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+Project Gutenberg's A Tar-Heel Baron, by Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
+
+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: A Tar-Heel Baron
+
+Author: Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
+
+Illustrator: Edward Stratton Holloway
+
+Release Date: July 23, 2008 [EBook #26112]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TAR-HEEL BARON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A Tar-Heel Baron
+
+_SECOND EDITION_
+
+
+[Illustration: "OAKWOOD"]
+
+
+
+
+A Tar-Heel Baron
+
+
+
+_by_
+
+Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton
+
+
+
+With Illustrations by
+
+Edward Stratton Holloway
+
+
+
+Philadelphia & London
+J. B. Lippincott Company
+1903
+
+
+COPYRIGHT, 1903
+BY J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
+
+Published February, 1903
+
+_Electrotyped and Printed by_
+_J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, U.S.A._
+
+
+
+
+TO
+
+F. A. P.
+
+    "_One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,
+    Never doubted clouds would break,
+    Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph,
+    Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,
+    Sleep to wake._"
+
+
+
+
+Contents
+
+
+Chapter                                                      Page
+
+     I FRIEDRICH VON RITTENHEIM                                 7
+    II THE SNARE OF THE FOWLER                                 22
+   III A WEAK MAN'S STRENGTH                                   38
+    IV "THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S WIFE"              47
+     V A STRONG MAN'S WEAKNESS                                 61
+    VI "I WARRANT THERE'S VINEGAR AND PEPPER IN'T!"            74
+   VII IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIANS                            85
+  VIII SYDNEY RIDES AGAINST TIME                              105
+    IX "IT NEEDED ONLY THIS!"                                 118
+     X THROUGH THE MIST                                       132
+    XI IN THE CORN                                            146
+   XII ILLUMINATION                                           156
+  XIII RECONCILIATION                                         171
+   XIV THE FOURTH OF JULY                                     179
+    XV THE GANDER-PULLING                                     193
+   XVI ON THE BRIDGE                                          202
+  XVII OUT OF A CLEAR SKY                                     216
+ XVIII BUSINESS PLANS                                         230
+   XIX HILDA                                                  242
+    XX SACRIFICE                                              255
+   XXI A POKE PARTY                                           267
+  XXII VON RITTENHEIM COLLECTS HIS RENT                       285
+ XXIII THE 'POSSUM-HUNT                                       299
+  XXIV "FOUGHT THE FIGHT"                                     312
+   XXV CARL VON STERNBURG                                     322
+  XXVI SURRENDER                                              335
+ XXVII DIXIE                                                  348
+
+
+
+
+List of Illustrations
+
+
+                                                             Page
+
+OAKWOOD                                             _Frontispiece_
+
+A FENCE AT THE TOP OF A SHARP ASCENT                          109
+
+TO THE FRENCH BROAD, WHERE FLETCHER'S BRIDGE CROSSES THE
+RIVER                                                         204
+
+PINK ROSES AND RED SWUNG TO AND FRO IN THE SUNSHINE AS
+THEY CLIMBED THE DOCTOR'S WHITEWASHED PORCH                   242
+
+"IT IS NOT FITTING THAT A VON RITTENHEIM SHOULD LIVE
+IN A CABIN LIKE THAT"                                         269
+
+
+
+
+A Tar-Heel Baron
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+Friedrich von Rittenheim
+
+
+The incongruity of his manner of life was patent to all who saw. The
+mountaineers around him recognized it, but they attributed it to the
+fact of his being a foreigner. The more cultivated folk realized that a
+man of the world who bore every mark of good birth and breeding was
+indeed out of place in the gray jeans of the North Carolina farmer,
+guiding the plough with his own hand.
+
+At first no one knew just how to take him, even to the calling of his
+name. Baron Friedrich Johann Ludwig--and a half-dozen more--von
+Rittenheim was a good deal to compass. The farmers and the negroes
+finally settled upon "Mr. Baron."
+
+As to "taking him," it was he who took them, and by storm. He was as
+poor as his poorest neighbors, that was evident, so they felt no
+jealousy, and laid aside the mistrust which is the countryman's shield
+and buckler. He asked agricultural instruction from the men, was
+courteously respectful to the women, and played with the children.
+Among those of more gentle birth there was little question of their
+reception of him after once he had ridden to their doors, making the
+first visit, as in the old country. To be sure, he had appeared astride
+a mule, but neither his mount nor his dress could conceal a soldierly
+bearing that made him the envy of every man who saw him. And he had but
+to click his heels together and make his queer foreign bow that
+displayed the top of his fair head, and to kiss the fingers of the
+"gnaedige Frau," to win the hearts of all the women. His English, in
+itself, was no small charm, for, though he had conquered his w's and
+th's, his use of idiom was ever new.
+
+It was of the Baron that Dr. Morgan and his wife were talking as they
+drove towards home at sunset of a late March day.
+
+"Hanged if Ah know how the fellow gets on," said the Doctor. "It was
+fall when he came here, and that farm he bought from Ben Frady hadn't
+any crop on it but a mahty little corn. He did his winter ploughing and
+killed the pig he took with the place, but how he's pulling through Ah
+don't know."
+
+The Doctor spat in a practised and far-reaching manner into the red
+clay mud, and shook the reins over the backs of the horse and mule,
+which plodded on unheeding.
+
+"This is 'starvation time,' too. Ah noticed yesterday our bacon was
+getting low," returned Mrs. Morgan, with the application to self that a
+country life induces. "The Baron never did tell any one about his money
+affairs, did he, Henry?"
+
+It would be hard to say why she asked, unless for the sake of
+continuing the conversation, for, had there been any such bit of
+gossip, it would have been the Doctor's exclusive property only so long
+as it took him to drive from the place where he had heard it to his own
+house.
+
+"Not a word," he replied. "Hi, Pete, what are you doing?"
+
+Always a careless driver, the Doctor was more than ever so when the
+state of the roads precluded travelling faster than a walk. He had not
+noticed the mud-hole which the mule had tried to jump. In his
+harnesses, twine, rope, and wire played as prominent a part as leather.
+In fact, most of the points of responsibility were guarded by those
+materials rather than by the original. Pete's jump and his mate's
+consequent shy proved too much for long-worn traces, and two of them
+snapped.
+
+"Hang those things! That outside one popped just yesterday, Sophy,"
+said the Doctor, in a tone of grievance, as if the fact of its having
+broken yesterday ought to have rendered him free from the liability of
+a similar annoyance to-day.
+
+"Ah reckon you-all 'll have to get a new harness some time," returned
+Sophy, placidly, holding the reins which her husband transferred to her
+as, with no great relish, he lowered his long, lean person into the red
+sea of mud below.
+
+"Rather juicy down here. Got any string, wife?"
+
+"Not a bit. You'll have to take a piece out of the lines," suggested
+Mrs. Morgan, with resource born of long experience.
+
+"Ah 'low Ah will, though they're pretty short now from doing the same
+thing befo'."
+
+He examined them gravely.
+
+"They ain't very strong, either," he added. "Let's see, where are we
+at?" He looked about him for landmarks. "Oh, there's the road that
+leads to the Baron's over yonder. Give me yo' handkerchief fo' this
+other trace now, and we'll try and get there befo' it pops again."
+
+Friedrich von Rittenheim was standing on the porch in front of his
+cabin, gazing at the western sky. A royal mantle of purple enwrapped
+the shoulders of mighty Pisgah against a background of lucent gold. The
+expression of anxiety and of spiritless longing left the man's face as
+he watched the melting glory.
+
+"_Wunderschoen!_" he murmured. "I wonder if she, too, is seeing it,
+also."
+
+The Doctor's buggy came laboring into sight around the corner of the
+house.
+
+"_Ach_, here are my so good friends, who are ever welcome. I kiss your
+hand, gr-racious Madam," he cried, as he went to the side of the
+carriage, and unshrinkingly saluted an old fur glove, from which the
+gracious madam's every finger was protruding.
+
+"Ah've broken mah traces, Baron. Can you-all let me have some wire or
+string?"
+
+"With delight, my dear Doctor. And will you not do me the honor to
+enter herein, dear lady, while the Herr Doctor and I r-repair the
+har-rness?"
+
+He helped her from the buggy with a courtesy that induced a responsive
+manner in her, and she sailed ponderously into the cabin, displaying an
+elegance that caused her husband to chuckle and say to himself,--
+
+"He certainly does fetch the women!"
+
+The Baron stirred the fire, whose light fell on a scar, the mark of a
+student duel, that crept out from under his hair. He left Mrs. Morgan
+stretching her plump feet and puffy hands to enjoy the flames' warmth,
+while her keen eyes examined every corner of the bare room, its tidily
+swept hearth, and the bunch of galax leaves on the table.
+
+"You-all keep pretty neat fo' a bachelor," she said, when the two men
+came in after their task was done. "Ah always tell the Doctor it's
+lucky he's married and has some one to look after him. You see he's no
+great shakes at keeping clean now;" she looked him over with an eye
+made critical by his proximity to the German, who was a model of
+soldierly neatness; "and if he wasn't married, Ah don't know what he'd
+be!"
+
+Von Rittenheim didn't know, either, so he said, "That is one advantage
+of an ar-rmy tr-raining, Mrs. Mor-rgan."
+
+"Well, Ah don't know as Ah agree with you there, Baron," she replied.
+"Henry was in the army all through the Civil War, and Ah don't think
+his habits were a bit improved at the end of it."
+
+Henry grinned appreciatively, but the Baron's features betrayed only
+such interest as incited Mrs. Morgan to further conversation.
+
+"Where's the rocking-chair you had when Ah was here befo'? That was Ben
+Frady's mother's chair. Ah've seen the old woman sitting out on the
+po'ch in it many a time."
+
+She waited for an answer, and Friedrich colored to the roots of his
+hair. It was on his tongue's tip to say that it was in the next room,
+but Mrs. Morgan was quite capable of penetrating there; and, besides,
+telling the truth was another result of army training. He stammered
+something about having disposed of it, and hastened to ask if Madam
+would not like a cup of coffee.
+
+It was a natural pride that deterred von Rittenheim from confessing to
+these friends of not many months' standing that he had sold the chair,
+the only thing in the house worth selling, and had sold it from
+necessity. The Doctor was right in his suspicions that the Baron was
+not getting on comfortably. Ten days ago he had spent his very last
+cent, and he was learning the true meaning of the word "poverty." The
+crop of corn that he had bought with the farm had served him until now
+as feed for the mule, as meal and hominy, and, by the alchemy of the
+alembic, as whisky. The end of the bacon from Ben Frady's pig was on
+the shelf in the cupboard before which he was standing, and he had just
+offered to his guest the last of the coffee with which the sale of old
+Mrs. Frady's chair had provided him. It was this anxiety that had
+clouded his brow as he looked at the sunset. He had nothing to send to
+market, not even wood, for his bit of forest yielded only enough for
+his own use. He had sold his cow, and had let a man have his mule for
+its keep.
+
+It had not hurt his pride to live on this little mountain farm. He was
+as independent there as at home; more so, because the social demands
+upon him were as nothing. But no money and no food meant that he must
+work for a wage, and that galled him. Then, at this season of the year,
+what work was there to be done? No one needed extra laborers.
+
+It looked very much as if he were brought face to face with starvation,
+and a man of thirty-five does not encounter such a prospect as gayly as
+a youth.
+
+Fortunately for his further catechism, the idea of coffee appealed to
+Mrs. Morgan, and von Rittenheim set about making it, secretly wondering
+what his breakfast would be like without it, but preparing it none the
+less cheerfully.
+
+"I gr-rieve, dear Frau Mor-rgan," he said, as he offered her the cup,
+"that I have not cr-ream for you,--or sugar, either," he added, peering
+into a bowl that he knew to be empty. He brightened as he picked up a
+little pitcher. "But molasses; may I give to you molasses?"
+
+"Yes, indeed," returned Mrs. Morgan, cordially. "Ah like them just as
+well as sugar. Just a few, now," as she held out her cup.
+
+"Shall it be coffee for you, Herr Doctor, or whisky? See, I have a jug
+of corn whisky which I myself made."
+
+"No need to ask me, sir. Whisky, of course," and the Doctor's eyes
+twinkled under their shaggy brows. "Not bad fo' new whisky," he
+commented, as he swallowed the fiery stuff. "How do you make it, Baron?
+Ah didn't know you had a still."
+
+"Nor have I, except a little affair in a bucket, with a bit of r-rubber
+hose for a worm. It makes enough for me. It is not a pleasant drink,"
+he added, quaintly.
+
+"But better than nothing, eh?" returned the Doctor, jovially, and then
+was sorry that he had said it, for his glance had fallen within the
+cupboard, and had spied out the emptiness of the larder. To cover his
+mistake, he added,--
+
+"Mind you-all don't sell any. It's against the law, you know."
+
+"A very str-range law. If I from my corn make meal or hominy, or what
+you call 'r-roughness,' for the cattle to eat, I may sell them. But if
+I make whisky, I must dr-rink it all myself, eh?"
+
+"Yes, or give it to me! You see they must tax us on something, and
+while they class whisky as a luxury--"
+
+"Cor-rn whisky?" interrupted Friedrich, incredulous.
+
+"--they know it's enough of a necessity with us North Carolina
+mountaineers, at any rate, to return some revenue."
+
+"My sympathy is with the moonshiners, I confess, Herr Doctor; though it
+is also with men who think such a bever-rage good to dr-rink! You go?
+Ah, dear lady, I hope it will be soon again that you honor my house."
+
+The Baron looked after the buggy as it disappeared in the dusk, and
+then turned back into the cabin, once more to face the harsh reality of
+his thoughts.
+
+It grew clear to him that he must seek work in Asheville, the nearest
+large town, a dozen miles away. He must walk there and beg for
+employment like any tramp. Such straits as this he had not anticipated
+when he had made the sacrifice that had forced him to leave the
+Fatherland, though he did not for a moment regret that sacrifice.
+
+What he could not formulate was just how he had been brought to his
+present pass. It was with stinging honesty that he owned it to be
+through some lack of foresight or of energy. But how should he have
+energy when he had no purpose in life?
+
+To be sure, there was Sydney Carroll, who might supply purpose to any
+man who loved her, if that man were not a broken-spirited craven. The
+hopeless longing that had been in his eyes while he gazed at the sunset
+filled them once more. What had he to offer her but devotion,--the one
+capacity that was mighty within him? No, not even Love could endow him
+with Purpose.
+
+Always he completed the circle of his thoughts. He must work for
+somebody else. That would be, indeed, a new experience and a bitter.
+
+He was fighting with his pride when a call outside summoned him. It was
+the cry that has brought many a man to his door to be shot to death;
+but von Rittenheim had no feuds, and went forward without hesitation.
+
+"Can you-all give me some supper?" asked a man who loomed big in the
+darkness as he sat on his horse. "Ah must have taken the wrong turn
+back yonder and wandered off the county road."
+
+"This r-road goes only by my house like a bow of which the county
+r-road is the str-ring," explained the Baron. "Dismount, I beg, and
+with much pleasure will I give you what I can."
+
+It was little enough, though to the bit of bacon was added a couple of
+apples roasted in the ashes. It was to the credit of the visitor's
+powers of perception that he did not ask for other than was set before
+him, and compel his host to disclose his poverty. He was a man of
+middle age, with a shrewd face whose expression was spoiled by an
+occasional look of slyness or glance of suspicion.
+
+"Very fair whisky," approved the stranger. "Do you get it round here?"
+
+"I make it."
+
+"You do?" with a sudden contraction of the eyelids.
+
+Von Rittenheim saw nothing but his own regret at his necessarily meagre
+hospitality, for which he tried to make amends by being increasingly
+agreeable.
+
+"You will like to see my little affair?" he asked, after describing the
+primitive manufacture of his still.
+
+"Ah'm afraid Ah must be going on; Ah'm obliged to get to Asheville
+to-night. But if you'd sell me a quart of yo' whisky to keep me warm on
+the way, Ah'd like it."
+
+He opened the door and looked out.
+
+"It's right smart cold," he added.
+
+Friedrich made no reply. He had checked his first impulse, which was to
+offer to give the fellow all the whisky he wanted, and he looked with a
+sort of fascination at the coin which the other drew from his pocket
+and tossed on to the table. Undoubtedly he was hungrier than ever he
+had been in his life, and not only had he seen his supper devoured
+before his eyes, but there would be nothing to eat in the morning
+before his long walk to town. With this money he could buy something at
+the store which he must pass on his way.
+
+His recent conversation with Dr. Morgan went through his mind. He
+glanced at his guest, who was buttoning his coat and tightening a spur
+preparatory to starting.
+
+"I think he will not tell," thought von Rittenheim, and he found an
+empty bottle and filled it from the jug. Then he helped the stranger
+with his horse, and after his departure returned to look ruefully into
+the fire.
+
+"Never before," he mused, "did one of my race commit so petty a wrong."
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+The Snare of the Fowler
+
+
+It was at the early hour when the morning brings to the earth no warmth
+and but a dim and grudging light, that a sharp rap summoned von
+Rittenheim to his cabin door. Three men stood outside in the grayness,
+their horses tied to trees behind them. To his surprise, Friedrich
+recognized his guest of the previous evening.
+
+"_Ach_, my good friend, you did not reach Asheville last night?"
+
+Unconsciously he frowned as he realized that if these men wanted
+breakfast he would have to confess that there was nothing to eat in the
+house. At the thought his instinct of hospitality and his pride both
+suffered.
+
+"Yes, Ah got to Asheville, and Ah've come back--fo' you."
+
+The man entered the cabin and motioned to his companions, who stepped
+one to each side of the Baron.
+
+"What do you mean?" Von Rittenheim spoke with amazement born of entire
+lack of understanding. His mind could not compass the treachery of the
+man to whom he had given his last mouthful.
+
+"Ah mean that Ah'm a United States deputy-marshal, and that Ah 'rest
+you fo' retailing."
+
+Von Rittenheim started, a motion that caused three hands to seek as
+many pistol-pockets.
+
+"You mean for selling to you last night that whisky to keep the cold
+from you?"
+
+"Correct. Of co'se you-all took yo' chances, 'n you struck the wrong
+man."
+
+Deputy-marshal Wilder chuckled complacently. He had made few captures
+lately, and he counted on this to look well at headquarters. Besides,
+he was having less trouble with the "big Dutchy" than he had expected.
+Indeed, he had prepared his assistants for a hard fight.
+
+"You mistake--I did not str-rike you--yet," said Friedrich,
+misunderstanding. "But I compr-rehend that you arrest me, and for
+what."
+
+Von Rittenheim looked at Wilder with so much contempt that the man
+turned away shamefaced. Still, the justice of his capture appealed to
+the German, trained in the soldier's school, for it was true that he
+had transgressed the law, and knowingly. That he should have yielded to
+the weakness aroused his irritability.
+
+"I am a fool," he ejaculated.
+
+"You-all needn't say anything to incriminate yo'self," said the deputy,
+more from habit than because the remark was appropriate.
+
+"I go with you."
+
+Von Rittenheim put on his hat. One of the men tinkled a pair of
+handcuffs in his jacket-pocket, and raised his brows inquiringly at
+Wilder. The latter nodded, though doubtfully. As he picked himself up
+from the floor a little later he realized that his doubt was justified.
+At the mere sight of the irons the Baron had flashed into fury. He
+flung one man across the table with a violence that brought him several
+minutes' quiet. The other rolled into a corner, and Wilder fell
+altogether too near for comfort to the bricks of the fireplace.
+
+As the deputy-marshal rose he felt von Rittenheim's grasp on his
+throat.
+
+"You understand not," he cried, his usually good English almost
+unintelligible in his excitement, "You understand not--how, indeed,
+should you?--that I am a gentleman. When I say I go with you, I go."
+
+Giving him a shake as a final relief to his feelings, he added,
+imperatively,--
+
+"Come, pick up your fr-riends and let us start. You have a horse for
+me?"
+
+No one was disposed to make another attempt to handcuff the captive,
+and the little detachment set out, headed by the prisoner, who had much
+more the appearance of a leader than did any one of the crestfallen
+group behind him.
+
+The miles passed but slowly, so heavy was the road's deep mud, and it
+seemed to von Rittenheim that he had been travelling for hours when
+they crossed the Six Mile Branch that measured but half their journey
+done. The keen air of the early morning, whose cold was accentuated by
+a drizzling rain, chilled him to the bone, unfortified by food as he
+was. He experienced the physical misery that forces to submission men
+of large build more quickly than those of lighter make.
+
+His mind suffered in sympathy, and his thoughts were of the bitterest.
+Never had his experience known an act of perfidy like that of Wilder.
+To have betrayed his hospitality was bad enough,--to have lured him on
+to selling the whisky was the act of a villain. He cursed the chance
+that had brought the fellow to his door. How had it happened?
+
+The scoundrel had said that he had missed the way, but that was not
+probable. The county road was plain enough. He must have passed Dr.
+Morgan, too, who would have set him right.
+
+A pang of suspicion came into his mind. One had betrayed him, why not
+the other? The Doctor was aware that he had the whisky. He must have
+stopped Wilder, knowing him to be an officer, and told him about it.
+
+As a matter of fact, the deputy's story was true. In the dusk he had
+turned into the Baron's road without noticing that he had left the
+highway. He had passed the Doctor, and had spoken to him, but it was on
+the State Road, before he had found himself to be out of his way.
+
+Von Rittenheim, faint from lack of food, sick at heart over his
+position, and filled with disgust at his betrayal, was in a mood to
+accept any suspicion, and the evil thought grew fat within him. He
+pondered every word of his conversation with the Morgans, and fancied
+that he saw indisputable evidence of the Doctor's falseness in his talk
+about whisky.
+
+The course of affairs in Asheville was brief. Wilder rode beside his
+prisoner when they came to the town, not because he feared Friedrich's
+escape, but that he might have the appearance of being in command of
+the troop. Von Rittenheim was too closely absorbed in his own painful
+thoughts to pay any attention to this enforced companionship. He
+dismounted wearily as the squad drew rein before the Federal Building,
+and followed the deputy-marshal into the commissioner's office.
+
+It was early, but Mr. Weaver was at his desk, for he happened to be
+pressed with work.
+
+He was a nervous, bustling man, with an expression of acuteness, and a
+trick of rubbing his head with a circular motion, as if he were trying
+to effect a tonsure by force of friction. He nodded a recognition of
+Wilder and his men, and sent a look of surprise at Von Rittenheim,
+whose appearance was not what was usual in the prisoners brought before
+him, although his dress seemed to indicate the mountaineer.
+
+"What for?" he asked Wilder, gruffly, when he was at liberty to attend
+to them.
+
+"Retailing," returned the deputy-marshal, and proceeded to tell a story
+in which the details of his method of purchasing the liquor were
+meagre, but the account of the German's resistance to the officers was
+full.
+
+Baron von Rittenheim pleaded guilty to the charge against him, and
+listened to the exaggerated tale of the arrest without comment, though
+with a look of disgust that did not escape Mr. Weaver. Perhaps he knew
+his man in Wilder. At any rate, a few trenchant questions brought out
+the fact that Friedrich had resisted only when an attempt was made to
+handcuff him.
+
+"Really, Wilder," said the commissioner, sharply, "you make me tired.
+Haven't you got good sense? Do you suppose a fellow like that is going
+to run away?"
+
+"No knowing what these cussed foreigners won't do," growled Wilder, and
+added something about being blown up before his prisoner, that brought
+a frown to Mr. Weaver's brow.
+
+He was puzzled about von Rittenheim, and he felt sure that there was
+something in the case that was not in evidence; but the man had pleaded
+guilty, and there was nothing to do but to hold him for the Grand Jury.
+
+"Who'll go on your bond?" he asked, taking up his pen.
+
+"Bond?"
+
+"You must give a justified bond for your appearance before the United
+States Court in May."
+
+"Oh, I see. I do not know. I have no fr-riends."
+
+"It's only two hundred dollars."
+
+"It might be only two hundred cents, still would it be the same.
+Yesterday I thought I had fr-riends, but to-day----"
+
+He broke off abruptly, and again Weaver gave a perplexed rub to the top
+of his head. He opened a door and spoke to a negro boy who passed a
+waiting life in the anteroom.
+
+"Sam, ask Mr. Gudger to step here, if he's in the building."
+
+Mr. Gudger was a professional bondsman who added this calling to that
+of real-estate dealer and insurance agent, and interwove the three
+occupations with some talent and much success.
+
+Von Rittenheim's farm served to secure Gudger against loss, while the
+mention of its existence caused the commissioner again to rub his head.
+Why in the world should a man----? He gave up the conundrum in despair,
+and applied himself to the necessary business.
+
+Friedrich took but a passive part in the transaction, whose detail,
+with its rapid interchange of technicalities, he did not attempt to
+understand. His courteous dignity and submission to the justice of the
+legal procedure told nothing of the caldron of feeling boiling within
+him at the _in_-justice that had brought him to a pass where this thing
+was right.
+
+As he walked away from the Federal Building, his mind began to leave
+these thoughts and to dwell on the almost equally disagreeable subject
+of what he should do next. His immediate need was of something to eat.
+He was sick with hunger, and he found himself even casting a regretful
+thought after Wilder's quarter of a dollar. His hand had happened to
+touch it in his pocket during his morning ride, and he had flung it
+from him as far as he could into the woods beside the road.
+
+"But, no," he thought, "rather would I starve than buy food with that."
+
+He went up Patton Avenue, and eyed the signs on the buildings in the
+hope of seeing one that would suggest to him some way of making money.
+
+The early morning's rain had turned into snow, that beat into the open
+place from the north, and drove the loafers from their accustomed
+haunts. The pavement was whitening rapidly.
+
+"The first of April to-morrow," thought von Rittenheim, disgustedly.
+"What will happen to those pease that I put into the gr-round last
+week?"
+
+As he stood, sheltered from the storm by a projecting building, he
+reflected that it was useless for him to go back into the country.
+There was no planting to be done as early as this, except that of a few
+garden vegetables, and he had no seeds to plant even if he went.
+
+He remembered as if it were long ago that he had meant to come to
+Asheville to-day, and thought with grim humor that after all he had not
+been obliged to walk.
+
+Yes, he must find some occupation in town that would support him during
+the month that intervened before the sitting of the court. He knew that
+the usual sentence for moonshining was "A hundred dollars or three
+months," and, since he had no money, he must submit to the degradation
+of imprisonment. May, June, July. That would bring him to August, and
+it would be time enough then to consider the future.
+
+A von Rittenheim in prison! A shudder went through him with the
+thought, and a wild desire to avert the evil. If only he had not
+pledged his farm to that bondsman!
+
+Friedrich's life had not been one to promote business knowledge. At
+home he had known but little of affairs--in America, nothing. He did
+not realize that he might have raised on his place ten times the amount
+of his fine without affecting Mr. Gudger's interests. He thought that
+his negotiation with that excellent person had put his estate out of
+his hands for all similar uses. Vaguely he thought that the bondsman
+would be released when his trial came on, and that at that time the
+land would be free again, and that perhaps it might be arranged then.
+But he did not see how, for they would not allow him to go out to do
+it, and he did not know any one who would take a mortgage on it. And,
+oh, how sleepy he was--and how hungry--and how the cold bit through
+him!
+
+He bestirred himself and walked around the square. He was studying the
+window of a harness-shop which appealed to him as having to do with the
+subject he knew most about--horses; and he was pondering in what
+capacity he would offer his services to the proprietor, when he was
+accosted by a negro boy.
+
+"The boss wants you-all over yonder," he said, grinning affably.
+
+"The--who?" asked the Baron, to whom the appellation was new.
+
+"The boss in the revenue office, Mr. Weaver. He wants you. Ah'm his boy
+Sam."
+
+Friedrich supposed that some form had been omitted, and returned with
+docility to the Federal Building. Mr. Weaver nodded pleasantly as he
+entered.
+
+"This German was brought in here just after you went out, von
+Rittenheim. I want you to interpret, if you will."
+
+Friedrich's breakfast seemed now more nebulous than ever, but even this
+hour's tedium came to an end, and Weaver, with a "Thank you," pushed a
+half-dollar along the table towards him.
+
+"No, no. It is a pleasure, my dear sir," began the Baron, when suddenly
+he brought his heels together, made his low bow, and took the money. "I
+thank you, _mein Herr_. I need it. I will take it."
+
+Mr. Weaver looked at him with the provincial American's amusement at
+foreigners' ways, mingled with shrewdness.
+
+"By the way, do you mind telling me how you-all got into this scrape?"
+
+The German flushed and tossed back his head. Then he controlled
+himself, and said, gently,--
+
+"But perhaps you have a r-right to know. If you will excuse me for a
+time, however, I will r-return after a breakfast. I left my house very
+early this morning."
+
+Weaver noticed the sudden pinched look of faintness that turned von
+Rittenheim's ruddy face ashy.
+
+"He's missed more than one meal," he thought, but said aloud only, "Any
+time before two o'clock."
+
+It was not much that the commissioner learned from von Rittenheim after
+all, for food brought back self-reliance and courage, and he felt that
+the whole story of his trouble would be an appeal for sympathy that he
+could not make. However, he told enough to cause Weaver to say under
+his breath a few condemnatory things about the deputy-marshal, and then
+he asked,--
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"I hope to find some occupation in Asheville until the time of my
+tr-rial."
+
+"What do you want to do?"
+
+"I care not. I am well, str-rong. I fear not labor."
+
+Mr. Weaver compared with a glance von Rittenheim's figure with his own
+puny proportions, and said,--
+
+"No, I should think not!"
+
+Then he rubbed his head and asked,--
+
+"Can you teach?"
+
+"I know not. Never have I done such a thing. I am a soldier."
+
+"That's easily seen. Still, you're a university man."
+
+He touched his forehead just where on Friedrich's the tip of his scar
+was visible.
+
+"Oh, yes. I was at Heidelberg."
+
+"I suspect you'll do if you-all are willing to try. My boy's fitting
+for college, and he's getting badly behind in his German. If you'd
+tackle his instruction for a few weeks, I'm sure it would be of great
+value to him. Will you do it?"
+
+"If you will accept a novice, I shall be gr-rateful." And again
+Friedrich made his low bow.
+
+"Then be at my house at five this afternoon, and here's a week's salary
+in advance. You'll be wanting it, perhaps."
+
+So was Baron von Rittenheim established as Tommy Weaver's tutor, and
+fortunate he thought himself.
+
+Fortunate he was, in that this engagement secured to him his simple
+living; but most unlucky in that it left him with too much spare time.
+Had he worked at a task that occupied seven or eight hours a day, his
+thoughts would have filtered through the weariness of his body, and
+been purified thereby. But his leisure was abundant, and he spent it in
+brooding over his troubles.
+
+To those that had wrung him before was added his present shame. And his
+shame was embittered by his suspicion of Dr. Morgan. He held Wilder of
+no account. He was beneath a gentleman's notice. But Dr. Morgan had
+pretended to be his friend. He dwelt on all his intercourse with him,
+and weighed every conversation that he remembered. There came to him
+half a hundred trifling circumstances that seemed to substantiate his
+distrust.
+
+The lack of his accustomed exercise told on his health. He grew moody
+and irritable, and daily the wish for revenge grew stronger.
+Satisfaction was due him, and satisfaction he would have.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A Weak Man's Strength
+
+
+It was three weeks later. Bud Yarebrough, going rabbit-hunting,
+pondered, as he trudged along the road, upon the freaks of an April
+that had come in with snow, and alternately had warmed and chilled the
+swelling hopes of bud and blossom, until the end of the month showed
+trees and shrubs but a trifle farther advanced than at its beginning.
+
+"Jus' like M'lissy used to treat me!"
+
+He made the comparison with a breath of relief that that time of
+wretchedness and rapture was past.
+
+He heard the sound of hoofs approaching from behind, and whistled to
+heel his three scrawny hounds. When he made sure of the rider's
+identity, he shifted his gun to his other shoulder, and pulled off his
+remnant of felt in salutation of Miss Carroll. As she stopped to speak
+to him, he stared earnestly at her horse's neck; but kind Nature
+permits even a shy man's vision to take a wide range, and Bud by no
+means was unobservant of the brilliant skin framed by a glory of red
+hair; of the velvet dark eyes with their darker lashes; and of the
+corduroy habit, brownly harmonious with the sorrel horse and the clay
+road, as with its wearer's coloring.
+
+"How is Melissa, Bud?"
+
+Some of Sydney Carroll's friends thought her voice her greatest charm.
+
+"And the baby? She's a dear baby! I think she looks like Melissa, don't
+you?"
+
+"She's tol'able--they's tol'able. Yes, Miss Sydney, they says so,"
+replied the lad, whose condition as the father of a family seemed to
+cast him into depths of bashfulness.
+
+"It's a great responsibility for you, Bud. I hope you feel it. And I
+hope that you won't let _this_ happen often."
+
+Sydney gravely tapped her eye with her finger, while Bud stole a shamed
+hand over his own visual organ, which was surrounded by the paling
+glories of a recent contusion. The color mounted to his hair as he
+stammered,--
+
+"Hit wasn't that--that what you think, Miss Sydney. Hit was a stick o'
+wood----" But his voice trailed off into nothingness before the girl's
+gaze.
+
+"Bud, I know--I heard how it happened. Don't tell me what isn't true."
+
+Bud kicked a stone that lay at his feet.
+
+"You-all always does find out," he murmured, with unwilling admiration.
+"You see Ah was right smart glad about the baby, 'n 'bout M'lissy bein'
+so well, 'n Ah jus' took a little; 'n Pink Pressley was awful
+aggravatin', 'n Ah jus' 'lowed Ah didn' want nothin' t' interrup' mah
+joy," he ended, looking up with a humorous twinkle that brought a
+responsive smile to the severe young face before him.
+
+"But Ah know hit ain' right to M'lissy," he went on hurriedly, for he
+realized that the smile was only transitory, "'n Ah'm goin' to try, Ah
+sho' am," he added, stepping out of the way of the horse, grown uneasy
+at this long colloquy. "Ah certainly am goin' to get out the tools 'n
+look 'em over to-morrow," he finished, as Sydney gathered up her reins.
+
+"I hope so, Bud; but why don't you do it _to-day_?" she called back,
+saying to herself, as Johnny broke into a canter, "As if poor Bud ever
+could do anything to-day! He should have been born in the land of
+_manana_."
+
+The horse lengthened his stride into a sweeping gallop where the
+condition of the road permitted, slackening his pace and betaking
+himself to the side, and even to the footpath on the bank, when the mud
+grew too deep for speed. The girl paid little attention to him, for,
+like all mountain horses, he was accustomed to pick his way with a
+sagacity that man cannot assist.
+
+On Sydney's face rested a shade too heavy to have been brought there by
+the failings, customary to the country, of Melissa's husband. But
+twenty years are not proof against the joint attack of sunshine and
+fresh, sweet air and the glorious motion of a horse, and she seemed a
+happy, care-free girl to Bob Morgan, sitting in the sun on his father's
+porch.
+
+Unlike the Carroll house, which was of stone and surrounded by roofed
+verandas, Dr. Morgan's dwelling presented an unabashed glare of
+whitewashed weather-boarding. It needed only green shutters to be a
+hostage from New England. In summer a rose climbed over the portico and
+broke the snowy monotony, but at this season the leafless stems served
+only to enhance the bareness.
+
+As he heard Sydney's approach Bob raised his aching head from his hand
+and sprang unsteadily to his feet. She was quick to notice his
+condition, for she knew only too well the weakness that was wringing
+the heart of the good old Doctor and lining "Miss Sophy's" face. Bob
+was their only son and only child, "'n hit do seem strange," the
+country women said, "that a man who's done's much good's the ol' Doctor
+shouldn' have better luck with his boy."
+
+Sydney flushed as Bob ran unevenly along the path to take her from the
+saddle. Her experiences seemed to be like history this morning. A
+little sigh escaped her as she looked about for the Doctor, and then
+resigned herself to be lifted down by Bob's strong and eager, though
+shaking, hands.
+
+To him her manner was quite the reverse of her attitude towards the
+other victim of a weak will from whom she just had parted. If to
+Yarebrough she was straightforward, to this man she was diplomatic. If
+to Bud she was Mentor, to Bob she was Telemachus. If Bud stared at her
+in puzzled surprise at her "always finding out," Bob exerted himself to
+appear before her a man on whom she could rely, because he was sure
+that she never had thought of him otherwise.
+
+"Yes, it is a lovely day," she replied, in answer to his salutation.
+"Is your mother at home? And what in the world is the matter with your
+face?"
+
+He was holding open the gate for her to pass, and she saw that it would
+be absurd any longer to ignore his appearance.
+
+"The calf got mixed up in the rose-bush, and while I was getting him
+out he kicked me," explained Bob, glibly, shamelessly loading upon the
+back of a tiny and unoffending little bull-calf nibbling in front of
+the door the burden of his scratched and bruise-stained countenance.
+
+Sydney averted her eyes as he told this unblushing lie, and sighed
+again as she thought of the poor mother, for she knew how long a
+Carolinian can stay on a horse, and that Bob must have been bad,
+indeed, to have rolled off, as it was evident that he had done.
+
+"You must let me do it up for you," she said. "Go and get me the
+witch-hazel and something for a bandage."
+
+She sat and waited for him in the living-room, where modern taste had
+made use of the blue-and-white homespun coverlets of the Doctor's
+grandmother as door curtains and couch covers. She noticed the kettle
+swung over the fire from the same crane that had balanced its burden
+thus for a hundred years, and she listened to Bob knocking about
+up-stairs in the room over her head.
+
+"Now, sit down," she cried, when he returned. "You're so dreadfully
+tall. Towels! That won't do at all! Here, I'll wet my handkerchief and
+put that on first."
+
+"May I keep it?"
+
+Bob's good eye twinkled merrily, and what was visible of the other
+showed some amusement.
+
+"Of course not. You'll return it to me as soon as you can."
+
+Sydney's mouth twitched in appreciation of his audacity.
+
+"I'm afraid I can't very soon," he replied, gravely. "I expect to need
+it for a long, long time."
+
+He turned to the mirror and gazed therein at his shock of black hair
+rising above the linen, and at the one rueful eye visible below.
+
+"It makes me look rather a fool, doesn't it? But it's awfully sweet of
+you to do it, Sydney. I say, Sydney." Suddenly he wheeled about and
+seized both her hands. "Is it always going to be this way? Are you
+never going to care for me? You know I'd give my life for you. You
+never asked me to do anything yet that I didn't do," he hurried on,
+yearning for an answer from her, yet knowing well that when she raised
+those white lids the eyes would not give him the reply that he wanted.
+"Truly, I'll do anything you say, if only you'll care a little, just a
+little, dear!"
+
+He drew her to him, and she raised to his her eyes, warm, brown,
+swimming in tears. He let fall her hands, realizing that she _knew_--that
+she always had known--and feeling how empty were his words when he had
+never tried to do for her sake the one thing that might touch her.
+
+Letting fall her hands, he sank speechless upon his knees, and buried
+his head in the blue-and-white coverlet of the couch.
+
+With tear-laden eyes Sydney walked to the gate, her hands outstretched
+before her, like a blind man feeling his way. Johnny rubbed his nose in
+sympathy against her shoulder as she unfastened his chain. It was the
+first time in Bob's fond, foolish, generous life that ever he had
+allowed Sydney to do for herself anything that he could do for her.
+
+As Johnny carried his mistress down the State Road, and the "bare,
+ruined choirs" of the trees became clear to her eyes once again, she
+realized that a new pain and a new pity had come into her life--and a
+new responsibility.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+"Thou Shalt Not Covet thy Neighbor's Wife"
+
+
+It was fortunate that Johnny needed no guiding hand, for his mistress
+was far too absorbed in her thoughts to give him any attention. She did
+not see the ranks of gray tree-trunks through which peered glimpses of
+blue as the land fell away against the background of the sky; the heavy
+bunches of mistletoe in some leafless top failed to attract her
+attention; and she was blind to the beauty of the coarse green
+pine-needles against the brown masses of the oak-leaves that cling to
+the branches all winter to cheat the Devil of his bargain, the Earth,
+which is to be his when all the boughs are bare.
+
+Her whole soul was filled with a longing to help Bob Morgan,--Bob, her
+dear old playfellow, so lovable and, alas! so weak. Already she had
+tried to foster his self-respect and to encourage his firmness by
+indirect means. It seemed now as if the chance were given her to act
+more openly. If only she could do so without rousing in the boy's
+breast a hope that she could not fulfil, for she knew that never could
+she love him as he wanted to be loved!
+
+It was not that a difference of birth, of rearing, of tradition placed
+her apart from him. She even had a fondness for him, but love--no!
+
+She had been thinking a great deal about love of late. She knew what it
+was to have men in love with her. Her grandmother, with whom she lived
+at fine old Oakwood, had introduced her in Baltimore, where she revived
+many old-time connections; and she had had another season in New
+Orleans. Her striking beauty had brought her a success that pleased
+Mrs. Carroll more than Sydney herself. The haughty old lady approved
+the girl's coldness, and nodded in agreement with Aunt Frony, who
+watched her young mistress's path with proprietary satisfaction.
+
+"She cert'nly do favor her paw; 'n she walks along tru all dem
+gen'lemen like Joseph tru dat co'nfiel' wif de sheaves a-bowin' befo'
+him, 'n he never pay no mo' 'tention to 'em 'n if dey jus' common
+roughness--'n no mo' do she!"
+
+"My son's daughter demeans herself as one of her family should," had
+been Mrs. Carroll's reply; but she was really gratified at this
+aloofness that seemed to excite the attention which she felt to be her
+granddaughter's due, without inducing a surrender of her heart.
+Sydney's marriage would take from her her only companion, and was an
+evil that the old lady recognized as necessary, but to be put off as
+long as possible.
+
+Sydney regarded the various love-affairs in which she had had a part as
+the usual incidents in every woman's career. They had touched her
+little. She was extraordinarily lacking in conceit, and she could not
+realize, since her sympathy was unquickened by a responsive affection,
+that a love of short growth could mean much to its possessor. This lack
+of appreciation of love's intensity was increased by the fact that her
+own simplicity of thought and straightforwardness of character always
+had prevented her from taking seriously any man's attentions until they
+resolved themselves definitely into intentions.
+
+None of her experiences had moved her like this with Bob Morgan. When,
+in the autumn, she had given up her season in town on account of her
+grandmother's feebleness, it had been one of her consolations that at
+least she would be free from that sort of complication. And here was
+something worse than anything that had gone before, because her real
+fondness for Bob gave her an insight into his pain, and a pity for the
+sorrow that she knew she must inflict upon him.
+
+She felt vaguely into the darkness for a realization of what love was.
+She had lain awake many a night that winter, waiting for her
+grandmother's call, listening to the rain as it dripped upon the roof
+from the twig-tips of the oaks, and dreaming a waking dream of what a
+love would mean that would make any sacrifice a joy, any pain a
+rapture. And, like all women from Time's beginning, she had cried into
+the shadow, "Oh, that I, too, may have this joy, this sacrifice, this
+pain!"
+
+At the cross-roads Johnny fell into a walk until he should learn his
+rider's wish. _He_ preferred to go home; but if she chose the
+right-hand road he was willing to carry her over it, mistaken as he
+felt her decision to be.
+
+Sydney roused at the change of gait and turned the horse into the
+homeward way; but, just as he was settling down gleefully to his work,
+she remembered that she had failed entirely to accomplish the errand
+upon which her grandmother had sent her; the errand that had clouded
+her brow with anxiety.
+
+Mrs. Carroll was very fond of Baron von Rittenheim. He interested her,
+he amused her, he aroused her curiosity, and his formal manners
+recalled to her memory the gallants of her youth. He called upon her
+frequently, and the old lady looked forward to his visits with
+agreeable anticipation. For three weeks he had not been to Oakwood, and
+she was determined no longer to endure such neglect,--at any rate, to
+investigate it. To this end she had sent Sydney to Dr. Morgan's to
+inquire of him news of the recreant German. And Sydney had not stayed
+to see the Doctor or Mrs. Morgan!
+
+Obedient to the rein, Johnny stopped and looked about with an air of
+inquiring patronage. His mistress was not given to abrupt changes of
+intention, but he was willing to humor her when they appeared.
+
+"I can't go back to the Doctor's, of course," thought Sydney. "I'll go
+to Melissa Yarebrough's,--she'll know."
+
+Off from the State Road, just beyond the cross-roads, a rough trail led
+into the woods. Sydney turned into it, and rode between bushes of
+laurel and rhododendron, whose glossy leaves shone dark above her head
+even as she sat upon her horse. Patches of vivid green moss crept
+confidingly to the foot of the oaks, and a bit of arbutus, as pink as
+the palm of a baby's hand, peered from under its leathery cover. A few
+daring buds tentatively were opening their tiny leaves to the world,
+and some stray blades of grass pricked, verdant, through the general
+brownness.
+
+This was but a deserted lane, which Sydney had chosen as affording a
+short cut to Melissa's, and, of a sudden, the passage was closed by a
+snake fence eight rails high. It was beyond Johnny's jumping powers,
+but his rider was undaunted. Leaning over the right side of the horse
+she dexterously pulled apart the top rails where they crossed, and
+Johnny cleverly stepped back in time to avoid their hitting his legs in
+their fall. Pressing forward again, she dislodged the next pair, and
+then Johnny took the breach neatly, and picked his discriminating way
+through the brush on the other side.
+
+Though their cabins were a mile apart, the Yarebroughs were Baron von
+Rittenheim's nearest neighbors, and Sydney thought that Melissa would
+know if he were ill, as she feared.
+
+But as she rode on in sinuous avoidance of protruding boughs and
+upstart bushes, she was seized by a shyness quite new to her. It seemed
+as if she could not bear to question Melissa about the Baron. She
+fancied she saw the girl's possible look of amusement. It became
+suddenly a position which she stigmatized as "horrid!"
+
+Beside her a big white pine spread an inviting seat of heaped-up tags,
+and she slipped off the horse and leaned against the broad trunk.
+Johnny, at the bridle's length, nibbled at the enamelled green of the
+lion's tongue with equine vanity,--for he knew that it would beautify
+his coat,--and pushed his muzzle down among the dry leaves beyond the
+radius of the pine-needles, lipping them daintily in search of
+something more appetizing beneath.
+
+The sunshine forced its way through the thick branches of the pine and
+frolicked gayly with Sydney's ruddy hair, as she tossed aside her hat
+and sat down to recover her composure, so suddenly and extraordinarily
+lost. Perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten, had passed thus in reflection
+which she called to herself "disgustingly self-conscious," when Johnny
+lifted his head and pointed his ears towards that side where the
+undergrowth was thickest. Sydney sprang to her feet and put on her hat,
+for she had no desire to be caught day-dreaming.
+
+Having taken this precaution, however, she stood quite still, and
+Johnny, with satisfied curiosity, renewed his search among the fallen
+leaves.
+
+The approaching sounds betrayed that there was a path on the other side
+of the thicket. Indeed, Sydney remembered that one ran from Melissa's
+cabin to a spring not far off, and she realized that she must be nearer
+to the house than she had appreciated. The voices were those of a man
+and a woman in no good humor with each other. In fact, a lively quarrel
+seemed to be in progress.
+
+"Ah certainly wish you-all wouldn' come here no mo'." It was Melissa.
+"_Ah_ don' wan' to see ye; 'n you are so aggravatin' to Bud."
+
+"Ye used to like to have me come, ye know ye did, M'lissy. Don' you-all
+remember the time Ah kissed ye behin' the big oak in yo' daddy's
+pasture? Ye liked me well enough then."
+
+"You shut up, Pink Pressley. Ah was a silly girl then, 'n Ah'm a
+married woman now, 'n hit's time you-all stopped foolin' roun' here."
+
+The voices lessened in the distance, and a jay-bird which had screamed
+lustily at their approach turned his attention once more to Sydney, and
+found her still standing, bridle in hand.
+
+She was shocked at the trouble that seemed to threaten the happiness of
+Bud Yarebrough's household, and she stood uncertain whether to turn
+back from the encounter upon which unwittingly she had intruded, or
+whether to go on in case Melissa needed her help or her comfort. Johnny
+pushed against her invitingly, and she mounted him from a near-by
+stump, and, breaking through the scrub, turned his head along the path
+in the direction of the cabin.
+
+The house proved, indeed, to be close at hand; it had been hardly worth
+while to mount the horse, so near it stood to the pine-tree of Sydney's
+ambush. The mud daubing between the logs shone bright through the hazy
+spring atmosphere, and a thick white smoke, betokening a handful of
+chips newly tossed upon the fire, ascended slowly into the air as if
+eager to explore the dulled blue sky above.
+
+As Sydney came around the corner of the cabin, for the path debouched
+at the rear, a terrified white rooster came running from the front, his
+outstretched wings lengthening the stride of his sturdy yellow legs,
+and his wattles swinging violently from side to side. At the same
+moment angry voices again struck Sydney's ears.
+
+"Never, never, never!"
+
+Melissa was tremulously insistent.
+
+"Ah'll make you-all sorry you ever married Bud Yarebrough," the man
+responded, and Sydney turned the corner just in time to see him seize
+Melissa by the waist and lean over to kiss her. The girl took advantage
+of the loosening of his hold as he caught sight of Miss Carroll, and
+delivered him a resounding slap upon his cheek, when she turned panting
+to her opportune visitor.
+
+"You-all saw, Miss Sydney, he didn' do hit! He's that hateful, he won'
+let me alone,--always pesterin' roun' here when Bud ain' to home. Ah
+'low Ah jus' hate him!"
+
+Stricken still with surprise, Sydney sat upon her horse, her face
+scarlet with distress and stern with disapproval. Pink glanced up at
+her, and began to sidle off, abashed. He could not forbear, however,
+throwing back a parting threat.
+
+"You-all remember what Ah said. Ah'll make you sorry you ever married
+Bud Yarebrough."
+
+"What does it mean, Melissa?" asked Sydney, dropping from the saddle
+and turning her face, now colorless, upon the weeping little wife
+crouching in a corner of the doorway.
+
+"Jus' what you-all heard, Miss Sydney. He's always comin' here when
+Bud's away; 'n when he meets Bud anywheres they's always quar'lin', 'n
+Ah'm jus' wore out with him."
+
+Sydney hung the horse's bridle over the end of an upturned horseshoe
+nailed to a tree before the cabin, and sat down on the door-step beside
+her humble friend.
+
+"Melissa, tell me,"--she was very grave,--"did he ever before--does
+he----?"
+
+She sought vainly for some phrase less bald than that which seemed so
+uncompromisingly full of embarrassment.
+
+"Did he ever try to kiss me, ye mean? No, indeed, Miss Sydney; he sho'
+didn'. Only one time when Ah was a girl we kep' company fo' a right
+smart bit, 'n one night, when a lot of us was playin' tag in the
+pasture, he caught me 'n kissed me. That's the only time, hones', Miss
+Sydney. He never done a thing like this befo' to-day since Ah been
+married; jus' hung roun' 'n been aggravatin'."
+
+Sydney took the hard hand between her own soft palms and stroked it
+gently.
+
+"Hush, dear, don't sob like that. Can't Bud keep him away? Can't he
+forbid him to come here?"
+
+"Ah'd be afraid to tell him about this, he's that fiery-tempered, Bud
+is. He goes along jus' as easy, 'n then some day he jus' natchelly goes
+rarin'. When Ah've tol' him how Pink comes botherin' me, he jus' says,
+'Pore feller, he didn' get ye. Ah'm sorry fo' him.' But 'f Ah tell him
+this he might shoot him, 'n Ah couldn' bear that!"
+
+Melissa ended with a shuddering cry, and Sydney remembered pityingly
+how the girl's brother had been brought home dead two years ago, shot
+in a quarrel whose primary cause was corn whisky.
+
+"Tell me, Melissa, what did he mean by that threat,--that he'd make you
+sorry you'd married Bud? How can he harm him?"
+
+"Ah don' know, oh, Ah don' know," sobbed the poor girl; "only hit's
+somethin' mahty mean fo' sho'. He's that low-down 'n sneaky hit's sho'
+to be somethin' mean," she reiterated.
+
+"It seems to me, Melissa, that if I were married, I shouldn't want to
+have a secret that my husband didn't know. Of course, you understand
+Bud best; but be sure, quite sure, that it is right before you keep
+anything from him, won't you?"
+
+A wail from within the cabin brought both the girls to their feet. The
+fortunate rule that most women who have to worry over their husbands
+have children to divert their minds was unbroken in Melissa's case. She
+wiped her eyes, took the morsel from the bed, and kissed it
+passionately, while Sydney looked on with avid gaze.
+
+"May I take her for a little while, Melissa?" she asked, humbly. "She's
+so sweet!"
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+A Strong Man's Weakness
+
+
+Through all the year's round of weather, good and bad; through the snow
+of January and the wind of March; through the glare of the warm April
+days before the foliage casts its protective shade over the earth;
+through the heat of midsummer and the glorious wine-clear air of
+October, round again to the rigors of Christmas,--through all the
+circle of the twelvemonth Melissa's door stood open.
+
+To all appearance, ventilation is a hobby ridden and overridden in the
+Carolina mountains, but the doors are not left open for hygiene's sake,
+or even in hospitality's good name. It is to promote the performance of
+the ordinary duties of life, more comfortably carried on in the light
+than in the dark; for since the shuttered openings that serve as
+windows are unglazed, the door must be left open to admit the sun's
+bright rays.
+
+The one room of Melissa's cabin was scrupulously clean. Pictures of the
+President and of one of the happy victims of Somebody's Pleasant
+Pain-Killer were tacked upon the walls beside long strings of dried red
+peppers and of okra. A gourd, cut into the shape of a cup, hung upon a
+nail by its crooked neck. The bed was covered neatly with a
+blue-and-white homespun coverlet, and a kettle steamed upon the fire at
+the opposite end of the room.
+
+The sunlight swept across the floor as far as Sydney's feet, and
+glinted upon the silver spur at her left heel. It crept up to her
+radiant face and glowing hair. As she held the little baby in her
+strong young arms, she stood transfigured like an angel of old in the
+eyes of Friedrich von Rittenheim as he walked up the trail that served
+as an approach to the cabin.
+
+"_Himmlisches Maedchen_," he whispered, and pulled off his cap with a
+feeling of guilt that he was bringing into this pure presence his
+thoughts of hatred and revenge.
+
+Little Miss Yarebrough had a narrow escape from a fall as her temporary
+nurse's eyes fell upon the figure outside the door.
+
+"Ah, Baron, it is you!" cried Sydney, tucking the baby into the hollow
+of one arm and extending her hand. "Grandmother has been disturbed
+about you. Have you been away? It is a long time since you were at
+Oakwood."
+
+"Has it seemed so to you?" he said, tenderly. "I have been to the town,
+and I am but now r-returned within a pair of minutes. I have come to
+ask Mrs. Yare-brough to put into order my house for me."
+
+The unexpected sight of Sydney was like the sudden breaking out of
+sunshine through a bank of stormy cloud to the man whose whole mind had
+been filled for days with poisonous thoughts. He beamed upon Melissa
+and shook hands with her cordially.
+
+"Yes, sir, Ah'll go this mo'nin'. You-all wants yo' flo's mopped up, Ah
+suppose."
+
+She took the baby from Sydney and laid her on the bed, and began to get
+together what paraphernalia she needed.
+
+"Bud ain' comin' home to dinner, so Ah c'n stay 'n cook yo's 'f ye
+want," she called, cheerily, breaking in upon the silence that had
+fallen between her two guests; a silence fraught with happiness for the
+man, and with a return of that terrible shyness for the girl. Why she,
+the belle of two seasons, whose composure always had been the envy of
+the girls of her age, should stand overcome with embarrassment before
+this jeans-clad German she truly did not know. All power of initiative
+seemed to have passed from her, and von Rittenheim stood before her and
+feasted his eyes upon her in a way that she had been wont to condemn as
+"horridly foreign," and she did nothing to relieve the situation.
+
+At last the happy idea of flight suggested itself. She pinned her hat
+more securely and unlooped her skirt.
+
+The glow died from von Rittenheim's face.
+
+"You go? So goes ever-ything from me--love and fr-riendship--and even
+hope," he added, in a whisper. Then, as Sydney looked at him curiously,
+"Let me bring Yonny for you."
+
+Sydney kissed a "good-by" upon the fat hand of the baby, now hooded for
+her journey to the Baron's, and murmured to Melissa,--
+
+"You will think of what I said? You will be quite sure?"
+
+She turned and surrendered her slender, booted foot to the Baron's
+palm, and was tossed deftly into the saddle. She had no realization of
+the thrill that went through him at the touch; he had no notion of the
+admiration that his dexterity roused in her.
+
+"I came by a path through the woods and tore down some of Bud's fence.
+Will you go with me and put it up? It is only a little way."
+
+Von Rittenheim was delighted at the prolongation of his happiness. To
+walk with his hand on her horse's neck; to do her a trifling service!
+It was heaven!
+
+"You will come soon to Oakwood, won't you? Grandmother is eager to see
+you, and we are expecting some guests from New York on this afternoon's
+train--the Wendells; I want them to know you."
+
+The words were as sweet as the voice, and he repeated them in a whisper
+as he put together the rails of Bud's fence after Johnny's surmounting
+heels had cleared them.
+
+Then the chill swept around his heart again. It did seem to him as if
+he were losing everything that made life good. In the old country he
+had yielded up the little that was left after happiness had been stolen
+from him. Here he had yearned for friendship, and it had played him a
+scurvy trick; he had begun to see a faint glimmer of hope at the end of
+the black cavern--just a point of light that gave promise of a land of
+sun and cheer beyond. And now he felt that he had no right to travel
+towards that point of light, to strive to reach it and make that land
+his own, while shame hung over him, and black and bitter thoughts
+filled his heart.
+
+His was a simple nature, von Rittenheim's,--one that yielded easily to
+the common thralls of love and life. He should have been the happy head
+of a family with the daily round of duties on a large estate to occupy
+his thoughts. It was one of the freaks of fate that the kindly
+outpourings of his heart always had been flung back at him. Unkind
+chance had done her best to ruin a gentle and trusting disposition.
+
+He was musing on his wrongs as he tramped along the path between Bud's
+cabin and his own. His high-flung head was bent and his gaze downcast.
+He struck ruthlessly at the dry stalks of goldenrod on the bank,
+nodding southward before the prevailing wind. He still was brooding as
+he approached his cabin; brooding so darkly as to bring over his
+judgment the dim mists of error and of injustice with their attendant
+cloud of revenge.
+
+A mud-spattered buggy before the door drew his attention. It must
+be--yet how would he dare? Still it _was_ Dr. Morgan's buggy. That
+long-haired black mule was unmistakable. The sight of it shook von
+Rittenheim as a breeze drives through pine-boughs. He felt choked, and
+put his hand to his throat.
+
+The old man had come to exult over him, and what could he do in his own
+house? Ah, there was only one thing to be done. Everything pushed him
+towards it.
+
+But _now_--he would not be so cowardly as not to face the man he hated,
+though a step into the brush beside the road would have concealed him.
+As he approached he saw the Doctor's tall figure filling the height of
+the doorway, though there was plenty of room to spare on each side. He
+was talking to Melissa Yarebrough, who was within making a fire as a
+preliminary to her cleaning and cooking operations.
+
+"He sent you-all over, did he? Well, Ah 'low that means he's coming
+along in a little bit. He's been away? Is that so? Ah wonder where. Oh,
+here he is. How are you, Baron? Pretty day, isn't it? Melissa tells me
+you-all've been away."
+
+"Yes," curtly. "I have been away, as no one should know better than
+you."
+
+"Better'n me? Ah never knew it till this minute when Melissa told me.
+Ah was at Mrs. Carroll's this morning, and she commissioned me to find
+out where you-all were at, and why you hadn't been to see her. She had
+sent Sydney to my house for news, but Ah missed her on the road
+somehow. The old lady put me through mah catechism, and Ah couldn't
+tell her anything about you since the day Sophy and Ah were here, so Ah
+came by to find out."
+
+"Do you dare say to me, sir, that you do not know where I have been?"
+
+"Ah certainly do say it! How in the world should Ah know all the
+movements of people in God-forsaken coves like this?"
+
+The German's persistence was beginning to irritate the Carolinian,
+grown autocratic and unaccustomed to question by long years of practice
+among a country-folk submissive to the dictation of a leader.
+
+"You are under my r-roof there where you stand. Come you down here
+where only heaven's blue covers you, and I will tell you some things
+which it is well that you should know."
+
+To keep them out of mischief Friedrich thrust his clinched hands into
+his pockets. Morgan did not see the application of von Rittenheim's
+words about the sky, but he felt a threat in his tone, and, being no
+coward, he came down the steps promptly. He even went so far as to
+dispense with his quid.
+
+A sharp contrast they presented,--the German, erect, well-poised,
+plainly a soldier in spite of his ill-fitting clothes; the American,
+lank and stomachless, yet taller than the other in spite of his bent
+shoulders. His tawny beard was guiltless of care. Of all his slack body
+only his eyes showed alertness as they looked sidewise from under his
+old felt hat.
+
+"Ah don't know what you-all are driving at, but Ah'm thirsting fo' that
+information you're advertising to present me with free!" he drawled.
+
+Von Rittenheim now had himself under control, though his feet and hands
+were cold because of the retreat to his head of the fighting fluid.
+
+"Let me ask you--after you were here with Mrs. Morgan--it is now three
+weeks ago--did you not meet a man who asked you the way?"
+
+"Asked the way? Let me see. Yes, Ah 'low we did. White horse?"
+
+"A white horse. Exactly," returned von Rittenheim, dryly. "You directed
+him on his road only too well."
+
+"What do you mean? He asked if there was any cut that would shorten the
+way to Asheville, and Ah told him the shortest he could do was to stick
+to the State Road."
+
+"Allow me to tell you, sir, that you lie."
+
+Dr. Morgan flung up his head angrily. But he was loath to think that
+von Rittenheim, whom he liked, was trying to pick a quarrel with him.
+Besides, English spoken with a foreign accent fails to carry conviction
+to ears unaccustomed to hearing it, and Morgan thought the German
+unfortunate in his choice of a word.
+
+"You mean Ah'm mistaken, and there is a short cut? If there is, Ah
+don't know it. Where do you leave the State Road?"
+
+"I mean, sir, that you tell not the truth, that you lie, when you say
+that that was your conversation with that man. You lie, I say!"
+
+Now there could be no mistake. The Doctor's sixty years fell from him
+like a mantle. He looked a young man, and his face unfurled the banner
+of wrath that knows no nation, but calls all the earth its own. The two
+men glared at each other like dogs leaping against their collars, eager
+to bury their teeth in each other's throats.
+
+"By God," growled the elder man, "if you-all weren't a damned foreigner
+Ah'd kill you! But Ah suppose you don't know any better, and Ah've got
+to let you alone."
+
+He turned and walked to his buggy. He did not forget to pat the noses
+of the horse and mule that drew his equipage. He clambered into the
+carriage, which protested, creaking, against his weight, and he jogged
+slowly out of sight.
+
+"Oh, my Lawd," he whispered to himself, gently rocking from side to
+side,--"oh, my Lawd, why ain't he an American? Oh, why ain't he? But a
+foreigner! He ain't responsible!"
+
+Friedrich watched the retreating buggy with mingled disgust and
+surprise.
+
+"Why did he not r-resent that? If not that, what? He is br-rave, that
+is clear; then why does he not fight? Ah, these Americans, I
+compr-rehend them not!"
+
+A furnace of indignation, he walked into the house. He passed through
+his living-room, where Melissa was scrubbing the floor and singing a
+doleful hymn as an encouragement to exertion, and went into his
+bedroom. There, in the glass, he suddenly came upon his own face,
+filled with bitterness, scowling.
+
+He paused, shocked that this mask of hatred should be his. Abashed, he
+turned away from the too truthful mirror of his tell-tale features. A
+gurgling sound fell upon his ear, and he saw, lying contentedly upon
+his bed, babbling inexplicable nothings, waving meaningless gestures,
+rosy, happy, a baby--Melissa's baby.
+
+The soldier looked down upon her solemnly. His face grew less stern and
+his whole form seemed to relax.
+
+Glancing guiltily towards the open door of the other room, he leaned
+over the bed, and, turning the little head to one side with the tip of
+his forefinger, he kissed the baby's cheek just on the rosiest spot.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+"I Warrant There's Vinegar and Pepper In't!"
+
+
+A heavy rain was beating against the windows with intermittent bursts
+of fury. Dr. Morgan, sitting in front of the fire in the room in which
+Sydney and Bob had had their painful interview on the previous morning,
+heard a mandatory whoop from without. Thrusting his stockinged feet
+into his slippers, and laying down the _Pickwick Papers_ with a sigh
+for the probability of his having to make a visit in such a storm, he
+opened the door. A blast of wind brought in a sheet of rain that
+dampened the ashes swept from the fireplace by the sudden draught.
+
+"O-oh, Doctor!" came a voice from the rider on the other side of the
+fence.
+
+"Hullo! Who are you?"
+
+"Bud Yarebrough. Ah got a letter fo' you."
+
+"Well, light, ye fool, and put yo' beast under the shack."
+
+The Doctor slammed the door and shivered back into the range of the
+fire's glow.
+
+"Come in," he shouted, when he heard Bud's stamping feet on the porch.
+"Come in and warm. Who's sick, Melissa or the baby?"
+
+Bud unwound the scarf that protected his ears, shook the water from his
+jacket, and began to untie the strings that secured pieces of sacking
+to his feet.
+
+"Ne'er one. M'lissy's tol'able, 'n the baby's right smart. Doctor, Ah
+don' know's Ah ever knew a baby 's was 's lively 's Sydney M'lissy."
+
+"Common failing o' first babies," grunted the Doctor.
+
+"Now mos' babies," pursued Bud, spreading out his scarf and the pieces
+of burlap to dry before the blaze,--"mos' babies ain' overly
+interestin', but Ah 'low Ah never saw a baby suck her thumb no
+prettier'n Sydney M'lissy!"
+
+"Did you-all say something about a letter?"
+
+The Doctor was torn between a desire to be hospitable and a yearning to
+return to Sam Weller.
+
+"Yes, Ah got a letter fo' ye."
+
+Bud began to hunt in the inner recesses of his apparel.
+
+"'N Ah 'low he cain't be well."
+
+"He? Who?"
+
+The Doctor's hopes of picking up his book again, which had risen when
+he heard of the admirable physical state of Melissa and the baby, sank
+once more.
+
+"Mr. Baron. He sho' mus' be crazy to go out in such weather's this, 'n
+what's mo', to expect me to."
+
+"He seemed to know the right person to apply to."
+
+"That's the trouble with me. Ah'm that lackin' in good sense Ah do
+anythin' anybody asts me to 'cos Ah'm flattered to be ast!"
+
+"Does he say he's sick?"
+
+"He don' say so, but he looks powerful res'-less 'n wild-like. He came
+over 'bout noon 'n ast me would Ah carry you this letter."
+
+Here Bud's prolonged search resulted in the discovery of the letter's
+outline under his sweater, and he extracted it by way of the neck of
+that elastic garment.
+
+"Ah said, no, Ah wa'n' no fool to go out in such weather, 'n then he
+cut loose 'n talked the most awful language. Ah couldn' understan' a
+word of hit; Ah reckon hit's his foreign words or somethin', but Ah
+never heard anythin' like hit befo'. 'N then he ast me again, mahty
+quiet like, wouldn' Ah take this letter to you-all fo' him, 'n Ah jus'
+natchelly thought Ah would!"
+
+The boy grinned sheepishly. The Doctor nodded and ran his finger under
+the flap of the envelope.
+
+"So you think he's sick."
+
+"M'lissy does. When Ah was puttin' the saddle on the mule she come out
+to the stable with them bits o' crocus sack fo' mah feet, 'n she said
+Mr. Baron'd jus' gone, 'n she 'lowed he had a fever comin' on, he
+looked so bad."
+
+Dr. Morgan was reading the letter for the second time, frowning heavily
+over it.
+
+"What do you-all think yo'self?"
+
+"Well, Ah don' see how he can be right to walk a mile to our house in
+this weather, not needin' to, 'n to _in_-sist on mah comin' here. Is
+they e'er an answer?"
+
+The older man rose and put a log on the fire, while Bud gathered
+together his primitive panoply and began to arm himself against the
+elements.
+
+"You tell him, Bud, that Ah'll attend to it when the mud dries after
+this rain. Ah get enough hauling round to do in the mud, without
+anything extra," he added.
+
+Bud's curiosity was suffering.
+
+"Ain' you-all goin' to see him?"
+
+"You tell him what Ah say." The Doctor picked up his book with an air
+of dismissal. "Shut the do' tight," he called, and then read the same
+page three times over with unthinking mind, until he heard Bob's step
+coming down the stairs.
+
+"Bob."
+
+"Sir?"
+
+The young man looked out of the window, wondering how soon the rain
+would stop enough for him to go to see Sydney.
+
+"Read this."
+
+Bob took the letter.
+
+"The Baron," he said, studying the small, foreign hand.
+
+"Read it aloud."
+
+Bob began obediently:
+
+    "MY DEAR SIR,--It is now more than three weeks that you played upon
+    me a trick most treacherous. What it was I will not relate, for it
+    would be needless. This I do assert, and more, that when you tell
+    me you do not know what I mean, as you told me yesterday, you say
+    not the truth. When I demand that you give to me the satisfaction
+    that a gentleman should offer to another under such circumstances,
+    I feel that I am treating you with a courtesy which you do not
+    deserve. I think a whipping would suit better your contemptibility.
+    Still, nevertheless, I conceal my pride, and I beg that you will
+    meet me at whatever place you may appoint, and that you will fight
+    with me with any weapon that you may choose.
+
+    "My unfriended condition in this country makes it not possible that
+    I should be accompanied by a person who shall be suitable to be my
+    second. But I entreat that my poverty in this respect will not
+    deter you from bringing a friend with you.
+
+    "I am, sir,
+
+    "Yours with faithfulness,
+
+    "FRIEDRICH JOHANN LUDWIG V. RITTENHEIM."
+
+Bob whistled,--a long sibilation of amazement,--and then laughed and
+laughed again.
+
+"What have you-all been doing to the old fellow?"
+
+"Ah haven't any idea."
+
+"He says you talked it over yesterday."
+
+"You hardly could say we discussed it," said the Doctor, dryly. "He
+insisted that Ah knew the drift o' his remarks, which Ah didn't, and
+rung in something about a man on a white horse."
+
+"Who was he?"
+
+"Blamed if Ah know. Ah begin to think, like Bud, the man's sick. He
+certainly was angry over something, and he used pretty strong
+language."
+
+"Swearing?"
+
+"No. Told me Ah lied."
+
+Bob whistled again.
+
+"That warmed you under the collar, I suspect?"
+
+"It did wilt mah linen a trifle. However, Ah took it that, being a
+foreigner, he didn't know just how strong a word he was employing, so
+Ah drove off and left him."
+
+"I reckon from this," holding up the letter, "he did know, and meant
+just what he said. It looks as if you'd been too lenient. You ought to
+have given him a biff or two on the spot."
+
+"Maybe Ah had oughter."
+
+Morgan pulled his beard thoughtfully.
+
+Bob read the letter through once more.
+
+"Quaint English, isn't it? The idea of a regular challenge gets me. I
+don't know when I've come across anything funnier."
+
+"The notion ain't so novel to me, but duels are scarce nowadays. The
+State ain't so overly encouraging to them. Hand me down those Statutes
+and let me see exactly how they fix us."
+
+Bob took the book from the shelf against the wall, and the Doctor
+turned over the pages.
+
+"Here it is, in the Constitution. 'Article XIV., Section 2. Penalty for
+fighting a duel. No person who shall hereafter fight a duel, or assist
+in the same as a second, or send, accept, or knowingly carry a
+challenge therefor, or agree to go out of the State to fight a duel,
+shall hold any office in this State.' H'm," sniffed the Doctor.
+"Strikes me that won't prevent a lot of people from fighting. It
+discriminates against the would-be office-holder, but not against _me_,
+who wouldn't swallow an office if you put it in mah mouth."
+
+"Or von Rittenheim, who wouldn't know one if he saw it! Perhaps it's a
+delicate tribute to the desire of all North Carolinians to serve their
+State."
+
+"What disturbs me," said Dr. Morgan, shutting the book, "is that Ah
+like the fellow, and Ah don't want to shoot him all up fo' nothing.
+And, as Ah said befo', Ah sho' do think the fever's coming on him."
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Blest if Ah know!"
+
+"What answer did you send?"
+
+"Ah told Bud to tell him Ah'd attend to it when the mud dried."
+
+"Good. That'll give you two or three days to find out what's the matter
+with him. Oh, what a joke, what a joke!"
+
+Bob subsided into a chair, overcome with joy at the idea of his father
+as a participant in a formal duel.
+
+"Let me know how it comes on, won't you, sir? May I be your second?"
+
+"No," returned the Doctor, hunting his place in the discarded novel.
+"Ah'm laying off to have you governor some day, and Ah don't want to
+have you disqualified this early!"
+
+Bob grinned appreciatively, and again explored the clouds.
+
+"I'm going to see Sydney. May I show her this?"
+
+Bob took his father's "H'm" for an assent, and went out to saddle his
+horse.
+
+Von Rittenheim, sitting before the fire with _Wallenstein's Lager_ on
+his knee, but with eyes bent upon the flames that burst with tiny
+explosions from the logs, and with mind wandering far from thoughts of
+Schiller,--von Rittenheim was waiting with what patience he could
+command for Bud's return.
+
+With the falling of the wind at dusk the rain ceased. Friedrich lighted
+his lamp and opened his door to look up the road, a view not commanded
+by his single window.
+
+He prepared his evening meal of coffee and bread and the batter-cakes
+that he had learned to like and then to make in this land of the
+frying-pan. Still Bud did not come. At eleven o'clock he went to bed,
+for he knew that no countryman, unless he were going for the doctor,
+would be abroad at that hour, with such mud under foot.
+
+The next day's noon brought no news of the recreant messenger, and von
+Rittenheim went to the Yarebroughs' cabin in search of him.
+
+"He ain' home," Melissa said, in the raised voice that she felt to be
+necessary to the German's understanding of her English. "He's gone to
+shoot cotton-tails. Ah 'low Ah'll make you-all a pie, 'f ye like," she
+added, offering this practical sympathy to the suffering that she saw
+written on his face.
+
+"A pie of cotton-tails! Delightful! It will give me pleasure," said von
+Rittenheim, politely, with vague notions of birds floating through his
+brain. "Did he--Bud--br-ring no message for me yesterday in the
+afternoon?"
+
+"No. He said the Doctor 'lowed he'd 'tend to hit--what yo' letter was
+about--when the mud dried, 'n Bud reckoned that wasn' no message, 'n
+hit wasn' no use goin' over to tell you jus' that."
+
+"When the mud dried," repeated Friedrich. "Remarkable! Good-morning,
+Mrs. Yarebrough. Most remarkable!" he kept repeating to himself as he
+walked home. "He is not afraid, of that I am certain. Why, then, does
+he delay? Remarkable!"
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+In the Southern Appalachians
+
+
+It was five o'clock, and a pretty girl, Katrina Wendell, was standing
+at one of the long windows of the drawing-room at Oakwood, looking out
+upon the storm.
+
+She had not Sydney's unusual beauty, nor had she her imperious manner,
+the heritage to Southern women from generations of slave-holding
+ancestors; but she had charm and a certain distinction, and she had the
+stamp with which New York seals her daughters imprinted upon every tuck
+and frill of her clever gown.
+
+"Katrina, it isn't polite to look so bored," said her brother John, who
+was amusing himself with Sydney's help by drawing caricatures of the
+men of the day.
+
+Katrina flushed. She _was_ bored, but John was a beast to mention it.
+She had just brought her first season to an ignominious close by
+falling in love with the worst match of the year,--Tom Schuyler,
+handsome, irrepressible, and penniless. Mrs. Wendell promptly had
+refused her consent to the engagement, and, with equal decision and
+what Tom called "disgusting alacrity," had sent her daughter South
+under her brother's care to accept the hospitality of Mrs. Carroll, a
+life-long friend.
+
+Under the circumstances it was not strange that the prospect from the
+window did not appeal to Katrina.
+
+John, on the other hand, was reaping his reward for the self-sacrifice
+that had made him accept the duty of escorting his sister to North
+Carolina. Unlike the martyrs of old who went unprotesting to their
+doom, he had obeyed his mother's commands in no submissive spirit. It
+was a relief to the keenness of his martyrdom to kick against the
+pricks, and kick he did from New York to Flora, during all such parts
+of the twenty-four hours as were not occupied in attending to the wants
+of his admirable appetite, or in yielding to the refreshment of such
+repose as a sleeping-car can offer. Even he felt that his recompense
+was undeservedly great when he found himself welcomed at the little
+Flora flag-station by Sydney. He was twenty-eight, and at that age a
+pretty girl still stands far up on the list of diversions. No,
+decidedly, John was not bored.
+
+Katrina made no answer to her brother's accusation.
+
+"Poor Katrina," said Sydney, going to the window and standing beside
+her guest. "It is an abominable day for your first one. Just look at
+that!"--she summoned John by a glance over her shoulder; "pouring! And
+usually we pride ourselves on our view."
+
+Sheets of rain were driving across the field at the foot of the knoll
+upon which the house stood. At times the mountains beyond were shut off
+entirely. Again the clouds overhead blew past, and through a leaden
+light the storms in the distance could be seen, thickening under some
+canopy of blackness, or ceasing as the upper mist grew thin.
+
+"What an advantage it gives you to have such a stretch of open
+country," said John. "Here you can see a storm coming when it is yet
+twenty miles away, and make your plans accordingly; but in New York,
+with the horizon line on the roofs of the houses across the street, you
+may be caught by a shower that was lurking over the Battery when you
+left your own door."
+
+"I can't understand the foliage being so little advanced," said
+Katrina. "It's the last of April, and yet the leaves hardly are
+starting. They aren't much ahead of the Park."
+
+"You expected a Florida climate, perhaps. We never cease to have winter
+letters from people in the North who lament their cold, and wish they
+were with us on our 'rose-covered veranda in the Sunny South,' and it
+may be zero when we are reading their flights of imagination."
+
+"Is it really ever as cold as that?"
+
+"Not often, but quite often enough. I've known snow as late as the
+twentieth of April, and I've been to a picnic on Buzzard Mountain in
+January."
+
+"We're always hearing about this wonderful climate. It sounds as if it
+were remarkable chiefly for eccentricity."
+
+"Oh, the average temperature is very even. The summers are delightful,
+too,--a long warm season instead of a short hot one. Though you may
+have fires now and then, it's not cool enough to close the windows,
+night or day, from the first of May to the first of October, and yet it
+seldom goes over eighty-five."
+
+"It's the equilibrium between altitude and latitude, showing what it
+can do, isn't it?" asked John. "The fact that we are half a mile above
+the booming waters of the deep, my dear Katrina, counterbalances the
+nine hundred miles that lie between us and that large and noisy city to
+which I have no doubt your heart is turning fondly."
+
+"Here are some men on horseback, Sydney," said Katrina, again ignoring
+her brother.
+
+The wind was dying and the rain was lessening with each fitful gust.
+
+"Are they cavaliers approaching the presence, or hinds of the estate
+coming to crave an audience?" demanded John, who professed much
+amusement at what he had seen of the semi-feudal manner of life at
+Oakwood, and at Sydney's responsibilities with regard to the work of
+the farm and to the tenants.
+
+The girl peered into the gathering gloom.
+
+"It must be Bob Morgan. Yes, it is; and that looks like Patton McRae's
+black mare."
+
+"By their nags ye shall know them," said John. "Who are these estimable
+youths? I look upon them with the eye of jealousy."
+
+"Bob Morgan? Oh, he's Dr. Morgan's son. You passed his house near the
+post-office. And the McRaes live at Cotswold; there's a big family of
+them. Will you ring for tea, Mr. Wendell?"
+
+"I fly to do your bidding, even though it be to succor my rivals, for
+such I feel they are," and he slapped his chest melodramatically.
+
+Much stamping of feet and shaking of garments heralded the announcement
+of the two young men by Uncle Jimmy, the old colored butler.
+
+"How good of you both to come in this weather," said Sydney, flashing a
+greeting at each one in turn. "You are just in time to prevent Miss
+Wendell from being bored to death."
+
+"Delighted to prevent your demise," said Patton, promptly, and attached
+himself at once to Katrina's following.
+
+"Uncle Jimmy," said Sydney to the old man who was poking the fire with
+an assiduity born of a desire to stay in the room as long as possible,
+"tell Mrs. Carroll that tea is just coming in, and that Mr. Bob and Mr.
+Patton are here."
+
+"See what you've brought us, Mr. McRae," Katrina was saying, as a ray
+of sunshine broke the twilight darkness.
+
+The mountains stood a deep and penetrable blue against a golden break
+behind the Balsams. Fierce black clouds hurried across the upper sky,
+dragging after them ragged ends of mist, and beneath this roofing the
+setting sun aimed its luminous shafts across the _rest_ made by
+Pisgah's rugged peak.
+
+No one broke the spell of beauty by a word, but Wendell saw a glance
+pass between Sydney and Bob,--the look of sympathy sure of its fellow.
+
+The sound of Mrs. Carroll's cane brought them all to their feet. She
+entered, tiny, autocratic, keen, leaning upon Uncle Jimmy's faithful
+arm.
+
+"Good afternoon, Bob. Good afternoon, Patton. You are doubly welcome on
+this stormy day. Put my chair a little more to the side of the
+fireplace, Bob. Yes, Patton, the footstool, if you please. You may go,
+James. John, the hook for my cane is on the left of the mantel-piece.
+Katrina, tell Sydney to put a shade less cream in my tea than she did
+yesterday. No cake, thank you, John, but a rusk,--yes, a rusk appeals
+to me. Bob, what wild thing did you do on that horse of yours on your
+way here?"
+
+"Not a thing, Mrs. Carroll. He came along like a Shetland pony. Gray
+Eagle doesn't like rain. It depresses him."
+
+"Patton is riding the black mare to-day, grandmother," called Sydney
+from behind her tea equipage.
+
+The old lady raised her eyes in comical despair and shook her head
+mournfully.
+
+"You certainly have courage, my dear child."
+
+"Only the courage of a Cotswold lion, I'm afraid. But you mustn't be
+distressed about her, she's really beginning to do Sydney credit."
+
+"You see, Mr. Wendell, Black Monday was raised on the place here, and
+she's been the hardest colt to break of any we ever had. Patton owns
+her now, but I feel a personal responsibility for her because he took
+her out of my hands before she was thoroughly quiet."
+
+"I see," nodded John, gravely, in accord with Sydney's seriousness.
+"You fear some burst of girlish exuberance."
+
+"Did you see her roll in her saddle just as we were coming out of
+church Sunday?" asked Patton, turning eagerly to Sydney.
+
+"How do you dare to use such half-broken creatures?" cried Katrina.
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Carroll, "when you've been with us a little while
+you'll realize how close we are to primitive conditions. To-day you
+break the horse you mean to ride next week. To-morrow you kill the
+steer or the pig or the chickens that were your pets to-day."
+
+"I suppose it must be so always in the country, but you can't be very
+primitive here with a large town near by and a railroad."
+
+"In reality we are only as far from the Asheville Court House as the
+people on the upper boundary of the Bronx are from Castle Garden; but
+in point of convenience, owing to the scarcity of trains and their poor
+arrangement, we are almost as near to Washington."
+
+"Still, the railroad has opened the country and given the farmers new
+markets," asserted John.
+
+"Undoubtedly; but that is not an unmixed good, in my opinion," said
+Mrs. Carroll, stoutly. "They sell more cabbages and apples, but they
+buy cheap fabrics and ready-made clothing in place of the stout
+homespun that the women used to weave."
+
+"You'd be surprised," said Patton, "to know how little the country
+people use the railroad. There was an example of it day before
+yesterday. A man from McDowell's Creek, about six miles from Flora,
+took his first train-ride since the road was put through, fifteen years
+ago."
+
+"How extraordinary that seems! It was the day of his life, I suppose."
+Katrina's eyes were large with amazement.
+
+"In a way it was," said Bob, dryly, "for in Asheville he celebrated his
+adventures not wisely, but too well, and on the way out he fell from
+the platform and was killed."
+
+"Bob, how can you be so flippant?" objected Sydney to the crestfallen
+young man. "It seems a terrible end."
+
+"All sudden deaths seem terrible to us who are left behind," said Mrs.
+Carroll; "but even such an ending does not give us the shock that it
+would if we did not live in a community accustomed to the accidents
+consequent upon every man's carrying a revolver. It's a bad habit. I
+hope you boys don't do it."
+
+"No, indeed, Mrs. Carroll," they both replied, with suspicious
+promptness, and they sat up very straight, so that the backs of their
+coats presented an unbroken line.
+
+John smiled at them.
+
+"Are they often used?" he asked.
+
+"Quite too often," answered Sydney, gravely. "As grandmother says, we
+do, indeed, live close to nature. If a man is angry with his neighbor,
+he calls him to his door on some moonless night and shoots him."
+
+"In primitive society the primitive wants of man are satisfied in
+primitive ways," remarked Bob.
+
+"Moses ought to have put the Ten Commandments on something stronger
+than stone if he meant them to be unbroken," added Patton.
+
+Mrs. Carroll shook her head at him.
+
+"I don't see how you can be so very primitive," insisted Katrina. "Now
+this----" She glanced expressively about the room, where old portraits
+surmounted the dark panelling and heavy rugs glowed warmly in the
+firelight.
+
+"Oh, we are as composite in our mountains as are the people of any
+other part of these composite United States," said Sydney. "The
+mountaineers themselves are a mixture. There are men in coves distant
+from the railroad who are living on land to which their ancestors drove
+up their cattle from the low country three or four generations ago.
+These men are a law unto themselves. They have no opportunities for
+educating their children, and once in a while you hear of a family that
+never has heard the name of God."
+
+"My great-grandfather came here in the early eighteen hundreds," said
+Bob, "and a queer lot he must have found. They say that there was a
+crop of younger sons of good English families which had been planted
+here as a good country for the culture of wild oats."
+
+"I suppose that in the eighteenth century this was as remote a place as
+any to lose black sheep in, if losing was their desire," suggested
+John.
+
+"It's quite true, quite true, what Bob says," Mrs. Carroll took up the
+explanation. "Mr. Carroll used to tell me that he knew it to be a fact
+that Bud Yarebrough's father--Bud is a ne'er-do-weel who lives in a
+cove not many miles from here, Katrina, my dear--was a great-grandson
+of one of the Dukes of Calverley."
+
+"Then Melissa's baby is the Lady Sydney Melissa Something-or-other!"
+laughed Sydney.
+
+"There's a legend of a penal colony, too," said Patton.
+
+"That is disputed," replied Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"If there was one, Pink Pressley is of its lineage, I am sure," said
+Sydney.
+
+"If heredity counts for anything, I should think that a colony of black
+sheep whose diet had been wild oats would account for all the
+lawlessness of the community," offered John.
+
+"For a great deal of it, undoubtedly, and their life of freedom from
+restraint for so many years would be responsible for more."
+
+"But these people are not close about you here," exclaimed Katrina.
+
+"Indeed, they are. They are our neighbors and our friends. Why, there's
+a tenant on our place who has been tried twice for murder."
+
+"Bob and I found a deserted still in the woods over the creek the other
+day," said Sydney. "That suggests another of our friends' occupations."
+
+"But your influence must be at work among them constantly."
+
+"We hope it is, and that is why we lay stress upon the compositeness of
+our settlement," said Mrs. Carroll. "There are the country people we've
+been telling you about, and there's a group of what we call
+Neighborhood people, for distinction's sake. The Delaunays at the Cliff
+were originally from New Orleans, and the Hugers were from Charleston,
+and we came from Virginia. Before the war we used to come over the
+mountains every summer in carriages to take refuge from the heat of the
+lowlands, and after the war we were glad to live here permanently."
+
+"It was post-bellum poverty that drove us here from the
+Scotch-Presbyterian settlements in the middle of the State," said
+Patton. "We're another element."
+
+"And is there really fusion going on as there is in other parts of the
+country?" asked Katrina.
+
+"My people have assimilated with the peasantry, as I suppose Mrs.
+Carroll calls them, ever since they came," said Bob.
+
+"This settlement must be unique," said John.
+
+"No. I know of two not very far from here, and I've heard of others.
+The more fortunate people consider themselves as closely allied to the
+country as do the mountaineers. We are integral parts, and we insist on
+being so considered."
+
+"We aren't a wholly bad lot, we mountaineers," said Bob. "I speak as of
+the soil, you see. Too much whisky and tobacco and hog-meat have
+deprived us of physical beauty, and we are sadly lacking in moral
+strength, but the life of freedom and lawlessness developed good
+traits, too. We don't lie,--that is, about important things," he added,
+hastily, putting his hand under his coat; "and we don't steal, and we
+are loyal to our friends."
+
+"Especially when the minions of the law are after them," grinned
+Patton.
+
+"Ah, you've betrayed yourselves," cried Sydney. "I know it was you two
+boys who hid Pink Pressley when the revenue men were chasing him the
+last time."
+
+"The last time?" John asked the question.
+
+"Oh, Pink used to be a chronic moonshiner. He seems to be a reformed
+pirate now," said Patton. "He must be in love."
+
+"Whisky is the curse of this country," said Mrs. Carroll, vehemently,
+while Bob gazed into the fire and Sydney played with the sugar-tongs.
+"You can't deny lying, Bob, when the moonshiners are lying to the
+revenue men every day, and their friends are lying in their behalf; and
+you can't say they don't steal, when they are defrauding the government
+with every quart of blockade they sell. The mountaineers may be loyal
+to their friends, but it is to conceal crime."
+
+"Illicit stilling seems to be regarded like smuggling," said John. "The
+government is fair game."
+
+"Whisky stunts the growth of children, and blunts the morals of youth,
+and makes murderers of men," went on the old lady, disregarding John's
+interruption, and sitting with expressive straightness. A silence fell
+upon the group that John and Katrina felt to be painful without
+understanding why. Patton and Sydney were burning with sympathy for
+Bob. It was Patton who broke the quiet.
+
+"And they drink it from a dipper!"
+
+The ensuing laughter snapped the strain of embarrassment.
+
+"We have another class of people that we haven't described to Katrina,"
+said Sidney. "The resident foreigners."
+
+"Like Baron von Rittenheim," said Bob, absently, staring at the fire.
+
+"Another title! How in the world did he come here?" asked Katrina.
+
+"Oh, he's one of the footballs of Fate," said Patton.
+
+"Usually they're English,--the footballs," said Bob. "They come here to
+mend either health or fortune, stay a few years, and go away."
+
+"Mended?"
+
+"Yes, in health, if they--stop drinking." Bob brought it out with a
+jerk. "This climate's great, you know."
+
+"But not with improved finances?"
+
+"Yes, that too. It's a fine place for economy."
+
+"For what purpose did this German come?" asked Katrina.
+
+"He's one of the mysteries," said Patton, rising to take his leave.
+
+Bob called Sydney from the drawing-room into the hall, and handed her a
+letter.
+
+"Father got it this afternoon," he said. "It's awfully funny."
+
+Sydney took it from its envelope. Bob, bending to buckle on his spurs,
+did not see her flush at the signature and then grow pale as she read.
+
+"Bob," she whispered, hoarsely, "promise me,--promise that you'll let
+me know--if they do it--when it's going to be."
+
+And Bob, who had no thought but to amuse her, said, heartily, "Why, of
+course."
+
+Had von Rittenheim, sitting before his fire awaiting Bud's return, been
+able to see into the minds of his neighbors, he would have found matter
+more productive of mental confusion than were English irregular verbs
+to him.
+
+That Dr. Morgan, after receiving a challenge, could settle back to the
+perusal of the _Pickwick Papers_ as placidly as if he had attended to
+the last minute detail of the conventions attendant upon that process
+called "giving satisfaction," was a thing that his traditions, his
+education, and his environment had put it out of his power to
+understand.
+
+That Bob could regard the incident as a joke was even farther from his
+grasp. An indifference caused by a lack of fear,--that was within his
+range. But that this method of wiping out an insult should be regarded
+as funny,--of such an emotion under such circumstances he could not
+conceive.
+
+Sydney's feeling, could he have known it, was closer to his
+comprehension, because it is not beyond man's imagination to guess,
+approximately, the frame of mind into which a woman would be thrown
+upon hearing of such a prospective meeting. What he could not see was
+the importance that his own part played in the girl's fear.
+
+The thing seemed to her barbaric, mediaeval, horrible. She shook to
+think of harm that might come to her good old friend, the Doctor. She
+became an abject coward when she remembered that the old man was noted
+throughout the mountains as a perfect shot.
+
+She could not understand herself. She had not had this feeling at all
+when Ben Frady had cleared the open space before the post-office of all
+loafers, and she unwittingly had ridden on to the scene, and, grasping
+the situation, had demanded his revolver from him and had received it.
+
+Not until afterwards had she had any such sensations as this, when a
+message had come to the house that the negroes on the farm were cutting
+each other, and she had walked in upon them and had ordered them to
+separate.
+
+Bob had told her that he didn't know what it was all about, and the
+uncertainty made the situation only more disquieting. Like most
+Southern women, it did not occur to her to interfere before the event
+in any affair that was men's own; but she began to formulate a plan
+that depended for its success upon Bob's keeping her informed as to the
+course pursued by his father. Could she depend on him? Her anxiety was
+cruel.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+Sydney Rides against Time
+
+
+Three days later Bud brought to von Rittenheim the following note:
+
+    "DEAR BARON,--I say again that I haven't any idea what you are
+    driving at, but I never yet went back on a fight, so if you still
+    want one I'll meet you at twelve o'clock to-morrow on top of Buck
+    Mountain. I think you went to a picnic there when the chestnuts
+    were ripe last fall, so you know the place. I'll take the weapons
+    along with me, and you can examine them when you get there. I don't
+    want any second.
+
+    "Yours truly,
+
+    "HENRY MORGAN."
+
+Von Rittenheim puzzled over the English of this document, and nodded
+his head in satisfaction.
+
+"At last he performs his duty. Buck Mountain I know. It is a distant
+spot, ten miles from here. He is strange not to say what are the
+weapons; but what can you expect?"
+
+With a shrug derogating the social experience of his adopted land, he
+proceeded to negotiate with Bud for the use of his mule on the next
+day.
+
+It was nearly eleven o'clock on the following morning when Bob Morgan
+drew rein before the Carrolls' door, and asked to see Sydney.
+
+"Beg her to come to the door just a moment, Uncle Jimmy. No, I'll not
+send the horse around. And she'll want Johnny saddled at once. Send
+word to the stable, please."
+
+When she appeared he ran up the steps as far as his bridle would allow,
+and spoke in a low voice, with a glance at the windows.
+
+"It's this morning, Sydney, at twelve. Will you come? Father didn't
+tell me about it until just as he was leaving the house, and he said he
+didn't want me, but I'd promised you, and we'll be in time if we hurry,
+I've ordered Johnny."
+
+The girl clutched her throat with a feeling that every bit of strength
+was leaving her body. Bob, buckling his curb rein, saw nothing. His
+only thought was to give her some sport. A fight, more or less, counted
+but little with him personally; and he did not think that this one
+actually would take place, else he would not have considered taking a
+girl to it.
+
+Sydney spared a thought of wonder at Bob's nonchalance, but as swiftly
+reflected that perhaps men always were cool in such emergencies. To her
+it meant murder,--the crime of life destroyed. And whose life? Perhaps
+that of her dear old friend. Perhaps----!
+
+The blood surged back to her brain and she mastered herself.
+
+"We have so little time," she panted. "I'll be ready in a minute."
+
+Before the horse was at the mounting-block she was awaiting him,
+buttoning her gloves, while she extended her foot for Bob to buckle her
+spur. She had put on her riding-skirt, but otherwise was as she had
+come to the door.
+
+"Don't you-all want a coat, Sydney?" asked Bob, solicitously. "Or a
+hat?"
+
+"No, I'm quite warm. Where is that boy? Hurry, Clint," she called to
+the little negro, who was bringing the horse around with a slowness
+born of his enjoyment of the brief ride.
+
+"Off with you, quick, now, boy!" It was Bob, who was catching the
+girl's impatience. "Here, take Gray Eagle."
+
+He flung his bridle to the lad, and threw Sydney into the saddle as
+quickly as she could wish. She adjusted herself carefully, for she knew
+how the discomfort of a twisted skirt may make a difference of a minute
+in the mile, or may mean real danger at a jump.
+
+"There's no time to lose, it's five minutes past eleven now," she said,
+glancing at a strap watch on her wrist, and touching Johnny with her
+spur.
+
+Bob's horse was off in pursuit before his master was well on his back.
+
+"I declare, she might have given me a fairer start!" he growled, as the
+sorrel settled down ahead of him into a run that bade fair to keep even
+the advantage. They had had many a race, Bob and Sydney, and usually it
+was the girl who was the more cautious rider of the two. To-day,
+however, she took risks that amazed even her old-time playmate, who
+thought he knew her every mood.
+
+By the long driveway and the road it was two miles to the Doctor's
+house, and five from there to the foot of Buck Mountain. By a cut
+across the sheep-pasture the first part of the way could be reduced
+nearly a mile.
+
+"She certainly is keen for the fun," thought Bob, as he saw Sydney turn
+from the avenue and drive Johnny at a gate which he knew that she did
+not care often to take.
+
+"Too high for Johnny. I must tell her not to do that again," he
+commented, as he noticed during his own flight that the top rail was
+split from contact with the first horse's heels.
+
+[Illustration: A fence at the top of a sharp ascent]
+
+Down the hill and across the field tore the sorrel, leaping the branch,
+and slackening to allow the gray's approach only when he came to a
+fence whose position at the top of a sharp ascent forbade his taking
+it.
+
+Sydney looked back impatiently as Bob covered the dozen lengths between
+them and swung off to open the gate.
+
+"You might wait for a fellow," he grumbled, but already the girl was
+through, and her white blouse and ruddy hair shone half-way across the
+unenclosed meadow upon which she had entered. For the first time her
+pale face impressed Bob.
+
+"Looks like she saw something," he thought, with a remnant of old
+superstition. "I do believe she thinks there's going to be bloodshed."
+And with a view to reassuring her, he caught up with her in the path
+through the belt of woods that led from the field to the road. Their
+horses were nose on tail, and of necessity going slowly.
+
+"Sydney!" he cried, "O-oh, Sydney! You don't think it's serious, do
+you? Because----"
+
+Here the path debouched into the open road, and Johnny was off again
+before Bob could finish, and his question, meant to inspirit Sydney,
+had sounded to her only like a desire for his own reassurance, and had
+alarmed her more than ever.
+
+A mad feeling within pricked her to tear on without slackening. She
+felt that she could have galloped to the very top of the mountain
+without fatigue. Her horsewoman's intelligence, however, warned her to
+think of her animal, and she took him along quietly through the open
+place before the post-office, giving Bob a chance to catch up.
+
+He was thoroughly out of temper now. Never before had Sydney been so
+careless of him. He couldn't understand it; but he was beginning to
+realize that she was taking the adventure seriously, and, with boyish
+malice, he resolved to make no further effort to undeceive her.
+
+Indeed, as they rode on slowly and silently, side by side, for a few
+hundred yards, he became not so sure himself that the duel was the joke
+that he had considered it.
+
+He knew his father to be a man ready in his own defence, and of a high,
+though controlled temper; and he had not overlooked the fact that the
+stocks of two guns were protruding from the holster that projected from
+under the skirt of the Doctor's McClellan. Furthermore, he knew that
+the German was in deadly earnest.
+
+As these suspicions assailed him, he turned to Sydney and touched the
+spur to his gray. The girl responded to his look, and they set into the
+steady gallop that covers much country with but little effort either to
+horse or rider.
+
+Sydney held out her watch for Bob to see. It was quarter past eleven.
+Nearly five miles lay before them to the foot of the mountain, and to
+the summit there was a long, steep mile and a half which was the
+time-consumer to be reckoned with.
+
+A mile beyond the post-office they turned from the State Road into a
+less-travelled, and hence rougher, side road. Through a stretch of
+sandy mud they breathed the horses again, and then on, on, on to the
+big hill whose vast bulk was beginning to tower mightily before them.
+Past the old school-house they dashed, without a glance for its forlorn
+state of decay; past one of the farm gates of the Cotswold estate; past
+the Baptist Bethel, indistinguishable from a school-house except for
+the white stones in the graveyard, upon which the sun glinted
+cheerfully.
+
+Quarter after quarter they left behind them, slowing up only for steep
+descents or for patches of lengthwise road-mending whose upthrust
+branch ends are liable to snag a horse's legs. Johnny and Gray Eagle
+took in their stride the brooks that babbled gayly across the way; they
+shied at a glare of mica on the red clay of the bank; they dodged ruts,
+and leaped mud-holes, and pushed for the middle of the road.
+
+At the end of the third mile Sydney asked, not lifting her eyes from
+the ground before her, "Is the bridle-path open?" It was the first time
+she had spoken since they left Oakwood.
+
+"I don't know. It may be washed. We'd better keep to the sled-track."
+
+"It's half a mile longer."
+
+"But the other might delay us more."
+
+Sydney did not urge the point, but looked at her watch as they reached
+the opening where the ascent began.
+
+It was twenty minutes of twelve.
+
+Without a word she held out her hand to Bob. She felt sick and faint,
+and her companion's whistle was not reassuring.
+
+"They'll probably be late," he suggested, but he remembered as he said
+it that his father had left home for the meeting-place before he had
+started to take the news to Sydney.
+
+The trail began in a steep acclivity that soon brought the horses to a
+walk. When it was surmounted the beasts needs must blow, though they
+pressed on willingly enough at a half-minute's end. A fairly level bit
+followed along the ridge of the foot-hill they just had climbed. It was
+not wide enough for them to travel abreast, and Johnny led with a sharp
+trot that made clever avoidance of the stones and roots and stumps that
+sprang into sight before him as at the summons of a malignant spirit.
+
+The next upward stretch was over a ledge of rock from which the
+winter's rains had washed the soil. A trickling spring kept its surface
+constantly wet, and its slippery face brought Johnny to his knees.
+
+Sydney uttered a cry which ordinarily would have been one of pity for
+her favorite's pain. Now it was a note of fear lest the fall might mean
+delay. But the brave sorrel heaved himself up, and turned across the
+path to pant after the exertion.
+
+"Are you all right, Sydney?" came Bob's anxious cry from below, whence
+he had seen the accident.
+
+"It was nothing," she called. "Come, Johnny, poor old man!"
+
+She patted his lowered neck, and he bent his hoofs to catch his
+toe-calks in the cracks of the rock.
+
+Another fleeting pause at the top rewarded his endeavor, and then a
+couple of hundred yards of hardly perceptible upward incline produced
+again the swift and ready trot.
+
+Five minutes more of easy climbing brought into view the tobacco barn
+which was one of the mountain's landmarks. Beyond it the grade became
+much more abrupt, and although it was worn fairly smooth by the sleds
+of the men who planted aerial cornfields far up on the highest
+clearings, yet its steepness rendered this last half-mile the truly
+formidable part of the ascent.
+
+Johnny glanced up it with regretful eye, stopped an instant, took a
+long breath, shook himself, and went bravely to his task.
+
+Sydney's every thought was a passionate longing to press on,--to hurry,
+to rush, to fly. Her lips grew white when she saw that the hands of her
+watch pointed to four minutes of twelve.
+
+"It is not possible to be in time," she agonized. "O God, delay them! O
+God, stop them!"
+
+She bent forward over the horse's withers, and stretched upward, as if
+to pull him higher by her buoyancy. She was heedless of the stream that
+gurgled beside the trail among the evergreen sword-fern--a noisy
+betrayer of the mountain's angle. She did not observe that she was
+alone, that Bob was not following her. She was deaf to his cries as he
+struggled below with the gray, which was plunging against an attack of
+yellow jackets, and refused to take the trail.
+
+Johnny stopped, his sides heaving pitiably.
+
+"Oh, can I bear it? Oh, go on; do go on! O God, give me strength to
+wait."
+
+Though she tore off her gloves in nervous impatience, still she left
+the rein upon the horse's neck, for she knew that the willing beast was
+doing his best.
+
+He stopped again, and still once more, before they came to the foot of
+the bald, whose slippery, dead grass added another peril to the climb.
+The trail ended here, for it was not needed where a sled could go
+anywhere over the clearing.
+
+"Come, dear boy. Come, dear old horse," she urged. "Five minutes more
+will take us there."
+
+The watch's cruel face told the hour to be twelve minutes past twelve,
+but Sydney did not feel so keen a pang as when she looked last,
+although it was later than the fatal hour. The continued silence gave
+her confidence. Only the bay of a hound in some cove below, and the
+yelp of a puppy, reached her.
+
+She was dully dogged. The horse stumbled and scrambled on.
+
+"We can't do better than our best, Johnny. May God keep them! Oh,
+Johnny! My dear, faithful Johnny, don't fall! Get up--_get up_!" she
+cried.
+
+As he settled on to his side to roll up on to his feet again,--a
+process that his labored breathing and the weight of his rider made
+difficult on the sharp incline,--she slipped from his back and
+struggled on on foot.
+
+She was near the crest of the mountain,--the bunch of chestnut-trees on
+the summit showed their swelling buds against the sky just over her
+head,--yet how slow was her advance! The sedge-grass caught her feet;
+the blackberry-vines tore at her skirt; a rolling pebble threw her down
+upon her hands.
+
+In an instant she was up and on again,--she was at the summit at last!
+And there, just below the crest on the other side, facing each other on
+their animals, like knights of old, were the two men she sought.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+"It Needed Only This!"
+
+
+Trembling she stood, looking down upon the foes below her. Her hands
+were knotted against her breast, that heaved with nature's cry at her
+cruelty. The thumping of her heart shook her body mercilessly. The
+anguish of her soul dried her throat, and filled her eyes with dread,
+and made her an embodiment of horror. Yet a stir of gratitude fought
+with fear for a place in her.
+
+"Thank God, I am not too late!" was her voiceless cry.
+
+Through the clear air came the sound of a voice, sharply articulate.
+
+"It is not enough that you eat my bread and go forth from my door to do
+your treacherous act. You come again to my house to scorn at me after
+my humiliation, and you have not the courage to own your falseness. And
+now, when I demand from you the satisfaction that most surely do you
+owe me, how do you make a mock at me? Is that a weapon with which
+gentlemen do fight? Is it a shot-gun that men do carry to a duel?"
+
+The hitherto still figure on the Doctor's horse stirred uneasily.
+
+"And see, I break it." The mule turned back his ears, as upon them fell
+the click of the opening gun, followed by the drop of a shell into an
+open palm. "_Ach_, yes, I thought so! It needed only this! This so
+small shot is for the birds!"
+
+A thud vibrated on the air--the sound of the flung-down weapon.
+
+"Now, if you-all were only an American, Ah could make you understand
+right quick that----"
+
+The Doctor's slow drawl was broken by an exclamation from von
+Rittenheim. Morgan followed the German's eyes, and saw above them
+against the fleckless blue of the heavens the brilliant figure of the
+girl, her hands straining against her breast, her face a field where
+anxiety and grief flitted like clouds across the background of the sky.
+
+She came down towards them when she saw herself observed, and the two
+men silently dismounted as she approached, and pulled off their caps,
+less in salutation than from instinctive respect for deep emotion.
+
+It was a poor little appeal she made, as words went. Her voice was
+hardly whisper-high, so labored was her breathing. She held out her
+hands to them one after the other, in supplication.
+
+"You won't do it! Oh, please don't! I came---- You mustn't----" Her
+breath came in gasps.
+
+Von Rittenheim mutely took the pleading hands in his, and reverently
+kissed them. He faced the Doctor brokenly.
+
+"I thought you had heaped upon me every humiliation. Until now this was
+lacking. You might have spared me this!"
+
+Mounting his mule he broke into the thicket and disappeared.
+
+The two left behind--the tawny, stooping Carolinian and the girl, gone
+white-lipped in spite of the beating of her heart--stared in silence at
+the copse as long as they could hear the crash of the breaking twigs
+and resisting branches.
+
+Sydney still was intent on the lessening sounds when the old man's keen
+blue eyes withdrew themselves from the wood and scrutinized her face,
+pitiably drawn and colorless.
+
+"H'm," he grunted, and added, mentally, "Hard lines for Bob."
+
+The sound of his ejaculation reached the girl's dulled ears. She turned
+to him with a touch of distrust, and yet a look of question that seemed
+to implore her old friend for an explanation that might save him to her
+as an honest man. The Doctor was touched by it. He nodded in the
+direction in which the Baron had disappeared.
+
+"Crazy, plumb crazy," he averred.
+
+Sydney's dry lips formed a soundless "Why?"
+
+"He's got some notion in his head that Ah've done him an injury--you
+heard him?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"Ah swear to you, Sydney, Ah haven't any idea what he means, but he
+harps on it, and he sent me a challenge, as Ah suppose you know, or you
+wouldn't be here."
+
+"Yes. Bob brought me."
+
+"Ah bluffed him off fo' three days. Ah hoped Ah might think of
+something that would get him out of that vein without hurting his
+foreign feelings, but Ah couldn't think of anything, so Ah 'lowed to
+pretend to play up to his game, and in some way turn it into a joke."
+
+"The bird-shot was the joke?"
+
+The Doctor colored dimly under his tan.
+
+"Well, Ah must confess that it seemed to me mo' humorous when Ah was
+loading up the guns at home than when the Baron was discoursing about
+it."
+
+"I should think so. I should think----"
+
+Sydney bit her sentence in two. She felt too uncontrolled to allow
+herself to comment upon the Doctor's conduct.
+
+"Ah certainly believe he's crazy or going to have a fever, and Ah'll
+find some way of watching him. Ah suppose he won't let me on his place
+now; Ah'll have to see Bud. Where's yo' horse?" he asked, suddenly.
+
+Sydney pressed her hand to her head confusedly.
+
+"I don't know. Back there somewhere."
+
+"Come, we must hunt him. You seem tired to death, child. Did you ride
+hard?"
+
+"It was about an hour and ten minutes to the foot of the bald."
+
+She was dragging herself wearily up to the chestnut-trees.
+
+"An hour and ten minutes to the foot of the bald? From where?"
+
+"From home."
+
+"From Oakwood? Holy Smoke! What did Bob let you do such a fool thing
+fo'?" he ejaculated, angrily. "Where is Bob, anyway?"
+
+"I don't know. I haven't seen him since--I think it was--I don't know
+where it was," she ended, weakly, and with distress.
+
+The Doctor looked at her keenly.
+
+"Here, never mind him; he can take care of himself well enough; better
+than he can of you, by the looks of it. Sit down, now; yes, right here
+on the grass, and drink this."
+
+He gave her a draught from his flask, standing over her threateningly
+when she hesitated at the entire contents of the cup cover.
+
+"Take it all," he insisted, "every drop. It's the only thing on earth
+that's health to its enemies and death to its friends."
+
+Sydney leaned back wearily against a jutting rock and closed her eyes.
+Her head swam, and she resigned herself to the Doctor's commands with
+the blessed feeling of relief that a woman has when responsibility
+falls from her own upon some man's shoulders.
+
+A whoop from the chestnuts made her open her eyes.
+
+"Is it Bob?"
+
+"Yes, leading Johnny." Doctor Morgan raised his voice. "Come down here.
+You're a pretty feller to carry a girl to ride," he continued, as Bob
+tied the horse to one of the chestnuts and sprang down the slope. "No
+girl in my time ever shook me like that. Where did she lose you?"
+
+Bob answered nothing to his father's gibes, but bent anxiously over
+Sydney.
+
+"You are not hurt, de--Sydney? Just awfully done up? I ought not to
+have let you come. It's been too hard a ride. It's all my fault," he
+went on, accusingly, while the Doctor nodded his head in agreement, and
+Sydney tried in vain to interrupt.
+
+"No, indeed, Bob, you were not to blame at all. I made you promise, and
+I couldn't have forgiven you or myself if I hadn't been here when----"
+
+She fell back against the rock, and the Doctor broke in, by way of
+diversion,--
+
+"Where's Gray Eagle?"
+
+"Down at the tobacco barn. He got wild and balked the steep part of the
+trail, so I tied him to a tree and left him to kick it out."
+
+"You walked up, then?"
+
+"Yes, and found Johnny gluttonously eating blackberry-vines on the
+other side of the bald. That scared me to death, for I thought he'd
+made way with Sydney in some mysterious fashion,--perhaps eaten
+her,--and was indulging in dessert! Where's your enemy?"
+
+The Doctor glanced quickly at Sydney, and frowned at Bob.
+
+"Gone home," was all he would say.
+
+They lifted the girl on to her horse, and Bob guided him down to the
+very foot of the mountain. At the tobacco barn the Doctor untied Gray
+Eagle, subdued by his enforced loneliness, and led him behind them.
+
+"Bob will stay to luncheon at Oakwood, it's so late," said Sydney to
+him as they parted at his gate. "You'll not forget to find out in some
+way if the Baron is ill, will you?"
+
+"No, my dear, I'll watch him like the Pinkertons' eye that never
+sleeps," returned the old man, genially.
+
+"Mrs. Carroll has gone into the dining-room," the servant told them at
+the door, and Sydney assumed much cheerfulness as she made her
+apologies.
+
+"I've brought Bob, grandmother. He's been all over everywhere with me
+this morning. You'll forgive me, Katrina, for leaving you, won't you?
+Where's Mr. Wendell?"
+
+"Not back from Asheville yet."
+
+"He went in yesterday," explained Mrs. Carroll to Bob. "I suppose the
+train is late. It does seem as if they grow more and more uncertain,
+and when there are only two a day each way, it certainly is annoying,
+very. You wouldn't know what to make of so meagre an arrangement, would
+you, Katrina dear?"
+
+"There's the carriage now," said Bob. "The train couldn't have been
+much over an hour behind time; surely you wouldn't complain of that."
+
+"I feel as if I had been journeying for days," said John, sitting down,
+"and had seen the sights of far-distant worlds."
+
+"It's the obelisk in Court Square that makes you think that," suggested
+Sydney.
+
+"Or the battlements on the library building," added Bob.
+
+"Are there street-cars?" asked Katrina.
+
+"Street-cars? Why, child, there are street-cars to burn--electric ones,
+too. I felt grievously defrauded. I wanted a mule tram."
+
+"The mule is an unfashionable animal," said Mrs. Carroll. "Time was
+when a handsome pair of mules was considered not unsuitable to draw a
+gentleman's carriage."
+
+"The farmers aren't using them so much, either," said Bob. "They're too
+unreliable. Horses are cheaper, too."
+
+"I saw some very decent saddle-horses in town--of their kind."
+
+"What's their kind?"
+
+"Long-tailed single-footers, Katrina."
+
+"The easiest gait in the world," put in Bob, combatively, disregarding
+the tails.
+
+"It looks so. And not a Derby hat in the whole place except mine."
+
+"And not a silk one, except on colored coachmen," added Sydney,
+maliciously.
+
+"Did you drive about?"
+
+"I saw all the sights, dear Mrs. Carroll. I have done to a brown the
+Vanderbilt place, the Sunset Drive, and the junction of the Swannanoa
+and the French Broad. I flogged a rebellious horse to Gold View, and I
+scaled Beaumont and looked down into Chunn's Cove. I gazed at the--you
+will excuse me, I hope--faded exterior of a tobacco warehouse----"
+
+"The farmers don't grow much now," interpolated Bob.
+
+"So I was told. And I beheld with rapture the architecture of the
+Federal Building. That's the fullest beehive for its size, isn't it?
+Post-office, revenue office,--goodness knows what's in it!"
+
+"Is the United States Court on yet?" asked Bob.
+
+"Not being a victim, I don't know."
+
+"You don't have to be a victim to find that out. The whole town is
+filled with the rural population who are interested in the liquor
+cases,--and our rural population is unmistakable."
+
+"If that's the sign, then it isn't on, for only about half the town
+looked egregiously rural. Now I think of it, though, the court is going
+to sit day after to-morrow."
+
+"Of course. It's the first Monday in May, isn't it?"
+
+"Please ask me how I knew it. Thank you, Mrs. Carroll. I see that you
+are about to oblige me. Know then, good people, that this humble worm
+that you see before you has had the honor of occupying the same seat in
+the train with a minion of the law,--in fact, a revenue officer."
+
+"Coming out to-day?"
+
+"Yes. And, furthermore, he paid the flag-station of Flora the
+distinguished attention of getting out there."
+
+"Was he after somebody?"
+
+"He was about to jog the memories of several people, and I think you'll
+be surprised to know who one of them is. Mrs. Carroll, how can you
+expect the less fortunate part of your community to keep in the
+straight and narrow way, when the aristocracy--yea, verily, the
+nobility--sets it so bad an example?"
+
+"What do you mean, John?"
+
+"I'm going to write a tale to be called 'The Titled Moonshiner; or, The
+Baron's Quart of Corn.'"
+
+Sydney and Bob looked at each other with dawning comprehension, yet
+without the ability entirely to clear away the fog.
+
+"John, are you hinting any slur against Baron von Rittenheim, our
+neighbor and good friend?" The old lady was radiating dignity and
+indignation.
+
+"I'm not hinting a thing, my dear Mrs. Carroll. I'm telling you what
+the affable revenue man told me. About a month ago, it seems, your
+friend and neighbor entertained a guest who proved to be, not an angel
+in disguise, but a deputy-marshal on his way to Asheville. Not knowing
+the official position of his visitor, von Rittenheim sold him a quart
+of whisky of his own vintage. Whereupon, like all other chilled vipers
+that have been warmed by this or other means, even from the far days of
+fable, the beast retaliated. He returned the next day and arrested
+him."
+
+Mrs. Carroll and Katrina cried out in surprise and indignation. Bob's
+eyes were fixed upon Sydney, and she, ghastly white, was crumbling her
+bread into bits.
+
+"The next day? Why, that is why he didn't come here for so long,
+Sydney!"
+
+"He's under bond to appear at the next sitting of the United States
+Court, and, as that comes in on Monday, you understand the appearance
+of my friend the enemy on the train."
+
+"Poor fellow!" murmured Katrina.
+
+"Why in the world should the Baron sell any whisky, I should like to
+have some one tell me," demanded Mrs. Carroll. "And why didn't we see
+it in the paper?"
+
+"Probably the name was put in incorrectly," Bob suggested. "The
+Asheville reporters aren't accustomed to German."
+
+Sydney was silent. But upon Bob, for his father's sake, she laid
+accusing eyes, for she thought she had a clue to the words that had
+come to her ears through the clear air as she stood upon the top of
+Buck Mountain.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+Through the Mist
+
+
+One day in the autumn, a few weeks after he had bought Ben Frady's
+farm, von Rittenheim had taken his gun, and had whistled to heel one of
+the hounds that had preferred to stay in his old home with an unknown
+master rather than endure the precarious temper of the known quantity,
+and had climbed Buzzard, the mountain behind his cabin, in search of
+squirrel or quail.
+
+As the day advanced, fleecy clouds gathered over the sky and obscured
+the sun, and then thickened and turned leaden. Suddenly, as the
+huntsman tramped across a clearing, a one-time cornfield high on the
+side of the mountain, he saw a mass of fog rolling towards him, and
+before he could descend below its level he found himself enveloped in
+the mist of a passing cloud. Heavy as a palpable thing it closed around
+him, impenetrable to the eye, chilling to the whole physical being,
+fraught with discouragement and depression to the mind.
+
+Friedrich tried to regain a path that he remembered to have crossed a
+few minutes before, but under the trees the gloom was too dense for
+profitable search. Moisture began to collect upon the leaf tips and to
+drip upon him. The dog did not answer to his whistle. There were no
+points of the compass; there was no view of the valley below. He was
+like a ship rudderless. He only knew of a surety that the earth was
+beneath his feet, and as night drew on, and he could no longer see the
+soil his boot-soles pressed, he only knew that he was descending.
+
+And then of a sudden came the barking of a dog in greeting, and the
+bray of a hungry mule, and he found himself close upon a cabin, and by
+a freak of fortune it proved to be his own, and he was at home.
+
+Vaguely enough, yet insistently, the experience kept recurring to him
+during the days in Asheville, when he was awaiting his trial.
+
+He went into the court-room in the Federal Building and watched, with a
+languid curiosity born of its foreignness, the easy-going ceremony of
+the opening of court. A group of lawyers laughed and gossiped at the
+front. A larger number of men, who proved to be potential jurors,
+gathered on one side and talked together more quietly, impressed by the
+novelty of their experience; while the men who had served on the jury
+before explained the furnishing of the room to them.
+
+Some ladies were ushered into seats near the bench by a dapper young
+lawyer. Behind a railing, all about von Rittenheim, in front of him,
+beside him, and back of him, were the lean forms and bent shoulders of
+the mountaineers who were witnesses or principals in the whisky cases
+that fill so fully the docket of this court. From their appearance it
+was impossible to tell which were the law-breakers and which the
+bearers of testimony against them. There were old men and boys.
+Children were clinging to the skirts of their mothers, who had come to
+town either as witnesses or for the holiday. One woman was quieting a
+crying baby with the gag that a baby never refuses. She herself was
+soothed by the snuff-stick that protruded from the space left vacant by
+the early decay of her two front teeth.
+
+The air rapidly grew heavy with the smell of unwashed bodies and of
+moist tobacco, and with the peculiar oily odor of corn whisky.
+
+A short man of important bearing stepped in front of the rail and
+scanned the mass behind it. He easily singled out von Rittenheim, whose
+cropped head shone fair from among the towsled pows around him.
+
+"Oh, von Rittenheim," he called, "step out here a minute."
+
+"My so good friend, Mr. Weaver?" acknowledged Friedrich, looking at him
+through the squinting eyes that a sharp headache gave him.
+
+"You'll be held by the grand jury, of course, von Rittenheim, but you
+needn't stay here all the time. Just drop in once or twice a day and
+see how the list stands. Some of these are old cases crowded out of the
+last term, and we may not get to you until Wednesday or Thursday. It
+ain't a right enjoyable place to stay in, and you'd better go out in
+the fresh air--you look sick."
+
+"My head does give me pain," Friedrich admitted.
+
+"Your case can't possibly be called to-day, anyway. You'd better go off
+until to-morrow."
+
+"I thank you. I will when I have seen the honorable judge come in. It
+is most new to me, these customs of yours."
+
+"I reckon they must be," returned Weaver, with something like pity in
+his upward glance at the drawn face above him. He scuttled off as a
+voice cried,--
+
+"The court! the court!"
+
+The lawyers scampered to their places behind the bar, and stood to
+acknowledge the entrance of the judge.
+
+Beyond thinking him strangely unjudicial in appearance, Friedrich took
+no interest in him, for he did not regard him as the arbiter of his
+fate, since he had learned the customary sentence for cases like his,
+which was pronounced with the regularity of machinery and knew no
+variety.
+
+He waited until another half-hour's observation had made clear to him
+the method of drawing the jurors. He left this task still in process of
+being fulfilled, and urged his way out of the press that held him fast.
+
+The fresh, cool air was as wine to him, for wine invigorates the body
+while it clouds the mind. His lungs greedily took in great draughts of
+its light purity, and his blood raced so merrily that he grew confused.
+Always the pain bit into his eyes, and through his half-closed lids he
+saw but dimly the people around him and the pavement beneath his feet.
+
+He went back to the little room that he had hired, and slept heavily
+into the afternoon. When he went out to get his supper at a restaurant,
+the gaunt figures of his fellow-criminals were at every step. They
+gazed curiously into the lighted shop-windows; they talked in groups
+that overflowed the curbstone into the gutter. In a vacant lot back of
+the Methodist church the glare of a camp-fire showed the covered wagon
+that was to give a night's shelter to the family whose shadows were
+cast large against its canvas side.
+
+As he passed each group of them the odor that he had breathed for an
+hour in the morning assailed his nostrils and seemed to force itself
+into his lungs. He could not eat his supper, and he spent a restless
+night, filled with horrid dreams. Sydney was selling whisky to Mr.
+Weaver. The Judge turned into Dr. Morgan, who grinned triumphantly at
+his victim as he stood in the crowd behind the rail. He bent to kiss
+the hand of Mrs. Carroll, and she held in it a shell filled with
+bird-shot.
+
+Always the sickening odor of the overheated court-room choked him, and
+his head throbbed unceasingly, and the balls of his eyes beat in
+anguished unison.
+
+The first electric-car passing the house in the early dawn crashed into
+his dream as the bullet that was speeding from his revolver to Dr.
+Morgan's heart, and found its resting-place in Sydney's breast instead.
+He woke to find himself soaked with the sweat of exhaustion.
+
+The cloud of that day on the mountain still clung around his fancy as
+he went out upon the street again. A horrible something, as penetrable
+as mist, as keen as the sting of conscience, as inevitable as the
+burden of life, seemed to inwrap him. He felt it dully, and wondered
+how much of it was physical and how much mental, and he didn't care
+which it was.
+
+He ate a little breakfast, though it was odious to him, and went out
+to meet again the lantern-jawed mountaineers, who, like him,--_like
+him_,--were drifting towards the Federal Building.
+
+Yes, he was going to the court-room to be tried for a criminal offence;
+he was a criminal, a criminal, a criminal. It buzzed angrily through
+his head.
+
+He stumbled over a child sitting beside his mother on the edge of the
+sidewalk in front of the post-office. The woman had her elbows on her
+knees and her face in her hands, and in her eyes was the look of
+waiting that comes to women with uncertain husbands. She cuffed the
+child, and then shook him to still the uproar she had created. Two more
+children sat on the curb beyond her, and beyond them, up Haywood
+Street, men leaned against the iron fence or squatted in pairs upon the
+sidewalk. Friedrich wondered how they kept their balance, and went on
+up the stairs, through pools of tobacco-juice, to the court-room, where
+the day's work already had begun.
+
+He secured a seat, and leaned his head against the wall. A negro man,
+accused of fraudulently obtaining a pension, was explaining volubly how
+he had received the injury upon which he based his claim.
+
+His case was given to the jury, which filed out, and the second set of
+men made themselves comfortable in the abandoned seats, with much
+scraping of chairs and of throats, and adjustment of cuspidors to the
+range of each juror.
+
+The case of the next prisoner, tried on a charge of a fraudulent use of
+the mails, lashed to frenzy the prosecuting attorney. He compared this
+foul violator of the laws of his country with Sextus and Benedict
+Arnold and Judas Iscariot. The national eagle had been insulted in his
+nest, and his screams were ringing from mountain-peak to mountain-peak.
+The echoes of Mitchell were sending back the cry, and Saint Elias's
+snowy top gave forth an answering sound.
+
+Von Rittenheim understood enough of the rapid English to realize its
+irrelevancy, and wondered idly why the man was such a fool, not knowing
+that it was the presence of a visiting national senator from the hotel
+that had inspired this eloquence.
+
+The air grew worse as more and more people pushed into the already
+crowded room. Some one opened a window, and some one else immediately
+begged to have it shut. There was a constant shuffling of feet and a
+restless moving of hands. Friedrich found himself smothered by the
+evil-smelling clothes of his companions as he sat against the wall, and
+he stood, to bring his head up into a clearer air. The steam in one of
+the radiators began to thump and clang, and each crash smote a raw
+nerve in his beating temple.
+
+The feeling of striving against the mist, yielding but inexorable, had
+him fully in its possession, and through the fog he saw the face of
+Wilder, the deputy-marshal. Their eyes met, and the malice in the
+officer's drove the German mad. How long must he stand here and wait
+among these swine? Yet he remembered many hours of waiting motionless
+upon his horse, and he rebuked himself for a poor soldier.
+
+Ah, if only he could tell the whole truth; if only he could stand
+before the bar of the world--of God himself--and say, "I am guilty. Of
+violating the law I am guilty. I am willing to bear my punishment for
+what I have done. But if I am guilty, how is he innocent who brake my
+bread and then tempted me? He who ate my last mouthful, and then
+offered me an unlawful chance to get more? Is the law of hospitality to
+be held of no account? And how is he innocent who poses as my friend,
+who drinks from my cup, who holds my hand in his, and who goes forth to
+betray me? Is there no law that binds a friend in honor? I have broken
+a law--the law of man. Those two men of whom I speak have broken the
+laws of the heart, the ties of honor and of love. I am a criminal in
+the eyes of men. They are sinners before the face of God."
+
+Friedrich was trembling as he felt these words flow through his mind.
+The men on each side of him noticed his agitation, and drew away from
+the emotion of his tense face. So insistently did the words ring in his
+ears that it seemed to him that he must have spoken them aloud. Yet he
+was conscious that he had not, and that when the time came for him to
+face this throng he would never go beyond the first three words, "I am
+guilty."
+
+He found himself speaking quietly to Mr. Weaver, and looked on at the
+conversation as if he were a thing apart from himself.
+
+"The next case but one after this will begin the moonshine cases, and
+you-all surely won't come on until to-morrow morning. You might as well
+go now."
+
+"I thank you," said Friedrich, and stumbled from the room.
+
+In the corridor he leaned for a moment against the wall, that he might
+be sure to keep his balance as he went down the steep stairs dizzying
+before him.
+
+How he reached the court on the next day he never could remember. He
+was conscious of feeling very ill, worse than ever he had felt in his
+life. His spine pulsed painfully up into his brain; his eyes burned
+back in their sockets until the two shafts of anguish met in one
+well-nigh unbearable torture. The cloud-mist wrapped about him and
+hindered him, and yielded only to blind him more. The same evil smells
+reeked around him, and a wave of nausea surged within him.
+
+He heard his name called, and some one guided him to that part of the
+Judge's platform that served as a dock. He raised his hand, and heard
+afar off some words about the truth and God. He was bidden to kiss the
+filthy cover of a book. Dimly he heard a question and answered it.
+
+"I am guilty."
+
+A chair was pushed towards him and he sat down, conscious of a strange
+silence in the usually noisy room.
+
+He heard Wilder telling his story of his purchase of a quart of whisky,
+"an' he owned it was blockade," and a long and detailed account of "the
+Dutchy's" resistance to arrest, in which the ferocity of his behavior
+would have been creditable to a bloodthirsty villain driven to
+desperate straits.
+
+A voice asked him if he had anything to say, and he heard himself
+repeating once again, "I am guilty."
+
+Then the voice of the laureate of the eagle's nest soared, and fell to
+a whisper, and swelled again, and Friedrich wondered if "example" would
+be "_Muster_" or "_Beispiel_." And "different class,"--what did that
+mean? How stupid he was about English!
+
+By-and-by there was silence, and the Judge's voice said,--
+
+"Three months or a hundred dollars."
+
+And then there was a long, long silence.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+In the Corn
+
+
+Summer had come.
+
+The soft days of spring had gone by, the days when the feeling of
+growth impresses every sense. The haze-filled April mornings, warming
+into the forcing ardor of noon, had stirred into life the activity
+latent in root and twig. May's glowing sun, shining through the
+scantily covered branches, made dancing motes of heat wave above the
+surface of red clay. The aspens fluttered into exquisite greenness. The
+sourwood put forth the satin of its tender leaves. All over the
+mountain-sides and through the forest thickets the oak-tips blushed
+faint pink, a delicate velvet against the stout bristles of the yellow
+pines.
+
+Birds flew over, bound for the North, each with his instinctive goal;
+some almost at their journey's end, others with many a long ethereal
+mile before them. Some of them sojourned for a few days, following the
+ploughman as he overturned the mellow earth. Others let this high land
+be the end of their wanderings, and settled here to the duty of
+love-making and the pleasures of domestic life.
+
+The azalea flamed in yellow and orange and scarlet glory, a note of
+savage color on spring's soft palette. The delicate clusters of the
+laurel, and, later, of the rhododendron, crowned the stems of the
+parent bush, as sometimes a fair girl springs from a rough and ugly
+father.
+
+The germ grew strong within its warm seed-prison, and sent inquiring
+leaflets into the upper world; and the adventurers never returned, but
+sent back demands for food and drink, as colonists to a new land rely
+upon the mother-country for sustenance and support.
+
+On the steep mountain-sides, and in the coves that dimple the lower
+slopes; on the flat lands of the plateau, and in the meadows along the
+French Broad, the slender shafts of the corn-leaves were pushing upward
+with what success their position fostered. By mid-June the crop in the
+bottom-land was knee-high, while that nourished by the field over which
+Sydney had stumbled on the top of Buck Mountain was only half as tall.
+
+Bud Yarebrough and Pink Pressley were hoeing among stalks half-way
+between these heights on the upland slopes of the Baron's farm, whose
+cultivable land they had hired for the season. Stripped to their
+shirts, whose open throats showed each a triangle of sunburned skin,
+they worked rapidly down the adjoining furrows, one keeping a hoe's
+length behind the other, that their tools might not interfere.
+Conversation was more pithy than voluble.
+
+"Damn hot," ejaculated Pink, stopping to hitch up his trousers, and
+then to spit on his hands before resuming his hoe.
+
+"Mos' dinner time," returned Bud, looking up at the sun, and then over
+his shoulder towards the spring-betraying group of trees to which
+Melissa was accustomed to bring his dinner when he was working here.
+"They's some feller tyin' his horse in front of the cabin. Who is hit?"
+
+Pink leaned on his hoe and squinted across the blazing field to the
+grove that sheltered von Rittenheim's house.
+
+"Bob Morgan, Ah reckon. Looks like his horse."
+
+"Come to get somethin' fo' Mr. Baron. O-oh, Bob!"
+
+Bob looked around his horse's nose, and held up his hand in token of
+understanding. He unlocked the cabin and disappeared within, coming out
+again with a bundle, which he tied on to the saddle, and then led his
+animal towards the trees at the spring. The two laborers tossed down
+their hoes and moved to the same haven.
+
+"What time is hit, Bob?"
+
+Morgan looked at his watch.
+
+"Five past twelve, Pink. Working hard?"
+
+"Yep. Tol'able big crop." He sat down at the foot of a tree and opened
+his dinner-pail.
+
+"Have some?" he asked, pointing the opening at Bob, who was settling
+into repose with his hat over his face.
+
+"No, I thank you. I must be going home in a few minutes. How are you
+getting on? Bought any more stock lately?"
+
+Bob lay on his back with one long leg balanced on the other knee like a
+see-saw on a saw-horse. The rowel of his spur rattled as he jerked his
+foot up and down at the ankle.
+
+"No." Pink had his mouth full.
+
+"How many head have you got now?"
+
+"Oh, jus' a mule 'n a couple o' cows."
+
+"Sold your horse?"
+
+"'M. Here Bud, take some o' this. Ah jus' natchelly hate to have
+you-all die o' starvation."
+
+"No, she's comin'. Ah see her now." And Bud ran to meet his wife and to
+relieve her of the baby.
+
+"Hungry, ain' he?" sneered Pink, as he watched his partner's alacrity,
+while Bob struggled to his feet to greet Melissa.
+
+"Say, you-all wasn' wantin' to buy a cow, was ye, Bob?" asked Pink.
+
+"Got one to sell?"
+
+"Yes, the muley cow."
+
+"No, I don't guess I want her."
+
+"You seemed so damn curious about my stock, Ah 'lowed ye were
+purchasin'."
+
+"Oh, no. I just thought you must have an extra lot of cattle to be
+providing for, or you wouldn't have needed to hire this land and to
+make an extra big crop of corn."
+
+A dull red showed on Pink's forehead above the tan-mark, and crowded
+into his pale-blue eyes, destitute of lashes. The two men looked
+steadily at each other. Then, as Melissa drew near, Pink broke into an
+ugly laugh.
+
+"Give a dog a bad name, eh? You-all needn' be quite so bigoty now yo'
+fine friends have been at the same business."
+
+He waved his hand towards the cabin, and Bob, in his turn, flushed as
+he shook hands with Melissa.
+
+The girl gave scant greeting to Pressley. Her husband's new friendship
+with him was distasteful to her; it filled her with foreboding when she
+remembered his threats.
+
+Yet there had been nothing definite of which she could complain to Bud
+since the day when Miss Carroll had caught Pink trying to kiss her. He
+had never been to the cabin since his rebuff, but she knew that he and
+Bud were constantly together, and this partnership in the hiring of the
+Baron's land was a culmination of their friendly relations.
+
+"Ah don' see how ye c'n stan' him, nohow, Bud," she often said, and Bud
+as often replied,--
+
+"Ah never did see anythin' like the prejudice o' women! They certainly
+ain' no doubt about yo' sex, M'lissy."
+
+Pink bore his part in the present conversation with no trace of
+embarrassment. Indeed, there was an assertiveness in his bearing that
+reacted upon Melissa to produce extreme shyness. Neither cause nor
+effect escaped Morgan's shrewd black eyes.
+
+"How's Mr. Baron?" asked Bud, between bites.
+
+"Doing very well. He gets out on the porch every day now."
+
+"Great luck he has," growled Pressley. "Yo' father never paid my fine
+when Ah was given mah choice between 'a hundred dollars or three
+months.'"
+
+"My father likes to choose his friends," replied Bob, sternly. Melissa
+looked distressed.
+
+"What's sauce fo' the goose ought to be sauce fo' the gander," argued
+the ex-moonshiner.
+
+"It ain' fittin' fo' you-all to say anythin' ag'in' Dr. Morgan,
+whatever he may _se_-lect to do," asserted Bud, combatively, and Pink
+hastened to hedge.
+
+"Ah 'low not. He certainly was white to me when Ah broke mah laig. 'N
+as fo' Mr. Baron, Ah always did like him, 'n this is a new tie between
+us. Now we're brothers."
+
+He chuckled with a full appreciation of his insolence, for the story of
+von Rittenheim's downfall and its cause was well known throughout the
+country.
+
+Melissa went white at the malignity of his tone. She turned to Bob with
+a question:
+
+"Mrs. Carroll 'n Miss Sydney--are they wore to a frazzle takin' care o'
+him?"
+
+"Mrs. Carroll's all right. They've had two nurses from Asheville all
+the time, you know. Miss Sydney's wonderful. There's such a lot to do
+about a house when there's a serious illness, even for people who
+aren't doing the actual nursing."
+
+"Ah s'pose so. Wouldn' hit be nice, jus' like a story, 'f they'd fall
+in love with each other--Mr. Baron 'n Miss Sydney?"
+
+"Now, ain' that jus' like a girl!" ejaculated Bud, gulping the last of
+his coffee.
+
+Bob sat down and fanned himself with his hat.
+
+"Hot, ain' hit?" observed Pink, dryly. Then he turned to Melissa.
+
+"You-all's fo'gittin' that he might be in prison at this minute. No
+woman o' his class would marry him now. No woman likes to think her
+man's guilty o' breakin' the law, eh? You-all wouldn' like yo' husband
+to be a moonshiner, would ye?"
+
+The man's body leaned towards the girl, and he fixed her with a cruel
+stare from which she seemed unable to move her eyes. Seated as he was,
+he looked like a huge snake upreared to strike.
+
+He went on mercilessly. "O' co'se ye wouldn'. Ah expect you'd never
+hol' up yo' haid ag'in. What woman can when her man's that-a-way?"
+
+"Oh, dry up, Pink," cried Bud. "You-all make me feel like Ah had the
+constable after me now, 'n Lawd knows hit ain' _me_ that's raced 'em
+through these woods."
+
+Pink acknowledged the shot with a grunt.
+
+Melissa rose to go, and Bud picked up the baby and handed it to her.
+
+"Hit's her busy day fo' sleepin', ain' hit?" he said, poking a blunt
+finger into the soft cheek.
+
+"I must go, too," said Bob, "or my mother'll jar me up for being late."
+
+"Good-by," said Bud, genially. "Stop by ag'in some time."
+
+"Miss Sydney's been so busy she ain' rode over here fo' a long time.
+Will you-all give mah love to her, please?" said Melissa, timidly.
+
+"'N mine," Pink started to add, but a dangerous look in Bob's eye
+induced him to change it to "'N mah _re_-gards to Mr. Baron," though
+his grin remained unaltered.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+Illumination
+
+
+For the first time since the beginning of his illness, von Rittenheim
+was walking unassisted towards the cluster of trees on the Oakwood
+lawn, beneath whose shelter rugs and low chairs and a tea-table made a
+summer sitting-room. Mrs. Carroll, who already was established in the
+shade, watched anxiously her guest's feeble approach.
+
+"You should have let the nurse or James come with you," she called to
+him. "It's too far for you to walk alone."
+
+"Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, it is so good not to have that admirable nurse
+or the good Uncle Yimmy with me."
+
+He let himself down carefully into a big chair.
+
+"And you see that not yet do I disdain cushions. The down of that
+pr-rovident bird, the eider duck, makes a substitute for the flesh that
+ought to pad my poor bones. Thank you, Uncle Yimmy," to the old negro,
+who had just set down the tea-tray, "thank you, yes, one more pillow
+behind my shoulders."
+
+"You'll have tea?"
+
+"May I have tea? Is it possible that I r-return in one same day to two
+examples of independence? I walk abr-road alone, and I say again to my
+dear Mrs. Carroll, 'I thank you. It does me pleasure to accept a cup of
+tea from your hands.'" He held up his own hand against the sun. "A
+little worse for the wear, my hand, eh? But still of use."
+
+A slight change of position brought into view the field at the foot of
+the knoll upon whose top they were. Friedrich sat upright in his chair,
+while a flush tinged his worn cheeks.
+
+"What makes Miss Sydney down there?" he cried.
+
+"Sydney? Oh, she is breaking some of the colts; teaching them to jump,
+I think she said, to-day."
+
+Mrs. Carroll adjusted her eye-glasses. Two negro grooms were setting up
+a low hurdle with wings, while two small black boys dangled joyously
+from the halters of a couple of young horses, and a third bore Sydney's
+saddle upon his head.
+
+"Is it Bob Mor-rgan with Miss Sydney?" asked Friedrich, wistfully, as
+the girl walked across the field beside a man who was leading a tall
+gray, already saddled.
+
+"Yes, that's Bob. A huge fellow, isn't he?"
+
+"And fear you not that Miss Sydney should ride those so wild colts?"
+
+"Not now. I used to be frightened to death, but I've seen her and Bob
+down there doing that for so many years that I've learned not to be
+afraid. She rides really very well, you know, and Bob is careful of
+her."
+
+"He would be."
+
+Von Rittenheim sighed, and leaned back with closed eyes. He wished with
+all his soul that it were he down in the field fitting the saddle--that
+_dear_ side-saddle--to that dancing creature; that it were he who was
+responsible for the safety of Sydney.
+
+"Bob gives her a lead over, you see, on his horse, which is a
+well-trained animal."
+
+Friedrich opened his eyes in time to see the gray take off neatly.
+Sydney followed, and lifted her mount so cleverly that he had leaped
+his first hurdle before he knew what he was doing. The watchers on the
+knoll could see Bob, sitting on his horse at one side, clap his hands
+in approval, while the pickaninnies turned cartwheels in the grass.
+
+"She does r-ride most beautifully, Miss Sydney. It is truly pleasurable
+to see her," murmured von Rittenheim, though his expression was one of
+approval rather than delight.
+
+"Do you know, Mrs. Carroll, have I told you how much this _Aussicht--view_,
+is it not?--and the position of your house make me to think of my home?
+It is on the edge of the Schwarzwald, and we look down from the Schloss
+into a valley, oh, so lovely! with trees and a little r-river."
+
+"A much wilder prospect than we have here at Oakwood."
+
+"But not more beautiful, and the feeling is the same."
+
+A vulgar emotion assailed the well-kept precincts of Mrs. Carroll's
+mind. Curiosity, commonplace curiosity surged within her. She yielded
+to its force.
+
+"How could you bear to leave it?"
+
+"It was the old pr-reference of the man in the window of the burning
+castle,--behind, the flames r-roaring mightily, and below, the spears
+of his enemies."
+
+"A choice between evils."
+
+"Yes, if you will for-rgive my calling your country an evil. I was
+unhappy--too unhappy to stay where every day I saw something to make me
+worse; and that evil was gr-reater than to banish myself, even though I
+do love my country dearly."
+
+"Was it necessary for you to come so far? Could you not find peace in
+your own land?"
+
+"I thought not. You see--if I do not weary you I will tell you. Shall I
+tell you?"
+
+"You never weary me," returned Mrs. Carroll, heartily. "I shall
+consider that you do me an honor if you care to speak to me about
+yourself."
+
+"It shall be only a little," began Friedrich, repenting of his
+expansiveness. "Perhaps I have told you that I am the older of my
+family. I have one br-rother four years younger. Our parents are dead
+several years, and Maximilian is married two years ago with Hilda von
+Arnim."
+
+"You spoke of them both when you were ill; in your delirium, you know."
+
+"Of Max and Hilda? What did I say?"
+
+A sharp note was in Friedrich's voice.
+
+"My dear Baron, I must make the humiliating confession that long disuse
+has impaired sadly my understanding of German. If you should speak to
+me very slowly, probably I could comprehend you, but at that time you
+were not speaking slowly."
+
+"My nurses?"
+
+"Neither of them speaks a word of anything but English."
+
+"It is an escape," he murmured. "Forgive me, _gnaedige Frau_. It is a
+startle to think that perhaps you have given to the world your heart's
+thoughts."
+
+"Be reassured. It was only the names, Max and Hilda, that we
+understood."
+
+"When my tr-rouble came to me, it was unbearable to stay at the
+Schloss, so I must go away. Yet Maximilian was not able to pr-reserve
+the estate as it should be kept. He is not r-rich, Max, and he is a
+little what you call swift, eh? He spends much."
+
+"I see."
+
+"So if I leave him to care for the Schloss I must leave him also my
+incomings, and, if I act so, I cannot live myself in my own country
+where I have friends of the army and of society; where I have a--what
+is it?--a stand?"
+
+"Position?"
+
+"Yes, yes, a position to hold up. I must go where it concerns nobody if
+I am changed in purse. So to America I came, it is about two years
+since, and for one year I tr-ravelled everywhere to see where I liked
+best, and for the diversion also, for I was most sad. Then my money
+grew down so small that I saw I must stop, so to this lovely land I
+happened, and I bought my little farm. But, alas! I fear I am not a
+farmer. Still, I shall learn. I am determined of that."
+
+"I'm sure you will. You haven't had a chance yet."
+
+"And this year, what can I do? I am so misfortunate as to be away and
+sick at the time of planting."
+
+"You won't be without some little return, for when we found that you
+would be ill so long we let your fields to two men who have planted
+them, and will pay you one-third of their crop of corn. That's the
+customary rent here, and it will keep your mule through next winter, at
+any rate."
+
+"Now, that is truly kind and thoughtful. It is, indeed, fr-riendly!"
+
+"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that arrangement."
+
+Von Rittenheim sat erect and stared at the little old lady before him.
+A look of confused and struggling recollection was called into life by
+her words.
+
+"I must thank--whom?"
+
+The spirit of the gallant adventurer who had been Mrs. Carroll's
+immigrant ancestor to the Virginia wilds pushed her on to dare the
+situation. She also sat upright, and the two faced each other
+undauntedly.
+
+"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that kindness, and for others even
+greater."
+
+"Dr. Mor-rgan?"
+
+Clearer remembrance brought with it the old feeling of suspicion and
+its accompanying look of hatred, which distorted Friedrich's handsome
+face.
+
+"Yes, Dr. Morgan. I want you to listen to what I am going to tell you.
+You are well enough now to hear the truth."
+
+"It is your right, madam, to say to me what you may like."
+
+Von Rittenheim turned his stern face towards the training-field, and
+kept his eyes upon the moving forms that shifted below him.
+
+Mrs. Carroll was unabashed.
+
+"Dr. Morgan is an old and tried friend of mine and of all my family. He
+has seen life come and go at Oakwood. He rejoiced with us at Sydney's
+birth, and he was my chief help and support when her father and mother
+left us two here together, alone."
+
+With a certain tenderness--the yearning that a man feels to protect the
+feeble and the helpless--Friedrich turned his softened eyes towards
+her.
+
+"I tell you this because I can say truthfully that I know him to be
+faithful in friendship and incapable of treachery."
+
+Friedrich turned again with tightened lips to his contemplation of the
+meadow.
+
+"We heard of your being summoned to court and for what purpose."
+
+Mrs. Carroll stopped, for a grayness settled over the young man's face,
+and the eyes that he turned upon hers were filled with horror.
+
+"You had forgotten?"
+
+"Yes, I had forgotten."
+
+All the pride went out of him, as the fading of the sun's flush leaves
+the evening clouds without illumination and dull.
+
+"I had for-rgotten, but now I r-remember. It comes back to me. Yes, now
+I r-remember all--all."
+
+He turned away his face both from her and from the field below, and
+rested his cheek on his hand. Mrs. Carroll noticed the thinness of his
+wrist, and her heart misgave her.
+
+"Shall I go on?"
+
+"If it please you."
+
+"Bob Morgan went into Asheville to follow your career in behalf of all
+your friends here."
+
+Von Rittenheim's head fell lower.
+
+"He was in the court-room when you were----"
+
+The old lady hesitated and watched von Rittenheim sharply. She was
+doubtful of his strength after all.
+
+"When I was--yes, continue, please," he said, with muffled voice.
+
+"When you were sentenced."
+
+She hastened on, pretending not to hear the groan that followed her
+revelation.
+
+"He galloped out here at once as fast as he could, and told us about
+it--his father and me. He feared an illness for you then--you looked
+not yourself, he said. We decided that it was best for you to come here
+to Oakwood. We could not bear to think of your going to the hospital."
+
+Friedrich felt vaguely across the table for the plump little hand of
+his hostess, and pressed it blindly.
+
+"They drove into town that same afternoon, Dr. Morgan in our carriage,
+and Bob in his buggy, and found you in the--found you very ill."
+
+"Found me where?"
+
+"You were delirious even then."
+
+"Found me where?"
+
+Friedrich pushed aside the cups and placed both elbows on the table. He
+seemed to Mrs. Carroll to have grown haggard since she had begun her
+recital.
+
+"Found me where?" he repeated for the third time.
+
+"You insist?"
+
+"It is my r-right."
+
+"They found you in--in the jail."
+
+Mrs. Carroll turned away from the wretched man before her and sobbed
+undisguisedly. On them fell a quiet pregnant with emotion. The hush was
+broken by the crash of a tea-cup upon which Friedrich's fingers had
+happened to fall.
+
+"Bob secured the nurses and drove one of them out in the buggy, and the
+Doctor and the other one brought you in the carriage."
+
+"Why did they let me go from the--jail?"
+
+"The Doctor paid your fine."
+
+Often during the preceding weeks Mrs. Carroll had thought of this
+conversation with von Rittenheim, and the statement that she had just
+made always had figured as the climax of her argument in the Doctor's
+behalf. Now she felt no pleasure in it. The man before her was too
+crushed for her to exult over. He made no comment, merely said,
+reflectively,--
+
+"Yes, there was a fine. It comes to me,--'one hundred dollars or three
+months.' It is the last thing I r-remember."
+
+"You were dangerously ill by the time you reached Oakwood, and for
+three days Dr. Morgan left you only to visit his other patients.
+Between the attacks of stupor you talked a great deal, usually in
+German, but occasionally in English. From what you said then, and what
+Dr. Morgan remembered of conversations you had had with him, and from
+what Bob learned in Asheville, we gathered that you thought that when
+Dr. and Mrs. Morgan met the marshal on the road after they had been to
+your house, they betrayed you to him, and your arrest was the
+consequence. Is that so?"
+
+Von Rittenheim nodded. "Yes, it is so."
+
+"I hope it will come to you as clearly as we see it who are the
+Doctor's friends, that he is incapable of such a thing."
+
+"Dear lady, even already I think I see it. I r-remember darkly my
+trial; how the officer told of his trick to entr-rap me into selling.
+Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, I was anxious to despair from my so unusual
+poverty, and I was hungry, and bitten with shame for my weakness--and
+hopeless."
+
+Unconsciously his eyes turned to the field below, where Sydney's hair
+gleamed red bronze in the sunset light. She was dismissing the men and
+horses. A great wall seemed to von Rittenheim to spring up between
+them, a wall made thick by his folly, and high by his disgrace, and
+strong by his weakness.
+
+"Though I am shameful to say such things as if they were excuses,
+nothing excuses me. I am without justification. I say so most humbly to
+you."
+
+Weakly he leaned back among his cushions. Mrs. Carroll glanced at him
+and hurried on.
+
+"When the first fury of the disease was spent, you seemed distressed at
+the sight of the Doctor, though you did not recognize him fully; so,
+though he has not failed to come here twice each day, it is through the
+nurses' reports and Bob's that he has been treating you. He can do so
+much better for you now if you will see him."
+
+"If I will see him?" he repeated. "Yes, I can at least make some little
+amends for my folly--my distr-rust. But can I win back ever my
+self-r-respect, so that you and other people can r-respect me? So
+that----"
+
+He stopped as Sydney's voice reached him. She was coming up the hill,
+laughing with Bob.
+
+Von Rittenheim looked appealingly at Mrs. Carroll.
+
+"Sydney," she called, "go on to the house, dear, with Bob, and send
+James here."
+
+She rose and laid her hand tenderly on the bent head.
+
+"Stay here a while. It is still quite warm enough for you."
+
+She went slowly across the lawn and disappeared beneath the veranda's
+roses. A level ray from the setting sun touched Friedrich's fair hair
+with gold, and went on to be splintered into a thousand tiny shafts
+against the swelling side of the silver cream-jug.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Reconciliation
+
+
+The sunshine of a clear June day was beating upon the gravel of the
+driveway, and a few woolly clouds, the forerunners of the early
+afternoon's daily shower, clung over the tops of the southern
+mountains.
+
+Behind the screen of vines and climbing roses that sheltered the porch
+von Rittenheim sat reading a New York paper of two days before. It was
+the morning after his explanation with Mrs. Carroll, and the emotional
+outcome of the talk had been a state of abasement of soul that had
+sapped his little store of strength. His thin hands shook weakly, and
+he continually changed his position, and glanced expectantly at the
+long window which opened upon the gallery.
+
+Sydney's voice inside the house made him clutch his paper nervously.
+She spoke loudly, as in warning.
+
+"The Baron? You'll find him on the porch, Dr. Morgan. The nurse says
+he didn't sleep very well last night."
+
+"He didn't? We must mend that." And the Doctor stepped from the window
+and approached his long-unseen patient.
+
+Von Rittenheim looked up into the wrinkled brown face with its shrewd,
+kind eyes, and covered his own eyes with his hand.
+
+"You know?" he asked, brokenly. "Mrs. Carroll has told you?" He felt
+his other hand taken into a cordial grasp.
+
+"Mrs. Carroll has told me that she has described to you all the
+happenings of yo' illness that had escaped yo' attention, so to speak.
+Curious troubles, these brain affairs, aren't they? Make you feel as if
+you'd been on an excursion outside of yo'self for a while, and had to
+hear all the home news when you got back."
+
+Von Rittenheim grew composed as the Doctor rambled on.
+
+"She has not told you," he said, insistently, "of my so deep r-regret
+for the injustice that I made towards you. I can never do atonement for
+my br-rutal behavior, for my unjust suspiciousness. That you can take
+my hand shows much par-rdon in you."
+
+"Now, don't talk about that any more, Baron. It ain't worth it," Dr.
+Morgan replied, awkwardly. "Ah don't guess that circumstances looked
+very favorable to me. Anyway, you-all can please me best now by doing
+credit to my doctoring skill. Quit having the appearance of a skeleton
+just as quick as you can."
+
+"I'll try," answered Friedrich, meekly.
+
+"And don't worry too much over what's gone by," went on the Doctor,
+clumsily. "Breaking the law's breaking the law, Ah'm not denying that;
+but it makes a lot of difference what the motive is, and you've
+suffered your share of punishment, too. It's the right of every man to
+begin afresh. Avoid mud and give yo' horse a firm take-off, and he'll
+leap as clean as a whistle for you. Lawd, Ah'm getting plumb
+religious," he ejaculated, wiping his face.
+
+Friedrich's knowledge of English was put to a test, but he listened
+with his eyes as well as his ears, and nodded slowly.
+
+"I think I understand," he said. "But do you think that people--my
+fr-riends"--his eyes turned towards the house--"that my friends can
+overlook it--can ever think of me as they used to think of me?"
+
+"Oh, I reckon she will," replied Dr. Morgan, with a smile that
+disconcerted von Rittenheim and drove him to a new topic.
+
+"You will for-rgive me if I do talk some business with you," he said,
+hastily.
+
+"Do you feel well enough?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I shall feel much better when I have cleared my mind of all
+these things. I want to say to you that I do much appr-reciate, also,
+besides your kindness, all the money that you have paid, and--no, let
+me talk, please, Herr Doctor--and I must tell you that I shall write
+to-day to Germany for a r-remittance. There is a sum which I can have.
+Yes, I see you look, wondering that I have lived so poor. Well, I
+explain to you that I have sworn that I would not use it for myself--I
+have another use for it--so long as I am well and can earn enough for
+living; but now I am not well, and I have expenses in the past weeks,
+and I must live until I grow str-rong to work in some way; so am I
+justified to myself to send for the money, you see."
+
+"Fix it any way you like," said the Doctor, cheerily, "only remember
+that if it ain't convenient to pay up _ever_,--why, just banish it from
+your mind, and Ah'll never think of it again, Ah promise you. Now, is
+that all?" he asked, as he leaned towards his patient and put a
+practised finger on his pulse. "Yes? Then Ah'd like to know where that
+Sydney is with that egg-nog. Here, you Sydney," he cried, putting his
+head into the house and letting his cracked voice echo into the
+darkness. "What kind of a nurse are you? How do you expect to rise in
+the profession, miss, if you don't have an egg-nog ready the instant
+yo' patient happens to think of it? Oh, here you are! Well, sit down
+here, then, and see that the Baron takes every drop of that, and don't
+tire him out with yo' chatter. Do you understand?"
+
+After which burst he kissed her, and disappeared into the house. Sydney
+turned blushing to the Baron, and laughed at his wistful look.
+
+"Age has its compensations," he said, as he took the tumbler from her.
+"But I do not begrudge the good Doctor all the happiness that comes to
+him. He is a most generous man."
+
+"He's a darling!"
+
+"A darling? Ah, yes. I should not have used that word for _him_, but I
+agree with the sentiment."
+
+"You are critical this morning. Don't you ever allow yourself any
+liberty of speech in German? Do you always say exactly what you mean,
+and use exactly the right word?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Sydney, you describe to me a pig--no, a pr-rig person. Surely
+I use many picture words in my thinking of--well, just to illustrate
+what I mean, I will say, in my thinking of _you_!"
+
+Sydney moved her position so that her face was partly hidden behind the
+back of the Baron's wheeled chair.
+
+"Now, there is _Schatz_," went on Friedrich, sipping his egg-nog
+placidly, but keeping a wary eye upon the bit of pink cheek that was
+still within his range of vision. "I like to think of you as
+_Schatz_,"--there was a danger-betokening movement of the glowing
+head,--"because you are such a treasure to your grandmother."
+
+He paused a moment, but there was no reply.
+
+"And _Perle_--it is a pretty word, _Perle_--it makes you to think of
+the r-radiance of the moon, so pure, so soft. Yes," he went on,
+hastily, "_Perle_ r-rhymes with _Erle_--that means an alder-tree--and
+that r-reminds me of you."
+
+"I must say I fail to see the resemblance," came an injured voice from
+behind the chair.
+
+"Not see? Oh, Miss Sydney, surely--with your cleverness! Listen to
+this, then; perhaps you like it better that I call you my--I mean
+_a_--_Rose_."
+
+"That's because my hair is red."
+
+"It is a white r-rose that always figures in my mind. A beautiful white
+r-rose with a heart of gold."
+
+By a dexterous touch upon one wheel he whirled his chair about so that
+he saw her downcast face.
+
+"A heart full of goodness to others is it, and of courage, and of
+love."
+
+He was leaning eagerly towards her. She lifted her eyes with an effort,
+and met his. Then he remembered.
+
+"Yes," he continued, hurriedly, "full of love for the poor and the
+desolate."
+
+Sydney rose.
+
+"Your pretty figures do me too much honor," she said, unsteadily, and
+went into the house with lingering tread and look.
+
+Friedrich gazed after her.
+
+"God knows I would be counted among the poor and the desolate," he
+cried, softly, to himself. "But I must not speak again of this until I
+am more worthy to stand before her--if ever that can be!"
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+The Fourth of July
+
+
+That the settle-_ment_ celebrated the Fourth of July was not due to an
+exuberance of patriotism, but to the mercantile spirit of Uncle Jimmy's
+son, Pete.
+
+Pete was married, and lived in one of the cottages on the Oakwood
+estate, where he worked intermittently, sandwiching between thin slices
+of manual labor thick layers of less legitimate emprise.
+
+Independence Day, as the anniversary of the birth of our country's
+liberty, is not celebrated with enthusiasm in the South. It meets with
+more cordial acceptance when regarded as another opportunity for
+knocking off work.
+
+Pete's plan catered to all conditions of conscience, from the seared
+commodity that asked no excuse for playing to the scrupulous article
+that considered justification necessary, and found it in the
+infrequency of such amusement.
+
+He advertised far and wide, by placards in the scattered stores and
+post-offices that cling near the railway stations and dot the Haywood
+Road on the other side of the river, a--
+
+                            GANDER PULIN
+                            FORTH OF JULY
+                            AT 5 OCLOCK.
+                            FRADYS FEILD.
+
+"I always make a point of going to these outdoor gatherings of the
+country people," explained Mrs. Carroll to the Baron, as they drove
+towards the field. "I think they like to have me."
+
+Von Rittenheim had insisted upon going home to his cabin a few days
+before, since which time the old lady had missed him grievously. He was
+not yet strong enough to take the five-mile ride to Oakwood on his
+mule, and she had made the gander-pulling an excuse to go to his cabin
+to see how his housekeeping was progressing, and to take him for a
+drive.
+
+"We don't have gander-pullings often now, since the law requires that
+the fowl shall be dead," she explained. "It demands less skill to break
+the poor thing's neck when it isn't writhing wildly."
+
+"And it does not r-rouse the br-rutal desire to kill that seems to live
+in every one of us men. Will Miss Sydney be there?"
+
+"Yes, she is going on horseback--"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"--with John Wendell."
+
+"Eh?"
+
+"You didn't meet them--John and Katrina Wendell--when they were here in
+the spring. They went North again not long after you came to Oakwood."
+
+"Oh, dear madam, I do so earnestly hope that my going to Oakwood did
+not depr-rive you of more welcome guests."
+
+"Not the least in the world. They went back to New York to put the
+crown to a pretty romance."
+
+"A love-story!"
+
+"Katrina was sent down here, under her brother's care, to forget a
+certain Tom Schuyler, whom her mother considered impossible because he
+was penniless."
+
+"The poor but honest suitor."
+
+"A poor but lavish suitor would describe him better. It seems that an
+aunt of his was moved to give him a present of five hundred dollars. He
+says that he had just paid his tailor's bill as a concession to his
+desire to _range_ himself, and he really didn't know what to do with
+the money. It wasn't enough to get anything really nice with,--he'd
+been trying to make his father give him an automobile,--unless it were
+a ring for Katrina. He concluded, however, that Mrs. Wendell would
+object to her daughter's accepting it, and that he might as well take a
+little flyer with it."
+
+"Take--what is that?"
+
+"Speculate--in stocks."
+
+"And he made his for-rtune?"
+
+"No, on the contrary. He took his father's advice about his purchase,
+and lost his five hundred dollars within twenty-four hours."
+
+"Then wherefr-rom came his good luck? For surely I perceive the
+pr-resence of good luck."
+
+"His father was so remorseful over his poor counsel, and so delighted
+with Tom's apparent desire to 'settle down,' that he made amends for
+his unfortunate 'tip' by giving his son a very decent sum of money."
+
+"It is like a story, is it not? So the brother and sister went up from
+here to the wedding."
+
+"It was only a few days ago, and now Tom and Katrina have come to us on
+their _Hochzeitreise_."
+
+"And the brother?"
+
+Mrs. Carroll glanced amusedly at her companion.
+
+"He came to-day on the afternoon train, to continue the visit which
+Katrina insisted on shortening for him in May, he says."
+
+"You will enjoy them."
+
+Friedrich's tone was not enthusiastic, and he pulled his moustache
+gloomily.
+
+"Very much. They are charming young people. See, there are Tom and
+Katrina now, just turning into the field."
+
+Von Rittenheim raised his hat as Mrs. Schuyler waved her hand to Mrs.
+Carroll, and studied critically the bride's radiant face and pretty
+gown as the victoria followed the phaeton through the opened
+fence-rails. He found her charming and acknowledged it reluctantly, not
+because he begrudged her her beauty, nor because he thought her
+handsomer than Sydney, for he did not, but because he had a secret fear
+of the attractiveness of the brother of so fascinating a girl.
+
+"Tom," said Mrs. Carroll, as Mrs. Schuyler came to the side of the
+carriage, "I want you to know my very dear friend, Baron von
+Rittenheim--Mr. Schuyler. Now take the Baron over to Katrina, Tom, and
+then find Mrs. Morgan,--that's she in the red-wheeled buggy,--and beg
+her to come and sit with me here. Vandeborough," to the coachman,
+"drive me under that apple-tree, where there is more shade. How do you
+do, Eliza?" she said to a woman by whom the carriage slowly passed;
+"I'm glad to see you out to-day. And you, Mary. Jack Garren, is that
+you? You grow too fast for my memory. Ah, Jane, I hope your rheumatism
+is better,--and is that Mattie's Bertha? Stop here, Vandeborough. This
+will be comfortable. Ah, Mrs. Morgan, it is kind of you to make me a
+little visit, but I couldn't possibly climb into that buggy of yours. I
+don't know how you achieve it."
+
+"Nor do Ah, Mrs. Carroll. Ah thought it was high five years ago, when
+Ah didn't consider mahself overly fat, so you can imagine what the
+effort is now." And she shook jovially.
+
+"Is the Doctor here?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. He drove me. He always comes to these things. They
+generally need him before they get through, and it often saves him a
+long trip into the mountains if he's on the spot when things happen."
+
+"I dare say his presence prevents a good many quarrels."
+
+"Maybe so; but Ah should hate to have any mo' fights than there are.
+There's always whisky about, you know."
+
+"If the chief crop of this country could be changed, what a blessing it
+would be!"
+
+"Ah don't know as it would make much difference as long as potatoes
+were left."
+
+"And thirst."
+
+"There's Bob now. O-oh, Bob!" she called, waving a fat hand to her son
+as he cantered across the open on his gray.
+
+Bob looked about for the source of the call, and turned his horse
+towards the tree.
+
+"He's growing handsome, Mrs. Morgan," said Mrs. Carroll, in an
+undertone, as the tall fellow leaped to the ground, slipped the bridle
+over his arm, and pulled off his cap.
+
+"He looks as his father did at his age," returned Mrs. Morgan, fondly,
+glancing across to where her husband was talking to a group of lank
+mountaineers from whom he was hardly to be distinguished.
+
+"It's right nice of you to come this afternoon, Mrs. Carroll," Bob was
+saying. "The people always appreciate it. What is it, mother? Those
+boys? Oh, they're having a game of ball; and the men you see over
+yonder are throwing horseshoes over a peg--with mighty poor skill, too.
+Here come Patton McRae and Susy. Excuse me. I'll help him with his
+horses," for Patton's black mare hated the harness even more than she
+did the saddle, and was doing her best to demoralize her mate and
+overturn the buggy.
+
+Sydney, entering the field from the State Road, glanced past the
+tethered mules and the chair-laden wagons, from which the horses had
+been taken, to where Bob sat in the carriage beside Susy, saying
+something very pretty to her, if downcast lids and a blush are any
+evidence; in reality, teasing her about an absent sweetheart.
+
+Wandering farther, her eyes saw the quoit-throwers, and the groups of
+women and children sitting in the shade, enjoying an interchange of
+gossip with the zest of infrequent meetings. She saw the clusters of
+laughing negroes, and the tent where Pete and his wife were doing a
+vigorous business in cakes and ice-cream and lemonade. She waved her
+hand to her grandmother and Mrs. Morgan. She noticed the men and boys
+who strolled with apparent aimlessness towards the thicket on the edge
+of the field, and returned wiping their lips on their sleeves. And she
+saw Katrina talking animatedly to Baron von Rittenheim, who sat beside
+her, while Patton McRae watched her with adoring eyes, and Tom wore the
+conscious smile that indicates the young husband's pride of possession.
+
+Sydney had been feeling very much without occupation since the Baron
+had gone home, and the anticipation of seeing him again this afternoon
+had been pleasant to her. He never had made love to her more definitely
+than on the morning after his interview with Dr. Morgan, but to herself
+she acknowledged that he admired her, and while she was not sure of his
+entertaining a more pronounced feeling, up to this time she had known, at
+least, that his eyes were only for her. And here he was _revelling_--she
+underlined the word in her thought--in Katrina's vivacity and charm. The
+sensation of rivalry was new to her and not pleasant.
+
+As for Bob, she had a feeling of warm affection for dear old Bob, and a
+desire to be useful to him, and she meant to make her influence over
+him one for good, if that were possible. She was thoroughly glad in the
+news that had come to her that Bob had not been drinking for several
+months now. But how he could help referring to the passage that had
+occurred between them she could not understand. She didn't really
+want him to make love to her,--that was a notion altogether too
+unmaidenly,--but she did feel as if an expression of affection from
+_somebody_ would be very comforting.
+
+She turned to John Wendell, who rode beside her, and gave him a more
+generous smile than it had been his lot to receive while Sydney was the
+possessor of those agreeable anticipations of the early afternoon.
+
+"You like it? All this?" She waved her hand comprehensively.
+
+"I love it," he answered, promptly, looking at her clear-cut face with
+its frame of red hair under her sailor hat, and at the well-made linen
+habit.
+
+"It must be novel to you."
+
+"Not very." He pulled his moustache to conceal an amused smile. "It
+depends upon where new ends and old begins, you see. Now, I came down
+here in April, so my feeling is not 'the last cry.'"
+
+"But at that time of year you didn't see--oh, how foolish you are!" she
+cried, and touched Johnny with her spur. His response brought him near
+the phaeton, which seemed a focal point for a general movement.
+
+"They're going to have the gander-pulling now," exclaimed Bob, who had
+come with Susy to join the group. "The best view will be from this
+side."
+
+"Are you going to ride, Mr. Morgan?" asked Katrina.
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+"Bob never can resist any game that's played with a horse," said
+Sydney, laughing.
+
+"You know you'd like right well to try it yourself," he retorted.
+
+Baron von Rittenheim gave his seat beside Mrs. Schuyler to Miss McRae,
+and went to Sydney's side.
+
+"At last the sun begins to shine," he said, in a low voice, smiling up
+at her and patting Johnny's neck.
+
+"Your universe has many suns, I'm afraid," responded Sydney, a trifle
+pettishly, yet swiftly, scanning his face for signs of returning
+health. She was not unobservant, either, of his new white summer
+clothes.
+
+Friedrich glanced across the horse to Mrs. Schuyler.
+
+"I find agr-reeable the light of the lesser planets," he said,
+"but--there is only one Sun."
+
+Looking up at her, he laughed again, so heartily and with such genuine
+pleasure at seeing her that Sydney melted.
+
+"You look so _well_," she cried. "It is a delight to see you. But it's
+not a compliment to our care that you grow better so fast when you
+leave us."
+
+"R-rather is it a tr-ribute to your so admirable nursing that has
+pr-repared me to r-recover with speed, even though I have it no
+longer."
+
+"Will you ride, Baron?" asked Bob. "You're welcome to Gray Eagle if you
+will."
+
+"I thank you, gr-reatly, but I dare not. The eye of my care-taker is
+upon me, and your Herr Father is here somewhere. No, decidedly, I am
+afraid," and he leaned with every appearance of contentment against
+Johnny's shoulder.
+
+"How about you, Mr. Wendell?"
+
+"I think I will, if Miss Sydney will trust me with the horse."
+
+"Of course; and I'll give you a lovely prize if you bring me the head."
+
+"It's yours," cried John, while Friedrich bit his lip, in annoyance,
+and thought on the _Ewigweibliche_.
+
+"Can you find me something, Mr. Morgan?" cried Schuyler. "I really
+can't stand here and see you fellows having this fun without me."
+
+"What's Mr. Schuyler driving, Sydney? 'Possum? She'll do, if you don't
+mind. I'll swipe a saddle off of one of those mules over there." And he
+and Tom fell to unharnessing the useful 'Possum, while the Baron held
+Gray Eagle and commented on Bob's resource.
+
+"He is full of device," he said, heartily, "and r-ready, always, to
+think and to do." And Sydney remembered some of the things he had done,
+and nodded with misty eyes.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+The Gander-Pulling
+
+
+Under all the trees where horses had been hitched, the mountaineers
+were tightening girths, mending unsound bridles, and pulling down
+stirrups from the saddles across which they had been flung to be safe
+from fly-kicking hoofs.
+
+Some men had switches tucked under their saddle-flaps. Others, less
+provident, swung on to their beasts, and, heavily elastic, trotted
+across to the brush to cut a "hickory" from a sourwood-tree.
+
+Pete was testing the strength of a stout oak pole driven into the
+ground, across whose fork was lashed, like the cross-bar of a "T," a
+leaf-stripped sapling. To the tip of this rod the negro was tying the
+legs of a big, white goose, whose extended wings and pendant head
+betrayed compliance with inexorable law.
+
+"Hit's a damn shame," Pete murmured, as he anointed the creature's neck
+and head with liberal smearings of lard. "Whar de fun o' pullin' on a
+ole daid t'ing lak dis? But Ah hope dey'll tink hit's great!" And he
+beat vigorously on a pan to attract the attention of all hearers.
+
+"Gen'lemen. O-oh, gen'lemen!" he cried, at the top of his lungs. "Now
+fo' a great ole gander-pullin'! De only one we've had in dis settle-_ment_
+fo' t'ree year. Every gen'leman as craves to enter dis gander-pullin'
+will kin'ly ride up here and _de_-posit a quarter 'f a dollar. Only
+twenty-five cen's fo' de priv'lege o' takin' a pull at dis yer
+goose,--warranted a tasty goose! One-half dis sum o' money goes to de
+gen'leman who succeeds in _re_-movin' de haid from dis fowl, an' also
+de goose hitself, which sho' do look lak good eatin'!"
+
+Pete's old hat soon sagged with the coins that were tossed into it,
+while his keen eye noted each entry as surely as if he wrote the name
+in black and white. It would have been useless for anyone to try to
+enter the lists without paying the proper fee.
+
+Two lines of excited onlookers served at once to define a lane, whose
+ultimate point was the gallows whereon hung the goose, and to rouse to
+excitement the horses, whose overworked spirits did not respond
+promptly to the sudden stimulus.
+
+They cheered the aspirants with jovial condemnation.
+
+"Show us what yo' ole plug c'n do, 'Gene."
+
+"Sho', Alf, you-all ain' goin' to ride that po' critter!"
+
+"He's powerful gaunted up, yo' war-horse, Bud."
+
+"Mighty strength'nin' ploughin' is, but not stimmerlatin'!"
+
+"High-strung animal, that clay-bank o' Pink's."
+
+Pink's temper was in that state where he enjoyed hugely gibes at his
+friends' expense, but was in no mood to receive amiably jests directed
+against himself.
+
+"Whar's you-all's horse?" he shouted, in exasperation, to one of his
+tormentors. "Ah reckon no one would len' you anythin' mo' vallyble 'n a
+billy-goat. Now dry up. Pete, start this thing."
+
+He rode to the end of the passage where the horsemen were gathering.
+Alf Lance, Melissa's father, whose horses Bud and Pink were riding,
+scanned them both to make sure that they were not too drunk to be
+trusted with his animals.
+
+Pete fussed about nervously.
+
+"Which o' you gents will begin dis pullin'?" he called. "Now, sahs,
+come on."
+
+Pink pushed his horse towards the edge of the crowd, but he was hailed
+with dissuasive cries.
+
+"Aw, hold on, Pink."
+
+"Don' be so bigoty."
+
+"Who you-all think ye are?"
+
+"Where's Bob Morgan?"
+
+"Yes, Bob's the feller!"
+
+"O-oh, Bob!"
+
+It was their tribute to the Doctor, this giving precedence to his son,
+and Bob so understood it. It was, therefore, irritating to have Pink
+thrust forward his red face and look him over sneeringly.
+
+"Aw, gwan," he cried, "lessee what you-all c'n do."
+
+The bunch of horsemen fell to one side, and Bob started Gray Eagle from
+well back in the field near the deserted wagons. He passed the mounted
+men and thundered through the lines of standing howlers. The gray had
+been his master's coadjutor in so many situations of excitement and
+even peril, that the cheering mob did not provoke him unduly. He
+galloped, unswervingly, up to the hanging goose, though his ears were
+pricked forward, and he shuddered as the instinctive repulsion from
+death pulsed through him. Bob's outstretched hand grasped the long and
+slippery neck, while the inarticulate yell with which the Southern
+farmer calls his dogs and chases his cows and terrifies his enemies
+went up from the onlookers. Tightly he clutched the greasy thing, and
+tried to give a sharp twist that should break the vertebrae. But his
+hand slipped swiftly down to the flat head, which offered no hold for
+his grasp, the beak ripped through his fingers, and the sapling, which
+had bent and followed him as Gray Eagle dashed on, snapped back, waving
+triumphantly its unharmed burden.
+
+"Hard lines, old man, but the fun lasts longer so," cried Wendell, as
+Bob pulled up beside him after circling the spectators.
+
+"Who's that?" the New Yorker asked, as a lank country horse plunged
+down the lane, shied violently at the feathered horror, threw his rider
+into the crowd, and galloped with flapping stirrups over the field.
+
+"'Gene Frady. He never can stay on anything. He's all right, dad," to
+the Doctor, who was moving towards the upper end. "See, he's chasing
+his horse now."
+
+With a drunken whoop, Pink Pressley rushed his animal towards the
+prize; but his condition, combined with twitches and jerks of the
+bridle, and rakings of the spur, had acted upon his mount's usually
+stolid nerves, and half-way up the alley he whirled about and tore
+back, carrying his cursing rider far up the road before he calculated
+the probable results to himself of this outburst, and consented to
+return.
+
+Bud Yarebrough was more fortunate. He leaned far forward and succeeded
+in getting a firm grasp of the neck, but he had guided his horse too
+close to the bird, and his jerk drew it directly over his face,
+blinding him with grease and feathers.
+
+His plight was greeted with howls of derision, which fell into silence
+as John Wendell made the trial. His unpractised hand in some way pulled
+down the goose, and the rebound of the sapling plucked the booty out of
+his grasp, and flung it high above his head.
+
+Tom Schuyler was equally unlucky.
+
+Alf Lance forgot that he was left-handed until he was close upon his
+quarry, when he dropped his reins and pawed vaguely at the air as his
+horse carried him on.
+
+Another yell announced Pink Pressley's return. Now his chastened steed
+bore him straight enough to the goal, but by that time Pink was too
+drunk to distinguish the goose he was after from the flock that swirled
+and dipped before his eyes, and he never touched a feather.
+
+"Doctor, you-all'll have to show us how," said Alf Lance.
+
+"Come on, Doctor."
+
+"Yes, yo' the feller."
+
+"Bob, give yo' father yo' horse and let him larn ye what's what."
+
+"Oh, I hope he'll do it," cried Sydney. "He's capital at it!"
+
+"Fo' the Lawd's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Morgan, rising to her feet in
+the carriage and steadying herself by an informal hand on Mrs.
+Carroll's shoulder. "Fo' the Lawd's sake, if that ain't Henry Morgan!
+Well, did you ever!" And her fat body trembled with pride and
+excitement.
+
+Gray Eagle took his second turn with the same equanimity as if his own
+master were on his back. He galloped handsomely towards the goose;
+there was a quick snatch and a snap, and the old man turned short and
+came back, holding aloft his trophy.
+
+"Wah, wah, wah!"
+
+Yells, whistles, and cat-calls greeted his success. Sydney and Katrina
+and Mrs. Carroll clapped their hands, and the Doctor, folding in his
+handkerchief the somewhat dubious treasure, rode over to the apple-tree
+and presented it to his wife.
+
+During the confusion attendant upon the harnessing of horses and mules,
+Bob, restoring 'Possum's saddle to the mule from which he had borrowed
+it, heard Pink Pressley's voice on the other side of the big oak by
+which he was working.
+
+"Howdy, Mr. Baron," he was saying.
+
+"How_dee_," responded von Rittenheim, with an accent that made Bob
+throw back his head and laugh silently. "You had bad fortune with your
+horse this afternoon."
+
+"Correct. Damn pore horse. Some day Ah'll have a good horse o' mah own,
+not a ole borrowed plug. Ah'm goin' to be rich some day. You-all know
+how, eh? Say,"--he was wagging his head solemnly to and fro,
+disgustingly near von Rittenheim's face,--"Ah reckon you'd like to go
+into business with me now ye made a start at hit."
+
+Bob remained behind his shield, hoping that Pressley would go away
+before von Rittenheim had the mortification of seeing him.
+
+"Ah reckon you-all need money mahty bad," drawled the drunken voice. "A
+feller always does when he wants to get married, 'n hit's clear what
+yo' after with Miss Sydney."
+
+Like bolts from heaven, two blows fell upon him simultaneously, and von
+Rittenheim and Bob faced each other over his fallen body.
+
+"Leave him alone," said Bob, hoarsely. "He'll sleep it off."
+
+Then he strolled over to his father.
+
+"Dad, I suspect you'd better take a look at Pink Pressley under the big
+oak-tree. I've just given him a biff in the solar plexus, or mighty
+near it."
+
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+On the Bridge
+
+
+All through July the growing heat of summer forced the people of the
+low country up into the mountains in search of an altitude where
+humidity is not a factor in the sum total of suffering. Every evening's
+six o'clock train brought families of travellers, glad to escape from
+the steaming heat of Charleston or Savannah, or ready to run the risk
+of the fever-killing frost coming too late for the beginning of the New
+Orleans schools. They emerged dishevelled and weary from the hot cars.
+The elders counted children, nurses, and luggage; the children sat down
+at once upon the ground and took off their shoes and stockings.
+
+By the first of August the whole Asheville plateau was transformed from
+its winter state.
+
+The large towns were filled with pretty, pale girls, gay in muslins and
+ribbons and big hats, who danced and drank soda-water in the mornings
+and danced again in the evenings, or went on drag-rides, and flirted at
+all hours.
+
+The small hotels in the country were full of the same girls, chaperoned
+by gay mammas, who played whist six hours a day, while their charges
+found temperate amusement in walking to the post-office in the cool,
+purple dusk, and in dancing--chiefly with each other--after supper.
+
+The proportion of men to girls was the usual summer ratio. Nice
+discriminations of extreme age or extreme youth counted for little
+against ability to dance. The girl with brothers of almost any size was
+popular among her kind, and the girl who "grabbed" was held in cordial
+contempt.
+
+Woe be unto the youth who really fell in love. His courtship was the
+cynosure of all eyes. Its progress was reported hourly. His presence
+was noted and his absence commented upon. His ardor was gauged by the
+thermometer of many eyes, and the barometer of hotel partisanship
+betrayed the storms of love.
+
+The Neighborhood awoke from its winter sleep. Every house had its
+guests, and there were constant gayeties both by day and evening.
+
+The first moon of August, by lighting the dark forest roads, became
+responsible for nightly festivities. On one of the earliest evenings of
+the month she looked down upon carriages and horsemen making their way
+to the French Broad, where Fletcher's Bridge crosses the river. The
+Schuylers, with Sydney and John, were in the Oakwood surrey, while
+Vandeborough cantered behind to take care of the horses "while de white
+folkses eats."
+
+[Illustration: To the French Broad, where Fletcher's Bridge crosses the
+river]
+
+The Cotswold party filled a three-seated buckboard and a surrey, and
+rejoiced further in outriders. Baron von Rittenheim bestrode his mule.
+The Delaunays brought a carriage-load of girls, who laughed a great
+deal in the soft, full voices the far South gives her daughters. From
+the Hugers' party came scraps of talk about "the City," and the "Isle
+of Palms."
+
+There was a wagon-load of people from the Buck Mountain House, too,
+friends of the Hugers.
+
+By Sydney's command the picnic fire was built by the river's bank in a
+large field, whose openness showed the quick march across the heavens
+of the rising moon.
+
+Every one brought a stick to lay on the blazing pile. Bob and one of
+the Delaunay girls fetched water from a spring that hid its coolness
+under a shelving rock in the forest across the road. Susy McRae made
+the coffee, hindered by John's advice, more voluble than useful. Tom
+Schuyler was instructed in the proper method of propping up a broiler
+before the blaze, so that the chicken might cook without exacting a
+human burnt offering. Patton volunteered for the task of getting the
+potatoes into the ashes. The rest of the girls laid the table-cloths on
+the ground, and opened the baskets, and the rest of the men hunted up
+logs for seats, and brought the cushions and rugs from the carriages.
+
+Sydney dominated the scene, giving a clever suggestion to Tom,
+encouraging Susy to disregard John's teasing, which threatened some
+harm to the coffee, sympathizing with Patton over a burn, and showing
+Katrina how to cook bacon on a long forked stick.
+
+After the meal was eaten and complacency filled them, she it was who
+sent their suppers to the coachmen, and who packed up baskets and
+folded cloths, aided by von Rittenheim and Bob.
+
+"Oh, do stop doing that, Sydney," cried Mildred Huger. "You make us all
+feel so mean not to be helping you, and you know it isn't necessary
+right now."
+
+"Yes, come and sit by me, Sydney," said John. "I've been saving a
+place, and it'll be a treat for you."
+
+"Wait a few minutes, Sydney," said Tom, "and you shall have my valuable
+help."
+
+"There, it's all done, dear people," cried Sydney, "and we can watch
+the moon with a clear conscience."
+
+"Will you not come with me to the bridge to see it?" begged Friedrich,
+in a low voice. "Ah, do come!"
+
+Bob, who had been about to ask the same thing, turned away and
+stretched himself at Mildred Huger's feet. Susy softly touched her
+guitar, suggesting popular airs, and voices took up the tunes, now
+stopping to say something funny and to laugh while others carried on
+the song, now joining in an energetic chorus. On the outskirts of the
+circle farthest from the dying fire sat the couples in whom the soft
+night and the moonlight and the music were arousing sentiment. More
+than one young fellow watched Friedrich and Sydney as they disappeared
+behind the willows on the bank, and wished that he had been the first
+to suggest the bridge, and envied the two their vantage point.
+
+They stood side by side upon its hoof-worn planks. Under their feet
+swept the musical flow of the stream, molten silver in the moonlight as
+it slid towards them, a sparkling, dancing mist of tossing diamonds as
+it fled away over the stones of the rough bottom.
+
+They faced the wonderful glory of the moon. Her hand was on the bar at
+first, and his beside it. After a moment he glanced at the tempting
+nearness, and put his in the pocket of his jacket. Then he turned his
+back upon the moon, and leaned on the railing by her, facing the lesser
+splendor that was to him as dazzling.
+
+"Will you for-rgive me if I spoil the beauty of this per-rfect night by
+speaking to you a little about--myself?"
+
+His voice was serious. Sydney looked at him and turned away her head.
+Her lips trembled.
+
+"I have not the r-right to force upon you a subject so unwor-rthy. But
+I think it is just that you should know--that all my friends should
+know--what work I am going to tr-ry now to do to retr-rieve myself. Ah,
+you make the little gesture that means 'Say not that word.' But you
+will let me say just this one time ever-ything I want to, if you
+please. When I say 'retr-rieve myself,' I understand well that nothing
+can destr-roy the fact that my name is wr-ritten on those books over
+there,"--he waved his hand in the direction of Asheville,--"and I know
+well that for my fault all my life I shall suffer in one way or
+another. But I can tr-ruly say, in God's sight,"--he stood bareheaded,
+and faced again the heaven's pomp,--"that I have r-repented my weakness
+most bitterly, both for what it did lead me to, and because such
+weakness in itself is shameful."
+
+Sydney lifted to his her eyes blurred with tears.
+
+"Don't," she whispered, hoarsely.
+
+"_Ach_, Heaven help me, look not at me like that," he cried; "I cannot
+bear ever-ything!"
+
+Silence lay between them after this cry of pain. Friedrich began again,
+very low.
+
+"I see now clearly what I saw not at the time,--that my weakness came
+upon me fr-rom my own lack of str-rength to make an effort. I was
+cr-rushed by a gr-rief when I left my land to come to America. I
+allowed it to paralyze my will. I let myself dr-rift, not caring enough
+about what became of me to exert myself to ward off poverty. Poverty
+never had been mine,--I did not r-realize it, but I did know well the
+meaning of self-r-respect and honor, and it was base of me to permit my
+will so to sink."
+
+Again he paused.
+
+"I tire you? You let me go on?"
+
+Sydney's face looked white in the moonlight. She assented by a motion
+of the head.
+
+"Even when I knew--you--"
+
+Sydney gazed down at the scintillant water. Von Rittenheim did not turn
+to her, and went on, steadily,--
+
+"--and admired your beauty and your sweetness--for-rgive me that I
+say these things so baldly--and wondered at the r-responsibilities you
+assumed, and at the care you took of every needing person who came near
+you--even fr-rom you whom I admired and--whom I admired with all my
+str-rength, I did not learn the lesson that was before my eyes."
+
+"How can you say all this to me, Baron? You must not."
+
+"You will do me the justice to listen just a pair of minutes longer.
+Now I see it all clearly; now I have a purpose in my life. It is to
+make you look upon me with r-respect,--with so much r-respect that you
+will for-rget that on one of those turned-over pages of my life there
+is a blot."
+
+"And you have chosen to seek your salvation through work! It is a fine
+spirit, Baron, and the American gospel--though perhaps you may not like
+it the more on that account."
+
+"You are an American."
+
+Sydney blushed and laughed,--her sweet, rich laugh. She was glad to be
+a little farther away from tragedy.
+
+"Shall I tell you my plan? You will see how I am practical! My
+salvation lies in the unpoetic shape of--cattle."
+
+"Cattle?"
+
+"I have some money for which I sent to Germany; some that I felt it
+r-right to use if I should be in gr-reat need of it, but which I should
+not have sent for except that I was ill. With this money and my little
+farm I go into partnership with young Mr. McRae. His father gives to
+him one-half of his so large estate. On his place and mine we r-raise a
+cr-rop which we feed to our cr-reatures."
+
+"Where are they to come from?"
+
+"Some we do r-raise ourselves, and some we buy here and there,
+every-where in these mountains where we can find two or three
+colts--no, calves."
+
+"Will there be a sufficient market to justify you?"
+
+"How wonderful for business are you! Yes, we think so. Alr-ready have
+we an or-rder to send a whole carload of steers to R-richmond."
+
+"Really? You've really begun?"
+
+"Yes, I take much pr-ride to say that we have begun two days ago.
+Patton is to buy the calves at first, he does so well understand the
+folk of the mountains; and later, when I talk more accurately English,
+then I shall help him. Until then my part is on the farms."
+
+"I think it is admirable! It will give you so much to do and to
+interest you. You are sure to succeed."
+
+She smiled at him generously and with perfect sympathy. Her white dress
+shone cool against the purple sky, and her face rose radiant above.
+
+Von Rittenheim leaned over her as she sat on the bridge's railing. On
+the road, not far away Susy McRae's guitar betrayed her approach, and
+John Wendell's barytone hummed the air that she was picking. Von
+Rittenheim put his foot on the topmost bar and leaned his elbow on his
+uplifted knee. By his position Sydney was screened entirely from the
+oncomers.
+
+"I seem to have a gr-reat deal to say to-night. Now I shall tell you a
+little stor-ry."
+
+His tone was gay, but Sydney saw that his eyes were grave.
+
+"Does it begin 'Once upon a time'?" she fenced.
+
+"_Ja. Es war einmal_ a knight, who led a happy life in his own country
+until a gr-rief came to him which he thought the most ter-rible sorrow
+that could come to anybody. He learned better afterwards, but at the
+time it seemed to him not to be endured. So he left his home and became
+a wanderer over the earth. And for many months he r-roamed, and nothing
+ever made him for-rget his tr-rouble until one day he saw a beautiful
+pr-rincess. Ah, she was a most lovely pr-rincess, with a face like a
+r-rose, and teeth like pearls, and a heart that was a tr-reasure of
+goodness."
+
+Friedrich warmed with his subject. He was looking his fill on the
+downcast face before him, while Sydney pulled at the little
+handkerchief in her lap, and carefully smoothed out a corner of it on
+her knee.
+
+"As soon as he saw her the knight knew that his old tr-rouble was not
+what he had thought it. And he knew also at once what would be the
+gr-reatest happiness that life could give him. He determined to win
+this happiness if he could, but first he had to pr-rove himself to the
+pr-rincess that he was a knight of cour-rage and not a weakling. So he
+told her of his purpose and begged of her a favor that he might wear it
+on his heart."
+
+There was a pause, so long that Sydney asked, still with downcast
+head,--
+
+"How does the story end?"
+
+"I know not."
+
+"You don't know?"
+
+"I never learned it any farther. What do you think comes next?"
+
+"I don't--I think----"
+
+Bravely she raised her eyes to his, and stood before him, blushing
+divinely.
+
+"I think she gave him a token and bade him Godspeed." And Friedrich
+found himself with a morsel of cambric in his hand, which he kissed
+passionately, while Sydney was walking towards the bridge's end,
+answering Susy's cry.
+
+"Here I am. Is it time to go?"
+
+And John was answering,--
+
+"Mrs. Carroll warned us to go home early on account of the dance
+to-morrow night."
+
+Laughing and singing they went through the moonlight, some with the
+happy hearts they had brought, others saddened by some of the whimsies
+of Fortune that seem lurking to spoil our joy when most we exult.
+Gladdest of all the blissful ones rode Friedrich von Rittenheim. At the
+cross-roads he waved a gay "good-by" to the Oakwood surrey as it bore
+away from him the lady of his love. He stopped his mule and looked long
+after it, and threw a kiss at its bulky form as it plunged into the
+wood.
+
+He did not put on his cap again, but stuffed it into his pocket, and
+trotted on towards home with the moonlight shining on his fair hair.
+The good creature between his knees felt his exhilaration and broke
+into a short canter as an expression of sympathy with his master's
+humor. The negroes whose cabins he passed pulled the clothes over their
+heads, whispering "Hants!" as he galloped by, singing "Dixie" at the
+top of his lungs.
+
+Sydney had taught it to him, the stirring song, and he brought it out
+roundly,--
+
+    "Oh, I wees' I was in the land of cotton,
+    The good old times are not for-rgotten,
+    Look away, look away, look away,
+          Deexie Land."
+
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+Out of a Clear Sky
+
+
+There came to von Rittenheim as he stabled his mule, with many a tender
+pat upon his coarse coat, one of those times of spiritual insight when
+we see ourselves as after a long absence we look with scrutiny upon
+once familiar objects. A perception of new growth filled him with
+surprise, as we look at the seedling under the window, and notice of a
+sudden that it has grown to be a sapling. With the scrutiny and the
+perception came a comprehension of new power, such as we feel
+objectively when our child asserts himself, and we understand in a
+flash that the man is born within him, and that the days of childhood
+are past.
+
+The remembrance of the months of regret and sorrow that had followed
+upon his coming to America struck him with nausea. The thought of his
+long ineptitude for the life which he had adopted voluntarily gave him
+a feeling of self-contempt. The inertness of his will disgusted him.
+
+And then all this disgust and contempt was swept away by a great wave
+of courage and determination and strength. He tingled with the
+consciousness that once more there had come to him the intrepidity with
+which his youth had faced the future, the will-power to take up life
+again, and the force to work and to win.
+
+Reverently he thanked God for each increment of might that pulsed
+through him, as he struck a match and lighted his lamp,--so
+automatically the commonplace actions of life are performed while the
+spirit surges within.
+
+Reverently he thanked God for the love that filled him, and for the
+hope of return that had come to him. Then he stretched his arms upward
+to their fullest height, merely for the sake of feeling his physical
+strength, and broke into a torrent of tender German epithets,--_Englein
+Geliebte_, _Herzenfreude_, _Liebling_. He took out the little handkerchief
+and kissed it again and again, and walked restlessly about his room, too
+glad and too happy to be quiet.
+
+The nickel clock upon the mantel-shelf struck eleven, and at the same
+time something like the sound of wheels penetrated his exaltation. He
+stopped in his march and listened. No one could have turned by mistake
+into his road in such brilliant moonlight, yet he knew no one who would
+visit him at that hour. He thought it possible that some one was taking
+the back road to Bud's cabin, so he made no move until the vehicle
+stopped before his house. Then he stepped hastily into his bedroom and
+slipped his revolver into his pocket before he responded to a gentle
+rap.
+
+Flinging back the door he saw standing on the porch a woman, a girl,
+about whom the breeze blew a scarf of thin black stuff. Two trembling
+hands were held out to him as if to implore a greeting, and a white
+face looked up from its dark inwrapment like the face of a wistful
+child. The moon, sailing high in the zenith, cast no light beneath the
+porch's roof, and von Rittenheim stood unrecognizing.
+
+She spoke in German.
+
+"Friedrich, you do not know me?"
+
+"Hilda!"
+
+There was dismay in his tone and surprise unspeakable. He made no offer
+to take her hands, and they sank at her side. The driver seeing that
+his fare had found whom she sought, deposited her trunk and a valise
+upon the floor of the porch, with a succession of heavy thumps, and
+drove off with a relieved "Good-night," to which he received no
+response.
+
+"Friedrich, your welcome is not cordial. Surely you know me? You called
+me 'Hilda.'"
+
+"Yes, I know you. You are Hilda," he repeated, dully. "Why are you
+here?"
+
+"Won't you ask me in and let me tell you?"
+
+"I beg your pardon." He stepped back that she might pass him. "You have
+surprised me almost out of my senses--entirely out of my manners, as
+you see."
+
+He gave her a splint chair--one of the two which were the room's
+complement--and stood before her. His arm lay on the mantel-shelf, his
+fingers clutching its edge until the nails grew white. The girl took
+off her heavy black bonnet and laid it on the table. The lamp behind
+her shone through the golden hair that made a halo around her face, the
+face of a child, unworldly, confiding. The only mark of maturity about
+her was the straight line of a determined mouth.
+
+Friedrich spoke first.
+
+"You are wearing black. Is it Max?"
+
+The great, innocent blue eyes filled with tears.
+
+"Yes, it is Max."
+
+"Poor child!"
+
+A shiver passed over the girl.
+
+"And poor Max! When was it?"
+
+"Five months ago."
+
+"Five months ago? You can't mean that! Five months ago! Why wasn't I
+told?"
+
+"I hadn't your address."
+
+"Max had it."
+
+"I looked through all his papers and found nothing."
+
+"Herr Stapfer, my lawyer, had it."
+
+"I applied to him, and he gave me an address in Texas that you had sent
+him a year ago."
+
+"It is true. I believe I never wrote to him after I settled here until
+last June."
+
+"Yes, it was in June that I heard from him again that you were here,
+and ill. I begged him not to tell you of Max's death. I did not know
+how ill you were, and I feared for you. Then I decided to come myself
+to find you--and care for you if you needed care."
+
+"Your aunt?"
+
+"She is dead. I have no one now--but you."
+
+Silence fell on them. The little figure with the dark robes of her
+mourning clinging about her, rose and stood before him, her linked
+fingers twisting nervously together.
+
+"You will let me stay? You told me once--you swore it, do you
+remember?--that your life was mine; that I had but to tell you of my
+need. You remember?"
+
+"Yes, I remember."
+
+His eyes were on the ground and never met her steady gaze, but she
+seemed satisfied with what she saw. Her hands stopped their nervous
+play.
+
+She looked curiously about the room.
+
+"This is a hunting-lodge, I suppose. But you must not think I care. I
+shall get on very well. And may I go to my room now?"
+
+Von Rittenheim was startled into activity by the simple request.
+
+"I think you must wait until some preparation is made. I will go and
+fetch a woman who will look after you. You will not be afraid if I
+leave you alone for a few minutes?"
+
+"Entirely alone?"
+
+"Yes. There is no one here. But see, I leave you my pistol, and you can
+lock the door on the inside, and when I come back I will call in
+German. No one else near here knows a word of German."
+
+"Shall I be safe?"
+
+"Perfectly--even without those precautions. I will hurry."
+
+He stood an instant outside the door listening to the noise of the key
+in the lock. Then he turned in the direction of the Yarebroughs', and
+ran feverishly along the path.
+
+His knock upon the door was answered by a sleepy "Who's that?" and the
+click of a gun's hammer. Von Rittenheim explained his identity, and Bud
+responded by opening the door an ungenerous crack. The Baron told his
+necessity,--how his sister-in-law had arrived unexpectedly, and would
+Mrs. Yarebrough be so good, so _very_ good, as to go back with him and
+see if she could make her comfortable, and spend the rest of the night
+there?
+
+Bud shut the door, and Friedrich heard the sound of discussion.
+Kindness of heart and curiosity to see the strange lady triumphed over
+the claims of sleep, and Bud opened the door again to call through the
+crevice,--
+
+"She'll go, Mr. Baron."
+
+It was almost midnight when they reached the cabin, Friedrich and the
+whole Yarebrough family; for Sydney Melissa could not be left behind,
+and Bud had a curiosity of his own. Von Rittenheim spoke in German and
+the door was unlocked. He made a hasty explanation to Hilda concerning
+the number of his escort.
+
+Melissa stared with all her eyes at the childish beauty before her.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Baron," she cried, with sudden courage, "Ah'd like to take
+care of her, she's so little an' pretty. Ah don' min' hit a bit, Bud;
+truly Ah'm honin' to," in unconscious confession of her previous
+timidity. "You-all go long back with Bud, Mr. Baron, 'n Ah'll make her
+comfortable. Will ye have yo' trunk in here, ma'am?"
+
+To Hilda's answer, "Yes, if you please," in faltering English, Melissa
+cried, in ecstasy,--
+
+"Don' she speak pretty! Now, Bud, you tote in the lady's trunk, 'n then
+go. She's tired." And the usually timid country girl entered into her
+new _role_ of care-taker with extraordinary zest.
+
+Friedrich approached his sister-in-law.
+
+"Good-night," he said. "You will be quite safe. Have no fear."
+
+She held out her hand to him. He hesitated a moment, and then took it
+in a brief clasp.
+
+"Good-night," was all she said.
+
+Declining Bud's offer of shelter, von Rittenheim bade him farewell, and
+strode into the darkness of the forest. Yarebrough looked after him,
+puzzled and disapproving.
+
+"He ain' none so glad to see his sister-in-law," he pondered. "Ah
+wonner what hit all means."
+
+Friedrich took no heed of his way beyond a numb feeling of pleasure
+when it grew steeper and rougher. He had left the trail long since, but
+he was stayed by no obstacle, was arrested by no barrier of Nature's
+make. A lizard asleep on a tiny ledge of rock, jutting from a cliff,
+scuttled away in fright as a man in sudden onslaught scaled its face. A
+pair of cotton-tails bobbed from one thicket to another in wildest
+terror as he came breaking through. A trout, floating in a rocky basin
+of the brook, fled with a dexterous flip of fin and tail to the
+protecting shelter of an overhanging root, as the placid pool was
+agitated by the passage of an enemy, following the course of the stream
+as the path of least resistance.
+
+To all these sights and sounds Friedrich was blind and deaf. He spoke
+no word. It was as if he were deprived of every power but that of
+motion. He plunged on like a man of old pursued by the Erinyes.
+
+Though he was unconscious of fatigue, the mad pace began to tell on
+him, and his muscles cried for quarter. At such times he rushed either
+to the right or left, going along the side of the mountain until he
+found an easier upward passage, but always ascending, never turning
+down the slope; always fleeing from the pursuing wretchedness; always
+subtly conscious of the futility of flight.
+
+So mounts a small bird into the air, pursued by a hawk. Higher and
+higher he flies, straight up into the blue, hoping that the wind may
+blow him far beyond his pursuer's reach, believing that the light
+atmosphere that suffices to support his frail body may be too tenuous
+to uphold his heavier enemy. Hoping thus and believing; but realizing
+at last the unequal contests between their strengths, the failing of
+his own force, the fateful, certain, deadly approach of the antagonist
+whose power it is useless to oppose.
+
+One above the other two shelves of rock arose, like two steps of a
+giant's staircase. Friedrich's exhausted body sank upon the moss of the
+upper, and the bracken and small shrubs closed over him, as if to
+shield him in their gentle embrace from the trouble that had driven him
+to their care. He lay on his back, staring with unseeing eyes at the
+tree-leaves far above his head, black against the sky's purple.
+
+His mind seemed to be exhausted with his body. It moved with painful
+slowness, and groped vaguely after the things of memory.
+
+Was it yesterday--when was it that he had seen Sydney moving about in
+the yellow firelight? Had he not--yes, he was sure he had--led her
+under the willow-trees and on to the old bridge, with the glistering
+glory under their feet, and the moon in splendor above them? And had
+she given him--no, of course not--but yes, what was this? He pressed to
+his lips the scrap of lace from his pocket. And there had been one
+splendid hour of hope and strength and courage--one hour when the past
+had fallen away from him and the future opened to his sight a not
+impassable avenue.
+
+The moon cast level shadows as the great planet rolled towards the
+western hills. Friedrich fancied himself in Germany, far back in the
+long ago, when he was madly in love with Hilda. The story unfolded
+before him like a panorama of some one else's life. It was, indeed, he
+who had loved Hilda, but he felt not a flutter of the emotion now.
+_Now_ he knew what real love was. Yet this ardent, jealous lover was
+he, and she had jilted him for Maximilian. He went over again the old
+arguments in her behalf. Why shouldn't she prefer Max--gay, handsome
+old Max? He was nearer her age, and he had just had a legacy from his
+Aunt Brigitta, whose favorite he had been. Of course, that reason did
+not count. But he was gay and handsome and younger. Surely those three
+excuses were enough.
+
+That wedding day! Should he ever forget it? He had thought to go away,
+but that would have been unkind to Max, and perhaps have put Hilda in a
+wrong light in the eyes of those who knew them. No, he was the head of
+the family. His duty was to sit through the wedding-breakfast which her
+aunt gave to the bride, and to preside at the feast that welcomed the
+pair to Schloss Rittenheim. Though the old love could not enter him
+again, the old torture came back poignantly.
+
+After the feast was over and the guests had gone, he had found himself
+with her in a recessed window, looking down upon a carriage rolling
+away in the moonlight. He had taken her hands, and had compelled her
+gaze. She looked so fragile, so helpless, as he thought of his
+brother's carelessness and love of self, and he swore a solemn oath to
+stand ready to help her and to care for her, if ever need should be.
+Max, a little uncertain in speech and gait, had called her then, and
+Friedrich had ordered a horse, and had ridden recklessly into the
+forest--on and on and on.
+
+For a whole month he had endured the torture of greeting her calmly
+every morning, and of lifting her tiny white hand to his lips every
+night, and then he had decided that there was no reason for such
+crucifixion, and he had come to America.
+
+And in America he had met the princess--the splendid princess!
+
+The moon sank behind the mountains, and with its disappearance
+Friedrich slept.
+
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+Business Plans
+
+
+Through the early morning's shifting mist--the haze that foretells a
+fine day--two men felt their way up the side of Buzzard Mountain. They
+followed no path,--indeed, there are few trails to follow,--but they
+climbed steadily on, as if they knew well their way, and as if speed
+were of importance.
+
+With all their perseverance they could not cover much ground, for the
+ascent is sharp enough to clutch the lungs, and the mist covered for
+them a world of stumbling-blocks.
+
+"H'm," grunted the leader, Pink Pressley. "They oughter be a black oak
+about here with a varmint hole in hit."
+
+He stopped and peered about him through the gloom, while Bud, his
+companion, took the opportunity to lay his burden upon the ground while
+he wiped his forehead with a blue handkerchief. He made no response to
+his friend's remarks, but wore the air of one who does what he is bid,
+and follows where he is led. Pink swung himself into motion again.
+
+"Ah reckon we ain' high enough, yet," he growled, and swore softly as
+he struck his foot against an unseen stone.
+
+"Hang ye, don' do that," he cried, angrily, as he heard the breaking of
+a branch behind him. "Why don' ye blaze yo' way right along, or mark
+yo' path with a rope? Do you wan' the whole settle-_ment_ follerin' us
+up here?"
+
+With praiseworthy discretion Bud still refrained from speech. A
+particularly steep bit of climbing silenced his companion as well.
+Yarebrough was the first to discover the landmark.
+
+"Is that the black oak?" he asked.
+
+"Where?"
+
+He pointed above them and a little to the right, to a veteran whose
+side had been cut by hunters for the discomfiture of a 'coon or 'possum
+that had taken refuge within.
+
+"Yep."
+
+They climbed to it, and both men set their heavy loads upon the ground.
+
+"Much further?" asked Bud.
+
+"No, come on. Sun'll be up soon 'n we'll be late gettin' down."
+
+Pressley pointed to the east, where a sort of inner glow seemed to
+illuminate the haze and make it thinner and more penetrable. They
+shouldered their packs and again Pink led the way. He advanced, now,
+with a certain care. From the tree he counted a hundred paces to the
+right, and called Bud's attention to the number.
+
+"That brings ye to this hickory--see?--with a rock under hit. Now,
+then, straight up from this is the place we's after, twenty-five steps,
+about; but hit's hard to tell, hit's so steep."
+
+He deposited his load upon a flat platform of rock, above which, at a
+height of a dozen feet, the bank overhung. Under the bank was a hole,
+not clear enough to be called a cave, nor of any great size. Bud sank
+down, gratefully, beside his leader, and scrutinized the place.
+
+"Not overly large," he commented, "but Ah 'low hit 'll be right smart
+bigger when hit's cleaned out."
+
+"Hit is," returned Pressley, laconically. He spoke with so much
+decision that Bud looked at him sharply.
+
+"You-all ain' ever----?" He hesitated.
+
+"Used hit before? Not much! Ah ain' a plumb fool! But they's nothing
+like comin' from a fam'ly that's observin' an' contrivin'."
+
+A smile of self-appreciation swept over his face.
+
+"Ah've knowed about this place ever since Ah was fryin' size. In fact,
+mah father--well, never min' him. Only you'll fin' they's plenty o'
+room inside to stow away that rubbish an' all our little do-es beside."
+
+"Whereaway's the water?"
+
+"They's a spring over yonder a little bit."
+
+Bud stared at the hole sullenly, and slowly scratched his head.
+Pressley, unlashing a mattock and shovel from his pack, did not notice
+him.
+
+"Ah swear, Pink," broke out Yarebrough, in puzzled indecision, "Ah
+swear Ah donno's Ah like this business."
+
+Pressley sneered.
+
+"Don' talk so loud. Yo' rather late findin' hit out."
+
+"No, Ah ain'. Ah ain' never been sho'."
+
+"Sho' 'bout what?"
+
+"Oh, Ah donno. Kin' o' hard to say. You-all don' think we'll get
+caught?"
+
+"Not 'f you keep that big mouth o' yo's shut."
+
+"Mr. Baron did."
+
+"Mr. Baron's a fool. He trusted a stranger."
+
+"Hit'll kin'er make ye uneasy 'bout talkin' to fellers on the road,
+won' hit?" said Bud, who was the most sociable man in the settlement.
+
+"Hit'll sharpen yo' judg-_ment_. The way you-all go on now you ain' fur
+off Mr. Baron fo' never suspectin' nobody."
+
+It was this very quality in Bud that was playing into Pink's hands.
+Yarebrough, however, felt properly rebuked.
+
+"Ah ain' had yo' experience, ye know. Ah never see but one marshal to
+know him."
+
+"When ye do see one, an' yo' sho', never forget him. Hit's the only
+way. Here, take this mattock 'n pull those small rocks out, 'n pile 'em
+on this crocus-sack so's they won' make any trash on this-yer
+platform."
+
+Bud did as he was bid, and the men worked quietly and steadily for ten
+minutes.
+
+"Here she is," Pink whispered, at last, and peered excitedly into the
+cavern.
+
+It was, as he had said, not very large, but large enough.
+
+"Now pick up that sack with me an' tote hit in here. We mus'n' leave
+anythin' roun'. Here, this corner 'll do. Now bring me in that pipe 'n
+the little keg. We c'n leave all the tools here _ex_-ceptin' our axes.
+Axes looks well 'f we meet anybody goin' down."
+
+"H'm," grunted Yarebrough once more, and scratched his head again. He
+stepped out of the cave on to the platform that Nature's hand had laid.
+The brightening light indicated the approach of dawn, though the sun
+had not yet risen. The mist was not dispelled, but it had grown
+thinner, and trees at some distance down the mountain began to have
+individual shape through the veil of dry haze that inwrapped them. The
+air was cool and sweet. The birds were singing, though still sleepily,
+but one in a tree over his head burst into a glorious heralding of the
+morning. Bud thrust his hands into his pockets and whistled softly.
+Pink roused him roughly from his reverie.
+
+"Come, boy, we gotter fix up this yer openin' somehow."
+
+Bud answered irrelevantly:
+
+"Ah wisht Ah was certain about M'lissy."
+
+Pressley let fly the bush that he was bending across the mouth of the
+cave.
+
+"What about her?" he asked, sharply.
+
+"Oh, everythin'!"
+
+Explanation was difficult to his slowness of thought.
+
+"She'll be wonderin' what takes me away from home so much at night; an'
+Ah don' much like to leave her alone, neither."
+
+"Cain' ye trust her?" jeered Pink, with an evil scowl, but Bud turned
+on him so fiercely that he added, hastily,--"to keep still if ye tell
+her?"
+
+"Tell her? Tell M'lissy! Ah wouldn' tell her fo' a good deal! You-all
+don' know M'lissy."
+
+"She'd jump ye, Ah reckon."
+
+"No, Ah don' allow she'd say much. The way hit is, ye see,
+M'lissy,--hit's foolish 'f her,--but M'lissy kinder thinks Ah ain' a
+right bad feller, an' Ah sorter hate to disabuse her min' o' that
+opinion."
+
+"She mus' know you-all drinks."
+
+"Yes, Ah 'low she do."
+
+"An' ye play craps."
+
+"Oh, well, that ain' anythin'."
+
+"An' ye fight chickens."
+
+"Of co'se; everybody does that."
+
+"'N you've killed paddidges befo' the law was off."
+
+"Who hasn'?"
+
+"If she knows all those things she sho' cain' think yo' a plumb angel."
+
+"Ah don' s'pose she's lookin' fo' wings. All the same, Ah do hate to
+have her know Ah'm about to do this."
+
+"Oh, this is all right. She don' know yo' in debt an' need the money."
+
+"No, she don'."
+
+"Would that worry her?"
+
+"Ah reckon hit would, specially if----"
+
+"If what?"
+
+"You seem powerful eager to know what'll worry M'lissy."
+
+"If ye don' know what worries people ye cain' know how to help 'em."
+Pink was suavity itself. "If what?"
+
+"Ah was goin' to say, specially 'f she knowed it was you-all Ah owed
+hit to."
+
+"Lemme tell ye somethin' right now, Bud: M'lissy wouldn' fin' everybody
+clever 'nough to len' money to a no-'count feller like you. She better
+like me 'f she don'."
+
+"She don' know hit, ye see. 'N she never shall 'f Ah c'n help hit."
+
+Pressley grunted and seemed to reflect. Then he shook his head and
+muttered to himself.
+
+"Hit might spoil the other."
+
+"What ye say?" asked Bud.
+
+"Nothin'. Ah'm studyin' 'bout fixin' a sort o' do' fo' here, so's the
+light won' shine out none when we-uns is workin'."
+
+"Where's the smoke goin' to?"
+
+"They's a split in that upper rock, fur back, we c'n run a bit o' pipe
+through. Leastways, they was when Ah was a kid."
+
+"'N 's they ain' been no _con_-vulsion o' nature since that happy time,
+you 'low hit's still there."
+
+"May be filled up; 'twan' overly big. But that's easy fixed."
+
+"Say, Pink, don' you think we'd make any money--jus' as much money--'f
+we paid the tax, 'n could retail openly?"
+
+"Paid the tax? Paid---- Fo' the Lawd's sakes! Pink Pressley payin' the
+gover'men' tax!"
+
+He gave a great burst of laughter, which he quickly strangled, looking
+about suspiciously, and shook and shook with suppressed mirth. Bud
+stared at him seriously, and with some offence.
+
+"Ah don' see nothin' e'er so ludicrous about that suggestion."
+
+"Oh, Lawd!" Pink was rocking gently from side to side. "You don'? Jus'
+look yere, then. Have you-all got twenty-five dollars to pay the
+Federal gover'men' fo' this privilege? 'N fifty to pay the State? 'N
+fifty to pay the county? 'F you got a hundred 'n twenty-five dollars to
+spen' so free, Ah'd like to see hit!"
+
+Bud rubbed his head and said nothing.
+
+"'N who'd ye get to go on yo' bond? Mrs. Carroll 'n Miss Sydney, Ah
+s'pose! Oh, dear!"
+
+Again he laughed, soundlessly.
+
+"If ye go into hit so expensive, ye gotter have the plant to do a big
+business, 'n where'd ye get that? 'N ye'd have to get mo' co'n 'n you
+'n me c'n make ourselves, 'n that'd mean ye gotter buy hit, or rent mo'
+lan' 'n hire niggers to work hit, 'n how'd ye pay fo' that?"
+
+Bud listened gloomily, chewing the side of his finger.
+
+"Them gover'men' fellers cain' make nothin'," went on Pink. "Firs'
+place they's co'n at fifty cen's a bushel. One bushel o' co'n makes
+about two gallons o' whisky; they's an _ex_-pense o' nigh twenty-five
+cen's a gallon to begin with. Then the gauger comes 'roun', 'n ye have
+to pay a tax on all he's smart enough to fin',--a dollar 'n ten cen's a
+gallon. They's a dollar 'n thirty-five cen's a gallon befo' the stuff's
+lef' yo' sto'house. 'N what payin' market c'n ye fin' fo' hit when any
+feller who wan's c'n get all the moonshine he needs fo' a dollar or a
+dollar 'n a quarter a gallon? Oh, Ah tell you, 'f ye wan' to make any
+money with a gover'men' still ye gotter have a switch-off that the
+gauger cain' fin. 'N 'f ye do that, ye might's well's, far's yo' morals
+is concerned, do hit all moonshine 'n save those ex-penses Ah listed
+fo' ye right now."
+
+"Ah s'pose yo' right," assented Bud. "Blockadin's blockadin', whether
+ye do hit by moon or day. Do you-all 'low Calkins might inform on us?"
+
+"Him's runs the still back o' Buck? Ah don' guess so. He knows Ah could
+tell the sto'keeper the whereabouts o' a pipe in his still-house that
+don' run into no sto'house. Oh, no, he won' inform on us."
+
+"Ah hope not," said Bud, dismally. "Anyway, you-all better come on down
+now. Gimme that axe, will ye?"
+
+"We gotter be right careful not to make no path comin' here. We better
+never come twict the same way."
+
+Bud nodded his understanding.
+
+"Come on," he urged. "Ah'm's empty 's a gun."
+
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+Hilda
+
+
+Pink roses and red swung to and fro in the sunshine as they climbed the
+Doctor's whitewashed porch. Big bees hummed their sleepy drone from the
+fragrant hearts of the flowers, and a humming-bird whirred busily in
+and out in search of the honeysuckle that he loved. Up-stairs Mrs.
+Morgan was darning stockings in the coolest room in the house,--a
+bedroom with a northern exposure. A white shirt-waist gave a puffy look
+to a body that could ill endure such appearance of enlargement, and a
+black belt accentuated the amplitude of girth that it encircled. The
+good lady sat in an armless rocking-chair, or rather _on_ it, for she
+was by no means contained therein, but bulged over and beyond at all
+points. Her feet, shod in heelless black slippers, above which puffed
+white stockings, rested upon a low footstool, and her widespread knees
+provided a generous lap for the support of her supply of socks and her
+implements,--her needle-book' and darning-gourd and balls of cotton.
+She had that look of comfort that fat people seem to radiate even when
+it is evident that physical annoyance is their own share.
+
+[Illustration: "Pink roses and red swung to and fro in the sunshine as
+they climbed the doctor's whitewashed porch"]
+
+Discomfort had no part in the picture that Mrs. Morgan presented,
+however, for a cool breeze gently ruffled her hair, and her eyes, when
+she lifted them from her work, rested contentedly on the fertile fields
+of the Doctor's farm, which were thriving, under Bob's management. She
+nodded with, pursed-up lips, as she wove her little lattices in heel
+and toe.
+
+"He's doing better than ever Ah thought he would," she murmured.
+"Better, even, than Ah dared to hope,--thank God!"
+
+Up and down, over and under, in and out went her needle.
+
+"It's such a joy to Henry to have him so."
+
+The scissors snipped a thread at the end of a darn, and a new hole
+displayed its ravage over the yellow surface of the gourd.
+
+"It's been going on some months now, bless him! Ah'd like to know how
+he started in. Ah believe mahself it's Sydney."
+
+The work sank into her lap for a space, while her shrewd eyes roamed
+over the fields, and sought Buck Mountain beyond, thrusting its topmost
+clump of chestnut-trees against the sky. She nodded to her thoughts as
+she picked up the unfinished sock.
+
+"She's a wise mother who knows where her son ties his horse, and Ah
+confess Ah haven't always known, but it strikes me it's mostly the
+Oakwood hitching-post."
+
+She smiled at her own sagacity.
+
+"Not that Sydney'd have him. Though she might do a great deal worse, a
+great deal worse," she added, loyally. "But he cares for her enough to
+want to please her, and it takes the best to satisfy Sydney."
+
+A step on the stairs outside made itself heard.
+
+"Come in, dear. Ah was just thinking about you."
+
+Bob flung his cap on the bed, sat down on a cricket beside his mother,
+and leaned his head against her shoulder.
+
+"Tired, dear?"
+
+"No, just hot. I've been over every field on the farm since breakfast."
+
+"In all this sun!"
+
+"Do you think it ought to cease to shine to shade your boy? There'll be
+a right smart crop this year."
+
+"So your father was telling me yesterday."
+
+"I've got better hands than usual."
+
+"And they have a better overseer."
+
+She let fall the stocking from her left hand and patted the shock of
+black hair resting on her shoulder. Silence fell between them--the
+embarrassment that comes from the broaching of a delicate subject.
+
+"It's hard work," he sighed, and her mother-love knew that he did not
+refer to the management of the farm.
+
+"We all have our dragons to fight, and yours is one of the hardest
+kind. Ah'm sure he's growing weaker, though."
+
+"But he's still in the ring," groaned Bob, with a comical look, and
+they laughed in sympathy.
+
+"I ought to have begun on him long years ago for your sake, ma dear,
+but--it wasn't you!" he blurted out, and hastened to kiss her, lest she
+be offended.
+
+She could not help just a little sigh.
+
+"It's what happens to most mothers, and we are thankful for the result,
+and put our vanity into our pocket."
+
+"I don't want you to suppose that I'm such a puppy as to believe that
+she--you know who--cares for me--that way, you know. But I happened to
+think one day when--well, never mind what happened--I just thought that
+while she might never care anyway, she was dead sure not to if I went
+on being the kind of thing I was."
+
+"True, dear, and even if she never did,"--how she longed to give him
+hope, as she had given him every toy he asked for in his baby days! But
+wisdom came to her now, and love gave her strength,--"even if she never
+did, the victory would still be a victory."
+
+"And you'd care, anyway. Oh, mothers are good things! Do you mind my
+telling you-all this?"
+
+He was sitting before her now, with his elbows on his knees and his
+chin in his hands. She leaned forward and kissed him.
+
+"You've given me the greatest happiness Ah've known for years, dear."
+
+He pulled at the stockings in her lap.
+
+"I don't think I've had much show lately, do you?"
+
+"You mean----?"
+
+"Oh, well, I reckon I don't mean anything. It's all in the game.
+There's father," as a cry of "O-oh, Sophy!" was heard below. "Sophy's
+up here in the north room, dad," he called, eliciting from his mother
+the expected--
+
+"You impertinent boy!"
+
+The Doctor came in, bringing with him an air of excitement that made
+Bob cry,--
+
+"What's up?"
+
+Mrs. Morgan laid down her half-darned sock in anticipation.
+
+"You never can guess the latest development."
+
+"Ah've no desire to, Henry. Ah'd rather hear it at once."
+
+"Who do you think's come?"
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To the Neighborhood."
+
+"Henry, don't be so aggravating! Why don't you-all tell what you've got
+to tell, if you _have_ got anything to tell."
+
+This sarcasm drove on the Doctor to disclosure.
+
+"Baron von Rittenheim's sister-in-law."
+
+"His sister-in-law!" cried Bob.
+
+"What in the world will he do with her in that cabin of his?"
+ejaculated Mrs. Morgan.
+
+"Is she pretty?" This from Bob.
+
+The Doctor was quite satisfied with the sensation he had aroused, and
+sat down to tell his story comfortably.
+
+"Ah've just come from Oakwood, and Sydney told me. It seems she turned
+up last night after the Baron got home from the picnic; drove out from
+Asheville. He had to go and get Melissa Yarebrough to come and look
+after her."
+
+"He wasn't expecting her, then?"
+
+"Sydney says no. Of course he couldn't ask visitors to that shack of
+his."
+
+"Ah suppose she hadn't any idea he was living that-a-way."
+
+"Ah reckon not. She's his brother Maximilian's wife, or widow, rather,
+for she brought him the news of his brother's death. Sydney says he was
+quite broken up about it when he came over soon this morning to ask
+Mrs. Carroll if she would take her in. The old lady'd gone to fetch her
+when Ah got there."
+
+"Did you wait?"
+
+"You bet!"
+
+"Is she pretty?" Bob asked again, with some insistence. Perhaps the
+Baron--how could he, though? But there was at least a chance of his
+falling in love with his own countrywoman.
+
+"Pretty? I should say so! She looks like a lovely child, or an angel on
+a Christmas card, or something. Oh, you needn't grin. She won't look at
+you!"
+
+"Saving all her looks for you, I suppose! Can she speak English?"
+
+"Yes; but not enough to hurt anything. You'd ought to have seen her run
+up to Sydney, just like a little girl, and cry out, 'Oh, I thank you
+for that you have been so kind, every one, to my dear Friedrich!'"
+
+"How did Sydney take that?" Mrs. Morgan could not resist a glance at
+her son.
+
+"Oh, Sydney always does everything all right."
+
+"What did she say to you, dad?"
+
+"Oh, something about Friedrich telling her that Mrs. Carroll and Ah
+were his best friends."
+
+"How long's she going to stay?"
+
+"Ah don't know. Ah came away right off."
+
+At Oakwood Baroness Hilda von Rittenheim's coming partook of the nature
+of an event. Sydney, who never had happened to hear even her name
+mentioned, went about during the time of her grandmother's absence in a
+state of agreeable anticipation. She was curious to see this unexpected
+arrival, and she took pleasure in arranging flowers in her room, and in
+shading the windows to produce the most desirable light.
+
+"It will please him," she thought, "for us to be nice to her. Poor
+thing, she's lost all she cared for in the world; everybody ought to be
+nice to her." And she thought how happy she was herself, and resolved
+to be as kind as she knew how to be to the new-comer.
+
+Sydney had a strong reluctance to face emotional or spiritual crises,
+and not even after her conversation on the bridge did she acknowledge
+to herself that von Rittenheim loved her, or that she cared for him.
+She was content to feel the glow that warmed her when she knew that she
+was the princess of his fable, and not to analyze her own feeling
+further, or to posit in him more than admiration.
+
+Americans usually think of German women as fat and affectionate, or, if
+they are extremists, as "fit only to propagate their own undesirable
+race." Sydney formulated no idea of Hilda's appearance, but she found
+herself none the less surprised when she and Dr. Morgan watched from
+the window the tiny figure in its black robes, descending from the
+carriage.
+
+"Why, the Baron said she was twenty-five, but she doesn't look any
+older than I do," she cried, and she flew down the steps to welcome
+her.
+
+Hilda's little speech of thanks was natural and pretty, and Sydney
+liked her at once because she liked Friedrich. Katrina was delighted
+with her. Tom declared that he could listen to that accent forever, and
+John went into absurd raptures that were more serious than they
+sounded. Even Mrs. Carroll, usually not enthusiastic, granted her to be
+"Pretty? Yes, even lovely. And charming? Very."
+
+Hilda must have felt herself to be under scrutiny during the day, yet
+she betrayed no knowledge of it. Her behavior was perfect. Several
+times she alluded to Max.
+
+"Poor Max! The shock of his death was to me severe. Have I known
+Friedrich long? Oh, yes, indeed. Before ever I met Maximilian. I was
+living with my aunt in Heidelberg when he was at the University. I was
+a little girl then. Ah, yes, Friedrich always was _nett_ to me, even so
+before Max. Yes, always shall I love Friedrich."
+
+It occurred to Sydney that there was a shade too much insistence on
+this mutual affection, but she berated herself for a "jealous piece,"
+and ordered Uncle Jimmy to bring out on the lawn coffee as well as tea,
+in deference to her guest's probable predilection.
+
+"Yes, dear Frau Carroll," said Hilda, in answer to a question. "Indeed,
+have I much to talk with him. He comes this evening to see me. I have
+much to tell him and to hear from him."
+
+Over her cup she glanced shrewdly at Sydney, who was enraged to feel
+herself blushing.
+
+When Baron von Rittenheim appeared in the evening, Sydney and the
+Schuylers and John were just starting for the Hugers' dance.
+
+"Surely you will go," the little Baroness had said, "and you will not
+think of me one time."
+
+"You ask too much," murmured John.
+
+She glanced at her mourning with a look that might have meant yearning
+for Max, or a desire to go to the ball.
+
+Then she raised her eyes to Friedrich's, and Sydney was surprised to
+see a look of anger sweep over her childish face. Seeking its cause she
+found von Rittenheim's eyes fixed on herself, so full of love and
+longing and sadness that her one wish was to comfort him. Involuntarily
+she took a step towards him, and held out her hands. Then she
+remembered herself, and swept him a low courtesy, as if in thanks for
+the admiration of his gaze.
+
+"You like my frock, M. le Baron?" she asked.
+
+Von Rittenheim's eyes went to the fluffy white mass lying on the floor,
+and rose again to her face.
+
+"He's speechless with rapture, Sydney," said John.
+
+"I am, indeed," said Friedrich, bowing with his hand on his heart.
+
+"Then come on, Sydney, and let language flow once more." And Tom
+dexterously threw her cape over her shoulders.
+
+"See that? I've learned to do that really well since I was married.
+I've been practising in private. Mrs. Schuyler, allow me." And he
+repeated his performance and swept his flock before him to the door.
+
+
+
+
+XX
+
+Sacrifice
+
+
+"I know that you two have much to say to each other," said Mrs.
+Carroll, when the noise of departing wheels had died away. "Ring the
+bell, Baron, please, and tell James to light the lamp in the little
+sitting-room. And in considering your plans, let me beg both of you to
+remember that it will be a pleasure to us all if the Baroness will stay
+at Oakwood as long as she wishes."
+
+Hilda ran to the elder woman in her childish, impulsive way, and
+thanked her with many little German phrases of gratitude. Von
+Rittenheim raised her hand to his lips and murmured,--
+
+"You make my decision easier, dear lady."
+
+In the little sitting-room Hilda established herself in a huge
+arm-chair, whose high back cast a shadow on her face, and Friedrich, at
+the window, drew in great breaths of sweet summer air. He turned to her
+when Uncle Jimmy had gone.
+
+"First tell me about Max."
+
+"Yes, I must tell you about Max. I am afraid it will be an added grief
+to you to know that Max----"
+
+"What is it?" he asked, sharply and apprehensively, as she hesitated.
+How familiar to him was that feeling of apprehension about his brother.
+Hilda was sitting erect in the big chair, looking at him fixedly.
+
+"Max--shot himself."
+
+"My God! Shot himself! Poor girl!"
+
+The expression on Hilda's face changed to one of relief--almost of joy.
+After all, his first thought had been for her.
+
+"Why did he--how did it happen?"
+
+"He had had troubles----"
+
+"Money?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I think they distressed him more than usual. And he was--he wasn't
+quite himself."
+
+Von Rittenheim stared persistently out of the window, his face almost
+entirely turned away from her. He lost not a word of what she said, and
+at the same time there ran through his mind memories of their boyhood
+days together, and of their adventures at the gymnasium and the
+university. Then their rivalry over Hilda. With what careless ease
+Maximilian had won her away from his brother, just for the pleasure of
+victory. He felt again a dash of the old bitterness.
+
+"You mean he was drunk?" he asked, bluntly.
+
+She raised her tiny hands before her face as if she were warding off a
+blow. Friedrich hardly could hear her "Yes."
+
+Her action suggested an idea to von Rittenheim.
+
+"Tell me, Hilda." He stammered over the question. "Did he--did Max ever
+strike you?"
+
+Without a word Hilda pushed back the hair that fell over her forehead
+at one side, and showed, close to the roots, a scar.
+
+Friedrich gazed at her in horror.
+
+"You poor, poor girl!"
+
+Again the glow of satisfaction warmed her face.
+
+"Where was he when he--when he died?"
+
+"At the Schloss--in my dressing-room."
+
+"You were there?"
+
+"My dress was wet with his blood."
+
+Over Friedrich there rushed man's protective feeling, the desire to
+shield a woman from pain; his own yearning of not so many months ago,
+to fend this one fragile creature from the world. He drew nearer to
+her, and she leaned back in her chair and looked up at him out of the
+shadow.
+
+"I could not bear to live at the Schloss any longer--there were
+horrible memories, and I was alone; I told you my aunt had died. You
+know she was my only relative."
+
+Von Rittenheim knew. It was at her aunt's house in Heidelberg that he
+had met Hilda.
+
+"Then Maximilian had told me that we could not live in the Schloss if
+you did not supply the money to carry it on. After he died I could not
+feel myself indebted for that to you when I had treated you so badly."
+
+She hung her head. Von Rittenheim made a gesture of polite dissent, and
+walked again to the window.
+
+"You always had enough money, I hope?"
+
+"No sum ever was large enough for Max." They both smiled. "But a piece
+of great good fortune came to me just after you went away."
+
+Von Rittenheim turned again to the window and betrayed some
+embarrassment, but Hilda was intent upon her story, and noticed
+nothing.
+
+"Some of the investments into which my dowry had been put appreciated
+enormously in value."
+
+So that was the way Herr Stapfer had explained it. Friedrich nodded
+approvingly.
+
+"So I always had enough for my needs, even when----"
+
+"When what?"
+
+"Forgive me. I did not mean to say it."
+
+"You were going to say, 'Even when Maximilian took it?'"
+
+She hung her head again, like a sorry child. He noticed how her neck
+and arms shone white through the thin black of her gown.
+
+"After all, you are his brother. Perhaps I should tell you. At the
+end--it was because of that that he shot himself, poor Max! He came to
+me in my room and asked me for money, and I told him I had none.
+Indeed, he had taken the last I had a few days before. He did not
+believe me, and he threatened to shoot himself if I did not give it to
+him."
+
+"Coward!"
+
+"Of course, I did not think that it was more than--excitement. How
+could I believe that he was in earnest? But he kept crying, 'Give it
+up, give it up!' The servants heard him. And then----"
+
+Friedrich crossed quickly to her and leaned over the chair as she sat
+with her face buried in her handkerchief.
+
+"Hilda, it seems to me no woman ever needed pity and comfort more than
+you. You have come many thousands of miles to claim it from me, and I
+will not fail you. You reminded me last night of my oath to you. I
+repeat it now. My life is at your service if it can bring you
+happiness."
+
+The words sounded forced and stilted to his ears, even while he pressed
+the little white hand that she put out blindly towards him. He was not
+sorry for his pledge; he felt that he could have done no less; but
+Sydney's proud, earnest face flashed before him, and his memory saw it
+soften and flush with the happy shyness that covered it when she gave
+him her handkerchief,--and he wondered to what extent Hilda would
+consider that his promise bound him.
+
+A few days made it clear that he had committed himself to no mere form
+of words. She received the admiration of every man in the Neighborhood.
+Patton McRae's elastic heart added another to its list of occupants,
+and John Wendell fell seriously in love with her. But always in the
+foreground she placed von Rittenheim. It was not alone that she looked
+for his coming, and monopolized him when he arrived; that she deferred
+to him, and did half a hundred tell-tale things; but in some way, by a
+hint here and a phrase there, she made every one understand how it had
+been with them in the past,--how madly he had loved her; how foolish
+she had been to break the engagement; how worse than foolish, for she
+had broken his great, noble heart, too. But, now--with a pretty sigh
+and an appealing look--now was her opportunity to remedy the harm she
+had done. When one or two of the bolder ones hinted at an engagement,
+she denied it, with a rebuking glance at her black gown, her
+fascinating, floating diaphanous black gown. Still, it became evident
+to every one that when a proper time had elapsed after Maximilian's
+death, her consolation would be even more remedial.
+
+John haunted her steps, and left her only when the Baron came. Then he
+disappeared until his rival's departure. Sydney grew distant in manner
+to von Rittenheim, and often he did not see her at all when he went to
+Oakwood. Hilda's visit to Mrs. Carroll was prolonged on the ground that
+seemed to have place in every one's mind, though no one could trace its
+origin, that she would stay on near Friedrich until it was time to go
+home to Germany to begin her wedding preparations,--say, until after
+Christmas,--and that they would be married as soon as the year of
+mourning was over.
+
+"It would be disgracefully soon if her husband had been a good man, of
+course, but he was such a beast!" And a shrug made all the necessary
+condonement for the hastening of the marriage.
+
+By September the whole neighborhood was converted to this belief, all
+except John, who _would_ not believe, and Sydney, who had not trusted
+herself to think.
+
+The compulsion of thought seized her in her own room one night, after a
+day when it had been forced upon her that there could be but one truth,
+and that the conclusion to which her friends had come. From window to
+window she walked, dragging her trailing draperies, softly blue in the
+moonlight. She was fretted into constant motion by the impelling might
+of a desire to do something that would put off the moment when she must
+stop and think out the situation. She tried to divert her fancy to the
+channels of her daily life. She decided what colts should be broken
+next summer. She devised a new plan for keeping Bob employed and happy
+when the dull days of winter should come. She endeavored to be grateful
+that her grandmother was less harassed by pain than usual. Yet through
+all wreathed the insistent cry, "Face it. You must face it."
+
+That compelling threat she knows who recognizes that the one dearest to
+her on earth must die. It commands the scrutiny of facts, and an end to
+the glossing of truth. It rings the knell of hope. Later comes the
+sustaining reflection of the future life,--its opportunities for work
+and its attendant happiness for him who enters upon it. But now is
+self's confrontment with loneliness, with sorrow, with despair.
+
+The cry became insistent in Sydney's ears. Face it she must.
+
+She stepped through the long window upon the balcony which commanded
+west and south. The moon swam cold in the steel-blue sky. The ribbon of
+low-lying mist betrayed the devious winding of the creek. On the
+horizon swung the gray masses of the mountains, their hardness veiled
+in the tender light of distance. Sydney fell on her knees and twisted
+her hands one within the other. She spoke in a whisper.
+
+"I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! Oh, I cannot bear it!" she
+repeated over and over.
+
+Then stung to openness by the lash of the constant inward cry--
+
+"I love him! Oh, I love him! Oh, I cannot bear it!" she moaned yet
+again.
+
+She rocked to and fro upon her knees, and hid her face in her hands to
+shut out the glory of beauty and calm that lay before and around her.
+
+"I never thought that love would be like this. To feel it--to be sure
+of it--and to have to give him to another woman!" She began to cry
+weakly.
+
+The moon flooded the gallery with its light. A diamond on one of
+Sydney's clasped hands winked as gayly as if a tragedy were not filling
+the girl's heart. Then oft-read words came to her lips:
+
+"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher;
+nothing wider, nothing more pleasant; nothing fuller nor better in
+heaven and earth."
+
+"For it carries a burden which is no burden, and makes everything that
+is bitter sweet and savory."
+
+"He that loveth flieth, runneth and rejoiceth; he is free and is not
+bound."
+
+"He giveth all for all."
+
+"He giveth all for all." She repeated it again and again.
+
+She had, indeed, dreamed of a love for which sacrifice should be a joy.
+But that this should be the kind of sacrifice! Even through her
+wretchedness the humor of it penetrated, and a woe-begone smile
+fluttered over her lips.
+
+The singing words came to her again.
+
+"Let me be possessed by love, mounting above myself."
+
+"Let me love thee more than myself, and love myself only for thee."
+
+She kneeled upright and rested her folded arms upon the railing. Peace
+seemed to be flowing in upon her, and a purpose grew into form within
+her mind. With increasing control she rose to her feet.
+
+"If my love is worth anything it can do even that."
+
+Her uplifted face shone strong and beautiful as she left the splendor
+without, and knelt beside her bed.
+
+"O God, I thank thee that thou hast granted me the power to love. Help
+me now, I implore thee, to make use of this, my dearest treasure, for
+the joy of others."
+
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+A Poke Party
+
+
+Friedrich was sitting at his solitary breakfast. He had grown expert in
+the daily preparation of bacon, eggs, cornbread, and coffee; but that
+is a poor feast which is denied the sauce of companionship, and he
+dallied with his spoon, while he stared gloomily through the open door.
+The jaded green of the late September foliage harmonized with his mood
+of depression.
+
+He went to Oakwood now only so often as courteous attention to his
+sister-in-law--poor little girl!--seemed to demand. Sydney avoided him;
+and John, who still lingered, although the Schuylers had gone north
+long before, gave him the black looks of a jealous rival. Hilda, though
+never assuming before him the part of betrothed which every one
+assigned to her, nevertheless made him feel the bond by which he had
+engaged himself,--a net as fine as silk and as strong as steel; an
+enmeshment of chivalry and sympathy and love for his good word.
+
+He made his new business the excuse for his infrequent visits. It was
+no subterfuge, for even in the short period of two months the "McRae
+Cattle" were earning encomiums, from those who knew stock, for their
+good condition and the flavor of their beef. Both on the Baron's place
+and at Cotswold long shelter-sheds were being erected for winter
+protection; and at Cotswold, whose larger size warranted the
+establishment of a more extensive plant, the firm had put in a small
+stationary engine to cut the feed, and was building a silo for the
+preservation of the winter supplies. A dehorning machine, which caused
+a moment of present torture for the sake of months of future peace,
+served an additional purpose as an advertisement. Farmers came from far
+back in the mountains to see the inhuman weapon, and incidentally
+brought along a calf or two to sell as an excuse for their waste of
+time. Their denunciations sent more of the curious, who were not
+deterred by motives of tenderness from submitting their creatures to
+the operation, provided they received a good price.
+
+When Hilda had discovered her brother-in-law's straitened circumstances
+she had offered to him a part of her income, deploring his evident
+poverty with real distress of voice and manner.
+
+"I don't understand why it is so,--you are not extravagant, like
+Max,--but I can see the fact plainly enough, and I beg you to take it,
+dear Friedrich."
+
+Friedrich kissed her hand in gratitude, but refused, explaining that he
+had enough capital for the undertaking of his business venture, and
+that his personal wants were of the simplest.
+
+"But your house, Friedrich. It is not fitting that a von Rittenheim
+should live in a cabin like that."
+
+[Illustration: "It is not fitting that a von rittenheim should live in
+a cabin like that"]
+
+"Man makes the house, Hilda, and I don't feel that my dignity is hurt.
+I am comfortable, and that is all that is necessary."
+
+He happened to think of this conversation as he drank the last of his
+coffee, and he realized that Hilda's offer was another of the tiny
+threads that linked him to her. He thought how true it was now that, so
+long as he could make his living out of his new business, he cared
+nothing for the roof that sheltered him; while on that golden night of
+happiness when Sydney and he had watched the river flow under the
+bridge, he had been glad of his new prosperity because he could build
+for _her_ a house such as she should fancy.
+
+He did not allow himself to think often of Sydney. He was glad that he
+had had the strength to refrain from asking her to be his wife until he
+had something more substantial than his name to offer her. It relieved
+somewhat the present situation. Yet her avoidance of him he could
+construe only as contempt for a man who had played with her while bound
+by other ties. Sometimes he felt that he must explain to her how
+intangible were those bonds. Yet he was sufficiently conscious of their
+actual existence to feel that the difficulties of explanation were
+almost insurmountable. And Hilda, poor child, took his devotion
+entirely for granted.
+
+His thoughts were leading him in a circle, and it was a relief when
+Melissa appeared in the doorway. He sprang up to welcome her.
+
+"Come in, Mrs. Yare-brough. How do you do?"
+
+"Ah'm well, thank ye. How are you?" returned Melissa, in the polite
+formula of her kind.
+
+"Won't you have a cup of coffee?"
+
+"No, Ah thank you. How's Mrs. Baron?"
+
+"Mrs. Baron? Oh! She was very well the last time I was at Oakwood. She
+asks fr-requently for you and the baby."
+
+"Mrs. Baron's so sweet! Ah never 'lowed to like anybody's much's Miss
+Sydney, but Mrs. Baron's jus' splendid."
+
+With a woman's care-taking instinct, she began to gather together the
+dishes on the table and prepare them for washing.
+
+"No, let me," she said, in response to von Rittenheim's objection.
+"Jus' while Ah'm talkin'. Ah stopped by to tell ye that Ah'm goin' to
+have a party to-night, an' Ah'd be proud to have you-all come to hit."
+
+Her interest in him was so evident, and her desire to give him pleasure
+so real, that Friedrich responded, heartily,--
+
+"Certainly, I shall go. It will give me delight. It is kind of you to
+ask me."
+
+Melissa turned away, and rattled the knives and forks in gratified
+embarrassment.
+
+"Hit's goin' to be to mother's 'cos her house is larger. You know where
+hit is?"
+
+"Yes, indeed. Is it a dance?"
+
+"Hit's a poke party, but there'll be dancin', too."
+
+"A poke party! What is that?"
+
+"Don't you-all know what a poke party is?"
+
+"Poke? That is what I do with my finger at the baby."
+
+Melissa laughed aloud.
+
+"You wait 'n see, then. Ah reckon hit'll be a surprise party fo' you as
+well as a poke party."
+
+It was clear that Melissa had imparted to her friends the Baron's guess
+as to the probable nature of a poke party, for he was greeted with
+broad smiles as he made his way through the crowd of men and boys about
+Mrs. Lance's door into the room where dancing was going on. Melissa
+came to him and proposed a seat beside Mrs. 'Gene Frady until the
+cotillon should be ended, but von Rittenheim preferred to go about the
+room as dexterously as he might in avoidance of the dancers, speaking
+to his acquaintances among the women and girls who lined its walls.
+There was space upon the floor for only two sets, and the lookers-on
+gossiped patiently, until such time as Alf Lance, the fiddler, should
+grow weary and let fall his bow.
+
+"They's fo' blue waistes here to-night. Ollie Warson looks mahty sweet
+in her's."
+
+"Do you think so? Hit seems like she favored her paw too much."
+
+"Well, Bill Warson 'lows that if they's any good looks in the family,
+they come from him."
+
+"Maw, you-all got a hairpin? Give hit to me next time I turn co'ners."
+
+"Look at Evvie Williams! She always gets a seat nex' the window, so's
+she c'n talk to some feller out o' hit."
+
+"Ah did, too, when Ah was that age."
+
+"Yes, Ah remember you did. Ah don' guess Hamp Pinner's goin' to dance
+with Ollie tonight."
+
+"Yes, he is. He jus' ast her in through the window."
+
+"Sh, sh, sh. Will you hush yo' fuss!"
+
+"Ah'm well, thank ye, Mr. Baron. How are you?"
+
+"Look at Drusilla Pinner cross her feet, an' her a church-member, too!"
+
+"Ah been lookin'. She's awful careless about her dancin'."
+
+"This child'll have to go to bed in the other room. He's yellin' jus'
+tur'ble."
+
+"Ah 'low M'lissy 'll make some money out o' this. They's right smart
+here."
+
+Von Rittenheim made his rounds and joined the group of men at the door.
+They received him pleasantly, for he was a favorite among them. Indeed,
+since his misfortune in the spring he had noticed an added warmth in
+their attitude, and a certain intimacy of approach. As he talked to
+them the music stopped abruptly, and with its last note he found
+himself alone, for the youths about him had precipitated themselves
+into the room to secure their partners for the next cotillon. The
+enterprising Hamp came in through the window, by which port of entry
+the orchestra departed in search of the reviving pail on the back
+porch.
+
+Melissa came timidly to von Rittenheim.
+
+"Won't you-all dance this nex' one, Mr. Baron? Ah'll get ye a partner."
+
+"I fear I should make too many mistakes. I do not understand well
+enough English to know quickly what says the director."
+
+"Oh, yo' partner 'll tell ye all that."
+
+"Then, if you will be that partner, will I try."
+
+"Oh, no. Hit looks like Ah'd been askin' you."
+
+"But no, Mrs. Yare-brough, for I would not tr-rust myself to the care
+of anybody whom I knew less well."
+
+"Truly? Then we'll stand here?" And Friedrich, looking at her beaming
+face, did not regret the effort.
+
+The other participants in the cotillon gained no praise from the
+spectators, for every eye was upon their unexpected guest. They
+applauded his successes and smiled encouragingly upon his mistakes.
+They admired his good looks in pleased undertones, and secretly urged
+Alf to prolong the dance and their pleasure until it seemed to
+Friedrich that he had been on the floor for hours.
+
+When at last the music stopped, Bud's voice was heard calling,
+loudly,--
+
+"Come in yere, boys, 'n get yo' pokes."
+
+The girls found seats for themselves, while the men crowded into the
+other room.
+
+"Hit's supper," said Melissa, giving Friedrich a little shove towards
+the door. "You'll see now."
+
+"May I have the honor of bringing yours to you?"
+
+"No, Ah thank ye, Mr. Baron. Ah always eats mine with Bud. But you-all
+go in an' get some, an' you'll fin' somebody to eat hit with when ye
+come back."
+
+In the other room the men crowded before a table upon which were piled
+paper bags of different sizes. Each man was taking two, one for himself
+and one for his partner.
+
+"This size poke is ten cents," insisted Bud, in the uproar, "'n this
+size is fifteen. They's good things in 'em all. The quality's the same,
+hit's the quantity makes the difference. Yes, they's devil ham
+san'wich. Ah know they is, 'cos Ah cut mah finger openin' a can fo'
+M'lissy this mo'nin'. Yes, they's cake, too. You, Hamp, that size is
+fifteen!"
+
+As Friedrich approached, a laugh went up at the expense of 'Gene Frady,
+who had taken a bag of each size.
+
+"Watch out which one 'Gene gives his wife," cried Bud, sarcastically.
+
+The babies on the bed, four of them, were aroused by the noise, and
+joined their voices thereto. Three older children, who were sleeping
+rosily under the covers, slumbered on peacefully.
+
+"One poke, or two, Mr. Baron? Ah'm proud to see you-all here," said
+Bud.
+
+"A poke is a bag, eh? Give me two pokes, if you please, Bud. Yes, the
+large ones."
+
+Returning to the dancing-room, he made his way to Mrs. Lance, Melissa's
+mother, who was sitting near the window. She was flattered into silence
+by the attention of the offered poke, and they ate the contents of
+their bags with solemnity.
+
+A figure moving in the dim light outside attracted Friedrich's
+attention. He put his head out of the window. The man came directly
+beneath, and looked up.
+
+"Ah, Pink, I thought that was you. I want to see you at some time."
+
+"Ah'll watch out fo' ye when you-all's unhitchin' yo' mule."
+
+"Very well. I'm going in a few minutes. You do not come in?"
+
+"No. Hit's M'lissy's party, 'n she 'n me ain' friends."
+
+"Here, take this, then."
+
+Friedrich dropped his partly filled poke into the ready, uplifted hand.
+
+"I had my supper very late to-night," he explained to Mrs. Lance, "and
+a man outside a party looks so forlorn, don't you think so?"
+
+"Some of 'em deserves hit," returned Mrs. Lance, laconically. "He's
+one."
+
+Von Rittenheim was fumbling with the halter-strap of his mule, when
+Pressley appeared beside him out of the shadow of a pine-tree.
+
+"Is that you, Pr-ressley? Do you r-ride or walk?"
+
+"Ah'm walkin'."
+
+"Then will I not mount."
+
+Friedrich slipped the reins over the mule's head, and led him out on to
+the highway. Pressley walked beside him. The stars shone brightly
+enough to make visible the open road.
+
+"Are you-all goin' to ask me about the rent, Mr. Baron? Bud 'n me's
+been pullin' fodder fo' a week. Hit's all ready in the upper field, 'n
+you c'n take yo' choice any time. They's good bundles, fo' han's to the
+bundle."
+
+"Thank you. No, it was not of that I was going to speak. I want to tell
+you that about six weeks ago--it was in August--I was up on Buzzard
+Mountain one night, and I fell asleep there."
+
+Pink looked at him suspiciously in the darkness, and put a piece of the
+road between them.
+
+"I fell asleep on a ledge of r-rock, and when I woke up I heard voices
+just under me."
+
+"The hell ye did!"
+
+"It was you and Bud."
+
+"Well, what ye goin' to do about hit? Hit ain' befittin' you to squeal
+on us."
+
+Von Rittenheim turned hot in the darkness, and made an impulsive motion
+that induced a corresponding disturbance in his companion.
+
+"If I had thought of doing that I should not have spoken to you
+to-night."
+
+Pressley nodded, and came across the intervening space.
+
+"You-all wan' to come into the game, eh?"
+
+"No, I do not want to join you, if that is what you mean."
+
+"Well, what do ye want, anyway?"
+
+"I wees' to say a few things to you. I do not ask you to stop
+moonshining. You are old enough to decide for yourself what kind of
+life you pr-refer to lead, though you know well that the life of a
+law-br-reaker is not the r-right sort."
+
+"Oh, quit preachin', Mr. Baron. You-all's a law-breaker, yo'self."
+
+Friedrich clutched the reins with a jerk that made the mule give a
+disgusted snort. The justice of the retort compelled him to
+self-control, as well as the knowledge that a giving way to rage would
+accomplish nothing, whereas coolness might do something.
+
+"You know as well as I do the penalty of br-reaking the law. You've
+suffered it more than once, they tell me."
+
+"Ah reckon Ah've cost 'em right smart mo'n they ever got out o' me,"
+chuckled Pink.
+
+"So I do not ask you to face the r-results of what you do, because you
+know well what they are, and you have made your choice. But I do ask
+you to think carefully before you undertake the r-responsibility of
+making Bud a criminal."
+
+Pink's eyes shone cruelly in the darkness, but he only said, "Seems
+like you-all been a long time startin' on this yere work o' reform. You
+said hit was six weeks ago you heard us a-talkin'."
+
+"Perhaps I have been wrong to delay. But that morning Bud seemed not
+sure and determined about joining you, and I hoped that he might make
+up his mind to refr-rain."
+
+"How do you know he ain'?"
+
+"Oh, by the grape-vine telegraph. Those things always are known. Also
+have I heard the men at the party to-night talking about it."
+
+"Bud ain' no boy. Don' you think he's old enough to decide fo' himself
+fo' or ag'in' the life of a law-breaker, as you call hit."
+
+"No, I do not. Bud is several years younger than you in r-real age, and
+he is a child beside you in deter-rmination. Also, he admires you."
+
+"Ah'm grateful for the compliment!"
+
+"You could do anything with him."
+
+"Ah'm doin' what Ah wan' to with him."
+
+Von Rittenheim looked at his opponent in disgust, and fell back upon
+his last argument.
+
+"You know well what are the chances of your getting caught. You've been
+caught before."
+
+"Yes, but Ah won' be this time. Hit was fellers that was mad with me
+who told on me befo', 'n Ah've fixed hit this time so Ah ain' got no
+enemies. They's only one feller that might inform."
+
+"Who's that?"
+
+"You."
+
+The Baron flung up his head in quick scorn, and Pressley noted the
+gesture shrewdly, and nodded in satisfaction. Still he drove in another
+nail.
+
+"A feller who'll listen will tell."
+
+Friedrich colored angrily.
+
+"You mean me? It does not sound well to hear--that! At first when I
+awoke on the mountain I was sleepy. I r-realized not what it meant.
+When I did know, I had no wees' to die at once. I was unarmed myself,
+and a man in your position would shoot deter-rmined to kill."
+
+Pressley smiled at this tribute to his quickness and resolve.
+
+"But it is not a question of me. What I was going to say was that you
+know there's a chance of your being arrested, and surely you would not
+care to feel that it was through you that Bud had br-rought that shame
+and disgr-race upon his wife."
+
+"His wife?"
+
+The ejaculation sounded to von Rittenheim like the hiss of a snake, and
+he drew away from Pressley as from a reptile.
+
+"You have no r-relatives to suffer; alone you bear the bur-rden of your
+misdeeds. But if Bud goes wr-rong consider of the gr-rief of that poor
+Melissa, and think of the baby gr-rowing up to know that her father is
+a cr-riminal!"
+
+"You-all think you got a mahty strong argyment there, Mr. Baron, don'
+you? But let me tell you, that's the weakest one you could bring.
+M'lissy Lance told me 'No' when she was a girl, an' M'lissy
+Yarebrough's never spoke a decent word to me since she's been married,
+'n 'f unhappiness comes on her, Ah'll be glad of hit; 'n 'f hit comes
+through mah doin', hit's only what Ah'm aimin' at."
+
+"'Aimin' at?' What mean you by that?"
+
+"Ah mean Ah'll be gladder still 'f she's hurt through me."
+
+"Know you not that it is a coward who takes pleasure in the pain of
+women and children?"
+
+"So be," returned Pink, cheerfully. "A coward Ah am, then, fo' that's
+the way Ah feel."
+
+"I warn you I shall speak to Bud."
+
+"Talk yo' hatful, Ah don' care. Ah got a pull on him. Talk all you
+please so long's ye don' talk to the marshal."
+
+"An' Ah ain' afraid o' yo' doin' that," he continued to himself, as he
+turned into the side road that led to his cabin. "You-all's had enough
+o' them folkses; an' you ain' that kind, either."
+
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+Von Rittenheim Collects his Rent
+
+
+It was in the cool of the next day's afternoon that von Rittenheim,
+with 'Gene Frady, who was working for him, drove up to the field where
+was piled his rent corn. Bud was awaiting him there, and after he had
+chosen his heap from the three which were as nearly alike as it was
+possible to make them, he sat on a fallen tree and idly watched the two
+men loading the wagon. The western sky gave prophecy of a cloudless
+sunset, and Friedrich wished that his own path towards oblivion were as
+free and clear, and smiled faintly at the triteness of his comparison.
+
+He owned to himself as he sat there that he was contented. He had
+entered upon his business with the desire to retrieve his past, and to
+make for himself a future that might be worthy for Sydney to share. Now
+the latter spur to ambition was gone, but it was replaced by an urgent
+desire to forget in work the bitter disappointment that had befallen
+him. Pushed by that incentive his venture could not long remain a
+venture. Such energy was bound to bring success. And the victory, which
+was daily more evident and more substantial, combined with the feeling
+that he was doing his duty as he saw it, to produce content.
+
+But happiness? No. Never while---- Oh, what was the use of thinking
+about it? He rose impatiently, and walked through the brush at the top
+of the field, slapping at the leaves with a switch that he had been
+stripping.
+
+Of a sudden he stopped and sat down on a stump.
+
+"Goin' down with me, Mr. Baron?" called 'Gene from the top of the
+loaded wagon.
+
+"No, I think not. I'll stay and talk with Bud a while. Come up here,
+Yare-brough," he added, as Frady drove off, whistling.
+
+Bud approached, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his
+shirt sleeve.
+
+"Bud, did you know this was here?"
+
+Von Rittenheim reached behind him and tapped something that gave forth
+a sound of earthenware.
+
+"Know what was there?"
+
+"Come and see."
+
+Yarebrough stepped behind the stump, upon whose top the Baron swung
+around so as to keep his face in view.
+
+"Whose jug?" asked Bud.
+
+"I know not. I thought you might know."
+
+Bud picked it up, disclosing a silver half-dollar upon which it had
+been resting. He looked at it as if afraid, and then glanced sheepishly
+at Friedrich.
+
+"A half a gallon," remarked the German, dryly.
+
+The mountaineer reddened and stooped for the coin.
+
+"Wait!" commanded von Rittenheim. "Before you touch that, I want to ask
+you if you would be willing that your wife should know how you ear-rned
+that money?"
+
+Yarebrough changed his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, and
+then sat down suddenly, as if his legs were not equal to his support.
+
+"Well, Ah wasn' fixin' to tell M'lissy," he acknowledged.
+
+"Know you not that that so good little woman would r-rather be hungr-ry
+than have you give her money that you gained by br-reaking the law?"
+
+"Well, Ah wasn' fixin' to give hit to her."
+
+"You weren't? What are you going to do with it?"
+
+Unfortunately for the success of Friedrich's plan for Bud's moral
+regeneration, Yarebrough's affection for the Baron made him reticent on
+the fact of his debt to Pressley.
+
+"For," he thought, sagely, "if Ah tell him Ah owe Pink, he'll go to
+lend me the money, 'n Ah know he cain' afford hit. Would he ever 'a'
+gone into sellin' blockade himself if he hadn' been as pore as a crow?"
+
+His wit not being very ready, however, he offered no excuse, but
+said,--
+
+"Ah reckon Ah don' care to tell ye."
+
+Friedrich laid his hand on the young man's shoulder as he sat beside
+him on the ground.
+
+"Think what it means, Bud, to do what now you do. You put yourself in
+the class of wr-rongdoers instead of in the r-ranks of those who do
+r-right. You will br-reak Melissa's heart if she finds it out, as
+certainly she will. And think of the baby. You want her to have an
+honest father, don't you?"
+
+Bud was ground between the upper and the nether millstone. On one side
+of his weak will was his affection for his wife and child, and his
+desire to please the Baron. On the other was his fear of Pressley's
+sneers and his habit of submission to the older man's domination. And
+since his inclination towards good was not assisted by the mighty lever
+of a love of good for virtue's sake, the millstones clung close
+together, and the grinding still went on.
+
+To compromise with a disagreeable present is a desire which it takes a
+stronger man than Bud to shake off. His inner light showed him no
+reason for making such an effort.
+
+"Ah s'pose Ah hadn' oughter do hit," he admitted, "but hit's mahty
+temptin'. Now that there's the first money Ah seen from hit yet. Hit's
+all been hard work up to now, an' nothin' comin' in."
+
+He lifted the jug and looked longingly at the coin on the ground.
+
+"You don' know what hit is to wan' hit so bad, Mr. Baron."
+
+"Do I not know? Good God! Bud, it was because I wanted half that sum so
+much that I couldn't r-resist the temptation of it shining in a man's
+hand, that I did the thing for which never shall I for-rgive myself.
+You know, Bud; you r-recollect----"
+
+He hid his face in his hands and gave a sob of tortured remembrance.
+Bud's easy sympathies were strained almost to the point of tears.
+
+"Ah know," he responded, hastily; "you hadn' oughter 'a' done hit.
+Don', Mr. Baron, don'! Ah'll think about stoppin', Ah certainly will.
+Sit up, Mr. Baron," he cried, agitatedly, "here's folkses comin',--Mrs.
+Baron an' Miss Sydney."
+
+Von Rittenheim raised his head, hardly believing Bud's cry to be other
+than an excuse to rouse him from his emotion. But he saw in the road
+below him a party of four people on horseback approaching his cabin.
+Even from his elevation he could recognize Sydney's erect carriage, and
+the white habit that it pleased Hilda to wear. He rose to his feet.
+
+"Think of what I say, boy," he said to Yarebrough. "I am older than
+you, and God knows I've earned my experience."
+
+Bud watched him down the hill. When he was greeting his guests at the
+door of his cabin, Yarebrough picked up the jug and the coin, and
+disappeared into the woods.
+
+Wendell was taking the baroness off her horse, and Bob was performing
+the same office for Sydney, when Von Rittenheim reached them.
+
+"We are come to beg a welcome fr-rom you for a few minutes, dear
+Friedrich," said Hilda, in English.
+
+"Which surely is yours," returned Von Rittenheim, kissing her hand. He
+turned to Sydney, but she was busy doing something to her saddle, and
+greeted him over her shoulder. His hand dropped to his side.
+
+"Let me help you tie the horses, Bob," he insisted, and took Sydney's
+animal from him.
+
+"Dear Yonny," he murmured, in the unresponsive ear, as he fastened him
+in the shade, and gave him a pat and a lump of sugar from his pocket.
+
+"May we go in?" asked Hilda. "I want to see the state of your
+storeroom," she added, with an air of protecting care that sat prettily
+on her youthful face.
+
+"_Natuerlich_," called Friedrich from Johnny's side. "The key of the
+cupboard is in the table-drawer."
+
+Sydney was alone on the porch when Friedrich came up the steps.
+
+"Your view is lovely," she said. "I think I like Pisgah better from
+this angle than from any other."
+
+"Then do I, too," he replied, looking at her with his heart in his
+eyes, for it was long since he had seen her, and to a lover yesterday,
+when it is passed, is as a thousand years.
+
+Sydney threw up her chin haughtily, and von Rittenheim thought ruefully
+of the category in which undoubtedly she classed all his remarks of
+that kind.
+
+"Will you not enter?" he said. "Never have you honored my roof, I
+think." And Sydney was glad to do so to avoid being alone with him.
+
+They found Hilda leaning against the table opposite the cupboard, while
+Bob recited the contents of the shelves, and Wendell wrote them down.
+
+"Two packages of oatmeal."
+
+"Oatmeal," echoed John.
+
+"One tin of mustard."
+
+"Mustard."
+
+"A sack half-full of cornmeal."
+
+"Cornmeal."
+
+"What in the world are you doing?" cried Sydney, in amazement.
+
+Friedrich looked annoyed. No one likes to have his house-keeping
+arrangements too closely scrutinized.
+
+"Friedrich, this list is going to help you ver-ry much to know what you
+must or-rder from the--how you call him?" She appealed to John and Bob
+in turn. "The grocy?"
+
+Friedrich smiled to conceal his irritation.
+
+"My way, Hilda, is to get more of something when I find empty the box
+that holds it. I'm afr-raid I am not pr-rovident."
+
+She returned his smile adorably.
+
+"That I must teach you," she said, and Sydney and John turned away.
+
+Sydney walked to the mantel-shelf, which was so high that it was on a
+level with her eyes. There was an array of pipes and a tin box of
+tobacco; a volume of Schiller, with some matches lying loose upon it;
+and, flat on the board, a photograph. She picked it up idly, not
+noticing what she was doing, conscious only of doing something, so that
+her separation from the others might not be noticeable. Her discovery
+proved to be half of a picture of a Neighborhood picnic, taken by an
+itinerant photographer who had established his tent near the Flora
+post-office. It was that side of the group in which she was standing,
+and her figure was brought into relief by a frame of card-board slipped
+over it like a mat. It had become a picture of herself, and of herself
+alone.
+
+Her first feeling--the instinct that comes before thought--was one of
+pleasure; he had cared enough to do that. But quick upon it came the
+cry of wounded pride. She found von Rittenheim at her side, and turned
+upon him fiercely.
+
+"How dare you?" she cried, in an undertone. "How dare you do such a
+thing? You know I never have given any man my picture,--once I told you
+so,--and you have made this a picture of me alone. You, who----"
+
+She broke off, choking, but she had enough voice to add,--
+
+"But it is like you, it is like you!" as she tore the card into bits
+and flung it into the fireplace.
+
+Friedrich stooped involuntarily to catch the falling fragments, but he
+saw at once the foolishness of his movement, and desisted. He said
+nothing, and Sydney, made ashamed of her tirade by his silence, as she
+would not have been by any words, at last looked up at him. The
+expression on his face was so hopeless, so unutterably sad, that she,
+in her turn, stood silent.
+
+"Could you not have left me that?" he whispered, hoarsely.
+
+Sydney was held by the inexplicable bond of his mute pain. A sense of
+comprehension went through her, and with it a thrill of happiness. It
+might be that after all--yes, it _must_ be that he had not been
+trifling with her, that he had cared, that he was suffering as she
+herself was suffering. And if so, how rewarded was her sacrifice! Her
+love had been strong enough to make her willing that he should love
+another woman, if his happiness lay in so doing. Her reward came in the
+knowledge that after all his love was hers--that he was sharing her
+sacrifice. _Why_ this was she did not understand; she only felt sure
+that she was right, and she gloried in it. Then, woman-like, she
+reproached herself for the moments when she had cheapened her
+renunciation by the suspicion that he had been flirting with her.
+
+Friedrich stood beside her, his left hand clutching his heart. He felt
+as if, in destroying that picture, so often gazed at through clouds of
+meditative smoke, so often kissed, she had done him a physical injury.
+Through his coat he pinched hard her little handkerchief, which always
+rested over his heart, lest she should divine its presence, and in some
+way tear that from him, too. His suffering was so great that he did not
+follow her change of expression, but his fingers felt hers touch them
+ever so fleetingly, and her whisper came to his ears,--
+
+"Forgive me. I think I understand now."
+
+Across the room came Hilda, who never could stay away from Friedrich
+many minutes, in spite of Wendell's efforts to interest her; and
+Wendell himself, following her reluctantly only when her progress
+brought him near von Rittenheim; and Bob, never truly happy except near
+Sydney. There was laughing and talking, in which Friedrich and Sydney
+heard themselves taking part, and wondered how it could be.
+
+"Also we br-rought you an invitation," said Hilda, "as well as our so
+interesting selves."
+
+"Yes," said Bob, "we're going on a 'possum-hunt to-morrow night, and we
+want you and your best dog."
+
+"You shall have me! I r-remember last year when first I came I heard
+the dogs on the mountain, but then I had no kind fr-riends to make me
+the invitation."
+
+"It's a little early, but we want to be sure to have one before Mr.
+Wendell goes."
+
+"You go soon?"
+
+Von Rittenheim's interest was only a courteous expression of concern,
+but John, fretted by Hilda's alternate encouragement and coldness, was
+tormented by his nerves, and not in command of his judgment. He saw in
+the Baron's question a malicious pleasure in his prospective departure.
+
+"Yes," he said, "I must go soon, I'm afraid. You're playing in luck
+these days, old man. You gain what I lose--and the close season for
+moonshiners is coming on, now that the corn is ripe."
+
+Hilda, who did not understand a word he said, laughed softly, as if in
+amusement at his wit. Von Rittenheim, who had not been able to follow
+the colloquialisms, frowned at "moonshining," which rang out for his
+ears above all else. Sydney and Bob looked with horror at the sneering
+face before them.
+
+"John," said Sydney, sternly, "you forget yourself strangely."
+
+As they were about to start she leaned from her horse and gave her hand
+to Friedrich.
+
+"You have much to forgive me," she said.
+
+"For much have I to thank you," he returned.
+
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+The 'Possum-Hunt
+
+
+Buzzard Mountain, wooded to the top, extends for two miles north and
+south. Its long, gradual slope is like the body of a dormant animal,
+rising from the sunken haunches over a long and flattened back, and
+falling again to the nose dropped sleepily between the outstretched
+paws.
+
+The meet for the 'possum-hunt was at its northern end, on the outskirts
+of the settlement. The run was to be along the crest towards the south,
+bringing the hunters out at the end of the ridge nearest their homes.
+
+The night was lighted by a youthful moon, not brilliant enough to dim
+the lustre of the stars, shining clear through the air. It was cool
+with the first touch of autumn; so cool as to invite to exercise, yet
+so warm as to make it a pleasure to be in the open.
+
+The hunters were in high spirits. The men from the hamlet about the
+post-office,--'Gene Frady and Alf Lance, Mitchell Robertson, the
+blacksmith, Doc Pinner, the carpenter, and a half-dozen more, with a
+boy to drive back the horses, were piled into a wagon. There were much
+pushing and scrambling for places, and many ejaculations of discomfort.
+
+"Git off mah feet, 'Gene."
+
+"Hang 'em outside, man. Ah gotter sit somewheres."
+
+"Ouch! What fool put rye-straw in here?"
+
+"Powerful penetratin', ain' hit?"
+
+"Now, look here, that dog's gotter run with the rest. They ain' no room
+for him in this wagon."
+
+"Cain' you-all make them horses o' yo's git along a little mo' lively,
+Alf? Mr. Baron'll 'a' cleaned the mountain o' 'possums befo' we git
+there."
+
+"How you-all think they's goin' ter hurry with so many fellers ter
+haul? Some o' you boys gotter light 'n walk up this hill in a minute,
+so ye better enjoy drivin' while ye can."
+
+At a deserted cabin on the road that ran through the northern gap they
+found Bob Morgan and John Wendell, who had come in a buggy, and the
+Baron on his mule. A small negro was to take the vehicle, with von
+Rittenheim's animal tied behind, around the base of the mountain to the
+German's house, there to await the end of the hunt. The boy's brown
+face was twitching with excitement, as the men began to throw their
+coats into the wagon, and to light their torches, split from the heart
+of the yellow pine.
+
+"Oh, Lor', Missa Bob," he cried, rubbing one bare foot up and down the
+other leg in ecstasy, "lemme go, too. Ah'll never ast ye nothin' again,
+Ah swear Ah won't. _Please_, Missa Bob."
+
+"Can't do it, Scipio," said Bob, kindly. "You're the only man we've got
+to look after these creatures. Here, don't let your eyes pop out of
+your head. I tell you, you drive to Mr. Baron's and tie the horse and
+the mule,--tie 'em strong, mind,--and then you can come up the other
+side and meet us."
+
+Scipio's mournful eyes followed the disappearing forms with an
+appreciation of their purpose rather than of the picturesqueness of
+their appearance. The flaming lights grew silent as the distance became
+too great for his ear to catch their sizzling. They danced hither and
+yon,--now scattered, now flashing in a bunch. He followed the course of
+a very bright one as it appeared and vanished, but went always on and
+up.
+
+"Ah 'low dat's Missa Bob's," said the loyal little soul. "He sho' would
+have de bigges'."
+
+On the hill-side the men opened their line to cover a wide stretch of
+the mountain, and plunged upward through the scrub of pines and oaks.
+There was much running about of the dogs, and desultory barking,
+corrected by spicy admonitions from their masters, until the ascent's
+steepness forced silence upon them by the weapon of difficult
+breathing.
+
+Once 'Gene Frady tripped on a root and fell headlong, pitching his
+torch into the dry duff a man's length before him. There was a rush to
+stamp out the incipient fire, the autumn terror of the forests, before
+any one lent a hand to help the fallen. Robertson went half-way up his
+leggings in a spring, and stood swearing fiercely, while the rest
+jeered at him and ordered him to move on before he muddied up a good
+drinking-place. Bob and Friedrich pushed on on adjoining courses, an
+occasional cry of "_malerisch_," or "_zauberisch_," showing that von
+Rittenheim was regarding the scene as well as the sport. On the other
+side of Bob climbed Wendell, sullenly self-reproachful in the Baron's
+presence, yet of too exuberant a nature not to be alive to the
+excitement of the chase.
+
+Of a sudden a hound gave voice,--the bay that makes hunters of us all.
+The other dogs rushed to his standard, yelping, barking, galloping from
+all directions across their masters' paths, until the forest seemed
+suddenly alive with them. One after another found, and added his note
+to the general cry that trailed off into the distance. The men who had
+started to follow paused, and the rest drew together.
+
+"Rabbit," suggested Bob, disgustedly, and the others nodded, and began
+to whistle for their retainers.
+
+Singly they returned, with swinging tongue and pendant ears, and a
+disposition to sit down and contemplate the scenery. Then once more
+came a cry, the steady bay of a dog at stand. His companions instantly
+forgot their fatigue, pricked up their ears, pulled in their tongues,
+and started towards the herald, with all the huntsmen in pursuit.
+
+Gathered about a veteran oak, whose blasted top betrayed it the
+lightning's victim, were grouped the dogs, each one shoving to better
+his place in the bunch, each with tuneful throat and uplifted tail.
+Occasionally one from the outskirts would rush around the crowd of his
+fellows and try to push in from the other side of the ring. The ones
+nearest the tree snuffed at a hole in the trunk between the roots, and
+dug fiercely with their forepaws.
+
+"Holler, ain' hit?"
+
+"Yes. He's went in that-a-way."
+
+"Don' look like hit's holler up fur."
+
+"No. Reckon we c'n chop him out."
+
+Lance pushed among the dogs, kicking and cuffing them out of his way,
+and sounded the tree with the back of a hatchet.
+
+"Ah 'low hit's gone all the way up," he cried.
+
+"Well, chop hit 'n fin' out!" returned his friends, impatiently.
+
+He began cutting a square and soon broke through the outer shell.
+
+"Gimme a glove, one o' you fellers," he cried. "Ah ain' aimin' to have
+a finger chewed off this time."
+
+Some one tossed him the desired protection. He put it on and thrust his
+arm into the hole, while the crowd pushed up on to the dogs, and they
+yelped excitedly.
+
+"Ah tol' ye so. Hit's holler clear up's fur's Ah c'n reach."
+
+"All right. We'll smoke him out, then. Git out o' here, you dogs, an'
+give us a chance at this fireplace."
+
+The hole at the base of the tree was quickly enlarged enough to push in
+a smudge, and the opening which Lance had made above was closed with
+moss and green leaves.
+
+"Hi, there she comes," cried some one, enthusiastically, as the thick
+white smoke made its way out of the broken top. "The varmint won' stan'
+that long."
+
+Soon, indeed, amid a shower of bark and burning punk, a black and white
+ball scrambled into the air and dropped from the ragged splinters that
+offered no sufficient hold for its claws.
+
+As swift as sight, 'Gene Frady dashed close to the bole and caught the
+falling creature in his hands. High above the leaping dogs he held it,
+while they snarled, defrauded of their prey.
+
+"Quick, that crocus sack," he called. "Ah promised the kids to bring
+one home. Give him a switch, Mitchell."
+
+The 'possum, rousing from the semi-stupor into which the smoke and the
+shock of his fall had thrown him, was beginning to struggle violently.
+Robertson broke a finger-thick stick and thrust it between the snapping
+jaws, that clamped upon it fiercely. The rat-like tail wound about the
+other end of the rod, and the bag was drawn over him while he clung to
+his fancied means of safety. Frady flung his burden high on his back to
+secure it from the dogs, and the others put out the fire in the tree,
+and again fell into open order to beat the woods.
+
+The next 'possum which they discovered, more fortunate than his
+brother, who had been sighted on the ground where locomotion is slow
+and awkward for his kind, was aloft in the branches when the dogs spied
+him. He clambered dexterously about with his hand-like extremities,
+aiding his progress with his prehensile tail; but he had not calculated
+upon the added heaviness which his autumn diet had given him. He
+ventured upon a sapling that bent beneath him. Wendell added his weight
+to bear it to the ground, and the dogs leaped at their victim and tore
+him into bits.
+
+Both men and dogs were tired now, and pushed on with less enthusiasm.
+The dogs, indeed, who had covered many more miles in their wild
+dashings than had their masters, were not above sitting down
+occasionally and lapping a memento of the last 'possum's sharp teeth,
+or passing a rueful paw over a slit and bleeding ear.
+
+As they were approaching the southern end of the mountain, and realized
+that the edge of the excitement was blunted, the men walked nearer to
+each other, and talked on indifferent themes as they pushed through the
+brush just below the top of the ridge. One after another fell silent,
+perhaps through fatigue; possibly impressed with the beauty of the
+night.
+
+Through the openings in the tree-tops the stars shone with steady
+clearness, doing their best to replace the light of the little moon
+which had gone to rest early, like most young things. Under the forest
+cover the starlight did not penetrate, and the darkness was illumined
+by the yellow flare of the torches. The fall of feet on crackling
+twigs, and the slapping of smitten shrub-leaves broke the thick silence
+that falls on the earth with night.
+
+To Pink Pressley, crouching at the entrance of his cave, the sound of
+approaching steps was a threat. He had put out his fire as soon as he
+heard the dogs on the other end of the ridge, and for two hours he had
+followed the course of the hunt by their barking and the cries of the
+men. He guessed it to be what it was,--a 'possum-hunt,--yet suspicion
+born of guilt hinted always at such a hunt as an excuse for a raid upon
+his still.
+
+On the other hand, the party was coming from the north, and might be
+made up of men from Asheville. In that case, since, perhaps, they did
+not know the mountain, it was quite possible that they would turn back
+before they reached his hiding-place. At any rate, he determined to
+stay where he was, and run the risk of detection. If it should prove to
+be a raid, he was not averse to exchanging shots with the revenue men.
+The thought of it filled him with a fierce joy. Three times they had
+destroyed his whole plant, and this time he meant to fight for it.
+
+He took down the boards that filled the cave's mouth, and pulled the
+bushes more carefully before it. The dogs would find and reveal him as
+quickly with one arrangement as the other, and he had no desire to
+undergo a siege shut up in that hole, when he might burst out and
+defend himself with some enjoyment.
+
+Screened by his net-work of bushes, he listened keenly to every sound.
+A misgiving seized him that Bud had betrayed him, and he cursed him in
+a whisper. Yarebrough had told him in the afternoon that his baby was
+ill, and that he could not leave Melissa alone with her that night; but
+he had confessed at the same time, with his usual lack of reticence,
+that the Baron had "been a-talkin'" to him, and Pink suspected that the
+baby's illness was a fabrication to excuse his non-appearance at the
+still, and possibly his treachery. Pressley's judgment of his partner's
+honor was based on his own, and he felt in his pocket to make sure of
+the safety there of a letter whose crackle sounded pleasantly in his
+ears.
+
+"'Twon' do to give him too much rope," he muttered.
+
+Nearer came the soft scampering of dogs and the trampling of men, and
+the torches' glow warming the unlighted forest. Pressley hoped that
+they might pass along the mountain's side below him, or on top of the
+ledge that roofed his cavern, but there always was danger from the
+dogs. Even as he thought it, one padded along the shelf of rock that
+lay like a step before his door, and stopped short with a growl. He was
+so near that Pink struck him with the butt of his revolver, and sent
+him off with a paw uplifted in pain.
+
+The man leaned out from his shelter and stared towards the right,
+whence the lights were coming. Then he looked straight ahead for a
+moment, down the mountain, under the leafy tops, and wished it were all
+over and he knew how it had come out.
+
+When he looked back the foremost men were in view, a group of three or
+four, with their dogs following at heel soberly enough. Their torches
+flung grotesque shadows on the trees, and distorted their figures into
+uncouth semblances. He could not recognize them, yet they seemed
+familiar. Those two in front--was it----? Yes, by God! Like a fiend he
+sprang from his lair and rushed at von Rittenheim, as if from the very
+bowels of the rock. His face glared, malignant, in the unsteady light.
+
+"So you did squeal on me, you damned German!" he yelled. "Take that and
+that and that." He fired three times full at von Rittenheim's face.
+With the third shot another rang in unison, and Pressley fell, twisted
+and snarling, on the stone before his still.
+
+Bob Morgan's hand, holding the smoking pistol, fell to his side.
+
+"Are you all right, von Rittenheim?" he asked; then added, weakly, "I
+reckon you'll have to carry me down, boys. He's touched me." And he
+staggered into Friedrich's arms.
+
+He had been walking a stride higher up the hill-side than von
+Rittenheim, and, flinging himself from his greater elevation between
+the German and his assailant, he had received the bullets meant for
+Friedrich's head lower in his own body.
+
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+"Fought the Fight"
+
+
+Bob lay white and still upon his bed, breathing painfully. Two of
+Pink's bullets had torn their way through his lungs, and the third had
+splintered his collar-bone. A surgeon had come out from Asheville, and,
+after examining the wounds, had sent for help. When the second
+physician arrived, they had probed and prodded the inert body, while
+Dr. Morgan, with an ever-growing fear clutching at his heart,
+administered the chloroform with a steady hand. Outside the door Mrs.
+Morgan had knelt against the wall, tearless, and without a word of
+prayer.
+
+Now it was over, and there was no hope, only waiting for the end,--the
+waiting that saps courage from the heart of the onlooker, and makes
+endurance seem a thing impossible; the torture of seeing suffering that
+is not to be relieved; suffering that seems all unnecessary, since
+death is to be the issue after all.
+
+Bob had asked for Sydney as soon as he came out of the chloroform, and
+she had responded at once.
+
+"You won't leave me, dear?" he had questioned, when he opened his eyes
+from the drowsiness that the opiate forced upon him, and saw her
+sitting beside him.
+
+"No, Bob; I'll stay as long as you want me."
+
+He had smiled feebly at her.
+
+"It won't be very long."
+
+A glimmer in his eyes showed that he understood the possible
+impertinent interpretation of his speech.
+
+"You won't mind letting me hold your hand, Sydney, will you?" he had
+said, in his hoarse, weak voice. "It's one of the perquisites of dying.
+Tuck your fingers in there, dear. Those doctors have strapped me up so
+I can't move my arm."
+
+So she sat with her hand in his, and her eyes looking out across the
+meadows to Buck Mountain, while Bob dozed and woke and dozed again,
+always smiling happily at her when he found her still beside him, and
+pressing her fingers in his weak grasp.
+
+As the sun sank towards the west he roused from his stupefied slumber,
+and spoke with growing clearness.
+
+"It's mighty good of you to stay here, Sydney. I'm selfish to ask you,
+but I haven't seen you much lately, I've been so busy with the crops."
+
+"You've never failed me, Bob dear. It's my turn now."
+
+"It's just because I'm weak, I suppose, but I want a little flattery.
+Don't you think I've done pretty well about--drinking?"
+
+"You've been wonderful, Bob. I honor and respect you more than I can
+say. You feel that, don't you?"
+
+"Thank you, dear. You know I did it for you? Oh, I told her all about
+it," as Sydney glanced towards the corner where Mrs. Morgan, worn out
+with grief, was sleeping behind a screen. "I've been a little more
+hopeful about you lately, since--well----"
+
+He paused, not liking to finish his sentence "since the Baroness came,"
+for it suggested implications too delicate for utterance.
+
+"But I always knew, really, that you couldn't care for me in that way.
+It was a temporary deceit, the way you can make yourself believe for a
+few minutes that you haven't a toothache, and then it jumps on you
+again."
+
+"Dear old Bob."
+
+Sydney bent forward and kissed him. Over his face spread a radiance of
+unexpected happiness.
+
+"Oh, Sydney, you darling! I say, Sydney, if you wouldn't think that I'm
+taking advantage of my condition--would you mind--_would_ you do that
+again?"
+
+She kissed him again, gladly, willingly, and he sank happily to sleep.
+When he woke once more he asked for von Rittenheim.
+
+"He's down-stairs. He's been waiting all day hoping you'd want to see
+him."
+
+Sydney summoned Friedrich. He uttered an exclamation of sorrow as he
+saw the big black eyes looking from their hollows, and the white face
+of the man so suddenly brought to this pass from the full tide of
+strength.
+
+"For-r my sake!" he groaned. "How with all my soul I wish it were I!"
+
+He took Bob's other hand--Sydney had resumed her old position--and
+tried to command his voice. It was Bob who spoke first:
+
+"What about Pressley?"
+
+Von Rittenheim looked questioningly at Sydney, who nodded.
+
+"He's dead, Bob."
+
+A ray from the setting sun found its way to the bed and lighted up the
+dying man's face.
+
+"Kind of sudden for him, too," he mused. "Did he live any time at all?"
+
+"No. Your bullet went through his heart. He must have died instantly."
+
+"It's a mighty serious thing to do, to kill a man. I never realized
+before how serious it was. But I'm not sorry."
+
+"You saved my life, Bob. I can't talk about it. Only, I'd give it
+gladly, gladly, to keep you, old man."
+
+He bent his head with a sob.
+
+"Never mind that, Baron. I suspect Yarebrough'll be all the better for
+not having Pink to lead him into mischief."
+
+"It has saved him from a heavy punishment. They found in Pr-ressley's
+pocket a letter offering to turn State's evidence."
+
+"That would have sent Bud to jail and freed himself, wouldn't it?"
+asked Sydney.
+
+"Yes. He must have been afraid of betrayal."
+
+"No," cried the girl; "I'm sure he planned the whole thing to spite
+Melissa. I heard him threatening her one day. He said he'd make her
+sorry she ever married Bud."
+
+"I think you're right, Sydney," said Bob. "He was working Bud all
+summer, I'm confident, with the purpose of betraying him at the end."
+
+He sank a little into the pillow, and Sydney gave von Rittenheim a
+glance of dismissal.
+
+"You're tired, dear," she said to Bob.
+
+"A little. I think I'll take a nap. Oh, Baron, I almost forgot. I was
+in Asheville a few days ago,--Monday, Tuesday,--I don't know when," he
+went on, weakly, "and I met a man who said he thought he knew you. He's
+at the hotel,--a German."
+
+"Did he tell you his name?"
+
+"I can't remember. Something long. He said if you were Friedrich von
+Rittenheim from the Black Forest that he knew you well, and would you
+look him up? You will, won't you?"
+
+"Yes, I will."
+
+"If you don't, he'll think I've broken my promise."
+
+"I will. He shall know that you told me. Good-by, Bob, good-by."
+
+But Bob was asleep and did not answer.
+
+It was with the ebbing of the night and the coming of the dawn that
+Bob's soul went out,--went out in stress and travail.
+
+When the struggle was over, Sydney left the old doctor and his wife
+kneeling side by side at the edge of the bed, and crept down-stairs.
+Von Rittenheim was sitting before the fire, his head buried in his
+hands. He sprang to meet her as she entered.
+
+"Is he----? Has he----?"
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"Just now."
+
+Suddenly she threw her arms over her head and broke into stifled sobs.
+
+Friedrich was torn with distress. He drew her to the fire, and
+established her in a big chair, wrapping her warmly in a rug from the
+couch. Somewhere he found a glass of wine, and made her take it. Then
+he knelt beside her, rubbing the fingers that were cold and cramped
+from Bob's long clasp, and talking softly to her as to a child.
+
+God alone knows the force he put upon himself not to take her in his
+arms and comfort her on his breast; not to pour into her ears the words
+that were burning his heart out. Drops of moisture stood on his
+forehead as he resisted the temptation that was the stronger because he
+felt that she returned his love, and that these forbidden words would
+be her greatest comfort. But Sydney was not insensible of their subtle,
+unspoken sympathy, and at last yielded to the solace of warmth and the
+consciousness of being cared for, and, exhausted, closed her eyes in
+sleep.
+
+Friedrich stirred the fire and watched its light play on the face of
+the woman he loved, and gave himself up to wonder and longing and
+regret.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+Unless it had been that of Dr. Morgan himself, no other death in all
+the country round could have touched so nearly so many hearts. Around
+the grave, lined with the glistening laurel-leaves of victory, stood
+old and young, rich and poor, men and women, and even little children.
+There were those who had come because he was the Doctor's son; there
+were those who had been with him on many a gay excursion; there were
+those who had experienced his tenderness and loving-kindness. Old man
+Johnson, from over the river, who had walked eight painful miles, laid
+the first shovelful of earth into the grave. Patton McRae helped to
+cover his life-long friend. The negroes from the farm sobbed audibly as
+they worked. A tramp came into the graveyard from the road and asked
+whose buryin' it was. They told him, and he swore softly, and begged to
+be allowed to help. John Wendell yielded his shovel to Hamp Pinner, and
+he to Colonel Huger.
+
+Then the women came forward and covered the mound with boughs of green,
+and clusters of flowers, and sprays of bright leaves, and Sydney laid
+about the whole grave a garland of feathery aster and delicate fern.
+Through the quiet came a sweet, sonorous voice reading the words of the
+hymn,--
+
+    "Love's redeeming work is done,
+    Fought the fight, the victory won."
+
+Out of the church-yard, side by side, with bowed heads, walked Bud
+Yarebrough and Friedrich von Rittenheim,--the man whose fragile honor
+had been preserved by Bob's act, and the man whose life he had given
+his own to save.
+
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+Carl von Sternburg
+
+
+Mrs. Morgan and the Doctor had insisted upon giving to von Rittenheim
+Gray Eagle and Bob's buggy. They could have done nothing kinder or more
+tactful, for Friedrich was apprehensive even of their seeing him for
+whom their son had given his life, and their insistence upon his
+accepting this remembrance of their dead boy proved their feeling
+towards him more cogently than any words.
+
+It was the good gray horse that he was driving towards Asheville a few
+days after the funeral, on his way to fulfil his promise to Bob to hunt
+up the German who had claimed acquaintance with him.
+
+As he travelled on, he thought of the two notable journeys which he had
+made on this same highway,--the heart-chilling ride through the
+penetrating morning mist at the head of the men who had arrested him,
+and the wild flight through the darkness to secure the surgeon for poor
+Bob. Between the two had intervened a lifetime of experience. He had
+been branded a criminal, and had rehabilitated himself; he had knocked
+at the door of death, and been refused; he had lost his confidence in
+man's honesty, and had regained a fuller faith in his goodness; he had
+watched the slow blossoming of the tender flower of love's hope within
+his heart, and he had seen it overshadowed by the stouter growth of
+loyalty to his word.
+
+Of his future, in so far as it might have to do with Sydney, he did not
+allow himself to think. There was no shaft of light lying upon that
+road. But a clear and steady, though not far-reaching flame illumined
+the present, for he felt sure now that she loved him, and that gave him
+a certain happiness. It was like having a beautiful secret,--a secret
+whose delight would be doubled if it might be shared with the world,
+but nevertheless a secret which gave joy in mere solitary
+contemplation.
+
+_Hilda_ was a subject which forced itself with increasing potency
+upon his mind. After the first shock of her sudden coming had passed,
+he had been touched by her turning to him in her loneliness. That
+Sydney's withdrawal from him lay at Hilda's charge he could not fail to
+see, and he blamed himself for the occasional repulsion against his
+sister-in-law with which the situation filled him. She was so sweet, so
+childlike, so full of trust in him, so regretful for her mistakes of
+the past, so reticent as to Maximilian's ill-behavior. Her whole
+conduct won his respect and confidence, even while he felt himself
+subtly encompassed by the seine of her entire reliance upon the keeping
+of his oath. That she expected him to marry her he did not formally
+concede to himself, but he was quite sure that she did not expect him
+to marry any one else.
+
+His errands done,--a commission for Mrs. Morgan and some business for
+the firm,--he betook himself to the hotel and asked for the register.
+He was running over the names when he heard some one behind him saying,
+in German,--
+
+"It _is_ my von Rittenheim! It is my dear Friedrich!" and "dear
+Friedrich" and a somewhat stout young man a few years younger than he
+flung themselves into each other's arms, and kissed both cheeks after
+the manner of their race, while the clerk turned to his safe to conceal
+the grin that inwreathed his countenance.
+
+"Von Sternburg! What in the world brought you here?"
+
+"Baedeker. This scenery is among the things a globe-trotter has to
+see."
+
+"Shall you stay long?"
+
+"I go to Florida day after to-morrow. Come on to the veranda and tell
+me about yourself."
+
+"If I can stop asking questions long enough!"
+
+It was while they were talking and smoking in the sunshine with the
+glorious western range spread before them, that von Sternburg said,--
+
+"And poor old Max is dead."
+
+He knocked the ash from his cigar with his little finger, and glanced
+at Friedrich, who was non-committal.
+
+"Yes," was all he said.
+
+"I suppose they've never found any trace of the she-devil, have they?"
+
+Friedrich sat up with a jerk and stared at von Sternburg.
+
+"She-devil? What she-devil?"
+
+"What she-devil? Why, the Baroness, of course. Max's wife."
+
+"No trace of Hilda? She-devil? What are you talking about?"
+
+"Do you mean to say that you don't know about Maximilian's death?"
+
+"I know he shot himself."
+
+"And you don't know why?"
+
+"I had not heard from Max for six months before he died. I did not know
+of his death until several months after it occurred!"
+
+"That was strange! Your man of business did not write you?"
+
+"It was my fault. I hadn't sent him my address for a long time. When I
+did there was a reason for his not writing at once."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Stapfer."
+
+"I knew it!"
+
+Von Sternburg slapped his knee.
+
+"Stapfer was crazy over her, and she had some reason for your not
+knowing."
+
+"_She!_ Are you talking about my sister-in-law?"
+
+"Oh, you needn't put on any dignity over her. She isn't worth it,
+though I suppose you don't know that as well as you will in a few
+minutes."
+
+Friedrich passed his hand over his face.
+
+"I can't understand it. You say Stapfer was in love with Hilda?"
+
+"And she made use of him, just as she did of Moller and von Hatfeldt
+and everybody else who came near her. She overreached herself about von
+Hillern, though."
+
+"It seems treachery to listen to you, von Sternburg."
+
+"Treachery! Why, my dear boy----"
+
+Von Sternburg ended his sentence with an expressive gesture.
+
+"And Max--did he know?"
+
+"Why, that's what killed him, man! Haven't you kept in touch with
+anybody in the Fatherland who would write you any news?"
+
+"I haven't received a letter from a soul except Max and Stapfer since I
+came to America."
+
+Von Sternburg gave a whistle of surprise.
+
+"Then you don't even know how Max improved? Everybody thought when he
+married Hilda von Arnim that he did it merely for the pleasure of
+cutting you out. Forgive my speaking so plainly."
+
+He laid a deprecating hand on von Rittenheim's knee. Friedrich nodded
+silently.
+
+"I haven't a doubt in the world that that was his chief motive then.
+But after you left he fell a victim to the charm that she seems to
+exert over everybody who doesn't know her tricks--you must let me go on
+now," he said, quickly, in response to a motion of von Rittenheim's,
+"or I can't establish my case. He fell madly in love with her, and it
+made another man of him."
+
+"There was much good in Max."
+
+"Well hidden all through his youth, you must allow. He gave up
+drinking----"
+
+"Not entirely?"
+
+"He drank only what a gentleman takes for dinner."
+
+"He was not intoxicated when he sh--when he died?"
+
+"I know for a fact that he was not drunk once during the whole last
+year of his life."
+
+"You know? How do you know? Forgive me, Carl," as a look of annoyance
+clouded von Sternburg's face, "but every proof is important to me."
+
+"I was living at our Schloss--at my father's. I saw Maximilian nearly
+every day. We were together constantly."
+
+"Extraordinary!" murmured Friedrich. "Did this wonderful change extend
+to his money affairs?"
+
+"Well, you know Max could use any amount of money, and you couldn't
+expect him to become an economist at one shot. Then he always spent a
+great deal on his wife; he was continually sending to Paris for
+something for her."
+
+Friedrich scowled thoughtfully.
+
+"Still he paid all his old debts out of his Aunt Brigitta's legacy, and
+didn't make any new ones."
+
+"That means more for Max than it would for most people."
+
+"He told me that he could not have afforded to keep up the Schloss
+without your help, but aside from the expenses of the house he had
+plenty, plenty."
+
+"And Hilda?"
+
+"Oh, the Baroness is a millionaire. Her aunt in Heidelberg died more
+than a year ago and left her all her fortune. Max never got a pfennig
+of it though, even in a Christmas-gift."
+
+There flashed across Friedrich's mental view his cabin, differing in no
+respect from those of the "mountain whites," his neighbors. Then a
+picture of a little figure with white neck and arms shining through the
+filmy blackness of her gown, shrinking into an arm-chair, and saying,
+"I always had enough for my needs, even when----"
+
+"Was he kind to her?"
+
+"Kind? I tell you he loved her with the most unselfish devotion. It was
+his dearest wish to live a life so correct that she might be proud of
+him. You couldn't expect more than that, could you?"
+
+"Not from Maximilian," admitted von Rittenheim. "Perhaps the very
+intensity of his love may have made him exacting towards her?"
+
+"My dear fellow, she paid no more attention to him and his wishes than
+if he were the lowest servant on the estate. She had a constant flock
+of men hanging about, with whom she flirted desperately, entirely
+regardless of Max's feelings. I must say he bore it like an angel! Why,
+if my wife--well, never mind, I haven't one yet. She made herself
+conspicuous with Moller--Colonel Moller, you know, before von Hatfeldt
+killed himself on her account."
+
+"The Graf's son?" Friedrich was startled.
+
+"The second son. He took poison and told his father why. The old man
+went to Max about it."
+
+"Poor old Max!"
+
+"What could he do? When he charged her with it there's nothing so sweet
+and gentle on earth as that girl! What had she done? Nothing at all,
+but torment a poor fellow until his nerves and will were wrecked. How
+could she be responsible for that?"
+
+Friedrich saw before him John Wendell, haggard and sneering, saying to
+him something so insulting that Sydney had grown white, and Bob had
+raised a threatening arm.
+
+"But, as I said, she overreached herself with von Hillern. Fortunately
+for him he was in love with some one else, which was his safeguard, but
+he was willing enough to singe his wings, and the Baroness was
+determined to make him give up his marriage, as a sign that he loved
+her."
+
+Von Rittenheim stared at the mountains and thought of Sydney. Von
+Sternburg continued,--
+
+"Maximilian was fully alive to everything that went on, and he was
+beside himself with distress. Apart from the pain of his own unrequited
+love, he was acutely anxious over the gossip about her."
+
+"Von Hillern is an old friend of our family."
+
+"Exactly. I think Max blamed him very little, but it preyed on his
+mind."
+
+"You think it became unhinged?"
+
+"I think so. Indeed, I'm almost sure of it. He hadn't the constitution
+to endure any mental anxiety."
+
+"I suppose he shot himself in a fit of alienation."
+
+"He shot himself because his wife refused to give up her affair with
+von Hillern. Whether it was mania, or a passing craze of jealousy, I
+don't pretend to say."
+
+"How do you know it wasn't on account of financial troubles?"
+
+"I was there in the next room at the time."
+
+Von Rittenheim leaned forward and fixed his eyes on von Sternburg's
+face with keen anxiety.
+
+"You heard him?"
+
+"I had gone to ask Max to ride with me. The servant who opened the door
+said he dared not announce me to the Baron; that he was storming about
+in his dressing-room. I ran up-stairs and into Max's room, which was
+empty, but I heard his voice in the Baroness's room, which adjoined
+it."
+
+"You understood what he said?"
+
+"Perfectly. It seemed to be the end of a long argument. He cried,
+'Hilda, will you or will you not give up von Hillern?'"
+
+"And she said?"
+
+"'I have told you repeatedly, Max, that I will not.' Then he seemed to
+go wild, and cried, 'Give him up! Give him up!'"
+
+Von Rittenheim paled. He never moved his eyes from his friend's face.
+
+"Without a word of warning, he fired two shots. I broke open the door
+instantly, expecting that he had killed Hilda, but he had ended his
+suffering in another way."
+
+Friedrich's head sank, and Carl again laid a hand upon his knee in
+awkward sympathy.
+
+"Of course, the whole thing came out," he continued. "The servants knew
+everything, as they always do, and I had to tell my story at the
+inquest. The Baroness braved public opinion for a time, first playing
+the innocent and then the martyr; but one day Graf von Hatfeldt called
+upon her, and told her a few home truths, and that very night she left
+the Schloss. Nobody knows where she went to, unless it's Stapfer. If he
+does, he has kept her secret."
+
+Friedrich preserved a silence that disturbed von Sternburg. Carl
+crossed his knees uneasily and lighted a cigarette, glancing
+occasionally at his friend. Just how deeply this would cut him he had
+no means of knowing.
+
+At last von Rittenheim, looking worn but not unhappy, lifted his head.
+He rose and walked to the edge of the veranda, and stretched himself as
+if to shake off some trammel of thought.
+
+"After we have had luncheon, will you do me a great kindness, Carl?" he
+asked. "Will you drive home with me into the country, and spend the
+night?"
+
+"My dear fellow, I shall be delighted to do so," cried von Sternburg,
+surprised and relieved at this unexpected turn of the conversation.
+
+
+
+
+XXVI
+
+Surrender
+
+
+Uncle Jimmy lighted the room and took away the tea-equipage, while Mrs.
+Carroll established herself with a book before the fire. Hilda and John
+arranged the chess-board on a little table near the lamp. The red shade
+cast a warm glow over the girl's fairness and gave a look of physical
+vigor to her delicate charm. John made his moves with unthinking
+swiftness, happy in the sight of her beauty and in the chance touch of
+her hand.
+
+In a large chair Sydney lay back languidly, her hands idle upon her
+lap. The shock of Bob's death had exhausted her, and she found herself
+spent, physically and emotionally. A book lay open upon her knees, but
+her eyes closed wearily, or stared unseeing into space. She was
+thinking of all that Bob's life had meant to her of companionship and
+affection; of the pain that his weakness had brought her, and the pride
+that had watched his redemption. She had yearned over him in maternal
+tenderness. Yet she knew that she could but have brushed the edges of
+his future; that his death at this time saved him from inevitable
+sorrow. She sighed as she thought that perhaps he knew now, dear old
+Bob, how completely she was able to sympathize with him in the
+bitterness of his longing. Involuntarily she glanced at Hilda, and
+admired her beauty. Hilda caught her look and smiled in return.
+
+"_Armes Kind_," she cried, tossing her a kiss from her finger-tips,
+"you are so tired."
+
+It was astonishing to Sydney that she felt no jealousy or envy of
+Hilda. It seemed to her that it was not natural that she should feel so
+kindly disposed towards the woman who had taken her lover from her. Yet
+it was true. Although she could not help an occasional wince at some
+look or word, yet she had no hard feeling. She did not attribute this
+lack to any excellence of her own character. It seemed to her but
+simple justice that a woman who had made so sad a mistake, and who had
+expiated it so rudely, should have her reward; whereas, what had
+_she_ done to deserve recompense? Did happiness come at any one's
+whistle?
+
+But how she wished it would.
+
+Mrs. Carroll laid down her book and sighed in disgust.
+
+"I do wish," she said, "that there was some one here old enough for me
+to talk to."
+
+"Try me," said John, as the oldest of the company addressed, while the
+girls laughed.
+
+"I grow so impatient with it," went on the old lady, pursuing aloud her
+train of thought. "It seems as if the whole body of French fiction
+writers was in a conspiracy against one's illusions. They are clever
+enough to see the value of them, you would suppose, yet almost every
+book you take up teaches that honor is a thing of the external life,
+and not a part of the very essence of one's being."
+
+"Do you call that an illusion?" asked Sydney.
+
+"_I_ call it a truth, and belief in it an article of faith," said Mrs.
+Carroll, stoutly, "but these people"--she tapped the book she had laid
+down--"posit it as an illusion, and then demolish it by all sorts of
+examples that could occur nowhere outside of Gaul!"
+
+"Do you forget the books that are 'crowned'?" asked John.
+
+"When a Frenchman attempts to be spiritual, it is an unfortunate fact
+that he becomes insipid," asserted Mrs. Carroll, with a finality that
+made them laugh again.
+
+"You keep to this day your illusions!" said Hilda, softly admiring.
+
+"I am most glad to say that I do. They are worn, but serviceable
+still," replied Mrs. Carroll, smiling. "Even at my age, I still believe
+that most husbands cherish their wives, and that most wives love their
+husbands, and wear their names worthily."
+
+"Checkmate."
+
+"Oh, Mr. Vendell!"
+
+Hilda was so adorably regretful, and her lack of mastery of her was
+so captivating, that John was desperately sorry that he had taken
+advantage of her preoccupation.
+
+"It was Mrs. Car-roll who beat me, not you," she said. "I was listening
+to her and not thinking."
+
+"Of me? You never do," he whispered.
+
+She was resetting the board, and giving John delicious little thrills
+from her finger-tips, when Uncle Jimmy threw open the door.
+
+"Baron von Rittenheim," he announced.
+
+Sydney rose in greeting, and Mrs. Carroll gave an exclamation of
+pleasure at the coming of her favorite, but both were startled into
+silence by Hilda's cry. The chess-board emptied its burden upon the
+floor with many tinkling crashes, and she was on her feet, one hand
+pressed against her head, and the other turned palm outward as if to
+avert a blow. A grayness like the livery of death came over her face,
+but now so vitally warm. The red lamp-light behind increased her
+ghastliness. Her eyes were fixed on the man who had followed von
+Rittenheim into the room.
+
+"You, you!" she whispered, hoarsely.
+
+Von Sternburg gave a cry of amazement.
+
+"The Baroness--_here_! Why didn't you tell me, Friedrich?" he demanded,
+while his mind quickly reviewed the possible relations between von
+Rittenheim and his sister-in-law, and considered the effect upon them
+of his frank disclosures of the morning.
+
+Friedrich, whose gaze had been searching keenly first one face and then
+the other, gave a nod, and without replying to his friend, introduced
+him to Mrs. Carroll and Sydney. Von Sternburg bent over each hand and
+then approached Hilda. She was regaining her control, though she
+trembled so violently as to justify in his precaution Wendell, who had
+sprung to her, fearing that she would fall.
+
+"This is an unexpected meeting, Baroness," von Sternburg said, in
+English.
+
+"Why have you come?" she asked, in the same hoarse but articulate
+whisper.
+
+"As I told Fr-riedrich, Baedeker brought me. I had no idea that I was
+to have the pleasure of seeing him again among these mountains, much
+less, you."
+
+"You two men must have had an enormous amount to say to each other,"
+said Mrs. Carroll. "John, give Hilda that large chair. The surprise of
+seeing Baron von Sternburg has been too much for her."
+
+Hilda sank into the offered seat, and von Sternburg placed himself
+beside her. He fitted his clothes to the cracking-point, and he had the
+lack of impressiveness that goes with rotundity. Yet it was clear that
+he felt himself to have the whip-hand of the situation, and Hilda's
+manner acknowledged it.
+
+Across the room the others were talking together, though von Rittenheim
+was not without preoccupation.
+
+"You don't seem glad to see me," von Sternburg said, in German.
+
+Hilda ignored his opening.
+
+"I suppose you have told Friedrich everything," she said at once, in a
+tone dull with the chagrin of defeated hope.
+
+"Yes," replied von Sternburg, "I think I have."
+
+"Then I hate you!"
+
+She sat erect, and an angry flush colored her cheeks.
+
+"No doubt."
+
+"You have destroyed the only chance of happiness I ever expect to
+have."
+
+"Do you deserve happiness?"
+
+"Won't you grant me that mercy?"
+
+"Have you ever shown mercy?"
+
+As her regret over the failure of her plans had been swallowed up in
+resentment at the doer of the mischief, so her passion was swept away
+by a wave of self-pity. She turned to him with fierce reproach.
+
+"You think I am so heartless as to be outside of the needs of other
+women, don't you?"
+
+"I must confess that you are the only one of your kind in my
+experience."
+
+Hilda was maddened at his irony.
+
+"Can you not believe that I am eager to be happy in the way that other
+women are? That I _long_ to feel the love that comes to every one but
+me?"
+
+"No,--pardon me,--I cannot believe that."
+
+"Insolent! I don't know why I try to justify myself to you. But listen.
+Can you imagine what it is to be without a heart? To make men love you
+for the sport of it, and not to care when they kill themselves for your
+sake,--truly _not to care_? And at the same time to have another part
+of yourself wanting to care,--yearning to feel pity?"
+
+"Is that dual nature yours?"
+
+"You are sneering. You always have thought of me as rejoicing in
+cruelty, I suppose."
+
+"Certainly as indifferent to suffering."
+
+"You have believed that I thought myself normal; that I was unconscious
+of my want of feeling."
+
+"I never observed any recognition of your temperament evidenced in your
+conduct."
+
+"But it is true, Baron. I swear to you that I know my need so well, so
+painfully well, that on the chance of Friedrich's saving me from all
+that it means, I was willing to force him to poverty, and to separate
+him from all that he held dear."
+
+"I don't doubt it, though I don't see how you expected that to help
+you."
+
+"I thought that, if I could have him near me always, perhaps my heart
+might wake within me. I do not love him, but he is the only man I ever
+met whose every thought I honor."
+
+"Yet you were willing to sacrifice him!"
+
+"I needed him."
+
+Von Sternburg looked at her in abhorrence.
+
+"I suppose you don't know what an abomination of selfishness you are."
+
+She did not seem to hear him, but added, bitterly,--
+
+"Now you have come, my hope is gone."
+
+Von Sternburg looked across the room. Friedrich was leaning over
+Sydney's chair.
+
+"It is still in the family, I should say. It merely has changed its
+abiding-place."
+
+A spasm which was the recognition of defeat, not the anguish of loss,
+went over Hilda's face. She crossed the room to Mrs. Carroll, von
+Sternburg following slowly after.
+
+"Dear Mrs. Car-roll," she said, in English, "Baron von Sternburg has
+brought news that compels me to leave Oakwood soon--yes, to-morrow. I
+hope you know how gr-rateful I am to you for your hospitality. Your
+kindness alvays vill be a br-right spot in my life!"
+
+She looked charmingly young and very lovely as she stooped and kissed
+the old lady's cheek.
+
+"To-morrow? Oh, surely not to-morrow!" cried Sydney, in hospitable
+reproach.
+
+"Sydney dear, you are vonderful! I r-really believe you mean it after
+everything." And she tapped the taller girl's cheek with her tiny hand.
+
+She was entirely self-possessed now, much less agitated than the two
+men who knew her secret, or than Wendell, who had been stricken at the
+news of her departure; or than Sydney, who was overcome by
+embarrassment as she came to appreciate the meaning of her guest's
+speech.
+
+"I expect never to see you again, Friedrich; I should pr-refer not; so
+I vant to make my confession to you now. Oh, any one may hear," she
+said, in answer to a gesture of Friedrich's. "I am quite
+indifferent--now. Did the Baron tell you that Max shot himself because
+I r-refused to give up a flirtation? It is quite tr-rue. I lied to you,
+Friedrich, and I did an injustice to a man who had conquered the
+follies of his life. Ah, Mrs. Car-roll, I did not love my husband or
+vear his name vorthily. I am one of the lost illusions."
+
+She looked from one to another in quick observance of their emotion.
+
+"Then, my scar," she went on, lightly, "that vas another lie. I've had
+it ever since I vas a child. And here is something that Baron von
+Sternburg could not have disclosed. You see I am r-revealing
+everything. I am sure he told you that I am rich? Yes? But he vas not
+avare that _I knew_ from Herr Stapfer that you vere depr-riving
+yourself for me."
+
+"Oh, Hilda," cried Mrs. Carroll, in quick censure of the non-restitution
+that might have averted a life-time's self-reproach from Friedrich, "How
+could you keep it!"
+
+"The money itself vas nothing to me, but I hoped that through
+Friedrich's poverty I might gain some power over him, and make him do
+vhat I vanted. I shall see that it is r-restored to you at once,
+Friedrich."
+
+She turned to Wendell, and her face changed subtly. She became the
+tempting woman, alluring in the innocence of her child-like beauty.
+
+"Do you still mean vhat you said to me yesterday, Mr. Vendell?"
+
+She leaned towards him a trifle--the merest trifle. Wendell stood
+silent.
+
+"Do you still vant to marry me--John?" The name was but a breath.
+
+He stared at her as if fascinated by the spell of her glowing eyes.
+With an effort he looked away from her to von Rittenheim.
+
+"Tell me," he said, huskily, "I don't understand. Her husband? Is----?"
+
+"She will not dishonor you," answered Friedrich to the unspoken
+question.
+
+"She'll merely br-reak your heart," completed von Sternburg, brutally.
+
+Wendell turned to Hilda in relief, to find her drawn haughtily erect
+before him. She did not notice his extended hands.
+
+"You doubted me," she flung at him, arrogantly. "I demand from those
+who love me, all--or nothing."
+
+She swept from the room, small, proud, forceful; while John threw
+himself upon a chair and buried his head in his hands.
+
+
+
+
+XXVII
+
+Dixie
+
+
+Gray Eagle was trotting briskly along the road over which another hand
+had guided him so often,--the Oakwood carriage-way. On his back sat
+Friedrich, erectly vigorous, singing for the trees' benefit,--
+
+    "Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie,
+      Look away, look away!
+    In Deexie Land I take my stand,
+    To live and die in Deexie."
+
+The aspen fluttered its yellow leaves in applause, and the sourwood
+threw at him by the breeze's hand a cluster of its scarlet foliage. The
+mouse-gray goldenrod nodded approval of his mood, and the oak-trees
+swung their yet green boughs in sympathy with his light-hearted onward
+rush.
+
+The air was cool and warm, and bright and mellow, and all the
+contradictions that make October the month of the year's mature
+perfection; that middle age of the seasons, when the blossoms of folly
+are past, and the fruits of the will are ripened, and the chill of bare
+winter is still in the future.
+
+Occasionally, in sheer exuberance, von Rittenheim rose high in his
+stirrups and gave a whoop of gladness that made Gray Eagle skip in
+sympathetic deviation from his usual long stride.
+
+It was during one of these upstandings, when his head was brought above
+its customary level, that Friedrich saw a girl running away from the
+carriage-road down the lane that led to the sheep-farm. The sunshine
+burned on her brilliant head, and Gray Eagle found his glad career
+brought to a sudden close, and his amusement abruptly reduced to the
+occupation of nibbling the stem of the young tree to which he was tied.
+He watched his rider's long legs vault over the gate, and pondered
+wisely on the similarity of interests of his two masters, for he, too,
+now descried a flash of color in the distance.
+
+Sydney's race ended beneath a huge oak, against which she leaned,
+breathless and laughing, and faced her pursuer, who was close upon her.
+The musical ring of his rowelled spurs ceased as he grasped her hands.
+
+"_Unartiges Maedchen!_ Do you intend never to let me see you again? Tell
+me what you mean by it."
+
+Not a word said Sydney--only laughed at him provokingly.
+
+"I am of a mind to punish you," he cried, drawing her towards him, and
+leaning over her. He looked determined, and Sydney surrendered her
+silence with dignified haste.
+
+"No, no, don't," she said, in reply to his gesture rather than his
+words. "I'll tell you anything. What do you want to know?"
+
+"First, wherefore you were r-running down here."
+
+"To escape from you."
+
+"Tr-ruly?"
+
+He dropped her hands and looked cut to the heart; so hurt that Sydney
+hastened to apply ointment to the wound.
+
+"But I was walking on the carriage-road to meet you."
+
+"You were?" Friedrich's gloomy face was alive again. "Then why did you
+r-run?"
+
+"I don't know. For the same reason a kitten won't come when she's
+called, I suppose."
+
+"Even though she wants to?"
+
+"Who knows what a kitten wants?"
+
+"It would give me the gr-reatest of pleasure, Miss Car-roll, to shake
+you!"
+
+"I don't doubt it."
+
+"It is such a hard blow to my vanity that you r-ran. See, I tr-ry to
+comfort myself in this question: Perhaps you did not know it was I
+whose horse you heard?"
+
+"Of course I knew it was you."
+
+"Oh, Sydney, dear Sydney, did your heart tell you that your lover was
+on the r-road?"
+
+The girl blushed hotly at this bold speech, but she declined to be
+sentimental.
+
+"Not at all," she said. "There was other evidence. Who else could sing
+like you, 'Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie'?"
+
+Her mimicry of his pronunciation was so good, and at the same time so
+absurd, that they both laughed joyously.
+
+They walked slowly towards the gate, behind which Gray Eagle was
+waiting with what patience he might.
+
+"Tell me, my pr-rincess, why have you not allowed me to see you since
+that evening, though I have come every day?"
+
+"That terrible evening! Oh, Friedrich----"
+
+"Say that again!"
+
+"What? Friedrich?"
+
+"Yes. Now just one time more."
+
+"How absurd you are, Friedrich!"
+
+"I thank you. Now tell me."
+
+"Why, for the first day or two there was so much to do in getting them
+away in their different directions--Hilda and John. Grandmother has had
+a letter from John, from Palm Beach. He has joined Baron von Sternburg
+there. And then--oh, Friedrich, perhaps it was foolish, but I could not
+feel as if we ought to be happy, you and I, so soon after _that_."
+
+"What a dear, sensitive child you are! And you thought the time of
+mourning was up to-day, did you?"
+
+"No, but--you won't make fun of me if I tell you?"
+
+"I have al-ways supposed that it was you who teased me."
+
+"But you might think it was funny ever so many years from now!"
+
+"Ah, now there are going to be _years_ in the future. Only a little
+while ago the future was made up of thousands and thousands and
+thousands of inter-rminable days."
+
+"I know."
+
+"You felt it so, too?"
+
+"Yes. That's the reason why--you won't ever laugh at me, will you?--I
+wanted the years to begin to-day. I couldn't wait another twenty-four
+hours."
+
+"My dar-rling!"
+
+They stopped, and Friedrich drew her gently into his arms.
+
+"Will you let me kiss you?"
+
+She lifted her face trustfully to his, and Gray Eagle watched them
+gravely over the gate.
+
+"I wees' I could make you know what you are to me, my pr-rincess, what
+it means that you give yourself to me. It is not merely that I love
+you, my dar-rling, with all the strength that has been gathering in me
+while the years were adding themselves to my age. And it is not only
+that I think you are per-rfect, so lovely in the char-racter, and so
+clever, and so beautiful, my dear white r-rose. It means, besides those
+things, that you have saved me from the sin of letting my poor powers
+grow weaker; that you have changed me from a plaything of chance into a
+man of will and action. I am bor-rn again, my heart's joy, into a world
+of force and possibility, and you are the queen of the world, most
+pr-recious."
+
+She laid her bright head against his breast.
+
+"Will you not say something to me, heart's dear-rest?"
+
+"I am too happy, dear, to speak."
+
+"And I am too happy to keep still!"
+
+They released Gray Eagle from his bondage, and walked along the
+carriage-road towards the house.
+
+"After all, Friedrich, it was Bob who gave us to each other."
+
+"Twice over, dear. He sent me to von Sternburg, and he saved my life
+for--us."
+
+"Poor Hilda!"
+
+"Poor Bob!"
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS.
+
+By JACK LONDON.
+
+A strong and extremely dramatic story. Its love interest intense. The
+book is beautifully illustrated in colors from drawings by F. C. Yohn,
+and is handsomely bound.
+
+Illustrated in colors. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.
+
+
+THE INEVITABLE.
+
+By PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS.
+
+The hero of Mr. Mighels's book is an exceedingly interesting and
+good-looking young fellow of twenty-four years, whose parentage is
+shrouded in mystery.
+
+With frontispiece in colors by John Wolcott Adams. 12mo. Decorated
+cloth, $1.50.
+
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+WOVEN WITH THE SHIP.
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+By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.
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+Glackens, Parkhurst, and Crawford, and has a striking cover design in
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+
+Illustrated. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+ADAM RUSH.
+
+By LYNN ROBY MEEKINS.
+
+A new and interesting figure in a love story with the charm of country
+and village life in every chapter.
+
+Frontispiece by Francis Day. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.
+
+
+BREACHLEY--BLACK SHEEP.
+
+By LOUIS BECKE.
+
+Mr. Becke's work is stamped by vigor of expression and an intensely
+dramatic imagination. Breachley is the most capable and in many
+respects the most interesting of his books.
+
+12mo. Decorated cloth, gilt top, $1.50.
+
+
+A BLAZE OF GLORY.
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+By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
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+A new novel by an author whose thousands of readers attest to her
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+12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
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+GENTLEMAN GARNET.
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+By HARRY B. VOGEL.
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+A tale of old Tasmania by a popular novelist. _Lippincott's Series of
+Select Novels._
+
+Crown 8vo. Decorated cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
+
+                     *      *      *      *      *
+
+J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
+
+
+
+
+
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