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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Militants, by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
+
+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 Militants
+       Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World
+
+Author: Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
+
+Release Date: March 29, 2005 [EBook #15496]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MILITANTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Kentuckiana Digital Library, David Garcia, Martin Pettit
+and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITANTS
+
+_"The sword of the Lord and of Gideon."_
+
+
+
+
+BOOKS BY MARY R.S. ANDREWS
+
+PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+
+
+The Militants. Illustrated              $1.50
+
+Bob and the Guides. Illustrated         $1.50
+
+The Perfect Tribute. With Frontispiece  $0.50
+
+Vive L'Empereur. Illustrated            $1.00
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "I took her in my arms and held her."]
+
+
+
+
+THE MILITANTS
+
+
+STORIES OF SOME PARSONS, SOLDIERS
+
+AND OTHER FIGHTERS IN THE WORLD
+
+
+BY
+
+MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS
+
+
+ILLUSTRATED
+
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+1907
+
+Published, May, 1907
+
+
+
+
+     THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF A MAN WHO WAS WITH HIS
+     WHOLE HEART A PRIEST AND WITH HIS WHOLE STRENGTH A SOLDIER OF THE
+     CHURCH MILITANT.
+
+     JACOB SHAW SHIPMAN
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+   _I. The Bishop's Silence_
+
+  _II. The Witnesses_
+
+ _III. The Diamond Brooches_
+
+  _IV. Crowned with Glory and Honor_
+
+   _V. A Messenger_
+
+  _VI. The Aide-de-Camp_
+
+ _VII. Through the Ivory Gate_
+
+_VIII. The Wife of the Governor_
+
+  _IX. The Little Revenge_
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+_"I took her in my arms and held her"_
+
+_"Many waters shall not wash out love", said Eleanor_
+
+_He stared into the smoldering fire_
+
+_"Look!" he said, and Miles swung about toward the ridge behind_
+
+_"I got behind a turn and fired as a man came on alone"_
+
+_"I reckon I shall have to ask you to not pick any more of those
+roses," a voice said_
+
+_"You see, the boat is very new and clean, Miss," he was saying_
+
+_I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands_
+
+
+
+
+THE BISHOP'S SILENCE
+
+
+The Bishop was walking across the fields to afternoon service. It was a
+hot July day, and he walked slowly--for there was plenty of time--with
+his eyes fixed on the far-off, shimmering sea. That minstrel of heat,
+the locust, hidden somewhere in the shade of burning herbage, pulled a
+long, clear, vibrating bow across his violin, and the sound fell lazily
+on the still air--the only sound on earth except a soft crackle under
+the Bishop's feet. Suddenly the erect, iron-gray head plunged madly
+forward, and then, with a frantic effort and a parabola or two,
+recovered itself, while from the tall grass by the side of the path
+gurgled up a high, soft, ecstatic squeal. The Bishop, his face flushed
+with the stumble and the heat and a touch of indignation besides,
+straightened himself with dignity and felt for his hat, while his eyes
+followed a wriggling cord that lay on the ground, up to a small brown
+fist. A burnished head, gleaming in the sunshine like the gilded ball
+on a church steeple, rose suddenly out of the waves of dry grass, and a
+pink-ginghamed figure, radiant with joy and good-will, confronted him.
+The Bishop's temper, roughly waked up by the unwilling and unepiscopal
+war-dance just executed, fell back into its chains.
+
+"Did you tie that string across the path?"
+
+"Yes," The shining head nodded. "Too bad you didn't fell 'way down. I'm
+sorry. But you kicked awf'ly."
+
+"Oh! I did, did I?" asked the Bishop. "You're an unrepentant young
+sinner. Suppose I'd broken my leg?"
+
+The head nodded again. "Oh, we'd have patzed you up," she said
+cheerfully. "Don't worry. Trust in God."
+
+The Bishop jumped. "My child," he said, "who says that to you?"
+
+"Aunt Basha." The innocent eyes faced him without a sign of
+embarrassment. "Aunt Basha's my old black mammy. Do you know her? All
+her name's longer'n that. I can say it." Then with careful, slow
+enunciation, "Bathsheba Salina Mosina Angelica Preston."
+
+"Is that your little bit of name too?" the Bishop asked, "Are you a
+Preston?"
+
+"Why, of course." The child opened her gray eyes wide. "Don't you know
+my name? I'm Eleanor. Eleanor Gray Preston."
+
+For a moment again the locust had it all to himself. High and insistent,
+his steady note sounded across the hot, still world. The Bishop looked
+down at the gray eyes gazing upward wonderingly, and through a mist of
+years other eyes smiled at him. Eleanor Gray--the world is small, the
+life of it persistent; generations repeat themselves, and each is young
+but once. He put his hand under the child's chin and turned up the baby
+face.
+
+"Ah!" said he--if that may stand for the sound that stood for the
+Bishop's reverie. "Ah! Whom were you named for, Eleanor Gray?"
+
+"For my own muvver." Eleanor wriggled her chin from the big hand and
+looked at him with dignity. She did not like to be touched by
+strangers. Again the voices stopped and the locust sang two notes and
+stopped also, as if suddenly awed.
+
+"Your mother," repeated the Bishop, "your mother! I hope you are worthy
+of the name."
+
+"Yes, I am," said Eleanor heartily. "Bug's on your shoulder, Bishop! For
+de Lawd's sake!" she squealed excitedly, in delicious high notes that a
+prima donna might envy; then caught the fat grasshopper from the black
+clerical coat, and stood holding it, lips compressed and the joy of
+adventure dancing in her eyes. The Bishop took out his watch and looked
+at it, as Eleanor, her soul on the grasshopper, opened her fist and
+flung its squirming contents, with delicious horror, yards away. Half an
+hour yet to service and only five minutes' walk to the little church of
+Saint Peter's-by-the-Sea.
+
+"Will you sit down and talk to me, Eleanor Gray?" he asked, gravely.
+
+"Oh, yes, if there's time," assented Eleanor, "but you mustn't be late
+to church, Bishop. That's naughty."
+
+"I think there's time. How do you know who I am, Eleanor?"
+
+"Dick told me."
+
+The Bishop had walked away from the throbbing sunshine into the
+green-black shadows of a tree, and seated himself with a boyish
+lightness in piquant contrast with his gray-haired dignity--a lightness
+that meant athletic years. Eleanor bent down the branch of a great bush
+that faced him and sat on it as if a bird had poised there. She smiled
+as their eyes met, and began to hum an air softly. The startled Bishop
+slowly made out a likeness to the words of the old hymn that begins
+
+    Am I a soldier of the Cross,
+    A follower of the Lamb?
+
+Sweetly and reverently she sang it, over and over, with a difference.
+
+    Am I shoulder of a hoss,
+    A quarter of a lamb?
+
+sang Eleanor.
+
+The Bishop exploded into a great laugh that drowned the music.
+
+"Aunt Basha taught you that, too, didn't she?" he asked, and off he
+went into another deep-toned peal.
+
+"I thought you'd like that, 'cause it's a hymn and you're a Bishop,"
+said Eleanor, approvingly. Her effort was evidently meeting with
+appreciation. "You can talk to me now, I'm here." She settled herself
+like a Brownie, elbows on knees, her chin in the hollows of small, lean
+hands, and gazed at him unflinchingly.
+
+"Thank you," said the Bishop, sobering at once, but laughter still in
+his eyes. "Will you be kind enough to tell me then, Eleanor, who is
+Dick?"
+
+Eleanor looked astonished, "You don't know anybody much, do you?" and
+there was gentle pity in her voice. "Why, Dick, he's--why, he's--why,
+you see, he's my friend. I don't know his uvver names, but Mr. Fielding,
+he's Dick's favver."
+
+"Oh!" said the Bishop with comprehension. "Dick Fielding. Then Dick is
+my friend, too. And people that are friends to the same people should
+be friends to each other--that's geometry, Eleanor, though it's
+possibly not life."
+
+"Huh?" Eleanor stared, puzzled.
+
+"Will you be friends with me, Eleanor Gray? I knew your mother a long
+time ago, when she was Eleanor Gray." Eleanor yawned frankly. That might
+be true, but it did not appear to her remarkable or interesting. The
+deep voice went on, with a moment's interval. "Where is your mother? Is
+she here?"
+
+Eleanor laughed. "Oh, no," she said. "Don't you know? What a funny man
+you are--you know such a few things. My muvver's up in heaven. She went
+when I was a baby, long, _long_ ago. I reckon she must have flewed," she
+added, reflectively, raising clear eyes to the pale, heat-worn sky that
+gleamed through the branches.
+
+The Bishop's big hands went up to his face suddenly, and the strong
+fingers clasped tensely above his forehead. Between his wrists one could
+see that his mouth was set in a hard line. "Dead!" he said. "And I never
+knew it."
+
+Eleanor dug a small russet heel unconcernedly into the ground.
+"Naughty, naughty, naughty little grasshopper," she began to chant,
+addressing an unconscious insect near the heel. "Don't you go and crawl
+up on the Bishop. No, just don't you. 'Cause if you do, oh, naughty
+grasshopper, I'll scrunch you!" with a vicious snap on the "scrunch."
+
+The Bishop lowered his hands and looked at her. "I'm not being very
+interesting, Eleanor, am I?"
+
+"Not very," Eleanor admitted. "Couldn't you be some more int'rstin'?"
+
+"I'll try," said the Bishop. "But be careful not to hurt the poor
+grasshopper. Because, you know, some people say that if he is a good
+grasshopper for a long time, then when he dies his little soul will go
+into a better body--perhaps a butterfly's body next time."
+
+Eleanor caught the thought instantly. "And if he's a good butterfly,
+then what'll he be? A hummin'-bird? Let's kill him quick, and see him
+turn into a butterfly."
+
+"Oh, no, Eleanor, you can't force the situation. He has to live out his
+little grasshopper life the best that he can, before he's good enough to
+be a butterfly. If you kill him now you might send him backward. He
+might turn into what he was before--a poor little blind worm perhaps."
+
+"Oh, my Lawd!" said Eleanor.
+
+The Bishop was still a moment, and then repeated, quietly:
+
+    Slay not the meanest creature, lest thou slay
+    Some humble soul upon its upward way.
+
+"Oughtn't to talk to yourself," Eleanor shook her head disapprovingly.
+"'Tisn't so very polite. Is that true about the grasshopper, Bishop, or
+is it a whopper?"
+
+The Bishop thought for a moment. "I don't know, Eleanor," he answered,
+gently.
+
+"You don't know so very much, do you?" inquired Eleanor, not as
+despising but as wondering, sympathizing with ignorance.
+
+"Very little," the Bishop agreed. "And I've tried to learn, all my
+life"--his gaze wandered off reflectively.
+
+"Too bad," said Eleanor. "Maybe you'll learn some time."
+
+"Maybe," said the Bishop and smiled, and suddenly she sprang to her
+feet, and shook her finger at him.
+
+"I'm afraid," she said, "I'm very much afraid you're a naughty boy."
+
+The Bishop looked up at the small, motherly face, bewildered. "Wh--why?"
+he stammered.
+
+"Do you know what you're bein'? You're bein' late to church!"
+
+The Bishop sprang up too, at that, and looked at his watch quickly. "Not
+late yet, but I'll walk along. Where are you going, waif? Aren't you in
+charge of anybody?"
+
+"Huh?" inquired Eleanor, her head cocked sideways.
+
+"Whom did you come out with?"
+
+"Madge and Dick, but they're off there," nodding toward the wood behind
+them. "Madge is cryin'. She wouldn't let me pound Dick for makin' her,
+so I went away."
+
+"Who is Madge?"
+
+Eleanor, drifting beside him through the sunshine like a rose-leaf on
+the wind, stopped short. "Why, Bishop, don't you know even Madge? Funny
+Bishop! Madge is my sister--she's grown up. Dick made her cry, but I
+think he wasn't much naughty, 'cause she would _not_ let me pound him.
+She put her arms right around him."
+
+"Oh!" said the Bishop, and there was silence for a moment. "You mustn't
+tell me any more about Madge and Dick, I think, Eleanor."
+
+"All right, my lamb!" Eleanor assented, cheerfully, and conversation
+flagged.
+
+"How old are you, Eleanor Gray?"
+
+"Six, praise de Lawd!"
+
+The Bishop considered deeply for a moment, then his face cleared.
+
+"'Their angels do always behold the face of my Father,'" and he smiled.
+"I say it too, praise the Lord that she is six."
+
+"Madge is lots more'n that," the soft little voice, with its gay,
+courageous inflection, went on. "She's twenty. Isn't that old? You
+aren't much different of that, are you?" and the heavy, cropped,
+straight gold mass of her hair swung sideways as she turned her face up
+to scrutinize the tall Bishop.
+
+He smiled down at her. "Only thirty years different. I'm fifty,
+Eleanor."
+
+"Oh!" said Eleanor, trying to grasp the problem. Then with a sigh she
+gave it up, and threw herself on the strength of maturity. "Is fifty
+older'n twenty?" she asked.
+
+More than once as they went side by side on the narrow foot-path across
+the field the Bishop put out his hand to hold the little brown one near
+it, but each time the child floated from his touch, and he smiled at the
+unconscious dignity, the womanly reserve of the frank and friendly
+little lady. "Thus far and no farther," he thought, with the quick
+perception of character that was part of his power. But the Bishop was
+as unconscious as the child of his own charm, of the magnetism in him
+that drew hearts his way. Only once had it ever failed, and that was the
+only time he had cared. But this time it was working fast as they walked
+and talked together quietly, and when they reached the open door that
+led from the fields into the little robing-room of Saint Peter's,
+Eleanor had met her Waterloo. Being six, it was easy to say so, and she
+did it with directness, yet without at all losing the dignity that was
+breeding, that had come to her from generations, and that she knew of as
+little as she knew the names of her bones. Three steps led to the
+robing-room, and Eleanor flew to the top and turned, the childish figure
+in its worn pink cotton dress facing the tall powerful one in sober
+black broadcloth.
+
+"I love you," she said. "I'll kiss you," and the long, strong little
+arms were around his neck, and it seemed to the Bishop as if a kiss that
+had never been given came to him now from the lips of the child of the
+woman he had loved. As he put her down gently, from the belfry above
+tolled suddenly a sweet, rolling note for service.
+
+When the Bishop came out from church the "peace that passeth
+understanding" was over him. The beautiful old words that to churchmen
+are dear as their mothers' faces, haunting as the voices that make home,
+held him yet in the last echo of their music. Peace seemed, too, to lie
+across the world, worn with the day's heat, where the shadows were
+stretching in lengthening, cooling lines. And there at the vestry step,
+where Eleanor had stood an hour before, was Dick Fielding, waiting for
+him, with as unhappy a face as an eldest scion, the heir to millions,
+well loved, and well brought up, and wonderfully unspoiled, ever carried
+about a country-side. The Bishop was staying at the Fieldings'. He
+nodded and swung past Dick, with a look from the tail of his eye that
+said: "Come along." Dick came, and silently the two turned into the path
+of the fields. The scowl on Dick's dark face deepened as they walked,
+and that was all there was by way of conversation for some time.
+Finally:
+
+"You don't know about it, do you, Bishop?" he asked.
+
+"A very little, my boy," the Bishop answered.
+
+Dick was on the defensive in a moment. "My father told you--you agree
+with him?"
+
+"Your father has told me nothing. I only came last night, remember. I
+know that you made Madge cry, and that Eleanor wasn't allowed to punish
+you."
+
+The boyish face cleared a little, and he laughed. "That little rat! Has
+she been talking? It's all right if it's only to you, but Madge will
+have to cork her up." Then anxiety and unhappiness seized Dick's buoyant
+soul again. "Bishop, let me talk to you, will you please? I'm knocked up
+about this, for there's never been trouble between my father and me
+before, and I can't give in. I know I'm right--I'd be a cad to give in,
+and I wouldn't if I could. If you would only see your way to talking to
+the governor, Bishop! He'll listen to you when he'd throw any other chap
+out of the house."
+
+"Tell me the whole story if you can, Dick, I don't understand, you see."
+
+"I suppose it will sound rather commonplace to you," said Dick, humbly,
+"but it means everything to me. I--I'm engaged to Madge Preston. I've
+known her for a year, and been engaged half of it, and I ought to know
+my own mind by now. But father has simply set his forefeet and won't
+hear of it. Won't even let me talk to him about it."
+
+Dick's hands went into his pockets and his head drooped, and his big
+figure lagged pathetically. The Bishop put his hand on the young man's
+shoulder, and left it there as they walked slowly on, but he said
+nothing.
+
+"It's her father, you know," Dick went on. "Such rot, to hold a girl
+responsible for her ancestors! Isn't it rot, now? Father says they're a
+bad stock, dissipated and arrogant and spendthrift and shiftless and
+weak--oh, and a lot more! He's not stingy with his adjectives, bless
+you! Picture to yourself Madge being dissipated and arrogant and--have
+you seen Madge?" he interrupted himself.
+
+The Bishop shook his head. "Eleanor made an attempt on my life with a
+string across the path, to-day. We were friends over that."
+
+"She's a winning little rat," said Dick, smiling absent-mindedly, "but
+nothing to Madge. You'll understand when you see Madge how I couldn't
+give her up. And it isn't so much that--my feeling for her--though
+that's enough in all conscience, but picture to yourself, if you please,
+a man going to a girl and saying: 'I'm obliged to give you up, because
+my father threatens to disinherit me and kick me out of the business. He
+objects because your father's a poor lot.' That's a nice line of conduct
+to map out for your only son. Yet that's practically what my father
+wishes me to do. But he's brought me up a gentleman, by George," said
+Dick straightening himself, "and it's too late to ask me to be a beastly
+cad. Besides that," and voice and figure drooped to despondency again,
+"I just can't give her up."
+
+The Bishop's keen eyes were on the troubled face, and in their depths
+lurked a kindly shade of amusement. He could see stubborn old Dick
+Fielding in stubborn young Dick Fielding so plainly. Dick the elder had
+been his friend for forty years. But he said nothing. It was better to
+let the boy talk himself out a bit. In a moment Dick began again.
+
+"Can't see why the governor's so keen against Colonel Preston, anyway.
+He's lost his money and made a mess of his life, and I rather fancy he
+drinks too much. But he's the sort of man you can't help being proud
+of--bad clothes and vices and all--handsome and charming and
+thorough-bred--and father must know it. His children love him--he can't
+be such a brute as the governor says. Anyway, I don't want to marry the
+Colonel--what's the use of rowing about the Colonel?" inquired Dick,
+desperately.
+
+The Bishop asked a question now: "How many children are there?"
+
+"Only Madge and Eleanor. They're here with their cousins, the Vails,
+summers. Two or three died between those two, I believe. Lucky, perhaps,
+for the family has been awfully hard up. Lived on in their big old
+place, in Maryland, with no money at all. I've an idea Madge's mother
+wasn't so sorry to die--had a hard life of it with the fascinating
+Colonel." The Bishop's hand dropped from the boy's shoulder, and shut
+tightly. "But that has nothing to do with my marrying Madge," Dick went
+on.
+
+"No," said the Bishop, shortly.
+
+"And you see," said Dick, slipping to another tangent, "it's not the
+money I'm keenest about, though of course I want that too, but it's
+father. You believe I think more of my father than of his money, don't
+you? We've been good friends all my life, and he's such a crackerjack
+old fellow. I'd hate to get along without him." Dick sighed, from his
+boots up--almost six feet. "Couldn't you give him a dressing down,
+Bishop? Make him see reason?" He looked anxiously up the three inches
+that the Bishop towered above him.
+
+At ten o'clock the next morning Richard Fielding, owner of the great
+Fielding Foundries, strolled out on his wide piazza, which, luxurious in
+deep wicker chairs and Japanese rugs and light, cool furniture, looked
+under scarlet and white awnings, across long boxes of geraniums and
+vines, out to the sparkling Atlantic. The Bishop, a friendly light
+coming into his thoughtful eyes, took his cigar from his lips and
+glanced up at his friend. Mr. Fielding kicked a hassock aside, moved a
+table between them, and settled himself in another chair, and with the
+scratch of a match, but without a word spoken, they entered into the
+companionship which had been a life-long joy to both.
+
+"Father and the Bishop are having a song and dance without words," Dick
+was pleased sometimes to say, and felt that he hit it off. The breeze
+carried the scent of the tobacco in intermittent waves of fragrance, and
+on the air floated delicately that subtle message of peace, prosperity,
+and leisure which is part of the mission of a good cigar. The
+pleasantness of the wide, cool piazza, with its flowers and vines and
+gay awnings; the charm of the summer morning, not yet dulled by wear and
+tear of the day; the steady, deliberate dash of the waves on the beach
+below; the play and shimmer of the big, quiet water, stretching out to
+the edge of the world; all this filled their minds, rested their souls.
+There was no need for words. The Bishop sighed comfortably as he pushed
+his great shoulders back against the cool wicker of the chair and swung
+one long leg across the other. Fielding, chin up and lips rounded to let
+out a cloud of smoke, rested his hand, cigar between the fingers, on the
+table, and gazed at him satisfied. This was the man, after Dick, dearest
+to him in the world. Into which peaceful Eden stole at this point the
+serpent, and, as is usual, in the shape of woman. Little Eleanor,
+long-legged, slim, fresh as a flower in her crisp, faded pink dress,
+came around the corner. In one hot hand she carried, by their heads, a
+bunch of lilac and pink and white sweet peas. It cost her no trouble at
+all, and about half a minute of time, to charge the atmosphere, so full
+of sweet peace and rest, with a saturated solution of bitterness and
+disquiet. Her presence alone was a bombshell, and with a sentence or two
+in her clear, innocent voice, the fell deed was done. Fielding stopped
+smoking, his cigar in mid-air, and stared with a scowl at the child; but
+Eleanor, delighted to have found the Bishop, saw only him. A shower of
+crushed blossoms fell over his knees.
+
+"I ran away from Aunt Basha. I brought you a posy for 'Good-mornin','"
+she said. The Bishop, collecting the plunder, expressed gratitude. "Dick
+picked a whole lot for Madge, and then they went walkin' and forgot 'em.
+Isn't Dick funny?" she went on.
+
+Mr. Fielding looked as if Dick's drollness did not appeal to him, but
+the Bishop laughed, and put his arm around her.
+
+"Will you give me a kiss, too, for 'Good-morning,'" he said; and then,
+"That's better than the flowers. You had better run back to Aunt Basha
+now, Eleanor--she'll be frightened."
+
+Eleanor looked disappointed, "I wanted to ask you 'bout what dead
+chickens gets to be, if they're good. Pups? Do you reckon it's pups?"
+
+The theory of transmigration of souls had taken strong hold. Mr.
+Fielding lost his scowl in a look of bewilderment, and the Bishop
+frankly shouted out a big laugh.
+
+"Listen, Eleanor. This afternoon I'll come for you to walk, and we'll
+talk that all over. Go home now, my lamb." And Eleanor, like a pale-pink
+over-sized butterfly, went.
+
+"Do you know that child, Jim?" Mr. Fielding asked, grimly.
+
+"Yes," answered the Bishop, with a serene pull at his cigar.
+
+"Do you know she's the child of that good-for-nothing Fairfax Preston,
+who married Eleanor Gray against her people's will and took her South
+to--to--starve, practically?"
+
+The Bishop drew a long breath, and then he turned and looked at his old
+friend with a clear, wide gaze. "She's Eleanor Gray's child, too, Dick,"
+he said.
+
+Mr. Fielding was silent a moment. "Has the boy talked to you?" he asked.
+The Bishop nodded. "It's the worst trouble I've ever had. It would kill
+me to see him marry that man's daughter. I can't and won't resign myself
+to it. Why should I? Why should Dick choose, out of all the world, the
+one girl in it who would be insufferable to me. I can't give in about
+this. Much as Dick is to me I'll let him go sooner. I hope you'll see
+I'm right, Jim, but right or wrong, I've made up my mind."
+
+The Bishop stretched a large, bony hand across the little table that
+stood between them. Fielding's fell on it. Both men smoked silently for
+a minute.
+
+"Have you anything against the girl, Dick?" asked the Bishop, presently.
+
+"That she's her father's daughter--it's enough. The bad blood of
+generations is in her. I don't like the South--I don't like
+Southerners. And I detest beyond words Fairfax Preston. But the girl is
+certainly beautiful, and they say she is a good girl, too," he
+acknowledged, gloomily.
+
+"Then I think you're wrong," said the Bishop.
+
+"You don't understand, Jim," Fielding took it up passionately. "That man
+has been the _bete noir_ of my life. He has gotten in my way
+half-a-dozen times deliberately, in business affairs, little as he
+amounts to himself. Only two years ago--but that isn't the point after
+all." He stopped gloomily. "You'll wonder at me, but it's an older feud
+than that. I've never told anyone, but I want you to understand, Jim,
+how impossible this affair is." He bit off the end of a fresh cigar,
+lighted it and then threw it across the geraniums into the grass. "I
+wanted to marry her mother," he said, brusquely. "That man got her. Of
+course, I could have forgiven that, but it was the way he did it. He
+lied to her--he threw it in my teeth that I had failed. Can't you see
+how I shall never forgive him--never, while I live!" The intensity of a
+life-long, silent hatred trembled in his voice.
+
+"It's the very thing it's your business to do, Dick," said the Bishop,
+quietly. "'Love your enemies, bless them that curse you'--what do you
+think that means? It's your very case. It may be the hardest thing in
+the world, but it's the simplest, most obvious." He drew a long puff at
+his cigar, and looked over the flowers to the ocean.
+
+"Simple! Obvious!" Fielding's voice was full of bitterness. "That's the
+way with you churchmen! You live outside passions and temptations, and
+then preach against them, with no faintest notion of their force. It
+sounds easy, doesn't it? Simple and obvious, as you say. You never loved
+Eleanor Gray, Jim; you never had to give her up to a man you knew
+beneath her; you never had to shut murder out of your heart when you
+heard that he'd given her a hard life and a glad death. Eleanor Gray! Do
+you remember how lovely she was, how high-spirited and full of the joy
+of life?" The Bishop's great figure was still as if the breath in it had
+stopped, but Fielding, carried on the flood of his own rushing feeling,
+did not notice. "Do you remember, Jim?" he repeated.
+
+"I remember," the Bishop said, and his voice sounded very quiet.
+
+"Jove! How calm you are!" exploded the other.
+
+"You're a churchman; you live behind a wall, you hear voices through it,
+but you can't be in the fight--it's easy for you."
+
+"Life isn't easy for anyone, Dick," said the Bishop, slowly. "You know
+that. I'm fighting the current as well as you. You are a churchman as
+well as I. If it's my _metier_ to preach against human passion, it's
+yours to resist it. You're letting this man you hate mould your
+character; you're letting him burn the kindness out of your soul. He's
+making you bitter and hard and unjust--and you're letting him. I thought
+you had more will--more poise. It isn't your affair what he is, even
+what he does, Dick--it's your affair to keep your own judgment unwarped,
+your own heart gentle, your own soul untainted by the poison of hatred.
+We are both churchmen, as you put it--loyalty is for us both. You live
+your sermon--I say mine. I have said it. Now live yours. Put this
+wormwood away from you. Forgive Preston, as you need forgiveness at
+higher hands. Don't break the girl's heart, and spoil your boy's
+life--it may spoil it--the leaven of bitterness works long. You're at a
+parting of the ways--take the right turn. Do good and not evil with your
+strength; all the rest is nothing. After all the years there is just one
+thing that counts, and that our mothers told us when we were little
+chaps together--be good, Dick."
+
+The magnetic voice, that had swayed thousands, the indescribable trick
+of inflection that caught the heart-strings, the pure, high personality
+that shone through look and tone, had never, in all his brilliant
+career, been more full of power than for this audience of one. Fielding
+got up, trembling, and stood before him.
+
+"Jim," he said, "whatever else is so, you are that--you are a good man.
+The trouble is you want me to be as good as you are; and I can't. If you
+had had temptations like mine, trials like mine, I might try to follow
+you--I would try. But you haven't--you're an impossible model for me.
+You want me to be an angel of light, and I'm only--a man." He turned
+and went into the house.
+
+The oldest inhabitant had not seen a devotion like the Bishop's and
+Eleanor's. There was in it no condescension on one side, no strain on
+the other. The soul that through fulness of life and sorrow and
+happiness and effort had reached at last a child's peace met as its like
+the little child's soul, that had known neither life nor sorrow nor
+conscious happiness, and was without effort as a lily of the field. It
+may be that the wisdom of babyhood and the wisdom of age will look very
+alike to us when we have the wisdom of eternity. And as all the colors
+of the spectrum make sunlight, so all his splendid powers that patient
+years had made perfect shone through the Bishop's character in the white
+light of simplicity. No one knew what they talked about, the child and
+the man, on the long walks that they took together almost every day,
+except from Eleanor's conversation after. Transmigration, done into the
+vernacular, and applied with startling directness, was evidently a
+fascinating subject from the first. She brought back as well a vivid
+and epigrammatic version of the nebular hypothesis.
+
+"Did you hear 'bout what the world did?" she demanded, casually, at the
+lunch-table. "We were all hot, nasty steam, just like a tea-kettle, and
+we cooled off into water, sailin' around so much, and then we got crusts
+on us, bless de Lawd, and then, sir, we kept on gettin' solid, and
+circus animals grewed all over us, and then they died, and thank God for
+that, and Adam and Evenin' camed, and Madge _can't_ I have some more
+gingerbread? I'd just as soon be a little sick if you'll let me have
+it."
+
+The "fairyland of science and the long results of time," passing from
+the Bishop's hands into the child's, were turned into such graphic
+tales, for Eleanor, with all her airy charm, struck straight from the
+shoulder. Never was there a sense of superiority on the Bishop's side,
+or of being lectured on Eleanor's.
+
+"Why do you like to walk with the Bishop?" Mrs. Vail asked, curiously.
+
+"Because he hasn't any morals," said the little girl, fresh from a
+Sunday-school lesson.
+
+Saturday night Mr. Fielding stayed late in the city, and Dick was with
+his lady-love at the Vails; so the Bishop, after dining alone, went down
+on the wide beach below the house and walked, as he smoked his cigar.
+Through the week he had been restless under the constant prick of a duty
+undone, which he could not make up his mind to do. Over and over he
+heard his friend's agitated voice. "If you had had temptations like
+mine, trials like mine, I would try to follow you," it said. He knew
+that the man would be good as his word. He could perhaps win Dick's
+happiness for him if he would pick up the gauntlet of that speech. If he
+could bring himself to tell Fielding the whole story that he had shut so
+long ago into silence--that he, too, had cared for Eleanor Gray, and had
+given her up in a harder way than the other, for the Bishop had made it
+possible that the Southerner should marry her. But it was like tearing
+his soul to do it. No one but his mother, who was dead, had known this
+one secret of a life like crystal. The Bishop's reticence was the
+intense sort, that often goes with a frank exterior, and he had never
+cared for another woman. Some men's hearts are open pleasure-grounds,
+where all the world may come and go, and the earth is dusty with many
+feet; and some are like theatres, shut perhaps to the world in general,
+but which a passport of beauty or charm may always open; and with many,
+of finer clay, there are but two or three ways into a guarded temple,
+and only the touchstone of quality may let pass the lightest foot upon
+the carefully tended sod. But now and then a heart is Holy of Holies.
+Long ago the Bishop, lifting a young face from the books that absorbed
+him, had seen a girl's figure filling the narrow doorway, and dazzled by
+the radiance of it, had placed that image on the lonely altar, where the
+flame waited, before unconsecrated. Then the girl had gone, and he had
+quietly shut the door and lived his life outside. But the sealed place
+was there, and the fire burned before the old picture. Why should he,
+for Dick Fielding, for any one, let the light of day upon that
+stillness? The one thing in life that was his own, and all these years
+he had kept it sacred--why should he? Fiercely, with the old animal
+jealousy of ownership, he guarded for himself that memory--what was
+there on earth that could make him share it? And in answer there rose
+before him the vision of Madge Preston, with a haunting air of her
+mother about her; of young Dick Fielding, almost his own child from
+babyhood, his honest soul torn between two duties; of old Dick Fielding,
+loyal and kind and obstinate, his stubborn feet, the feet that had
+walked near his for forty years, needing only a touch to turn them into
+the right path.
+
+Back and forth the thoughts buffeted each other, and the Bishop sighed,
+and threw away his cigar, and then stopped and stared out at the
+darkening, great ocean. The steady rush and pause and low wash of
+retreat did not calm him to-night.
+
+"I'd like to turn it off for five minutes. It's so eternally right," he
+said aloud and began to walk restlessly again.
+
+Behind him came light steps, but he did not hear them on the soft sand,
+in the noise of a breaking wave. A small, firm hand slipped into his was
+the first that he knew of another presence, and he did not need to look
+down at the bright head to know it was Eleanor, and the touch thrilled
+him in his loneliness. Neither spoke, but swung on across the sand, side
+by side, the child springing easily to keep pace with his great step.
+Beside the gift of English, Eleanor had its comrade gift of excellent
+silence. Those who are born to know rightly the charm and the power and
+the value of words, know as well the value of the rests in the music.
+Little Eleanor, her nervous fingers clutched around the Bishop's big
+thumb, was pouring strength and comfort into him, and such an instinct
+kept her quiet.
+
+So they walked for a long half-hour, the Bishop fighting out his battle,
+sometimes stopping, sometimes talking aloud to himself, but Eleanor,
+through it all, not speaking. Once or twice he felt her face laid
+against his hand, and her hair that brushed his wrist, and the savage
+selfishness of reserve slowly dissolved in the warmth of that light
+touch and the steady current of gentleness it diffused through him.
+Clearly and more clearly he saw his way and, as always happens, as he
+came near to the mountain, the mountain grew lower. "Over the Alps lies
+Italy." Why should he count the height when the Italy of Dick's
+happiness and Fielding's duty done lay beyond? The clean-handed,
+light-hearted disregard of self that had been his habit of mind always
+came flooding back like sunshine as he felt his decision made. After
+all, doing a duty lies almost entirely in deciding to do it. He stooped
+and picked Eleanor up in his arms.
+
+"Isn't the baby sleepy? We've settled it together--it's all right now,
+Eleanor. I'll carry you back to Aunt Basha."
+
+"Is it all right now?" asked Eleanor, drowsily. "No, I'll walk," kicking
+herself downward. "But you come wiv me." And the Bishop escorted his
+lady-love to her castle, where the warden, Aunt Basha, was for this half
+hour making night vocal with lamentations for the runaway.
+
+"Po' lil lamb!" said Aunt Basha, with an undisguised scowl at the
+Bishop. "Seems like some folks dunno nuff to know a baby's bedtime.
+Seems like de Lawd's anointed wuz in po' business, ti'in' out chillens!"
+
+"I'm sorry, Aunt Basha," said the Bishop, humbly. "I'll bring her back
+earlier again. I forgot all about the time."
+
+"Huh!" was all the response that Aunt Basha vouchsafed, and the Bishop,
+feeling himself hopelessly in the wrong, withdrew in discreet silence.
+
+Luncheon was over the next day and the two men were quietly smoking
+together in the hot, drowsy quiet of the July mid-afternoon before the
+Bishop found a chance to speak to Fielding alone. There was an hour and
+a half before service, and this was the time to say his say, and he
+gathered himself for it, when suddenly the tongue of the ready speaker,
+the _savoir faire_ of the finished man of the world, the mastery of
+situations which had always come as easily as his breath, all failed him
+at once.
+
+"Dick," he stammered, "there is something I want to tell you," and he
+turned on his friend a face which astounded him.
+
+"What on earth is it? You look as if you'd been caught stealing a hat,"
+he responded, encouragingly.
+
+The Bishop felt his heart thumping as that healthy organ had not
+thumped for years. "I feel a bit that way," he gasped. "You remember
+what we were talking of the other day?"
+
+"The other day--talking--" Fielding looked bewildered. Then his face
+darkened. "You mean Dick--the affair with that girl." His voice was at
+once hard and unresponsive. "What about it?"
+
+"Not at all," said the Bishop, complainingly. "Don't misunderstand like
+that, Dick--it's so much harder."
+
+"Oh!" and Fielding's look cleared. "Well, what is it then, old man? Out
+with it--want a check for a mission? Surely you don't hesitate to tell
+me that! Whatever I have is yours, too--you know it."
+
+The Bishop looked deeply disgusted. "Muddlehead!" was his unexpected
+answer, and Fielding, serene in the consciousness of generosity and good
+feeling, looked as if a hose had been turned on him.
+
+"What the devil!" he said. "Excuse me, Jim, but just tell me what you're
+after. I can't make you out."
+
+"It's most difficult." The Bishop seemed to articulate with trouble.
+"It was so long ago, and I've never spoken of it." Fielding, mouth and
+eyes wide, watched him as he stumbled on. "There were three of us, you
+see--though, of course, you didn't know. Nobody knew. She told my
+mother, that was all.--Oh, I'd no idea how difficult this would be," and
+the Bishop pushed back his damp hair and gasped again. Suddenly a wave
+of color rushed over his face.
+
+"No one could help it, Dick," he said. "She was so lovely, so exquisite,
+so--"
+
+Fielding rose quickly and put his hand on his friend's forehead, "Jim,
+my dear boy," he said gravely, "this heat has been too much for you. Sit
+there quietly, while I get some ice. Here, let me loosen your collar,"
+and he put his fingers on the white clerical tie.
+
+Then the Bishop rose up in his wrath and shook him off, and his deep
+blue eyes flashed fire.
+
+"Let me alone," he said. "It is inexplicable to me how a man can be so
+dense. Haven't I explained to you in the plainest way what I have never
+told another soul? Is this the reward I am to have for making the
+greatest effort I have made for years?" And after a moment's steady,
+indignant glare at the speechless Fielding he turned and strode in angry
+majesty through the wide hall doorway.
+
+When he walked out of the same doorway an hour later, on his way to
+service, Fielding sat back in a shadowy corner and let him pass without
+a word. He watched critically the broad shoulders and athletic figure as
+his friend moved down the narrow walk--a body carefully trained to hold
+well and easily the trained mind within. But the careless energy that
+was used to radiate from the great elastic muscles seemed lacking
+to-day, and the erect head drooped. Fielding shook his own head as the
+Bishop turned the corner and went out of his view.
+
+"'_Mens sana in corpore sano_,'" he said aloud, and sighed. "He has
+worked too hard this summer. I never saw him like that. If he should--"
+and he stopped; then he rose, and looked at his watch and slowly
+followed the Bishop's steps.
+
+The little church of Saint Peter's-by-the-Sea was filled even on this
+hot July afternoon, to hear the famous Bishop, and in the half-light
+that fell through painted windows and lay like a dim violet veil against
+the gray walls, the congregation with summer gowns and flowery hats, had
+a billowy effect as of a wave tipped everywhere with foam. Fielding,
+sitting far back, saw only the white-robed Bishop, and hardly heard the
+words he said, through listening for the modulations of his voice. He
+was anxious for the man who was dear to him, and the service and its
+minister were secondary to-day. But gradually the calm, reverent,
+well-known tones reassured him, and he yielded to the pleasure of
+letting his thoughts be led, by the voice that stood to him for
+goodness, into the spirit of the words that are filled with the beauty
+of holiness. At last it was time for the sermon, and the Bishop towered
+in the low stone pulpit and turned half away from them all as he raised
+one arm high with a quick, sweeping gesture.
+
+"In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen!"
+he said, and was still.
+
+A shaft of yellow light fell through a memorial window and struck a
+golden bar against the white lawn of his surplice, and Fielding, staring
+at him with eyes of almost passionate devotion, thought suddenly of Sir
+Galahad, and of that "long beam" down which had "slid the Holy Grail."
+Surely the flame of that old vigorous Christianity had never burned
+higher or steadier. A marvellous life for this day, kept, like the
+flower of Knighthood, strong and beautiful and "unspotted from the
+world." Fielding sighed as he thought of his own life, full of good
+impulses, but crowded with mistakes, with worldliness, with lowered
+ideals, with yieldings to temptation. Then, with a pang, he thought
+about Dick, about the crisis for him that the next week must bring, and
+he heard again the Bishop's steady, uncompromising words as they talked
+on the piazza. And on a wave of selfish feeling rushed back the old
+excuses. "It is different. It is easy for him to be good. Dick is not
+his son. He has never been tempted like other men. He never hated
+Fairfax Preston--he never loved Eleanor Gray." And back somewhere in the
+dark places of his consciousness began to work a dim thought of his
+friend's puzzling words of that day: "No one could help loving her--she
+was so lovely--so exquisite!"
+
+The congregation rustled softly everywhere as the people settled
+themselves to listen--they listened always to him. And across the hush
+that followed came the Bishop's voice again, tranquilly breaking, not
+jarring, the silence. "Not disobedient to the heavenly vision," were the
+words he was saying, and Fielding dropped at once the thread of his own
+thought to listen.
+
+He spoke quickly, clearly, in short Anglo-Saxon words--the words that
+carry their message straightest to hearts red with Saxon blood--of the
+complex nature of every man--how the angel and the demon live in each
+and vary through all the shades of good and bad. How yet in each there
+is always the possibility of a highest and best that can be true for
+that personality only--a dream to be realized of the lovely life,
+blooming into its own flower of beauty, that God means each life to be.
+In his own rushing words he clothed the simple thought of the charge
+that each one has to keep his angel strong, the white wings free for
+higher flights that come with growth.
+
+"The vision," he said, "is born with each of us, and though we lose it
+again and again, yet again and again it comes back and beckons, calls,
+and the voice thrills us always. And we must follow, or lose the way.
+Through ice and flame we must follow. And no one may look across where
+another soul moves on a quick, straight path and think that the way is
+easier for the other. No one can see if the rocks are not cutting his
+friend's feet; no one can know what burning lands he has crossed to
+follow, to be so close to his angel, his messenger. Believe always that
+every other life has been more tempted, more tried than your own;
+believe that the lives higher and better than your own are so not
+through more ease, but more effort; that the lives lower than yours are
+so through less opportunity, more trial. Believe that your friend with
+peace in his heart has won it, not happened on it--that he has fought
+your very fight. So the mist will melt from your eyes and you will see
+clearer the vision of your life and the way it leads you; selfishness
+will fall from your shoulders and you will follow lightly. And at the
+end, and along the way you will have the glory of effort, the joy of
+fighting and winning, the beauty of the heights where only an ideal can
+take you."
+
+What more he said Fielding did not hear--for him one sentence had been
+the final word. The unlaid ghost of the Bishop's puzzling talk an hour
+before rose up and from its lips came, as if in full explanation, "He
+has fought your very fight." He sat in his shadowy, dark corner of the
+cool, little stone church, and while the congregation rose and knelt and
+sang and prayed, he was still. Piece by piece he fitted the mosaic of
+past and present, and each bit slipped faultlessly into place. There was
+no question in his mind now as to the fact, and his manliness and honor
+rushed to meet the situation. He had said that where his friend had gone
+he would go. If it was down the road of renunciation of a life-long
+enmity, he would not break his word. Complex problems resolve themselves
+at the point of action into such simple axioms. Dick should have a
+blessing and his sweetheart; he would do his best for Fairfax Preston;
+with his might he would keep his word. A great sigh and a wrench at his
+heart as if a physical growth of years were tearing away, and the
+decision was made. Then, in a mist of pain and effort, and a surprised
+new freedom from the accustomed pang of hatred, he heard the rustle and
+movement of a kneeling congregation, and, as he looked, the Bishop
+raised his arms. Fielding bent his gray head quickly in his hands, and
+over it, laden with "peace" and "the blessing of God Almighty," as if a
+general commended his soldier on the field of battle, swept the solemn
+words of the benediction.
+
+Peace touched the earth on the blue and white September day when Madge
+and Dick were married. Pearly piled-up clouds, white "herded elephants,"
+lay still against a sparkling sky, and the air was alive like cool wine,
+and breathing warm breaths of sunlight. No wedding was ever gayer or
+prettier, from the moment when the smiling holiday crowd in little Saint
+Peter's caught their breath at the first notes of "Lohengrin" and
+turned to see Eleanor, white-clad and solemn, and impressed with
+responsibility, lead the procession slowly up the aisle, her eyes raised
+to the Bishop's calm face in the chancel, to the moment when, in showers
+of rice and laughter and slippers, the Fielding carriage dashed down the
+driveway, and Dick, leaning out, caught for a last picture of his
+wedding-day, standing apart from the bright colors grouped on the lawn,
+the black and white of the Bishop and Eleanor, gazing after them, hand
+in hand.
+
+Bit by bit the brilliant kaleidoscopic effect fell apart and resolved
+itself into light groups against the dark foliage or flashing masses of
+carriages and people and horses, and then even the blurs on the distance
+were gone, and the place was still and the wedding was over. The long
+afternoon was before them, with its restless emptiness, as if the bride
+and groom had taken all the reason for life with them.
+
+There were bridesmaids and ushers staying at the Fieldings'. The
+graceful girl who poured out the Bishop's tea on the piazza, some hours
+later, and brought it to him with her own hands, stared a little at his
+face for a moment.
+
+"You look tired, Bishop. Is it hard work marrying people? But you must
+be used to it after all these years," and her blue eyes fell gently on
+his gray hair. "So many love-stories you have finished--so many, many!"
+she went on, and then quite softly, "and yet never to have a love-story
+of your own!"
+
+At this instant Eleanor, lolling on the arm of his chair, slipped over
+on his knee and burrowed against his coat a big pink bow that tied her
+hair. The Bishop's arm tightened around the warm, alive lump of white
+muslin, and he lifted his face, where lines showed plainly to-day, with
+a smile like sunshine.
+
+"You are wrong, my daughter. They never finish--they only begin here.
+And my love-story"--he hesitated and his big fingers spread over the
+child's head, "It is all written in Eleanor's eyes."
+
+"I hope when mine comes I shall have the luck to hear anything half as
+pretty as that. I envy Eleanor," said the graceful bridesmaid as she
+took the tea-cup again, but the Bishop did not hear her.
+
+[Illustration: "Many waters shall not wash out this love," said Eleanor]
+
+He had turned toward the sea and his eyes wandered out across the
+geraniums where the shadow of a sun-filled cloud lay over uncounted
+acres of unhurried waves. His face was against the little girl's bright
+head, and he said something softly to himself, and the child turned her
+face quickly and smiled at him and repeated the words:
+
+"Many waters shall not wash out love," said Eleanor.
+
+
+
+
+THE WITNESSES
+
+
+The old clergyman sighed and closed the volume of "Browne on The
+Thirty-nine Articles," and pushed it from him on the table. He could not
+tell what the words meant; he could not keep his mind tense enough to
+follow an argument of three sentences. It must be that he was very
+tired. He looked into the fire, which was burning badly, and about the
+bare, little, dusty study, and realized suddenly that he was tired all
+the way through, body and soul. And swiftly, by way of the leak which
+that admission made in the sea-wall of his courage, rushed in an ocean
+of depression. It had been a hard, bad day. Two people had given up
+their pews in the little church which needed so urgently every ounce of
+support that held it. And the junior warden, the one rich man of the
+parish, had come in before service in the afternoon to complain of the
+music. If that knife-edged soprano did not go, he said, he was afraid he
+should have to go himself; it was impossible to have his nerves scraped
+to the raw every Sunday.
+
+The old clergyman knew very little about music, but he remembered that
+his ear had been uncomfortably jarred by sounds from the choir, and that
+he had turned once and looked at them, and wondered if some one had made
+a mistake, and who it was. It must be, then, that dear Miss Barlow, who
+had sung so faithfully in St. John's for twenty-five years, was perhaps
+growing old. But how could he tell her so; how could he deal such a blow
+to her kind heart, her simple pride and interest in her work? He was
+growing old, too.
+
+His sensitive mouth carved downward as he stared into the smoldering
+fire, and let himself, for this one time out of many times he had
+resisted, face the facts. It was not Miss Barlow and the poor music; it
+was not that the church was badly heated, as one of the ex-pewholders
+had said, nor that it was badly situated, as another had claimed; it was
+something of deeper, wider significance, a broken foundation, that made
+the ugly, widening crack all through the height of the tower. It was
+his own inefficiency. The church was going steadily down, and he was
+powerless to lift it. His old enthusiasm, devotion, confidence--what had
+become of them? They seemed to have slipped by slow degrees, through the
+unsuccessful years, out of his soul, and in their place was a dull
+distrust of himself; almost--God forgive him--distrust in God's
+kindness. He had worked with his might all the years of his life, and
+what he had to show for it was a poor, lukewarm parish, a diminished
+congregation, debt--to put it in one dreadful word, failure!
+
+[Illustration: He stared into the smoldering fire.]
+
+By the pitiless searchlight of hopelessness, he saw himself for the
+first time as he was--surely devoted and sincere, but narrow, limited, a
+man lacking outward expression of inward and spiritual grace. He had
+never had the gift to win hearts. That had not troubled him much,
+earlier, but lately he had longed for a little appreciation, a little
+human love, some sign that he had not worked always in vain. He
+remembered the few times that people had stopped after service to praise
+his sermons, and to-night he remembered not so much the glow at his
+heart that the kind words had brought, as the fact that those times had
+been very few. He did not preach good sermons; he faced that now,
+unflinchingly. He was not broad minded; new thoughts were unattractive,
+hard for him to assimilate; he had championed always theories that were
+going out of fashion, and the half-consciousness of it put him ever on
+the defensive; when most he wished to be gentle, there was something in
+his manner which antagonized. As he looked back over his colorless,
+conscientious past, it seemed to him that his life was a failure. The
+souls he had reached, the work he had done with such infinite effort--it
+might all have been done better and easily by another man. He would not
+begrudge his strength and his years burned freely in the sacred fire, if
+he might know that the flame had shone even faintly in dark places, that
+the heat had warmed but a little the hearts of men. But--he smiled
+grimly at the logs in front of him, in the small, cheap, black marble
+fireplace--his influence was much like that, he thought, cold, dull,
+ugly with uncertain smoke. He, who was not worthy, had dared to
+consecrate himself to a high service, and it was his reasonable
+punishment that his life had been useless.
+
+Like a stab came back the thought of the junior warden, of the two more
+empty pews, and then the thought, in irresistible self-pity, of how hard
+he had tried, how well he had meant, how much he had given up, and he
+felt his eyes filling with a man's painful, bitter tears. There had been
+so little beauty, reward, in his whole past. Once, thirty years before,
+he had gone abroad for six weeks, and he remembered the trip with a
+thrill of wonder that anything so lovely could have come into his sombre
+life--the voyage, the bit of travel, the new countries, the old cities,
+the expansion, broadening of mind he had felt for a time as its result.
+More than all, the delight of the people whom he had met, the unused
+experience of being understood at once, of light touch and easy
+flexibility, possible, as he had not known before, with good and serious
+qualities. One man, above all, he had never forgotten. It had been a
+pleasant memory always to have known him, to have been friends with him
+even, for he had felt to his own surprise and joy that something in him
+attracted this man of men. He had followed the other's career, a career
+full of success unabused, of power grandly used, of responsibility
+lifted with a will. He stood over thousands and ruled rightly--a true
+prince among men. Somewhat too broad, too free in his thinking--the old
+clergyman deplored that fault--yet a man might not be perfect. It was
+pleasant to know that this strong and good soul was in the world and was
+happy; he had seen him once with his son, and the boy's fine, sensitive
+face, his honest eyes, and pretty deference of manner, his pride, too,
+in his distinguished father, were surely a guaranty of happiness. The
+old man felt a sudden generous gladness that if some lives must be
+wasted, yet some might be, like this man's whom he had once known, full
+of beauty and service. It would be good if he might add a drop to the
+cup of happiness which meant happiness to so many--and then he smiled at
+his foolish thought. That he should think of helping that other--a man
+of so little importance to help a man of so much! And suddenly again he
+felt tears that welled up hotly.
+
+He put his gray head, with its scanty, carefully brushed hair, back
+against the support of the worn armchair, and shut his eyes to keep them
+back. He would try not to be cowardly. Then, with the closing of the
+soul-windows, mental and physical fatigue brought their own gentle
+healing, and in the cold, little study, bare, even, of many books, with
+the fire smoldering cheerlessly before him, he fell asleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few miles away, in a suburb of the same great city, in a large library
+peopled with books, luxurious with pictures and soft-toned rugs and
+carved dark furniture, a man sat staring into the fire. The six-foot
+logs crackled and roared up the chimney, and the blaze lighted the wide,
+dignified room. From the high chimney-piece, that had been the feature
+of a great hall in Florence two centuries before, grotesque heads of
+black oak looked down with a gaze which seemed weighted with age-old
+wisdom and cynicism, at the man's sad face. The glow of the lamp,
+shining like a huge gray-green jewel, lighted unobtrusively the generous
+sweep of table at his right hand, and on it were books whose presence
+meant the thought of a scholar and the broad interests of a man of
+affairs. Each detail of the great room, if there had been an observer of
+its quiet perfection, had an importance of its own, yet each exquisite
+belonging fell swiftly into the dimness of the background of a picture
+when one saw the man who was the master. Among a thousand picked men,
+his face and figure would have been distinguished. People did not call
+him old, for the alertness and force of youth radiated from him, and his
+gray eyes were clear and his color fresh, yet the face was lined
+heavily, and the thick thatch of hair shone in the firelight silvery
+white. Face and figure were full of character and breeding, of life
+lived to its utmost, of will, responsibility, success. Yet to-night the
+spring of the mechanism seemed broken, and the noble head lay back
+against the brown leather of his deep chair as listlessly as a tired
+girl's. He watched the dry wood of the fire as it blazed and fell apart
+and blazed up brightly again, yet his eyes did not seem to see
+it--their absorbed gaze was inward.
+
+The distant door of the room swung open, but the man did not hear, and,
+his head and face clear cut like a cameo against the dark leather, hands
+stretched nervelessly along the arms of the chair, eyes gazing gloomily
+into the heart of the flame, he was still. A young man, brilliant with
+strength, yet with a worn air about him, and deep circles under his
+eyes, stood inside the room and looked at him a long minute--those two
+in the silence. The fire crackled cheerfully and the old man sighed.
+
+"Father!" said the young man by the door.
+
+In a second the whole pose changed, and he sat intense, staring, while
+the son came toward him and stood across the rug, against the dark wood
+of the Florentine fireplace, a picture of young manhood which any father
+would he proud to own.
+
+"Of course, I don't know if you want me, father," he said, "but I've
+come to tell you that I'll be a good boy, if you do."
+
+The gentle, half-joking manner was very winning, and the play of his
+words was trembling with earnest. The older man's face shone as if lamps
+were lighted behind his eyes.
+
+"If I want you, Ted!" he said, and held out his hand.
+
+With a quick step forward the lad caught it, and then, with quick
+impulsiveness, as if his childhood came back to him on the flood of
+feeling unashamed, bent down and kissed him. As he stood erect again he
+laughed a little, but the muscles of his face were working, and there
+were tears in his eyes. With a swift movement he had drawn a chair, and
+the two sat quiet a moment, looking at each other in deep and silent
+content to be there so, together.
+
+"Yesterday I thought I'd never see you again this way," said the boy;
+and his father only smiled at him, satisfied as yet without words. The
+son went on, his eager, stirred feelings crowding to his lips. "There
+isn't any question great enough, there isn't any quarrel big enough, to
+keep us apart, I think, father. I found that out this afternoon. When a
+chap has a father like you, who has given him a childhood and a youth
+like mine--" The young voice stopped, trembling. In a moment he had
+mastered himself. "I'll probably never be able to talk to you like this
+again, so I want to say it all now. I want to say that I know, beyond
+doubt, that you would never decide anything, as I would, on impulse, or
+prejudice, or from any motives but the highest. I know how well-balanced
+you are, and how firmly your reason holds your feelings. So it's a
+question between your judgment and mine--and I'm going to trust yours.
+You may know me better than I know myself, and anyway you're more to me
+than any career, though I did think--but we won't discuss it again. It
+would have been a tremendous risk, of course, and it shall be as you
+say. I found out this afternoon how much of my life you were," he
+repeated.
+
+The older man kept his eyes fixed on the dark, sensitive, glowing young
+face, as if they were thirsty for the sight. "What do you mean by
+finding it out this afternoon, Ted? Did anything happen to you?"
+
+The young fellow turned his eyes, that were still a bit wet with the
+tears, to his father's face, and they shone like brown stars. "It was a
+queer thing," he said, earnestly, "It was the sort of thing you read in
+stories--almost like," he hesitated, "like Providence, you know. I'll
+tell you about it; see if you don't think so. Two days ago, when I--when
+I left you, father--I caught a train to the city and went straight to
+the club, from habit, I suppose, and because I was too dazed and
+wretched to think. Of course, I found a grist of men there, and they
+wouldn't let me go. I told them I was ill, but they laughed at me. I
+don't remember just what I did, for I was in a bad dream, but I was
+about with them, and more men I knew kept turning up--I couldn't seem to
+escape my friends. Even if I stayed in my room, they hunted me up. So
+this morning I shifted to the Oriental, and shut myself up in my room
+there, and tried to think and plan. But I felt pretty rotten, and I
+couldn't see daylight, so I went down to lunch, and who should be at the
+next table but the Dangerfields, the whole outfit, just back from
+England and bursting with cheerfulness! They made me lunch with them,
+and it was ghastly to rattle along feeling as I did, but I got away as
+soon us I decently could--rather sooner, I think--and went for a walk,
+hoping the air would clear my head. I tramped miles--oh, a long time,
+but it seemed not to do any good; I felt deadlier and more hopeless than
+ever--I haven't been very comfortable fighting you," he stopped a
+minute, and his tired face turned to his father's with a smile of very
+winning gentleness.
+
+The father tried to speak, but, his voice caught harshly. Then, "We'll
+make it up, Ted," he said, and laid his hand on the boy's shoulder.
+
+The young fellow, as if that touch had silenced him, gazed into the fire
+thoughtfully, and the big room was very still for a long minute. Then he
+looked up brightly.
+
+"I want to tell you the rest. I came back from my tramp by the river
+drive, and suddenly I saw Griswold on his horse trotting up the
+bridle-path toward me. I drew the line at seeing any more men, and
+Griswold is the worst of the lot for wanting to do things, so I turned
+into a side-street and ran. I had an idea he had seen me, so when I
+came to a little church with the doors open, in the first half-block, I
+shot in. Being Lent, you know, there was service going on, and I dropped
+quietly into a seat at the back, and it came to me in a minute, that I
+was in fit shape to say my prayers, so--I said 'em. It quieted me a bit,
+the old words of the service. They're fine English, of course, and I
+think words get a hold on you when they're associated with every turn of
+your life. So I felt a little less like a wild beast, by the time the
+clergyman began his sermon. He was a pathetic old fellow, thin and
+ascetic and sad, with a narrow forehead and a little white hair, and an
+underfed look about him. The whole place seemed poor and badly kept. As
+he walked across the chancel, he stumbled on a hole in the carpet. I
+stared at him, and suddenly it struck me that he must be about your age,
+and it was like a knife in me, father, to see him trip. No two men were
+ever more of a contrast, but through that very fact he seemed to be
+standing there as a living message from you. So when he opened his mouth
+to give out his text I fell back as if he had struck me, for the words
+he said were, 'I will arise and go to my father.'"
+
+The boy's tones, in the press and rush of his little story, were
+dramatic, swift, and when he brought out its climax, the older man,
+though his tense muscles were still, drew a sudden breath, as if he,
+too, had felt a blow. But he said nothing, and the eager young voice
+went on.
+
+"The skies might have opened and the Lord's finger pointed at me, and I
+couldn't have felt more shocked. The sermon was mostly tommy-rot, you
+know--platitudes. You could see that the man wasn't clever--had no
+grasp--old-fashioned ideas--didn't seem to have read at all. There was
+really nothing in it, and after a few sentences I didn't listen
+particularly. But there were two things about it I shall never forget,
+never, if I live to a hundred. First, all through, at every tone of his
+voice, there was the thought that the brokenhearted look in the eyes of
+this man, such a contrast to you in every way possible, might be the
+very look in your eyes after a while, if I left you. I think I'm not
+vain to know I make a lot of difference to you, father--considering we
+two are all alone." There was a questioning inflection, but he smiled,
+as if he knew.
+
+"You make all the difference. You are the foundation of my life. All the
+rest counts for nothing beside you." The father's voice was slow and
+very quiet.
+
+"That thought haunted me," went on the young man, a bit unsteadily, "and
+the contrast of the old clergyman and you made it seem as if you were
+there beside me. It sounds unreasonable, but it was so. I looked at him,
+old, poor, unsuccessful, narrow-minded, with hardly even the dignity of
+age, and I couldn't help seeing a vision of you, every year of your life
+a glory to you, with your splendid mind, and splendid body, and all the
+power and honor and luxury that seem a natural background to you. Proud
+as I am of you, it seemed cruel, and then it came to my mind like a stab
+that perhaps without me, your only son, all of that would--well, what
+you said just now. Would count for nothing--that you would be
+practically, some day, just a lonely and pathetic old man like that
+other."
+
+The hand on the boy's shoulder stirred a little. "You thought right,
+Ted."
+
+"That was one impression the clergyman's sermon made, and the other was
+simply his beautiful goodness. It shone from him at every syllable,
+uninspired and uninteresting as they were. You couldn't help knowing
+that his soul was white as an angel's. Such sincerity, devotion, purity
+as his couldn't be mistaken. As I realized it, it transfigured the whole
+place. It made me feel that if that quality--just goodness--could so
+glorify all the defects of his look and mind and manner, it must be
+worth while, and I would like to have it. So I knew what was right in my
+heart--I think you can always know what's right if you want to know--and
+I just chucked my pride and my stubbornness into the street, and--and I
+caught the 7:35 train."
+
+The light of renunciation, the exhaustion of wrenching effort, the
+trembling triumph of hard-won victory, were in the boy's face, and the
+thought, as he looked at it, dear and familiar in every shadow, that he
+had never seen spirit shine through clay more transparently. Never in
+their lives had the two been as close, never had the son so unveiled his
+soul before. And, as he had said, in all probability never would it be
+again. To the depth where they stood words could not reach, and again
+for minutes, only the friendly undertone of the crackling fire stirred
+the silence of the great room. The sound brought steadiness to the two
+who sat there, the old hand on the young shoulder yet. After a time, the
+older man's low and strong tones, a little uneven, a little hard with
+the effort to be commonplace, which is the first readjustment from deep
+feeling, seemed to catch the music of the homely accompaniment of the
+fire.
+
+"It is a queer thing, Ted," he said, "but once, when I was not much
+older than you, just such an unexpected chance influence made a crisis
+in my life. I was crossing to England with the deliberate intention of
+doing something which I knew was wrong. I thought it meant happiness,
+but I know now it would have meant misery. On the boat was a young
+clergyman of about my own age making his first, very likely his only,
+trip abroad. I was thrown with him--we sat next each other at table, and
+our cabins faced--and something in the man attracted me, a quality such
+as you speak of in this other, of pure and uncommon goodness. He was
+much the same sort as your old man, I fancy, not particularly winning,
+rather narrow, rather limited in brains and in advantages, with a
+natural distrust of progress and breadth. We talked together often, and
+one day, I saw, by accident, into the depths of his soul, and knew what
+he had sacrificed to become a clergyman--it was what meant to him
+happiness and advancement in life. It had been a desperate effort, that
+was plain, but it was plain, too, that from the moment he saw what he
+thought was the right, there had been no hesitation in his mind. And I,
+with all my wider mental training, my greater breadth--as I looked at
+it--was going, with my eyes open, to do a wrong because I wished to do
+it. You and I must be built something alike, Ted, for a touch in the
+right spot seems to penetrate to the core of us--the one and the other.
+This man's simple and intense flame of right living, right doing, all
+unconsciously to himself, burned into me, and all that I had planned to
+do seemed scorched in that fire--turned to ashes and bitterness. Of
+course it was not so simple as it sounds. I went through a great deal.
+But the steady influence for good was beside me through that long
+passage--we were two weeks--the stronger because it was unconscious, the
+stronger, I think, too, that it rested on no intellectual basis, but was
+wholly and purely spiritual--as the confidence of a child might hold a
+man to his duty where the arguments of a sophist would have no effect.
+As I say, I went through a great deal. My mind was a battle-field for
+the powers of good and evil during those two weeks, but the man who was
+leading the forces of the right never knew it. The outcome was that as
+soon as I landed I took my passage back on the next boat, which sailed
+at once. Within a year, within a month almost, I knew that the decision
+I made then was a turning-point, that to have done otherwise would have
+meant ruin in more than one way. I tremble now to think how close I was
+to shipwreck. All that I am, all that I have, I owe more or less
+directly to that man's unknown influence. The measure of a life is its
+service. Much opportunity for that, much power has been in my hands, and
+I have tried to hold it humbly and reverently, remembering that time. I
+have thought of myself many times us merely the instrument, fitted to
+its special use, of that consecrated soul."
+
+The voice stopped, and the boy, his wide, shining eyes fixed on his
+father's face, drew a long breath. In a moment he spoke, and the father
+knew, as well as if he had said it, how little of his feeling he could
+put into words.
+
+"It makes you shiver, doesn't it," he said, "to think what effect you
+may be having on people, and never know it? Both you and I, father--our
+lives changed, saved--by the influence of two strangers, who hadn't
+the least idea what they were doing. It frightens you."
+
+"I think it makes you know," said the older man, slowly, "that not your
+least thought is unimportant; that the radiance of your character shines
+for good or evil where you go. Our thoughts, our influences, are like
+birds that fly from us as we walk along the road; one by one, we open
+our hands and loose them, and they are gone and forgotten, but surely
+there will be a day when they will come back on white wings or dark like
+a cloud of witnesses--"
+
+The man stopped, his voice died away softly, and he stared into the
+blaze with solemn eyes, as if he saw a vision. The boy, suddenly aware
+again of the strong hand on his shoulder, leaned against it lovingly,
+and the fire, talking unconcernedly on, was for a long time the only
+sound in the warmth and stillness and luxury of the great room which
+held two souls at peace.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At that hour, with the volume of Browne under his outstretched hand, his
+thin gray hair resting against the worn cloth of the chair, in the bare
+little study, the old clergyman slept. And as he slept, a wonderful
+dream came to him. He thought that he had gone from this familiar, hard
+world, and stood, in his old clothes, with his old discouraged soul, in
+the light of the infinitely glorious Presence, where he must surely
+stand at last. And the question was asked him, wordlessly, solemnly:
+
+"Child of mine, what have you made of the life given you?" And he looked
+down humbly at his shabby self, and answered:
+
+"Lord, nothing. My life is a failure. I worked all day in God's garden,
+and my plants were twisted and my roses never bloomed. For all my
+fighting, the weeds grew thicker. I could not learn to make the good
+things grow, I tried to work rightly, Lord, my Master, but I must have
+done it all wrong."
+
+And as he stood sorrowful, with no harvest sheaves to offer as witnesses
+for his toiling, suddenly back of him he heard a marvellous, many-toned,
+soft whirring, as of innumerable light wings, and over his head flew a
+countless crowd of silver-white birds, and floated in the air beyond.
+And as he gazed, surprised, at their loveliness, without speech again it
+was said to him:
+
+"My child, these are your witnesses. These are the thoughts and the
+influences which have gone from your mind to other minds through the
+years of your life." And they were all pure white.
+
+And it was borne in upon him, as if a bandage had been lifted from his
+eyes, that character was what mattered in the great end; that success,
+riches, environment, intellect, even, were but the tools the master gave
+into his servants' hands, and that the honesty of the work was all they
+must answer for. And again he lifted his eyes to the hovering white
+birds, and with a great thrill of joy it came to him that he had his
+offering, too, he had this lovely multitude for a gift to the Master;
+and, as if the thought had clothed him with glory, he saw his poor black
+clothes suddenly transfigured to shining garments, and, with a shock, he
+felt the rush of a long-forgotten feeling, the feeling of youth and
+strength, beating in a warm glow through his veins. With a sigh of deep
+happiness, the old man awoke.
+
+A log had fallen, and turning as it fell, the new surface had caught
+life from the half-dead ashes, and had blazed up brightly, and the
+warmth was penetrating gratefully through him. The old clergyman
+smiled, and held his thin hands to the flame as he gazed into the fire,
+but the wonder and awe of his dream were in his eyes.
+
+"My beautiful white birds!" he said, aloud, but softly. "Mine! They were
+out of sight, but they were there all the time. Surely the dream was
+sent from Heaven--surely the Lord means me to believe that my life has
+been of service after all." And as he still gazed, with rapt face, into
+his study fire, he whispered: "Angels came and ministered unto him."
+
+
+
+
+THE DIAMOND BROOCHES
+
+
+The room was filled with signs of breeding and cultivation; it was
+bare of the things which mean money. Books were everywhere; family
+portraits, gone brown with time, hung on the walls; a tall silver
+candlestick gleamed from a corner; there was the tarnished gold of
+carved Florentine frames, such as people bring still from Italy. But
+the furniture-covering was faded, the carpet had been turned, the
+place itself was the small parlor of a cheap apartment, and the
+wall-paper was atrocious. The least thoughtful, listening for a moment
+to that language which a room speaks of those who live in it, would
+have known this at once as the home of well-bred people who were very
+poor.
+
+So quiet it was that it seemed empty. If an observer had stood in the
+doorway, it might have been a minute before he saw that a man sat in
+front of the fireless hearth with his arms stretched before him on the
+table and his head fallen into them. For many minutes there was no
+sound, no stir of the man's nerveless pose; it might have been that he
+was asleep. Suddenly the characterless silence of the place was flooded
+with tragedy, for the man groaned, and a child would have known that the
+sound came from a torn soul. He lifted his face--a handsome, high-bred
+face, clever, a bit weak,--and tears were wet on his cheeks. He glanced
+about as if fearing to be seen as he wiped them away, and at the moment
+there was a light bustle, low voices down the hall. The young man sprang
+to his feet and stood alert as a step came toward him. He caught a sharp
+breath as another man, iron-gray, professional, stood in the doorway.
+
+"Doctor! You have made the examination--you think--" he flung at the
+newcomer, and the other answered with the cool incisive manner of one
+whose words weigh.
+
+"Mr. Newbold," he said, "when you came to my office this morning I told
+you my conjectures and my fear. I need not, therefore, go into details
+again. I am very sorry to have to say to you--" he stopped, and looked
+at the younger man kindly. "I wish I might make it easier, but it is
+better that I should tell you that your mother's condition is as I
+expected."
+
+Newbold gave way a step as if under a blow, and his color went gray. The
+doctor had seen souls laid bare before, yet he turned his eyes to the
+floor as the muscles pulled and strained in this young face. It seemed
+minutes that the two faced each other in the loaded silence, the doctor
+gazing gravely at the worn carpet, the other struggling for
+self-control. At last Newbold spoke, in the harsh tone which often comes
+first after great emotion.
+
+"You mean that there is--no hope?"
+
+And the doctor, relieved at the loosening of the tension, answered
+readily, glad to merge his humanity in his professional capacity: "No,
+Mr. Newbold; I do not mean just that. It is this bleak climate, the raw
+winds from the lake, which make it impossible for your mother to take
+the first step which might lead to recovery. There is, in fact--" he
+hesitated. "I may say that there is no hope for her cure while here. But
+if she is taken to a warm climate at once--at once--within two
+weeks--and kept there until summer, then, although I have not the gift
+of prophecy, yet I believe she would be in time a well woman. No
+medicine, can do it, but out-of-doors and warmth would do it--probably."
+
+He put out his hand with a smile. "I am indeed glad that I may temper
+judgment with mercy," he said. "Try the south, Mr. Newbold,--try
+Bermuda, for instance. The sea air and the warmth there might set your
+mother up marvellously." And as the young man stared at him
+unresponsively he gave a grasp to the hand he held, and turning, found
+his way out alone. He stumbled down the dark steps of the third-rate
+apartment-house and into his brougham, and as the rubber tires bowled
+him over the asphalt he communed with himself:
+
+"Queer about those Newbolds. Badly off, of course, to live in that
+place, yet they know what it means to call me in. There must be some
+money. I wonder if they have enough for a trip, poor souls. Bah! they
+must have--everybody has when it comes to life and death. They'll get it
+somehow--rich relations and all that. Burr Claflin is their cousin, I
+know. David Newbold himself was rich enough five years ago, when he made
+that unlucky gamble in stocks--which killed him, they say. Well--life is
+certainly hard." And the doctor turned his mind to a new pair of horses
+he had been looking at in the afternoon, with a comfortable sense of a
+wind-guard or so, at the least, between himself and the gales of
+adversity.
+
+In the little drawing-room, with its cheap paper and its old portraits,
+Randolph Newbold faced his sister with the news. He knew her courage,
+yet, even in the stress of his feeling, he wondered at it now; he felt
+almost a pang of jealousy when he saw her take the blow as he had not
+been able to take it.
+
+"It is a death-sentence," he said, brokenly. "We have not the money to
+send her south, and we cannot get it."
+
+Katherine Newbold's hands clenched. "We will get it," she said. "I don't
+know how just now, but we'll get it, Randolph. Mother's life shall not
+go for lack of a few hundred dollars. Oh, think--just think--six years
+ago it would have meant nothing. We went south every winter, and we
+were all well. It is too cruel! But we'll get the money--you'll see."
+
+"How?" the young man asked, bitterly. "The last jewel went so that we
+could have Dr. Renfrew. There's nothing here to sell--nobody would buy
+our ancestors," and he looked up mournfully at the painted figures on
+the wall. The very thought seemed an indignity to those stately
+personalities--the English judge in his wig, the colonial general in his
+buff-faced uniform, harbored for a century proudly among their own, now
+speculated upon as possible revenue. The girl put up a hand toward them
+as if deprecating her brother's words, and his voice went on: "You know
+the doctor practically told me this morning. I have had no hope all day,
+and all day I have lived in hell. I don't know how I did my work.
+To-night, coming home, I walked past Litterny's. The windows were
+lighted and filled with a gorgeous lot of stones--there were a dozen big
+diamond brooches. I stopped and looked at them, and thought how she used
+to wear such things, and how now her life was going for the value of
+one of them, and--you may be horrified, Katherine, but this is true: If
+I could have broken into that window and snatched some of that stuff,
+I'd have done it. Honesty and all I've been brought up to would have
+meant nothing--nothing. I'd do it now, in a second, if I could, to get
+the money to save my mother. God! The town is swimming in money, and I
+can't get a little to keep her alive!"
+
+The young man's eyes were wild with a passion of helplessness, but his
+sister gazed at him calmly, as if considering a question. From a room
+beyond came a painful cough, and the girl was on her feet.
+
+"She is awake; I must go to her. But I shall think--don't be hopeless,
+boy--I shall think of a way." And she was gone.
+
+Worn out with emotion, Randolph Newbold was sleeping a deep sleep that
+night. With a start he awoke, staring at a white figure with long, fair
+braids.
+
+"Randolph, it's I--Katherine. Don't be startled."
+
+"What's the matter? Is she worse?" He lifted himself anxiously,
+blinking sleep from his eyes.
+
+"No--oh no! She's sleeping well. It's just that I have to talk to you,
+Randolph. Now. I can't wait till morning--you'll understand when I tell
+you. I haven't been asleep at all; I've been thinking. I know now how we
+can get the money."
+
+"Katherine, are you raving?" the brother demanded; but the girl was not
+to be turned aside.
+
+"Listen to me," she said, and in her tone was the authority of the
+stronger personality, and the young man listened. She sat on the edge of
+his bed and held his hand as she talked, and through their lives neither
+might ever forget that midnight council.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The room had an air of having come in perfect and luxurious condition,
+fur-lined and jewel-clasped, as it were, from the hands of a good
+decorator, and of having stopped at that. The great triple lamp glowed
+green as if set with gigantic emeralds; and its soft light shone on a
+scheme of color full of charm for the eye. The stuffs, the woodwork,
+were of a delightful harmony, but it seemed that the books and the
+pictures were chosen to match them. The man talking, in the great carved
+armchair by the fire, fitted the place. His vigorous, pleasant face
+looked prosperous, and so kindly was his air that one might not cavil at
+a lack of subtler qualities. He drew a long breath as he brought out the
+last words of the story he was telling.
+
+"And that, Mr. North," he concluded, "is the way the firm of Litterny
+Brothers, the leading jewellers of this city, were done yesterday by a
+person or persons unknown, to the tune of five thousand dollars." His
+eyes turned from the blazing logs to his guest.
+
+The young man in his clerical dress stood as he listened, with eyes wide
+like a child's, fixed on the speaker. He stooped and picked up a poker
+and pushed the logs together as he answered. The deliberateness of the
+action would not have prepared one for the intensity of his words. "I
+never wanted to be a detective before," he said, "but I'd give a good
+deal to catch the man who did that. It was such planned rascality, such
+keen-witted scoundrelism, that it gives me a fierce desire to show him
+up. I'd like to teach the beggar that honesty can be as intelligent as
+knavery; that in spite of his strength of cunning, law and right are
+stronger. I wish I could catch him," and the brass poker gleamed in a
+savage flourish. "I'd have no mercy. The hungry wretch who steals meat,
+the ignorant sinner taught to sin from babyhood--I have infinite
+patience for such. But this thief spoke like a gentleman, and the maid
+said he was 'a pretty young man'--there's no excuse for him. He simply
+wanted money that wasn't his,--there's no excuse. It makes my blood boil
+to think of a clever rascal like that succeeding in his rascality." With
+that the intense manner had dropped from him as a garment, and he was
+smiling the gentlest, most whimsical smile at the older man. "You'll
+think, Mr. Litterny, that it's the loss of my new parish-house that's
+making me so ferocious, but, honestly, I'd forgotten all about it." And
+no one who heard him could doubt his sincerity. "I was thinking of the
+case from your point of view. As to the parish-house, it's a
+disappointment, but of course I know that a large loss like this must
+make a difference in a man's expenditures. You have been very good to
+St. John's already,--a great many times you have been good to us."
+
+"It's a disappointment to me as well," Litterny said. "Old St. John's of
+Newburyport has been dear to me many years. I was confirmed and married
+there--but _you_ know. Everything I could do for it has been a
+satisfaction. And I looked forward to giving this parish-house. In
+ordinary years a theft of five thousand dollars would not have prevented
+me, but there have been complications and large expenses of late, to
+which this loss is the last straw. I shall have to postpone the
+parish-house,--but it shall be only postponed, Mr. North, only
+postponed."
+
+The young rector answered quietly: "As I said before, Mr. Litterny, you
+have been most generous. We are grateful more than I know how to say."
+His manner was very winning, and the older man's kind face brightened.
+
+"The greatest luxury which money brings is to give it away. St. John's
+owes its thanks not to me, but to you, Mr. North. I have meant for some
+time to put into words my appreciation of your work there. In two years
+you have infused more life and earnestness into that sleepy parish than
+I thought possible. You've waked them up, put energy into them, and got
+it out of them. You've done wonders. It's right you should know that
+people think this of you, and that your work is valued."
+
+"I am glad," Norman North said, and the restraint of the words carried
+more than a speech.
+
+Mr. Litterny went on: "But there's such a thing as overdoing, young man,
+and you're shaving the edge of it. You're looking ill--poor color--thin
+as a rail. You need a rest."
+
+"I think I'll go to Bermuda. My senior warden was there last year, and
+he says it's a wonderful little place--full of flowers and tennis and
+sailing, and blue sea and nice people." He stood up suddenly and
+broadened his broad shoulders. "I love the south," he said. "And I love
+out-of-doors and using my muscles. It's good to think of whole days
+with no responsibility, and with exercise till my arms and legs ache. I
+get little exercise, and I miss it. I was on the track team at Yale, you
+see, and rather strong at tennis."
+
+Mr. Litterny smiled, and his smile was full of sympathy. "We try to make
+a stained-glass saint out of you," he said, "and all the time you're a
+human youngster with a human desire for a good time. A mere lad," he
+added, reflectively, and went on: "Go down to Bermuda with a light
+heart, my boy, and enjoy yourself,--it will do your church as much good
+as you. Play tennis and sail--fall in love if you find the right
+girl,--nothing makes a man over like that." North was putting out his
+hand. "And remember," Litterny added, "to keep an eye out for my thief.
+You're retained as assistant detective in the case."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On a bright, windy morning a steamship wound its careful way through the
+twisted water-road of Hamilton Harbor, Bermuda. Up from cabins mid
+corners poured figures unknown to the decks during the passage, and
+haggard faces brightened under the balmy breeze, and tired eyes smiled
+at the dark hills and snowy sands of the sliding shore. In a sheltered
+corner of the deck a woman lay back in a chair and drew in breaths of
+soft air, and a tall girl watched her.
+
+"You feel better already, don't you?" she demanded, and Mrs. Newbold put
+her hand into her daughter's.
+
+"It is Paradise," she said. "I am going to get well."
+
+In an hour the landing had been made, the custom-house passed; the gay,
+exhilarating little drive had been taken to the hotel, through white
+streets, past white-roofed houses buried in trees and flowers and vines;
+the sick woman lay quiet and happy on her bed, drawn to the open window,
+where the healing of the breeze touched her gently, and where her eyes
+dreamed over a fairy stretch of sea and islands. Katherine, moving about
+the room, unpacking, came to sit in a chair by her mother and talk to
+her for a moment.
+
+"To-morrow, if you're a good child, you shall go for a drive. Think--a
+drive in an enchanted island. It's Shakespeare's _Tempest_ island,--did
+I tell you I heard that on the boat? We might run across Caliban any
+minute, and I think at least we'll find 'M' and 'F', for Miranda and
+Ferdinand, cut into the bark of a tree somewhere. We'll go for a drive
+every day, every single day, till we find it. You'll see."
+
+Mrs. Newbold's eyes moved from the sea and rested, perplexed, on her
+daughter. "Katherine, how can we afford to drive every day? How can we
+be here at all? I don't understand it. I'm sure there was nothing left
+to sell except the land out west, and Mr. Seaton told us last spring
+that it was worthless. How did you and Randolph conjure up the money for
+this beautiful journey that is going to save my life?"
+
+The girl bent impulsively and kissed her with tender roughness. "It is
+going to do that--it is!" she cried, and her voice broke. Then: "Never
+mind how the money came, dear,--invalids mustn't be curious. It strains
+their nerves. Wait till you're well and perhaps you'll hear a tale about
+that land out west."
+
+Day after day slipped past in the lotus-eating land whose unreality
+makes it almost a change of planets from every-day America. Each day
+brought health with great rapidity, and soon each day brought new
+friends. Mrs. Newbold was full of charm, and the devotion between the
+ill mother and the blooming daughter was an attractive sight. Yet the
+girl was not light-hearted. Often the mother, waking in the night, heard
+a shivering sigh through the open door between their rooms; often she
+surprised a harassed look in the young eyes which, with all that the
+family had gone through, was new to them. But Katherine laughed at
+questions, and threw herself so gayly into the pleasures which came to
+her that Mrs. Newbold, too happy to be analytical, let the straws pass
+and the wind blow where it would.
+
+There came a balmy morning when the two were to take, with half a dozen
+others, the long drive to St. George's. The three carriage-loads set off
+in a pleasant hubbub from the white-paved courtyard of the hotel, and as
+Katherine settled her mother with much care and many rugs, her camera
+dropped under the wheels. Everybody was busy, nobody was looking, and
+she stooped and reached for it in vain. Then out of a blue sky a voice
+said:
+
+"I'll get it for you," She was pushed firmly aside and a figure in a
+blue coat was grovelling adventurously beneath the trap. It came out,
+straightened; she had her camera; she was staring up into a face which
+contemplated her, which startled her, so radiant, so everything
+desirable it seemed to her to be. The man's eyes considered her a moment
+as she thanked him, and then he had lifted his hat and was gone,
+running, like a boy in a hurry for a holiday, toward the white stone
+landing. An empty sail flopped big at the landing, and the girl stood
+and looked as he sprang in under it and took the rudder. Joe, the head
+porter, the familiar friend of every one, was stowing in a rug.
+
+"That gen'l'man's the Reverend Norman North,--he come by the _Trinidad_
+last Wednesday; he's sailin' to St. George's," Joe volunteered. "Don't
+look much like a reverend, do he?" And with that the carriage had
+started.
+
+Seeing the sights at St. George's, they came to the small old church,
+on its western side a huge flight of steps, capped with a meek doorway;
+on its eastern end a stone tower guarding statelily a flowery graveyard.
+The moment the girl stepped inside, the spell of the bright peace which
+filled the place caught her. The Sunday decorations were still there,
+and hundreds of lilies bloomed from the pillars; sunshine slanted
+through the simple stained glass and lay in colored patches on the
+floor; there were square pews of a bygone day; there was a pulpit with a
+winding stair; there were tablets on the walls to shipwrecked sailors,
+to governors and officers dead here in harness. The clumsy woodwork, the
+cheap carpets, the modest brasses, were in perfect order; there were
+marks everywhere of reverent care.
+
+"Let me stay," the girl begged. "I don't want to drive about. I want to
+stay in this place. I'll meet you at the hotel for lunch, if you'll
+leave me." And they left her.
+
+The verger had gone, and she was quite alone. Deep in the shadow of a
+gallery she slid to her knees and hid her face. "O God!" she
+whispered,--"O God, forgive me!" And again the words seemed torn from
+her--"O God, forgive me!"
+
+There were voices in the vestibule, but the girl in the stress of her
+prayer did not hear.
+
+"Deal not with us according to our sins, neither reward us according to
+our iniquities," she prayed, the accustomed words rushing to her want,
+and she was suddenly aware that two people stood in the church. One of
+them spoke.
+
+"Don't bother to stay with me," he said, and in the voice, it seemed,
+were the qualities that a man's speech should have--strength, certainty,
+the unteachable tone of gentle blood, and beyond these the note of
+personality, always indescribable, in this case carrying an appeal and
+an authority oddly combined. "Don't stay with me. I like to be alone
+here. I'm a clergyman, and I enjoy an old church like this. I'd like to
+be alone in it," and a bit of silver flashed.
+
+If the tip did it or the compelling voice, the verger murmured a word
+about luncheon, was gone, and the girl in her dim corner saw, as the
+other turned, that he was the rescuer of her camera, whose name was,
+Joe had said and she remembered, Norman North. She was about to move, to
+let herself be seen, when the young man knelt suddenly in the
+old-fashioned front pew, as a good child might kneel who had been taught
+the ways of his mother church, and bent his dark head. She waited
+quietly while this servant spoke to his Master. There was no sound in
+the silent, sun-lanced church, but outside one heard as from far away
+the noises of the village. Katherine's eyes rested on the bowed head,
+and she wondered uncertainly if she should let him know of her presence,
+or if it might not be better to slip out unnoticed, when in a moment he
+had risen and was swinging with a vigorous step up the little corkscrew
+stairway of the pulpit. There he stood, facing the silence, facing the
+flower-starred shadows, the empty spaces; facing her, but not seeing
+her. And the girl forgot herself and the question of her going as she
+saw the look in his face, the light which comes at times to those who
+give their lives to holiness, since the day when the people, gazing at
+Stephen, the martyr, "saw his face as it had been the face of an
+angel." When his voice floated out on the dim, sunny atmosphere it
+rested as lightly on the silence as if the notes of an organ rolled
+through its own place. He spoke a prayer of a service which, to those
+whose babyhood has been consecrated by it, whose childhood and youth
+have listened to its simple and stately words, whose manhood and
+womanhood have been carried over many a hard place by the lift of its
+familiar sentences,--he spoke a prayer of that service which is less
+dear only, to those bred in it, than the voices of their dearest. As a
+priest begins to speak to his congregation he began, and the hearer in
+the shadow of the gallery listened, awed:
+
+"The Lord is in His holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before
+Him."
+
+And in the little church was silence as if all the earth obeyed. The
+collect for the day came next, and a bit of jubilant Easter service, and
+then his mind seemed to drift back to the sentences with which the
+prayer-book opens.
+
+"This is the day which the Lord hath made," the ringing voice announced.
+"Let us rejoice and be glad in it." And then, stabbing into the girl's
+fevered conscience, "I acknowledge my transgressions, and my sin is ever
+before me." It was as if an inflexible judge spoke the words for her.
+"When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness, and doeth that
+which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive," the pure,
+stern tones went on.
+
+She was not turning away from wickedness; she did not mean to turn away;
+she would not do that which was lawful. The girl shivered. She could not
+hear this dreadful accusal from the very pulpit. She must leave this
+place. And with that the man, as if in a sudden passion of feeling, had
+tossed his right hand high above him; his head was thrown back; his eyes
+shone up into the shadows of the roof as if they would pierce material
+things and see Him who reigned; he was pleading as if for his life,
+pleading for his brothers, for human beings who sin and suffer.
+
+"O Lord," he prayed, "spare all those who confess their sins unto Thee,
+that they whose consciences by sin are accused, by Thy merciful pardon
+may be absolved; through Christ our Lord." And suddenly he was using the
+very words which had come to her of themselves a few minutes before.
+"Deal not with us according to our sins--deal not with us," he repeated,
+as if wresting forgiveness for his fellows from the Almighty. "Deal not
+with us according to our sins, neither reward us according to our
+iniquities." And while the echo of the words yet held the girl
+motionless he was gone.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down by the road which runs past the hotel, sunken ten feet below its
+level, are the tennis-courts, and soldiers in scarlet and khaki, and
+blue-jackets with floating ribbons, and negro bell-boys returning from
+errands, and white-gowned American women with flowery hats, and men in
+summer flannels stop as they pass, and sit on the low wall and watch the
+games. There is always a gallery for the tennis-players. But on a
+Tuesday morning about eleven o'clock the audience began to melt away in
+disgust. Without doubt they were having plenty of amusement among
+themselves, these tennis-players grouped at one side of the court and
+filling the air with explosions of laughter. But the amusement of the
+public was being neglected. Why in the world, being rubber-shod as to
+the foot and racqueted as to the hand, did they not play tennis? A girl
+in a short white dress, wearing white tennis-shoes and carrying a
+racquet, came tripping down the flight of stone steps, and stopped as
+she stood on the last landing and seemed to ask the same question. She
+came slowly across the empty court, looking with curiosity at the bunch
+of absorbed people, and presently she caught her breath. The man who was
+the centre of the group, who was making, apparently, the amusement, was
+the young clergyman, Norman North.
+
+There was an outburst, a chorus of: "You can't have that one, Mr.
+North!" "That's been used!" "That's Mr. Dennison's!"
+
+A tall English officer--a fine, manly mixture of big muscles and fresh
+color and khaki--looked up, saw the girl, and swung toward her. "Good
+morning, Miss Newbold. Come and join the fun. Devil of a fellow, that
+North,--they say he's a parson."
+
+"What is it? What are they laughing at?" Katherine demanded.
+
+"They're doing a Limerick tournament, which is what North calls the
+game. Mr. Gale is timekeeper. They're to see which recites most rhymes
+inside five minutes. The winner picks his court and plays with Miss
+Lee."
+
+Captain Comerford imparted this in jerky whispers, listening with one
+ear all the time to a sound which stirred Katherine, the voice which she
+had heard yesterday in the church at St. George's. The Englishman's
+spasmodic growl stopped, and she drifted a step nearer, listening. As
+she caught the words, her brows drew together with displeasure, with
+shocked surprise. The inspired saint of yesterday was reciting with
+earnestness, with every delicate inflection of his beautiful voice,
+these words:
+
+    "There was a young curate of Kidderminster,
+    Who kindly, but firmly, chid a spinster,
+        Because on the ice
+        She said something not nice
+    When he quite inadvertently slid ag'inst her."
+
+As the roar which followed this subsided, Katherine's face cleared.
+What right had she to make a pattern of solemn righteousness for this
+stranger and be insulted if he did not fit? Certainly he was
+saintly--she had seen his soul bared to her vision; but certainly he was
+human also, as this moment was demonstrating. It flashed over her
+vaguely to wonder which was the dominant quality--which would rule in a
+stress of temptation--the saintly side or the human? But at least he was
+human with a winning humanity. His mirth and his enjoyment of it were as
+spontaneous as a mischievous, bright child's, and it was easy to see
+that the charm of his remarkable voice attracted others as it had
+attracted her.
+
+    "There was a young fellow from Clyde,
+    Who was often at funerals espied--"
+
+he had begun, and with that, between her first shock and her swift
+recovery, with the contrast between the man of yesterday and the man of
+to-day, Katherine suddenly laughed aloud. North stopped short, and
+turned and looked at her, and for a second and their eyes met, and each
+read recognition and friendliness. The Limerick went on:
+
+      "When asked who was dead,
+       He nodded and said,
+    '_I_ don't know--_I_ just came for the ride.'"
+
+"Eleven for Mr. North--one-half minute more," called Mr. Gale, and
+instantly North was in the breach:
+
+    "A sore-hipped hippopotamus quite flustered
+    Objected to a poultice made of custard;
+      'Can't you doctor up my hip
+      With anything but flip?'
+    So they put upon the hip a pot o' mustard.'"
+
+And the half-minute was done and North had won, and there was clapping
+of hands for the victor, and at once, before the little uproar was over,
+Katherine saw him speak a word to Mr. Gale, and saw the latter, turning,
+stare about as if searching for some one, and, meeting her glance,
+smile.
+
+"I want to present Mr. North, Miss Newbold," Gale said.
+
+"Why did you laugh in the middle of my Limerick? Had you heard it?"
+North demanded, as if they had known each other a year instead of a
+minute.
+
+"No, I had not heard it." Katherine shook her head.
+
+"Then why did you laugh?"
+
+She looked at him reflectively. "I don't know you well enough to tell
+you that."
+
+"How soon will you know me well enough--if I do my best?"
+
+She considered. "About three weeks from yesterday."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Many things grow fast in southern climates--fruits, flowers, even
+friendship and love. Three weeks later, on a hot, bright morning of
+April, North and Katherine Newbold were walking down a road of Bermuda
+to the sea, and between them was what had ripened in the twenty-one days
+from a germ to a full-grown bud, ready to open at the lightest touch
+into flower. As they walked down such a road of a dream, the man talked
+to the girl as he had never talked to any one before. He spoke of his
+work and its hopes and disappointments, of the pathos, the tragedy, the
+comedy often of a way of life which leads by a deeper cut through men's
+hearts than any other, and he told her also, modestly indeed, and
+because he loved to tell her what meant much to him, of the joy of
+knowing himself successful in his parish. He went into details,
+absorbingly interesting to him, and this new luxury of speaking freely
+carried him away.
+
+"I hope I'm not boring you." His frank gaze turned on her anxiously. "I
+don't know what right I have to assume that the increase in the
+Sunday-school, or even the new brass pulpit, is a fascinating subject to
+you. I never did this before," he said, and there was something in his
+voice which hindered the girl from answering his glance. But there was
+no air of being bored about her, and he went on. "However, life isn't
+all good luck. I had a serious blow just before I came down here--a
+queer thing happened. I told you just now that all the large gifts to
+St. John's had come from one man--a former parishioner. The man was
+James Litterny, of the great firm of--Why, what's the matter--what is
+it?" For Katherine had stopped short, in her fast, swinging walk, and
+without a sound had swayed and caught at the wall as if to keep herself
+from falling. Before he could reach her she had straightened herself and
+was smiling.
+
+"I felt ill for a second--it's nothing,--let's go along."
+
+North made eager suggestions for her comfort, but the girl was firm in
+her assertion, that she was now quite well, so that, having no sisters
+and being ignorant that a healthy young woman does not, any more than a
+healthy young man, go white and stagger without reason, he yielded, and
+they walked briskly on.
+
+"You were telling me something that happened to you--something connected
+with Mr.--with the rich parishioner." Her tone was steady and casual,
+but looking at her, he saw that she was still pale.
+
+"Do you really want to hear my yarns? You're sure it isn't that which
+made you feel faint--because I talked so much?"
+
+"It's always an effort not to talk myself," she laughed up at him, yet
+with a strange look in her eyes. "All the same, talk a little more.
+Tell me what you began to tell about Mr. Litterny." The name came out
+full and strong.
+
+"Oh, that! Well, it's a story extraordinary enough for a book. I think
+it will interest you."
+
+"I think it will," Katherine agreed.
+
+"You see," he went on, "Mr. Litterny promised us a new parish-house, the
+best and largest practicable. It was to cost, with the lot, ten thousand
+dollars. It was to be begun this spring. Not long before I came to
+Bermuda, I had a note one morning from him, asking me to come to his
+house the next evening. I went, and he told me that the parish-house
+would have to be given up for the present, because the firm of Litterny
+Brothers had just met with a loss, through a most skilful and original
+robbery, of five thousand dollars."
+
+"A robbery?" the girl repeated. "Burglars, you mean?"
+
+"Something much more artistic than burglars. I told you this story was
+good enough for a book. It's been kept quiet because the detectives
+thought the chance better that way of hunting the thief to earth." (Why
+should she catch her breath?) "But I'm under no promise--I'm sure I may
+tell you. You're not likely to have any connection with the rascal."
+
+Katherine's step hung a little as if she shrank from the words, but she
+caught at a part of the sentence and repeated it, "'Hunting the thief to
+earth'--you say that as if you'd like to see it done."
+
+"I would like to see it done," said North, with slow emphasis. "Nothing
+has ever more roused my resentment. I suppose it's partly the loss of
+the parish-house, but, aside from that, it makes me rage to think of
+splendid old James Litterny, the biggest-hearted man I know, being done
+in that way. Why, he'd have helped the scoundrel in a minute if he'd
+gone to him instead of stealing from him. Usually my sympathies are with
+the sinner, but I believe if I caught this one I'd be merciless."
+
+"Would you mind sitting down here?" Katherine asked, in a voice which
+sounded hard. "I'm not ill, but I feel--tired. I want to sit here and
+listen to the story of that unprincipled thief and his wicked robbery."
+
+North was all solicitude in a moment, but the girl put him aside
+impatiently.
+
+"I'm quite right. Don't bother. I just want to be still while you talk.
+See what a good seat this is."
+
+Over the russet sand of the dunes the sea flashed a burning blue;
+storm-twisted cedars led a rutted road down to it; in the salt air the
+piny odor was sharp with sunlight. Katherine had dropped beneath one of
+the dwarfed trees, and leaning back, smiled dimly up at him with a
+stricken face which North did not understand.
+
+"You are ill," he said, anxiously. "You look ill. Please let me take
+care of you. There is a house back there--let me--" but she interrupted:
+
+"I'm not ill, and I won't be fussed over. I'm not exactly right, but I
+will be in a few minutes. The best thing for me is just to rest here and
+have you talk to me. Tell me that story you are so slow about."
+
+He took her at her word. Lying at full length at her feet--his head
+propped on a hillock so that he might look into her face, one of his
+hands against the hem of her white dress,--the shadows of the cedars
+swept back and forth across him, the south sea glittered beyond the
+sand-dunes, and he told the story.
+
+"Mr. Litterny was in his office in the early afternoon of February 18,"
+he began, "when a man called him up on the telephone. Mr. Litterny did
+not recognize the voice, but the man stated at once that he was Burr
+Claflin, whose name you may know. He is a rich broker, and a personal
+friend of both the Litternys. Voice is so uncertain a quantity over a
+telephone that it did not occur to Mr. Litterny to be suspicious on that
+point, and the conversation was absolutely in character otherwise. The
+talker used expressions and a manner of saying things which the jeweller
+knew to be characteristic of Claflin.
+
+"He told Mr. Litterny that he had just made a lucky hit in stocks, and
+'turned over a bunch of money,' as he put it, and that he wanted to make
+his wife a present. 'Now--this afternoon--this minute,' he said, which
+was just like Burr Claflin, who is an impetuous old chap. 'I want to
+give her a diamond brooch, and I want her to wear it out to dinner
+to-night,' he said. 'Can't you send two or three corkers up to the house
+for me?' That surprised Mr. Litterny and he hesitated, but finally said
+that he would do it. It was against the rules of the house, but as it
+was for Mr. Claflin he would do it. They had a little talk about the
+details, and Claflin arranged to call up his wife and tell her that the
+jewels would be there at four-thirty, so that she could look out for
+them personally. All that was the Litterny end of the affair. Simple
+enough, wasn't it?"
+
+Katherine's eyes were so intent, so brilliant, that Norman North went on
+with a pleased sense that he told the tale well:
+
+"Now begins the Claflin experience. At half past four a clerk from
+Litterny's left a package at the Claflin house in Cleveland Avenue,
+which was at once taken, as the man desired, to Mrs. Claflin. She opened
+it and found three very handsome diamond brooches, which astonished her
+extremely, as she knew nothing about them. However, it was not unusual
+for Claflin to give her jewelry, and he is, as I said, an impulsive man,
+so that unexpected presents had come once or twice before; and
+altogether, being much taken with the stones, she concluded simply that
+she would understand when her husband came home to dinner.
+
+"However, her hopes were dashed, for twenty minutes later, barely long
+enough for the clerk to have got back to the shop, she was called to the
+telephone by a message, said to be from Litterny's, and a most polite
+and apologetic person explained over the line that a mistake had been
+made; that the diamonds had been addressed and sent to her by an error
+of the shipping-clerk; that they were not intended for Mrs. Burr
+Claflin, but for Mrs. Bird Catlin, and that the change in name had been
+discovered on the messenger's return. Would Mrs. Claflin pardon the
+trouble caused, and would she be good enough to see that the package was
+given to their man, who would call for it in fifteen minutes? Now the
+Catlins, as you must know, are richer people even than the Claflins, so
+that the thing was absolutely plausible. Mrs. Claflin tied up the jewels
+herself, and entrusted them to her own maid, who has been with her for
+years, and this woman answered the door and gave the parcel into the
+hands of a man who said that he was sent from Litterny's for it. All
+that the maid could say of him was that he was 'a pretty young man, with
+a speech like a gentleman.' And that was the last that has been seen of
+the diamond brooches. Wasn't it simple? Didn't I tell you that this
+affair was an artistic one?" North demanded.
+
+Katherine Newbold drew a deep breath, and the story-teller, watching her
+face, saw that she was stirred with an emotion which he put down, with a
+slight surprise, to interest in his narrative.
+
+"Is there no clew to the--thief? Have they no idea at all? Haven't those
+wonderful detectives yet got on--his track?"
+
+North shook his head. "I had a letter by yesterday's boat from Mr.
+Litterny about another matter, and he spoke of this. He said the police
+were baffled--that he believed now that it could never be traced."
+
+"Thank God!" Katherine said, slowly and distinctly, and North stared in
+astonishment.
+
+"What?" His tone was incredulous.
+
+"Oh; don't take me so seriously," said the girl, impatiently. "It's only
+that I can't sympathize with your multimillionaire, who loses a little
+of his heaps of money, against some poor soul to whom that little may
+mean life or death--life or death, maybe, for his nearest and dearest.
+Mr. Litterny has had a small loss, which he won't feel in a year from
+now. The thief, the rascal, the scoundrel, as you call him so fluently,
+has escaped for now, perhaps, with his ill-gotten gains, but he is a
+hunted thing, living with a black terror of being found out--a terror
+which clutches him when he prays and when he dances. It's the thief I'm
+sorry for--I'm sorry for him--I'm sorry for him." Her voice was agitated
+and uneven beyond what seemed reasonable.
+
+"'The way of the transgressor is hard,'" Norman North said, slowly, and
+looked across the shifting sand-stretch to the inevitable sea, and
+spoke the words pitilessly, as if an inevitable law spoke through him.
+
+They cut into the girl's soul. A quick gasp of pain broke from her, and
+the man turned and saw her face and sprang to his feet.
+
+"Come," he said,--"come home," and held out his hands.
+
+She let him take hers, and he lifted her lightly, and did not let her
+hands go. For a second they stood, and into the silence a deep boom of
+the water against the beach thundered and died away. He drew the hands
+slowly toward him till he held them against him. There seemed not to be
+any need for words.
+
+Half an hour later, as they walked back through the sweet loneliness of
+Springfield Avenue, North said: "You've forgotten something. You've
+forgotten that this is the day you were to tell me why you had the bad
+manners to laugh at me before you knew me. Now that we are engaged it's
+your duty to tell me if I'm ridiculous."
+
+There was none of the responsive, soft laughter he expected. "We're not
+engaged--we can't be engaged," she threw back, impetuously, and as he
+looked at her there was suffering in her face.
+
+"What do you mean? You told me you loved me." His voice was full of its
+curious mixture of gentleness and sternness, and she shrank visibly from
+the sternness.
+
+"Don't be hard on me," she begged, like a frightened child, and he
+caught her hand with a quick exclamation. "I'll tell you--everything.
+Not only that little thing about my laughing, but--but more--everything.
+Why I cannot be engaged to you. I must tell you--I know it--but, oh! not
+to-day--not for a little while! Let me have this little time to be
+happy. You sail a week from to-day. I'll write it all for you, and you
+can read it on the way to New York. That will do--won't that do?" she
+pleaded.
+
+North took both her hands in a hard grasp and searched her face and her
+eyes--eyes clear and sweet, though filled with misery. "Yes, that will
+do," he said. "It's all nonsense that you can't be engaged to me. You
+are engaged to me, and you are going to marry me. If you love me--and
+you say you do,--there's nothing I'll let interfere. Nothing--absolutely
+nothing." There was little of the saint in his look now; it was filled
+with human love and masterful determination, and in his eyes smouldered
+a recklessness, a will to have his way, that was no angel, but all man.
+
+A week later Norman North sailed to New York, and in his pocket was a
+letter which was not to be read till Bermuda was out of sight. When the
+coral reef was passed, when the fairy blue of the island waters had
+changed to the dark swell of the Atlantic, he slipped the bolt in the
+door of his cabin and took out the letter.
+
+"I laughed because you were so wonderfully two men in one," it began, "I
+was in the church at St. George's the day when you sent the verger away
+and went into the pulpit and said parts of the service. I could not tell
+you this before because it came so close to the other thing which I must
+tell you now; because I sat trembling before you that day, hidden in the
+shadow of a gallery, knowing myself a criminal, while you stood above me
+like a pitiless judge and rolled out sentences that were bolts of fire
+emptied on my soul. The next morning I heard you reciting Limericks. Are
+you surprised that I laughed when the contrast struck me? Even then I
+wondered which was the real of you, the saint or the man,--which would
+win if it came to a desperate fight. The fight is coming, Norman.
+
+"That's all a preamble. Here is what you must know: I am the thief who
+stole Mr. Litterny's diamonds."
+
+The letter fell, and the man caught at it as it fell. His hand shook,
+but he laughed aloud.
+
+"It is a joke," he said, in a queer, dry voice. "A wretched joke. How
+can she?" And he read on:
+
+"You won't believe this at first; you will think I am making a poor
+joke; but you will have to believe it in the end. I will try to put the
+case before you as an outside person would put it, without softening or
+condoning. My mother was very ill; the specialist, to pay whom we had
+sold her last jewel, said that she would die if she were not taken
+south; we had no money to take her south. That night my brother lost
+his self-control and raved about breaking into a shop and stealing
+diamonds, to get money to save her life. That put the thought into my
+mind, and I made a plan. Randolph, my brother, is a clever amateur
+actor, and the rich Burr Claflin is our distant cousin. We both know him
+fairly well, and it was easy enough for Randolph to copy his mannerisms.
+We knew also, of course, more or less, his way of living, and that it
+would not be out of drawing that he should send up diamonds to his wife
+unexpectedly. I planned it all, and I made Randolph do it. I have always
+been able to influence him to what I pleased. The sin is all mine, not
+his. We had been selling my mother's jewels little by little for several
+years, so we had no difficulty in getting rid of the stones, which
+Randolph took from their settings and sold to different dealers. My
+mother knows nothing of where the money came from. We are living in
+Bermuda now, in comfort and luxury, I as well as she, on the profits of
+my thievery. I am not sorry. It has wrecked life, perhaps eternity, for
+me, but I would do it again to save my mother.
+
+"I put this confession into your hands to do with, as far as I am
+concerned, what you like. If the saint in you believes that I ought to
+be sent to jail, take this to Mr. Litterny and have him send me to
+jail. But you shan't touch Randolph--you are not free there. It was I
+who did it--he was my tool,--any one will tell you I have the stronger
+will. You shall not hurt Randolph--that is barred.
+
+"You see now why I couldn't be engaged to you--you wouldn't want to
+marry a thief, would you, Norman? I can never make restitution, you
+know, for the money will be mostly gone before we get home, and there is
+no more to come. You could not, either, for you said that you had little
+beyond your salary. We could never make it good to Mr. Litterny, even if
+you wanted to marry me after this. Mr. Litterny is your best friend; you
+are bound to him by a thousand ties of gratitude and affection. You
+can't marry a thief who has robbed him of five thousand dollars, and
+never tell him, and go on taking his gifts. That is the way the saint
+will look at it--the saint who thundered awful warnings at me in the
+little church at St. George's. But even that day there was something
+gentler than the dreadful holiness of you. Do you remember how you
+pleaded, begged as if of your father, for your brothers and sisters?
+'Deal not with us according to our sins, neither reward us according to
+our iniquities,' you said. Do you remember? As you said that to God, I
+say it to you, I love you. I leave my fate at your mercy. But don't
+forget that you yourself begged that, with your hands stretched out to
+heaven, as I stretch my hands to you, Norman, Norman--'Deal not with me
+according to my sins, neither reward me according to my iniquities.'"
+
+The noises of a ship moving across a quiet ocean went on steadily. Many
+feet tramped back and forth on the deck, and cheerful voices and
+laughter floated through the skylight, and down below a man knelt in a
+narrow cabin with his head buried in his arms, motionless.
+
+
+
+
+CROWNED WITH GLORY AND HONOR
+
+
+Mists blew about the mountains across the river, and over West Point
+hung a raw fog. Some of the officers who stood with bared heads by the
+heap of earth and the hole in the ground shivered a little. The young
+Chaplain read, solemnly, the solemn and grand words of the service, and
+the evenness of his voice was unnatural enough to show deep feeling. He
+remembered how, a year before, he had seen the hero of this scene
+playing football on just such a day, tumbling about and shouting, his
+hair wild and matted and his face filled with fresh color. Such a mere
+boy he was, concerned over the question as to where he could hide his
+contraband dress boots, excited by an invitation to dine out Saturday
+night. The dear young chap! There were tears in the Chaplain's eyes as
+he thought of little courtesies to himself, of little generosities to
+other cadets, of a manly and honest heart shown everywhere that
+character may show in the guarded life of the nation's schoolboys.
+
+The sympathetic, ringing voice stopped, and he watched the quick,
+dreadful, necessary work of the men at the grave, and then his sad eyes
+wandered pitifully over the rows of boyish faces where the cadets stood.
+Just such a child as those, thought the Chaplain--himself but a few
+years older--no history; no life, as we know life; no love, and what was
+life without--you may see that the Chaplain was young; the poor boy was
+taken from these quiet ways and sent direct on the fire-lit stage of
+history, and in the turn, behold! he was a hero. The white-robed
+Chaplain thrilled and his dark eyes flashed. He seemed to see that day;
+he would give half his life to have seen it--this boy had given all of
+his. The boy was wounded early, and as the bullets poured death down the
+hill he crept up it, on hands and knees, leading his men. The strong
+life in him lasted till he reached the top, and then the last of it
+pulled him to his feet and he stood and waved and cheered--and fell. But
+he went up San Juan Hill. After all, he lived. He missed fifty years,
+perhaps, but he had Santiago. The flag wrapped him, he was the honored
+dead of the nation. God keep him! The Chaplain turned with a swing and
+raised his prayer-book to read the committal. The long black box--the
+boy was very tall--was being lowered gently, tenderly. Suddenly the
+heroic vision of Santiago vanished and he seemed to see again the
+rumpled head and the alert, eager, rosy face of the boy playing
+football--the head that lay there! An iron grip caught his throat, and
+if a sound had come it would have been a sob. Poor little boy! Poor
+little hero! To exchange all life's sweetness for that fiery glory! Not
+to have known the meaning of living--of loving--of being loved!
+
+The beautiful, tender voice rang out again so that each one heard it to
+the farthest limit of the great crowd--"We therefore commit his body to
+the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; looking for
+the general resurrection in the last day, and the life of the world to
+come."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later the boy's mother sat in her room at the hotel and opened
+a tin box of letters, found with his traps, and given her with the rest.
+She had planned it for this time and had left the box unopened.
+To-morrow she must take up life and try to carry it, with the boy gone,
+but to-day she must and would be what is called morbid. She looked over
+the bend in the river to the white-dotted cemetery--she could tell where
+lay the new mound, flower-covered, above his yellow head. She looked
+away quickly and bent over the box in her lap and turned the key. Her
+own handwriting met her eyes first; all her letters for six months back
+were there, scattered loosely about the box. She gathered them up,
+slipping them through her fingers to be sure of the writing. Letter
+after letter, all hers.
+
+"They were his love-letters," she said to herself. "He never had any
+others, dear little boy--my dear little boy!"
+
+Underneath were more letters, a package first; quite a lot of them,
+thirty, fifty--it was hard to guess--held together by a rubber strap.
+The strap broke as she drew out the first envelope and they fell all
+about her, some on the floor, but she did not notice it, for the address
+was in a feminine writing that had a vague familiarity. She stopped a
+moment, with the envelope in one hand and the fingers of the other hand
+on the folded paper inside. It felt like a dishonorable thing to
+do--like prying into the boy's secrets, forcing his confidence; and she
+had never done that. Yet some one must know whether these papers of his
+should be burned or kept, and who was there but herself? She drew out
+the letter. It began "My dearest." The boy's mother stopped short and
+drew a trembling breath, with a sharp, jealous pain. She had not known.
+Then she lifted her head and saw the dots of white on the green earth
+across the bay and her heart grew soft for that other woman to whom he
+had been "dearest" too, who must suffer this sorrow of losing him too.
+But she could not read her letters, she must send them, take them to
+her, and tell her that his mother had held them sacred. She turned to
+the signature.
+
+"And so you must believe, darling, that I am and always will
+be--always, always, with love and kisses, your own dear, little 'Good
+Queen Bess.'"
+
+It was not the sort of an ending to a letter she would have expected
+from the girl he loved, for the boy, though most undemonstrative, had
+been intense and taken his affections seriously always. But one can
+never tell, and the girl was probably quite young. But who was she? The
+signature gave no clew; the date was two years before, and from New
+York--sufficiently vague! She would have to read until she found the
+thread, and as she read the wonder grew that so flimsy a personality
+could have held her boy. One letter, two, three, six, and yet no sign to
+identify the writer. She wrote first from New York on the point of
+starting for a long stay abroad, and the other letters were all from
+different places on the other side. Once in awhile a familiar name
+cropped up, but never to give any clew. There were plenty of people whom
+she called by their Christian names, but that helped nothing. And often
+she referred to their engagement--to their marriage to come. It was hard
+for the boy's mother, who believed she had had his confidence. But
+there was one letter from Vienna that made her lighter-hearted as to
+that.
+
+"My dear sweet darling," it began, "I haven't written you very often
+from here, but then I don't believe you know the difference, for you
+never scold at all, even if I'm ever so long in writing. And as for you,
+you rascal, you write less and less, and shorter and shorter. If I
+didn't know for certain--but then, of course, you love me? Don't you,
+you dearest boy? Of course you do, and who wouldn't? Now don't think I'm
+really so conceited as that, for I only mean it in joke, but in earnest,
+I might think it if I let myself, for they make such a fuss over me
+here--you never saw anything like it! The Prince von H---- told Mamma
+yesterday I was the prettiest girl who had been here in ten years--what
+do you think of that, sir? The officers are as thick as bees wherever I
+go, and I ride with them and dance with them and am having just the
+loveliest time! You don't mind that, do you, darling, even if we are
+engaged? Oh, about telling your mother--no, sir, you just cannot! You've
+begged me all along to do that, but you might as well stop, for I
+won't. You write more about that than anything else, it seems to me, and
+I'll believe soon you are more in love with your mother than with me. So
+take care! Remember, you promised that night at the hop at West
+Point--what centuries ago it seems, and it was a year and a half!--that
+you would not tell a living soul, not even your mother, until I said so.
+You see, it might get out and--oh, what's the use of fussing? It might
+spoil all my good time, and though I'm just as devoted as ever, and as
+much in love, you big, handsome thing--yes, just exactly!--still, I want
+to have a good time. Why shouldn't I? As the Prince would say, I'm
+pretty enough--but that's nonsense, of course."
+
+The letter was signed like all the others "Good Queen Bess," a foolish
+enough name for a girl to call herself, the boy's mother thought, a
+touch contemptuously. She sat several minutes with that letter in her
+hand.
+
+"I'll believe soon that you are more in love with your mother than you
+are with me"--that soothed the sore spot in her heart wonderfully.
+Wasn't it so, perhaps. It seemed to her that the boy had fallen into
+this affair suddenly, impulsively, without realizing its meaning, and
+that his loyalty had held him fast, after the glamour was gone. And
+perhaps the girl, too. For the boy had much besides himself, and there
+were girls who might think of that.
+
+The next letter went far to confirm this theory.
+
+"Of course I don't want to break our engagement," the girl wrote. "What
+makes you ask such a question? I fully expect to marry you some day, of
+course, when I have had my little 'fling,' and I should just go crazy if
+I thought you didn't love me as much as always. You would if you saw me,
+for they all say I'm prettier than ever. You don't want to break the
+engagement, do you? Please, please, don't say so, for I couldn't bear
+it."
+
+And in the next few lines she mentioned herself by name. It was a
+well-known name to the boy's mother, that of the daughter of a cousin
+with whom she had never been over-intimate. She had had notes from the
+girl a few times, once or twice from abroad, which accounted for the
+familiarity of the writing. So she gathered the letters together, the
+last one dated only a month before, and put them one side to send back.
+
+"She will soon get over it," she said, and sighed as she turned to the
+papers still left in the bottom of the box. There were only a few, a
+thin packet of six or eight, and one lying separate. She slipped the
+rubber band from the packet and looked hard at the irregular, strong
+writing, woman's or man's, it was hard to say which. Then she spread out
+the envelopes and took them in order by the postmarks. The first was a
+little note, thanking him for a book, a few lines of clever nothing
+signed by a woman's name which she had never heard.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"My dear Mr. ----," it ran. "Indeed you did get ahead of 'all the others'
+in sending me 'The Gentleman from Indiana,' So far ahead that the next
+man in the procession is not even in sight yet. I hate to tell you that,
+but honesty demands it. I have taken just one sidewise peep at 'The
+Gentleman'--and like his looks immensely--but to-morrow night I am
+going to pretend I have a headache and stay home from the concert where
+the family are going, and turn cannibal and devour him. I hope nothing
+will interrupt me. Unless--I wonder if you are conceited enough to
+imagine what is one of the very few things I would like to have
+interrupt me? After that bit of boldness I think I must stop writing to
+you. I mean it just the same. And thanking you a thousand times again, I
+am,
+
+                                     "Sincerely yours."
+
+There were four or five more of this sort, sometimes only a day or two,
+sometimes a month apart; always with some definite reason for the
+writing, flowers or books to thank him for, a walk to arrange, an
+invitation to dinner. Charming, bright, friendly notes, with the happy
+atmosphere of a perfect understanding between them, of mutual interests
+and common enthusiasms.
+
+"She was very different from the other," the boy's mother sighed, as she
+took up an unread letter--there were but two more. There was no harm in
+reading such letters as these, she thought with relief, and noticed as
+she drew the paper from the envelope that the postmark was two months
+later.
+
+"You want me to write once that I love you"--that is the way it began.
+
+The woman who read dropped it suddenly as if it had burned her. Was it
+possible? Her light-hearted boy, whose short life she had been so sure
+had held nothing but a boy's, almost a child's, joys and sorrows! The
+other affair was surprise enough, and a sad surprise, yet after all it
+had not touched him deeply, she felt certain of that; but this was
+another question. She knew instinctively that if love had grown from
+such a solid foundation as this sweet and happy and reasonable
+friendship with this girl, whose warm heart and deep soul shone through
+her clear and simple words, it would be a different love from anything
+that other poor, flimsy child could inspire. "L'amitie, c'est l'amour
+sans ailes." But sometimes when men and women have let the quiet, safe
+god Friendship fold his arms gently around them, he spreads suddenly a
+pair of sinning wings and carries them off--to heaven--wherever he
+wills it, and only then they see that he is not Friendship, but Love.
+
+She picked up the letter again and read on:
+
+"You want me to write once that I love you, so that you may read it with
+your eyes, if you may not hear it with your ears. Is that it--is that
+what you want, dear? Which question is a foolish sort of way for me to
+waste several drops of ink, considering that your letter is open before
+me. And your picture just back of it, your brown eyes looking over the
+edge so eagerly, so actually alive that it seems very foolish to be
+making signs to you on paper at all. How much simpler just to say half a
+word and then--then! Only we two can fill up that dash, but we can fill
+it full, can't we? However, I'm not doing what you want, and--will you
+not tell yourself, if I tell you something? To do what you want is just
+the one thing on earth I like most to do. I think you have magnetized me
+into a jelly-fish, for at times I seem to have no will at all. I believe
+if you asked me to do the Chinese kotow, and bend to the earth before
+you, I'd secretly be dying to do it. But I wouldn't, you know, I
+promise you that. I give you credit for liking a live woman, with a will
+of her own, better than a jelly-fish. And anyway I wouldn't--if you
+liked me for it or not--so you see it's no use urging me. And still I
+haven't done what you want--what was it now? Oh, to tell you that--but
+the words frighten me, they are so big. That I--I--I--love you. Is it
+that? I haven't said it yet, remember. I'm only asking a question. Do
+you know I have an objection to sitting here in cold blood and writing
+that down in cold ink? If it were only a little dark now, and your
+shoulder--and I could hide my head--you can't get off for a minute? Ah,
+I am scribbling along light-heartedly, when all the time the sword of
+Damocles is hanging over us both, when my next letter may have to be
+good-by for always. If that fate comes you will find me steady to stand
+by you, to help you. I will say those three little words, so little and
+so big, to you once again, and then I will live them by giving up what
+is dearest to me--that's you, dear--that your 'conduct' may not be
+'unbecoming an officer and a gentleman.' You must keep your word. If
+the worst comes, will you always remember that as an American woman's
+patriotism. There could be none truer. I could send you marching off to
+Cuba--and how about that, is it war surely?--with a light heart, knowing
+that you were giving yourself for a holy cause and going to honor and
+fame, though perhaps, dear, to a soldier's death. And I would pray for
+you and remember your splendid strength, and think always of seeing you
+march home again, and then only your mother could be more proud than I.
+That would be easy, in comparison. Write me about the war--but, of
+course, you would not be sent.
+
+"Now here is the very end of my letter, and I haven't yet said it--what
+you wanted. But here it Is, bend your head, from away up there, and
+listen. Now--do you hear--I love you. Good-by, good-by, I love you."
+
+The papers rustled softly in the silent room, and the boy's mother, as
+she put the letter back, kissed it, and it was as if ghostly lips
+touched hers, for the boy had kissed those words, she knew.
+
+The next was only a note, written just before his sailing to Cuba.
+
+"A fair voyage and a short one, a good fight and a quick one," the note
+said. "It is my country as well as yours you are going to fight for, and
+I give you with all my heart. All of it will be with you and all my
+thoughts, too, every minute of every day, so you need never wonder if
+I'm thinking of you. And soon the Spaniards will be beaten and you'll be
+coming home again 'crowned with glory and honor,' and the bands will
+play fighting music, and the flag will be flying over you, for you, and
+in all proud America there will be no prouder soul than I--unless it is
+your mother. Good-by, good-by--God be with you, my very dearest."
+
+He had come home "crowned with glory and honor." And the bands had
+played martial music for him. But his horse stood riderless by his
+grave, and the empty cavalry boots hung, top down, from the saddle.
+
+Loose in the bottom of the box lay a folded sheet of paper, and, hidden
+under it, an envelope, the face side down. When the boy's mother opened
+the paper, it was his own crabbed, uneven writing that met her eye.
+
+"They say there will be a fight to-morrow," he wrote, "and we're likely
+to be in it. If I come out right, you will not see this, and I hope I
+shall, for the world is sweet with you in it. But if I'm hit, then this
+will go to you. I'm leaving a line for my mother and will enclose this
+and ask her to send it to you. You must find her and be good to her, if
+that happens. I want you to know that if I die, my last thought will
+have been of you, and if I have the chance to do anything worth while,
+it will be for your sake. I could die happy if I might do even a small
+thing that would make you proud of me."
+
+The sorrowful woman drew a long, shivering breath as she thought of the
+magnificent courage of that painful passing up San Juan Hill, wounded,
+crawling on, with a pluck that the shades of death could not dim. Would
+she be proud of him?
+
+The line for herself he had never written. There was only the empty
+envelope lying alone in the box. She turned it in her hand and saw it
+was addressed to the girl to whom he had been engaged. Slowly it dawned
+on her that to every appearance this envelope belonged to the letter she
+had just read, his letter of the night before the battle. She recoiled
+at the thought--those last sacred words of his, to go to that
+empty-souled girl! All that she would find in them would be a little
+fuel for her vanity, while the other--she put her fingers on the
+irregular, back writing, and felt as if a strong young hand held hers
+again. She would understand, that other; she had thought of his mother
+in the stress of her own strongest feeling; she had loved him for
+himself, not for vanity. This letter was hers, the mother knew it. And
+yet the envelope, with the other address, had lain just under it, and
+she had been his promised wife. She could not face her boy in heaven if
+this last earthly wish of his should go wrong through her. How could she
+read the boy's mind now? What was right to do?
+
+The twilight fell over Crow Nest, and over the river and the heaped-up
+mountains that lie about West Point, and in the quiet room the boy's
+mother sat perplexed, uncertain, his letter in her hands; yet with a
+vague sense of coming comfort in her heart as she thought of the girl
+who would surely "find her and be good to her," But across the water, on
+the hillside, the boy lay quiet.
+
+
+
+
+A MESSENGER
+
+
+    How oft do they their silver bowers leave,
+    To come to succour us that succour want!
+    How oft do they with golden pineons cleave
+    The flitting skyes, like flying Pursuivant,
+    Against fowle feendes to ayd us militant!
+    They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward,
+    And their bright Squadrons round about us plant;
+    And all for love, and nothing for reward.
+    O! Why should heavenly God to men have such
+    regard?
+
+    --_Spenser's "Faerie Queene."_
+
+
+That the other world of our hope rests on no distant, shining star, but
+lies about us as an atmosphere, unseen yet near, is the belief of many.
+The veil of material life shades earthly eyes, they say, from the
+glories in which we ever are. But sometimes when the veil wears thin in
+mortal stress, or is caught away by a rushing, mighty wind of
+inspiration, the trembling human soul, so bared, so purified, may look
+down unimagined heavenly vistas, and messengers may steal across the
+shifting boundary, breathing hope and the air of a brighter world. And
+of him who speaks his vision, men say "He is mad," or "He has dreamed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The group of officers in the tent was silent for a long half minute
+after Colonel Wilson's voice had stopped. Then the General spoke.
+
+"There is but one thing to do," he said. "We must get word to Captain
+Thornton at once."
+
+The Colonel thought deeply a moment, and glanced at the orderly outside
+the tent. "Flannigan!" The man, wheeling swiftly, saluted. "Present my
+compliments to Lieutenant Morgan and say that I should like to see him
+here at once," and the soldier went off, with the quick military
+precision in which there is no haste and no delay.
+
+"You have some fine, powerful young officers, Colonel," said the General
+casually. "I suppose we shall see in Lieutenant Morgan one of the best.
+It will take strength and brains both, perhaps, for this message."
+
+A shadow of a smile touched the Colonel's lips. "I think I have chosen
+a capable man, General," was all he said.
+
+Against the doorway of the tent the breeze blew the flap lazily back and
+forth. A light rain fell with muffled gentle insistence on the canvas
+over their heads, and out through the opening the landscape was
+blurred--the wide stretch of monotonous, billowy prairie, the sluggish,
+shining river, bending in the distance about the base of Black Wind
+Mountain--Black Wind Mountain, whose high top lifted, though it was
+almost June, a white point of snow above dark pine ridges of the hills
+below. The five officers talked a little as they waited, but
+spasmodically, absent-mindedly. A shadow blocked the light of the
+entrance, and in the doorway stood a young man, undersized, slight,
+blond. He looked inquiringly at the Colonel.
+
+"You sent for me, sir?" and the General and his aide, and the grizzled
+old Captain, and the big, fresh-faced young one, all watched him.
+
+In direct, quiet words--words whose bareness made them dramatic for the
+weight of possibility they carried--the Colonel explained. Black Wolf
+and his band were out on the war-path. A soldier coming in wounded,
+escaped from the massacre of the post at Devil's Hoof Gap, had reported
+it. With the large command known to be here camped on Sweetstream Fork,
+they would not come this way; they would swerve up the Gunpowder River
+twenty miles away, destroying the settlement and Little Fort Slade, and
+would sweep on, probably for a general massacre, up the Great Horn as
+far as Fort Doncaster. He himself, with the regiment, would try to save
+Fort Slade, but in the meantime, Captain Thornton's troop, coming to
+join him, ignorant that Black Wolf had taken the war-path, would be
+directly in their track. Some one must be sent to warn them, and of
+course the fewer the quicker. Lieutenant Morgan would take a sergeant,
+the Colonel ordered quietly, and start at once.
+
+In the misty light inside the tent, the young officer looked hardly more
+than seventeen years old as he stood listening. His small figure was
+light, fragile; his hair was blond to an extreme, a thick thatch of
+pale gold; and there was about him, among these tanned, stalwart men in
+uniform, a presence, an effect of something unusual, a simplicity out of
+place yet harmonious, which might have come with a little child into a
+scene like this. His large blue eyes were fixed on the Colonel as he
+talked, and in them was just such a look of innocent, pleased wonder, as
+might be in a child's eyes, who had been told to leave studying and go
+pick violets. But as the Colonel ended he spoke, and the few words he
+said, the few questions he asked, were full of poise, of crisp
+directness. As the General volunteered a word or two, he turned to him
+and answered with a very charming deference, a respect that was yet full
+of gracious ease, the unconscious air of a man to whom generals are
+first as men, and then as generals. The slight figure in its dark
+uniform was already beyond the tent doorway when the Colonel spoke
+again, with a shade of hesitation in his manner.
+
+"Mr. Morgan!" and the young officer turned quickly. "I think it may be
+right to warn you that there is likely to be more than usual danger in
+your ride."
+
+"Yes, sir." The fresh, young voice had a note of inquiry.
+
+"You will--you will"--what was it the Colonel wanted to say? He finished
+abruptly. "Choose the man carefully who goes with you."
+
+"Thank you, Colonel," Morgan responded heartily, but with a hint of
+bewilderment. "I shall take Sergeant O'Hara," and he was gone.
+
+There was a touch of color in the Colonel's face, and he sighed as if
+glad to have it over. The General watched him, and slowly, after a
+pause, he demanded:
+
+"May I ask, Colonel, why you chose that blond baby to send on a mission
+of uncommon danger and importance?"
+
+The Colonel answered quietly: "There were several reasons, General--good
+ones. The blond baby"--that ghost of a smile touched the Colonel's lips
+again--"the blond baby has some remarkable qualities. He never loses his
+head; he has uncommon invention and facility of getting out of bad
+holes; he rides light and so can make a horse last longer than most,
+and"--the Colonel considered a moment--"I may say he has no fear of
+death. Even among my officers he is known for the quality of his
+courage. There is one more reason: he is the most popular man I have,
+both with officers and men; if anything happened to Morgan the whole
+command would race into hell after the devils that did it, before they
+would miss their revenge."
+
+The General reflected, pulling at his mustache. "It seems a bit like
+taking advantage of his popularity," he said.
+
+"It is," the Colonel threw back quickly. "It's just that. But that's
+what one must do--a commanding officer--isn't it so, General? In this
+war music we play on human instruments, and if a big chord comes out
+stronger for the silence of a note, the note must be silenced--that's
+all. It's cruel, but it's fighting; it's the game."
+
+The General, as if impressed with the tense words, did not respond, and
+the other officers stared at the Colonel's face, as carved, as stern as
+if done in marble--a face from which the warm, strong heart seldom
+shone, held back always by the stronger will.
+
+The big, fresh-colored young Captain broke the silence. "Has the General
+ever heard of the trick Morgan played on Sun Boy, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Tell the General, Captain Booth," the Colonel said briefly, and the
+Captain turned toward the higher officer.
+
+"It was apropos of what the Colonel said of his inventive faculties,
+General," he began. "A year ago the youngster with a squad of ten men
+walked into Sun Boy's camp of seventy-five warriors. Morgan had made
+quite a pet of a young Sioux, who was our prisoner for five months, and
+the boy had taught him a lot of the language, and assured him that he
+would have the friendship of the band in return for his kindness to Blue
+Arrow--that was the chap's name. So he thought he was safe; but it
+turned out that Blue Arrow's father, a chief, had got into a row with
+Sun Boy, and the latter would not think of ratifying the boy's promise.
+So there was Morgan with his dozen men, in a nasty enough fix. He knew
+plenty of Indian talk to understand that they were discussing what they
+would do with him, and it wasn't pleasant.
+
+"All of a sudden he had an inspiration. He tells the story himself, sir,
+and I assure you he'd make you laugh--Morgan is a wonderful mimic. Well,
+he remembered suddenly, as I said, that he was a mighty good
+ventriloquist, and he saw his chance. He gave a great jump like a
+startled fawn, and threw up his arms and stared like one demented into
+the tree over their heads. There was a mangy-looking crow sitting up
+there on a branch, and Morgan pointed at him as if at something
+marvellous, supernatural, and all those fool Indians stopped pow-wowing
+and stared up after him, as curious as monkeys. Then to all appearances,
+the crow began to talk. Morgan said they must have thought that spirits
+didn't speak very choice Sioux, but he did his best. The bird cawed out:
+
+"'Oh, Sun Boy, great chief, beware what you do!'
+
+"And then the real bird flapped its wings and Morgan thought it was
+going to fly, and he was lost. But it settled back again on the branch,
+and Morgan proceeded to caw on:
+
+"'Hurt not the white man, or the curses of the gods will come upon Sun
+Boy and his people.'
+
+"And he proceeded to give a list of what would happen if the Indians
+touched a hair of their heads. By this time the red devils were all down
+on their stomachs, moaning softly whenever Morgan stopped cawing. He
+said he quite got into the spirit of it and would have liked to go on
+some time, but he was beginning to get hoarse, and besides he was in
+deadly terror for fear the crow would fly before he got to the point. So
+he had the spirit order them to give the white men their horses and turn
+them loose instanter; and just as he got all through, off went the thing
+with a big flap and a parting caw on its own account. I wish I could
+tell it as Morgan does--you'd think he was a bird and an Indian rolled
+together. He's a great actor spoiled, that lad."
+
+"You leave out a fine point, to my mind, Captain Booth," the Colonel
+said quickly. "About his going back."
+
+"Oh! certainly that ought to be told," said the Captain, and the
+General's eyes turned to him again. "Morgan forgot to see young Blue
+Arrow, his friend, before he got away, and nothing would do but that he
+should go back and speak to him. He said the boy would be disappointed.
+The men were visibly uneasy at his going, but that didn't affect him. He
+ordered them to wait, and back he went, pell-mell, all alone into that
+horde of fiends. They hadn't got over their funk, luckily, and he saw
+Blue Arrow and made his party call and got out again all right. He
+didn't tell that himself, but Sergeant O'Hara made the camp ring with
+it. He adores Morgan, and claims that he doesn't know what fear is. I
+believe it's about so. I've seen him in a fight three times now. His cap
+always goes off--he loses a cap every blessed scrimmage--and with that
+yellow mop of hair, and a sort of rapt expression he gets, he looks like
+a child saying its prayers all the time he is slashing and shooting like
+a berserker." Captain Booth faced abruptly toward the Colonel. "I beg
+your pardon for talking so long, sir," he said. "You know we're all
+rather keen about little Miles Morgan."
+
+The General lifted his head suddenly. "Miles Morgan?" he demanded. "Is
+his name Miles Morgan."
+
+The Colonel nodded. "Yes. The grandson of the old Bishop--named for
+him."
+
+"Lord!" ejaculated the General. "Miles Morgan was my earliest friend, my
+friend until he died! This must be Jim's son--Miles's only child. And
+Jim is dead these ten years," he went on rapidly. "I've lost track of
+him since the Bishop died, but I knew Jim left children. Why, he
+married"--he searched rapidly in his memory--"he married a daughter of
+General Fitzbrian's. This boy's got the church and the army both in him.
+I knew his mother," he went on, talking to the Colonel, garrulous with
+interest. "Irish and fascinating she was--believed in fairies and ghosts
+and all that, as her father did before her. A clever woman, but with the
+superstitious, wild Irish blood strong in her. Good Lord! I wish I'd
+known that was Miles Morgan's grandson."
+
+The Colonel's voice sounded quiet and rather cold after the General's
+impulsive enthusiasm. "You have summed him up by his antecedents,
+General," he said. "The church and the army--both strains are strong. He
+is deeply religious."
+
+The General looked thoughtful. "Religious, eh? And popular? They don't
+always go together."
+
+Captain Booth spoke quickly. "It's not that kind, General," he said.
+"There's no cant in the boy. He's more popular for it--that's often so
+with the genuine thing, isn't it? I sometimes think"--the young
+Captain hesitated and smiled a trifle deprecatingly--"that Morgan is
+much of the same stuff as Gordon--Chinese Gordon; the martyr stuff, you
+know. But it seems a bit rash to compare an every-day American youngster
+to an inspired hero."
+
+"There's nothing in Americanism to prevent either inspiration or heroism
+that I know of," the General affirmed stoutly, his fine old head up, his
+eyes gleaming with pride of his profession.
+
+Out through the open doorway, beyond the slapping tent-flap, the keen,
+gray eyes of the Colonel were fixed musingly on two black points which
+crawled along the edge of the dulled silver of the distant river--Miles
+Morgan and Sergeant O'Hara had started.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Sergeant!" They were eight miles out now, and the camp had disappeared
+behind the elbow of Black Wind Mountain. "There's something wrong with
+your horse. Listen! He's not loping evenly." The soft cadence of eight
+hoofs on earth had somewhere a lighter and then a heavier note; the ear
+of a good horseman tells in a minute, as a musician's ear at a false
+note, when an animal saves one foot ever so slightly, to come down
+harder on another.
+
+"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll remimber 'tis the horrse that had a bit of a
+spavin, Sure I thot 'twas cured, and 'tis the kindest baste in the
+rigiment f'r a pleasure ride, sorr--that willin' 'tis. So I tuk it. I
+think 'tis only the stiffness at furrst aff. 'Twill wurruk aff later.
+Plaze God, I'll wallop him." And the Sergeant walloped with a will.
+
+But the kindest beast in the regiment failed to respond except with a
+plunge and increased lameness. Soon there was no more question of his
+incapacity.
+
+Lieutenant Morgan halted his mount, and, looking at the woe-begone
+O'Hara, laughed. "A nice trick this is, Sergeant," he said, "to start
+out on a trip to dodge Indians with a spavined horse. Why didn't you get
+a broomstick? Now go back to camp as fast as you can go; and that horse
+ought to be blistered when you get there. See if you can't really cure
+him. He's too good to be shot." He patted the gray's nervous head, and
+the beast rubbed it gently against his sleeve, quiet under his hand.
+
+"Yessirr. The Lieutenant'll ride slow, sorr, f'r me to catch up on ye,
+sorr?"
+
+Miles Morgan smiled and shook his head. "Sorry, Sergeant, but there'll
+be no slow riding in this. I'll have to press right on without you; I
+must be at Massacre Mountain to-night to catch Captain Thornton
+to-morrow."
+
+Sergeant O'Hara's chin dropped. "Sure the Lieutenant'll niver be
+thinkin' to g'wan alone--widout _me_?" and with all the sergeant's
+respect of his superiors, it took the Lieutenant ten valuable minutes to
+get the man started back, shaking his head and muttering forebodings, to
+the camp.
+
+It was quiet riding on alone. There were a few miles to go before there
+was any chance of Indians, and no particular lookout to be kept, so he
+put the horse ahead rapidly while he might, and suddenly he found
+himself singing softly as he galloped. How the words had come to him he
+did not know, for no conscious train of thought had brought them; but
+they surely fitted to the situation, and a pleasant sense of
+companionship, of safety, warmed him as the swing of an old hymn carried
+his voice along with it.
+
+    God shall charge His angel legions
+      Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
+    Though thou walk through hostile regions,
+      Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
+
+Surely a man riding toward--perhaps through--skulking Indian hordes, as
+he must, could have no better message reach him than that. The bent of
+his mind was toward mysticism, and while he did not think the train of
+reasoning out, could not have said that he believed it so, yet the
+familiar lines flashing suddenly, clearly, on the curtain of his mind,
+seemed to him, very simply, to be sent from a larger thought than his
+own. As a child might take a strong hand held out as it walked over
+rough country, so he accepted this quite readily and happily, as from
+that Power who was never far from him, and in whose service, beyond most
+people, he lived and moved. Low but clear and deep his voice went on,
+following one stanza with its mate:
+
+    Since with pure and firm affection
+      Thou on God hast set thy love,
+    With the wings of His protection
+      He will shield thee from above.
+
+The simplicity of his being sheltered itself in the broad promise of the
+words.
+
+Light-heartedly he rode on and on, though now more carefully; lying flat
+and peering over the crests of hills a long time before he crossed
+their tops; going miles perhaps through ravines; taking advantage of
+every bit of cover where a man and a horse might be hidden; travelling
+as he had learned to travel in three years of experience in this
+dangerous Indian country, where a shrub taken for granted might mean a
+warrior, and that warrior a hundred others within signal. It was his
+plan to ride until about twelve--to reach Massacre Mountain, and there
+rest his horse and himself till gray daylight. There was grass there and
+a spring--two good and innocent things that had been the cause of the
+bad, dark thing which had given the place its name. A troop under
+Captain James camping at this point, because of the water and grass, had
+been surprised and wiped out by five hundred Indian braves of the wicked
+and famous Red Crow. There were ghastly signs about the place yet;
+Morgan had seen them, but soldiers may not have nerves, and it was good
+camping ground.
+
+On through the valleys and half-way up the slopes, which rolled here far
+away into a still wilder world, the young man rode. Behind the distant
+hills in the east a glow like fire flushed the horizon. A rim of pale
+gold lifted sharply over the ridge; a huge round ball of light pushed
+faster, higher, and lay, a bright world on the edge of the world, great
+against the sky--the moon had risen. The twilight trembled as the yellow
+rays struck into its depths, and deepened, dying into purple shadows.
+Across the plain zigzagged pools of a level stream, as if a giant had
+spilled handfuls of quicksilver here and there.
+
+Miles Morgan, riding, drank in all the mysterious, wild beauty, as a man
+at ease; as open to each fair impression as if he were not riding each
+moment into deeper danger, as if his every sense were not on guard. On
+through the shining moonlight and in the shadow of the hills he rode,
+and, where he might, through the trees, and stopped to listen often, to
+stare at the hill-tops, to question a heap of stones or a bush.
+
+At last, when his leg-weary horse was beginning to stumble a bit, he
+saw, as he came around a turn, Massacre Mountain's dark head rising in
+front of him, only half a mile away. The spring trickled its low song,
+as musical, as limpidly pure as if it had never run scarlet. The
+picketed horse fell to browsing and Miles sighed restfully as he laid
+his head on his saddle and fell instantly to sleep with the light of the
+moon on his damp, fair hair. But he did not sleep long. Suddenly with a
+start he awoke, and sat up sharply, and listened. He heard the horse
+still munching grass near him, and made out the shadow of its bulk
+against the sky; he heard the stream, softly falling and calling to the
+waters where it was going. That was all. Strain his hearing as he might
+he could hear nothing else in the still night. Yet there was something.
+It might not be sound or sight, but there was a presence, a
+something--he could not explain. He was alert in every nerve. Suddenly
+the words of the hymn he had been singing in the afternoon flashed again
+into his mind, and, with his cocked revolver in his hand, alone, on
+guard, in the midnight of the savage wilderness, the words came that
+were not even a whisper:
+
+    God shall charge His angel legions
+      Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
+    Though thou walk through hostile regions,
+      Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
+
+He gave a contented sigh and lay down. What was there to worry about? It
+was just his case for which the hymn was written. "Desert wilds"--that
+surely meant Massacre Mountain, and why should he not sleep here
+quietly, and let the angels keep their watch and ward? He closed his
+eyes with a smile. But sleep did not come, and soon his eyes were open
+again, staring into blackness, thinking, thinking.
+
+It was Sunday when he started out on this mission, and he fell to
+remembering the Sunday nights at home--long, long ago they seemed now.
+The family sang hymns after supper always; his mother played, and the
+children stood around her--five of them, Miles and his brothers and
+sisters. There was a little sister with brown hair about her shoulders,
+who always stood by Miles, leaned against him, held his hand, looked up
+at him with adoring eyes--he could see those uplifted eyes now, shining
+through the darkness of this lonely place. He remembered the big,
+home-like room; the crackling fire; the peaceful atmosphere of books and
+pictures; the dumb things about its walls that were yet eloquent to him
+of home and family; the sword that his great-grandfather had worn under
+Washington; the old ivories that another great-grandfather, the Admiral,
+had brought from China; the portraits of Morgans of half a dozen
+generations which hung there; the magazine table, the books and books
+and books. A pang of desperate homesickness suddenly shook him. He
+wanted them--his own. Why should he, their best-beloved, throw away his
+life--a life filled to the brim with hope and energy and high ideals--on
+this futile quest? He knew quite as well as the General or the Colonel
+that his ride was but a forlorn hope. As he lay there, longing so, in
+the dangerous dark, he went about the library at home in his thought and
+placed each familiar belonging where he had known it all his life. And
+as he finished, his mother's head shone darkly golden by the piano; her
+fingers swept over the keys; he heard all their voices, the dear
+never-forgotten voices. Hark! They were singing his hymn--little Alice's
+reedy note lifted above the others--"God shall charge His angel
+legions--"
+
+Now! He was on his feet with a spring, and his revolver pointed
+steadily. This time there was no mistaking--something had rustled in the
+bushes. There was but one thing for it to be--Indians. Without realizing
+what he did, he spoke sharply.
+
+"Who goes there?" he demanded, and out of the darkness a voice answered
+quietly:
+
+"A friend."
+
+"A friend?" With a shock of relief the pistol dropped by his side, and
+he stood tense, waiting. How might a friend be here, at midnight in this
+desert? As the thought framed itself swiftly the leaves parted, and his
+straining eyes saw the figure of a young man standing before him.
+
+"How came you here?" demanded Miles sternly. "Who are you?"
+
+Even in the dimness he could see the radiant smile that answered him.
+The calm voice spoke again: "You will understand that later. I am here
+to help you."
+
+As if a door had suddenly opened into that lighted room of which he
+dreamed, Miles felt a sense of tranquillity, of happiness stirring
+through him. Never in his life had he known such a sudden utter
+confidence in anyone, such a glow of eager friendliness as this
+half-seen, mysterious stranger inspired. "It is because I was lonelier
+than I knew," he said mentally. "It is because human companionship gives
+courage to the most self-reliant of us"; and somewhere in the words he
+was aware of a false note, but he did not stop to place it.
+
+The low, even voice of the stranger spoke again. "There are Indians on
+your trail," he said. "A small band of Black Wolf's scouts. But don't be
+troubled. They will not hurt you."
+
+"You escaped from them?" demanded Miles eagerly, and again the light of
+a swift smile shone into the night. "You came to save me--how was it?
+Tell me, so that we can plan. It is very dark yet, but hadn't we better
+ride? Where is your horse?"
+
+He threw the earnest questions rapidly across the black night, and the
+unhurried voice answered him. "No," it said, and the verdict was not to
+be disputed. "You must stay here."
+
+Who this man might be or how he came Miles could not tell, but this much
+he knew, without reason for knowing it; it was someone stronger than he,
+in whom he could trust. As the newcomer had said, it would be time
+enough later to understand the rest. Wondering a little at his own swift
+acceptance of an unknown authority, wondering more at the peace which
+wrapped him as an atmosphere at the sound of the stranger's voice, Miles
+made a place for him by his side, and the two talked softly to the
+plashing undertone of the stream.
+
+Easily, naturally, Miles found himself telling how he had been homesick,
+longing for his people. He told him of the big familiar room, and of the
+old things that were in it, that he loved; of his mother; of little
+Alice, and her baby adoration for the big brother; of how they had
+always sung hymns together Sunday night; he never for a moment doubted
+the stranger's interest and sympathy--he knew that he cared to hear.
+
+"There is a hymn," Miles said, "that we used to sing a lot--it was my
+favorite; 'Miles's hymn,' the family called it. Before you came
+to-night, while I lay there getting lonelier every minute, I almost
+thought I heard them singing it. You may not have heard it, but it has a
+grand swing. I always think"--he hesitated--"it always seems to me as if
+the God of battles and the beauty of holiness must both have filled the
+man's mind who wrote it." He stopped, surprised at his own lack of
+reserve, at the freedom with which, to this friend of an hour, he spoke
+his inmost heart.
+
+"I know," the stranger said gently. There was silence for a moment, and
+then the wonderful low tones, beautiful, clear, beyond any voice Miles
+had ever heard, began again, and it was as if the great sweet notes of
+an organ whispered the words:
+
+    God shall charge His angel legions
+      Watch and ward o'er thee to keep;
+    Though thou walk through hostile regions,
+      Though in desert wilds thou sleep.
+
+"Great Heavens!" gasped Miles. "How could you know I meant that? Why,
+this is marvellous--why, this"--he stared, speechless, at the dim
+outlines of the face which he had never seen before to-night, but which
+seemed to him already familiar and dear beyond all reason. As he gazed
+the tall figure rose, lightly towering above him. "Look!" he said, and
+Miles was on his feet. In the east, beyond the long sweep of the
+prairie, was a faint blush against the blackness; already threads of
+broken light, of pale darkness, stirred through the pall of the air; the
+dawn was at hand.
+
+"We must saddle," Miles said, "and be off. Where is your horse
+picketed?" he demanded again.
+
+But the strange young man stood still; and now his arm was stretched
+pointing. "Look," he said again, and Miles followed the direction with
+his eyes.
+
+From the way he had come, in that fast-growing glow at the edge of the
+sky, sharp against the mist of the little river, crept slowly half a
+dozen pin points, and Miles, watching their tiny movement, knew that
+they were ponies bearing Indian braves. He turned hotly to his
+companion.
+
+"It's your fault," he said. "If I'd had my way we'd have ridden from
+here an hour ago. Now here we are caught like rats in a trap; and who's
+to do my work and save Thornton's troop--who's to save them--God!" The
+name was a prayer, not an oath.
+
+"Yes," said the quiet voice at his side, "God,"--and for a second there
+was a silence that was like an Amen.
+
+Quickly, without a word, Miles turned and began to saddle. Then suddenly
+as he pulled at the girth, he stopped. "It's no use," he said. "We can't
+get away except over the rise, and they'll see us there"; he nodded at
+the hill which rose beyond the camping ground three hundred yards away,
+and stretched in a long, level sweep into other hills and the west. "Our
+chance is that they're not on my trail after all--it's quite possible."
+There was a tranquil unconcern about the figure near him; his own bright
+courage caught the meaning of its relaxed lines with a hound of
+pleasure. "As you say, it's best to stay here," he said, and as if
+thinking aloud--"I believe you must always be right." Then he added, as
+if his very soul would speak itself to this wonderful new friend: "We
+can't be killed, unless the Lord wills it, and if he does it's right.
+Death is only the step into life; I suppose when we know that life, we
+will wonder how we could have cared for this one."
+
+Through the gray light the stranger turned his face swiftly, bent toward
+Miles, and smiled once again, and the boy thought suddenly of the
+martyrdom of St. Stephen, and how those who were looking "saw his face
+as it had been the face of an angel."
+
+Across the plain, out of the mist-wreaths, came rushing, scurrying, the
+handful of Indian braves. Pale light streamed now from the east,
+filtering over a hushed world. Miles faced across the plain, stood close
+to the tall stranger whose shape, as the dawn touched it, seemed to rise
+beyond the boy's slight figure wonderfully large and high. There was a
+sense of unending power, of alertness, of great, easy movement about
+him; one might have looked at him, and looking away again, have said
+that wings were folded about him. But Miles did not see him. His eyes
+were on the fast-nearing, galloping ponies, each with its load of
+filthy, cruel savagery. This was his death coming; there was disgust,
+but not dread in the thought for the boy. In a few minutes he should be
+fighting hopelessly, fiercely against this froth of a lower world; in a
+few minutes after that he should be lying here still--for he meant to be
+killed; he had that planned. They should not take him--a wave of sick
+repulsion at that thought shook him. Nearer, nearer, right on his track
+came the riders pell-mell. He could hear their weird, horrible cries;
+now he could see gleaming through the dimness the huge headdress of the
+foremost, the white coronet of feathers, almost the stripes of paint on
+the fierce face.
+
+Suddenly a feeling that he knew well caught him, and he laughed. It was
+the possession that had held in him in every action which he had so far
+been in. It lifted his high-strung spirit into an atmosphere where there
+was no dread and no disgust, only a keen rapture in throwing every atom
+of soul and body into physical intensity; it was as if he himself were
+a bright blade, dashing, cutting, killing, a living sword rejoicing to
+destroy. With the coolness that may go with such a frenzy he felt that
+his pistols were loose; saw with satisfaction that he and his new ally
+were placed on the slope to the best advantage, then turned swiftly,
+eager now for the fight to come, toward the Indian band. As he looked,
+suddenly in mid-career, pulling in their plunging ponies with a jerk
+that threw them, snorting, on their haunches, the warriors halted. Miles
+watched in amazement. The bunch of Indians, not more than a hundred
+yards away, were staring, arrested, startled, back of him to his right,
+where the lower ridge of Massacre Mountain stretched far and level over
+the valley that wound westward beneath it on the road to Fort
+Rain-and-Thunder. As he gazed, the ponies had swept about and were
+galloping back as they had come, across the plain.
+
+Before he knew if it might be true, if he were not dreaming this curious
+thing, the clear voice of his companion spoke in one word again, like
+the single note of a deep bell. "Look!" he said, and Miles swung about
+toward the ridge behind, following the pointing finger.
+
+In the gray dawn the hill-top was clad with the still strength of an
+army. Regiment after regiment, silent, motionless, it stretched back
+into silver mist, and the mist rolled beyond, above, about it; and
+through it he saw, as through rifts in broken gauze, lines interminable
+of soldiers, glitter of steel. Miles, looking, knew.
+
+He never remembered how long he stood gazing, earth and time and self
+forgotten, at a sight not meant for mortal eyes; but suddenly, with a
+stab it came to him, that if the hosts of heaven fought his battle it
+was that he might do his duty, might save Captain Thornton and his men;
+he turned to speak to the young man who had been with him. There was no
+one there. Over the bushes the mountain breeze blew damp and cold; they
+rustled softly under its touch; his horse stared at him mildly; away off
+at the foot-hills he could see the diminishing dots of the fleeing
+Indian ponies; as he wheeled again and looked, the hills that had been
+covered with the glory of heavenly armies, lay hushed and empty. And
+his friend was gone.
+
+[Illustration: "Look!" he said, and Miles swung about toward the ridge
+behind.]
+
+Clatter of steel, jingle of harness, an order ringing out far but
+clear--Miles threw up his head sharply and listened. In a second he was
+pulling at his horse's girth, slipping the bit swiftly into its
+mouth--in a moment more he was off and away to meet them, as a body of
+cavalry swung out of the valley where the ridge had hidden them.
+
+"Captain Thornton's troop?" the officer repeated carelessly. "Why, yes;
+they are here with us. We picked them up yesterday, headed straight for
+Black Wolf's war-path. Mighty lucky we found them. How about you--seen
+any Indians, have you?"
+
+Miles answered slowly: "A party of eight were on my trail; they were
+riding for Massacre Mountain, where I camped, about an hour--about half
+an hour--awhile ago." He spoke vaguely, rather oddly, the officer
+thought, "Something--stopped them about a hundred yards from the
+mountain. They turned, and rode away."
+
+"Ah," said the officer. "They saw us down the valley."
+
+"I couldn't see you," said Miles.
+
+The officer smiled. "You're not an Indian, Lieutenant. Besides, they
+were out on the plain and had a farther view behind the ridge." And
+Miles answered not a word.
+
+General Miles Morgan, full of years and of honors, has never but twice
+told the story of that night of forty years ago. But he believes that
+when his time comes, and he goes to join the majority, he will know
+again the presence which guarded him through the blackness of it, and
+among the angel legions he looks to find an angel, a messenger, who was
+his friend.
+
+
+
+
+THE AIDE-DE-CAMP
+
+
+Age has a point or two in common with greatness; few willingly achieve
+it, indeed, but most have it thrust upon them, and some are born old.
+But there are people who, beginning young, are young forever. One might
+fancy that the careless fates who shape souls--from cotton-batting, from
+stone, from wood and dynamite and cheese--once in an aeon catch, by
+chance, a drop of the fountain of youth, and use it in their business,
+and the soul so made goes on bubbling and sparkling eternally, and gray
+dust of years cannot dim it. It might be imagined, in another flight of
+fancy, that a spark of divine fire from the brazier of the immortals
+snaps loose once in a century and lodges in somebody, and is a
+heart--with such a clean and happy flame burns sometimes a heart one
+knows.
+
+On a January evening, in a room where were books and a blazing hearth,
+a man with a famous name and a long record told me a story, and through
+his blunt speech flashed in and out all the time the sparkle of the fire
+and the ripple of the fountain. Unsuspecting, he betrayed every minute
+the queer thing that had happened to him--how he had never grown up and
+his blood had never grown cold. So that the story, as it fell in easy
+sequence, had a charm which was his and is hard to trap, yet it is too
+good a story to leave unwritten. A picture goes with it, what I looked
+at as I listened: a massive head on tremendous shoulders; bright white
+hair and a black bar of eyebrows, striking and dramatic; underneath,
+eyes dark and alive, a face deep red-and-brown with out of doors. His
+voice had a rough command in it, because, I suppose, he had given many
+orders to men. I tell the tale with this memory for a setting; the
+firelight, the soldierly presence, the gayety of youth echoing through
+it.
+
+The fire had been forgotten as we talked, and I turned to see it dull
+and lifeless. "It hasn't gone out, however," I said, and coughed as I
+swallowed smoke. "There's no smoke without some fire," I poked the logs
+together. "That's an old saw; but it's true all the same."
+
+"Old saws always are true," said the General. "If there isn't something
+in them that people know is so they don't get old--they die young. I
+believe in the ridden-to-death proverbs--little pitchers with big
+ears--cats with nine lives--still waters running deep--love at first
+sight, and the rest. They're true, too." His straight look challenged me
+to dispute him.
+
+The pine knots caught and blazed up, and I went back comfortably into my
+chair and laughed at him.
+
+"O General! Come! You don't believe in love at first sight."
+
+I liked to make him talk sentiment. He was no more afraid of it than of
+anything else, and the warmest sort came out of his handling natural and
+unashamed.
+
+"I don't? Yes, I do, too," he fired at me. "I know it happens,
+sometimes."
+
+With that the lines of his face broke into the sunshiniest smile. He
+threw back his head with sudden boyishness, and chuckled, "I ought to
+know; I've had experience," he said. His look settled again
+thoughtfully. "Did I ever tell you that story--the story about the day I
+rode seventy-five miles? Well, I did that several times--I rode it once
+to see my wife. But this was the first time, and a good deal happened.
+It was a history-making day for me all right. That was when I was
+aide-de-camp to General Stoneman. Have I told you that?"
+
+"No," I said; and "oh, do tell me." I knew already that a fire and a
+deep chair and one of the General's stories made a good combination.
+
+His manner had a quality uncommon to storytellers; he spoke as if what
+he told had occurred not in times gone by, but perhaps last week; it was
+more gossip than history. Probably the sharp, full years had been so
+short to him that the interval between twenty and seventy was no great
+matter; things looked as clear and his interest was as lively as a
+half-century ago. This trick of mind made a narrative of his vivid. With
+eyes on the fire, with his dominant voice absorbing the crisp sound of
+the crackling wood, he began to talk.
+
+"It was down in Virginia in--let me see--why, certainly, it was in
+'63--right away after the battle of Chancellorsville, you know." I kept
+still and hoped the General thought I knew the date of the battle of
+Chancellorsville. "I was part of a cavalry command that was sent from
+the Army of the Potomac under General Stoneman--I was his aide. Well,
+we did a lot of things--knocked out bridges and railroads, and all that;
+our object was, you see, to destroy communication between Lee's army and
+Richmond. We even got into Richmond--we thought every Confederate
+soldier was with Lee at the front, and we had a scheme to free the
+prisoners in Libby, and perhaps capture Jefferson Davis--but we counted
+wrong. The defence was too strong, and our force too small; we had to
+skedaddle, or we'd have seen Libby in a way we didn't like. We found a
+negro who could pilot us, and we slipped out through fields and swamps
+beyond the reach of the enemy. Then the return march began. Let me put
+that log on."
+
+"No. Talk," I protested; but the General had the wood in his vigorous
+left hand--where a big scar cut across the back.
+
+"You needn't be so independent," he threw at me. "Now you've got a
+splinter in your finger--serves you right." I laughed at the savage
+tone, and his eyes flashed fiercely--and he laughed back.
+
+"What was I talking about--you interrupted. Oh, that march. Well, we'd
+had a pretty rough time when the march back began. For nine days we
+hadn't had a real meal--just eaten standing up, whatever we could get
+cooked--or uncooked. We hadn't changed our clothes, and we'd slept on
+the ground every night."
+
+"Goodness!" I interjected with amateur vagueness. "What about the
+horses?"
+
+"Oh, they got it, too," the General said carelessly. "We seldom
+unsaddled them at all, and when we did it was just to give them a
+rub-down and saddle again. We'd made one march toward home and halted,
+late at night, when General Stoneman called for his aide-de-camp. I went
+to him, rather sleepy, and he told me he'd decided to communicate with
+his chief and report his success, and that I was to start at daylight
+and find the Army of the Potomac. I had my pick of ten of the best men
+and horses from the brigade, and I got off at gray dawn with them, and
+with the written report in my boot to the commanding general, and verbal
+orders to find him wherever he might be. Nothing else, except the
+tools--swords and pistols, and that sort of thing. Oh, yes, there was
+one thing more. General Ladd, who was a Virginian, had given my chief a
+letter for his people, thinking we'd get into their country. His family
+were all on the Confederate side of the fence, while he was a Union
+officer. That was not uncommon in our civil war. But we didn't get near
+the Ladd estate, and so Stoneman commissioned me to return the letter to
+the general with the explanation. Does this bore you?" he stopped
+suddenly to ask, and his alert eye shot the glance at me like a bullet.
+
+"Stop once more and I'll be likely to cry," I predicted.
+
+"For Heaven's sake don't do that." He reached across and took the
+poker. "Here's the Rapidan River," he sketched down the rug. "Runs east
+and west. And this blue diagonal north of it is the Rappahannock. I
+started south of the Rapidan, to cross it and go north, hoping to find
+our army victorious and south of the Rappahannock. Which I didn't--but
+that's farther along. Well, we were off at daylight, ten men and the
+officer--me. It was a fine spring morning, and the bunch of horsemen
+made a pretty sight as the sun came up, moving through the
+greenness--the foliage is well out down there in May. The bits jingled
+and the saddles creaked under our legs--I remember how it sounded as we
+started off. We'd had a strenuous week, but we were a strong lot and
+ready for anything. We were going to get it, too." The General chuckled
+suddenly, as if something had hit his funny-bone. "I skirted along the
+south bank of the Rapidan, keeping off the roads most of the time, and
+out of sight, which was better for our health--we were in Confederate
+country--and we got to Germania Ford without seeing anybody, or being
+seen. Said I, 'Here's the place we'll cross.' We'd had breakfast before
+starting, but we'd been in the saddle three hours since that, and I was
+thirsty. I could see a house back in the trees as we came to the ford--a
+beautiful old house--the kind you see a lot of in the South--high white
+pillars--dignified and aristocratic. It seemed to be quiet and safe, so
+we trotted up the drive, the eleven of us. The front door was open, and
+I jumped off my horse and ran up the steps and stood in the doorway.
+There were four or five people in the hall, and they'd seen us coming
+and were scared. A nice old lady was lying back in a chair, as pale as
+ashes, with her hand to her heart, gasping ninety to the second, and two
+or three negroes stood around her with their eyes rolling. And right in
+the middle of the place a red-headed girl in a white dress was bending
+over a grizzled old negro man who was locking a large travelling-bag. As
+cool as a cucumber that girl was."
+
+The General stopped and considered.
+
+"I wish I could describe the scene the way I saw it--I remember exactly.
+It was a big, square hall running through from front to back, and the
+back door was open, and you saw a garden with box hedges, and woods
+behind it. Stairs went up each side the hall and a balcony ran around
+the second story, with bedrooms opening off it. There was a high, oval
+window at the back over the balcony, and the sun poured through.
+
+"The girl finished locking her bag as if she hadn't noticed scum of the
+earth like us, and then she deliberately picked up a bunch of long white
+flowers that lay by the bag--lilies, I think you call them--and stood
+up, and looked right past me, as if she was struck with the landscape,
+and didn't see me. She was a tall girl, and when she stood straight the
+light from the back window just hit her hair and shone through the loose
+part of it--there was a lot, and it was curly. I give you my word that,
+as she stood there and looked calmly beyond me, in her white dress, with
+the stalk of flowers over her shoulder, and the sun turning that
+wonderful red-gold hair into a halo--I give you my word she was a
+perfect picture of a saint out of a stained-glass window in a church.
+But she didn't act like one."
+
+The General was seized with sudden, irresistible laughter. He sobered
+quickly.
+
+"I took one look at the vision, and I knew it was all up with me. Talk
+about love at first sight--before she ever spoke a word I--well." He
+pulled up the sentence as if it were a horse. "I snatched off my cap and
+I said, said I, 'I'm very sorry to disturb you,' just as politely as I
+knew how, but all the answer she gave me was to glance across at the old
+lady. Then she went find put her arm around her as she lay back gasping
+in a great curved chair.
+
+"'Don't be afraid, Aunt Virginia,' she said. 'Nothing shall hurt you. I
+can manage this man.'
+
+"The way she said 'this man' was about as contemptuous as they make 'em.
+I guess she was right, too--I guess she could. She turned her head
+toward me, but did not look at me.
+
+"'Do you want anything here?'" she asked.
+
+"Her voice was the prettiest, softest sound you ever heard--she was mad
+as a hornet, too." The General's swift chuckle caught him. "'Hyer,' she
+said it," he repeated. "'Hyer.'" He liked to say it, evidently. "I
+stood holding my cap in my hand, so tame by this time you could have put
+me on a perch in a cage, for the pluck of the girl was as fascinating as
+her looks. I spoke up like a man all the same.
+
+"'I wanted to ask,' said I, 'if I might send my men around to your well
+for a drink of water. They're thirsty.'
+
+"The way she answered, looking all around me and never once at me, made
+me uncomfortable. 'I suppose you can if you wish,' she said. 'You're
+stronger than we are. You can take what you choose. But I won't give you
+anything--not if you were dying--not a glass of water.'
+
+"Well, in spite of her having played football with my heart, that made
+me angry.
+
+"'I didn't know before that to be Southern made a woman unwomanly,' I
+said. 'Where I came from I don't believe there's a girl would say a
+cruel thing like that or refuse a drink of cold water to soldiers doing
+their duty, friends or enemies. We've slept on the ground nine nights
+and ridden nine days, and had very little to eat--my men are tired and
+thirsty. I shan't make them go without any refreshment they can get,
+even if it is grudged.'
+
+"I gave an order over my shoulder, and my party went off to the back of
+the house. Then I made a low bow to the old lady and to Miss
+High-and-Mighty, and I swung about and walked down the steps and mounted
+my horse. I was parched for water, but I wouldn't have had it if I'd
+choked, after that. Between taking an almighty shine to the girl and
+getting stirred up that way, and then being all frozen over with icicles
+by her cool insultingness, I was pretty savage, and I stared away from
+the place and thought the men would never come. All of a sudden I felt
+something touch my arm, and I looked around quick, and there was the
+girl. She stood by the horse, her red hair close to my elbow as I sat in
+the saddle, and she held up a glass of water. I never was so astonished
+in my life.
+
+"'You're thirsty and tired, too,' she said, speaking as low as if she
+was afraid the horse might hear. 'For my self-respect--for Southern
+women'--she brought it out in that soft, sliding way, but the words
+were all mixed up with embarrassment--and red--my, but she blushed! Then
+she went on. 'You were right,' said she. 'I was cruel; you're my enemy
+and I hate you, but I ought not to grudge you water. Take it.'
+
+"I put my hand right on top of hers as she held the glass, and bent down
+and drank so, making her hold it to my lips, and my hand over
+hers--bless her heart!"
+
+The General came to a full stop. He was smiling into the fire, and his
+face was as if a flame burned back of it. I waited very quietly, fearing
+to change the current by a word, and in a moment the strong voice, with
+its vibrating note, not to be described, began again.
+
+"I drained every drop," he said, "I'd have drunk a hogshead. When I
+finished I raised my head and looked down at her without a word
+said--but I didn't let go of the glass with her hand holding it inside
+mine--and she lifted her eyes very slowly, and for the first time looked
+at me. Well--" he shut his lips a moment--"these things don't tell well,
+but something happened. I held her eyes into mine, us if I gripped them
+with my muscles, and there came over her face an extraordinary
+expression--first as if she was surprised that it was me, then as if she
+was glad, and then--well, you may believe it or not, but I knew that
+second that the girl--loved me. She hated me all right five minutes
+before--I was her people's enemy--the chances were she'd never see me
+again--all that's true, but it simply didn't count. She cared for me,
+and I for her, and we both knew it--that's all there was about it.
+People live faster in war-time, I think--anyhow, that's the way it was.
+
+"The men and horses came pouring around the house, and I let her hand
+loose--it was hard to do it, too--and then she was gone, and we rode on
+to the ford. We stopped when we got to the stream to let the horses have
+their turn at drinking, and as I sat loafing in the saddle, with my mind
+pretty full of what had just passed, my eyes were all over. Every
+cavalry officer, and especially an aide-de-camp, gets to be a sort of
+hawk in active service--nothing can move within range that he doesn't
+see. So as I looked about me I took in among other things the house
+we'd just left, and suddenly I spied a handkerchief waving from behind
+one of the big white pillars. Of course you've got to be wary in an
+enemy's country, and these people were rabid Confederates, as I'd
+occasion to know. All the same it would have been bad judgment to
+neglect such a signal, and what's more, I'd have staked my life on that
+girl's honesty. If the handkerchief had been a cannon I'd have gone
+back. So back I went, taking a couple of men with me. As I jumped off my
+horse I saw her standing inside the front door, back in the shadow, and
+I ran up the steps to her.
+
+"'Well?' said I.
+
+"She looked up at me and laughed, showing a row of white teeth. That was
+the first time I ever saw her laugh. 'I knew you'd come back,' said she,
+as mischievous as a child, and her eyes danced.
+
+"I didn't mean to be made a fool of, for I had my duty to think about,
+so I spoke rather shortly. 'Well, and now I'm here--what?'
+
+"With that she drew an excited little gasp. 'I couldn't let you be
+killed,' she brought out in a sort of breathless whisper, so low I had
+to bend over close to hear her. 'You mustn't go on--in that
+direction--you'll be taken. The Union army's been defeated--at
+Chancellorsville. They're driven north of the Rappahannock--to Falmouth.
+Our troops are in their old camps. There's an outpost across the
+ford--just over the hill.'
+
+"It was the first I'd heard of the defeat at Chancellorsville, and it
+stunned me for a second. 'Are you telling me the truth?' I asked her
+pretty sharply.
+
+"'You know I am,' she said, as haughty as you please all of a sudden,
+and drew herself up with her head in the air.
+
+"And I did know it. Something else struck me just about then. The old
+lady and the servants were gone from the hall. There wasn't anybody in
+it but herself and me; my men were out of sight on the driveway. I
+forgot our army and the war and everything else, and I caught her bands
+in between mine, and said I, 'Why couldn't you let me be killed?'"
+
+At his words I drew a quick breath, too. For a moment I was the
+Southern girl with the red-gold hair. I could feel the clasp of the
+young officer's hands; I could hear his voice asking the rough, tender
+question, "Why couldn't you let me be killed?"
+
+"It was mighty still for a minute. Then she lifted up her eyes as I held
+her fingers in a vise, and gave me a steady look. That was all--but it
+was plenty.
+
+"I don't know how I got on my horse or what order I gave, but my head
+was clear enough for business purposes, and I had to use it--quickly,
+too. There were thick woods near by, and I hurried my party into them
+and gave men and horses a short rest till I could decide what to do. The
+Confederates were east of us, around Chancellorsville and in the
+triangle between the Rapidan and the Rappahannock, so that It was unsafe
+travelling in that direction. It's the business of an aide-de-camp
+carrying despatches to steal as quietly as possible through an enemy's
+country, and the one fatal thing is to be captured. So I concluded I
+wouldn't get into the thick of it till I had to, but would turn west
+and make a _detour_, crossing by Morton's Ford, farther up the Rapidan.
+Germania Ford lies in a deep loop of the river, and that made our ride
+longer, but we found a road and crossed all right as I planned it, and
+then we doubled back, as we had to, eastward.
+
+"It was a pretty ride in the May weather, through that beautiful
+Virginia country. We kept in the woods and the lonely roads as much as
+we could and hardly saw a soul for hours, and though I knew we were
+getting into dangerous parts again, I hoped we might work through all
+right. Of course I thought first about my errand, and my mind was on
+every turn of the road and every speck in the landscape, but all the
+same there was one corner of it--or of something--that didn't forget
+that red-headed girl--not an instant. I kept wondering if I'd ever see
+her again, and I was mighty clear that I would, if there was enough left
+of me by the time I could get off duty to go and look her up. The touch
+of her hands stayed with me all day.
+
+"About two o'clock or so we passed a house, just a cabin, but a neat
+sort of place, and I looked at it as I did at everything, and saw an old
+negro with grizzled hair standing some distance in front of it. Now
+everything reminded me of that girl because she was on my mind, and
+instantly I was struck with the idea, that the old fellow looked like
+the servant who had been locking the bag in the house by Germania Ford.
+I wasn't sure it was the same darky, but I thought I'd see. There was a
+patch of woods back of the house, and I ordered the party to wait there
+till I joined them, and I threw my bridle to a soldier and turned in at
+the gate. The man loped out for the house, but I halted him. Then I went
+along past the negro to the cabin, and opened the door, which had been
+shut tight.
+
+"There was a table littered with papers in the middle of the room, and
+behind it, in a gray riding-habit, with a gray soldier-cap on her red
+hair, writing for dear life, sat the girl. She lifted her head quick, as
+the door swung open, and then made a jump to get between me and the
+table. I took off my cap, and said I:
+
+"'I'm very glad to see you. I was just wondering if we'd ever meet
+again.' She only stared at me. Then I said: 'I'm sorry, but I'll have to
+ask you for those papers.' I knew by the look of them that they were
+some sort of despatches.
+
+"At that she laughed in a kind of a friendly, cocksure way. She wasn't
+afraid of anything, that girl. 'No,' she threw at me--just like
+that--'No.'" The General tossed back his big head and did a poor
+imitation of a girl's light tone--a poor imitation, but the way he did
+it was winning. "'No,' said she, shaking her head sidewise. 'You can't
+have those papers--not ever,' and with that she swept them together and
+popped them into a drawer of the table and then hopped up on the table
+and sat there laughing at me, with her little riding-hoots swinging. 'At
+least, unless you knock me down, and I don't believe you'll do that,'
+said she.
+
+"Well, I had to have those papers. I didn't know how important they
+might be, but if this girl was sending information to the Southern
+commanders I was inclined to think it would be accurate and worth while.
+It wouldn't do not to capture it. At the same time I wouldn't have laid
+a finger on her, to compel her, for a million dollars. I stood and
+stared like a blockhead for a minute, at my wit's end, and she sat there
+and smiled. All of a sudden I had an idea. I caught the end of the table
+and tipped it up, and off slid the young lady, and I snatched at the
+knob of the drawer, and had the papers in a second.
+
+"It was simple, but it worked. Then it was her turn to look foolish. Of
+course she had a temper, with that colored hair, and she was raging. She
+looked at me as if she'd like to tear me to pieces. There wasn't
+anything she could say, however, and not lose her dignity, and I guess
+she pretty nearly exploded for a minute, and then, in a flash, the joke
+of it struck her. Her eyes began to dance, and she laughed because she
+couldn't help it, and I with her. For a whole minute we forgot what a
+big business we were both after, and acted like two children.
+
+"'That's right,' said I finally. 'I had to get them, but I did it in the
+kindest spirit. I see you understand that.'
+
+"'Oh, I don't care,' she answered with her chin up--a little way she
+had. 'They're not much, anyway. I hadn't got to the important part.'
+
+"'Won't you finish?' said I politely, and pretended to offer her the
+papers--and then I got serious. 'What are you doing here?' I asked her.
+'Where are you going?'
+
+"She looked up at me, and--I knew she liked me. She caught her breath
+before she answered. 'What right have you got to ask me questions?' said
+she, making a bluff at righteous indignation.
+
+"But I just gripped her fingers into mine--it was getting to be a habit,
+holding her hand.
+
+"'And what are _you_ doing here?' she went on saucily, but her voice was
+a whisper, and she let her hand lie.
+
+"'I'll tell you what I'm doing,' said I. 'I'm obeying the Bible. My
+Bible tells me to love my enemies, and I'm going to. I do,' said I.
+'What does your Bible tell you?'
+
+"'My Bible tells me to resist the devil and he will flee from me,' she
+answered back like a flash, standing up straight and looking at me
+squarely, as solemn as a church.
+
+"'Well, I guess I'm not that kind of a devil,' said I. 'I don't want to
+flee worth a cent.'
+
+"And at that she broke into a laugh and showed all her little teeth at
+me. That was one of the prettiest things about her, the row of small
+white teeth she showed every time she laughed.
+
+"'Just at that second the old negro stuck his head in at the door.
+'We're busy, uncle,' said I. 'I'll give you five dollars for five
+minutes.'
+
+"But the girl put her hand on my arm to stop me, 'What is it, Uncle
+Ebenezer?' she asked him anxiously.
+
+"'It's young Marse, Miss Lindy,' the man said, 'Him'n Marse Philip
+Breck'nridge 'n' Marse Tom's ridin' down de branch right now. Close to
+hyer--dey'll be hyer in fo'-five minutes.'
+
+"She nodded at him coolly. 'All right. Shut the door, Uncle Ebenezer,'
+said she, and he went out and shut it.
+
+"And before I could say Jack Robinson she was dragging me into the next
+room, and pushing me out of a door at the back.
+
+"'Go--hurry up--oh, go!' she begged. 'I won't let them take you.'
+
+"Well, I didn't like to leave her suddenly like that, so I said, said I:
+'What's the hurry? I want to tell you something.'
+
+"'_No_,' she shot at me. 'You can't. Go--won't you, please go?' Then I
+picked up a little hand and hold it against my coat. I knew by now just
+how she would catch her breath when I did it."
+
+At about this point the General forgot me. Such good comrades we were
+that my presence did not trouble him, but as for telling the story to
+me, that was past--he was living it over, to himself alone, with every
+nerve in action.
+
+"'Look here,' said I, 'I don't believe a thing like this ever happened
+on the globe before, but this has. It's so--I love you, and I believe
+you love me, and I'm not going till you tell me so.'
+
+"By that time she was in a fit. 'They'll be here in two minutes; they're
+Confederate officers. Oh, and you mustn't cross at Kelly's Ford--take
+the ford above it'--and she thumped me excitedly with the hand I held.
+I laughed, and she burst out again: 'They'll take you--oh, please go!'
+
+"'Tell me, then,' said I, and she stopped half a second, and gasped
+again, and looked up in my eyes and said it. 'I love you,' said she. And
+she meant it.
+
+"'Give me a kiss,' said I, and I leaned close to her, but she pulled
+away.
+
+"'Oh, no--oh, please go now,' she begged.
+
+"'All right,' said I, 'but you don't know what you're missing,' and I
+slid out of the back door at the second the Southerners came in at the
+front.
+
+"There were bushes back there, and I crawled behind them and looked
+through into the window, and what do you suppose I saw? I saw the
+biggest and best-looking man of the three walk up to the girl who'd just
+told me she loved me, and I saw her put up her face and give him the
+kiss she wouldn't give me. Well, I went smashing down to the woods,
+making such a rumpus that if those officers had been half awake they'd
+have been after me twice over. I was so maddened at the sight of that
+kiss that I didn't realize what I was doing or that I was endangering
+the lives of my men. 'Of course,' said I to myself, 'it's her brother or
+her cousin,' but I knew it was a hundred to one that it wasn't, and I
+was in a mighty bad temper.
+
+"I got my men away from the neighborhood quietly, and we rode pretty
+cautiously all that afternoon, I knew the road leading to Kelly's Ford,
+and I bore to the north, away from there, for I trusted the girl and
+believed I'd be safe if I followed her orders. She'd saved my life twice
+that day, so I had reason to trust her. But all the time as I jogged
+along I was wondering about that man, and wondering what the dickens she
+was up to, anyway, and why she was travelling in the same direction that
+I was, and where she was going--and over and over I wondered if I'd over
+see her again. I felt sure I would, though--I couldn't imagine not
+seeing her, after what she'd said. I didn't even know her name, except
+that the old negro had called her 'Miss Lindy.' I said that a lot of
+times to myself as I rode, with the men's bits jingling at my buck and
+their horses' hoofs thud-thudding. 'Lindy--Miss Lindy--Linda--my
+Linda--I said it half aloud. It kept first-rate time to the
+hoof-beats--'Lindy--Miss Lindy.'
+
+"I wondered, too, why she wouldn't let me cross the Rappahannock by
+Kelly's Ford, for I had reason to think there'd be a Union post on the
+east side of the river there, but there was a sense of brains and
+capability about the girl, as well as charm--in fact, that's likely to
+be a large part of any real charm--and so I trusted to her.
+
+[Illustration: "I got behind a turn and fired as a man came on alone."]
+
+"Well, late in the afternoon we were trotting along, feeling pretty
+secure. I'd left the Kelly's Ford road at the last turn, and was
+beginning to think that we ought to be within a few miles of the river,
+when all of a sudden, coming out of some woods into a small clearing
+with a farmhouse about the centre of it, we rode on a strong outpost of
+the enemy, infantry and cavalry both. We were in the open before I saw
+them, so there was nothing to do but make a dash for it and rush past
+the cabin before they could reach their arms, and we drew our revolvers
+and put the spurs in deep and flew past with a fire that settled some
+of them. But a surprise of this sort doesn't last long, and it was only
+a few minutes before they were after us--and with fresh mounts. Then it
+was a horse-race for the river, and I wasn't certain of the roads.
+However, I knew a trick or two about this business, and I was sure some
+of the pursuers would forge ahead; so three times I got behind a turn
+and fired as a man came on alone. I dismounted several that way. This
+relieved the strain enough so that I got within sight of the river with
+all my men. It was a quarter of a mile away when I saw it, and at that
+point the road split, and which branch led to the ford for the life of
+me I didn't know. There wasn't time for meditation, however, so I shot
+down the turn to the left, on the gamble, and sure enough there was the
+ford--only it wasn't any ford. The Rappahannock was full to the banks
+and perhaps two hundred yards across. The Confederates were within
+rifle-shot, so there were exactly two things to do--surrender or swim. I
+gave my men the choice--to follow me or be captured--and I plunged in,
+without any of them."
+
+"What!" I demanded here, puzzled. "Didn't the men know how to swim?"
+
+"Oh, yes, they knew how," the General answered, and looked embarrassed.
+
+"Well, then, why didn't they?" It began to dawn on me, "Were they
+afraid--was it dangerous--was the river swift?"
+
+"Yes," he acknowledged. "The river was swift--it was a foaming torrent."
+
+"They were afraid--all ten of them--and you weren't--you alone?" The
+General looked annoyed. "I didn't want to be captured," he explained
+crossly. "I had the despatches besides." He went on: "I slipped off my
+horse, keeping hold of the bridle to guide him, and swam low beside him,
+because they were firing from the bank. But all at once the shots
+stopped, and I heard shouting, and shortly after I got a glimpse, over
+my horse's back, of a rider in the water near me, and there was a flash
+of a gray cap. One of the Southerners was swimming after me, and I was
+due for a tussle when we landed. I made it first. I scrambled to shore
+and snatched out my sword--the pistols were wet--and rushed for the
+other man as he jumped to the bank, and just as I got to him--just in
+time--I saw him. It wasn't him--it was her--the girl. Heavens!" gasped
+the General; "she gave me a start that time. I dropped my sword on the
+ground, I was so surprised, and stared at her with my mouth open.
+
+"'Oo-ee!' said that girl, shaking her skirt, as calm as a May morning.
+'Oo-ee!' like a baby crowing. 'My, but that's a cold river!' And her
+teeth chattered.
+
+"Well, that time I didn't ask permission. I took her in my arms and held
+her--I had to, to keep her warm. Couldn't let her stand there and click
+her teeth--could I? And she didn't fight me. 'What did you do such a
+crazy thing for?' asked I.
+
+"'Well, you're mighty par-particular,' said she as saucy as you please,
+but still shivering so she couldn't talk straight. 'They were popping
+g-guns at you--that's what for. Roger's a right bad shot, but he might
+have hit you.'
+
+"'And he might, have hit you,' said I. 'Did you happen to think of
+that?'
+
+"She just laughed. 'Oh, no--they wouldn't risk hitting me. I'm too
+valuable--that's why I jumped in--to protect you.'
+
+"'Oh!' said I. 'I'm a delicate flower, it seems. You've been protecting
+me all day. Who's Roger?'
+
+"'My brother,' said she, smiling up at me.
+
+"'Was that the man you kissed in the cabin back yonder?'
+
+"'Shame!' said she. 'You peeped.'
+
+"'Was it?' I insisted, for I wanted to know. And she told me.
+
+"'Yes,' she told me, in that low voice of hers that was hard to hear,
+only it paid to listen.
+
+"'Did you ever kiss any other man?' said I.
+
+"'It's none of your business,' said the girl. 'But I didn't--the way you
+mean.'
+
+"'Well, it wouldn't make any difference, anyway--nothing would,' I said.
+'Except this--are you ever going to?'
+
+"All this time that bright-colored head of hers was on my shoulder,
+Confederate cap and all, and I was afraid of my life to stir, for fear
+she'd take it away. But when I said that I put my face down against
+hers and repeated the question, 'Are you ever going to?'
+
+"It seemed like ages before she answered and I was scared--yet she
+didn't pull away,--and finally the words came--low, but I heard. 'One,'
+said she. 'If he wants it.'
+
+"Then--" the General stopped suddenly, and the splendid claret and
+honey color of his cheeks went a dark shade more to claret. He had come
+to from his trance, and remembered me. "I don't know why I'm telling you
+all these details," he declared abruptly. "I suppose you're tired to
+death listening." His alert eyes questioned me.
+
+"General," I begged, "don't stop like that again. Don't leave out a
+syllable. 'Then--'"
+
+But he threw back his head boyishly and laughed with a touch of
+self-consciousness. "No, madam, I won't tell you about 'then.' I'll
+leave so much to your imagination. I guess you're equal to it. It wasn't
+a second anyway before she gave a jump that took her six feet from me,
+and there she was tugging at the girth of her saddle.
+
+"'Quick--change the saddles!' she ordered me. 'I must be out of my mind
+to throw away time when your life's in danger. They're coming around by
+the bridge,' she explained, 'two miles down. And you have to have a
+fresh mount. They'd catch you on that.' She threw a contemptuous glance
+at my tired brute, and began unbuckling the wet straps with her little
+wet fingers.
+
+"'Don't do that,' said I. 'Let me.' But she pushed me away. 'Mustn't
+waste time.' She gave her orders as business-like as an officer. 'Do
+your own saddle while I attend to this. Zero can run right away from
+anything they're riding--from anything at all. Can't you, Zero?' and she
+gave the horse a quick pat in between unbuckling. He was a powerful,
+rangy bay, and not winded by his run and his swim. 'He's my father's,'
+she went on. 'He'll carry you through to General Hooker's camp at
+Falmouth--he knows that camp. It's twenty-five miles yet, and you've
+ridden fifty to-day, poor boy.'
+
+"I wish I could tell you how pretty her voice was when she said things
+like that, as if she cared that I'd had a strenuous day and was a little
+tired.
+
+"'How do you know I'm going to Falmouth? How do you know how far I've
+ridden?' I asked her, astonished again.
+
+"'I'm a witch,' she said. 'I find out everything about you-all by magic,
+and then I tell our officers. They know it's so if I tell them. Ask
+Stonewall Jackson how he discovered the road to take his cavalry around
+for the attack on Howard. I reckon I helped a lot at Chancellorsville.'
+
+"'Do you reckon you're helping now?' I asked, throwing my saddle over
+Zero's back. 'Strikes me you're giving aid and comfort to the enemy hand
+over fist.'
+
+"That girl surprised me whatever she did, and the reason was--I figured
+it out afterward--that she let herself be what few people let themselves
+be--absolutely straightforward. She had the gentlest ways, but she
+always hit straight from the shoulder, and that's likely to surprise
+people. This time she took three steps to where I stood by Zero and
+caught my finger in the middle of pulling up the cinch and held to it.
+
+"'I'm not a traitor,' she threw at me. 'I'm loyal to my people, and
+you're my enemy--and I'm saving you from them. But it's you--it's you,'
+she whispered, looking up at me. It was getting dark by now, but I could
+see her eyes. 'When you put your hand over mine this morning it was like
+somebody'd telegraphed that the one man was coming; and then I looked at
+you, and I knew he'd got there. I've never bothered about men--mostly
+they're not worth while, when there are horses--but ever since I've been
+grown I've known that you'd come some time, and that I'd know you when
+you came. Do you think I'm going to let you be taken--shot, maybe? Not
+much--I'll guard your life with every breath of mine--and I'll keep it
+safe, too.'
+
+"Now, wasn't that a strange way for a girl to talk? Did you ever hear of
+another woman who could talk that way, and live up to it?" he demanded
+of me unexpectedly.
+
+I was afraid to say the wrong thing and I spoke timidly. "What did you
+do then?"
+
+He gave me a glance smouldering with mischief. "I didn't do it. I tried
+to, but she wouldn't let me.
+
+"'Hurry, hurry,' said she, in a panic all of a sudden. 'They'll be
+coming. Zero's fast, but you ought to get a good start.'
+
+"And she hustled me on the horse. And just as I was off, as I bent from
+the saddle to catch her hand for the last time, she gave me two more
+shocks together." Silent reminiscent laughter shook him.
+
+"'When am I going to see you again?' asked I hopelessly, for I felt as
+if everything was mighty uncertain, and I couldn't bear to leave her.
+
+"'To-morrow,' said she, prompt as taxes. 'To-morrow. Good-by, Captain
+Carruthers.'
+
+"And she gave the horse a slap that scared him into a leap, and off I
+went galloping into darkness, with my brain in a whirl as to where I
+could see her to-morrow, and how under creation she knew my name. The
+cold bath had refreshed me--I hadn't had the like of it for nine
+days--and I galloped on for a while feeling fine, and thinking mighty
+hard about the girl I'd left behind me. Twenty-four hours before I'd
+never seen her, yet I felt, as if I had known her all my life. I was
+sure of this, that in all my days I'd never seen anybody like her, and
+never would. And that's true to this minute. I'd had sweethearts
+a-plenty--in a way--but the affair of that day was the only time I was
+ever in love in my life."
+
+To tell the truth I had been a little scandalized all through this
+story, for I knew well enough that there was a Mrs. Carruthers. I had
+not met her--she had been South through the months which her husband had
+spent in New York--but the General's strong language concerning the
+red-haired girl made me sympathize with his wife, and this last
+sentiment was staggering. Poor Mrs. Carruthers! thought I--poor, staid
+lady, with this gay lad of a husband declaring his heart forever buried
+with the adventure of a day of long ago. Yet, a soldier boy of
+twenty-three--the romance of war-time--the glamour of lost love--there
+were certainly alleviating circumstances. At all events, it was not my
+affair--I could enjoy the story as it came with a clear conscience. So I
+smiled at the wicked General--who looked as innocent as a baby--and he
+went on.
+
+"I knew every road on that side the river, and I knew the Confederates
+wouldn't dare chase me but a few miles, as it wasn't their country any
+longer, so pretty soon I began to take things easy. I thought over
+everything that had happened through the day, everything she'd said and
+done, every look--I could remember it all. I can now. I wondered who
+under heaven she was, and I kicked myself that I hadn't asked her name.
+'Lindy'--that's all I knew, and I guess I said that over a hundred
+times. I wondered why she'd told me not to go to Kelly's Ford, but I
+worked that out the right way--as I found later--that her party expected
+to cross there, and she didn't want me to encounter them; and then the
+river was too full and they tried a higher ford. And I'd run into them.
+Yet I couldn't understand why she planned to cross at Kelly's, anyway,
+because there was pretty sure to be a Union outpost on the east bank
+there, and she'd have landed right among them. That puzzled me. Who was
+the girl, and why on earth was she travelling in that direction, and
+where could she be going? I went over that problem again and again, and
+couldn't find an answer.
+
+"Meanwhile it was getting late, and the bracing effect of the cold
+water of the Rappahannock was wearing off, and I began to feel the
+fatigue of an exciting day and a seventy-five-mile ride--on top of
+nine other days with little to eat and not much rest. My wet clothes
+chilled me, and the last few miles I have never been able to remember
+distinctly--I think I was misty in my mind. At any rate, when I got to
+headquarters camp I was just about clear enough to guide Zero through
+the maze of tents, and not any more, and when the horse stopped with his
+nose against the front pole of the general's fly I was unconscious."
+
+I exclaimed, horrified: "It was too much for human nature! You must have
+been nearly dead. Did you fall off? Were you hurt?"
+
+"Oh, no--I was all right," he said cheerfully. "I just sat there. But an
+equestrian statue in front of the general's tent at 11 P.M. wasn't
+usual, and there was a small sensation. It brought out the
+adjutant-general and he recognized me, and they carried me into a tent,
+and got a surgeon, and he had me stripped and rubbed and rolled in
+blankets. They found the despatches in my boots, and those gave all the
+information necessary. They found the letter, too, which Stoneman had
+given me to hand back to General Ladd, and they didn't understand that,
+as it was addressed simply to 'Miss Ladd, Ford Hall,' so they left it
+till I waked up. That wasn't till noon the next day."
+
+The General began chuckling contagiously, and I was alive with curiosity
+to know the coming joke.
+
+"I believe every officer in the camp, from the commanding general down,
+had sent me clothes. When I unclosed my eyes that tent was alive with
+them. It was a spring opening, I can tell you--all sorts. Well, when I
+got the meaning of the array, I lay there and laughed out loud, and an
+orderly appeared at that, and then the adjutant-general, and I reported
+to him. Then I got into an assortment of the clothes, and did my duty by
+a pile of food and drink, and I was ready to start back to join my
+chief. Except for the letter of General Ladd--I had to deliver that in
+person to give the explanation. General Ladd had been wounded, I found,
+at Chancellorsville, but would see me. So off I went to his tent, and
+the orderly showed me in at once. He was in bed with his arm and
+shoulder bandaged, and by his side, looking as fresh as a rose and as
+mischievous as a monkey, sat a girl with red hair--Linda Ladd--Miss
+Ladd, of Ford Hall--the old house where I first saw her. Her father
+presented me in due form and told me to give her the letter and--that's
+all."
+
+The General stopped short and regarded me quietly.
+
+"Oh, but--" I stammered. "But that isn't all--why, I don't
+understand--it's criminal not to tell the rest--there's a lot."
+
+"What do you want to hear?" he demanded, "I don't know any more--that's
+all that happened."
+
+"Don't be brutal," I pleaded. "I want to know, for one thing, how she
+knew your name."
+
+"Oh--that." He laughed like an amused child. "That was rather odd. You
+remember I told you that when they were chasing us I took shelter and
+shot the horses from under some of the Southerners."
+
+"I remember."
+
+"Well, the first man dismounted was Tom Ladd, the girl's cousin, who'd
+been my classmate at the Point, and he recognized me. He ran back and
+told them to make every effort to capture the party, as its leader was
+Captain Carruthers, of Stoneman's staff, and undoubtedly carried
+despatches."
+
+"Oh!" I said. "I see. And where was Miss Ladd going, travelling your way
+all day?"
+
+"To see her wounded father at Falmouth, don't you understand? She'd had
+word from him the day before. She was escorted by a strong party of
+Confederates, including her brother and cousin. She started out with
+just the old negro, and it was arranged that she should meet the party
+at the cabin where I found her writing. They were to go with her to
+Kelly's Ford, where she was to pass over to the Union post on the other
+bank--she had a safe-conduct."
+
+"Oh!" I assimilated this. "And she and her brother were Confederates,
+and the father was a Northern general--how extraordinary!"
+
+"Not in the least," the General corrected me. "It happened so in a
+number of cases. She was a power in that campaign. She did more work
+than either father or brother. A Southern officer told me afterward that
+the men half believed what she said--that she was a witch, and got news
+of our movements by magic. Nothing escaped her--she had a wonderful
+mind, and did not know what fear was. A wonderful woman!"
+
+He was smiling to himself again as he sat, with his great shoulders bent
+forward and his scarred hand on his knee, looking into the fire.
+
+"General," I said tentatively, "aren't you going to tell me what she
+said when she saw you come into her father's tent?"
+
+"Said?" asked the General, looking up and frowning. "What could she say?
+Good-morning, I guess."
+
+I wasn't afraid of his frown or of his hammer-and-tongs manner. I'd got
+behind both before now. I persisted.
+
+"But I mean--what did you say to each other, like the day before--how
+did it all come out?"
+
+"Oh, we couldn't do any love-making, if that's what you mean," he
+explained in a business-like way, "because the old man was on deck. And
+I had to leave in about ten minutes to ride back to join my command.
+That was all there was to it."
+
+I sighed with disappointment. Of course I knew it was just an idyll of
+youth, a day long, and that the book was closed forty years before. But
+I could not bear to have it closed with a bang. Somewhere in the
+narrative had come to me the impression that the heroine of it had died
+young in those exciting war-times of long ago. I had a picture in my
+mind of the dancing eyes closed meekly in a last sleep; of the young
+officer's hand laid sorrowing on the bright halo of hair.
+
+"Did you ever see the girl again?" I asked softly.
+
+The General turned on me a quick, queer look. Fun was in it, and memory
+gave it gentleness; yet there was impatience, too, at my slowness, in
+the boyish brown eyes.
+
+"Mrs. Carruthers has red hair," he said briefly.
+
+
+
+
+THROUGH THE IVORY GATE
+
+
+Breeze-filtered through shifting leafage, the June morning sunlight came
+in at the open window by the boy's bed, under the green shades, across
+the shadowy, white room, and danced a noiseless dance of youth and
+freshness and springtime against the wall opposite. The boy's head
+stirred on his pillow. He spoke a quick word from out of his dream. "The
+key?" he said inquiringly, and the sound of his own voice awoke him.
+Dark, drowsy eyes opened, and he stared half seeing, at the picture that
+hung facing him. Was it the play of mischievous sunlight, was it the
+dream that still held his brain? He knew the picture line by line, and
+there was no such figure in it. It was a large photograph of Fairfield,
+the Southern home of his mother's people, and the boy remembered it
+always hanging there, opposite his bed, the first sight to meet his eyes
+every morning since his babyhood. So he was certain there was no figure
+in it, more than all one so remarkable as this strapping little chap in
+his queer clothes; his dress of conspicuous plaid with large black
+velvet squares sewed on it, who stood now in front of the old
+manor-house. Could it be only a dream? Could it be that a little ghost,
+wandering childlike in dim, heavenly fields, had joined the gay troop of
+his boyish visions and shipped in with them through the ivory gate of
+pleasant dreams? The boy put his fists to his eyes and rubbed them and
+looked again. The little fellow was still there, standing with sturdy
+legs wide apart as if owning the scene; he laughed as he held toward the
+boy a key--a small key tied with a scarlet ribbon. There was no doubt in
+the boy's mind that the key was for him, and out of the dim world of
+sleep he stretched his young arm for it; to reach it he sat up in bed.
+Then he was awake and knew himself alone in the peace of his own little
+room, and laughed shamefacedly at the reality of the vision which had
+followed him from dreamland into the very boundaries of consciousness,
+which held him even now with gentle tenacity, which drew him back
+through the day, from his studies, from his play, into the strong
+current of its fascination.
+
+The first time Philip Beckwith had this dream he was only twelve years
+old, and, withheld by the deep reserve of childhood, he told not even
+his mother about it, though he lived in its atmosphere all day and
+remembered it vividly days longer. A year after it came again; and again
+it was a June morning, and as his eyes opened the little boy came once
+more out of the picture toward him, laughing and holding out the key on
+its scarlet string. The dream was a pleasant one, and Philip welcomed it
+eagerly from his sleep as a friend. There seemed something sweet and
+familiar in the child's presence beyond the one memory of him, as again
+the boy, with eyes half open to every-day life, saw him standing, small
+but masterful, in the garden of that old house where the Fairfields had
+lived for more than a century. Half consciously he tried to prolong the
+vision, tried not to wake entirely for fear of losing it; but the
+picture faded surely from the curtain of his mind as the tangible world
+painted there its heavier outlines. It was as if a happy little spirit
+had tried to follow him, for love of him, from a country lying close,
+yet separated; it was as if the common childhood of the two made it
+almost possible for them to meet; as if a message that might not be
+spoken, were yet almost delivered.
+
+The third time the dream came it was a December morning of the year when
+Philip was fifteen, and falling snow made wavering light and shadow on
+the wall where hung the picture. This time, with eyes wide open, yet
+with the possession of the dream strongly on him, he lay sub-consciously
+alert and gazed, as in the odd, unmistakable dress that Philip knew now
+in detail, the bright-faced child swung toward him, always from the
+garden of that old place, always trying with loving, merry efforts to
+reach Philip from out of it--always holding to him the red-ribboned key.
+Like a wary hunter the big boy lay--knowing it unreal, yet living it
+keenly--and watched his chance. As the little figure glided close to him
+he put out his hand suddenly, swiftly for the key--he was awake. As
+always, the dream was gone; the little ghost was baffled again; the two
+worlds might not meet.
+
+That day Mrs. Beckwith, putting in order an old mahogany secretary,
+showed him a drawer full of photographs, daguerrotypes. The boy and his
+gay young mother were the best of friends, for, only nineteen when he
+was born, she had never let the distance widen between them; had held
+the freshness of her youth sacred against the time when he should share
+it. Year by year, living in his enthusiasms, drawing him to hers, she
+had grown young in his childhood, which year by year came closer to her
+maturity. Until now there was between the tall, athletic lad and the
+still young and attractive woman, an equal friendship, a common youth,
+which gave charm and elasticity to the natural tie between them. Yet
+even to this comrade-mother the boy had not told his dream, for the
+difficulty of putting into words the atmosphere, the compelling power of
+it. So that when she opened one of the old-fashioned black cases which
+held the early sun-pictures, and showed him the portrait within, he
+startled her by a sudden exclamation. From the frame of red velvet and
+tarnished gilt there laughed up at him the little boy of his dream.
+There was no mistaking him, and if there were doubt about the face,
+there was the peculiar dress--the black and white plaid with large
+squares of black velvet sewed here and there as decoration. Philip
+stared in astonishment at the sturdy figure, the childish face with its
+wide forehead and level, strong brows; its dark eyes straight-gazing and
+smiling.
+
+"Mother--who is he? Who is he?" he demanded.
+
+"Why, my lamb, don't you know? It's your little uncle Philip--my
+brother, for whom you were named--Philip Fairfield the sixth. There was
+always a Philip Fairfield at Fairfield since 1790. This one was the
+last, poor baby! and he died when he was five. Unless you go back there
+some day--that's my hope, but it's not likely to come true. You are a
+Yankee, except for the big half of you that's me. That's Southern, every
+inch." She laughed and kissed his fresh cheek impulsively. "But what
+made you so excited over this picture, Phil?"
+
+Philip gazed down, serious, a little embarrassed, at the open case in
+his hand. "Mother," he said after a moment, "you'll laugh at me, but
+I've seen this chap in a dream three times now."
+
+"Oh!" She did laugh at him. "Oh, Philip! What have you been eating for
+dinner, I'd like to know? I can't have you seeing visions of your
+ancestors at fifteen--it's unhealthy."
+
+The boy, reddening, insisted. "But, mother, really, don't you think it
+was queer? I saw him as plainly as I do now--and I've never seen this
+picture before."
+
+"Oh, yes, you have--you must have seen it," his mother threw back
+lightly. "You've forgotten, but the image of it was tucked away in some
+dark corner of your mind, and when you were asleep it stole out and
+played tricks on you. That's the way forgotten ideas do: they get even
+with you in dreams for having forgotten them."
+
+"Mother, only listen--" But Mrs. Beckwith, her eyes lighting with a
+swift turn of thought, interrupted him--laid her finger on his lips.
+
+"No--you listen, boy dear--quick, before I forget it! I've never told
+you about this, and it's very interesting."
+
+And the youngster, used to these wilful ways of his sister-mother,
+laughed and put his fair head against her shoulder and listened.
+
+"It's quite a romance," she began, "only there isn't any end to it; it's
+all unfinished and disappointing. It's about this little Philip here,
+whose name you have--my brother. He died when he was five, as I said,
+but even then he had a bit of dramatic history in his life. He was born
+just before war-time in 1859, and he was a beautiful and wonderful baby;
+I can remember all about it, for I was six years older. He was incarnate
+sunshine, the happiest child that ever lived, but far too quick and
+clever for his years. The servants used to ask him, 'Who is you, Marse
+Philip, sah?' to hear him answer, before he could speak it plainly, 'I'm
+Philip Fairfield of Fairfield'; he seemed to realize that, and his
+responsibility to them and to the place, as soon as he could breathe. He
+wouldn't have a darky scolded in his presence, and every morning my
+father put him in front of him in the saddle, and they rode together
+about the plantation. My father adored him, and little Philip's sunshiny
+way of taking possession of the slaves and the property pleased him more
+deeply, I think, than anything in his life. But the war came before this
+time, when the child was about a year old, and my father went off, of
+course, as every Southern man went who could walk, and for a year we did
+not see him. Then he was badly wounded at the battle of Malvern Hill;
+and came home to get well. However, it was more serious than he knew,
+and he did not get well. Twice he went off again to join our army, and
+each time he was sent back within a month, too ill to be of any use. He
+chafed constantly, of course, because he must stay at home and farm,
+when his whole soul ached to be fighting for his flag; but finally in
+December, 1863, he thought he was well enough at last for service. He
+was to join General John Morgan, who had just made his wonderful escape
+from prison at Columbus, and it was planned that my mother should take
+little Philip and me to England to live there till the war was over and
+we could all be together at Fairfield again. With that in view my
+father drew all of his ready money--it was ten thousand dollars in
+gold--from the banks in Lexington, for my mother's use in the years they
+might be separated. When suddenly, the day before he was to have gone,
+the old wound broke out again, and he was helplessly ill in bed at the
+hour when he should have been on his horse riding toward Tennessee. We
+were fifteen miles out from Lexington, yet it might be rumored that
+father had drawn a large sum of money, and, of course, he was well known
+as a Southern officer. Because of the Northern soldiers, who held the
+city, he feared very much to have the money in the house, yet he hoped
+still to join Morgan a little later, and then it would be needed as he
+had planned. Christmas morning my father was so much better that my
+mother went to church, taking me, and leaving little Philip, then four
+years old, to amuse him. What happened that morning was the point of all
+this rambling; so now listen hard, my precious thing."
+
+The boy, sitting erect now, caught his mother's hand silently, and his
+eyes stared into hers as he drunk in every word:
+
+"Mammy, who was, of course, little Philip's nurse, told my mother
+afterward that she was sent away before my father and the boy went into
+the garden, but she saw them go and saw that my father had a tin box--a
+box about twelve inches long, which seemed very heavy--in his arms, and
+on his finger swung a long red ribbon with a little key strung on it.
+Mother knew it as the key of the box, and she had tied the ribbon on it
+herself.
+
+"It was a bright, crisp Christmas day, pleasant in the garden--the box
+hedges were green and fragrant, aromatic in the sunshine. You don't even
+know the smell of box in sunshine, you poor child! But I remember that
+day, for I was ten years old, a right big girl, and it was a beautiful
+morning for an invalid to take the air. Mammy said she was proud to see
+how her 'handsome boy' kept step with his father, and she watched the
+two until they got away down by the rose-garden, and then she couldn't
+see little Philip behind the three-foot hedge, so she turned away. But
+somewhere in that big garden, or under the trees beside it, my father
+buried the box that held the money--ten thousand dollars. It shows how
+he trusted that baby, that he took him with him, and you'll see how his
+trust was only too well justified. For that evening, Christmas night,
+very suddenly my father died--before he had time to tell my mother where
+he had hidden the box. He tried; when consciousness came a few minutes
+before the end he gasped out, 'I buried the money'--and then he choked.
+Once again he whispered just two words: 'Philip knows.' And my mother
+said, 'Yes, dearest--Philip and I will find it--don't worry, dearest,'
+and that quieted him. She told me about it so many times.
+
+"After the funeral she took little Philip and explained to him as well
+as she could that he must tell mother where he and father had put the
+box, and--this is the point of it all, Philip--he wouldn't tell. She
+went over and over it all, again and again, but it was no use. He had
+given his word to my father never to tell, and he was too much of a baby
+to understand how death had dissolved that promise. My mother tried
+every way, of course, explanations and reasoning first, then pleading,
+and finally severity; she even punished the poor little martyr, for it
+was awfully important to us all. But the four-year-old baby was
+absolutely incorruptible, he cried bitterly and sobbed out:
+
+"'Farver said I mustn't never tell anybody--never! Farver said Philip
+Fairfield of Fairfield mustn't _never_ bweak his words,' and that was
+all.
+
+"Nothing could induce him to give the least hint. Of course there was
+great search for it, but it was well hidden and it was never found.
+Finally, mother took her obdurate son and me and came to New York with
+us, and we lived on the little income which she had of her own. Her hope
+was that as soon as Philip was old enough she could make him understand,
+and go back with him and get that large sum lying underground--lying
+there yet, perhaps. But in less than a year the little boy was dead and
+the secret was gone with him."
+
+Philip Beckwith's eyes were intense and wide. The Fairfield eyes, brown
+and brilliant, their young fire was concentrated on his mother's face.
+
+"Do you mean that money is buried down there, yet, mother?" he asked
+solemnly.
+
+Mrs. Beckwith caught at the big fellow's sleeve with slim fingers.
+"Don't go to-day, Phil--wait till after lunch, anyway!"
+
+"Please don't make fun, mother--I want to know about it. Think of it
+lying there in the ground!"
+
+"Greedy boy! We don't need money now, Phil. And the old place will be
+yours when I am dead--" The lad's arm went about his mother's shoulders.
+"Oh, but I'm not going to die for ages! Not till I'm a toothless old
+person with side curls, hobbling along on a stick. Like this!"--she
+sprang to her feet and the boy laughed a great peal at the hag-like
+effect as his young mother threw herself into the part. She dropped on
+the divan again at his side.
+
+"What I meant to tell you was that your father thinks it very unlikely
+that the money is there yet, and almost impossible that we could find it
+in any case. But some day when the place is yours you can have it put
+through a sieve if you choose. I wish I could think you would ever live
+there, Phil; but I can't imagine any chance by which you should. I
+should hate to have you sell it--it has belonged to a Philip Fairfield
+so many years."
+
+A week later the boy left his childhood by the side of his mother's
+grave. His history for the next seven years may go in a few lines.
+School days, vacations, the four years at college, outwardly the
+commonplace of an even and prosperous development, inwardly the infinite
+variety of experience by which each soul is a person; the result of the
+two so wholesome a product of young manhood that no one realized under
+the frank and open manner a deep reticence, an intensity, a
+sensitiveness to impressions, a tendency toward mysticism which made the
+fibre of his being as delicate as it was strong.
+
+Suddenly, in a turn of the wheel, all the externals of his life changed.
+His rich father died penniless and he found himself on his own hands,
+and within a month the boy who had owned five polo ponies was a
+hard-working reporter on a great daily. The same quick-wittedness and
+energy which had made him a good polo player made him a good reporter.
+Promotion came fast and, as those who are busiest have most time to
+spare, he fell to writing stories. When the editor of a large magazine
+took one, Philip first lost respect for that dignified person, then felt
+ashamed to have imposed on him, then rejoiced utterly over the check.
+After that editors fell into the habit; the people he ran against knew
+about his books; the checks grew better reading all the time; a point
+came where it was more profitable to stay at home and imagine events
+than to go out and report them. He had been too busy as the days
+marched, to generalize, but suddenly he knew that he was a successful
+writer; that if he kept his head and worked, a future was before him. So
+he soberly put his own English by the side of that of a master or two
+from his book-shelves, to keep his perspective clear, and then he worked
+harder. And it came to be five years after his father's death.
+
+At the end of those years three things happened at once. The young man
+suddenly was very tired and knew that he needed the vacation he had gone
+without; a check came in large enough to make a vacation easy--and he
+had his old dream. His fagged brain had found it but another worry to
+decide where he should go to rest, but the dream settled the vexed
+question off-hand--he would go to Kentucky. The very thought of it
+brought rest to him, for like a memory of childhood, like a bit of his
+own soul, he knew the country--the "God's Country" of its people--which
+he had never seen. He caught his breath as he thought of warm, sweet air
+that held no hurry or nerve strain; of lingering sunny days whose hours
+are longer than in other places; of the soft speech, the serene and
+kindly ways of the people; of the royal welcome waiting for him as for
+every one, heartfelt and heart-warming; he knew it all from a daughter
+of Kentucky--his mother. It was May now, and he remembered she had told
+him that the land was filled with roses at the end of May--he would go
+then. He owned the old place, Fairfield, and he had never seen it.
+Perhaps it had fallen to pieces; perhaps his mother had painted it in
+colors too bright; but it was his, the bit of the earth that belonged to
+him. The Anglo-Saxon joy of land-owning stirred for the first time
+within him--he would go to his own place. Buoyant with the new thought
+he sat down and wrote a letter. A cousin of the family, of a younger
+branch, a certain John Fairfield, lived yet upon the land. Not in the
+great house, for that had been closed many years, but in a small house
+almost as old, called Westerly. Philip had corresponded with him once or
+twice about affairs of the estate, and each letter of the older man's
+had brought a simple and urgent invitation to come South and visit him.
+So, pleased as a child with the plan, he wrote that he was coming on a
+certain Thursday, late in May. The letter sent, he went about in a dream
+of the South, and when its answer, delighted and hospitable, came
+simultaneously with one of those bleak and windy turns of weather which
+make New York, even in May, a marvellously fitting place to leave, he
+could not wait. Almost a week ahead of his time he packed his bag and
+took the Southwestern Limited, and on a bright Sunday morning he awoke
+in the old Phoenix Hotel in Lexington. He had arrived too late the night
+before to make the fifteen miles to Fairfield, but he had looked over
+the horses in the livery-stable and chosen the one he wanted, for he
+meant to go on horseback, as a Southern gentleman should, to his domain.
+That he meant to go alone, that no one, not even John Fairfield, knew of
+his coming, was not the least of his satisfactions, for the sight of the
+place of his forefathers, so long neglected, was becoming suddenly a
+sacred thing to him. The old house and its young owner should meet each
+other like sweethearts, with no eyes to watch their greeting, their slow
+and sweet acquainting; with no living voices to drown the sound of the
+ghostly voices that must greet his home-coming from those walls--voices
+of his people who had lived there, voices gone long since into eternal
+silence.
+
+A little crowd of loungers stared with frank admiration at the young
+fellow who came out smiling from the door of the Phoenix Hotel, big and
+handsome in his riding clothes, his eyes taking in the details of
+girths and bits and straps with the keenness of a horseman.
+
+Philip laughed as he swung into the saddle and looked down at the
+friendly faces, most of them black faces, below, "Good-by," he said.
+"Wish me good luck, won't you?" and a willing chorus of "Good luck,
+boss," came flying after him as the horse's hoofs clattered down the
+street.
+
+Through the bright drowsiness of the little city he rode in the early
+Sunday morning, and his heart sang for joy to feel himself again across
+a horse, and for the love of the place that warmed him already. The sun
+shone hotly, but he liked it; he felt his whole being slipping into
+place, fitting to its environment; surely, in spite of birth and
+breeding, he was Southern born and bred, for this felt like home more
+than any home he had known!
+
+As he drew away from the city, every little while, through stately
+woodlands, a dignified sturdy mansion peeped down its long vista of
+trees at the passing cavalier, and, enchanted with its beautiful
+setting, with its air of proud unconsciousness, he hoped each time that
+Fairfield would look like that. If he might live here--and go to New
+York, to be sure, two or three times a year to keep the edge of his
+brain sharpened--but if he might live his life as these people lived, in
+this unhurried atmosphere, in this perfect climate, with the best things
+in his reach for every-day use; with horses and dogs, with out-of-doors
+and a great, lovely country to breathe in; with--he smiled vaguely--with
+sometime perhaps a wife who loved it as he did--he would ask from earth
+no better life than that. He could write, he felt certain, better and
+larger things in such surroundings.
+
+But he pulled himself up sharply as he thought how idle a day-dream it
+was. As a fact, he was a struggling young author, he had come South for
+two weeks' vacation, and on the first morning he was planning to live
+here--he must be light-headed. With a touch of his heel and a word and a
+quick pull on the curb, his good horse broke into a canter, and then,
+under the loosened rein, into a rousing gallop, and Philip went dashing
+down the country road, past the soft, rolling landscape, and under cool
+caves of foliage, vivid with emerald greens of May, thoughts and dreams
+all dissolved in exhilaration of the glorious movement, the nearest
+thing to flying that the wingless animal, man, may achieve.
+
+He opened his coat as the blood rushed faster through him, and a paper
+fluttered from his pocket. He caught it, and as he pulled the horse to a
+trot, he saw that it was his cousin's letter. So, walking now along the
+brown shadows and golden sunlight of the long white pike, he fell to
+wondering about the family he was going to visit. He opened the folded
+letter and read:
+
+"My dear Cousin," it said--the kinship was the first thought in John
+Fairfield's mind--"I received your welcome letter on the 14th. I am
+delighted that you are coming at last to Kentucky, and I consider that
+it is high time you paid Fairfield, which has been the cradle of your
+stock for many generations, the compliment of looking at it. We closed
+our house in Lexington three weeks ago, and are settled out here now for
+the summer, and find it lovelier than ever. My family consists only of
+myself and Shelby, my one child, who is now twenty-two years of age. We
+are both ready to give you an old-time Kentucky welcome, and Westerly is
+ready to receive you at any moment you wish to come."
+
+The rest was merely arrangement for meeting the traveller, all of which
+was done away with by his earlier arrival.
+
+"A prim old party, with an exalted idea of the family," commented Philip
+mentally. "Well-to-do, apparently, or he wouldn't be having a winter
+house in the city. I wonder what the boy Shelby is like. At twenty-two
+he should be doing something more profitable than spending an entire
+summer out here, I should say."
+
+The questions faded into the general content of his mind at the glimpse
+of another stately old pillared homestead, white and deep down its
+avenue of locusts. At length he stopped his horse to wait for a ragged
+negro trudging cheerfully down the road.
+
+"Do you know a place around here called Fairfield?" he asked.
+
+"Yessah. I does that, sah. It's that ar' place right hyeh, sah, by yo'
+hoss. That ar's Fahfiel'. Shall I open the gate fo' you, boss?" and
+Philip turned to see a hingeless ruin of boards held together by the
+persuasion of rusty wire.
+
+"The home of my fathers looks down in the mouth," he reflected aloud.
+
+The old negro's eyes, gleaming from under shaggy sheds of eyebrows,
+watched him, and he caught the words.
+
+"Is you a Fahfiel', boss?" he asked eagerly. "Is you my young Marse?" He
+jumped at the conclusion promptly. "You favors de fam'ly mightily, sah.
+I heard you was comin'"; the rag of a hat went off and he bowed low.
+"Hit's cert'nly good news fo' Fahfiel', Marse Philip, hit's mighty good
+news fo' us niggers, sah. I'se b'longed to the Fahfiel' fam'ly a hund'ed
+years, Marse--me and my folks, and I wishes yo' a welcome home,
+sah--welcome home, Marse Philip."
+
+Philip bent with a quick movement from his horse, and gripped the
+twisted old black hand, speechless. This humble welcome on the highway
+caught at his heart deep down, and the appeal of the colored people to
+Southerners, who know them, the thrilling appeal of a gentle, loyal
+race, doomed to live forever behind a veil and hopeless without
+bitterness, stirred for the first time his manhood. It touched him to be
+taken for granted as the child of his people; it pleased him that he
+should be "Marse Philip" as a matter of course, because there had always
+been a Marse Philip at the place. It was bred deeper in the bone of him
+than he knew, to understand the soul of the black man; the stuff he was
+made of had been Southern two hundred years.
+
+The old man went off down the white limestone road singing to himself,
+and Philip rode slowly under the locusts and beeches up the long drive,
+grass-grown and lost in places, that wound through the woodland
+three-quarters of a mile to his house. And as he moved through the park,
+through sunlight and shadow of these great trees that were his, he felt
+like a knight of King Arthur, like some young knight long exiled, at
+last coming to his own. He longed with an unreasonable seizure of
+desire to come here to live, to take care of it, beautify it, fill it
+with life and prosperity as it had once been filled, surround it with
+cheerful faces of colored people whom he might make happy and
+comfortable. If only he had money to pay off the mortgage, to put the
+place once in order, it would be the ideal setting for the life that
+seemed marked out for him--the life of a writer.
+
+The horse turned a corner and broke into a canter up the slope, and as
+the shoulder of the hill fell away there stood before him the picture of
+his childhood come to life, smiling drowsily in the morning sunlight
+with shuttered windows that were its sleeping eyes--the great white
+house of Fairfield. Its high pillars reached to the roof; its big wings
+stretched away at either side; the flicker of the shadow of the leaves
+played over it tenderly and hid broken bits of woodwork, patches of
+paint cracked away, window-panes gone here and there. It stood as if too
+proud to apologize or to look sad for such small matters, as serene, as
+stately as in its prime. And its master, looking at it for the first
+time, loved it.
+
+He rode around to the side and tied his mount to an old horse-rack, and
+then walked up the wide front steps as if each lift were an event. He
+turned the handle of the big door without much hope that it would yield,
+but it opened willingly, and he stood inside. A broom lay in a corner,
+windows were open--his cousin had been making ready for him. There was
+the huge mahogany sofa, horse-hair-covered, in the window under the
+stairs, where his mother had read "Ivanhoe" and "The Talisman." Philip
+stepped softly across the wide hall and laid his head where must have
+rested the brown hair of the little girl who had come to be, first all
+of his life, and then its dearest memory. Half an hour he spent in the
+old house, and its walls echoed to his footsteps as if in ready homage,
+and each empty room whose door he opened met him with a sweet half
+familiarity. The whole place was filled with the presence of the child
+who had loved it and left it, and for whom this tall man, her child,
+longed now as if for a little sister who should be here, and whom he
+missed. With her memory came the thought of the five-year-old uncle who
+had made history for the family so disastrously. He must see the garden
+where that other Philip had gone with his father to hide the money on
+the fated Christmas morning. He closed the house door behind him
+carefully, as if he would not disturb a little girl reading in the
+window, a little boy sleeping perhaps in the nursery above. Then he
+walked down the broad sweep of the driveway, the gravel crunching under
+the grass, and across what had been a bit of velvet lawn, and stood for
+a moment with his hand on a broken vase, weed-filled, which capped the
+stone post of a gateway.
+
+All the garden was misty with memories. Where a tall golden flower
+nodded alone, from out of the tangled thicket of an old flower-bed, a
+bright-haired child might have laughed with just that air of startled,
+gay naughtiness, from the forbidden centre of the blossoms. In the
+moulded tan-bark of the path was a vague print, like the ghost of a
+footprint that had passed down the way a lifetime ago. The box, half
+dead, half sprouted into high unkept growth, still stood stiffly against
+the riotous overflow of weeds as if it yet held loyally to its business
+of guarding the borders, Philip shifted his gaze slowly, lingering over
+the dim contours, the shadowy shape of what the garden had been.
+Suddenly his eyes opened wide. How was this? There was a hedge as neat,
+as clipped, as any of Southampton in mid-season, and over it a glory of
+roses, red and white and pink and yellow, waved gay banners to him in
+trim luxuriance. He swung toward them, and the breeze brought him for
+the first time in his life the fragrance of box in sunshine.
+
+Four feet tall, shaven and thick and shining, the old hedge stood, and
+the garnered sweetness of a hundred years' slow growth breathed
+delicately from it toward the great-great-grandson of the man who
+planted it. A box hedge takes as long in the making as a gentleman, and
+when they are done the two are much of a sort. No plant in all the
+garden has so subtle an air of breeding, so gentle a reserve, yet so
+gracious a message of sweetness for all of the world who will stop to
+learn it. It keeps a firm dignity under the stress of tempest when
+lighter growths are tossed and torn; it shines bright through the snow;
+it has a well-bred willingness to be background, with the well-bred gift
+of presence, whether as background or foreground. The soul of the
+box-tree is an aristocrat, and the sap that runs through it is the blue
+blood of vegetation.
+
+Saluting him bravely in the hot sunshine with its myriad shining
+sword-points, the old hedge sent out to Philip on the May breeze its
+ancient welcome of aromatic fragrance, and the tall roses crowded gayly
+to look over its edge at the new master. Slowly, a little dazed at this
+oasis of shining order in the neglected garden, he walked to the opening
+and stepped inside the hedge. The rose garden! The famous rose garden of
+Fairfield, and as his mother had described it, in full splendor of
+cared-for, orderly bloom. Across the paths he stepped swiftly till he
+stood amid the roses, giant bushes of Jacqueminot and Marechal Niel; of
+pink and white and red and yellow blooms in thick array. The glory of
+them intoxicated him. That he should own all of this beauty seemed too
+good to be true, and instantly he wanted to taste his ownership. The
+thought came to him that he would enter into his heritage with strong
+hands here in the rose garden; he caught a deep-red Jacqueminot almost
+roughly by its gorgeous head and broke off the stem. He would gather a
+bunch, a huge, unreasonable bunch of his own flowers. Hungrily he broke
+one after another; his shoulders bent over them, he was deep in the
+bushes.
+
+"I reckon I shall have to ask you not to pick any more of those roses,"
+a voice said.
+
+Philip threw up his head as if he had been shot; he turned sharply with
+a great thrill, for he thought his mother spoke to him. Perhaps it was
+only the Southern inflection so long unheard, perhaps the sunlight that
+shone in his eyes dazzled him, but, as he stared, the white figure
+before him seemed to him to look exactly as his mother had looked long
+ago. Stumbling over his words, he caught at the first that came.
+
+"I--I think it's all right," he said.
+
+The girl smiled frankly, yet with a dignity in her puzzled air. "I'm
+afraid I shall have to be right decided," she said. "These roses are
+private property and I mustn't let you have them."
+
+"Oh!" Philip dropped the great bunch of gorgeous color guiltily by his
+side, but still held tightly the prickly mass of stems, knowing his
+right, yet half wondering if he could have made a mistake. He stammered:
+
+"I thought--to whom do they belong?"
+
+"They belong to my cousin, Mr. Philip Fairfield Beckwith"--the sound of
+his own name was pleasant as the falling voice strayed through it. "He
+is coming home in a few days, so I want them to look their prettiest for
+him--for his first sight of them. I take care of this rose garden," she
+said, and laid a motherly hand on the nearest flower. Then she smiled.
+"It doesn't seem right hospitable to stop you, but if you will come over
+to Westerly, to our house, father will be glad to see you, and I will
+certainly give you all the flowers you want." The sweet and masterful
+apparition looked with a gracious certainty of obedience straight into
+Philip's bewildered eyes.
+
+[Illustration: "I reckon I shall have to ask you not pick any more of
+those roses," a voice said.]
+
+"The boy Shelby!" Many a time in the months after Philip Beckwith
+smiled to himself reminiscently, tenderly, as he thought of "the boy
+Shelby" whom he had read into John Fairfield's letter; "the boy Shelby"
+who was twenty-two years old and the only child; "the boy Shelby" whom
+he had blamed with such easy severity for idling at Fairfield; "the boy
+Shelby" who was no boy at all, but this white flower of girlhood,
+called--after the quaint and reasonable Southern way--as a boy is
+called, by the surname of her mother's people.
+
+Toward Westerly, out of the garden of the old time, out of the dimness
+of a forgotten past, the two took their radiant youth and the brightness
+of to-day. But a breeze blew across the tangle of weeds and flowers as
+they wandered away, and whispered a hope, perhaps a promise; for as it
+touched them each tall stalk nodded gayly and the box hedges rustled
+delicately an answering undertone. And just at the edge of the woodland,
+before they were out of sight, the girl turned and threw a kiss back to
+the roses and the box.
+
+"I always do that," she said. "I love them so!"
+
+Two weeks later a great train rolled into the Grand Central Station of
+New York at half-past six at night, and from it stepped a monstrosity--a
+young man without a heart. He had left all of it, more than he had
+thought he owned, in Kentucky. But he had brought back with him memories
+which gave him more joy than ever the heart had done, to his best
+knowledge, in all the years. They were memories of long and sunshiny
+days; of afternoons spent in the saddle, rushing through grassy lanes
+where trumpet-flowers flamed over gray farm fences, or trotting slowly
+down white roads; of whole mornings only an hour long, passed in the
+enchanted stillness of an old garden; of gay, desultory searches through
+its length and breadth, and in the park that held it, for buried
+treasure: of moonlit nights; of roses and June and Kentucky--and always,
+through all the memories, the presence that made them what they were,
+that of a girl he loved.
+
+No word of love had been spoken, but the two weeks had made over his
+life; and he went back to his work with a definite object, a hope
+stronger than ambition, and, set to it as music to words, came
+insistently another hope, a dream that he did not let himself dwell
+on--a longing to make enough money to pay off the mortgage and put
+Fairfield in order, and live and work there all his life--with Shelby.
+That was where the thrill of the thought came in, but the place was very
+dear to him in itself.
+
+The months went, and the point of living now were the mails from the
+South, and the feast days were the days that brought letters from
+Fairfield. He had promised to go back for a week at Christmas, and he
+worked and hoarded all the months between with a thought which he did
+not formulate, but which ruled his down-sitting and his up-rising, the
+thought that if he did well and his bank account grew enough to justify
+it he might, when he saw her at Christmas, tell her what he hoped; ask
+her--he finished the thought with a jump of his heart. He never worked
+harder or better, and each check that came in meant a step toward the
+promised land; and each seemed for the joy that was in it to quicken his
+pace, to lengthen his stride, to strengthen his touch. Early in November
+he found one night when he came to his rooms two letters waiting for
+him with the welcome Kentucky postmark. They were in John Fairfield's
+handwriting and in his daughter's, and "_place aux dames_" ruled rather
+than respect to age, for he opened Shelby's first. His eyes smiling, he
+read it.
+
+"I am knitting you a diamond necklace for Christmas," she wrote. "Will
+you like that? Or be sure to write me if you'd rather have me hunt in
+the garden and dig you up a box of money. I'll tell you--there ought to
+be luck in the day, for it was hidden on Christmas and it should be
+found on Christmas; so on Christmas morning we'll have another look, and
+if you find it I'll catch you 'Christmas gif'' as the darkies do, and
+you'll have to give it to me, and if I find it I'll give it to you; so
+that's fair, isn't it? Anyway--" and Philip's eyes jumped from line to
+line, devouring the clear, running writing. "So bring a little present
+with you, please--just a tiny something for me," she ended, "for I'm
+certainly going to catch you 'Christmas gif'.'"
+
+Philip folded the letter back into its envelope and put it in his
+pocket, and his heart felt warmer for the scrap of paper over it. Then
+he cut John Fairfield's open dreamily, his mind still on the words he
+had read, on the threat--"I'm going to catch you 'Christmas gif'.'" What
+was there good enough to give her? Himself, he thought humbly, very far
+from it. With a sigh that was not sad he dismissed the question and
+began to read the other letter. He stood reading it by the fading light
+from the window, his hat thrown by him on a chair, his overcoat still
+on, and, as he read, the smile died from his face. With drawn brows he
+read on to the end, and then the letter dropped from his fingers to the
+floor and he did not notice; his eyes stared widely at the high building
+across the street, the endless rows of windows, the lights flashing into
+them here and there. But he saw none of it. He saw a stretch of quiet
+woodland, an old house with great white pillars, a silent, neglected
+garden, with box hedges sweet and ragged, all waiting for him to come
+and take care of them--the home of his fathers, the home he had meant,
+had expected--he knew it now--would be some day his own, the home he
+had lost! John Fairfield's letter was to tell him that the mortgage on
+the place, running now so many years, was suddenly to be foreclosed;
+that, property not being worth much in the neighborhood, no one would
+take it up; that on January 2nd, Fairfield, the house and land, were to
+be sold at auction. It was a hard blow to Philip Beckwith. With his
+hands in his overcoat pockets he began to walk up and down the room,
+trying to plan, to see if by any chance he might save this place he
+loved. It would mean eight thousand dollars to pay the mortgage. One or
+two thousand more would put the estate in order, but that might wait if
+he could only tide over this danger, save the house and land. An hour he
+walked so, forgetting dinner, forgetting the heavy coat which he still
+wore, and then he gave it up. With all he had saved--and it was a fair
+and promising beginning--he could not much more than half pay the
+mortgage, and there was no way, which he would consider, by which he
+could get the money. Fairfield would have to go, and he set his teeth
+and clinched his fists as he thought how he wanted to keep it. A year
+ago it had meant nothing to him, a year from now if things went his way
+he could have paid the mortgage. That it should happen just this
+year--just now! He could not go down at Christmas; it would break his
+heart to see the place again as his own when it was just slipping from
+his grasp. He would wait until it was all over, and go, perhaps, in the
+spring. The great hope of his life was still his own, but Fairfield had
+been the setting of that hope; he must readjust his world before he saw
+Shelby again. So he wrote them that he would not come at present, and
+then tried to dull the ache of his loss with hard work.
+
+But three days before Christmas, out of the unknown forces beyond his
+reasoning swept a wave of desire to go South, which took him off his
+feet. Trained to trust his brain and deny his impulse as he was, yet
+there was a vein of sentiment, almost of superstition, in him which the
+thought of the old place pricked sharply to life. This longing was
+something beyond him--he must go--and he had thrown his decisions to the
+winds and was feverish until he could get away.
+
+As before, he rode out from the Phoenix Hotel, and at ten o'clock in
+the morning he turned into Fairfield. It was a still, bright Christmas
+morning, crisp and cool, and the air like wine. The house stood bravely
+in the sunlight, but the branches above it were bare and no softening
+leafage hid the marks of time; it looked old and sad and deserted
+to-day, and its master gazed at it with a pang in his heart. It was his,
+and he could not save it. He turned away and walked slowly to the
+garden, and stood a moment as he had stood last May, with his hand on
+the stone gateway. It was very silent and lonely here, in the hush of
+winter; nothing stirred; even the shadows of the interlaced branches
+above lay almost motionless across the walks.
+
+Something moved to his left, down the pathway--he turned to look. Had
+his heart stopped, that he felt this strange, cold feeling in his
+breast? Were his eyes--could he be seeing? Was this insanity? Fifty feet
+down the path, half in the weaving shadows, half in clear sunlight,
+stood the little boy of his life-long vision, in the dress with the
+black velvet squares, his little uncle, dead forty years ago. As he
+gazed, his breath stopping, the child smiled and held up to him, as of
+old, a key on a scarlet string, and turned and flitted as if a flower
+had taken wing, away between the box hedges. Philip, his feet moving as
+if without his will, followed him. Again the baby face turned its
+smiling dark eyes toward him, and Philip knew that the child was calling
+him, though there was no sound; and again without volition of his own
+his feet took him where it led. He felt his breath coming difficultly,
+and suddenly a gasp shook him--there was no footprint on the unfrozen
+earth where the vision had passed. Yet there before him, moving through
+the deep sunlit silence of the garden, was the familiar, sturdy little
+form in its old-world dress. Philip's eyes were open; he was awake,
+walking; he saw it. Across the neglected tangle it glided, and into the
+trim order of Shelby's rose garden; in the opening between the box walls
+it wheeled again, and the sun shone clear on the bronze hair and fresh
+face, and the scarlet string flashed and the key glinted at the end of
+it. Philip's fascinated eyes saw all of that. Then the apparition
+slipped into the shadow of the beech trees and Philip quickened his step
+breathlessly, for it seemed that life and death hung on the sight. In
+and out through the trees it moved; once more the face turned toward
+him; he caught the quick brightness of a smile. The little chap had
+disappeared behind the broad tree-trunk, and Philip, catching his
+breath, hurried to see him appear again. He was gone. The little spirit
+that had strayed from over the border of a world--who can say how far,
+how near?--unafraid in this earth-corner once its home, had slipped away
+into eternity through the white gate of ghosts and dreams.
+
+Philip's heart was pumping painfully as he came, dazed and staring, to
+the place where the apparition had vanished. It was a giant beech tree,
+all of two hundred and fifty years old, and around its base ran a broken
+wooden bench, where pretty girls of Fairfield had listened to their
+sweethearts, where children destined to be generals and judges had
+played with their black mammies, where gray-haired judges and generals
+had come back to think over the fights that were fought out. There were
+letters carved into the strong bark, the branches swung down
+whisperingly, the green tent of the forest seemed filled with the memory
+of those who had camped there and gone on. Philip's feet stumbled over
+the roots as he circled the veteran; he peered this way and that, but
+the woodland was hushed and empty; the birds whistled above, the grasses
+rustled below, unconscious, casual, as if they knew nothing of a
+child-soul that had wandered back on Christmas day with a Christmas
+message, perhaps, of good-will to its own.
+
+As he stood on the farther side of the tree where the little ghost had
+faded from him, at his feet lay, open and conspicuous, a fresh, deep
+hole. He looked down absent-mindedly. Some animal--a dog, a rabbit--had
+scratched far into the earth. A bar of sunlight struck a golden arm
+through the branches above, and as he gazed at the upturned, brown dirt
+the rays that were its fingers reached into the hollow and touched a
+square corner, a rusty edge of tin. In a second the young fellow was
+down on his knees digging as if for his life, and in less than five
+minutes he had loosened the earth which had guarded it so many years,
+and staggering with it to his feet had lifted to the bench a heavy tin
+box. In its lock was the key, and dangling from it a long bit of
+no-colored silk, that yet, as he untwisted it, showed a scarlet thread
+in the crease. He opened the box with the little key; it turned
+scrapingly, and the ribbon crumbled in his fingers, its long duty done.
+Then, as he tilted the heavy weight, the double eagles, packed closely,
+slipped against each other with a soft clink of sliding metal. The young
+man stared at the mass of gold pieces as if he could not trust his
+eyesight; he half thought even then that he dreamed it. With a quick
+memory of the mortgage he began to count. It was all there--ten thousand
+dollars in gold! He lifted his head and gazed at the quiet woodland, the
+open shadow-work of the bare branches, the fields beyond lying in the
+calm sunlit rest of a Southern winter. Then he put his hand deep into
+the gold pieces, and drew a long breath. It was impossible to believe,
+but it was true. The lost treasure was found. It meant to him Shelby
+and home; as he realized what it meant his heart felt as if it would
+break with the joy of it. He would give her this for his Christmas gift,
+this legacy of his people and hers, and then he would give her himself.
+It was all easy now--life seemed not to hold a difficulty. And the two
+would keep tenderly, always, the thought of a child who had loved his
+home and his people and who had tried so hard, so long, to bring them
+together. He knew the dream-child would not visit him again--the little
+ghost was laid that had followed him all his life. From over the border
+whence it had come with so many loving efforts it would never come
+again. Slowly, with the heavy weight in his arms, he walked back to the
+garden sleeping in the sunshine, and the box hedges met him with a wave
+of fragrance, the sweetness of a century ago; and as he passed through
+their shining door, looking beyond, he saw Shelby. The girl's figure
+stood by the stone column of the garden entrance, the light shone on her
+bare head, and she had stopped, surprised, as she saw him. Philip's pace
+quickened with his heart-throb as he looked at her and thought of the
+little ghostly hands that had brought theirs together; and as he looked
+the smile that meant his welcome and his happiness broke over her face,
+and with the sound of her voice all the shades of this world and the
+next dissolved in light.
+
+"'Christmas gif',' Marse Philip!" called Shelby.
+
+
+
+
+THE WIFE OF THE GOVERNOR
+
+
+The Governor sat at the head of the big black-oak table in his big
+stately library. The large lamps on either end of the table stood in old
+cloisonne vases of dull rich reds and bronzes, and their shades were of
+thick yellow silk. The light they cast on the six anxious faces grouped
+about them was like the light in Rembrandt's picture of The Clinic.
+
+It was a very important meeting indeed. A city official, who had for
+months been rather too playfully skating on the thin ice of bare respect
+for the law, had just now, in the opinion of many, broken through. He
+had followed a general order of the Governor's by a special order of his
+own, contradicting the first in words not at all, but in spirit from
+beginning to end. And the Governor wished to make an example of
+him--now, instantly, so promptly and so thoroughly that those who ran
+might read, in large type, that the attempt was not a success. He was
+young for a Governor--thirty-six years old--and it may be that care for
+the dignity of his office was not his only feeling on the subject.
+
+"I won't be badgered, you know," he said to the senior Senator of the
+State. "If the man wishes to see what I do when I'm ugly, I propose to
+show him. Show me reason, if you can, why this chap shouldn't be
+indicted."
+
+To which they answered various things; for while they sympathized, and
+agreed in the main, yet several were for temporizing, and most of them
+for going a bit slowly. But the Governor was impetuous and indignant.
+And here the case stood when there came a knock at the library door.
+
+The Governor looked up in surprise, for it was against all orders that
+he should be disturbed at a meeting. But he spoke a "Come in," and
+Jackson, the stately colored butler, appeared, looking distressed and
+alarmed.
+
+"Oh, Lord! Gov'ner, suh!" was all he got out for a moment, fear at his
+own rashness seizing him in its grip at the sight of the six
+distinguished faces turned toward him.
+
+"Jackson! What do you want?" asked the Governor, not so very gently.
+
+Jackson advanced, with conspicuous lack of his usual style and
+sang-froid, a tray in his hand, and a quite second-class-looking
+envelope upon it. "Beg pardon, suh. Shouldn't 'a' interrupted, Gov'nor;
+please scuse me, suh; but they boys was so pussistent, and it comed fum
+the deepo, and I was mos' feared the railways was done gone on a strike,
+and I thought maybe you'd oughter know, suh--Gov'ner."
+
+And in the meantime, while the scared Jackson rambled on thus in an
+undertone, the Governor had the cheap, bluish-white envelope in his
+hand, and with a muttered "Excuse me" to his guests, had cut it across
+and was reading, with a face of astonishment, the paper that was
+enclosed. He crumpled it in his hand and threw it on the table.
+
+"Absurd!" he said, half aloud; and then, "No answer, Jackson," and the
+man retired.
+
+"Now, then, gentlemen, as we were saying before this interruption"--and
+in clear, eager sentences he returned to the charge. But a change had
+come over him. The Attorney-General, elucidating a point of importance,
+caught his chief's eye wandering, and followed it, surprised, to that
+ball of paper on the table. The Secretary of State could not understand
+why the Governor agreed in so half-hearted a way when he urged with
+eloquence the victim's speedy sacrifice. Finally, the august master of
+the house growing more and more distrait, he suddenly rose, and picking
+up the crumpled paper--
+
+"Gentlemen, will you have the goodness to excuse me for five minutes?"
+he said. "It is most annoying, but I cannot give my mind to business
+until I attend to the matter on which Jackson interrupted us. I beg a
+thousand pardons--I shall only keep you a moment."
+
+The dignitaries left cooling their heels looked at each other blankly,
+but the Lieutenant-Governor smiled cheerfully.
+
+"One of the reasons he is Governor at thirty-six is that he always does
+attend to the matters that interrupt him."
+
+Meanwhile the Governor, rushing out with his usual impulsive energy, had
+sent two or three servants flying over the house. "Where's Mrs. Mooney?
+Send Mrs. Mooney to me here instantly--and be quick;" and he waited,
+impatient, although it was for only three minutes, in a little room
+across the hall, where appeared to him in that time a square-shaped,
+gray-haired woman with a fresh face and blue eyes full of intelligence
+and kindliness.
+
+"Mary, look here;" and the big Governor put his hand on the stout little
+woman's arm and drew her to the light. Mary and his Excellency were
+friends of very old standing indeed, their intimacy having begun
+thirty-five years before, when the future great man was a rampant baby,
+and Mary his nurse and his adorer, which last she was still. "I want to
+read you this, and then I want you to telephone to Bristol at once." He
+smoothed out the wrinkled single sheet of paper.
+
+"My dear Governor Rudd," he read,--"My friends the McNaughtons of
+Bristol are friends of yours too, I think, and that is my reason for
+troubling you with this note. I am on my way to visit them now, and
+expected to take the train for Bristol at twenty minutes after eight
+to-night, but when I reached here at eight o'clock I found the
+time-table had been changed, and the train had gone out twenty minutes
+before. And there is no other till to-morrow. I don't know what to do or
+where to go, and you are the only person in the city whose name I know.
+Would it trouble you to advise me where to go for the night--what hotel,
+if it is right for me to go to a hotel? With regret that I should have
+to ask this of you when you must be busy with great affairs all the
+time, I am,
+
+                            "Very sincerely,
+                                       "LINDSAY LEE."
+
+Mary listened, attentive but dazed, and was about to burst out at once
+with voluble exclamations and questions when the Governor stopped her.
+
+"Now, Mary, don't do a lot of talking. Just listen to me. I thought at
+first this note was from a man, because it is signed by a man's name.
+But it looks and sounds like a woman, and I think it should be attended
+to. I want you to telephone to Mr. George McNaughton, at Bristol, and
+ask if Mr. or Miss Lindsay Lee is a friend of theirs, and say that, if
+so, he--or she--is all right, and is spending the night here. Then, in
+that case, send Harper to the station with the brougham, and say that I
+beg to have the honor of looking after Mrs. McNaughton's friend for the
+night. And you'll see that whoever it is is made very comfortable."
+
+"Indeed I will, the poor young thing," said Mary, jumping at a
+picturesque view of the case. "But, Mr. Jack, do you want me to
+telephone to Mr. McNaughton's and ask if a friend of theirs--"
+
+The Governor cut her short. "Exactly. You know just what I said, Mary
+Mooney; you only want to talk it over. I'm much too busy. Tell Jackson
+not to come to the library again unless the State freezes over.
+Good-night.--I don't think the McNaughtons can complain that I haven't
+done their friend brown," said the Governor to himself as he went back
+across the hall.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Down at the station, beneath the spirited illumination of one whistling
+gas-jet, the station-master and Lindsay Lee waited wearily for an answer
+from the Governor. It was long in coming, for the station-master's boys,
+the Messrs. O'Milligan, seizing the occasion for foreign travel offered
+by a sight of the Executive grounds, had made a detour by the Executive
+stables, and held deep converse with the grooms. Just as the thought of
+duty undone began to prick the leathery conscience of the older one, the
+order came for Harper and the brougham. Half an hour later, at the
+station, Harper drew up with a sonorous clatter of hoofs. The
+station-master hurried forward to interview the coachman. In a moment he
+turned with a beaming face.
+
+"It's good news for ye, miss. The Governor's sent his own kerridge for
+ye, then. Blessed Mary, but it's him that's condescendin'. Get right
+in, miss."
+
+Such a sudden safe harbor seemed almost too good to be true. Lindsay was
+nearly asleep as the rubber-tired wheels rolled softly along through the
+city. The carriage turned at length from the lights and swung up a long
+avenue between trees, and then stopped. The door flew open, and Lindsay
+looked up steps and into a wide, lighted doorway, where stood a stout
+woman, who hastened to seize her bag and umbrella and take voluble
+possession of her. The sleepy, dazed girl was vaguely conscious of large
+halls and a wide stair and a kind voice by her side that flowed ever on
+in a gentle river of words. Then she found herself in a big, pleasant
+bed-room, and beyond was the open door of a tiled bath-room.
+
+"Oh--oh!" she said, and dropped down sideways on the whiteness of the
+brass bed, and put her arms around the pillow and her head, hat and all,
+on it.
+
+"Poor child!" said pink-checked, motherly Mrs. Mooney. "You're more than
+tired, that I can see without trying, and no wonder, too! I shan't say
+another word to you, but just leave you to get to bed and to sleep, and
+I'm sure it's the best medicine ever made, is a good comfortable bed and
+a night's rest. So I shan't stop to speak another word. But is there
+anything at all you'd like, Miss Lee? And there, now, what am I thinking
+about? I haven't asked if you wouldn't have a bit of supper! I'll bring
+it up myself--just a bit of cold bird and a glass of wine? It will do
+you good. But it will," as Lindsay shook her head, smiling. "There's
+nothing so bad as going to sleep on an empty stomach when you're tired."
+
+"But I had dinner on the train, and I'm not hungry; sure enough, I'm
+not; thank you a thousand times."
+
+Mrs. Mooney reluctantly took two steps toward the door, the room shaking
+under her soft-footed, heavy tread.
+
+"You're sure you wouldn't like--" She stopped, embarrassed, and the blue
+eyes shone like kindly sapphires above the always-blushing cheeks. "I'm
+mortified to ask you for fear you'd laugh at me, but you seem like such
+a child, and--would you let me bring you--just a slice of bread and
+butter with some brown sugar on it?"
+
+Lindsay had a gracious way of knowing when people really wished to do
+something for her. She flapped her hands, like the child she looked.
+"Oh, how did you think of it? I used to have that for a treat at home.
+Yes, I'd _love_ it!" And Mrs. Mooney beamed.
+
+"There! I thought you would! You see, Miss Lee, that's what I used
+sometimes to give my boy--that's the Governor--when he was little and
+got hungry at bedtime."
+
+Lindsay, left alone, took off her hat, and with a pull and screw at her
+necktie and collar-button, dropped into a chair that seemed to hold its
+fat arms up for her. She smiled sleepily and comfortably. "I'm having a
+right good time," she said to herself, "but it's funny. I feel as if I
+lived here, and I love that old housekeeper-nurse of the Governor's. I
+wonder what the Governor is like? I wonder--" And at this point she
+became aware, with only slight surprise, of a little boy with a crown
+on his head who offered her a slice of bread and butter and sugar a yard
+square, and told her he had kept it for her twenty-five years. She was
+about to reason with him that it could not possibly be good to eat in
+that case, when something jarred the brain that was slipping so easily
+down into oblivion, and as her eyes opened again she saw Mrs. Mooney's
+solid shape bending over the tub in the bath-room, and a noise of
+running water sounded pleasant and refreshing.
+
+"Oh, did I go to sleep?" she asked, sitting up straight and blinking
+wide-open eyes.
+
+"There! I knew it would wake you, and I couldn't a-bear to do it, my
+dear, but it would never do for you to sleep like that in your clothes,
+and I drew your bath warm, thinking it would rest you better, but I can
+just change it hot or cold as it suits you. And here's the little lunch
+for you, and I feel as if it was my own little boy I was taking care of
+again; the year he was ten it was he ate so much at night. I saw him
+just now, and he's that tired from his meeting--it's a shame how hard he
+has to work for this State, time and time again. He said 'Good-night,
+Mary,' he said, just the way he did years ago--such a little gentleman
+he always was. The dearest and the handsomest thing he was; they used to
+call him 'the young prince,' he was that handsome and full of spirit. He
+told me to say he hoped for the pleasure of seeing Miss Lee at breakfast
+to-morrow at nine; but if you should be tired, Miss Lee, or prefer your
+breakfast up here, which you can have it just as well as not, you know.
+And here I'm talking you to death again, and you ought to stop me, for
+when I begin about the Governor I never know when to stop myself. Just
+put up your foot, please, and I'll take your shoes off," And while she
+unlaced Lindsay's small boots with capable fingers she apologized
+profusely for talking--talking as much again.
+
+"There's nothing to excuse. It's mighty interesting to hear about him,"
+said Lindsay. "I shall enjoy meeting him that much more. Is there a
+picture of him anywhere around?" looking about the room.
+
+That was a lucky stroke. Mary Mooney parted the black ribbon that was
+tied beneath her neat white collar and turned her face up, all pleased
+smiles, to the girl, who leaned down to examine an ivory miniature set
+as a brooch. It was a sunny-faced little boy, with thick straight golden
+hair and fearless brown eyes--a sweet childish face very easy to admire,
+and Lindsay admired it enough to satisfy even Mrs. Mooney.
+
+"I had it for a Christmas gift the year he was nine," she said. Mary's
+calendar ran from The Year of the Governor, 1. "He had whooping-cough
+just after that, and was ill seven weeks. Dear me, what teeny little
+feet you have!" as she put on them the dressing-slippers from the bag,
+and struggled up to her own, heavily but cheerfully.
+
+Lindsay looked at her thoughtfully. "You haven't mentioned the
+Governor's wife," she said. "Isn't she at home?" and she leaned over to
+pull up the furry heel of the little slipper. So that she missed seeing
+Mary Mooney's face. Expression chased expression over that smiling
+landscape--astonishment, perplexity, anxiety, the gleam of a new-born
+idea, hesitation, and at last a glow of unselfish kindliness which often
+before had transfigured it.
+
+"No, Miss Lee," said Mary. "She's away from home just now." And then,
+unblushingly, "But she's a lovely lady, and she'll be very disappointed
+not to see you."
+
+Almost the next thing Lindsay knew she was watching dreamily spots of
+sunlight that danced on a pale pink wall. Then a bird began to sing at
+the edge of the window; there was a delicate rustle of skirts, and she
+turned her head and saw a maid--not Mary Mooney this time--moving softly
+about, opening part way the outside shutters, drawing lip the shades a
+bit, letting the light and shadow from tossing trees outside and the air
+and the morning in with gentle slowness. She dressed with deliberation,
+and, lo! it was a quarter after nine o'clock.
+
+So that the Governor waited for his breakfast. For ten minutes, while
+the paper lasted, waiting was unimportant; and then, being impatient by
+nature, and not used to it, he suddenly was cross.
+
+"Confound the girl!" soliloquized the Governor. "I'll have her indicted
+too! First she breaks up a meeting, then she gets the horses out at all
+hours, and now, to cap it, she makes me wait for breakfast. Why should I
+wait for my breakfast? Why the devil can't she--Now, Mary, what is it? I
+warn you I'm cross, and I shan't listen well till I've had breakfast.
+I'm waiting for that young lady you're coddling. Where's that young
+lady? Why doesn't she--What?"
+
+For the flood-gates were open, and the soft verbal oceans of Mary were
+upon him. He listened two minutes, mute with astonishment, and then he
+rose up in his wrath and was verbal also.
+
+"What! You told her I was _married_? What the dev--And you're
+actually asking _me_ to tell her so _too_? Mary, are you insane?
+Embarrassed? What if she is embarrassed? And what do I care if--What?
+Sweet and pretty? Mary, don't be an idiot. Am I to improvise a wife, in
+my own house, because a stray girl may object to visiting a bachelor?
+Not if I know it. Not much." The Governor bristled with indignation.
+"Confound the girl, I'll--" At this point Mary, though portly, vanished
+like a vision of the night, and there stood in the doorway a smiling
+embodiment of the morning, crisp in a clean shirt-waist, and free from
+consciousness of crime.
+
+"Is it Governor Rudd?" asked Lindsay; and the Governor was, somehow,
+shaking hands like a kind and cordial host, and the bitterness was gone
+from his soul. "I certainly don't know how to thank you," she said.
+"You-all have been very good to me, and I've been awfully comfortable. I
+was so lost and unhappy last night; I felt like a wandering Jewess. I
+hope I haven't kept you waiting for breakfast?"
+
+"Not a moment," said the Governor, heartily, placing her chair, and it
+was five minutes before he suddenly remembered that he was cross. Then
+he made an effort to live up to his convictions. "This is a mistake," he
+said to himself. "I had no intention of being particularly friendly with
+this young person. Rudd, I can't allow you to be impulsive in this way.
+You're irritated by the delay and by last night: you're bored to be
+obliged to entertain a girl when you wish to read the paper; you're
+anxious to get down to the Capitol to see those men; all you feel is a
+perfunctory politeness for the McNaughtons' friend. Kindly remember
+these facts, Rudd, and don't make a fool of yourself gambolling on the
+green, instead of sustaining the high dignity of your office." So
+reasoned the Governor secretly, and made futile attempts at high
+dignity, while his heart became as wax, and he questioned of his soul at
+intervals to see if it knew what was going on.
+
+So the Governor sat before Lindsay Lee at his own table, momentarily
+more surprised and helpless. And Lindsay, eating her grape-fruit with
+satisfaction, thought him delightful, and wondered what his wife was
+like, and how many children he had, and where they all were. It was at
+least safe to speak of the wife, for the old house-keeper-nurse had
+given her an unqualified recommendation. So she spoke.
+
+"I'm sorry to hear that Mrs. Rudd is not at home," she began. "It must
+be rather lonely in this big house without her."
+
+The Governor looked at her and laughed. "Not that I've noticed," he
+said, and was suddenly seized with a sickness of pity that was the
+inevitable effect of Lindsay Lee. She needed no pity, being healthy,
+happy, and well-to-do, but she had, for the punishment of men's sins,
+sad gray eyes and a mouth whose full lips curved sorrowfully down. Her
+complexion was the colorless, magnolia-leaf sort that is typically
+Southern; her dark hair lay in thick locks on her forehead as if always
+damp with emotion; her swaying, slender figure seemed to appeal to
+masculine strength; and the voice that drawled a syllable to twice its
+length here, to slide over mouthfuls of words there, had an upward
+inflection at the end of sentences that brought tears to one's eyes.
+There was no pose about her, but the whole effect of her was
+pathetic--illogically, for she caught the glint of humor from every side
+light of life, which means pleasure that other people miss. The old
+warning against vice says that we "first endure, then pity, then
+embrace"; but Lindsay differed from vice so far that people never had to
+endure her, but began with pity, finding it often a very short step to
+the wish, at least, to embrace her. The Governor after fifteen minutes'
+acquaintance had arrived at pitying her, intensely and with his whole
+soul, as he did most things. He held another interview with himself.
+"Lord! what an innocent face it is!" he said. "Mary said she would be
+embarrassed--the brute that would embarrass her! Hanged if I'll do it!
+If she would rather have me married, married I'll be." He raised candid
+eyes to Lindsay's face.
+
+"I'm afraid I've shocked you. You mustn't think I shall not be glad
+when--Mrs. Rudd--is here. But, you see, I've been very busy lately. I've
+hardly had time to breathe--haven't had time to miss--her--at all,
+really. All the same--" Now what was the queer feeling in his throat and
+lungs--yes, it must be the lungs--as the Governor framed this sentence?
+He went on: "All the same, I shall be a happy man when--my wife--comes
+home."
+
+Lindsay's face cleared. This was satisfactory and proper; there was no
+more to be said about it. She looked up with a smile to where the old
+butler beamed upon her for her youth and beauty and her accent and her
+name.
+
+A handful of busy men left the Capitol in some annoyance that morning
+because the Governor had telephoned that he could not be there before
+half past eleven. They would have been more annoyed, perhaps, if they
+had seen him dashing about the station light-heartedly just before the
+eleven-o'clock train for Bristol left. They said to each other: "It must
+be a matter of importance that keeps him. Governor Rudd almost never
+throws over an appointment. He has been working like the devil over that
+street-railway franchise case; probably it's that."
+
+And the Governor stood by a chair in a parlor-car, his world cleared of
+street railways and indictments and their class as if they had never
+been, and in his hand was a small white oblong box tied with a tinsel
+cord.
+
+"Good-by," he said, "but remember I'm to be asked down for the garden
+party next week, and I'm coming."
+
+"I certainly won't forget. And I reckon I'd better not try to thank you
+for--Oh, thank you! I thought that looked like candy. And bring Mrs.
+Rudd with you next week. I want to see her. And--Oh, get off, please;
+it's moving. Good-by, good-by."
+
+And to the mighty music of a slow-clanging bell and the treble of
+escaping steam and the deep-rolling accompaniment of powerful wheels the
+Governor escaped to the platform, and the capital city of that sovereign
+State was empty--practically empty. He noticed it the moment he turned
+his eyes from the disappearing train and moved toward Harper and the
+brougham. He also noticed that he had never noticed it before.
+
+A solid citizen, catching a glimpse of the well-known, thoughtful face
+through the window of the Executive carriage as it bowled across toward
+the Capitol, shook his head. "He works too hard," he said to himself. "A
+fine fellow, and young and strong, but the pace is telling. He looks
+anxious to-day. I wonder what scheme is revolving in his brain at this
+moment."
+
+And at that moment the Governor growled softly to himself. "I've
+overdone it," he said. "She's sure to be offended. No one likes to be
+taken in. I ought not to have showed her Mrs. Rudd's conservatory; that
+was a mistake. She won't let them ask me down; I shan't see her. Hanged
+if I won't telephone Mrs. McNaughton to keep the secret till I've been
+down." And he did, before Lindsay could get there, amid much laughter at
+both ends of the wire, and no small embarrassment at his own.
+
+And he was asked down, and having enjoyed himself, was asked again. And
+again. So that during the three weeks of Lindsay's visit Bristol saw
+more of the Chief Executive officer of the State than Bristol had seen
+before, and everybody but Lindsay had an inkling of the reason. But the
+time never came to tell her of the shadowy personality of Mrs. Rudd, and
+between the McNaughton girls and the Governor, whom they forced into
+unexpected statements, to their great though secret glee, Lindsay was
+informed of many details in regard to the missing first lady of the
+commonwealth. Such a dialogue as the following would occur at the lunch
+table:
+
+_Alice McNaughton_ (speaking with ceremonious politeness from one end of
+the table to the Governor at the other end). "When is Mrs. Rudd coming,
+Governor?"
+
+_The Governor_ (with a certain restraint). "Before very long, I hope,
+Miss Alice. Mrs. McNaughton, may I have more lobster? I've never in my
+life had as much lobster as I wanted."
+
+_Alice_ (refusing to be side-tracked). "And when did you last hear from
+her, Governor?"
+
+_Chuck McNaughton_ (ornament of the Sophomore class at Harvard. In love
+with Lindsay, but more so with the joke. Gifted with a sledgehammer
+style of wit). "I've been hoping for a letter from her myself, Governor,
+but it doesn't come."
+
+_The Governor_ (with slight hauteur). "Ah, indeed!"
+
+_Lindsay_ (at whose first small peep the Governor's eyes turn to hers
+and rest there shamelessly). "Why haven't you any pictures of Mrs. Rudd
+in the house, Mrs. McNaughton? The Governor's is everywhere and you all
+tell me how fascinating she is, and yet don't have her about. It looks
+like you don't love her as much as the Governor." (At the mention of
+being loved, in that voice, cold shivers seize the Executive nerves.)
+
+_Mrs. McNaughton_ (entranced with the airy persiflage, but knowing her
+own to be no light hand at repartee). "Ask the others, my dear."
+
+_Alice_ (jumping at the chance). "Oh, the reason of that is very
+interesting! Mrs. Rudd has never given even the Governor her picture.
+She--she has principles against it. She belongs, you see, to an ancient
+Hebrew family--in fact, she is a Jewess" ("A wandering Jewess," the
+Governor interjected, _sotto voce_, his glance veering again to
+Lindsay's face), "and you know that Jewish families have religious
+scruples about portraits of any sort" (pauses, exhausted).
+
+_Chuck_ (with heavy artillery). "Alice, _taisez-vous_. You're doing
+poorly. You can't converse. Your best parlor trick is your red hair.
+Miss Lee, I'll show you a picture of Mrs. Rudd some day, and I'll tell
+you now what she looks like. She has exquisite melancholy gray eyes, a
+mouth like a ripe tomato" (shouts from the table _en masse_, but Chuck
+ploughs along cheerily), "hair like the braided midnight" (cries of
+"What's that?" and "Hear! Hear!"), "a figure slim and willowy as a
+vaulting-pole" (a protest of "No track athletics at meals; that's
+forbidden!"), "and a voice--well, if you ever tasted New Orleans
+molasses on maple sugar, with 'that tired feeling' thrown in, perhaps
+you'll have a glimpse, a mile off, of what that voice is like." (Eager
+exclamations of "That's near enough," "Don't do it any more, Chuck," and
+"For Heaven's sake, Charlie, stop." Lindsay looks hard with the gray
+eyes at the Governor.)
+
+_Lindsay_, "Why don't you pull your bowie-knife out of your boot,
+Governor? It looks like he's making fun of your wife, to me. Isn't
+anybody going to fight anybody?"
+
+And then Mr. McNaughton would reprove her as a bloodthirsty Kentuckian,
+and the whole laughing tableful would empty out on the broad porch. At
+such a time the Governor, laughing too, amused, yet uncomfortable, and
+feeling himself in a false and undignified position, would vow solemnly
+that a stop must be put to all this. It would get about, into the papers
+even, by horrid possibility; even now a few intimates of the McNaughton
+family had been warned "not to kill the Governor's wife." He would
+surely tell the girl the next time he could find her alone, and then the
+absurdity would collapse. But the words would not come, or if he
+carefully framed them beforehand, this bold, aggressive leader of men,
+whose nickname was "Jack the Giant-killer," made a giant of Lindsay's
+displeasure, and was afraid of it. He had never been afraid of anything
+before. He would screw his courage up to the notch, and then, one look
+at the childlike face, and down it would go, and he would ask her to go
+rowing with him. They were such good friends; it was so dangerous to
+change at a blow existing relations, to tell her that he had been
+deceiving her all these weeks. These exquisite June weeks that had flown
+past to music such us no June had made before; days snowed under with
+roses, nights that seemed, as he remembered them, moonlit for a solid
+month. The Governor sighed a lingering sigh, and quoted,
+
+    "Oh what a tangled web we weave
+    When first we practise to deceive!"
+
+Yes, he must really wait--say two days longer. Then he might be sure
+enough of her--regard--to tell her the truth. And then, a little later,
+if he could control himself so long, another truth. Beyond that he did
+not allow himself to think.
+
+"Governor Rudd," asked Lindsay suddenly as they walked their horses the
+last mile home from a ride on which they had gotten separated--the
+Governor knew how--from the rest of the party, "why do they bother you
+so about your wife, and why do you let them?"
+
+"Can't help it, Miss Lindsay. They have no respect for me. I'm that sort
+of man. Hard luck, isn't it?"
+
+Lindsay turned her sad, infantile gray eyes on him searchingly. "I
+reckon you're not," she said. "I reckon you're the sort of man people
+don't say things to unless they're right sure you will stand it. They
+don't trifle with you." She nodded her head with conviction. "Oh, I've
+heard them talk about you! I like that; that's like our men down South.
+You're right Southern, anyhow, in some ways. You see, I can pay you
+compliments because you're a safe old married man," and her eyes smiled
+up at him: she rarely laughed or smiled except with those lovely eyes.
+"There's some joke about your wife," she went on, "that you-all won't
+tell me. There certainly is. I _know_ it, sure enough I do, Governor
+Rudd."
+
+There is a common belief that the Southern accent can be faithfully
+rendered in writing if only one spells badly enough. No amount of bad
+spelling could tell how softly Lindsay Lee said those last two words.
+
+"I love to hear you say that--'Guv'na Rudd.' I do, 'sho 'nuff,'" mused
+the Governor out loud and irrelevantly. "Would you say it again?"
+
+"I wouldn't," said Lindsay, with asperity. "Ridiculous! If you are a
+Governor! But I was talking about your wife. Isn't she coming home
+before I go? Sometimes I don't believe you have a wife."
+
+That was his chance, and he saw it. He must tell her now or never, and
+he drew a long breath. "Suppose I told you that I had not," he said,
+"that she was a myth, what would you say?"
+
+"Oh, I'd just never speak to you again," said Lindsay, carelessly. "I
+wouldn't like to be fooled like that. Look, there are the others!" and
+off she flew at a canter.
+
+It is easy to see that the Governor was not hurried headlong into
+confession by that speech. But the crash came. It was the night before
+Lindsay was to go back home to far-off Kentucky, and with infinite
+expenditure of highly trained intellect, for which the State was paying
+a generous salary, the Governor had managed to find himself floating on
+a moonlit flood through the Forest of Arden with the Blessed Damozel.
+That, at least, is the rendering of a walk in the McNaughtons' wood with
+Lindsay Lee as it appeared that night to the intellect mentioned. But
+the language of such thoughts is idiomatic and incapable of exact
+translation. A flame of eagerness to speak, quenched every moment by a
+shower-bath of fear, burned in his soul, when suddenly Lindsay tripped
+on a root and fell, with an exclamation. Then fear dried beneath the
+flames. It is unnecessary to tell what the Governor did, or what he
+said. The language, as language, was unoriginal and of striking
+monotony, and as to what happened, most people have had experience which
+will obviate the necessity of going into brutal facts. But when,
+trembling and shaken, he realized a material world again, Lindsay was
+fighting him, pushing him away, her eyes blazing fiercely.
+
+"What do you mean? What _do_ you mean?" she was saying.
+
+"Mean--mean? That I love you--that I want you to love me, to be my
+wife!" She stood up like a white ghost in the silver light and shadow of
+the wood.
+
+"Governor Rudd, are you crazy?" she cried. "You have a wife already."
+
+The tall Governor threw back his head and laughed a laugh like a child.
+The people away off on the porch heard him and smiled. "They are having
+a good time, those two," Mrs. McNaughton said.
+
+"Lindsay--Lindsay," and he bent over and caught her hands and kissed
+them. "There isn't any wife--there never will be any but you. It was all
+a joke. It happened because--Oh, never mind! I can't tell you now; it's
+a long story. But you must forgive that; that's all in the past now. The
+question is, will you love me--will you love me, Lindsay? Tell me,
+Lindsay!" He could not say her name often enough. But there came no
+answering light in Lindsay's face. She looked at him as if he were a
+striped convict.
+
+"I'll never forgive you," she said, slowly. "You've treated me like a
+child; you've made a fool of me, all of you. It was insulting. All a
+joke, you call it? And I was the joke; you've been laughing at me all
+these weeks. Why was it funny, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Great heavens, Lindsay--you're not going to take it that way? I insult
+you--laugh at you! I'd give my life; I'd shoot down any one--Lindsay!"
+he broke out appealingly, and made a step toward her.
+
+"Don't touch me!" she cried. "Don't touch me! I hate you!" And as he
+still came closer she turned and ran up the path, into the moonlight of
+the driveway, and so, a dim white blotch on the fragrant night,
+disappeared.
+
+When the Governor, walking with dignity, came up the steps of the porch,
+three minutes later, he was greeted with questions.
+
+"What have you done to Lindsay Lee, I'd like to know?" asked Alice
+McNaughton. "She said she had fallen and hurt her foot, but she wouldn't
+let me go up with her, and she was dignified, which is awfully trying.
+Why did you quarrel with her, this last night?"
+
+"Governor," said Chuck, with more discernment than delicacy, "if you
+will accept the sympathies of one not unacquainted with grief--" But at
+this point his voice faded away as he looked at the Governor.
+
+The Governor never remembered just how he got away from the friendly
+hatefulness of that porchful. An early train the next morning was
+inevitable, for there was a meeting of real importance this time, and at
+all events everything looked about the same shade of gray to him; it
+mattered very little what he did. Only he must be doing something every
+moment. He devoured work as if it were bread and meat and he were
+famished. People said all that autumn and winter that anything like the
+Governor's energy had never been seen. He evidently wanted a second
+term, and really he ought to have it. He was working hard enough to get
+it. About New-Year's he went down to Bristol for the first time since
+June, for a dinner at the McNaughtons'. Alice McNaughton's friendly
+face, under its red-gold hair, beamed at him from far away down the
+table, but after dinner, when the men came in from the dining-room, she
+took possession of him boldly.
+
+"Governor, I want to tell you about Lindsay Lee. I know you'll be
+interested, though you did have some mysterious fight before she left.
+She's been awfully ill with pleurisy, a painful attack, and she's
+getting well very slowly. They have just taken her to Paul Smith's. I'm
+writing her to-morrow, and I want you to send a good message; it would
+please her."
+
+It was hard to stand with eighteen people grouped about him, all more or
+less with an eye on his motions, and be the Governor, calm and
+dignified, while hot irons were being applied to his heart by this
+smiling girl.
+
+"But, Miss Alice," he said, slowly, "I'm afraid you are wrong. I was
+unfortunate enough to make Miss Lee very angry. I am afraid she would
+think a message from me only an impertinence."
+
+"Sir," said Alice, with decision, "I'm right sometimes, if I'm not
+Governor; and it's better to be right than to be Governor, I've
+heard--or something. You trust me. Just try the effect of a message, and
+see if it isn't a success. What shall I say?"
+
+The Governor was impetuous, and in spite of all the work he had done so
+fiercely, the longing the work had been meant to quiet surged up as
+strong as ever. "Miss Alice," he said, eagerly, "if you are right,
+would it do--do you think I might deliver the message myself?"
+
+"Do I think? Well, if _I_ were a man! Faint heart, you know!"
+
+And the Governor, at that choppy eloquence, openly seized the friendly
+young hand and wrung it till Alice begged, laughing but bruised, for
+mercy. When he came up, later, to bid her good-night, his face was
+bright, and,
+
+"Good-night, Angel of Peace," he said.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mary Mooney, who through the dark days had watched with anxious though
+uncomprehending eyes her boy's dejection and hard effort to live it
+down, and had applied partridges and sweetbreads and other forms of
+devotion steadily but unsuccessfully, saw at once and with, rapture the
+change when the Governor greeted her the next morning. Light-heartedly
+she packed his traps two days later--she had done it jealously for
+thirty-five years, though almost over the dead body of the Governor's
+man sometimes in these later days. And when he told her good-by she had
+her reward. The man's boyish heart went out in a burst of gratitude to
+the tireless love that had sought only his happiness all his life. He
+put his arm around the stout little woman's neck.
+
+"Mary," he said, "I'm going to see Miss Lee."
+
+Mary's pink cheeks were scarlet as she patted with a work-worn palm the
+strong hand on her shoulder. "Then I know what will happen," she said,
+"and I'm glad. And if you don't bring her back with you, Mr. Jack, I
+won't let you in."
+
+So the stately Governor went off like a schoolboy with his nurse's
+blessing. And later like an arrow from a bow he swung around the corner
+of the snowy piazza at Paul Smith's, where Mrs. Lee had told him he
+would find her daughter. There was a bundle of fur in a big chair in the
+sunlight, dark against the white hills beyond, with their black lines of
+pine-trees. As the impetuous steps came nearer, it turned, and--the
+Governor's methods were again such that words do them no justice. But
+this time with happier result. Half an hour later, when some coherency
+was established, he said:
+
+"You waited for me! You've been _waiting_ for me!" as if it were the
+most astonishing fact in history. "And since when have you been waiting
+for me, you--"
+
+Lindsay laughed, not only with her eyes, but with her soft voice. "Ever
+since the morning after, your Excellency. Alice told me all about it
+before I left, and made me see reason. And I--and I was right sorry I'd
+been so cross. I thought you'd come some time--but you came right slow,"
+she said, and her eyes travelled over his face as if she were making
+sure he was really there.
+
+"And I never dared to think you would see me!" he said. "But now!"
+
+And again there were circumstances that are best described by a hiatus.
+
+The day after, when Mary Mooney, discreetly letting her soul's idol get
+into his library before greeting him, trotted into that stately chamber
+with soft, heavy footsteps, she was met with a kiss and a bear's hug
+that, as she told Mrs. Rudd later, "was like the year he was nine."
+
+"I didn't bring her, Mary," the Governor said, "but you'd better let me
+stay, for she's coming."
+
+
+
+
+THE LITTLE REVENGE
+
+
+Suddenly a gust of fresh wind caught Sally's hat, and off it flew, a
+wide-winged pink bird, over the old, old sea-wall of Clovelly, down
+among the rocks of the rough beach, tumbling and jumping from one gray
+stone to another, and getting so far away that, in the soft violet
+twilight, it seemed as lost as any ship of the Spanish Armada wrecked
+long ago on this wild Devonshire coast.
+
+"Oh!" cried Sally distractedly, and clapped her hands to her head with
+the human instinct to shut the stable door after the horse is gone.
+"Oh!" she cried again; "my pretty hat! And _oh_! it's in the water!"
+
+But suddenly, out of somewhere in the twilight, there was a man chasing
+it. Sally leaned over the rugged, yellowish, grayish stone wall and
+excitedly called to him.
+
+"Oh, thank you!" she cried, and "That's so good of you!"
+
+The hat had tacked and was sailing inshore now, one stiff pink taffeta
+sail set to the breeze. And in a minute, with a reckless splash into the
+dashing waves, the man had it, and an easy, athletic figure swung up the
+causeway, holding it away from him, as if it might nip at him. He wore a
+dark blue jersey, and loose, flapping trousers of a seaman.
+
+"He's only a sailor," Sally said under her breath; "I'd better tip him."
+Her hand slipped into her pocket and I heard the click of her purse.
+
+He looked from one to the other of us in the dim light inquiringly, as
+he came up, and then off went his cap, and his face broke into the
+gentlest, most charming smile as he delivered the hat into Sally's
+outstretched hands.
+
+"I'm afraid it's a bit damp," he said.
+
+All dark-eyed, stalwart young fellows are attractive to me for the sake
+of one like that who died forty years ago, but this sailor had a charm
+of manner that is a gift of the gods, let it fall to prince or peasant;
+the pretty deference of his few words, and the quick, radiant smile,
+were enough to win friendliness from me. More than that, something in
+the set of his head, in the straight gaze of his eyes, held a likeness
+that made my memory ache. I smiled back at him instantly. But Sally's
+heart was on her hat; hats from good shops did not grow on trees for
+Sally Meade.
+
+"I hope it isn't hurt," she said, anxiously, and shook it carefully, and
+hardly glanced at the rescuer, who was watching with something that
+looked like amusement in his face. Then her good manners came back.
+
+"Thank you a thousand times," she said, and turned to him brightly. "You
+were so quick--but, oh! I'm afraid you're wet." She looked at him, and I
+saw a little shock of surprise in her face. Beauty so striking will be
+admired, even in a common sailor.
+
+"It's nothing," he said, looking down at his sopping, wide trousers;
+"I'm used to it," and as Sally's hand went forward I caught the flash of
+silver, and at the same moment another flash, from the man's eyes.
+
+It was enough to startle me for the fraction of a second, but, as I
+looked again, his expression held only a serious respect, and I was sure
+I had been mistaken. He took the money and touched his cap and said,
+"Thank you, miss," with perfect dignity. Yet my imagination must have
+been lively, for as he slipped it in his pocket, his look turned toward
+me, and for another breath of time a gleam of mischief--certainly
+mischief--flashed from his dark eyes to mine.
+
+Then Sally, quite unconscious of this, perhaps imaginary, by-play, had
+an idea. "Are you a sailor?" she asked.
+
+The man looked at her. "Yes--miss," he answered, a little slowly.
+
+"We want to engage a boat and a man to take us out. Do you know of one?
+Have you a boat?"
+
+The young fellow glanced down across the wall where a hull and mast
+gleamed indistinctly through the falling night, swinging at the side of
+the quay. "That's mine, yonder," he said, nodding toward it. And then,
+with the graceful, engaging frankness that I already knew as his, "I
+shall be very glad to take you out"--including us both in his glance.
+
+"Sally," I said, five minutes later, as we trudged up the one steep,
+rocky street of Clovelly,--the picturesque old street that once led
+English smugglers to their caves, and that is more of a staircase than a
+street, with rows of stone steps across its narrow width--"Sally, you
+are a very unexpected girl. You took my breath away, engaging that man
+so suddenly to take us sailing to-morrow. How do you know he is
+reliable? It would have been safer to try one of the men they
+recommended from the Inn. And certainly it would have been more
+dignified to let me make the arrangements. You seem to forget that I am
+older than you."
+
+"You aren't," said Sully, giving a squeeze to my arm that she held in
+the angle of hers, pushing me with her young strength up the hill.
+"You're not as old, cousin Mary. I'm twenty-two, and you're only
+eighteen, and I believe you will never be any older."
+
+I think perhaps I like flattery. I am a foolish old woman, and I have
+noticed that it is not the young girls who treat me with great deference
+and rise as soon as I come who seem to me the most charming, but the
+ones who, with proper manners, of course, yet have a touch of
+comradeship, as if they recognized in me something more than a fossil
+exhibit. I like to have them go on talking about their beaux and their
+work and play, and let me talk about it, too. Sally Meade makes me feel
+always that there is in me an undying young girl who has outlived all of
+my years and is her friend and equal.
+
+"I'm sorry if I was forward, cousin Mary, but the sailing is to be my
+party, you know, and then I thought you liked him. He had a pretty
+manner for a common sailor, didn't he? And his voice--these low-class
+English people have wonderfully well-bred, soft voices. I suppose it's
+particularly so here in the South. Cousin Mary, did you see the look he
+gave you with those delicious dark eyes? It's always the way--gentleman
+or hod-carrier--no one has a chance with men when you are about."
+
+It is pleasant to me, old woman as I am, to be told that people like
+me--more pleasant, I think, every year. I never take it for truth, of
+course, but I believe it means good feeling, and it makes an atmosphere
+easy to breathe. I purred like a contented cat under Sally's talking,
+yet, to save my dignity, kept up a protest.
+
+"Sally, my dear! Delicious dark eyes! I'm ashamed of you--a common
+sailor!"
+
+"I didn't smile at him," said Sally, reflectively.
+
+So, struggling up the steep street of Clovelly, we went home to the "New
+Inn," to cold broiled lobster, to strawberries and clotted Devonshire
+cream, and dreamless sleep in the white beds of the quiet rooms whose
+windows looked toward the woods and cliffs of Hobby Drive on one side,
+and on the other toward the dark, sparkling jewel of the moon-lighted
+ocean, and the shadowy line of Lundy Island far in the distance.
+
+That I, an inland woman, an old maid of sixty, should tell a story of
+sailing and of love seems a little ridiculous. My nephews at college
+beguile me to talk about boats, and then laugh to hear me, for I think
+I get the names of things twisted. And as for what I know of the
+other--the only love-making to which I ever listened was ended forty
+years ago by one of the northern balls that fell in fiery rain on
+Pickett's charge at Gettysburg. Yet, if I but tell the tale as it came
+to me, others may feel as I did the thrill of the rushing of the keel
+through dashing salt water, the swing of the great white sail above, the
+flapping of the fresh wind in the slack of it, the exhilaration of
+moving with power like the angels, with the great forces of nature for
+muscles, the joy of it all expanding, pulsing through you, till it seems
+as if the sky might crack if once you let your delight go free. And some
+may catch, too, that other thrill, of the hidden feeling that glorified
+those days. Few lives are so poor that the like of it has not brightened
+them, and no one quite forgets.
+
+It is partly Sally Meade's Southern accent that has made me love her
+above nearer cousins, from her babyhood. The modulations of her voice
+seem always to bring me close to the sound of the voice that went into
+silence when Geoffrey Meade, her father's young kinsman, was killed
+long ago.
+
+The Meades, old-time planters in Virginia, have been very poor since the
+distant war of the sixties, and it has been one of my luxuries to give
+Sally a lift over hard places. Always with instant reward, for the
+smallest bit of sunlight, going into her prismatic spirit, comes out a
+magnificent rainbow of happiness. So when the idea came that they might
+let me have the girl to take abroad that summer, her friend, the girl
+spirit in me, jumped for joy. There was no difficulty made; it was one
+of the rare good things too good to be true, that yet are true. She did
+more for me than I for her, for I simply spent some superfluous idle
+money, while she filled every day with a new enjoyment, the reflection
+of her own fresh pleasure in every day as it came.
+
+So here we were prowling about the south of England with "Westward Ho!"
+for a guide-book; coaching through deep, tawny Devonshire lanes from
+Bideford to Clovelly; searching for the old tombstone of Will Cary's
+grave in the churchyard on top of the hill; gathering tales of
+Salvation Yeo and of Amyas Leigh; listening to echoes of the
+three-hundred-year-old time when the great sea-battle was fought in the
+channel and many ships of the Armada wrecked along this Devonshire
+coast. And always coming back to sleep in the fascinating little "New
+Inn," as old as the hills, built on both sides of the one rocky ladder
+street of Clovelly, the street so steep that no horses can go in it, and
+at the bottom of whose breezy tunnel one sees the rolling floor of the
+sea. In so careless a way does the Inn ramble about the cliff that when
+I first went to my room, two flights up from the front, I caught my
+breath at a blaze of scarlet and yellow nasturtiums that faced me
+through a white-painted doorway opening on the hillside and on a tiny
+garden at the back.
+
+The irresponsible pleasure of our first sail the next afternoon was
+never quite repeated. The boat shot from the landing like a high-strung
+horse given his head, out across the unbordered road of silver water,
+and in a moment, as we raced toward the low white clouds, we turned and
+saw the cliffs of the coast and the tiny village, a gay little pile of
+white, green-latticed houses steeped in foliage lying up a crack in the
+precipice. Above was the long stretch of the woods of Hobby Drive.
+Clovelly is so old that its name is in Domesday Book; so old, some say,
+that it was a Roman station, and its name was Clausa Vaillis. But it is
+a nearer ancientness that haunts it now. Every wave that dashes on the
+rocky shore carries a legend of the ships of the Invincible Armada. As
+we asked question after question of our sailor, handsomer than ever
+to-day with a red silk handkerchief knotted sailor-fashion about his
+strong neck, story after story flashed out, clear and dramatic, from his
+answers. The bunch of houses there on the shore? Yes, that had a
+history. The people living there were a dark-featured, reticent lot,
+different from other people hereabouts. It was said that one of the
+Spanish galleons went ashore there, and the men had been saved and had
+settled on the spot and married Devonshire women, but their descendants
+had never lost the tradition of their blood. Certainly their speech and
+their customs were peculiar, unlike those of the villages near. He had
+been there and had seen them, had heard them talk. Yes, they were
+distinct. He laughed a little to acknowledge it, with an Englishman's
+distrust of anything theatrical. A steep cliff started out into the
+waves, towering three hundred feet in almost perpendicular lines. Had
+that a name? Yes, that was called "Gallantry Bower." No; it was not a
+sentimental story--it was the old sea-fight again. It was said that an
+English sailor threw a rope from the height and saved life after life of
+the crew of a Spaniard wrecked under the point.
+
+"You know the history of your place very well," said Sally. The young
+man kept his eyes on his steering apparatus and a slow half-smile
+troubled his face and was gone.
+
+"I've had a bit of an education for a seaman--Miss," he said. And then,
+after apparently reflecting a moment, "My people live near the Leighs of
+Burrough Court, and I was playmate to the young gentlemen and was given
+a chance to learn with them, with their tutors, more than a common man
+is likely to get always."
+
+At that Sally's enthusiasm broke through her reserve, and I was only a
+little less eager.
+
+"The Leighs! The real, old Leighs of Burrough? Amyas Leigh's
+descendants? Was that story true? Oh!--" And here manners and
+curiosity met and the first had the second by the throat. She stopped.
+But our sailor looked up with a boyish laugh that illumined his dark
+face.
+
+"Is it so picturesque? I have been brought up so close that it seems
+commonplace to me. Every one must be descended from somebody, you know."
+
+"Yes, but Amyas Leigh!" went on Sally, flushed and excited, forgetting
+the man in his story. "Why, he's my hero of all fiction! Think of it,
+Cousin Mary--there are men near here who are his great--half-a-dozen
+greats--grandchildren! Cousin Mary," she stopped and looked at me
+impressively, oblivious of the man so near her, "if I could lay my hands
+on one of those young Leighs of Burrough I'd marry him in spite of his
+struggles, just to be called by that name. I believe I would."
+
+"Sally!" I exclaimed, and glanced at the man; Sally's cheeks colored as
+she followed my look. His mouth was twitching, and his eyes smouldered
+with fun. But he behaved well. On some excuse of steering he turned his
+back instantly and squarely toward us. But Sally's interest was
+irrepressible.
+
+"Would you mind telling me their names, Cary?" she asked. He had told us
+to call him Cary. "The names of the Mr. Leighs of Burrough."
+
+"No, Cary," I said. "I think Miss Meade doesn't notice that she is
+asking you personal questions about your friends."
+
+Cary turned on me a look full of gentleness and chivalry. "Miss Meade
+doesn't ask anything that I cannot answer perfectly well," he said.
+"There are two sons of the Leighs, Richard Grenville, the older, and
+Amyas Francis, the younger. They keep the old names you see.
+Richard--Sir Richard, I should say--is the head of the family, his
+father being dead."
+
+"Sir Richard Grenville Leigh!" said Sally, quite carried away by that
+historic combination. "That's better than Amyas," she went on,
+reflectively. "Is he decent? But never mind. I'll marry _him_, Cousin
+Mary."
+
+At that our sailor-man shook with laughter, and as I met his eyes
+appealing for permission, I laughed as hard as he. Only Sally was
+apparently quite serious.
+
+"He would he very lucky--Miss," he said, restraining his mirth with a
+respect that I thought remarkable, and turned again to his rudder.
+
+Sally, for the first time having felt the fascination of breathing
+historic air, was no longer to be held. The sweeping, free motion, the
+rush of water under the bow as we cut across the waves, the wide sky and
+the air that has made sailors and soldiers and heroes of Devonshire men
+for centuries on end, the exhilaration of it all had gone to the girl's
+head. She was as unconscious of Cary as if he had been part of his boat.
+I had seen her act so when she was six, and wild with the joy of an
+autumn morning, intoxicated with oxygen. We had been put for safety into
+the hollow part of the boat where the seats are--I forget what they call
+it--the scupper, I think. But I am apt to be wrong on the nomenclature.
+At all events, there we were, standing up half the time to look at the
+water, the shore, the distant sails, and because life was too intense to
+sit down. But when Sally, for all her gentle ways, took the bit in her
+teeth, it was too restricted for her there.
+
+"Is there any law against my going up and holding on to the mast?" she
+asked Cary.
+
+"Not if you won't fall overboard, Miss," he answered.
+
+The girl, with a strong, self-reliant jump, a jump that had an echo of
+tennis and golf and horseback, scrambled up and forward, Cary taking his
+alert eyes a moment from his sailing, to watch her to safety, I thought
+her pretty as a picture as she stood swaying with one arm around the
+mast, in her white shirt-waist and dark dress, her head bare, and brown,
+untidy hair blowing across the fresh color of her face, and into her
+clear hazel eyes.
+
+"What is the name of this boat?" she demanded, and Cary's deep, gentle
+voice lifted the two words of his answer across the twenty feet between
+them.
+
+"The Revenge" he said.
+
+Then there was indeed joy. "The Revenge! The Revenge! I am sailing on
+the Revenge, with a man who knows Sir Richard Grenville and Amyas Leigh!
+Cousin Mary, listen to that--this is the Revenge we're on--this!" She
+hugged the mast, "And there are Spanish galleons, great three-deckers,
+with yawning tiers of guns, all around us! You may not see them, but
+they are here! They are ghosts, but they are here! There is the great
+San Philip, hanging over us like a cloud, and we are--we are--Oh, I
+don't know who we are, but we're in the fight, the most beautiful fight
+in history!" She began to quote:
+
+    And half of their fleet to the right, and half to the left were seen,
+    And the little Revenge ran on through the long sea-lane between.
+
+And then:
+
+    Thousands of their sailors looked down from the decks and laughed;
+    Thousands of their soldiers made mock at the mad little craft
+    Running on and on till delayed
+    By the mountain-like San Philip that, of fifteen hundred tons,
+    And towering high above us with her yawning tiers of guns,
+    Took the breath from our sails, and we stayed.
+
+The soft, lingering voice threw the words at us with a thrill and a leap
+forward, just us the Revenge was carrying us with long bounds, over the
+shining sea. We were spinning easily now, under a steady light wind, and
+Cary, his hand on the rudder, was opposite me. He turned with a start as
+the girl began Tennyson's lines, and his shining dark eyes stared up at
+her.
+
+"Do you know that?" he said, forgetting the civil "Miss" in his
+earnestness.
+
+"Do I know it? Indeed I do!" cried Sally from her swinging rostrum. "Do
+you know it, too? I love it--I love every word of it--listen," And I,
+who knew her good memory, and the spell that the music of a noble poem
+cast over her, settled myself with resignation. I was quite sure that,
+short of throwing her overboard, she would recite that poem from
+beginning to end. And she did. Her skirts and her hair blowing, her eyes
+full of the glory of that old "forlorn hope," gazing out past us to the
+seas that had borne the hero, she said it.
+
+    At Flores in the Azores, Sir Richard Grenville lay,
+    And a pinnace, like a frightened bird, came flying from far away;
+    Spanish ships of war at sea, we have sighted fifty-three!
+    Then up spake Sir Thomas Howard
+    "'Fore God, I am no coward"--
+
+She went on and on with the brave, beautiful story. How Sir Thomas would
+not throw away his six ships of the line in a hopeless fight against
+fifty-three; how yet Sir Richard, in the Revenge, would not leave behind
+his "ninety men and more, who were lying sick ashore"; how at last Sir
+Thomas
+
+          sailed away
+    With five ships of war that day
+    Till they melted like a cloud in the silent summer heaven,
+    But Sir Richard bore in hand
+    All his sick men from the land,
+    Very carefully and slow,
+    Men of Bideford in Devon--
+    And he laid them on the ballast down below;
+    And they blessed him in their pain
+    That they were not left to Spain,
+    To the thumbscrew and the stake, for the glory of the Lord.
+
+The boat sailed softly, steadily now, as if it would not jar the rhythm
+of the voice telling, with soft inflections, with long, rushing meter,
+the story of that other Revenge, of the men who had gone from these
+shores, under the great Sir Richard, to that glorious death.
+
+    And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer
+      sea,
+    And not one moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.
+    Ship after ship, the whole night long, their high-built galleons
+      came;
+    Ship after ship, the whole night long, with their battle thunder and
+      flame;
+    Ship after ship, the whole night long, drew back with her dead and
+      her shame;
+    For some they sunk, and many they shattered so they could fight no
+      more.
+    God of battles! Was ever a battle like this in the world before?
+
+As I listened, though I knew the words almost, by heart too, my eyes
+filled with tears and my soul with the desire to have been there, to
+have fought as they did, on the little Revenge one after another of the
+great Spanish ships, till at last the Revenge was riddled and helpless,
+and Sir Richard called to the master-gunner to sink the ship for him,
+but the men rebelled, and the Spaniards took what was left of ship and
+fighters. And Sir Richard, mortally wounded, was carried on board the
+flagship of his enemies, and died there, in his glory, while the
+captains
+
+         --praised him to his face.
+    With their courtly Spanish grace.
+
+So died, never man more greatly, Sir Richard Grenville, of Stow in
+Devon.
+
+The crimson and gold of sunset were streaming across the water as she
+ended, and we sat silent. The sailor's face was grim, as men's faces are
+when they are deeply stirred, but in his dark eyes burned an intensity
+that reserve could not bold back, and as he still stared at the girl a
+look shot from them that startled me like speech. She did not notice.
+She was shaken with the passion of the words she had repeated, and
+suddenly, through the sunlit, rippling silence, she spoke again.
+
+"It's a great thing to be a Devonshire sailor," she said, solemnly. "A
+wonderful inheritance--it ought never to be forgotten. And as for that
+man--that Sir Richard Grenville Leigh--he ought to carry his name so
+high that nothing low or small could ever touch it. He ought never to
+think a thought that is not brave and fine and generous."
+
+There was a moment's stillness and then I said, "Sally, my child, it
+seems to me you are laying down the law a little freely for Devonshire.
+You have only been here four days." And in a second she was on her usual
+gay terms with the world again.
+
+"A great preacher was wasted in me," she said. "How I could have
+thundered at everybody else about their sins! Cousin Mary, I'm coming
+down--I'm all battered, knocking against the must, and the little
+trimmings hurt my hands."
+
+Cary did not smile. His face was repressed and expressionless and in it
+was a look that I did not understand. He turned soberly to his rudder
+and across the broken gold and silver of the water the boat drew in to
+shadowy Clovelly.
+
+It was a shock, after we had landed and I had walked down the quay a few
+yards to inspect the old Red Lion Inn, the house of Salvation Yeo, to
+come back and find Sally dickering with Cary. I had agreed that this
+sail should be her "party," because it pleased the girl's proud spirit
+to open her small purse sometimes for my amusement. But I did not mean
+to let her pay for all our sailing, and I was horrified to find her
+trying to get Cary cheaper by the quantity. When I arrived, Sally, a
+little flustered and very dignified and quite evidently at the end of a
+discussion as to terms, was concluding an engagement, and there was a
+gleam in the man's wonderful eyes, which did much of his talking for
+him.
+
+"You see the boat is very new and clean, Miss," he was saying, "and I
+hope you were satisfied with me?"
+
+I upset Sally's business affairs at once, engaged Cary, and told him he
+must take out no one else without knowing our plans. My handkerchief
+fell as I talked to him and he picked it up and presented it with as
+much ease and grace as if he had done such things all his life. It was a
+remarkable sailor we had happened on. A smile came like sunshine over
+his face--the smile that made him look as Geoffrey Meade looked, half a
+century ago.
+
+"I'll promise not to take any one else, ma'am," he said. And then, with
+the pretty, engaging frankness that won my heart over again each time,
+"And I hope you'll want to go often--not so much for the money, but
+because it is a pleasure to me to take you--both."
+
+There was mail for us waiting at the Inn. "Listen, Sally," I said, as I
+read mine in my room after dinner. "This is from Anne Ford. She wants to
+join us here the 6th of next month, to fill in a week between visits at
+country-houses."
+
+[Illustration: "You see, the boat is very new and clean, Miss," he was
+saying.]
+
+Sally, sitting on the floor before the fire, her dark hair loose and her
+letters lying about her, looked up attentively, and discreetly answered
+nothing. Anne Ford was my cousin, but not hers, and I knew without
+discussing it, that Sally cared for her no more than I. She was made of
+showy fibre, woven in a brilliant pattern, but the fibre was a little
+coarse, and the pattern had no shading. She was rich and a beauty and so
+used to being the centre of things, and largely the circumference too,
+that I, who am a spoiled old woman, and like a little place and a little
+consideration, find it difficult to be comfortable as spoke upon her
+wheel.
+
+"It's too bad," I went on regretfully. "Anne will not appreciate
+Clovelly, and she will spoil it for us. She is not a girl I care for. I
+don't see why I should he made a convenience for Anne Ford," I argued in
+my selfish way. "I think I shall write her not to come."
+
+Sally laughed cheerfully. "She won't bother us, Cousin Mary. It would be
+too bad to refuse her, wouldn't it? She can't spoil Clovelly--it's been
+here too long. Anne is rather overpowering," Sally went on, a bit
+wistfully. "She's such a beauty, and she has such stunning clothes."
+
+The firelight played on the girl's flushed, always-changing face, full
+of warm light and shadow; it touched daintily the white muslin and pink
+ribbons of the pretty negligee she wore, Sally was one of the poor girls
+whose simple things are always fresh and right. I leaned over and patted
+her rough hair affectionately.
+
+"Your clothes are just as pretty," I said, "and Anne doesn't compare
+with you in my eyes." I lifted the unfinished letter and glanced over
+it. "All about her visit to Lady Fisher," I said aloud, giving a resume
+as I read. "What gowns she wore to what functions; what men were devoted
+to her--their names--titles--incomes too." I smiled. "And--what is
+this?" I stopped talking, for a name had caught my eye. I glanced over
+the page. "Isn't this curious! Listen, my dear," I said. "This will
+interest you!" I read aloud from Anne's letter.
+
+"'But the man who can have me if he wants me is Sir Richard Leigh. He is
+the very best that ever happened, and moreover, quite the catch of the
+season. His title is old, and he has a yacht and an ancestral place or
+two, and is very rich, they say--but that isn't it. My heart is his
+without his decorations--well, perhaps not quite that, but it's
+certainly his with the decorations. He is such a beauty, Cousin Mary!
+Even you would admire him. It gives you quite a shock when he comes into
+a room, yet he is so unconscious and modest, and has the most graceful,
+fascinatingly quiet manners and wonderful brown eyes that seem to talk
+for him. He does everything well, and everything hard, is a dare-devil
+on horseback, a reckless sailor, and a lot besides. If you could see the
+way those eyes look at me, and the smile that breaks over his face as if
+the sun had come out suddenly! But alas! the sun has gone under now, for
+he went this morning, and it's not clear if he's coming back or not.
+They say his yacht is near Bideford, where his home is, and Clovelly is
+not far from that, is it?'"
+
+I stopped and looked at Sally, listening, on the floor. She was staring
+into the fire.
+
+"What do you think of that?" I asked. Sally was slow at answering; she
+stared on at the burning logs that seemed whispering answers to the
+blaze.
+
+"Some girls have everything," she said at length. "Look at Anne. She's
+beautiful and rich and everybody admires her, and she goes about to big
+country-houses and meets famous and interesting people. And now this Sir
+Richard Leigh comes like the prince into the story, and I dare say he
+will fall in love with her and if she finds no one that suits her better
+she will marry him and have that grand old historic name."
+
+"Sally, dear," I said, "you're not envying Anne, are you?"
+
+A quick blush rushed to her face. "Cousin Mary! What foolishness I've
+been talking! How could I! What must you think of me! I didn't mean
+it--please believe I didn't. I'm the luckiest girl on earth, and I'm
+having the most perfect time, and you are a fairy godmother to me,
+except that you're more like a younger sister. I was thinking aloud.
+Anne is such a brilliant being compared to me, that the thought of her
+discourages me sometimes. It was just Cinderella admiring the princess,
+you know."
+
+"Cinderella got the prince," I said, smiling.
+
+"I don't want the prince," said Sally, "even if I could get him. I
+wouldn't marry an Englishman. I don't care about a title. To be a
+Virginian is enough title for me. It was just his name, magnificent Sir
+Richard Grenville's name and the Revenge-Armada atmosphere that took my
+fancy. I don't know if Anne would care for that part," she added,
+doubtfully.
+
+"I'm sure Anne would know nothing about it," I answered decidedly, and
+Sally went on cheerfully.
+
+"She's very welcome to the modern Sir Richard, yacht and title and all.
+I don't believe he's as attractive as your sailor, Cousin Mary.
+Something the same style, I should say from the description. If you
+hadn't owned him from the start, I'd rather like that man to be my
+sailor, Cousin Mary--he's so everything that a gentleman is supposed to
+be. How did he learn that manner--why, it would flatter you if he let
+the boom whack you on the head. Too bad he's only a common sailor--such
+a prince gone wrong!"
+
+I looked at her talking along softly, leaning back on one hand and
+gazing at the fire, a small white Turkish slipper--Southern girls always
+have little feet--stuck out to the blaze, and something in the leisurely
+attitude and low, unhurried voice, something, too, in the reminiscent
+crackle of the burning wood, invited me to confidence. I went to my
+dressing-table, and when I came back, dropped, as if I were another
+girl, on the rug beside her. "I want to show you this," I said, and
+opened a case that travels always with me. From the narrow gold rim of
+frame inside, my lover smiled gayly up at her brown hair and my gray,
+bending over it together.
+
+None of the triumphs of modern photographers seem to my eyes so
+delicately charming as the daguerrotypes of the sixties. As we tipped
+the old picture this way and that, to catch the right light on the image
+under the glass, the very uncertainty of effect seemed to give it an
+elusive fascination. To my mind the birds in the bush have always
+brighter plumage than any in the hand, and one of these early
+photographs leaves ever, no matter from what angle you look upon it,
+much to the imagination. So Geoff in his gray Southern uniform, young
+and soldierly, laughed up at Sally and me from the shadowy lines beneath
+the glass, more like a vision of youth than like actual flesh and blood
+that had once been close and real. His brown hair, parted far to one
+side, swept across his forehead in a smooth wave, as was the
+old-fashioned way; his collar was of a big, queer sort unknown to-day;
+the cut of his soldier's coat was antique; but the beauty of the boyish
+face, the straight glance of his eyes, and ease of the broad shoulders
+that military drill could not stiffen, these were untouched, were
+idealized even by the old-time atmosphere that floated up from the
+picture like fragrance of rose-leaves. As I gazed down at the boy, it
+came to me with a pang that he was very young and I growing very old,
+and I wondered would he care for me still. Then I remembered that where
+he lived it was the unworn soul and not the worn-out body that counted,
+and I knew that the spirit within me would meet his when the day came,
+with as fresh a joy as forty years ago. And as I still looked, happy in
+the thought, I felt all at once as if I had seen his face, heard his
+voice, felt the touch of his young hand that day--could almost feel it
+yet. Perhaps my eyes were a little dim, perhaps the uncertainty of the
+old daguerrotype helped the illusion, but the smile of the master of the
+Revenge seemed to shine up at me from my Geoff's likeness, and then
+Sally's slow voice broke the pause.
+
+"It's Cousin Geoffrey, isn't it?" she asked. Her father was Geoffrey
+Meade's cousin--a little boy when Geoff died, "Was he as beautiful as
+that?" she said, gently, putting her hand over mine that held the velvet
+case. And then, after another pause, she went on, hesitatingly; "Cousin
+Mary, I wonder if you would mind if I told you whom he looks like to
+me?"
+
+"No, my dear," I answered easily, and like an echo to my thought her
+words came.
+
+"It is your sailor. Do you see it? He is only a common seaman, of
+course, but I think he must have a wonderful face, for with all his
+dare-devil ways I always think of 'Blessed are the pure in spirit' when
+I see him. And the eyes in the picture have the same expression--do you
+mind my saying it, Cousin Mary?"
+
+"I saw it myself the first time I looked at him," I said. And then, as
+people do when they are on the verge of crying, I laughed. "Anne Ford
+would think me ridiculous, wouldn't she?" and I held Geoff's picture in
+both my hands. "He is much better suited to her or to you. A splendid
+young fellow of twenty-four to belong to an old woman like me--it is
+absurd, isn't it?"
+
+"He is suited to no one but you, dear, and you are just his age and
+always will be," and as Sally's arms caught me tight I felt tears that
+were not my own on my cheek.
+
+It was ten days yet before Anne was due to arrive, and almost every day
+of the ten we sailed. The picturesque coast of North Devon, its deep
+bays, its stretches of high, tree-topped cliffs, grew to be home-like to
+us. We said nothing of Cary and his boat at the Inn, for we soon saw
+that both were far-and-away better than common, and we were selfish.
+Nor did the man himself seem to care for more patronage. He was always
+ready when we wished to go, and jumped from his spick-and-span deck to
+meet us with a smile that started us off in sunshine, no matter what the
+weather. And with my affection for the lovely, uneven coast and the seas
+that held it in their flashing fingers, grew my interest in the winning
+personality that seemed to combine something of the strength of the
+hills and the charm of the seas of Devonshire.
+
+One day after another he loosed the ropes with practised touch, and the
+wind taught the sail with a gay rattle and the little Revenge flung off
+the steep street and the old sea-wall and the green cliffs of Clovelly,
+and first yards and then miles of rippling ocean lay between us and
+land, and we sailed away, we did not need to know or care where, with
+our fate for the afternoon in his reliable hands. Little by little we
+forgot artificial distinctions in the out-of-doors, natural atmosphere,
+or that the man was anything but himself--a self always simple, always
+right. Looking back, I see how deeply I was to blame, to have been so
+blind, at my age, but the figure by the rudder, swinging to the boat's
+motion, grew to be so familiar and pleasant a sight, that I did not
+think of being on guard against him. Little as he talked, his moods were
+varied, grave or gay or with a gleam of daring in his eyes that made
+him, I think, a little more attractive than any other way. Yet when a
+wind of seriousness lifted the still or impetuous surface, I caught a
+glimpse, sometimes, of a character of self-reliance, of decision as
+solid as the depths under the shifting water of his ocean. There was
+never a false note in his gentle manner, and I grew to trust serenely to
+his tact and self-respect, and talked to him freely as I chose. Which of
+course I should not have done. But there was a temptation to which I
+yielded in watching for the likeness in his face, and in listening for a
+tone or two of his voice that caught my heart with the echo of a voice
+long silent.
+
+One morning to our astonishment Cary sent up to break our engagement for
+the afternoon. Something had happened so that he could not possibly get
+away. But it was moonlight and warm--would we not go out in the evening?
+The idea seemed to me a little improper, yet very attractive, and
+Sally's eyes danced.
+
+"Let's be bold and bad and go, Cousin Mary," she pleaded, and we went.
+
+A shower of moonlight fell across the sea and on the dark masses of the
+shore; it lay in sharp patches against the black shadows of the sail; it
+turned Sally's bare, dark head golden, and tipped each splashing wave
+with a quick-vanishing electric light. It was not earth or ocean, but
+fairyland. We were sailing over the forgotten, sea-buried land of
+Lyonesse; forests where Tristram and Iseult had ridden, lay under our
+rushing keel; castles and towers and churches were there--hark! could I
+not hear the faint bells in the steeples ringing up through the waves?
+The old legend, half true, half fable, was all real to me as I sat in
+the shadow of the sail and stared, only half seeing them, at Sally
+standing with her hands on the rudder and Cary leaning over her,
+teaching her to sail the Revenge. Their voices came to me clear and
+musical, yet carrying no impression of what they were saying. Then I saw
+Sally's little fingers slip suddenly, and Cary's firm hand close over
+them, pushing the rudder strongly to one side. His face was toward me,
+and I saw the look that went over it as his hand held hers. It startled
+me to life again, and I sat up straight, but he spoke at once with quiet
+self-possession.
+
+"I beg your pardon, Miss Meade. She was heading off a bit dangerously."
+
+And he went on with directions, laughing at her a little, scolding her a
+little, yet all with a manner that could not be criticised. I still
+wonder how he could have poised so delicately and so long on that
+slender line of possible behavior.
+
+As the boat slipped over the shimmering ocean, back into the harbor
+again, most of the houses up the sharp ascent of Clovelly street were
+dark, but out on the water lay a mass of brilliant lights, rocking
+slowly on the tide. Sally was first to notice it.
+
+"There is a ship lying out there. Is it a ship or is it an enchantment?
+She is lighted all over. What is it--do you know?"
+
+Cary was working at the sail and he did not look at us or at it as he
+answered.
+
+"Yes, Miss--I know her. She is Sir Richard Leigh's yacht the Rose. She
+was there as we went out, but she was dark and you did not notice her."
+
+I exclaimed, full of interest, at this, but Sally, standing ghost-like
+in her white dress against the sinking sail, said nothing, but stared at
+the lights that outlined the yacht against the deep distance of the sky,
+and that seemed, as the shadowy hull swung dark on the water, to start
+out from nowhere in pin-pricks of diamonds set in opal moonlight.
+
+Lundy Island lies away from Clovelly to the northwest seventeen miles
+off on the edge of the world. Each morning as I opened my window at the
+Inn, and looked out for the new day's version of the ocean, it lifted a
+vague line of invitation and of challenge. Since we had been in
+Devonshire the atmosphere of adventure that hung over Lundy had haunted
+me with the wish to go there. It was the "Shutter," the tall pinnacle of
+rock at its southern end, that Amyas Leigh saw for his last sight of
+earth, when the lightning blinded him, in the historic storm that
+strewed ships of the Armada along the shore. I am not a rash person, yet
+I was so saturated with the story of "Westward Ho!" that I could not go
+away satisfied unless I had set foot on Lundy. But it had the worst of
+reputations, and landing was said to be hazardous.
+
+"It isn't that I can't get you there," said Cary when I talked to him,
+"but I might not be able to get you away."
+
+Then he explained in a wise way that I did not entirely follow, how the
+passage through the rocks was intricate, and could only be done with a
+right wind, and how, if the wind changed suddenly, it was impossible to
+work out until the right wind came again. And that might not be for
+days, if one was unlucky. It had been known to happen so. Yet I lingered
+over the thought, and the more I realized that it was unreasonable, the
+more I wanted to go. The spirit of the Devonshire seas seemed, to my
+fancy, to live on the guarded, dangerous rocks, and I must pay tribute
+before I left his kingdom. Cary laughed a little at my one bit of
+adventurous spirit so out of keeping with my gray hairs, but it was easy
+to see that he too wanted to go, and that only fear for our safety and
+comfort made him hesitate. The day before Anne Ford was due we went. It
+was the day, too, after our sail in the moonlight that I half believed,
+remembering its lovely unreality, had been a dream. But as we sailed
+out, there lay Sir Richard Leigh's yacht to prove it, smart and
+impressive, shining and solid in the sunlight as it had been ethereal
+the night before. I gazed at her with some curiosity.
+
+"Have you been on board?" I asked our sailor. "Is Sir Richard there?"
+
+Cary glanced at Sally, who had turned a cold shoulder to the yacht and
+was looking back at Clovelly village, crawling up its deep crack in the
+cliff. "Yes," he said; "I've been on her twice. Sir Richard is living on
+her."
+
+"I suppose he's some queer little rat of a man," Sally brought out in
+her soft voice, to nobody in particular.
+
+I was surprised at the girl's incivility, but Cary answered promptly,
+"Yes, Miss!" with such cheerful alacrity that I turned to look at him,
+more astonished. I met eyes gleaming with a hardly suppressed amusement
+which, if I had stopped to reason about it, was much out of place. But
+yet, as I looked at him with calm dignity and seriousness, I felt myself
+sorely tempted to laugh back. I am a bad old woman sometimes.
+
+The Revenge careered along over the water as if mad to get to Lundy,
+under a strong west wind. In about two hours the pile of fantastic rocks
+lay stretched in plain view before us. We were a mile or more away--I am
+a very uncertain judge of distance--but we could see distinctly the
+clouds of birds, glittering white sea-gulls, blowing hither and thither
+above the wild little continent where were their nests. There are
+thousands and thousands of gulls on Lundy. We had sailed out from
+Clovelly at two in bright afternoon sunshine, but now, at nearly four,
+the blue was covering with gray, and I saw Cary look earnestly at the
+quick-moving sky.
+
+"Is it going to rain?" I asked.
+
+He stood at the rudder, feet apart and shoulders full of muscle and full
+of grace, the handkerchief around his neck a line of flame between blue
+clothes and olive face. A lock of bronze hair blew boyishly across his
+forehead.
+
+"Worse than that," he said, and his eyes were keen as he stared at the
+uneven water in front of us. A basin of smoother water and the yellow
+tongue of a sand-beach lay beyond it at the foot of a line of high
+rocks. "The passage is there"--he nodded. "If I can make it before the
+squall catches us"--he glanced up again and then turned to Sally. "Could
+you sail her a moment while I see to the sheet? Keep her just so." His
+hand placed Sally's with a sort of roughness on the rudder. "Are you
+afraid?" He paused a second to ask it.
+
+"Not a bit," said the girl, smiling up at him cheerfully, and then he
+was working away, and the little Revenge was flying, ripping the waves,
+every breath nearer by yards to that tumbling patch of wolf-gray water.
+
+As I said, I know less about a boat than a boy of five. I can never
+remember what the parts of it are called and it is a wonder to me how
+they can make it go more than one way. So I cannot tell in any
+intelligent manner what happened. But, as it seemed, suddenly, while I
+watched Sally standing steadily with both her little hands holding the
+rudder, there was a crack as if the earth had split, then, with a
+confused rushing and tearing, a mass of something fell with a long-drawn
+crash, and as I stared, paralyzed, I saw the mast strike against the
+girl as she stood, her hands still firmly on the rudder, and saw her go
+down without a sound. There were two or three minutes of which I
+remember nothing but the roaring of water. I think I must have been
+caught under the sail, for the next I knew I was struggling from beneath
+its stiff whiteness, and as I looked about, dazed, behold! we had passed
+the reefs and lay rocking quietly. I saw that first, and then I saw
+Cary's head as it bent over something he held in his arms--and it was
+Sally! I tried to call, I tried to reach them, but the breath must have
+been battered out of me, for I could not, and Cary did not notice me. I
+think he forgot I was on earth. As I gazed at them speechless,
+breathless, Sally's eyes opened and smiled up at him, and she turned her
+face against his shoulder like a child. Cary's dark cheek went down
+against hers, and through the sudden quiet I heard him whisper.
+
+"Sweetheart! sweetheart!" he said.
+
+Both heads, close against each other, were still for a long moment, and
+then my gasping, rasping voice came back to me.
+
+"Cary!" I cried, "for mercy's sake, come and take me out of this jib!"
+
+I have the most confused recollection of the rest of that afternoon.
+Cary hammered and sawed and worked like a beaver with the help of two
+men who lived on Lundy, fishermen by the curious name of Heaven. Sally
+and I helped, too, whenever we could, but all in a heavy silence. Sally
+was wrapped in dignity as in a mantle, and her words were few and
+practical. Cary, quite as practical, had no thought apparently for
+anything but his boat. As for me, I was like a naughty old cat. I fussed
+and complained till I must have been unendurable, for the emotions
+within me were all at cross-purposes. I was frightened to death when I
+thought of General Meade; I was horrified at the picture stamped on my
+memory of his daughter, trusted to my care, smiling up with that
+unmistakable expression into the eyes of a common sailor. Horrified! My
+blood froze at the thought. Yet--it was unpardonable of me--yet I felt a
+thrill as I saw again those two young heads together, and heard the
+whispered words that were not meant for me to hear.
+
+Somehow or other, after much difficulty, and under much mental strain,
+we got home. Sally hardly spoke as we toiled up the stony hill in the
+dark beneath a pouring rain, and I, too, felt my tongue tied in an
+embarrassed silence. At some time, soon, we must talk, but we both felt
+strongly that it was well to wait till we could change our clothes.
+
+At last we reached the friendly brightness of the New Inn windows; we
+trudged past them to the steps, we mounted them, and as the front door
+opened, the radiant vision burst upon us of Anne Ford, come a day before
+her time, fresh and charming and voluble--voluble! It seemed the last
+straw to our tired and over-taxed nerves, yet no one could have been
+more concerned and sympathetic, and that we were inclined not to be
+explicit as to details suited her exactly. All the sooner could she get
+to her own affairs. Sir Richard Leigh's yacht was the burden of her lay,
+and that it was here and we had seen it added lustre to our adventures.
+That we had not been on board and did not know him, was satisfactory
+too, and neither of us had the heart to speak of Cary. We listened
+wearily, feeling colorless and invertebrate beside this brilliant
+creature, while Anne planned to send her card to him to-morrow, and
+conjectured gayeties for all of us, beyond. Sir Richard Leigh and his
+yacht did not fill a very large arc on our horizon to-night. Sally came
+into my room to tell me good-night, when we went up-stairs, and she
+looked so wistful and tired that I gave her two kisses instead of one.
+
+"Thank you," she said, smiling mistily. "We won't talk to-night, will
+we, Cousin Mary?" So without words, we separated.
+
+Next morning as I opened my tired eyes on a world well started for the
+day, there came a tap at the door and in floated Anne Ford, a fine bird
+in fine feathers, wide-awake and brisk.
+
+"Never saw such lazy people!" she exclaimed. "I've just been in to see
+Sally and she refuses to notice me. I suppose it's exhaustion from
+shipwreck. But I wasn't shipwrecked, and I've had my breakfast, and it's
+too glorious a morning to stay indoors, so I'm going to walk down to the
+water and look at Sir Richard's boat, and send off my card to him by a
+sailor or something. Then, if he's a good boy, he will turn up to-day,
+and then--!" The end of Anne's sentence was wordless ecstasy.
+
+But the mention of the sailor had opened the flood-gates for me, and in
+rushed all my responsibilities. What should I do with this situation
+into which I had so easily slipped, and let Sally slip? Should I
+instantly drag her off to France like a proper chaperone? Then how could
+I explain to Anne--Anne would be heavy dragging with that lodestone of a
+yacht in the harbor. Or could we stay here as we had planned and not see
+Cary again? The unformed shapes of different questions and answers came
+dancing at me like a legion of imps as I lay with my head on the pillow
+and looked at Anne's confident, handsome face, and admired the freshness
+and cut of her pale blue linen gown.
+
+"Well, Cousin Mary," she said at last, "you and Sally seem both to be
+struck dumb from your troubles. I'm going off to leave you till you can
+be a little nicer to me. I may come back with Sir Richard--who knows!
+Wish me good luck, please!" and she swept off on a wave of good-humor
+and good looks.
+
+I lay and thought. Then, with a pleasant leisure that soothed my nerves
+a little, I dressed, and went down to breakfast in the quaint
+dining-room hung from floor to ceiling with china brought years ago from
+the far East by a Clovelly sailor. As I sat over my egg and toast Sally
+came in, pale, but sweet and crisp in the white that Southern girls wear
+most. There was a constraint over us for the reckoning that we knew was
+coming. Each felt guilty toward the other and the result was a formal
+politeness. So it was a relief when, just at the last bit of toast, Anne
+burst in, all staccato notes of suppressed excitement.
+
+"Cousin Mary! Sally! Sir Richard Leigh is here! He's there!" nodding
+over her shoulder. "He walked up with me--he wants to see you both.
+But"--her voice dropped to an intense whisper--"he has asked to see Miss
+Walton first--wants to speak to her alone! What does he mean?" Anne was
+in a tremendous flutter, and it was plain that wild ideas were coursing
+through her. "You are my chaperone, of course, but what can he want to
+see you for alone--Cousin Mary?"
+
+I could not imagine, either, yet it seemed quite possible that this
+beautiful creature had taken a susceptible man by storm, even so
+suddenly. I laid my napkin on the table and stood up.
+
+"The chaperone is ready to meet the fairy prince," I said, and we went
+across together to the little drawing-room.
+
+It was a bit dark as Anne opened the door and I saw first only a man's
+figure against the window opposite, but as he turned quickly and came
+toward us, I caught my breath, and stared, and gasped and stared again.
+Then the words came tumbling over each other before Anne could speak.
+
+"Cary!" I cried. "What are you doing here--in those clothes?"
+
+Poor Anne! She thought I had made some horrid mistake, and had disgraced
+her. But I forgot Anne entirely for the familiar brown eyes that were
+smiling, pleading into mine, and in a second he had taken my hand and
+bending over, with a pretty touch of stateliness, had kissed it, and the
+charm that no one could resist had me fast in its net.
+
+"Miss Walton! You will forgive me? You were always good to me--you won't
+lay it up against me that I'm Richard Leigh and not a picturesque
+Devonshire sailor! You won't be angry because I deceived you! The devil
+tempted me suddenly and I yielded, and I'm glad. Dear devil! I never
+should have known either of you if I had not."
+
+There were more of the impetuous sentences that I cannot remember, and
+somewhere among them Anne gathered that she was not the point of them,
+and left the room like a slighted but still reigning princess. It was
+too bad that any one should feel slighted, but if it had to be, it was
+best that it should be Anne.
+
+Then my sailor told me his side of the story; how Sally's tip for the
+rescue of her hat had showed him what we took him to be; how her
+question about a boat had suggested playing the part; how he had begun
+it half for the fun of it and half, even then, for the interest the girl
+had roused in him--and he put in a pretty speech for the chaperone just
+there, the clever young man! He told me how his yacht had come sooner
+than he had expected, and that he had to give up one afternoon with her
+was so severe a trial that he knew then how much Sally meant to him.
+
+"That moonlight sail was very close sailing indeed," he said, his face
+full of a feeling that he did not try to hide. "There was nearly a
+shipwreck, when--when she steered wrong." And I remembered.
+
+Then, with no great confidence in her mood, I went in search of my girl.
+She is always unexpected, and a dead silence, when I had anxiously told
+my tale, was what I had not planned for. After a minute,
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+And "Well?" answered Sally, with scarlet cheeks, but calmly.
+
+"He is waiting for you down-stairs," I said.
+
+Then she acted in the foolish way that seemed natural. She dropped on
+her knees and put her face against my shoulder.
+
+"Cousin Mary! I can't! It's a strange man--it isn't our sailor any more.
+I hate it. I don't like Englishmen."
+
+"He's very much the same as yesterday," I said. "You needn't like him if
+you don't want to, but you must go and tell him so yourself." I think
+that was rather clever of me.
+
+So, holding my hand and trembling, she went down. When I saw Richard
+Leigh's look as he stood waiting, I tried to loosen that clutching hand
+and leave them, but Sally, always different from any one else, held me
+tight.
+
+"Cousin Mary, I won't stay unless you stay," she said, firmly.
+
+I looked at the young man and he laughed.
+
+"I don't care. I don't care if all the world hears me," he said, and he
+took a step forward and caught her hands.
+
+Sally looked up at him. "You're a horrid lord or something," she said.
+
+He laughed softly. "Do you mind? I can't help it. It's hard, but I want
+you to help me try to forget it. I'd gladly he a sailor again if you'd
+like me better."
+
+"I did like you--before you deceived me. You pretended you were that."
+
+"But I have grievances too--you said I was a queer little rat of a man."
+
+Sally's laugh was gay but trembling. "I did say that, didn't I?"
+
+"Yes, and you tried to underpay me, too."
+
+"Oh, I didn't! You charged a lot more than the others."
+
+Sir Richard shook his head firmly. "Not nearly as much as the Revenge
+was worth. I kept gangs of men scrubbing that boat till I nearly went
+into bankruptcy. And, what's more, you ought to keep your word, you
+know. You said you were going to marry Richard Leigh--Richard Grenville
+Cary Leigh is his whole name, you know. Will you keep your word?"
+
+"But I--but you--but I didn't know," stammered Sally, feebly.
+
+He went on eagerly. "You told me how he should wear his name--high
+and--and all that." He had no time for abstractions. "He can never do it
+alone--will you come and help him?"
+
+Sally was palpably starching about for weapons to aid her losing fight.
+"Why do you like me? I'm not beautiful like Anne Ford." He laughed. "I'm
+not rich, you know, like lots of American girls. We're very poor"--she
+looked at him earnestly.
+
+[Illustration: I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands.]
+
+"I don't care if you're rich or poor," he said. "I don't know if
+you're beautiful--I only know you're you. It's all I want."
+
+She shook a little at his vehemence, but she was a long fighter. "You
+don't know me very much," she went on, her soft voice breaking. "Maybe
+it's only a fancy--the moonlight and the sailing and all--maybe you only
+imagine you like me."
+
+"Imagine I like you!"
+
+And then, at the sight of his quick movement and of Sally's face I
+managed to get behind a curtain and put my fingers in my ears. No woman
+has a right to more than one woman's love-making. And as I stood there,
+a few minutes later, I felt myself pulled by two pairs of hands, and
+Sally and her lover were laughing at me.
+
+"May I have her? I want her very much," he said, and I wondered if ever
+any one could say no to anything he asked. So, with a word about Sally's
+far-away mother and father, I told him, as an old woman might, that I
+had loved him from the first, and then I said a little of what Sally was
+to me.
+
+"I like her very much," I said, in a shaky voice that tried to be
+casual. "Are you sure that you like her enough?" For all of his answer,
+he turned, not even touching her hands, and looked at her.
+
+It was as if I caught again the fragrance of the box hedges in the
+southern sunshine of a garden where I had walked on a spring morning
+long ago. Love is as old-fashioned as the ocean, and us little changed
+in all the centuries. Its always yielding, never retreating arms lie
+about the lands that are built and carved and covered with men's
+progress; it keeps the air sweet and fresh above them, and from
+generation to generation its look and its depths are the same. That it
+is stronger than death does not say it all. I know that it is stronger
+than life. Death, with its crystal touch, may make a weak love strong;
+life, with its every-day wear and tear, must make any but a strong love
+weak.
+
+I like to think that the look I saw in Richard Leigh's eyes as he turned
+toward my girl was the same look I shall see, not so very many years
+from now, when I close mine on this dear old world, and open them, by
+the shore of the ocean of eternity, on the face of Geoffrey Meade.
+
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOB AND THE GUIDES
+
+_By_
+
+MARY RAYMOND SHIPMAN ANDREWS
+
+Illustrated by F.C. YOHN
+
+12mo. $1.50
+
+
+"The sketches are breezy, with a freshness nothing short of alluring.
+They would make a sportsman of a monk. The characters of Walter, Bob,
+the Bishop, the Judge and his Guide are drawn in a fashion that attracts
+both sympathy and emulation, while the rollicking but delicate humor has
+rarely been excelled in fiction."--Louisville _Courier-Journal_.
+
+
+"A keen sense of humor runs through them all. Exceedingly interesting
+and entertaining."--Baltimore _News_.
+
+
+"A book of hunting stories which can be read aloud and out of doors, two
+severe tests for a book."--_Independent_.
+
+
+"It is difficult to recall any book that contains in it more of the
+out-door spirit mingled with a really charming story-telling
+capacity."--_Recreation_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Books by Mary R.S. Andrews
+
+VIVE L'EMPEREUR
+
+Illustrated by F.C. YOHN
+
+12mo. $1.00
+
+
+"A very well-written story and one that the reader will be bound to
+like."--New York _Sun_.
+
+
+"The humor is good, the love motive sweet, and the background
+picturesque. As history, 'Vive L'Empereur' is unique; as romance, it is
+charming."--_The Reader_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Great Lincoln Story
+
+THE PERFECT TRIBUTE
+
+50 cents net; postpaid, 53 cents
+
+
+"One of the best of recent short stories,"--Philadelphia _Inquirer_.
+
+
+"An exquisitely tender, pathetic, and patriotic story."--Chicago _Daily
+News_.
+
+
+"It is the best sort of history for it reproduces the spirit of the time
+and of the man."--New York _Christian Advocate_.
+
+
+"Dramatically conceived and strongly written."--Los Angeles _Times_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, NEW YORK
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Militants, by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
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