was twenty-two, and went to singin' +every Sunday arternoon. 'Ta'n't like as ef I'd been brought up poar, +weth no chance to larn. I've had the schoolin' anyway, and it's all the +same. An' I've got a good claim, half timber, and runnin' water onter +it, and twenty acre of medder. I s'pose mebbe she don't like my going' +arter that air Frenchman's gal. But I didn't mean no 'fense, you +know--ten thousand in yaller gold's a nice thing to a feller like me +what's been raised rich, and's kinder used to havin' and not much used +to gittin'. I wouldn't want her to take no 'fense, you know. 'Ta'n't +like's ef I'd a-loved the red-skin Catholic. I hadn' never seed 'er. It +wasn't the gal, it was the money I hankered arter. So Miss Charlton +needn' be jealous, nor juberous, like's ef I was agoin' to wish I'd a +married the Injun. I'd feel satisfied with Kate Charlton _ef_ you think +she'd be with David Sawney!" + +"That's a delicate subject--quite a delicate subject for me to speak +about, Mr. Sawney. To say anything about. But I may assure you that I +appreciate your services in our late battle. Appreciate them highly. +Quite highly. Very, indeed. I have no friend that I think more highly of. +None. I think I could indicate to you a way by which you might remove any +unfavorable impression from Miss Charlton's mind. Any unfavorable +impression." + +"Anythin' you tell me to do, squire, I'll do. I'd mos' skelp the ole man +Perritaut, and his darter too, ef you said it would help me to cut out +that insultin' Smith Westcott, and carry off Miss Charlton. I don't know +as I ever seed a gal that quite come up to her, in my way of thinkin'. +Now, squire, what is it?" + +"Well, Mr. Sawney, we carried the election the other day and got the +county-seat. Got it fairly, by six majority. After a hard battle. A very +hard battle. Very. Expensive contest, too. I pay men that work for me. +Always pay 'em. Always. Now, then, we are going to have trouble to get +possession, unless we do something bold. Something bold. They mean to +contest the election. They've got the court on their side. On their side, +I'm afraid. They will get an injunction if we try to move the records. +Sure to. Now, if I was a young man I'd move them suddenly before they had +time. Possession is nine points. Nine points of law. They may watch the +records at night. But they could be moved in the daytime by some man that +they did not suspect. Easily. Quite so. County buildings are in the edge +of town. Nearly everybody away at noon. Nearly everybody." + +"Wal, squire, I'd cawntrack to do it" + +"I couldn't make a contract, you see. I'm a magistrate. Conspiracy and +all that. But I always help a man that helps me. Always. In more ways +than one. There are two reasons why a man might do that job. Two of them. +One is love, and the other's money. Love and money. But I mustn't appear +in the matter. Not at all. I'll do what I can for you. What I can. Katy +will listen to me. She certainly will. Do what you think best." + +"I a'n't dull 'bout takin' a hint, squire." And Dave winked his left eye +at the squire in a way that said, "Trust _me_! I'm no fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A COLLISION. + + +If this were a History of Metropolisville--but it isn't, and that is +enough. You do not want to hear, and I do not want to tell you, how Dave +Sawney, like another Samson, overthrew the Philistines; how he sauntered +into the room where all the county officers did business together, he and +his associates, at noon, when most of the officers were gone to dinner; +how he seized the records--there were not many at that early day--loaded +them into his wagon, and made off. You don't want to hear all that. If +you do, call on Dave himself. He has told it over and over to everybody +who would listen, from that time to this, and he would cheerfully get out +of bed at three in the morning to tell it again, with the utmost +circumstantiality, and with such little accretions of fictitious ornament +as always gather about a story often and fondly told. Neither do you, +gentle reader, who read for your own amusement, care to be informed of +all the schemes devised by Plausaby for removing the county officers to +their offices, nor of the town lots and other perquisites which accrued +to said officers. It is sufficient for the purposes of this story that +the county-seat was carted off to Metropolisville, and abode there in +basswood tabernacles for a while, and that it proved a great +advertisement to the town; money was more freely invested in +Metropolisville, an "Academy" was actually staked out, and the town grew +rapidly. Not alone on account of its temporary political importance did +it advance, for about this time Plausaby got himself elected a director +of the St. Paul and Big Gun River Valley Land Grant Railroad, and the +speculators, who scent a railroad station at once, began to buy lots--on +long time, to be sure, and yet to buy them. So much did the fortunes of +Plausaby, Esq., prosper that he began to invest also--on time and at high +rates of interest--in a variety of speculations. It was the fashion of +'56 to invest everything you had in first payments, and then to sell out +at an advance before the second became due. + +But it is not about Plausaby or Metropolisville that I meant to tell you +in this chapter. Nor yet about the wooing of Charlton. For in his case, +true love ran smoothly. Too smoothly for the interest of this history. If +Miss Minorkey had repelled his suit, if she had steadfastly remained +cold, disdainful, exacting, it would have been better, maybe, for me who +have to tell the story, and for you who have to read it. But disdainful +she never was, and she did not remain cold. The enthusiasm of her lover +was contagious, and she came to write and talk to him with much +earnestness. Next to her own comfort and peace of mind and her own +culture, she prized her lover. He was original, piquant, and talented. +She was proud of him, and loved him with all her heart. Not as a more +earnest person might have loved; but as heartily as she could. And she +came to take on the color of her lover's habits of thought and feeling; +she expressed herself even more warmly than she felt, so that Albert was +happy, and this story was doomed to suffer because of his happiness. I +might give zest to this dull love-affair by telling you that Mr. Minorkey +opposed the match. Next to a disdainful lady-love, the best thing for a +writer and a reader is a furious father. But I must be truthful at all +hazards, and I am obliged to say that while Mr. Minorkey would have been +delighted to have had for son-in-law some man whose investments might +have multiplied Helen's inheritance, he was yet so completely under the +influence of his admired daughter that he gave a consent, tacitly at +least, to anything she chose to do. So that Helen became recognized +presently as the prospective Mrs. Charlton. Mrs. Plausaby liked her +because she wore nice dresses, and Katy loved her because she loved +Brother Albert. For that matter, Katy did not need any reason for loving +anybody. Even Isa stifled a feeling she was unable to understand, and +declared that Miss Minorkey was smart, and just suited to Albert; and she +supposed that Albert, with all his crotchets and theories, might make a +person like Miss Minorkey happy. It wasn't every woman that could put up +with them, you know. + +But it was not about the prosperous but uninteresting courtship of two +people with "idees" that I set out to tell in this chapter. If Charlton +got on smoothly with Helen Minorkey, and if he had no more serious and +one-sided outbreaks with his step-father, he did not get on with his +sister's lover. + +Westcott had been drinking all of one night with some old cronies of the +Elysian Club, and his merry time of the night was subsiding into a +quarrelsome time in the morning. He was able, when he was sober, to +smother his resentment towards Albert, for there is no better ambush than +an entirely idiotic giggle. But drink had destroyed his prudence. And so +when Albert stepped on the piazza of the hotel where Westcott stood +rattling his pocketful of silver change and his keys for the amusement of +the bystanders, as was his wont, the latter put himself in Charlton's +way, and said, in a dreary, half-drunk style: + +[Illustration: ONE SAVAGE BLOW FULL IN THE FACE.] + +"Mornin', Mr. Hedgehog! By George! he! he! he! How's the purty little +girl? My little girl. Don't you wish she wasn't? Hard feller, I am. Any +gal's a fool to marry me, I s'pose. Katy's a fool. That's just what I +want, by George I he! he! I want a purty fool. And she's purty, and +she's--the other thing. What you goin' to do about it? He! he! he!" + +"I'm going to knock you down," said Albert, "if you say another word +about her." + +"A'n't she mine? You can't help it, either. He! he! The purty little +goose loves Smith Westcott like lots of other purty little--" + +Before he could finish the sentence Charlton had struck him one savage +blow full in the face, and sent him staggering back against the side of +the house, but he saved himself from falling by seizing the window-frame, +and immediately drew his Deringer. Charlton, who was not very strong, but +who had a quick, lightning-like activity, knocked him down, seized his +pistol, and threw it into the street. This time Charlton fell on him in a +thoroughly murderous mood, and would perhaps have beaten and choked him +to death in the frenzy of his long pent-up passion, for notwithstanding +Westcott's struggles Albert had the advantage. He was sober, active, and +angry enough to be ruthless. Westcott's friends interfered, but that +lively gentleman's eyes and nose were sadly disfigured by the pummeling +he had received, and Charlton was badly scratched and bruised. + +Whatever hesitancy had kept Albert from talking to Katy about Smith +Westcott was all gone now, and he went home to denounce him bitterly. +One may be sure that the muddled remarks of Mr. Westcott about Katy--of +which even he had grace to be a little ashamed when he was sober--were +not softened in the repetition which Albert gave them at home. Even +Mrs. Plausaby forgot her attire long enough to express her indignation, +and as for Miss Marlay, she combined with Albert in a bayonet-charge on +poor Katy. + +Plausaby had always made it a rule not to fight a current. Wait till the +tide turns, he used to say, and row with the stream when it flows your +way. So now he, too, denounced Westcott, and Katy was fairly borne off +her feet for a while by the influences about her. In truth, Katy was not +without her own private and personal indignation against Westcott. Not +because he had spoken of her as a fool. That hurt her feelings, but did +not anger her much. She was not in the habit of getting angry on her own +account. But when she saw three frightful scratches and a black bruise on +the face of Brother Albert, she could not help thinking that Smith had +acted badly. And then to draw a pistol, too! To threaten to kill her own +dear, dear brother! She couldn't ever forgive him, she said. If she had +seen the much more serious damage which poor, dear, dear Smith had +suffered at the tender hands of her dear, dear brother, I doubt not she +would have had an equally strong indignation against Albert. + +For Westcott's face was in mourning, and the Privileged Infant had lost +his cheerfulness. He did not giggle for ten days. He did not swear "by +George" once. He did not he! he! The joyful keys and the cheerful +ten-cent coins lay in his pocket with no loving hand to rattle them. He +did not indulge in double-shuffles. He sang no high-toned negro-minstrel +songs. He smoked steadily and solemnly, and he drank steadily and +solemnly. His two clerks were made to tremble. They forgot Smith's +bruised nose and swollen eye in fearing his awful temper. All the +swearing he wanted to do and dared not do at Albert, he did at his +inoffensive subordinates. + +Smith Westcott had the dumps. No sentimental heart-break over Katy, +though he did miss her company sadly in a town where there were no +amusements, not even a concert-saloon in which a refined young man could +pass an evening. If he had been in New York now, he wouldn't have minded +it. But in a place like Metropolisville, a stupid little frontier village +of pious and New Englandish tendencies--in such a place, as Smith +pathetically explained to a friend, one can't get along without a +sweetheart, you know. + +A few days after Albert's row with Westcott he met George Gray, the +Hoosier Poet, who had haunted Metropolisville, off and on, ever since he +had first seen the "angel." + +He looked more wild and savage than usual. + +"Hello! my friend," said Charlton heartily. "I'm glad to see you. What's +the matter?" + +"Well, Mister Charlton, I'm playin' the gardeen angel." + +"Guardian angel! How's that?" + +"I'm a sorter gardeen of your sister. Do you see that air pistol? Hey? +Jist as sure as shootin,' I'll kill that Wes'cott ef he tries to marry +that angel. I don't want to marry her. I aint fit, mister, that's a fack. +Ef I was, I'd put in fer her. But I aint. And ef she marries a gentleman, +I haint got not a bit of right to object. But looky hyer! Devils haint +got no right to angels. Ef I kin finish up a devil jest about the time +he gits his claws onto a angel and let the angel go free, why, I say it's +wuth the doin'. Hey?" + +Charlton, I am ashamed to say, did not at first think the death of Smith +Westcott by violence a very great crime or calamity, if it served to save +Katy. However, as he walked and talked with Gray, the thought of murder +made him shudder, and he made an earnest effort to persuade the +Inhabitant to give up his criminal thoughts. But it is the misfortune of +people like George Gray that the romance in their composition will get +into their lives. They have not mental discipline enough to make the +distinction between the world of sentiment and the world of action, in +which inflexible conditions modify the purpose. + +"Ef I hev to hang fer it I'll hang, but I'm goin' to be her +gardeen angel." + +"I didn't know that guardian angels carried pistols," said Albert, trying +to laugh the half-crazed fellow out of a conceit from which he could not +drive him by argument. + +"Looky hyer, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, coloring, "I thought you was a +gentleman, and wouldn' stoop to make no sech a remark. Ef you're goin' to +talk that-a-way, you and me don't travel no furder on the same trail. The +road forks right here, mister." + +"Oh! I hope not, my dear friend. I didn't mean any offense. Give me your +hand, and God bless you for your noble heart." + +Gray was touched as easily one way as the other, and he took Charlton's +hand with emotion, at the same time drawing his sleeve across his eyes +and saying, "God bless you, Mr. Charlton. You can depend on me. I'm the +gardeen, and I don't keer two cents fer life. It's a shadder, and a +mush-room, as I writ some varses about it wonst. Let me say 'em over: + +"Life's a shadder, + Never mind it. +A cloud kivers up the sun +And whar is yer shadder gone? + Ye'll hey to be peart to find it! + +"Life's a ladder-- + What about it? +You've clim half-way t' the top, +Down comes yer ladder ke-whop! + You can't scrabble up without it! + +"Nothin's no sadder, + Kordin to my tell, +Than packin' yer life around. +They's good rest under the ground + Ef a feller kin on'y die well." + +Charlton, full of ambition, having not yet tasted the bitterness of +disappointment, clinging to life as to all, was fairly puzzled to +understand the morbid sadness of the Poet's spirit. "I'm sorry you feel +that way, Gray," he said. "But at any rate promise me you won't do +anything desperate without talking to me." + +"I'll do that air, Mr. Charlton," and the two shook hands again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +STANDING GUARD IN VAIN. + + +It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again. Her practical intellect, +bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad +philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of +general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its +kindness to the individual. + +Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present +state of feeling. He saw how she would inevitably slip through his +fingers. But what to do he knew not. So, like most men of earnest and +half-visionary spirit, he did nothing. Unbeliever in Providence that he +was, he waited in the belief that something must happen to help him out +of the difficulty. Isa, believer that she was, set herself to be her own +Providence. + +Albert had been spending an evening with Miss Minorkey. He spent nearly +all his evenings with Miss Minorkey. He came home, and stood a minute, as +was his wont, looking at the prairie landscape. A rolling prairie is like +a mountain, in that it perpetually changes its appearance; it is +delicately susceptible to all manner of atmospheric effects. It lay +before him in the dim moonlight, indefinite; a succession of undulations +running one into the other, not to be counted nor measured. All accurate +notions of topography were lost; there was only landscape, dim, +undeveloped, suggestive of infinitude. Standing thus in the happiness of +loving and being loved, the soft indefiniteness of the landscape and the +incessant hum of the field-crickets and katydids, sounds which came out +of the everywhere, soothed Charlton like the song of a troubadour. + +"Mr. Charlton!" + +Like one awaking from a dream, Albert saw Isa Marlay, her hand resting +against one of the posts which supported the piazza-roof, looking even +more perfect and picturesque than ever in the haziness of the moonlight. +Figure, dress, and voice were each full of grace and sweetness, and if +the face was not exactly beautiful, it was at least charming and full of +a subtle magnetism. (Magnetism! happy word, with which we cover the +weakness of our thoughts, and make a show of comprehending and defining +qualities which are neither comprehensible nor definable!) + +"Mr. Charlton, I want to speak to you about Katy." + +It took Albert a moment or two to collect his thoughts. When he first +perceived Miss Marlay, she seemed part of the landscape. There was about +her form and motion an indefinable gracefulness that was like the charm +of this hazy, undulant, moonlit prairie, and this blue sky seen through +the lace of thin, milk-white clouds. It was not until she spoke Katy's +name that he began to return to himself. Katy was the one jarring string +in the harmony of his hopes. + +"About Katy? Certainly, Miss Marlay. Won't you sit down?" + +"No, I thank you." + +"Mr. Charlton, couldn't you get Katy away while her relations with +Westcott are broken? You don't know how soon she'll slip back into her +old love for him." + +"If--" and Albert hesitated. To go, he must leave Miss Minorkey. And the +practical difficulty presented itself to him at the same moment. "If I +could raise money enough to get away, I should go. But Mr. Plausaby has +all of my money and all of Katy's." + +Isabel was on the point of complaining that Albert should lend to Mr. +Plausaby, but she disliked to take any liberty, even that of reproof. +Ever since she knew that the family had thought of marrying her to +Albert, she had been an iceberg to him. He should not dare to think +that she had any care for him. For the same reason, another reply died +unuttered on her lips. She was about to offer to lend Mr. Charlton +fifty dollars of her own. But her quick pride kept her back, and, +besides, fifty dollars was not half-enough. She said she thought there +must be some way of raising the money. Then, as if afraid she had been +too cordial and had laid her motives open to suspicion in speaking thus +to Charlton, she drew herself up and bade him good-night with stiff +politeness, leaving him half-fascinated by her presence, half-vexed +with something in her manner, and wholly vexed with himself for having +any feeling one way or the other. What did he care for Isabel Marlay? +What if she were graceful and full of a subtle fascination of presence? +Why should he value such things? What were they worth, after all? What +if she were kind one minute and repellent the next? Isa Marlay was +nothing to him! + +Lying in his little unfinished chamber, he dismissed intellectual Miss +Minorkey from his mind with regret; he dismissed graceful but practical +Miss Marlay from his mind also, wondering that he had to dismiss her at +all, and gave himself to devising ways and means of eloping with little +Katy. She must be gotten away. It was evident that Plausaby would make no +effort to raise money to help him and Katy to get away. Plausaby would +prefer to detain Katy. Clearly, to proceed to pre-empt his claim, to +persuade Plausaby to raise money enough for him to buy a land-warrant +with, and then to raise two hundred dollars by mortgaging his land to +Minorkey or any other lover of mortgages with waiver clauses in them, was +the only course open. + +Plausaby, Esq., was ever prompt in dealing with those to whom he was +indebted, so far as promises went. He would always give the most solemn +assurance of his readiness to do anything one wished to have done; and +so, when Albert explained to him that it was necessary for him to +pre-empt because he wished to go East, Plausaby told him to go on and +establish his residence on his claim, and when he got ready to prove up +and pre-empt, to come to him. To come and let him know. To let him know +at once. He made the promise so frankly and so repetitiously, and with +such evident consciousness of his own ability and readiness to meet his +debt to Albert on demand, that the latter went away to his claim in +quietness and hopefulness, relying on Miss Marlay to stand guard over his +sister's love affairs in his absence. + +But standing guard was not of much avail. All of the currents that +flowed about Katy's life were undermining her resolution not to see +Smith Westcott. Katy, loving, sweet, tenderhearted, was far from being a +martyr, in stubbornness at best; her resolutions were not worth much +against her sympathies. And now that Albert's scratched face was out of +sight, and there was no visible object to keep alive her indignation, +she felt her heart full of ruth for poor, dear Mr. Westcott. How +lonesome he must be without her! She could only measure his lonesomeness +by her own. Her heart, ever eager to love, could not let go when once it +had attached itself, and she longed for other evenings in which she +could hear Smith's rattling talk, and in which he would tell her how +happy she had made him. How lonesome he must be! What if he should drown +himself in the lake? + +Mr. Plausaby, at tea, would tell in the most incidental way of something +that had happened during the day, and then, in his sliding, slipping, +repetitious, back-stitching fashion, would move round from one +indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over +Smith Westcott's name. + +"By the way," he would say, "poor Smith looks heartbroken. Absolutely +heart-broken. I didn't know the fellow cared so much for Katy. Didn't +think he had so much heart. So much faithfulness. But he looks down. +Very much downcast. Never saw a fellow look so chopfallen. And, by the +way, Albert did punish him awfully. He looks black and blue. Well, he +deserved it. He did so. I suppose he didn't mean to say anything against +Katy. But he had no business to let old friends coax him to drink. +Still, Albert was pretty severe. Too severe, in fact. I'm sorry for +Westcott. I am, indeed." + +After some such talk as this, Cousin Isa would generally find Katy crying +before bed-time. + +"What is the matter, Katy, dear?" she would say in a voice so full of +natural melody and genuine sympathy, that it never failed to move Katy to +the depths of her heart. Then Katy would cry more than ever, and fling +her arms about the neck of dear, dear, _dear_ Cousin Isa, and lavish on +her the tenderness of which her heart was full. + +"O Cousin Isa! what must I do? I'm breaking poor Smith's heart. You don't +know how much he loves me, and I'm afraid something dreadful will happen +to him, you know. What shall I do?" + +"I don't think he cares much, Katy. He's a bad man, I'm afraid, and +doesn't love you really. Don't think any more of him." For Isabel +couldn't find it in her heart to say to Katy just what she thought +of Westcott. + +"Oh! but you don't know him," Katy cries. "You don't know him. He says +that he does naughty things sometimes, but then he's got such a tender +heart. He made me promise I wouldn't throw him over, as he called it, for +his faults. He said he'd come to be good if I'd only keep on loving him. +And I said I would. And I haven't. Here's more than a week now that he +hasn't been here, and I haven't been to the store. And he said he'd go to +sleep in the lake some night if I ever, ever proved false to him. And I +lie awake nearly all night thinking how hard and cruel I've been to him. +And oh!"--here Katy cried awhile--"and oh! I think such awful things +sometimes," she continued in a whisper broken by sobs. "You don't know, +Cousin Isa. I think how cold, how dreadful cold the lake must be! Oo-oo!" +And a shudder shook her frame. "If poor, dear Smith were to throw himself +in! What if he is there now?" And she looked up at Isa with staring eyes. +"Do you know what an awful thing I heard about that lake once?" She +stopped and shivered. "There are leeches in it--nasty, black worms--and +one of them bit my hand once. And they told me that if a person should +be drowned in Diamond Lake the leeches would--oo!--take all their blood, +and their faces would be white, and not black like other drowned people's +faces. Oh! I can't bear to think about poor Smith. If I could only write +him a note, and tell him I love him just a little! But I told Albert I +wouldn't see him nor write to him. What shall I do? He mayn't live till +morning. They say he looks broken-hearted. He'll throw himself into that +cold lake to-night, maybe--and the leeches--the black worms--oo!--or else +he'll kill himself with that ugly pistol." + +It was in vain that Isabel talked to her, in vain that she tried to argue +with a cataract of feeling. It was rowing against Niagara with a +canoe-paddle. It was not wonderful, therefore, that before Albert got +back, Isa Marlay found Katy reading little notes from Westcott, notes +that ho had intrusted to one of his clerks, who was sent to the +post-office three or four times a day on various pretexts, until he +should happen to find Katy in the office. Then he would hand her the +notes. Katy did not reply. She had promised Albert she wouldn't. But +there was no harm in her reading them, just to keep Smith from drowning +himself among those black leeches in Diamond Lake. + +Isabel Marlay, in her distressful sense of responsibility to Albert, +could yet find no means of breaking up this renewed communication. In +sheer desperation, she appealed to Mrs. Plausaby. + +"Well, now," said that lady, sitting in state with the complacent +consciousness of a new and more stunning head-dress than usual, "I'll +tell you what it is, Isabel, I think Albert makes altogether too much +fuss over Katy's affairs. He'll break the girl's heart. He's got notions. +His father had. Deliver _me_ from notions! Just let Katy take her own +course. Marryin's a thing everybody must attend to personally for +themselves. You don't like to be meddled with, and neither does Albert. +You won't either of you marry to suit me. I have had my plans about you +and Albert. Now, Isabel, Mr. Westcott's a nice-looking man. With all his +faults he's a nice man. Cheerful and good-natured in his talk, and a good +provider. He's a store-keeper, too. It's nice to have a storekeeper for a +husband. I want Plausaby to keep store, so that I can get dresses and +such things without having to pay for them. I felt mad at Mr. Westcott +about his taking out his pistol so at Albert. But if Albert had let Mr. +Westcott alone, I'm sure Smith wouldn't a-touched him. But your folks +with notions are always troubling somebody else. For my part, I shan't +meddle with Katy. Do you think this bow's nice? Too low down, isn't it?" +and Mrs. Plausaby went to the glass to adjust it. + +And so it happened that all Isa Marlay's watching could not keep Westcott +away. For the land-office regulations at that time required that Albert +should live on his claim thirty days. This gave him the right to buy it +at a dollar and a quarter an acre, or to exchange a land-warrant for it. +The land was already worth two or three times the government price. But +that thirty days of absence, broken only by one or two visits to his +home, was enough to overturn all that Charlton had done in breaking up +his sister's engagement with Westcott. The latter knew how long Albert's +absence must be, and arranged his approaches to correspond. He gave her +fifteen days to get over her resentment, and to begin to pity him on +account of the stories of his incurable melancholy she would hear. After +he had thus suffered her to dream of his probable suicide for a +fortnight, he contrived to send her one little lugubrious note, +confessing that he had been intoxicated and begging her pardon. Then he +waited three days, days of great anxiety to her. For Katy feared lest her +neglect to return an answer should precipitate Westcott's suicide. But he +did not need an answer. Her looks when she received the note had been +reported to him. What could he need more? On the very evening after he +had sent that contrite note to Katy, announcing that he would never drink +again, he felt so delighted with what he had heard of its reception, that +he treated a crony out of his private bottle as they played cards +together in his room, and treated himself quite as liberally as he did +his friend, got up in the middle of the floor, and assured his friend +that he would be all right with his sweet little girl before the brother +got back. By George! If folks thought he was going to commit suicide, +they were fooled. Never broke his heart about a woman yet. Not much, by +George! But when he set his heart on a thing, he generally got it. He! +he! And he had set his heart on that little girl. As for jumping into the +lake, any man was a fool to jump into the drink on account of a woman. +When there were plenty of them. Large assortment constantly on hand. Pays +yer money and takes yer ch'ice! Suicide? Not much, by George! he! he! + +Hung his coat on a hickory limb, +Then like a wise man he jumped in, + My ole dad! My ole dad! + +Wondered what tune Charlton would sing when he found himself beat? Guess +'twould be: + +Can't stay in de wilderness. + In a few days, in a few days, +Can't stay in de wilderness, + A few days ago. + +Goin' to pre-empt my claim, too. I've got a month's leave, and I'll +follow him and marry that girl before he gets far. Bruddern and sistern, +sing de ole six hundredth toon. Ahem! + +I wish I was a married man, + A married man I'd be! +An' ketch the grub fer both of us + A-fishin' in the sea. + Big fish, + Little fish, + It's all the same to me! + +I got a organ stop in my throat. Can't sing below my breath to save my +life. He! he! + +After three days had elapsed, Westcott sent a still more melancholy note +to Katy. It made her weep from the first line to the last. It was full of +heartbreak, and Katy was too unobserving to notice how round and steady +and commercial the penmanship was, and how large and fine were the +flourishes. Westcott himself considered it his masterpiece. He punched +his crony with his elbow as he deposited it in the office, and assured +him that it was the techin'est note ever written. It would come the +sympathies over her. There was nothing like the sympathies to fetch a +woman to terms. He knew. Had lots of experience. By George! You could +turn a woman round yer finger if you could only keep on the tender side. +Tears was what done it. Love wouldn' keep sweet without it was pickled in +brine. He! he! he! By George! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +SAWNEY AND WESTCOTT. + + +David Sawney was delighted with the news that Albert Charlton and Smith +Westcott had quarreled. "Westcott's run of luck in that quarter's broke. +When a feller has a run of luck right along, and they comes a break, 'ts +all up with him. Broke luck can't be spliced. It's David Sawney's turn +now. Poor wind that blows no whar. I'll bet a right smart pile I'll pack +the little gal off yet." + +But if an inscrutable Providence had omitted to make any Smith Westcotts, +Dave Sawney wouldn't have stood the ghost of a chance with Katy. His +supreme self-complacency gave her no occasion to pity him. Her love was +close of kin to her tender-heartedness, and all pity was wasted on Dave. +He couldn't have been more entirely happy than he was if he had owned the +universe in fee simple. + +However, Dave was resolved to try his luck, and so, soon after Albert's +departure, he blacked up his vast boots and slicked his hair, and went to +Plausaby's. He had the good luck to find Katy alone. + +"Howdy! Howdy! Howdy git along? Lucky, ain't I, to find you in? Haw! haw! +I'm one of the luckiest fellers ever was born. Always wuz lucky. Found a +fip in a crack in the hearth 'fore I was three year old. 'Ts a fack. +Found a two-and-a-half gole piece wunst. Golly, didn't I feel _some_! +Haw! haw! haw! The way of't wuz this." But we must not repeat the story +in all its meanderings, lest readers should grow as tired of it as Katy +did; for Dave crossed one leg over the other, looked his hands round his +knee, and told it with many a complacent haw! haw! haw! When he laughed, +it was not from a sense of the ludicrous: his guffaw was a pure eruption +of delighted self-conceit. + +"I thought as how as I'd like to explain to you somethin' that might +'a' hurt yer feelin's, Miss Charlton. Didn't you feel a little teched +at sompin'?" + +"No, Mr. Sawney, you never hurt my feelings." + +"Well, gals is slow to own up that they're hurt, you know. But I'm shore +you couldn't help bein', and I'm ever so sorry. Them Injin goin'-ons of +mine wuz enough to 'a' broke your heart." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, my sellin' out to Perritaut for ten thousand dollars, only I +didn't. Haw! haw!" and Dave threw his head back to laugh. "You had a +right to feel sorter bad to think I would consent to marry a Injin. But +'tain't every feller as'll git ten thousand offered in five annooal +payments; an' I wanted you to understand 'twan't the Injin, 'twas the +cash as reached me. When it comes to gals, you're the posy fer me." + +Katy grew red, but didn't know what to say or do. + +"I heerd tell that that feller Westcott'd got his walkin' papers. Sarved +him right, dancin' roun' like a rang-a-tang, and jos'lin' his keys and +ten-cent pieces in his pocket, and sayin' imperdent things. But I could +'a' beat him at talk the bes' day he ever seed ef he'd on'y 'a' gi'n me +time to think. I kin jaw back splendid of you gin me time. Haw! haw! haw! +But he ain't far--don't never gin a feller time to git his thoughts +gethered up, you know. He jumps around like the Frenchman's flea. Put yer +finger on him an' he ain't thar, and never wuz. Haw! haw! haw! But jest +let him stay still wunst tell I get a good rest on him like, and I'll be +dog-on'd ef I don't knock the hine sights offen him the purtiest day he +ever seed! Haw! haw! haw! Your brother Albert handled him rough, didn't +he? Sarved him right. I say, if a man is onrespectful to a woman, her +brother had orter thrash him; and your'n done it. His eye's blacker'n my +boot. And his nose! Haw! haw! it's a-mournin' fer his brains! Haw I haw! +haw! And he feels bad bekase you cut him, too. Jemently, ef he don' look +like 's ef he'd kill hisself fer three bits." + +Katy was so affected by this fearful picture of poor, dear Smith's +condition, that she got up and hurried out of the room to cry. + +"What on airth's the matter?" soliloquized Dave. "Bashful little creeter, +I 'low. Thought I wuz a-comin to the p'int, maybe. Well, nex' time'll +do. Haw! haw! Young things is cur'us now, _to_ be shore. Mout's well be a +gittin' on, I reckon. Gin her time to come round, I 'low." + +With such wooing, renewed from time to time, the clumsy and complacent +Dave whiled away his days, and comforted himself that he had the +persimmon-tree all to himself, as he expressed it. Meanwhile, the notes +of Westcott were fast undoing all that Albert had done to separate him +from "the purty little girl." + +[Illustration: "WHAT ON AIRTH'S THE MATTER?"] + +Of course, when the right time came, he happened to meet Katy on the +street, and to take off his hat and make a melancholy bow, the +high-tragedy air of which confirmed Katy's suspicions that he meant to +commit suicide at the first opportunity. Then he chanced to stop at the +gate, and ask, in a tone sad enough to have been learned from the +gatherers of cold victuals, if he might come in. In three days more, he +was fully restored to favor and to his wonted cheerfulness. He danced, he +sang, he chirruped, he rattled his keys, he was the Privileged Infant +once more. He urged Katy to marry him at once, but her heart was now rent +by pity for Albert and by her eager anxiety lest he should do something +desperate when he heard of her reconciliation. She trembled every day at +thought of what might happen when he should return. + +"Goin' to pre-empt in a few days, Katy. Whisky Jim come plaguey near to +gittin' that claim. He got Shamberson on his side, and if Shamberson's +brother-in-law hadn't been removed from the Land Office before it was +tried, he'd a got it. I'm going to pre-empt and build the cutest little +bird's nest for you. + +"If I was young and in my prime, + I'd lead a different life, +I'd save my money, and buy me a farm, + Take Dinah for my wife. +Oh! carry me back-- + +"Psha! Dat dah ain't de toon, bruddern. Ahem! + +"When you and I get married, love, + How jolly it will be! +We'll keep house in a store-box, then, + Just two feet wide by three! + Store-box! + Band-box! + All the same to me! + +"And when we want our breakfast, love, + We'll nibble bread and chee-- +It's good enough for you, love, + And most too good for me! + White bread! + Brown bread! + All the same to me! + +"Dog-on'd ef 'tain't. White bread's good as brown bread. One's jest as +good as the other, and a good deal better. It's all the same to me, and +more so besides, and something to carry. It's all the same, only +'tain't. Ahem: + +"Jane and Sukey and July Ann-- + Too brown, too slim, too stout! +You needn't smile on this 'ere man, + Git out! git out! git out! + But the maiden fair + With bonny brown hair-- + Let all the rest git out!"-- + +"Get out yourself!" thundered Albert Charlton, bursting in at that +moment. "If you don't get your pack of tomfoolery out of here quick, I'll +get it out for you," and he bore down on Westcott fiercely. + +"I beg pardon, Mr. Charlton. I'm here to see your sister with her consent +and your mother's, and--" + +"And I tell you," shouted Albert, "that my sister is a little girl, and +my mother doesn't understand such puppies as you, and I am my sister's +protector, and if you don't get out of here, I'll kill you if I can." + +"Albert, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Plausaby, coming in at the +instant. "I'm sure Mr. Westcott's a genteel man, and good-natured to +Katy, and--" + +"Out! out! I say, confound you! or I'll break your empty head," thundered +Charlton, whose temper was now past all softening. "Put your hand on +that pistol, if you dare," and with that he strode at the Privileged +Infant with clenched fist, and the Privileged Infant prudently backed out +the door into the yard, and then, as Albert kept up his fierce advance, +the Privileged Infant backed out of the gate into the street. He was not +a little mortified to see the grinning face of Dave Sawney in the crowd +about the gate, and to save appearances, he called back at Albert, who +was returning toward the house, that he would settle this affair with him +yet. But he did not know how thoroughly Charlton's blood was up. + +"Settle it?" said Albert--yelled Albert, I should say--turning back on +him with more fury than ever. "Settle it, will you? I'll settle it right +here and now, you cowardly villain! Let's have it through, now," and he +walked swiftly at Westcott, who walked away; but finding that the +infuriated Albert was coming after him, the Privileged Infant hurried on +until his retreat became a run, Westcott running down street, Charlton +hotly pursuing him, the spectators running pell-mell behind, laughing, +cheering, and jeering. + +"Don't come back again if you don't want to get killed," the angry +Charlton called, as he turned at last and went toward home. + +"Now, Katy," he said, with more energy than tenderness, as he entered the +house, "if you are determined to marry that confounded rascal, I shall +leave at once. You must decide now. If you will go East with me next +week, well and good. If you won't give up Smith Westcott, then I shall +leave you now forever." + +Katy couldn't bear to be the cause of any disaster to anybody; and just +at this moment Smith was out of sight, and Albert, white and trembling +with the reaction of his passion, stood before her. She felt, somehow, +that she had brought all this trouble on Albert, and in her pity for him, +and remorse for her own course, she wept and clung to her brother, and +begged him not to leave her. And Albert said: "There, don't cry any more. +It's all right now. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. There, there!" +There is nothing a man can not abide better than a woman in tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +ROWING. + + +To get away with Katy immediately. These were the terms of the problem +now before Albert His plan was to take her to visit friends at the East, +and to keep her there until Westcott should pass out of her mind, or +until she should be forgotten by the Privileged Infant. This was not +Westcott's plan of the campaign at all. He was as much bent on securing +Katy as he could have been had he been the most constant, devoted, and +disinterested lover. He would have gone through fire and flood. The +vindictive love of opposition and lust for triumph is one of the most +powerful of motives. Men will brave more from an empty desire to have +their own way, than they could be persuaded to face by the most +substantial motives. + +Smith Westcott was not a man to die for a sentiment, but for the time he +had the semblance of a most devoted lover. He bent everything to the +re-conquest of Katy Charlton. His pride served him instead of any higher +passion, and he plotted by night and managed by day to get his affairs +into a position in which he could leave. He meant to follow Albert and +Katy, and somewhere and somehow, by working on Katy's sympathies, to +carry off the "stakes," as he expressed it. He almost ceased trifling, +and even his cronies came to believe that he was really in love. They saw +signs of intense and genuine feeling, and they mistook its nature. Mrs. +Ferret expressed her sympathy for him--the poor man really loved Kate, +and she believed that Kate had a right to marry anybody she pleased. She +did not know what warrant there was in Scripcherr for a brother's +exercising any authority. She thought Mrs. Plausaby ought to have brought +up her son to have more respect for her authority, and to hold +Scripcherral views. If he were her son, now! What she would have done +with him in that case never fully appeared; for Mrs. Ferret could not +bring herself to complete the sentence. She only said subjunctively: "If +he were _my_ son, now!" Then she would break off and give her head two or +three awful and ominous shakes. What would have happened if such a young +man as Albert had been her son, it would be hard to tell. Something +unutterably dreadful, no doubt. + +Even the charms of Miss Minorkey were not sufficient to detain Albert in +his eager haste and passionate determination to rescue Katy. But to go, +he must have money; to get money, he must collect it from Plausaby, or at +least get a land-warrant with which he could pre-empt his claim. Then he +would mortgage his land for money to pay his traveling expenses. But it +was so much easier to lend money to Plausaby, Esq., than it was to +collect it. Plausaby, Esq., was always just going to have the money; +Plausaby, Esq., had ever ready so many excuses for past failure, and so +many assurances of payment in the immediate future, that Charlton was +kept hoping and waiting in agony from week to week. He knew that he was +losing ground in the matter of Westcott and Katy. She was again grieving +over Smith's possible suicide, was again longing for the cheerful rattle +of flattery and nonsense which rendered the Privileged Infant so +diverting even to those who hated him, much more to her who loved him. + +Albert's position was the more embarrassing that he was obliged to spend +a part of his time on his claim to maintain a residence. One night, after +having suffered a disappointment for the fifth time in the matter of +Plausaby and money, he was walking down the road to cool his anger in the +night air, when he met the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, again. + +"Well, Gray," he said, "how are you? Have you written any fresh +verses lately?" + +"Varses? See here, Mr. Charlton, do you 'low this 'ere's a time +fer varses?" + +"Why not?" + +"_To_ be shore! Why not? I should kinder think yer own heart should orter +tell you. You don' know what I'm made of. You think I a'n't good fer +nothin' but varses. Now, Mr. Charlton, I'm not one of them air fellers as +lets theirselves all off in varses that don' mean nothin'. What my pomes +says, that my heart feels. And that my hands does. No, sir, my po'try 's +like the corn crap in August. It's laid by. I ha'n't writ nary line sence +I seed you afore. The fingers that holds a pen kin pull a trigger." + +"What do you mean, Gray?" + +"This 'ere," and he took out a pistol. "I wuz a poet; now I'm a gardeen +angel. I tole you I wouldn' do nothin' desperate tell I talked weth you. +That's the reason I didn' shoot him t'other night. When you run him off, +I draw'd on him, and he'd a been a gone sucker ef't hadn' been fer yore +makin' me promise t'other day to hold on tell I'd talked weth you. Now, +I've talked weth you, and I don't make no furder promises. Soon as he +gits to makin' headway agin, I'll drap him." + +It was in vain that Charlton argued with him. Gray said life wurn't no +'count no how; he had sot out to be a Gardeen Angel, and he wuz agoin' +through. These 'ere Yankees tuck blam'd good keer of their hides, but +down on the Wawbosh, where he come from, they didn't valley life a +copper in a thing of this 'ere sort. Ef Smith Westcott kep' a shovin' +ahead on his present trail, he'd fetch up kinder suddent all to wunst, +weth a jolt. + +After this, the dread of a tragedy of some sort did not decrease Albert's +eagerness to be away. He began to talk violently to Plausaby, and that +poor gentleman, harassed now by a suit brought by the town of Perritaut +to set aside the county-seat election, and by a prosecution instituted +against him for conspiracy, and by a suit on the part of the fat +gentleman for damages on account of fraud in the matter of the two watery +lots in block twenty-six, and by much trouble arising from his illicit +speculation in claims--this poor Squire Plausaby, in the midst of this +accumulation of vexations, kept his temper sweet, bore all of Albert's +severe remarks with serenity, and made fair promises with an unruffled +countenance. Smith Westcott had defeated Whisky Jim in his contest for +the claim, because the removal of a dishonest receiver left the case to +be decided according to the law and the regulations of the General Land +Office, and the law gave the claim to Westcott. The Privileged Infant, +having taken possession of Jim's shanty, made a feint of living in it, +having moved his trunk, his bed, his whisky, and all other necessaries to +the shanty. As his thirty days had expired, he was getting ready to +pre-empt; the value of the claim would put him in funds, and he +proposed, now that his blood was up, to give up his situation, if he +should find it necessary, and "play out his purty little game" with +Albert Charlton. It was shrewdly suspected, indeed, that if he should +leave the Territory, he would not return. He knew nothing of the pistol +which the Gardeen Angel kept under his wing for him, but Whisky Jim had +threatened that he shouldn't enjoy his claim long. Jim had remarked to +several people, in his lofty way, that Minnesoty wuz a healthy place fer +folks weth consumption, but a dreffle sickly one fer folks what jumped +other folks's claims when they wuz down of typus. And Jim grew more and +more threatening as the time of Westcott's pre-emption drew near. While +throwing the mail-bag off one day at the Metropolisville post-office he +told Albert that he jest wished he knowed which mail Westcott's +land-warrant would come in. He wouldn't steal it, but plague ef he +wouldn't heave it off into the Big Gun River, accidentally a purpose, ef +he had to go to penitensh'ry fer it. + +But after all his weary and impatient waiting on and badgering of +Plausaby, Albert got his land-warrant, and hurried off to the +land-office, made his pre-emption, gave Mr. Minorkey a mortgage with a +waiver in it, borrowed two hundred dollars at three per cent a month and +five after maturity, interest to be settled every six months. + +Then, though it was Friday evening, he would have packed everything and +hurried away the next morning; but his mother interposed her authority. +Katy couldn't be got ready. What was the use of going to Red Owl to stay +over Sunday? There was no boat down Sunday, and they could just as well +wait till Monday, and take the Tuesday boat, and so Albeit reluctantly +consented to wait. + +But he would not let Katy be out of his sight. He was determined that in +these last hours of her stay in the Territory, Smith Westcott should not +have a moment's opportunity for conversation with her. He played the +tyrannical brother to perfection. He walked about the house in a fighting +mood all the time, with brows drawn down and fist ready to clench. + +He must have one more boat-ride with Helen Minorkey, and he took Katy +with him, because he dared not leave her behind. He took them both in the +unpainted pine row-boat which belonged to nobody in particular, and he +rowed away across the little lake, looking at the grassy-green shores on +the one side, and at the basswood trees that shadowed the other. Albert +had never had a happier hour. Out in the lake he was safe from the +incursions of the tempter. Rowing on the water, he relaxed the strain of +his vigilance; out on the lake, with water on every side, he felt secure. +He had Katy, sweet and almost happy; he felt sure now that she would be +able to forget Westcott, and be at peace again as in the old days when he +had built play-houses for the sunny little child. He had Helen, and she +seemed doubly dear to him on the eve of parting. When he was alone with +her, he felt always a sense of disappointment, for he was ever striving +by passionate speeches to elicit some expression more cordial than it was +possible for Helen's cool nature to utter. But now that Katy's presence +was a restraint upon him, this discord between the pitch of his nature +and of hers did not make itself felt, and he was satisfied with himself, +with Helen, and with Katy. And so round the pebbly margin of the lake he +rowed, while they talked and laughed. The reaction from his previous +state of mental tension put Albert into a sort of glee; he was almost as +boisterous as the Privileged Infant himself. He amused himself by +throwing spray on Katy with his oars, and he even ventured to sprinkle +the dignified Miss Minorkey a little, and she unbent enough to make a cup +of her white palm and to dip it into the clear water and dash a good, +solid handful of it into the face of her lover. She had never in her life +acted in so undignified a manner, and Charlton was thoroughly delighted +to have her throw cold water upon him in this fashion. After this, he +rowed down to the outlet, and showed them where the beavers had built a +dam, and prolonged his happy rowing and talking till the full moon came +up out of the prairie and made a golden pathway on the ripples. Albert's +mind dwelt on this boat-ride in the lonely year that followed. It seemed +to him strange that he could have had so much happiness on the brink of +so much misery. He felt as that pleasure party did, who, after hours of +happy sport, found that they had been merry-making in the very current of +the great cataract. + +There are those who believe that every great catastrophe throws its +shadow before it, but Charlton was never more hopeful than when he lifted +his dripping oars from the water at half-past nine o'clock, and said: +"What a grand ride we've had! Let's row together again to-morrow evening. +It is the last chance for a long time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +SAILING. + + +On the Saturday morning after this Friday evening boat-ride, Charlton was +vigilant as ever, and yet Saturday was not a dangerous day. It was the +busy day at the Emporium, and he had not much to fear from Westcott, +whose good quality was expressed by one trite maxim to which he rigidly +adhered. "Business before pleasure" uttered the utmost self-denial of his +life. He was fond of repeating his motto, with no little exultation in +the triumph he had achieved over his pleasure-loving disposition. To this +fidelity to business he owed his situation as "Agent," or head-clerk, of +the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co. If he could have kept from +spending money as fast as he made it, he might have been a partner in the +firm. However, he rejoiced in the success he had attained, and, to +admiring neophytes who gazed in admiration on his perilous achievement of +rather reckless living and success in gaining the confidence of his +employers, he explained the marvel by uttering his favorite adage in his +own peculiar style: "Business before pleasure! By George! That's the +doctrine! A merchant don't care how fast you go to the devil out of +hours, if you keep his business straight. Business before pleasure! +That's the ticket! He! he! By George!" + +When evening came, and Charlton felt that he had but one more day of +standing guard, his hopes rose, he talked to Isabel Marlay with something +of exultation. And he thought it due to Miss Marlay to ask her to make +one of the boating-party. They went to the hotel, where Miss Minorkey +joined them. Albert found it much more convenient walking with three +ladies than with two. Isa and Katy walked on arm-in-arm, and left Albert +to his _tęte-ŕ-tęte_ with Helen. And as Sunday evening would be the very +last on which he should see her before leaving for the East, he found it +necessary to walk slowly and say much. For lovers who see each other a +great deal, have more to say the more they are together. + +At the lake a disappointment met them. The old pine boat was in use. It +was the evening of the launching of the new sail-boat, "The Lady of the +Lake," and there was a party of people on the shore. Two young men, in a +spirit of burlesque and opposition, had seized on the old boat and had +chalked upon her bow, "The Pirate's Bride." With this they were rowing up +and down the lake, and exciting much merriment in the crowd on the shore. + +Ben Towle, who was one of the principal stockholders in "The Lady of the +Lake," and who had been suspected of a tender regard for Isabel Marlay, +promptly offered Albert and his party seats in the boat on her first +trip. There were just four vacancies, he said. The three ladies had +stepped aboard, and Albert was following, when the ex-sailor who held the +rudder touched his arm and said, "I don't think it's safe, Mr. Charlton, +fer nobody else to git in. She's got 'leven now, and ef the wind +freshens, twelve would be dangerous." + +"Oh! I'll stay out!" said Albert, retreating. + +"Come, Albert, take my place," said Towle. "You're welcome to it." + +"No, I won't, Ben; you sit still, and I'll stand on the shore and cheer." + +Just as the boat was about to leave her moorings, Smith Westcott came up +and insisted on getting in. + +"'Twon't do, Mr. Wes'cott. 'Ta'n't safe," said the helmsman. "I jest +begged Mr. Charlton not to go. She's got a full load now." + +"Oh! I don't weigh anything. Lighter'n a feather. Only an infant. And +besides, I'm going anyhow, by George!" and with that he started to get +aboard. But Albert had anticipated him by getting in at the other end of +the boat and taking the only vacant seat. The Privileged Infant scowled +fiercely, but Charlton affected not to see him, and began talking in a +loud tone to Ben Towle about the rigging. The line was thrown off and the +boat pushed out, the wind caught the new white sail, and the "Lady of the +Lake" started along in the shallows, gradually swinging round toward the +open water. Soon after her keel had ceased to grind upon the gravel, +Albert jumped out, and, standing over boot-top in water, waved his hat +and wished them a pleasant voyage, and all the ladies in the boat waved +their handkerchiefs at him, appreciating his efforts to keep the boat +from being overloaded, but not thinking of the stronger motive Charlton +had for keeping Smith Westcott ashore. They could not know how much +exultation Albert felt as he sat down on the green grass and poured the +water from his boots. + +There was a fine breeze, the boat sailed admirably, the party aboard +laughed and talked and sang; their voices made merry music that reached +the shore. The merry music was irritating discord to the ears of +Westcott, it made him sweur bitterly at Charlton. I am afraid that it +made Charlton happy to think of Westcott swearing at him. There is great +comfort in being the object of an enemy's curses sometimes--When the +enemy is down, and you are above and master. I think the consciousness +that Westcott was swearing at him made even the fine sunset seem more +glorious to Charlton. The red clouds were waving banners of victory. + +But in ten minutes the situation had changed. Albert saw Westcott walking +across the beaver-dam at the lower end of the lake, and heard him +hallooing to the young men who were rowing the "Pirate's Bride" up and +down and around the "Lady of the Lake," for the ugly old boat was +swiftest. The Pirate's Bride landed and took Westcott aboard, and all of +Albert's rejoicing was turned to cursing, for there, right before his +eyes, the Pirate's Bride ran her brown hull up alongside the white and +graceful Lady of the Lake, and Smith Westcott stepped from the one to the +other. The beauty of the sunset was put out. The new boat sailed up and +down the little lake more swiftly and gracefully than ever as the breeze +increased, but Albert hated it. + +By some change or other in seats Westcott at last got alongside Katy. +Albert distinctly saw the change made, and his anger was mingled with +despair. For Isabel and Helen were in the other end of the boat, and +there were none to help. And so on, on, in the gray dusk of the evening, +the boat kept sailing from one end of the lake to the other, and as it +passed now and then near him, he could see that Smith was in conversation +with little Katy. + +"You needn't worry, Mr. Charlton, I'll fix him." It was the voice of the +Guardian Angel. "I'll fix him, shore as shootin'." And there he stood +looking at Albert. For the first time now it struck Albert that George +Gray was a little insane. There was a strange look in his eyes. If he +should kill Westcott, the law would not hold him accountable. Nobody +would be accountable, and Katy would be saved. + +But in a moment Albert's better feeling was uppermost. The horribleness +of murder came distinctly before him. He shuddered that he should have +entertained the thought of suffering it. + +"You see, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, with eyes having that strange +mysterious look that only belongs to the eyes of people who are at +least on the borders of insanity, "you see this 'ere pistol's got five +bar'ls, all loadened. I tuck out the ole loads las' night and filled +her up weth powder what's shore to go off. Now you leave that air +matter to me, will you?" + +"Let me see your revolver," said Albert. + +Gray handed it to him, and Charlton examined it a minute, and then, with +a sudden resolution, he got to his feet, ran forward a few paces, and +hurled the pistol with all his might into the lake. + +"Don't let us commit murder," he said, turning round and meeting the +excited eyes of the half-insane poet. + +"Well, maybe you're right, but I'll be hanged ef I think it's hardly far +and squar and gentlemanly to wet a feller's catridges that-a-way." + +"I had to," said Albert, trembling. "If I hadn't, you or I would have +been a murderer before morning." + +"Maybe so, but they ain't nothin else to be done. Ef you don't let me +kill the devil, why, then the devil will pack your sister off, and that's +the end on't." + +The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake, +and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs, +and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the +rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless +dejection. And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy. What he said +need not be told: how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the +Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy's sympathies +by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they +must be married, and have it all over at once. Then, when it was all +over, Albert wouldn't feel bad about it any more. Brothers never did. +When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they'd get on +splendidly. By George! Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up +and down the lake. Just what it was will never be known, whether he +planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night +which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows. Isabel Marlay, who +saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points. He had convinced +the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for +Brother Albert as well as for themselves. + +And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over +his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got +in. The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully. + +Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to +Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over +the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the +little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened +suddenly and capsized. + +There was a long, broken, mingled, discordant shriek as of a dozen voices +on different keys uttering cries of terror and despair. There was the +confusion of one person falling over another; there was the wild grasping +for support, the seizing of each other's garments and arms, the undefined +and undefinable struggle of the first desperate minute after a boat has +capsized, the scream that dies to a gurgle in the water and then breaks +out afresh, louder and sharper than before, and then is suddenly +smothered into a gurgle again. There were all these things, there was an +alarm on the shore, a rush of people, and then there came stillness, and +those minutes of desperate waiting, in which the drowning people cling to +rigging and boat, and test the problem of human endurance. It is a race +between the endurance of frightened, chilled, drowning people, and the +stupid lack of presence of mind of those on shore. All the inmates of the +boat got hold of something, and for a minute all their heads were out of +water. Their eyes were so near to the water, that not even the most +self-possessed of them could see what exertions were being made by people +on shore to help them. Thus they clung a minute, no one saying anything, +when Jane Downing, who held to the rigging at some distance from the +boat, paralyzed by fear, let go, and slowly sank out of sight, saying +never a word as she went down, but looking with beseeching eyes at the +rest, who turned away as the water closed over her, and held on more +tenaciously than ever, and wondered whether help ever would reach them. +And this was only at the close of the first minute. There were +twenty-nine other minutes before help came. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SINKING. + + +Isabel Marlay's first care had been to see that little Katy had a good +hold. Helen Minorkey was quite as self-possessed, but her chief care was +to get into a secure position herself. Nothing brings out character more +distinctly than an emergency such as this. Miss Minorkey was resolute and +bent on self-preservation from the first moment. Miss Marlay was +resolute, but full of sympathy for the rest. With characteristic +practical sense, she did what she could to make herself and those within +her reach secure, and then with characteristic faith she composed her +mind to death if it should come, and even ventured with timid courage to +exhort Katy and Miss Minorkey to put their trust in Christ, who could +forgive their sins, and care for them living or dying. Even the most +skeptical of us respect a settled belief in a time of trial. There was +much broken praying from others, simply the cry of terror-stricken +spirits. In all ages men have cried in their extremity to the Unseen +Power, and the drowning passengers in Diamond Lake uttered the same old +cry. Westcott himself, in his first terror, prayed a little and swore a +little by turns. + +The result of self-possession in the case of Isa Marlay and Helen +Minorkey was the same. They did not waste their strength. When people +drown, it is nearly always from a lack of economy of force. Here was +poor little Katy so terrified at thoughts of drowning, and of the cold +slimy bed at the bottom of the lake, and more than all at thoughts of the +ugly black leeches that abounded at the bottom, that she was drawing +herself up head and shoulders out of the water all the time, and praying +brokenly to God and Brother Albert to come and help them. Isa tried to +soothe her, but she shuddered, and said that the lake was so cold, and +she knew she should drown, and Cousin Isa, and Smith, and all of them. +Two or three times, in sheer desperation, little Katy let go, but each +time Isa Marlay saved her and gave her a better hold, and cheered her +with assurances that all would be well yet. + +While one party on the shore were building a raft with which to reach the +drowning people, Albert Charlton and George Gray ran to find the old +boat. But the young men who had rowed in it, wishing to keep it for their +own use, had concealed it in a little estuary on the side of the lake +opposite to the village, so that the two rescuers were obliged to run +half the circumference of the lake before they found it. And even when +they reached it, there were no oars to be found, the party rowing last +having carefully hidden them in the deep grass of the slough by the +outlet. George Gray's quick frontiersman's instinct supplied the +deficiency with sticks broken from a fallen tree. But with the time +consumed in finding the boat, and the time lost in searching for the +oars, and the slowness of the progress made in rowing with these clumsy +poles, and the distance of the boat's starting-point from the scene of +the disaster, the raft had greatly the advantage of them, though Charlton +and Gray used their awkward paddles with the energy of desperation. The +wrecked people had clung to their frail supports nearly a quarter of an +hour, listening to the cries and shouts of their friends ashore, unable +to guess what measures were being taken for their relief, and filled with +a distrustful sense of having been abandoned by God and man. It just then +occurred to Westcott, who had recovered from his first fright, and who +for some time had neither prayed to God nor cursed his luck, that he +might save himself by swimming. In his boyish days, before he had +weakened his texture by self-indulgence and shattered his nerves by +debauchery, he had been famous for his skill and endurance in the water, +and it now occurred to him that he might swim ashore and save Katy +Charlton at the same time. It is easy enough for us to see the interested +motives he had in proposing to save little Katy. He would wipe out the +censure sure to fall on him for overloading the boat, he would put Katy +and her friends under lasting obligations to him, he would win his game. +It is always easy to see the selfish motive. But let us do him justice, +and say that these were not the only considerations. Just as the motives +of no man are good without some admixture of evil, so are the motives of +no man entirely bad. I do not think that Westcott, in taking charge of +Katy, was wholly generous, yet there was a generous, and after a fashion, +maybe, a loving feeling for the girl in the proposal. That good motives +were uppermost, I will not say. They were somewhere in the man, and that +is enough to temper our feeling toward him. + +Isa Marlay was very unwilling to have Katy go. But the poor little thing +was disheartened where she was--the shore did not seem very far away, +looking along the water horizontally--the cries of the people on the bank +seemed near--she was sure she could not hold on much longer--she was so +anxious to get out of this cold lake--she was so afraid to die--she +dreaded the black leeches at the bottom--she loved and trusted Smith as +such women as she always love and trust--and so she was glad to accept +his offer. It was so good of Smith to love her so and to save her. And so +she took hold of his coat-collar as he bade her, and Westcott started to +swim toward the nearest shore. He had swam his two miles once, when he +was a boy, testing his endurance in the waters of the North River, and +Diamond Lake was not a mile wide. There seemed no reason to doubt that he +could swim to the shore, which could not in any event be more than half a +mile away, and which seemed indeed much nearer as he looked over the +surface of the water. But Westcott had not taken all the elements into +the account. He had on his clothing, and before he had gone far, his +boots seemed to fetter him, his saturated sleeves dragged through the +water like leaden weights. His limbs, too, had grown numb from remaining +so long in the water, and his physical powers had been severely taxed of +late years by his dissipations. Add to this that he was encumbered by +Katy, that his fright now returned, and that he made the mistake so often +made by the best of swimmers under excitement, of wasting power by +swimming too high, and you have the causes of rapid exhaustion. + +"The shore seems so far away," murmured Katy. "Why don't Albert come and +save us?" and she held on to Smith with a grasp yet more violent, and he +seemed more and more embarrassed by her hold. + +"Let go my arm, or we'll both drown," he cried savagely, and the poor +little thing took her left hand off his arm, but held all the more firmly +to his collar; but her heart sank in hopelessness. She had never heard +him speak in that savage tone before She only called out feebly, "Brother +Albert!" and the cry, which revealed to Westcott that she put no more +trust in him, but turned now to the strong heart of her brother, angered +him, and helped him to take the resolution he was already meditating. For +his strength was fast failing; he looked back and could see the raft +nearing the capsized boat, but he felt that he had not strength enough +left to return; he began to sink, and Katy, frightened out of all +self-control as they went under the water, clutched him desperately with +both hands. With one violent effort Smith Westcott tore her little hands +from him, and threw her off. He could not save her, anyhow. He must do +that, or drown. He was no hero or martyr to drown with her. That is all. +It cost him a pang to do it, I doubt not. + +Katy came up once, and looked at him. It was not terror at thought of +death, so much as it was heart-break at being thus cast off, that looked +at him out of her despairing eyes. Then she clasped her hands, and cried +aloud, in broken voice: "Brother Albert!" + +And then with a broken cry she sank. + +Oh! Katy! Katy! It were better to sink. I can hardly shed a tear for +thee, as I see thee sink to thy cold bed at the lake-bottom among the +slimy water-weeds and leeches; but for women who live to trust +professions, and who find themselves cast off and sinking--neglected and +helpless in life--for them my heart is breaking. + +Oh! little Katy. Sweet, and loving, and trustful! It were better to +sink among the water-weeds and leeches than to live on. God is more +merciful than man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +DRAGGING. + + +Yes, God is indeed more merciful than man. There are many things worse +than death. There is a fold where no wolves enter; a country where a +loving heart shall not find its own love turned into poison; a place +where the wicked cease from troubling--yes, even in this heretical day, +let us be orthodox enough to believe that there is a land where no Smith +Westcotts ever come. + +There are many cases in which it were better to die. It is easy enough to +say it before it comes. Albert Charlton had said--how many times!--that +he would rather see Katy dead than married to Westcott. But, now that +Katy was indeed dead, how did he feel? + +Charlton and Gray had paddled hard with crooked limbs, the boat was +unmanageable, and they could with difficulty keep her in her coarse. As +they neared the capsized boat, they saw that the raft had taken the +people from it, and Albert heard the voice--there could be no mistake as +to the voice, weak and shivering as it was--of Isa Marlay, calling to him +from the raft: + +"We are all safe. Go and save Katy and--him!" + +"There they air!" said Gray, pointing to two heads just visible above +the water. "Pull away, by thunder!" And the two half-exhausted young men +swung the boat round, and rowed. How they longed for the good oars that +had sent the "Pirate's Bride" driving through the water that afternoon! +How they grudged the time spent in righting her when she veered to right +or left! At last they heard Katy's voice cry out, "Brother Albert!" + +"O God!" groaned Charlton, and bent himself to his oar again. + +"Alb--" The last cry was half-drowned in the water, and when the boat, +with half-a-dozen more strokes, reached the place where Westcott was, so +that he was able to seize the side, there was no Kate to be seen. Without +waiting to lift the exhausted swimmer into the boat, Charlton and Gray +dived. But the water was twenty feet deep, the divers were utterly out of +breath with rowing, and their diving was of no avail. They kept trying +until long after all hope had died out of their hearts. At last Charlton +climbed back into the boat, and sat down. Then Gray got in. Westcott was +so numb and exhausted from staying in the water so long that he could not +get in, but he held to the boat desperately, and begged them to help him. + +"Help him in," said Charlton to Gray. "I can't." + +"I'd like to help him out ef he wuz in, mighty well. I can't kill a +drownin' man, but blamed ef I gin him a leetle finger of help. I'd jest +as soon help a painter outen the water when I know'd he'd swaller the +fust man he come to." + +But Charlton got up and reached a hand to the sinking Westcott. He +shut his eyes while he pulled him in, and was almost sorry he had +saved him. Let us not be too hard on Albert. He was in the first +agony of having reached a hand to save little Katy and missed her. To +come so near that you might have succeeded by straining a nerve a +little more somewhere--that is bitterest of all. If Westcott had only +held on a minute! + +It was with difficulty that Albert and Gray rowed to the shore, where +Plausaby met them, and persuaded them to change their clothes. They were +both soon on the shore again, where large fires were blazing, and the old +boat that had failed to save little Katy alive, was now in use to recover +her body. There is no more hopeless and melancholy work than dragging for +the body of a drowned person. The drag moves over the bottom; the man who +holds the rope, watching for the faintest sensation of resistance in the +muscles of his arm, at last feels something drawing against the drag, +calls to the oarsmen to stop rowing, lets the line slip through his +fingers till the boat's momentum is a little spent, lest he should lose +his hold, then he draws on his line gently, and while the boat drifts +back, he reverently, as becomes one handling the dead, brings the drag to +the surface, and finds that its hooks have brought up nothing but +water-weeds, or a waterlogged bough. And when at last, after hours of +anxious work, the drag brings the lifeless body to the surface, the +disappointment is bitterest of all. For all the time you have seemed to +be seeking the drowned person, and now at last you have got--what? + +It was about eleven o'clock when they first began to drag. Albert had a +sort of vague looking for something, a superstitious feeling that by some +sort of a miracle Katy would yet be found alive. It is the hardest work +the imagination has to do--this realizing that one who has lived by us +will never more be with us. It is hard to project a future for +ourselves, into which one who has filled a large share of our thought and +affection shall never come. And so there lingers a blind hope, a hopeless +hope of something that shall make unreal that which our impotent +imaginations refuse to accept as real. It is a means by which nature +parries a sudden blow. + +Charlton walked up and down the shore, and wished he might take the +drag-line into his own hands; but the mistaken kindness of our friends +refuses us permission to do for our own dead, when doing anything would +be a relief, and when doing for the dead would be the best possible +utterance to the hopeless love which we call grief. + +Mrs. Plausaby, weak and vain though she was, was full of natural +affection. Her love for Albert was checked a little by her feeling that +there was no perfect sympathy between him and her. But upon Katy she had +lavished all her mother's love. People are apt to think that a love which +is not intelligent is not real; there could be no greater mistake. And +the very smallness of the area covered by Mrs. Plausaby's mind made her +grief for Kate all the more passionate. Katy occupied Albert's mind +jointly with Miss Minorkey, with ambition, with benevolence, with +science, with literature, and with the great Philanthropinum that was to +be built and to revolutionize the world by helping it on toward its +"goal." But the interests that shared Mrs. Plausaby's thoughts along with +Katy were very few. Of Albert she thought, and of her husband. But she +gave the chief place to Katy and her own appearance. And so when the blow +had come it was a severe one. At midnight, Albert went back to try to +comfort his mother, and received patiently all her weeping upbraidings +of him for letting his sister go in the boat, he might have known it was +not safe. And then he hastened back again to the water, and watched the +men in the boat still dragging without result. Everybody on the shore +knew just where the "Lady of the Lake" had capsized, and if accurate +information, plentifully given, could have helped to find the bodies, it +would soon have been accomplished. The only difficulty was that this +accurate information was very conflicting, no two of the positive +eye-witnesses being able to agree. So there was much shouting along +shore, and many directions given, but all the searching for a long time +proved vain. All the shouting people hushed their shouting, and spoke in +whispers whenever Albert came near. To most men there is nothing more +reverend than grief. At half-past two o'clock, the man who held the rope +felt a strange thrill, a sense of having touched one of the bodies. He +drew up his drag, and one of the hooks held a piece of a black silk cape. +When three or four more essays had been made, the body itself was brought +to the surface, and the boat turned toward the shore. There was no more +shouting of directions now, not a single loud word was spoken, the +oarsman rowed with a steady funereal rhythm, while Ben Towle, who had +held the drag-rope, now held half out of water the recovered corpse. +Albert leaned forward anxiously to see the face of Katy, but it was Jane +Downing, the girl who was drowned first. Her father took the body in his +arms, drew it out on shore, and wept over it in a quiet fashion for a +while. Then strong and friendly neighbors lifted it, and bore it before +him to his house, while the man followed in a dumb grief. + +Then the dragging for Katy was resumed; but as there was much more doubt +in regard to the place where she went down than there was about the place +of the accident, the search was more difficult and protracted. George +Gray never left Albert for a moment. George wanted to take the drag-rope +himself, but a feeling that he was eccentric, if not insane, kept those +in charge of the boat from giving it to him. + +When Sunday morning came, Katy's body had not yet been found, and the +whole village flocked to the lake shore. These were the first deaths in +Metropolisville, and the catastrophe was so sudden and tragic that it +stirred the entire village in an extraordinary manner. All through that +cloudy Sunday forenoon, in a weary waiting, Charlton sat on the bank of +Diamond Lake. + +"Mr. Charlton," said Gray, "git me into that air boat and I'll git done +with this. I've watched them fellers go round the place tell I can't +stan' it no longer." + +The next time the boat faced toward the place where Charlton stood he +beckoned to them, and the boat came to the shore. + +"Let Mr. Gray row a few times, won't you?" whispered Albert. "I think he +knows the place." + +With that deference always paid to a man in grief, the man who had the +oars surrendered them to the Hoosier Poet, who rowed gently and carefully +toward the place where he and Albert had dived for Katy the night before. +The quick instinct of the trapper stood him in good stead now. The +perception and memory of locality and direction are developed to a degree +that seems all but supernatural in a man who lives a trapper's life. + +"Now, watch out!" said Gray to the man with the rope, as they passed what +he thought to be the place. But the drag did not touch anything. Gray +then went round and pulled at right angles across his former course, +saying again, "Now, watch out!" as they passed the same spot. The man +who held the rope advised him to turn a little to the right, but Gray +stuck to his own infallible instinct, and crossed and re-crossed the same +point six times without success. + +"You see," he remarked, "you kin come awful closte to a thing in the +water and not tech it. We ha'n't missed six foot nary time we passed +thar. It may take right smart rowin' to do it yet. But when you miss a +mark a-tryin' at it, you don't gain nothin' by shootin' wild. Now, +watch out!" + +And just at that moment the drag caught but did not hold. Gray noticed +it, but neither man said a word. The Inhabitant turned the boat round and +pulled slowly back over the same place. The drag caught, and Gray lifted +his oars. The man with the rope, who had suddenly got a great reverence +for Gray's skill, willingly allowed him to draw in the line. The Poet did +so cautiously and tremblingly. When the body came above the water, he had +all he could do to keep from fainting. He gently took hold of the arms +and said to his companion, "Pull away now." And with his own wild, +longing, desolate heart full of grief, Gray held to the little form and +drew her through the water. Despite his grief, the Poet was glad to be +the one who should bring her ashore. He held her now, if only her dead +body, and his unselfish love found a melancholy recompense. Albert would +have chosen him of all men for the office. + +Poor little Kate! In that dread moment when she found herself sinking to +her cold bed among the water-weeds, she had, failing all other support, +clasped her left hand with her right and gone down to darkness. And as +she went, so now came her lifeless body. The right hand clasped tightly +the four little white fingers of the left. + +Poor little Kate! How white as pearl her face was, turned up toward that +Sabbath sky! There was not a spot upon it. The dreaded leeches had done +their work. + +She, whom everybody had called sweet, looked sweeter now than ever. Death +had been kind to the child at the last, and had stroked away every trace +of terror, and of the short anguish she had suffered when she felt +herself cast off by the craven soul she trusted. What might the long +anguish have been had she lived! + +[Illustration: HIS UNSELFISH LOVE FOUND A MELANCHOLY RECOMPENSE.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +AFTERWARDS. + + +The funeral was over, and there were two fresh graves--the only ones in +the bit of prairie set apart for a graveyard. I have written enough in +this melancholy strain. Why should I pause to describe in detail the +solemn services held in the grove by the lake? It is enough that the +land-shark forgot his illegal traffic in claims; the money-lender ceased +for one day to talk of mortgages and per cent and foreclosure; the fat +gentleman left his corner-lots. Plausaby's bland face was wet with tears +of sincere grief, and Mr. Minorkey pressed his hand to his chest and +coughed more despairingly than ever. The grove in which the meeting was +held commanded a view of the lake at the very place where the accident +occurred. The nine survivors sat upon the front seat of all; the friends +of the deceased were all there, and, most pathetic sight of all, the two +mute white faces of the drowned were exposed to view. The people wept +before the tremulous voice of the minister had begun the service, and +there was so much weeping that the preacher could say but little. Poor +Mrs. Plausaby was nearly heart-broken. Nothing could have been more +pathetic than her absurd mingling for two days of the sincerest grief and +an anxious questioning about her mourning-dress. She would ask Isa's +opinion concerning her veil, and then sit down and cry piteously the next +minute. And now she was hopeless and utterly disconsolate at the loss of +her little Katy, but wondering all the time whether Isa could not have +fixed her bonnet so that it would not have looked quite so plain. + +The old minister preached on "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy +youth." I am afraid he said some things which the liberalism of to-day +would think unfit--we all have heresies nowadays; it is quite the style. +But at least the old man reminded them that there were better investments +than corner-lots, and that even mortgages with waivers in them will be +brought into judgment. His solemn words could not have failed entirely of +doing good. + +But the solemn funeral services were over; the speculator in claims dried +his eyes, and that very afternoon assigned a claim, to which he had no +right, to a simple-minded immigrant for a hundred dollars. Minorkey was +devoutly thankful that his own daughter had escaped, and that he could go +on getting mortgages with waivers in them, and Plausaby turned his +attention to contrivances for extricating himself from the embarrassments +of his situation. + +The funeral was over. That is the hardest time of all. You can bear up +somehow, so long as the arrangements and cares and melancholy tributes of +the obsequies last. But if one has occupied a large share of your +thoughts, solicitudes, and affections, and there comes a time when the +very last you can ever do for them, living or dead, is done, then for the +first time you begin to take the full measure of your loss. Albert felt +now that he was picking up the broken threads of another man's life. +Between the past, which had been full of anxieties and plans for little +Kate, and the future, into which no little Kate could ever come, there +was a great chasm. There is nothing that love parts from so regretfully +as its burdens. + +Mrs. Ferret came to see Charlton, and smiled her old sudden puckered +smile, and talked in her jerky complacent voice about the uses of +sanctified affliction, and her trust that the sudden death of his sister +in all the thoughtless vanity of youth would prove a solemn and +impressive warning to him to repent in health before it should be with +him everlastingly too late. Albert was very far from having that +childlike spirit which enters the kingdom of heaven easily. Some +natures, are softened by affliction, but they are not such as his. +Charlton in his aggressiveness demanded to know the reason for +everything. And in his sorrow his nature sent a defiant _why_ back to +the Power that had made Katy's fate so sad, and Mrs. Ferret's rasping +way of talking about Katy's death as a divine judgment on him filled him +with curses bitterer than Job's. + +Miss Isa Marlay was an old-school Calvinist. She had been trained on the +Assembly's Catechism, interpreted in good sound West Windsor fashion. In +theory she never deviated one iota from the solid ground of the creed of +her childhood. But while she held inflexibly to her creed in all its +generalizations, she made all those sweet illogical exceptions which +women of her kind are given to making. In general, she firmly believed +that everybody who failed to have a saving faith in the vicarious +atonement of Christ would be lost. In particular, she excepted many +individual cases among her own acquaintance. And the inconsistency +between her creed and her applications of it never troubled her. She +spoke with so much confidence of the salvation of little Kate, that she +comforted Albert somewhat, notwithstanding his entire antagonism to Isa's +system of theology. If Albert had died, Miss Marlay would have fixed up a +short and easy road to bliss for him also. So much, more generous is +faith than logic! But it was not so much Isa's belief in the salvation of +Katy that did Albert good, as it was her tender and delicate sympathy, +expressed as much when she was silent as when she spoke, and when she +spoke expressed more by the tones of her voice than by her words. + +There was indeed one part of Isabel's theology that Charlton would have +much liked to possess. He had accepted the idea of an Absolute God. A +personal, sympathizing, benevolent Providence was in his opinion one of +the illusions of the theologic stage of human development. Things +happened by inexorable law, he said. And in the drowning of Katy he saw +only the overloading of a boat and the inevitable action of water upon +the vital organs of the human system. It seemed to him now an awful thing +that such great and terrible forces should act irresistibly and blindly. +He wished he could find some ground upon which to base a different +opinion. He would like to have had Isabel's faith in the Paternity of God +and in the immortality of the soul. But he was too honest with himself to +suffer feeling to exert any influence on his opinions. He was in the +logical stage of his development, and built up his system after the +manner of the One-Hoss Shay. Logically he could not see sufficient ground +to change, and he scorned the weakness that would change an opinion +because of feeling. His soul might cry out in its depths for a Father in +the universe. But what does Logic care for a Soul or its cry? After a +while a wider experience brings in something better than Logic. This is +Philosophy. And Philosophy knows what Logic can not learn, that reason is +not the only faculty by which truth is apprehended--that the hungers and +intuitions of the Soul are worth more than syllogisms. + +Do what he would, Charlton could not conceal from himself that in +sympathy Miss Minorkey was greatly deficient. She essayed to show +feeling, but she had little to show. It was not her fault. Do you blame +the dahlia for not having the fragrance of a tuberose? It is the most +dangerous quality of enthusiastic young men and women that they are able +to deceive themselves. Nine tenths of all conjugal disappointments come +from the ability of people in love to see more in those they love than +ever existed there. That love is blind is a fable. He has an affection of +the eyes, but it is not blindness. Nobody else ever sees so much as he +does. For here was Albert Charlton, bound by his vows to Helen Minorkey, +with whom he had nothing in common, except in intellect, and already his +sorrow was disclosing to him the shallowness of her nature, and the depth +of his own; even now he found that she had no voice with which to answer +his hungry cry for sympathy. Already his betrothal was becoming a fetter, +and his great mistake was disclosing itself to him. The rude suspicion +had knocked at his door before, but he had been able to bar it out. Now +it stared at him in the night, and he could not rid himself of it. But he +was still far enough from accepting the fact that the intellectual Helen +Minorkey was destitute of all unselfish feeling. For Charlton was still +in love with her. When one has fixed heart and hope and thought on a +single person, love does not die with the first consciousness of +disappointment. Love can subsist a long time on old associations. +Besides, Miss Minorkey was not aggressively or obtrusively selfish--she +never interfered with anybody else. But there is a cool-blooded +indifference that can be moved by no consideration outside the Universal +Ego. That was Helen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE MYSTERY. + + +I have before me, as one of the original sources of information for this +history, a file of _The Wheat County Weakly Windmill_ for 1856. It is not +a large sheet, but certainly it is a very curious one. In its day this +_Windmill_ ground many grists, though its editorial columns were chiefly +occupied with impartial gushing and expansive articles on the charms of +scenery, fertility of soil, superiority of railroad prospects, +admirableness of location, healthfulness, and general future rosiness of +the various paper towns that paid tribute to its advertising columns. And +the advertising columns! They abounded in business announcements of men +who had "Money to Loan on Good Real Estate" at three, four, five, and six +per cent a month, and of persons who called themselves "Attorneys-at-Law +and Real Estate Agents," who stated that "All business relating to +pre-emption and contested claims would be promptly attended to" at their +offices in Perritaut. Even now, through the thin disguise of +honest-seeming phrases, one can see the bait of the land-shark who +speculated in imaginary titles to claims, or sold corner-lots in +bubble-towns. And, as for the towns, it appears from these advertisements +that there was one on almost every square mile, and that every one of +them was on the line of an inevitable railroad, had a first-class hotel, +a water-power, an academy, and an indefinite number of etcaeteras of the +most delightful and remunerative kind. Each one of these villages was in +the heart of the greatest grain-growing section of the State. Each, was +the "natural outlet" to a large agricultural region. Each commanded the +finest view. Each point was the healthiest in the county, and each +village was "unrivaled." (When one looks at these town-site +advertisements, one is tempted to think that member serious and wise who, +about this time, offered a joint resolution in the Territorial +Legislature, which read: "_Resolved by the Senate and House of +Representatives_, That not more than two thirds of the area of this +Territory should be laid out in town-sites and territorial roads, the +remaining one third to be sacredly reserved for agricultural use.") + +But I prize this old file of papers because it contains a graphic account +of the next event in this narrative. And the young man who edited the +_Windmill_ at this time has told the story with so much sprightliness and +vigor that I can not serve my reader a better turn than by clipping his +account and pasting it just here in my manuscript. (I shall also rest +myself a little, and do a favor to the patient printer, who will rejoice +to get a little "reprint copy" in place of my perplexing manuscript.) For +where else shall I find such a dictionariful command of the hights and +depths--to say nothing of the lengths and breadths--of the good old +English tongue? This young man must indeed have been a marvel of eloquent +verbosity at that period of his career. The article in question has the +very flavor of the golden age of Indian contracts, corner-lots, six per +cent a month, and mortgages with waiver clauses. There, is also visible, +I fear, a little of the prejudice which existed at that time in Perritaut +against Metropolisville. + +[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF "THE WINDMILL."] + +I wish that an obstinate scruple on the part of the printers and the +limits of a duodecimo page did not forbid my reproducing here, in all +their glory, the unique head-lines which precede the article in question. +Any pageant introduced by music is impressive, says Madame de Stael. At +least she says something of that sort, only it is in French, and I can +not remember it exactly. And so any newspaper article is startling when +introduced by the braying of head-lines. Fonts of type for displayed +lines were not abundant in the office of the _Windmill_, but they were +very stunning, and were used also for giving prominence to the euphonious +names of the several towns, whose charms were set forth in the +advertisements. Of course the first of these head-lines ran "Startling +Disclosures!!!!" and then followed "Tremendous Excitement in +Metropolisville!" "Official Rascality!" "Bold Mail Robbery!" "Arrest of +the Postmaster!" "No Doubt of his Guilt!" "An Unexplained Mystery!" +"Sequel to the Awful Drowning Affair of Last Week!" Having thus whetted +the appetite of his reader, and economized in type-setting by nearly a +column of such broad and soul-stirring typography, the editor proceeds: + +"Metropolisville is again the red-hot crater of a boiling and seething +excitement. Scarcely had the rascally and unscrupulous county-seat +swindle begun to lose something of its terrific and exciting interest to +the people of this county, when there came the awful and sad drowning of +the two young ladies, Miss Jennie Downing and Miss Katy Charlton, the +belles of the village, a full account of which will be found in the +_Windmill_ of last week, some copies of which we have still on hand, +having issued an extra edition. Scarcely had the people of +Metropolisville laid these two charming and much-lamented young ladies in +their last, long resting-place, the quiet grave, when there comes like an +earthquake out of a clear sky, the frightful and somewhat surprising and +stunning intelligence that the postmaster of the village, a young man of +a hitherto unexceptionable and blameless reputation, has been arrested +for robbing the mails. It is supposed that his depredations have been +very extensive and long continued, and that many citizens of our own +village may have suffered from them. Farther investigations will +doubtless bring all his nefarious and unscrupulous transactions to light. +At present, however, he is under arrest on the single charge of stealing +a land-warrant. + +"The name of the rascally, villainous, and dishonest postmaster is Albert +Charlton, and here comes in the wonderful and startling romance of this +strange story. The carnival of excitement in Metropolisville and about +Metropolisville has all had to do with one family. Our readers will +remember how fully we have exposed the unscrupulous tricks of the old fox +Plausaby, the contemptible land-shark who runs Metropolisville, and who +now has temporary possession of the county-seat by means of a series of +gigantic frauds, and of wholesale bribery and corruption and nefarious +ballot-box stuffing. The fair Katy Charlton, who was drowned by the +heart-rending calamity of last week, was his step-daughter, and now her +brother, Albert Charlton, is arrested as a vile and dishonest +mail-robber, and the victim whose land-warrant he stole was Miss Kate +Charlton's betrothed lover, Mr. Smith Westcott. There was always hatred +and animosity, however, between the lover and the brother, and it is +hinted that the developments on the trial will prove that young Charlton +had put a hired and ruthless assassin on the track of Westcott at the +time of his sister's death. Mr. Westcott is well known and highly +esteemed in Metropolisville and also here in Perritaut. He is the +gentlemanly Agent in charge of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., +and we rejoice that he has made so narrow an escape from death at the +hands of his relentless and unscrupulous foe. + +"As for Albert Charlton, it is well for the community that he has been +thus early and suddenly overtaken in the first incipiency of a black +career of crime. His poor mother is said to be almost insane at this +second grief, which follows so suddenly on her heart-rending bereavement +of last week. We wish there were some hope that this young man, thus +arrested with the suddenness of a thunderbolt by the majestic and firm +hand of public justice, would reform; but we are told that he is utterly +hard, and refuses to confess or deny his guilt, sitting in moody and +gloomy silence in the room in which he is confined. We again call the +attention of the proper authorities to the fact that Plausaby has not +kept his agreement, and that Wheat County has no secure jail. We trust +that the youthful villain Charlton will not be allowed to escape, but +that he will receive the long term provided by the law for thieving +postmasters. He will be removed to St. Paul immediately, but we seize +the opportunity to demand in thunder-tones how long the citizens of this +county are to be left without the accommodations of a secure jail, of +which they stand in such immediate need? It is a matter in which we all +feel a personal interest. We hope the courts will decide the county-seat +question at once, and then we trust the commissioners will give us a +jail of sufficient size and strength to accommodate a county of ten +thousand people. + +"We would not judge young Charlton before he has a fair trial. We hope he +will have a fair trial, and it is not for us to express any opinions on +the case in advance. If he shall be found guilty--and we do not for a +moment doubt he will--we trust the court will give him the full penalty +of the law without fear or favor, so that his case may prove a solemn and +impressive warning that shall make a lasting impression on the minds of +the thoughtless young men of this community in favor of honesty, and in +regard to the sinfulness of stealing. We would not exult over the +downfall of any man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair +cropped, and finds himself clad in 'Stillwater gray,' and engaged in the +intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, +he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, +that honesty is generally the best policy." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE ARREST. + + +The eloquent editor from whom I have just quoted told the truth when he +said that Metropolisville was "the red-hot crater of a boiling and +seething excitement." For everybody had believed in Charlton. He was not +popular. People with vicarious consciences are not generally beloved +unless they are tempered by much suavity. And Charlton was not. But +everybody, except Mrs. Ferret, believed in his honesty and courage. +Nobody had doubted his sincerity, though Smith Westcott had uttered many +innuendoes. In truth, Westcott had had an uncomfortable time during the +week that followed the drowning. There had been much shaking of the head +about little Katy's death. People who are not at all heroic like to have +other people do sublime things, and there were few who did not think that +Westcott should have drowned with Katy, like the hero of a romance. +People could not forgive him for spoiling a good story. So Smith got the +cold shoulder, and might have left the Territory, but that his +land-warrant had not come. He ceased to dance and to appear cheerful, and +his he! he! took on a sneering inflection. He grew mysterious, and +intimated to his friends that he'd give Metropolisville something else to +talk about before long. By George! He! he! And when the deputy of the +United States marshal swooped down upon the village and arrested the +young post-master on a charge of abstracting Smith Westcott's +land-warrant from the mail, the whole town was agog. "Told you so. By +George!" said Westcott. + +At first the villagers were divided in opinion about Albert. Plenty of +people, like Mrs. Ferret, were ready to rejoice that he was not so good +as he might be, you know. But many others said that he wouldn't steal. A +fellow that had thrown away all his chances of making money wouldn't +steal. To which it was rejoined that if Charlton did not care for money +he was a good hater, and that what such a man would not do for money he +might do for spite. And then, too, it was known that Albert had been very +anxious to get away, and that he wanted to get away before Westcott did. +And that everything depended on which should get a land-warrant first. +What more natural than that Charlton should seize upon Smith Westcott's +land-warrant, and thus help himself and retard his rival? This sort of +reasoning staggered those who would have defended him on the ground of +previous good character. + +But that which shook the popular confidence in Albert most was his own +behavior when arrested. He was perfectly collected until he inquired +what evidence there was against him. The deputy marshal said that it was +very clear evidence, indeed. "The land-warrant with which you pre-empted +your claim bore a certain designating number. The prosecution can prove +that that warrant was mailed at Red Owl on the 24th of August, directed +to Smith Westcott, Metropolisville, and that he failed to receive it. +The stolen property appearing in your hands, you must account for it in +some way." + +At this Charlton's countenance fell, and he refused to make any +explanations or answer any questions. He was purposely kept over one day +in Metropolisville in hope that something passing between him and his +friends, who were permitted to have free access to him, might bring +further evidence to light. But Charlton sat, pale and dejected, ready +enough to converse about anything else, but declining to say one word in +regard to his guilt or innocence of the crime charged. It is not strange +that some of his best friends accepted the charge as true, and only tried +to extenuate the offense on the ground that the circumstances made the +temptation a very great one, and that the motive was not mercenary. +Others stood out that it would yet be discovered that Plausaby had stolen +the warrant, until half-a-dozen people remembered that Plausaby himself +had been in Red Owl at that very time--he had spent a week there laying +out a marshy shore in town lots down to the low-water mark, and also +laying out the summit of a bluff three hundred and fifty feet high and +sixty degrees steep. These sky and water lots were afterward sold to +confiding Eastern speculators, and a year or two later the owner of the +water privileges rowed all over his lots in a skiff. Whether the other +purchaser used a balloon to reach his is not known. But the operation of +staking out these ineligible "additions" to the city of Red Owl had +attracted much attention, and consequently Plausaby's _alibi_ was readily +established. So that the two or three who still believed Albert innocent +did so by "naked faith," and when questioned about it, shook their heads, +and said that it was a great mystery. They could not understand it, but +they did not believe him guilty. Isabel Marlay believed in Albert's +innocence as she believed the hard passages in the catechism. She knew +it, she believed it, she could not prove it, but she would not hear to +anything else. She was sure of his innocence, and that was enough. For +when a woman of that sort believes anything, she believes in spite of all +her senses and all reason. What are the laws of evidence to her! She +believes with the _heart_. + +Poor Mrs. Plausaby, too, sat down in a dumb despair, and wept and +complained and declared that she knew her Albert had notions and such +things, but people with such notions wouldn't do anything naughty. Albert +wouldn't, she knew. He hadn't done any harm, and they couldn't find out +that he had. Katy was gone, and now Albert was in trouble, and she didn't +know what to do. She thought Isa might do something, and not let all +these troubles come on her in this way. For the poor woman had come to +depend on Isa not only in weighty matters, such as dresses and bonnets, +but also in all the other affairs of life. And it seemed to her a +grievous wrong that Isabel, who had saved her from so many troubles, +should not have kept Katy from drowning and Albert from prison. + +The chief trouble in the mind of Albert was not the probability of +imprisonment, nor the overthrow of his educational schemes--though all of +these were cups of bitterness. But the first thought with him was to ask +what would be the effect of his arrest on Miss Minorkey. He had felt some +disappointment in not finding Helen the ideal woman he had pictured her, +but, as I said a while ago, love does not die at the first +disappointment. If it finds little to live on in the one who is loved, it +will yet find enough in the memories, the hopes, and the ideals that +dwell within the lover. Charlton, in the long night after his arrest, +reviewed everything, but in thinking of Miss Minorkey, he did not once +recur to her lack of deep sympathy with him in his sorrow for Katy. The +Helen he thought of was the radiant Helen that sat by his beloved Katy in +the boat on that glorious evening in which he rowed in the long northern +twilight, the Helen that had relaxed her dignity enough to dip her palm +in the water and dash spray into his face. He saw her like one looking +back through clouds of blackness to catch a sight of a bit of sky and a +single shining star. As the impossibility of his marrying Helen became +more and more evident to him, she grew all the more glorious in her +culture, her quietness, her thoughtfulness. That she would break her +heart for him, he did not imagine, but he did hope--yes, hope--that she +would suffer acutely on his account. + +And when Isa Marlay bravely walked through the crowd that had gathered +about the place of his confinement, and asked to see him, and he was told +that a young lady wanted to be admitted, he hoped that it might be Helen +Minorkey. When he saw that it was Isabel he was glad, partly because he +would rather have seen her than anybody else, next to Helen, and partly +because he could ask her to carry a message to Miss Minorkey. He asked +her to take from his trunk, which had already been searched by the +marshal's deputy, all the letters of Miss Minorkey, to tie them in a +package, and to have the goodness to present them to that lady with his +sincere regards. + +"Shall I tell her that you are innocent?" asked Isabel, wishing to +strengthen her own faith by a word of assurance from Albert. + +"Tell her--" and Albert cast down his eyes a moment in painful +reflection--"tell her that I will explain some day. Meantime, tell her to +believe what you believe about me." + +"I believe that you are innocent." + +"Thank you, Miss Isabel," said Albert warmly, but then he stopped and +grew red in the face. He did not give her one word of assurance. Even +Isa's faith was staggered for a moment. But only for a moment. The faith +of a woman like Isabel Marlay laughs at doubt. + +I do not know how to describe the feelings with which Miss Marlay went +out from Albert. Even in the message, full of love, which he had sent to +his mother, he did not say one word about his guilt or innocence. And yet +Isabel believed in her heart that he had not committed the crime. While +he was strong and free from suspicion, Isa Marlay had admired him. He +seemed to her, notwithstanding his eccentricities, a man of such truth, +fervor, and earnestness of character, that she liked him better than she +was willing to admit to herself. Now that he was an object of universal +suspicion, her courageous and generous heart espoused his cause +vehemently. She stood ready to do anything in the world for him. Anything +but what he had asked her to do. Why she did not like to carry messages +from him to Miss Minorkey she did not know. As soon as she became +conscious of this jealous feeling in her heart, she took herself to task +severely. Like the good girl she was, she set her sins out in the light +of her own conscience. She did more than that. But if I should tell you +truly what she did with this naughty feeling, how she dragged it out into +the light and presence of the Holy One Himself, I should seem to be +writing cant, and people would say that I was preaching. And yet I +should only show you the source of Isa's high moral and religious +culture. Can I write truly of a life in which the idea of God as Father, +Monitor, and Friend is ever present and dominant, without showing you the +springs of that life? + +When Isabel Marlay, with subdued heart, sought Miss Minorkey, it was +with her resolution fixed to keep the trust committed to her, and, as far +as possible, to remove all suspicions from Miss Minorkey's mind. As for +any feeling in her own heart--she had no right to have any feeling but a +friendly one to Albert. She would despise a woman who could love a man +that did not first declare his love for her. She said this to herself +several times by way of learning the lesson well. + +Isa found Miss Minorkey, with her baggage packed, ready for a move. Helen +told Miss Marlay that her father found the air very bad for him, and +meant to go to St. Anthony, where there was a mineral spring and a good +hotel. For her part, she was glad of it, for a little place like +Metropolisville was not pleasant. So full of gossip. And no newspapers or +books. And very little cultivated society. + +Miss Marlay said she had a package of something or other, which Mr. +Charlton had sent with his regards. She said "something or other" from an +instinctive delicacy. + +"Oh! yes; something of mine that he borrowed, I suppose," said Helen. +"Have you seen him? I'm really sorry for him. I found him a very pleasant +companion, so full of reading and oddities. He's the last man I should +have believed could rob the post-office." + +"Oh! but he didn't," said Isa. + +"Indeed! Well, I'm glad to hear it. I hope he'll be able to prove it. Is +there any new evidence?" + +Isa was obliged to confess that she had heard of none, and Miss Minorkey +proceeded like a judge to explain to Miss Marlay how strong the evidence +against him was. And then she said she thought the warrant had been +taken, not from cupidity, but from a desire to serve Katy. It was a pity +the law could not see it in that way. But all the time Isa protested with +vehemence that she did not believe a word of it. Not one word. All the +judges and juries and witnesses in the world could not convince her of +Albert's guilt. Because she knew him, and she just knew that he couldn't +do it, you see. + +Miss Minorkey said it had made her father sick. "I've gone with Mr. +Charlton so much, you know, that it has made talk," she said. "And father +feels bad about it. And"--seeing the expression of Isa's countenance, she +concluded that it would not do to be quite so secretive--"and, to tell +you the truth, I did like him. But of course that is all over. Of course +there couldn't be anything between us after this, even if he were +innocent." + +Isa grew indignant, and she no longer needed the support of religious +faith and high moral principle to enable her to plead the cause of Albert +Charlton with Miss Minorkey. + +"But I thought you loved him," she said, with just a spice of bitterness. +"The poor fellow believes that you love him." + +Miss Minorkey winced a little. "Well, you know, some people are +sentimental, and others are not. It is a good thing for me that I'm not +one of those that pine away and die after anybody. I suppose I am not +worthy of a high-toned man, such as he seemed to be. I have often told +him so. I am sure I never could marry a man that had been in the +penitentiary, if he were ever so innocent. Now, could you. Miss Marlay?" + +Isabel blushed, and said she could if he were innocent. She thought a +woman ought to stand by the man she loved to the death, if he were +worthy. But Helen only sighed humbly, and said that she never was made +for a heroine. She didn't even like to read about high-strung people in +novels. She supposed it was her fault--people had to be what they were, +she supposed. Miss Marlay must excuse her, though. She hadn't quite got +her books packed, and the stage would be along in an hour. She would be +glad if Isabel would tell Mr. Charlton privately, if she had a chance, +how sorry she felt for him. But please not say anything that would +compromise her, though. + +And Isa Marlay went out of the hotel full of indignation at the +cool-blooded Helen, and full of a fathomless pity for Albert, a pity that +made her almost love him herself. She would have loved to atone for all +Miss Minorkey's perfidy. And just alongside of her pity for Charlton thus +deserted, crept in a secret joy. For there was now none to stand nearer +friend to Albert than herself. + +And yet Charlton did not want for friends. Whisky Jim had a lively sense +of gratitude to him for his advocacy of Jim's right to the claim as +against Westcott; and having also a lively antagonism to Westcott, he +could see no good reason why a man should serve a long term in +State's-prison for taking from a thief a land-warrant with which the +thief meant to pre-empt another man's claim. And the Guardian Angel had +transferred to the brother the devotion and care he once lavished on the +sister. It was this unity of sentiment between the Jehu from the Green +Mountains and the minstrel from the Indiana "Pocket" that gave Albert a +chance for liberty. + +The prisoner was handcuffed and confined in an upper room, the windows of +which were securely boarded up on the outside. About three o'clock of the +last night he spent in Metropolisville, the deputy marshal, who in the +evening preceding had helped to empty two or three times the ample flask +of Mr. Westcott, was sleeping very soundly. Albert, who was awake, heard +the nails drawn from the boards. Presently the window was opened, and a +familiar voice said in a dramatic tone: + +"Mr. Charlton, git up and foller." + +Albert arose and went to the window. + +"Come right along, I 'low the coast's clear," said the Poet. + +"No, I can not do that, Gray," said Charlton, though the prospect of +liberty was very enticing. + +"See here, mister, I calkilate es this is yer last chance fer fifteen +year ur more," put in the driver, thrusting his head in alongside his +Hoosier friend's. + +"Come," added Gray, "you an' me'll jest put out together fer the Ingin +kedentry ef you say so, and fetch up in Kansas under some fancy names, +and take a hand in the wras'le that's agoin' on thar. Nobody'll ever +track you. I've got a Yankton friend as'll help us through." + +"My friends, I'm ever so thankful to you--" + +"Blame take yer thanks! Come along," broke in the Superior Being. "It's +now ur never." + +"I'll be dogged ef it haint," said the Poet. + +Charlton looked out wistfully over the wide prairies. He might escape and +lead a wild, free life with Gray, and then turn up in some new Territory +under an assumed name and work out his destiny. But the thought of being +a fugitive from justice was very shocking to him. + +[Illustration: "GIT UP AND FOLLER!"] + +"No! no! I can't. God bless you both. Good-by!" And he went back to his +pallet on the floor. When the rescuers reached the ground the Superior +Being delivered himself of some very sulphurous oaths, intended to +express his abhorrence of "idees." + +"There's that air blamed etarnal infarnal nateral born eejiot'll die in +Stillwater penitensh'ry jest fer idees. Orter go to a 'sylum." + +But the Poet went off dejectedly to his lone cabin on the prairie. + +And there was a great row in the morning about the breaking open of the +window and the attempted rescue. The deputy marshal told a famous story +of his awaking in the night and driving off a rescuing party of eight +with his revolver. And everybody wondered who they were. Was Charlton, +then, a member of a gang? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE TEMPTER. + + +Albert was conveyed to St. Paul, but not until he had had one +heart-breaking interview with his mother. The poor woman had spent nearly +an hour dressing herself to go to him, for she was so shaken with +agitation and blinded with weeping, that she could hardly tie a ribbon or +see that her breast-pin was in the right place. This interview with her +son shook her weak understanding to its foundations, and for days +afterward Isa devoted her whole time to diverting her from the +accumulation of troubled thoughts and memories that filled her with +anguish--an anguish against the weight of which her feeble nature could +offer no supports. + +When Albert was brought before the commissioner, he waived examination, +and was committed to await the session of the district court. Mr. +Plausaby came up and offered to become his bail, but this Charlton +vehemently refused, and was locked up in jail, where for the next two or +three months he amused himself by reading the daily papers and such books +as he could borrow, and writing on various subjects manuscripts which he +never published. + +The confinement chafed him. His mother's sorrow and feeble health +oppressed him. And despite all he could do, his own humiliation bowed his +head a little. But most of all, the utter neglect of Helen Minorkey hurt +him sorely. Except that she had sent, through Isabel Marlay, that little +smuggled message that she was sorry for him--like one who makes a great +ado about sending you something which turns out to be nothing--except +this mockery of pity, he had no word or sign from Helen. His mind dwelt +on her as he remembered her in the moments when she had been carried out +of herself by the contagion of his own enthusiasm, when she had seemed to +love him devotedly. Especially did he think of her as she sat in quiet +and thoughtful enjoyment in the row-boat by the side of Katy, playfully +splashing the water and seeming to rejoice in his society. And now she +had so easily accepted his guilt! + +These thoughts robbed him of sleep, and the confinement and lack of +exercise made him nervous. The energetic spirit, arrested at the very +instant of beginning cherished enterprises, and shut out from hope of +ever undertaking them, preyed upon itself, and Albert had a morbid +longing for the State's prison, where he might weary himself with toil. + +His counsel was Mr. Conger. Mr. Conger was not a great jurist. Of the +philosophy of law he knew nothing. For the sublime principles of equity +and the great historic developments that underlie the conventions which +enter into the administration of public justice, Mr. Conger cared +nothing. But there was one thing Mr. Conger did understand and care for, +and that was success. He was a man of medium hight, burly, active, ever +in motion. When he had ever been still long enough to read law, nobody +knew. He said everything he had to say with a quick, vehement utterance, +as though he grudged the time taken to speak fully about anything. He +went along the street eagerly; he wrote with all his might. There were +twenty men in the Territory, at that day, any one of whom knew five times +as much law as he. Other members of the bar were accustomed to speak +contemptuously of Conger's legal knowledge. But Conger won more cases and +made more money than any of them. If he did not know law in the widest +sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that +served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could +break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his +opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; +he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of +the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to +testimony on the other side, and try to get in irrelevant testimony on +his own; he would abuse the opposing counsel, crying out, "The counsel on +the other side lies like thunder, and he knows it!" By shrewdness, by an +unwearying perseverance, by throwing his whole weight into his work, +Conger made himself the most successful lawyer of his time in the +Territory. And preserved his social position at the same time, for though +he was not at all scrupulous, he managed to keep on the respectable side +of the line which divides the lawyer from the shyster. + +Mr. Conger had been Mr. Plausaby's counsel in one or two cases, and +Charlton, knowing no other lawyer, sent for him. Mr. Conger had, with his +characteristic quickness of perception, picked up the leading features of +the case from the newspapers. He sat down on the bed in Charlton's cell +with his brisk professional air, and came at once to business in his +jerky-polite tone. + +"Bad business, this, Mr. Charlton, but let us hope we'll pull through. +_We_ generally _do_ pull through. Been in a good many tight places in my +time. But it is necessary, first of all, that you trust me. The boat is +in a bad way--you hail a pilot--he comes aboard. Now--hands off the +helm--you sit down and let the pilot steer her through. You understand?" +And Mr. Conger looked as though he might have smiled at his own +illustration if he could have spared the time. But he couldn't. As for +Albert, he only looked more dejected. + +"Now," he proceeded, "let's get to business. In the first place, you must +trust me with everything. You must tell me whether you took the warrant +or not." And Mr. Conger paused and scrutinized his client closely. + +Charlton said nothing, but his face gave evidence of a struggle. + +"Well, well, Mr. Charlton," said the brisk man with the air of one who +has gotten through the first and most disagreeable part of his business, +and who now proposes to proceed immediately to the next matter on the +docket. "Well, well, Mr. Charlton, you needn't say anything if the +question is an unpleasant one. An experienced lawyer knows what silence +means, of course," and there was just a trifle of self-gratulation in his +voice. As for Albert, he winced, and seemed to be trying to make up his +mind to speak. + +"Now," and with this _now_ the lawyer brought his white fat hand down +upon his knee in an emphatic way, as one who says "nextly." "Now--there +are several courses open to us. I asked you whether you took the warrant +or not, because the line of defense that presents itself first is to +follow the track of your suspicions, and fix the guilt on some one else +if we can. I understand, however, that that course is closed to us?" + +Charlton nodded his head. + +"We might try to throw suspicion--only suspicion, you know--on the +stage-driver or somebody else. Eh? Just enough to confuse the jury?" + +Albert shook his head a little impatiently. + +"Well, well, that's so--_not_ the _best_ line. The warrant was in your +hands. You used it for pre-emption. That is very ugly, very. I don't +think much of that line, under the circumstances. It might excite +feeling against us. It is a very bad case. But we will pull through, I +hope. We generally do. Give the case wholly into my hands. We'll +postpone, I think. I shall have to make an affidavit that there are +important witnesses absent, or something of the sort. But we'll have the +case postponed. There's some popular feeling against you, and juries go +as the newspapers do. Now, I see but one way, and that is to postpone +until the feeling dies down. Then we can manage the papers a little and +get up some sympathy for you. And there's no knowing what may happen. +There's nothing like delay in a bad case. Wait long enough, and +something is sure to turn up." + +"But I don't want the case postponed," said Charlton decidedly. + +"Very natural that you shouldn't like to wait. This is not a pleasant +room. But it is better to wait a year or even two years in this jail than +to go to prison for fifteen or twenty. Fifteen or twenty years out of the +life of a young man is about all there is worth the having." + +Here Charlton shuddered, and Mr. Conger was pleased to see that his words +took effect. + +"You'd better make up your mind that the case is a bad one, and trust to +my experience. When you're sick, trust the doctor. I think I can pull you +through if you'll leave the matter to me." + +"Mr. Conger," said Charlton, lifting up his pale face, twitching with +nervousness, "I don't want to get free by playing tricks on a court of +law. I know that fifteen or twenty years in prison would not leave me +much worth living for, but I will not degrade myself by evading justice +with delays and false affidavits. If you can do anything for me fairly +and squarely, I should like to have it done." + +"Scruples, eh?" asked Mr. Conger in surprise. + +"Yes, scruples," said Albert Charlton, leaning his head on his hands with +the air of one who has made a great exertion and has a feeling of +exhaustion. + +"Scruples, Mr. Charlton, are well enough when one is about to break the +law. After one has been arrested, scruples are in the way." + +"You have no right to presume that I have broken the law," said Charlton +with something of his old fire. + +"Well, Mr. Charlton, it will do no good for you to quarrel with your +counsel. You have as good as confessed the crime yourself. I must insist +that you leave the case in my hands, or I must throw it up. Take time to +think about it. I'll send my partner over to get any suggestions from you +about witnesses. The most we can do is to prove previous good character. +That isn't worth anything where the evidence against the prisoner is so +conclusive--as in your case. But it makes a show of doing something." And +Mr. Conger was about leaving the cell when, as if a new thought had +occurred to him, he turned back and sat down again and said: "There _is_ +one other course open to you. Perhaps it is the best, since you will not +follow my plan. You can plead guilty, and trust to the clemency of the +President. I think strong political influences could be brought to bear +at Washington in favor of your pardon?" + +Charlton shook his head, and the lawyer left him "to think the matter +over," as he said. Then ensued the season of temptation. Why should he +stand on a scruple? Why not get free? Here was a conscienceless attorney, +ready to make any number of affidavits in regard to the absence of +important witnesses; ready to fight the law by every technicality of the +law. His imprisonment had already taught him how dear liberty was, and, +within half an hour after Conger left him, a great change came over him. +Why should he go to prison? What justice was there in his going to +prison? Here he was, taking a long sentence to the penitentiary, while +such men as Westcott and Conger were out. There could be no equity in +such an arrangement. Whenever a man begins to seek equality of +dispensation, he is in a fair way to debauch his conscience. And another +line of thought influenced Charlton. The world needed his services. What +advantage would there be in throwing away the chances of a lifetime on a +punctilio? Why might he not let the serviceable lawyer do as he pleased? +Conger was the keeper of his own conscience, and would not be either more +or less honest at heart for what he did or did not do. All the kingdoms +of the earth could not have tempted Charlton to serve himself by another +man's perjury. But liberty on one hand and State's-prison on the other, +was a dreadful alternative. And so, when the meek and studious man whom +Conger used for a partner called on him, he answered all his questions, +and offered no objection to the assumption of the quiet man that Mr. +Conger would carry on the case in his own fashion. + +Many a man is willing to be a martyr till he sees the stake and fagots. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE TRIAL. + + +From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he +began to lose peace of mind. His self-respect was impaired, and he became +impatient, and chafed under his restraint. As the trial drew on, he was +more than ever filled with questionings in regard to the course he should +pursue. For conscience is like a pertinacious attorney. When a false +decision is rendered, he is forever badgering the court with a bill of +exceptions, with proposals to set aside, with motions for new trials, +with applications for writs of appeal, with threats of a Higher Court, +and even with contemptuous mutterings about impeachment. If Isa had not +written to him, Albert might have regained his moral _aplomb_ in some +other way than he did--he might not. For human sympathy is Christ's own +means of regenerating the earth. If you can not counsel, if you can not +preach, if you can not get your timid lips to speak one word that will +rebuke a man's sin, you can at least show the fellowship of your heart +with his. There is a great moral tonic in human brotherhood. Worried, +desperate, feeling forsaken of God and man, it is not strange that +Charlton should shut his teeth together and defy his scruples. He would +use any key he could to get out into the sunlight again. He quoted all +those old, half-true, half-false adages about the lawlessness of +necessity and so on. Then, weary of fencing with himself, he wished for +strength to stand at peace again, as when he turned his back on the +temptations of his rescuers in Metropolisville. But he had grown weak and +nervous from confinement--prisons do not strengthen the moral power--and +he had moreover given way to dreaming about liberty until he was like a +homesick child, who aggravates his impatience by dwelling much on the +delightfulness of the meeting with old friends, and by counting the +slow-moving days that intervene. + +But there came, just the day before the trial, a letter with the +post-mark "Metropolisville" on it. That post-mark always excited a +curious feeling in him. He remembered with what boyish pride he had taken +possession of his office, and how he delighted to stamp the post-mark on +the letters. The address of this letter was not in his mother's undecided +penmanship--it was Isa Marlay's straightforward and yet graceful +writing, and the very sight of it gave him comfort. The letter was simply +a news letter, a vicarious letter from Isabel because Mrs. Plausaby did +not feel well enough to write; this is what Isa said it was, and what she +believed it to be, but Charlton knew that Isa's own friendly heart had +planned it. And though it ran on about this and that unimportant matter +of village intelligence, yet were its commonplace sentences about +commonplace affairs like a fountain in the desert to the thirsty soul of +the prisoner. I have read with fascination in an absurdly curious book +that people of a very sensitive fiber can take a letter, the contents and +writer of which are unknown, and by pressing it for a time against the +forehead can see the writer and his surroundings. It took no spirit of +divination in Charlton's case. The trim and graceful figure of Isa +Marlay, in perfectly fitting calico frock, with her whole dress in that +harmonious relation of parts for which she was so remarkable, came before +him. He knew that by this time she must have some dried grasses in the +vases, and some well-preserved autumn leaves around the picture-frames. +The letter said nothing about his trial, but its tone gave him assurance +of friendly sympathy, and of a faith in him that could not be shaken. +Somehow, by some recalling of old associations, and by some subtle +influence of human sympathy, it swept the fogs away from the soul of +Charlton, and he began to see his duty and to feel an inspiration toward +the right. I said that the letter did not mention the trial, but it did. +For when Charlton had read it twice, he happened to turn it over, and +found a postscript on the fourth page of the sheet. I wonder if the habit +which most women have of reserving their very best for the postscript +comes from the housekeeper's desire to have a good dessert. Here on the +back Charlton read: + +"P.8.--Mr. Gray, your Hoosier friend, called on me yesterday, and sent +his regards. He told me how you refused to escape. I know you well enough +to feel sure that you would not do anything mean or unmanly. I pray that +God will sustain you on your trial, and make your innocence appear. I am +sure you are innocent, though I can not understand it. Providence will +overrule it all for good, I believe." + +Something in the simple-hearted faith of Isabel did him a world of good. +He was in the open hall of the jail when he read it, and he walked about +the prison, feeling strong enough now to cope with temptation. That very +morning he had received a New Testament from a colporteur, and now, out +of regard to Isa Marlay's faith, maybe--out of some deeper feeling, +possibly--he read the story of the trial and condemnation of Jesus. In +his combative days he had read it for the sake of noting the +disagreements between the Evangelists in some of the details. But now he +was in no mood for small criticism. Which is the shallower, indeed, the +criticism that harps on disagreements in such narratives, or the +pettifogging that strives to reconcile them, one can hardly tell. In +Charlton's mood, in any deeply earnest mood, one sees the smallness of +all disputes about sixth and ninth hours. Albert saw the profound +essential unity of the narratives, he felt the stirring of the deep +sublimity of the story, he felt the inspiration of the sublimest +character in human history. Did he believe? Not in any orthodox sense. +But do you think that the influence of the Christ is limited to them who +hold right opinions about Him? If a man's heart be simple, he can not see +Jesus in any light without getting good from Him. Charlton, unbeliever +that he was, wet the pages with tears, tears of sympathy with the high +self-sacrifice of Jesus, and tears of penitence for his own moral +weakness, which stood rebuked before the Great Example. + +And then came the devil, in the person of Mr. Conger. His face was full +of hopefulness as he sat down in Charlton's cell and smote his fat white +hand upon his knee and said "Now!" and looked expectantly at his client. +He waited a moment in hope of rousing Charlton's curiosity. + +"We've got them!" he said presently. "I told you we should pull through. +Leave the whole matter to me." + +"I am willing to leave anything to you but my conscience," said Albert. + +"The devil take your conscience, Mr. Charlton. If you are guilty, and so +awfully conscientious, plead guilty at once. If you propose to cheat the +government out of some years of penal servitude, why, well and good. But +you must have a devilish queer conscience, to be sure. If you talk in +that way, I shall enter a plea of insanity and get you off whether you +will or not. But you might at least hear me through before you talk about +conscience. Perhaps even _your_ conscience would not take offense at my +plan, unless you consider yourself foreordained to go to penitentiary." + +"Let's hear your plan, Mr. Conger," said Charlton, hoping there might be +some way found by which he could escape. + +Mr. Conger became bland again, resumed his cheerful and hopeful look, +brought down his fat white hand upon his knee, looked up over his +client's head, while he let his countenance blossom with the promise of +his coming communication. He then proceeded to say with a cheerful +chuckle that there was a flaw in the form of the indictment--the grand +jury had blundered. He had told Charlton that something would certainly +happen. And it had. Then Mr. Conger smote his knee again, and said +"Now!" once more, and proceeded to say that his plan was to get the +trial set late in the term, so that the grand jury should finish their +work and be discharged before the case came on. Then he would have the +indictment quashed. + +He said this with so innocent and plausible a face that at first it did +not seem very objectionable to Charlton. + +"What would we gain by quashing the indictment, Mr. Conger?" + +"Well, if the indictment were quashed on the ground of a defect in its +substance, then the case falls. But this is only defective in form. +Another grand jury can indict you again. Now if the District Attorney +should be a little easy--and I think that, considering your age, and my +influence with him, he would be--a new commitment might not issue perhaps +before you could get out of reach of it. If you were committed again, +then we gain time. Time is everything in a bad case. You could not be +tried until the next term. When the next term comes, we could then see +what could be done. Meantime you could get bail." + +If Charlton had not been entirely clear-headed, or entirely in a mood +to deal honestly with himself, he would have been persuaded to take +this course. + +"Let me ask you a question, Mr. Conger. If the case were delayed, and I +still had nothing to present against the strong circumstantial evidence +of the prosecution--if, in other words, delay should still leave us in +our present position--would there be any chance for me to escape by a +fair, stand-up trial?" + +"Well, you see, Mr. Charlton, this is precisely a case in which we will +not accept a pitched battle, if we can help it. After a while, when the +prosecuting parties feel less bitter toward you, we might get some of the +evidence mislaid, out of the way, or get some friend on the jury, +or--well, we might manage somehow to dodge trial on the case as it +stands. Experience is worth a great deal in these things." + +"There are, then, two possibilities for me," said Charlton very quietly. +"I can run away, or we may juggle the evidence or the jury. Am I right?" + +"Or, we can go to prison?" said Conger, smiling. + +"I will take the latter alternative," said Charlton. + +"Then you owe it to me to plead guilty, and relieve me from +responsibility. If you plead guilty, we can get a recommendation of mercy +from the court." + +"I owe it to myself not to plead guilty," said Charlton, speaking still +gently, for his old imperious and self-confident manner had left him. + +"Very well," said Mr. Conger, rising, "if you take your fate into your +own hands in that way, I owe it to _myself_ to withdraw from the case." + +"Very well, Mr. Conger." + +"Good-morning, Mr. Charlton!" + +"Good-morning, Mr. Conger." + +And with Mr. Conger's disappearance went Albert's last hope of escape. +The battle had been fought, and lost--or won, as you look at it. Let us +say won, for no man's case is desperate till he parts with manliness. + +Charlton had the good fortune to secure a young lawyer of little +experience but of much principle, who was utterly bewildered by the +mystery of the case, and the apparently paradoxical scruples of his +client, but who worked diligently and hopelessly for him. He saw the flaw +in the indictment and pointed it out to Charlton, but told him that as it +was merely a technical point he would gain nothing but time. Charlton +preferred that there should be no delay, except what was necessary to +give his counsel time to understand the case. In truth, there was little +enough to understand. The defense had nothing left to do. + +When Albert came into court he was pale from his confinement. He +looked eagerly round the crowded room to see if he could find the +support of friendly faces. There were just two. The Hoosier Poet sat +on one of the benches, and by him sat Isa Marlay. True, Mr. Plausaby +sat next to Miss Marlay, but Albert did not account him anything in +his inventory of friends. + +Isabel wondered how he would plead. She hoped that he did not mean to +plead guilty, but the withdrawal of Conger from the case filled her with +fear, and she had been informed by Mr. Plausaby that he could refuse to +plead altogether, and it would be considered a plea of not guilty. She +believed him innocent, but she had not had one word of assurance to that +effect from him, and even her faith had been shaken a little by the +innuendoes and suspicions of Mr. Plausaby. + +Everybody looked at the prisoner. Presently the District Attorney moved +that Albert Charlton be arraigned. + +The Court instructed the clerk, who said, "Albert Charlton, come +forward." + +Albert here rose to his feet, and raised his right hand in token of +his identity. + +The District Attorney said, "This prisoner I have indicted by the +grand jury." + +"Shall we waive the reading of the indictment?" asked Charlton's counsel. + +"No," said Albert, "let it be read," and he listened intently while the +clerk read it. + +"Albert Charlton, you have heard the charge. What say you: Guilty, or, +Not guilty?" Even the rattling and unmeaning voice in which the clerk was +accustomed to go through with his perfunctory performances took on some +solemnity. + +There was dead silence for a moment. Isa Marlay's heart stopped beating, +and the Poet from Posey County opened his mouth with eager anxiety. +When Charlton spoke, it was in a full, solemn voice, with deliberation +and emphasis. + +"NOT GUILTY!" + +"Thank God!" whispered Isa. + +The Poet shut his mouth and heaved a sigh of relief. + +The counsel for the defense was electrified. Up to that moment he had +believed that his client was guilty. But there was so much of solemn +truthfulness in the voice that he could not resist its influence. + +As for the trial itself, which came off two days later, that was a dull +enough affair. It was easy to prove that Albert had expressed all sorts +of bitter feelings toward Mr. Westcott; that he was anxious to leave; +that he had every motive for wishing to pre-empt before Westcott did; +that the land-warrant numbered so-and-so--it is of no use being accurate +here, they were accurate enough in court--had been posted in Red Owl on a +certain day; that a gentleman who rode with the driver saw him receive +the mail at Red Owl, and saw it delivered at Metropolisville; that +Charlton pre-empted his claim--the S.E. qr. of the N.E. qr., and the N. +1/2 of the S.E. qr. of Section 32, T. so-and-so, R. such-and-such--with +this identical land-warrant, as the records of the land-office showed +beyond a doubt. + +Against all this counsel for defense had nothing whatever to offer. +Nothing but evidence of previous good character, nothing but to urge that +there still remained perhaps the shadow of a doubt. No testimony to show +from whom Charlton had received the warrant, not the first particle of +rebutting evidence. The District Attorney only made a little perfunctory +speech on the evils brought upon business by theft in the post-office. +The exertions of Charlton's counsel amounted to nothing; the jury found +him guilty without deliberation. + +The judge sentenced him with much solemn admonition. It was a grievous +thing for one so young to commit such a crime. He warned Albert that he +must not regard any consideration as a justification for such an offense. +He had betrayed his trust and been guilty of theft. The judge expressed +his regret that the sentence was so severe. It was a sad thing to send a +young man of education and refinement to be the companion of criminals +for so many years. But the law recognized the difference between a theft +by a sworn and trusted officer and an ordinary larceny. He hoped that +Albert would profit by this terrible experience, and that he would so +improve the time of his confinement with meditation, that what would +remain to him of life when he should come out of the walls of his prison +might be spent as an honorable and law-abiding citizen. He sentenced him +to serve the shortest term permitted by the statute, namely, ten years. + +The first deep snow of the winter was falling outside the court-house, +and as Charlton stood in the prisoners' box, he could hear the jingling +of sleigh-bells, the sounds that usher in the happy social life of winter +in these northern latitudes. He heard the judge, and he listened to the +sleigh-bells as a man who dreams--the world was so far off from him +now--ten weary years, and the load of a great disgrace measured the gulf +fixed between him and all human joy and sympathy. And when, a few minutes +afterward, the jail-lock clicked behind him, it seemed to have shut out +life. For burial alive is no fable. Many a man has heard the closing of +the vault as Albert Charlton did. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PENITENTIARY. + + +It was a cold morning. The snow had fallen heavily the day before, and +the Stillwater stage was on runners. The four horses rushed round the +street-corners with eagerness as the driver, at a little past five +o'clock in the morning, moved about collecting passengers. From the +up-town hotels he drove in the light of the gas-lamps to the jail where +the deputy marshal, with his prisoner securely handcuffed, took his seat +and wrapped the robes about them both. Then at the down-town hotels they +took on other passengers. The Fuller House was the last call of all. + +"Haven't you a back-seat?" The passenger partly spoke and partly coughed +out his inquiry. + +"The back-seat is occupied by ladies," said the agent, "you will have to +take the front one." + +"It will kill me to ride backwards," whined the desponding voice of +Minorkey, but as there were only two vacant seats he had no choice. He +put his daughter in the middle while he took the end of the seat and +resigned himself to death by retrograde motion. Miss Helen Minorkey was +thus placed exactly _vis-ŕ-vis_ with her old lover Albert Charlton, but +in the darkness of six o'clock on a winter's morning in Minnesota, she +could not know it. The gentleman who occupied the other end of the seat +recognized Mr. Minorkey, and was by him introduced to his daughter. That +lady could not wholly resist the exhilaration of such a stage-ride over +snowy roads, only half-broken as yet, where there was imminent peril of +upsetting at every turn. And so she and her new acquaintance talked of +many things, while Charlton could not but recall his ride, a short +half-year ago, on a front-seat, over the green prairies--had prairies +ever been greener?--and under the blue sky, and in bright sunshine--had +the sun ever shone so brightly?--with this same quiet-voiced, thoughtful +Helen Minorkey. How soon had sunshine turned to darkness! How suddenly +had the blossoming spring-time changed to dreariest winter! + +It is really delightful, this riding through the snow and darkness in a +covered coach on runners, this battling with difficulties. There is a +spice of adventure in it quite pleasant if you don't happen to be the +driver and have the battle to manage. To be a well-muffled passenger, +responsible for nothing, not even for your own neck, is thoroughly +delightful--provided always that you are not the passenger in handcuffs +going to prison for ten years. To the passenger in handcuffs, whose good +name has been destroyed, whose liberty is gone, whose future is to be +made of weary days of monotonous drudgery and dreary nights in a damp +cell, whose friends have deserted him, who is an outlaw to society--to +the passenger in handcuffs this dashing and whirling toward a living +entombment has no exhilaration. Charlton was glad of the darkness, but +dreaded the dawn when there must come a recognition. In a whisper he +begged the deputy marshal to pull his cap down over his eyes and to +adjust his woolen comforter over his nose, not so much to avoid the cold +wind as to escape the cold eyes of Helen Minorkey. Then he hid his +handcuffs under the buffalo robes so that, if possible, he might escape +recognition. + +The gentleman alongside Miss Minorkey asked if she had read the account +of the trial of young Charlton, the post-office robber. + +"Part of it," said Miss Minorkey. "I don't read trials much." + +"For my part," said the gentleman, "I think the court was very merciful. +I should have given him the longest term known to the law. He ought to go +for twenty-one years. We all of us have to risk money in the mails, and +if thieves in the post-office are not punished severely, there is no +security." + +There spoke Commerce! Money is worth so much more than humanity, you +know! + +Miss Minorkey said that she knew something of the case. It was very +curious, indeed. Young Charlton was disposed to be honest, but he was +high-tempered. The taking of the warrant was an act of resentment, she +thought. He had had two or three quarrels or fights, she believed, with +the man from whom he took the warrant. He was a very talented young man, +but very ungovernable in his feelings. + +The gentleman said that that was the very reason why he should have gone +for a longer time. A talented and self-conceited man of that sort was +dangerous out of prison. As it was, he would learn all the roguery of the +penitentiary, you know, and then we should none of us be safe from him. + +There spoke the Spirit of the Law! Keep us safe, O Lord! whoever may go +to the devil! + +In reply to questions from her companion, Miss Minorkey told the story of +Albert's conflict with Westcott--she stated the case with all the +coolness of a dispassionate observer. + +There was no sign--Albert listened for it--of the slightest sympathy for +or against him in the matter. Then the story of little Katy was told as +one might tell something that had happened a hundred years ago, without +any personal sympathy. It was simply a curious story, an interesting +adventure with which to beguile a weary hour of stage riding in the +darkness. It would have gratified Albert to have been able to detect the +vibration of a painful memory or a pitying emotion, but Helen did not +suffer her placidity to be ruffled by disturbing emotion. The +conversation drifted to other subjects presently through Mr. Minorkey's +sudden recollection that the drowning excitement at Metropolisville had +brought on a sudden attack of his complaint, he had been seized with a +pain just under his ribs. It ran up to the point of the right shoulder, +and he thought he should die, etc., etc., etc. Nothing saved him but +putting his feet into hot water, etc., etc., etc. + +The gray dawn came on, and Charlton was presently able to trace the +lineaments of the well-known countenance. He was not able to recognize it +again without a profound emotion, an emotion that he could not have +analyzed. Her face was unchanged, there was not the varying of a line in +the placid, healthy, thoughtful expression to indicate any deepening of +her nature through suffering. Charlton's face had changed so that she +would not have recognized him readily had it been less concealed. And by +so much as his countenance had changed and hers remained fixed, had he +drifted away from her. Albert felt this. However painful his emotion was, +as he sat there casting furtive glances at Helen's face, there was no +regret that all relation between them was broken forever. He was not +sorry for the meeting. He needed such a meeting to measure the parallax +of his progress and her stagnation. He needed this impression of Helen to +obliterate the memory of the row-boat. She was no longer to remain in his +mind associated with the blessed memory of little Kate. Hereafter he +could think of Katy in the row-boat--the other figure was a dim unreality +which might have come to mean something, but which never did mean +anything to him. + +I wonder who keeps the tavern at Cypher's Lake now? In those old days it +was not a very reputable place; it was said that many a man had there +been fleeced at poker. The stage did not reach it on this snowy morning +until ten o'clock. The driver stopped to water, the hospitable landlord, +whose familiar nickname was "Bun," having provided a pail and cut a hole +through the ice of the lake for the accommodation of the drivers. Water +for beasts--gentlemen could meantime find something less "beastly" than +ice-water in the little low-ceiled bar-room on the other side of the +road. The deputy-marshal wanted to stretch his legs a little, and so, +trusting partly to his knowledge of Charlton's character, partly to +handcuffs, and partly to his convenient revolver, he leaped out of the +coach and stepped to the door of the bar-room just to straighten his +legs, you know, and get a glass of whisky "straight" at the same time. In +getting into the coach again he chanced to throw back the buffalo-robe +and thus exposed Charlton's handcuffs. Helen glanced at them, and then at +Albert's face. She shivered a little, and grew red. There was no +alternative but to ride thus face to face with Charlton for six miles. +She tried to feel herself an injured person, but something in the +self-possessed face of Albert--his comforter had dropped down now--awed +her, and she affected to be sick, leaning her head on her father's +shoulder and surprising that gentleman beyond measure. Helen had never +shown so much emotion of any sort in her life before, certainly never so +much confusion and shame. And that in spite of her reasoning that it was +not she but Albert who should be embarrassed. But the two seemed to have +changed places. Charlton was as cold and immovable as Helen Minorkey ever +had been; she trembled and shuddered, even with her eyes shut, to think +that his eyes were on her--looking her through and through--measuring all +the petty meanness and shallowness of her soul. She complained of the +cold and wrapped her blanket shawl about her face and pretended to be +asleep, but the shameful nakedness of her spirit seemed not a whit less +visible to the cool, indifferent eyes that she felt must be still looking +at her from under the shadow of that cap-front. What a relief it was at +last to get into the warm parlor of the hotel! But still she shivered +when she thought of her ride. + +It is one thing to go into a warm parlor of a hotel, to order your room, +your fire, your dinner, your bed. It is quite another to drive up under +the high, rough limestone outer wall of a prison--a wall on which moss +and creeper refuse to grow--to be led handcuffed into a little office, to +have your credentials for ten years of servitude presented to the warden, +to have your name, age, nativity, hight, complexion, weight, and +distinguishing marks carefully booked, to have your hair cropped to half +the length of a prize-fighter's, to lay aside the dress which you have +chosen and which seems half your individuality, and put on a suit of +cheerless penitentiary uniform--to cease to be a man with a place among +men, and to become simply a convict. This is not nearly so agreeable as +living at the hotel. Did Helen Minorkey ever think of the difference? + +There is little to be told of the life in the penitentiary. It is very +uniform. To eat prison fare without even the decency of a knife or +fork--you might kill a guard or a fellow-rogue with a fork--to sleep in a +narrow, rough cell on a hard bed, to have your cell unlocked and to be +marched out under guard in the morning, to go in a row of prisoners to +wash your face, to go in a procession to a frugal breakfast served on tin +plates in a dining-room mustier than a cellar, to be marched to your +work, to be watched by a guard while you work, to know that the guard has +a loaded revolver and is ready to draw it on slight provocation, to march +to meals under awe of the revolver, to march to bed while the man with +the revolver walks behind you, to be locked in and barred in and +double-locked in again, to have a piece of candle that will burn two +hours, to burn it out and lie down in the darkness--to go through one +such day and know that you have to endure three thousand six hundred and +fifty-two days like it--that is about all. The life of a blind horse in a +treadmill is varied and cheerful in comparison. + +Oh! yes, there is Sunday. I forgot the Sunday. On Sundays you don't have +to work in the shops. You have the blessed privilege of sitting alone in +your bare cell all the day, except the hour of service. You can think +about the outside world and wish you were out. You can read, if you can +get anything interesting to read. You can count your term over, think of +a broken life, of the friends of other days who feel disgraced at mention +of your name, get into the dumps, and cry a little if you feel like it. +Only crying doesn't seem to do much good. Such is the blessedness of the +holy Sabbath in prison! + +But Charlton did not let himself pine for liberty. He was busy with +plans for reconstructing his life. What he would have had it, it could +not be. You try to build a house, and it is shaken down about your ears +by an earthquake. Your material is, much of it, broken. You can never +make it what you would. But the brave heart, failing to do what it would, +does what it can. Charlton, who had hated the law as a profession, was +now enamored of it. He thought rightly that there is no calling that +offers nobler opportunities to a man who has a moral fiber able to bear +the strain. When he should have finished his term, he would be +thirty-one, and would be precluded from marriage by his disgrace. He +could live on a crust, if necessary, and be the champion of the +oppressed. What pleasure he would have in beating Conger some day! So he +arranged to borrow law-books, and faithfully used his two hours of candle +in studying. He calculated that in ten years--if he should survive ten +years of life in a cell--he could lay a foundation for eminence in legal +learning. Thus he made vinegar-barrels all day, and read Coke on +Littleton on Blackstone at night. His money received from the contractor +for over-work, he used to buy law-books. + +Sometimes he hoped for a pardon, but there was only one contingency that +was likely to bring it about. And he could not wish for that. Unless, +indeed, the prison-officers should seek a pardon for him. From the +beginning they had held him in great favor. When he had been six months +in prison, his character was so well established with the guards that no +one ever thought of watching him or of inspecting his work. + +He felt a great desire to have something done in a philanthropic way for +the prisoners, but when the acting chaplain, Mr. White, preached to +them, he always rebelled. Mr. White had been a steamboat captain, a +sheriff, and divers other things, and was now a zealous missionary among +the Stillwater lumbermen. The State could not afford to give more than +three hundred dollars a year for religious and moral instruction at this +time, and so the several pastors in the city served alternately, three +months apiece. Mr. White was a man who delivered his exhortations with +the same sort of vehemence that Captain White had used in giving orders +to his deck-hands in a storm; he arrested souls much as Sheriff White had +arrested criminals. To Albert's infidelity he gave no quarter. Charlton +despised the chaplain's lack of learning until he came to admire his +sincerity and wonder at his success. For the gracefulest and eruditest +orator that ever held forth to genteelest congregation, could not have +touched the prisoners by his highest flight of rhetoric as did the +earnest, fiery Captain-Sheriff-Chaplain White, who moved aggressively on +the wickedness of his felonious audience. + +When Mr. White's three months had expired, there came another pastor, as +different from him as possible. Mr. Lurton was as gentle as his +predecessor had been boisterous. There was a strong substratum of manly +courage and will, but the whole was overlaid with a sweetness wholly +feminine and seraphic. His religion was the Twenty-third Psalm. His face +showed no trace of conflict. He had accepted the creed which he had +inherited without a question, and, finding in it abundant sources of +happiness, of moral development, and spiritual consolation, he thence +concluded it true. He had never doubted. It is a question whether his +devout soul would not have found peace and edification in any set of +opinions to which he had happened to be born. You have seen one or two +such men in your life. Their presence is a benison. Albert felt more +peaceful while Mr. Lurton stood without the grating of his cell, and +Lurton seemed to leave a benediction behind him. He did not talk in pious +cant, he did not display his piety, and he never addressed a sinner down +an inclined plane. He was too humble for that. But the settled, the +unruffled, the unruffleable peacefulness and trustfulness of his soul +seemed to Charlton, whose life had been stormier within than without, +nothing less than sublime. The inmates of the prison could not appreciate +this delicate quality in the young minister. Lurton had never lived near +enough to their life for them to understand him or for him to understand +them. He considered them all, on general principles, as lost sinners, +bad, like himself, by nature, who had superadded outward transgressions +and the crime of rejecting Christ to their original guilt and corruption +as members of the human family. + +Charlton watched Lurton with intense interest, listened to all he had to +say, responded to the influence of his fine quality, but found his own +doubts yet unanswered and indeed untouched. The minister, on his part, +took a lively interest in the remarkable young man, and often endeavored +to remove his doubts by the well-knit logical arguments he had learned in +the schools. + +"Mr. Lurton," said Charlton impatiently one day, "were you ever troubled +with doubt?" + +"I do not remember that I ever seriously entertained a doubt in regard to +religious truth in my life," said Lurton, after reflection. + +"Then you know no more about my doubts than a blind man knows of your +sense of sight." But after a pause, he added, laughing: "Nevertheless, I +would give away my doubtativeness any day in exchange for your +peacefulness." Charlton did not know, nor did Lurton, that the natures +which have never been driven into the wilderness to be buffeted of the +devil are not the deepest. + +It was during Mr. Lurton's time as chaplain that Charlton began to +receive presents of little ornamental articles, intended to make his cell +more cheerful. These things were sent to him by the hands of the +chaplain, and the latter was forbidden to tell the name of the giver. +Books and pictures, and even little pots with flowers in them, came to +him in the early spring. He fancied they might come from some unknown +friend, who had only heard of him through the chaplain, and he was prone +to resent the charity. He received the articles with thankful lips, but +asked in his heart, "Is it not enough to be a convict, without being +pitied as such?" Why anybody in Stillwater should send him such things, +he did not know. The gifts were not expensive, but every one gave +evidence of a refined taste. + +At last there came one--a simple cross, cut in paper, intended to be hung +up as a transparency before the window--that in some unaccountable way +suggested old associations. Charlton had never seen anything of the kind, +but he had the feeling of one who half-recognizes a handwriting. The +pattern had a delicacy about it approaching to daintiness, an expression +of taste and feeling which he seemed to have known, as when one sees a +face that is familiar, but which one can not "place," as we say. Charlton +could not place the memory excited by this transparency, but for a moment +he felt sure that it must be from some one whom he knew. But who could +there be near enough to him to send flower-pots and framed pictures +without great expense? There was no one in Stillwater whom he had ever +seen, unless indeed Helen Minorkey were there yet, and he had long since +given up all expectation and all desire of receiving any attention at her +hands. Besides, the associations excited by the transparency, the taste +evinced in making it, the sentiment which it expressed, were not of Helen +Minorkey. It was on Thursday that he hung it against the light of his +window. It was not until Sunday evening, as he lay listlessly watching +his scanty allowance of daylight grow dimmer, that he became sure of the +hand that he had detected in the workmanship of the piece. He got up +quickly and looked at it more closely and said: "It must be Isa Marlay!" +And he lay down again, saying: "Well, it can never be quite dark in a +man's life when he has one friend." And then, as the light grew more and +more faint, he said: "Why did not I see it before? Good orthodox Isa +wants to preach to me. She means to say that I should receive light +through the cross." + +And he lay awake far into the night, trying to divine how the flower-pots +and pictures and all the rest could have been sent all the way from +Metropolisville. It was not till long afterward that he discovered the +alliance between Whisky Jim and Isabel, and how Jim had gotten a friend +on the Stillwater route to help him get them through. But Charlton wrote +Isa, and told her how he had detected her, and thanked her cordially, +asking her why she concealed her hand. She replied kindly, but with +little allusion to the gifts, and they came no more. When Isa had been +discovered she could not bring herself to continue the presents. Save +that now and then there came something from his mother, in which Isa's +taste and skill were evident, he received nothing more from her, except +an occasional friendly letter. He appreciated her delicacy too late, and +regretted that he had written about the cross at all. + +One Sunday, Mr. Lurton, going his round, found Charlton reading the New +Testament. + +"Mr. Lurton, what a sublime prayer the Pater-noster is!" exclaimed +Charlton. + +"Yes;" said Lurton, "it expresses so fully the only two feelings that can +bring us to God--a sense of guilt and a sense of dependence." + +"What I admired in the prayer was not that, but the unselfishness that +puts God and the world first, and asks bread, forgiveness, and guidance +last. It seems to me, Mr. Lurton, that all men are not brought to God by +the same feelings. Don't you think that a man may be drawn toward God by +self-sacrifice--that a brave, heroic act, in its very nature, brings us +nearer to God? It seems to me that whatever the rule may be, there are +exceptions; that God draws some men to Himself by a sense of sympathy; +that He makes a sudden draft on their moral nature--not more than they +can bear, but all they can bear--and that in doing right under +difficulties the soul finds itself directed toward God--opened on the +side on which God sits." + +Mr. Lurton shook his head, and protested, in his gentle and earnest way, +against this doctrine of man's ability to do anything good before +conversion. + +"But, Mr. Lurton," urged Albert, "I have known a man to make a great +sacrifice, and to find himself drawn by that very sacrifice into a great +admiring of Christ's sacrifice, into a great desire to call God his +father, and into a seeking for the forgiveness and favor that would make +him in some sense a child of God. Did you never know such a case?" + +"Never. I do not think that genuine conversions come in that way. A sense +of righteousness can not prepare a man for salvation--only a sense of +sin--a believing that all our righteousness is filthy rags. Still, I +wouldn't discourage you from studying the Bible in any way. You will come +round right after a while, and then you will find that to be saved, a man +must abhor every so-called good thing that he ever did." + +"Yes," said Charlton, who had grown more modest in his trials, "I am +sure there is some truth in the old doctrine as you state it. But is +not a man better and more open to divine grace, for resisting a +temptation to vice?" + +Mr. Lurton hesitated. He remembered that he had read, in very sound +writers, arguments to prove that there could be no such thing as good +works before conversion, and Mr. Lurton was too humble to set his +judgment against the great doctors'. Besides, he was not sure that +Albert's questions might not force him into that dangerous heresy +attributed to Arminius, that good works may be the impulsive cause by +which God is moved to give His grace to the unconverted. + +"Do you think that a man can really do good without God's help?" asked +Mr. Lurton. + +"I don't think man ever tries to do right in humility and sincerity +without some help from God," answered Albert, whose mode of thinking +about God was fast changing for the better. "I think God goes out a long, +long way to meet the first motions of a good purpose in a man's heart. +The parable of the Prodigal Son only half-tells it. The parable breaks +down with a truth too great for human analogies. I don't know but that +He acts in the beginning of the purpose. I am getting to be a +Calvinist--in fact, on some points, I out-Calvin Calvin. Is not God's +help in the good purposes of every man?" + +Mr. Lurton shook his head with a gentle gravity, and changed the subject +by saying, "I am going to Metropolisville next week to attend a meeting. +Can I do anything for you?" + +"Go and see my mother," said Charlton, with emotion. "She is sick, and +will never get well, I fear. Tell her I am cheerful. And--Mr. Lurton--do +you pray with her. I do not believe anything, except by fits and starts; +but one of your prayers would do my mother good. If she could be half as +peaceful as you are, I should be happy." + +Lurton walked away down the gallery from Albert's cell, and descended +the steps that led to the dining-room, and was let out of the locked and +barred door into the vestibule, and out of that into the yard, and +thence out through other locks into the free air of out-doors. Then he +took a long breath, for the sight of prison doors and locks and bars and +grates and gates and guards oppressed even his peaceful soul. And +walking along the sandy road that led by the margin of Lake St. Croix +toward the town, he recalled Charlton's last remark. And as he +meditatively tossed out of the path with his boot the pieces of +pine-bark which in this lumbering country lie about everywhere, he +rejoiced that Charlton had learned to appreciate the value of Christian +peace, and he offered a silent prayer that Albert might one day obtain +the same serenity as himself. For nothing was further from the young +minister's mind than the thought that any of his good qualities were +natural. He considered himself a miracle of grace upon all sides. As if +natural qualities were not also of God's grace! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MR. LURTON. + + +It was a warm Sunday in the early spring, one week after Mr. Lurton's +conversation with Charlton, that the latter sat in his cell feeling the +spring he could not see. His prison had never been so much a prison. To +perceive this balminess creeping through the narrow, high window--a mere +orifice through a thick wall--and making itself feebly felt as it fell +athwart the damp chilliness of the cell, to perceive thus faintly the +breath of spring, and not to be able to see the pregnant tree-buds +bursting with the coming greenness of the summer, and not to be able to +catch the sound of the first twittering of the returning sparrows and the +hopeful chattering of the swallows, made Albert feel indeed that he and +life had parted. + +Mr. Lurton's three months as chaplain had expired, and there had come in +his stead Mr. Canton, who wore a very stiff white neck-tie and a very +straight-breasted long-tailed coat. Nothing is so great a bar to human +sympathies as a clerical dress, and Mr. Canton had diligently fixed a +great gulf between himself and his fellow-men. Charlton's old, bitter +aggressiveness, which had well-nigh died out under the sweet influences +of Lurton's peacefulness, came back now, and he mentally pronounced the +new chaplain a clerical humbug and an ecclesiastical fop, and all such +mild paradoxical epithets as he was capable of forming. The hour of +service was ended, and Charlton was in his cell again, standing under the +high window, trying to absorb some of the influences of the balmy air +that reached him in such niggardly quantities. He was hungering for a +sight of the woods, which he knew must be so vital at this season. He had +only the geraniums and the moss-rose that Isa, had sent, and they were +worse than nothing, for they pined in this twilight of the cell, and +seemed to him smitten, like himself, with a living death. He almost +stopped, his heart's beating in his effort to hear the voices of the +birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, +and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the +clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the +wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next, +and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a +moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton befitting a criminal. + +Mr. Canton then handed him a letter, and seeing that it was addressed +in the friendly hand of Lurton, he took it to the window and opened +it, and read: + +"DEAR MR. CHARLTON: + +"I should have come to see you and told you about my trip to +Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town again. I send this by +Mr. Canton, and also a request to the warden to pass this and your answer +without the customary inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your +stepfather and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing very fast, +and I do not think it would be a kindness for me to conceal from you my +belief that she can not live many weeks. I talked with her and prayed +with her as you requested, but she seems to have some intolerable mental +burden. Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and, indeed, I +never saw a more faithful person than she in my life, or a more +remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a Christian life. She takes +every burden off your mother except that unseen load which seems to +trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the +way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends +the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating +circumstances, and we might be able to help you. + +"But I am writing about everything except what I want to say, or rather +to ask, for I tremble to ask it. Are you interested in any way other +than as a friend in Miss Isabel Marlay? You will guess why I ask the +question. Since I met her I have thought of her a great deal, and I may +add to you that I have anxiously sought divine guidance in a matter +likely to affect the usefulness of my whole life. I will not take a +single step in the direction in which my heart has been so suddenly +drawn, if you have any prior claim, or even the remotest hope of +establishing one in some more favorable time. Far be it from me to add a +straw to the heavy burden you have had to bear. I expect to be in +Metropolisville again soon, and will see your mother once more. Please +answer me with frankness, and believe me, + +"Always your friend, + +J.H. LURTON." + +The intelligence regarding his mother's health was not new to Albert, for +Isa had told him fully of her state. It would be difficult to describe +the feeling of mingled pain and pleasure with which he read Lurton's +confession of his sudden love for Isabel. Nothing since his imprisonment +had so humbled Charlton as the recollection of the mistake he had made in +his estimate of Helen Minorkey, and his preference for her over Isa. He +had lain on his cot sometimes and dreamed of what might have been if he +had escaped prison and had chosen Isabel instead of Helen. He had +pictured to himself the content he might have had with such a woman for a +wife. But then the thought of his disgrace--a disgrace he could not share +with a wife--always dissipated the beautiful vision and made the hard +reality of what was, seem tenfold harder for the ravishing beauty of what +might have been. + +And now the vision of the might-have-been came back to him more clearly +than ever, and he sat a long while with his head leaning on his hand. +Then the struggle passed, and he lighted his little ration of candle, +and wrote: + +"SUNDAY EVENING. + +"REV. J.H. LURTON: + +"DEAR SIR: You have acted very honorably in writing me as you have, and I +admire you now more than ever. You fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I +never had the slightest claim or the slightest purpose to establish any +claim on Isabel Marlay, for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did +not appreciate her until it was too late. And now! What have I to offer +to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A name tarnished forever! +No! I shall never share that with Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best +and most sensible of women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as +you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel. I love you +both. God bless you! + +"Very respectfully and gratefully, CHARLTON." + +Mr. Lurton had staid during the meeting of the ecclesiastical +body--Presbytery, Consociation, Convention, Conference, or what not, it +does not matter--at Squire Plausaby's Albert had written about him, and +Isa, as soon as she heard that he was to attend, had prompted Plausaby to +enter a request with the committee on the entertainment of delegates for +the assignment of Mr. Lurton to him as guest. His peacefulness had not, +as Albert and Isabel hoped, soothed the troubled spirit of Mrs. Plausaby, +who was in a great terror at thought of death. The skillful surgeon +probes before he tries to heal, and Mr. Lurton set himself to find the +cause of all this irritation in the mind of this weak woman. Sometimes +she seemed inclined to tell him all, but it always happened that when she +was just ready to speak, the placid face of Plausaby glided in at the +door. On the appearance of her husband, Mrs. Plausaby would cease +speaking. It took Lurton a long time to discover that Plausaby was the +cause of this restraint. He did discover it, however, and endeavored to +get an interview when there was no one present but Isabel. In trying to +do this, he made a fresh discovery--that Plausaby was standing guard over +his wife, and that the restraint he exercised was intentional. The +mystery of the thing fascinated him; and the impression that it had +something to do with Charlton, and the yet stronger motive of a sense of +duty to the afflicted woman, made him resolute in his determination to +penetrate it. Not more so, however, than was Isabel, who endeavored in +every way to secure an uninterrupted interview for Mr. Lurton, but +endeavored in vain. + +Lurton was thus placed in favorable circumstances to see Miss Marlay's +qualities. Her graceful figure in her simple tasteful, and perfectly +fitting frock, her rhythmical movement, her rare voice, all touched +exquisitely so sensitive a nature as Lurton's. But more than that was he +moved by her diligent management of the household, her unwearying +patience with the querulous and feeble-minded sick woman, her tact and +common-sense, and especially the entire truthfulness of her character. + +Mr. Lurton made excuse to himself for another trip to Metropolisville +that he had business in Perritaut. It was business that might have +waited; it was business that would have waited, but for his desire to +talk further with Mrs. Plausaby, and for his other desire to see and talk +with Isabel Marlay again. For, if he should fail of her, where would he +ever find one so well suited to help the usefulness of his life? Happy is +he whose heart and duty go together! And now that Lurton had found that +Charlton had no first right to Isabel, his worst fear had departed. + +Even in his palpitating excitement about Isa, he was the true minister, +and gave his first thought to the spiritual wants of the afflicted woman +whom he regarded as providentially thrown upon his care. He was so +fortunate as to find Plausaby absent at Perritaut. But how anxiously did +he wait for the time when he could see the sick woman! Even Isa almost +lost her patience with Mrs. Plausaby's characteristic desire to be fixed +up to receive company. She must have her hair brushed and her bed +"tidied," and, when Isabel thought she had concluded everything, Mrs. +Plausaby would insist that all should be undone again and fixed m some +other way. Part of this came from her old habitual vanity, aggravated by +the querulous childishness produced by sickness, and part from a desire +to postpone as long as she could an interview which she greatly dreaded. +Isa knew that time was of the greatest value, and so, when she had +complied with the twentieth unreasonable exaction of the sick woman, and +was just about to hear the twenty-first, she suddenly opened the door of +Mrs. Plausaby's sickroom and invited Mr. Lurton to enter. + +And then began again the old battle--the hardest conflict of all--the +battle with vacillation. To contend with a stubborn will is a simple +problem of force against force. But to contend with a weak and +vacillating will is fighting the air. + +Mrs. Plausaby said she had something to say to Mr. Lurton. But--dear +me--she was so annoyed! The room was not fit for a stranger to see. She +must look like a ghost. There was something that worried her. She was +afraid she was going to die, and she had--did Mr. Lurton think she would +die? Didn't he think she might get well? + +Mr. Lurton had to say that, in his opinion, she could never get well, and +that if there was anything on her mind, she would better tell it. + +Didn't Isa think she could get well? She didn't want to die. But then +Katy was dead. Would she go to heaven if she died? Did Mr. Lurton think +that if she had done wrong, she ought to confess it? Couldn't she be +forgiven without that? Wouldn't he pray for her unless she confessed it? +He ought not to be so hard on her. Would God be hard on her if she did +not tell it all? Oh! she was so miserable! + +Mr. Lurton told her that sometimes people committed sin by refusing to +confess because their confession had something to do with other people. +Was her confession necessary to remove blame from others? + +"Oh!" cried the sick woman, "Albert has told you all about it! Oh, dear! +now I shall have more trouble! Why didn't he wait till I'm dead? Isn't it +enough to have Katy drowned and Albert gone to that awful place and this +trouble? Oh! I wish I was dead! But then--maybe God would be hard on me! +Do you think God would be hard on a woman that did wrong if she was told +to do it? And if she was told to do it by her own husband? And if she had +to do it to save her husband from some awful trouble? There, I nearly +told it. Won't that do?" + +And she turned her head over and affected to be asleep. Mr. Lurton was +now more eager than ever that the whole truth should come out, since he +began to see how important Mrs. Plausaby's communication might be. +Beneath all his sweetness, as I have said, there was much manly firmness, +and he now drew his chair near to the bedside, and began in a tone full +of solemnity, with that sort of quiet resoluteness that a surgeon has +when he decides to use the knife. He was the more resolute because he +knew that if Plausaby returned before the confession should be made, +there would be no possibility of getting it. + +"Mrs. Plausaby," he said, but she affected to be asleep. "Mrs. Plausaby, +suppose a woman, by doing wrong when her husband asks it, brings a great +calamity on the only child she has, locking him in prison and destroying +his good name--" + +"Oh, dear, dear! stop! You'll kill me! I knew Albert had told you. Now I +won't say a word about it. If he has told it, there is no use of my +saying anything," and she covered up her face in a stubborn, childish +petulance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +A CONFESSION. + + +Mr. Lurton wisely left the room. Mrs. Plausaby's fears of death soon +awakened again, and she begged Isa to ask Mr. Lurton to come back. Like +most feeble people, she had a superstitious veneration for ecclesiastical +authority, and now in her weakened condition she had readily got a vague +notion that Lurton held her salvation in his hands, and could modify the +conditions if he would. + +"You aren't a Catholic are you, Mr. Lurton?" + +"No, I am not at all a Catholic." + +"Well, then, what makes you want me to confess?" + +"Because you are adding to your first sin a greater one in wronging your +son by not confessing." + +"Who told you that? Did Albert?" + +"No, you told me as much as that, yourself." + +"Did I? Why, then I might as well tell you all. But why won't that do?" + +"Because, that much would not get Albert out of prison. You don't want to +leave him in penitentiary when you're gone, do you?" + +"Oh, dear! I can't tell. Plausaby won't let me. Maybe I might tell Isa." + +"That will do just as well. Tell Miss Marlay." And Lurton walked out on +the piazza. + +For half an hour Mrs. Plausaby talked to Isa and told her nothing. She +would come face to face with the confession, and then say that she could +not tell it, that Plausaby would do something awful if he knew she had +said so much. + +At last Isabel was tired out with this method, and was desperate at the +thought that Plausaby would return while yet the confession was +incomplete. So she determined to force Mrs. Plausaby to speak. + +"Now, Mrs. Plausaby," she said, "what did Uncle Plausaby say to you that +made you take that letter of Smith Westcott's?" + +"I didn't take it, did I? How do you know? I didn't say so?" + +"You have told me part, and if you tell me the rest I will keep it secret +for the present. If you don't tell me, I shall tell Uncle Plausaby what I +know, and tell him that he must tell me the rest." + +"You wouldn't do that, Isabel? You couldn't do that. Don't do that," +begged the sick woman. + +"Then tell me the truth," she said with sternness. "What made you take +that land-warrant--for you know you did, and you must not tell me a lie +when you're just going to die and go before God." + +"There now, Isa, I knew you would hate me. That's the reason why I can't +tell it. Everybody has been looking so hateful at me ever since I took +the letter, I mean ever since--Oh! I didn't mean anything bad, but you +know I have to do what Plausaby tells me I must do. He's _such_ a man! +And then he was in trouble. There was some old trouble from Pennsylvania. +The men came on here, and made him pay money, all the money he could get, +to keep them from having him put in prison. I don't know what it was all +about, you know, I never could understand about business, but here was +Albert bothering him about money to pay for a warrant, and these men +taking all his money, and here was a trial about some lots that he sold +to that fat man with curly hair, and he was afraid Albert would swear +against him about that and about the county-seat, and so he wanted to get +him away. And there was an awful bother about Katy and Westcott at the +same time. And I wanted a changeable silk dress, and he couldn't get it +for me because all his money was going to the men from Pennsylvania. +But--I can't tell you any more. I'm afraid Plausaby might come. You won't +tell, and you won't hate me, Isa, dear--now, will you? You used to be +good to me, but you won't be good to me any more!" + +"I'll always love you if you only tell me the rest." + +"No, I can't. For you see Plausaby didn't mean any harm, and I didn't +mean any harm. Plausaby wanted Albert to go away so they couldn't get +Albert to swear against him. It was all Albert's fault, you know--he had +such notions. But he was a good boy, and I can't sleep at night now for +seeing him behind a kind of a grate, and he seems to be pointing his +finger at me and saying, 'You put me in here.' But I didn't. That's one +of his notions. It was Plausaby made me do it. And he didn't mean any +harm. He said Westcott would soon be his son-in-law. He had helped +Westcott to get the claim anyhow. It was only borrowing a little from +his own son-in-law. He said that I must get the letter out of the +office when Albert did not see me. He said it would be a big letter, +with 'Red Owl' stamped on it, and that it would be in Mr. Westcott's +box. And he said I must take the land-warrant out and burn up the letter +and the envelope. And then he said I must give the land-warrant to +Albert the next day, and tell him that a man that came up in the stage +brought it from Plausaby. And he said he'd get another and bring it home +with him and give it to Westcott, and make it all right. And that would +keep him out of prison, and get Albert away so he couldn't swear against +him in the suit with the fat man, and then he would be able to get me +the changeable silk that I wanted so much. But things went all wrong +with him since, and I never got the changeable silk, and he said he +would keep Albert out of penitentiary and he didn't, and Albert told me +I musn't tell anybody about taking it myself, for he couldn't bear to +have me go to prison. Now, won't that do? But don't you tell Plausaby. +He looks at me sometimes so awfully. Oh, dear! if I could have told that +before, maybe I wouldn't have died. It's been killing me all the time. +Oh, dear! dear! I wish I was dead, if only I was sure I wouldn't go to +the bad place." + +Isa now acquainted Lurton briefly with the nature of Mrs. Plausaby's +statement, and Lurton knelt by her bedside and turned it into a very +solemn and penitent confession to God, and very trustfully prayed for +forgiveness, and--call it the contagion of Lurton's own faith, if you +will--at any rate, the dying woman felt a sense of relief that the story +was told, and a sense of trust and more peace than she had ever known in +her life. Lurton had led her feeble feet into a place of rest. And he +found joy in thinking that, though his ministry to rude lumbermen and +hardened convicts might be fruitless, he had at least some gifts that +made him a source of strength and consolation to the weak, the +remorseful, the bereaved, and the dying. He stepped out of the door of +the sick-chamber, and there, right before him, was Plausaby, his smooth +face making a vain endeavor to keep its hold upon itself. But Lurton saw +at once that Plausaby had heard the prayer in which he had framed Mrs. +Plausaby's confession to Isa into a solemn and specific confession to +God. I know no sight more pitiful than that of a man who has worn his +face as a mask, when at last the mask is broken and the agony behind +reveals itself. Lurton had a great deal of presence of mind, and if he +did not think much of the official and priestly authority of a minister, +he had a prophet's sense of his moral authority. He looked calmly and +steadily into the eyes of Plausaby, Esq., and the hollow sham, who had +been unshaken till now, quailed; counterfeit serenity could not hold its +head up and look the real in the face. Had Lurton been abashed or nervous +or self-conscious, Plausaby might have assumed an air of indignation at +the minister's meddling. But Lurton had nothing but a serene sense of +having been divinely aided in the performance of a delicate and difficult +duty. He reached out his hand and greeted Plausaby quietly and +courteously and yet solemnly. Isabel, for her part, perceiving that +Plausaby had overheard, did not care to conceal the indignation she felt. +Poor Plausaby, Esq.! the disguise was torn, and he could no longer hide +himself. He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and +essayed to speak, as before, to the minister, of his anxiety about his +poor, dear wife, but he could not do it. Exert himself as he would, the +color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful +consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it, +was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was +indeed broken--the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And +even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same +rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the +gamut in a husky jangling. + +"Mr. Plausaby, let us walk," said Lurton, not affecting in the least to +ignore Plausaby's agitation. They walked in silence through the village +out to the prairie. Plausaby, habitually a sham, tried, to recover his +ground. He said something about his wife's not being quite sane, and was +going to caution Lurton about believing anything Mrs. Plausaby might say. + +"Mr. Plausaby," said Lurton, "is it not better to repent of your sins and +make restitution, than to hide them?" + +Plausaby cleared his throat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, but +he could not trust his voice to say anything. + +It was vain to appeal to Plausaby to repent. He had saturated himself in +falsehood from the beginning. Perhaps, after all, the saturation had +began several generations back, and unhappy Plausaby, born to an +inheritance of falsehood, was to be pitied as well as blamed. He was even +now planning to extort from his vacillating wife a written statement that +should contradict any confession of hers to Isa and Lurton. + +Fly swiftly, pen! For Isa Marlay knew the stake in this game, and she +did not mean that any chance of securing Charlton's release should be +neglected. She knew nothing of legal forms, but she could write a +straight-out statement after a woman's fashion. So she wrote a paper +which read as follows: + +"I do not expect to live long, and I solemnly confess that I took the +land-warrant from Smith Westcott's letter, for which my son Albert +Charlton is now unjustly imprisoned in the penitentiary, and I did it +without the knowledge of Albert, and at the instigation of Thomas +Plausaby, my husband." + +This paper Isa read to Mrs. Plausaby, and that lady, after much +vacillation, signed it with a feeble hand. Then Isabel wrote her own name +as a witness. But she wanted another witness. At this moment Mrs. Ferret +came in, having an instinctive feeling that a second visit from Lurton +boded something worth finding out. Isa took her into Mrs. Plausaby's room +and told her to witness this paper. + +"Well," said pertinacious Mrs. Ferret, "I'll have to know what is in +it, won't I?" + +"No, you only want to know that this is Mrs. Plausaby's signature," and +Isa placed her fingers over the paper in such a way that Mrs. Ferret +could not read it. + +"Did you sign this, Mrs. Plausaby?" + +The sick woman said she did. + +"Do you know what is in it?" + +"Yes, but--but it's a secret." + +"Did you sign it of your own free will, or did Mr. Plausaby make you?" + +"Mr. Plausaby! Oh! don't tell him about it. He'll make such an awful +fuss! But it's true." + +Thus satisfied that it was not a case of domestic despotism, Mrs. Ferret +wrote her peculiar signature, and made a private mark besides. + +And later in the evening Mrs. Plausaby asked Isa to send word to that +nice-looking young woman that Albert loved so much. She said she +supposed he must feel bad about her. She wanted Isa to tell her all +about it. "But not till I'm dead," she added. "Do you think people know +what people say about them after they're dead? And, Isa, when I'm laid +out let me wear my blue merino dress, and do my hair up nice, and put a +bunch of roses in my hand. I wish Plausaby had got that changeable silk. +It would have been better than the blue merino. But you know best. Only +don't forget to tell Albert's girl that he did not do it. But explain it +all so she won't think I'm a--that I did it a-purpose, you know. I +didn't mean to. What makes you look at me that way? Oh, dear! Isa, you +won't ever love me any more!" + +But Isa quieted her by putting her arms around her neck in a way that +made the poor woman cry, and say, "That's just the way Katy used to do. +When I die, Katy'll love me all the same. Won't she? Katy always did love +a body so." Perhaps she felt that Isabel's love was not like Katy's. For +pity is not love, and even Mrs. Plausaby could hardly avoid +distinguishing the spontaneous affection of Katy from this demonstration +of Isa's, which must have cost her some exertion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +DEATH. + + +Mrs. Plausaby grew more feeble. Her remorse and her feeling of the dire +necessity for confessing her sin had sustained her hitherto. But now her +duty was done, she had no longer any mental stimulant. In spite of Isa's +devoted and ingenious kindness, the sensitive vanity of Mrs. Plausaby +detected in every motion evidence that Isa thought of her as a thief. +She somehow got a notion that Mrs. Ferret knew all about it also, and +from her and Mr. Lurton she half-hid her face in the cover. Lurton, +perceiving that his mission to Mrs. Plausaby was ended, returned home, +intending to see Isabel when circumstances should be more favorable. But +the Ferret kept sniffing round after a secret which she knew lay not far +away. Mrs. Plausaby having suddenly grown worse, Isa determined to sit +by her during the night, but Plausaby strenuously objected that this was +unnecessary. The poor woman secretly besought Isa not to leave her alone +with Plausaby, and Isabel positively refused to go away from her +bedside. For the first time Mr. Plausaby spoke harshly to Isa, and for +the first time Isabel treated him with a savage neglect. A housekeeper's +authority is generally supreme in the house, and Isa had gradually come +to be the housekeeper. She sat stubbornly by the dying woman during the +whole night. + +Mr. Plausaby had his course distinctly marked out. In the morning he +watched anxiously for the arrival of his trusted lawyer, Mr. Conger. The +property which he had married with his wife, and which she had derived +from Albert's father, had all been made over to her again to save it from +Plausaby's rather eager creditors. He had spent the preceding day at +Perritaut, whither Mr. Conger had gone to appear in a case as counsel for +Plausaby, for the county-seat had recently returned to its old abode. Mr. +Plausaby intended to have his wife make some kind of a will that would +give him control of the property and yet keep it under shelter. By what +legal fencing this was to be done nobody knows, but it has been often +surmised that Mrs. Plausaby was to leave it to her husband in trust for +the Metropolisville University. Mr. Plausaby had already acquired +experience in the management of trust funds, in the matter of Isa's +patrimony, and it would not be a feat beyond his ability for him to own +his wife's bequest and not to own it at the same time. This was the +easier that territorial codes are generally made for the benefit of +absconding debtors. He had made many fair promises about a final transfer +of this property to Albert and Katy when they should both be of age, but +all that was now forgotten, as it was intended to be. + +Mr. Plausaby was nervous. His easy, self-possessed manner had departed, +and that impenetrable coat of mail being now broken up, he shuddered +whenever the honest, indignant eyes of Miss Marlay looked at him. He +longed for the presence of the bustling, energetic man of law, to keep +him in countenance. + +When the lawyer came, he and Plausaby were closeted for half an hour. +Then Plausaby, Esq., took a walk, and the attorney requested an interview +with Isabel. She came in, stiff, cold, and self-possessed. + +"Miss Marlay," said the lawyer, smiling a little as became a man asking a +favor from a lady, and yet looking out at Isa in a penetrating way from +beneath shadowing eyebrows, "will you have the goodness to tell me the +nature of the paper that Mrs. Plausaby signed yesterday?" + +"Did Mrs. Plausaby sign a paper yesterday?" asked Isabel diplomatically. + +"I have information to that effect. Will you tell me whether that paper +was of the nature of a will or deed or--in short, what was its +character?" + +"I will not tell you anything about it. It is Mrs. Plausaby's secret. I +suppose you get your information from Mrs. Ferret. If she chooses to tell +you the contents, she may." + +"You are a little sharp, Miss Marlay. I understand that Mrs. Ferret does +not know the contents of that paper. As the confidential legal adviser of +Mr. Plausaby and of Mrs. Plausaby, I have a right to ask what the +contents of that paper were." + +"As the confidential legal adviser--" Isa stopped and stammered. She +was about to retort that as confidential legal adviser to Mrs. Plausaby +he might ask that lady herself, but she was afraid of his doing that very +thing; so she stopped short and, because she was confused, grew a little +angry, and told Mr. Conger that he had no right to ask any questions, and +then got up and disdainfully walked out of the room. And the lawyer, left +alone, meditated that women had a way, when they were likely to be +defeated, of getting angry, or pretending to get angry. And you never +could do anything with a woman when she was angry. Or, as Conger framed +it in his mind, a mad dog was easier to handle than a mad woman. + +As the paper signed the day before could not have been legally executed, +Plausaby and his lawyer guessed very readily that it probably did not +relate to property. The next step was an easy one to the client if not to +the lawyer. It must relate to the crime--it was a solution of the +mystery. Plausaby knew well enough that a confession had been made to +Lurton, but he had not suspected that Isabel would go so far as to put it +into writing. The best that could be done was to have Conger frame a +counter-declaration that her confession had been signed under a +misapprehension--had been obtained by coercion, over-persuasion, and so +forth. Plausaby knew that his wife would sign anything if he could +present the matter to her alone. But, to get rid of Isabel Marlay? + +A very coward now in the presence of Isa, he sent the lawyer ahead, while +he followed close behind. + +"Miss Marlay," said Mr. Conger, smiling blandly but speaking with +decision, "it will be necessary for me to speak to Mrs. Plausaby for a +few minutes alone." + +It is curious what an effect a tone of authority has. Isa rose and would +have gone out, but Mrs. Plausaby said, "Don't leave me, don't leave me, +Isa; they want to arrest me, I believe." + +Seeing her advantage, Miss Marlay said, "Mrs. Plausaby wishes me to +stay." + +It was in vain that the lawyer insisted. It was in vain that Mr. Plausaby +stepped forward and told Mrs. Plausaby to ask Isabel to leave the room a +minute. The sick woman only drew the cover over her eyes and held fast +to Isabel's hand and said: "No, no, don't go--Isa, don't go." + +"I will not go till you ask me," said Isa. + +At last, however, Plausaby pushed himself close to his wife and said +something in her ear. She turned pale, and when he asked if she wished +Isabel to go she nodded her head. + +"But I won't go at all now," said Isa stubbornly, "unless you will go out +of the room first. Then, if Mrs. Plausaby tells me that she wishes to see +you and this gentleman without my presence, I shall go." + +Mr. Plausaby drew the attorney into one corner of the room for +consultation. Nothing but the desperateness of his position and the +energetic advice of Mr. Conger could have induced him to take the course +which he now decided upon, for force was not a common resort with him, +and with all his faults, he was a man of much kindness of heart. + +"Isa," he said, "I have always been a father to you. Now you are +conspiring against me. If you do not go out, I shall be under the painful +necessity of putting you out, gently, but by main strength." The old +smile was on his face. He seized her arms, and Isa, seeing how useless +resistance would be, and how much harm excitement might do to the +patient, rose to go. But at that moment, happening to look toward the +bed, she cried out, "Mrs. Plausaby is dying!" and she would not have been +a woman if she could have helped adding, "See what you have done, now!" + +There was nothing Mr. Plausaby wanted less than that his wife should die +at this inconvenient moment. He ran off for the doctor, but poor, weak +Mrs. Plausaby was past signing wills or recantations. + +The next day she died. + +And Isa wrote to Albert: + +"METROPOLISVILLE, May 17th, 1857. + +"MR. CHARLTON: + +"DEAR SIR: Your poor mother died yesterday. She suffered little in body, +and her mind was much more peaceful after her last interview with Mr. +Lurton, which resulted in her making a frank statement of the +circumstances of the land-warrant affair. She afterward had it written +down, and signed it, that it might be used to set you free. She also +asked me to tell Miss Minorkey, and I shall send her a letter by this +mail. I am so glad that your innocence is to be proved at last. I have +said nothing about the statement your mother made to any one except Miss +Minorkey, because I am unwilling to use it without your consent. You have +great reason to be grateful to Mr. Lurton. Ho has shown himself your +friend, indeed. I think him an excellent man. He comforted your mother a +great deal. You had better let me put the writing your mother left, into +his hands. I am sure he will secure your freedom for you. + +"Your mother died without any will, and all the property is yours. +Your father earned it, and I am glad it goes back to its rightful +owner. You will not agree with me, but I believe in a Providence, now, +more than ever. + +"Truly your friend, ISABEL MARLAY." + +The intelligence of his mother's death caused Albert a real sorrow. And +yet he could hardly regret it. Charlton was not conscious of anything but +a filial grief. But the feeling of relief modified his sorrow. + +The letter filled him with a hope of pardon. Now that he could without +danger to his mother seek release from an unjust incarceration, he became +eager to get out. The possibility of release made every hour of +confinement intolerable. + +He experienced a certain dissatisfaction with Isa's letter. She had +always since his imprisonment taken pains to write cordially. He had been +"Dear Mr. Charlton," or "My Dear Mr. Charlton," and sometimes even "My +Dear Friend." Isa was anxious that he should not feel any coldness in her +letters. Now that he was about to be released and would naturally feel +grateful to her, the case was very different. But Albert could not see +why she should be so friendly with him when she had every reason to +believe him guilty, and now that she knew him innocent should freeze him +with a stranger-like coolness. He had resolved to care nothing for her, +and yet here he was anxious for some sign that she cared for him. + +Albert wrote in reply: + +"HOUSE OF BONDAGE, May 20th, 1857. + +"MY DEAR, GOOD FRIEND: The death of my mother has given me a great deal +of sorrow, though it did not surprise me. I remember now how many times +of late years I have given her needless trouble. For whatever mistakes +her personal peculiarities led her into, she was certainly a most +affectionate mother. I can now see, and the reflection causes me much +bitterness, that I might have been more thoughtful of her happiness +without compromising my opinions. How much trouble my self-conceit must +have given her! Your rebuke on this subject has been very fresh in mind +since I heard of her death. And I am feeling lonely, too. Mother and Katy +have gone, and more distant relatives will not care to know an outlaw. + +"If I had not seen Mr. Lurton, I should not have known how much I owe to +your faithful friendship. I doubt not God will reward you. For I, too, am +coming to believe in a Providence! + +"Sometimes I think this prison has done me good. There may be some truth, +after all, in that acrid saying of Mrs. Ferret's about 'sanctified +affliction,' though she _does_ know how to make even truth hateful. I +haven't learned to believe as you and Mr. Lurton would have me, and yet I +have learned not to believe so much in my own infallibility. I have been +a high-church skeptic--I thought as much of my own infallibility as poor +O'Neill in the next cell does of the Pope's. And I suppose I shall always +have a good deal of aggressiveness and uneasiness and all that about +me--I am the same restless man yet, full of projects and of opinions. I +can not be Lurton--I almost wish I could. But I have learned some things. +I am yet very unsettled in my opinions about Christ--sometimes he seems +to be a human manifestation of God, and at other times, when my skeptical +habit comes back, he seems only the divinest of men. But I believe _in_ +him with all my heart, and may be I shall settle down on some definite +opinion after a while. I had a mind to ask Lurton to baptize me the other +day, but I feared he wouldn't do it. All the faith I could profess would +be that I believe enough in Christ to wish to be his disciple. I know Mr. +Lurton wouldn't think that enough. But I don't believe Jesus himself +would refuse me. His immediate followers couldn't have believed much more +than that at first. And I don't think you would refuse me baptism if you +were a minister. + +"Mr. Lurton has kindly offered to endeavor to secure my release, and he +will call on you for that paper. I hope you'll like Lurton as well as +he does you. You are the only woman in the world good enough for him, +and he is the only man fit for you. And if it should ever come to pass +that you and he should be happy together, I shall be too glad to envy +either of you. + +"Do shield the memory of my mother. You know how little she was to blame. +I can not bear that people should talk about her unkindly. She had such a +dread of censure. I think that is what killed her. I am sorry you wrote +to Helen Minorkey. I could not now share my disgrace with a wife; and if +I could marry, _she_ is one of the last I should ever think of seeking. I +do not even care to have her think well of me. + +"As to the property, I am greatly perplexed. Plausaby owned it once +rightfully and legally, and there are innocent creditors who trusted him +on the strength of his possession of it. I wish I did not have the +responsibility of deciding what I ought to do. + +"I have written a long letter. I would write a great deal more if I +thought I could ever express the gratitude I feel to you. But I am going +to be always, + +"Your grateful and faithful friend, + +"ALBERT CHARLTON." + +This letter set Isabel's mind in a whirl of emotions. She sincerely +admired Lurton, but she had never thought of him as a lover. Albert's +gratitude and praises would have made her happy, but his confidence that +she would marry Lurton vexed her. And yet the thought that Lurton might +love her made it hard to keep from dreaming of a new future, brighter +than any she had supposed possible to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +MR. LURTON'S COURTSHIP. + + +After the death of Mrs. Plausaby, Isa had broken at once with her +uncle-in-law, treating him with a wholesome contempt whenever she found +opportunity. She had made many apologies for Plausaby's previous +offenses--this was too much even for her ingenious charity. For want of a +better boarding-place, she had taken up her abode at Mrs. Ferret's, and +had opened a little summer-school in the village schoolhouse. She began +immediately to devise means for securing Charlton's release. Her first +step was to write to Lurton, but she had hardly mailed the letter, when +she received Albert's, announcing that Lurton was coming to see her; and +almost immediately that gentleman himself appeared again in +Metropolisville. He spent the evening in devising with Isa proper means +of laying the evidences of Charlton's innocence before the President in a +way calculated to secure his pardon. Lurton knew two Representatives and +one Senator, and he had hope of being able to interest them in the case. +He would go to Washington himself. Isa thought his offer very generous, +and found in her heart a great admiration for him. Lurton, on his part, +regarded Isabel with more and more wonder and affection. He told her at +last, in a sweet and sincere humility, the burden of his heart. He +confessed his love with a frankness that was very winning, and with a +gentle deference that revealed him to her the man he was--affectionate, +sincere, and unselfish. + +If Isabel had been impulsive, she would have accepted at once, under the +influence of his presence. But she had a wise, practical way of taking +time to think. She endeavored to eliminate entirely the element of +feeling, and see the offer in the light in which it would show itself +after present circumstances had passed. For if Lurton had been a crafty +man, he could not have offered himself at a moment more opportune. Isa +was now homeless, and without a future. If you ask me why, then, she did +not accept Lurton without hesitation, I answer that I can no more explain +this than I can explain all the other paradoxes of love that I see every +day. Was it that he was too perfect? Is it easier for a woman to love a +man than a model? People are not apt to be enamored of monotony, even of +a monotony of goodness. Was it, then, that Isa would have liked a man +whose soul had been a battle-field, rather than one in whom goodness and +faith had had an easy time? Did she feel more sympathy for one who had +fought and overcome, like Charlton, than for one who had never known a +great struggle? Perhaps I have not touched at all upon the real reason +for Isa's hesitation. But she certainly did hesitate. She found it quite +impossible to analyze her own feelings in the matter. The more she +thought about it, the more hopeless her confusion became. + +It is one of the unhappy results produced by some works of religious +biography, that people who copy methods, are prone to copy those not +adapted to their own peculiarities. Isabel, in her extremity of +indecision, remembered that some saint of the latter part of the last +century, whose biography she had read in a Sunday-school library-book, +was wont, when undecided in weighty matters, to write down all the +reasons, _pro_ and _con_, and cipher out a conclusion by striking a +logical balance. It naturally occurred to Isa that what so good and wise +a person had found beneficial, might also prove an assistance to her. So +she wrote down the following: + +"REASONS IN FAVOR. + +"1. Mr. Lurton is one of the most excellent men in the world. I have a +very great respect and a sincere regard for him. If he were my husband, I +do not think I should ever find anything to prevent me loving him. + +"2. The life of a minister's wife would open to me opportunities to do +good. I could at least encourage and sustain him. + +"3. It seems to be providential that the offer should come at this time, +when I am free from all obligations that would interfere with it, and +when I seem to have no other prospect. + +"REASONS AGAINST. + +"1."-- + +But here she stopped. There was nothing to be said against Mr. Lurton, or +against her accepting the offered happiness. She would then lead the +quiet, peaceful life of a village-minister's wife who does her duty to +her husband and her neighbors. Her generous nature found pleasure in the +thought of all the employments that would fill her heart and hands. How +much better it would be to have a home, and to have others to work for, +than to lead the life of a stranger in other people's houses! And then +she blushed, and was happy at the thought that there would be children's +voices in the house--little stockings in the basket on a Saturday +night--there would be the tender cares of the mother. How much better was +such a life than a lonely one! + +It was not until some hours of such thinking--of more castle-building +than the sober-spirited girl had done in her whole life before--that she +became painfully conscious that in all this dreaming of her future as the +friend of the parishioners and the house-mother, Lurton himself was a +figure in the background of her thoughts. He did not excite any +enthusiasm in her heart. She took up her paper; she read over again the +reasons why she ought to love Lurton. But though reason may chain Love +and forbid his going wrong, all the logic in the world can not make him +go where he will not. She had always acted as a most rational creature. +Now, for the first time, she could not make her heart go where she would. +Love in such cases seems held back by intuition, by a logic so high and +fine that its terms can not be stated. Love has a balance-sheet in which +all is invisible except the totals. I have noticed that practical and +matter-of-fact women are most of all likely to be exacting and ideal in +love affairs. Or, is it that this high and ideal way of looking at such +affairs is only another manifestation of practical wisdom? + +Certain it is, that though Isa found it impossible to set down a single +reason for not loving so good a man with the utmost fervor, she found it +equally impossible to love him with any fervor at all. + +Then she fell to pitying Lurton. She could make him happy and help him to +be useful, and she thought she ought to do it. But could she love Lurton +better than she could have loved any other man? Now, I know that most +marriages are not contracted on this basis. It is not given to every one +to receive this saying. I am quite aware that preaching on this subject +would be vain. Comparatively few people can live in this atmosphere. But +_noblesse oblige_--_noblesse_ does more than _oblige_--and Isa Marlay, +against all her habits of acting on practical expediency, could not bring +herself to marry the excellent Lurton without a consciousness of _moral +descending_, while she could not give herself a single satisfactory +reason for feeling so. + +It went hard with Lurton. He had been so sure of divine approval and +guidance that he had not counted failure possible. But at such times the +man of trustful and serene habit has a great advantage. He took the +great disappointment as a needed spiritual discipline; he shouldered +this load as he had carried all smaller burdens, and went on his way +without a murmur. + +Having resigned his Stillwater pastorate from a conviction that his +ministry among red-shirted lumbermen was not a great success, he armed +himself with letters from the warden of the prison and the other +ministers who had served as chaplains, and, above all, with Mrs. +Plausaby's written confession, and set out for Washington. He easily +secured money to defray the expense of the journey from Plausaby, who +held some funds belonging to his wife's estate, and who yielded to a +very gentle pressure from Lurton, knowing how entirely he was in +Lurton's power. + +It is proper to say here that Albert's scrupulous conscience was never +troubled about the settlement of his mother's estate. Plausaby had an old +will, which bequeathed all to him _in fee simple_. He presented it for +probate, and would have succeeded, doubtless, in saving something by +acute juggling with his creditors, but that he heard ominous whispers of +the real solution of the mystery--where they came from he could not tell. +Thinking that Isa was planning his arrest, he suddenly left the country. +He turned up afterwards as president of a Nevada silver-mine company, +which did a large business in stocks but a small one in dividends; and I +have a vague impression that he had something to do with the building of +the Union Pacific Railroad. His creditors made short work of the property +left by Mrs. Plausaby. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +UNBARRED. + + +Lurton was gone six weeks. His letters to Charlton were not very hopeful. +People are slow to believe that a court has made a mistake. + +I who write and you who read get over six weeks as smoothly as we do over +six days. But six weeks in grim, gray, yellowish, unplastered, limestone +walls, that are so thick and so high and so rough that they are always +looking at you in suspicion and with stern threat of resistance! Six +weeks in May and June and July inside such walls, where there is scarcely +a blade of grass, hardly a cool breeze, not even the song of a bird! A +great yard so cursed that the little brown wrens refuse to bless it with +their feet! The sound of machinery and of the hammers of unwilling +toilers, but no mellow voice of robin or chatter of gossiping +chimney-swallows! To Albert they were six weeks of alternate hope and +fear, and of heart-sickness. + +The contractor gave a Fourth-of-July dinner to the convicts. Strawberries +and cream instead of salt pork and potatoes. The guards went out and left +the men alone, and Charlton was called on for a speech. But all eulogies +of liberty died on his lips. He could only talk platitudes, and he could +not say anything with satisfaction to himself. He tossed wakefully all +that night, and was so worn when morning came that he debated whether he +should not ask to be put on the sick-list. + +He was marched to the water-tank as usual, then to breakfast, but he +could not eat. When the men were ordered to work, one of the guards said: + +"Charlton, the warden wants to see you in the office." + +Out through the vestibule of the main building Charlton passed with a +heart full of hope, alternating with fear of a great disappointment. He +noticed, as he passed, how heavy the bolts and bars were, and wondered if +these two doors would ever shut him in again. He walked across the yard, +feeble and faint, and then ascended the long flight of steps which went +up to the office-door. For the office was so arranged as to open out of +the prison and in it also, and was so adapted to the uneven ground as to +be on top of the prison-wail. Panting with excitement, the convict +Charlton stopped at the top of this flight of steps while the guard gave +an alarm, and the door was opened from the office side. Albert could not +refrain from looking back over the prison-yard; he saw every familiar +object again, he passed through the door, and stood face to face with the +firm and kindly Warden Proctor. He saw Lurton standing by the warden, he +was painfully alive to everything; the clerks had ceased to write, and +were looking at him expectantly. + +"Well, Charlton," said the warden kindly, "I am glad to tell you that you +are pardoned. I never was so glad at any man's release." + +"Pardoned?" Charlton had dreamed so much of liberty, that now that +liberty had come he was incredulous. "I am very much obliged to you, Mr. +Proctor," he gasped. + +"That is the man to thank," said the warden, pointing to Lurton. But +Charlton couldn't thank Lurton yet. He took his hand and looked in his +face and then turned away. He wanted to thank everybody--the guard who +conducted him out, and the clerk who was recording the precious pardon in +one of the great books; but, in truth, he could say hardly anything. + +"Come, Charlton, you'll find a change of clothes in the back-room. Can't +let you carry those off!" said the warden. + +Charlton put off the gray with eagerness. Clothes made all the +difference. When once he was dressed like other men, his freedom became a +reality. Then he told everybody good-by, the warden first, and then the +guard, and then the clerks, and he got permission to go back into the +prison, as a visitor, now, and tell the prisoners farewell. + +Then Lurton locked arms with him, and Charlton could hardly keep back the +tears. Human fellowship is so precious to a cleansed leper! And as they +walked away down the sandy street by the shore of Lake St. Croix, +Charlton was trying all the while to remember that walls and grates and +bars and bolts and locks and iron gates and armed guards shut him in no +longer. It seemed so strange that here was come a day in which he did not +have to put up a regular stint of eight vinegar-barrels, with the +privilege of doing one or two more, if he could, for pay. He ate some +breakfast with Lurton. For freedom is a great tonic, and satisfied hopes +help digestion. It is a little prosy to say so, but Lurton's buttered +toast and coffee was more palatable than the prison fare. And Lurton's +face was more cheerful than the dark visage of Ball, the burglar, which +always confronted Charlton at the breakfast-table. + +Charlton was impatient to go back to Metropolisville. For what, he could +hardly say. There was no home there for him, but then he wanted to go +somewhere. It seemed so fine to be able to go anywhere. Bidding Lurton a +grateful adieu, he hurried to St. Paul. The next morning he was booked +for Metropolisville, and climbed up to the driver's seat with the eager +impatience of a boy. + +"Wal, stranger, go tew thunder! I'm glad to see you're able to be aout. +You've ben confined t' the haouse fer some time, I guess, p'r'aps?" + +It was the voice of Whisky Jim that thus greeted Albert. If there was a +half-sneer in the words, there was nothing but cordial friendliness in +the tone and the grasp of the hand. The Superior Being was so delighted +that he could only express his emotions by giving his leaders several +extra slashes with his whip, and by putting on a speed that threatened to +upset the coach. + +"Well, Jim, what's the news?" said Charlton gayly. + +"Nooze? Let me see. Nothin' much. Your father-in-law, or step-father, or +whatever you call him, concluded to cut and run las' week. I s'pose he +calkilated that your gittin' out might leave a vacancy fer him. Thought +he might hev to turn in and do the rest of the ten years' job that's +owin' to Uncle Sam on that land-warrant, eh? I guess you won't find no +money left. 'Twixt him and the creditors and the lawyers and the jedges, +they a'n't nary cent to carry." + +"When did you hear from Gray?" + +"Oh! he was up to Metropolisville las' week. He a'n't so much of a +singster as he wus. Gone to spekilatin'. The St. Paul and Big Gun River +Valley Railroad is a-goin' t' his taown." + +Here the Superior Being stopped talking, and waited to be questioned. + +"Laid off a town, then, has he?" + +"Couldn' help hisself. The Wanosia and Dakota Crossing Road makes a +junction there, and his claim and yourn has doubled in valoo two or +three times." + +"But I suppose mine has been sold under mortgage?" + +"Under mortgage? Not much. Some of your friends jest sejested to Plausaby +he'd better pay two debts of yourn. And he did. He paid Westcott fer the +land-warrant, and he paid Minorkey's mortgage. Ole chap didn't want to be +paid. Cutthroat mortgage, you know. He'd heerd of the railroad junction. +Jemeny! they's five hundred people livin' on Gray's claim, and yourn's +alongside." + +"What does he call his town?" asked Albert. + +Jim brought his whip down smartly on a lazy wheel-horse, crying out: + +"Puck-a-chee! Seechy-do!" (Get out--bad.) For, like most of his class +in Minnesota at that day, the Superior Being had enriched his +vocabulary of slang with divers Indian words. Then, after a pause, he +said: "What does he call it? I believe it's 'Charlton,' or suthin' of +that sort. _Git_ up!" + +Albert was disposed at first to think the name a compliment to himself, +but the more he thought of it, the more clear it became to him that the +worshipful heart of the Poet had meant to preserve the memory of Katy, +over whom he had tried in vain to stand guard. + +Of course part of Driver Jim's information was not new to Albert, but +much of it was, for the Poet's letters had not been explicit in regard to +the increased value of the property, and Charlton had concluded the +claim would go out of his hands anyhow, and had ceased to take any +further interest in it. + +When at last he saw again the familiar balloon-frame houses of +Metropolisville, he grew anxious. How would people receive him? Albert +had always taken more pains to express his opinions dogmatically than to +make friends; and now that the odium of crime attached itself to him, he +felt pretty sure that Metropolisville, where there was neither mother nor +Katy, would offer him no cordial welcome. His heart turned toward Isa +with more warmth than he could have desired, but he feared that any +friendship he might show to Isabel would compromise her. A young woman's +standing is not helped by the friendship of a post-office thief, he +reflected. He could not leave Metropolisville without seeing the best +friend he had; he could not see her without doing her harm. He was +thoroughly vexed that he had rashly put himself in so awkward a dilemma; +he almost wished himself back in St. Paul. + +At last the Superior Being roused his horses into a final dash, and came +rushing up to the door of the "City Hotel" with his usual flourish. + +"Hooray! Howdy! I know'd you'd be along to-night," cried the Poet. "You +see a feller went through our town--I've laid off a town you know--called +it Charlton, arter _her_ you know--they wuz a feller come along +yisterday as said as he'd come on from Washin'ton City weth Preacher +Lurton, and he'd heern him tell as how as Ole Buck--the President I +mean--had ordered you let out. An' I'm _that_ glad! Howdy! You look a +leetle slim, but you'll look peart enough when we git you down to +Charlton, and you see some of your ground wuth fifteen dollar a front +foot! You didn' think I'd ever a gin up po'try long enough to sell lots. +But you see the town wuz named arter _her_ you know--a sorter moniment to +a angel, a kind of po'try that'll keep her name from bein' forgot arter +my varses is gone to nothin'. An' I'm a-layin' myself out to make that +town nice and fit to be named arter her, you know. I didn't think I could +ever stan' it to have so many neighbors a drivin' away all the game. But +I'm a-gittin' used to it." + +Charlton could see that the Inhabitant was greatly improved by his +contact with the practical affairs of life and by human society. The old +half-crazed look had departed from his eyes, and the over-sensitive +nature had found a satisfaction in the standing which the founding of a +town and his improved circumstances had brought him. + +"Don't go in thar!" said Gray as Charlton was about to enter the room +used as office and bar-room for the purpose of registering his name. +"Don't go in thar!" and Gray pulled him back. "Let's go out to supper. +That devilish Smith Wes'cott's in thar, drunk's he kin be, and raisin' +perdition. They turned him off this week fer drinkin' too steady, and +he's tryin' to make a finish of his money and Smith Wes'cott too." + +Charlton and Gray sat down to supper at the long table where the Superior +Being was already drinking his third cup of coffee. The exquisite +privilege of doing as he pleased was a great stimulant to Charlton's +appetite, and knives and forks were the greatest of luxuries. + +"Seems to me," said Jim, as he sat and watched Albert, "seems to me +you a'n't so finicky 'bout vittles as you was. Sheddin' some of yer +idees, maybe." + +"Yes, I think I am." + +"Wal, you see you hed too thick a coat of idees to thrive. I guess a +good curryin' a'n't done you no pertickeler hurt, but blamed ef it didn't +seem mean to me at first. I've cussed about it over and over agin on +every mile 'twixt here and St. Paul. But curryin's healthy. I wish some +other folks as I know could git put through weth a curry-comb as would +peel the hull hide offen 'em." + +This last remark was accompanied by a significant look at the rough board +partition that separated the dining-room from the bar-room. For +Westcott's drunken voice could be heard singing snatches of negro +melodies in a most melancholy tone. + +Somebody in the bar-room mentioned Charlton's name. + +"Got out, did he?" said Westcott in a maudlin tone. "How'd 'e get out? +How'd 'e like it fur's he went? Always liked simple diet, you know. + +"Oh! if I wuz a jail-bird, + With feathers like a crow, +I'd flop around and-- + +"Wat's the rest? Hey? How does that go? Wonder how it feels to be a +thief? He! he! he!" + +Somehow the voice and the words irritated Albert beyond endurance. He +lost his relish for supper and went out on the piazza. + +"Git's riled dreffle easy," said Jim as Charlton disappeared. "Fellers +weth idees does. I hope he'll gin Wes'cott another thrashin'." + +"He's powerful techy," said the Poet. "Kinder curus, though. I wanted to +salivate Wes'cott wunst, and he throwed my pistol into the lake." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +ISABEL. + + +What to do about going to see Isabel? + +Albert knew perfectly well that he would be obliged to visit her. Isa had +no doubt heard of his arrival before this time. The whole village must +know it, for there was a succession of people who came on the hotel +piazza to shake hands with him. Some came from friendliness, some from +curiosity, but none remained long in conversation with him. For in truth +conversation was quite embarrassing under the circumstances. You can not +ask your acquaintance, "How have you been?" when his face is yet pale +from confinement in a prison; you can not inquire how he liked Stillwater +or Sing Sing, when he must have disliked what he saw of Stillwater or +Sing Sing. One or two of the villagers asked Albert how he had "got +along," and then blushed when they remembered that he couldn't have "got +along" at all. Most of them asked him if Metropolisville had "grown any" +since he left, and whether or not he meant to stay and set up here, and +then floundered a little and left him. For most people talk by routine. +Whatever may be thought of development from monkeys, it does seem that a +strong case might be made out in favor of a descent from parrots. + +Charlton knew that he must go to see Isa, and that the whole village +would know where he had gone, and that it would give Isa trouble, maybe. +He wanted to see Isa more than he wanted anything else in the world, but +then he dreaded to see her. She had pitied him and helped him in his +trouble, but her letters had something of constraint in them. He +remembered how she had always mingled the friendliness of her treatment +with something of reserve and coolness. He did not care much for this in +other times. But now he found in himself such a hungering for something +more from Isa, that he feared the effect of her cool dignity. He had +braced himself against being betrayed into an affection for Isabel. He +must not allow himself to become interested in her. As an honorable man +he could not marry her, of course. But he would see her and thank her. +Then if she should give him a few kind words he would cherish them as a +comforting memory in all the loneliness of following years. He felt sorry +for himself, and he granted to himself just so much indulgence. + +Between his fear of compromising Isa and his feeling that on every +account he must see her, his dread of meeting her and his desire to talk +with her, he was in a state of compound excitement when he rose from his +seat on the piazza of the City Hotel, and started down Plausaby street +toward the house of Mrs. Ferret. He had noticed some women going to the +weekly prayer-meeting, and half-hoped, but feared more than he hoped, +that Isabel should have gone to meeting also. He knew how constant and +regular she was in the performance of religious duties. + +But Isa for once had staid at home. And had received from Mrs. Ferret a +caustic lecture on the sin of neglecting her duty for the sake of +anybody. Mrs. Ferret was afterward sorry she had said anything, for she +herself wanted to stay to gratify her curiosity. But Isabel did not mind +the rebuke. She put some petunias on the mantel-piece and some grasses +over the looking-glass, and then tried to read, but the book was not +interesting. She was alarmed at her own excitement; she planned how she +would treat Albert with mingled cordiality and reserve, and thus preserve +her own dignity; she went through a mental rehearsal of the meeting two +or three times--in truth, she was just going over it the fourth time +when Charlton stood between the morning-glory vines on the doorstep. And +when she saw his face pale with suffering, she forgot all about the +rehearsal, and shook his hand with sisterly heartiness--the word +"sisterly" came to her mind most opportunely--and looked at him with the +utmost gladness, and sat him down by the window, and sat down facing him. +For the first time since Katy's death he was happy. He thought himself +entitled to one hour of happiness after all that he had endured. + +When Mrs. Ferret came home from prayer-meeting she entered by the +back-gate, and judiciously stood for some time looking in at the window. +Charlton was telling Isa something about his imprisonment, and Mrs. +Ferret, listening to the tones of his voice and seeing the light in Isa's +eyes, shook her head, and said to herself that it was scandalous for a +Chrischen girl to act in such a way. + +If the warmth of feeling shown in the interview between Albert and Isa +had anything improper in it under the circumstances, Mrs. Ferret knew how +to destroy it. She projected her iceberg presence into the room and froze +them both. + +Albert had many misgivings that night. He felt that he had not acted +with proper self-control in his interview with Isabel. And just in +proportion to his growing love for Isa did he chafe with the bitterness +of the undeserved disgrace that must be an insurmountable barrier to his +possessing her. How should he venture to hope that a woman who had +refused Lurton, should be willing to marry him? And to marry his +dishonor besides? + +He lay thus debating what he should do, sometimes almost resolved to +renounce his scruples and endeavor to win Isa, sometimes bravely +determined to leave with Gray in the morning, never to come back to +Metropolisville again. Sleep was not encouraged by the fact that Westcott +occupied the bed on the other side of a thin board partition. He could +hear him in that pitiful state of half-delirium that so often succeeds a +spree, and that just touches upon the verge of _mania-ŕ-potu._ + +"So he's out, is he?" Charlton heard him say. "How the devil did he get +out? Must a swum out, by George! That's the only way. Now her face is +goin' to come. Always does come when I feel this way. There she is! Go +'way! What do you want? What do you look at me for? What makes you look +that way? I can't help it. I didn't drown you. I had to get out some way. +What do you call Albert for? Albert's gone to penitentiary. He can't save +you. Don't look that way! If you're goin' to drown, why don't you do it +and be done with it? Hey? You will keep bobbin' up and down there all +night and staring at me like the devil all the time! I couldn't help it. +I didn't want to shake you off. I would 'ave gone down myself if I +hadn't. There now, let go! Pullin' me down again! Let go! If you don't +let go, Katy, I'll have to shake you off. I couldn't help it. What made +you love me so? You needn't have been a fool. Why didn't somebody tell +you about Nelly? If you'd heard about Nelly, you wouldn't have--oh! the +devil! I knew it! There's Nelly's face coming. That's the worst of all. +What does _she_ come for? She a'n't dead. Here, somebody! I want a match! +Bring me a light!" + +Whatever anger Albert may have had toward the poor fellow was all turned +into pity after this night. Charlton felt as though he had been listening +to the plaints of a damned soul, and moralized that it were better to go +to prison for life than to carry about such memories as haunted the +dreams of Westcott. And he felt that to allow his own attachment to Isa +Marlay to lead to a marriage would involve him in guilt and entail a +lifelong remorse. He must not bring his dishonor upon her. He determined +to rise early and go over to Gray's new town, sell off his property, and +then leave the Territory. But the Inhabitant was to leave at six o'clock, +and Charlton, after his wakeful night, sank into a deep sleep at +daybreak, and did not wake until half-past eight. When he came down to +breakfast, Gray had been gone two hours and a half. + +He sat around during the forenoon irresolute and of course unhappy. After +a while decision came to him in the person of Mrs. Ferret, who called and +asked for a private interview. + +Albert led her into the parlor, for the parlor was always private enough +on a pleasant day. Nobody cared to keep the company of a rusty box stove, +a tattered hair-cloth sofa, six wooden chairs, and a discordant tinny +piano-forte, when the weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or +to walk on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of associations of +the days in which he had studied botany with Helen Minorkey. And the +bitter memory of the mistakes of the year before, was a perpetual check +to his self-confidence now. So that he prepared himself to listen with +meekness even to Mrs. Ferret. + +"Mr. Charlton, do you think you're acting just right--just as you would +be done by--in paying attentions to Miss Marlay when you are just out +of--of--the--penitentiary?" + +Albert was angered by her way of putting it, and came near telling her +that it was none of her business. But his conscience was on Mrs. +Ferret's side. + +"I haven't paid any special attention to Miss Marlay. I called to see her +as an old friend." Charlton spoke with some irritation, the more that he +knew all the while he was not speaking with candor. + +"Well, now, Mr. Charlton, how would you have liked to have your sister +marry a man just out of--well, just--just as you are, just out of +penitentiary, you know? I have heard remarks already about Miss +Marlay--that she had refused a very excellent and talented preacher of +the Gospill--you know who I mean--and was about to take up with--well, +you know how people talk--with a man just out of the--out of the +penitentiary--you know. A _jail-bird_ is what they said. You know people +will talk. And Miss Marlay is under my care, and I must do my duty as a +Chrischen to her. And I know she thinks a great deal of you, and I don't +think it would be right, you know, for you to try to marry her. You know +the Scripcherr says that we must do as we'd be done by; and I wouldn't +want a daughter of mine to marry a young man just--well--just out +of--the--just out of the penitentiary, you know." + +"Mrs. Ferret, I think this whole talk impertinent. Miss Marlay is not at +all under your care, I have not proposed marriage to her, she is an old +friend who was very kind to my mother and to me, and there is no harm in +my seeing her when I please." + +"Well, Mr. Charlton, I know your temper is bad, and I expected you'd talk +insultingly to me, but I've done my duty and cleared my skirts, anyhow, +and that's a comfort. A Chrischen must expect to be persecuted in the +discharge of duty. You may talk about old friendships, and all that; but +there's nothing so dangerous as friendship. Don't I know? Half the +marriages that oughtn't to be, come from friendships. Whenever you see a +friendship between a young man and a young woman, look out for a wedding. +And I don't think you ought to ask Isabel to marry you, and you just out +of--just--you know--out of the--the penitentiary." + +When Mrs. Ferret had gone, Albert found that while her words had rasped +him, they had also made a deep impression on him. He was, then, a +jail-bird in the eyes of Metropolisville--of the world. He must not +compromise Isa by a single additional visit. He could not trust himself +to see her again. The struggle was not fought out easily. But at last he +wrote a letter: + +"MY DEAR MISS MARLAY: I find that I can not even visit you without +causing remarks to be made, which reflect on you. I can not stay here +without wishing to enjoy your society, and you can not receive the visits +of a 'jail-bird,' as they call me, without disgrace. I owe everything to +you, and it would be ungrateful, indeed, in me to be a source of +affliction and dishonor to you. I never regretted my disgrace so much as +since I talked with you last night. If I could shake that off, I might +hope for a great happiness, perhaps. + +"I am going to Gray's Village to-morrow. I shall close up my business, +and go away somewhere, though I would much rather stay here and live down +my disgrace. I shall remember your kindness with a full heart, and if I +can ever serve you, all I have shall be yours--I would be wholly yours +now, if I could offer myself without dishonoring you, and you would +accept me. Good-by, and may God bless you. + +"Your most grateful friend, ALBERT CHARLTON." + +The words about offering himself, in the next to the last sentence, +Albert wrote with hesitation, and then concluded that he would better +erase them, as he did not mean to give any place to his feelings. He drew +his pen through them, taking pains to leave the sentence entirely legible +beneath the canceling stroke. Such tricks does inclination play with the +sternest resolves! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE LAST. + + +The letter was deposited at the post-office immediately. Charlton did not +dare give his self-denying resolution time to cool. + +Isa was not looking for letters, and Mrs. Ferret ventured to hint that +the chance of meeting somebody on the street had something to do with her +walk. Of course Miss Marlay was insulted. No woman would ever do such a +thing. Consciously, at least. + +And after reading Charlton's letter, what did Isa do? What could she do? +A woman may not move in such a case. Her whole future happiness may drift +to wreck by somebody's mistake, and she may not reach a hand to arrest +it. What she does must be done by indirection and under disguise. It is a +way society has of training women to be candid. + +The first feeling which Isa had was a sudden shock of surprise. She was +not so much astonished at the revelation of Charlton's feeling as at the +discovery of her own. With Albert's abrupt going away, all her heart and +hope seemed to be going too. She had believed her interest in Charlton to +be disinterested until this moment. It was not until he proposed going +away entirely that she came to understand how completely that interest +had changed its character. + +But what could she do? Nothing at all. She was a woman. + +As evening drew on, Charlton felt more and more the bitterness of the +self-denial he had imposed upon himself. He inwardly abused Mrs. Ferret +for meddling. He began to hope for all sorts of impossible accidents that +might release him from his duty in the case. Just after dark he walked +out. Of course he did not want to meet Miss Marlay--his mind was made +up--he would not walk down Plausaby street--at least not so far as Mrs. +Ferret's house. There could be no possible harm in his going half-way +there. Love is always going half-way, and then splitting the difference +on the remainder. Isa, on her part, remembered a little errand she must +attend to at the store. She felt that, after a day of excitement, she +needed the air, though indeed she did not want to meet Charlton any more, +if he had made up his mind not to see her. And so they walked right up to +one another, as lovers do when they have firmly resolved to keep apart. + +"Good-evening, Isabel," said Albert. He had not called her Isabel before. +It was a sort of involuntary freedom which he allowed himself--this was +to be the very last interview. + +"Good-evening--Albert." Isa could not refuse to treat him with +sisterly freedom--now that she was going to bid him adieu forever. "You +were going away without so much as saying good-by." + +"One doesn't like to be the cause of unpleasant remarks about one's best +friend," said Charlton. + +"But what if your best friend doesn't care a fig for anybody's remarks," +said Isabel energetically. + +"How?" asked Albert. It was a senseless interrogatory, but Isa's words +almost took his breath. + +Isa was startled at having said so much, and only replied indistinctly +that it didn't matter what people said. + +"Yes, but you don't know how long such things might cleave to you. Ten +years hence it might be said that you had been the friend of a man who +was--in--the penitentiary." Charlton presented objections for the sake of +having them refuted. + +"And I wouldn't care any more ten years hence than I do now. Were you +going to our house? Shall I walk back with you?" + +"I don't know." Charlton felt his good resolutions departing. "I started +out because I wanted to see the lake where Katy was drowned before I go +away. I am ever so glad that I met you, if I do not compromise you. I +would rather spend this evening in your company than in any other way in +the world--" Albert hadn't meant to say so much, but he couldn't +recall it when it was uttered--"but I feel that I should be selfish to +bring reproach on you for my own enjoyment." + +"All right, then," said Isa, laughing, "I'll take the responsibility. I +am going to the lake with you if you don't object." + +"You are the bravest woman in the world," said Albert with effusion. + +"You forget how brave a man you have shown yourself." + +I am afraid this strain of talk was not at all favorable to the strength +and persistence of Charlton's resolution, which, indeed, was by this time +sadly weakened. + +After they had spent an hour upon the knoll looking out upon the lake, +and talking of the past, and diligently avoiding all mention of the +future, Charlton summoned courage to allude to his departure in a voice +more full of love than of resolve. + +"Why do you go, Albert?" Isa said, looking down and breaking a weed with +the toe of her boot. They had called each other by their Christian names +during the whole interview. + +"Simply for the sake of your happiness, Isa. It makes me miserable +enough, I am sure." Charlton spoke as pathetically as he could. + +"But suppose I tell you that your going will make me as wretched as it +can make you. What then?" + +"How? It certainly would be unmanly for me to ask you to share my +disgrace. A poor way of showing my love. I love you well enough to do +anything in the world to make you happy." + +Isa looked down a moment and began to speak, but stopped. + +"Well, what?" said Albert. + +"May I decide what will make me happy? Am I capable of judging?" + +Albert looked foolish, and said, "Yes," with some eagerness. He was more +than ever willing to have somebody else decide for him. + +"Then I tell you, Albert, that if you go away you will sacrifice my +happiness along with your own." + + * * * * * + +It was a real merry party that met at a _petit souper_ at nine o'clock +in the evening in the dining-room of the City Hotel some months later. +There was Lurton, now pastor in Perritaut, who had just given his +blessing on the marriage of his friends, and who sat at the head of the +table and said grace. There were Albert and Isabel Charlton, bridegroom +and bride. There was Gray, the Hoosier Poet, with a poem of nine verses +for the occasion. + +"I'm sorry the stage is late," said Albert. "I wanted Jim." One likes to +have all of one's best friends on such an occasion. + +Just then the coach rattled up to the door, and Albert went out and +brought in the Superior Being. + +"Now, we are all here," said Charlton. "I had to ask Mrs. Ferret, and I +was afraid she'd come." + +"Not her!" said Jim. + +"Why?" + +"She kin do better." + +"How?" + +"She staid to meet her beloved." + +"Who's that?" + +"Dave." Jim didn't like to give any more information than would serve to +answer a question. He liked to be pumped. + +"Dave Sawney?" + +"The same. He told me to-day as him and the widder owned claims as +'jined, and they'd made up their minds to jine too. And then he +haw-haw'd tell you could a-heerd him a mile. By the way, it's the widder +that's let the cat out of the bag." + +"What cat out of what bag?" asked Lurton. + +"Why, how Mr. Charlton come to go to the State boardin'-house fer takin' +a land-warrant he didn' take." + +"How _did_ she find out?" said Isa. Her voice seemed to be purer and +sweeter than ever--happiness had tuned it. + +"By list'nin' at the key-hole," said Jim. + +"When? What key-hole?" + +"When Mr. Lurton and Miss Marlay--I beg your pard'n, Mrs. Charlton--was +a-talkin' about haow to git Mr. Charlton out." + +"Be careful," said Lurton. "You shouldn't make such a charge unless you +have authority." + +Jim looked at Lurton a moment indignantly. "Thunder and lightnin'," he +said, "Dave tole me so hisself! Said _she_ tole him. And Dave larfed +over it, and thought it 'powerful cute' in her, as he said in his +Hoosier lingo;" and Jim accompanied this last remark with a patronizing +look at Gray. + +"Charlton, what are you thinking about?" asked Lurton when +conversation flagged. + +"One year ago to-day I was sentenced, and one year ago to-morrow I +started to Stillwater." + +"Bully!" said Jim. "I beg yer pardon, Mrs. Charlton, I couldn't help it. +A body likes to see the wheel turn round right. Ef 'twould on'y put some +folks _in_ as well _as_ turn some a-out!" + +When Charlton with his bride started in a sleigh the next morning to his +new home on his property in the village of "Charlton" a crowd had +gathered about the door, moved partly by that curiosity which always +interests itself in newly-married people, and partly by an exciting rumor +that Charlton was not guilty of the offense for which he had been +imprisoned. Mrs. Ferret had told the story to everybody, exacting from +each one a pledge of secrecy. Just as Albert started his horses, Whisky +Jim, on top of his stage-box, called out to the crowd, "Three cheers, by +thunder!" and they were given heartily. It was the popular acquittal. + + + + +WORDS AFTERWARDS. + +Metropolisville is only a memory now. The collapse of the land-bubble and +the opening of railroads destroyed it. Most of the buildings were removed +to a neighboring railway station. Not only has Metropolisville gone, but +the unsettled state of society in which it grew has likewise +disappeared--the land-sharks, the claim speculators, the +town-proprietors, the trappers, and the stage-drivers have emigrated or +have undergone metamorphosis. The wild excitement of '56 is a tradition +hardly credible to those who did not feel its fever. But the most +evanescent things may impress themselves on human beings, and in the +results which they thus produce become immortal. There is a last page to +all our works, but to the history of the ever-unfolding human spirit no +one will ever write. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Metropolisville, by Edward Eggleston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE *** + +***** This file should be named 12195-8.txt or 12195-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12195/ + +Produced by John Hagerson, Rick Niles, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +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. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/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 + + diff --git a/old/12195-8.zip b/old/12195-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f33c72a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12195-8.zip diff --git a/old/12195.txt b/old/12195.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd5fbca --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12195.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8663 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Metropolisville, by Edward Eggleston + +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: The Mystery of Metropolisville + +Author: Edward Eggleston + +Release Date: April 29, 2004 [EBook #12195] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE *** + + + + +Produced by John Hagerson, Rick Niles, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE + + BY EDWARD EGGLESTON + + AUTHOR OF "THE HOOGLEE SCHOOL-MASTER," "THE END OF THE WORLD," ETC + + 1888 + + + + +TO ONE WHO KNOWS WITH ME A LOVE-STORY, NOW MORE THAN FIFTEEN YEARS IN +LENGTH, AND BETTER A HUNDREDFOLD THAN ANY I SHALL EVER BE ABLE TO WRITE, +THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED, ON AN ANNIVERSARY. + +MARCH 18TH, 1873. + + + + +PREFACE. + + +A novel should be the truest of books. It partakes in a certain sense of +the nature of both history and art. It needs to be true to human nature +in its permanent and essential qualities, and it should truthfully +represent some specific and temporary manifestation of human nature: that +is, some form of society. It has been objected that I have copied life +too closely, but it seems to me that the work to be done just now, is to +represent the forms and spirit of our own life, and thus free ourselves +from habitual imitation of that which is foreign. I have wished to make +my stories of value as a contribution to the history of civilization in +America. If it be urged that this is not the highest function, I reply +that it is just now the most necessary function of this kind of +literature. Of the value of these stories as works of art, others must +judge; but I shall have the satisfaction of knowing that I have at least +rendered one substantial though humble service to our literature, if I +have portrayed correctly certain forms of American life and manners. + +BROOKLYN, March, 1873. + + + + +CONTENTS. + +PREFACE + +WORDS BEFOREHAND + + CHAPTER I. The Autocrat of the Stage-Coach + + CHAPTER II. The Sod Tavern + + CHAPTER III. Land and Love + + CHAPTER IV. Albert and Katy + + CHAPTER V. Corner Lots + + CHAPTER VI. Little Katy's Lover + + CHAPTER VII. Catching and Getting Caught + + CHAPTER VIII. Isabel Marlay + + CHAPTER IX. Lovers and Lovers + + CHAPTER X. Plausaby, Esq., takes a Fatherly Interest + + CHAPTER XI. About Several Things + + CHAPTER XII. An Adventure + + CHAPTER XIII. A Shelter + + CHAPTER XIV. The Inhabitant + + CHAPTER XV. An Episode + + CHAPTER XVI. The Return + + CHAPTER XVII. Sawney and his Old Love + + CHAPTER XVIII. A Collision + + CHAPTER XIX. Standing Guard in Vain + + CHAPTER XX. Sawney and Westcott + + CHAPTER XXI. Rowing + + CHAPTER XXII. Sailing + + CHAPTER XXIII. Sinking + + CHAPTER XXIV. Dragging + + CHAPTER XXV. Afterwards + + CHAPTER XXVI. The Mystery + + CHAPTER XXVII. The Arrest + + CHAPTER XXVIII. The Tempter + + CHAPTER XXIX. The Trial + + CHAPTER XXX. The Penitentiary + + CHAPTER XXXI. Mr. Lurton + + CHAPTER XXXII. A Confession + + CHAPTER XXXIII. Death + + CHAPTER XXXIV. Mr. Lurton's Courtship + + CHAPTER XXXV. Unbarred + + CHAPTER XXXVI. Isabel + + CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last + +WORDS AFTERWARDS + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS BY FRANK BEARD + + +The Superior Being + +Mr. Minorkey and the Fat Gentleman + +Plausaby sells Lots + +"By George! He! he! he!" + +Mrs. Plausaby + +The Inhabitant + +A Pinch of Snuff + +Mrs. Ferret + +One Savage Blow full in the Face + +"What on Airth's the Matter?" + +His Unselfish Love found a Melancholy Recompense + +The Editor of "The Windmill" + +"Git up and Foller!" + + + + +THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE. + + + + +WORDS BEFOREHAND. + + +Metropolisville is nothing but a memory now. If Jonah's gourd had not +been a little too much used already, it would serve an excellent turn +just here in the way of an apt figure of speech illustrating the growth, +the wilting, and the withering of Metropolisville. The last time I saw +the place the grass grew green where once stood the City Hall, the +corn-stalks waved their banners on the very site of the old store--I ask +pardon, the "Emporium"--of Jackson, Jones & Co., and what had been the +square, staring white court-house--not a Temple but a Barn of +Justice--had long since fallen to base uses. The walls which had echoed +with forensic grandiloquence were now forced to hear only the bleating of +silly sheep. The church, the school-house, and the City Hotel had been +moved away bodily. The village grew, as hundreds of other frontier +villages had grown, in the flush times; it died, as so many others died, +of the financial crash which was the inevitable sequel and retribution +of speculative madness. Its history resembles the history of other +Western towns of the sort so strongly, that I should not take the trouble +to write about it, nor ask you to take the trouble to read about it, if +the history of the town did not involve also the history of certain human +lives--of a tragedy that touched deeply more than one soul. And what is +history worth but for its human interest? The history of Athens is not of +value on account of its temples and statues, but on account of its men +and women. And though the "Main street" of Metropolisville is now a +country road where the dog-fennel blooms almost undisturbed by comers and +goers, though the plowshare remorselessly turns over the earth in places +where corner lots were once sold for a hundred dollars the front foot, +and though the lot once sacredly set apart (on the map) as "Depot Ground" +is now nothing but a potato-patch, yet there are hearts on which the +brief history of Metropolisville has left traces ineffaceable by sunshine +or storm, in time or eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +THE AUTOCRAT OF THE STAGECOACH. + + +"Git up!" + +No leader of a cavalry charge ever put more authority into his tones than +did Whisky Jim, as he drew the lines over his four bay horses in the +streets of Red Owl Landing, a village two years old, boasting three +thousand inhabitants, and a certain prospect of having four thousand a +month later. + +Even ministers, poets, and writers of unworldly romances are sometimes +influenced by mercenary considerations. But stage-drivers are entirely +consecrated to their high calling. Here was Whisky Jim, in the very +streets of Red Owl, in the spring of the year 1856, when money was worth +five and six per cent a month on bond and mortgage, when corner lots +doubled in value over night, when everybody was frantically trying to +swindle everybody else--here was Whisky Jim, with the infatuation of a +life-long devotion to horse-flesh, utterly oblivious to the chances of +robbing green emigrants which a season of speculation affords. He was +secure from the infection. You might have shown him a gold-mine under the +very feet of his wheel-horses, and he could not have worked it +twenty-four hours. He had an itching palm, which could be satisfied with +nothing but the "ribbons" drawn over the backs of a four-in-hand. + +"_Git_ up!" + +The coach moved away--slowly at first--from the front door of the large, +rectangular, unpainted Red Owl Hotel, dragging its wheels heavily through +the soft turf of a Main street from which the cotton-wood trees had been +cut down, but in which the stumps were still standing, and which remained +as innocent of all pavement as when, three years before, the chief whose +name it bore, loaded his worldly goods upon the back of his oldest and +ugliest wife, slung his gun over his shoulder, and started mournfully +away from the home of his fathers, which he, shiftless fellow, had +bargained away to the white man for an annuity of powder and blankets, +and a little money, to be quickly spent for whisky. And yet, I might add +digressively, there is comfort in the saddest situations. Even the +venerable Red Owl bidding adieu to the home of his ancestors found solace +in the sweet hope of returning under favorable circumstances to scalp the +white man's wife and children. + +"Git up, thair! G'lang!" The long whip swung round and cracked +threateningly over the haunches of the leaders, making them start +suddenly as the coach went round a corner and dipped into a hole at the +same instant, nearly throwing the driver, and the passenger who was +enjoying the outride with him, from their seats. + +"What a hole!" said the passenger, a studious-looking young man, with an +entomologist's tin collecting-box slung over his shoulders. + +The driver drew a long breath, moistened his lips, and said in a cool and +aggravatingly deliberate fashion: + +"That air blamed pollywog puddle sold las' week fer tew thaousand." + +[Illustration: THE SUPERIOR BEING.] + +"Dollars?" asked the young man. + +Jim gave him an annihilating look, and queried: "Didn' think I meant tew +thaousand acorns, did ye?" + +"It's an awful price," said the abashed passenger, speaking as one might +in the presence of a superior being. + +Jim was silent awhile, and then resumed in the same slow tone, but with +something of condescension mixed with it: + +"Think so, do ye? Mebbe so, stranger. Fool what bought that tadpole lake +done middlin' well in disposin' of it, how-sumdever." + +Here the Superior Being came to a dead pause, and waited to be +questioned. + +"How's that?" asked the young man. + +After a proper interval of meditation, Jim said: "Sol' it this week. Tuck +jest twice what he invested in his frog-fishery." + +"Four thousand?" said the passenger with an inquisitive and surprised +rising inflection. + +"Hey?" said Jim, looking at him solemnly. "Tew times tew use to be four +when I larnt the rewl of three in old Varmount. Mebbe 'taint so in the +country you come from, where they call a pail a bucket." + +The passenger kept still awhile. The manner of the Superior Being chilled +him a little. But Whisky Jim graciously broke the silence himself. + +"Sell nex' week fer six." + +The young man's mind had already left the subject under discussion, and +it took some little effort of recollection to bring it back. + +"How long will it keep on going up?" he asked. + +"Tell it teches the top. Come daown then like a spile-driver in a hurry. +Higher it goes, the wuss it'll mash anybody what happens to stan' +percisely under it." + +"When will it reach the top?" + +The Superior Being turned his eyes full upon the student, who blushed a +little under the half-sneer of his look. + +"Yaou tell! Thunder, stranger, that's jest what everybody'd pay money tew +find out. Everybody means to git aout in time, but--thunder!--every piece +of perrary in this territory's a deadfall. Somebody'll git catched in +every one of them air traps. Gee up! G'lang! _Git_ up, won't you? Hey?" +And this last sentence was ornamented with another magnificent +writing-master flourish of the whip-lash, and emphasized by an explosive +crack at the end, which started the four horses off in a swinging gallop, +from which Jim did not allow them to settle back into a walk until they +had reached the high prairie land in the rear of the town. + +"What are those people living in tents for?" asked the student as he +pointed back to Red Owl, now considerably below them, and which presented +a panorama of balloon-frame houses, mostly innocent of paint, with a +sprinkling of tents pitched here and there among the trees; on lots not +yet redeemed from virgin wildness, but which possessed the remarkable +quality of "fetching" prices that would have done honor to well-located +land in Philadelphia. + +"What they live that a-way fer? Hey? Mos'ly 'cause they can't live no +other." Then, after a long pause, the Superior Being resumed in a tone of +half-soliloquy: "A'n't a bed nur a board in the hull city of Red Owl to +be had for payin' nur coaxin'. Beds is aces. Houses is trumps. Landlords +is got high, low, Jack, and the game in ther hands. Looky there! A +bran-new lot of fools fresh from the factory." And he pointed to the old +steamboat "Ben Bolt," which was just coming up to the landing with deck +and guards black with eager immigrants of all classes. + +But Albert Charlton, the student, did not look back any longer. It marks +an epoch in a man's life when he first catches sight of a prairie +landscape, especially if that landscape be one of those great rolling +ones to be seen nowhere so well as in Minnesota. Charlton had crossed +Illinois from Chicago to Dunleith in the night-time, and so had missed +the flat prairies. His sense of sublimity was keen, and, besides his +natural love for such scenes, he had a hobbyist passion for virgin nature +superadded. + +"What a magnificent country!" he cried. + +"Talkin' sense!" muttered Jim. "Never seed so good a place fer stagin' +in my day." + +For every man sees through his own eyes. To the emigrants whose white-top +"prairie schooners" wound slowly along the road, these grass-grown hills +and those far-away meadowy valleys were only so many places where good +farms could be opened without the trouble of cutting off the trees. It +was not landscape, but simply land where one might raise thirty or forty +bushels of spring wheat to the acre, without any danger of "fevernager;" +to the keen-witted speculator looking sharply after corner stakes, at a +little distance from the road, it was just so many quarter sections, +"eighties," and "forties," to be bought low and sold high whenever +opportunity offered; to Jim it was a good country for staging, except a +few "blamed sloughs where the bottom had fell out." But the enthusiastic +eyes of young Albert Charlton despised all sordid and "culinary uses" of +the earth; to him this limitless vista of waving wild grass, these green +meadows and treeless hills dotted everywhere with purple and yellow +flowers, was a sight of Nature in her noblest mood. Such rolling hills +behind hills! If those _rolls_ could be called hills! After an hour the +coach had gradually ascended to the summit of the "divide" between Purple +River on the one side and Big Gun River on the other, and the rows of +willows and cotton-woods that hung over the water's edge--the only trees +under the whole sky--marked distinctly the meandering lines of the two +streams. Albert Charlton shouted and laughed; he stood up beside Jim, and +cried out that it was a paradise. + +"Mebbe 'tis," sneered Jim, "Anyway, it's got more'n one devil into it. +_Gil_--lang!" + +And under the inspiration of the scenery, Albert, with the impulsiveness +of a young man, unfolded to Whisky Jim all the beauties of his own +theories: how a man should live naturally and let other creatures live; +how much better a man was without flesh-eating; how wrong it was to +speculate, and that a speculator gave nothing in return; and that it was +not best to wear flannels, seeing one should harden his body to endure +cold and all that; and how a man should let his beard grow, not use +tobacco nor coffee nor whisky, should get up at four o'clock in the +morning and go to bed early. + +"Looky here, mister!" said the Superior Being, after a while. "I wouldn't +naow, ef I was you!" + +"Wouldn't what?" + +"Wouldn't fetch no sich notions into this ked'ntry. Can't afford tew. +'Taint no land of idees. It's the ked'ntry of corner lots. Idees is in +the way--don't pay no interest. Haint had time to build a 'sylum fer +people with idees yet, in this territory. Ef you must have 'em, why let +me _rec_-ommend Bost'n. Drove hack there wunst, myself." Then after a +pause he proceeded with the deliberation of a judge: "It's the best +village I ever lay eyes on fer idees, is Bost'n. Thicker'n hops! Grow +single and in bunches. Have s'cieties there fer idees. Used to make money +outen the fellows with idees, cartin 'em round to anniversaries and sich. +Ef you only wear a nice slick plug-hat there, you kin believe anything +you choose or not, and be a gentleman all the same. The more you believe +or don't believe in Bost'n, the more gentleman you be. The +don't-believers is just as good as the believers. Idees inside the head, +and plug-hats outside. But idees out here! I tell you, here it's nothin' +but per-cent." The Superior Being puckered his lips and whistled. "_Git_ +up, will you! G'lang! Better try Bost'n." + +Perhaps Albert Charlton, the student passenger, was a little offended +with the liberty the driver had taken in rebuking his theories. He was +full of "idees," and his fundamental idea was of course his belief in +the equality and universal brotherhood of men. In theory he recognized +no social distinctions. But the most democratic of democrats in theory +is just a little bit of an aristocrat in feeling--he doesn't like to be +patted on the back by the hostler; much less does he like to be +reprimanded by a stage-driver. And Charlton was all the more sensitive +from a certain vague consciousness that he himself had let down the bars +of his dignity by unfolding his theories so gushingly to Whisky Jim. +What did Jim know--what _could_ a man who said "idees" know--about the +great world-reforming thoughts that engaged his attention? But when +dignity is once fallen, all the king's oxen and all the king's men can't +stand it on its legs again. In such a strait, one must flee from him who +saw the fall. + +Albert Charlton therefore determined that he would change to the inside +of the coach when an opportunity should offer, and leave the Superior +Being to sit "wrapped in the solitude of his own originality." + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +THE SOD TAVERN. + + +Here and there Charlton noticed the little claim-shanties, built in every +sort of fashion, mere excuses for pre-emption. Some were even constructed +of brush. What was lacking in the house was amply atoned for by the +perjury of the claimant who, in pre-empting, would swear to any necessary +number of good qualities in his habitation. On a little knoll ahead of +the stage he saw what seemed to be a heap of earth. There must have been +some inspiration in this mound, for, as soon as it came in sight, Whisky +Jim began to chirrup and swear at his horses, and to crack his long whip +threateningly until he had sent them off up the hill at a splendid pace. +Just by this mound of earth he reined up with an air that said the +forenoon route was finished. For this was nothing less than the "Sod +Tavern," a house built of cakes of the tenacious prairiesod. No other +material was used except the popple-poles, which served for supports to +the sod-roof. The tavern was not over ten feet high at the apex of the +roof; it had been built for two or three years, and the grass was now +growing on top. A red-shirted publican sallied out of this artificial +grotto, and invited the ladies and gentlemen to dinner. + +It appeared, from a beautifully-engraved map hanging on the walls of the +Sod Tavern, that this earthly tabernacle stood in the midst of an ideal +town. The map had probably been constructed by a poet, for it was quite +superior to the limitations of sense and matter-of-fact. According to the +map, this solitary burrow was surrounded by Seminary, Depot, Court-House, +Woolen Factory, and a variety of other potential institutions, which +composed the flourishing city of New Cincinnati. But the map was meant +chiefly for Eastern circulation. + +Charlton's dietetic theories were put to the severest test at the table. +He had a good appetite. A ride in the open air in Minnesota is apt to +make one hungry. But the first thing that disgusted Mr. Charlton was the +coffee, already poured out, and steaming under his nose. He hated coffee +because he liked it; and the look of disgust with which he shoved it away +was the exact measure of his physical craving for it. The solid food on +the table consisted of waterlogged potatoes, half-baked salt-rising +bread, and salt-pork. Now, young Charlton was a reader of the _Water-Cure +Journal_ of that day, and despised meat of all things, and of all meat +despised swine's flesh, as not even fit for Jews; and of all forms of +hog, hated fat salt-pork as poisonously indigestible. So with a dyspeptic +self-consciousness he rejected the pork, picked off the periphery of the +bread near the crust, cautiously avoiding the dough-bogs in the middle; +but then he revenged himself by falling furiously upon the aquatic +potatoes, out of which most of the nutriment had been soaked. + +Jim, who sat alongside him, doing cordial justice to the badness of the +meal, muttered that it wouldn't do to eat by idees in Minnesoty. And with +the freedom that belongs to the frontier, the company begun to discuss +dietetics, the fat gentleman roundly abusing the food for the express +purpose, as Charlton thought, of diverting attention from his voracious +eating of it. + +"Simply despicable," grunted the fat man, as he took a third slice of the +greasy pork. "I do despise such food." + +"Eats it _like_ he was mad at it," said Driver Jim in an undertone. + +But as Charlton's vegetarianism was noticed, all fell to denouncing it. +Couldn't live in a cold climate without meat. Cadaverous Mr. Minorkey, +the broad-shouldered, sad-looking man with side-whiskers, who complained +incessantly of a complication of disorders, which included dyspepsia, +consumption, liver-disease, organic disease of the heart, rheumatism, +neuralgia, and entire nervous prostration, and who was never entirely +happy except in telling over the oft-repeated catalogue of his disgusting +symptoms--Mr. Minorkey, as he sat by his daughter, inveighed, in an +earnest crab-apple voice, against Grahamism. He would have been in his +grave twenty years ago if it hadn't been for good meat. And then he +recited in detail the many desperate attacks from which he had been saved +by beefsteak. But this pork he felt sure would make him sick. It might +kill him. And he evidently meant to sell his life as dearly as possible, +for, as Jim muttered to Charlton, he was "goin' the whole hog anyhow." + +"Miss Minorkey," said the fat gentleman checking a piece of pork in the +middle of its mad career toward his lips, "Miss Minorkey, we _should_ +like to hear from you on this subject." In truth, the fat gentleman was +very weary of Mr. Minorkey's pitiful succession of diagnoses of the awful +symptoms and fatal complications of which he had been cured by very +allopathic doses of animal food. So he appealed to Miss Minorkey for +relief at a moment when her father had checked and choked his utterance +with coffee. + +Miss Minorkey was quite a different affair from her father. She was +thoroughly but not obtrusively healthy. She had a high, white forehead, a +fresh complexion, and a mouth which, if it was deficient in sweetness and +warmth of expression, was also free from all bitterness and +aggressiveness. Miss Minorkey was an eminently well-educated young lady +as education goes. She was more--she was a young lady of reading and of +ideas. She did not exactly defend Charlton's theory in her reply, but she +presented both sides of the controversy, and quoted some scientific +authorities in such a way as to make it apparent that there _were_ two +sides. This unexpected and rather judicial assistance called forth from +Charlton a warm acknowledgment, his pale face flushed with modest +pleasure, and as he noted the intellectuality of Miss Minorkey's forehead +he inwardly comforted himself that the only person of ideas in the whole +company was not wholly against him. + +Albert Charlton was far from being a "ladies' man;" indeed, nothing was +more despicable in his eyes than men who frittered away life in ladies' +company. But this did not at all prevent him from being very human +himself in his regard for ladies. All the more that he had lived out of +society all his life, did his heart flutter when he took his seat in the +stage after dinner. For Miss Minorkey's father and the fat gentleman felt +that they must have the back seat; there were two other gentlemen on the +middle seat; and Albert Charlton, all unused to the presence of ladies, +must needs sit on the front seat, alongside the gray traveling-dress of +the intellectual Miss Minorkey, who, for her part, was not in the least +bit nervous. Young Charlton might have liked her better if she had been. + +But if she was not shy, neither was she obtrusive. When Mr. Charlton had +grown weary of hearing Mr. Minorkey pity himself, and of hearing the fat +gentleman boast of the excellence of the Minnesota climate, the dryness +of the air, and the wonderful excess of its oxygen, and the entire +absence of wintry winds, and the rapid development of the country, and +when he had grown weary of discussions of investments at five per cent a +month, he ventured to interrupt Miss Minorkey's reverie by a remark to +which she responded. And he was soon in a current of delightful talk. The +young gentleman spoke with great enthusiasm; the young woman without +warmth, but with a clear intellectual interest in literary subjects, that +charmed her interlocutor. I say literary subjects, though the range of +the conversation was not very wide. It was a great surprise to Charlton, +however, to find in a new country a young woman so well informed. + +Did he fall in love? Gentle reader, be patient. You want a love-story, +and I don't blame you. For my part, I should not take the trouble to +record this history if there were no love in it. Love is the universal +bond of human sympathy. But you must give people time. What we call +falling in love is not half so simple an affair as you think, though it +often looks simple enough to the spectator. Albert Charlton was pleased, +he was full of enthusiasm, and I will not deny that he several times +reflected in a general way that so clear a talker and so fine a thinker +would make a charming wife for some man--some intellectual man--some man +like himself, for instance. He admired Miss Minorkey. He liked her. With +an enthusiastic young man, admiring and liking are, to say the least, +steps that lead easily to something else. But you must remember how +complex a thing love is. Charlton--I have to confess it--was a little +conceited, as every young man is at twenty. He flattered himself that the +most intelligent woman he could find would be a good match for him. He +loved ideas, and a woman of ideas pleased his fancy. Add to this that he +had come to a time of life when he was very liable to fall in love with +somebody, and that he was in the best of spirits from the influence of +air and scenery and motion and novelty, and you render it quite probable +that he could not be tossed for half a day on the same seat in a coach +with such a girl as Helen Minorkey was--that, above all, he could not +discuss Hugh Miller and the "Vestiges of Creation" with her, without +imminent peril of experiencing an admiration for her and an admiration +for himself, and a liking and a palpitating and a castle-building that +under favorable conditions might somehow grow into that complex and +inexplicable feeling which we call love. + +In fact, Jim, who drove both routes on this day, and who peeped into the +coach whenever he stopped to water, soliloquized that two fools with +idees would make a quare span ef they had a neck-yoke on. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +LAND AND LOVE. + + +Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman found much to interest them as the +coach rolled over the smooth prairie road, now and then crossing a +slough. Not that Mr. Minorkey or his fat friend had any particular +interest in the beautiful outline of the grassy knolls, the gracefulness +of the water-willows that grew along the river edge, and whose paler +green was the prominent feature of the landscape, or in the sweet +contrast at the horizon where grass-green earth met the light blue +northern sky. But the scenery none the less suggested fruitful themes for +talk to the two gentlemen on the back-seat. + +"I've got money loaned on that quarter at three per cent a month and five +after due. The mortgage has a waiver in it too. You see, the security was +unusually good, and that was why I let him have it so low." This was what +Mr. Minorkey said at intervals and with some variations, generally adding +something like this: "The day I went to look at that claim, to see +whether the security was good or not, I got caught in the rain. I +expected it would kill me. Well, sir, I was taken that night with a +pain--just here--and it ran through the lung to the point of the +shoulder-blade--here. I had to get my feet into a tub of water and take +some brandy. I'd a had pleurisy if I'd been in any other country but +this. I tell you, nothing saved me but the oxygen in this air. There! +there's a forty that I lent a hundred dollars on at five per cent a month +and six per cent after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage. The day I +came here to see this I was nearly dead. I had a--" + +Just here the fat gentleman would get desperate, and, by way of +preventing the completion of the dolorous account, would break out with: +"That's Sokaska, the new town laid out by Johnson--that hill over there, +where you see those stakes. I bought a corner-lot fronting the public +square, and a block opposite where they hope to get a factory. There's a +brook runs through the town, and they think it has water enough and fall +enough to furnish a water-power part of the day, during part of the year, +and they hope to get a factory located there. There'll be a territorial +road run through from St. Paul next spring if they can get a bill through +the legislature this winter. You'd best buy there." + +"I never buy town lots," said Minorkey, coughing despairingly, "never! I +run no risks. I take my interest at three and five per cent a month on a +good mortgage, with a waiver, and let other folks take risks." + +But the hopeful fat gentleman evidently took risks and slept soundly. +There was no hypothetical town, laid out hypothetically on paper, in +whose hypothetical advantages he did not covet a share. + +"You see," he resumed, "I buy low--cheap as dirt--and get the rise. Some +towns must get to be cities. I have a little all round, scattered here +and there. I am sure to have a lucky ticket in some of these lotteries." + +[Illustration: MR. MINORKEY AND THE FAT GENTLEMAN.] + +Mr. Minorkey only coughed and shook his head despondently, and said that +"there was nothing so good as a mortgage with a waiver in it. Shut down +in short order if you don't get your interest, if you've only got a +waiver. I always shut down unless I've got five per cent after maturity. +But I have the waiver in the mortgage anyhow." + +As the stage drove on, up one grassy slope and down another, there was +quite a different sort of a conversation going on in the other end of the +coach. Charlton found many things which suggested subjects about which he +and Miss Minorkey could converse, notwithstanding the strange contrast in +their way of expressing themselves. He was full of eagerness, +positiveness, and a fresh-hearted egoism. He had an opinion on +everything; he liked or disliked everything; and when he disliked +anything, he never spared invective in giving expression to his +antipathy. His moral convictions were not simply strong--they were +vehement. His intellectual opinions were hobbies that he rode under whip +and spur. A theory for everything, a solution of every difficulty, a +"high moral" view of politics, a sharp skepticism in religion, but a +skepticism that took hold of him as strongly as if it had been a faith. +He held to his _non credo_ with as much vigor as a religionist holds to +his creed. + +Miss Minorkey was just a little irritating to one so enthusiastic. She +neither believed nor disbelieved anything in particular. She liked to +talk about everything in a cool and objective fashion; and Charlton was +provoked to find that, with all her intellectual interest in things, she +had no sort of personal interest in anything. If she had been a +disinterested spectator, dropped down from another sphere, she could not +have discussed the affairs of this planet with more complete +impartiality, not to say indifference. Theories, doctrines, faiths, and +even moral duties, she treated as Charlton did beetles; ran pins through +them and held them up where she could get a good view of them--put them +away as curiosities. She listened with an attention that was surely +flattering enough, but Charlton felt that he had not made much impression +on her. There was a sort of attraction in this repulsion. There was an +excitement in his ambition to impress this impartial and judicial mind +with the truth and importance of the glorious and regenerating views he +had embraced. His self-esteem was pleased at the thought that he should +yet conquer this cool and open-minded girl by the force of his own +intelligence. He admired her intellectual self-possession all the more +that it was a quality which he lacked. Before that afternoon ride was +over, he was convinced that he sat by the supreme woman of all he had +ever known. And who was so fit to marry the supreme woman as he, Albert +Charlton, who was to do so much by advocating all sorts of reforms to +help the world forward to its goal? + +He liked that word goal. A man's pet words are the key to his character. +A man who talks of "vocation," of "goal," and all that, may be laughed at +while he is in the period of intellectual fermentation. The time is sure +to come, however, when such a man can excite other emotions than mirth. + +And so Charlton, full of thoughts of his "vocation" and the world's +"goal," was slipping into an attachment for a woman to whom both words +were Choctaw. Do you wonder at it? If she had had a vocation also, and +had talked about goals, they would mutually have repelled each other, +like two bodies charged with the same kind of electricity. People with +vocations can hardly fall in love with other people with vocations. + +But now Metropolisville was coming in sight, and Albert's attention was +attracted by the conversation of Mr. Minorkey and the fat gentleman. + +"Mr. Plausaby has selected an admirable site," Charlton heard the fat +gentleman remark, and as Mr. Plausaby was his own step-father, he began +to listen. "Pretty sharp! pretty sharp!" continued the fat gentleman. "I +tell you what, Mr. Minorkey, that man Plausaby sees through a millstone +with a hole in it. I mean to buy some lots in this place. It'll be the +county-seat and a railroad junction, as sure as you're alive. And +Plausaby has saved some of his best lots for me." + +"Yes, it's a nice town, or will be. I hold a mortgage on the best +eighty--the one this way--at three per cent and five after maturity, with +a waiver. I liked to have died here one night last summer. I was taken +just after supper with a violent--" + +"What a beauty of a girl that is," broke in the fat gentleman, "little +Katy Charlton, Plausaby's step-daughter!" And instantly Mr. Albert +Charlton thrust his head out of the coach and shouted "Hello, Katy!" to a +girl of fifteen, who ran to intercept the coach at the hotel steps. + +"Hurrah, Katy!" said the young man, as she kissed him impulsively as soon +as he had alighted. + +"P'int out your baggage, mister," said Jim, interrupting Katy's raptures +with a tone that befitted a Superior Being. + +In a few moments the coach, having deposited Charlton and the fat +gentleman, was starting away for its destination at Perritaut, eight +miles farther on, when Charlton, remembering again his companion on the +front seat, lifted his hat and bowed, and Miss Minorkey was kind enough +to return the bow. Albert tried to analyze her bow as he lay awake in bed +that night. Miss Minorkey doubtless slept soundly. She always did. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +ALBERT AND KATY. + + +All that day in which Albert Charlton had been riding from Red Owl +Landing to Metropolisville, sweet Little Katy Charlton had been expecting +him. Everybody called her _sweet_, and I suppose there was no word in the +dictionary that so perfectly described her. She was not well-read, like +Miss Minorkey; she was not even very smart at her lessons: but she was +sweet. Sweetness is a quality that covers a multitude of defects. Katy's +heart had love in it for everybody. She loved her mother; she loved +Squire Plausaby, her step-father; she loved cousin Isa, as she called her +step-father's niece; she loved--well, no matter, she would have told you +that she loved nobody more than Brother Albert. + +And now that Brother Albert was coming to the new home in the new land +he had never seen before, Katy's heart was in her eyes. She would show +him so many things he had never seen, explain how the pocket-gophers +built their mounds, show him the nestful of flying-squirrels--had he +ever seen flying-squirrels? And she would show him Diamond Lake, and +the speckled pickerel among the water-plants. And she would point out +the people, and entertain Albert with telling him their names and the +curious gossip about them. It was so fine to know something that even +Albert, with all his learning, did not know. And she would introduce +Albert to _him_. Would Albert like _him_? Of course he would. They were +both such _dear_ men. + +And as the hours wore on, Katy grew more and more excited and nervous. +She talked about Albert to her mother till she wearied that worthy woman, +to whom the arrival of any one was an excuse for dressing if possible in +worse taste than usual, or at least for tying an extra ribbon in her +hair, and the extra ribbon was sure to be of a hue entirely discordant +with the mutually discordant ones that preceded it. Tired of talking to +her mother, she readily found an excuse to buy something--ribbons, or +candles, or hair-pins, or dried apples--something kept in the very +miscellaneous stock of the "Emporium," and she knew who would wait upon +her, and who would kindly prolong the small transaction by every artifice +in his power, and thus give her time to tell him about her Brother +Albert. He would be so glad to hear about Albert. He was always glad to +hear her tell about anybody or anything. + +And when the talk over the counter at the Emporium could not be farther +prolonged, she had even stopped on her way home at Mrs. Ferret's, and +told her about Albert, though she did not much like to talk to her--she +looked so penetratingly at her out of her round, near-sighted eyes, which +seemed always keeping a watch on the tip of her nose. And Mrs. Ferret, +with her jerky voice, and a smile that was meant to be an expression of +mingled cheerfulness and intelligence, but which expressed neither, +said: "Is your brother a Christian?" + +And Katy said he was a dear, dear fellow, but she didn't know as he was a +church-member. + +"Does he hold scriptural views? You know so many people in colleges are +not evangelical." + +Mrs. Ferret had a provoking way of pronouncing certain words +unctuously--she said "Chrishchen" "shcripcherral," and even in the word +evangelical she made the first _e_ very hard and long. + +And when little Katy could not tell whether Albert held "shcripcherral" +views or not, and was thoroughly tired of being quizzed as to whether she +"really thought Albert had a personal interest in religion," she made an +excuse to run away into the chamber of Mrs. Morrow, Mrs. Ferret's mother, +who was an invalid--Mrs. Ferret said "inva_leed_," for the sake of +emphasis. The old lady never asked impertinent questions, never talked +about "shcripcherral" or "ee-vangelical" views, but nevertheless breathed +an atmosphere of scriptural patience and evangelical fortitude and +Christian victory over the world's tribulations. Little Katy couldn't +have defined, the difference between the two in words; she never +attempted it but once, and then she said that Mrs. Ferret was like a +crabapple, and her mother like a Bartlett pear. + +But she was too much excited to stay long in one place, and so she +hurried home and went to talking to Cousin Isa, who was sewing by the +west window. And to her she poured forth praises of Albert without stint; +of his immense knowledge of everything, of his goodness and his beauty +and his strength, and his voice, and his eyes. + +"And you'll love him better'n you ever loved anybody," she wound up. + +And Cousin Isa said she didn't know about that. + +After all this weary waiting Albert had come. He had not been at home for +two years. It was during his absence that his mother had married Squire +Plausaby, and had moved to Minnesota. He wanted to see everybody at home. +His sister had written him favorable accounts of his step-father; he had +heard other accounts, not quite so favorable, perhaps. He persuaded +himself that like a dutiful son he wanted most to see his mother, who was +really very fond of him. But in truth he spent his spare time in thinking +about Katy. He sincerely believed that he loved his mother better than +anybody in the world. All his college cronies knew that the idol of his +heart was Katy, whose daguerreotype he carried in the inside pocket of +his vest, and whose letters he looked for with the eagerness of a lover. + +At last he had come, and Katy had carried him off into the house in +triumph, showing him--showing is the word, I think--showing him to her +mother, whom he kissed tenderly, and to her step-father, and most +triumphantly to Isa, with an air that said, "_Now_, isn't he just the +finest fellow in the world!" And she was not a little indignant that Isa +was so quiet in her treatment of the big brother. Couldn't she see what a +forehead and eyes he had? + +And the mother, with one shade of scarlet and two of pink in her +hair-ribbons, was rather proud of her son, but not satisfied. + +"Why _didn't_ you graduate?" she queried as she poured the coffee +at supper. + +"Because there were so many studies in the course which were a dead +waste of time. I learned six times as much as some of the dunderheads +that got sheepskins, and the professors knew it, but they do not dare to +put their seal on anybody's education unless it is mixed in exact +proportions--so much Latin, so much Greek, so much mathematics. The +professors don't like a man to travel any road but theirs. It is a +reflection on their own education. Why, I learned more out of some of the +old German books in the library than out of all their teaching." + +"But why didn't you graduate? It would have sounded so nice to be able to +say that you had graduated. That's what I sent you for, you know, and I +don't see what you got by going if you haven't graduated." + +"Why, mother, I got an education. I thought that was what a +college was for." + +"But how will anybody know that you're well-educated, I'd like to know, +when you can't say that you've graduated?" answered the mother +petulantly. + +"Whether they know it or not, I am." + +"I should think they'd know it just to look at him," said Katy, who +thought that Albert's erudition must be as apparent to everybody as +to herself. + +Mr. Plausaby quietly remarked that he had no doubt Albert had improved +his time at school, a remark which for some undefined reason vexed Albert +more than his mother's censures. + +"Well," said his mother, "a body never has any satisfaction with boys +that have got notions. Deliver me from notions. Your father had notions. +If it hadn't been for that, we might all of us have been rich to-day. +But notions kept us down. That's what I like about Mr. Plausaby. He +hasn't a single notion to bother a body with. But, I think, notions run +in the blood, and, I suppose, you'll always be putting some fool notion +or other in your own way. I meant you to be a lawyer, but I s'pose you've +got something against that, though it was your own father's calling." + +"I'd about as soon be a thief as a lawyer," Albert broke out in his +irritation. + +"Well, that's a nice way to speak about your father's profession, I'm +sure," said his mother. "But that's what comes of notions. I don't care +much, though, if you a'n't a lawyer. Doctors make more than lawyers do, +and you can't have any notions against being a doctor." + +"What, and drug people? Doctors are quacks. They know that drugs are good +for nothing, and yet they go on dosing everybody to make money. It people +would bathe, and live in the open air, and get up early, and harden +themselves to endure changes of climate, and not violate God's decalogue +written in their own muscles and nerves and head and stomach, they +wouldn't want to swallow an apothecary-shop every year." + +"Did you ever!" said Mrs. Plausaby, looking at her husband, who smiled +knowingly (as much as to reply that he had often), and at Cousin Isa, who +looked perplexed between her admiration at a certain chivalrous courage +in Albert's devotion to his ideas, and her surprise at the ultraism of +his opinions. + +"Did you ever!" said the mother again. "That's carrying notions further +than your father did. You'll never be anything, Albert. Well, well, what +comfort can I take in a boy that'll turn his back on all his chances, +and never be anything but a poor preacher, without money enough to make +your mother a Christmas present of a--a piece of ribbon?" + +"Why, ma, you've got ribbons enough now, I'm sure," said Katy, looking at +the queer tri-color which her mother was flying in revolutionary defiance +of the despotism of good taste. "I'm sure I'm glad Albert's going to be a +minister. He'll look so splendid in the pulpit! What kind of a preacher +will you be, Albert?" + +"I hope it'll be Episcopal, or any way Presbyterian," said Mrs. Plausaby, +"for they get paid better than Methodist or Baptist. And besides, it's +genteel to be Episcopal. But, I suppose, some notion'll keep you out of +being Episcopal too. You'll try to be just as poor and ungenteel as you +can. Folks with notions always do." + +"If I was going to be a minister, I would find out the poorest sect in +the country, the one that all your genteel folks turned up their noses +at--the Winnebrenarians, or the Mennonites, or the Albrights, or +something of that sort. I would join such a sect, and live and work for +the poor--" + +"Yes, I'll be bound!" said Mrs. Plausaby, feeling of her breastpin to be +sure it was in the right place. + +"But I'll never be a parson. I hope I'm too honest. Half the preachers +are dishonest." + +Then, seeing Isa's look of horrified surprise, Albert added: "Not in +money matters, but in matters of opinion. They do not deal honestly with +themselves or other people. Ministers are about as unfair as pettifoggers +in their way of arguing, and not more than one in twenty of them is brave +enough to tell the whole truth." + +"Such notions! such notions!" cried Mrs. Plausaby. + +And Cousin Isa--Miss Isabel Marlay, I should say for she was only a +cousin by brevet--here joined valiant battle in favor of the clergy. And +poor little Katy, who dearly loved to take sides with her friends, found +her sympathies sadly split in two in a contest between her dear, dear +brother and her dear, dear Cousin Isa, and she did wish they would quit +talking about such disagreeable things. I do not think either of the +combatants convinced the other, but as each fought fairly they did not +offend one another, and when the battle was over, Albert bluntly +confessed that he had spoken too strongly, and though Isa made no +confession, she felt that after all ministers were not impeccable, and +that Albert was a brave fellow. + +And Mrs. Plausaby said that she hoped Isabel would beat some sense into +the boy, for she was really afraid that he never would have anything but +notions. She pitied the woman that married _him_. She wouldn't get many +silk-dresses, and she'd have to fix her old bonnets over two or three +years hand-running. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +CORNER LOTS. + + +Mr. Plausaby was one of those men who speak upon a level pitch, in a +gentle and winsome monotony. His voice was never broken by impulse, never +shaken by feeling. He was courteous without ostentation, treating +everybody kindly without exactly seeming to intend it. He let fall +pleasant remarks incidentally or accidentally, so that one was always +fortuitously overhearing his good opinion of one's self. He did not have +any conscious intent to flatter each person with some ulterior design in +view, but only a general disposition to keep everybody cheerful, and an +impression that it was quite profitable as a rule to stand well with +one's neighbors. + +The morning after Charlton's arrival the fat passenger called, eager as +usual to buy lots. To his lively imagination, every piece of ground +staked off into town lots had infinite possibilities. It seemed that the +law of probabilities had been no part of the sanguine gentleman's +education, but the gloriousness of possibilities was a thing that he +appreciated naturally; hopefulness was in his very fiber. + +Mr. Plausaby spread his "Map of Metropolisville" on the table, let his +hand slip gently down past the "Depot Ground," so that the fat gentleman +saw it without seeming to have had his attention called to it; then +Plausaby, Esq., looked meditatively at the ground set apart for +"College," and seemed to be making a mental calculation. Then Plausaby +proceeded to unfold the many advantages of the place, and Albert was a +pleased listener; he had never before suspected that Metropolisville had +prospects so entirely dazzling. He could not doubt the statements of the +bland Plausaby, who said these things in a confidential and reserved way +to the fat gentleman. Charlton did not understand, but Plausaby did, that +what is told in a corner to a fat gentleman with curly hair and a hopeful +nose is sure to be repeated from the house-tops. + +"You are an Episcopalian, I believe?" said Plausaby, Esq. The fat +gentleman replied that he was a Baptist. + +"Oh! well, I might have known it from your cordial way of talking. +Baptist myself, in principle. In principle, at least Not a member of any +church, sorry to say. Very sorry. My mother and my first Wife were both +Baptists. Both of them. I have a very warm side for the good old Baptist +church. Very warm side. And a warm side for every Baptist. Every Baptist. +To say nothing of the feeling I have always had for you--well, well, let +us not pass compliments. Business is business in this country. In this +country, you know. But I will tell _you_ one thing. The lot there marked +'College' I am just about transferring to trustees for a Baptist +university. There are two or three parties, members of Dr. Armitage's +church in New York City, that are going to give us a hundred thousand +dollars endowment. A hundred thousand dollars. Don't say anything about +it. There are people who--well, who would spoil the thing if they could. +We have neighbors, you know. Not very friendly ones. Not very friendly. +Perritaut, for instance. It isn't best to tell one's neighbor all one's +good luck. Not all one's good luck," and Plausaby, Esq., smiled knowingly +at the fat man, who did his best to screw his very transparent face into +a crafty smile in return. "Besides," continued Squire Plausaby, "once let +it get out that the Baptist University is going to occupy that block, and +there'll be a great demand--" + +[Illustration: PLAUSABY SELLS LOTS.] + +"For all the blocks around," said the eager fat gentleman, growing +impatient at Plausaby's long-windedness. + +"Precisely. For all the blocks around," went on Plausaby. "And I want to +hold on to as much of the property in this quarter as--" + +"As you can, of course," said the other. + +"As I can, of course. As much as I can, of course. But I'd like to have +you interested. You are a man of influence. A man of weight. Of weight of +character. You will bring other Baptists. And the more Baptists, the +better for--the better for--" + +"For the college, of course." + +"Exactly. Precisely. For the college, of course. The more, the better. +And I should like your name on the board of trustees of--of--" + +"The college?" + +"The university, of course. I should like your name." + +The fat gentleman was pleased at the prospect of owning land near the +Baptist University, and doubly pleased at the prospect of seeing his name +in print as one of the guardians of the destiny of the infant +institution. He thought he would like to buy half of block 26. + +"Well, no. I couldn't sell in 26 to you or any man. Couldn't sell to any +man. I want to hold that block because of its slope. I'll sell in 28 _to +you_, and the lots there are just about as good. Quite as good, indeed. +But I want to build on 26." + +The fat gentleman declared that he wouldn't have anything but lots in 26. +That block suited his fancy, and he didn't care to buy if he could not +have a pick. + +"Well, you're an experienced buyer, I see," said Plausaby, Esq. "An +experienced buyer. Any other man would have preferred 28 to 26. But +you're a little hard to insist on that particular block. I want you here, +and I'll _give_ half of 28 rather than sell you out of 26." + +"Well, now, my friend, I am sorry to seem hard. But I fastened my eye on +26. I have a fine eye for direction and distance. One, two, three, four +blocks from the public square. That's the block with the solitary +oak-tree in it, if I'm right. Yes? Well, I must have lots in that very +block. When I take a whim of that kind, heaven and earth can't turn me, +Mr. Plausaby. So you'd just as well let me have them." + +Plausaby, Esq., at last concluded that he would sell to the plump +gentleman any part of block 26 except the two lots on the south-east +corner. But that gentleman said that those were the very two he had fixed +his eyes upon. He would not buy if there were any reserves. He always +took his very pick out of each town. + +"Well," said Mr. Plausaby coaxingly, "you see I have selected those two +lots for my step-daughter. For little Katy. She is going to get married +next spring, I suppose, and I have promised her the two best in the town, +and I had marked off these two. Marked them off for her. I'll sell you +lots alongside, nearly as good, for half-price. Just half-price." + +But the fat gentleman was inexorable. Mr. Plausaby complained that the +fat gentleman was hard, and the fat gentleman was pleased with the +compliment. Having been frequently lectured by his wife for being so easy +and gullible, he was now eager to believe himself a very Shylock. Did not +like to rob little Kate of her marriage portion, he said, but he must +have the best or none. He wanted the whole south half of 26. + +And so Mr. Plausaby sold him the corner-lot and the one next to it for +ever so much more than their value, pathetically remarking that he'd have +to hunt up some other lots for Kate. And then Mr. Plausaby took the fat +gentleman out and showed him the identical corner, with the little oak +and the slope to the south. + +"Mother," said Albert, when they were gone, "is Katy going to be married +in the spring?" + +"Why, how should I know?" queried Mrs. Plausaby, as she adjusted her +collar, the wide collar of that day, and set her breastpin before the +glass. "How should I know? Katy has never told me. There's a young man +hangs round here Sundays, and goes boating and riding with her, and makes +her presents, and walks with her of evenings, and calls her his pet and +his darling and all that kind of nonsense, and I half-suspect"--here she +took out her breastpin entirely and began over again--"I half-suspect +he's in earnest. But what have I got to do with it? Kate must marry for +herself. I did twice, and done pretty well both times. But I can't see to +Kate's beaux. Marrying, my son, is a thing everybody must attend to +personally for themselves. At least, so it seems to me." And having +succeeded in getting her ribbon adjusted as she wanted it, Mrs. Plausaby +looked at herself in the glass with an approving conscience. + +"But is Kate going to be married in the spring?" asked Albert. + +"I don't know whether she will have her wedding in the spring or summer. +I can't bother myself about Kate's affairs. Marrying is a thing that +everybody must attend to personally for themselves, Albert. If Kate gets +married, I can't help it; and I don't know as there's any great sin in +it. You'll get married yourself some day." + +"Did fa--did Mr. Plausaby promise Katy some lots?" + +"Law, no! Every lot he sells 'most is sold for Kate's lot. It's a way he +has. He knows how to deal with these sharks. If you want any trading +done, Albert, you let Mr. Plausaby do it for you." + +"But, mother, that isn't right." + +"You've got queer notions, Albert. You'll want us all to quit eating +meat, I suppose. Mr. Plausaby said last night you'd be cheated out of +your eyes before you'd been here a month, if you stuck to your ideas of +things. You see, you don't understand sharks. Plausaby does. But then +that is not my lookout. I have all I can do to attend to myself. But Mr. +Plausaby _does_ know how to manage sharks." + +The more Albert thought the matter over, the more he was convinced that +Mr. Plausaby did know how to manage sharks. He went out and examined the +stakes, and found that block 26 did not contain the oak, but was much +farther down in the slough, and that the corner lots that were to have +been Katy's wedding portion stretched quite into the peat bog, and +further that if the Baptist University should stand on block 27, it would +have a baptistery all around it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +LITTLE KATY'S LOVER. + + +Katy was fifteen and a half, according to the family Bible. Katy was a +woman grown in the depth and tenderness of her feeling. But Katy wasn't +twelve years of age, if measured by the development of her +discretionary powers. The phenomenon of a girl in intellect with a +woman's passion is not an uncommon one. Such girls are always +attractive--feeling in woman goes for so much more than thought. And +such a girl-woman as Kate has a twofold hold on other people--she is +loved as a woman and petted as a child. + +Albert Charlton knew that for her to love was for her to give herself +away without thought, without reserve, almost without the possibility of +revocation. Because he was so oppressed with dread in regard to the young +man who walked and boated with Katy, courted and caressed her, but about +the seriousness of whose intentions the mother seemed to have some +doubt--because of the very awfulness of his apprehensions, he dared not +ask Kate anything. + +The suspense was not for long. On the second evening after Albert's +return, Smith Westcott, the chief clerk, the agent in charge of the +branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., in Metropolisville, called at the +house of Plausaby. Mr. Smith Westcott was apparently more than +twenty-six, but not more than thirty years of age, very well-dressed, +rather fast-looking, and decidedly _blase_. His history was written in +general but not-to-be-misunderstood terms all over his face. It was not +the face of a drunkard, but there was the redness of many glasses of wine +in his complexion, and a nose that expressed nothing so much as pampered +self-indulgence. He had the reputation of being a good, sharp business +man, with his "eye-teeth cut," but his conversation was: + +"Well--ha! ha!--and how's Katy? Divine as ever! he! he!" rattling the +keys and coins in his pocket and frisking about. "Beautiful evening! And +how does my sweet Katy? The loveliest maiden in the town! He! he! ha! ha! +I declare!" + +Then, as Albert came in and was introduced, he broke out with: + +"Glad to see you! By George! He! he! Brother, eh? Always glad to see +anybody related to Kate. Look like her a little. That's a compliment to +you, Mr. Charlton, he! he! You aren't quite so handsome though, by +George! Confound the cigar"--throwing it away; "I ordered a box in Red +Owl last week--generally get 'em in Chicago. If there's anything I like +it's a good cigar, he! he! Next to a purty girl, ha! ha! But this last +box is stronger'n pison. That sort of a cigar floors me. Can't go +entirely without, you know, so I smoke half a one, and by that time I get +so confounded mad I throw it away. Ha! ha! Smoke, Mr. Charlton? No! No +_small_ vices, I s'pose. Couldn't live without my cigar. I'm glad smoking +isn't offensive to Kate. Ah! this window's nice, I do like fresh air. +Kate knows my habits pretty well by this time. By George, I must try +another cigar. I get so nervous when trade's dull and I don't have much +to do. Wish you smoked, Mr. Charlton. Keep a man company, ha! ha! Ever +been here before? No? By George, must seem strange, he! he! It's a +confounded country. Can't get anything to eat. Nor to drink neither, for +that matter. By cracky! what nights we used to have at the Elysian Club +in New York! Ever go to the Elysian? No? Well, we did have a confounded +time there. And headaches in the morning. Punch was too sweet, you see. +Sweet punch is sure to make your headache. He! he! But I'm done with +clubs and Delmonico's, you know. I'm going to settle down and be a steady +family man." Walking to the door, he sang in capital minstrel style: + +"When de preacher took his text + He looked so berry much perplext, +Fer nothin' come acrost his mine + But Dandy Jim from Caroline! + +"Yah! yah! Plague take it! Come, Kate, stick on a sun-bonnet or a hat, +and let's walk. It's too nice a night to stay in the house, by George! +You'll excuse, Mr. Charlton? All right; come on, Kate." + +And Katy hesitated, and said in a deprecating tone: "You won't mind, will +you, Brother Albert?" + +And Albert said no, that he wouldn't mind, with a calmness that +astonished himself; for he was aching to fall foul of Katy's lover, and +beat the coxcombry out of him, or kill him. + +"By-by!" said Westcott to Albert, as he went out, and young Charlton went +out another door, and strode off toward Diamond Lake. On the high knoll +overlooking the lake he stopped and looked away to the east, where the +darkness was slowly gathering over the prairie. Night never looks so +strange as when it creeps over a prairie, seeming to rise, like a +shadowy Old Man of the Sea, out of the grass. The images become more and +more confused, and the landscape vanishes by degrees. Away to the west +Charlton saw the groves that grew on the banks of the Big Gun River, and +then the smooth prairie knolls beyond, and in the dim horizon the "Big +Woods." Despite ail his anxiety, Charlton could not help feeling the +influence of such a landscape. The greatness, the majesty of God, came to +him for a moment. Then the thought of Kate's unhappy love came over him +more bitterly from the contrast with the feelings excited by the +landscape. He went rapidly over the possible remedies. To remonstrate +with Katy seemed out of the question. If she had any power of reason, he +might argue. Bat one can not reason with feeling. It was so hard that a +soul so sweet, so free from the all but universal human taint of egoism, +a soul so loving, self-sacrificing, and self-consecrating, should throw +itself away. + +"O God!" he cried, between praying and swearing, "must this alabaster-box +of precious ointment be broken upon the head of an infernal coxcomb?" + +And then, as he remembered how many alabaster-boxes of precious womanly +love were thus wasted, and as he looked abroad at the night settling down +so inevitably on trees and grass and placid lake, it seemed to him that +there could be no Benevolent Intelligence in the universe. Things rolled +on as they would, and all his praying would no more drive away the +threatened darkness from Kate's life than any cry of his would avail to +drive back the all-pervading, awesome presence of night, which was +putting out the features of the landscape one after another. + +Albert thought to go to his mother. But then with bitterness he +confessed to himself, for the first time, that his mother was less wise +than Katy herself. He almost called her a fool. And he at once rejected +the thought of appealing to his step-father. He felt, also, that this was +an emergency in which all his own knowledge and intelligence were of no +account. In a matter of affection, a conceited coxcomb, full of +flattering speeches, was too strong for him. + +The landscape was almost swallowed up. The glassy little lake was at his +feet, smooth and quiet. It seemed to him that God was as unresponsive to +his distress as the lake. Was there any God? + +There was one hope. Westcott might die. He wished he might. But Charlton +had lived long enough to observe that people who ought to die, hardly +ever do. You, reader, can recall many instances of this general +principle, which, however, I do not remember to have seen stated in any +discussions of mortality tables. + +After all, Albert reflected that he ought not to expect Kate's lover to +satisfy him. For he flattered himself that he was a somewhat peculiar +man--a man of ideas, a man of the future--and he must not expect to +conform everybody to his own standard. Smith Westcott was a man of fine +business qualities, he had heard; and most commercial men were, in +Albert's estimation, a little weak, morally. He might be a man of deep +feeling, and, as Albert walked home, he made up his mind to be +charitable. But just then he heard that rattling voice: + +"Purty night! By George! Katy, you're divine, by George! Sweeter'n honey +and a fine-tooth comb! Dearer to my heart than a gold dollar! Beautiful +as a dew-drop and better than a good cigar! He! he! he!" + +At such wit and such a giggle Charlton's charity vanished. To him this +idiotic giggle at idiotic jokes was a capital offense, and he was seized +with a murderous desire to choke his sister's lover. Kate should not +marry that fellow if he could help it. He would kill him. But then to +kill Westcott would be to kill Katy, to say nothing of hanging himself. +Killing has so many sequels. But Charlton was at the fiercely executive +stage of his development, and such a man must act. And so he lingered +about until Westcott kissed Katy and Katy kissed Westcott back again, and +Westcott cried back from the gate, "Dood night! dood night, 'ittle girl! +By-by! He! he! By George!" and passed out rattling the keys and coins in +his pocket and singing: + +"O dear Miss Lucy Neal!" etc. + +Then Albert went in, determined to have it all out with Katy. But one +sight of her happy, helpless face disarmed him. What an overturning of +the heaven of her dreams would he produce by a word! And what could be +more useless than remonstrance with one so infatuated! How would she +receive his bitter words about one she loved to idolatry? + +He kissed her and went to bed. + +As Albert Charlton lay awake in his unplastered room in the house of +Plausaby, Esq., on the night after he had made the acquaintance of the +dear, dear fellow whom his sister loved, he busied himself with various +calculations. Notwithstanding his father's "notions," as his mother +styled them, he had been able to leave his widow ten thousand dollars, +besides a fund for the education of his children. And, as Albert phrased +it to himself that night, the ten thousand dollars was every cent clean +money, for his father had been a man of integrity. On this ten thousand, +he felt sure, Plausaby, Esq., was speculating in a way that might make +him rich and respected, or send him to State's-prison, as the chance fell +out, but at any rate in a way that was not promotive of the interests of +those who traded with him. Of the thousand set apart for Katy's education +Plausaby was guardian, and Kate's education was not likely to be greatly +advanced by any efforts of his to invest the money in her intellectual +development. It would not be hard to persuade the rather indolent and +altogether confiding Katy that she was now old enough to cease bothering +herself with the rules of syntax, and to devote herself to the happiness +and comfort of Smith Westcott, who seemed, poor fellow, entirely unable +to exist out of sight of her eyes, which he often complimented by +singing, as he cut a double-shuffle on the piazza, + +"_Her eyes_ so bright + Dey shine at night +When de moon am far away!" + +generally adding, "Ya! ya! dat am a fack, Brudder Bones! He! he! +By George!" + +As Charlton's thoughts forecast his sister's future, it seemed to him +darker than before. He had little hope of changing her, for it was clear +that all the household authority was against him, and that Katy was +hopelessly in love. If he should succeed in breaking the engagement, it +would cost her untold suffering, and Albert was tender-hearted enough to +shrink from inflicting suffering on any one, and especially on Kate. But +when that heartless "he! he!" returned to his memory, and he thought of +all the consequences of such a marriage, he nerved himself for a sharp +and strong interference. It was his habit to plunge into every conflict +with a radical's recklessness, and his present impulse was to attempt to +carry his point by storm. If there had been opportunity, he would have +moved on Katy's slender reasoning faculties at once. But as the night of +sleeplessness wore on, the substratum of practical sense in his +character made itself felt. To attack the difficulty in this way was to +insure a great many tears from Katy, a great quarrel with a coxcomb, a +difficulty with his mother, an interference in favor of Kate's marriage +on the part of Plausaby, and a general success in precipitating what he +desired to prevent. + +And so for the first time this opinionated young man, who had always +taken responsibility, and fought his battles alone and by the most direct +methods, began to look round for a possible ally or an indirect approach. +He went over the ground several times without finding any one on whom he +could depend, or any device that offered the remotest chance of success, +until he happened to think of Isabel Marlay--Cousin Isa, as Katy called +her. He remembered how much surprised he had been a few days before, when +the quiet girl, whom he had thought a sort of animated sewing-machine, +suddenly developed so much force of thought in her defense of the clergy. +Why not get her strong sense on his side? + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +CATCHING AND GETTING CAUGHT. + + +Did you never notice how many reasons, never thought of before, against +having an aching tooth drawn, occur to you when once you stand on the +dentist's door-stone ready to ring the bell? Albert Charlton was full of +doubts of what Miss Isabel Marlay's opinion of his sister might be, and +of what Miss Isabel Marlay might think of him after his intemperate +denunciation of ministers and all other men of the learned professions. +It was quite a difficult thing for him to speak to her on the subject of +his sister's love-affair, and so, whenever an opportunity presented +itself, he found reason to apprehend interruption. On one plea or another +he deferred the matter until afternoon, and when afternoon came, Isa had +gone out. So that what had seemed to him in the watchfulness of the night +an affair for prompt action, was now deferred till evening. But in his +indecision and impatience Charlton found it impossible to remain quiet. +He must do something, and so he betook himself to his old recreation of +catching insects. He would have scorned to amuse himself with so cruel a +sport as fishing; he would not eat a fish when it was caught. But though +he did not think it right for man to be a beast of prey, slaughtering +other animals to gratify his appetites, he did not hesitate to sacrifice +the lives of creeping things to satisfy the intellectual needs of +humanity. Even this he did with characteristic tenderness, never leaving +a grasshopper to writhe on a pin for two days, but kindly giving him a +drop of chloroform to pass him into the Buddhist's heaven of eternal +repose. In the course of an hour or two he had adorned his hat with a +variety of orthoptera, coleoptera, and all the other opteras known to the +insect-catching profession. A large Cecropia spread its bright wings +across the crown of his hat, and several green Katydids appeared to be +climbing up the sides for an introduction to the brilliant moth; three +dragon-flies sat on the brim, and two or three ugly beetles kept watch +between them. As for grasshoppers, they hung by threads from the +hat-brim, and made unique pendants, which flew and flopped about his face +as he ran hither and thither with his net, sweeping the air for new +victims. Hurrying with long strides after a large locust which he +suspected of belonging to a new species, and which flew high and far, his +eyes were so uplifted to his game that he did not see anything else, and +he ran down a hill and fairly against a lady, and then drew back in +startled surprise and apologized. But before his hasty apology was +half-uttered he lifted his eyes to the face of the lady and saw that it +was Miss Minorkey, walking with her father. Albert was still more +confused when he recognized her, and his confusion was not relieved by +her laughter. For the picturesque figure of Charlton and his portable +museum was too much for her gravity, and as the French ladies of two +centuries ago used to say, she "lost her serious." Guessing the cause of +her merriment, Charlton lifted his hat off his head, held it up, and +laughed with her. + +"Well, Miss Minorkey, no wonder you laugh. This is a queer hat-buggery +and dangling grasshoppery." + +"That's a beautiful Cecropia," said Helen Minorkey, recovering a little, +and winning on Albert at once by showing a little knowledge of his pet +science, if it was only the name of a single specimen. "I wouldn't mind +being an entomologist myself if there were many such as this and that +green beetle to be had. I am gathering botanical specimens," and she +opened her portfolio. + +"But how did you come to be in Metropolisville?" + +"Why," interrupted Mr. Minorkey, "I couldn't stand the climate at +Perritaut. The malaria of the Big Gun River affected my health seriously. +I had a fever night before last, and I thought I'd get away at once, and +I made up my mind there was more oxygen in this air than in that at +Perritaut. So I came up here this morning. But I'm nearly dead," and here +Mr. Minorkey coughed and sighed, and put his hand on his breast in a +self-pitying fashion. + +As Mr. Minorkey wanted to inspect an eighty across the slough, on which +he had been asked to lend four hundred dollars at three per cent a month, +and five after maturity, with a waiver in the mortgage, he suggested that +Helen should walk back, leaving him to go on slowly, as the rheumatism in +his left knee would permit. It was quite necessary that Miss Minorkey +should go back; her boots were not thick enough for the passage of the +slough. Mr. Charlton kindly offered to accompany her. + +Albert Charlton thought that Helen Minorkey looked finer than ever, for +sun and wind had put more color into her cheeks, and he, warm with +running, pushed back his long light hair, and looked side-wise at the +white forehead and the delicate but fresh cheeks below. + +"So you like Cecropias and bright-green beetles, do you?" he said, and he +gallantly unpinned the wide-winged moth from his hat-crown and stuck it +on the cover of Miss Minorkey's portfolio, and then added the green +beetle. Helen thanked him in her quiet way, but with pleased eyes. + +"Excuse me, Miss Minorkey," said Albert, blushing, as they approached the +hotel, "I should like very much to accompany you to the parlor of the +hotel, but people generally see nothing but the ludicrous side of +scientific pursuits, and I should only make you ridiculous." + +"I should be very glad to have you come," said Helen. "I don't mind being +laughed at in good company, and it is such a relief to meet a gentleman +who can talk about something besides corner lots and five per cent a +month, and," with a wicked look at the figure of her father in the +distance, "and mortgages with waivers in them!" + +Our cynic philosopher found his cynicism melting away like an iceberg in +the Gulf-stream. An hour before he would have told you that a woman's +flattery could have no effect on an intellectual man; now he felt a +tremor of pleasure, an indescribable something, as he shortened his steps +to keep time with the little boots with which Miss Minorkey trod down the +prairie grass, and he who had laughed at awkward boys for seeking the aid +of dancing-masters to improve their gait, wished himself less awkward, +and actually blushed with pleasure when this self-possessed young lady +praised his conversation. He walked with her to the hotel, though he took +the precaution to take his hat off his head and hang it on his finger, +and twirl it round, as if laughing at it himself--back-firing against the +ridicule of others. He who thought himself sublimely indifferent to the +laughter of ignoramuses, now fencing against it! + +The parlor of the huge pine hotel (a huge unfinished pine hotel is the +starting point of speculative cities), the parlor of the Metropolisville +City Hotel was a large room, the floor of which was covered with a very +cheap but bright-colored ingrain carpet; the furniture consisted of six +wooden-bottomed chairs, very bright and new, with a very yellow rose +painted on the upper slat of the back of each, a badly tattered +hair-cloth sofa, of a very antiquated pattern, and a small old piano, +whose tinny tones were only matched by its entire lack of tune. The last +two valuable articles had been bought at auction, and some of the keys of +the piano had been permanently silenced by its ride in an ox-cart from +Red Owl to Metropolisville. + +But intellect and culture are always superior to external circumstances, +and Mr. Charlton was soon sublimely oblivious to the tattered hair-cloth +of the sofa on which he sat, and he utterly failed to notice the stiff +wooden chair on which Miss Minorkey reposed. Both were too much +interested in science to observe furniture; She admired the wonders of +his dragon-flies, always in her quiet and intelligent fashion; he +returned the compliment by praising her flowers in his eager, hearty, +enthusiastic way. Her coolness made her seem to him very superior; his +enthusiasm made him very piquant and delightful to her. And when he got +upon his hobby and told her how grand a vocation the teacher's +profession was, and recited stories of the self-denial of Pestalozzi and +Froebel, and the great schemes of Basedow, and told how he meant here +in this new country to build a great Institute on rational principles, +Helen Minorkey found him more interesting than ever. Like you and me, +she loved philanthropy at other people's expense. She admired great +reformers, though she herself never dreamed of putting a little finger +to anybody's burden. + +It took so long to explain fully this great project that Albert staid +until nearly supper-time, forgetting the burden of his sister's unhappy +future in the interest of science and philanthropy. And even when he rose +to go, Charlton turned back to look again at a "prairie sun-flower" which +Helen Minorkey had dissected while he spoke, and, finding something +curious, perhaps in the fiber, he proposed to bring his microscope over +in the evening and examine it--a proposition very grateful to Helen, who +had nothing but _ennui_ to expect in Metropolisville, and who was +therefore delighted. Delighted is a strong word for one so cool: perhaps +it would be better to say that she was relieved and pleased at the +prospect of passing an evening with so curious and interesting a +companion. For Charlton was both curious and interesting to her. She +sympathized with his intellectual activity, and she was full of wonder at +his intense moral earnestness. + +As for Albert, botany suddenly took on a new interest in his eyes. He had +hitherto regarded it as a science for girls. But now he was so profoundly +desirous of discovering the true character of the tissue in the plant +which Miss Minorkey had dissected, that it seemed to him of the utmost +importance to settle it that very evening. His mother for the first time +complained of his going out, and seemed not very well satisfied about +something. He found that he was likely to have a good opportunity, after +supper, to speak to Isabel Marlay in regard to his sister and her lover, +but somehow the matter did not seem so exigent as it had. The night +before, he had determined that it was needful to check the intimacy +before it went farther, that every day of delay increased the peril; but +things often look differently under different circumstances, and now the +most important duty in life for Albert Charlton was the immediate +settlement of a question in structural botany by means of microscopic +investigation. Albert was at this moment a curious illustration of the +influence of scientific enthusiasm, for he hurriedly relieved his hat of +its little museum, ate his supper, got out his microscope, and returned +to the hotel. He placed the instrument on the old piano, adjusted the +object, and pedagogically expounded to Miss Minorkey the true method of +observing. Microscopy proved very entertaining to both. Albert did not +feel sure that it might not become a life-work with him. It would be a +delightful thing to study microscopic botany forever, if he could have +Helen Minorkey to listen to his enthusiastic expositions. From her +science the transition to his was easy, and they studied under every +combination of glasses the beautiful lace of a dragon-fly's wing, and the +irregular spots on a drab grasshopper which ran by chance half-across one +of his eyes. The thrifty landlord had twice looked in at the door in hope +of finding the parlor empty, intending in which case to put out the lamp. +But I can not tell how long this enthusiastic pursuit of scientific +knowledge might have lasted had not Mr. Minorkey been seized with one of +his dying spells. When the message was brought by a Norwegian +servant-girl, whose white hair fairly stood up with fright, Mr. Charlton +was very much shocked, but Miss Minorkey did not for a moment lose her +self-possession. Besides having the advantage of quiet nerves, she had +become inured to the presence of Death in all his protean forms--it was +impossible that her father should be threatened in a way with which she +was not already familiar. + +Emotions may be suspended by being superseded for a time by stronger +ones. In such case, they are likely to return with great force, when +revived by some association. Charlton stepped out on the piazza with his +microscope in his hand and stopped a moment to take in the scene--the +rawness and newness and flimsiness of the mushroom village, with its +hundred unpainted bass-wood houses, the sweetness, peacefulness, and +freshness of the unfurrowed prairie beyond, the calmness and immutability +of the clear, star-lit sky above--when he heard a voice round the corner +of the building that put out his eyes and opened his ears, if I may so +speak. Somebody was reproaching somebody else with being "spooney on the +little girl." + +"He! he!"--the reply began with that hateful giggle--"I know my business, +gentlemen. Not such a fool as you think." Here there was a shuffling of +feet, and Charlton's imagination easily supplied the image of Smith +Westcott cutting a "pigeon-wing." + +"Don't I know the ways of this wicked world? Haven't I had all the silly +sentiment took out of me? He! he! I've seen the world," and then he +danced again and sang: + +"Can't you come out to-night, +Can't you come out to-night, +And dance by the light of the moon?" + +"Now, boys," he began, again rattling his coins and keys, "I learnt too +much about New York. I had to leave. They didn't want a man there that +knew all the ropes so well, and so I called a meeting of the mayor and +told him good-by. He! he! By George! 'S a fack! I drank too much and I +lived two-forty on the plank-road, till the devil sent me word he didn't +want to lose his best friend, and he wished I'd just put out from New +York. 'Twas leave New York or die. That's what brought me here. It I'd +lived in New York I wouldn't never 've married. Not much, Mary Ann or +Sukey Jane. He! he!" And then he sang again: + +[Illustration: "BY GEORGE! HE! HE! HE!"] + +"If I was young and in my prime, +I'd lead a different life, +I'd spend my money-- + +"but I'd be hanged if I'd marry a wife to save her from the Tower of +London, you know. As long as I could live at the Elysian Club, didn' +want a wife. But this country! Psha! this is a-going to be a land of +Sunday-schools and sewing-societies. A fellow can't live here +without a wife: + +"'Den lay down de shubble and de hoe, +Den hang up de fiddle and de bow-- +For poor old Ned--' + +"Yah! Can't sing! Out of practice! Got a cold! Instrument needs tuning! +Excuse me! He! he!" + +There was some other talk, in a voice too low for Albert to hear, though +he listened with both ears, waiving all sense of delicacy about +eavesdropping in his anger and his desire to rescue Katy. Then Westcott, +who had evidently been drinking and was vinously frank, burst out with: + +"Think I'd marry an old girl! Think I'd marry a smart one! I want a sweet +little thing that would love me and worship me and believe everything I +said. I know! By George! He! he! That Miss Minorkey at the table! She'd +see through a fellow! Now, looky here, boys, I'm goin' to be serious for +once. I want a girl that'll exert a moral influence over me, you know! +But I'll be confounded if I want too much moral influence, by George, he! +he! A little spree now and then all smoothed over! I need moral +influence, but in small doses. Weak constitution, you know! Can't stand +too much moral influence. Head's level. A little girl! Educate her +yourself, you know! He! he! By George! And do as you please. + +"'O Jinny! git yer hoe-cake done, my dear! +O Jinny! git yer hoe-cake done!' + +"Yah! yah! He! he! he!" + +It is not strange that Charlton did not sleep that night, that he was a +prey to conflicting emotions, blessing the cool, intellectual, +self-possessed face of Miss Minorkey, who knew botany, and inwardly +cursing the fate that had handed little Katy over to be the prey of such +a man as Smith Westcott. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +ISABEL MARLAY. + + +Isabel Marlay was not the niece of our friend Squire Plausaby, but of his +first wife. Plausaby, Esq., had been the guardian of her small +inheritance in her childhood, and the property had quite mysteriously +suffered from a series of curious misfortunes: the investments were +unlucky; those who borrowed of the guardian proved worthless, and so did +their securities. Of course the guardian was not to blame, and of course +he handled the money honestly. But people will be suspicious even of the +kindest and most smoothly-speaking men; and the bland manner and +innocent, open countenance of Plausaby, Esq., could not save him from the +reproaches of uncharitable people. As he could not prove his innocence, +he had no consolation but that which is ever to be derived from a +conscience void of offense. + +Isabel Marlay found herself at an early age without means. But she had +never seen a day of dependence. Deft hands, infallible taste in matters +of dress, invincible cheerfulness, and swift industry made her always +valuable. She had not been content to live in the house of her aunt, the +first Mrs. Plausaby, as a dependent, and she even refused to remain in +the undefined relation of a member of the family whose general utility, +in some sort, roughly squares the account of board and clothes at the +year's end. Whether or not she had any suspicions in regard to the +transactions of Plausaby, Esq., in the matter of her patrimony, I do not +know. She may have been actuated by nothing but a desire to have her +independence apparent. Or, she may have enjoyed--as who would +not?--having her own money to spend. At any rate, she made a definite +bargain with her uncle-in-law, by which she took charge of the sewing in +his house, and received each year a hundred dollars in cash and her +board. It was not large pay for such service as she rendered, but then +she preferred the house of a relative to that of a stranger. When the +second Mrs. Plausaby had come into the house, Mr. Plausaby had been glad +to continue the arrangement, in the hope, perhaps, that Isa's good taste +might modify that lady's love for discordant gauds. + +To Albert Charlton, Isa's life seemed not to be on a very high key. She +had only a common-school education, and the leisure she had been able to +command for general reading was not very great, nor had the library in +the house of Plausaby been very extensive. She had read a good deal of +Matthew Henry, the "Life and Labors of Mary Lyon" and the "Life of +Isabella Graham," the "Works of Josephus," "Hume's History of England," +and Milton's "Paradise Lost." She had tried to read Mrs. Sigourney's +"Poems" and Pollok's "Course of Time," but had not enjoyed them much. She +was not imaginative. She had plenty of feeling, but no sentiment, for +sentiment is feeling that has been thought over; and her life was too +entirely objective to allow her to think of her own feelings. Her +highest qualities, as Albert inventoried them, were good sense, good +taste, and absolute truthfulness and simplicity of character. These were +the qualities that he saw in her after a brief acquaintance. They were +not striking, and yet they were qualities that commanded respect. But he +looked in vain for those high ideals of a vocation and a goal that so +filled his own soul. If she read of Mary Lyon, she had no aspiration to +imitate her. Her whole mind seemed full of the ordinary cares of life. +Albert could not abide that anybody should expend even such abilities as +Isa possessed on affairs of raiment and domestic economy. The very tokens +of good taste and refined feeling in her dress were to him evidences of +over-careful vanity. + +But when his mother and Katy had gone out on the morning after he had +overheard Smith Westcott expound his views on the matter of marriage, +Charlton sought Isa Marlay. She sat sewing in the parlor, as it was +called--the common sitting-room of the house--by the west window. The +whole arrangement of the room was hers; and though Albert was neither an +artist nor a critic in matters of taste, he was, as I have already +indicated, a man of fine susceptibility. He rejoiced in this +susceptibility when it enabled him to appreciate nature. He repressed it +when he found himself vibrating in sympathy with those arts that had, as +he thought, relations with human weakness and vanity; as, for instance, +the arts of music and dress. But, resist as one may, a man can not fight +against his susceptibilities. And those who can feel the effect of any +art are very many more than those who can practice it or criticise it. It +does not matter that my Bohemian friend's musical abilities are slender. +No man in the great Boston Jubilee got more out of Johann Strauss, in +his "Kunstleben," that inimitable expression of inspired vagabondage, +than he did. And so, though Albert Charlton could not have told you what +colors would "go together," as the ladies say, he could, none the less, +always feel the discord of his mother's dress, as now he felt the beauty +of the room and appreciated the genius of Isa, that had made so much out +of resources so slender. For there were only a few touch-me-nots in the +two vases on the mantel-piece; there were wild-flowers and +prairie-grasses over the picture-frames; there were asparagus-stalks in +the fireplace; there was--well, there was a _tout-ensemble_ of coolness +and delightfulness, of freshness and repose. There was the graceful +figure of Isabel by the window, with the yet dewy grass and the distant +rolling, boundless meadow for a background. And there was in Isabel's +brown calico dress a faultlessness of fit, and a suitableness of color--a +perfect harmony, like that of music. There was real art, pure and +refined, in her dress, as in the arrangement of the room. Albert was +angry with it, while he felt its effect; it was as though she had set +herself there to be admired. But nothing was further from her thought. +The artist works not for the eyes of others, but for his own, and Isabel +Marlay would have taken not one whit less of pains if she could have been +assured that no eye in the universe would look in upon that +frontier-village parlor. + +I said that Charlton was vexed. He was vexed because he felt a weakness +in himself that admired such "gewgaws," as he called everything relating +to dress or artistic housekeeping. He rejoiced mentally in the +superiority of Helen Minorkey, who gave her talents to higher themes. And +yet he felt a sense of restfulness in this cool room, where every color +was tuned to harmony with every other. He was struck, too, with the +gracefulness of Isa's figure. Her face was not handsome, but the good +genius that gave her the feeling of an artist must have molded her own +form, and every lithe motion was full of poetry. You have seen some +people who made upon you the impression that they were beautiful, and yet +the beauty was all in a statuesque figure and a graceful carriage. For it +makes every difference how a face is carried. + +The conversation between Charlton and Miss Marlay had not gone far in the +matter of Katy and Smith Westcott until Albert found that her instincts +had set more against the man than even his convictions. A woman like +Isabel Marlay is never so fine as in her indignation, and there never was +any indignation finer than Isa Marlay's when she spoke of the sacrifice +of such a girl as Katy to such a man as Westcott. In his admiration of +her thorough-going earnestness, Albert forgave her devotion to domestic +pursuits and the arts of dress and ornamentation. He found sailing with +her earnestness much pleasanter than he had found rowing against it on +the occasion of his battle about the clergy. + +"What can I do, Miss Marlay?" Albert did not ask her what she could do. +A self-reliant man at his time of life always asks first what he +himself can do. + +"I can not think of anything that anybody can do, with any hope of +success." Isa's good sense penetrated entirely through the subject, she +saw all the difficulties, she had not imagination or sentiment enough to +delude her practical faculty with false lights. + +"Can not _you_ do something?" asked Charlton, almost begging. + +"I have tried everything. I have spoken to your mother. I have spoken to +Uncle Plausaby. I have begged Katy to listen to me, but Katy would only +feel sorry for him if she believed he was bad. She can love, but she +can't think, and if she knew him to be the worst man in the Territory she +would marry him to reform him. I did hope that you would have some +influence over her." + +"But Katy is such a child. She won't listen if I talk to her. Any +opposition would only hurry the matter. I wish it were right to blow out +his brains, if he has any, and I suppose the monkey has." + +"It is a great deal better, Mr. Charlton, to trust in Providence where we +can't do anything without doing wrong." + +"Well, Miss Marlay, I didn't look for cant from you. I don't believe that +God cares. Everything goes on by the almanac and natural law. The sun +sets when the time comes, no matter who is belated. Girls that are sweet +and loving and trusting, like Katy, have always been and will always be +victims of rakish fools like Smith Westcott. I wish I were an Indian, and +then I could be my own Providence. I would cut short his career, and make +what David said about wicked men being cut off come true in this case, in +the same way as I suppose David did in the case of the wicked of his day, +by cutting them off himself." + +Isabel was thoroughly shocked with this speech. What good religious girl +would not have been? She told Mr. Charlton with much plainness of speech +that she thought common modesty might keep him from making such +criticisms on God. She for her part doubted whether all the facts of the +case were known to him. She intimated that there were many things in +God's administration not set down in almanacs, and she thought that, +whatever God might be, a _young_ man should not be in too great a hurry +about arraigning Him for neglect of duty. I fear it would not contribute +much to the settlement of the very ancient controversy if I should record +all the arguments, which were not fresh or profound. It is enough that +Albert replied sturdily, and that he went away presently with his vanity +piqued by her censures. Not that he could not answer her reasoning, if it +were worthy to be called reasoning. But he had lost ground in the +estimation of a person whose good sense he could not help respecting, and +the consciousness of this wounded his vanity. And whilst all she said was +courteous, it was vehement as any defense of the faith is likely to be; +he felt, besides, that he had spoken with rather more of the _ex +cathedra_ tone than was proper. A young man of opinions generally finds +it so much easier to impress people with his tone than with his +arguments! But he consoled himself with the reflection that the _average_ +woman--that word average was a balm for every wound--that the average +woman is always tied to her religion, and intolerant of any doubts. He +was pleased to think that Helen Minorkey was not intolerant. Of that he +felt sure. He did not carry the analysis any farther, however; he did not +ask why Helen was not intolerant, nor ask whether even intolerance may +not sometimes be more tolerable than indifference. And in spite of his +unpleasant irritation at finding this "average" woman not overawed by his +oracular utterances, nor easily beaten in a controversy, Albert had a +respect for her deeper than ever. There was something in her anger at +Westcott that for a moment had seemed finer than anything he had seen in +the self-possessed Miss Minorkey. But then she was so weak as to allow +her intellectual conclusions to be influenced by her feelings, and to be +intolerant. + +I have said that this thing of falling in love is a very complex +catastrophe. I might say that it is also a very uncertain one. Since we +all of us "rub clothes with fate along the street," who knows whether +Charlton would not, by this time, have been in love with Miss Marlay if +he had not seen Miss Minorkey in the stage? If he had not run against +her, while madly chasing a grasshopper? If he had not had a great +curiosity about a question in botany which he could only settle in her +company? And even yet, if he had not had collision with Isa on the +question of Divine Providence? And even after that collision I will not +be sure that the scale might not have been turned, had it not been that +while he was holding this conversation with Isa Marlay, his mother and +sister had come into the next room. For when he went out they showed +unmistakable pleasure in their faces, and Mrs. Plausaby even ventured to +ask: "Don't you like her, Albert?" + +And when the mother tried to persuade him to forego his visit to the +hotel in the evening, he put this and that together. And when this and +that were put together, they combined to produce a soliloquy: + +"Mother and Katy want to make a match for me. As if _they_ understood +_me_! They want me to marry an _average_ woman, of course. Pshaw! Isabel +Marlay only understands the 'culinary use' of things. My mother knows +that she has a 'knack,' and thinks it would be nice for me to have a wife +with a knack. But mother can't judge for _me_. I ought to have a wife +with ideas. And I don't doubt Plausaby has a hand in trying to marry off +his ward to somebody that won't make too much fuss about his accounts." + +And so Charlton was put upon studying all the evening, to find points in +which Miss Minorkey's conversation was superior to Miss Marlay's. And +judged as he judged it--as a literary product--it was not difficult to +find an abundant advantage on her side. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +LOVERS AND LOVERS. + + +Albert Charlton had little money, and he was not a man to remain idle. +He was good in mathematics, and did a little surveying now and then; in +fact, with true democratic courage, he turned his hand to any useful +employment. He did not regard these things as having any bearing on his +career. He was only waiting for the time to come when he could found +his Great Educational Institution on the virgin soil of Minnesota. Then +he would give his life to training boys to live without meat or +practical jokes, to love truth, honesty, and hard lessons; he would +teach girls to forego jewelry and cucumber-pickles, to study +physiology, and to abhor flirtations. Visionary, was he? You can not +help smiling at a man who has a "vocation," and who wants to give the +world a good send-off toward its "goal." But there is something noble +about it after all. Something to make you and me ashamed of our +selfishness. Let us not judge Charlton by his green flavor. When these +discordant acids shall have ripened in the sunshine and the rain, who +shall tell how good the fruit may be? We may laugh, however, at Albert, +and his school that was to be. I do not doubt that even that visionary +street-loafer known to the Athenians as Sokrates, was funny to those +who looked at him from a great distance below. + +During the time in which Charlton waited, and meditated his plans for the +world's advancement by means of a school that should be so admirable as +to modify the whole system of education by the sheer force of its +example, he found it of very great advantage to unfold his plans to Miss +Helen Minorkey. Miss Helen loved to hear him talk. His enthusiasm was the +finest thing she had found, out of books. It was like a heroic poem, as +she often remarked, this fine philanthropy of his, and he seemed to her +like King Arthur preparing his Table Round to regenerate the earth. This +compliment, uttered with the coolness of a literary criticism--and +nothing _could_ be cooler than a certain sort of literary criticism--this +deliberate and oft-repeated compliment of Miss Minorkey always set +Charlton's enthusiastic blood afire with love and admiration for the one +Being, as he declared, born to appreciate his great purposes. And the +Being was pleased to be made the partner of such dreams and hopes. In an +intellectual and ideal fashion she did appreciate them. If Albert had +carried out his great plans, she, as a disinterested spectator, would +have written a critical analysis of them much as she would have described +a new plant. + +But whenever Charlton tried to excite in her an enthusiasm similar to his +own, he was completely foiled. She shrunk from everything like +self-denial or labor of any sort. She was not adapted to it, she assured +him. And he who made fierce war on the uselessness of woman in general +came to reconcile himself to the uselessness of woman in particular, to +apologize for it, to justify it, to admire it. Love is the mother of +invention, and Charlton persuaded himself that it was quite becoming in +such a woman as the most remarkably cultivated, refined, and intellectual +Helen Minorkey, to shrink from the drudgery of life. She was not intended +for it. Her susceptibilities were too keen, according to him, though +Helen Minorkey's susceptibilities were indeed of a very quiet sort. I +believe that Charlton, the sweeping radical, who thought, when thinking +on general principles, that every human-creature should live wholly for +every other human creature, actually addressed some "Lines to H.M.," +through the columns of the _St. Paul Advertiser_ of that day, in which he +promulgated the startling doctrine that a Being such as was the aforesaid +H.M., could not be expected to come into contact with the hard realities +of life. She must content herself with being the Inspiration of the life +of Another, who would work out plans that should inure to the good of man +and the honor of the Being, who would inspire and sustain the Toiler. The +poem was considered very fine by H.M., though the thoughts were a little +too obscure for the general public and the meter was not very smooth. You +have doubtless had occasion to notice that poems which deal with Beings +and Inspirations are usually of very imperfect fluidity. + +Charlton worked at surveying and such other employments as offered +themselves, wrote poems to Helen Minorkey, and plotted and planned how he +might break up little Katy's engagement. He plotted and planned sometimes +with a breaking heart, for the more he saw of Smith Westcott, the more +entirely detestable he seemed. But he did not get much co-operation from +Isabel Marlay. If he resented any effort to make a match between him and +"Cousin Isa," she resented it ten times more vehemently, and all the +more that she, in her unselfishness of spirit, admired sincerely the +unselfishness of Charlton, and in her practical and unimaginative life +felt drawn toward the idealist young man who planned and dreamed in a way +quite wonderful to her. All her woman's pride made her resent the effort +to marry her to a man in love with another, a man who had not sought her. + +[Illustration: MRS. PLAUSABY.] + +"Albert is smart," said Mrs. Plausaby to her significantly one day; "he +would be just the man for you, Isa." + +"Why, Mrs. Plausaby, I heard you say yourself that his wife would have to +do without silk dresses and new bonnets. For my part, I don't think much +of that kind of smartness that can't get a living. I wouldn't have a man +like Mr. Charlton on any, terms." + +And she believed that she spoke the truth; having never learned to +analyze her own feelings, she did not know that all her dislike for +Charlton had its root in a secret liking for him, and that having +practical ability herself, the kind of ability that did not make a living +was just the sort that she admired most. + +It was, therefore, without any co-operation between them, that Isabel and +young Charlton were both of them putting forth their best endeavor to +defeat the plans of Smith Westcott, and avert the sad eclipse which +threatened the life of little Katy. And their efforts in that direction +were about equally fruitful in producing the result they sought to avoid. +For whenever Isa talked to little Katy about Westcott, Katy in the +goodness of her heart and the vehemence of her love was set upon finding +out, putting in order, and enumerating all of his good qualities. And +when Albert attacked him vehemently and called him a coxcomb, and a rake, +and a heartless villain, she cried, and cried, out of sheer pity for +"poor Mr. Westcott;" she thought him the most persecuted man in the +world, and she determined that she would love him more fervently and +devotedly than ever, _that_ she would! Her love should atone for all the +poor fellow suffered. And "poor Mr. Westcott" was not slow in finding out +that "feelin' sorry for a feller was Katy's soft side, by George! he! +he!" and having made this discovery he affected to be greatly afflicted +at the treatment he received from Albert and from Miss Marlay; nor did he +hesitate to impress Katy with the fact that he endured all these things +out of pure devotion to her, and he told her that he could die for her, +"by George! he! he!" any day, and that she mustn't ever desert him if she +didn't want him to kill himself; he didn't care two cents for life except +for her, and he'd just as soon go to sleep in the lake as not, "by +George! he! he!" any day. And then he rattled his keys, and sang in a +quite affecting way, to the simple-minded Kate, how for "bonnie Annie +Laurie," with a look at Katy, he could "lay him down and dee," and added +touchingly and recitatively the words "by George! he! he!" which made his +emotion seem very real and true to Katy; she even saw a vision of "poor +Mr. Westcott" dragged out of the lake dead on her account, and with that +pathetic vision in her mind she vowed she'd rather die than desert him. +And as for all the ills which her brother foreboded for her in case she +should marry Smith Westcott, they did not startle her at all. Such +simple, loving natures as Katy Charlton's can not feel for self. It is +such a pleasure to them to throw themselves away in loving. + +Besides, Mrs. Plausaby put all her weight into the scale, and with the +loving Katy the mother's word weighed more even than Albert's. Mrs. +Plausaby didn't see why in the world Katy couldn't marry as she pleased +without being tormented to death. Marrying was a thing everybody must +attend to personally for themselves. Besides, Mr. Westcott was a +nice-spoken man, and dressed very well, his shirt-bosom was the finest in +Metropolisville, and he had a nice hat and wore lavender gloves on +Sundays. And he was a store-keeper, and he would give Katy all the nice +things she wanted. It was a nice thing to be a store-keeper's wife. She +wished Plausaby would keep a store. And she went to the glass and fixed +her ribbons, and reflected that if Plausaby kept a store she could get +plenty of them. + +And so all that Cousin Isa and Brother Albert said came to naught, except +that it drove the pitiful Katy into a greater devotion to her lover, and +made the tender-hearted Katy cry. And when she cried, the sentimental +Westcott comforted her by rattling his keys in an affectionate way, and +reminding her that the course of true love never did run smooth, "by +George! he! he! he!" + + + + +CHAPTER X + +PLAUSABY, ESQ., TAKES A FATHERLY INTEREST. + + +Plausaby, Esq., felt a fatherly interest. He said so. He wanted Albert to +make his way in the world. "You have great gifts, Albert," he said. But +the smoother Mr. Plausaby talked, the rougher Mr. Albert felt. Mr. +Plausaby felt the weight of all that Albert had said against the learned +professions. He did, indeed. He would not care to say it so strongly. Not +too strongly. Old men never spoke quite so strongly as young ones. But +the time had been, he said, when Thomas Plausaby's pulse beat as quick +and strong as any other young man's. Virtuous indignation was a beautiful +emotion in a young man. For his part he never cared much for a young man +who did not know how to show just such feeling on such questions. But one +must not carry it too far. Not too far. Never too far. For his part ho +did not like to see anything carried too far. It was always bad to carry +a thing too far. A man had to make his bread somehow. It was a necessity. +Every young man must consider that he had his way to make in the world. +It was a fact to be considered. To be considered carefully. He would +recommend that Albert consider it. And consider it carefully. Albert must +make his way. For his part, he had a plan in view that he thought could +not be objectionable to Albert's feelings. Not at all objectionable. Not +in the least. + +All this Plausaby, Esq., oozed out at proper intervals and in gentlest +tones. Charlton for his mother's sake kept still, and reflected that Mr. +Plausaby had not said a word as yet that ought to anger him. He +therefore nodded his head and waited to hear the plan which Plausaby had +concocted for him. + +Mr. Plausaby proceeded to state that he thought Albert ought to pre-empt. + +Albert said that he would like to pre-empt as soon as he should be of +age, but that was some weeks off yet, and he supposed that when he got +ready there would be few good claims left. + +The matter of age was easily got over, replied Plausaby. Quite easily got +over. Nothing easier, indeed. All the young men in the Territory who were +over nineteen had pre-empted. It was customary. Quite customary, indeed. +And custom was law. In some sense it was law. Of course there were some +customs in regard to pre-emption that Plausaby thought no good man could +approve. Not at all. Not in the least. + +There was the building of a house on wheels and hauling it from claim to +claim, and swearing it in on each claim as a house on that claim. +Plausaby, Esq., did not approve of that. Not at all. Not in the least. He +thought it a dangerous precedent. Quite dangerous. Quite so. But good men +did it. Very good men, indeed. And then he had known men to swear that +there was glass in the window of a house when there was only a +whisky-bottle sitting in the window. It was amusing. Quite amusing, these +devices. Four men just over in Town 21 had built a house on the corners +of four quarter sections. The house partly on each of the four claims. +Swore that house in on each claim. But such expedients were not to be +approved. Not at all. They were not commendable. However, nearly all the +claims in the Territory had been made irregularly. Nearly all of them. +And the matter of age could be gotten over easily. Custom made law. And +Albert was twenty-three in looks. Quite twenty-three. More than that, +indeed. Twenty-five, perhaps. Some people were men at sixteen. And some +were always men. They were, indeed. Always men. Always. Albert was a man +in intellect. Quite a man. The spirit of the law was the thing to be +looked at. The spirit, not the letter. Not the letter at all. The spirit +of the law warranted Albert in pre-empting. + +Here Plausaby, Esq., stopped a minute. But Albert said nothing. He +detested Plausaby's ethics, but was not insensible to his flattery. + +"And as for a claim, Albert, I will attend to that. I will see to it. I +know a good chance for you to make two thousand dollars fairly hi a +month. A very good chance. Very good, indeed. There is a claim adjoining +this town-site which was filed on by a stage-driver. Reckless sort of a +fellow. Disreputable. We don't want him to hold land here. Not at all. +You would be a great addition to us. You would indeed. A great addition. +A valuable addition to the town. And it would be a great comfort to your +mother and to me to have you near us. It would indeed. A great comfort. +We could secure this Whisky Jim's claim very easily for you, and you +could lay it off into town lots. I have used my pre-emption right, or I +would take that myself. I advise you to secure it. I do, indeed. You +couldn't use your pre-emption right to a better advantage. I am sure you +couldn't." + +"Well," said Albert, "if Whisky Jim will sell out, why not get him to +hold it for me for three weeks until I am of age?" + +"He wouldn't sell, but he has forfeited it. He neglected to stay on it. +Has been away from it more than thirty days. You have a perfect right to +jump it and pre-empt it. I am well acquainted with Mr. Shamberson, the +brother-in-law of the receiver. Very well acquainted. He is a land-office +lawyer, and they do say that a fee of fifty dollars to him will put the +case through, right or wrong. But in this case we should have right on +our side, and should make a nice thing. A very nice thing, indeed. And +the town would be relieved of a dissipated man, and you could then carry +out your plan of establishing a village library here." + +"But," said Albert between his teeth, "I hear that the reason Jim didn't +come back to take possession of his claim at the end of his thirty days +is his sickness. He's sick at the Sod Tavern." + +"Well, you see, he oughtn't to have neglected his claim so long before he +was taken sick. Not at all. Besides, he doesn't add anything to the moral +character of a town. I value the moral character of a settler above all I +do, indeed. The moral character. If he gets that claim, he'll get rich +off my labors, and be one of our leading citizens. Quite a leading +citizen. It is better that you should have it. A great deal better. +Better all round. The depot will be on one corner of the east forty of +that claim, probably. Now, you shouldn't neglect your chance to get on. +You shouldn't, really. This is the road to wealth and influence. The road +to wealth. And influence. You can found your school there. You'll have +money and land. Money to build with. Land on which to build. You will +have both." + +"You want me to swear that I am twenty-one when I am not, to bribe the +receiver, and to take a claim and all the improvements on it from a sick +man?" said Albert with heat. + +"You put things wrong. Quite so. I want to help you to start. The claim +is now open. It belongs to Government, with all improvements. +Improvements go with the claim. If you don't take it, somebody will. It +is a pity for you to throw away your chances." + +"My chances of being a perjured villain and a thief! No, thank you, sir," +said the choleric Charlton, getting very red in the face, and stalking +out of the room. + +"Such notions!" cried his mother. "Just like his father over again. His +father threw away all his chances just for notions. I tell you, Plausaby, +he never got any of those notions from me. Not one." + +"No, I don't think he did," said Plausaby. "I don't think he did. Not at +all. Not in the least." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +ABOUT SEVERAL THINGS. + + +Albert Charlton, like many other very conscientious men at his time of +life, was quarrelsomely honest. He disliked Mr. Plausaby's way of doing +business, and he therefore determined to satisfy his conscience by +having a row with his step-father. And so he startled his sister and +shocked his mother, and made the house generally uncomfortable, by +making, in season and out of season, severe remarks on the subject of +land speculation, and particularly of land-sharks. It was only Albert's +very disagreeable way of being honest. Even Isabel Marlay looked with +terror at what she regarded as signs of an approaching quarrel between +the two men of the house. + +But there was no such thing as a quarrel with Plausaby. Moses may have +been the meekest of men, but that was in the ages before Plausaby, Esq. +No manner of abuse could stir him. He had suffered many things of many +men in his life, many things of outraged creditors, and the victims of +his somewhat remarkable way of dealing; his air of patient +long-suffering and quiet forbearance under injury had grown chronic. It +was, indeed, part of his stock in trade, an element of character that +redounded to his credit, while it cost nothing and was in every way +profitable. It was as though the whole catalogue of Christian virtues had +been presented to Plausaby to select from, and he, with characteristic +shrewdness, had taken the one trait that was cheapest and most +remunerative. + +In these contests Albert was generally sure to sacrifice by his +extravagance whatever sympathy he might otherwise have had from the rest +of the family. When he denounced dishonest trading, Isabel knew that he +was right, and that Mr. Plausaby deserved the censure, and even Mrs. +Plausaby and the sweet, unreasoning Katy felt something of the justice of +what he said. But Charlton was never satisfied to stop here. He always +went further, and made a clean sweep of the whole system of town-site +speculation, which unreasonable invective forced those who would have +been his friends into opposition. And the beautiful meekness with which +Plausaby, Esq., bore his step-son's denunciations never failed to excite +the sympathy and admiration of all beholders. By never speaking an unkind +word, by treating Albert with gentle courtesy, by never seeming to feel +his innuendoes, Plausaby heaped coals of fire on his enemies' head, and +had faith to believe that the coals were very hot. Mrs. Ferret, who once +witnessed one of the contests between the two, or rather one of these +attacks of Albert, for there could be no contest with embodied meekness, +gave her verdict for Plausaby. He showed such a "Chrischen" spirit. She +really thought he must have felt the power of grace. He seemed to hold +schripcherral views, and show such a spirit of Chrischen forbearance, +that she for her part thought he deserved the sympathy of good people. +Mr. Charlton was severe, he was unchar-it-able--really unchar-it-able in +his spirit. He pretended to a great deal of honesty, but people of +unsound views generally whitened the outside of the sep-ul-cher. And Mrs. +Ferret closed the sentence by jerking her face into an astringed smile, +which, with the rising inflection of her voice, demanded the assent of +her hearers. + +The evidences of disapproval which Albert detected in the countenances of +those about him did not at all decrease his irritation. His irritation +did not tend to modify the severity of his moral judgments. And the fact +that Smith Westcott had jumped the claim of Whisky Jim, of course at +Plausaby's suggestion, led Albert into a strain of furious talk that must +have produced a violent rupture in the family, had it not been for the +admirable composure of Plausaby, Esq., under the extremest provocation. +For Charlton openly embraced the cause of Jim; and much as he disliked +all manner of rascality, he was secretly delighted to hear that Jim had +employed Shamberson, the lawyer, who was brother-in-law to the receiver +of the land-office, and whose retention in those days of mercenary +lawlessness was a guarantee of his client's success. Westcott had offered +the lawyer a fee of fifty dollars, but Jim's letter, tendering him a +contingent fee of half the claim, reached him in the same mail, and the +prudent lawyer, after talking the matter over with the receiver who was +to decide the case, concluded to take half of the claim. Jim would have +given him all rather than stand a defeat. + +Katy, with more love than logic, took sides of course with her lover in +this contest. Westcott showed her where he meant to build the most +perfect little dove-house for her, by George, he! he! and she listened +to his side of the story, and became eloquent in her denunciation of the +drunken driver who wanted to cheat poor, dear Smith--she had got to the +stage in which she called him by his Christian name now--to cheat poor, +dear Smith out of his beautiful claim. + +If I were writing a History instead of a Mystery of Metropolisville, I +should have felt under obligation to begin with the founding of the town, +in the year preceding the events of this story. Not that there were any +mysterious rites or solemn ceremonies. Neither Plausaby nor the silent +partners interested with him cared for such classic customs. They sought +first to guess out the line of a railroad; they examined corner-stakes; +they planned for a future county-seat; they selected a high-sounding +name, regardless of etymologies and tautologies; they built shanties, +"filed" according to law, laid off a town-site, put up a hotel, published +a beautiful colored map, and began to give away lots to men who would +build on them. Such, in brief, is the unromantic history of the founding +of the village of Metropolisville. + +And if this were a history, I should feel bound to tell of all the +maneuvers resorted to by Metropolisville, party of the second part, to +get the county-seat removed from Perritaut, party of the first part, +party in possession. But about the time that Smith Westcott's contest +about the claim was ripening to a trial, the war between the two villages +was becoming more and more interesting. A special election was +approaching, and Albert of course took sides against Metropolisville, +partly because of his disgust at the means Plausaby was using, partly +because he thought the possession of the county-seat would only enable +Plausaby to swindle more people and to swindle them more effectually, +partly because he knew that Perritaut was more nearly central in the +county, and partly because he made it a rule to oppose Plausaby on +general principles. Albert was an enthusiastic and effective talker, and +it was for this reason that Plausaby had wished to interest him by +getting him to "jump" Whisky Jim's claim, which lay alongside the town. +And it was because he was an enthusiastic talker, and because his entire +disinterestedness and his relations to Plausaby gave his utterances +peculiar weight, that the Squire planned to get him out of the county +until after the election. + +Mrs. Plausaby suggested to Albert that he should go and visit a cousin +thirty miles away. Who suggested it to Mrs. Plausaby we may not guess, +since we may not pry into the secrets of a family, or know anything of +the conferences which a husband may hold with his wife in regard to the +management of the younger members of the household. As an authentic +historian, I am bound to limit myself to the simple fact, and the fact is +that Mrs. Plausaby stated to Albert her opinion that it would be a nice +thing for him to go and see Cousin John's folks at Glenfleld. She made +the suggestion with characteristic maladroitness, at a moment when Albert +had been holding forth on his favorite hobby of the sinfulness of +land-speculation in general, and the peculiar wickedness of +misrepresentation and all the other arts pertaining to town-site +swindling. Perhaps Albert was too suspicious. He always saw the hand of +Plausaby in everything proposed by his mother. He bluntly refused to go. +He wanted to stay and vote. He would be of age in time. He wanted to stay +and vote against this carting of a county-seat around the country for +purposes of speculation. He became so much excited at what he regarded +as a scheme to get him out of the way, that he got up from the table and +went out into the air to cool off. He sat down on the unpainted piazza, +and took up Gerald Massey's poems, of which he never tired, and read +until the light failed. + +And then came Isa Marlay out in the twilight and said she wanted to +speak to him, and he got her a chair and listened while she spoke in a +voice as full of harmony as her figure was full of gracefulness. I have +said that Isabel was not a beauty, and yet such was the influence of her +form, her rhythmical movement, and her sweet, rich voice, that Charlton +thought she was handsome, and when she sat down and talked to him, he +found himself vibrating, as a sensitive nature will, under the influence +of grace or beauty. + +"Don't you think, Mr. Charlton, that you would better take your mother's +suggestion, and go to your cousin's? You'll excuse me for speaking about +what does not concern me?" + +Charlton would have excused her for almost anything she might have said +in the way of advice or censure, for in spite of all his determination +that it should not be, her presence was very pleasant to him. + +"Certainly I have no objection to receive advice, Miss Marlay; but have +you joined the other side?" + +"I don't know what you mean by the other side, Mr. Charlton. I don't +belong to any side. I think all quarreling is unpleasant, and I hate it. +I don't think anything you say makes any change in Uncle Plausaby, while +it does make your mother unhappy." + +"So you think, Miss Isabel, that I ought to go away from Wheat County and +not throw my influence on the side of right in this contest, because my +mother is unhappy?" Albert spoke with some warmth. + +"I did not say so. I think that a useless struggle, which makes your +mother unhappy, ought to be given over. But I didn't want to advise you +about your duty to your mother. I was led into saying so much on that +point. I came to say something else. It does seem to me that if you could +take Katy with you, something might turn up that would offer you a chance +to influence her. And that would be better than keeping the county-seat +at Perritaut." And she got up to go in. + +Charlton was profoundly touched by Isabel's interest in Katy. He rose +to his feet and said: "You are right, I believe. And I am very, very +much obliged." + +And as the straightforward Isa said, "Oh! no, that is nothing," and +walked away, Charlton looked after her and said, "What a charming woman!" +He felt more than he said, and he immediately set himself loyally to work +to enumerate all the points in which Miss Helen Minorkey was superior to +Isa, and said that, after all, gracefulness of form and elasticity of +motion and melodiousness of voice were only lower gifts, possessed in a +degree by birds and animals, and he blamed himself for feeling them at +all, and felt thankful that Helen Minorkey had those higher qualities +which would up-lift--he had read some German, and compounded his +words--up-lift a man to a higher level. Perhaps every loyal-hearted lover +plays these little tricks of self-deception on himself. Every lover +except the one whose "object" is indeed perfect. You know who that is. So +do I. Indeed, life would be a very poor affair if it were not for +these--what shall I call them? If Brown knew how much Jones's wife was +superior to his own, Brown would be neither happier nor better for the +knowledge. When he sees the superiority of Mrs. Jones's temper to Mrs. +Brown's somewhat energetic disposition, he always falls back on Mrs. +Brown's diploma, and plumes himself that at any rate Mrs. Brown graduated +at the Hobson Female College. Poor Mrs. Jones had only a common-school +education. How mortified Jones must feel when he thinks of it! + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +AN ADVENTURE. + + +That Katy should go with Albert to see the cousins at Glenfield was a +matter easily brought about. Plausaby, Esq., was so desirous of Albert's +absence that he threw all of Mrs. Plausaby's influence on the side of the +arrangement which Charlton made a _sine qua non_. Albert felt a little +mean at making such a compromise of principle, and Plausaby felt much as +a man does who pays the maker of crank-music to begone. He did not like +Katy's going; he wanted to further her marriage with so influential a +person as Smith Westcott, the agent in charge of the interests of +Jackson, Jones & Co., who not only owned the Emporium, but were silent +partners in the town-site. But Katy must go. Plausaby affectionately +proffered the loan of his horse and buggy, which Charlton could not well +refuse, and so the two set out for Glenfleld with many kind adieus. +Westcott came down, and smoked, and rattled his keys, and hoped they'd +have a pleasant journey and get back soon, you know, Katy, by George! he! +he! he! Couldn't live long without the light of her countenance. 'S a +fact! By George! He! he! And when the carpet-bags and lunch-basket and +all the rest were stowed away under the seat of the buggy, Mrs. +Plausaby, with a magnificent number of streamers, kissed them, and she +and Cousin Isa stood by the gate and nodded their heads to the departing +buggy, as an expression of their feelings, and Mr. Plausaby lifted his +hat in such a way as to conceal his feelings, which, written out, would +be, "Good riddance!" And Smith Westcott blandly waved his good-by and +bowed to the ladies at the gate, and started back to the store. He was +not feeling very happy, apparently, for he walked to the store moodily, +rattling the coppers and keys in his right pantaloons-pocket. But he +seemed to see a little daylight, for just as he arrived in front of the +Emporium, he looked up and said, as if he had just thought of something, +"By George! he! he! he!" + +Owing to some delay in fixing the buggy, Charlton had not got off till +about noon, but as the moon would rise soon after dark, he felt sure of +reaching Glenfleld by nine in the evening. One doesn't mind a late +arrival when one is certain of a warm welcome. And so they jogged on +quietly over the smooth road, the slow old horse walking half the time. +Albert was not in a hurry. For the first time since his return, he felt +that for a moment he possessed little Katy again. The shadow had gone; it +might come back; he would rejoice in the light while he could. Katy was +glad to be relieved of the perpetual conflict at home, and, with a +feeling entirely childish, she rejoiced that Albert was not now reproving +her. And so Albert talked in his old pedagogic fashion, telling Katy of +all the strange things he could think of, and delighting himself in +watching the wonder and admiration in her face. The country was now +smooth and now broken, and Albert thought he had never seen the grass so +green or the flowers so bright as they were this morning. The streams +they crossed were clear and cold, the sun shone hot upon them, but the +sky was so blue and the earth so green that they both abandoned +themselves to the pleasure of living with such a sky above and such a +world beneath. There were here and there a few settlers' houses, but not +yet a great many. The country was not a lonely one for all that. Every +now and then the frightened prairie-chickens ran across the road or rose +with their quick, whirring flight; ten thousand katydids and grasshoppers +were jumping, fluttering, flying, and fiddling their rattling notes, and +the air seemed full of life. They were considerably delayed by Albert's +excursions after new insects, for he had brought his collecting-box and +net along. So that when, about the middle of the afternoon, as they +stopped, in fording a brook, to water old Prince, and were suddenly +startled by the sound of thunder, Albert felt a little conscience-smitten +that he had not traveled more diligently toward his destination. And when +he drove on a quarter of a mile, he found himself in a most unpleasant +dilemma, the two horns being two roads, concerning which those who +directed him had neglected to give him any advice. Katy had been here +before, and she was very sure that to the right hand was the road. There +was now no time to turn back, for the storm was already upon them--one of +those fearful thunderstorms to which the high Minnesota table-land is +peculiarly liable. In sheer desperation, Charlton took the right-hand +road, not doubting that he could at least find shelter for the night in +some settler's shanty. The storm was one not to be imagined by those who +have not seen its like, not to be described by any one. The quick +succession of flashes of lightning, the sudden, sharp, unendurable +explosions, before, behind, and on either side, shook the nerves of +Charlton and drove little Katy frantic. For an hour they traveled through +the drenching rain, their eyes blinded every minute by lightning; for an +hour they expected continually that the next thunder-bolt would smite +them. All round them, on that treeless prairie, the lightning seemed to +fall, and with every new blaze they held their breath for fear of sudden +death. Charlton wrapped Katy in every way he could, but still the storm +penetrated all the wrapping, and the cold rain chilled them both to the +core. Katy, on her part, was frightened, lest the lightning should strike +Brother Albert. Muffled in shawls, she felt tolerably safe from a +thunderbolt, but it was awful to think that Brother Albert sat out there, +exposed to the lightning. And in this time of trouble and danger, +Charlton held fast to his sister. He felt a brave determination never to +suffer Smith Westcott to have her. And if he had only lived in the middle +ages, he would doubtless have challenged the fellow to mortal combat. +Now, alas! civilization was in his way. + +At last the storm spent itself a little, and the clouds broke away in +the west, lighting up the rain and making it glorious. Then the wind +veered, and the clouds seemed to close over them again, and the +lightning, not quite so vivid or so frequent but still terrible, and +the rain, with an incessant plashing, set in as for the whole night. +Darkness was upon them, not a house was in sight, the chill cold of +the ceaseless rain seemed beyond endurance, the horse was well-nigh +exhausted and walked at a dull pace, while Albert feared that Katy +would die from the exposure. As they came to the top of each little +rise he strained his eyes, and Katy rose up and strained her eyes, in +the vain hope of seeing a light, but they did not know that they were +in the midst of--that they were indeed driving diagonally across--a +great tract of land which had come into the hands of some corporation +by means of the location of half-breed scrip. They had long since +given up all hope of the hospitable welcome at the house of Cousin +John, and now wished for nothing but shelter of any sort. Albert knew +that he was lost, but this entire absence of settlers' houses, and +even of deserted claim-shanties built for pre-emption purposes, +puzzled him. Sometimes he thought he saw a house ahead, and endeavored +to quicken the pace of the old horse, but the house always transformed +itself to a clump of hazel-brush as he drew nearer. About nine o'clock +the rain grew colder and the lightning less frequent. Katy became +entirely silent--Albert could feel her shiver now and then. Thus, in +numb misery, constantly hoping to see a house on ascending the next +rise of ground and constantly suffering disappointment, they traveled +on through the wretched monotony of that night. The ceaseless plash of +the rain, the slow tread of the horse's hoofs in the water, the roar +of a distant thunderbolt--these were the only sounds they heard during +the next hour--during the longer hour following--during the hours +after that. And then little Katy, thinking she must die, began to send +messages to the folks at home, and to poor, dear Smith, who would cry +so when she was gone. + +But just in the moment of extremity, when Charlton felt that his very +heart was chilled by this exposure in an open buggy to more than seven +hours of terrific storm, he caught sight of something which cheered him. +He had descended into what seemed to be a valley, there was water in the +road, he could mark the road by the absence of grass, and the glistening +of the water in the faint light. The water was growing deeper; just +ahead of him was a small but steep hill; on top of the hill, which showed +its darker form against the dark clouds, he had been able to distinguish +by the lightning-light a hay-stack, and here on one side of the road the +grass of the natural meadow gave unmistakable evidence of having been +mowed. Albert essayed to cheer Katy by calling her attention to these +signs of human habitation, but Katy was too cold and weary and numb to +say much or feel much; an out-door wet-sheet pack for seven hours does +not leave much of heart or hope in a human soul. + +Albert noticed with alarm that the water under the horse's feet +increased in depth continually. A minute ago it was just above the +fetlocks; now it was nearly to the knees, and the horse was obliged to +lift his feet still more slowly. The rain had filled the lowland with +water. Still the grass grew on either side of the road, and Charlton did +not feel much alarm until, coming almost under the very shadow of the +bluff, the grass suddenly ceased abruptly, and all was water, with what +appeared to be an inaccessible cliff beyond. The road which lost itself +in this pool or pond, must come out somewhere on the other side. But +where? To the right or left? And how bottomless might not the morass be +if he should miss the road! + +But in such a strait one must do something. So he selected a certain +point to the left, where the hill on the other side looked less broken, +and, turning the horse's head in that direction, struck him smartly with +the whip. The horse advanced a step or two, the water rose quickly to his +body, and he refused to go any farther. Neither coaxing nor whipping +could move him. There was nothing to do now but to wait for the next +flash of lightning. It was long to wait, for with the continuance of the +storm the lightning had grown less and less frequent. Charlton thought it +the longest five minutes that he ever knew. At last there came a blaze, +very bright and blinding, leaving a very fearful darkness after it. But +short and sudden as it was, it served to show Charlton that the sheet of +water before him was not a pool or a pond, but a brook or a creek over +all its banks, swollen to a river, and sweeping on, a wild torrent. At +the side on which Charlion was, the water was comparatively still; the +stream curved in such a way as to make the current dash itself against +the rocky bluff. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +A SHELTER. + + +Albert drove up the stream, and in a fit of desperation again essayed to +ford it. The staying in the rain all night with Katy was so terrible to +him that he determined to cross at all hazards. It were better to drown +together than to perish here. But again the prudent stubbornness of the +old horse saved them. He stood in the water as immovable as the ass of +Balaam. Then, for the sheer sake of doing something, Charlton drove down +the stream to a point opposite where the bluff seemed of easy ascent. +Here he again attempted to cross, and was again balked by the horse's +regard for his own safety. Charlton did not appreciate the depth and +swiftness of the stream, nor the consequent certainty of drowning in any +attempt to ford it. Not until he got out of the buggy and tried to cross +afoot did he understand how impossible it was. + +When Albert returned to the vehicle he sat still. The current rippled +against the body of the horse and the wheels of the buggy. The incessant +rain roared in the water before him. There was nothing to be done. In +the sheer exhaustion of his resources, in his numb despondency, he +neglected even to drive the horse out of the water. How long he sat +there it would be hard to say. Several times he roused himself to utter +a "Halloo!" But the roar of the rain swallowed up his voice, which was +husky with emotion. + +After a while he heard a plashing in the water, which was not that of +the rain. He thought it must be the sound of a canoe-paddle. Could +anybody row against such a torrent? But he distinctly heard the +plashing, and it was below him. Even Katy roused herself to listen, and +strained her eyes against the blackness of the night to discover what it +might be. It did not grow any nearer. It did not retreat. At the end of +ten minutes this irregular but distinct dipping sound, which seemed to +be in some way due to human agency, was neither farther nor nearer, +neither slower nor more rapid than at first. Albert hallooed again and +again at it, but the mysterious cause of this dipping and dashing was +deaf to all cries for help. Or if not deaf, this oarsman seemed as +incapable of giving reply as the "dumb old man" that rowed the "lily +maid of Astolat" to the palace of Arthur. + +But it was no oarsman, not even a dumb one. The lightning for which +Albert prayed came at last, and illumined the water and the shores, +dispelling all dreams of canoe or oarsman. Charlton saw in an instant +that there was a fence a few rods away, and that where the fence crossed +the stream, or crossed from bank to bank of what was the stream at its +average stage, long poles had been used, and one of these long and supple +poles was now partly submerged. The swift current bent it in the middle +until it would spring out of the water and drop back higher up. It was +thus kept in a rotary motion, making the sound which he had mistaken for +the paddling of a canoeman. With this discovery departed all thought of +human help from that quarter. + +But with the dissipating of the illusion came a new hope. Charlton +turned the head of the horse back and drove him out of the water, or at +least to a part of the meadow where the overflowed water did not reach to +his knees. Here he tied him to a tree, and told Katy she must stay alone +until he should cross the stream and find help, if help there should be, +and return. It might take him half an hour. But poor Katy said that she +could not live half an hour longer in this rain. And, besides, she knew +that Albert would be drowned in crossing. So that it was with much ado +that he managed to get away from her, and, indeed, I think she cried +after he had gone. He called back to her when he got to the brook's bank, +"All right, Katy!" but Katy heard him through the roar of the rain, and +it seemed to her that he was being swallowed up in a Noachian deluge. + +Charlton climbed along on the precarious footing afforded by the +submerged pole, holding to the poles above while the water rushed about +his feet. These poles were each of them held by a single large nail at +each end, and the support was doubly doubtful. He might fall off, or the +nails might come out. Even had he not been paralyzed by long exposure to +the cold, he could have no hope of being able to swim in such a torrent. + +In the middle of the stream he found a new difficulty. The posts to which +these limber poles were nailed at either end sloped in opposite +directions, so that while he started across on the upper side he found +that when he got to the middle the pole fence began to slant so much up +the stream that he must needs climb to the other side, a most difficult +and dangerous performance on a fence of wabbling popple poles in the +middle of a stream on a very dark night. When at last he got across the +stream, he found himself in the midst of a hazel thicket higher than his +head. He hallooed to Katy, and she was sure this time that it was his +last drowning cry. Working his way out of the hazel-brush, he came to a +halt against a fence and waited for lightning. That there was a house in +the neighborhood he could not doubt, but whether it were inhabited or not +was a question. And where was it? + +For full five minutes--an eternal five minutes--the pitiless rain poured +down upon Charlton as he stood there by the fence, his eyes going forward +to find a house, his heart running back to the perishing Katy. At last +the lightning showed him a house, and from the roof of the house he saw a +stovepipe. The best proof that it was not a deserted claim-shanty! + +Stumbling round the fence in the darkness, Charlton came upon the house, +a mere cabin, and tried three sides of it before he found the entrance. +When he knocked, the door was opened by a tall man, who said: + +"Right smart sprinkle, stranger! Where did you come from? Must 'a' rained +down like a frog." + +But Albert had no time for compliments. He told his story very briefly, +and asked permission to bring his sister over. + +"Fetch her right along, stranger. No lady never staid in this 'ere shed +afore, but she's mighty welcome." + +Albert now hurried back, seized with a fear that he would find Katy dead. +He crossed on the poles again, shouting to Katy as he went. He found her +almost senseless. He quickly loosed old Prince from the buggy, and +tethered him with the lines where he would not suffer for either water or +grass, and then lifted Kate from the buggy, and literally carried her to +the place where they must needs climb along the poles. It was with much +difficulty that he partly carried her, partly persuaded her to climb +along that slender fence. How he ever got the almost helpless girl over +into that hazel-brush thicket he never exactly knew, but as they +approached the house, guided by a candle set in the window, she grew more +and more feeble, until Albert was obliged to carry her in and lay her +down in a swoon of utter exhaustion. + +The inhabitant of the cabin ran to a little cupboard, made of a +packing-box, and brought out a whisky-flask, and essayed to put it to her +lips, but as he saw her lying there, white and beautiful in her +helplessness, he started back and said, with a rude reverence, "Stranger, +gin her some of this 'ere--I never could tech sech a creetur!" + +And Albert gave her some of the spirits and watched her revive. He warmed +her hands and chafed her feet before the fire which the backwoodsman had +made. As she came back to consciousness, Charlton happened to think that +he had no dry clothes for her. He would have gone immediately back to the +buggy, where there was a portmanteau carefully stowed under the seat, but +that the Inhabitant had gone out and he was left alone with Katy, and he +feared that she would faint again if he should leave her. Presently the +tall, lank, longhaired man came in. + +"Mister," he said, "I made kinder sorter free with your things. I thought +as how as the young woman might want to shed some of them air wet +feathers of her'n, and so I jist venter'd to go and git this yer bag +'thout axin' no leave nor license, while you was a-bringin' on her to. +Looks pooty peart, by hokey! Now, mister, we ha'n't got no spar rooms +here. But you and me'll jes' take to the loff thar fer a while, seein' +our room is better nor our comp'ny. You kin change up stars." + +They went to the loft by an outside ladder, the Inhabitant speaking very +reverently in a whisper, evidently feeling sure that there was an angel +down-stairs. They went down again after a while, and the Inhabitant piled +on wood so prodigally that the room became too warm; he boiled a pot of +coffee, fried some salt-pork, baked some biscuit, a little yellow and a +little too short, but to the hungry travelers very palatable. Even +Charlton found it easy to forego his Grahamism and eat salt-pork, +especially as he had a glass of milk. Katy, for her part, drank a cup of +coffee but ate little, though the Inhabitant offered her the best he had +with a voice stammering with emotion. He could not speak to her without +blushing to his temples. He tried to apologize for the biscuit and the +coffee, but could hardly ever get through his sentence intelligibly, he +was so full of a sentiment of adoration for the first lady into whose +presence he had come in years. Albert felt a profound respect for the man +on account of his reverence for Katy. And Katy of course loved him as she +did everybody who was kind to her or to her friends, and she essayed once +or twice to make him feel comfortable by speaking to him, but so great +was his agitation when spoken to by the divine creature, that he came +near dropping a plate of biscuit the first time she spoke, and almost +upset the coffee the next time. I have often noticed that the anchorites +of the frontier belong to two classes--those who have left humanity and +civilization from sheer antagonism to men, a selfish, crabbed love of +solitude, and those who have fled from their fellows from a morbid +sensitiveness. The Inhabitant was of the latter sort. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +THE INHABITANT. + + +When Albert awoke next morning from a sound sleep on the buffalo-robe in +the loft of the cabin of the Inhabitant, the strange being who had slept +at his side had gone. He found him leaning against the foot of the +ladder outside. + +"Waitin', you know," he said when he saw Albert, "tell she gits up. I was +tryin' to think what I _could_ do to make this house fit fer her to stay +in; fer, you see, stranger, they's no movin' on tell to-morry, fer though +the rain's stopped, I 'low you can't git that buggy over afore to-morry +mornin'. But blam'd ef 'ta'n't too bad fer sech as her to stay in sech a +cabin! I never wanted no better place tell las' night, but ever sence +that creetur crossed the door-sill. I've wished it was a palace of +di'monds. She hadn't orter live in nothin' poarer." + +"Where did you come from?" asked Charlton. + +"From the Wawbosh. You see I couldn't stay. They treated me bad. I had a +idee. I wanted to write somethin' or nother in country talk. I need to +try to write potry in good big dictionary words, but I hadn't but 'mazin +little schoolin', and lived along of a set of folks that talked jes' like +I do. But a Scotchman what I worked along of one winter, he read me some +potry, writ out by a Mr. Burns, in the sort of bad grammar that a +Scotchman talks, you know. And I says, Ef a Scotchman could write poetry +in his sort of bad grammar, why couldn't a Hoosier jest as well write +poetry in the sort of lingo we talk down on the Wawbosh? I don't see why. +Do you, now?" + +Albert was captivated to find a "child of nature" with such an idea, and +he gave it his entire approval. + +"Wal, you see, when I got to makin' varses I found the folks down in +Posey Kyounty didn' take to varses wrote out in their own talk. They +liked the real dictionary po'try, like 'The boy stood on the burnin' +deck' and 'A life on the ocean wave,' but they made fun of me, and when +the boys got a hold of my poortiest varses, and said 'em over and over +as they was comin' from school, and larfed at me, and the gals kinder +fooled me, gittin' me to do some varses fer ther birthdays, and then +makin' fun of 'em, I couldn' bar it no ways, and so I jist cleaned out +and left to git shed of their talk. But I stuck to my idee all the +same. I made varses in the country talk all the same, and sent 'em to +editors, but they couldn' see nothin' in 'em. Writ back that I'd +better larn to spell. When I could a-spelt down any one of 'em the best +day they ever seed!" + +"I'd like to see some of your verses," said Albert. + +"I thought maybe you mout," and with that he took out a soiled blue paper +on which was written in blue ink some verses. + +"Now, you see, I could spell right ef I wanted to, but I noticed that Mr. +Burns had writ his Scotch like it was spoke, and so I thought I'd write +my country talk by the same rule." + +And the picturesque Inhabitant, standing there in the morning light in +his trapper's wolf-skin cap, from the apex of which the tail of the wolf +hung down his back, read aloud the verses which he had written in the +Hoosier dialect, or, as he called it, the country talk of the Wawbosh. In +transcribing them, I have inserted one or two apostrophes, for the poet +always complained that though he could spell like sixty, he never could +mind his stops. + +[Illustration: THE INHABITANT.] + +WHAT DUMB CRITTERS SAYS + +The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, + Ef nobody's thar to see. +The cat-bird poorty nigh splits his throat, +But ef I say, "Sing out, green coat," + Why, "I can't" and "I shan't," says he. + +I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard + Of a man made outen straw. +I 'low'd the crows mout be afeard, +But laws! they warn't the least bit skeered, + They larfed out, "Haw! haw-haw!" + +A long-tail squir'l up in th' top + Of that air ellum tree, +A long-tail squir'l up in th' top, +A lis'nin' to the acorns drop, + Says, "Sh! sh-sh!" at me. + +The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb + With nary a wink nur nod, +The big-eyed owl a-settin' on a limb, +Is a-singin' a sort of a solemn hymn + Of "Hoo! hoo-ah!" at God. + +Albert could not resist a temptation to smile at this last line. + +"I know, stranger. You think a owl can't sing to God. But I'd like to +know why! Ef a mockin'-bird kin sing God's praises a-singin' trible, and +so on through all the parts--you see I larnt the squar notes oncet at a +singin'--why, I don't see to save me why the bass of the owl a'n't jest +as good praisin' ef 'ta'n't quite sech fine singin'. Do you, now? An' I +kinder had a feller-feelin' fer the owl. I says to him,' Well, ole +feller, you and me is jist alike in one thing. Our notes a'n't +appreciated by the public.' But maybe God thinks about as much of the +real ginowine hootin' of a owl as he does of the highfalugeon whistlin' +of a mockin'-bird all stole from somebody else. An' ef my varses is +kinder humbly to hear, anyway they a'n't made like other folkses; they're +all of 'em outen my head--sech as it is." + +"You certainly have struck an original vein," said Albert, who had a +passion for nature in the rough. "I wish you would read some of your +verses to my sister." + +"Couldn' do it," said the poet; "at least, I don't believe I could. My +voice wouldn' hold up. Laid awake all las' night tryin' to make some +varses about her. But sakes, stranger, I couldn' git two lines strung +together. You mout as well try to put sunshine inter a gallon-jug, you +know, as to write about that lovely creetur. An' I can't make poetry in +nothin' 'ceppin' in our country talk; but laws! it seems sech a rough +thing to use to say anything about a heavenly angel in. Seemed like as ef +I was makin' a nosegay fer her, and hadn't no poseys but jimson-weeds, +hollyhocks, and big yaller sunflowers. I wished I could 'a' made real +dictionary poetry like Casabianca and Hail Columby. But I didn' know +enough about the words. I never got nary wink of sleep a-thinkin' about +her, and a-wishin' my house was finer and my clo'es purtier and my hair +shorter, and I was a eddicated gentleman. Never wished that air afore." + +Katy woke up a little dull and quite hungry, but not sick, and she +good-naturedly set herself to work to show her gratitude to the +Inhabitant by helping, him to get breakfast, at which he declared that he +was never so flustrated in all his born days. Never. + +They waited all that day for the waters to subside, and Katy taught the +Poet several new culinary arts, while he showed her his traps and hunting +gear, and initiated the two strangers into all the mysteries of mink and +muskrat catching, telling them more about the habits of fur-bearing +animals than they could have learned from books. And Charlton recited +many pieces of "real dictionary poetry" to the poor fellow, who was at +last prevailed on to read some of his dialect pieces in the presence of +Katy. He read her one on "What the Sunflower said to the Hollyhock," and +a love-poem, called "Polly in the Spring-house." The first strophe of +this inartistic idyl will doubtless be all the reader will care to see. + + POLLY IN THE SPRING-HOUSE. + + Purtier'n dressed-up gals in town + Is peart and larfin' Polly Brown, + With curly hair a-hangin' down, +An' sleeves rolled clean above her elbow. + Barfeooted stan'in on the rocks, + A-pourin' milk in airthen crocks, + An' kiverin' 'em with clean white blocks-- + Jest lis'en how my fool heart knocks-- +Shet up, my heart! what makes you tell so? + +"You see," he said, blushing and stammering, "you see, miss, I had a sort +of a preju_dice_ agin town gals in them air days, I thought they was all +stuck up and proud like; I didn' think the--the--well--you know I don't +mean no harm nur nothin'--but I didn' expect the very purtiest on 'em all +was ever agoin' to come into my shanty and make herself at home like as +ef I was a eddicated gentleman. All I said agin town gals I take back. +I--I--you see--" but finding it impossible to get through, the Poet +remembered something to be attended to out of doors. + +The ever active Charlton could not pass a day in idleness. By ten +o'clock he had selected a claim and staked it out. It was just the place +for his great school. When the country should have settled up, he would +found a farm-school here and make a great institution out of it. The +Inhabitant was delighted with the prospect of having the brother of an +angel for a neighbor, and readily made a bargain to erect for Charlton a +cabin like his own for purposes of pre-emption. Albert's lively +imagination had already planned the building and grounds of his +institution. + +During the whole of that sunshiny day that Charlton waited for the waters +of Pleasant Brook to subside, George Gray, the Inhabitant of the lone +cabin, exhausted his ingenuity in endeavoring to make his hospitality as +complete as possible. When Albert saw him standing by the ladder in the +morning, he had already shot some prairie-chickens, which he carefully +broiled. And after they had supped on wild strawberries and another night +had passed, they breakfasted on some squirrels killed in a neighboring +grove, and made into a delicious stew by the use of such vegetables as +the garden of the Inhabitant afforded. Charlton and the Poet got the +horse and buggy through the stream. When everything was ready for a +start, the Inhabitant insisted that he would go "a piece" with them to +show the way, and, mounted on his Indian pony, he kept them company to +their destination. Then the trapper bade Albert an affectionate adieu, +and gave a blushing, stammering, adoring farewell to Katy, and turned his +little sorrel pony back toward his home, where he spent the next few days +in trying to make some worthy verses in commemoration of the coming to +the cabin of a trapper lonely, a purty angel bright as day, and how the +trapper only wep' and cried when she went away. But his feelings were +too deep for his rhymes, and his rhymes were poorer than his average, +because his feeling was deeper. He must have burned up hundreds of +couplets, triplets, and sextuplets in the next fortnight. For, besides +his chivalrous and poetic gallantry toward womankind, he found himself +hopelessly in love with a girl whom he would no more have thought of +marrying than he would of wedding a real angel. Sometimes he dreamed of +going to school and getting an education, "puttin' some school-master's +hair-ile onter his talk," as he called it, but then the hopelessness of +any attempt to change himself deterred him. But thenceforth Katy became +more to him than Laura was to Petrarch. Habits of intemperance had crept +upon him in his isolation and pining for excitement, but now he set out +to seek an ideal purity, he abolished even his pipe, he scrupulously +pruned his conversation of profanity, so that he wouldn' be onfit to love +her any way, ef he didn' never marry her. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +AN EPISODE. + + +I fear the gentle reader, how much more the savage one, will accuse me of +having beguiled him with false pretenses. Here I have written XIV +chapters of this story, which claims to be a mystery, and there stand the +letters XV at the head of this chapter and I have not got to the mystery +yet, and my friend Miss Cormorant, who devours her dozen novels a week +for steady diet, and perhaps makes it a baker's dozen at this season of +the year, and who loves nothing so well as to be mystified by +labyrinthine plots and counterplots--Miss Cormorant is about to part +company with me at this point. She doesn't like this plain sailing. Now, +I will be honest with you, Miss Cormorant, all the more that I don't care +if you do quit. I will tell you plainly that to my mind the mystery lies +yet several chapters in advance, and that I shouldn't be surprised if I +have to pass out of my teens and begin to head with double X's before I +get to that mystery. Why don't I hurry up then? Ah! there's the rub. Miss +Cormorant and all the Cormorant family are wanting me to hurry up with +this history, and just so surely as I should skip over any part of the +tale, or slight my background, or show any eagerness, that other family, +the Critics--the recording angels of literature--take down their pens, +and with a sad face joyfully write: "This book is, so-so, but bears +evident marks of hurry in its execution. If the author shall ever learn +the self-possession of the true artist, and come to tell his stories with +leisurely dignity of manner--and so on--and so on--and so forth--he +will--well, he will--do middling well for a man who had the unhappiness +to be born in longitude west from Washington." Ah! well, I shrug my +shoulders, and bidding both Cormorant and Critic to get behind me, Satan, +I write my story in my own fashion for my gentle readers who are neither +Cormorants nor Critics, and of whom I am sincerely fond. + +For instance, I find it convenient to turn aside at this point to mention +Dave Sawney, for how could I relate the events which are to follow to +readers who had not the happiness to know Katy's third lover--or +thirteenth--the aforesaid Dave? You are surprised, doubtless, that Katy +should have so many lovers as three; you have not then lived in a new +country where there are generally half-a-dozen marriageable men to every +marriageable woman, and where, since the law of demand and supply has no +application, every girl finds herself beset with more beaux than a +heartless flirt could wish for. Dave was large, lymphatic, and conceited; +he "come frum Southern Eelinoy," as he expressed it, and he had a +comfortable conviction that the fertile Illinois Egypt had produced +nothing more creditable than his own slouching figure and +self-complaisant soul. Dave Sawney had a certain vividness of imagination +that served to exalt everything pertaining to himself; he never in his +life made a bargain to do anything--he always cawntracked to do it. He +cawntracked to set out three trees, and then he cawntracked to dig six +post-holes, and-when he gave his occupation to the census-taker he set +himself down as a "cawntractor." + +He had laid siege to Katy in his fashion, slouching in of an evening, and +boasting of his exploits until Smith Westcott would come and chirrup and +joke, and walk Katy right away from him to take a walk or a boat-ride. +Then he would finish the yarn which Westcott had broken in the middle, to +Mrs. Plausaby or Miss Marlay, and get up and remark that he thought maybe +he mout as well be a-gittin' on. + +In the county-seat war, which had raged about the time Albert had left +for Glenfleld, Dave Sawney had come to be a man of importance. His own +claim lay equidistant from the two rival towns. He bad considerable +influence with a knot of a dozen settlers in his neighborhood, who were, +like himself, without any personal interest in the matter. It became +evident that a dozen or a half-dozen votes might tip the scale after +Plausaby, Esq., had turned the enemy's flank by getting some local +politician to persuade the citizens of Westville, who would naturally +have supported the claims of Perritaut, that their own village stood the +ghost of a chance, or at least that their interests would be served by +the notoriety which the contest would give, and perhaps also by defeating +Perritaut, which, from proximity, was more of a rival than +Metropolisville. After this diversion had weakened Perritaut, it became +of great consequence to secure even so small an influence as that of Dave +Sawney. Plausaby persuaded Dave to cawntrack for the delivery of his +influence, and Dave was not a little delighted to be flattered and paid +at the same time. He explained to the enlightened people in his +neighborhood that Squire Plausaby was a-goin' to do big things fer the +kyounty; that the village of Metropolisville would erect a brick +court-house and donate it; that Plausaby had already cawntracked to +donate it to the kyounty free gratis. + +This ardent support of Dave, who saw not only the price which the squire +had cawntracked to pay him, but a furtherance of his suit with little +Katy, as rewards of his zeal, would have turned the balance at once in +favor of Metropolisville, had it not been for a woman. Was there ever a +war, since the days of the Greek hobby-horse, since the days of Rahab's +basket indeed, in which a woman did not have some part? It is said that a +woman should not vote, because she can not make war; but that is just +what a woman can do; she can make war, and she can often decide it. There +came into this contest between Metropolisville and its rival, not a Helen +certainly, but a woman. Perritaut was named for an old French trader, who +had made his fortune by selling goods to the Indians on its site, and who +had taken him an Indian wife--it helped trade to wed an Indian--and +reared a family of children who were dusky, and spoke both the Dakota and +the French _a la Canadien_. M. Perritaut had become rich, and yet his +riches could not remove a particle of the maternal complexion from those +who were to inherit the name and wealth of the old trader. If they should +marry other half-breeds, the line of dusky Perritauts might stretch out +the memory of a savage maternity to the crack of doom. _Que voulez-vous?_ +They must not many half-breeds. Each generation must make advancement +toward a Caucasian whiteness, in a geometric ratio, until the Indian +element should be reduced by an infinite progression toward nothing. But +how? It did not take long for Perritaut _pere_ to settle that question. +_Voila tout._ The young men should seek white wives. They had money. +They might marry poor girls, but white ones. But the girls? _Eh bien_! +Money should wash them also, or at least money should bleach their +descendants. For money is the Great Stain-eraser, the Mighty Detergent, +the Magic Cleanser. And the stain of race is not the only one that money +makes white as snow. So the old gentleman one day remarked to some +friends who drank wine with him, that he would geeve one ten tousant +tollare, begare, to te man tat maree his oltest daughtare, Mathilde. _Eh +bien_, te man must vary surelee pe w'ite and _re_-spect-_ah_-ble. Of +course this confidential remark soon spread abroad, as it was meant to +spread abroad. It came to many ears. The most utterly worthless white +men, on hearing it, generally drew themselves up in pride and vowed +they'd see the ole frog-eatin' Frenchman hung afore they'd many his +Injin. They'd druther marry a Injin than a nigger, but they couldn' be +bought with no money to trust their skelp with a Injin. + +Not so our friend Dave. He wurn't afeared of no Injin, he said; sartainly +not of one what had been weakened down to half the strength. Ef any man +dared him to marry a Injin and backed the dare by ten thousand dollars, +blamed ef he wouldn't take the dare. He wouldn' be dared by no Frenchman +to marry his daughter. He wouldn't. He wa'n't afeard to marry a Injin. +He'd cawntrack to do it fer ten thousand. + +The first effect of this thought on Dave's mind was to change his view of +the county-seat question. He shook his head now when Plausaby's brick +court-house was spoken of. The squire was awful 'cute; too 'cute to live, +he said ominously. + +Dave concluded that ten thousand dollars could be made much more easily +by foregoing his preferences for a white wife in favor of a red one, than +by cawntracting to set out shade-trees, dig post-holes, or drive oxen. +So he lost no time in visiting the old trader. + +[Illustration: A PINCH OF SNUFF.] + +He walked in, in his slouching fashion, shook hands with M. Perritaut, +gave his name as David Sawney, cawntracter, and after talking a little +about the county-seat question, he broached the question of marriage with +Mathilde Perritaut. + +"I hearn tell that you are willin' to do somethin' han'some fer a +son-in-law." + +"Varee good, Mistare Sonee. You air a man of bisnees, perhaps, maybe. You +undairstand tese tings. Eh? _Tres bien_--I mean vary well, you see. I +want that my daughtare zhould maree one re-spect-_ah_-ble man. Vare good. +You air one, maybe. I weel find out. _Tres bien, you_ see, my daughtare +weel marree the man that I zay. You weel come ovare here next week. Eef I +find you air respect-_ah_-ble, I weel then get my lawyare to make a +marriage contract." + +"A cawntrack?" said Dave, starting at the sound of his favorite word. +"Very well, musheer, I sign a cawntrack and live up to it." + +"Vare good. Weel you have one leetle peench of snuff?" said the old man, +politely opening his box. + +"Yes, I'm obleeged, musheer," said Dave. "Don't keer ef I do." And by way +of showing his good-will and ingratiating himself with the Frenchman, +Dave helped himself to an amazingly large pinch. Indeed, not being +accustomed to take snuff, he helped himself, as he did to chewing tobacco +when it was offered free, with the utmost liberality. The result did not +add to the dignity of his bearing, for he was seized with a succession of +convulsions of sneezing. Dave habitually did everything in the noisiest +way possible, and he wound up each successive fit of sneezing with a +whoop that gave him the semblance of practicing an Indian war-song, by +way of fitting himself to wed a half-breed wife. + +"I declare," he said, when the sneezing had subsided, "I never did see no +sech snuff." + +"Vare good," resumed M. Perritaut. "I weel promees in the contract to +geeve you one ten tousant tollars--_deux mille_--two tousant avery yare +for fife yare. _Tres bien_. My daughtare is edu_cate_; she stoody fife, +seex yare in te convent at Montreal. Zhe play on piano evare so many +tune. _Bien_. You come Monday. We weel zee. Adieu. I mean good-by, +Mistare Sonee." + +"Adoo, musheer," said Dave, taking his hat and leaving. He boasted +afterwards that he had spoke to the ole man in French when he was comin' +away. Thought it mout kinder tickle him, you know. And he said he didn' +mind a brown complexion a bit. Fer his part, seemed to him 'twas kinder +purty fer variety. Wouldn' want all women reddish, but fer variety 'twas +sorter nice, you know. He always did like sompin' odd. + +And he now threw all his energy into the advocacy of Perritaut. It +was the natural location of a county-seat. Metropolisville never +would be nawthin'. + +Monday morning found him at Perritaut's house, ready to sell himself in +marriage. As for the girl, she, poor brown lamb--or wolf, as the case may +be--was ready, with true Indian stolidity, to be disposed of as her +father chose. The parties who were interested in the town of Perritaut +had got wind of Dave's proposition; and as they saw how important his +influence might be in the coming election, they took pains to satisfy +Monsieur Perritaut that Mr. Sawney was a very proper person to marry his +tawny daughter and pocket his yellow gold-pieces. The lawyer was just +finishing the necessary documents when Dave entered. + +"_Eh bien_! How you do, Mistare Sonee? Is eet dat you weel have a peench +of snuff?" For the Frenchman had quite forgotten Dave's mishap in +snuff-taking, and offered the snuff out of habitual complaisance. + +"No, musheer," said Dave, "I can't use no snuff of late yeers. 'Fection +of the nose; makes me sneeze dreffle." + +"Oh! _Eh blen! C'est comme il faut_. I mean dat is all right, vare good, +mistare. Now, den, Monsieur _l'Avocat_, I mean ze lawyare, he is ready to +read ze contract." + +"Cawntrack? Oh! yes, that's right. We Americans marry without a +cawntrack, you see. But I like cawntracks myself. It's my business, +cawntracking is, you know. Fire away whenever you're ready, mister." This +last to the lawyer, who was waiting to read. + +Dave sat, with a knowing air, listening to the legal phraseology as +though he had been used to marriage contracts from infancy. He was +pleased with the notion of being betrothed in this awful diplomatic +fashion. It accorded with his feelings to think that he was worth ten +thousand dollars and the exhaustive verbiage of this formidable +cawntrack. + +But at last the lawyer read a part which made him open his eyes. + +Something about its being further stipulated that the said David Sawney, +of the first part, in and for the consideration named, "hereby binds +himself to have the children which shall issue from this marriage +educated in the Roman Catholic faith," caught his ears. + +"Hold on, mister, I can't sign that! I a'n't over-pertikeler about who I +marry, but I can't go that." + +"What part do you object to?" + +"Well, ef I understand them words you've got kiled up there--an' I'm +purty middlin' smart at big words, you see--I'm to eddicate the children +in the Catholic faith, as you call it." + +"Yes, that is it." + +"_Oui_! vare good. Dat I must inseest on," said Perritaut. + +"Well, I a'n't nothin' in a religious way, but I can't stan' that air. +I'm too well raised. I kin marry a Injin, but to sell out my children +afore they're born to Catholic priests, I couldn't do that air ef you +planked down two ten thousands." + +And upon this point Dave stuck. There is a sentiment down somewhere in +almost any man, and there was this one point of conscience with Dave. And +there was likewise this one scruple with Perritaut. And these opposing +scruples in two men who had not many, certainly, turned the scale and +gave the county-seat to Metropolisville, for Dave told all his Southern +Illinois friends that if the county-seat should remain at Perritaut, the +Catholics would build a nunnery an' a caythedral there, and then none of +their daughters would be safe. These priests was a-lookin' arter the +comin' generation. And besides, Catholics and Injins wouldn' have a good +influence on the moral and religious kerecter of the kyounty. The +influence of half-breeds was a bad thing fer civilization. Ef a man was +half-Injin, he was half-Injin, and you couldn't make him white noways. +And Dave distributed freely deeds to some valueless outlots, which +Plausaby had given him for the purpose. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +THE RETURN. + + +As long as he could, Charlton kept Katy at Glenfield. He amused her by +every means in his power; he devoted himself to her; he sought to win her +away from Westcott, not by argument, to which she was invulnerable, but +by feeling. He found that the only motive that moved her was an emotion +of pity for him, so he contrived to make her estimate his misery on her +account at its full value. But just when he thought he had produced some +effect there would come one of Smith Westcott's letters, written not as +he talked (it is only real simpleheartedness or genuine literary gift +that can make the personality of the writer felt in a letter), but in a +round business hand with plenty of flourishes, and in sentences very +carefully composed. But he managed in his precise and prim way to convey +to Katy the notion that he was pining away for her company. And she, +missing the giggle and the playfulness from the letter, thought his +distress extreme indeed. For it would have required a deeper sorrow than +Smith Westcott ever felt to make him talk in the stiff conventional +fashion in which his letters were composed. + +And besides Westcott's letters there were letters from her mother, in +which that careful mother never failed to tell how Mr. Westcott had come +in, the evening before, to talk about Katy, and to tell her how lost and +heart-broken he was. So that letters from home generally brought on a +relapse of Katy's devotion to her lover. She was cruelly torn by +alternate fits of loving pity for poor dear Brother Albert on the one +hand, and poor, dear, _dear_ Smith Westcott on the other. And the latter +generally carried the day in her sympathies. He was such a poor dear +fellow, you know, and hadn't anybody, not even a mother, to comfort him, +and he had often said that if his charming and divine little Katy should +ever prove false, he would go and drown himself in the lake. And that +would be _so_ awful, you know. And, besides, Brother Albert had plenty to +love him. There was mother, and there was that quiet kind of a young lady +at the City Hotel that Albert went to see so often, though how he could +like anybody so cool she didn't know. And then Cousin Isa would love +Brother Albert maybe, if he'd ask her. But he had plenty, and poor Smith +had often said that he needed somebody to help him to be good. And she +would cleave to him forever and help him. Mother and father thought she +was right, and she couldn't anyway let Smith drown himself. How could +she? That would be the same as murdering him, you know. + +During the fortnight that Charlton and his sister visited in Glenfield, +Albert divided his time between trying to impress Katy with the general +unfitness of Smith Westcott to be her husband, and the more congenial +employment of writing long letters to Miss Helen Minorkey, and +receiving long letters from that lady. His were fervent and +enthusiastic; they explained in a rather vehement style all the schemes +that filled his brain for working out his vocation and helping the +world to its goal: while hers discussed everything in the most +dispassionate temper. Charlton had brought himself to admire this +dispassionate temper. A man of Charlton's temper who is really in love, +can bring himself to admire any traits in the object of his love. Had +Helen Minorkey shown some little enthusiasm, Charlton would have +exaggerated it, admired it, and rejoiced in it as a priceless quality. +As she showed none, he admired the lack of it in her, rejoiced in her +entire superiority to her sex in this regard, and loved her more and +more passionately every day. And Miss Minorkey was not wanting in a +certain tenderness toward her adorer. She loved him in her way, it made +her happy to be loved in that ideal fashion. + +Charlton found himself in a strait betwixt two. He longed to worship +again at the shrine of his Minerva. But he disliked to return with Katy +until he had done something to break the hold of Smith Westcott upon her +mind. So upon one pretext or another he staid until Westcott wrote to +Katy that business would call him to Glenfield the next week, and he +hoped that she would conclude to return with him. Katy was so pleased +with the prospect of a long ride with her lover, that she felt +considerable disappointment when Albert determined to return at once. +Brother Albert always did such curious things. Katy, who had given Albert +a dozen reasons for an immediate return, now thought it very strange that +he should be in such a hurry. Had he given up trying to find that new +kind of grasshopper he spoke of the day before? + +One effect of the unexpected arrival of Albert and Katy in +Metropolisville, was to make Smith Westcott forget that he ever had any +business that was likely to call him to Glenfield. Delighted to see Katy +back. Would a died if she'd staid away another week. By George! he! he! +he! Wanted to jump into the lake, you know. Always felt that way when +Katy was out of sight two days. Curious. By George! Didn't think any +woman could ever make such a fool of him. He! he! Felt like ole Dan +Tucker when he came to supper and found the hot cakes all gone. He! he! +he! By George! You know! Let's sing de forty-lebenth hymn! Ahem! + +"If Diner was an apple, + And I was one beside her, +Oh! how happy we would be, + When we's skwushed into cider! + And a little more cider too, ah-hoo! + And a little more cider too! + And a little more cider too--ah--hoo! + And a little more cider too." + +How much? Pailful! By George! He! he! he! That's so! You know. Them's my +sentiments. 'Spresses the 'motions of my heart, bredren! Yah! yah! By +hokey! And here comes Mr. Albert Charlton. Brother Albert! Just as well +learn to say it now as after a while. Eh, Katy? How do, brother Albert? +Glad to see you as if I'd stuck a nail in my foot. By George! he! he! You +won't mind my carryin' on. Nobody minds me. I'm the privileged infant, +you know. I am, by George! he! he! Come, Kate, let's take a boat-ride. + +"Oh! come, love, come; my boat's by the shore; +If yer don't ride now, I won't ax you no more." + +And so forth. Too hoarse to sing. But I am not too feeble to paddle my +own canoe. Come, Katy Darling. You needn't mind your shawl when you've +got a Westcott to keep you warm. He! he! By George! + +And then he went out singing that her lips was red as roses or poppies +or something, and "wait for the row-boat and we'll all take a ride." + +Albert endeavored to forget his vexation by seeking the society of Miss +Minorkey, who was sincerely glad to see him back, and who was more +demonstrative on this evening than he had ever known her to be. And +Charlton was correspondingly happy. He lay in his unplastered room that +night, and counted the laths in the moonlight, and built golden ladders +out of them by which to climb up to the heaven of his desires. But he was +a little troubled to find that in proportion as he came nearer to the +possession of Miss Minorkey, his ardor in the matter of his great +Educational Institution--his American Philanthropinum, as he called +it--abated. + +I ought here to mention a fact which occurred about this time, because it +is a fact that has some bearing on the course of the story, and because +it may help us to a more charitable judgment in regard to the character +of Mr. Charlton's step-father. Soon after Albert's return from Glenfield, +he received an appointment to the postmastership of Metropolisville in +such a way as to leave no doubt that it came through Squire Plausaby's +influence. We are in the habit of thinking a mean man wholly mean. But we +are wrong. Liberal Donor, Esq., for instance, has a great passion for +keeping his left hand exceedingly well informed of the generous doings of +his right. He gives money to found the Liberal Donor Female Collegiate +and Academical Institute, and then he gives money to found the Liberal +Donor Professorship of Systematic and Metaphysical Theology, and still +other sums to establish the Liberal Donor Orthopedic Chirurgical +Gratuitous Hospital for Cripples and Clubfooted. Shall I say that the +man is not generous, but only ostentatious? Not at all. He might gratify +his vanity in other ways. His vanity dominates over his benevolence, and +makes it pay tribute to his own glory. But his benevolence is genuine, +notwithstanding. Plausaby was mercenary, and he may have seen some +advantages to himself in having the post-office in his own house, and in +placing his step-son under obligation to himself. Doubtless these +considerations weighed much, but besides, we must remember the injunction +that includes even the Father of Evil in the number of those to whom a +share of credit is due. Let us say for Plausaby that, land-shark as he +was, he was not vindictive, he was not without generosity, and that it +gave him sincere pleasure to do a kindness to his step-son, particularly +when his generous impulse coincided so exactly with his own interest in +the matter. I do not say that he would not have preferred to take the +appointment himself, had it not been that he had once been a postmaster +in Pennsylvania, and some old unpleasantness between him and the +Post-Office Department about an unsettled account stood in his way. But +in all the tangled maze of motive that, by a resolution of force, +produced the whole which men called Plausaby the Land-shark, there was +not wanting an element of generosity, and that element of generosity had +much to do with Charlton's appointment. And Albert took it kindly. I am +afraid that he was just a little less observant of the transactions in +which Plausaby engaged after that. I am sure that he was much less +vehement than before in his denunciations of land-sharks. The post-office +was set up in one of the unfinished rooms of Mr. Plausaby's house, and, +except at mail-times, Charlton was not obliged to confine himself to it. +Katy or Cousin Isa or Mrs. Plausaby was always glad to look over the +letters for any caller, to sell stamps to those who wanted them, and tell +a Swede how much postage he must pay on a painfully-written letter to +some relative in Christiana or Stockholm. And the three or four hundred +dollars of income enabled Charlton to prosecute his studies. In his +gratitude he lent the two hundred and twenty dollars--all that was left +of his educational fund--to Mr. Plausaby, at two per cent a month, on +demand, secured by a mortgage on lots in Metropolisville. + +Poor infatuated George Gray--the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, the +Trapper of Pleasant Brook, the Hoosier Poet from the Wawbosh +country--poor infatuated George Gray found his cabin untenable after +little Katy had come and gone. He came up to Metropolisville, improved +his dress by buying some ready-made clothing, and haunted the streets +where he could catch a glimpse now and then of Katy. + +One night, Charlton, coming home from an evening with Miss Minorkey at +the hotel, found a man standing in front of the fence. + +"What do you want here?" he asked sharply. + +"Didn' mean no harm, stranger, to nobody." + +"Oh! it's you!" exclaimed Charlton, recognizing his friend the Poet. +"Come in, come in." + +"Come in? Couldn' do it no way, stranger. Ef I was to go in thar amongst +all them air ladies, my knees would gin out. I was jist a-lookin' at that +purty creetur. But I 'druther die'n do her any harm. I mos' wish I was +dead. But 'ta'n't no harm to look at her ef she don' know it. I shan't +disturb her; and ef she marries a gentleman, I shan't disturb him nuther. +On'y, ef he don' mind it, you know, I'll write po'try about her now and +then. I got some varses now that I wish you'd show to her, ef you think +they won't do her no harm, you know, and I don't 'low they will. Good-by, +Mr. Charlton. Comin' down to sleep on your claim? Land's a-comin' into +market down thar." + +After the Poet left him, Albert took the verses into the house and read +them, and gave them to Katy. The first stanza was, if I remember it +rightly, something of this sort: + +"A angel come inter the poar trapper's door, + The purty feet tromped on the rough puncheon floor, +Her lovely head slep' on his prairie-grass piller-- + The cabin is lonesome and the trapper is poar, + He hears little shoes a-pattin' the floor; + He can't sleep at night on that piller no more; +His Hoosier harp hangs on the wild water-willer!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +SAWNEY AND HIS OLD LOVE. + + +Self-conceit is a great source of happiness, a buffer that softens all +the jolts of life. After David Sawney's failure to capture Perritaut's +half-breed Atlantis and her golden apples at one dash, one would have +expected him to be a little modest in approaching his old love again; but +forty-eight hours after her return from Glenfield, he was paying his +"devours," as he called them, to little Katy Charlton. He felt confident +of winning--he was one of that class of men who believe themselves able +to carry off anybody they choose. He inventoried his own attractions with +great complacency; he had good health, a good claim, and, as he often +boasted, had been "raised rich," or, as he otherwise stated it, "cradled +in the lap of luxury." His father was one of those rich Illinois farmers +who are none the less coarse for all their money and farms. Owing to +reverses of fortune, Dave had inherited none of the wealth, but all of +the coarseness of grain. So he walked into Squire Plausaby's with his +usual assurance, on the second evening after Katy's return. + +"Howdy, Miss Charlton," he said, "howdy! I'm glad to see you lookin' so +smart. Howdy, Mrs. Ferret!" to the widow, who was present. "Howdy do, +Mr. Charlton--back again?" And then he took his seat alongside Katy, not +without a little trepidation, for he felt a very slight anxiety lest his +flirtation With Perritaut's ten thousand dollars "mout've made his +chances juberous," as he stated it to his friends. But then, he +reflected, "she'll think I'm worth more'n ever when she knows I +_de_-clined ten thousand dollars, in five annooal payments." + +"Mr. Sawney," said the widow Ferret, beaming on him with one of her +sudden, precise, pickled smiles, "Mr. Sawney, I'm delighted to hear that +you made a brave stand against Romanism. It is the bane of this country. +I respect you for the stand you made. It shows the influence of +schripcheral training by a praying mother, I've no doubt, Mr. Sawney." + +Dave was flattered and annoyed at this mention, and he looked at little +Katy, but she didn't seem to feel any interest in the matter, and so he +took heart. + +"I felt it my dooty, Mrs. Ferret, indeed I did." + +"I respect you for it, Mr. Sawney." + +"For what?" said Albert irascibly. "For selling himself into a mercenary +marriage, and then higgling on a point of religious prejudice?" + +Mrs. Ferret now focused her round eyes at Mr. Charlton, smiled her +deprecating smile, and replied: "I do think, Mr. Charlton, that in this +day of lax views on one side and priestcraft on the other, I respect a +man who thinks enough of ee-vangelical truth to make a stand against any +enemy of the holy religion of--" + +"Well," said Charlton rudely, "I must say that I respect Perritaut's +prejudices just as much as I do Dave's. Both of them were engaged in a +contemptible transaction, and both of them showed an utter lack of +conscience, except in matters of opinion. Religion is--" + +[Illustration: MRS. FERRET] + +But the company did not get the benefit of Mr. Albert's views on the +subject of religion, for at that moment entered Mr. Smith Westcott. + +"How do, Katy? Lookin' solemn, eh? How do, Brother Albert? Mrs. Ferret, +how do? Ho! ho! Dave, is this you? I congratulate you on your escape from +the savages. Scalp all sound, eh? Didn' lose your back-hair? By George! +he! he! he!" And he began to show symptoms of dancing, as he sang: + +"John Brown, he had a little Injun; +John Brown, he had a little Injun; +Dave Sawney had a little Injun; + One little Injun gal! + +"Yah! yah! Well, well, Mr. Shawnee, glad to see you back." + +"Looky hyer. Mister Wes'cott," said Dave, growing red, "you're a-makin' +a little too free." + +"Oh! the Shawnee chief shouldn' git mad. He! he! by George! wouldn' git +mad fer ten thousand dollars. I wouldn', by George! you know! he! he! Ef +I was worth ten thousand dollars live weight, bide and tallow throw'd in, +I would--" + +"See here, mister," said Dave, rising, "maybe, you'd like to walk out to +some retired place, and hev your hide thrashed tell 'twouldn' hold +shucks? Eh?" + +"I beg pardon," said Westcott, a little frightened, "didn' mean no harm, +you know, Mr. Sawney. All's fair in war, especially when it's a war for +the fair. Sort of warfare, you know. By George! he! he! Shake hands, +let's be friends, Dave. Don' mind my joking--nobody minds me. I'm the +privileged infant, you know, he! he! A'n't I, Mr. Charlton?" + +"You're infant enough, I'm sure," said Albert, "and whether you are +privileged or not, you certainly take liberties that almost any other man +would get knocked down for." + +"Oh! well, don't let's be cross. Spoils our faces and voices, Mr. +Charlton, to be cross. For my part, I'm the laughin' philosopher--the +giggling philosopher, by George! he! he! Come Katy, let's walk." + +Katy was glad enough to get her lover away fro her brother. She hated +quarreling, and didn't see why people couldn't be peaceable. And so she +took Mr. Westcott's arm, and they walked out, that gentleman stopping to +strike a match and light his cigar at the door, and calling back, "Dood +by, all, dood by! Adieu, Monsieur Sawney, _au revoir_!" Before he +had passed out of the gate he was singing lustily: + +"Ten little, nine little, eight little Injun; +Seven little, six little, five little Injun; +Four, little, three little, two little Injun; +One little Injun girl! + +"He! he! By George! Best joke, for the time of the year, I ever heard." + +"I think," said Mrs. Ferret, after Katy and her lover had gone--she spoke +rapidly by jerks, with dashes between--"I think, Mr. Sawney--that you are +worthy of commendation--I do, indeed--for your praiseworthy +stand--against Romanism. I don't know what will become of our +liberties--if the priests ever get control--of this country." + +Sawney tried to talk, but was so annoyed by the quick effrontery with +which Westcott had carried the day that he could not say anything quite +to his own satisfaction. At last Dave rose to go, and said he had thought +maybe he mout git a chance to explain things to Miss Charlton ef Mr. +Westcott hadn't gone off with her. But he'd come agin. He wanted to know +ef Albert thought her feelin's was hurt by what he'd done in offerin to +make a cawntrack with Perritaut. And Albert assured him he didn't think +they were in the least. He had never heard Katy mention the matter, +except to laugh about it. + +At the gate Mr. Sawney met the bland, gentlemanly Plausaby, Esq., who +took him by the hand soothingly, and spoke of his services in the late +election matter with the highest appreciation. + +Dave asked the squire what he thought of the chance of his succeeding +with Miss Charlton. He recited to Plausaby his early advantages. "You +know, Squire, I was raised rich, cradled in the lap of luxury. Ef I +ha'n't got much book-stuffin' in my head, 'ta'n't fer want of schoolin'. +I never larnt much, but then I had plenty of edication; I went to school +every winter hand-runnin' tell I was twenty-two, and went to singin' +every Sunday arternoon. 'Ta'n't like as ef I'd been brought up poar, +weth no chance to larn. I've had the schoolin' anyway, and it's all the +same. An' I've got a good claim, half timber, and runnin' water onter +it, and twenty acre of medder. I s'pose mebbe she don't like my going' +arter that air Frenchman's gal. But I didn't mean no 'fense, you +know--ten thousand in yaller gold's a nice thing to a feller like me +what's been raised rich, and's kinder used to havin' and not much used +to gittin'. I wouldn't want her to take no 'fense, you know. 'Ta'n't +like's ef I'd a-loved the red-skin Catholic. I hadn' never seed 'er. It +wasn't the gal, it was the money I hankered arter. So Miss Charlton +needn' be jealous, nor juberous, like's ef I was agoin' to wish I'd a +married the Injun. I'd feel satisfied with Kate Charlton _ef_ you think +she'd be with David Sawney!" + +"That's a delicate subject--quite a delicate subject for me to speak +about, Mr. Sawney. To say anything about. But I may assure you that I +appreciate your services in our late battle. Appreciate them highly. +Quite highly. Very, indeed. I have no friend that I think more highly of. +None. I think I could indicate to you a way by which you might remove any +unfavorable impression from Miss Charlton's mind. Any unfavorable +impression." + +"Anythin' you tell me to do, squire, I'll do. I'd mos' skelp the ole man +Perritaut, and his darter too, ef you said it would help me to cut out +that insultin' Smith Westcott, and carry off Miss Charlton. I don't know +as I ever seed a gal that quite come up to her, in my way of thinkin'. +Now, squire, what is it?" + +"Well, Mr. Sawney, we carried the election the other day and got the +county-seat. Got it fairly, by six majority. After a hard battle. A very +hard battle. Very. Expensive contest, too. I pay men that work for me. +Always pay 'em. Always. Now, then, we are going to have trouble to get +possession, unless we do something bold. Something bold. They mean to +contest the election. They've got the court on their side. On their side, +I'm afraid. They will get an injunction if we try to move the records. +Sure to. Now, if I was a young man I'd move them suddenly before they had +time. Possession is nine points. Nine points of law. They may watch the +records at night. But they could be moved in the daytime by some man that +they did not suspect. Easily. Quite so. County buildings are in the edge +of town. Nearly everybody away at noon. Nearly everybody." + +"Wal, squire, I'd cawntrack to do it" + +"I couldn't make a contract, you see. I'm a magistrate. Conspiracy and +all that. But I always help a man that helps me. Always. In more ways +than one. There are two reasons why a man might do that job. Two of them. +One is love, and the other's money. Love and money. But I mustn't appear +in the matter. Not at all. I'll do what I can for you. What I can. Katy +will listen to me. She certainly will. Do what you think best." + +"I a'n't dull 'bout takin' a hint, squire." And Dave winked his left eye +at the squire in a way that said, "Trust _me_! I'm no fool!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +A COLLISION. + + +If this were a History of Metropolisville--but it isn't, and that is +enough. You do not want to hear, and I do not want to tell you, how Dave +Sawney, like another Samson, overthrew the Philistines; how he sauntered +into the room where all the county officers did business together, he and +his associates, at noon, when most of the officers were gone to dinner; +how he seized the records--there were not many at that early day--loaded +them into his wagon, and made off. You don't want to hear all that. If +you do, call on Dave himself. He has told it over and over to everybody +who would listen, from that time to this, and he would cheerfully get out +of bed at three in the morning to tell it again, with the utmost +circumstantiality, and with such little accretions of fictitious ornament +as always gather about a story often and fondly told. Neither do you, +gentle reader, who read for your own amusement, care to be informed of +all the schemes devised by Plausaby for removing the county officers to +their offices, nor of the town lots and other perquisites which accrued +to said officers. It is sufficient for the purposes of this story that +the county-seat was carted off to Metropolisville, and abode there in +basswood tabernacles for a while, and that it proved a great +advertisement to the town; money was more freely invested in +Metropolisville, an "Academy" was actually staked out, and the town grew +rapidly. Not alone on account of its temporary political importance did +it advance, for about this time Plausaby got himself elected a director +of the St. Paul and Big Gun River Valley Land Grant Railroad, and the +speculators, who scent a railroad station at once, began to buy lots--on +long time, to be sure, and yet to buy them. So much did the fortunes of +Plausaby, Esq., prosper that he began to invest also--on time and at high +rates of interest--in a variety of speculations. It was the fashion of +'56 to invest everything you had in first payments, and then to sell out +at an advance before the second became due. + +But it is not about Plausaby or Metropolisville that I meant to tell you +in this chapter. Nor yet about the wooing of Charlton. For in his case, +true love ran smoothly. Too smoothly for the interest of this history. If +Miss Minorkey had repelled his suit, if she had steadfastly remained +cold, disdainful, exacting, it would have been better, maybe, for me who +have to tell the story, and for you who have to read it. But disdainful +she never was, and she did not remain cold. The enthusiasm of her lover +was contagious, and she came to write and talk to him with much +earnestness. Next to her own comfort and peace of mind and her own +culture, she prized her lover. He was original, piquant, and talented. +She was proud of him, and loved him with all her heart. Not as a more +earnest person might have loved; but as heartily as she could. And she +came to take on the color of her lover's habits of thought and feeling; +she expressed herself even more warmly than she felt, so that Albert was +happy, and this story was doomed to suffer because of his happiness. I +might give zest to this dull love-affair by telling you that Mr. Minorkey +opposed the match. Next to a disdainful lady-love, the best thing for a +writer and a reader is a furious father. But I must be truthful at all +hazards, and I am obliged to say that while Mr. Minorkey would have been +delighted to have had for son-in-law some man whose investments might +have multiplied Helen's inheritance, he was yet so completely under the +influence of his admired daughter that he gave a consent, tacitly at +least, to anything she chose to do. So that Helen became recognized +presently as the prospective Mrs. Charlton. Mrs. Plausaby liked her +because she wore nice dresses, and Katy loved her because she loved +Brother Albert. For that matter, Katy did not need any reason for loving +anybody. Even Isa stifled a feeling she was unable to understand, and +declared that Miss Minorkey was smart, and just suited to Albert; and she +supposed that Albert, with all his crotchets and theories, might make a +person like Miss Minorkey happy. It wasn't every woman that could put up +with them, you know. + +But it was not about the prosperous but uninteresting courtship of two +people with "idees" that I set out to tell in this chapter. If Charlton +got on smoothly with Helen Minorkey, and if he had no more serious and +one-sided outbreaks with his step-father, he did not get on with his +sister's lover. + +Westcott had been drinking all of one night with some old cronies of the +Elysian Club, and his merry time of the night was subsiding into a +quarrelsome time in the morning. He was able, when he was sober, to +smother his resentment towards Albert, for there is no better ambush than +an entirely idiotic giggle. But drink had destroyed his prudence. And so +when Albert stepped on the piazza of the hotel where Westcott stood +rattling his pocketful of silver change and his keys for the amusement of +the bystanders, as was his wont, the latter put himself in Charlton's +way, and said, in a dreary, half-drunk style: + +[Illustration: ONE SAVAGE BLOW FULL IN THE FACE.] + +"Mornin', Mr. Hedgehog! By George! he! he! he! How's the purty little +girl? My little girl. Don't you wish she wasn't? Hard feller, I am. Any +gal's a fool to marry me, I s'pose. Katy's a fool. That's just what I +want, by George I he! he! I want a purty fool. And she's purty, and +she's--the other thing. What you goin' to do about it? He! he! he!" + +"I'm going to knock you down," said Albert, "if you say another word +about her." + +"A'n't she mine? You can't help it, either. He! he! The purty little +goose loves Smith Westcott like lots of other purty little--" + +Before he could finish the sentence Charlton had struck him one savage +blow full in the face, and sent him staggering back against the side of +the house, but he saved himself from falling by seizing the window-frame, +and immediately drew his Deringer. Charlton, who was not very strong, but +who had a quick, lightning-like activity, knocked him down, seized his +pistol, and threw it into the street. This time Charlton fell on him in a +thoroughly murderous mood, and would perhaps have beaten and choked him +to death in the frenzy of his long pent-up passion, for notwithstanding +Westcott's struggles Albert had the advantage. He was sober, active, and +angry enough to be ruthless. Westcott's friends interfered, but that +lively gentleman's eyes and nose were sadly disfigured by the pummeling +he had received, and Charlton was badly scratched and bruised. + +Whatever hesitancy had kept Albert from talking to Katy about Smith +Westcott was all gone now, and he went home to denounce him bitterly. +One may be sure that the muddled remarks of Mr. Westcott about Katy--of +which even he had grace to be a little ashamed when he was sober--were +not softened in the repetition which Albert gave them at home. Even +Mrs. Plausaby forgot her attire long enough to express her indignation, +and as for Miss Marlay, she combined with Albert in a bayonet-charge on +poor Katy. + +Plausaby had always made it a rule not to fight a current. Wait till the +tide turns, he used to say, and row with the stream when it flows your +way. So now he, too, denounced Westcott, and Katy was fairly borne off +her feet for a while by the influences about her. In truth, Katy was not +without her own private and personal indignation against Westcott. Not +because he had spoken of her as a fool. That hurt her feelings, but did +not anger her much. She was not in the habit of getting angry on her own +account. But when she saw three frightful scratches and a black bruise on +the face of Brother Albert, she could not help thinking that Smith had +acted badly. And then to draw a pistol, too! To threaten to kill her own +dear, dear brother! She couldn't ever forgive him, she said. If she had +seen the much more serious damage which poor, dear, dear Smith had +suffered at the tender hands of her dear, dear brother, I doubt not she +would have had an equally strong indignation against Albert. + +For Westcott's face was in mourning, and the Privileged Infant had lost +his cheerfulness. He did not giggle for ten days. He did not swear "by +George" once. He did not he! he! The joyful keys and the cheerful +ten-cent coins lay in his pocket with no loving hand to rattle them. He +did not indulge in double-shuffles. He sang no high-toned negro-minstrel +songs. He smoked steadily and solemnly, and he drank steadily and +solemnly. His two clerks were made to tremble. They forgot Smith's +bruised nose and swollen eye in fearing his awful temper. All the +swearing he wanted to do and dared not do at Albert, he did at his +inoffensive subordinates. + +Smith Westcott had the dumps. No sentimental heart-break over Katy, +though he did miss her company sadly in a town where there were no +amusements, not even a concert-saloon in which a refined young man could +pass an evening. If he had been in New York now, he wouldn't have minded +it. But in a place like Metropolisville, a stupid little frontier village +of pious and New Englandish tendencies--in such a place, as Smith +pathetically explained to a friend, one can't get along without a +sweetheart, you know. + +A few days after Albert's row with Westcott he met George Gray, the +Hoosier Poet, who had haunted Metropolisville, off and on, ever since he +had first seen the "angel." + +He looked more wild and savage than usual. + +"Hello! my friend," said Charlton heartily. "I'm glad to see you. What's +the matter?" + +"Well, Mister Charlton, I'm playin' the gardeen angel." + +"Guardian angel! How's that?" + +"I'm a sorter gardeen of your sister. Do you see that air pistol? Hey? +Jist as sure as shootin,' I'll kill that Wes'cott ef he tries to marry +that angel. I don't want to marry her. I aint fit, mister, that's a fack. +Ef I was, I'd put in fer her. But I aint. And ef she marries a gentleman, +I haint got not a bit of right to object. But looky hyer! Devils haint +got no right to angels. Ef I kin finish up a devil jest about the time +he gits his claws onto a angel and let the angel go free, why, I say it's +wuth the doin'. Hey?" + +Charlton, I am ashamed to say, did not at first think the death of Smith +Westcott by violence a very great crime or calamity, if it served to save +Katy. However, as he walked and talked with Gray, the thought of murder +made him shudder, and he made an earnest effort to persuade the +Inhabitant to give up his criminal thoughts. But it is the misfortune of +people like George Gray that the romance in their composition will get +into their lives. They have not mental discipline enough to make the +distinction between the world of sentiment and the world of action, in +which inflexible conditions modify the purpose. + +"Ef I hev to hang fer it I'll hang, but I'm goin' to be her +gardeen angel." + +"I didn't know that guardian angels carried pistols," said Albert, trying +to laugh the half-crazed fellow out of a conceit from which he could not +drive him by argument. + +"Looky hyer, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, coloring, "I thought you was a +gentleman, and wouldn' stoop to make no sech a remark. Ef you're goin' to +talk that-a-way, you and me don't travel no furder on the same trail. The +road forks right here, mister." + +"Oh! I hope not, my dear friend. I didn't mean any offense. Give me your +hand, and God bless you for your noble heart." + +Gray was touched as easily one way as the other, and he took Charlton's +hand with emotion, at the same time drawing his sleeve across his eyes +and saying, "God bless you, Mr. Charlton. You can depend on me. I'm the +gardeen, and I don't keer two cents fer life. It's a shadder, and a +mush-room, as I writ some varses about it wonst. Let me say 'em over: + +"Life's a shadder, + Never mind it. +A cloud kivers up the sun +And whar is yer shadder gone? + Ye'll hey to be peart to find it! + +"Life's a ladder-- + What about it? +You've clim half-way t' the top, +Down comes yer ladder ke-whop! + You can't scrabble up without it! + +"Nothin's no sadder, + Kordin to my tell, +Than packin' yer life around. +They's good rest under the ground + Ef a feller kin on'y die well." + +Charlton, full of ambition, having not yet tasted the bitterness of +disappointment, clinging to life as to all, was fairly puzzled to +understand the morbid sadness of the Poet's spirit. "I'm sorry you feel +that way, Gray," he said. "But at any rate promise me you won't do +anything desperate without talking to me." + +"I'll do that air, Mr. Charlton," and the two shook hands again. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +STANDING GUARD IN VAIN. + + +It was Isabel Marlay that sought Albert again. Her practical intellect, +bothered with no visions, dazed with no theories, embarrassed by no broad +philanthropies, was full of resource, and equally full, if not of +general, at least of a specific benevolence that forgot mankind in its +kindness to the individual. + +Albert saw plainly enough that he could not keep Katy in her present +state of feeling. He saw how she would inevitably slip through his +fingers. But what to do he knew not. So, like most men of earnest and +half-visionary spirit, he did nothing. Unbeliever in Providence that he +was, he waited in the belief that something must happen to help him out +of the difficulty. Isa, believer that she was, set herself to be her own +Providence. + +Albert had been spending an evening with Miss Minorkey. He spent nearly +all his evenings with Miss Minorkey. He came home, and stood a minute, as +was his wont, looking at the prairie landscape. A rolling prairie is like +a mountain, in that it perpetually changes its appearance; it is +delicately susceptible to all manner of atmospheric effects. It lay +before him in the dim moonlight, indefinite; a succession of undulations +running one into the other, not to be counted nor measured. All accurate +notions of topography were lost; there was only landscape, dim, +undeveloped, suggestive of infinitude. Standing thus in the happiness of +loving and being loved, the soft indefiniteness of the landscape and the +incessant hum of the field-crickets and katydids, sounds which came out +of the everywhere, soothed Charlton like the song of a troubadour. + +"Mr. Charlton!" + +Like one awaking from a dream, Albert saw Isa Marlay, her hand resting +against one of the posts which supported the piazza-roof, looking even +more perfect and picturesque than ever in the haziness of the moonlight. +Figure, dress, and voice were each full of grace and sweetness, and if +the face was not exactly beautiful, it was at least charming and full of +a subtle magnetism. (Magnetism! happy word, with which we cover the +weakness of our thoughts, and make a show of comprehending and defining +qualities which are neither comprehensible nor definable!) + +"Mr. Charlton, I want to speak to you about Katy." + +It took Albert a moment or two to collect his thoughts. When he first +perceived Miss Marlay, she seemed part of the landscape. There was about +her form and motion an indefinable gracefulness that was like the charm +of this hazy, undulant, moonlit prairie, and this blue sky seen through +the lace of thin, milk-white clouds. It was not until she spoke Katy's +name that he began to return to himself. Katy was the one jarring string +in the harmony of his hopes. + +"About Katy? Certainly, Miss Marlay. Won't you sit down?" + +"No, I thank you." + +"Mr. Charlton, couldn't you get Katy away while her relations with +Westcott are broken? You don't know how soon she'll slip back into her +old love for him." + +"If--" and Albert hesitated. To go, he must leave Miss Minorkey. And the +practical difficulty presented itself to him at the same moment. "If I +could raise money enough to get away, I should go. But Mr. Plausaby has +all of my money and all of Katy's." + +Isabel was on the point of complaining that Albert should lend to Mr. +Plausaby, but she disliked to take any liberty, even that of reproof. +Ever since she knew that the family had thought of marrying her to +Albert, she had been an iceberg to him. He should not dare to think +that she had any care for him. For the same reason, another reply died +unuttered on her lips. She was about to offer to lend Mr. Charlton +fifty dollars of her own. But her quick pride kept her back, and, +besides, fifty dollars was not half-enough. She said she thought there +must be some way of raising the money. Then, as if afraid she had been +too cordial and had laid her motives open to suspicion in speaking thus +to Charlton, she drew herself up and bade him good-night with stiff +politeness, leaving him half-fascinated by her presence, half-vexed +with something in her manner, and wholly vexed with himself for having +any feeling one way or the other. What did he care for Isabel Marlay? +What if she were graceful and full of a subtle fascination of presence? +Why should he value such things? What were they worth, after all? What +if she were kind one minute and repellent the next? Isa Marlay was +nothing to him! + +Lying in his little unfinished chamber, he dismissed intellectual Miss +Minorkey from his mind with regret; he dismissed graceful but practical +Miss Marlay from his mind also, wondering that he had to dismiss her at +all, and gave himself to devising ways and means of eloping with little +Katy. She must be gotten away. It was evident that Plausaby would make no +effort to raise money to help him and Katy to get away. Plausaby would +prefer to detain Katy. Clearly, to proceed to pre-empt his claim, to +persuade Plausaby to raise money enough for him to buy a land-warrant +with, and then to raise two hundred dollars by mortgaging his land to +Minorkey or any other lover of mortgages with waiver clauses in them, was +the only course open. + +Plausaby, Esq., was ever prompt in dealing with those to whom he was +indebted, so far as promises went. He would always give the most solemn +assurance of his readiness to do anything one wished to have done; and +so, when Albert explained to him that it was necessary for him to +pre-empt because he wished to go East, Plausaby told him to go on and +establish his residence on his claim, and when he got ready to prove up +and pre-empt, to come to him. To come and let him know. To let him know +at once. He made the promise so frankly and so repetitiously, and with +such evident consciousness of his own ability and readiness to meet his +debt to Albert on demand, that the latter went away to his claim in +quietness and hopefulness, relying on Miss Marlay to stand guard over his +sister's love affairs in his absence. + +But standing guard was not of much avail. All of the currents that +flowed about Katy's life were undermining her resolution not to see +Smith Westcott. Katy, loving, sweet, tenderhearted, was far from being a +martyr, in stubbornness at best; her resolutions were not worth much +against her sympathies. And now that Albert's scratched face was out of +sight, and there was no visible object to keep alive her indignation, +she felt her heart full of ruth for poor, dear Mr. Westcott. How +lonesome he must be without her! She could only measure his lonesomeness +by her own. Her heart, ever eager to love, could not let go when once it +had attached itself, and she longed for other evenings in which she +could hear Smith's rattling talk, and in which he would tell her how +happy she had made him. How lonesome he must be! What if he should drown +himself in the lake? + +Mr. Plausaby, at tea, would tell in the most incidental way of something +that had happened during the day, and then, in his sliding, slipping, +repetitious, back-stitching fashion, would move round from one +indifferent topic to another until he managed at last to stumble over +Smith Westcott's name. + +"By the way," he would say, "poor Smith looks heartbroken. Absolutely +heart-broken. I didn't know the fellow cared so much for Katy. Didn't +think he had so much heart. So much faithfulness. But he looks down. +Very much downcast. Never saw a fellow look so chopfallen. And, by the +way, Albert did punish him awfully. He looks black and blue. Well, he +deserved it. He did so. I suppose he didn't mean to say anything against +Katy. But he had no business to let old friends coax him to drink. +Still, Albert was pretty severe. Too severe, in fact. I'm sorry for +Westcott. I am, indeed." + +After some such talk as this, Cousin Isa would generally find Katy crying +before bed-time. + +"What is the matter, Katy, dear?" she would say in a voice so full of +natural melody and genuine sympathy, that it never failed to move Katy to +the depths of her heart. Then Katy would cry more than ever, and fling +her arms about the neck of dear, dear, _dear_ Cousin Isa, and lavish on +her the tenderness of which her heart was full. + +"O Cousin Isa! what must I do? I'm breaking poor Smith's heart. You don't +know how much he loves me, and I'm afraid something dreadful will happen +to him, you know. What shall I do?" + +"I don't think he cares much, Katy. He's a bad man, I'm afraid, and +doesn't love you really. Don't think any more of him." For Isabel +couldn't find it in her heart to say to Katy just what she thought +of Westcott. + +"Oh! but you don't know him," Katy cries. "You don't know him. He says +that he does naughty things sometimes, but then he's got such a tender +heart. He made me promise I wouldn't throw him over, as he called it, for +his faults. He said he'd come to be good if I'd only keep on loving him. +And I said I would. And I haven't. Here's more than a week now that he +hasn't been here, and I haven't been to the store. And he said he'd go to +sleep in the lake some night if I ever, ever proved false to him. And I +lie awake nearly all night thinking how hard and cruel I've been to him. +And oh!"--here Katy cried awhile--"and oh! I think such awful things +sometimes," she continued in a whisper broken by sobs. "You don't know, +Cousin Isa. I think how cold, how dreadful cold the lake must be! Oo-oo!" +And a shudder shook her frame. "If poor, dear Smith were to throw himself +in! What if he is there now?" And she looked up at Isa with staring eyes. +"Do you know what an awful thing I heard about that lake once?" She +stopped and shivered. "There are leeches in it--nasty, black worms--and +one of them bit my hand once. And they told me that if a person should +be drowned in Diamond Lake the leeches would--oo!--take all their blood, +and their faces would be white, and not black like other drowned people's +faces. Oh! I can't bear to think about poor Smith. If I could only write +him a note, and tell him I love him just a little! But I told Albert I +wouldn't see him nor write to him. What shall I do? He mayn't live till +morning. They say he looks broken-hearted. He'll throw himself into that +cold lake to-night, maybe--and the leeches--the black worms--oo!--or else +he'll kill himself with that ugly pistol." + +It was in vain that Isabel talked to her, in vain that she tried to argue +with a cataract of feeling. It was rowing against Niagara with a +canoe-paddle. It was not wonderful, therefore, that before Albert got +back, Isa Marlay found Katy reading little notes from Westcott, notes +that ho had intrusted to one of his clerks, who was sent to the +post-office three or four times a day on various pretexts, until he +should happen to find Katy in the office. Then he would hand her the +notes. Katy did not reply. She had promised Albert she wouldn't. But +there was no harm in her reading them, just to keep Smith from drowning +himself among those black leeches in Diamond Lake. + +Isabel Marlay, in her distressful sense of responsibility to Albert, +could yet find no means of breaking up this renewed communication. In +sheer desperation, she appealed to Mrs. Plausaby. + +"Well, now," said that lady, sitting in state with the complacent +consciousness of a new and more stunning head-dress than usual, "I'll +tell you what it is, Isabel, I think Albert makes altogether too much +fuss over Katy's affairs. He'll break the girl's heart. He's got notions. +His father had. Deliver _me_ from notions! Just let Katy take her own +course. Marryin's a thing everybody must attend to personally for +themselves. You don't like to be meddled with, and neither does Albert. +You won't either of you marry to suit me. I have had my plans about you +and Albert. Now, Isabel, Mr. Westcott's a nice-looking man. With all his +faults he's a nice man. Cheerful and good-natured in his talk, and a good +provider. He's a store-keeper, too. It's nice to have a storekeeper for a +husband. I want Plausaby to keep store, so that I can get dresses and +such things without having to pay for them. I felt mad at Mr. Westcott +about his taking out his pistol so at Albert. But if Albert had let Mr. +Westcott alone, I'm sure Smith wouldn't a-touched him. But your folks +with notions are always troubling somebody else. For my part, I shan't +meddle with Katy. Do you think this bow's nice? Too low down, isn't it?" +and Mrs. Plausaby went to the glass to adjust it. + +And so it happened that all Isa Marlay's watching could not keep Westcott +away. For the land-office regulations at that time required that Albert +should live on his claim thirty days. This gave him the right to buy it +at a dollar and a quarter an acre, or to exchange a land-warrant for it. +The land was already worth two or three times the government price. But +that thirty days of absence, broken only by one or two visits to his +home, was enough to overturn all that Charlton had done in breaking up +his sister's engagement with Westcott. The latter knew how long Albert's +absence must be, and arranged his approaches to correspond. He gave her +fifteen days to get over her resentment, and to begin to pity him on +account of the stories of his incurable melancholy she would hear. After +he had thus suffered her to dream of his probable suicide for a +fortnight, he contrived to send her one little lugubrious note, +confessing that he had been intoxicated and begging her pardon. Then he +waited three days, days of great anxiety to her. For Katy feared lest her +neglect to return an answer should precipitate Westcott's suicide. But he +did not need an answer. Her looks when she received the note had been +reported to him. What could he need more? On the very evening after he +had sent that contrite note to Katy, announcing that he would never drink +again, he felt so delighted with what he had heard of its reception, that +he treated a crony out of his private bottle as they played cards +together in his room, and treated himself quite as liberally as he did +his friend, got up in the middle of the floor, and assured his friend +that he would be all right with his sweet little girl before the brother +got back. By George! If folks thought he was going to commit suicide, +they were fooled. Never broke his heart about a woman yet. Not much, by +George! But when he set his heart on a thing, he generally got it. He! +he! And he had set his heart on that little girl. As for jumping into the +lake, any man was a fool to jump into the drink on account of a woman. +When there were plenty of them. Large assortment constantly on hand. Pays +yer money and takes yer ch'ice! Suicide? Not much, by George! he! he! + +Hung his coat on a hickory limb, +Then like a wise man he jumped in, + My ole dad! My ole dad! + +Wondered what tune Charlton would sing when he found himself beat? Guess +'twould be: + +Can't stay in de wilderness. + In a few days, in a few days, +Can't stay in de wilderness, + A few days ago. + +Goin' to pre-empt my claim, too. I've got a month's leave, and I'll +follow him and marry that girl before he gets far. Bruddern and sistern, +sing de ole six hundredth toon. Ahem! + +I wish I was a married man, + A married man I'd be! +An' ketch the grub fer both of us + A-fishin' in the sea. + Big fish, + Little fish, + It's all the same to me! + +I got a organ stop in my throat. Can't sing below my breath to save my +life. He! he! + +After three days had elapsed, Westcott sent a still more melancholy note +to Katy. It made her weep from the first line to the last. It was full of +heartbreak, and Katy was too unobserving to notice how round and steady +and commercial the penmanship was, and how large and fine were the +flourishes. Westcott himself considered it his masterpiece. He punched +his crony with his elbow as he deposited it in the office, and assured +him that it was the techin'est note ever written. It would come the +sympathies over her. There was nothing like the sympathies to fetch a +woman to terms. He knew. Had lots of experience. By George! You could +turn a woman round yer finger if you could only keep on the tender side. +Tears was what done it. Love wouldn' keep sweet without it was pickled in +brine. He! he! he! By George! + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +SAWNEY AND WESTCOTT. + + +David Sawney was delighted with the news that Albert Charlton and Smith +Westcott had quarreled. "Westcott's run of luck in that quarter's broke. +When a feller has a run of luck right along, and they comes a break, 'ts +all up with him. Broke luck can't be spliced. It's David Sawney's turn +now. Poor wind that blows no whar. I'll bet a right smart pile I'll pack +the little gal off yet." + +But if an inscrutable Providence had omitted to make any Smith Westcotts, +Dave Sawney wouldn't have stood the ghost of a chance with Katy. His +supreme self-complacency gave her no occasion to pity him. Her love was +close of kin to her tender-heartedness, and all pity was wasted on Dave. +He couldn't have been more entirely happy than he was if he had owned the +universe in fee simple. + +However, Dave was resolved to try his luck, and so, soon after Albert's +departure, he blacked up his vast boots and slicked his hair, and went to +Plausaby's. He had the good luck to find Katy alone. + +"Howdy! Howdy! Howdy git along? Lucky, ain't I, to find you in? Haw! haw! +I'm one of the luckiest fellers ever was born. Always wuz lucky. Found a +fip in a crack in the hearth 'fore I was three year old. 'Ts a fack. +Found a two-and-a-half gole piece wunst. Golly, didn't I feel _some_! +Haw! haw! haw! The way of't wuz this." But we must not repeat the story +in all its meanderings, lest readers should grow as tired of it as Katy +did; for Dave crossed one leg over the other, looked his hands round his +knee, and told it with many a complacent haw! haw! haw! When he laughed, +it was not from a sense of the ludicrous: his guffaw was a pure eruption +of delighted self-conceit. + +"I thought as how as I'd like to explain to you somethin' that might +'a' hurt yer feelin's, Miss Charlton. Didn't you feel a little teched +at sompin'?" + +"No, Mr. Sawney, you never hurt my feelings." + +"Well, gals is slow to own up that they're hurt, you know. But I'm shore +you couldn't help bein', and I'm ever so sorry. Them Injin goin'-ons of +mine wuz enough to 'a' broke your heart." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Why, my sellin' out to Perritaut for ten thousand dollars, only I +didn't. Haw! haw!" and Dave threw his head back to laugh. "You had a +right to feel sorter bad to think I would consent to marry a Injin. But +'tain't every feller as'll git ten thousand offered in five annooal +payments; an' I wanted you to understand 'twan't the Injin, 'twas the +cash as reached me. When it comes to gals, you're the posy fer me." + +Katy grew red, but didn't know what to say or do. + +"I heerd tell that that feller Westcott'd got his walkin' papers. Sarved +him right, dancin' roun' like a rang-a-tang, and jos'lin' his keys and +ten-cent pieces in his pocket, and sayin' imperdent things. But I could +'a' beat him at talk the bes' day he ever seed ef he'd on'y 'a' gi'n me +time to think. I kin jaw back splendid of you gin me time. Haw! haw! haw! +But he ain't far--don't never gin a feller time to git his thoughts +gethered up, you know. He jumps around like the Frenchman's flea. Put yer +finger on him an' he ain't thar, and never wuz. Haw! haw! haw! But jest +let him stay still wunst tell I get a good rest on him like, and I'll be +dog-on'd ef I don't knock the hine sights offen him the purtiest day he +ever seed! Haw! haw! haw! Your brother Albert handled him rough, didn't +he? Sarved him right. I say, if a man is onrespectful to a woman, her +brother had orter thrash him; and your'n done it. His eye's blacker'n my +boot. And his nose! Haw! haw! it's a-mournin' fer his brains! Haw I haw! +haw! And he feels bad bekase you cut him, too. Jemently, ef he don' look +like 's ef he'd kill hisself fer three bits." + +Katy was so affected by this fearful picture of poor, dear Smith's +condition, that she got up and hurried out of the room to cry. + +"What on airth's the matter?" soliloquized Dave. "Bashful little creeter, +I 'low. Thought I wuz a-comin to the p'int, maybe. Well, nex' time'll +do. Haw! haw! Young things is cur'us now, _to_ be shore. Mout's well be a +gittin' on, I reckon. Gin her time to come round, I 'low." + +With such wooing, renewed from time to time, the clumsy and complacent +Dave whiled away his days, and comforted himself that he had the +persimmon-tree all to himself, as he expressed it. Meanwhile, the notes +of Westcott were fast undoing all that Albert had done to separate him +from "the purty little girl." + +[Illustration: "WHAT ON AIRTH'S THE MATTER?"] + +Of course, when the right time came, he happened to meet Katy on the +street, and to take off his hat and make a melancholy bow, the +high-tragedy air of which confirmed Katy's suspicions that he meant to +commit suicide at the first opportunity. Then he chanced to stop at the +gate, and ask, in a tone sad enough to have been learned from the +gatherers of cold victuals, if he might come in. In three days more, he +was fully restored to favor and to his wonted cheerfulness. He danced, he +sang, he chirruped, he rattled his keys, he was the Privileged Infant +once more. He urged Katy to marry him at once, but her heart was now rent +by pity for Albert and by her eager anxiety lest he should do something +desperate when he heard of her reconciliation. She trembled every day at +thought of what might happen when he should return. + +"Goin' to pre-empt in a few days, Katy. Whisky Jim come plaguey near to +gittin' that claim. He got Shamberson on his side, and if Shamberson's +brother-in-law hadn't been removed from the Land Office before it was +tried, he'd a got it. I'm going to pre-empt and build the cutest little +bird's nest for you. + +"If I was young and in my prime, + I'd lead a different life, +I'd save my money, and buy me a farm, + Take Dinah for my wife. +Oh! carry me back-- + +"Psha! Dat dah ain't de toon, bruddern. Ahem! + +"When you and I get married, love, + How jolly it will be! +We'll keep house in a store-box, then, + Just two feet wide by three! + Store-box! + Band-box! + All the same to me! + +"And when we want our breakfast, love, + We'll nibble bread and chee-- +It's good enough for you, love, + And most too good for me! + White bread! + Brown bread! + All the same to me! + +"Dog-on'd ef 'tain't. White bread's good as brown bread. One's jest as +good as the other, and a good deal better. It's all the same to me, and +more so besides, and something to carry. It's all the same, only +'tain't. Ahem: + +"Jane and Sukey and July Ann-- + Too brown, too slim, too stout! +You needn't smile on this 'ere man, + Git out! git out! git out! + But the maiden fair + With bonny brown hair-- + Let all the rest git out!"-- + +"Get out yourself!" thundered Albert Charlton, bursting in at that +moment. "If you don't get your pack of tomfoolery out of here quick, I'll +get it out for you," and he bore down on Westcott fiercely. + +"I beg pardon, Mr. Charlton. I'm here to see your sister with her consent +and your mother's, and--" + +"And I tell you," shouted Albert, "that my sister is a little girl, and +my mother doesn't understand such puppies as you, and I am my sister's +protector, and if you don't get out of here, I'll kill you if I can." + +"Albert, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Plausaby, coming in at the +instant. "I'm sure Mr. Westcott's a genteel man, and good-natured to +Katy, and--" + +"Out! out! I say, confound you! or I'll break your empty head," thundered +Charlton, whose temper was now past all softening. "Put your hand on +that pistol, if you dare," and with that he strode at the Privileged +Infant with clenched fist, and the Privileged Infant prudently backed out +the door into the yard, and then, as Albert kept up his fierce advance, +the Privileged Infant backed out of the gate into the street. He was not +a little mortified to see the grinning face of Dave Sawney in the crowd +about the gate, and to save appearances, he called back at Albert, who +was returning toward the house, that he would settle this affair with him +yet. But he did not know how thoroughly Charlton's blood was up. + +"Settle it?" said Albert--yelled Albert, I should say--turning back on +him with more fury than ever. "Settle it, will you? I'll settle it right +here and now, you cowardly villain! Let's have it through, now," and he +walked swiftly at Westcott, who walked away; but finding that the +infuriated Albert was coming after him, the Privileged Infant hurried on +until his retreat became a run, Westcott running down street, Charlton +hotly pursuing him, the spectators running pell-mell behind, laughing, +cheering, and jeering. + +"Don't come back again if you don't want to get killed," the angry +Charlton called, as he turned at last and went toward home. + +"Now, Katy," he said, with more energy than tenderness, as he entered the +house, "if you are determined to marry that confounded rascal, I shall +leave at once. You must decide now. If you will go East with me next +week, well and good. If you won't give up Smith Westcott, then I shall +leave you now forever." + +Katy couldn't bear to be the cause of any disaster to anybody; and just +at this moment Smith was out of sight, and Albert, white and trembling +with the reaction of his passion, stood before her. She felt, somehow, +that she had brought all this trouble on Albert, and in her pity for him, +and remorse for her own course, she wept and clung to her brother, and +begged him not to leave her. And Albert said: "There, don't cry any more. +It's all right now. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings. There, there!" +There is nothing a man can not abide better than a woman in tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +ROWING. + + +To get away with Katy immediately. These were the terms of the problem +now before Albert His plan was to take her to visit friends at the East, +and to keep her there until Westcott should pass out of her mind, or +until she should be forgotten by the Privileged Infant. This was not +Westcott's plan of the campaign at all. He was as much bent on securing +Katy as he could have been had he been the most constant, devoted, and +disinterested lover. He would have gone through fire and flood. The +vindictive love of opposition and lust for triumph is one of the most +powerful of motives. Men will brave more from an empty desire to have +their own way, than they could be persuaded to face by the most +substantial motives. + +Smith Westcott was not a man to die for a sentiment, but for the time he +had the semblance of a most devoted lover. He bent everything to the +re-conquest of Katy Charlton. His pride served him instead of any higher +passion, and he plotted by night and managed by day to get his affairs +into a position in which he could leave. He meant to follow Albert and +Katy, and somewhere and somehow, by working on Katy's sympathies, to +carry off the "stakes," as he expressed it. He almost ceased trifling, +and even his cronies came to believe that he was really in love. They saw +signs of intense and genuine feeling, and they mistook its nature. Mrs. +Ferret expressed her sympathy for him--the poor man really loved Kate, +and she believed that Kate had a right to marry anybody she pleased. She +did not know what warrant there was in Scripcherr for a brother's +exercising any authority. She thought Mrs. Plausaby ought to have brought +up her son to have more respect for her authority, and to hold +Scripcherral views. If he were her son, now! What she would have done +with him in that case never fully appeared; for Mrs. Ferret could not +bring herself to complete the sentence. She only said subjunctively: "If +he were _my_ son, now!" Then she would break off and give her head two or +three awful and ominous shakes. What would have happened if such a young +man as Albert had been her son, it would be hard to tell. Something +unutterably dreadful, no doubt. + +Even the charms of Miss Minorkey were not sufficient to detain Albert in +his eager haste and passionate determination to rescue Katy. But to go, +he must have money; to get money, he must collect it from Plausaby, or at +least get a land-warrant with which he could pre-empt his claim. Then he +would mortgage his land for money to pay his traveling expenses. But it +was so much easier to lend money to Plausaby, Esq., than it was to +collect it. Plausaby, Esq., was always just going to have the money; +Plausaby, Esq., had ever ready so many excuses for past failure, and so +many assurances of payment in the immediate future, that Charlton was +kept hoping and waiting in agony from week to week. He knew that he was +losing ground in the matter of Westcott and Katy. She was again grieving +over Smith's possible suicide, was again longing for the cheerful rattle +of flattery and nonsense which rendered the Privileged Infant so +diverting even to those who hated him, much more to her who loved him. + +Albert's position was the more embarrassing that he was obliged to spend +a part of his time on his claim to maintain a residence. One night, after +having suffered a disappointment for the fifth time in the matter of +Plausaby and money, he was walking down the road to cool his anger in the +night air, when he met the Inhabitant of the Lone Cabin, again. + +"Well, Gray," he said, "how are you? Have you written any fresh +verses lately?" + +"Varses? See here, Mr. Charlton, do you 'low this 'ere's a time +fer varses?" + +"Why not?" + +"_To_ be shore! Why not? I should kinder think yer own heart should orter +tell you. You don' know what I'm made of. You think I a'n't good fer +nothin' but varses. Now, Mr. Charlton, I'm not one of them air fellers as +lets theirselves all off in varses that don' mean nothin'. What my pomes +says, that my heart feels. And that my hands does. No, sir, my po'try 's +like the corn crap in August. It's laid by. I ha'n't writ nary line sence +I seed you afore. The fingers that holds a pen kin pull a trigger." + +"What do you mean, Gray?" + +"This 'ere," and he took out a pistol. "I wuz a poet; now I'm a gardeen +angel. I tole you I wouldn' do nothin' desperate tell I talked weth you. +That's the reason I didn' shoot him t'other night. When you run him off, +I draw'd on him, and he'd a been a gone sucker ef't hadn' been fer yore +makin' me promise t'other day to hold on tell I'd talked weth you. Now, +I've talked weth you, and I don't make no furder promises. Soon as he +gits to makin' headway agin, I'll drap him." + +It was in vain that Charlton argued with him. Gray said life wurn't no +'count no how; he had sot out to be a Gardeen Angel, and he wuz agoin' +through. These 'ere Yankees tuck blam'd good keer of their hides, but +down on the Wawbosh, where he come from, they didn't valley life a +copper in a thing of this 'ere sort. Ef Smith Westcott kep' a shovin' +ahead on his present trail, he'd fetch up kinder suddent all to wunst, +weth a jolt. + +After this, the dread of a tragedy of some sort did not decrease Albert's +eagerness to be away. He began to talk violently to Plausaby, and that +poor gentleman, harassed now by a suit brought by the town of Perritaut +to set aside the county-seat election, and by a prosecution instituted +against him for conspiracy, and by a suit on the part of the fat +gentleman for damages on account of fraud in the matter of the two watery +lots in block twenty-six, and by much trouble arising from his illicit +speculation in claims--this poor Squire Plausaby, in the midst of this +accumulation of vexations, kept his temper sweet, bore all of Albert's +severe remarks with serenity, and made fair promises with an unruffled +countenance. Smith Westcott had defeated Whisky Jim in his contest for +the claim, because the removal of a dishonest receiver left the case to +be decided according to the law and the regulations of the General Land +Office, and the law gave the claim to Westcott. The Privileged Infant, +having taken possession of Jim's shanty, made a feint of living in it, +having moved his trunk, his bed, his whisky, and all other necessaries to +the shanty. As his thirty days had expired, he was getting ready to +pre-empt; the value of the claim would put him in funds, and he +proposed, now that his blood was up, to give up his situation, if he +should find it necessary, and "play out his purty little game" with +Albert Charlton. It was shrewdly suspected, indeed, that if he should +leave the Territory, he would not return. He knew nothing of the pistol +which the Gardeen Angel kept under his wing for him, but Whisky Jim had +threatened that he shouldn't enjoy his claim long. Jim had remarked to +several people, in his lofty way, that Minnesoty wuz a healthy place fer +folks weth consumption, but a dreffle sickly one fer folks what jumped +other folks's claims when they wuz down of typus. And Jim grew more and +more threatening as the time of Westcott's pre-emption drew near. While +throwing the mail-bag off one day at the Metropolisville post-office he +told Albert that he jest wished he knowed which mail Westcott's +land-warrant would come in. He wouldn't steal it, but plague ef he +wouldn't heave it off into the Big Gun River, accidentally a purpose, ef +he had to go to penitensh'ry fer it. + +But after all his weary and impatient waiting on and badgering of +Plausaby, Albert got his land-warrant, and hurried off to the +land-office, made his pre-emption, gave Mr. Minorkey a mortgage with a +waiver in it, borrowed two hundred dollars at three per cent a month and +five after maturity, interest to be settled every six months. + +Then, though it was Friday evening, he would have packed everything and +hurried away the next morning; but his mother interposed her authority. +Katy couldn't be got ready. What was the use of going to Red Owl to stay +over Sunday? There was no boat down Sunday, and they could just as well +wait till Monday, and take the Tuesday boat, and so Albeit reluctantly +consented to wait. + +But he would not let Katy be out of his sight. He was determined that in +these last hours of her stay in the Territory, Smith Westcott should not +have a moment's opportunity for conversation with her. He played the +tyrannical brother to perfection. He walked about the house in a fighting +mood all the time, with brows drawn down and fist ready to clench. + +He must have one more boat-ride with Helen Minorkey, and he took Katy +with him, because he dared not leave her behind. He took them both in the +unpainted pine row-boat which belonged to nobody in particular, and he +rowed away across the little lake, looking at the grassy-green shores on +the one side, and at the basswood trees that shadowed the other. Albert +had never had a happier hour. Out in the lake he was safe from the +incursions of the tempter. Rowing on the water, he relaxed the strain of +his vigilance; out on the lake, with water on every side, he felt secure. +He had Katy, sweet and almost happy; he felt sure now that she would be +able to forget Westcott, and be at peace again as in the old days when he +had built play-houses for the sunny little child. He had Helen, and she +seemed doubly dear to him on the eve of parting. When he was alone with +her, he felt always a sense of disappointment, for he was ever striving +by passionate speeches to elicit some expression more cordial than it was +possible for Helen's cool nature to utter. But now that Katy's presence +was a restraint upon him, this discord between the pitch of his nature +and of hers did not make itself felt, and he was satisfied with himself, +with Helen, and with Katy. And so round the pebbly margin of the lake he +rowed, while they talked and laughed. The reaction from his previous +state of mental tension put Albert into a sort of glee; he was almost as +boisterous as the Privileged Infant himself. He amused himself by +throwing spray on Katy with his oars, and he even ventured to sprinkle +the dignified Miss Minorkey a little, and she unbent enough to make a cup +of her white palm and to dip it into the clear water and dash a good, +solid handful of it into the face of her lover. She had never in her life +acted in so undignified a manner, and Charlton was thoroughly delighted +to have her throw cold water upon him in this fashion. After this, he +rowed down to the outlet, and showed them where the beavers had built a +dam, and prolonged his happy rowing and talking till the full moon came +up out of the prairie and made a golden pathway on the ripples. Albert's +mind dwelt on this boat-ride in the lonely year that followed. It seemed +to him strange that he could have had so much happiness on the brink of +so much misery. He felt as that pleasure party did, who, after hours of +happy sport, found that they had been merry-making in the very current of +the great cataract. + +There are those who believe that every great catastrophe throws its +shadow before it, but Charlton was never more hopeful than when he lifted +his dripping oars from the water at half-past nine o'clock, and said: +"What a grand ride we've had! Let's row together again to-morrow evening. +It is the last chance for a long time." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +SAILING. + + +On the Saturday morning after this Friday evening boat-ride, Charlton was +vigilant as ever, and yet Saturday was not a dangerous day. It was the +busy day at the Emporium, and he had not much to fear from Westcott, +whose good quality was expressed by one trite maxim to which he rigidly +adhered. "Business before pleasure" uttered the utmost self-denial of his +life. He was fond of repeating his motto, with no little exultation in +the triumph he had achieved over his pleasure-loving disposition. To this +fidelity to business he owed his situation as "Agent," or head-clerk, of +the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co. If he could have kept from +spending money as fast as he made it, he might have been a partner in the +firm. However, he rejoiced in the success he had attained, and, to +admiring neophytes who gazed in admiration on his perilous achievement of +rather reckless living and success in gaining the confidence of his +employers, he explained the marvel by uttering his favorite adage in his +own peculiar style: "Business before pleasure! By George! That's the +doctrine! A merchant don't care how fast you go to the devil out of +hours, if you keep his business straight. Business before pleasure! +That's the ticket! He! he! By George!" + +When evening came, and Charlton felt that he had but one more day of +standing guard, his hopes rose, he talked to Isabel Marlay with something +of exultation. And he thought it due to Miss Marlay to ask her to make +one of the boating-party. They went to the hotel, where Miss Minorkey +joined them. Albert found it much more convenient walking with three +ladies than with two. Isa and Katy walked on arm-in-arm, and left Albert +to his _tete-a-tete_ with Helen. And as Sunday evening would be the very +last on which he should see her before leaving for the East, he found it +necessary to walk slowly and say much. For lovers who see each other a +great deal, have more to say the more they are together. + +At the lake a disappointment met them. The old pine boat was in use. It +was the evening of the launching of the new sail-boat, "The Lady of the +Lake," and there was a party of people on the shore. Two young men, in a +spirit of burlesque and opposition, had seized on the old boat and had +chalked upon her bow, "The Pirate's Bride." With this they were rowing up +and down the lake, and exciting much merriment in the crowd on the shore. + +Ben Towle, who was one of the principal stockholders in "The Lady of the +Lake," and who had been suspected of a tender regard for Isabel Marlay, +promptly offered Albert and his party seats in the boat on her first +trip. There were just four vacancies, he said. The three ladies had +stepped aboard, and Albert was following, when the ex-sailor who held the +rudder touched his arm and said, "I don't think it's safe, Mr. Charlton, +fer nobody else to git in. She's got 'leven now, and ef the wind +freshens, twelve would be dangerous." + +"Oh! I'll stay out!" said Albert, retreating. + +"Come, Albert, take my place," said Towle. "You're welcome to it." + +"No, I won't, Ben; you sit still, and I'll stand on the shore and cheer." + +Just as the boat was about to leave her moorings, Smith Westcott came up +and insisted on getting in. + +"'Twon't do, Mr. Wes'cott. 'Ta'n't safe," said the helmsman. "I jest +begged Mr. Charlton not to go. She's got a full load now." + +"Oh! I don't weigh anything. Lighter'n a feather. Only an infant. And +besides, I'm going anyhow, by George!" and with that he started to get +aboard. But Albert had anticipated him by getting in at the other end of +the boat and taking the only vacant seat. The Privileged Infant scowled +fiercely, but Charlton affected not to see him, and began talking in a +loud tone to Ben Towle about the rigging. The line was thrown off and the +boat pushed out, the wind caught the new white sail, and the "Lady of the +Lake" started along in the shallows, gradually swinging round toward the +open water. Soon after her keel had ceased to grind upon the gravel, +Albert jumped out, and, standing over boot-top in water, waved his hat +and wished them a pleasant voyage, and all the ladies in the boat waved +their handkerchiefs at him, appreciating his efforts to keep the boat +from being overloaded, but not thinking of the stronger motive Charlton +had for keeping Smith Westcott ashore. They could not know how much +exultation Albert felt as he sat down on the green grass and poured the +water from his boots. + +There was a fine breeze, the boat sailed admirably, the party aboard +laughed and talked and sang; their voices made merry music that reached +the shore. The merry music was irritating discord to the ears of +Westcott, it made him sweur bitterly at Charlton. I am afraid that it +made Charlton happy to think of Westcott swearing at him. There is great +comfort in being the object of an enemy's curses sometimes--When the +enemy is down, and you are above and master. I think the consciousness +that Westcott was swearing at him made even the fine sunset seem more +glorious to Charlton. The red clouds were waving banners of victory. + +But in ten minutes the situation had changed. Albert saw Westcott walking +across the beaver-dam at the lower end of the lake, and heard him +hallooing to the young men who were rowing the "Pirate's Bride" up and +down and around the "Lady of the Lake," for the ugly old boat was +swiftest. The Pirate's Bride landed and took Westcott aboard, and all of +Albert's rejoicing was turned to cursing, for there, right before his +eyes, the Pirate's Bride ran her brown hull up alongside the white and +graceful Lady of the Lake, and Smith Westcott stepped from the one to the +other. The beauty of the sunset was put out. The new boat sailed up and +down the little lake more swiftly and gracefully than ever as the breeze +increased, but Albert hated it. + +By some change or other in seats Westcott at last got alongside Katy. +Albert distinctly saw the change made, and his anger was mingled with +despair. For Isabel and Helen were in the other end of the boat, and +there were none to help. And so on, on, in the gray dusk of the evening, +the boat kept sailing from one end of the lake to the other, and as it +passed now and then near him, he could see that Smith was in conversation +with little Katy. + +"You needn't worry, Mr. Charlton, I'll fix him." It was the voice of the +Guardian Angel. "I'll fix him, shore as shootin'." And there he stood +looking at Albert. For the first time now it struck Albert that George +Gray was a little insane. There was a strange look in his eyes. If he +should kill Westcott, the law would not hold him accountable. Nobody +would be accountable, and Katy would be saved. + +But in a moment Albert's better feeling was uppermost. The horribleness +of murder came distinctly before him. He shuddered that he should have +entertained the thought of suffering it. + +"You see, Mr. Charlton," said Gray, with eyes having that strange +mysterious look that only belongs to the eyes of people who are at +least on the borders of insanity, "you see this 'ere pistol's got five +bar'ls, all loadened. I tuck out the ole loads las' night and filled +her up weth powder what's shore to go off. Now you leave that air +matter to me, will you?" + +"Let me see your revolver," said Albert. + +Gray handed it to him, and Charlton examined it a minute, and then, with +a sudden resolution, he got to his feet, ran forward a few paces, and +hurled the pistol with all his might into the lake. + +"Don't let us commit murder," he said, turning round and meeting the +excited eyes of the half-insane poet. + +"Well, maybe you're right, but I'll be hanged ef I think it's hardly far +and squar and gentlemanly to wet a feller's catridges that-a-way." + +"I had to," said Albert, trembling. "If I hadn't, you or I would have +been a murderer before morning." + +"Maybe so, but they ain't nothin else to be done. Ef you don't let me +kill the devil, why, then the devil will pack your sister off, and that's +the end on't." + +The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake, +and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs, +and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the +rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless +dejection. And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy. What he said +need not be told: how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the +Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy's sympathies +by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they +must be married, and have it all over at once. Then, when it was all +over, Albert wouldn't feel bad about it any more. Brothers never did. +When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they'd get on +splendidly. By George! Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up +and down the lake. Just what it was will never be known, whether he +planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night +which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows. Isabel Marlay, who +saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points. He had convinced +the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for +Brother Albert as well as for themselves. + +And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over +his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got +in. The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully. + +Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to +Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over +the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the +little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened +suddenly and capsized. + +There was a long, broken, mingled, discordant shriek as of a dozen voices +on different keys uttering cries of terror and despair. There was the +confusion of one person falling over another; there was the wild grasping +for support, the seizing of each other's garments and arms, the undefined +and undefinable struggle of the first desperate minute after a boat has +capsized, the scream that dies to a gurgle in the water and then breaks +out afresh, louder and sharper than before, and then is suddenly +smothered into a gurgle again. There were all these things, there was an +alarm on the shore, a rush of people, and then there came stillness, and +those minutes of desperate waiting, in which the drowning people cling to +rigging and boat, and test the problem of human endurance. It is a race +between the endurance of frightened, chilled, drowning people, and the +stupid lack of presence of mind of those on shore. All the inmates of the +boat got hold of something, and for a minute all their heads were out of +water. Their eyes were so near to the water, that not even the most +self-possessed of them could see what exertions were being made by people +on shore to help them. Thus they clung a minute, no one saying anything, +when Jane Downing, who held to the rigging at some distance from the +boat, paralyzed by fear, let go, and slowly sank out of sight, saying +never a word as she went down, but looking with beseeching eyes at the +rest, who turned away as the water closed over her, and held on more +tenaciously than ever, and wondered whether help ever would reach them. +And this was only at the close of the first minute. There were +twenty-nine other minutes before help came. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +SINKING. + + +Isabel Marlay's first care had been to see that little Katy had a good +hold. Helen Minorkey was quite as self-possessed, but her chief care was +to get into a secure position herself. Nothing brings out character more +distinctly than an emergency such as this. Miss Minorkey was resolute and +bent on self-preservation from the first moment. Miss Marlay was +resolute, but full of sympathy for the rest. With characteristic +practical sense, she did what she could to make herself and those within +her reach secure, and then with characteristic faith she composed her +mind to death if it should come, and even ventured with timid courage to +exhort Katy and Miss Minorkey to put their trust in Christ, who could +forgive their sins, and care for them living or dying. Even the most +skeptical of us respect a settled belief in a time of trial. There was +much broken praying from others, simply the cry of terror-stricken +spirits. In all ages men have cried in their extremity to the Unseen +Power, and the drowning passengers in Diamond Lake uttered the same old +cry. Westcott himself, in his first terror, prayed a little and swore a +little by turns. + +The result of self-possession in the case of Isa Marlay and Helen +Minorkey was the same. They did not waste their strength. When people +drown, it is nearly always from a lack of economy of force. Here was +poor little Katy so terrified at thoughts of drowning, and of the cold +slimy bed at the bottom of the lake, and more than all at thoughts of the +ugly black leeches that abounded at the bottom, that she was drawing +herself up head and shoulders out of the water all the time, and praying +brokenly to God and Brother Albert to come and help them. Isa tried to +soothe her, but she shuddered, and said that the lake was so cold, and +she knew she should drown, and Cousin Isa, and Smith, and all of them. +Two or three times, in sheer desperation, little Katy let go, but each +time Isa Marlay saved her and gave her a better hold, and cheered her +with assurances that all would be well yet. + +While one party on the shore were building a raft with which to reach the +drowning people, Albert Charlton and George Gray ran to find the old +boat. But the young men who had rowed in it, wishing to keep it for their +own use, had concealed it in a little estuary on the side of the lake +opposite to the village, so that the two rescuers were obliged to run +half the circumference of the lake before they found it. And even when +they reached it, there were no oars to be found, the party rowing last +having carefully hidden them in the deep grass of the slough by the +outlet. George Gray's quick frontiersman's instinct supplied the +deficiency with sticks broken from a fallen tree. But with the time +consumed in finding the boat, and the time lost in searching for the +oars, and the slowness of the progress made in rowing with these clumsy +poles, and the distance of the boat's starting-point from the scene of +the disaster, the raft had greatly the advantage of them, though Charlton +and Gray used their awkward paddles with the energy of desperation. The +wrecked people had clung to their frail supports nearly a quarter of an +hour, listening to the cries and shouts of their friends ashore, unable +to guess what measures were being taken for their relief, and filled with +a distrustful sense of having been abandoned by God and man. It just then +occurred to Westcott, who had recovered from his first fright, and who +for some time had neither prayed to God nor cursed his luck, that he +might save himself by swimming. In his boyish days, before he had +weakened his texture by self-indulgence and shattered his nerves by +debauchery, he had been famous for his skill and endurance in the water, +and it now occurred to him that he might swim ashore and save Katy +Charlton at the same time. It is easy enough for us to see the interested +motives he had in proposing to save little Katy. He would wipe out the +censure sure to fall on him for overloading the boat, he would put Katy +and her friends under lasting obligations to him, he would win his game. +It is always easy to see the selfish motive. But let us do him justice, +and say that these were not the only considerations. Just as the motives +of no man are good without some admixture of evil, so are the motives of +no man entirely bad. I do not think that Westcott, in taking charge of +Katy, was wholly generous, yet there was a generous, and after a fashion, +maybe, a loving feeling for the girl in the proposal. That good motives +were uppermost, I will not say. They were somewhere in the man, and that +is enough to temper our feeling toward him. + +Isa Marlay was very unwilling to have Katy go. But the poor little thing +was disheartened where she was--the shore did not seem very far away, +looking along the water horizontally--the cries of the people on the bank +seemed near--she was sure she could not hold on much longer--she was so +anxious to get out of this cold lake--she was so afraid to die--she +dreaded the black leeches at the bottom--she loved and trusted Smith as +such women as she always love and trust--and so she was glad to accept +his offer. It was so good of Smith to love her so and to save her. And so +she took hold of his coat-collar as he bade her, and Westcott started to +swim toward the nearest shore. He had swam his two miles once, when he +was a boy, testing his endurance in the waters of the North River, and +Diamond Lake was not a mile wide. There seemed no reason to doubt that he +could swim to the shore, which could not in any event be more than half a +mile away, and which seemed indeed much nearer as he looked over the +surface of the water. But Westcott had not taken all the elements into +the account. He had on his clothing, and before he had gone far, his +boots seemed to fetter him, his saturated sleeves dragged through the +water like leaden weights. His limbs, too, had grown numb from remaining +so long in the water, and his physical powers had been severely taxed of +late years by his dissipations. Add to this that he was encumbered by +Katy, that his fright now returned, and that he made the mistake so often +made by the best of swimmers under excitement, of wasting power by +swimming too high, and you have the causes of rapid exhaustion. + +"The shore seems so far away," murmured Katy. "Why don't Albert come and +save us?" and she held on to Smith with a grasp yet more violent, and he +seemed more and more embarrassed by her hold. + +"Let go my arm, or we'll both drown," he cried savagely, and the poor +little thing took her left hand off his arm, but held all the more firmly +to his collar; but her heart sank in hopelessness. She had never heard +him speak in that savage tone before She only called out feebly, "Brother +Albert!" and the cry, which revealed to Westcott that she put no more +trust in him, but turned now to the strong heart of her brother, angered +him, and helped him to take the resolution he was already meditating. For +his strength was fast failing; he looked back and could see the raft +nearing the capsized boat, but he felt that he had not strength enough +left to return; he began to sink, and Katy, frightened out of all +self-control as they went under the water, clutched him desperately with +both hands. With one violent effort Smith Westcott tore her little hands +from him, and threw her off. He could not save her, anyhow. He must do +that, or drown. He was no hero or martyr to drown with her. That is all. +It cost him a pang to do it, I doubt not. + +Katy came up once, and looked at him. It was not terror at thought of +death, so much as it was heart-break at being thus cast off, that looked +at him out of her despairing eyes. Then she clasped her hands, and cried +aloud, in broken voice: "Brother Albert!" + +And then with a broken cry she sank. + +Oh! Katy! Katy! It were better to sink. I can hardly shed a tear for +thee, as I see thee sink to thy cold bed at the lake-bottom among the +slimy water-weeds and leeches; but for women who live to trust +professions, and who find themselves cast off and sinking--neglected and +helpless in life--for them my heart is breaking. + +Oh! little Katy. Sweet, and loving, and trustful! It were better to +sink among the water-weeds and leeches than to live on. God is more +merciful than man. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +DRAGGING. + + +Yes, God is indeed more merciful than man. There are many things worse +than death. There is a fold where no wolves enter; a country where a +loving heart shall not find its own love turned into poison; a place +where the wicked cease from troubling--yes, even in this heretical day, +let us be orthodox enough to believe that there is a land where no Smith +Westcotts ever come. + +There are many cases in which it were better to die. It is easy enough to +say it before it comes. Albert Charlton had said--how many times!--that +he would rather see Katy dead than married to Westcott. But, now that +Katy was indeed dead, how did he feel? + +Charlton and Gray had paddled hard with crooked limbs, the boat was +unmanageable, and they could with difficulty keep her in her coarse. As +they neared the capsized boat, they saw that the raft had taken the +people from it, and Albert heard the voice--there could be no mistake as +to the voice, weak and shivering as it was--of Isa Marlay, calling to him +from the raft: + +"We are all safe. Go and save Katy and--him!" + +"There they air!" said Gray, pointing to two heads just visible above +the water. "Pull away, by thunder!" And the two half-exhausted young men +swung the boat round, and rowed. How they longed for the good oars that +had sent the "Pirate's Bride" driving through the water that afternoon! +How they grudged the time spent in righting her when she veered to right +or left! At last they heard Katy's voice cry out, "Brother Albert!" + +"O God!" groaned Charlton, and bent himself to his oar again. + +"Alb--" The last cry was half-drowned in the water, and when the boat, +with half-a-dozen more strokes, reached the place where Westcott was, so +that he was able to seize the side, there was no Kate to be seen. Without +waiting to lift the exhausted swimmer into the boat, Charlton and Gray +dived. But the water was twenty feet deep, the divers were utterly out of +breath with rowing, and their diving was of no avail. They kept trying +until long after all hope had died out of their hearts. At last Charlton +climbed back into the boat, and sat down. Then Gray got in. Westcott was +so numb and exhausted from staying in the water so long that he could not +get in, but he held to the boat desperately, and begged them to help him. + +"Help him in," said Charlton to Gray. "I can't." + +"I'd like to help him out ef he wuz in, mighty well. I can't kill a +drownin' man, but blamed ef I gin him a leetle finger of help. I'd jest +as soon help a painter outen the water when I know'd he'd swaller the +fust man he come to." + +But Charlton got up and reached a hand to the sinking Westcott. He +shut his eyes while he pulled him in, and was almost sorry he had +saved him. Let us not be too hard on Albert. He was in the first +agony of having reached a hand to save little Katy and missed her. To +come so near that you might have succeeded by straining a nerve a +little more somewhere--that is bitterest of all. If Westcott had only +held on a minute! + +It was with difficulty that Albert and Gray rowed to the shore, where +Plausaby met them, and persuaded them to change their clothes. They were +both soon on the shore again, where large fires were blazing, and the old +boat that had failed to save little Katy alive, was now in use to recover +her body. There is no more hopeless and melancholy work than dragging for +the body of a drowned person. The drag moves over the bottom; the man who +holds the rope, watching for the faintest sensation of resistance in the +muscles of his arm, at last feels something drawing against the drag, +calls to the oarsmen to stop rowing, lets the line slip through his +fingers till the boat's momentum is a little spent, lest he should lose +his hold, then he draws on his line gently, and while the boat drifts +back, he reverently, as becomes one handling the dead, brings the drag to +the surface, and finds that its hooks have brought up nothing but +water-weeds, or a waterlogged bough. And when at last, after hours of +anxious work, the drag brings the lifeless body to the surface, the +disappointment is bitterest of all. For all the time you have seemed to +be seeking the drowned person, and now at last you have got--what? + +It was about eleven o'clock when they first began to drag. Albert had a +sort of vague looking for something, a superstitious feeling that by some +sort of a miracle Katy would yet be found alive. It is the hardest work +the imagination has to do--this realizing that one who has lived by us +will never more be with us. It is hard to project a future for +ourselves, into which one who has filled a large share of our thought and +affection shall never come. And so there lingers a blind hope, a hopeless +hope of something that shall make unreal that which our impotent +imaginations refuse to accept as real. It is a means by which nature +parries a sudden blow. + +Charlton walked up and down the shore, and wished he might take the +drag-line into his own hands; but the mistaken kindness of our friends +refuses us permission to do for our own dead, when doing anything would +be a relief, and when doing for the dead would be the best possible +utterance to the hopeless love which we call grief. + +Mrs. Plausaby, weak and vain though she was, was full of natural +affection. Her love for Albert was checked a little by her feeling that +there was no perfect sympathy between him and her. But upon Katy she had +lavished all her mother's love. People are apt to think that a love which +is not intelligent is not real; there could be no greater mistake. And +the very smallness of the area covered by Mrs. Plausaby's mind made her +grief for Kate all the more passionate. Katy occupied Albert's mind +jointly with Miss Minorkey, with ambition, with benevolence, with +science, with literature, and with the great Philanthropinum that was to +be built and to revolutionize the world by helping it on toward its +"goal." But the interests that shared Mrs. Plausaby's thoughts along with +Katy were very few. Of Albert she thought, and of her husband. But she +gave the chief place to Katy and her own appearance. And so when the blow +had come it was a severe one. At midnight, Albert went back to try to +comfort his mother, and received patiently all her weeping upbraidings +of him for letting his sister go in the boat, he might have known it was +not safe. And then he hastened back again to the water, and watched the +men in the boat still dragging without result. Everybody on the shore +knew just where the "Lady of the Lake" had capsized, and if accurate +information, plentifully given, could have helped to find the bodies, it +would soon have been accomplished. The only difficulty was that this +accurate information was very conflicting, no two of the positive +eye-witnesses being able to agree. So there was much shouting along +shore, and many directions given, but all the searching for a long time +proved vain. All the shouting people hushed their shouting, and spoke in +whispers whenever Albert came near. To most men there is nothing more +reverend than grief. At half-past two o'clock, the man who held the rope +felt a strange thrill, a sense of having touched one of the bodies. He +drew up his drag, and one of the hooks held a piece of a black silk cape. +When three or four more essays had been made, the body itself was brought +to the surface, and the boat turned toward the shore. There was no more +shouting of directions now, not a single loud word was spoken, the +oarsman rowed with a steady funereal rhythm, while Ben Towle, who had +held the drag-rope, now held half out of water the recovered corpse. +Albert leaned forward anxiously to see the face of Katy, but it was Jane +Downing, the girl who was drowned first. Her father took the body in his +arms, drew it out on shore, and wept over it in a quiet fashion for a +while. Then strong and friendly neighbors lifted it, and bore it before +him to his house, while the man followed in a dumb grief. + +Then the dragging for Katy was resumed; but as there was much more doubt +in regard to the place where she went down than there was about the place +of the accident, the search was more difficult and protracted. George +Gray never left Albert for a moment. George wanted to take the drag-rope +himself, but a feeling that he was eccentric, if not insane, kept those +in charge of the boat from giving it to him. + +When Sunday morning came, Katy's body had not yet been found, and the +whole village flocked to the lake shore. These were the first deaths in +Metropolisville, and the catastrophe was so sudden and tragic that it +stirred the entire village in an extraordinary manner. All through that +cloudy Sunday forenoon, in a weary waiting, Charlton sat on the bank of +Diamond Lake. + +"Mr. Charlton," said Gray, "git me into that air boat and I'll git done +with this. I've watched them fellers go round the place tell I can't +stan' it no longer." + +The next time the boat faced toward the place where Charlton stood he +beckoned to them, and the boat came to the shore. + +"Let Mr. Gray row a few times, won't you?" whispered Albert. "I think he +knows the place." + +With that deference always paid to a man in grief, the man who had the +oars surrendered them to the Hoosier Poet, who rowed gently and carefully +toward the place where he and Albert had dived for Katy the night before. +The quick instinct of the trapper stood him in good stead now. The +perception and memory of locality and direction are developed to a degree +that seems all but supernatural in a man who lives a trapper's life. + +"Now, watch out!" said Gray to the man with the rope, as they passed what +he thought to be the place. But the drag did not touch anything. Gray +then went round and pulled at right angles across his former course, +saying again, "Now, watch out!" as they passed the same spot. The man +who held the rope advised him to turn a little to the right, but Gray +stuck to his own infallible instinct, and crossed and re-crossed the same +point six times without success. + +"You see," he remarked, "you kin come awful closte to a thing in the +water and not tech it. We ha'n't missed six foot nary time we passed +thar. It may take right smart rowin' to do it yet. But when you miss a +mark a-tryin' at it, you don't gain nothin' by shootin' wild. Now, +watch out!" + +And just at that moment the drag caught but did not hold. Gray noticed +it, but neither man said a word. The Inhabitant turned the boat round and +pulled slowly back over the same place. The drag caught, and Gray lifted +his oars. The man with the rope, who had suddenly got a great reverence +for Gray's skill, willingly allowed him to draw in the line. The Poet did +so cautiously and tremblingly. When the body came above the water, he had +all he could do to keep from fainting. He gently took hold of the arms +and said to his companion, "Pull away now." And with his own wild, +longing, desolate heart full of grief, Gray held to the little form and +drew her through the water. Despite his grief, the Poet was glad to be +the one who should bring her ashore. He held her now, if only her dead +body, and his unselfish love found a melancholy recompense. Albert would +have chosen him of all men for the office. + +Poor little Kate! In that dread moment when she found herself sinking to +her cold bed among the water-weeds, she had, failing all other support, +clasped her left hand with her right and gone down to darkness. And as +she went, so now came her lifeless body. The right hand clasped tightly +the four little white fingers of the left. + +Poor little Kate! How white as pearl her face was, turned up toward that +Sabbath sky! There was not a spot upon it. The dreaded leeches had done +their work. + +She, whom everybody had called sweet, looked sweeter now than ever. Death +had been kind to the child at the last, and had stroked away every trace +of terror, and of the short anguish she had suffered when she felt +herself cast off by the craven soul she trusted. What might the long +anguish have been had she lived! + +[Illustration: HIS UNSELFISH LOVE FOUND A MELANCHOLY RECOMPENSE.] + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +AFTERWARDS. + + +The funeral was over, and there were two fresh graves--the only ones in +the bit of prairie set apart for a graveyard. I have written enough in +this melancholy strain. Why should I pause to describe in detail the +solemn services held in the grove by the lake? It is enough that the +land-shark forgot his illegal traffic in claims; the money-lender ceased +for one day to talk of mortgages and per cent and foreclosure; the fat +gentleman left his corner-lots. Plausaby's bland face was wet with tears +of sincere grief, and Mr. Minorkey pressed his hand to his chest and +coughed more despairingly than ever. The grove in which the meeting was +held commanded a view of the lake at the very place where the accident +occurred. The nine survivors sat upon the front seat of all; the friends +of the deceased were all there, and, most pathetic sight of all, the two +mute white faces of the drowned were exposed to view. The people wept +before the tremulous voice of the minister had begun the service, and +there was so much weeping that the preacher could say but little. Poor +Mrs. Plausaby was nearly heart-broken. Nothing could have been more +pathetic than her absurd mingling for two days of the sincerest grief and +an anxious questioning about her mourning-dress. She would ask Isa's +opinion concerning her veil, and then sit down and cry piteously the next +minute. And now she was hopeless and utterly disconsolate at the loss of +her little Katy, but wondering all the time whether Isa could not have +fixed her bonnet so that it would not have looked quite so plain. + +The old minister preached on "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy +youth." I am afraid he said some things which the liberalism of to-day +would think unfit--we all have heresies nowadays; it is quite the style. +But at least the old man reminded them that there were better investments +than corner-lots, and that even mortgages with waivers in them will be +brought into judgment. His solemn words could not have failed entirely of +doing good. + +But the solemn funeral services were over; the speculator in claims dried +his eyes, and that very afternoon assigned a claim, to which he had no +right, to a simple-minded immigrant for a hundred dollars. Minorkey was +devoutly thankful that his own daughter had escaped, and that he could go +on getting mortgages with waivers in them, and Plausaby turned his +attention to contrivances for extricating himself from the embarrassments +of his situation. + +The funeral was over. That is the hardest time of all. You can bear up +somehow, so long as the arrangements and cares and melancholy tributes of +the obsequies last. But if one has occupied a large share of your +thoughts, solicitudes, and affections, and there comes a time when the +very last you can ever do for them, living or dead, is done, then for the +first time you begin to take the full measure of your loss. Albert felt +now that he was picking up the broken threads of another man's life. +Between the past, which had been full of anxieties and plans for little +Kate, and the future, into which no little Kate could ever come, there +was a great chasm. There is nothing that love parts from so regretfully +as its burdens. + +Mrs. Ferret came to see Charlton, and smiled her old sudden puckered +smile, and talked in her jerky complacent voice about the uses of +sanctified affliction, and her trust that the sudden death of his sister +in all the thoughtless vanity of youth would prove a solemn and +impressive warning to him to repent in health before it should be with +him everlastingly too late. Albert was very far from having that +childlike spirit which enters the kingdom of heaven easily. Some +natures, are softened by affliction, but they are not such as his. +Charlton in his aggressiveness demanded to know the reason for +everything. And in his sorrow his nature sent a defiant _why_ back to +the Power that had made Katy's fate so sad, and Mrs. Ferret's rasping +way of talking about Katy's death as a divine judgment on him filled him +with curses bitterer than Job's. + +Miss Isa Marlay was an old-school Calvinist. She had been trained on the +Assembly's Catechism, interpreted in good sound West Windsor fashion. In +theory she never deviated one iota from the solid ground of the creed of +her childhood. But while she held inflexibly to her creed in all its +generalizations, she made all those sweet illogical exceptions which +women of her kind are given to making. In general, she firmly believed +that everybody who failed to have a saving faith in the vicarious +atonement of Christ would be lost. In particular, she excepted many +individual cases among her own acquaintance. And the inconsistency +between her creed and her applications of it never troubled her. She +spoke with so much confidence of the salvation of little Kate, that she +comforted Albert somewhat, notwithstanding his entire antagonism to Isa's +system of theology. If Albert had died, Miss Marlay would have fixed up a +short and easy road to bliss for him also. So much, more generous is +faith than logic! But it was not so much Isa's belief in the salvation of +Katy that did Albert good, as it was her tender and delicate sympathy, +expressed as much when she was silent as when she spoke, and when she +spoke expressed more by the tones of her voice than by her words. + +There was indeed one part of Isabel's theology that Charlton would have +much liked to possess. He had accepted the idea of an Absolute God. A +personal, sympathizing, benevolent Providence was in his opinion one of +the illusions of the theologic stage of human development. Things +happened by inexorable law, he said. And in the drowning of Katy he saw +only the overloading of a boat and the inevitable action of water upon +the vital organs of the human system. It seemed to him now an awful thing +that such great and terrible forces should act irresistibly and blindly. +He wished he could find some ground upon which to base a different +opinion. He would like to have had Isabel's faith in the Paternity of God +and in the immortality of the soul. But he was too honest with himself to +suffer feeling to exert any influence on his opinions. He was in the +logical stage of his development, and built up his system after the +manner of the One-Hoss Shay. Logically he could not see sufficient ground +to change, and he scorned the weakness that would change an opinion +because of feeling. His soul might cry out in its depths for a Father in +the universe. But what does Logic care for a Soul or its cry? After a +while a wider experience brings in something better than Logic. This is +Philosophy. And Philosophy knows what Logic can not learn, that reason is +not the only faculty by which truth is apprehended--that the hungers and +intuitions of the Soul are worth more than syllogisms. + +Do what he would, Charlton could not conceal from himself that in +sympathy Miss Minorkey was greatly deficient. She essayed to show +feeling, but she had little to show. It was not her fault. Do you blame +the dahlia for not having the fragrance of a tuberose? It is the most +dangerous quality of enthusiastic young men and women that they are able +to deceive themselves. Nine tenths of all conjugal disappointments come +from the ability of people in love to see more in those they love than +ever existed there. That love is blind is a fable. He has an affection of +the eyes, but it is not blindness. Nobody else ever sees so much as he +does. For here was Albert Charlton, bound by his vows to Helen Minorkey, +with whom he had nothing in common, except in intellect, and already his +sorrow was disclosing to him the shallowness of her nature, and the depth +of his own; even now he found that she had no voice with which to answer +his hungry cry for sympathy. Already his betrothal was becoming a fetter, +and his great mistake was disclosing itself to him. The rude suspicion +had knocked at his door before, but he had been able to bar it out. Now +it stared at him in the night, and he could not rid himself of it. But he +was still far enough from accepting the fact that the intellectual Helen +Minorkey was destitute of all unselfish feeling. For Charlton was still +in love with her. When one has fixed heart and hope and thought on a +single person, love does not die with the first consciousness of +disappointment. Love can subsist a long time on old associations. +Besides, Miss Minorkey was not aggressively or obtrusively selfish--she +never interfered with anybody else. But there is a cool-blooded +indifference that can be moved by no consideration outside the Universal +Ego. That was Helen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +THE MYSTERY. + + +I have before me, as one of the original sources of information for this +history, a file of _The Wheat County Weakly Windmill_ for 1856. It is not +a large sheet, but certainly it is a very curious one. In its day this +_Windmill_ ground many grists, though its editorial columns were chiefly +occupied with impartial gushing and expansive articles on the charms of +scenery, fertility of soil, superiority of railroad prospects, +admirableness of location, healthfulness, and general future rosiness of +the various paper towns that paid tribute to its advertising columns. And +the advertising columns! They abounded in business announcements of men +who had "Money to Loan on Good Real Estate" at three, four, five, and six +per cent a month, and of persons who called themselves "Attorneys-at-Law +and Real Estate Agents," who stated that "All business relating to +pre-emption and contested claims would be promptly attended to" at their +offices in Perritaut. Even now, through the thin disguise of +honest-seeming phrases, one can see the bait of the land-shark who +speculated in imaginary titles to claims, or sold corner-lots in +bubble-towns. And, as for the towns, it appears from these advertisements +that there was one on almost every square mile, and that every one of +them was on the line of an inevitable railroad, had a first-class hotel, +a water-power, an academy, and an indefinite number of etcaeteras of the +most delightful and remunerative kind. Each one of these villages was in +the heart of the greatest grain-growing section of the State. Each, was +the "natural outlet" to a large agricultural region. Each commanded the +finest view. Each point was the healthiest in the county, and each +village was "unrivaled." (When one looks at these town-site +advertisements, one is tempted to think that member serious and wise who, +about this time, offered a joint resolution in the Territorial +Legislature, which read: "_Resolved by the Senate and House of +Representatives_, That not more than two thirds of the area of this +Territory should be laid out in town-sites and territorial roads, the +remaining one third to be sacredly reserved for agricultural use.") + +But I prize this old file of papers because it contains a graphic account +of the next event in this narrative. And the young man who edited the +_Windmill_ at this time has told the story with so much sprightliness and +vigor that I can not serve my reader a better turn than by clipping his +account and pasting it just here in my manuscript. (I shall also rest +myself a little, and do a favor to the patient printer, who will rejoice +to get a little "reprint copy" in place of my perplexing manuscript.) For +where else shall I find such a dictionariful command of the hights and +depths--to say nothing of the lengths and breadths--of the good old +English tongue? This young man must indeed have been a marvel of eloquent +verbosity at that period of his career. The article in question has the +very flavor of the golden age of Indian contracts, corner-lots, six per +cent a month, and mortgages with waiver clauses. There, is also visible, +I fear, a little of the prejudice which existed at that time in Perritaut +against Metropolisville. + +[Illustration: THE EDITOR OF "THE WINDMILL."] + +I wish that an obstinate scruple on the part of the printers and the +limits of a duodecimo page did not forbid my reproducing here, in all +their glory, the unique head-lines which precede the article in question. +Any pageant introduced by music is impressive, says Madame de Stael. At +least she says something of that sort, only it is in French, and I can +not remember it exactly. And so any newspaper article is startling when +introduced by the braying of head-lines. Fonts of type for displayed +lines were not abundant in the office of the _Windmill_, but they were +very stunning, and were used also for giving prominence to the euphonious +names of the several towns, whose charms were set forth in the +advertisements. Of course the first of these head-lines ran "Startling +Disclosures!!!!" and then followed "Tremendous Excitement in +Metropolisville!" "Official Rascality!" "Bold Mail Robbery!" "Arrest of +the Postmaster!" "No Doubt of his Guilt!" "An Unexplained Mystery!" +"Sequel to the Awful Drowning Affair of Last Week!" Having thus whetted +the appetite of his reader, and economized in type-setting by nearly a +column of such broad and soul-stirring typography, the editor proceeds: + +"Metropolisville is again the red-hot crater of a boiling and seething +excitement. Scarcely had the rascally and unscrupulous county-seat +swindle begun to lose something of its terrific and exciting interest to +the people of this county, when there came the awful and sad drowning of +the two young ladies, Miss Jennie Downing and Miss Katy Charlton, the +belles of the village, a full account of which will be found in the +_Windmill_ of last week, some copies of which we have still on hand, +having issued an extra edition. Scarcely had the people of +Metropolisville laid these two charming and much-lamented young ladies in +their last, long resting-place, the quiet grave, when there comes like an +earthquake out of a clear sky, the frightful and somewhat surprising and +stunning intelligence that the postmaster of the village, a young man of +a hitherto unexceptionable and blameless reputation, has been arrested +for robbing the mails. It is supposed that his depredations have been +very extensive and long continued, and that many citizens of our own +village may have suffered from them. Farther investigations will +doubtless bring all his nefarious and unscrupulous transactions to light. +At present, however, he is under arrest on the single charge of stealing +a land-warrant. + +"The name of the rascally, villainous, and dishonest postmaster is Albert +Charlton, and here comes in the wonderful and startling romance of this +strange story. The carnival of excitement in Metropolisville and about +Metropolisville has all had to do with one family. Our readers will +remember how fully we have exposed the unscrupulous tricks of the old fox +Plausaby, the contemptible land-shark who runs Metropolisville, and who +now has temporary possession of the county-seat by means of a series of +gigantic frauds, and of wholesale bribery and corruption and nefarious +ballot-box stuffing. The fair Katy Charlton, who was drowned by the +heart-rending calamity of last week, was his step-daughter, and now her +brother, Albert Charlton, is arrested as a vile and dishonest +mail-robber, and the victim whose land-warrant he stole was Miss Kate +Charlton's betrothed lover, Mr. Smith Westcott. There was always hatred +and animosity, however, between the lover and the brother, and it is +hinted that the developments on the trial will prove that young Charlton +had put a hired and ruthless assassin on the track of Westcott at the +time of his sister's death. Mr. Westcott is well known and highly +esteemed in Metropolisville and also here in Perritaut. He is the +gentlemanly Agent in charge of the branch store of Jackson, Jones & Co., +and we rejoice that he has made so narrow an escape from death at the +hands of his relentless and unscrupulous foe. + +"As for Albert Charlton, it is well for the community that he has been +thus early and suddenly overtaken in the first incipiency of a black +career of crime. His poor mother is said to be almost insane at this +second grief, which follows so suddenly on her heart-rending bereavement +of last week. We wish there were some hope that this young man, thus +arrested with the suddenness of a thunderbolt by the majestic and firm +hand of public justice, would reform; but we are told that he is utterly +hard, and refuses to confess or deny his guilt, sitting in moody and +gloomy silence in the room in which he is confined. We again call the +attention of the proper authorities to the fact that Plausaby has not +kept his agreement, and that Wheat County has no secure jail. We trust +that the youthful villain Charlton will not be allowed to escape, but +that he will receive the long term provided by the law for thieving +postmasters. He will be removed to St. Paul immediately, but we seize +the opportunity to demand in thunder-tones how long the citizens of this +county are to be left without the accommodations of a secure jail, of +which they stand in such immediate need? It is a matter in which we all +feel a personal interest. We hope the courts will decide the county-seat +question at once, and then we trust the commissioners will give us a +jail of sufficient size and strength to accommodate a county of ten +thousand people. + +"We would not judge young Charlton before he has a fair trial. We hope he +will have a fair trial, and it is not for us to express any opinions on +the case in advance. If he shall be found guilty--and we do not for a +moment doubt he will--we trust the court will give him the full penalty +of the law without fear or favor, so that his case may prove a solemn and +impressive warning that shall make a lasting impression on the minds of +the thoughtless young men of this community in favor of honesty, and in +regard to the sinfulness of stealing. We would not exult over the +downfall of any man; but when the proud young Charlton gets his hair +cropped, and finds himself clad in 'Stillwater gray,' and engaged in the +intellectual employments of piling shingles and making vinegar-barrels, +he will have plenty of time for meditation on that great moral truth, +that honesty is generally the best policy." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +THE ARREST. + + +The eloquent editor from whom I have just quoted told the truth when he +said that Metropolisville was "the red-hot crater of a boiling and +seething excitement." For everybody had believed in Charlton. He was not +popular. People with vicarious consciences are not generally beloved +unless they are tempered by much suavity. And Charlton was not. But +everybody, except Mrs. Ferret, believed in his honesty and courage. +Nobody had doubted his sincerity, though Smith Westcott had uttered many +innuendoes. In truth, Westcott had had an uncomfortable time during the +week that followed the drowning. There had been much shaking of the head +about little Katy's death. People who are not at all heroic like to have +other people do sublime things, and there were few who did not think that +Westcott should have drowned with Katy, like the hero of a romance. +People could not forgive him for spoiling a good story. So Smith got the +cold shoulder, and might have left the Territory, but that his +land-warrant had not come. He ceased to dance and to appear cheerful, and +his he! he! took on a sneering inflection. He grew mysterious, and +intimated to his friends that he'd give Metropolisville something else to +talk about before long. By George! He! he! And when the deputy of the +United States marshal swooped down upon the village and arrested the +young post-master on a charge of abstracting Smith Westcott's +land-warrant from the mail, the whole town was agog. "Told you so. By +George!" said Westcott. + +At first the villagers were divided in opinion about Albert. Plenty of +people, like Mrs. Ferret, were ready to rejoice that he was not so good +as he might be, you know. But many others said that he wouldn't steal. A +fellow that had thrown away all his chances of making money wouldn't +steal. To which it was rejoined that if Charlton did not care for money +he was a good hater, and that what such a man would not do for money he +might do for spite. And then, too, it was known that Albert had been very +anxious to get away, and that he wanted to get away before Westcott did. +And that everything depended on which should get a land-warrant first. +What more natural than that Charlton should seize upon Smith Westcott's +land-warrant, and thus help himself and retard his rival? This sort of +reasoning staggered those who would have defended him on the ground of +previous good character. + +But that which shook the popular confidence in Albert most was his own +behavior when arrested. He was perfectly collected until he inquired +what evidence there was against him. The deputy marshal said that it was +very clear evidence, indeed. "The land-warrant with which you pre-empted +your claim bore a certain designating number. The prosecution can prove +that that warrant was mailed at Red Owl on the 24th of August, directed +to Smith Westcott, Metropolisville, and that he failed to receive it. +The stolen property appearing in your hands, you must account for it in +some way." + +At this Charlton's countenance fell, and he refused to make any +explanations or answer any questions. He was purposely kept over one day +in Metropolisville in hope that something passing between him and his +friends, who were permitted to have free access to him, might bring +further evidence to light. But Charlton sat, pale and dejected, ready +enough to converse about anything else, but declining to say one word in +regard to his guilt or innocence of the crime charged. It is not strange +that some of his best friends accepted the charge as true, and only tried +to extenuate the offense on the ground that the circumstances made the +temptation a very great one, and that the motive was not mercenary. +Others stood out that it would yet be discovered that Plausaby had stolen +the warrant, until half-a-dozen people remembered that Plausaby himself +had been in Red Owl at that very time--he had spent a week there laying +out a marshy shore in town lots down to the low-water mark, and also +laying out the summit of a bluff three hundred and fifty feet high and +sixty degrees steep. These sky and water lots were afterward sold to +confiding Eastern speculators, and a year or two later the owner of the +water privileges rowed all over his lots in a skiff. Whether the other +purchaser used a balloon to reach his is not known. But the operation of +staking out these ineligible "additions" to the city of Red Owl had +attracted much attention, and consequently Plausaby's _alibi_ was readily +established. So that the two or three who still believed Albert innocent +did so by "naked faith," and when questioned about it, shook their heads, +and said that it was a great mystery. They could not understand it, but +they did not believe him guilty. Isabel Marlay believed in Albert's +innocence as she believed the hard passages in the catechism. She knew +it, she believed it, she could not prove it, but she would not hear to +anything else. She was sure of his innocence, and that was enough. For +when a woman of that sort believes anything, she believes in spite of all +her senses and all reason. What are the laws of evidence to her! She +believes with the _heart_. + +Poor Mrs. Plausaby, too, sat down in a dumb despair, and wept and +complained and declared that she knew her Albert had notions and such +things, but people with such notions wouldn't do anything naughty. Albert +wouldn't, she knew. He hadn't done any harm, and they couldn't find out +that he had. Katy was gone, and now Albert was in trouble, and she didn't +know what to do. She thought Isa might do something, and not let all +these troubles come on her in this way. For the poor woman had come to +depend on Isa not only in weighty matters, such as dresses and bonnets, +but also in all the other affairs of life. And it seemed to her a +grievous wrong that Isabel, who had saved her from so many troubles, +should not have kept Katy from drowning and Albert from prison. + +The chief trouble in the mind of Albert was not the probability of +imprisonment, nor the overthrow of his educational schemes--though all of +these were cups of bitterness. But the first thought with him was to ask +what would be the effect of his arrest on Miss Minorkey. He had felt some +disappointment in not finding Helen the ideal woman he had pictured her, +but, as I said a while ago, love does not die at the first +disappointment. If it finds little to live on in the one who is loved, it +will yet find enough in the memories, the hopes, and the ideals that +dwell within the lover. Charlton, in the long night after his arrest, +reviewed everything, but in thinking of Miss Minorkey, he did not once +recur to her lack of deep sympathy with him in his sorrow for Katy. The +Helen he thought of was the radiant Helen that sat by his beloved Katy in +the boat on that glorious evening in which he rowed in the long northern +twilight, the Helen that had relaxed her dignity enough to dip her palm +in the water and dash spray into his face. He saw her like one looking +back through clouds of blackness to catch a sight of a bit of sky and a +single shining star. As the impossibility of his marrying Helen became +more and more evident to him, she grew all the more glorious in her +culture, her quietness, her thoughtfulness. That she would break her +heart for him, he did not imagine, but he did hope--yes, hope--that she +would suffer acutely on his account. + +And when Isa Marlay bravely walked through the crowd that had gathered +about the place of his confinement, and asked to see him, and he was told +that a young lady wanted to be admitted, he hoped that it might be Helen +Minorkey. When he saw that it was Isabel he was glad, partly because he +would rather have seen her than anybody else, next to Helen, and partly +because he could ask her to carry a message to Miss Minorkey. He asked +her to take from his trunk, which had already been searched by the +marshal's deputy, all the letters of Miss Minorkey, to tie them in a +package, and to have the goodness to present them to that lady with his +sincere regards. + +"Shall I tell her that you are innocent?" asked Isabel, wishing to +strengthen her own faith by a word of assurance from Albert. + +"Tell her--" and Albert cast down his eyes a moment in painful +reflection--"tell her that I will explain some day. Meantime, tell her to +believe what you believe about me." + +"I believe that you are innocent." + +"Thank you, Miss Isabel," said Albert warmly, but then he stopped and +grew red in the face. He did not give her one word of assurance. Even +Isa's faith was staggered for a moment. But only for a moment. The faith +of a woman like Isabel Marlay laughs at doubt. + +I do not know how to describe the feelings with which Miss Marlay went +out from Albert. Even in the message, full of love, which he had sent to +his mother, he did not say one word about his guilt or innocence. And yet +Isabel believed in her heart that he had not committed the crime. While +he was strong and free from suspicion, Isa Marlay had admired him. He +seemed to her, notwithstanding his eccentricities, a man of such truth, +fervor, and earnestness of character, that she liked him better than she +was willing to admit to herself. Now that he was an object of universal +suspicion, her courageous and generous heart espoused his cause +vehemently. She stood ready to do anything in the world for him. Anything +but what he had asked her to do. Why she did not like to carry messages +from him to Miss Minorkey she did not know. As soon as she became +conscious of this jealous feeling in her heart, she took herself to task +severely. Like the good girl she was, she set her sins out in the light +of her own conscience. She did more than that. But if I should tell you +truly what she did with this naughty feeling, how she dragged it out into +the light and presence of the Holy One Himself, I should seem to be +writing cant, and people would say that I was preaching. And yet I +should only show you the source of Isa's high moral and religious +culture. Can I write truly of a life in which the idea of God as Father, +Monitor, and Friend is ever present and dominant, without showing you the +springs of that life? + +When Isabel Marlay, with subdued heart, sought Miss Minorkey, it was +with her resolution fixed to keep the trust committed to her, and, as far +as possible, to remove all suspicions from Miss Minorkey's mind. As for +any feeling in her own heart--she had no right to have any feeling but a +friendly one to Albert. She would despise a woman who could love a man +that did not first declare his love for her. She said this to herself +several times by way of learning the lesson well. + +Isa found Miss Minorkey, with her baggage packed, ready for a move. Helen +told Miss Marlay that her father found the air very bad for him, and +meant to go to St. Anthony, where there was a mineral spring and a good +hotel. For her part, she was glad of it, for a little place like +Metropolisville was not pleasant. So full of gossip. And no newspapers or +books. And very little cultivated society. + +Miss Marlay said she had a package of something or other, which Mr. +Charlton had sent with his regards. She said "something or other" from an +instinctive delicacy. + +"Oh! yes; something of mine that he borrowed, I suppose," said Helen. +"Have you seen him? I'm really sorry for him. I found him a very pleasant +companion, so full of reading and oddities. He's the last man I should +have believed could rob the post-office." + +"Oh! but he didn't," said Isa. + +"Indeed! Well, I'm glad to hear it. I hope he'll be able to prove it. Is +there any new evidence?" + +Isa was obliged to confess that she had heard of none, and Miss Minorkey +proceeded like a judge to explain to Miss Marlay how strong the evidence +against him was. And then she said she thought the warrant had been +taken, not from cupidity, but from a desire to serve Katy. It was a pity +the law could not see it in that way. But all the time Isa protested with +vehemence that she did not believe a word of it. Not one word. All the +judges and juries and witnesses in the world could not convince her of +Albert's guilt. Because she knew him, and she just knew that he couldn't +do it, you see. + +Miss Minorkey said it had made her father sick. "I've gone with Mr. +Charlton so much, you know, that it has made talk," she said. "And father +feels bad about it. And"--seeing the expression of Isa's countenance, she +concluded that it would not do to be quite so secretive--"and, to tell +you the truth, I did like him. But of course that is all over. Of course +there couldn't be anything between us after this, even if he were +innocent." + +Isa grew indignant, and she no longer needed the support of religious +faith and high moral principle to enable her to plead the cause of Albert +Charlton with Miss Minorkey. + +"But I thought you loved him," she said, with just a spice of bitterness. +"The poor fellow believes that you love him." + +Miss Minorkey winced a little. "Well, you know, some people are +sentimental, and others are not. It is a good thing for me that I'm not +one of those that pine away and die after anybody. I suppose I am not +worthy of a high-toned man, such as he seemed to be. I have often told +him so. I am sure I never could marry a man that had been in the +penitentiary, if he were ever so innocent. Now, could you. Miss Marlay?" + +Isabel blushed, and said she could if he were innocent. She thought a +woman ought to stand by the man she loved to the death, if he were +worthy. But Helen only sighed humbly, and said that she never was made +for a heroine. She didn't even like to read about high-strung people in +novels. She supposed it was her fault--people had to be what they were, +she supposed. Miss Marlay must excuse her, though. She hadn't quite got +her books packed, and the stage would be along in an hour. She would be +glad if Isabel would tell Mr. Charlton privately, if she had a chance, +how sorry she felt for him. But please not say anything that would +compromise her, though. + +And Isa Marlay went out of the hotel full of indignation at the +cool-blooded Helen, and full of a fathomless pity for Albert, a pity that +made her almost love him herself. She would have loved to atone for all +Miss Minorkey's perfidy. And just alongside of her pity for Charlton thus +deserted, crept in a secret joy. For there was now none to stand nearer +friend to Albert than herself. + +And yet Charlton did not want for friends. Whisky Jim had a lively sense +of gratitude to him for his advocacy of Jim's right to the claim as +against Westcott; and having also a lively antagonism to Westcott, he +could see no good reason why a man should serve a long term in +State's-prison for taking from a thief a land-warrant with which the +thief meant to pre-empt another man's claim. And the Guardian Angel had +transferred to the brother the devotion and care he once lavished on the +sister. It was this unity of sentiment between the Jehu from the Green +Mountains and the minstrel from the Indiana "Pocket" that gave Albert a +chance for liberty. + +The prisoner was handcuffed and confined in an upper room, the windows of +which were securely boarded up on the outside. About three o'clock of the +last night he spent in Metropolisville, the deputy marshal, who in the +evening preceding had helped to empty two or three times the ample flask +of Mr. Westcott, was sleeping very soundly. Albert, who was awake, heard +the nails drawn from the boards. Presently the window was opened, and a +familiar voice said in a dramatic tone: + +"Mr. Charlton, git up and foller." + +Albert arose and went to the window. + +"Come right along, I 'low the coast's clear," said the Poet. + +"No, I can not do that, Gray," said Charlton, though the prospect of +liberty was very enticing. + +"See here, mister, I calkilate es this is yer last chance fer fifteen +year ur more," put in the driver, thrusting his head in alongside his +Hoosier friend's. + +"Come," added Gray, "you an' me'll jest put out together fer the Ingin +kedentry ef you say so, and fetch up in Kansas under some fancy names, +and take a hand in the wras'le that's agoin' on thar. Nobody'll ever +track you. I've got a Yankton friend as'll help us through." + +"My friends, I'm ever so thankful to you--" + +"Blame take yer thanks! Come along," broke in the Superior Being. "It's +now ur never." + +"I'll be dogged ef it haint," said the Poet. + +Charlton looked out wistfully over the wide prairies. He might escape and +lead a wild, free life with Gray, and then turn up in some new Territory +under an assumed name and work out his destiny. But the thought of being +a fugitive from justice was very shocking to him. + +[Illustration: "GIT UP AND FOLLER!"] + +"No! no! I can't. God bless you both. Good-by!" And he went back to his +pallet on the floor. When the rescuers reached the ground the Superior +Being delivered himself of some very sulphurous oaths, intended to +express his abhorrence of "idees." + +"There's that air blamed etarnal infarnal nateral born eejiot'll die in +Stillwater penitensh'ry jest fer idees. Orter go to a 'sylum." + +But the Poet went off dejectedly to his lone cabin on the prairie. + +And there was a great row in the morning about the breaking open of the +window and the attempted rescue. The deputy marshal told a famous story +of his awaking in the night and driving off a rescuing party of eight +with his revolver. And everybody wondered who they were. Was Charlton, +then, a member of a gang? + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +THE TEMPTER. + + +Albert was conveyed to St. Paul, but not until he had had one +heart-breaking interview with his mother. The poor woman had spent nearly +an hour dressing herself to go to him, for she was so shaken with +agitation and blinded with weeping, that she could hardly tie a ribbon or +see that her breast-pin was in the right place. This interview with her +son shook her weak understanding to its foundations, and for days +afterward Isa devoted her whole time to diverting her from the +accumulation of troubled thoughts and memories that filled her with +anguish--an anguish against the weight of which her feeble nature could +offer no supports. + +When Albert was brought before the commissioner, he waived examination, +and was committed to await the session of the district court. Mr. +Plausaby came up and offered to become his bail, but this Charlton +vehemently refused, and was locked up in jail, where for the next two or +three months he amused himself by reading the daily papers and such books +as he could borrow, and writing on various subjects manuscripts which he +never published. + +The confinement chafed him. His mother's sorrow and feeble health +oppressed him. And despite all he could do, his own humiliation bowed his +head a little. But most of all, the utter neglect of Helen Minorkey hurt +him sorely. Except that she had sent, through Isabel Marlay, that little +smuggled message that she was sorry for him--like one who makes a great +ado about sending you something which turns out to be nothing--except +this mockery of pity, he had no word or sign from Helen. His mind dwelt +on her as he remembered her in the moments when she had been carried out +of herself by the contagion of his own enthusiasm, when she had seemed to +love him devotedly. Especially did he think of her as she sat in quiet +and thoughtful enjoyment in the row-boat by the side of Katy, playfully +splashing the water and seeming to rejoice in his society. And now she +had so easily accepted his guilt! + +These thoughts robbed him of sleep, and the confinement and lack of +exercise made him nervous. The energetic spirit, arrested at the very +instant of beginning cherished enterprises, and shut out from hope of +ever undertaking them, preyed upon itself, and Albert had a morbid +longing for the State's prison, where he might weary himself with toil. + +His counsel was Mr. Conger. Mr. Conger was not a great jurist. Of the +philosophy of law he knew nothing. For the sublime principles of equity +and the great historic developments that underlie the conventions which +enter into the administration of public justice, Mr. Conger cared +nothing. But there was one thing Mr. Conger did understand and care for, +and that was success. He was a man of medium hight, burly, active, ever +in motion. When he had ever been still long enough to read law, nobody +knew. He said everything he had to say with a quick, vehement utterance, +as though he grudged the time taken to speak fully about anything. He +went along the street eagerly; he wrote with all his might. There were +twenty men in the Territory, at that day, any one of whom knew five times +as much law as he. Other members of the bar were accustomed to speak +contemptuously of Conger's legal knowledge. But Conger won more cases and +made more money than any of them. If he did not know law in the widest +sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that +served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could +break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his +opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; +he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of +the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to +testimony on the other side, and try to get in irrelevant testimony on +his own; he would abuse the opposing counsel, crying out, "The counsel on +the other side lies like thunder, and he knows it!" By shrewdness, by an +unwearying perseverance, by throwing his whole weight into his work, +Conger made himself the most successful lawyer of his time in the +Territory. And preserved his social position at the same time, for though +he was not at all scrupulous, he managed to keep on the respectable side +of the line which divides the lawyer from the shyster. + +Mr. Conger had been Mr. Plausaby's counsel in one or two cases, and +Charlton, knowing no other lawyer, sent for him. Mr. Conger had, with his +characteristic quickness of perception, picked up the leading features of +the case from the newspapers. He sat down on the bed in Charlton's cell +with his brisk professional air, and came at once to business in his +jerky-polite tone. + +"Bad business, this, Mr. Charlton, but let us hope we'll pull through. +_We_ generally _do_ pull through. Been in a good many tight places in my +time. But it is necessary, first of all, that you trust me. The boat is +in a bad way--you hail a pilot--he comes aboard. Now--hands off the +helm--you sit down and let the pilot steer her through. You understand?" +And Mr. Conger looked as though he might have smiled at his own +illustration if he could have spared the time. But he couldn't. As for +Albert, he only looked more dejected. + +"Now," he proceeded, "let's get to business. In the first place, you must +trust me with everything. You must tell me whether you took the warrant +or not." And Mr. Conger paused and scrutinized his client closely. + +Charlton said nothing, but his face gave evidence of a struggle. + +"Well, well, Mr. Charlton," said the brisk man with the air of one who +has gotten through the first and most disagreeable part of his business, +and who now proposes to proceed immediately to the next matter on the +docket. "Well, well, Mr. Charlton, you needn't say anything if the +question is an unpleasant one. An experienced lawyer knows what silence +means, of course," and there was just a trifle of self-gratulation in his +voice. As for Albert, he winced, and seemed to be trying to make up his +mind to speak. + +"Now," and with this _now_ the lawyer brought his white fat hand down +upon his knee in an emphatic way, as one who says "nextly." "Now--there +are several courses open to us. I asked you whether you took the warrant +or not, because the line of defense that presents itself first is to +follow the track of your suspicions, and fix the guilt on some one else +if we can. I understand, however, that that course is closed to us?" + +Charlton nodded his head. + +"We might try to throw suspicion--only suspicion, you know--on the +stage-driver or somebody else. Eh? Just enough to confuse the jury?" + +Albert shook his head a little impatiently. + +"Well, well, that's so--_not_ the _best_ line. The warrant was in your +hands. You used it for pre-emption. That is very ugly, very. I don't +think much of that line, under the circumstances. It might excite +feeling against us. It is a very bad case. But we will pull through, I +hope. We generally do. Give the case wholly into my hands. We'll +postpone, I think. I shall have to make an affidavit that there are +important witnesses absent, or something of the sort. But we'll have the +case postponed. There's some popular feeling against you, and juries go +as the newspapers do. Now, I see but one way, and that is to postpone +until the feeling dies down. Then we can manage the papers a little and +get up some sympathy for you. And there's no knowing what may happen. +There's nothing like delay in a bad case. Wait long enough, and +something is sure to turn up." + +"But I don't want the case postponed," said Charlton decidedly. + +"Very natural that you shouldn't like to wait. This is not a pleasant +room. But it is better to wait a year or even two years in this jail than +to go to prison for fifteen or twenty. Fifteen or twenty years out of the +life of a young man is about all there is worth the having." + +Here Charlton shuddered, and Mr. Conger was pleased to see that his words +took effect. + +"You'd better make up your mind that the case is a bad one, and trust to +my experience. When you're sick, trust the doctor. I think I can pull you +through if you'll leave the matter to me." + +"Mr. Conger," said Charlton, lifting up his pale face, twitching with +nervousness, "I don't want to get free by playing tricks on a court of +law. I know that fifteen or twenty years in prison would not leave me +much worth living for, but I will not degrade myself by evading justice +with delays and false affidavits. If you can do anything for me fairly +and squarely, I should like to have it done." + +"Scruples, eh?" asked Mr. Conger in surprise. + +"Yes, scruples," said Albert Charlton, leaning his head on his hands with +the air of one who has made a great exertion and has a feeling of +exhaustion. + +"Scruples, Mr. Charlton, are well enough when one is about to break the +law. After one has been arrested, scruples are in the way." + +"You have no right to presume that I have broken the law," said Charlton +with something of his old fire. + +"Well, Mr. Charlton, it will do no good for you to quarrel with your +counsel. You have as good as confessed the crime yourself. I must insist +that you leave the case in my hands, or I must throw it up. Take time to +think about it. I'll send my partner over to get any suggestions from you +about witnesses. The most we can do is to prove previous good character. +That isn't worth anything where the evidence against the prisoner is so +conclusive--as in your case. But it makes a show of doing something." And +Mr. Conger was about leaving the cell when, as if a new thought had +occurred to him, he turned back and sat down again and said: "There _is_ +one other course open to you. Perhaps it is the best, since you will not +follow my plan. You can plead guilty, and trust to the clemency of the +President. I think strong political influences could be brought to bear +at Washington in favor of your pardon?" + +Charlton shook his head, and the lawyer left him "to think the matter +over," as he said. Then ensued the season of temptation. Why should he +stand on a scruple? Why not get free? Here was a conscienceless attorney, +ready to make any number of affidavits in regard to the absence of +important witnesses; ready to fight the law by every technicality of the +law. His imprisonment had already taught him how dear liberty was, and, +within half an hour after Conger left him, a great change came over him. +Why should he go to prison? What justice was there in his going to +prison? Here he was, taking a long sentence to the penitentiary, while +such men as Westcott and Conger were out. There could be no equity in +such an arrangement. Whenever a man begins to seek equality of +dispensation, he is in a fair way to debauch his conscience. And another +line of thought influenced Charlton. The world needed his services. What +advantage would there be in throwing away the chances of a lifetime on a +punctilio? Why might he not let the serviceable lawyer do as he pleased? +Conger was the keeper of his own conscience, and would not be either more +or less honest at heart for what he did or did not do. All the kingdoms +of the earth could not have tempted Charlton to serve himself by another +man's perjury. But liberty on one hand and State's-prison on the other, +was a dreadful alternative. And so, when the meek and studious man whom +Conger used for a partner called on him, he answered all his questions, +and offered no objection to the assumption of the quiet man that Mr. +Conger would carry on the case in his own fashion. + +Many a man is willing to be a martyr till he sees the stake and fagots. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THE TRIAL. + + +From the time that Charlton began to pettifog with his conscience, he +began to lose peace of mind. His self-respect was impaired, and he became +impatient, and chafed under his restraint. As the trial drew on, he was +more than ever filled with questionings in regard to the course he should +pursue. For conscience is like a pertinacious attorney. When a false +decision is rendered, he is forever badgering the court with a bill of +exceptions, with proposals to set aside, with motions for new trials, +with applications for writs of appeal, with threats of a Higher Court, +and even with contemptuous mutterings about impeachment. If Isa had not +written to him, Albert might have regained his moral _aplomb_ in some +other way than he did--he might not. For human sympathy is Christ's own +means of regenerating the earth. If you can not counsel, if you can not +preach, if you can not get your timid lips to speak one word that will +rebuke a man's sin, you can at least show the fellowship of your heart +with his. There is a great moral tonic in human brotherhood. Worried, +desperate, feeling forsaken of God and man, it is not strange that +Charlton should shut his teeth together and defy his scruples. He would +use any key he could to get out into the sunlight again. He quoted all +those old, half-true, half-false adages about the lawlessness of +necessity and so on. Then, weary of fencing with himself, he wished for +strength to stand at peace again, as when he turned his back on the +temptations of his rescuers in Metropolisville. But he had grown weak and +nervous from confinement--prisons do not strengthen the moral power--and +he had moreover given way to dreaming about liberty until he was like a +homesick child, who aggravates his impatience by dwelling much on the +delightfulness of the meeting with old friends, and by counting the +slow-moving days that intervene. + +But there came, just the day before the trial, a letter with the +post-mark "Metropolisville" on it. That post-mark always excited a +curious feeling in him. He remembered with what boyish pride he had taken +possession of his office, and how he delighted to stamp the post-mark on +the letters. The address of this letter was not in his mother's undecided +penmanship--it was Isa Marlay's straightforward and yet graceful +writing, and the very sight of it gave him comfort. The letter was simply +a news letter, a vicarious letter from Isabel because Mrs. Plausaby did +not feel well enough to write; this is what Isa said it was, and what she +believed it to be, but Charlton knew that Isa's own friendly heart had +planned it. And though it ran on about this and that unimportant matter +of village intelligence, yet were its commonplace sentences about +commonplace affairs like a fountain in the desert to the thirsty soul of +the prisoner. I have read with fascination in an absurdly curious book +that people of a very sensitive fiber can take a letter, the contents and +writer of which are unknown, and by pressing it for a time against the +forehead can see the writer and his surroundings. It took no spirit of +divination in Charlton's case. The trim and graceful figure of Isa +Marlay, in perfectly fitting calico frock, with her whole dress in that +harmonious relation of parts for which she was so remarkable, came before +him. He knew that by this time she must have some dried grasses in the +vases, and some well-preserved autumn leaves around the picture-frames. +The letter said nothing about his trial, but its tone gave him assurance +of friendly sympathy, and of a faith in him that could not be shaken. +Somehow, by some recalling of old associations, and by some subtle +influence of human sympathy, it swept the fogs away from the soul of +Charlton, and he began to see his duty and to feel an inspiration toward +the right. I said that the letter did not mention the trial, but it did. +For when Charlton had read it twice, he happened to turn it over, and +found a postscript on the fourth page of the sheet. I wonder if the habit +which most women have of reserving their very best for the postscript +comes from the housekeeper's desire to have a good dessert. Here on the +back Charlton read: + +"P.8.--Mr. Gray, your Hoosier friend, called on me yesterday, and sent +his regards. He told me how you refused to escape. I know you well enough +to feel sure that you would not do anything mean or unmanly. I pray that +God will sustain you on your trial, and make your innocence appear. I am +sure you are innocent, though I can not understand it. Providence will +overrule it all for good, I believe." + +Something in the simple-hearted faith of Isabel did him a world of good. +He was in the open hall of the jail when he read it, and he walked about +the prison, feeling strong enough now to cope with temptation. That very +morning he had received a New Testament from a colporteur, and now, out +of regard to Isa Marlay's faith, maybe--out of some deeper feeling, +possibly--he read the story of the trial and condemnation of Jesus. In +his combative days he had read it for the sake of noting the +disagreements between the Evangelists in some of the details. But now he +was in no mood for small criticism. Which is the shallower, indeed, the +criticism that harps on disagreements in such narratives, or the +pettifogging that strives to reconcile them, one can hardly tell. In +Charlton's mood, in any deeply earnest mood, one sees the smallness of +all disputes about sixth and ninth hours. Albert saw the profound +essential unity of the narratives, he felt the stirring of the deep +sublimity of the story, he felt the inspiration of the sublimest +character in human history. Did he believe? Not in any orthodox sense. +But do you think that the influence of the Christ is limited to them who +hold right opinions about Him? If a man's heart be simple, he can not see +Jesus in any light without getting good from Him. Charlton, unbeliever +that he was, wet the pages with tears, tears of sympathy with the high +self-sacrifice of Jesus, and tears of penitence for his own moral +weakness, which stood rebuked before the Great Example. + +And then came the devil, in the person of Mr. Conger. His face was full +of hopefulness as he sat down in Charlton's cell and smote his fat white +hand upon his knee and said "Now!" and looked expectantly at his client. +He waited a moment in hope of rousing Charlton's curiosity. + +"We've got them!" he said presently. "I told you we should pull through. +Leave the whole matter to me." + +"I am willing to leave anything to you but my conscience," said Albert. + +"The devil take your conscience, Mr. Charlton. If you are guilty, and so +awfully conscientious, plead guilty at once. If you propose to cheat the +government out of some years of penal servitude, why, well and good. But +you must have a devilish queer conscience, to be sure. If you talk in +that way, I shall enter a plea of insanity and get you off whether you +will or not. But you might at least hear me through before you talk about +conscience. Perhaps even _your_ conscience would not take offense at my +plan, unless you consider yourself foreordained to go to penitentiary." + +"Let's hear your plan, Mr. Conger," said Charlton, hoping there might be +some way found by which he could escape. + +Mr. Conger became bland again, resumed his cheerful and hopeful look, +brought down his fat white hand upon his knee, looked up over his +client's head, while he let his countenance blossom with the promise of +his coming communication. He then proceeded to say with a cheerful +chuckle that there was a flaw in the form of the indictment--the grand +jury had blundered. He had told Charlton that something would certainly +happen. And it had. Then Mr. Conger smote his knee again, and said +"Now!" once more, and proceeded to say that his plan was to get the +trial set late in the term, so that the grand jury should finish their +work and be discharged before the case came on. Then he would have the +indictment quashed. + +He said this with so innocent and plausible a face that at first it did +not seem very objectionable to Charlton. + +"What would we gain by quashing the indictment, Mr. Conger?" + +"Well, if the indictment were quashed on the ground of a defect in its +substance, then the case falls. But this is only defective in form. +Another grand jury can indict you again. Now if the District Attorney +should be a little easy--and I think that, considering your age, and my +influence with him, he would be--a new commitment might not issue perhaps +before you could get out of reach of it. If you were committed again, +then we gain time. Time is everything in a bad case. You could not be +tried until the next term. When the next term comes, we could then see +what could be done. Meantime you could get bail." + +If Charlton had not been entirely clear-headed, or entirely in a mood +to deal honestly with himself, he would have been persuaded to take +this course. + +"Let me ask you a question, Mr. Conger. If the case were delayed, and I +still had nothing to present against the strong circumstantial evidence +of the prosecution--if, in other words, delay should still leave us in +our present position--would there be any chance for me to escape by a +fair, stand-up trial?" + +"Well, you see, Mr. Charlton, this is precisely a case in which we will +not accept a pitched battle, if we can help it. After a while, when the +prosecuting parties feel less bitter toward you, we might get some of the +evidence mislaid, out of the way, or get some friend on the jury, +or--well, we might manage somehow to dodge trial on the case as it +stands. Experience is worth a great deal in these things." + +"There are, then, two possibilities for me," said Charlton very quietly. +"I can run away, or we may juggle the evidence or the jury. Am I right?" + +"Or, we can go to prison?" said Conger, smiling. + +"I will take the latter alternative," said Charlton. + +"Then you owe it to me to plead guilty, and relieve me from +responsibility. If you plead guilty, we can get a recommendation of mercy +from the court." + +"I owe it to myself not to plead guilty," said Charlton, speaking still +gently, for his old imperious and self-confident manner had left him. + +"Very well," said Mr. Conger, rising, "if you take your fate into your +own hands in that way, I owe it to _myself_ to withdraw from the case." + +"Very well, Mr. Conger." + +"Good-morning, Mr. Charlton!" + +"Good-morning, Mr. Conger." + +And with Mr. Conger's disappearance went Albert's last hope of escape. +The battle had been fought, and lost--or won, as you look at it. Let us +say won, for no man's case is desperate till he parts with manliness. + +Charlton had the good fortune to secure a young lawyer of little +experience but of much principle, who was utterly bewildered by the +mystery of the case, and the apparently paradoxical scruples of his +client, but who worked diligently and hopelessly for him. He saw the flaw +in the indictment and pointed it out to Charlton, but told him that as it +was merely a technical point he would gain nothing but time. Charlton +preferred that there should be no delay, except what was necessary to +give his counsel time to understand the case. In truth, there was little +enough to understand. The defense had nothing left to do. + +When Albert came into court he was pale from his confinement. He +looked eagerly round the crowded room to see if he could find the +support of friendly faces. There were just two. The Hoosier Poet sat +on one of the benches, and by him sat Isa Marlay. True, Mr. Plausaby +sat next to Miss Marlay, but Albert did not account him anything in +his inventory of friends. + +Isabel wondered how he would plead. She hoped that he did not mean to +plead guilty, but the withdrawal of Conger from the case filled her with +fear, and she had been informed by Mr. Plausaby that he could refuse to +plead altogether, and it would be considered a plea of not guilty. She +believed him innocent, but she had not had one word of assurance to that +effect from him, and even her faith had been shaken a little by the +innuendoes and suspicions of Mr. Plausaby. + +Everybody looked at the prisoner. Presently the District Attorney moved +that Albert Charlton be arraigned. + +The Court instructed the clerk, who said, "Albert Charlton, come +forward." + +Albert here rose to his feet, and raised his right hand in token of +his identity. + +The District Attorney said, "This prisoner I have indicted by the +grand jury." + +"Shall we waive the reading of the indictment?" asked Charlton's counsel. + +"No," said Albert, "let it be read," and he listened intently while the +clerk read it. + +"Albert Charlton, you have heard the charge. What say you: Guilty, or, +Not guilty?" Even the rattling and unmeaning voice in which the clerk was +accustomed to go through with his perfunctory performances took on some +solemnity. + +There was dead silence for a moment. Isa Marlay's heart stopped beating, +and the Poet from Posey County opened his mouth with eager anxiety. +When Charlton spoke, it was in a full, solemn voice, with deliberation +and emphasis. + +"NOT GUILTY!" + +"Thank God!" whispered Isa. + +The Poet shut his mouth and heaved a sigh of relief. + +The counsel for the defense was electrified. Up to that moment he had +believed that his client was guilty. But there was so much of solemn +truthfulness in the voice that he could not resist its influence. + +As for the trial itself, which came off two days later, that was a dull +enough affair. It was easy to prove that Albert had expressed all sorts +of bitter feelings toward Mr. Westcott; that he was anxious to leave; +that he had every motive for wishing to pre-empt before Westcott did; +that the land-warrant numbered so-and-so--it is of no use being accurate +here, they were accurate enough in court--had been posted in Red Owl on a +certain day; that a gentleman who rode with the driver saw him receive +the mail at Red Owl, and saw it delivered at Metropolisville; that +Charlton pre-empted his claim--the S.E. qr. of the N.E. qr., and the N. +1/2 of the S.E. qr. of Section 32, T. so-and-so, R. such-and-such--with +this identical land-warrant, as the records of the land-office showed +beyond a doubt. + +Against all this counsel for defense had nothing whatever to offer. +Nothing but evidence of previous good character, nothing but to urge that +there still remained perhaps the shadow of a doubt. No testimony to show +from whom Charlton had received the warrant, not the first particle of +rebutting evidence. The District Attorney only made a little perfunctory +speech on the evils brought upon business by theft in the post-office. +The exertions of Charlton's counsel amounted to nothing; the jury found +him guilty without deliberation. + +The judge sentenced him with much solemn admonition. It was a grievous +thing for one so young to commit such a crime. He warned Albert that he +must not regard any consideration as a justification for such an offense. +He had betrayed his trust and been guilty of theft. The judge expressed +his regret that the sentence was so severe. It was a sad thing to send a +young man of education and refinement to be the companion of criminals +for so many years. But the law recognized the difference between a theft +by a sworn and trusted officer and an ordinary larceny. He hoped that +Albert would profit by this terrible experience, and that he would so +improve the time of his confinement with meditation, that what would +remain to him of life when he should come out of the walls of his prison +might be spent as an honorable and law-abiding citizen. He sentenced him +to serve the shortest term permitted by the statute, namely, ten years. + +The first deep snow of the winter was falling outside the court-house, +and as Charlton stood in the prisoners' box, he could hear the jingling +of sleigh-bells, the sounds that usher in the happy social life of winter +in these northern latitudes. He heard the judge, and he listened to the +sleigh-bells as a man who dreams--the world was so far off from him +now--ten weary years, and the load of a great disgrace measured the gulf +fixed between him and all human joy and sympathy. And when, a few minutes +afterward, the jail-lock clicked behind him, it seemed to have shut out +life. For burial alive is no fable. Many a man has heard the closing of +the vault as Albert Charlton did. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +THE PENITENTIARY. + + +It was a cold morning. The snow had fallen heavily the day before, and +the Stillwater stage was on runners. The four horses rushed round the +street-corners with eagerness as the driver, at a little past five +o'clock in the morning, moved about collecting passengers. From the +up-town hotels he drove in the light of the gas-lamps to the jail where +the deputy marshal, with his prisoner securely handcuffed, took his seat +and wrapped the robes about them both. Then at the down-town hotels they +took on other passengers. The Fuller House was the last call of all. + +"Haven't you a back-seat?" The passenger partly spoke and partly coughed +out his inquiry. + +"The back-seat is occupied by ladies," said the agent, "you will have to +take the front one." + +"It will kill me to ride backwards," whined the desponding voice of +Minorkey, but as there were only two vacant seats he had no choice. He +put his daughter in the middle while he took the end of the seat and +resigned himself to death by retrograde motion. Miss Helen Minorkey was +thus placed exactly _vis-a-vis_ with her old lover Albert Charlton, but +in the darkness of six o'clock on a winter's morning in Minnesota, she +could not know it. The gentleman who occupied the other end of the seat +recognized Mr. Minorkey, and was by him introduced to his daughter. That +lady could not wholly resist the exhilaration of such a stage-ride over +snowy roads, only half-broken as yet, where there was imminent peril of +upsetting at every turn. And so she and her new acquaintance talked of +many things, while Charlton could not but recall his ride, a short +half-year ago, on a front-seat, over the green prairies--had prairies +ever been greener?--and under the blue sky, and in bright sunshine--had +the sun ever shone so brightly?--with this same quiet-voiced, thoughtful +Helen Minorkey. How soon had sunshine turned to darkness! How suddenly +had the blossoming spring-time changed to dreariest winter! + +It is really delightful, this riding through the snow and darkness in a +covered coach on runners, this battling with difficulties. There is a +spice of adventure in it quite pleasant if you don't happen to be the +driver and have the battle to manage. To be a well-muffled passenger, +responsible for nothing, not even for your own neck, is thoroughly +delightful--provided always that you are not the passenger in handcuffs +going to prison for ten years. To the passenger in handcuffs, whose good +name has been destroyed, whose liberty is gone, whose future is to be +made of weary days of monotonous drudgery and dreary nights in a damp +cell, whose friends have deserted him, who is an outlaw to society--to +the passenger in handcuffs this dashing and whirling toward a living +entombment has no exhilaration. Charlton was glad of the darkness, but +dreaded the dawn when there must come a recognition. In a whisper he +begged the deputy marshal to pull his cap down over his eyes and to +adjust his woolen comforter over his nose, not so much to avoid the cold +wind as to escape the cold eyes of Helen Minorkey. Then he hid his +handcuffs under the buffalo robes so that, if possible, he might escape +recognition. + +The gentleman alongside Miss Minorkey asked if she had read the account +of the trial of young Charlton, the post-office robber. + +"Part of it," said Miss Minorkey. "I don't read trials much." + +"For my part," said the gentleman, "I think the court was very merciful. +I should have given him the longest term known to the law. He ought to go +for twenty-one years. We all of us have to risk money in the mails, and +if thieves in the post-office are not punished severely, there is no +security." + +There spoke Commerce! Money is worth so much more than humanity, you +know! + +Miss Minorkey said that she knew something of the case. It was very +curious, indeed. Young Charlton was disposed to be honest, but he was +high-tempered. The taking of the warrant was an act of resentment, she +thought. He had had two or three quarrels or fights, she believed, with +the man from whom he took the warrant. He was a very talented young man, +but very ungovernable in his feelings. + +The gentleman said that that was the very reason why he should have gone +for a longer time. A talented and self-conceited man of that sort was +dangerous out of prison. As it was, he would learn all the roguery of the +penitentiary, you know, and then we should none of us be safe from him. + +There spoke the Spirit of the Law! Keep us safe, O Lord! whoever may go +to the devil! + +In reply to questions from her companion, Miss Minorkey told the story of +Albert's conflict with Westcott--she stated the case with all the +coolness of a dispassionate observer. + +There was no sign--Albert listened for it--of the slightest sympathy for +or against him in the matter. Then the story of little Katy was told as +one might tell something that had happened a hundred years ago, without +any personal sympathy. It was simply a curious story, an interesting +adventure with which to beguile a weary hour of stage riding in the +darkness. It would have gratified Albert to have been able to detect the +vibration of a painful memory or a pitying emotion, but Helen did not +suffer her placidity to be ruffled by disturbing emotion. The +conversation drifted to other subjects presently through Mr. Minorkey's +sudden recollection that the drowning excitement at Metropolisville had +brought on a sudden attack of his complaint, he had been seized with a +pain just under his ribs. It ran up to the point of the right shoulder, +and he thought he should die, etc., etc., etc. Nothing saved him but +putting his feet into hot water, etc., etc., etc. + +The gray dawn came on, and Charlton was presently able to trace the +lineaments of the well-known countenance. He was not able to recognize it +again without a profound emotion, an emotion that he could not have +analyzed. Her face was unchanged, there was not the varying of a line in +the placid, healthy, thoughtful expression to indicate any deepening of +her nature through suffering. Charlton's face had changed so that she +would not have recognized him readily had it been less concealed. And by +so much as his countenance had changed and hers remained fixed, had he +drifted away from her. Albert felt this. However painful his emotion was, +as he sat there casting furtive glances at Helen's face, there was no +regret that all relation between them was broken forever. He was not +sorry for the meeting. He needed such a meeting to measure the parallax +of his progress and her stagnation. He needed this impression of Helen to +obliterate the memory of the row-boat. She was no longer to remain in his +mind associated with the blessed memory of little Kate. Hereafter he +could think of Katy in the row-boat--the other figure was a dim unreality +which might have come to mean something, but which never did mean +anything to him. + +I wonder who keeps the tavern at Cypher's Lake now? In those old days it +was not a very reputable place; it was said that many a man had there +been fleeced at poker. The stage did not reach it on this snowy morning +until ten o'clock. The driver stopped to water, the hospitable landlord, +whose familiar nickname was "Bun," having provided a pail and cut a hole +through the ice of the lake for the accommodation of the drivers. Water +for beasts--gentlemen could meantime find something less "beastly" than +ice-water in the little low-ceiled bar-room on the other side of the +road. The deputy-marshal wanted to stretch his legs a little, and so, +trusting partly to his knowledge of Charlton's character, partly to +handcuffs, and partly to his convenient revolver, he leaped out of the +coach and stepped to the door of the bar-room just to straighten his +legs, you know, and get a glass of whisky "straight" at the same time. In +getting into the coach again he chanced to throw back the buffalo-robe +and thus exposed Charlton's handcuffs. Helen glanced at them, and then at +Albert's face. She shivered a little, and grew red. There was no +alternative but to ride thus face to face with Charlton for six miles. +She tried to feel herself an injured person, but something in the +self-possessed face of Albert--his comforter had dropped down now--awed +her, and she affected to be sick, leaning her head on her father's +shoulder and surprising that gentleman beyond measure. Helen had never +shown so much emotion of any sort in her life before, certainly never so +much confusion and shame. And that in spite of her reasoning that it was +not she but Albert who should be embarrassed. But the two seemed to have +changed places. Charlton was as cold and immovable as Helen Minorkey ever +had been; she trembled and shuddered, even with her eyes shut, to think +that his eyes were on her--looking her through and through--measuring all +the petty meanness and shallowness of her soul. She complained of the +cold and wrapped her blanket shawl about her face and pretended to be +asleep, but the shameful nakedness of her spirit seemed not a whit less +visible to the cool, indifferent eyes that she felt must be still looking +at her from under the shadow of that cap-front. What a relief it was at +last to get into the warm parlor of the hotel! But still she shivered +when she thought of her ride. + +It is one thing to go into a warm parlor of a hotel, to order your room, +your fire, your dinner, your bed. It is quite another to drive up under +the high, rough limestone outer wall of a prison--a wall on which moss +and creeper refuse to grow--to be led handcuffed into a little office, to +have your credentials for ten years of servitude presented to the warden, +to have your name, age, nativity, hight, complexion, weight, and +distinguishing marks carefully booked, to have your hair cropped to half +the length of a prize-fighter's, to lay aside the dress which you have +chosen and which seems half your individuality, and put on a suit of +cheerless penitentiary uniform--to cease to be a man with a place among +men, and to become simply a convict. This is not nearly so agreeable as +living at the hotel. Did Helen Minorkey ever think of the difference? + +There is little to be told of the life in the penitentiary. It is very +uniform. To eat prison fare without even the decency of a knife or +fork--you might kill a guard or a fellow-rogue with a fork--to sleep in a +narrow, rough cell on a hard bed, to have your cell unlocked and to be +marched out under guard in the morning, to go in a row of prisoners to +wash your face, to go in a procession to a frugal breakfast served on tin +plates in a dining-room mustier than a cellar, to be marched to your +work, to be watched by a guard while you work, to know that the guard has +a loaded revolver and is ready to draw it on slight provocation, to march +to meals under awe of the revolver, to march to bed while the man with +the revolver walks behind you, to be locked in and barred in and +double-locked in again, to have a piece of candle that will burn two +hours, to burn it out and lie down in the darkness--to go through one +such day and know that you have to endure three thousand six hundred and +fifty-two days like it--that is about all. The life of a blind horse in a +treadmill is varied and cheerful in comparison. + +Oh! yes, there is Sunday. I forgot the Sunday. On Sundays you don't have +to work in the shops. You have the blessed privilege of sitting alone in +your bare cell all the day, except the hour of service. You can think +about the outside world and wish you were out. You can read, if you can +get anything interesting to read. You can count your term over, think of +a broken life, of the friends of other days who feel disgraced at mention +of your name, get into the dumps, and cry a little if you feel like it. +Only crying doesn't seem to do much good. Such is the blessedness of the +holy Sabbath in prison! + +But Charlton did not let himself pine for liberty. He was busy with +plans for reconstructing his life. What he would have had it, it could +not be. You try to build a house, and it is shaken down about your ears +by an earthquake. Your material is, much of it, broken. You can never +make it what you would. But the brave heart, failing to do what it would, +does what it can. Charlton, who had hated the law as a profession, was +now enamored of it. He thought rightly that there is no calling that +offers nobler opportunities to a man who has a moral fiber able to bear +the strain. When he should have finished his term, he would be +thirty-one, and would be precluded from marriage by his disgrace. He +could live on a crust, if necessary, and be the champion of the +oppressed. What pleasure he would have in beating Conger some day! So he +arranged to borrow law-books, and faithfully used his two hours of candle +in studying. He calculated that in ten years--if he should survive ten +years of life in a cell--he could lay a foundation for eminence in legal +learning. Thus he made vinegar-barrels all day, and read Coke on +Littleton on Blackstone at night. His money received from the contractor +for over-work, he used to buy law-books. + +Sometimes he hoped for a pardon, but there was only one contingency that +was likely to bring it about. And he could not wish for that. Unless, +indeed, the prison-officers should seek a pardon for him. From the +beginning they had held him in great favor. When he had been six months +in prison, his character was so well established with the guards that no +one ever thought of watching him or of inspecting his work. + +He felt a great desire to have something done in a philanthropic way for +the prisoners, but when the acting chaplain, Mr. White, preached to +them, he always rebelled. Mr. White had been a steamboat captain, a +sheriff, and divers other things, and was now a zealous missionary among +the Stillwater lumbermen. The State could not afford to give more than +three hundred dollars a year for religious and moral instruction at this +time, and so the several pastors in the city served alternately, three +months apiece. Mr. White was a man who delivered his exhortations with +the same sort of vehemence that Captain White had used in giving orders +to his deck-hands in a storm; he arrested souls much as Sheriff White had +arrested criminals. To Albert's infidelity he gave no quarter. Charlton +despised the chaplain's lack of learning until he came to admire his +sincerity and wonder at his success. For the gracefulest and eruditest +orator that ever held forth to genteelest congregation, could not have +touched the prisoners by his highest flight of rhetoric as did the +earnest, fiery Captain-Sheriff-Chaplain White, who moved aggressively on +the wickedness of his felonious audience. + +When Mr. White's three months had expired, there came another pastor, as +different from him as possible. Mr. Lurton was as gentle as his +predecessor had been boisterous. There was a strong substratum of manly +courage and will, but the whole was overlaid with a sweetness wholly +feminine and seraphic. His religion was the Twenty-third Psalm. His face +showed no trace of conflict. He had accepted the creed which he had +inherited without a question, and, finding in it abundant sources of +happiness, of moral development, and spiritual consolation, he thence +concluded it true. He had never doubted. It is a question whether his +devout soul would not have found peace and edification in any set of +opinions to which he had happened to be born. You have seen one or two +such men in your life. Their presence is a benison. Albert felt more +peaceful while Mr. Lurton stood without the grating of his cell, and +Lurton seemed to leave a benediction behind him. He did not talk in pious +cant, he did not display his piety, and he never addressed a sinner down +an inclined plane. He was too humble for that. But the settled, the +unruffled, the unruffleable peacefulness and trustfulness of his soul +seemed to Charlton, whose life had been stormier within than without, +nothing less than sublime. The inmates of the prison could not appreciate +this delicate quality in the young minister. Lurton had never lived near +enough to their life for them to understand him or for him to understand +them. He considered them all, on general principles, as lost sinners, +bad, like himself, by nature, who had superadded outward transgressions +and the crime of rejecting Christ to their original guilt and corruption +as members of the human family. + +Charlton watched Lurton with intense interest, listened to all he had to +say, responded to the influence of his fine quality, but found his own +doubts yet unanswered and indeed untouched. The minister, on his part, +took a lively interest in the remarkable young man, and often endeavored +to remove his doubts by the well-knit logical arguments he had learned in +the schools. + +"Mr. Lurton," said Charlton impatiently one day, "were you ever troubled +with doubt?" + +"I do not remember that I ever seriously entertained a doubt in regard to +religious truth in my life," said Lurton, after reflection. + +"Then you know no more about my doubts than a blind man knows of your +sense of sight." But after a pause, he added, laughing: "Nevertheless, I +would give away my doubtativeness any day in exchange for your +peacefulness." Charlton did not know, nor did Lurton, that the natures +which have never been driven into the wilderness to be buffeted of the +devil are not the deepest. + +It was during Mr. Lurton's time as chaplain that Charlton began to +receive presents of little ornamental articles, intended to make his cell +more cheerful. These things were sent to him by the hands of the +chaplain, and the latter was forbidden to tell the name of the giver. +Books and pictures, and even little pots with flowers in them, came to +him in the early spring. He fancied they might come from some unknown +friend, who had only heard of him through the chaplain, and he was prone +to resent the charity. He received the articles with thankful lips, but +asked in his heart, "Is it not enough to be a convict, without being +pitied as such?" Why anybody in Stillwater should send him such things, +he did not know. The gifts were not expensive, but every one gave +evidence of a refined taste. + +At last there came one--a simple cross, cut in paper, intended to be hung +up as a transparency before the window--that in some unaccountable way +suggested old associations. Charlton had never seen anything of the kind, +but he had the feeling of one who half-recognizes a handwriting. The +pattern had a delicacy about it approaching to daintiness, an expression +of taste and feeling which he seemed to have known, as when one sees a +face that is familiar, but which one can not "place," as we say. Charlton +could not place the memory excited by this transparency, but for a moment +he felt sure that it must be from some one whom he knew. But who could +there be near enough to him to send flower-pots and framed pictures +without great expense? There was no one in Stillwater whom he had ever +seen, unless indeed Helen Minorkey were there yet, and he had long since +given up all expectation and all desire of receiving any attention at her +hands. Besides, the associations excited by the transparency, the taste +evinced in making it, the sentiment which it expressed, were not of Helen +Minorkey. It was on Thursday that he hung it against the light of his +window. It was not until Sunday evening, as he lay listlessly watching +his scanty allowance of daylight grow dimmer, that he became sure of the +hand that he had detected in the workmanship of the piece. He got up +quickly and looked at it more closely and said: "It must be Isa Marlay!" +And he lay down again, saying: "Well, it can never be quite dark in a +man's life when he has one friend." And then, as the light grew more and +more faint, he said: "Why did not I see it before? Good orthodox Isa +wants to preach to me. She means to say that I should receive light +through the cross." + +And he lay awake far into the night, trying to divine how the flower-pots +and pictures and all the rest could have been sent all the way from +Metropolisville. It was not till long afterward that he discovered the +alliance between Whisky Jim and Isabel, and how Jim had gotten a friend +on the Stillwater route to help him get them through. But Charlton wrote +Isa, and told her how he had detected her, and thanked her cordially, +asking her why she concealed her hand. She replied kindly, but with +little allusion to the gifts, and they came no more. When Isa had been +discovered she could not bring herself to continue the presents. Save +that now and then there came something from his mother, in which Isa's +taste and skill were evident, he received nothing more from her, except +an occasional friendly letter. He appreciated her delicacy too late, and +regretted that he had written about the cross at all. + +One Sunday, Mr. Lurton, going his round, found Charlton reading the New +Testament. + +"Mr. Lurton, what a sublime prayer the Pater-noster is!" exclaimed +Charlton. + +"Yes;" said Lurton, "it expresses so fully the only two feelings that can +bring us to God--a sense of guilt and a sense of dependence." + +"What I admired in the prayer was not that, but the unselfishness that +puts God and the world first, and asks bread, forgiveness, and guidance +last. It seems to me, Mr. Lurton, that all men are not brought to God by +the same feelings. Don't you think that a man may be drawn toward God by +self-sacrifice--that a brave, heroic act, in its very nature, brings us +nearer to God? It seems to me that whatever the rule may be, there are +exceptions; that God draws some men to Himself by a sense of sympathy; +that He makes a sudden draft on their moral nature--not more than they +can bear, but all they can bear--and that in doing right under +difficulties the soul finds itself directed toward God--opened on the +side on which God sits." + +Mr. Lurton shook his head, and protested, in his gentle and earnest way, +against this doctrine of man's ability to do anything good before +conversion. + +"But, Mr. Lurton," urged Albert, "I have known a man to make a great +sacrifice, and to find himself drawn by that very sacrifice into a great +admiring of Christ's sacrifice, into a great desire to call God his +father, and into a seeking for the forgiveness and favor that would make +him in some sense a child of God. Did you never know such a case?" + +"Never. I do not think that genuine conversions come in that way. A sense +of righteousness can not prepare a man for salvation--only a sense of +sin--a believing that all our righteousness is filthy rags. Still, I +wouldn't discourage you from studying the Bible in any way. You will come +round right after a while, and then you will find that to be saved, a man +must abhor every so-called good thing that he ever did." + +"Yes," said Charlton, who had grown more modest in his trials, "I am +sure there is some truth in the old doctrine as you state it. But is +not a man better and more open to divine grace, for resisting a +temptation to vice?" + +Mr. Lurton hesitated. He remembered that he had read, in very sound +writers, arguments to prove that there could be no such thing as good +works before conversion, and Mr. Lurton was too humble to set his +judgment against the great doctors'. Besides, he was not sure that +Albert's questions might not force him into that dangerous heresy +attributed to Arminius, that good works may be the impulsive cause by +which God is moved to give His grace to the unconverted. + +"Do you think that a man can really do good without God's help?" asked +Mr. Lurton. + +"I don't think man ever tries to do right in humility and sincerity +without some help from God," answered Albert, whose mode of thinking +about God was fast changing for the better. "I think God goes out a long, +long way to meet the first motions of a good purpose in a man's heart. +The parable of the Prodigal Son only half-tells it. The parable breaks +down with a truth too great for human analogies. I don't know but that +He acts in the beginning of the purpose. I am getting to be a +Calvinist--in fact, on some points, I out-Calvin Calvin. Is not God's +help in the good purposes of every man?" + +Mr. Lurton shook his head with a gentle gravity, and changed the subject +by saying, "I am going to Metropolisville next week to attend a meeting. +Can I do anything for you?" + +"Go and see my mother," said Charlton, with emotion. "She is sick, and +will never get well, I fear. Tell her I am cheerful. And--Mr. Lurton--do +you pray with her. I do not believe anything, except by fits and starts; +but one of your prayers would do my mother good. If she could be half as +peaceful as you are, I should be happy." + +Lurton walked away down the gallery from Albert's cell, and descended +the steps that led to the dining-room, and was let out of the locked and +barred door into the vestibule, and out of that into the yard, and +thence out through other locks into the free air of out-doors. Then he +took a long breath, for the sight of prison doors and locks and bars and +grates and gates and guards oppressed even his peaceful soul. And +walking along the sandy road that led by the margin of Lake St. Croix +toward the town, he recalled Charlton's last remark. And as he +meditatively tossed out of the path with his boot the pieces of +pine-bark which in this lumbering country lie about everywhere, he +rejoiced that Charlton had learned to appreciate the value of Christian +peace, and he offered a silent prayer that Albert might one day obtain +the same serenity as himself. For nothing was further from the young +minister's mind than the thought that any of his good qualities were +natural. He considered himself a miracle of grace upon all sides. As if +natural qualities were not also of God's grace! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +MR. LURTON. + + +It was a warm Sunday in the early spring, one week after Mr. Lurton's +conversation with Charlton, that the latter sat in his cell feeling the +spring he could not see. His prison had never been so much a prison. To +perceive this balminess creeping through the narrow, high window--a mere +orifice through a thick wall--and making itself feebly felt as it fell +athwart the damp chilliness of the cell, to perceive thus faintly the +breath of spring, and not to be able to see the pregnant tree-buds +bursting with the coming greenness of the summer, and not to be able to +catch the sound of the first twittering of the returning sparrows and the +hopeful chattering of the swallows, made Albert feel indeed that he and +life had parted. + +Mr. Lurton's three months as chaplain had expired, and there had come in +his stead Mr. Canton, who wore a very stiff white neck-tie and a very +straight-breasted long-tailed coat. Nothing is so great a bar to human +sympathies as a clerical dress, and Mr. Canton had diligently fixed a +great gulf between himself and his fellow-men. Charlton's old, bitter +aggressiveness, which had well-nigh died out under the sweet influences +of Lurton's peacefulness, came back now, and he mentally pronounced the +new chaplain a clerical humbug and an ecclesiastical fop, and all such +mild paradoxical epithets as he was capable of forming. The hour of +service was ended, and Charlton was in his cell again, standing under the +high window, trying to absorb some of the influences of the balmy air +that reached him in such niggardly quantities. He was hungering for a +sight of the woods, which he knew must be so vital at this season. He had +only the geraniums and the moss-rose that Isa, had sent, and they were +worse than nothing, for they pined in this twilight of the cell, and +seemed to him smitten, like himself, with a living death. He almost +stopped, his heart's beating in his effort to hear the voices of the +birds, and at last he caught the harsh cawing of the crows for a moment, +and then that died away, and he could hear no sound but the voice of the +clergyman in long clothes talking perfunctorily to O'Neill, the +wife-murderer, in the next cell. He knew that his turn would come next, +and it did. He listened in silence and with much impatience to such a +moral lecture as seemed to Mr. Canton befitting a criminal. + +Mr. Canton then handed him a letter, and seeing that it was addressed +in the friendly hand of Lurton, he took it to the window and opened +it, and read: + +"DEAR MR. CHARLTON: + +"I should have come to see you and told you about my trip to +Metropolisville, but I am obliged to go out of town again. I send this by +Mr. Canton, and also a request to the warden to pass this and your answer +without the customary inspection of contents. I saw your mother and your +stepfather and your friend Miss Marlay. Your mother is failing very fast, +and I do not think it would be a kindness for me to conceal from you my +belief that she can not live many weeks. I talked with her and prayed +with her as you requested, but she seems to have some intolerable mental +burden. Miss Marlay is evidently a great comfort to her, and, indeed, I +never saw a more faithful person than she in my life, or a more +remarkable exemplification of the beauty of a Christian life. She takes +every burden off your mother except that unseen load which seems to +trouble her spirit, and she believes absolutely in your innocence. By the +way, why did you never explain to her or to me or to any of your friends +the real history of the case? There must at least have been extenuating +circumstances, and we might be able to help you. + +"But I am writing about everything except what I want to say, or rather +to ask, for I tremble to ask it. Are you interested in any way other +than as a friend in Miss Isabel Marlay? You will guess why I ask the +question. Since I met her I have thought of her a great deal, and I may +add to you that I have anxiously sought divine guidance in a matter +likely to affect the usefulness of my whole life. I will not take a +single step in the direction in which my heart has been so suddenly +drawn, if you have any prior claim, or even the remotest hope of +establishing one in some more favorable time. Far be it from me to add a +straw to the heavy burden you have had to bear. I expect to be in +Metropolisville again soon, and will see your mother once more. Please +answer me with frankness, and believe me, + +"Always your friend, + +J.H. LURTON." + +The intelligence regarding his mother's health was not new to Albert, for +Isa had told him fully of her state. It would be difficult to describe +the feeling of mingled pain and pleasure with which he read Lurton's +confession of his sudden love for Isabel. Nothing since his imprisonment +had so humbled Charlton as the recollection of the mistake he had made in +his estimate of Helen Minorkey, and his preference for her over Isa. He +had lain on his cot sometimes and dreamed of what might have been if he +had escaped prison and had chosen Isabel instead of Helen. He had +pictured to himself the content he might have had with such a woman for a +wife. But then the thought of his disgrace--a disgrace he could not share +with a wife--always dissipated the beautiful vision and made the hard +reality of what was, seem tenfold harder for the ravishing beauty of what +might have been. + +And now the vision of the might-have-been came back to him more clearly +than ever, and he sat a long while with his head leaning on his hand. +Then the struggle passed, and he lighted his little ration of candle, +and wrote: + +"SUNDAY EVENING. + +"REV. J.H. LURTON: + +"DEAR SIR: You have acted very honorably in writing me as you have, and I +admire you now more than ever. You fulfill my ideal of a Christian. I +never had the slightest claim or the slightest purpose to establish any +claim on Isabel Marlay, for I was so blinded by self-conceit, that I did +not appreciate her until it was too late. And now! What have I to offer +to any woman? The love of a convicted felon! A name tarnished forever! +No! I shall never share that with Isa Marlay. She is, indeed, the best +and most sensible of women. She is the only woman worthy of such a man as +you. You are the only man I ever saw good enough for Isabel. I love you +both. God bless you! + +"Very respectfully and gratefully, CHARLTON." + +Mr. Lurton had staid during the meeting of the ecclesiastical +body--Presbytery, Consociation, Convention, Conference, or what not, it +does not matter--at Squire Plausaby's Albert had written about him, and +Isa, as soon as she heard that he was to attend, had prompted Plausaby to +enter a request with the committee on the entertainment of delegates for +the assignment of Mr. Lurton to him as guest. His peacefulness had not, +as Albert and Isabel hoped, soothed the troubled spirit of Mrs. Plausaby, +who was in a great terror at thought of death. The skillful surgeon +probes before he tries to heal, and Mr. Lurton set himself to find the +cause of all this irritation in the mind of this weak woman. Sometimes +she seemed inclined to tell him all, but it always happened that when she +was just ready to speak, the placid face of Plausaby glided in at the +door. On the appearance of her husband, Mrs. Plausaby would cease +speaking. It took Lurton a long time to discover that Plausaby was the +cause of this restraint. He did discover it, however, and endeavored to +get an interview when there was no one present but Isabel. In trying to +do this, he made a fresh discovery--that Plausaby was standing guard over +his wife, and that the restraint he exercised was intentional. The +mystery of the thing fascinated him; and the impression that it had +something to do with Charlton, and the yet stronger motive of a sense of +duty to the afflicted woman, made him resolute in his determination to +penetrate it. Not more so, however, than was Isabel, who endeavored in +every way to secure an uninterrupted interview for Mr. Lurton, but +endeavored in vain. + +Lurton was thus placed in favorable circumstances to see Miss Marlay's +qualities. Her graceful figure in her simple tasteful, and perfectly +fitting frock, her rhythmical movement, her rare voice, all touched +exquisitely so sensitive a nature as Lurton's. But more than that was he +moved by her diligent management of the household, her unwearying +patience with the querulous and feeble-minded sick woman, her tact and +common-sense, and especially the entire truthfulness of her character. + +Mr. Lurton made excuse to himself for another trip to Metropolisville +that he had business in Perritaut. It was business that might have +waited; it was business that would have waited, but for his desire to +talk further with Mrs. Plausaby, and for his other desire to see and talk +with Isabel Marlay again. For, if he should fail of her, where would he +ever find one so well suited to help the usefulness of his life? Happy is +he whose heart and duty go together! And now that Lurton had found that +Charlton had no first right to Isabel, his worst fear had departed. + +Even in his palpitating excitement about Isa, he was the true minister, +and gave his first thought to the spiritual wants of the afflicted woman +whom he regarded as providentially thrown upon his care. He was so +fortunate as to find Plausaby absent at Perritaut. But how anxiously did +he wait for the time when he could see the sick woman! Even Isa almost +lost her patience with Mrs. Plausaby's characteristic desire to be fixed +up to receive company. She must have her hair brushed and her bed +"tidied," and, when Isabel thought she had concluded everything, Mrs. +Plausaby would insist that all should be undone again and fixed m some +other way. Part of this came from her old habitual vanity, aggravated by +the querulous childishness produced by sickness, and part from a desire +to postpone as long as she could an interview which she greatly dreaded. +Isa knew that time was of the greatest value, and so, when she had +complied with the twentieth unreasonable exaction of the sick woman, and +was just about to hear the twenty-first, she suddenly opened the door of +Mrs. Plausaby's sickroom and invited Mr. Lurton to enter. + +And then began again the old battle--the hardest conflict of all--the +battle with vacillation. To contend with a stubborn will is a simple +problem of force against force. But to contend with a weak and +vacillating will is fighting the air. + +Mrs. Plausaby said she had something to say to Mr. Lurton. But--dear +me--she was so annoyed! The room was not fit for a stranger to see. She +must look like a ghost. There was something that worried her. She was +afraid she was going to die, and she had--did Mr. Lurton think she would +die? Didn't he think she might get well? + +Mr. Lurton had to say that, in his opinion, she could never get well, and +that if there was anything on her mind, she would better tell it. + +Didn't Isa think she could get well? She didn't want to die. But then +Katy was dead. Would she go to heaven if she died? Did Mr. Lurton think +that if she had done wrong, she ought to confess it? Couldn't she be +forgiven without that? Wouldn't he pray for her unless she confessed it? +He ought not to be so hard on her. Would God be hard on her if she did +not tell it all? Oh! she was so miserable! + +Mr. Lurton told her that sometimes people committed sin by refusing to +confess because their confession had something to do with other people. +Was her confession necessary to remove blame from others? + +"Oh!" cried the sick woman, "Albert has told you all about it! Oh, dear! +now I shall have more trouble! Why didn't he wait till I'm dead? Isn't it +enough to have Katy drowned and Albert gone to that awful place and this +trouble? Oh! I wish I was dead! But then--maybe God would be hard on me! +Do you think God would be hard on a woman that did wrong if she was told +to do it? And if she was told to do it by her own husband? And if she had +to do it to save her husband from some awful trouble? There, I nearly +told it. Won't that do?" + +And she turned her head over and affected to be asleep. Mr. Lurton was +now more eager than ever that the whole truth should come out, since he +began to see how important Mrs. Plausaby's communication might be. +Beneath all his sweetness, as I have said, there was much manly firmness, +and he now drew his chair near to the bedside, and began in a tone full +of solemnity, with that sort of quiet resoluteness that a surgeon has +when he decides to use the knife. He was the more resolute because he +knew that if Plausaby returned before the confession should be made, +there would be no possibility of getting it. + +"Mrs. Plausaby," he said, but she affected to be asleep. "Mrs. Plausaby, +suppose a woman, by doing wrong when her husband asks it, brings a great +calamity on the only child she has, locking him in prison and destroying +his good name--" + +"Oh, dear, dear! stop! You'll kill me! I knew Albert had told you. Now I +won't say a word about it. If he has told it, there is no use of my +saying anything," and she covered up her face in a stubborn, childish +petulance. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +A CONFESSION. + + +Mr. Lurton wisely left the room. Mrs. Plausaby's fears of death soon +awakened again, and she begged Isa to ask Mr. Lurton to come back. Like +most feeble people, she had a superstitious veneration for ecclesiastical +authority, and now in her weakened condition she had readily got a vague +notion that Lurton held her salvation in his hands, and could modify the +conditions if he would. + +"You aren't a Catholic are you, Mr. Lurton?" + +"No, I am not at all a Catholic." + +"Well, then, what makes you want me to confess?" + +"Because you are adding to your first sin a greater one in wronging your +son by not confessing." + +"Who told you that? Did Albert?" + +"No, you told me as much as that, yourself." + +"Did I? Why, then I might as well tell you all. But why won't that do?" + +"Because, that much would not get Albert out of prison. You don't want to +leave him in penitentiary when you're gone, do you?" + +"Oh, dear! I can't tell. Plausaby won't let me. Maybe I might tell Isa." + +"That will do just as well. Tell Miss Marlay." And Lurton walked out on +the piazza. + +For half an hour Mrs. Plausaby talked to Isa and told her nothing. She +would come face to face with the confession, and then say that she could +not tell it, that Plausaby would do something awful if he knew she had +said so much. + +At last Isabel was tired out with this method, and was desperate at the +thought that Plausaby would return while yet the confession was +incomplete. So she determined to force Mrs. Plausaby to speak. + +"Now, Mrs. Plausaby," she said, "what did Uncle Plausaby say to you that +made you take that letter of Smith Westcott's?" + +"I didn't take it, did I? How do you know? I didn't say so?" + +"You have told me part, and if you tell me the rest I will keep it secret +for the present. If you don't tell me, I shall tell Uncle Plausaby what I +know, and tell him that he must tell me the rest." + +"You wouldn't do that, Isabel? You couldn't do that. Don't do that," +begged the sick woman. + +"Then tell me the truth," she said with sternness. "What made you take +that land-warrant--for you know you did, and you must not tell me a lie +when you're just going to die and go before God." + +"There now, Isa, I knew you would hate me. That's the reason why I can't +tell it. Everybody has been looking so hateful at me ever since I took +the letter, I mean ever since--Oh! I didn't mean anything bad, but you +know I have to do what Plausaby tells me I must do. He's _such_ a man! +And then he was in trouble. There was some old trouble from Pennsylvania. +The men came on here, and made him pay money, all the money he could get, +to keep them from having him put in prison. I don't know what it was all +about, you know, I never could understand about business, but here was +Albert bothering him about money to pay for a warrant, and these men +taking all his money, and here was a trial about some lots that he sold +to that fat man with curly hair, and he was afraid Albert would swear +against him about that and about the county-seat, and so he wanted to get +him away. And there was an awful bother about Katy and Westcott at the +same time. And I wanted a changeable silk dress, and he couldn't get it +for me because all his money was going to the men from Pennsylvania. +But--I can't tell you any more. I'm afraid Plausaby might come. You won't +tell, and you won't hate me, Isa, dear--now, will you? You used to be +good to me, but you won't be good to me any more!" + +"I'll always love you if you only tell me the rest." + +"No, I can't. For you see Plausaby didn't mean any harm, and I didn't +mean any harm. Plausaby wanted Albert to go away so they couldn't get +Albert to swear against him. It was all Albert's fault, you know--he had +such notions. But he was a good boy, and I can't sleep at night now for +seeing him behind a kind of a grate, and he seems to be pointing his +finger at me and saying, 'You put me in here.' But I didn't. That's one +of his notions. It was Plausaby made me do it. And he didn't mean any +harm. He said Westcott would soon be his son-in-law. He had helped +Westcott to get the claim anyhow. It was only borrowing a little from +his own son-in-law. He said that I must get the letter out of the +office when Albert did not see me. He said it would be a big letter, +with 'Red Owl' stamped on it, and that it would be in Mr. Westcott's +box. And he said I must take the land-warrant out and burn up the letter +and the envelope. And then he said I must give the land-warrant to +Albert the next day, and tell him that a man that came up in the stage +brought it from Plausaby. And he said he'd get another and bring it home +with him and give it to Westcott, and make it all right. And that would +keep him out of prison, and get Albert away so he couldn't swear against +him in the suit with the fat man, and then he would be able to get me +the changeable silk that I wanted so much. But things went all wrong +with him since, and I never got the changeable silk, and he said he +would keep Albert out of penitentiary and he didn't, and Albert told me +I musn't tell anybody about taking it myself, for he couldn't bear to +have me go to prison. Now, won't that do? But don't you tell Plausaby. +He looks at me sometimes so awfully. Oh, dear! if I could have told that +before, maybe I wouldn't have died. It's been killing me all the time. +Oh, dear! dear! I wish I was dead, if only I was sure I wouldn't go to +the bad place." + +Isa now acquainted Lurton briefly with the nature of Mrs. Plausaby's +statement, and Lurton knelt by her bedside and turned it into a very +solemn and penitent confession to God, and very trustfully prayed for +forgiveness, and--call it the contagion of Lurton's own faith, if you +will--at any rate, the dying woman felt a sense of relief that the story +was told, and a sense of trust and more peace than she had ever known in +her life. Lurton had led her feeble feet into a place of rest. And he +found joy in thinking that, though his ministry to rude lumbermen and +hardened convicts might be fruitless, he had at least some gifts that +made him a source of strength and consolation to the weak, the +remorseful, the bereaved, and the dying. He stepped out of the door of +the sick-chamber, and there, right before him, was Plausaby, his smooth +face making a vain endeavor to keep its hold upon itself. But Lurton saw +at once that Plausaby had heard the prayer in which he had framed Mrs. +Plausaby's confession to Isa into a solemn and specific confession to +God. I know no sight more pitiful than that of a man who has worn his +face as a mask, when at last the mask is broken and the agony behind +reveals itself. Lurton had a great deal of presence of mind, and if he +did not think much of the official and priestly authority of a minister, +he had a prophet's sense of his moral authority. He looked calmly and +steadily into the eyes of Plausaby, Esq., and the hollow sham, who had +been unshaken till now, quailed; counterfeit serenity could not hold its +head up and look the real in the face. Had Lurton been abashed or nervous +or self-conscious, Plausaby might have assumed an air of indignation at +the minister's meddling. But Lurton had nothing but a serene sense of +having been divinely aided in the performance of a delicate and difficult +duty. He reached out his hand and greeted Plausaby quietly and +courteously and yet solemnly. Isabel, for her part, perceiving that +Plausaby had overheard, did not care to conceal the indignation she felt. +Poor Plausaby, Esq.! the disguise was torn, and he could no longer hide +himself. He sat down and wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and +essayed to speak, as before, to the minister, of his anxiety about his +poor, dear wife, but he could not do it. Exert himself as he would, the +color would not return to his pallid lips, and he had a shameful +consciousness that the old serene and complacent look, when he tried it, +was sadly crossed by rigid lines of hard anxiety and shame. The mask was +indeed broken--the nakedness and villainy could no more be hidden! And +even the voice, faithful and obedient hitherto, always holding the same +rhythmical pace, had suddenly broken rein, galloping up and down the +gamut in a husky jangling. + +"Mr. Plausaby, let us walk," said Lurton, not affecting in the least to +ignore Plausaby's agitation. They walked in silence through the village +out to the prairie. Plausaby, habitually a sham, tried, to recover his +ground. He said something about his wife's not being quite sane, and was +going to caution Lurton about believing anything Mrs. Plausaby might say. + +"Mr. Plausaby," said Lurton, "is it not better to repent of your sins and +make restitution, than to hide them?" + +Plausaby cleared his throat and wiped the perspiration from his brow, but +he could not trust his voice to say anything. + +It was vain to appeal to Plausaby to repent. He had saturated himself in +falsehood from the beginning. Perhaps, after all, the saturation had +began several generations back, and unhappy Plausaby, born to an +inheritance of falsehood, was to be pitied as well as blamed. He was even +now planning to extort from his vacillating wife a written statement that +should contradict any confession of hers to Isa and Lurton. + +Fly swiftly, pen! For Isa Marlay knew the stake in this game, and she +did not mean that any chance of securing Charlton's release should be +neglected. She knew nothing of legal forms, but she could write a +straight-out statement after a woman's fashion. So she wrote a paper +which read as follows: + +"I do not expect to live long, and I solemnly confess that I took the +land-warrant from Smith Westcott's letter, for which my son Albert +Charlton is now unjustly imprisoned in the penitentiary, and I did it +without the knowledge of Albert, and at the instigation of Thomas +Plausaby, my husband." + +This paper Isa read to Mrs. Plausaby, and that lady, after much +vacillation, signed it with a feeble hand. Then Isabel wrote her own name +as a witness. But she wanted another witness. At this moment Mrs. Ferret +came in, having an instinctive feeling that a second visit from Lurton +boded something worth finding out. Isa took her into Mrs. Plausaby's room +and told her to witness this paper. + +"Well," said pertinacious Mrs. Ferret, "I'll have to know what is in +it, won't I?" + +"No, you only want to know that this is Mrs. Plausaby's signature," and +Isa placed her fingers over the paper in such a way that Mrs. Ferret +could not read it. + +"Did you sign this, Mrs. Plausaby?" + +The sick woman said she did. + +"Do you know what is in it?" + +"Yes, but--but it's a secret." + +"Did you sign it of your own free will, or did Mr. Plausaby make you?" + +"Mr. Plausaby! Oh! don't tell him about it. He'll make such an awful +fuss! But it's true." + +Thus satisfied that it was not a case of domestic despotism, Mrs. Ferret +wrote her peculiar signature, and made a private mark besides. + +And later in the evening Mrs. Plausaby asked Isa to send word to that +nice-looking young woman that Albert loved so much. She said she +supposed he must feel bad about her. She wanted Isa to tell her all +about it. "But not till I'm dead," she added. "Do you think people know +what people say about them after they're dead? And, Isa, when I'm laid +out let me wear my blue merino dress, and do my hair up nice, and put a +bunch of roses in my hand. I wish Plausaby had got that changeable silk. +It would have been better than the blue merino. But you know best. Only +don't forget to tell Albert's girl that he did not do it. But explain it +all so she won't think I'm a--that I did it a-purpose, you know. I +didn't mean to. What makes you look at me that way? Oh, dear! Isa, you +won't ever love me any more!" + +But Isa quieted her by putting her arms around her neck in a way that +made the poor woman cry, and say, "That's just the way Katy used to do. +When I die, Katy'll love me all the same. Won't she? Katy always did love +a body so." Perhaps she felt that Isabel's love was not like Katy's. For +pity is not love, and even Mrs. Plausaby could hardly avoid +distinguishing the spontaneous affection of Katy from this demonstration +of Isa's, which must have cost her some exertion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +DEATH. + + +Mrs. Plausaby grew more feeble. Her remorse and her feeling of the dire +necessity for confessing her sin had sustained her hitherto. But now her +duty was done, she had no longer any mental stimulant. In spite of Isa's +devoted and ingenious kindness, the sensitive vanity of Mrs. Plausaby +detected in every motion evidence that Isa thought of her as a thief. +She somehow got a notion that Mrs. Ferret knew all about it also, and +from her and Mr. Lurton she half-hid her face in the cover. Lurton, +perceiving that his mission to Mrs. Plausaby was ended, returned home, +intending to see Isabel when circumstances should be more favorable. But +the Ferret kept sniffing round after a secret which she knew lay not far +away. Mrs. Plausaby having suddenly grown worse, Isa determined to sit +by her during the night, but Plausaby strenuously objected that this was +unnecessary. The poor woman secretly besought Isa not to leave her alone +with Plausaby, and Isabel positively refused to go away from her +bedside. For the first time Mr. Plausaby spoke harshly to Isa, and for +the first time Isabel treated him with a savage neglect. A housekeeper's +authority is generally supreme in the house, and Isa had gradually come +to be the housekeeper. She sat stubbornly by the dying woman during the +whole night. + +Mr. Plausaby had his course distinctly marked out. In the morning he +watched anxiously for the arrival of his trusted lawyer, Mr. Conger. The +property which he had married with his wife, and which she had derived +from Albert's father, had all been made over to her again to save it from +Plausaby's rather eager creditors. He had spent the preceding day at +Perritaut, whither Mr. Conger had gone to appear in a case as counsel for +Plausaby, for the county-seat had recently returned to its old abode. Mr. +Plausaby intended to have his wife make some kind of a will that would +give him control of the property and yet keep it under shelter. By what +legal fencing this was to be done nobody knows, but it has been often +surmised that Mrs. Plausaby was to leave it to her husband in trust for +the Metropolisville University. Mr. Plausaby had already acquired +experience in the management of trust funds, in the matter of Isa's +patrimony, and it would not be a feat beyond his ability for him to own +his wife's bequest and not to own it at the same time. This was the +easier that territorial codes are generally made for the benefit of +absconding debtors. He had made many fair promises about a final transfer +of this property to Albert and Katy when they should both be of age, but +all that was now forgotten, as it was intended to be. + +Mr. Plausaby was nervous. His easy, self-possessed manner had departed, +and that impenetrable coat of mail being now broken up, he shuddered +whenever the honest, indignant eyes of Miss Marlay looked at him. He +longed for the presence of the bustling, energetic man of law, to keep +him in countenance. + +When the lawyer came, he and Plausaby were closeted for half an hour. +Then Plausaby, Esq., took a walk, and the attorney requested an interview +with Isabel. She came in, stiff, cold, and self-possessed. + +"Miss Marlay," said the lawyer, smiling a little as became a man asking a +favor from a lady, and yet looking out at Isa in a penetrating way from +beneath shadowing eyebrows, "will you have the goodness to tell me the +nature of the paper that Mrs. Plausaby signed yesterday?" + +"Did Mrs. Plausaby sign a paper yesterday?" asked Isabel diplomatically. + +"I have information to that effect. Will you tell me whether that paper +was of the nature of a will or deed or--in short, what was its +character?" + +"I will not tell you anything about it. It is Mrs. Plausaby's secret. I +suppose you get your information from Mrs. Ferret. If she chooses to tell +you the contents, she may." + +"You are a little sharp, Miss Marlay. I understand that Mrs. Ferret does +not know the contents of that paper. As the confidential legal adviser of +Mr. Plausaby and of Mrs. Plausaby, I have a right to ask what the +contents of that paper were." + +"As the confidential legal adviser--" Isa stopped and stammered. She +was about to retort that as confidential legal adviser to Mrs. Plausaby +he might ask that lady herself, but she was afraid of his doing that very +thing; so she stopped short and, because she was confused, grew a little +angry, and told Mr. Conger that he had no right to ask any questions, and +then got up and disdainfully walked out of the room. And the lawyer, left +alone, meditated that women had a way, when they were likely to be +defeated, of getting angry, or pretending to get angry. And you never +could do anything with a woman when she was angry. Or, as Conger framed +it in his mind, a mad dog was easier to handle than a mad woman. + +As the paper signed the day before could not have been legally executed, +Plausaby and his lawyer guessed very readily that it probably did not +relate to property. The next step was an easy one to the client if not to +the lawyer. It must relate to the crime--it was a solution of the +mystery. Plausaby knew well enough that a confession had been made to +Lurton, but he had not suspected that Isabel would go so far as to put it +into writing. The best that could be done was to have Conger frame a +counter-declaration that her confession had been signed under a +misapprehension--had been obtained by coercion, over-persuasion, and so +forth. Plausaby knew that his wife would sign anything if he could +present the matter to her alone. But, to get rid of Isabel Marlay? + +A very coward now in the presence of Isa, he sent the lawyer ahead, while +he followed close behind. + +"Miss Marlay," said Mr. Conger, smiling blandly but speaking with +decision, "it will be necessary for me to speak to Mrs. Plausaby for a +few minutes alone." + +It is curious what an effect a tone of authority has. Isa rose and would +have gone out, but Mrs. Plausaby said, "Don't leave me, don't leave me, +Isa; they want to arrest me, I believe." + +Seeing her advantage, Miss Marlay said, "Mrs. Plausaby wishes me to +stay." + +It was in vain that the lawyer insisted. It was in vain that Mr. Plausaby +stepped forward and told Mrs. Plausaby to ask Isabel to leave the room a +minute. The sick woman only drew the cover over her eyes and held fast +to Isabel's hand and said: "No, no, don't go--Isa, don't go." + +"I will not go till you ask me," said Isa. + +At last, however, Plausaby pushed himself close to his wife and said +something in her ear. She turned pale, and when he asked if she wished +Isabel to go she nodded her head. + +"But I won't go at all now," said Isa stubbornly, "unless you will go out +of the room first. Then, if Mrs. Plausaby tells me that she wishes to see +you and this gentleman without my presence, I shall go." + +Mr. Plausaby drew the attorney into one corner of the room for +consultation. Nothing but the desperateness of his position and the +energetic advice of Mr. Conger could have induced him to take the course +which he now decided upon, for force was not a common resort with him, +and with all his faults, he was a man of much kindness of heart. + +"Isa," he said, "I have always been a father to you. Now you are +conspiring against me. If you do not go out, I shall be under the painful +necessity of putting you out, gently, but by main strength." The old +smile was on his face. He seized her arms, and Isa, seeing how useless +resistance would be, and how much harm excitement might do to the +patient, rose to go. But at that moment, happening to look toward the +bed, she cried out, "Mrs. Plausaby is dying!" and she would not have been +a woman if she could have helped adding, "See what you have done, now!" + +There was nothing Mr. Plausaby wanted less than that his wife should die +at this inconvenient moment. He ran off for the doctor, but poor, weak +Mrs. Plausaby was past signing wills or recantations. + +The next day she died. + +And Isa wrote to Albert: + +"METROPOLISVILLE, May 17th, 1857. + +"MR. CHARLTON: + +"DEAR SIR: Your poor mother died yesterday. She suffered little in body, +and her mind was much more peaceful after her last interview with Mr. +Lurton, which resulted in her making a frank statement of the +circumstances of the land-warrant affair. She afterward had it written +down, and signed it, that it might be used to set you free. She also +asked me to tell Miss Minorkey, and I shall send her a letter by this +mail. I am so glad that your innocence is to be proved at last. I have +said nothing about the statement your mother made to any one except Miss +Minorkey, because I am unwilling to use it without your consent. You have +great reason to be grateful to Mr. Lurton. Ho has shown himself your +friend, indeed. I think him an excellent man. He comforted your mother a +great deal. You had better let me put the writing your mother left, into +his hands. I am sure he will secure your freedom for you. + +"Your mother died without any will, and all the property is yours. +Your father earned it, and I am glad it goes back to its rightful +owner. You will not agree with me, but I believe in a Providence, now, +more than ever. + +"Truly your friend, ISABEL MARLAY." + +The intelligence of his mother's death caused Albert a real sorrow. And +yet he could hardly regret it. Charlton was not conscious of anything but +a filial grief. But the feeling of relief modified his sorrow. + +The letter filled him with a hope of pardon. Now that he could without +danger to his mother seek release from an unjust incarceration, he became +eager to get out. The possibility of release made every hour of +confinement intolerable. + +He experienced a certain dissatisfaction with Isa's letter. She had +always since his imprisonment taken pains to write cordially. He had been +"Dear Mr. Charlton," or "My Dear Mr. Charlton," and sometimes even "My +Dear Friend." Isa was anxious that he should not feel any coldness in her +letters. Now that he was about to be released and would naturally feel +grateful to her, the case was very different. But Albert could not see +why she should be so friendly with him when she had every reason to +believe him guilty, and now that she knew him innocent should freeze him +with a stranger-like coolness. He had resolved to care nothing for her, +and yet here he was anxious for some sign that she cared for him. + +Albert wrote in reply: + +"HOUSE OF BONDAGE, May 20th, 1857. + +"MY DEAR, GOOD FRIEND: The death of my mother has given me a great deal +of sorrow, though it did not surprise me. I remember now how many times +of late years I have given her needless trouble. For whatever mistakes +her personal peculiarities led her into, she was certainly a most +affectionate mother. I can now see, and the reflection causes me much +bitterness, that I might have been more thoughtful of her happiness +without compromising my opinions. How much trouble my self-conceit must +have given her! Your rebuke on this subject has been very fresh in mind +since I heard of her death. And I am feeling lonely, too. Mother and Katy +have gone, and more distant relatives will not care to know an outlaw. + +"If I had not seen Mr. Lurton, I should not have known how much I owe to +your faithful friendship. I doubt not God will reward you. For I, too, am +coming to believe in a Providence! + +"Sometimes I think this prison has done me good. There may be some truth, +after all, in that acrid saying of Mrs. Ferret's about 'sanctified +affliction,' though she _does_ know how to make even truth hateful. I +haven't learned to believe as you and Mr. Lurton would have me, and yet I +have learned not to believe so much in my own infallibility. I have been +a high-church skeptic--I thought as much of my own infallibility as poor +O'Neill in the next cell does of the Pope's. And I suppose I shall always +have a good deal of aggressiveness and uneasiness and all that about +me--I am the same restless man yet, full of projects and of opinions. I +can not be Lurton--I almost wish I could. But I have learned some things. +I am yet very unsettled in my opinions about Christ--sometimes he seems +to be a human manifestation of God, and at other times, when my skeptical +habit comes back, he seems only the divinest of men. But I believe _in_ +him with all my heart, and may be I shall settle down on some definite +opinion after a while. I had a mind to ask Lurton to baptize me the other +day, but I feared he wouldn't do it. All the faith I could profess would +be that I believe enough in Christ to wish to be his disciple. I know Mr. +Lurton wouldn't think that enough. But I don't believe Jesus himself +would refuse me. His immediate followers couldn't have believed much more +than that at first. And I don't think you would refuse me baptism if you +were a minister. + +"Mr. Lurton has kindly offered to endeavor to secure my release, and he +will call on you for that paper. I hope you'll like Lurton as well as +he does you. You are the only woman in the world good enough for him, +and he is the only man fit for you. And if it should ever come to pass +that you and he should be happy together, I shall be too glad to envy +either of you. + +"Do shield the memory of my mother. You know how little she was to blame. +I can not bear that people should talk about her unkindly. She had such a +dread of censure. I think that is what killed her. I am sorry you wrote +to Helen Minorkey. I could not now share my disgrace with a wife; and if +I could marry, _she_ is one of the last I should ever think of seeking. I +do not even care to have her think well of me. + +"As to the property, I am greatly perplexed. Plausaby owned it once +rightfully and legally, and there are innocent creditors who trusted him +on the strength of his possession of it. I wish I did not have the +responsibility of deciding what I ought to do. + +"I have written a long letter. I would write a great deal more if I +thought I could ever express the gratitude I feel to you. But I am going +to be always, + +"Your grateful and faithful friend, + +"ALBERT CHARLTON." + +This letter set Isabel's mind in a whirl of emotions. She sincerely +admired Lurton, but she had never thought of him as a lover. Albert's +gratitude and praises would have made her happy, but his confidence that +she would marry Lurton vexed her. And yet the thought that Lurton might +love her made it hard to keep from dreaming of a new future, brighter +than any she had supposed possible to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +MR. LURTON'S COURTSHIP. + + +After the death of Mrs. Plausaby, Isa had broken at once with her +uncle-in-law, treating him with a wholesome contempt whenever she found +opportunity. She had made many apologies for Plausaby's previous +offenses--this was too much even for her ingenious charity. For want of a +better boarding-place, she had taken up her abode at Mrs. Ferret's, and +had opened a little summer-school in the village schoolhouse. She began +immediately to devise means for securing Charlton's release. Her first +step was to write to Lurton, but she had hardly mailed the letter, when +she received Albert's, announcing that Lurton was coming to see her; and +almost immediately that gentleman himself appeared again in +Metropolisville. He spent the evening in devising with Isa proper means +of laying the evidences of Charlton's innocence before the President in a +way calculated to secure his pardon. Lurton knew two Representatives and +one Senator, and he had hope of being able to interest them in the case. +He would go to Washington himself. Isa thought his offer very generous, +and found in her heart a great admiration for him. Lurton, on his part, +regarded Isabel with more and more wonder and affection. He told her at +last, in a sweet and sincere humility, the burden of his heart. He +confessed his love with a frankness that was very winning, and with a +gentle deference that revealed him to her the man he was--affectionate, +sincere, and unselfish. + +If Isabel had been impulsive, she would have accepted at once, under the +influence of his presence. But she had a wise, practical way of taking +time to think. She endeavored to eliminate entirely the element of +feeling, and see the offer in the light in which it would show itself +after present circumstances had passed. For if Lurton had been a crafty +man, he could not have offered himself at a moment more opportune. Isa +was now homeless, and without a future. If you ask me why, then, she did +not accept Lurton without hesitation, I answer that I can no more explain +this than I can explain all the other paradoxes of love that I see every +day. Was it that he was too perfect? Is it easier for a woman to love a +man than a model? People are not apt to be enamored of monotony, even of +a monotony of goodness. Was it, then, that Isa would have liked a man +whose soul had been a battle-field, rather than one in whom goodness and +faith had had an easy time? Did she feel more sympathy for one who had +fought and overcome, like Charlton, than for one who had never known a +great struggle? Perhaps I have not touched at all upon the real reason +for Isa's hesitation. But she certainly did hesitate. She found it quite +impossible to analyze her own feelings in the matter. The more she +thought about it, the more hopeless her confusion became. + +It is one of the unhappy results produced by some works of religious +biography, that people who copy methods, are prone to copy those not +adapted to their own peculiarities. Isabel, in her extremity of +indecision, remembered that some saint of the latter part of the last +century, whose biography she had read in a Sunday-school library-book, +was wont, when undecided in weighty matters, to write down all the +reasons, _pro_ and _con_, and cipher out a conclusion by striking a +logical balance. It naturally occurred to Isa that what so good and wise +a person had found beneficial, might also prove an assistance to her. So +she wrote down the following: + +"REASONS IN FAVOR. + +"1. Mr. Lurton is one of the most excellent men in the world. I have a +very great respect and a sincere regard for him. If he were my husband, I +do not think I should ever find anything to prevent me loving him. + +"2. The life of a minister's wife would open to me opportunities to do +good. I could at least encourage and sustain him. + +"3. It seems to be providential that the offer should come at this time, +when I am free from all obligations that would interfere with it, and +when I seem to have no other prospect. + +"REASONS AGAINST. + +"1."-- + +But here she stopped. There was nothing to be said against Mr. Lurton, or +against her accepting the offered happiness. She would then lead the +quiet, peaceful life of a village-minister's wife who does her duty to +her husband and her neighbors. Her generous nature found pleasure in the +thought of all the employments that would fill her heart and hands. How +much better it would be to have a home, and to have others to work for, +than to lead the life of a stranger in other people's houses! And then +she blushed, and was happy at the thought that there would be children's +voices in the house--little stockings in the basket on a Saturday +night--there would be the tender cares of the mother. How much better was +such a life than a lonely one! + +It was not until some hours of such thinking--of more castle-building +than the sober-spirited girl had done in her whole life before--that she +became painfully conscious that in all this dreaming of her future as the +friend of the parishioners and the house-mother, Lurton himself was a +figure in the background of her thoughts. He did not excite any +enthusiasm in her heart. She took up her paper; she read over again the +reasons why she ought to love Lurton. But though reason may chain Love +and forbid his going wrong, all the logic in the world can not make him +go where he will not. She had always acted as a most rational creature. +Now, for the first time, she could not make her heart go where she would. +Love in such cases seems held back by intuition, by a logic so high and +fine that its terms can not be stated. Love has a balance-sheet in which +all is invisible except the totals. I have noticed that practical and +matter-of-fact women are most of all likely to be exacting and ideal in +love affairs. Or, is it that this high and ideal way of looking at such +affairs is only another manifestation of practical wisdom? + +Certain it is, that though Isa found it impossible to set down a single +reason for not loving so good a man with the utmost fervor, she found it +equally impossible to love him with any fervor at all. + +Then she fell to pitying Lurton. She could make him happy and help him to +be useful, and she thought she ought to do it. But could she love Lurton +better than she could have loved any other man? Now, I know that most +marriages are not contracted on this basis. It is not given to every one +to receive this saying. I am quite aware that preaching on this subject +would be vain. Comparatively few people can live in this atmosphere. But +_noblesse oblige_--_noblesse_ does more than _oblige_--and Isa Marlay, +against all her habits of acting on practical expediency, could not bring +herself to marry the excellent Lurton without a consciousness of _moral +descending_, while she could not give herself a single satisfactory +reason for feeling so. + +It went hard with Lurton. He had been so sure of divine approval and +guidance that he had not counted failure possible. But at such times the +man of trustful and serene habit has a great advantage. He took the +great disappointment as a needed spiritual discipline; he shouldered +this load as he had carried all smaller burdens, and went on his way +without a murmur. + +Having resigned his Stillwater pastorate from a conviction that his +ministry among red-shirted lumbermen was not a great success, he armed +himself with letters from the warden of the prison and the other +ministers who had served as chaplains, and, above all, with Mrs. +Plausaby's written confession, and set out for Washington. He easily +secured money to defray the expense of the journey from Plausaby, who +held some funds belonging to his wife's estate, and who yielded to a +very gentle pressure from Lurton, knowing how entirely he was in +Lurton's power. + +It is proper to say here that Albert's scrupulous conscience was never +troubled about the settlement of his mother's estate. Plausaby had an old +will, which bequeathed all to him _in fee simple_. He presented it for +probate, and would have succeeded, doubtless, in saving something by +acute juggling with his creditors, but that he heard ominous whispers of +the real solution of the mystery--where they came from he could not tell. +Thinking that Isa was planning his arrest, he suddenly left the country. +He turned up afterwards as president of a Nevada silver-mine company, +which did a large business in stocks but a small one in dividends; and I +have a vague impression that he had something to do with the building of +the Union Pacific Railroad. His creditors made short work of the property +left by Mrs. Plausaby. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +UNBARRED. + + +Lurton was gone six weeks. His letters to Charlton were not very hopeful. +People are slow to believe that a court has made a mistake. + +I who write and you who read get over six weeks as smoothly as we do over +six days. But six weeks in grim, gray, yellowish, unplastered, limestone +walls, that are so thick and so high and so rough that they are always +looking at you in suspicion and with stern threat of resistance! Six +weeks in May and June and July inside such walls, where there is scarcely +a blade of grass, hardly a cool breeze, not even the song of a bird! A +great yard so cursed that the little brown wrens refuse to bless it with +their feet! The sound of machinery and of the hammers of unwilling +toilers, but no mellow voice of robin or chatter of gossiping +chimney-swallows! To Albert they were six weeks of alternate hope and +fear, and of heart-sickness. + +The contractor gave a Fourth-of-July dinner to the convicts. Strawberries +and cream instead of salt pork and potatoes. The guards went out and left +the men alone, and Charlton was called on for a speech. But all eulogies +of liberty died on his lips. He could only talk platitudes, and he could +not say anything with satisfaction to himself. He tossed wakefully all +that night, and was so worn when morning came that he debated whether he +should not ask to be put on the sick-list. + +He was marched to the water-tank as usual, then to breakfast, but he +could not eat. When the men were ordered to work, one of the guards said: + +"Charlton, the warden wants to see you in the office." + +Out through the vestibule of the main building Charlton passed with a +heart full of hope, alternating with fear of a great disappointment. He +noticed, as he passed, how heavy the bolts and bars were, and wondered if +these two doors would ever shut him in again. He walked across the yard, +feeble and faint, and then ascended the long flight of steps which went +up to the office-door. For the office was so arranged as to open out of +the prison and in it also, and was so adapted to the uneven ground as to +be on top of the prison-wail. Panting with excitement, the convict +Charlton stopped at the top of this flight of steps while the guard gave +an alarm, and the door was opened from the office side. Albert could not +refrain from looking back over the prison-yard; he saw every familiar +object again, he passed through the door, and stood face to face with the +firm and kindly Warden Proctor. He saw Lurton standing by the warden, he +was painfully alive to everything; the clerks had ceased to write, and +were looking at him expectantly. + +"Well, Charlton," said the warden kindly, "I am glad to tell you that you +are pardoned. I never was so glad at any man's release." + +"Pardoned?" Charlton had dreamed so much of liberty, that now that +liberty had come he was incredulous. "I am very much obliged to you, Mr. +Proctor," he gasped. + +"That is the man to thank," said the warden, pointing to Lurton. But +Charlton couldn't thank Lurton yet. He took his hand and looked in his +face and then turned away. He wanted to thank everybody--the guard who +conducted him out, and the clerk who was recording the precious pardon in +one of the great books; but, in truth, he could say hardly anything. + +"Come, Charlton, you'll find a change of clothes in the back-room. Can't +let you carry those off!" said the warden. + +Charlton put off the gray with eagerness. Clothes made all the +difference. When once he was dressed like other men, his freedom became a +reality. Then he told everybody good-by, the warden first, and then the +guard, and then the clerks, and he got permission to go back into the +prison, as a visitor, now, and tell the prisoners farewell. + +Then Lurton locked arms with him, and Charlton could hardly keep back the +tears. Human fellowship is so precious to a cleansed leper! And as they +walked away down the sandy street by the shore of Lake St. Croix, +Charlton was trying all the while to remember that walls and grates and +bars and bolts and locks and iron gates and armed guards shut him in no +longer. It seemed so strange that here was come a day in which he did not +have to put up a regular stint of eight vinegar-barrels, with the +privilege of doing one or two more, if he could, for pay. He ate some +breakfast with Lurton. For freedom is a great tonic, and satisfied hopes +help digestion. It is a little prosy to say so, but Lurton's buttered +toast and coffee was more palatable than the prison fare. And Lurton's +face was more cheerful than the dark visage of Ball, the burglar, which +always confronted Charlton at the breakfast-table. + +Charlton was impatient to go back to Metropolisville. For what, he could +hardly say. There was no home there for him, but then he wanted to go +somewhere. It seemed so fine to be able to go anywhere. Bidding Lurton a +grateful adieu, he hurried to St. Paul. The next morning he was booked +for Metropolisville, and climbed up to the driver's seat with the eager +impatience of a boy. + +"Wal, stranger, go tew thunder! I'm glad to see you're able to be aout. +You've ben confined t' the haouse fer some time, I guess, p'r'aps?" + +It was the voice of Whisky Jim that thus greeted Albert. If there was a +half-sneer in the words, there was nothing but cordial friendliness in +the tone and the grasp of the hand. The Superior Being was so delighted +that he could only express his emotions by giving his leaders several +extra slashes with his whip, and by putting on a speed that threatened to +upset the coach. + +"Well, Jim, what's the news?" said Charlton gayly. + +"Nooze? Let me see. Nothin' much. Your father-in-law, or step-father, or +whatever you call him, concluded to cut and run las' week. I s'pose he +calkilated that your gittin' out might leave a vacancy fer him. Thought +he might hev to turn in and do the rest of the ten years' job that's +owin' to Uncle Sam on that land-warrant, eh? I guess you won't find no +money left. 'Twixt him and the creditors and the lawyers and the jedges, +they a'n't nary cent to carry." + +"When did you hear from Gray?" + +"Oh! he was up to Metropolisville las' week. He a'n't so much of a +singster as he wus. Gone to spekilatin'. The St. Paul and Big Gun River +Valley Railroad is a-goin' t' his taown." + +Here the Superior Being stopped talking, and waited to be questioned. + +"Laid off a town, then, has he?" + +"Couldn' help hisself. The Wanosia and Dakota Crossing Road makes a +junction there, and his claim and yourn has doubled in valoo two or +three times." + +"But I suppose mine has been sold under mortgage?" + +"Under mortgage? Not much. Some of your friends jest sejested to Plausaby +he'd better pay two debts of yourn. And he did. He paid Westcott fer the +land-warrant, and he paid Minorkey's mortgage. Ole chap didn't want to be +paid. Cutthroat mortgage, you know. He'd heerd of the railroad junction. +Jemeny! they's five hundred people livin' on Gray's claim, and yourn's +alongside." + +"What does he call his town?" asked Albert. + +Jim brought his whip down smartly on a lazy wheel-horse, crying out: + +"Puck-a-chee! Seechy-do!" (Get out--bad.) For, like most of his class +in Minnesota at that day, the Superior Being had enriched his +vocabulary of slang with divers Indian words. Then, after a pause, he +said: "What does he call it? I believe it's 'Charlton,' or suthin' of +that sort. _Git_ up!" + +Albert was disposed at first to think the name a compliment to himself, +but the more he thought of it, the more clear it became to him that the +worshipful heart of the Poet had meant to preserve the memory of Katy, +over whom he had tried in vain to stand guard. + +Of course part of Driver Jim's information was not new to Albert, but +much of it was, for the Poet's letters had not been explicit in regard to +the increased value of the property, and Charlton had concluded the +claim would go out of his hands anyhow, and had ceased to take any +further interest in it. + +When at last he saw again the familiar balloon-frame houses of +Metropolisville, he grew anxious. How would people receive him? Albert +had always taken more pains to express his opinions dogmatically than to +make friends; and now that the odium of crime attached itself to him, he +felt pretty sure that Metropolisville, where there was neither mother nor +Katy, would offer him no cordial welcome. His heart turned toward Isa +with more warmth than he could have desired, but he feared that any +friendship he might show to Isabel would compromise her. A young woman's +standing is not helped by the friendship of a post-office thief, he +reflected. He could not leave Metropolisville without seeing the best +friend he had; he could not see her without doing her harm. He was +thoroughly vexed that he had rashly put himself in so awkward a dilemma; +he almost wished himself back in St. Paul. + +At last the Superior Being roused his horses into a final dash, and came +rushing up to the door of the "City Hotel" with his usual flourish. + +"Hooray! Howdy! I know'd you'd be along to-night," cried the Poet. "You +see a feller went through our town--I've laid off a town you know--called +it Charlton, arter _her_ you know--they wuz a feller come along +yisterday as said as he'd come on from Washin'ton City weth Preacher +Lurton, and he'd heern him tell as how as Ole Buck--the President I +mean--had ordered you let out. An' I'm _that_ glad! Howdy! You look a +leetle slim, but you'll look peart enough when we git you down to +Charlton, and you see some of your ground wuth fifteen dollar a front +foot! You didn' think I'd ever a gin up po'try long enough to sell lots. +But you see the town wuz named arter _her_ you know--a sorter moniment to +a angel, a kind of po'try that'll keep her name from bein' forgot arter +my varses is gone to nothin'. An' I'm a-layin' myself out to make that +town nice and fit to be named arter her, you know. I didn't think I could +ever stan' it to have so many neighbors a drivin' away all the game. But +I'm a-gittin' used to it." + +Charlton could see that the Inhabitant was greatly improved by his +contact with the practical affairs of life and by human society. The old +half-crazed look had departed from his eyes, and the over-sensitive +nature had found a satisfaction in the standing which the founding of a +town and his improved circumstances had brought him. + +"Don't go in thar!" said Gray as Charlton was about to enter the room +used as office and bar-room for the purpose of registering his name. +"Don't go in thar!" and Gray pulled him back. "Let's go out to supper. +That devilish Smith Wes'cott's in thar, drunk's he kin be, and raisin' +perdition. They turned him off this week fer drinkin' too steady, and +he's tryin' to make a finish of his money and Smith Wes'cott too." + +Charlton and Gray sat down to supper at the long table where the Superior +Being was already drinking his third cup of coffee. The exquisite +privilege of doing as he pleased was a great stimulant to Charlton's +appetite, and knives and forks were the greatest of luxuries. + +"Seems to me," said Jim, as he sat and watched Albert, "seems to me +you a'n't so finicky 'bout vittles as you was. Sheddin' some of yer +idees, maybe." + +"Yes, I think I am." + +"Wal, you see you hed too thick a coat of idees to thrive. I guess a +good curryin' a'n't done you no pertickeler hurt, but blamed ef it didn't +seem mean to me at first. I've cussed about it over and over agin on +every mile 'twixt here and St. Paul. But curryin's healthy. I wish some +other folks as I know could git put through weth a curry-comb as would +peel the hull hide offen 'em." + +This last remark was accompanied by a significant look at the rough board +partition that separated the dining-room from the bar-room. For +Westcott's drunken voice could be heard singing snatches of negro +melodies in a most melancholy tone. + +Somebody in the bar-room mentioned Charlton's name. + +"Got out, did he?" said Westcott in a maudlin tone. "How'd 'e get out? +How'd 'e like it fur's he went? Always liked simple diet, you know. + +"Oh! if I wuz a jail-bird, + With feathers like a crow, +I'd flop around and-- + +"Wat's the rest? Hey? How does that go? Wonder how it feels to be a +thief? He! he! he!" + +Somehow the voice and the words irritated Albert beyond endurance. He +lost his relish for supper and went out on the piazza. + +"Git's riled dreffle easy," said Jim as Charlton disappeared. "Fellers +weth idees does. I hope he'll gin Wes'cott another thrashin'." + +"He's powerful techy," said the Poet. "Kinder curus, though. I wanted to +salivate Wes'cott wunst, and he throwed my pistol into the lake." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +ISABEL. + + +What to do about going to see Isabel? + +Albert knew perfectly well that he would be obliged to visit her. Isa had +no doubt heard of his arrival before this time. The whole village must +know it, for there was a succession of people who came on the hotel +piazza to shake hands with him. Some came from friendliness, some from +curiosity, but none remained long in conversation with him. For in truth +conversation was quite embarrassing under the circumstances. You can not +ask your acquaintance, "How have you been?" when his face is yet pale +from confinement in a prison; you can not inquire how he liked Stillwater +or Sing Sing, when he must have disliked what he saw of Stillwater or +Sing Sing. One or two of the villagers asked Albert how he had "got +along," and then blushed when they remembered that he couldn't have "got +along" at all. Most of them asked him if Metropolisville had "grown any" +since he left, and whether or not he meant to stay and set up here, and +then floundered a little and left him. For most people talk by routine. +Whatever may be thought of development from monkeys, it does seem that a +strong case might be made out in favor of a descent from parrots. + +Charlton knew that he must go to see Isa, and that the whole village +would know where he had gone, and that it would give Isa trouble, maybe. +He wanted to see Isa more than he wanted anything else in the world, but +then he dreaded to see her. She had pitied him and helped him in his +trouble, but her letters had something of constraint in them. He +remembered how she had always mingled the friendliness of her treatment +with something of reserve and coolness. He did not care much for this in +other times. But now he found in himself such a hungering for something +more from Isa, that he feared the effect of her cool dignity. He had +braced himself against being betrayed into an affection for Isabel. He +must not allow himself to become interested in her. As an honorable man +he could not marry her, of course. But he would see her and thank her. +Then if she should give him a few kind words he would cherish them as a +comforting memory in all the loneliness of following years. He felt sorry +for himself, and he granted to himself just so much indulgence. + +Between his fear of compromising Isa and his feeling that on every +account he must see her, his dread of meeting her and his desire to talk +with her, he was in a state of compound excitement when he rose from his +seat on the piazza of the City Hotel, and started down Plausaby street +toward the house of Mrs. Ferret. He had noticed some women going to the +weekly prayer-meeting, and half-hoped, but feared more than he hoped, +that Isabel should have gone to meeting also. He knew how constant and +regular she was in the performance of religious duties. + +But Isa for once had staid at home. And had received from Mrs. Ferret a +caustic lecture on the sin of neglecting her duty for the sake of +anybody. Mrs. Ferret was afterward sorry she had said anything, for she +herself wanted to stay to gratify her curiosity. But Isabel did not mind +the rebuke. She put some petunias on the mantel-piece and some grasses +over the looking-glass, and then tried to read, but the book was not +interesting. She was alarmed at her own excitement; she planned how she +would treat Albert with mingled cordiality and reserve, and thus preserve +her own dignity; she went through a mental rehearsal of the meeting two +or three times--in truth, she was just going over it the fourth time +when Charlton stood between the morning-glory vines on the doorstep. And +when she saw his face pale with suffering, she forgot all about the +rehearsal, and shook his hand with sisterly heartiness--the word +"sisterly" came to her mind most opportunely--and looked at him with the +utmost gladness, and sat him down by the window, and sat down facing him. +For the first time since Katy's death he was happy. He thought himself +entitled to one hour of happiness after all that he had endured. + +When Mrs. Ferret came home from prayer-meeting she entered by the +back-gate, and judiciously stood for some time looking in at the window. +Charlton was telling Isa something about his imprisonment, and Mrs. +Ferret, listening to the tones of his voice and seeing the light in Isa's +eyes, shook her head, and said to herself that it was scandalous for a +Chrischen girl to act in such a way. + +If the warmth of feeling shown in the interview between Albert and Isa +had anything improper in it under the circumstances, Mrs. Ferret knew how +to destroy it. She projected her iceberg presence into the room and froze +them both. + +Albert had many misgivings that night. He felt that he had not acted +with proper self-control in his interview with Isabel. And just in +proportion to his growing love for Isa did he chafe with the bitterness +of the undeserved disgrace that must be an insurmountable barrier to his +possessing her. How should he venture to hope that a woman who had +refused Lurton, should be willing to marry him? And to marry his +dishonor besides? + +He lay thus debating what he should do, sometimes almost resolved to +renounce his scruples and endeavor to win Isa, sometimes bravely +determined to leave with Gray in the morning, never to come back to +Metropolisville again. Sleep was not encouraged by the fact that Westcott +occupied the bed on the other side of a thin board partition. He could +hear him in that pitiful state of half-delirium that so often succeeds a +spree, and that just touches upon the verge of _mania-a-potu._ + +"So he's out, is he?" Charlton heard him say. "How the devil did he get +out? Must a swum out, by George! That's the only way. Now her face is +goin' to come. Always does come when I feel this way. There she is! Go +'way! What do you want? What do you look at me for? What makes you look +that way? I can't help it. I didn't drown you. I had to get out some way. +What do you call Albert for? Albert's gone to penitentiary. He can't save +you. Don't look that way! If you're goin' to drown, why don't you do it +and be done with it? Hey? You will keep bobbin' up and down there all +night and staring at me like the devil all the time! I couldn't help it. +I didn't want to shake you off. I would 'ave gone down myself if I +hadn't. There now, let go! Pullin' me down again! Let go! If you don't +let go, Katy, I'll have to shake you off. I couldn't help it. What made +you love me so? You needn't have been a fool. Why didn't somebody tell +you about Nelly? If you'd heard about Nelly, you wouldn't have--oh! the +devil! I knew it! There's Nelly's face coming. That's the worst of all. +What does _she_ come for? She a'n't dead. Here, somebody! I want a match! +Bring me a light!" + +Whatever anger Albert may have had toward the poor fellow was all turned +into pity after this night. Charlton felt as though he had been listening +to the plaints of a damned soul, and moralized that it were better to go +to prison for life than to carry about such memories as haunted the +dreams of Westcott. And he felt that to allow his own attachment to Isa +Marlay to lead to a marriage would involve him in guilt and entail a +lifelong remorse. He must not bring his dishonor upon her. He determined +to rise early and go over to Gray's new town, sell off his property, and +then leave the Territory. But the Inhabitant was to leave at six o'clock, +and Charlton, after his wakeful night, sank into a deep sleep at +daybreak, and did not wake until half-past eight. When he came down to +breakfast, Gray had been gone two hours and a half. + +He sat around during the forenoon irresolute and of course unhappy. After +a while decision came to him in the person of Mrs. Ferret, who called and +asked for a private interview. + +Albert led her into the parlor, for the parlor was always private enough +on a pleasant day. Nobody cared to keep the company of a rusty box stove, +a tattered hair-cloth sofa, six wooden chairs, and a discordant tinny +piano-forte, when the weather was pleasant enough to sit on the piazza or +to walk on the prairie. To Albert the parlor was full of associations of +the days in which he had studied botany with Helen Minorkey. And the +bitter memory of the mistakes of the year before, was a perpetual check +to his self-confidence now. So that he prepared himself to listen with +meekness even to Mrs. Ferret. + +"Mr. Charlton, do you think you're acting just right--just as you would +be done by--in paying attentions to Miss Marlay when you are just out +of--of--the--penitentiary?" + +Albert was angered by her way of putting it, and came near telling her +that it was none of her business. But his conscience was on Mrs. +Ferret's side. + +"I haven't paid any special attention to Miss Marlay. I called to see her +as an old friend." Charlton spoke with some irritation, the more that he +knew all the while he was not speaking with candor. + +"Well, now, Mr. Charlton, how would you have liked to have your sister +marry a man just out of--well, just--just as you are, just out of +penitentiary, you know? I have heard remarks already about Miss +Marlay--that she had refused a very excellent and talented preacher of +the Gospill--you know who I mean--and was about to take up with--well, +you know how people talk--with a man just out of the--out of the +penitentiary--you know. A _jail-bird_ is what they said. You know people +will talk. And Miss Marlay is under my care, and I must do my duty as a +Chrischen to her. And I know she thinks a great deal of you, and I don't +think it would be right, you know, for you to try to marry her. You know +the Scripcherr says that we must do as we'd be done by; and I wouldn't +want a daughter of mine to marry a young man just--well--just out +of--the--just out of the penitentiary, you know." + +"Mrs. Ferret, I think this whole talk impertinent. Miss Marlay is not at +all under your care, I have not proposed marriage to her, she is an old +friend who was very kind to my mother and to me, and there is no harm in +my seeing her when I please." + +"Well, Mr. Charlton, I know your temper is bad, and I expected you'd talk +insultingly to me, but I've done my duty and cleared my skirts, anyhow, +and that's a comfort. A Chrischen must expect to be persecuted in the +discharge of duty. You may talk about old friendships, and all that; but +there's nothing so dangerous as friendship. Don't I know? Half the +marriages that oughtn't to be, come from friendships. Whenever you see a +friendship between a young man and a young woman, look out for a wedding. +And I don't think you ought to ask Isabel to marry you, and you just out +of--just--you know--out of the--the penitentiary." + +When Mrs. Ferret had gone, Albert found that while her words had rasped +him, they had also made a deep impression on him. He was, then, a +jail-bird in the eyes of Metropolisville--of the world. He must not +compromise Isa by a single additional visit. He could not trust himself +to see her again. The struggle was not fought out easily. But at last he +wrote a letter: + +"MY DEAR MISS MARLAY: I find that I can not even visit you without +causing remarks to be made, which reflect on you. I can not stay here +without wishing to enjoy your society, and you can not receive the visits +of a 'jail-bird,' as they call me, without disgrace. I owe everything to +you, and it would be ungrateful, indeed, in me to be a source of +affliction and dishonor to you. I never regretted my disgrace so much as +since I talked with you last night. If I could shake that off, I might +hope for a great happiness, perhaps. + +"I am going to Gray's Village to-morrow. I shall close up my business, +and go away somewhere, though I would much rather stay here and live down +my disgrace. I shall remember your kindness with a full heart, and if I +can ever serve you, all I have shall be yours--I would be wholly yours +now, if I could offer myself without dishonoring you, and you would +accept me. Good-by, and may God bless you. + +"Your most grateful friend, ALBERT CHARLTON." + +The words about offering himself, in the next to the last sentence, +Albert wrote with hesitation, and then concluded that he would better +erase them, as he did not mean to give any place to his feelings. He drew +his pen through them, taking pains to leave the sentence entirely legible +beneath the canceling stroke. Such tricks does inclination play with the +sternest resolves! + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THE LAST. + + +The letter was deposited at the post-office immediately. Charlton did not +dare give his self-denying resolution time to cool. + +Isa was not looking for letters, and Mrs. Ferret ventured to hint that +the chance of meeting somebody on the street had something to do with her +walk. Of course Miss Marlay was insulted. No woman would ever do such a +thing. Consciously, at least. + +And after reading Charlton's letter, what did Isa do? What could she do? +A woman may not move in such a case. Her whole future happiness may drift +to wreck by somebody's mistake, and she may not reach a hand to arrest +it. What she does must be done by indirection and under disguise. It is a +way society has of training women to be candid. + +The first feeling which Isa had was a sudden shock of surprise. She was +not so much astonished at the revelation of Charlton's feeling as at the +discovery of her own. With Albert's abrupt going away, all her heart and +hope seemed to be going too. She had believed her interest in Charlton to +be disinterested until this moment. It was not until he proposed going +away entirely that she came to understand how completely that interest +had changed its character. + +But what could she do? Nothing at all. She was a woman. + +As evening drew on, Charlton felt more and more the bitterness of the +self-denial he had imposed upon himself. He inwardly abused Mrs. Ferret +for meddling. He began to hope for all sorts of impossible accidents that +might release him from his duty in the case. Just after dark he walked +out. Of course he did not want to meet Miss Marlay--his mind was made +up--he would not walk down Plausaby street--at least not so far as Mrs. +Ferret's house. There could be no possible harm in his going half-way +there. Love is always going half-way, and then splitting the difference +on the remainder. Isa, on her part, remembered a little errand she must +attend to at the store. She felt that, after a day of excitement, she +needed the air, though indeed she did not want to meet Charlton any more, +if he had made up his mind not to see her. And so they walked right up to +one another, as lovers do when they have firmly resolved to keep apart. + +"Good-evening, Isabel," said Albert. He had not called her Isabel before. +It was a sort of involuntary freedom which he allowed himself--this was +to be the very last interview. + +"Good-evening--Albert." Isa could not refuse to treat him with +sisterly freedom--now that she was going to bid him adieu forever. "You +were going away without so much as saying good-by." + +"One doesn't like to be the cause of unpleasant remarks about one's best +friend," said Charlton. + +"But what if your best friend doesn't care a fig for anybody's remarks," +said Isabel energetically. + +"How?" asked Albert. It was a senseless interrogatory, but Isa's words +almost took his breath. + +Isa was startled at having said so much, and only replied indistinctly +that it didn't matter what people said. + +"Yes, but you don't know how long such things might cleave to you. Ten +years hence it might be said that you had been the friend of a man who +was--in--the penitentiary." Charlton presented objections for the sake of +having them refuted. + +"And I wouldn't care any more ten years hence than I do now. Were you +going to our house? Shall I walk back with you?" + +"I don't know." Charlton felt his good resolutions departing. "I started +out because I wanted to see the lake where Katy was drowned before I go +away. I am ever so glad that I met you, if I do not compromise you. I +would rather spend this evening in your company than in any other way in +the world--" Albert hadn't meant to say so much, but he couldn't +recall it when it was uttered--"but I feel that I should be selfish to +bring reproach on you for my own enjoyment." + +"All right, then," said Isa, laughing, "I'll take the responsibility. I +am going to the lake with you if you don't object." + +"You are the bravest woman in the world," said Albert with effusion. + +"You forget how brave a man you have shown yourself." + +I am afraid this strain of talk was not at all favorable to the strength +and persistence of Charlton's resolution, which, indeed, was by this time +sadly weakened. + +After they had spent an hour upon the knoll looking out upon the lake, +and talking of the past, and diligently avoiding all mention of the +future, Charlton summoned courage to allude to his departure in a voice +more full of love than of resolve. + +"Why do you go, Albert?" Isa said, looking down and breaking a weed with +the toe of her boot. They had called each other by their Christian names +during the whole interview. + +"Simply for the sake of your happiness, Isa. It makes me miserable +enough, I am sure." Charlton spoke as pathetically as he could. + +"But suppose I tell you that your going will make me as wretched as it +can make you. What then?" + +"How? It certainly would be unmanly for me to ask you to share my +disgrace. A poor way of showing my love. I love you well enough to do +anything in the world to make you happy." + +Isa looked down a moment and began to speak, but stopped. + +"Well, what?" said Albert. + +"May I decide what will make me happy? Am I capable of judging?" + +Albert looked foolish, and said, "Yes," with some eagerness. He was more +than ever willing to have somebody else decide for him. + +"Then I tell you, Albert, that if you go away you will sacrifice my +happiness along with your own." + + * * * * * + +It was a real merry party that met at a _petit souper_ at nine o'clock +in the evening in the dining-room of the City Hotel some months later. +There was Lurton, now pastor in Perritaut, who had just given his +blessing on the marriage of his friends, and who sat at the head of the +table and said grace. There were Albert and Isabel Charlton, bridegroom +and bride. There was Gray, the Hoosier Poet, with a poem of nine verses +for the occasion. + +"I'm sorry the stage is late," said Albert. "I wanted Jim." One likes to +have all of one's best friends on such an occasion. + +Just then the coach rattled up to the door, and Albert went out and +brought in the Superior Being. + +"Now, we are all here," said Charlton. "I had to ask Mrs. Ferret, and I +was afraid she'd come." + +"Not her!" said Jim. + +"Why?" + +"She kin do better." + +"How?" + +"She staid to meet her beloved." + +"Who's that?" + +"Dave." Jim didn't like to give any more information than would serve to +answer a question. He liked to be pumped. + +"Dave Sawney?" + +"The same. He told me to-day as him and the widder owned claims as +'jined, and they'd made up their minds to jine too. And then he +haw-haw'd tell you could a-heerd him a mile. By the way, it's the widder +that's let the cat out of the bag." + +"What cat out of what bag?" asked Lurton. + +"Why, how Mr. Charlton come to go to the State boardin'-house fer takin' +a land-warrant he didn' take." + +"How _did_ she find out?" said Isa. Her voice seemed to be purer and +sweeter than ever--happiness had tuned it. + +"By list'nin' at the key-hole," said Jim. + +"When? What key-hole?" + +"When Mr. Lurton and Miss Marlay--I beg your pard'n, Mrs. Charlton--was +a-talkin' about haow to git Mr. Charlton out." + +"Be careful," said Lurton. "You shouldn't make such a charge unless you +have authority." + +Jim looked at Lurton a moment indignantly. "Thunder and lightnin'," he +said, "Dave tole me so hisself! Said _she_ tole him. And Dave larfed +over it, and thought it 'powerful cute' in her, as he said in his +Hoosier lingo;" and Jim accompanied this last remark with a patronizing +look at Gray. + +"Charlton, what are you thinking about?" asked Lurton when +conversation flagged. + +"One year ago to-day I was sentenced, and one year ago to-morrow I +started to Stillwater." + +"Bully!" said Jim. "I beg yer pardon, Mrs. Charlton, I couldn't help it. +A body likes to see the wheel turn round right. Ef 'twould on'y put some +folks _in_ as well _as_ turn some a-out!" + +When Charlton with his bride started in a sleigh the next morning to his +new home on his property in the village of "Charlton" a crowd had +gathered about the door, moved partly by that curiosity which always +interests itself in newly-married people, and partly by an exciting rumor +that Charlton was not guilty of the offense for which he had been +imprisoned. Mrs. Ferret had told the story to everybody, exacting from +each one a pledge of secrecy. Just as Albert started his horses, Whisky +Jim, on top of his stage-box, called out to the crowd, "Three cheers, by +thunder!" and they were given heartily. It was the popular acquittal. + + + + +WORDS AFTERWARDS. + +Metropolisville is only a memory now. The collapse of the land-bubble and +the opening of railroads destroyed it. Most of the buildings were removed +to a neighboring railway station. Not only has Metropolisville gone, but +the unsettled state of society in which it grew has likewise +disappeared--the land-sharks, the claim speculators, the +town-proprietors, the trappers, and the stage-drivers have emigrated or +have undergone metamorphosis. The wild excitement of '56 is a tradition +hardly credible to those who did not feel its fever. But the most +evanescent things may impress themselves on human beings, and in the +results which they thus produce become immortal. There is a last page to +all our works, but to the history of the ever-unfolding human spirit no +one will ever write. + +THE END. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Mystery of Metropolisville, by Edward Eggleston + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MYSTERY OF METROPOLISVILLE *** + +***** This file should be named 12195.txt or 12195.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/1/9/12195/ + +Produced by John Hagerson, Rick Niles, Mary Meehan and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +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. + + https://www.gutenberg.org/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 + + diff --git a/old/12195.zip b/old/12195.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..834a23a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12195.zip |