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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41660 ***
+
+  A Fortnight of Folly
+
+  BY
+  MAURICE THOMPSON
+
+  AUTHOR OF
+  "Alice of Old Vincennes," "A Banker of Bankersville," etc.
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+  NEW YORK AND LONDON
+  STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1888
+  By THE ALDEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
+
+  Copyright, 1902
+  By STREET & SMITH
+
+  A Fortnight of Folly
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+  A FORTNIGHT OF FOLLY.
+  THE TALE OF A SCULPTOR, by HUGH CONWAY
+  CARRISTON'S GIFT.
+
+
+
+
+A FORTNIGHT OF FOLLY.
+
+
+I.
+
+The Hotel Helicon stood on a great rock promontory that jutted far out
+into a sea of air whose currents and eddies filled a wide, wild valley
+in the midst of our southern mountain region. It was a new hotel, built
+by a Cincinnati man who founded his fortune in natural gas speculations,
+and who had conceived the bright thought of making the house famous at
+the start by a stroke of rare liberality.
+
+Viewing the large building from any favorable point in the valley, it
+looked like a huge white bird sitting with outstretched wings on the
+gray rock far up against the tender blue sky. All around it the forests
+were thick and green, the ravines deep and gloomy and the rocks tumbled
+into fantastic heaps. When you reached it, which was after a whole day
+of hard zig-zag climbing, you found it a rather plain three-story house,
+whose broad verandas were worried with a mass of jig-saw fancies and
+whose windows glared at you between wide open green Venetian shutters.
+Everything look new, almost raw, from the stumps of fresh-cut trees on
+the lawn and the rope swings and long benches, upon which the paint
+was scarcely dry, to the resonant floor of the spacious halls and the
+cedar-fragrant hand-rail of the stairway.
+
+There were springs among the rocks. Here the water trickled out with a
+red gleam of iron oxide, there it sparkled with an excess of carbonic
+acid, and yonder it bubbled up all the more limpid and clear on account
+of the offensive sulphuretted hydrogen it was bringing forth. Masses
+of fern, great cushions of cool moss and tangles of blooming shrubs
+and vines fringed the sides of the little ravines down which the
+spring-streams sang their way to the silver thread of a river in the
+valley.
+
+It was altogether a dizzy perch, a strange, inconvenient, out-of-the-way
+spot for a summer hotel. You reached it all out of breath, confused as
+to the points of the compass and disappointed, in every sense of the
+word, with what at first glance struck you as a colossal pretense,
+empty, raw, vulgar, loud--a great trap into which you had been inveigled
+by an eloquent hand-bill! Hotel Helicon, as a name for the place, was
+considered a happy one. It had come to the proprietor, as if in a dream,
+one day as he sat smoking. He slapped his thigh with his hand and sprang
+to his feet. The word that went so smoothly with hotel, as he fancied,
+had no special meaning in his mind, for the gas man had never been
+guilty of classical lore-study, but it furnished a taking alliteration.
+
+"Hotel Helicon, Hotel Helicon," he repeated; "that's just a dandy name.
+Hotel Helicon on Mount Boab, open for the season! If that doesn't get
+'em I'll back down."
+
+His plans matured themselves very rapidly in his mind. One brilliant
+idea followed another in swift succession, until at last he fell upon
+the scheme of making Hotel Helicon free for the initial season to a
+select company of authors chosen from among the most brilliant and
+famous in our country.
+
+"Zounds!" he exclaimed, all to himself, "but won't that be a darling old
+advertisement! I'll have a few sprightly newspaper people along with
+'em, too, to do the interviewing and puffing. By jacks, it's just the
+wrinkle to a dot!"
+
+Mr. Gaslucky was of the opinion that, like Napoleon, he was in the hands
+of irresistible destiny which would ensure the success of whatever he
+might undertake; still he was also a realist and depended largely upon
+tricks for his results. He had felt the great value of what he liked to
+term legitimate advertising, and he was fond of saying to himself that
+any scheme would succeed if properly set before the world. He regarded
+it a maxim that anything which can be clearly described is a fact. His
+realism was the gospel of success, he declared, and needed but to be
+stated to be adopted by all the world.
+
+From the first he saw how his hotel was to be an intellectual focus;
+moreover he designed to have it radiate its own glory like a star set
+upon Mt. Boab.
+
+The difficulties inherent in this project were from the first quite
+apparent to Mr. Gaslucky, but he was full of expedients and cunning.
+He had come out of the lowest stratum of life, fighting his way up to
+success, and his knowledge of human nature was accurate if not very
+broad.
+
+Early in the summer, about the first days of June, in fact, certain
+well-known and somewhat distinguished American authors received by
+due course of mail an autograph letter from Mr. Gaslucky, which was
+substantially as follows:
+
+  CINCINNATI, O., May 30, 1887.
+
+  MY DEAR SIR:
+
+  The Hotel Helicon, situated on the Lencadian promontory, far up the
+  height of Mt. Boab and overlooking the glorious valley of the Big
+  Mash River, amid the grandest scenery of the Cumberland Mountains,
+  where at their southern extremity they break into awful peaks,
+  chasms and escarpments, is now thrown open to a few favored guests
+  for the summer. The proprietor in a spirit of liberality (and for
+  the purpose of making this charming hotel known to a select public)
+  is issuing a few special invitations to distinguished people to come
+  and spend the summer free of charge. You are cordially and urgently
+  invited. The Hotel Helicon is a place to delight the artist and the
+  _litterateur_. It is high, airy, cool, surrounded by wild scenes,
+  good shooting and fishing at hand, incomparable mineral springs,
+  baths, grottos, dark ravines and indeed everything engaging to the
+  imagination. The proprietor will exhaust effort to make his chosen
+  guests happy. The rooms are new, sweet, beautifully furnished and
+  altogether comfortable, and the table will have every delicacy of
+  the season served in the best style. There will be no uninvited
+  guests, all will be chosen from the most exalted class. Come, and
+  for one season taste the sweets of the dews of Helicon, without
+  money and without price.
+
+  If you accept this earnest and cordial invitation, notify me at
+  once. Hotel Helicon is at your command.
+
+  Truly yours,
+  ISAIAH R. GASLUCKY.
+
+It is needless to say that this letter was the product of a professional
+advertising agent employed for the occasion by the proprietor of Hotel
+Helicon. The reader will observe the earmarks of the creation and
+readily recognize the source. Of course, when the letter was addressed
+to a woman there was a change, not only in the gender of the terms, but
+in the tone, which took on a more persuasive color. The attractions
+of the place were described in more poetic phrasing and a cunningly
+half-hidden thread of romance, about picturesque mountaineers and
+retired and reformed bandits, was woven in.
+
+Naturally enough, each individual who received this rather uncommon
+letter, read it askance, at first, suspecting a trick, but the
+newspapers soon cleared the matter up by announcing that Mr. Isaiah
+Gaslucky, of Cincinnati, had "conceived the happy idea of making his
+new and picturesque Hotel Helicon free this season to a small and
+select company of distinguished guests. The hotel will not be open to
+the public until next year."
+
+And thus it came to pass that in midsummer such a company as never
+before was assembled, met on Mt. Boab and made the halls of Hotel
+Helicon gay with their colors and noisy with their mirth. The woods,
+the dizzy cliffs, the bubbling springs, the cool hollows, the windy
+peaks and the mossy nooks were filled with song, laughter, murmuring
+under-tones of sentiment, or something a little sweeter and warmer, and
+there were literary conversations, and critical talks, and jolly satire
+bandied about, with some scraps of adventure and some bits of rather
+ludicrous mishap thrown in for variety.
+
+Over all hung a summer sky, for the most part cloudless, and the days
+were as sweet as the nights were delicious.
+
+
+II.
+
+In the afternoon of a breezy day, at the time when the shadows were
+taking full possession of the valley, the coach arrived at Hotel Helicon
+from the little railway station at the foot of Mt. Boab.
+
+A man, the only passenger, alighted from his perch beside the driver and
+for a moment stood as if a little dazed by what he saw.
+
+He was very short, rather round and stout, and bore himself quietly,
+almost demurely. His head was large, his feet and hands were small and
+his face wore the expression of an habitual good humor amounting nearly
+to jolliness, albeit two vertical wrinkles between his brows hinted of a
+sturdy will seated behind a heavy Napoleonic forehead. The stubby tufts
+of grizzled hair that formed his mustaches shaded a mouth and chin at
+once strong and pleasing. He impressed the group of people on the hotel
+veranda most favorably, and at once a little buzz of inquiry circulated.
+No one knew him.
+
+That this was an important arrival could not be doubted; it was felt at
+once and profoundly. Great men carry an air of individuality about with
+them; each, like a planet, has his own peculiar atmosphere by which his
+light is modified. There was no mistaking the light in this instance; it
+indicated a luminary of the first magnitude.
+
+Unfortunately the guests at Hotel Helicon were not required to record
+their names in a register, therefore the new comer could bide his own
+time to make himself known.
+
+Miss Alice Moyne, of Virginia, the beautiful young author of two or
+three picturesque short stories lately published in a popular magazine,
+was in conversation with Hartley Crane, the rising poet from Kentucky,
+just at the moment when this new arrival caused a flutter on the
+veranda.
+
+"Oh, I do wonder if he can be Edgar De Vere?" she exclaimed.
+
+"No," said Hartley Crane, "I have seen De Vere; he is as large and as
+fascinating as his romances. That little pudgy individual could never
+make a great romantic fiction like _Solway Moss_, by De Vere."
+
+"But that is a superb head," whispered Miss Moyne, "the head of a
+master, a genius."
+
+"Oh, there are heads and heads, genius and genius," replied Crane. "I
+guess the new-comer off as a newspaper man from Chicago or New York. It
+requires first-class genius to be a good reporter."
+
+The stranger under discussion was now giving some directions to a porter
+regarding his luggage. This he did with that peculiar readiness, or
+sleight, so to call it, which belongs to none but the veteran traveler.
+A moment later he came up the wooden steps of the hotel, cast a
+comprehensive but apparently indifferent glance over the group of guests
+and passed into the hall, where they heard him say to the boy in
+waiting: "My room is 24."
+
+"That is the reserved room," remarked two or three persons at once.
+
+Great expectations hung about room 24; much guessing had been indulged
+in considering who was to be the happy and exalted person chosen to
+occupy it. Now he had arrived, an utter stranger to them all. Everybody
+looked inquiry.
+
+"Who can he be?"
+
+"It must be Mark Twain," suggested little Mrs. Philpot, of Memphis.
+
+"Oh, no; Mark Twain is tall, and very handsome; I know Mark," said
+Crane.
+
+"How strange!" ejaculated Miss Moyne, and when everybody laughed, she
+colored a little and added hastily:
+
+"I didn't mean that it was strange that Mr. Crane should know Mr. Twain,
+but----"
+
+They drowned her voice with their laughter and hand-clapping.
+
+They were not always in this very light mood at Hotel Helicon, but just
+now they all felt in a trivial vein. It was as if the new guest had
+brought a breath of frivolous humor along with him and had blown it over
+them as he passed by.
+
+Room 24 was the choice one of Hotel Helicon. Every guest wanted it, on
+account of its convenience, its size and the superb view its windows
+afforded; but from the first it had been reserved for this favored
+individual whose arrival added greater mystery to the matter.
+
+As the sun disappeared behind the western mountains, and the great gulf
+of the valley became a sea of purplish gloom, conversation clung in half
+whispers to the subject who meantime was arraying himself in evening
+dress for dinner, posing before the large mirror in room 24 and smiling
+humorously at himself as one who, criticising his own foibles, still
+holds to them with a fortitude almost Christian.
+
+He parted his hair in the middle, but the line of division was very
+slight, and he left a pretty, half-curled short wisp hanging over the
+centre of his forehead. The wide collar that hid his short neck creased
+his heavy well-turned jaws, giving to his chin the appearance of being
+propped up. Although he was quite stout, his head was so broad and his
+feet so small that he appeared to taper from top to toe in a way that
+emphasized very forcibly his expression of blended dignity and jollity,
+youth and middle age, sincerity and levity. When he had finished his
+toilet, he sat down by the best window in the best room of Hotel
+Helicon, and gazed out over the dusky valley to where a line of
+quivering silver light played fantastically along the line of peaks that
+notched the delicate blue of the evening sky. The breeze came in, cool
+and sweet, with a sort of champagne sparkle in its freshness and purity.
+It whetted his appetite and blew the dust of travel out of his mind. He
+was glad when the dinner hour arrived.
+
+The long table was nearly full when he went down, and he was given a
+seat between Miss Moyne and little Mrs. Philpot. By that secret cerebral
+trick we all know, but which none of us can explain, he was aware that
+the company had just been discussing him. In fact, someone had ventured
+to wonder if he were Mr. Howells, whereupon Mr. Crane had promptly said
+that he knew Mr. Howells quite well, and that although in a general
+way the new-comer was not unlike the famous realist, he was far from
+identical with him.
+
+Laurens Peck, the bushy-bearded New England critic, whispered in
+someone's ear that it appeared as if Crane knew everybody, but that
+the poet's lively imagination had aided him more than his eyes, in all
+probability. "Fact is," said he, "a Kentuckian soon gets so that he
+_thinks_ he has been everywhere and seen everybody, whether he has or
+not."
+
+Out of this remark grew a serious affair which it will be my duty to
+record at the proper place.
+
+Little Mrs. Philpot, who wore gold eye-glasses and had elongated dimples
+in her cheeks and chin, dexterously managed to have a word or two with
+the stranger, who smiled upon her graciously without attempting to enter
+into a conversation. Miss Moyne fared a little better, for she had the
+charm of grace and beauty to aid her, attended by one of those puffs
+of good luck which come to none but the young and the beautiful. Mr.
+B. Hobbs Lucas, a large and awkward historian from New York, knocked
+over a bottle of claret with his elbow, and the liquor shot with an
+enthusiastic sparkle diagonally across the table in order to fall on
+Miss Moyne's lap.
+
+With that celerity which in very short and stout persons appears to
+be spontaneous, a sort of elastic quality, the gentleman from room 24
+interposed his suddenly outspread napkin. The historian flung himself
+across the board after the bottle, clawing rather wildly and upsetting
+things generally. It was but a momentary scene, such as children at
+school and guests at a summer hotel make more or less merry over, still
+it drew forth from the genial man of room 24 a remark which slipped into
+Miss Moyne's ear with the familiarity of well trained humor.
+
+"A deluge of wine in a free hotel!" he exclaimed, just above a whisper.
+"Such generosity is nearly shocking."
+
+"I am sorry you mention it," said Miss Moyne, with her brightest and
+calmest smile; "I have been idealizing the place. A gush of grape-juice
+on Helicon is a picturesque thing to contemplate."
+
+"But a lap-full of claret on Mt. Boab is not so fine, eh? What a farce
+poetry is! What a humbug is romance!"
+
+The historian had sunk back in his chair and was scowling at the purple
+stain which kept slowly spreading through the fiber of the cloth.
+
+"I always do something," he sighed, and his sincerity was obvious.
+
+"And always with _aplomb_," remarked little Mrs. Philpot.
+
+"It would be a genius who could knock over a claret bottle with grace,"
+added Peck. "Now a jug of ale----"
+
+"I was present at table once with Mr. Emerson," began the Kentucky poet,
+but nobody heard the rest. A waiter came with a heavy napkin to cover
+the stain, and as he bent over the table he forced the man from room 24
+to incline very close to Miss Moyne.
+
+"To think of making an instance of Emerson!" he murmured. "Emerson who
+died before he discovered that men and women have to eat, or that wine
+will stain a new dress!"
+
+"But then he discovered so many things----" she began.
+
+"Please mention one of them," he glibly interrupted. "What did Emerson
+ever discover? Did he ever pen a single truth?"
+
+    "Aloft in secret veins of air
+    Blows the sweet breath of song,"
+
+she replied. "He trod the very headlands of truth. But you are not
+serious----" she checked herself, recollecting that she was speaking to
+a stranger.
+
+"Not serious but emphatically in earnest," he went on, in the same
+genial tone with which he had begun. "There isn't a thing but cunning
+phrase-form in anything the man ever wrote. He didn't know how to
+represent life."
+
+"Oh, I see," Miss Moyne ventured, "you are a realist."
+
+It is impossible to convey any adequate idea of the peculiar shade of
+contempt she conveyed through the words. She lifted her head a little
+higher and her beauty rose apace. It was as if she had stamped her
+little foot and exclaimed: "Of all things I detest realism--of all men,
+I hate realists."
+
+"But I kept the wine off your dress!" he urged, as though he had
+heard her thought. "There's nothing good but what is real. Romance is
+lie-tissue. Reality is truth-tissue."
+
+"Permit me to thank you for your good intentions," she said, with a
+flash of irony; "you held the napkin just in the right position, but
+the wine never fell from the table. Still your kindness lost nothing in
+quality because the danger was imaginary."
+
+When dinner was over, Miss Moyne sought out Hartley Crane, the Kentucky
+poet who knew everybody, and suggested that perhaps the stranger was
+Mr. Arthur Selby, the analytical novelist whose name was on everybody's
+tongue.
+
+"But Arthur Selby is thin and bald and has a receding chin. I met him
+often at the--I forget the club in New York," said Crane. "It's more
+likely that he's some reporter. He's a snob, anyway."
+
+"Dear me, no, not a snob, Mr. Crane; he is the most American man I ever
+met," replied Miss Moyne.
+
+"But Americans are the worst of all snobs," he insisted, "especially
+literary Americans. They adore everything that's foreign and pity
+everything that's home-made."
+
+As he said this he was remembering how Tennyson's and Browning's poems
+were overshadowing his own, even in Kentucky. From the ring of his voice
+Miss Moyne suspected something of this sort, and adroitly changed the
+subject.
+
+
+III.
+
+It might be imagined that a hotel full of authors would be sure to
+generate some flashes of disagreement, but, for a time at least,
+everything went on charmingly at Hotel Helicon. True enough, the name of
+the occupant of room 24 remained a vexatious secret which kept growing
+more and more absorbing as certain very cunningly devised schemes for
+its exposure were easily thwarted; but even this gave the gentleman
+a most excellent excuse for nagging the ladies in regard to feminine
+curiosity and lack of generalship. Under the circumstances it was not to
+be expected that everybody should be strictly guarded in the phrasing
+of speech, still so genial and good-humored was the nameless man and so
+engaging was his way of evading or turning aside every thrust, that he
+steadily won favor. Little Mrs. Philpot, whose seven year old daughter
+(a bright and sweet little child) had become the pet of Hotel Helicon,
+was enthusiastic in her pursuit of the stranger's name, and at last she
+hit upon a plan that promised immediate success. She giggled all to
+herself, like a high-school girl, instead of like a widow of thirty, as
+she contemplated certain victory.
+
+"Now do you think you can remember, dear?" she said to May, the child,
+after having explained over and over again what she wished her to do.
+
+"Yeth," said May, who lisped charmingly in the sweetest of child voices.
+
+"Well, what must you say?"
+
+"I muth thay: Pleathe write your--your----"
+
+"Autograph."
+
+"Yeth, your au--to--graph in my album."
+
+"That's right, autograph, autograph, don't forget. Now let me hear you
+say it."
+
+"Pleathe write your autograph in my book."
+
+Mrs. Philpot caught the child to her breast and kissed it vigorously,
+and not long afterward little May went forth to try the experiment. She
+was armed with her mother's autograph album. When she approached her
+victim he thought he never had seen so lovely a child. The mother had
+not spared pains to give most effect to the little thing's delicate and
+appealing beauty by an artistic arrangement of the shining gold hair and
+by the simplest but cunningest tricks of color and drapery.
+
+With that bird-like shyness so winning in a really beautiful little
+girl, May walked up to the stranger and made a funny, hesitating
+courtesy. He looked at her askance, his smiling face shooting forth a
+ray of tenderness along with a gleam of shrewd suspicion, as he made out
+the album in her dimpled little hand.
+
+"Good morning, little one," he said cheerily. "Have you come to make a
+call?"
+
+He held out both hands and looked so kindly and good that she smiled
+until dimples just like her mother's played over her cheeks and chin.
+Half sidewise she crept into his arms and held up the book.
+
+"Pleathe write your photograph in my book," she murmured.
+
+He took her very gently on his knee, chuckling vigorously, his heavy
+jaws shaking and coloring.
+
+"Who told you to come?" he inquired, with a guilty cunning twinkle in
+his gray eyes.
+
+"Mama told me," was the prompt answer.
+
+Again the man chuckled, and, between the shame he felt for having
+betrayed the child and delight at the success of his perfidy, he grew
+quite red in the face. He took the autograph album and turned its stiff,
+ragged-edged leaves, glancing at the names.
+
+"Ah, this is your mama's book, is it?" he went on.
+
+"Yeth it is," said May.
+
+"And I must write my name in it?"
+
+"No, your--your----"
+
+"Well what?"
+
+"I don't 'member."
+
+He took from his pocket a stylographic pen and dashed a picturesque sign
+manual across a page.
+
+While the ink was drying he tenderly kissed the child's forehead and
+then rested his chin on her bright hair. He could hear the clack of
+balls and mallets and the creak of a lazy swing down below on the
+so-called lawn, and a hum of voices arose from the veranda. He looked
+through the open window and saw, as in a dream, blue peaks set against
+a shining rim of sky with a wisp of vultures slowly wheeling about in
+a filmy, sheeny space.
+
+"Mama said I muthn't stay," apologized the child, slipping down from his
+knee, which she had found uncomfortably short.
+
+He pulled himself together from a diffused state of revery and beamed
+upon her again with his cheerful smile.
+
+She turned near the door and dropped another comical little courtesy,
+bobbing her curly head till her hair twinkled like a tangle of
+starbeams on a brook-ripple, then she darted away, book in hand.
+
+Little Mrs. Philpot snatched the album from May, as she ran to her, and
+greedily rustled the leaves in search of the new record, finding which
+she gazed at it while her face irradiated every shade of expression
+between sudden delight and utter perplexity. In fact she could not
+decipher the autograph, although the handwriting surely was not bad.
+Loath as she naturally was to sharing her secret with her friends,
+curiosity at length prevailed and she sought help. Everybody in turn
+tried to make out the two short words, all in vain till Crane, by the
+poet's subtle vision, cleared up the mystery, at least to his own
+satisfaction.
+
+"Gaspard Dufour is the name," he asserted, with considerable show of
+conscious superiority. "A Canadian, I think. In fact I imperfectly
+recall meeting him once at a dinner given by the Governor General to
+Lord Rosenthal at Quebec. He writes plays."
+
+"Another romance out of the whole cloth by the Bourbon æsthete!"
+whispered the critic. "There's no such a Canadian as Gaspard Dufour,
+and besides the man's a Westerner rather over-Bostonized. I can tell
+by his voice and his mixed manners."
+
+"But Mrs. Hope would know him," suggested the person addressed. "She
+meets all the Hub _literati_, you know."
+
+"_Literati!_" snarled the critic, putting an end to further discussion.
+
+A few minutes later Mr. Gaspard Dufour came down and passed out of the
+hotel, taking his way into the nearest ravine. He wore a very short coat
+and a slouch hat. In his hand he carried a bundle of fishing-rod joints.
+A man of his build looks far from dignified in such dress, at best; but
+nothing could have accentuated more sharply his absurd grotesqueness of
+appearance than the peculiar waddling gait he assumed as he descended
+the steep place and passed out of sight, a fish basket bobbing beside
+him and a red kerchief shining around his throat.
+
+Everybody looked at his neighbor and smiled inquisitively. Now that they
+had discovered his name, the question arose: What had Gaspard Dufour
+ever done that he should be accorded the place of honor in Hotel
+Helicon. No one (save Crane, in a shadowy way) had ever heard of him
+before. No doubt they all felt a little twinge of resentment; but
+Dufour, disappearing down the ravine, had in some unaccountable way
+deepened his significance.
+
+
+IV.
+
+Everybody knows that a mountain hotel has no local color, no sympathy
+with its environment, no gift of making its guests feel that they are
+anywhere in particular. It is all very delightful to be held aloft on
+the shoulder of a giant almost within reach of the sky; but the charm of
+the thing is not referable to any definite, visible cause, such as one
+readily bases one's love of the sea-side on, or such as accounts for our
+delight in the life of a great city. No matter how fine the effect of
+clouds and peaks and sky and gorge, no matter how pure and exhilarating
+the air, or how blue the filmy deeps of distance, or how mossy the
+rocks, or how sweet the water, or how cool the wooded vales, the hotel
+stands there in an indefinite way, with no _raison d'etre_ visible in
+its make-up, but with an obvious impudence gleaming from its windows.
+One cannot deport one's self at such a place as if born there. The
+situation demands--nay, exacts behavior somewhat special and peculiar.
+No lonely island in the sea is quite as isolated and out of the world
+as the top of any mountain, nor can any amount of man's effort soften
+in the least the savage individuality of mountain scenery so as to
+render those high places familiar or homelike or genuinely habitable.
+Delightful enough and fascinating enough all mountain hotels surely are;
+but the sensation that living in one of them induces is the romantic
+consciousness of being in a degree "out of space, out of time." No doubt
+this feeling was heightened and intensified in the case of the guests at
+Hotel Helicon who were enjoying the added novelty of entire freedom from
+the petty economies that usually dog the footsteps and haunt the very
+dreams of the average summer sojourner. At all events, they were mostly
+a light-hearted set given over to a freedom of speech and action which
+would have horrified them on any lower plane.
+
+Scarcely had Gaspard Dufour passed beyond sight down the ravine in
+search of a trout-brook, than he became the subject of free discussion.
+Nothing strictly impolite was said about him; but everybody in some way
+expressed amazement at everybody's ignorance of a man whose importance
+was apparent and whose name vaguely and tauntingly suggested to each one
+of them a half-recollection of having seen it in connection with some
+notable literary sensation.
+
+"Is there a member of the French institute by the name of Dufour?"
+inquired R. Hobbs Lucas, the historian, thoughtfully knitting his heavy
+brows.
+
+"I am sure not," said Hartley Crane, "for I met most of the members when
+I was last at Paris and I do not recall the name."
+
+"There goes that Bourbon again," muttered Laurens Peck, the critic; "if
+one should mention Xenophon, that fellow would claim a personal
+acquaintance with him!"
+
+It was plain enough that Peck did not value Crane very highly, and Crane
+certainly treated Peck very coolly. Miss Moyne, however, was blissfully
+unaware that she was the cause of this trouble, and for that matter the
+men themselves would have denied with indignant fervor any thing of the
+kind. Both of them were stalwart and rather handsome, the Kentuckian
+dark and passionate looking, the New Yorker fair, cool and willful
+in appearance. Miss Moyne had been pleased with them both, without a
+special thought of either, whilst they were going rapidly into the worry
+and rapture of love, with no care for anybody but her.
+
+She was beautiful and good, sweet-voiced, gentle, more inclined to
+listen than to talk, and so she captivated everybody from the first.
+
+"I think it would be quite interesting," she said, "if it should turn
+out that Mr. Dufour is a genuine foreign author, like Tolstoï or Daudet
+or----"
+
+"Realists, and nobody but realists," interposed Mrs. Philpot; "why don't
+you say Zola, and have done with it?"
+
+"Well, Zola, then, if it must be," Miss Moyne responded; "for, barring
+my American breeding and my Southern conservatism, I am nearly in
+sympathy with--no, not that exactly, but we are so timid. I should like
+to feel a change in the literary air."
+
+"Oh, you talk just as Arthur Selby writes in his critical papers. He's
+all the time trying to prove that fiction is truth and that truth is
+fiction. He lauds Zola's and Dostoieffsky's filthy novels to the skies;
+but in his own novels he's as prudish and Puritanish as if he had been
+born on Plymouth Rock instead of on an Illinois prairie."
+
+"I wonder why he is not a guest here," some one remarked. "I should have
+thought that our landlord would have had _him_ at all hazards. Just now
+Selby is monopolizing the field of American fiction. In fact I think he
+claims the earth."
+
+"It is so easy to assume," said Guilford Ferris, whose romances always
+commanded eulogy from the press, but invariably fell dead on the market;
+"but I am told that Selby makes almost nothing from the sales of his
+books."
+
+"But the magazines pay him handsomely," said Miss Moyne.
+
+"Yes, they do," replied Ferris, pulling his long brown mustache
+reflectively, "and I can't see why. He really is not popular; there is
+no enthusiasm for his fiction."
+
+"It's a mere vogue, begotten by the critics," said Hartley Crane.
+"Criticism is at a very low ebb in America. Our critics are all either
+ignorant or given over to putting on English and French airs."
+
+Ferris opened his eyes in a quiet way and glanced at Peck who, however,
+did not appear to notice the remark.
+
+"There's a set of them in Boston and New York," Crane went on, "who
+watch the _Revue de Deux Mondes_ and the London _Atheneum_, ready to
+take the cue from them. Even American books must stand or fall by the
+turn of the foreign thumb."
+
+"That is a very ancient grumble," said Ferris, in a tone indicative of
+impartial indifference.
+
+"Take these crude, loose, awkward, almost obscene Russian novels,"
+continued Crane, "and see what a furor the critics of New York and
+Boston have fermented in their behalf, all because it chanced that a
+_coterie_ of Parisian literary _roués_ fancied the filthy imaginings of
+Dostoieffsky and the raw vulgarity of Tolstoï. What would they say of
+_you_, Ferris, if _you_ should write so low and dirty a story as _Crime
+and Its Punishment_ by Dostoieffsky?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know, and, begging your grace, I don't care a straw,"
+Ferris replied; "the publishers would steal all my profits in any
+event."
+
+"Do you really believe that?" inquired Peck.
+
+"Believe it? I know it," said Ferris. "When did you ever know of a
+publisher advertising a book as in its fiftieth thousand so long as the
+author had any royalty on the sales? The only book of mine that ever had
+a run was one I sold outright in the manuscript to George Dunkirk & Co.,
+who publish all my works. That puerile effort is now in its ninetieth
+thousand, while the best of the other six has not yet shown up two
+thousand! Do you catch the point?"
+
+"But what difference can printing a statement of the books sold make,
+anyway?" innocently inquired Miss Moyne.
+
+Ferris laughed.
+
+"All the difference in the world," he said; "the publisher would have to
+account to the author for all those thousands, don't you see."
+
+"But they have to account, anyhow," replied Miss Moyne, with a perplexed
+smile.
+
+"Account!" exclaimed Ferris, contemptuously; "account! yes, they have to
+account."
+
+"But they account to me," Miss Moyne gently insisted.
+
+"Who are your publishers?" he demanded.
+
+"George Dunkirk & Co.," was the answer.
+
+"Well," said he, "I'll wager you anything I can come within twenty of
+guessing the sales up to date of your book. It has sold just eleven
+hundred and forty copies."
+
+She laughed merrily and betrayed the dangerous closeness of his guess by
+coloring a little.
+
+"Oh, its invariably just eleven hundred and forty copies, no matter what
+kind of a book it is, or what publisher has it," he continued; "I've
+investigated and have settled the matter."
+
+The historian was suddenly thoughtful, little Mrs. Philpot appeared to
+be making some abstruse calculation, Crane was silently gazing at the
+ground and Peck, with grim humor in his small eyes, remarked that eleven
+hundred and forty was a pretty high average upon the whole.
+
+Just at this point a figure appeared in the little roadway where it made
+its last turn lapsing from the wood toward the hotel. A rather tall,
+slender and angular young woman, bearing a red leather bag in one hand
+and a blue silk umbrella in the other, strode forward with the pace of a
+_tragedienne_. She wore a bright silk dress, leaf-green in color, and a
+black bonnet, of nearly the Salvation Army pattern, was set far back on
+her head, giving full play to a mass of short, fine, loosely tumbled
+yellow hair.
+
+She was very much out of breath from her walk up the mountain, but there
+was a plucky smile on her rather sallow face and an enterprising gleam
+in her light eyes.
+
+She walked right into the hotel, as if she had always lived there, and
+they heard her talking volubly to the servant as she was following him
+to a room.
+
+Everybody felt a waft of free Western air and knew that Hotel Helicon
+had received another interesting guest, original if not typical, with
+qualities that soon must make themselves respected in a degree.
+
+"Walked from the station?" Mrs. Philpot ventured, in querulous, though
+kindly interrogation.
+
+"Up the mountain?" Miss Moyne added, with a deprecatory inflection.
+
+"And carried that bag!" exclaimed all the rest.
+
+
+V
+
+Gaspard Dufour, whose accumulations of adipose tissue appeared to serve
+him a good turn, as he descended the steep, rocky ravine, hummed a droll
+tune which was broken at intervals by sundry missteps and down-sittings
+and side-wise bumps against the jutting crags. He perspired freely,
+mopping his brow meantime with a vast silk kerchief that hung loosely
+about his short neck.
+
+The wood grew denser as he descended and a damp, mouldy odor pervaded
+the spaces underneath the commingling boughs of the oaks, pines, cedars,
+and sassafras. Here and there a lizard scampered around a tree-hole
+or darted under the fallen leaves. Overhead certain shadowy flittings
+betrayed the presence of an occasional small bird, demurely going about
+its business of food-getting. The main elements of the surroundings,
+however, were gloom and silence. The breeze-currents astir in the valley
+and rippling over the gray peaks of Mt. Boab could not enter the leafy
+chambers of this wooded gorge. Heat of a peculiarly sultry sort seemed
+to be stored here, for as Dufour proceeded he began at length to gasp
+for breath, and it was with such relief as none but the suffocating can
+fully appreciate, that he emerged into an open space surrounded, almost,
+with butting limestone cliffs, but cut across by a noisy little stream
+that went bubbling down into the valley through a cleft bedecked with
+ferns and sprinkled with perennial dew from a succession of gentle
+cascades. The ideal trout-brook was this, so far as appearances
+could go. At the foot of each tiny water-fall was a swirling pool,
+semi-opaque, giving forth emerald flashes and silver glints, and bearing
+little cones of creamy foam round and round on its bosom. A thousand
+noises, every one a water-note, rising all along the line of the brook's
+broken current, clashed together with an effect like that of hearing a
+far-off multitude applauding or some distant army rushing on a charge.
+
+So much out of breath and so deluged with perspiration was Dufour that
+he flung himself upon the ground beside the brook and lay there panting
+and mopping his face. Overhead the bit of sky was like turquoise, below
+a slender glimpse of the valley shone between the rock walls, like a
+sketch subdued almost to monochrome of crepuscular purple. A fitful
+breath of cool air fell into the place, fanning the man's almost purple
+cheeks and forehead, while a wood-thrush, whose liquid voice might have
+been regarded as part of the water-tumult, sang in a thorn tree hard by.
+
+In a half-reclining attitude, Dufour gave himself over to the delicious
+effect of all this, indulging at the same time in the impolite and
+ridiculous, but quite Shakespearian, habit of soliloquizing.
+
+"Jingo!" he remarked, "Jingo! but isn't this a daisy prospect for trout!
+If those pools aren't full of the beauties, then there's nothing in
+Waltonian lore and life isn't worth living. Ha! Jingo! there went one
+clean above the water--a ten ouncer, at least!"
+
+He sprang at his rod as if to break it to pieces, and the facility with
+which he fitted the joints and the reel and run the line and tied the
+cast was really a wonder.
+
+"I knew they were here," he muttered, "just as soon as I laid my eyes on
+the water. Who ever did see such another brook!"
+
+At the third cast of the fly, a brown hackle, by the way, up came a
+trout with a somersault and a misty gleam of royal purple and silver,
+attended by a spray of water and a short bubbling sound. Dufour struck
+deftly, hooking the beautiful fish very insecurely through the edge of
+the lower lip. Immediately the reel began to sing and the rod to quiver,
+while Dufour's eyes glared almost savagely and his lips pursed with
+comical intensity.
+
+Round and round flew the trout, now rushing to the bottom of the pool,
+now whisking under a projecting ledge and anon flinging itself clean
+above the water and shaking itself convulsively.
+
+The angler was led hither and thither by his active prey, the exercise
+bedewing his face again with perspiration, whilst his feet felt the cool
+bath of water and the soothing embrace of tangled water-grass. The mere
+switch of a bamboo rod, bent almost into a loop, shook like a rush in a
+wind.
+
+Dufour was ill prepared to formulate a polite response when, at the
+height of his sport, a gentle but curiously earnest voice exclaimed:
+
+"Snatch 'im out, snatch 'im out, dog gone yer clumsy hide! Snatch 'im
+out, er I'll do it for ye!"
+
+The trout must have heard, for as the angler turned to get a hasty
+glance at the stranger, up it leaped and by a desperate shake broke the
+snell.
+
+"Confound you!" cried Dufour, his face redder than ever. "Confound your
+meddlesome tongue, why didn't you keep still till I landed him?"
+
+There was a tableau set against the gray, lichen-bossed rocks. Two men
+glaring at each other. The new-comer was a tall, athletic, brown-faced
+mountaineer, bearing a gun and wearing two heavy revolvers. He towered
+above Dufour and gazed down upon him as if about to execute him. The
+latter did not quail, but grew angrier instead.
+
+"You ought to have better sense than to interfere with my sport in such
+a way! Who are you, anyway?" he cried in a hot, fierce tone.
+
+The mountaineer stood silent for a moment, as if collecting words enough
+for what he felt like saying, then:
+
+"See yer," he drawled, rather musically, "ef I take ye by the scruff o'
+yer neck an' the heel o' yer stockin' an' jest chuck ye inter thet
+puddle, ye'll begin to surmise who I air, ye saucy little duck-legged
+minny-catcher, you!"
+
+Dufour, remembering his long training years ago at the Gentlemen's
+Glove-Club, squared himself with fists in position, having flung aside
+his tackle. In his righteous rage he forgot that his adversary was not
+only his superior in stature but also heavily armed.
+
+"Well, thet' ther' do beat me!" said the mountaineer, with an
+incredulous ring in his voice. "The very idee! W'y ye little aggervatin'
+banty rooster, a puttin' up yer props at me! W'y I'll jest eternally and
+everlastin'ly wring yer neck an' swob the face o' nature wi' ye!"
+
+What followed was about as indescribable as a whirlwind in dry grass.
+The two men appeared to coalesce for a single wild, whirling, resounding
+instant, and then the mountaineer went over headlong into the middle
+of the pool with a great plash and disappeared. Dufour, in a truly
+gladiatorial attitude, gazed fiercely at the large dimple in which his
+antagonist was buried for the instant, but out of which he presently
+projected himself with great promptness, then, as a new thought came to
+him, he seized the fallen gun of the mountaineer, cocked it and leveled
+it upon its owner. There was a peculiar meaning in his words as he
+stormed out:
+
+"Lie down! down with you, or I blow a hole clean through you instantly!"
+
+Promptly enough the mountaineer lay down until the water rippled around
+his chin and floated his flaxen beard. Some moments of peculiar silence
+followed, broken only by the lapsing gurgle and murmur of the brook.
+
+Dufour, with arms as steady as iron bars, kept the heavy gun bearing on
+the gasping face of the unwilling bather, whilst at the same time he was
+dangerously fingering the trigger. The stout, short figure really had a
+muscular and doughty air and the heavy face certainly looked warlike.
+
+"Stranger, a seein' 'at ye've got the drap onto me, 'spose we swear off
+an' make up friends?" The man in the water said this at length, in the
+tone of one presenting a suggestion of doubtful propriety.
+
+"Don't hardly think you've cooled off sufficiently, do you?" responded
+Dufour.
+
+"This here's spring warter, ye must 'member," offered the mountaineer.
+
+The gun was beginning to tire Dufour's arms.
+
+"Well, do you knock under?" he inquired, still carelessly fumbling the
+trigger.
+
+"Great mind ter say yes," was the shivering response.
+
+"Oh, take your time to consider, I'm in no hurry," said Dufour.
+
+If the man in the water could have known how the supple but of late
+untrained arms of the man on shore were aching, the outcome might have
+been different; but the bath was horribly cold and the gun's muzzle kept
+its bearing right on the bather's eye.
+
+"I give in, ye've got me, stranger," he at last exclaimed.
+
+Dufour was mightily relieved as he put down the gun and watched his
+dripping and shivering antagonist wade out of the cold pool. The men
+looked at each other curiously.
+
+"Ye're the dog gone'dest man 'at ever I see," remarked the mountaineer;
+"who air ye, anyhow?"
+
+"Oh, I'm a pretty good fellow, if you take me on the right tack," said
+Dufour.
+
+The other hesitated a moment, and then inquired:
+
+"Air ye one o' them people up at the tavern on the mounting?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"A boardin' there?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For all summer?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+Again there was a silence, during which the water trickled off the
+mountaineer's clothes and ran over the little stones at his feet.
+
+"Goin' ter make fun o' me when ye git up thar?" the catechism was at
+length resumed. Dufour laughed.
+
+"I could tell a pretty good thing on you," he answered, taking a
+sweeping observation of the stalwart fellow's appearance as he stood
+there with his loose jeans trousers and blue cotton shirt clinging to
+his shivering limbs.
+
+"See yer, now," said the latter, in a wheedling tone, and wringing his
+light, thin beard with one sinewy dark hand, "see yer, now, I'd like for
+ye not ter do thet, strenger."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Well," said the mountaineer, after some picturesque hesitation and
+faltering, "'cause I hev a 'quaintance o' mine up ther' at thet tavern."
+
+"Indeed, have you? Who is it?"
+
+"Mebbe ye mought be erquainted with Miss Sarah Anna Crabb?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, she's up ther', she stayed all night at our house las' night an'
+went on up ther' this mornin'; she's a literary woman an' purty, an'
+smart, an' a mighty much of a talker."
+
+"Ugh!"
+
+"Jest tell her 'at ye met me down yer, an' 'at I'm tol'ble well; but
+don't say nothin' 'bout this 'ere duckin' 'at ye gi' me, will ye?"
+
+"Oh, of course, that's all right," Dufour hastened to say, feeling an
+indescribable thrill of sympathy for the man.
+
+"Yer's my hand, strenger, an' w'en Wesley Tolliver gives a feller his
+hand hit means all there air ter mean," exclaimed the latter, as warmly
+as his condition would permit, "an' w'en ye need er friend in these
+parts jest come ter me."
+
+He shouldered his gun, thereupon, and remarking that he might as well
+be going, strode away over a spur of the mountain, his clothes still
+dripping and sticking close to his muscular limbs. Dufour found his rod
+broken and his reel injured, by having felt the weight of Wesley
+Tolliver's foot, and so he too turned to retrace his steps.
+
+Such an adventure could not fail to gain in spectacular grotesqueness as
+it took its place in the memory and imagination of Dufour. He had been
+in the habit of seeing such things on the stage and of condemning them
+out of hand as the baldest melodramatic nonsense, so that now he could
+not fairly realize the matter as something that had taken place in his
+life.
+
+He was very tired and hungry when he reached Hotel Helicon.
+
+
+VI.
+
+"Oh, yes, I walked all the way up the mountain from the railroad depot,"
+explained the young woman whose arrival we chronicled in another
+chapter, "but I stopped over night at a cabin on the way and discovered
+some just delightful characters--the Tollivers--regular Craddock sort
+of people, an old lady and her son."
+
+By some method known only to herself she had put herself upon a
+speaking-plane with Dufour, who, as she approached him, was standing in
+an angle of the wide wooden veranda waiting for the moon to rise over
+the distant peaks of the eastern mountains.
+
+"I saw Mr. Tolliver to-day while whipping a brook down here," said he,
+turning to look her squarely in the face.
+
+"Oh, did you! Isn't he a virile, villainous, noble, and altogether
+melodramatic looking man? I wish there was some one here who could
+sketch him for me. But, say, Mr. Dufour, what do you mean, please, when
+you speak of _whipping_ a brook?"
+
+She took from her pocket a little red note-book and a pencil as he
+promptly responded: "Whipping a brook? oh, that's angler's nonsense, it
+means casting the line into the water, you know."
+
+"That's funny," she remarked, making a note.
+
+She was taller than Dufour, and so slender and angular that in
+comparison with his excessive plumpness she looked gaunt and bony. In
+speaking her lips made all sorts of wild contortions showing her uneven
+teeth to great effect, and the extreme rapidity of her utterance gave an
+explosive emphasis to her voice. Over her forehead, which projected, a
+fluffy mass of pale yellow hair sprang almost fiercely as if to attack
+her scared and receding chin.
+
+"You are from Michigan, I believe, Miss Crabb," remarked Dufour.
+
+"Oh, dear, no!" she answered, growing red in the face, "No, indeed. I am
+from Indiana, from Ringville, associate editor of the _Star_."
+
+"Pardon, I meant Indiana. Of course I knew you were not from Michigan."
+
+"Thanks," with a little laugh and a shrug, "I am glad you see the
+point."
+
+"I usually do--a little late," he remarked complacently.
+
+"You are from Boston, then, I infer," she glibly responded.
+
+"Not precisely," he said, with an approving laugh, "but I admit that I
+have some Bostonian qualities."
+
+At this point in the conversation she was drooping over him, so to say,
+and he was sturdily looking up into her bright, insistent face.
+
+"What a group!" said Crane to Mrs. Bridges, a New York fashion editor.
+"I'd give the best farm in Kentucky (so far as my title goes) for a
+photograph of it! Doesn't she appear to be just about to peck out his
+eyes!"
+
+"Your lofty imagination plays you fantastic tricks," said Mrs. Bridges.
+"Is she the famous Western _lady_ reporter?"
+
+"The same, of the _Ringville Star_. I met her at the Cincinnati
+convention. It was there that Bascom of the _Bugle_ called her a bag of
+gimlets, because she bored him so."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+This exclamation was not in response to what Crane had said, but it
+was an involuntary tribute to the moon-flower just flaring into bloom
+between twin peaks lying dusky and heavy against the mist of silver
+and gold that veiled the sweet sky beyond. A semi-circle of pale
+straw-colored fire gleamed in the lowest angle of the notch and sent up
+long, wavering lines of light almost to the zenith, paling the strongest
+stars and intensifying the shadows in the mountain gorges and valleys.
+Grim as angry gods, the pines stood along the slopes, as if gloomily
+contemplating some dark scheme of vengeance.
+
+"A real Sapphic," said Crane, dropping into a poetical tone, as an
+elocutionist does when he is hungry for an opportunity to recite a
+favorite sketch.
+
+"Why a Sapphic?" inquired the matter-of-fact fashion-editor.
+
+"Oh, don't you remember that fragment, that glorious picture Sappho's
+divine genius has made for us--"
+
+He quoted some Greek.
+
+"About as divine as Choctaw or Kickapoo," she said. "I understand the
+moon-shine better. In fact I have a sincere contempt for all this
+transparent clap-trap you poets and critics indulge in when you got upon
+your Greek hobby. Divine Sappho, indeed! A lot of bald bits of jargon
+made famous by the comments of fogies. Let's look at the moon, please,
+and be sincere."
+
+"Sincere!"
+
+"Yes, you know very well that if you had written the Sapphic fragments
+the critics would----"
+
+"The critics! What of them? They are a set of disappointed poetasters
+themselves. Blind with rage at their own failures, they snap right and
+left without rhyme or reason. Now there's Peck, a regular----"
+
+"Well, sir, a regular _what_?" very coolly demanded the critic who had
+stepped forth from a shadowy angle and now stood facing Crane.
+
+"A regular star-gazer," said Mrs. Bridges. "Tell us why the planets
+yonder all look so ghastly through the shimmering moonlight."
+
+Peck, without reply, turned and walked away.
+
+"Is he offended?" she asked.
+
+"No, he gives offence, but can not take it."
+
+Mrs. Bridges grew silent.
+
+"We were speaking of Sappho," observed Crane, again gliding into an
+elocutionary mood. "I have translated the fragment that I repeated a
+while ago. Let me give it to you.
+
+    "When on the dusky violet sky
+    The full flower of the moon blooms high
+        The stars turn pale and die!"
+
+Just then Miss Moyne, dressed all in white, floated by on Peck's arm,
+uttering a silvery gust of laughter in response to a cynical observation
+of the critic.
+
+"What a lovely girl she is," said Mrs. Bridges. "Mr. Peck shows fine
+critical acumen in being very fond of her."
+
+Crane was desperately silent. "He's a handsome man, too, and I suspect
+it's a genuine love affair," Mrs. Bridges went on, fanning herself
+complacently. Back and forth, walking slowly and conversing in a soft
+minor key, save when now and then Miss Moyne laughed melodiously, the
+promenaders passed and repassed, Peck never deigning to glance toward
+Crane, who had forgotten both Sappho and the moon. Miss Moyne did,
+however, once or twice turn her eyes upon the silent poet.
+
+"Oh," went on Miss Crabb, filling Dufour's ears with the hurried din of
+her words, "Oh, I'm going to write a novel about this place. I never saw
+a better chance for local color, real transcripts from life, original
+scenes and genuine romance all tumbled together. Don't you think I might
+do it?"
+
+"It does appear tempting," said Dufour. "There's Tolliver for instance,
+a genuine Chilhowee moonshiner." He appeared to laugh inwardly as he
+spoke. Indeed he heard the plash of water and the dripping, shivering
+mountaineer stood forth in his memory down there in the gorge.
+
+"A moonshiner!" gasped Miss Crabb, fluttering the leaves of her
+note-book and writing by moonlight with a celerity that amazed Dufour.
+
+"Potentially, at least," he replied evasively. "He looks like one and he
+don't like water."
+
+"If he _does_ turn out to be a real moonshiner," Miss Crabb proceeded
+reflectively to say, "it will be just too delicious for anything. I
+don't mind telling you, confidentially, Mr. Dufour, that I am to write
+some letters while here to the _Chicago Daily Lightning Express_. So I'd
+take it as a great favor if you'd give me all the points you get."
+
+"That's interesting," he said, with a keen scrutiny of her face for a
+second. "I shall be glad to be of assistance to you."
+
+He made a movement to go, but lingered to say: "Pray give me all the
+points, too, will you?"
+
+"Oh, are you a journalist too?" she inquired, breathlessly hanging over
+him. "What paper--"
+
+"I'm not much of anything," he hurriedly interposed, "but I like to know
+what is going on, that's all."
+
+He walked away without further excuse and went up to his room.
+
+"I've got to watch him," soliloquized Miss Crabb, "or he'll get the
+scoop of all the news. Give him points, indeed! Maybe so, but not till
+after I've sent them to the _Lightning Express_! I'll keep even with
+him, or know the reason why."
+
+It was a grand panorama that the climbing moon lighted up all around
+Mount Boab, a vast billowy sea of gloom and sheen. Here were shining
+cliffs, there dusky gulches; yonder the pines glittered like steel-armed
+sentinels on the hill-tops, whilst lower down they appeared to skulk
+like cloaked assassins. Shadows came and went, now broad-winged and
+wavering, again slender and swift as the arrows of death. The hotel was
+bright within and without. Some one was at the grand piano in the hall
+making rich music--a fragment from Beethoven,--and a great horned owl
+down the ravine was booming an effective counterpoint.
+
+Crane stood leaning on the railing of the veranda and scowling savagely
+as Peck and Miss Moyne continued to promenade and converse. He was,
+without doubt, considering sinister things. Mrs. Bridges, finding him
+entirely unsympathetic, went to join Miss Crabb, who was alone where she
+had been left by Dufour. Meantime, up in his room, with his chair tilted
+far back and his feet thrust out over the sill of an open window,
+Dufour was smoking a fragrant Cuban cigar, (fifty cents at retail) and
+alternating smiles with frowns as he contemplated his surroundings.
+
+"Authors," he thought, "are the silliest, the vainest, and the most
+impractical lot of human geese that ever were plucked for their valuable
+feathers. And newspaper people! Humph!" He chuckled till his chin shook
+upon his immaculate collar. "Just the idea, now, of that young woman
+asking me to furnish her with points!"
+
+There was something almost jocund blent with his air of solid
+self-possession, and he smoked the precious cigars one after another
+with prodigal indifference and yet with the perfect grace of him to the
+manner born.
+
+"Hotel Helicon on Mt. Boab!" he repeated, and then betook himself to
+bed.
+
+
+VII.
+
+Some people are born to find things out--to overhear, to reach a place
+just at the moment in which an event comes to pass there--born indeed,
+with the news-gatherer's instinct perfectly developed. Miss Crabb was
+one of these. How she chanced to over-hear some low-spoken but deadly
+sounding words that passed between Peck and Crane, it would be hard to
+say; still she overheard them, and her heart jumped almost into her
+mouth. It was a thrillingly dramatic passage, there under the
+heavy-topped oak by the west veranda in the gloom.
+
+"Villain!" exclaimed Crane, in the hissing voice of a young
+tragedy-player at rehearsal,
+
+"Villain! you shall not escape me. Defend yourself!"
+
+"Nonsense," said Peck, "you talk like a fool. I don't want to fight!
+What's that you've got in your hand?"
+
+"A sword, you cowardly craven!"
+
+"You call me a coward! If I had a good club I should soon show you what
+I could do, you sneaking assassin!"
+
+More words and just as bitter followed, till at last a fight was agreed
+upon to take place immediately, at a certain point on the verge of a
+cliff not far away. There were to be no seconds and the meeting was to
+end in the death of one or both of the combatants.
+
+To Miss Crabb all this had a sound and an appearance as weird as
+anything in the wildest romance she ever had read. It was near
+mid-night; the hotel was quite soundless and the moon on high made the
+shadows short and black.
+
+"Meet me promptly at the Eagle's Nest in ten minutes," said Crane, "I'll
+fetch my other sword and give you choice."
+
+"All right, sir," responded Peck, "but a club would do."
+
+The peculiar hollowness of their voices affected the listener as if
+the sounds had come from a tomb. She felt clammy. Doubtless there is a
+considerable element of humorous, almost ludicrous bravado in such a
+scene when coolly viewed; but Miss Crabb could not take a calm, critical
+attitude just then. At first she was impelled almost irresistibly toward
+interfering and preventing a bloody encounter; but her professional
+ambition swept the feeling aside. Still, being a woman, she was
+dreadfully nervous. "Ugh!" she shuddered, "it will be just awful, but I
+can't afford to miss getting the full particulars for the _Lightning
+Express_. A sure enough duel! It will make my fortune! Oh, if I were a
+man, now, just only for a few hours, what a comfort it would be! But all
+the same I must follow them--I must see the encounter, describe it as
+an eye-witness and send it by wire early in the morning."
+
+It occurred to her mind just then that the nearest telegraph station was
+twelve miles down the mountain, but she did not flinch or waver. The
+thought that she was required to do what a man might well have shrunk
+from gave an element of heroism to her pluck. She was conscious of this
+and went about her task with an elasticity and facility truly admirable.
+
+Eagle's Nest was the name of a small area on the top of a beetling cliff
+whose almost perpendicular wall was dotted with clumps of sturdy little
+cedar trees growing out of the chinks. It was a dizzy place at all
+times, but by night the effect of its airy height was very trying on any
+but the best nerves. Crane and Peck both were men of fine physique and
+were possessed of stubborn courage and great combativeness. They met on
+the spot and after choosing swords, coolly and promptly proceeded to the
+fight. On one hand, close to the cliff's edge, was a thick mass of small
+oak bushes, on the other hand lay a broken wall of fragmentary stones.
+The footing-space was fairly good, though a few angular blocks of stone
+lay here and there, and some brushes of stiff wood-grass were scattered
+around.
+
+Crane led with more caution than one would have expected of an irate
+Kentuckian, and Peck responded with the brilliant aplomb of an
+enthusiastic duelist.
+
+The swords were neither rapiers nor broad-swords, being the ordinary
+dress-weapons worn by Confederate Infantry officers in the war
+time--weapons with a history, since they had been at the thigh of father
+and son, the bravest of Kentucky Cranes, through many a stormy battle.
+
+Peck's back was toward the precipice-brink at the commencement of the
+engagement, but neither had much the advantage, as the moon was almost
+directly overhead. As their weapons began to flash and clink, the
+slender keen echoes fell over into the yawning chasm and went rattling
+down the steep, ragged face of the precipice. They were vigorous and
+rather good fencers and it would have been evident to an onlooker of
+experience that the fight was to be a long one, notwithstanding the
+great weight of the swords they were using. They soon began to fight
+fiercely and grew more vehemently aggressive each second, their blows
+and thrusts and parries and counter-cuts following each other faster and
+faster until the sounds ran together and the sparks leaped and shone
+even in the bright moonlight. They mingled broad-sword exercise with
+legitimate rapier fencing and leaped about each other like boxers, their
+weapons whirling, darting, rising, falling, whilst their breathing
+became loud and heavy. It was a scene to have stirred the blood of men
+and women four hundred years ago, when love was worth fighting for and
+when men were quite able and willing to fight for it.
+
+The combatants strained every point of their strength and skill, and
+not a drop of blood could either draw. Slash, thrust, whack, clink,
+clank, clack, click, cling! Round and round they labored, the fury of
+their efforts flaming out of their eyes and concentrating in the deep
+lines of their mouths. As if to listen, the breeze lay still in the
+trees and the great owl quit hooting in the ravine. Faster and faster
+fell the blows, swifter and keener leaped the thrusts, quicker and surer
+the parries were interposed. The swords were hacked and notched like
+hand-saws, the blades shook and hummed like lyre-cords. Now close to
+the cliff's edge, now over by the heap of broken stones and then close
+beside the clump of oak bushes, the men, panting and sweating, their
+muscles knotted, their sinews leaping like bow-strings, their eyes
+standing out, as if starting from their sockets, pursued each other
+without a second's rest or wavering.
+
+At last, with an irresistible spurt of fury, Crane drove Peck right into
+the bushes with a great crash and would not let him out. The critic
+was not vanquished, however, for, despite the foliage and twigs, he
+continued to parry and thrust with dangerous accuracy and force.
+
+Just at this point a strange thing happened. Right behind Peck there was
+a tearing, crashing sound and a cry, loud, keen, despairing, terrible,
+followed immediately by the noise of a body descending among the cedars
+growing along the face of the awful precipice.
+
+It was a woman's voice, shrieking in deadly horror that then came up
+out of the dizzy depth of space below!
+
+The men let fall their swords and leaped to the edge of the cliff with
+the common thought that it was Miss Moyne who had fallen over. They
+reeled back giddy and sick, staggering as if drunken.
+
+Far down they had seen something white fluttering and gleaming amid a
+tuft of cedars and a quavering voice had cried:
+
+"Help, help, oh, help!"
+
+And so the duel was at an end.
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Hotel Helicon was shaken out of its sleep by the startling rumor to the
+effect that Miss Moyne had fallen down the precipice at Eagle's Nest.
+
+Of all the rudely awakened and mightily frightened inmates, perhaps Miss
+Moyne herself was most excited by this waft of bad news. She had been
+sleeping very soundly in dreamless security and did not at first
+feel the absurdity of being told that she had just tumbled down the
+escarpment, which in fact she never yet had summoned the courage to
+approach, even when sustained by a strong masculine arm.
+
+"O dear! how did it happen?" she demanded of her aunt, Mrs. Coleman
+Rhodes, who had rushed upon her dainty couch with the frightful
+announcement of her accident.
+
+"Oh, Alice! you are here, you are not hurt at all! Oh!" Mrs. Rhodes went
+on, "and what _can_ it all mean!"
+
+Everybody rushed out, of course, as soon as hurried dressing would
+permit, and fell into the confusion that filled the halls and main
+veranda.
+
+Crane was talking in a loud, but well modulated strain, explaining the
+accident:
+
+"Mr. Peck and I," he went on to say, "were enjoying a friendly turn at
+sword-play up here at Eagle's Nest; couldn't sleep, needed exercise, and
+went up there so as not to disturb any one. While we were fencing she
+came rushing past through those bushes and leaped right over with a
+great shriek. She--"
+
+"Don't stop to talk," cried Mr. E. Hobbs Lucas, with a directness and
+clearness quite unusual in a historian. "Don't stop to talk, let's go do
+something!"
+
+"Yes, come on," quavered poor Peck, his face whiter than the moon and
+his beard quivering in sympathy with his voice.
+
+"Oh, it's dreadful, awful!" moaned little Mrs. Philpot, "poor, dear Miss
+Moyne, to think that she is gone!" and she leaned heavily on Miss
+Moyne's shoulder as she spoke.
+
+It was a strange scene, too confused for the best dramatic effect,
+but spectacular in the extreme. Servants swarmed out with lights that
+wavered fantastically in the moonshine, while the huddled guests swayed
+to and fro in a body. Every face was pinched with intense excitement
+and looked haggard under its crown of disheveled hair. Even the hotel
+windows stared in stupid horror, and the kindly countenances of the
+negro waiters took on a bewildered and meaningless grin set in a black
+scowl of superstition and terror.
+
+When Dufour came upon the scene, he did not appear in the least
+flurried, and the first thing he did was to lay his hand on Miss Moyne's
+shoulder and exclaim in a clear tenor strain:
+
+"Why, here! it's all a mistake! What are you talking about? Here's Miss
+Moyne! Here she stands!"
+
+"Mercy! where?" enquired little Mrs. Philpot, who was still leaning on
+her friend and shedding bitter tears.
+
+Dufour, with a quiet: "Please don't take offence," put a hand on either
+side of Miss Moyne and lifted her so that she stood in a chair looking
+very sweetly down over the crowd of people.
+
+Few indeed are they who can look beautiful under such circumstances, but
+Miss Moyne certainly did, especially in the eyes of Crane and Peck as
+they gazed up at her.
+
+Forthwith the tragedy became a farce.
+
+"That Kentuckian must romance, I suppose," grumbled R. Hobbs Lucas.
+"Wonder what he'll tell next."
+
+"I don't see how I could be so mistaken," said Peck, after quiet had
+been somewhat restored, "I would have willingly been sworn to--"
+
+He was interrupted by a dozen voices hurling ironical phrases at him.
+
+"It is every word truth," exclaimed Crane testily. "Do you suppose I
+would trifle with so--"
+
+"Oh, don't you absolutely know that we suppose just that very thing?"
+said Lucas.
+
+With the return of self-consciousness the company began to scatter, the
+ladies especially scampering to their rooms with rustling celerity. The
+men grumbled not a little, as if being deprived of a shocking accident
+touched them with a sting.
+
+"The grotesque idea!" ejaculated Dufour. "Such a practical
+joke--impractical joke, I might better say, could originate only between
+a poet and a critic."
+
+Everybody went back to bed, feeling more or less injured by Crane and
+Peck, who shared in their own breasts the common impression that they
+had made great fools of themselves. If these crest-fallen knights, so
+lately militant and self-confident, had any cause of quarrel now it
+was based upon a question as to which should feel the meaner and which
+should more deeply dread to meet Miss Moyne on the morrow.
+
+As for Miss Moyne herself she was indignant although she tried to quiet
+her aunt, who was ready to shake the dust of Mt. Boab from her feet at
+once.
+
+Next morning, however, when it was discovered that Miss Crabb was
+missing and that after all something tragic probably had happened,
+everybody felt relieved.
+
+
+IX
+
+Mr. Wesley Tolliver might well have served the turn of romancer or
+realist, as he stood in the shadow of a cedar-clump with the mysterious
+stillness of midnight all around him. He was a very real and substantial
+looking personage, and yet his gun, his pistols, his fantastic mountain
+garb and the wild setting in which he was framed gave him the appearance
+of a strong sketch meant to illustrate a story by Craddock. Above him
+towered the cliff at Eagle's Nest and near by was the mountain "Pocket"
+in which nestled the little distillery whose lurking-place had long been
+the elusive dream of utopian revenue officers. In a space of brilliant
+moonlight, Tolliver's dog, a gaunt, brindle cur, sat in statuesque
+worthlessness, remembering no doubt the hares he never had caught and
+the meatless bones he had vainly buried during a long ignoble life.
+
+The hotel and its inmates had rendered the distillery and its furtive
+operatives very uneasy of late, and now as Tolliver in his due turn
+stood guard by night he considered the probability of having to look
+for some better situation for his obscure manufactory with a species of
+sadness which it would be impossible to describe. He thought with deep
+bitterness of all the annoyance he had suffered at the hands of meddling
+government agents and from the outside world in general and he tried
+to understand how any person could pretend to see justice in such
+persecution. What had he done to merit being hunted like a wild beast?
+Nothing but buy his neighbor's apples at the fair price of twenty cents
+a bushel and distil them into apple brandy! Could this possibly be any
+injury to any government official, or to anybody else? He paid for his
+still, he paid for the apples, he paid fair wages to the men who worked
+for him, what more could be justly demanded of him?
+
+It was while he was wholly absorbed in trying to solve this knotty
+problem that far above a strange clink and clatter began, which sounded
+to him as if it were falling from among the stars. Nothing within his
+knowledge or experience suggested an explanation of such a phenomenon.
+He felt a thrill of superstitious terror creep through his iron nerves
+as the aerial racket increased and seemed to whisk itself from place to
+place with lightning celerity. An eccentric echo due to the angles and
+projections of the cliff added weird effect to the sounds.
+
+The dog uttered a low plaintive whine and crept close to his master, and
+even wedged himself with tremulous desperation between the knees of that
+wondering and startled sentinel.
+
+The clinking and clanging soon became loud and continuous, falling in
+a cataract down the escarpment, accompanied now and again by small
+fragments of stone and soil.
+
+At last Tolliver got control of himself sufficiently, and looked out
+from his shadowy station and up towards the dizzy crown of Eagle's
+Nest.
+
+Just at that moment there was a crash and a scream. He saw a
+wide-winged, ghostly object come over the edge and swoop down. Another
+scream, another and another, a tearing sound, a crushing of cedar
+boughs, a shower of small stones and lumps of soil.
+
+Tolliver, frightened as he never before had been, turned and fled,
+followed by his ecstatic dog.
+
+A voice, keen, clear, high, beseeching pursued him and reached his ears.
+
+"Help! help! Oh, help!"
+
+Surely this was the "Harnt that walks Mt. Boab!" This syren of the
+mountains had lured many a hunter to his doom.
+
+"Oh, me! Oh, my! Oh, mercy on me! Help! help!"
+
+Tolliver ran all the faster, as the voice seemed to follow him, turn as
+he would. He bruised his shins on angular rocks, he ran against trees,
+he fell over logs, and at last found himself hopelessly entangled in a
+net of wild grape-vines, with his enthusiastic dog still faithfully
+wriggling between his knees.
+
+The plaintive voice of the syren, now greatly modified by distance,
+assailed his ears with piteous persistence, as he vainly struggled to
+free himself. The spot was dark as Erebus, being in the bottom of a
+ravine, and the more he exerted himself the worse off he became.
+
+It was his turn to call for help, but if any of his friends heard they
+did not heed his supplications, thinking them but baleful echoes of the
+Harnt's deceitful voice.
+
+It was at the gray of dawn when at last Tolliver got clear of the
+vines and made his way out of the ravine. By this time he had entirely
+overcome his fright, and with that stubbornness characteristic of all
+mountain men, he betook himself back to the exact spot whence he had so
+precipitately retreated. His dog, forlornly nonchalant, trotted behind
+him to the place and resumed the seat from which the Harnt had driven
+him a few hours ago. In this attitude, the animal drooped his nose and
+indifferently sniffed a curious object lying near.
+
+"What's thet ther' thing, Mose?" inquired Tolliver, addressing the dog.
+
+"Well I'll ber dorg-goned!" he added, as he picked up a woman's bonnet.
+"If this here don't beat the worl' an' all camp meetin'! Hit air--well,
+I'll ber dorged--hit air--I'm er ghost if hit aint Miss Sara' Anna
+Crabb's bonnet, by Ned!"
+
+He held it up by one silk string and gazed at it with a ludicrously
+puzzled stare. The dog whined and wagged his tail in humble sympathy
+with his master's bewilderment.
+
+"Hit's kinder interestin', haint it, Mose?" Tolliver went on dryly.
+"We'll hev ter look inter this here thing, won't we, Mose?"
+
+As for Mose, he was looking into it with all his eyes. Indeed he was
+beginning to show extreme interest, and his tail was pounding the
+ground with great rapidity.
+
+Suddenly a thought leaped into Tolliver's brain and with a start he
+glanced up the escarpment, his mouth open and his brown cheeks betraying
+strong emotion. Mose followed his master's movements with kindling eyes,
+and whined dolefully, his wolfish nose lifted almost vertically.
+
+"Is that you, Mr. Tolliver?" fell a voice out of a cedar clump a little
+way up the side of the cliff.
+
+"Hit air me," he responded, as he saw Miss Crabb perched among the
+thick branches. She had her little red note-book open and was writing
+vigorously. Her yellow hair was disheveled so that it appeared to
+surround her face with a flickering light which to Tolliver's mind gave
+it a most beautiful and altogether lovely expression.
+
+"Well, I'll ber--" he checked himself and stood in picturesque suspense.
+
+"Now, Mr. Tolliver, won't you please help me down from here?" she
+demanded, closing her note-book and placing her pencil behind her ear.
+"I'm awfully cramped, sitting in this position so long."
+
+The chivalrous mountaineer did not wait to be appealed to a second time,
+but laying down his gun to which he had clung throughout the night, he
+clambered up the steep face of the rock, from projection to projection,
+until he reached the tree in which Miss Crabb sat. Meantime she watched
+him with admiring eyes and just as he was about to take her in his arms
+and descend with her she exclaimed:
+
+"Wait a moment, I might lose the thought, I'll just jot it down."
+
+She took her note-book and pencil again and hurriedly made the following
+entry: _Sinewy, virile, lithe, hirsute, fearless, plucky, bronzed,
+vigorous, lank, Greek-eyed, Roman-nosed, prompt, large-eared, typical
+American. Good hero for dramatic, short, winning dialect story. The
+magazines never refuse dialect stories._
+
+"Now, if you please, Mr. Tolliver, I will go with you."
+
+It was an Herculean labor, but Tolliver was a true hero. With one arm
+wound around her, after the fashion of the serpent in the group of the
+Laocoön, and with her long yellow hair streaming in crinkled jets over
+his shoulder, he slowly made his way down to the ground.
+
+Meantime Mose, the dog, with true canine sympathy and helpfulness, had
+torn the bonnet into pathetic shreds, and was now lying half asleep
+under a tree with a bit of ribbon in his teeth.
+
+"Well, I'll jest ber--beg parding Miss Crabb, but thet ther dog hev et
+up yer head-gear," said Tolliver as he viewed with dilating eyes the
+scattered fragments.
+
+She comprehended her calamity with one swift glance, but she had caught
+a new dialect phrase at the same time.
+
+"Head-gear, you call it, I believe?" she inquired, again producing book
+and pencil.
+
+"Beg parding all over, Miss Crabb, I meant bonnet," he hurried to say.
+
+"Oh, it's all right, I assure you," she replied, writing rapidly, "it's
+a delightfully fresh and artistic bit of special coloring."
+
+Miss Crabb's clothes were badly torn and she looked as if she had spent
+the night wretchedly, but with the exception of a few slight scratches
+and bruises she was unhurt.
+
+"Well jes' look a there, will ye!" exclaimed Tolliver as he spied Mose.
+There was more of admiration than anger in his voice. "Ef thet ther
+'fernal dog haint got yer chin-ribbon in his ole mouth, I'm er rooster!"
+
+"Chin-ribbon," repeated Miss Crabb, making a note, "I'm er rooster," and
+she smiled with intense satisfaction. "You don't know, Mr. Tolliver, how
+much I am indebted to you."
+
+"Not a tall, Miss Crabb, not a tall. Don't mention of it," he humbly
+said, "hit taint wo'th talkin' erbout."
+
+The morning was in full blow now and the cat-birds were singing sweetly
+down the ravine. Overhead a patch of blue sky gleamed and burned with
+the true empyrean glow. Far away, down in the valley by the little
+river, a breakfast horn was blown with many a mellow flourish and a cool
+gentle breeze with dew on its wings fanned Miss Crabb's sallow cheeks
+and rustled Tolliver's tawny beard. At the sound of the horn Mose sprang
+to his feet and loped away with the bit of ribbon fluttering from his
+mouth.
+
+
+X.
+
+It was late in the forenoon before it was discovered at Hotel Helicon
+that Miss Crabb was missing, and even then there arose so many doubts
+about the tragic side of the event that before any organized search
+for her had been begun, she returned, appearing upon the scene mounted
+behind Wesley Tolliver on a small, thin, wiry mountain mule.
+
+Crane and Peck each drew a deep, swift sigh of relief upon seeing her,
+for the sense of guilt in their breasts had been horrible. They had by
+tacit conspiracy prevented any examination of Eagle's Nest, for they
+dreaded what might be disclosed. Of course they did not mean to hide the
+awful fate of the poor girl, nor would they willingly have shifted the
+weight of their dreadful responsibility, but it was all so much like
+a vivid dream, so utterly strange and theatrical as it arose in their
+memories, that they could not fully believe in it.
+
+Miss Crabb looked quite ludicrous perched behind the tall mountaineer
+on such a dwarfish mule. Especially comical was the effect of the
+sun-bonnet she wore. She had accepted this article of apparel from
+Tolliver's mother, and it appeared to clutch her head in its stiff folds
+and to elongate her face by sheer compression.
+
+Everybody laughed involuntarily, as much for joy at her safe return as
+in response to the demand of her melodramatic appearance.
+
+"I've brung back yer runerway," said Tolliver cheerily, as he helped the
+young woman to dismount. "She clim down the mounting by one pertic'ler
+trail an' I jes' fotch her up by t'other."
+
+Miss Crabb spoke not a word, but ran into the hotel and up to her room
+without glancing to the right or to the left. In her great haste the
+stiff old sun-bonnet fell from her head and tumbled upon the ground.
+
+"Wush ye'd jes' be erbligin' enough ter han' thet there head-gear up ter
+me, Mister," said Tolliver addressing Crane, who was standing near. "My
+mammy'd raise er rumpage ef I'd go back 'thout thet ther bonnet."
+
+With evident reluctance and disgust Crane gingerly took up the fallen
+article and gave it to Tolliver, who thanked him so politely that all
+the onlooking company felt a glow of admiration for the uncouth and yet
+rather handsome cavalier.
+
+"Thet gal," he observed, glancing in the direction that Miss Crabb had
+gone, "she hev the winnin'est ways of any gal I ever seed in my life. Ye
+orter seen 'er up inter thet there bush a writin' in 'er book! She'd
+jes' tumbled kerwhummox down the clift an' hed lodged ther' in them
+cedars; but as she wer' a writin' when she started ter fall w'y she
+struck a writin' an' jes' kep' on at it same's if nothin' had happened.
+She's game, thet ole gal air, I tell ye! She don't propose for any
+little thing like fallin' off'n a clift, ter interfere with w'at she's a
+doin' at thet time, le' me say ter ye. Lord but she wer' hongry, though,
+settin' up ther a writin' all night, an' it'd a done ye good to a
+seen 'er eat thet chicken and them cake-biscuits my mammy cooked for
+breakfast. She air a mos' alarmin' fine gal, for a fac'."
+
+At this point Dufour came out of the hotel, and when Tolliver saw him
+there was an instantaneous change in the expression of the mountaineer's
+face.
+
+"Well I'll ber dorged!" he exclaimed with a smile of delight, "ef ther'
+haint the same leetle John the Baptis' what bapsonsed me down yer inter
+the branch! Give us yer baby-spanker, ole feller! How air ye!"
+
+Dufour cordially shook hands with him, laughing in a jolly way.
+
+"Fust an' only man at ever ducked me, I'm here ter say ter ye," Tolliver
+went on, in a cheery, half-bantering tone, and sitting sidewise on the
+mule. "Ye mus' hev' a sight o' muscle onto them duck legs and bantam
+arms o' your'n."
+
+He had the last word still in his mouth when the little beast suddenly
+put down its head and flung high its hind feet.
+
+"Woirp!" they heard him cry, as he whirled over in the air and fell
+sprawling on the ground.
+
+Dufour leaped forward to see if the man was hurt, but Tolliver was
+upright in an instant and grinning sheepishly.
+
+"Thet's right, Bonus," he said to the mule which stood quite still in
+its place, "thet's right ole fel, try ter ac' smart in comp'ny. Yer a
+beauty now, ain't ye?"
+
+He replaced his hat, which had fallen from his head, patted the mule
+caressingly on the neck, then lightly vaulting to the old saddle-tree,
+he waved his hand to the company and turning dashed at a gallop down the
+mountain road, his spurs jingling merrily as he went.
+
+"What a delicious character!"
+
+"What precious dialect!"
+
+"How typically American!"
+
+"A veritable hero!"
+
+Everybody at Hotel Helicon appeared to have been captivated by this
+droll fellow.
+
+"How like Tolstoi's lovely Russians he is!" observed Miss Fidelia
+Arkwright, of Boston, a near-sighted maiden who did translations and who
+doted on virile literature.
+
+"When I was in Russia, I visited Tolstoi at his shoe-shop--" began
+Crane, but nobody appeared to hear him, so busy were all in making notes
+for a dialect story.
+
+"Tolstoi is the greatest fraud of the nineteenth century," said Peck.
+"That shoe-making pretence of his is about on a par with his genius in
+genuineness and sincerity. His novels are great chunks of raw filth,
+rank, garlic garnished and hideous. We touch them only because the
+French critics have called them savory. If the _Revue de Deux Mondes_
+should praise a Turkish novel we could not wait to read it before we
+joined in. Tolstoi is remarkable for two things: his coarseness and his
+vulgar disregard of decency and truth. His life and his writings are
+alike crammed with absurdities and contradictory puerilities which would
+be laughable but for their evil tendencies."
+
+"But, my dear sir, how then do you account for the many editions of
+Tolstoi's books?" inquired the historian, R. Hobbs Lucas.
+
+"Just as I account for the editions of Cowper and Montgomery and
+Wordsworth and even Shakespeare," responded Peck. "You put a ten per
+cent. author's royalty on all those dear classics and see how soon
+the publishers will quit uttering them! If Tolstoi's Russian raw meat
+stories were put upon the market in a fair competition with American
+novels the latter would beat them all hollow in selling."
+
+"Oh, we ought to have international copyright," plaintively exclaimed a
+dozen voices, and so the conversation ended.
+
+Strangely enough, each one of the company in growing silent did so in
+order to weigh certain suggestions arising out of Peck's assertions. It
+was as if a score of semi-annual statements of copyright accounts were
+fluttering in the breeze, and it was as if a score of wistful voices had
+whispered:
+
+"How in the world do publishers grow rich when the books they publish
+never sell?"
+
+Perhaps Gaspard Dufour should be mentioned as appearing to have little
+sympathy with Peck's theory or with the inward mutterings it had
+engendered in the case of the rest of the company.
+
+If there was any change in Dufour's face it was expressed in a smile of
+intense self-satisfaction.
+
+
+XI.
+
+It was, of course, not long that the newspapers of our wide-awake
+country were kept from giving their readers very picturesque glimpses of
+what was going on among the dwellers on Mt. Boab. The humorists of the
+press, those charming fellows whose work is so enjoyable when performed
+upon one's neighbor and so excruciating when turned against oneself,
+saw the vulnerable points of the situation and let go a broadside of
+ridicule that reverberated from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It became
+a matter of daily amusement among the inmates of Hotel Helicon to come
+together in little groups and discuss these humorous missiles fired upon
+them from California, Texas, Arkansas and Wisconsin, from Brooklyn,
+Pittsburgh, Atlanta, and Oil-City, Detroit and--, but from everywhere,
+indeed.
+
+When it came to Miss Crabb's adventure, every humorist excelled himself
+in descriptive smartness and in cunning turns of ironical phrasing. The
+head-line experts did telling work in the same connection. All this was
+perfectly understood and enjoyed at home, but foreigners, especially the
+English, stubbornly insisted upon viewing it as the high-water mark of
+American refinement and culture.
+
+When that genial periodical, the Smartsburgh _Bulldozer_, announced with
+due gravity that Miss Crabb, a Western journalist, had leaped from the
+top of Mt. Boab to the valley below, and had been caught in the arms of
+a stalwart moonshiner, where she safely reposed, etc., the London
+_Times_ copied the paragraph and made it a text for a heavy editorial
+upon the barbaric influences of Republican institutions, to which the
+American Minister felt bound to advert in a characteristic after-dinner
+speech at a London club. So humorous, however, were his remarks that he
+was understood to be vigorously in earnest, and the result was perfect
+confirmation of the old world's opinion as to the rudimentary character
+of our national culture.
+
+Meantime Hotel Helicon continued to be the scene of varied if not
+startling incidents. In their search for local color and picturesque
+material, the litterateurs invaded every nook and corner of the region
+upon and round about Mt. Boab, sketching, making notes, recording
+suggestions, studying dialect, and filling their minds with the uncouth
+peculiarities of the mountain folk.
+
+"It has come to this," grumbled Peck, "that American literature, its
+fiction I mean, is founded on dialect drivel and vulgar yawp. Look at
+our magazines; four-fifths of their short stories are full of negro
+talk, or cracker lingo, or mountain jibberish, or New England farm
+yawp, or Hoosier dialect. It is horribly humiliating. It actually makes
+foreigners think that we are a nation of green-horns. Why, a day or two
+ago I had occasion to consult the article on American literature in the
+Encyclopædia Britannica and therein I was told in one breath how great
+a writer and how truly American Mr. Lowell is, and in the next breath
+I was informed that a poem beginning with the verse, 'Under the yaller
+pines I house' is one of his master-pieces! Do you see? Do you catch the
+drift of the Englishman's argument? To be truly great, _as an American_,
+one must be surpassingly vulgar, even in poetry!"
+
+This off-hand shower of critical observation had as little effect upon
+the minds of Peck's hearers as a summer rain has on the backs of a flock
+of ducks. They even grew more vehement in their pursuit of local color.
+
+"When I was spending a month at Rockledge castle with Lord Knownaught,"
+said Crane, "his lordship frequently suggested that I should make a poem
+on the life of Jesse James."
+
+"Well, why didn't you do it?" inquired Miss Crabb with a ring of
+impatience in her voice, "if you had you might have made a hit. You
+might have attracted some attention."
+
+Dufour laughed heartily, as if he had caught some occult humor from the
+young woman's words.
+
+"I did write it," said Crane retrospectively, "and sent it to George
+Dunkirk & Co."
+
+"Well?" sighed Miss Crabb with intense interest.
+
+"Well," replied Crane, "they rejected the MS. without reading it."
+
+Again Dufour laughed, as if at a good joke.
+
+"George Dunkirk & Co.!" cried Guilford Ferris, the romancer, "George
+Dunkirk & Co.! They are thieves. They have been making false reports on
+copyright to me for five years or more!"
+
+Dufour chuckled as if his jaws would fall off, and finally with a red
+face and gleaming humorous eyes got up from the chair he was filling on
+the veranda, and went up to his room.
+
+The rest of the company looked at one another inquiringly.
+
+"Who is he, anyhow?" demanded Peck.
+
+"That's just my query," said Ferris.
+
+"Nobody in the house knows anything definite about him," remarked R.
+Hobbs Lucas. "And yet he evidently is a distinguished person, and his
+name haunts me."
+
+"So it does me," said Miss Moyne.
+
+"I tell you he's a newspaper reporter. His cheek proves that," remarked
+Peck.
+
+Miss Crabb made a note, her own cheek flaming. "I presume you call that
+humor," she observed, "it's about like New York's best efforts. In the
+West reporters are respectable people."
+
+"I beg pardon," Peck said hastily, "I did not mean to insinuate that
+anybody is not respectable. Everybody is eminently respectable if I
+speak of them. I never trouble myself with the other kind."
+
+"Well, I don't believe that Mr. Dufour is a reporter at all," replied
+Miss Crabb, with emphasis, "for he's not inquisitive, he don't make
+notes, and he don't appear to be writing any."
+
+"In my opinion he's a realist--a genuine analytical, motive-dissecting,
+commonplace-recording, international novelist in disguise," said Ferris.
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"Dear me!"
+
+"But who?"
+
+"It may be Arthur Selby himself, incog. Who knows?"
+
+"Humph!" growled Crane with a lofty scrowl, "I should think I ought to
+know Selby. I drank wine with him at--"
+
+His remark was cut short by the arrival of the mail and the general
+scramble that followed.
+
+Upon this occasion the number of newspapers that fell to the hand of
+each guest was much greater than usual, and it was soon discovered that
+Miss Crabb's latest letter had been forwarded to a "syndicate" and was
+appearing simultaneously in ninety odd different journals.
+
+No piece of composition ever was more stunningly realistic or more
+impartially, nay, abjectly truthful than was that letter. It gave
+a minute account of the quarrel between Peck and Crane over their
+attentions to Miss Moyne, the fight, Miss Crabb's fall, the subsequent
+adventures and all the hotel gossip of every sort. It was personal to
+the last degree, but it was not in the slightest libelous. No person
+could say that any untruth had been told, or even that any tinge of
+false-coloring had been laid upon the facts as recorded; and yet how
+merciless!
+
+Of course Miss Crabb's name did not appear with the article, save as
+one of its subjects, and she saw at once that she had better guard her
+secret.
+
+That was a breeze which rustled through Hotel Helicon. Everybody was
+supremely indignant; but there was no clue to the traitor who had
+thus betrayed everybody's secrets. It would be absurd to suppose that
+Miss Crabb was not suspected at once, on account of her constant and
+superfluous show of note-making, still there were others who might be
+guilty. Crane and Peck were indignant, the former especially ready to
+resent to the death any allusion to the details of the duel. Miss Moyne
+with the quick insight of a clever and gifted young woman, comprehended
+the situation in its general terms and was vexed as much as amused. The
+whole thing had to her mind the appearance of a melodramatic, broadly
+sensational sketch, in which she had played the part of the innocent,
+unconscious, but all-powerful heroine. Indeed the newspaper account
+placed her in this unpleasant attitude before a million readers.
+
+"A lucky affair for you, Miss Moyne," said Dufour to her, a few days
+later, "you cannot over-reckon the boom it will give to your latest
+book. You may expect a pretty round sum with your next copyright
+statement."
+
+He spoke with the voice and air of one who knew how to read the signs of
+the day.
+
+"But the ridiculous idea of having all this stuff about me going the
+rounds of the newspapers!" she responded, her beautiful patrician face
+showing just a hint of color.
+
+"Don't care for it a moment," said Dufour, "it will not hurt you."
+
+"The thought of having that hideous picture in all the patent inside
+pages of the cheap press, with my name under it, _en toutes lettres_,
+and--why it is horrible!" she went on, with trembling lips.
+
+Dufour smiled upon her, as if indulgently, a curious, tender gleam in
+his eyes.
+
+"Wait," he said, "and don't allow it to trouble you. The world
+discriminates pretty well, after all. It will not hurt you. It's a
+mighty boom for you."
+
+She looked at him with a sudden flash in her cheeks and eyes, and
+exclaimed almost vehemently: "I will not permit it! They shall not
+do it. I cannot bear to be treated as if--as if I were a theatrical
+person--a variety actress!"
+
+"My dear Miss Moyne," he hurriedly said, his own face showing a tinge of
+embarrassment, "you are taking a wrong point of view, indeed you are.
+Wait till you see the out-come." His tone was humble and apologetic as
+he continued--"My opinion is that this very thing will quadruple the
+sales of your book."
+
+"I don't want them quadrupled," she cried, "just look at that front hair
+and that nose!" She held up a newspaper for him to inspect a picture of
+herself, a miserable, distorted thing. "It is absolutely disgraceful.
+My dresses never fit like that, and who ever saw me with a man's collar
+on!"
+
+Tears were in her beautiful eyes.
+
+Dufour consoled her as best he could, though he could not resist the
+temptation to suggest that even a caricature of her face was sure to
+have in it the fascination of genuine loveliness, a suggestion which was
+phrased with consummate art and received with an appearance of innocence
+that was beyond all art.
+
+
+XII.
+
+Summer on Mt. Boab was much like summer on any other mountain, and life
+at Hotel Helicon was very like life at any other mountain hotel, save
+that a certain specialization due to the influence of literature and art
+was apparent in the present instance, giving to the house, the landscape
+and the intercourse of the guests a peculiar tinge, so to say, of
+self-consciousness and artificiality. Not that these authors, thus drawn
+together by the grace of a man grown suddenly rich, were very different
+from men and women of other lines in life, the real peculiarity sprang
+out of the obligation by which every one felt bound to make the most, in
+a professional way, of the situation and the environment. Perhaps there
+was not a soul under the broad roof of Hotel Helicon, servants excepted,
+that did not secrete in its substance the material for a novel, a poem,
+or an essay which was to brim with the local life and flash with the
+local color of the region of Mt. Boab. Yes, there appeared to be one
+exception. Dufour constantly expressed a contempt for the mountaineers
+and their country.
+
+"To be sure," he conceded, "to be sure there is a demand for dialect
+stories, and I suppose that they must be written; but for my part I
+cannot see why we Americans must stultify ourselves in the eyes of all
+the world by flooding our magazines, newspapers and books with yawp
+instead of with a truly characteristic American literature of a high
+order. There is some excuse for a quasi-negro literature, and even the
+Creoles might have a niche set apart for them, but dialect, on the
+whole, is growing to be a literary bore."
+
+"But don't you think," said Miss Crabb, drawing her chin under, and
+projecting her upper teeth to such a degree that anything like realistic
+description would appear brutal, "don't you think, Mr. Dufour, that Mr.
+Tolliver would make a great character in a mountain romance?"
+
+"No. There is nothing great in a clown, as such," he promptly answered.
+"If Tolliver is great he would be great without his jargon."
+
+"Yes," she admitted, "but the picturesqueness, the color, the contrast,
+you know, would be gone. Now Craddock--"
+
+"Craddock is excellent, so long as there is but one Craddock, but when
+there are some dozens of him it is different," said Dufour, "and it is
+the process of multiplication that I object to. There's Cable, who is
+no longer a genius of one species. The writers of Creole stories are
+swarming by the score, and, poor old Uncle Remus! everybody writes negro
+dialect now. Literary claim-jumpers are utterly conscienceless. The book
+market will soon be utterly ruined."
+
+Miss Crabb puffed out her lean sallow cheeks and sighed heavily.
+
+"I had hoped," she said, "to get my novel on the market before this, but
+I have not yet found a publisher to suit me."
+
+She winced inwardly at this way of expressing the fact that every
+publisher, high and low, far and near, had declined her MS. out of hand;
+but she could not say the awful truth in its simpliest terms, while
+speaking to one so prosperous as Dufour. She felt that she must at all
+hazards preserve a reasonable show of literary independence. Crane came
+to her aid.
+
+"One publisher is just as good as another," he said almost savagely.
+"They are all thieves. They report every book a failure, save those they
+own outright, and yet they all get rich. I shall publish for myself my
+next volume."
+
+Dufour smiled grimly and turned away. It was rather monotonous, this
+iteration and reiteration of so grave a charge against the moral
+character of publishers, and this threat of Crane's to become his own
+publisher was a bit of unconscious and therefore irresistible humor.
+
+"It's too pathetic to be laughed at," Dufour thought, as he strolled
+along to where Miss Moyne sat under a tree, "but that Kentuckian
+actually thinks himself a poet!"
+
+With all his good nature and kind heartedness, Dufour could be
+prejudiced, and he drew the line at what he called the "prevailing
+tendency toward boastful prevarication among Kentucky gentlemen."
+
+As he walked away he heard Crane saying:
+
+"George Dunkirk & Co. have stolen at least twenty thousand dollars in
+royalties from me during the past three years."
+
+It was the voice of Ferris that made interrogative response:
+
+"Is Dunkirk your publisher?"
+
+"Yes, or rather my robber."
+
+"Glad of it, misery loves company."
+
+Dufour half turned about and cast a quick glance at the speakers. He did
+not say anything, however, but resumed his progress toward Miss Moyne,
+who had just been joined by Mrs. Nancy Jones Black, a stoutish and
+oldish woman very famous on account of having assumed much and done
+little. Mrs. Nancy Jones Black was from Boston. She was president of the
+Woman's Antiquarian Club, of the Ladies' Greek Association, of The
+Sappho Patriotic Club, of the Newport Fashionable Near-sighted Club for
+the study of Esoteric Transcendentalism, and it may not be catalogued
+how many more societies and clubs. She was a great poet who had never
+written any great poem, a great essayist whom publishers and editors
+avoided, whom critics regarded as below mediocrity, but of whom
+everybody stood in breathless awe, and she was an authority in many
+literary and philosophical fields of which she really knew absolutely
+nothing. She was a reformer and a person of influence who had made a
+large number of her kinsfolk famous as poets and novelists without any
+apparent relevancy between the fame and the literary work done. If your
+name were Jones and you could trace out your relationship to Mrs. Nancy
+Jones Black and could get Mrs. Nancy Jones Black interested in your
+behalf, you could write four novels a year with great profit ever
+afterward.
+
+As Dufour approached he heard Miss Moyne say:
+
+"I publish my poor little works with George Dunkirk & Co. and the firm
+has been very kind to me. I feel great encouragement, but I don't see
+how I can bear this horrible newspaper familiarity and vulgarity."
+
+"My dear child," said Mrs. Nancy Jones Black, placing her plump,
+motherly hand on the young woman's arm, "you must not appear to notice
+it. Do as did my daughter Lois when they assailed her first little novel
+with sugar-plum praise. Why, when it began to leak out that Lois was
+the author of _A Sea-Side Symphony_ the poor girl was almost smothered
+with praise. Of course I had to take the matter in hand and under my
+advice Lois went abroad for six months. When she returned she found
+herself famous."
+
+"Talking shop?" inquired Dufour, accepting the offer of a place on the
+bench beside Mrs. Black.
+
+"Yes," said she, with a comprehensive wave of her hand, "I am taking
+Miss Moyne under my wing, so to say, and am offering her the comfort of
+my experience. She is a genius whom it doesn't spoil to praise. She's
+going to be the next sensation in the East."
+
+"I suggested as much to her," said Dufour. "She is already on a strong
+wave, but she must try and avoid being refractory, you know." He said
+this in a straightforward, business way, but his voice was touched with
+a certain sort of admirable tenderness.
+
+Miss Moyne was looking out over the deep, hazy valley, her cheeks still
+warm with the thought of that newspaper portrait with its shabby clothes
+and towsled bangs. What was fame, bought at such a price! She bridled a
+little, but did not turn her head as she said.
+
+"I am not refractory, I am indignant, and I have a right to be. They
+cannot justify the liberty they have taken, besides I will not accept
+notoriety--I--"
+
+"There, now, dear, that is what Lois said, and Milton John Jones,
+my nephew, was at first bound that he wouldn't let Tom, my brother,
+advertise him; but he soon saw his way clear, I assure you, and now he
+publishes four serials at once. Be prudent, dear, be prudent."
+
+"But the idea of picturing me with great barbaric rings in my ears and
+with a corkscrew curl on each side and--"
+
+Dufour interrupted her with a laugh almost hearty enough to be called a
+guffaw, and Mrs. Black smiled indulgently as if at a clever child which
+must be led, not driven.
+
+"Being conscious that you really are stylish and beautiful, you needn't
+care for the picture," said Dufour, in a tone of sturdy sincerity.
+
+"There is nothing so effective as a foil," added Mrs. Black.
+
+Miss Moyne arose and with her pretty chin slightly elevated walked away.
+
+"How beautiful she is!" exclaimed Dufour, gazing after her, "and I am
+delighted to know that you are taking an interest in her."
+
+Mrs. Black smiled complacently, and with a bland sidewise glance at him,
+remarked:
+
+"She grows upon one."
+
+"Yes," said he, with self-satisfied obtuseness, "yes, she is magnetic,
+she is a genuine genius."
+
+"Precisely, she stirs one's heart strangely," replied Mrs. Black.
+
+"Yes, I have noted that; it's very remarkable."
+
+"You should speak of it to her at the first opportunity."
+
+Dufour started a little, flushed and finally laughed as one does who
+discovers a bit of clever and harmless treachery.
+
+"If I only dared," he presently said, with something very like fervor in
+his tone. "If I only dared."
+
+Mrs. Black looked at him a moment, as if measuring in her mind his
+degree of worthiness, then with a wave of her hand she said:
+
+"Never do you dare to dare. Mr. Crane stands right in your path."
+
+Dufour leaped to his feet with the nimbleness and dangerous celerity of
+a tiger.
+
+"Crane!" he exclaimed with a world of contempt in his voice, "If he--"
+but he stopped short and laughed at himself.
+
+Mrs. Black looked at him with a patronizing expression in her eyes.
+
+"Leave it to me," she said, in her most insinuating tone.
+
+
+XIII.
+
+Crane tried not to show the bitterness he felt as he saw his hope of
+winning the favor of Miss Moyne fading rapidly out, but now and again a
+cloud of irresistible melancholy fell upon him.
+
+At such times it was his habit to lean upon the new fence that
+circumscribed Hotel Helicon and dreamily smoke a cigar. He felt a blind
+desire to assassinate somebody, if he could only know who. Of course not
+Peck, for Peck, too, was disconsolate, but somebody, anybody who would
+claim the place of a successful rival.
+
+One morning while he stood thus regaling himself with his tobacco and
+his misery, Tolliver rode up, on a handsome horse this time, and,
+lifting his broad hat, bowed picturesquely and said:
+
+"Good mornin,' Kyernel, how're ye this mornin'?"
+
+"Good morning," growled Crane.
+
+Tolliver looked off over the valley and up at the sky which was flecked
+with tags of fleece-cloud.
+
+"Hit look like hit mought rain in er day er two," he remarked.
+
+"Yes, I don't know, quite likely," said Crane, gazing evasively in
+another direction.
+
+"Ever'body's well, I s'pose, up ther' at the tavern?" inquired Tolliver.
+
+"I believe so," was the cold answer.
+
+Tolliver leaned over the pommel of his saddle-tree and combed his
+horse's mane with his sinewy fingers. Meantime the expression in his
+face was one of exceeding embarrassment blent with cunning.
+
+"Kyernel, c'u'd ye do a feller a leetle yerrent what's of importance?"
+he asked with peculiar faltering.
+
+"Do what?" inquired Crane lifting his eye-brows and turning the cigar in
+his mouth.
+
+"Jest a leetle frien'ly job o' kindness," said Tolliver, "jest ter
+please ask thet young leddy--thet Miss Crabb 'at I fotch up yer on er
+mule tother day, ye know; well, jest ax her for me ef I moughtn't come
+in an' see 'er on pertic'lar an' pressin' business, ef ye please, sir."
+
+By this time the mountaineer's embarrassment had become painfully
+apparent. Any good judge of human nature could have seen at once that he
+was almost overcome with the burden and worry of the matter in hand. His
+cheeks were pale and his eyes appeared to be fading into utter vacancy
+of expression. Crane told him that there was no need to be particularly
+formal, that if he would go in and ask for Miss Crabb she would see him
+in the parlor.
+
+"But, Kyernel, hit's er private, sort er confidential confab 'at I must
+hev wi' 'er, an'----"
+
+"Oh, well, that's all right, you'll not be interrupted in the parlor."
+
+"Air ye pine blank shore of it, Kyernel?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Dead shore?"
+
+"Quite, I assure you."
+
+Crane had become interested in Tolliver's affair, whatever it might be.
+He could not keep from sharing the man's evident intensity of mood, and
+all the time he was wondering what the matter could be. Certainly no
+common-place subject could so affect a man of iron like Tolliver. The
+poet's lively imagination was all aglow over the mystery, but it could
+not formulate any reasonable theory of explanation.
+
+Miss Crabb appeared in the parlor promptly and met Tolliver with a
+cordiality that, instead of reassuring him, threw him into another fit
+of embarrassment from which he at first made no effort to recover. His
+wide-brimmed hat, as he twirled it on his knees, quivered convulsively
+in accord with the ague of excitement with which his whole frame was
+shaking. He made certain soundless movements with his lips, as if
+muttering to himself.
+
+Miss Crabb at first did not notice his confusion, and went on talking
+rapidly, reiterating thanks for the kindness he had shown her in her
+recent mishap, and managing to put into her voice some tones that to him
+sounded very tender and sweet.
+
+"You don't know--you can't imagine, Mr. Tolliver, what I suffered during
+that awful night," she said, turning her head to one side and drawing
+her chin under until it almost disappeared in the lace at her throat.
+"It was horrible."
+
+Tolliver looked at her helplessly, his mouth open, his eyes dull and
+sunken.
+
+"How did you happen to discover me up there, anyway, Mr. Tolliver?" she
+demanded, leaning toward him and laughing a little.
+
+"The dog he treed ye, an' then I seed ye settin' up ther' er writin'
+away," he managed to say, a wave of relief passing over his face at the
+sound of his own voice.
+
+"It was perfectly ridiculous, perfectly preposterous," she exclaimed,
+"but I'm mighty thankful that I was not hurt."
+
+"Yes, well ye mought be, Miss Crabb," he stammered out. "Wonder ye
+wasn't scrunched inter pieces an' scattered all eround ther'."
+
+She slipped out her book, took a pencil from over her ear and made a
+note.
+
+Tolliver eyed her dolefully. "How do you spell scrunched, Mr. Tolliver,
+in your dialect?" she paused to inquire.
+
+His jaw fell a little lower for a moment, then he made an effort:
+
+"S--q--r--u--" he paused and shook his head, "S--q--k--no thet's not
+hit--s--k--q--r--dorg ef I ken spell thet word--begging yer parding, hit
+air 'tirely too hard for me." He settled so low in his chair that his
+knees appeared almost as high as his head.
+
+"All right," she cheerily exclaimed, "I can get it phonetically. It's
+a new word. I don't think either Craddock or Johnson uses it, it's
+valuable."
+
+There was a silence during which Miss Crabb thoughtfully drummed on her
+projecting front teeth with the end of her pencil.
+
+Tolliver nerved himself and said:
+
+"Miss Crabb I--I, well, ye know, I--that is, begging yer parding, but I
+hev something' I want er say ter ye, ef ye please." He glanced furtively
+around, as if suspecting that some person lay secreted among the
+curtains of a bay window hard by. And indeed, Dufour was there, lightly
+indulging in a morning nap, while the mountain breeze flowed over him.
+He was in a deep bamboo chair behind those very curtains.
+
+"Oh, certainly, certainly, Mr. Tolliver, go on, I shall be delighted,
+charmed indeed, to hear what you have to say," Miss Crabb responded,
+turning a fresh leaf of her note-book and putting on a hopeful look.
+
+"I hope ye'll stick ter thet after I've done said it ter ye," he
+proceeded to say, "but dorg on me ef I know how ter begin sayin' it."
+
+"Oh, just go right on, it's all right; I assure you, Mr. Tolliver, I am
+very anxious to hear."
+
+"Mebbe ye air, I don't dispute yer word, but I feel mighty onery all the
+same."
+
+"Onery is a Western word," mused Miss Crabb, making a note.
+
+"Proceed, Mr. Tolliver," she continued after a pause, "proceed, I am
+listening with great interest."
+
+"What I'm ergwine ter state ter ye mought mek ye mad, but hit can't be
+holp, I jest hev ter say it--I air jest erbleeged ter say it."
+
+His voice was husky and he was assuming a tragic air. Miss Crabb felt a
+strange thrill creep throughout her frame as a sudden suspicion seemed
+to leap back and forth between her heart and her brain.
+
+"No, I assure you that I could not be angry with you, Mr. Tolliver,
+under any circumstances," she murmured, "you have been so very kind to
+me."
+
+"Hit air awful confusin' an' hit mek a feller feel smaller 'n a mouse
+ter speak it right out, but then hit air no foolishness, hit air pine
+blank business."
+
+"Of course," said Miss Crabb pensively, "of course you feel some
+embarrassment."
+
+He hitched himself up in his chair and crossed his legs.
+
+"Ef ye don't like w'at I say, w'y I won't blame ye a bit. I feel jest as
+if I wer a doin' somethin' 'at I hadn't orter do, but my mammy she say I
+must, an' that do everlastin'ly settle it."
+
+"Yes, your mother's advice is always safe."
+
+"Safe, I shed say so! Hit's mighty onsafe fer me not ter foller it, I
+kin tell ye. She'd thump my old gourd fer me in ermazin' style ef I
+didn't."
+
+"Thump my old gourd," repeated Miss Crabb, making a note. "Go on, Mr.
+Tolliver, please."
+
+"S'pose I mought as well, seein' 'at it has ter be said." He paused,
+faltered, and then proceeded: "Well, beggin' yer parding, Miss Crabb,
+but ever sence ye wer' down ther' ter we all's cabin, hit's been a
+worryin' my mammy and me, an' we hev' talked it all over an' over."
+
+"Yes," sighed Miss Crabb.
+
+"Hit's not the cost of them beads, Miss Crabb, they air not wo'th much,
+but they was guv ter mammy by her aunt Mandy Ann Bobus, an' she feel
+like she jest can't give 'em up."
+
+Miss Crabb looked puzzled.
+
+"Ef ye'll jest erblige me an' hand them beads over ter me, I'll never
+say er wo'd ter nobody ner nothin."
+
+"Mr. Tolliver, what in the world do you mean?" cried Miss Crabb, rising
+and standing before him with a face that flamed with sudden anger.
+
+"Ye mought er tuck 'em kinder accidentally, ye know," he suggested in a
+conciliatory tone, rising also.
+
+"Mr. Tolliver!" she almost screamed.
+
+"Ther' now, be still, er ye'll let ever'body know all erbout it," he
+half whispered. "Hit'd be disgraceful."
+
+"Mr. Tolliver!"
+
+"Sh-h-h! They'll hear ye!"
+
+"Get right out of this room, you--"
+
+Just then Dufour, who had been slowly aroused from his nap and who while
+yet half asleep had overheard much of what had been said, stepped forth
+from behind the curtains and stood looking from one to the other of the
+excited actors in the little drama.
+
+"What's up?" he, demanded bluntly.
+
+"He's accusing me of stealing beads!" cried Miss Crabb. "He's insulting
+me!"
+
+"What!" exclaimed Dufour, glaring at Tolliver.
+
+"I feel mighty onery a doin' it," said Tolliver, "but hit air pine blank
+mighty suspicious, Kyernel, hit air for a fac'."
+
+Dufour looked as if he hardly knew which he should do, laugh
+boisterously, or fling Tolliver out of the window, but he quickly pulled
+himself together and said calmly:
+
+"You are wrong, sir, and you must apologize."
+
+"Certingly, certingly," said Tolliver, "thet air jest what I air a
+doin'. I beg parding er thousan' times fer sayin' what I hev, but,
+Kyernel, hit air a Lor' a mighty's truth, all the same, le' me tell ye.
+Them beads was ther' w'en she come, an' they was gone w'en she was gone,
+an'--"
+
+"Stop that! Take back those words or I'll throw you--"
+
+Dufour took a step towards Tolliver, but stopped suddenly when the
+latter drew a huge revolver with one hand and a long crooked bowie-knife
+with the other and said:
+
+"No yer don't, Kyernel, not by er good deal. Jest ye open yer bread-trap
+ergain an' I'll jest clean up this ole shanty in erbout two minutes."
+
+It may not be inferred how this bit of dramatic experience would have
+ended had not a lean, wizzen-faced mountain lad rushed in just then with
+a three-cornered piece of paper in his hand upon which was scrawled the
+following message:
+
+"I hev fown them beeds. They wus in mi terbacker bag."
+
+Tolliver read this and wilted.
+
+The boy was panting and almost exhausted. He had run all the way up the
+mountain from the Tolliver cabin.
+
+"Yer mammy say kum home," he gasped.
+
+"Hit air jest as I 'spected," said Tolliver. "Mammy hev made a pine
+blank eejit of me again." He handed the message to Dufour as he spoke.
+His pistol and knife had disappeared.
+
+A full explanation followed, and at the end of a half-hour Tolliver went
+away crest-fallen but happy.
+
+As for Miss Crabb she had made a number of valuable dialect notes.
+
+Dufour promised not to let the rest of the guests know what had just
+happened in the parlor.
+
+
+XIV.
+
+"Literature-making has not yet taken the rank of a profession, but of
+late the world has modified its opinion as to the ability of literary
+people to drive a close bargain, or to manage financial affairs with
+success. Many women and some men have shown that it is possible for a
+vivid imagination and a brilliant style in writing to go close along
+with a practical judgment and a fair share of selfish shrewdness in
+matters of bargain and sale. Still, after all, it remains true that a
+strong majority of literary people are of the Micawber genus, with great
+faith in what is to turn up, always nicely balancing themselves on the
+extreme verge of expectancy and gazing over into the promise-land of
+fame and fortune with pathetically hopeful, yet awfully hollow eyes.
+Indeed there is no species of gambling more uncertain in its results or
+more irresistibly fascinating to its victims than literary gambling.
+Day after day, month after month, year after year, the deluded,
+enthusiastic, ever defeated but never discouraged writer plies his pen,
+besieges the publishers and editors, receives their rebuffs, rough or
+smooth, takes back his declined manuscripts, tries it over and over,
+sweats, fumes, execrates, coaxes, bullies, raves, re-writes, takes a new
+_nom de plume_ and new courage, goes on and on to the end. Here or there
+rumor goes that some fortunate literator has turned the right card and
+has drawn a great prize; this rumor, never quite authentic, is enough to
+re-invigorate all the fainting scribblers and to entice new victims
+into the gilded casino of the Cadmean vice. The man who manipulates the
+literary machine is the publisher, that invisible person who usually
+grows rich upon the profits of unsuccessful books. He it is who
+inveigles the infatuated young novelist, essayist, or poet, into the
+beautiful bunco-den of the book business and there fastens him and holds
+him as long as he will not squeal; but at the first note of remonstrance
+he kicks him out and fills his place with a fresh victim. The literary
+Micawber, however, does not despair. He may be a little silly from the
+effect of the summersault to which the publisher's boot has treated him,
+but after a distraught look about him he gets up, brushes the dust off
+his seedy clothes and goes directly back into the den again with another
+manuscript under his arm and with a feverish faith burning in his
+deep-set eyes. What serene and beautiful courage, by the way, have the
+literary women! Of course the monster who presides at the publisher's
+desk cannot be as brutal to her as he is to men, but he manipulates her
+copyright statements all the same, so that her book never passes the
+line of fifteen hundred copies sold. How can we ever account for a woman
+who has written forty-three novels under such circumstances and has
+died, finally, a devout Christian and a staunch friend of her publisher?
+Poor thing! up to the hour of her demise, white-haired, wrinkled,
+over-worked, nervous and semi-paralytic, she nursed the rosy hope that
+to-morrow, or at the very latest, the day after to-morrow, the reward
+of all her self-devotion would come to her in the form of a liberal
+copyright statement from her long-suffering and charitable publisher.
+
+"Out in the West they have a disease called milk-sickness, an awful
+malady, of which everybody stands in deadly terror, but which nobody
+has ever seen. If you set out to find a case of milk-sickness it is
+like following a _will-o'-the-wisp_, it is always just a little way
+farther on, over in the next settlement; you never find it. The really
+successful author in America is, like the milk-sickness, never visible,
+except on the remote horizon. You hear much of him, but you never have
+the pleasure of shaking his cunning right hand. The fact is, he is a
+myth. On the other hand, however, the American cities are full of
+successful publishers who have become millionaires upon the profits of
+books which have starved their authors. Of course this appears to be a
+paradox, but I suppose that it can be explained by the rule of profit
+and loss. The author's loss is the publisher's profit."
+
+The foregoing is, in substance, the opening part of an address delivered
+by Ferris before the assembled guests of Hotel Helicon.
+
+Mrs. Nancy Jones Black presided at the meeting; indeed she always
+presided at meetings. On this occasion, which was informal and
+impromptu, Ferris was in excellent mood for speaking, as he just had
+been notified by a letter from Dunkirk & Co. that he was expected to pay
+in advance for the plates of his new romance, _A Mysterious Missive_,
+and that a personal check would not be accepted--a draft on New York
+must be sent forthwith. Although Ferris was a thoroughly good fellow,
+who cared nothing for money as money, this demand for a sum the half
+of which he could not command if his life were at stake, hit him like
+a bullet-stroke. A chance to talk off the soreness of the wound was
+accepted with avidity. He felt guilty of a meanness, it is true, in thus
+stirring up old troubles and opening afresh ancient hurts in the breasts
+of his listening friends; but the relief to him was so great that he
+could not forego it. "The American publisher," he went on, "proclaims
+himself a fraud by demanding of the author a contract which places the
+author's business wholly in the control of the publisher. I take it that
+publishers are just as honest and just as dishonest, as any other class
+of respectable men. You know and I know, that, as a rule, the man
+who trusts his business entirely to others will, in the long run, be
+robbed. Administrators of estates rob the heirs, in two-thirds of the
+instances, as every probate lawyer well knows. Every merchant has to
+treat his clerks and salesmen as if they were thieves, or if he do not
+they will become thieves. The government has to appoint bank examiners
+to watch the bankers, and yet they steal. The Indian agents steal from
+the government. Senators steal, aldermen steal, Wall street men steal
+from one another and from everybody else. Canada is overflowing with men
+who have betrayed and robbed those who trusted their business with them.
+Even clergymen (that poorly paid and much abused class) now and again
+fall before the temptation offered by the demon of manipulated returns
+of trust funds. The fact is, one may feel perfectly safe in saying that
+in regard to all the professions, trades, and occupations, there is
+absolutely no safety in trusting one's affairs wholly in the hands of
+another. (Great applause). Even your milkman waters the milk and the
+dairyman sells you butter that never was in a churn. If you neglect to
+keep a pass-book your grocer runs up the bill to--(a great rustle, and
+some excited whispering) up to something enormous. Of course it is not
+everybody that is dishonest, but experience shows that if a man has
+the temptation to defraud his customers constantly before him, with
+absolutely no need to fear detection, he will soon reason himself into
+believing it his right to have the lion's share of all that goes into
+his hands.
+
+"Now isn't it strange, in view of the premises, that nobody ever heard
+of such a thing as a publisher being convicted of making false returns?
+Is it possible that the business of book-publishing is so pure and good
+of itself that it attracts to it none but perfect men? (Great applause).
+Publishers do fail financially once in a while, but their books of
+accounts invariably show that just eleven hundred and forty copies of
+each copyrighted book on their lists have been sold to date, no more, no
+less. (Suppressed applause). Nobody ever saw cleaner or better balanced
+books of accounts than those kept by the publishers. They foot up
+correctly to a cent. Indeed it would be a very strange thing if a
+man couldn't make books balance under such circumstances! (Prolonged
+hand-clapping). I am rather poor at double entry, but I fancy I could
+make a credit of eleven hundred and forty copies sold, so as to have it
+show up all right. (Cheers). I must not lose my head in speaking on this
+subject, for I cannot permit you to misunderstand my motive. So long as
+authors submit to the per centum method of publication, so long they
+will be the prey of the publishers. The only method by which justice
+can be assured to both author and publisher is the cash-sale method. If
+every author in America would refuse to let his manuscript go out of
+hand before he had received the cash value for it, the trade would soon
+adjust itself properly. In that case the author's reputation would be
+his own property. So soon as he had made an audience his manuscripts
+would command a certain price. If one publisher would not pay enough
+for it another would. As the method now is, it makes little difference
+whether the author have a reputation or not. Indeed most publishers
+prefer to publish the novels, for example, of clever tyros, because
+these fledglings are so proud of seeing themselves in print that
+they never think of questioning copyright statements. Eleven hundred
+and forty copies usually will delight them almost beyond endurance.
+(Laughter and applause). Go look at the book lists of the publishers and
+you will feel the truth of what I have said.
+
+"Now let me ask you if you can give, or if any publisher can give
+one solitary honest reason why the publishing business should not be
+put upon a cash basis--a manuscript for so much money? The publisher
+controls his own business, he knows every nook and corner, every
+leaf and every line of it, and he should be able to say, just as the
+corn-merchant does, I will give you so much, to which the author would
+say: I will take it, or I will not take it. But what is the good of
+standing here and arguing? You believe every word I speak, but you don't
+expect to profit by it. You will go on gambling at the publisher's faro
+table just as long as he will smile and deal the cards. Some of these
+days you will win, you think. Poor deluded wretches, go on and die in
+the faith!"
+
+No sooner had Ferris ended than Lucas the historian arose and expressed
+grave doubts as to the propriety of the address. He was decidedly of the
+opinion that authors could not afford to express themselves so freely
+and, if he must say it, recklessly. How could Mr. Ferris substantiate by
+proof any of the damaging allegations he had made against publishers of
+high standing? What Mr. Ferris had said might be strictly true, but the
+facts were certainly, very hard to come at, he thought. He hoped that
+Mr. Ferris's address would not be reported to the press (here he glanced
+appealingly at Miss Crabb), at least not as the sense of the meeting.
+Such a thing would, in his opinion, be liable to work a great harm to
+all present. He felt sure that the publishers would resent the whole
+thing as malicious and libellous.
+
+Throughout the audience there was a nervous stirring, a looking at one
+another askance. It was as if a cold wave had flowed over them. Nobody
+had anything further to say, and it was a great relief when Dufour moved
+an adjournment _sine die_, which was carried by a vote that suggested a
+reserve of power. Every face in the audience, with the exception of
+Dufour's, wore a half-guilty look, and everybody crept silently out of
+the room.
+
+
+XV.
+
+It caused quite a commotion on Mt. Boab when Bartley Hubbard and Miss
+Henrietta Stackpole, newspaper people from Boston, arrived at Hotel
+Helicon. Miss Stackpole had just returned from Europe, and Bartley
+Hubbard had run down from Boston for a week to get some points for his
+paper. She had met Mr. Henry James on the continent and Hubbard had
+dined with Mr. Howells just before leaving Boston.
+
+No two persons in all the world would have been less welcome among the
+guests at the hotel, just then, than were these professional reporters.
+Of course everybody tried to give them a cordial greeting, but they were
+classed along with Miss Crabb as dangerous characters whom it would be
+folly to snub. Miss Moyne was in downright terror of them, associating
+the thought of them with those ineffable pictures of herself which were
+still appearing at second and third hand in the "patent insides" of the
+country journals, but she was very good to them, and Miss Stackpole
+at once attached herself to her unshakably. Hubbard did likewise with
+little Mrs. Philpot, who amused him mightily with her strictures upon
+analytical realism in fiction.
+
+"I do think that Mr. Howells treated you most shamefully," she said to
+him. "He had no right to represent you as a disagreeable person who was
+cruel to his wife and who had no moral stamina."
+
+Hubbard laughed as one who hears an absurd joke. "Oh, Howells and I have
+an understanding. We are really great friends," he said. "I sat to him
+for my portrait and I really think he flattered me. I managed to keep
+him from seeing some of my ugliest lines."
+
+"Now you are not quite sincere," said Mrs. Philpot, glancing over him
+from head to foot. "You are not so bad as he made you out to be. It's
+one of Mr. Howells's hobbies to represent men as rather flabby
+nonentities and women as invalids or dolls."
+
+"He's got the men down fine," replied Hubbard, "but I guess he is rather
+light on women. You will admit, however, that he dissects feminine
+meanness and inconsequence with a deft turn."
+
+"He makes fun of women," said Mrs. Philpot, a little testily, "he
+caricatures them, wreaks his humor on them; but you know very well that
+he misrepresents them even in his most serious and _quasi_ truthful
+moods."
+
+Hubbard laughed, and there was something essentially vulgar in the notes
+of the laugh. Mrs. Philpot admitted this mentally, and she found herself
+shrinking from his steadfast but almost conscienceless eyes.
+
+"I imagine I shouldn't be as bad a husband as he did me into, but--"
+
+Mrs. Philpot interrupted him with a start and a little cry.
+
+"Dear me! and aren't you married?" she asked in exclamatory deprecation
+of what his words had implied.
+
+He laughed again very coarsely and looked at her with eyes that almost
+lured. "Married!" he exclaimed, "do I look like a marrying man? A
+newspaper man can't afford to marry."
+
+"How strange," reflected Mrs. Philpot, "how funny, and Mr. Howells calls
+himself a realist!"
+
+"Realist!" laughed Hubbard, "why he does not know enough about the
+actual world to be competent to purchase a family horse. He's a capital
+fellow, good and true and kind-hearted, but what does he know about
+affairs? He doesn't even know how to flatter women!"
+
+"How absurd!" exclaimed little Mrs. Philpot, but Hubbard could not
+be sure for the life of him just what she meant the expression to
+characterize.
+
+"And you like Mr. Howells?" she inquired.
+
+"Like him! everybody likes him," he cordially said.
+
+"Well, you are quite different from Miss Crabb. _She_ hates Maurice
+Thompson for putting _her_ into a story."
+
+"Oh, well," said Hubbard, indifferently, "women are not like men. They
+take life more seriously. If Thompson had had more experience he would
+not have tampered with a newspaper woman. He's got the whole crew down
+on him. Miss Stackpole hates him almost as fiercely as she hates Henry
+James."
+
+"I don't blame her," exclaimed Mrs. Philpot, "it's mean and contemptible
+for men to caricature women."
+
+"Oh, I don't know," yawned Hubbard, "it all goes in a lifetime."
+
+At this opportune moment Miss Crabb and Miss Stackpole joined them,
+coming arm in arm. Miss Crabb looking all the more sallow and slender in
+comparison with the plump, well-fed appearance of her companion.
+
+"May I introduce you to Miss Crabb of the Ringville _Star_, Mr.
+Hubbard," Miss Stackpole asked, in a high but by no means rich voice,
+as she fastened her steady, button-like eyes on Mrs. Philpot.
+
+Hubbard arose lazily and went through the process of introduction
+perfunctorily, giving Miss Crabb a sweeping but indifferent glance.
+
+"There's an impromptu pedestrian excursion on hand," said Miss
+Stackpole, "and I feel bound to go. One of the gentlemen has discovered
+a hermit's cabin down a ravine near here, and he offers to personally
+conduct a party to it. You will go, Mr. Hubbard?"
+
+"Go! I should remark that I will. You don't get a scoop of that item, I
+assure you."
+
+Miss Stackpole was a plump and rather pretty young woman, fairly well
+dressed in drab drapery. She stood firmly on her feet and had an air
+of self-reliance and self-control in strong contrast with the fussy,
+nervous manner of Miss Crabb.
+
+Mrs. Philpot surveyed the two young women with that comprehensive,
+critical glance which takes in everything that is visible, and quickly
+enough she made up her comparison and estimate of them.
+
+She decided that Miss Crabb had no style, no _savoir faire_, no repose;
+but then Miss Stackpole was forward, almost impudent in appearance, and
+her greater ease of manner was really the ease that comes of a long
+training in intrusiveness, and of rubbing against an older civilization.
+She felt quite distinctly the decided dash of vulgarity in the three
+newspaper representatives before her, and she could not help suspecting
+that it would not be safe to judge the press reporters by these
+examples.
+
+The question arose in her mind whether after all Howells and Henry James
+and Maurice Thompson had acted fairly in taking these as representative
+newspaper people.
+
+She had met a great many newspaper people and had learned to like them
+as a class; she had many good and helpful friends among them.
+
+Unconsciously she was showing to all present that she was dissecting the
+three reporters. Her unfavorable opinion of them slowly took expression
+in her tell-tale face. Not that she wholly disliked or distrusted them;
+she really pitied them. How could they be content to live such a life,
+dependent upon what they could make by meddling, so to speak?
+
+Then too, she felt a vague shame, a chagrin, a regret that real people
+must be put into works of fiction with all the seamy side of their
+natures turned out to the world's eye.
+
+"We're in for it," exclaimed Hubbard, "Mrs. Philpot is making a study of
+us as a group. See the dreaming look in her eyes!"
+
+"Oh, no! she never studies anybody or anything," said Miss Crabb. "Poor
+little woman, real life is a constant puzzle to her, and she makes not
+the slightest effort to understand it."
+
+Hubbard and Miss Stackpole glanced curiously at each other and then at
+Miss Crabb. Evidently their thought was a common one.
+
+
+XVI.
+
+The pedestrian excursion spoken of by Miss Stackpole promised to be an
+enjoyable affair to those of the Helicon guests who could venture upon
+it. A writer of oddly entertaining and preposterously impossible short
+stories, John B. Cattleton, had been mousing among the ravines of Mt.
+Boab, and had stumbled upon what he described as a "very obscure little
+cabin, jammed under a cliff in an angle of the cañon and right over a
+bright stream of cold, pure spring-water. It's a miserably picturesque
+and forlornly prepossessing place," he went on in his droll way, "where
+all sorts of engaging ghosts and entertaining ogres might be supposed
+to congregate at midnight. I didn't go quite down to it, but I was near
+enough to it to make out its main features, and I saw the queerest being
+imaginable poking around the premises. A veritable hermit, I should
+call him, as old as the rocks themselves. His dress was absurdly
+old-fashioned, a caricature of the uniform of our soldier sires of
+revolutionary renown. A long spike-tailed blue coat with notable brass
+buttons, a triangular hat somewhat bell-crowned and tow or cotton
+trousers. Shirt? Vest? Yes, if I remember well they were of copperas
+homespun. His hair and beard were white, fine and thin, hanging in
+tags and wisps as fluffy as lint. I sat upon a rock in the shadow of a
+cedar tree and watched his queer manoeuvres for a good while. All his
+movements were furtive and peculiar, like those of a shy, wild beast."
+
+"It's the Prophet of the Smoky Mountain," said Miss Crabb in an earnest
+stage whisper. "He's Craddock's material, we can't touch him."
+
+"Touch him! I'll interview him on dialect in politics," said Hubbard,
+"and get his views on sex in genius."
+
+"I should like a sketch of his life. There must be a human interest to
+serve as straw for my brick," remarked Miss Stackpole. "The motive that
+induced him to become a hermit, and all that."
+
+Miss Crabb dared not confess that she desired a sketch of the old man
+for the newspaper syndicate, so she merely drummed on her front teeth
+with her pencil.
+
+Dufour joined the pedestrian party with great enthusiasm, having dressed
+himself for the occasion in a pair of tennis trousers, a blue flannel
+shirt, a loose jacket and a shooting cap.
+
+His shoes were genuine alpine foot-gear with short spikes in their heels
+and soles.
+
+"Lead on Cattleton," he cried jovially, "and let our motto be, 'On to
+the hut of Friar Tuck'!"
+
+"Good," answered Cattleton in like spirit, "and you shall be my
+lieutenant, come, walk beside me."
+
+"Thank you, from the bottom of my heart," replied Dufour, "but I cannot
+accept. I have contracted to be Miss Moyne's servant instead."
+
+That was a gay procession filing away from Hotel Helicon through the
+thin forest that fringed one shoulder of stately Mt. Boab. Cattleton
+led the column, flinging back from time to time his odd sayings and
+preposterous conceits.
+
+The day was delightfully cool with a steady wind running over the
+mountain and eddying in the sheltered coves where the ferns were thick
+and tall. In the sky were a few pale clouds slowly vanishing, whilst
+some broad-pinioned buzzards wheeled round and round above the
+blue-green abyss of the valley. There were sounds of a vague, dreamy
+sort abroad in the woods, like the whisperings and laughter of legions
+of invisible beings. Everybody felt exhilarated and buoyant, tramping
+gaily away to the hut of the hermit.
+
+At a certain point Cattleton commanded a halt, and pointing out the
+entrance to the ravine, said:
+
+"Now, good friends, we must have perfect silence during the descent,
+or our visit will be all in vain. Furthermore, the attraction of
+gravitation demands that, in going down, we must preserve our
+uprightness, else our progress may be facilitated to an alarming degree,
+and our advent at the hut be far from becomingly dignified."
+
+Like a snake, flecked with touches of gay color, the procession crawled
+down the ravine, the way becoming steeper and more tortuous at every
+step. Thicker and thicker and thicker grew the trees, saving where the
+rock broke forth from the soil, and closer drew the zig-zags of the
+barely possible route. Cattleton silenced every voice and rebuked every
+person who showed signs of weakening.
+
+"It's just a few steps farther," he whispered back from his advanced
+position, "don't make the least sound."
+
+But the ravine proved, upon this second descent much more difficult and
+dangerous than it had appeared to Cattleton at first, and it was with
+the most heroic exertions that he finally led the party down to the
+point whence he had viewed the cabin. By this time the column was
+pressing upon him and he could not stop. Down he went, faster and
+faster, barely able to keep his feet, now sliding, now clutching a tree
+or rock, with the breathless and excited line of followers gathering
+dangerous momentum behind him.
+
+It was too late now to command silence or to control the company in any
+way. An avalanche of little stones, loosened by scrambling feet, swept
+past him and went leaping on down below. He heard Miss Moyne utter a
+little scream of terror that mingled with many exclamations from both
+men and women, and then he lost his feet and began to slide. Down he
+sped and down sped the party after him, till in a cataract of mightily
+frightened, but unharmed men and women, they all went over a little
+precipice and landed in a scattered heap on a great bed of oak leaves
+that the winds had drifted against the rock.
+
+A few moments of strange silence followed, then everybody sprang up,
+disheveled and red-faced, to look around and see what was the matter.
+
+They found themselves close to the long, low cabin, from under which
+flowed a stream of water. A little column of smoke was wandering out
+of a curious clay chimney. Beside the low door-way stood a long, deep
+trough filled with water in which a metal pipe was coiled fantastically.
+Two earthen jugs with cob stoppers sat hard by. A sourish smell
+assaulted their sense and a faint spirituous flavor burdened the air.
+
+Cattleton, who was first upon his feet, shook himself together and
+drolly remarked:
+
+"We have arrived in good order, let's interview the----"
+
+Just then rushed forth from the door the old man of the place, who
+halted outside and snatched from its rack on the wall a long tin horn,
+which he proceeded to blow vigorously, the echoes prowling through the
+woods and over the foot-hills and scampering far away up and down the
+valley.
+
+Not a soul present ever could forget that sketch, the old man with his
+shrunken legs bent and wide apart, his arms akimbo as he leaned far
+back and held up that wailing, howling, bellowing horn, and his long
+coat-tail almost touching the ground, whilst his fantastic hat quivered
+in unison with the strain he was blowing. How his shriveled cheeks
+puffed out, and how his eyes appeared to be starting from their bony
+sockets!
+
+"That is what I call a fitting reception," said Cattleton, gazing at the
+trumpeter.
+
+"See here," exclaimed Crane with evident excitement, "I smell whisky!
+This----"
+
+"Hyer! what d'ye mean hyer, you all a comin' down hyer?" broke forth a
+wrathful voice, and Wesley Tolliver rushed with melodramatic fierceness
+upon the scene.
+
+"Oh! I--I--wa--want to g--go home!" cried little Mrs. Philpot, clutching
+Bartley Hubbard's arm.
+
+"So do I," said he with phlegmatic cleverness. "I should like to see my
+mother. I'm feeling a little lonely and----"
+
+"What upon yearth do this yer mean, anyhow?" thundered Tolliver. "Who
+invited you all down yer, tell me thet, will ye?"
+
+"Oh, Mr. Tolliver, Mr. Tolliver!" exclaimed Miss Crabb, rushing upon
+him excitedly, "I'm _so_ glad you are here!"
+
+"Well, I'll ber dorged!" he ejaculated, "you down hyer again! Well, I
+never seed the like afore in all my born days."
+
+He gazed at first one and then another of the party, and a sudden light
+flashed into his face.
+
+"Well I'll ber dorged ef ther whole kepoodle of 'em hain't done jest
+gone and tumbled off'n the mounting an' jest rolled down hyer!"
+
+"You're a very accurate reasoner, my friend," said Cattleton, trying to
+get his hat into shape. "I think we touched at two or three points as we
+came down, however."
+
+About this time four or five more mountaineers appeared bearing guns and
+looking savage.
+
+"Bandits," said Miss Stackpole with a shudder.
+
+"Moonshiners," muttered Crane.
+
+"Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Hubbard, do t--t--take m--me home!" wailed
+Mrs. Philpot.
+
+"I should be delighted," said Hubbard, his voice concealing the
+uneasiness he felt. "Indeed I should."
+
+More men appeared and at the same time a roll of thunder tumbled across
+the darkening sky. A sudden mountain storm had arisen.
+
+The pedestrians found themselves surrounded by a line of grim and silent
+men who appeared to be waiting for orders from Tolliver.
+
+A few large drops of rain come slanting down from the advancing fringe
+of the sable-cloud, and again the thunder bounded across the heavens.
+
+"I guess you'd better invite us in," suggested Cattleton, turning to the
+old man, who stood leaning on his tin horn. "The ladies will get wet."
+
+"I say, Cattleton," called out Bartley Hubbard, "if a fellow only had
+a little supply of Stockton's negative gravity he could ameliorate his
+condition, don't you think?"
+
+"Yes, I'd like to fall up hill just now. The excitement would be
+refreshing."
+
+There came a spiteful dash of rain and a flurry of wind.
+
+"You'ns had better go inter the still-house," said Tolliver. "Hit air
+goin' ter rain yearlin' calves. Go right erlong in, ye sha'n't be hurt."
+
+Another gush of rain enforced the invitation, and they all scrambled
+into the cabin pell-mell, glad of the relief from a strain that had
+become almost unbearable to some of them, but they stared at each other
+when they found the door closed and securely locked on the outside.
+
+"Prisoners!" cried some one whose voice was drowned by a deafening crash
+of thunder and a mighty flood of rain that threatened to crush in the
+rickety roof of the house.
+
+"The treacherous villain!" exclaimed Dufour, speaking of Tolliver and
+holding Miss Moyne's hand. The poor girl was so frightened that it was a
+comfort to her to have her hand held.
+
+"How grand, how noble it is in Mr. Tolliver and his friends," said Miss
+Crabb, "to stand out there in the rain and let us have the shelter! I
+never saw a more virile and thoroughly unselfish man than he is. He is
+one of Nature's unshorn heroes, a man of the ancient god-like race."
+
+Mrs. Nancy Jones Black gave the young woman a look of profound contempt.
+
+Then a crash of thunder, wind, and rain scattered everybody's thoughts.
+
+
+XVII.
+
+The storm was wild enough, but of short duration, and it came to its end
+as suddenly as it had begun. As the black cloud departed from the sky,
+the darkness, which had been almost a solid inside the still-house, was
+pierced by certain lines of mild light coming through various chinks in
+the walls and roof. Our friends examined one another curiously, as if to
+be sure that it was not all a dream.
+
+Cattleton found himself face to face with a demure-looking young man,
+whom he at once recognized as Harry Punner, a writer of delicious verses
+and editor of a rollicking humorous journal at New York.
+
+"Hello, Hal! you here?" he cried. "Well how does it strike your funny
+bone? It insists upon appearing serious to me."
+
+"I'm smothering for a whiff of fresh air," said Punner, in a very
+matter-of-fact tone. "Can't we raise a window or something?"
+
+"The only window visible to the naked eye," said Cattleton, "is already
+raised higher than I can reach," and he pointed to a square hole in the
+wall about seven and a-half feet above the ground and very near the
+roof.
+
+Crane went about in the room remarking that the aroma floating in the
+air was the bouquet of the very purest and richest copper-distilled corn
+whisky and that if he could find it he was quite sure that a sip of it
+would prove very refreshing under the peculiar circumstances of the
+case, an observation which called forth from Mrs. Nancy Jones Black a
+withering temperance reprimand.
+
+"As the presiding officer of the _Woman's Prohibition Promulgation
+Society_ I cannot let such a remark pass without condemning it. If
+this really is a liquor establishment I desire to be let out of it
+forthwith."
+
+"So do I!" exclaimed little Mrs. Philpot with great vehemence. "Open the
+door Mr. Hubbard, please."
+
+Hubbard went to the door and finding that it was constructed to open
+outwardly, gave it a shove with all his might. There was a short tussle
+and he staggered back.
+
+"Why don't you push it open?" fretfully exclaimed Mrs. Nancy Jones
+Black.
+
+"The gentlemen outside object, for reasons not stated," was the rather
+stolidly spoken answer.
+
+Cattleton had taken off his hat and was going about through the company
+soliciting handkerchiefs.
+
+"Drop them in, drop them in," he urged, "I need all of them that I can
+get."
+
+He offered his hat as a contribution box as he spoke, and nearly
+every-one gave a handkerchief, without in the least suspecting his
+purpose.
+
+When he had collected a round dozen, Cattleton crammed them all down in
+the crown of his hat which he then put on his head.
+
+"Now Hal," he said, addressing Punner, "give me a boost and I'll make an
+observation through that window."
+
+The rain was now entirely ended and the wind had fallen still.
+
+With Punner's help Cattleton got up to the window and poked out his
+head.
+
+"Git back ther'!" growled a vicious voice, and at the same time the dull
+sound of a heavy blow was followed by the retreat of Cattleton from the
+window to the floor in a great hurry.
+
+Upon top of his hat was a deep trench made by a club.
+
+"The handkerchiefs did their duty nobly," he remarked. "Let everybody
+come forward and identify his property."
+
+"What did you see?" asked Punner.
+
+"A giant with an oak tree in his hand and murder in his eye," said
+Cattleton, busily selecting and returning the handkerchiefs. "This
+eleemosynary padding was all that saved me. The blow was aimed at my
+divine intellect."
+
+"See here," cried Peck, in great earnest, "this is no joking matter.
+We're in the power of a set of mountain moonshiners, and may be
+murdered in cold blood. We'd better do something."
+
+Crane had prowled around until he had found a small jug of fragrant
+mountain dew whisky, which he was proceeding to taste in true Kentucky
+style, when a gaunt form rose in a corner of the room, and tottering
+forward seized the jug and took it out of his hand.
+
+"No ye don't, sonny, no ye don't! This yer mounting jew air not
+ever'body's licker 'at wants it. Not by er half er mile at the littlest
+calc'lation!"
+
+Miss Crabb made a note. Crane gazed pathetically at the fantastic old
+man before him, and brushed his handkerchief across his lips, as if from
+habit, as he managed to say:
+
+"I meant no undue liberty, I assure you. That whisky is----"
+
+"Overpowerin'," interrupted the old man, taking a sip from the vessel.
+"Yes, I don't blame ye fur a wantin' of it, but this yer licker air
+mine."
+
+"Up in Kentucky," said Crane, "we are proud to offer----"
+
+"Kaintucky! did ye say ole Kaintuck? Air ye from ther', boy?"
+
+The octogenarian leaned forward as he spoke and gazed at Crane with
+steadfast, rheumy eyes.
+
+Miss Henrietta Stackpole came forward to hear what was to follow, her
+instinct telling her that a point of human interest was about to be
+reached.
+
+"Yes," said Crane, "I was born and reared on Lulbegrud creek."
+
+"Lulbegrud!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How fur f'om Wright's mill?"
+
+"Close by, at Kiddville," said Crane.
+
+"Ye 'member Easton's Springs close by an' Pilot Knob away off in the
+distance?"
+
+"Very well, indeed, and Guoff's pond."
+
+"Boy, what mought yer name be?"
+
+"Crane."
+
+"Crane!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I'll ber dorg!"
+
+The old man stood gazing and grinning at Crane for some moments, and
+then added:
+
+"What's yer pap's name?"
+
+"Eliphas Crane."
+
+"'Liphas Crane yore pap!"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Child, I air yer pap's uncle."
+
+"What!"
+
+"I air Peter Job Crane."
+
+"You!"
+
+"Sartin es anything."
+
+"Are you my father's uncle Peter?"
+
+"I air yer pap's uncle Pete."
+
+"How strange!"
+
+Miss Stackpole did not permit a word, a look, or a shade of this
+interview to escape her. She now turned to Bartley Hubbard and said:
+
+"We Americans are the victims of heterogeneous consanguinity. Such an
+incident as this could not happen in England. It will be a long time
+before we can get rid of our ancestors."
+
+"Yes," assented Hubbard, nonchalantly, "Yer pap's uncle certainly is a
+large factor in American life."
+
+"How many men did you see when you looked out?" Peck inquired,
+addressing Cattleton.
+
+"I saw only one, but he was a monster," was the ready reply. "It's no
+use brooding over trying to escape by force. We're utterly helpless, and
+that jolt on my head has rendered me unfit for diplomatic efforts."
+
+"What do you suppose they will do with us?"
+
+"They won't dare let us go."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"They'd be afraid that we would report their illicit distillery."
+
+"Ah, I see."
+
+The affair began to take on a very serious and gloomy aspect, and the
+room was growing oppressively hot, owing to the presence of a a small
+but energetic furnace that glowed under a sighing boiler. Outside, with
+the clearing sky and refreshed air, there arose a clamor of bird-song in
+the dripping trees. Under the floor the spring-stream gurgled sweetly.
+
+"Ye 'member Abbott's still house on ole Lulbegrud?" said the old man,
+pursuing his reminisences, after he had permitted his grand-nephew to
+taste the "mounting jew," "an' Dan Rankin's ole bob-tail hoss?"
+
+"Very well, indeed," responded Crane, "and Billy Pace's blackberry
+fields where I picked berries in summer and chased rabbits in winter."
+
+"Take er nother drop o' the jyful juice, boy, fur the mem'ry o' ole
+Kaintuck!"
+
+"Oh dear! but isn't it incomparably awful?" exclaimed Mrs. Nancy Jones
+Black, gazing in horrified fascination upon the two Kentuckians, as they
+bowed to each other and drank alternately from the little jug.
+
+"Characteristic Southern scene not used by Craddock," murmured Miss
+Crabb, making a whole page of a single note.
+
+"Don't this yere liquor taste o' one thing an' smell o' another an' jes'
+kinder git ter the lowest p'int o' yer appetite?" continued Crane's
+great uncle Peter.
+
+"Delicious beyond compare," responded the young man, drinking again, "it
+is nectar of the gods."
+
+Mrs. Nancy Jones Black groaned, but could not withdraw her eyes from the
+scene.
+
+"Good deal like ole times down to Abbott's still-house on Lulbegrud,
+boy," the old man suggested, "ye don't forgit erbout Dan Rankin's mule
+a-kickin' ole man Hornback's hat off?"
+
+The poet laughed retrospectively and mopped his glowing face with
+his handkerchief. The heat from the furnace and the stimulus of the
+excellent beverage were causing him to feel the need of fresh air.
+
+Indeed, everybody was beginning to pant. Miss Moyne was so overcome with
+excitement and with the heat of the place, that she was ready to faint,
+when the door was flung open and Tolliver appeared. A rush of sweet cool
+air, flooding the room, revived her, just as she was sinking into
+Dufour's arms.
+
+
+XVIII.
+
+Authors who have added the vice of elocution to the weakness of dialect
+verse-making, are often at a loss for a sympathetic audience. Whilst
+it is true that literary people are apt to bear with a good deal of
+patience the mutually offered inflictions incident to meeting one
+another, they draw the line at dialect recitations; and, as a rule,
+stubbornly refuse to be bored with a fantastic rendition of "When
+Johnny got spanked by a mule," or "Livery-stable Bob," or "Samantha's
+Courtin'," or "Over the Ridge to the Pest-house," no matter how dear a
+friend may offer the scourge. Circumstances alter cases, however, and
+although neither Carleton, nor Riley, nor yet Burdette, nor Bill Nye
+(those really irresistible and wholly delightful humorists), had come to
+Hotel Helicon, there was a certain relief for those of the guests who
+had not joined the luckless pedestrians, in hearing Miss Amelia Lotus
+Nebeker recite a long poem written in New Jersey patois.
+
+Miss Nebeker was very hard of hearing, almost stone deaf, indeed, which
+affliction lent a pathetic effect even to her humor. She was rather
+stout, decidedly short, and had a way of making wry faces with a view to
+adding comicality to certain turns of her New Jersey phraseology, and
+yet she was somewhat of a bore at times. Possibly she wished to read too
+often and sometimes upon very unsuitable occasions. It was Mrs. Bridges
+who once said that, if the minister at a funeral should ask some one to
+say a few appropriate words, Miss Nebeker, if present, would immediately
+clear her throat and begin reciting "A Jerseyman's Jewsharp." "And if
+she once got started you'd never be able to stop her, for she's as deaf
+as an adder."
+
+It was during the rainstorm, while those of the guests who had not gone
+to the hermit's hut with Cattleton, were in the cool and spacious parlor
+of the hotel, that something was said about Charles Dickens reading from
+his own works. Strangely enough, although the remark was uttered in
+a low key and at some distance from Miss Nebeker, she responded at
+once with an offer to give them a new rendering of _The Jerseyman's
+Jewsharp_. Lucas, the historian, objected vigorously, but she insisted
+upon interpreting his words and gestures as emphatic applause of her
+proposition. She arose while he was saying:
+
+"Oh now, that's too much, we're tired of the jangling of that old harp;
+give us a rest!"
+
+This unexpected and surprising slang from so grave and dignified
+a man set everybody to laughing. Miss Nebeker bowed in smiling
+acknowledgement of what appeared to her to be a flattering anticipation
+of her humor, and taking her manuscript from some hiding-place in her
+drapery, made a grimace and began to read. Mrs. Philpot's cat, in the
+absence of its mistress, had taken up with the elocutionist and now came
+to rub and purr around her feet while she recited. This was a small
+matter, but in school or church or lecture-hall, small matters attract
+attention. The fact that the cat now and again mewed plaintively set
+some of the audience to smiling and even to laughing.
+
+Such apparent approval of her new rendition thrilled Miss Nebeker to her
+heart's core. Her voice deepened, her intonations caught the spirit of
+her mood, and she read wildly well.
+
+Every one who has even a smattering of the _patois_ current in New
+Jersey, will understand how effective it might be made in the larynx
+of a cunning elocutionist; and then whoever has had the delicious
+experience of hearing a genuine Jerseyman play on the jewsharp will
+naturally jump to a correct conclusion concerning the pathos of the
+subject which Miss Nebeker had in hand. She felt its influence and threw
+all her power into it. Heavy as she was, she arose on her tip-toes at
+the turning point of the story and gesticulated vehemently.
+
+The cat, taken by surprise, leaped aside a pace or two and glared in a
+half-frightened way, with each separate hair on its tail set stiffly.
+Of course there was more laughter which the reader took as applause.
+
+"A brace of cats!" exclaimed the historian. "A brace of cats!"
+
+Nobody knew what he meant, but the laughing increased, simply for the
+reason that there was nothing to laugh at.
+
+Discovering pretty soon that Miss Nebeker really meant no harm by her
+manoeuvres, the cat went back to rub and purr at her feet. Then Miss
+Nebeker let down her heel on the cat's tail, at the same time beginning
+with the pathetic part of _The Jerseyman's Jewsharp_.
+
+The unearthly squall that poor puss gave forth was wholly lost on the
+excited elocutionist, but it quite upset the audience, who, not wishing
+to appear rude, used their handkerchiefs freely.
+
+Miss Nebeker paused to give full effect to a touching line.
+
+The cat writhed and rolled and clawed the air and wailed like a lost
+spirit in its vain endeavor to free its tail; but Miss Nebeker, all
+unconscious of the situation, and seeing her hearers convulsed and
+wiping tears from their faces, redoubled her elocutionary artifices and
+poured incomparable feeling into her voice.
+
+Suddenly the tortured and writhing animal uttered a scream of
+blood-curdling agony and lunged at Miss Nebeker's ankles with tooth and
+claw.
+
+She was in the midst of the passage where the dying Jerseyman lifts
+himself on his elbow and calls for his trusty Jewsharp:
+
+"Gi' me my juice-harp, Sarah Ann----" she was saying, when of a sudden
+she screamed louder than the cat and bounded into the air, sending her
+manuscript in fluttering leaves all over the room.
+
+The cat, with level tail and fiery eyes, sailed through the door-way
+into the hall, and went as if possessed of a devil, bounding up the
+stairway to Mrs. Philpot's room.
+
+Congratulations were in order, and Lucas insisted upon bellowing in Miss
+Nebeker's ear his appreciation of the powerful effect produced by the
+last scene in the little drama.
+
+"If our friends who are out in this rain are finding anything half as
+entertaining," he thundered, "they needn't mind the drenching."
+
+"But I'm bitten, I'm scratched, I'm hurt," she exclaimed.
+
+Lucas suddenly realized the brutality of his attitude, and hastened to
+rectify it by collecting the leaves of her manuscript and handing them
+to her.
+
+"I beg pardon," he said sincerely, "I hope you are not hurt much."
+
+"Just like a cat," she cried, "always under somebody's feet! I do
+despise them!"
+
+With a burning face and trembling hands she swiftly rearranged the
+manuscript and assuming the proper attitude asked the audience to be
+seated again.
+
+"I am bitten and scratched quite severely," she said, "and am suffering
+great pain, but if you will resume your places I will begin over
+again."
+
+"Call that cat back, then, quick!" exclaimed Lucas, "it's the star
+performer in the play."
+
+She proceeded forthwith, setting out on a new journey through the
+tortuous ways of the poem, and held up very well to the end. What she
+called New Jersey patois was a trifle flat when put into verse and she
+lacked the polished buffoonery of a successful dialect reader, wherefore
+she failed to get along very successfully with her audience in the
+absence of the cat; still the reading served to kill a good deal of
+time, by a mangling process.
+
+The storm was over long ago when she had finished, and the sun was
+flooding the valley with golden splendor. Along the far away mountain
+ridges some slanting wisps of whitish mist sailed slowly, like aerial
+yachts riding dark blue billows. The foliage of the trees, lately dusky
+and drooping, twinkled vividly with a green that was almost dazzling,
+and the air was deliciously fresh and fragrant.
+
+Everybody went out on the veranda for a turn and a deep breath.
+
+The mail had arrived and by a mistake a bundle of letters bearing the
+card of George Dunkirk & Co., and addressed to "George Dunkirk, Esq.,
+Hotel Helicon, room 24," was handed to Lucas.
+
+The historian gazed at the superscription, adjusted his glasses and
+gazed again, and slowly the truth crept into his mind. There were ten or
+fifteen of the letters. Evidently some of them, as Lucas's experience
+suggested, had alien letters inclosed within their envelopes, and thus
+forwarded by the mailing clerk of the firm had at last come to the
+senior partner at room 24.
+
+"Gaspard Dufour, indeed!" Lucas exclaimed inwardly. "George Dunkirk,
+rather. This is a pretty kettle of fish!"
+
+He sent the letters up to room 24, to await the return of their proper
+recipient, and fell to reflecting upon the many, very many and very
+insulting things that he and nearly all the rest of the hotel guests as
+well had said in Dufour's hearing about publishers in general and about
+George Dunkirk & Co., in particular. His face burned with the heat
+of the retrospect, as he recalled such phrases as "sleek thief,"
+"manipulator of copy-right statements," "Cadmean wolf" "ghoul of
+literary grave-yards," and a hundred others, applied with utter
+unrestraint and bandied around, while George Dunkirk was sitting by
+listening to it all!
+
+He called Ferris to him and imparted his discovery in a stage whisper.
+
+"The dickens!" was all that gentleman could say, as the full text of his
+address of the other evening rushed upon him.
+
+"It is awkward, devilish awkward," remarked Lucas, wiping his glasses
+and nervously readjusting them.
+
+A few minutes later two men rode up to the hotel. One of them was a very
+quiet-looking fellow who dryly stated that he was the high sheriff of
+Mt. Boab county.
+
+
+XIX.
+
+Meantime down the ravine in the obscure little still-house our
+pedestrians were held in durance vile by Tolliver and his obedient
+moon-shiners.
+
+It was a puzzling situation to all concerned. Far from wishing or
+intending to harm his prisoners, Tolliver still could not see his way
+clear to setting them at liberty. On the other hand he was clever
+enough to perceive that to hold them very long would be sure to lead to
+disaster, for their friends would institute a search and at the same
+time telegraph an account of their disappearance all over the country.
+
+"'Pears ter me like I've ketched bigger game 'an my trap'll hold," he
+thought, as he stood in the door-way surveying his victims.
+
+"What ye all a doin' a monkeyin' round' these yer premerses, anyhow?" he
+demanded. "W'y c'udn't ye jest wait 'll I sent for ye ter kem yer?"
+
+"It's a sort of surprise party, my dear sir," said Cattleton. "Don't you
+see?"
+
+"S'prise set o' meddlin' Yankees a foolin' roun' wher' they air not got
+no business at," responded Tolliver, "that's w'at I calls it."
+
+"Where's your pantry?" inquired Punner, "I'm as hungry as a wolf."
+
+"Hongry, air ye? What'd ye 'spect ter git ter eat at er still-house,
+anyhow? Hain't ye got no sense er tall? Air ye er plum blasted eejit?"
+
+Tolliver made these inquiries in a voice and manner suggestive of
+suppressed but utter wrath.
+
+"Oh he's _always_ hungry, he would starve in a feed-store," exclaimed
+Cattleton. "Don't pay the least attention to him, Mr. Tolliver. He's
+incurably hungry."
+
+"W'y ef the man's really hongry----" Tolliver began to say in a
+sympathetic tone.
+
+"Here," interrupted Hubbard gruffly, "let us out of this immediately,
+can't you? The ladies can't bear this foul air much longer, it's
+beastly."
+
+"Mebbe hit air you 'at air a running this yer chebang," said Tolliver
+with a scowl. "I'll jes' let ye out w'en I git ready an' not a minute
+sooner, nother. So ye've hearn my tin horn."
+
+Miss Stackpole and Miss Crabb made notes in amazing haste.
+
+Hubbard shrugged his heavy shoulders and bit his lip. He was baffled.
+
+"Do you think they'll kill us?" murmured Miss Moyne in Dufour's ear.
+
+Dufour could not answer.
+
+Crane and his "pap's uncle Pete" were still hobnobbing over the jug.
+
+"Yer's a lookin' at ye, boy, an' a hopin' agin hope 'at ye may turn out
+ter be es likely a man es yer pap," the old man was saying, preliminary
+to another draught.
+
+Crane was bowing with extreme politeness in acknowledgement of the
+sentiment, and was saying:
+
+"I am told that I look like my father----"
+
+"Yes, ye do look a leetle like im," interrupted the old man with a leer
+over the jug, "but l'me say at it air dern leetle, boy, dern leetle!"
+
+Punner overhearing this reply, laughed uproariously. Crane appeared
+oblivious to the whole force of the joke, however. He was simply waiting
+for his turn at the jug.
+
+"As I wer' a sayin'," resumed the old man, "yer's er hopin' agin' hope,
+an' a lookin' at ye----"
+
+"How utterly brutal and disgusting!" cried Mrs. Nancy Jones Black. "I
+must leave here, I cannot bear it longer! This is nothing but a low,
+vile dram-shop! Let me pass!"
+
+She attempted to go through the doorway, but Tolliver interfered.
+
+"Stay wher' ye air," he said, in a respectful but very stern tone. "Ye
+can't git out o' yer jist yit."
+
+"Dear me! Dear me!" wailed Mrs. Black, "what an outrage, what an insult!
+Are you men?" she cried, turning upon the gentlemen near her, "and will
+you brook this?"
+
+"Give me your handkerchiefs again," said Cattleton, "and I will once
+more poke out my head; 'tis all that I can do!"
+
+"Shoot the fust head 'at comes out'n thet ther winder, Dave!" ordered
+Tolliver, speaking to some one outside.
+
+"I don't care for any handkerchiefs, thank you," said Cattleton, "I've
+changed my mind."
+
+Miss Moyne was holding Dufour's arm with a nervous clutch, her eyes were
+full of tears, and she was trembling violently. He strove to quiet her
+by telling her that there was no danger, that he would shield her, die
+for her and all that; but Tolliver looked so grim and the situation was
+so strange and threatening that she could not control herself.
+
+"Goodness! but isn't this rich material," Miss Crabb soliloquized,
+writing in her little red book with might and main. "Bret Harte never
+discovered anything better."
+
+Miss Henrietta Stackpole was too busy absorbing the human interest of
+the interview between the two Cranes, to be more than indirectly aware
+of anything else that was going on around her.
+
+"Ye needn't be erfeard as ter bein' hurt, boy," said the old man, "not
+es long es yer pap's uncle Pete air eroun' yer. Hit ain't often 'at I
+meets up wi' kinfolks downyer, an' w'en I does meet up wi' 'em I treats
+'em es er Southern gen'l'man orter treat his kinfolks."
+
+"Precisely so," said Crane, taking another sip, "hospitality is a
+crowning Southern virtue. When I go up to Louisville Henry Watterson and
+I always have a good time."
+
+"Spect ye do, boy, spect ye do. Louisville use ter be a roarin' good
+place ter be at."
+
+Tolliver, whose wits had been hard at work, now proposed what he called
+"terms o' pay-roll, like what they hed in the war."
+
+"Ef ye'll all take a oath an' swa' at ye'll never tell nothin' erbout
+nothin," said he, "w'y I'll jest let ye off this yer time."
+
+"That is fair enough," said Dufour, "we are not in the detective
+service."
+
+"Then," observed Tolliver, "ef I ken git the 'tention of this yer
+meetin', I move 'at it air yerby considered swore 'at nothin' air ter be
+said erbout nothin' at no time an' never. Do ye all swa'?"
+
+"Yes!" rang out a chorus of voices.
+
+"Hit air cyarried," said Tolliver, "an' the meetin' air dismissed, sigh
+er die. Ye kin all go on erbout yer business."
+
+The pedestrians filed out into the open air feeling greatly relieved.
+Crane lingered to have a few more passages with his sociable and
+hospitable grand-uncle. Indeed he remained until the rest of the party
+had passed out of sight up the ravine and he did not reach the hotel
+until far in the night, when he sang some songs under Miss Moyne's
+window.
+
+Taken altogether, the pedestrians felt that they had been quite
+successful in their excursion.
+
+Dufour was happiness itself. On the way back he had chosen for himself
+and Miss Moyne a path which separated them from the others, giving him
+an opportunity to say a great deal to her.
+
+Now it is a part of our common stock of understanding that when a man
+has an excellent and uninterrupted opportunity to say a great deal to
+a beautiful young woman, he usually does not find himself able to say
+much; still he rarely fails to make himself understood.
+
+They both looked so self-consciously happy (when they arrived a little
+later than the rest at Hotel Helicon) that suspicion would have been
+aroused but for two startling and all-absorbing disclosures which drove
+away every other thought.
+
+One was the disclosure of the fact that Dufour was not Dufour, but
+George Dunkirk, and the other was the disclosure of the fact that the
+high sheriff of Mt. Boab County was in Hotel Helicon on important
+official business.
+
+Little Mrs. Philpot was the first to discover that the great publisher
+really had not practiced any deception as to his name. Indeed her album
+showed that the signature therein was, after all, George Dunkirk and not
+Gaspard Dufour. The autograph was not very plain, it is true, but it was
+decipherable and the mistake was due to her own bad reading.
+
+If the sheriff had been out of the question the humiliation felt by
+the authors, for whom Dunkirk was publisher and who had talked so
+outrageously about him, would have crushed them into the dust; but the
+sheriff was there in his most terrible form, and he forced himself
+upon their consideration with his quiet but effective methods of legal
+procedure.
+
+
+XX.
+
+"Gaslucky has been caught in a wheat corner at Chicago," Lucas
+explained, "and has been squeezed to death."
+
+"Dead!" cried Punner, "it's a great loss. We'll have to hold a meeting
+and pass res----"
+
+"We'll have to get out of this place in short order," said Lucas, "the
+sheriff has levied an attachment on the hotel and all it contains."
+
+"What!"
+
+"How's that?"
+
+"Do you mean that the house is to be shut up and we turned out?"
+
+"Just that," said Lucas. "The sheriff has invoiced every thing, even the
+provisions on hand. He says that we can't eat another bite here."
+
+"And I'm starving even now!" exclaimed Punner. "I could eat most
+anything. Let's walk round to Delmonico's, Cattleton."
+
+"But really, what can we do?" demanded Ferris, dolefully enough.
+
+"Go home, of course," said Cattleton.
+
+Ferris looked blank and stood with his hands thrust in his pockets.
+
+"I can't go home," he presently remarked.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"I haven't money enough to pay my way."
+
+"By George! neither have I!" exclaimed Cattleton with a start.
+
+"That is precisely my fix," said Lucas gravely.
+
+"You echo my predicament," said Peck.
+
+"My salary is suspended during my absence," said Punner, with his eyes
+bent on the floor.
+
+Little Mrs. Philpot was speechless for a time as the force of the
+situation broke upon her.
+
+"Squeezed in a wheat corner?" inquired Miss Stackpole, "what do you mean
+by that?"
+
+"I mean that Gaslucky got sheared in the big deal the other day at
+Chicago," Lucas explained.
+
+"Got sheared?"
+
+"Yes, the bulls sat down on him."
+
+"Oh, you mean a speculation--a--"
+
+"Yes, Gaslucky was in for all he was worth, and they run it down on
+him and flattened him. A gas-man's no business in wheat, especially in
+Chicago; they spread him out, just as the sheriffs proceedings have
+flattened all our hopes for the present."
+
+"It's just outrageous!" cried little Mrs. Philpot, finding her voice.
+"He should have notified us, so that--"
+
+"They didn't notify him, I guess," said Cattleton.
+
+"No, he found it out afterwards," remarked Lucas, glancing gloomily
+toward where Dunkirk and Miss Moyne stood, apparently in light and
+pleasant conversation.
+
+Viewed in any light the predicament was a peculiar and distressing
+one to the guests of Hotel Helicon. The sheriff, a rather ignorant,
+but very stubborn and determined man, held executions and writs of
+attachment sued out by Gaslucky creditors, which he had proceeded to
+levy on the hotel and on all the personalty visible in it belonging to
+the proprietor.
+
+"'Course," said he, "hit'll be poorty hard on you'ns, but I can't help
+it, I've got ter do my juty, let it hurt whoever it will. Not er thing
+kin ye tech at's in this yer tavern, 'ceptin' what's your'n, that air's
+jest how it air. So now mind w'at yer a doin'."
+
+The servants were idle, the dining-room closed, the kitchen and pantries
+locked up. Never was there a more doleful set of people. Mrs. Nancy
+Jones Black thought of playing a piece of sacred music, but she found
+the grand piano locked, with its key deep in the sheriff's pocket.
+
+The situation was made doubly disagreeable when at last the officer
+informed the guests that they would have to vacate their rooms
+forthwith, as he should proceed at once to close up the building.
+
+"Heavens, man, are you going to turn us out into the woods?" demanded
+Peck.
+
+"Woods er no woods," he replied, "ye'll hev ter git out'n yer, right
+off."
+
+"But the ladies, Mr. Sheriff," suggested Punner, "no Southern gentleman
+can turn a lady out of doors."
+
+The officer actually colored with the force of the insinuation. He stood
+silent for some time with his eyes fixed on the floor. Presently he
+looked up and said:
+
+"The weeming kin stay till mornin'."
+
+"Well they must have something to eat," said Punner. "They can't
+starve."
+
+"Thet's so," the sheriff admitted, "they kin hev a bite er so."
+
+"And we----"
+
+"You men folks cayn't hev a dorg gone mouthful, so shet up!"
+
+"Well," observed Cattleton, dryly, "it appears the odds is the
+difference between falling into the hands of moonshiners and coming
+under the influence of a lawful sheriff."
+
+"I know a little law," interposed Bartley Hubbard with a sullen
+emphasis, "and I know that this sheriff has no right to tumble us out of
+doors, and for my part----"
+
+"Fur yer part," said the sheriff coolly, "fur yer part, Mister, ef ye
+fool erlong o' me I'll crack yer gourd fur ye."
+
+"You'll do what?"
+
+"I'll stave in yer piggin."
+
+"I don't understand."
+
+"W'y, blame yer ignorant hide, wha' wer' ye borned and fotch up? I'll
+jest knock the everlastin' head off'n ye, _thet's_ 'zac'ly w'at I says.
+Mebbe ye don't understan' _thet_?"
+
+"Yes," said Hubbard, visibly shrinking into himself, "I begin to suspect
+your meaning."
+
+Miss Crabb was taking notes with enthusiastic rapidity.
+
+Dunkirk called the sheriff to him and a long conference was held between
+them, the result of which was presently announced.
+
+"I heve thort it over," said the quiet officer of the law, "an' es hit
+appear thet w'at grub air on han' an' done cooked might spile afore it
+c'u'd be sold, therefore I proclamate an' say at you'ns kin stay yer
+tell termorrer an' eat w'at's cooked, but tech nothin' else."
+
+Cattleton and Punner applauded loudly. To everybody the announcement was
+a reprieve of no small moment, and a sigh of relief rustled through the
+groups of troubled guests. Those who had been down the ravine were very
+tired and hungry; the thought of a cold luncheon to them was the vision
+of a feast.
+
+Dunkirk had a basket of wine brought down from his room and he made the
+sheriff sit beside him at the table.
+
+"We may as well make the most of our last evening together," he said,
+glancing jovially around.
+
+"We shall have to walk down the mountain in the morning, I suppose,"
+remarked Bartley Hubbard.
+
+"That's jest w'at's the matter," observed the sheriff.
+
+"But the ladies, my dear sir, the ladies----" began Punner.
+
+"The weeming, they'll hev kinveyances, young man, so ye kin jest shet up
+ef ye please," the officer interrupted, with a good-natured wink and a
+knowing wag of his head.
+
+A disinterested observer would have noted readily enough that the feast
+was far from a banquet. There was Ferris, for instance, munching a
+biscuit and sipping his wine and pretending to enjoy Punner's sallies
+and Cattleton's drolleries, while down in his heart lay the leaden
+thought, the hideous knowledge of an empty pocket. Indeed the reflection
+was a common one, weighting down almost every breast at the board.
+
+One little incident did make even Ferris forget himself for a moment or
+two, it was when deaf Miss Nebeker misinterpreted some remark made by
+Hubbard and arose with a view to reciting _The Jerseyman's Jewsharp_,
+with a new variation, "Oh, Jerseyman Joe had a Jewsharp of gold," she
+began, in her most melodious drawl. She could not hear the protesting
+voices of her friends and she misinterpreted the stare of the sheriff.
+
+"For the good heaven's sake, Hubbard," cried Lucas, "do use your
+influence; quick, please, or I shall collapse."
+
+Bartley Hubbard took hold of her dress and gently pulled her down into
+her chair.
+
+"The sheriff objects!" he yelled in her ear.
+
+"After dinner?" she resignedly inquired, "well, then after dinner, in
+the parlor."
+
+When the feast had come to the crumbs, Dunkirk arose and said:
+
+"We all have had a good time at the Hotel Helicon, but our sojourn upon
+the heights of Mt. Boab has been cut short by a certain chain of mishaps
+over which we have had no control, and to-morrow we go away, doubtless
+forever. I feel like saying that I harbor no unpleasant recollections
+of the days we have spent together."
+
+Cattleton sprung to his feet to move a vote of thanks "to the
+public-spirited and benevolent man who built this magnificent hotel and
+threw open its doors to us."
+
+It was carried.
+
+"Now then," said Lucas, adjusting his glasses and speaking in his
+gravest chest-tones, "I move that it be taken as the sense of this
+assembly, that it is our duty to draw upon our publisher for money
+enough to take us home."
+
+The response was overwhelming.
+
+Dunkirk felt the true state of affairs. He arose, his broad face
+wreathed with genial smiles, and said:
+
+"To the certain knowledge of your unhappy publisher your accounts are
+already overdrawn, but in view of the rich material you have been
+gathering of late, your publisher will honor you draughts to the limit
+of your expenses home."
+
+Never did happier people go to bed. The last sleep in Hotel Helicon
+proved to be the sweetest.
+
+Far in the night, it is true, some one sang loudly but plaintively under
+Miss Moyne's window until the sheriff awoke and sallied forth to end
+the serenade with some remarks about "cracking that eejit's gourd;" but
+there was no disturbance, the sounds blending sweetly with the dreams of
+the slumberers. They all knew that it was Crane, poor fellow, who had
+finally torn himself away from his father's fascinating uncle.
+
+
+XXI.
+
+The retreat from Hotel Helicon was picturesque in the extreme. There had
+been much difficulty in finding vehicles to take the retiring guests
+down the mountain to the railway station, but Tolliver had come to the
+rescue with a mule, a horse, a cart, and an ox. These, when added to
+the rather incongruous collection of wagons and carts from every other
+available source, barely sufficed. Tolliver led the mule with Ferris on
+its back, while Miss Crabb and Miss Stackpole occupied the ox-cart, the
+former acting as driver.
+
+"Good-bye and good luck to ye!" the sheriff called after them. "Mighty
+sorry ter discommode ye, but juty air juty, an' a officer air no
+respecter of persons."
+
+Mrs. Nancy Jones Black sat beside Crane in a rickety wagon, and between
+jolts gave him many a word of wisdom on the subject of strong drink,
+which the handsome Bourbon poet stowed away for future consideration.
+
+Dunkirk and Miss Moyne rode upon the "hounds" of a naked wood-wain,
+as happy as two blue-birds in April, while Bartley Hubbard, with
+little Mrs. Philpot and her child and some other ladies, was in an old
+weather-beaten barouche, a sad relic of the _ante-bellum_ times. For the
+rest there were vehicles of every sort save the comfortable sort, and
+all went slowly winding and zig-zagging down Mt. Boab toward the valley
+and the river. Why pursue them? Once they all looked up from far down
+the slope and saw Hotel Helicon shining like a castle of gold in the
+flood of summer sunlight. Its verandas were empty, its windows closed,
+but the flag on its wooden tower still floated bravely in the breeze,
+its folds appearing to touch the soft gray-blue sky.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A year later Crane and Peck met at Saratoga and talked over old times.
+At length coming down to the present, Crane said:
+
+"Of all of us who were guests on Mt. Boab, Miss Moyne is the only one
+who has found success. Her story, _On The Heights_, is in its seventieth
+edition."
+
+"Oh, well," said Peck, "that goes without the saying. Anybody could
+succeed with her chance."
+
+"_Her_ chance, why do you say that?"
+
+"Haven't you heard? Ah, I see that the news has not yet penetrated the
+wilds of Kentucky. The open secret of Miss Moyne's success lies in the
+fact that she has married her publisher."
+
+A silence of some minutes followed, during which Crane burned his cigar
+very rapidly.
+
+"What fools we were," Peck presently ventured, "to be fighting a duel
+about her!"
+
+"No, sir," said Crane, with a far-away look in his eyes, "no, sir, I
+would die for her right now."
+
+So the subject was dropped between them forever.
+
+Some of Gaslucky's creditors bought Hotel Helicon at the sheriff's sale,
+but it proved a barren investment.
+
+The house stands there now, weather-beaten and lonely on the peak of Mt.
+Boab, all tenantless and forlorn.
+
+As to Tolliver's still-house I cannot say, but at stated intervals Crane
+receives a small cask marked: "J'yful juice, hannel with keer," which
+comes from his "Pap's uncle Pete."
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+THE TALE OF A SCULPTOR
+
+BY HUGH CONWAY
+
+
+
+
+THE TALE OF A SCULPTOR.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+After you pass the "Blue Anchor"--the sign of which swings from the
+branch of an elm tree older even than the house itself--a few steps
+along the road bring you in sight of the pinnacled, square tower of
+Coombe-Acton Church. You cannot see the church itself, as, with schools
+and rectory close by it, it lies at the back of the village, about two
+hundred yards up a lane. Like the village to whose spiritual needs it
+ministers, the church, to an ordinary observer, is nothing out of the
+common, although certain small peculiarities of architecture, not
+noticed by an uncultured eye, make it an object of some interest to
+archæologists. Visit it or not, according to your inclination, but
+afterwards keep on straight through the long, straggling village, until
+the houses begin to grow even more straggling, the gardens larger and
+less cared for as ornaments, displaying more cabbages and scarlet
+runners than roses--keep on until the houses cease altogether and
+hawthorn hedges take the place of palings and crumbling walls, and at
+last you will come to Watercress Farm, a long, low white house, one side
+of which abuts on the highway, whilst the other looks over the three
+hundred acres of land attached to it.
+
+Not a very large acreage, it is true, but then it is all good land, for
+the most part such as auctioneers describe as rich, warm, deep, old
+pasture land; such land that, at the time this tale opens, any farmer,
+by thrift, knowledge of his business, and hard work, could make even
+more than a bare living out of, and could meet his landlord on rent day
+with a cheerful face, knowing that after rent and other outgoings were
+provided for something would yet be left for himself.
+
+Who occupies the Watercress Farm now, and whether in these days of
+depression his rent is forthcoming or not, matters little. At the time
+I write of it, it was rented by farmer Leigh, even as his forefathers,
+according to village tradition, had rented it for some two hundred
+years. In quiet, conservative places like Coombe-Acton, a farm of this
+kind often goes from father to son with more regularity than an entailed
+estate, landlord and tenant well knowing that their interests are
+identical.
+
+It was a fine afternoon towards the end of June. Abraham Leigh was
+standing by the gate of the field known as the home meadow looking at
+the long, ripe grass rippling as the summer breeze swept across it.
+He was a thoroughly good specimen of the Somersetshire farmer. A big,
+sturdy man, whose movements were slow and deliberate. His face, if heavy
+and stolid, not by any means the face of a fool. No doubt, a man of
+circumscribed views--the world, for him, extending eastwards to Bristol
+market and westwards to the Bristol Channel. Nevertheless, respected in
+his little world as a wonderful judge of a beast, a great authority on
+tillages, and, above all, a man who always had a balance in his favor
+at the Somersetshire Bank; a type of that extinct race, the prosperous
+farmer, who looked on all townsmen with contempt, thinking, as all
+farmers should think, that the owners of broad acres, and those engaged
+in agriculture were alone worthy of respect.
+
+Yet, to-day, in spite of his advantages and acquirements, Farmer Leigh
+looked on the fifteen-acre meadow with a puzzled and discontented
+expression on his honest face; and, moreover, murmurs of dissatisfaction
+were proceeding from his lips. Farmers--Somersetshire farmers
+especially--are proverbial grumblers, but it is seldom they grumble
+without an audience. It is outsiders who get the benefit of their
+complaints. Besides, one would think that the tenant of Watercress Farm
+had little at present to complain of. The drop of rain so badly wanted
+had been long in coming, but it had come just in the nick of time to
+save the grass, and if the crop outwardly looked a little thin, Mr.
+Leigh's experienced eye told him that the undergrowth was thick, and
+that the quality of the hay would be first-class. Moreover, what corn
+and roots he had looked promising, so it seems strange that the farmer
+should be grumbling when he had no one to listen to him, and should lean
+so disconsolately upon the gate of the field when no one observed him.
+
+"I can't make him out," he said. "Good boy he be, too; yet, instead o'
+helping me with the land, always going about dreaming or messing with
+mud. Can't think where he got his notions from. Suppose it must 'a been
+from the mother, poor thing! Always fond o' gimcracks and such like,
+she were. Gave the lad such an outlandish name I'm ashamed to hear
+it. Father's and grandfather's name ought to be good enough for a
+Leigh--good boy though he be, too!"
+
+A soft look settled on Abraham Leigh's face as he repeated the last
+words; then he went deeper into his slough of despond, where, no doubt,
+he battled as manfully as a Christian until he reached the other shore
+and fancied he had found the solution of his difficulties.
+
+His face brightened. "Tell 'ee what," he said, addressing the waving
+grass in front of him, "I'll ask Mr. Herbert. Squire's a man who have
+seen the world. I'll take his advice about the boy. Seems hard like
+on me, too. Ne'er a Leigh till this one but what were a farmer to the
+backbone!"
+
+His mind made up, the farmer strode off to make arrangement with mowers.
+Had he been troubled with twenty unnatural and incompetent sons, the hay
+must be made while the sun shines.
+
+Although he had settled what to do, it was some time before the weighty
+resolve was carried into execution. Folks about Coombe-Acton do not
+move with the celerity of cotton brokers or other men of business. Sure
+they are, but slow. So it was not until the September rent day that
+the farmer consulted his landlord about his domestic difficulty--the
+possession of a son, an only child, of about fifteen, who, instead of
+making himself useful on the land, did little else save wander about in
+a dreamy way, looking at all objects in nature, animate or inanimate, or
+employed himself in the mysterious pursuit which his father described as
+"messing with mud." Such conduct was a departure from the respectable
+bucolic traditions of the Leigh family, so great, that at times the
+father thought it an infliction laid upon him for some cause or other
+by an inscrutable Providence.
+
+There are certain Spanish noblemen who, on account of the antiquity of
+their families and services rendered, are permitted to enter the royal
+presence with covered heads. It was, perhaps, for somewhat similar
+reasons, a custom handed down from father to son and established by
+time, that the tenant of Watercress Farm paid his rent to the landlord
+in person, not through the medium of an agent. Mr. Herbert being
+an important man in the West country, the Leigh family valued this
+privilege as highly as ever hidalgo valued the one above mentioned.
+Mr. Herbert, a refined, intellectual-looking man of about fifty,
+received the farmer kindly, and after the rent, without a word as
+to abatement or reduction, had been paid in notes of the county
+bank--dark and greasy, but valued in this particular district far
+above Bank of England promises--landlord and tenant settled down to
+a few minutes' conversation on crops and kindred subjects. Then the
+farmer unburdened his mind.
+
+"I've come to ask a favor of your advice, sir, about my boy, Jerry."
+
+"Yes," said Mr. Herbert, "I know him--a nice, good-looking boy. I see
+him at church with you, and about your place when I pass. What of him?"
+
+"Well, you zee, zur," said the farmer, speaking with more Somerset
+dialect than usual, "he've a been at Bristol Grammar School till just
+now. Masters all send good accounts of him. I don't hold wi' too much
+learning, so thought 'twere time he come home and helped me like. But
+not a bit o' good he be on the varm; not a bit, zur! Spends near all his
+time messing about wi' dirt."
+
+"Doing what?" asked Mr. Herbert, astonished.
+
+"A-muddling and a-messing with bits o' clay. Making little figgers,
+like, and tries to bake 'em in the oven."
+
+"Oh, I see what you mean. What sort of figures?"
+
+"All sorts, sir. Little clay figgers of horses, dogs, pigs--why, you'd
+scarce believe it, sir--last week I found him making the figger of a
+naked 'ooman! A naked 'ooman! Why, the lad could never a' seen such a
+thing."
+
+Abraham Leigh waited with open eyes to hear Mr. Herbert's opinion of
+such an extraordinary, if not positively unusual, proceeding.
+
+Mr. Herbert smiled. "Perhaps your son is a youthful genius."
+
+"Genius or not, I want to know, sir, what to do wi' him. How's the boy
+to make a living? A farmer he'll never be."
+
+"You follow me and I will show you something."
+
+Mr. Herbert led his guest to his drawing-room--a room furnished with
+the taste of a travelled man. As the farmer gaped at its splendor, he
+directed his attention to four beautiful statues standing in the corners
+of the room.
+
+"I gave the man who made those seven hundred pounds for them, and could
+sell them to-morrow for a thousand if I chose. That's almost as good as
+farming, isn't it?"
+
+His tenant's eyes were wide with amazement. "A thousand pounds, sir!" he
+gasped. "Why, you might have bought that fourteen-acre field with that."
+
+"These give me more pleasure than land," replied Mr. Herbert. "But about
+your boy; when I am riding by I will look in and see what he can do,
+then give you my advice."
+
+The farmer thanked him and returned home. As he jogged along the road to
+Watercress Farm, he muttered at intervals: "A thousand pounds in those
+white figures! Well, well, well, I never did!"
+
+Mr. Herbert was a man who kept a promise, whether made to high or low.
+Five days after his interview with Abraham Leigh he rode up to the
+door of the farm. He was not alone. By his side rode a gay, laughing,
+light-haired child of thirteen, who ruled an indulgent father with a rod
+of iron. Mr. Herbert had been a widower for some years; the girl, and
+a boy who was just leaving Harrow for the university, being his only
+surviving children. The boy was, perhaps, all that Mr. Herbert might
+have wished, but he could see no fault in the precocious, imperious,
+spoilt little maid, who was the sunshine of his life.
+
+She tripped lightly after her father into the farm-house, laughing at
+the way in which he was obliged to bend his head to avoid damage from
+the low doorway; she seated herself with becoming dignity on the chair
+which the widowed sister, who kept house for Abraham Leigh, tendered
+her with many courtesies. A pretty child, indeed, and one who gave rare
+promise of growing into a lovely woman.
+
+The farmer was away somewhere on the farm, but could be fetched in a
+minute if Mr. Herbert would wait. Mr. Herbert waited, and very soon his
+tenant made his appearance and thanked his visitor for the trouble he
+was taking on his behalf.
+
+"Now let me see the boy," said Mr. Herbert, after disclaiming all sense
+of trouble.
+
+Leigh went to the door of the room and shouted out, "Jerry, Jerry, come
+down. You're wanted, my man."
+
+In a moment the door opened, and the cause of Mr. Leigh's discontent
+came upon the scene in the form of a dark-eyed, dark-haired, pale-faced
+boy, tall but slightly built; not, so far as physique went, much credit
+to the country-side. Yet in some respects a striking-looking if not
+handsome lad. The dark, eloquent eyes and strongly-marked brow would
+arrest attention; but the face was too thin, too thoughtful for the
+age, and could scarcely be associated with what commonly constitutes a
+good-looking lad. Yet regularity of feature was there, and no one would
+dare to be sure that beauty would not come with manhood.
+
+He was not seen at that moment under advantageous circumstances. Knowing
+nothing about the distinguished visitors, he had obeyed his father's
+summons in hot haste; consequently he entered the room in his shirt
+sleeves, which were certainly not very clean, and with hands covered
+with red clay. Mr. Herbert looked amused, while the little princess
+turned up her nose in great disdain.
+
+Poor Abraham Leigh was much mortified at the unpresentable state in
+which his son showed himself. To make matters worse, the boy was not
+soiled by honest, legitimate toil.
+
+"Tut! tut!" he said, crossly. "All of a muck, as usual."
+
+The boy, who felt that his father had a right to complain, hung his head
+and showed signs of retreating. Mr. Herbert came to the rescue.
+
+"Never mind," he said, patting young Leigh on the shoulder, "he has
+been working in his own fashion. I have come on purpose to see those
+modellings of yours, my boy."
+
+The boy started as one surprised. His cheek flushed, and he looked at
+the speaker with incredulity yet hope in his eyes.
+
+"Yes," said his father, sharply. "Go and put your hands under the pump,
+Jerry; then bring some of 'em down. Maybe, anyway, they'll amuse the
+little lady."
+
+"No, no," said Mr. Herbert. "I'll come with you and see them for myself.
+Lead the way."
+
+Young Leigh did not speak, but his eyes thanked Mr. Herbert. That
+gentleman followed him from the room, leaving the farmer to amuse
+the little maid. He did this so far as he was able by producing a
+well-thumbed copy of the "Pilgrim's Progress," the leaves of which Miss
+Herbert condescended to turn daintily over until she was quite terrified
+by the picture of the combat with Apollyon.
+
+Meanwhile "Jerry," with a beating heart, led Mr. Herbert up-stairs to
+a room destitute of furniture save an old table and chair. A bucket
+half-full of common red clay stood in one corner, and on the table were
+several of the little clay figures which had excited the farmer's ire
+and consternation.
+
+Crude, defective, full of faults as they were, there was enough power in
+them to make Mr. Herbert look at the lad in wonderment, almost envy. He
+was a man who worshipped art; who had dabbled as an amateur in painting
+and sculpturing for years; who considered a gifted artist the most
+fortunate of mankind. So the word envy is not ill-chosen. What he would
+have given half his wealth to possess came to this boy unsought for--to
+the son of a clod of a farmer the precious gift was vouchsafed!
+
+As he would have expected, the most ambitious efforts were the
+worst--the "naked 'ooman" was particularly atrocious--but, still wet,
+and not ruined by an abortive attempt at baking, was a group modelled
+from life; a vulgar subject, representing, as it did, Abraham Leigh's
+prize sow, surrounded by her ten greedy offspring. There was such power
+and talent in this production that, had he seen nothing else, Mr.
+Herbert would have been certain that the lad as a modeller and copyist
+must take the first rank. If, in addition to his manual dexterity, he
+had poetry, feeling, and imagination, it might well be that one of the
+greatest sculptors of the nineteenth century stood in embryo before him.
+
+As Mr. Herbert glanced from the rough clay sketches to the pale boy
+who stood breathless, as one expecting a verdict of life or death, he
+wondered what could have been the cause of such a divergence from the
+traits habitual to the Leighs. Then he remembered that some twenty
+years ago Abraham Leigh had chosen for a wife, not one of his own
+kind, but a dweller in cities--a governess, who exchanged, no doubt, a
+life of penury and servitude for the rough but comfortable home the
+Somersetshire farmer was willing to give her. Mr. Herbert remembered
+her; remembered how utterly out of place the delicate, refined woman
+seemed to be as Leigh's wife; remembered how, a few years after the
+birth of the boy, she sickened and died. It was from the mother's side
+the artistic taste came.
+
+Mr. Herbert, although a kind man, was cautious. He had no intention of
+raising hopes which might be futile. Yet he felt a word of encouragement
+was due to the lad.
+
+"Some of these figures show decided talent," he said. "After seeing
+them, I need scarcely ask you if you wish to be a sculptor?"
+
+Young Leigh clasped his hands together. "Oh, sir!" he gasped. "If it
+could only be!"
+
+"You do not care to be a farmer, like your father?"
+
+"I could never be a farmer, sir. I am not fit for it."
+
+"Yet, if you follow in your father's track, you will lead a comfortable,
+useful life. If you follow art, you may go through years of poverty and
+suffering before success is attained."
+
+The boy raised his head and looked full at the speaker; there was almost
+passionate entreaty in his eyes.
+
+"Oh, sir," he said, "if you would only persuade my father to let me
+try--even for a few years. If I did not succeed I would come back to him
+and work as a laborer for the rest of my life without a murmur."
+
+Mr. Herbert was impressed by the boy's earnestness. "I will speak to
+your father," he said. Then the two went back to the sitting-room, where
+they found Abraham Leigh much exercised by some difficult questions
+propounded by Miss Herbert respecting the nature of Apollyon.
+
+"Take my little girl for a walk round the garden," said Mr. Herbert to
+young Leigh. "I want to speak to your father."
+
+In spite of the great gulf between her and the clay-bespattered boy
+in his shirt sleeves, the little princess was too glad of a change of
+scene to wish to disobey her father. She followed her conductor to the
+back of the house, and the boy and girl stepped out into the autumnal
+sunshine.
+
+The little maid looked so trim and dainty in her neat riding-habit,
+coquettish hat and tiny gloves that his own draggled appearance struck
+the boy forcibly.
+
+"If you will excuse me a minute," he said, "I will run and wash my
+hands."
+
+"Yes; I think it will be better," said Miss Herbert, with dignity.
+
+In a minute or two young Leigh returned. He had found time not only to
+wash the rich red clay from his long, well-shaped fingers, but to slip
+on his coat and generally beautify himself. His improved appearance had
+a great effect upon the child, who, like most of her age, was influenced
+by exteriors.
+
+So Miss Herbert, this little great lady, unbent and allowed "Jerry" to
+lead her round the old-fashioned garden, to the out-houses and pigsties,
+where the obese pigs lay oblivious of what fate had in store for them;
+to the stables; to the dairy, where she condescended to drink a glass of
+new milk, and by the time they had returned to the garden the two were
+as good friends as their different stations in life would permit. Young
+Leigh, who saw in this dainty little maid the incarnation of fairies,
+nymphs, goddesses, and other ideals which, in a dim way, were forming
+themselves in his brain, endeavored, after his first shyness had passed
+away, to show her what beautiful shapes and forms could be found in
+flower, leaf, and tree, and other things in nature. His talk, indeed,
+soared far above her pretty little head, and when they returned to the
+garden he was trying to make her see that those masses of white clouds
+low down in the distance were two bodies of warriors just about to meet
+in deadly fray.
+
+"You are a very, very funny boy," said Miss Herbert, with such an air of
+conviction that he was startled into silence.
+
+"Your name is Jerry, isn't it?" she continued. "Jerry's an ugly name."
+
+"My name is Gerald--Gerald Leigh."
+
+"Oh; Gerald!" Even this child could see the impropriety of a tenant
+farmer having a son named Gerald. No wonder Abraham Leigh addressed his
+boy as Jerry!
+
+"Do you like being a farmer?" she asked.
+
+"I am not going to be a farmer; I don't like it."
+
+"What a pity! Farmers are such a worthy, respectable class of men," said
+the girl, using a stock phrase she had caught up somewhere.
+
+The boy laughed merrily. Mr. Herbert's approbation sat newly upon him,
+and he was only talking to a child; so he said:
+
+"I hope to be worthy and respectable, but a much greater man than a
+farmer."
+
+"Oh! How great? as great as papa?"
+
+"Yes; I hope so."
+
+"That's absurd, you know," said Miss Herbert, with all the outraged
+family pride that thirteen years can feel; and, turning away, she
+switched at the flowers with her riding-whip.
+
+However, a few words from Gerald made them friends once more, and she
+expressed her pleasure that he should pick her one of the few roses
+which remained in the garden.
+
+"Roses are common," said the boy. "Every one gives roses. I will give
+you something prettier."
+
+He went to the sunny side of the house, and soon returned with half a
+dozen pale lavender stars in his hands. They were blossoms of a new sort
+of late clematis, which some one's gardener had given Abraham Leigh.
+Gerald's deft fingers arranged them into a most artistic bouquet, the
+appearance of which was entirely spoilt by Miss Herbert's insistence
+that two or three roses should be added. The bouquet was just finished
+and presented when Mr. Herbert, followed by the farmer, appeared.
+
+Although he said nothing more to young Leigh on the subject which was
+uppermost in the boy's mind, the kindly encouraging look he gave him
+raised the widest hopes in his heart. Mr. Herbert bade the father and
+son a pleasant good-day, and rode off with his little daughter.
+
+Miss Herbert carried the bunch of clematis for about two miles when,
+finding it rather encumbered her, tossed it over a hedge.
+
+Gerald Leigh went back to his attic and commenced about half a dozen
+clay sketches of the prettiest object which as yet had crossed his path.
+For several days he was on thorns to hear what fate had in store for
+him; but fate, personified by his father, made no sign, but went about
+his work stolid and sphinx-like. Mr. Herbert, Gerald learned, had gone
+to London for a few days.
+
+However, before a fortnight had gone by, Abraham Leigh received a letter
+from his landlord, and the same evening, whilst smoking his pipe in the
+farm kitchen, informed his son and his sister that to-morrow he was
+going into Gloucestershire to see if his brother Joseph could spare him
+one of his many boys to take Jerry's place. Jerry was to go to London
+the next day and meet Mr. Herbert. Most likely he'd stay there. 'Twas
+clear as noontide the boy would never make a farmer, and if there were
+fools enough in the world to buy white figures at hundreds of pounds
+apiece, Jerry might as well try to make his living that way as any
+other.
+
+The truth is, Mr. Herbert told Abraham Leigh that if he would not
+consent to pay for his son's art education, he, Mr. Herbert, would
+bear the expense himself. But the monetary part of it troubled the
+substantial farmer little. He could pay for his child's keep if he could
+bring his mind to consent to his going. And now the consent was given.
+
+Gerald heard his father's communication with glowing eyes. For shame's
+sake he hid his joy, for he knew that, with all his stolid demeanor, his
+father almost broke down as he contemplated the diverging paths his son
+and he must henceforward thread. The boy thanked him from his heart, and
+the rough farmer, laying his hand on his child's head, blessed him and
+bade him go and prosper.
+
+In this way Gerald Leigh left Coombe-Acton. At long intervals he
+reappeared for a few days. The worthy villagers eyed him askance; the
+only conception they could form of his profession being connected with
+dark-skinned itinerants who bore double-tiered platforms on their heads,
+and earned a precarious livehood by traversing the country selling
+conventional representations of angels and busts of eminent men.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Some seven years after the ambitious boy left Coombe-Acton, honest
+farmer Abraham, just when the old-fashioned hawthorn hedges were in
+whitest bloom, sickened, turned his stolid face to the wall and died.
+Gerald had been summoned, but arrived too late to see his father alive.
+Perhaps it was as well it should be so, the farmer's last moments were
+troubled ones and full of regret that Watercress Farm would no longer
+know a Leigh. The nephew who had taken Gerald's place had turned out an
+utter failure, so much so that Abraham Leigh had roundly declared that
+he would be bothered with no more boys, and for the last few years had
+managed his business single-handed. However, although Gerald's upheaval
+of family traditions made the farmer's deathbed unhappy, he showed
+that his son had not forfeited his love. All he possessed, some three
+thousand pounds, was left to him. Mr. Herbert took the lease of the farm
+off the young man's hands, by and by the live and the dead stock were
+sold off, and Watercress Farm was waiting for another tenant.
+
+The winding-up of the father's affairs kept Gerald in the neighborhood
+of some weeks, and when it became known that Mr. Herbert had insisted
+upon his taking up his quarters at the hall the simple Coombe-Acton
+folks were stricken with a great wonder. Knowing nothing of what is
+called the "aristocracy of art," their minds were much exercised by such
+an unheard of proceeding. What had "Jerry" Leigh being doing in the last
+seven years to merit such a distinction?
+
+Nothing his agricultural friends could have understood. After picking up
+the rudiments of his art in a well-known sculptor's studio, young Leigh
+had been sent to study in the schools at Paris. Mr. Herbert told him
+that, so far as his art was concerned, Paris was the workshop of the
+world,--Rome its bazaar and showroom. So to Paris the boy went. He
+studied hard and lived frugally. He won certain prizes and medals, and
+was now looking forward to the time when he must strike boldly for fame.
+Even now he was not quite unknown. A couple of modest but very beautiful
+studies in low relief had appeared in last year's exhibition, and, if
+overlooked by the majority, had attracted the notice of a few whose
+praise was well worth winning. He was quite satisfied with the results
+of his first attempt. In all things that concerned his art he was wise
+and patient. No sooner had he placed his foot on the lowest step of the
+ladder than he realized the amount of work to be done--the technical
+skill to be acquired before he could call himself a sculptor. Even
+now, after seven years' study and labor, he had selfdenial enough to
+resolve upon being a pupil for three years longer before he made his
+great effort to place himself by the side of contemporary sculptors.
+Passionate and impulsive as was his true nature, he could follow and woo
+art with that calm persistency and method which seem to be the surest
+way of winning her smiles.
+
+He is now a man--a singularly handsome man. If not so tall as his youth
+promised, he is well built and graceful. Artist is stamped all over
+him. Brow, eyes, even the slender, well-shaped hands, proclaim it. The
+general expression of his face is one of calm and repose; yet an acute
+observer might assert that, when the moment came, that face might depict
+passions stronger than those which sway most men.
+
+His dark hair and eyes, and something in the style of his dress, gave
+him a look not quite that of an Englishman--a look that terribly vexed
+poor Abraham Leigh on those rare occasions when his erratic boy paid him
+a visit; but, nevertheless, it is a look not out of place on a young
+artist.
+
+This is the kind of man Gerald Leigh has grown into; and, whilst his
+transformation has been in progress, Miss Eugenia Herbert has become a
+woman.
+
+Although remembering every feature of the child, who seemed in some way
+associated with the day of his liberation, Gerald had not again seen
+her until his father's death called him back to England. Each time he
+had visited Coombe-Acton he had, of course, reported progress to Mr.
+Herbert; but, shortly after the change in his life, Mr. Herbert by a
+great effort of self-denial, had sent his darling away to school, and at
+school she had always been when Gerald called at the Hall; but now, when
+he accepted Mr. Herbert's hospitality, he found the fairy-like child
+grown, it seemed to him, into his ideal woman, and found, moreover, that
+there was a passion so intense that even the love of art must pale
+before it.
+
+He made no attempt to resist it. He let it master him; overwhelm him;
+sweep him along. Ere a week had gone by, not only by looks, but also in
+burning words, he had told Eugenia he loved her. And how did he fare?
+
+His very audacity and disregard of everything, save that he loved
+the girl, succeeded to a marvel. Eugenia had already met with many
+admirers, but not one like this. Such passionate pleading, such fiery
+love, such vivid eloquence were strange and new to her. There was an
+originality, a freshness, a thoroughness in the love he offered her.
+His very unreasonableness affected her reason. All the wealth of his
+imagination, all the crystallizations of his poetical dreams, he threw
+into his passion. His ecstasy whirled the girl from her mental feet; his
+warmth created an answering warmth; his reckless pleading conquered. She
+forgot obstacles as his eloquence overleaped them; she forgot social
+distinction as his great dark eyes looked into hers, and at last she
+confessed she loved him.
+
+Then Gerald Leigh came down from the clouds and realized what he had
+done, and as soon as he touched the earth and became reasonable Eugenia
+fancied she did not care for him quite so much.
+
+His conscience smote him. Not only must Mr. Herbert be reckoned with,
+but a terrible interval must elapse before he had fame and fortune to
+lay before Eugenia. He could scarcely expect her to leave her luxurious
+home in order to live _au quatrieme_ or _au cinquieme_ in Paris whilst
+he completed his studies. He grew sad and downcast as he thought of
+these things, and Eugenia, who liked pleasant, bright, well-to-do
+people, felt less kindly disposed toward him and showed she did so.
+
+This made him reckless again. He threw the future to the winds,
+recommenced his passionate wooing, recovered his lost ground and gained,
+perhaps, a little more.
+
+But Abraham Leigh's affairs were settled up, and Gerald knew he must
+tear himself from Acton Hall and go back to work. He had lingered a few
+days to finish a bust of Mr. Herbert. This done he had no excuse for
+staying longer.
+
+The summer twilight deepened into night. The sculptor and Miss Herbert
+stood upon the broad and gravelled terrace-walk that runs along the
+stately front of Acton Hall. They leaned upon the gray stone balustrade;
+the girl with musing eye was looking down on shadowy lawn and flower-bed
+underneath; the young man looked at her, and her alone. Silence reigned
+long between them, but at last she spoke.
+
+"You really go to-morrow?"
+
+"Tell me to stay, and I will stay," he said, passionately, "but next
+week--next month--next year, the moment, when it does come, will be just
+as bitter."
+
+She did not urge him. She was silent. He drew very near to her.
+
+"Eugenia," he whispered, "you love me?"
+
+"I think so." Her eyes were still looking over the darkening garden. She
+spoke dreamily, and as one who is not quite certain.
+
+"You think so! Listen! Before we part let me tell you what your love
+means to me. If, when first I asked for it you had scorned me, I could
+have left you unhappy, but still a man. Now it means life or death to
+me. There is no middle course--no question of joy or misery--simply life
+or death! Eugenia, look at me and say you love me!"
+
+His dark eyes charmed and compelled her. "I love you! I love you?" she
+murmured. Her words satisfied him; moreover, she let the hand he grasped
+remain in his, perhaps even returning the pressure of his own. So they
+stood for more than an hour, whilst Gerald talked of the future and the
+fame he meant to win--talked as one who has the fullest confidence in
+his own powers and directing genius.
+
+Presently they saw Mr. Herbert walking through the twilight towards
+them. Gerald's hand tightened on the girl's so as to cause her positive
+pain.
+
+"Remember," he whispered; "life or death! Think of it while we are
+apart. Your love means a man's life or death!"
+
+Many a lover has said an equally extravagant thing, but Eugenia Herbert
+knew that his words were not those of poetical imagery, and as she
+re-entered the house she trembled at the passion she had aroused. What
+if time and opposition should work a change in her feelings? She tried
+to reassure herself by thinking that if she did not love him in the same
+blind, reckless way, at any rate she would never meet another man whom
+she could love as she loved Gerald Leigh.
+
+The sculptor went back to Paris--to his art and his dreams of love and
+fame. Two years slipped by without any event of serious import happening
+to the persons about whom we are concerned. Then came a great change.
+
+Mr. Herbert died so suddenly that neither doctor nor lawyer could be
+summoned in time, either to aid him to live or to carry out his last
+wishes. His will gave Eugenia two thousand pounds and an estate he owned
+in Gloucestershire--everything else to his son. Unfortunately, some
+six months before, he had sold the Gloucestershire property, and, with
+culpable negligence, had not made a fresh will. Therefore, the small
+money bequest was all that his daughter could claim. However, this
+seemed of little moment, as her brother at once announced his intention
+of settling upon her the amount to which she was equitably entitled. He
+had given his solicitors instructions to prepare the deed.
+
+James Herbert, Eugenia's brother, was unmarried, and at present had no
+intention of settling down to the life of a country gentleman. Six weeks
+after Mr. Herbert's death the greater number of the servants were paid
+off, and Acton Hall was practically shut up. Eugenia, after spending
+some weeks with friends in the north of England, came to London to live
+for an indefinite time with her mother's sister, a Mrs. Cathcart.
+
+Since her father's death Gerald Leigh had written to her several
+times--letters full of passionate love and penned as if the writer felt
+sure of her constancy and wish to keep her promise. He, too, was coming
+to London. Had she wished it, he would at once have come to her side;
+but as it was he would take up his quarters in town about the same time
+Eugenia arrived there.
+
+The hour was at hand--the hour to which Miss Herbert had for two years
+looked forward with strangely mingled feelings--when her friends must be
+told that she intended to marry the young, and as yet unknown sculptor,
+Gerald Leigh, the son of her father's late tenant farmer, Abraham.
+
+She loved him still. She felt sure of that much. If time and absence had
+somewhat weakened the spell he had thrown over her proud nature, she
+knew that unless the man was greatly changed the magic of his words
+and looks would sway her as irresistibly as before. She loved him, yet
+rebelled against her fate.
+
+Her father had died ignorant of what had passed between his daughter
+and the young artist. Many a time Eugenia had tried to bring herself to
+confess the truth to him. She now regretted she had not done so. Mr.
+Herbert's approval or disapproval would have been at least a staff by
+which to guide her steps. He had suspected nothing. The few letters
+which passed between the lovers had been unnoticed. Their love was as
+yet a secret known only to themselves.
+
+She loved him, but why had he dared to make her love him? Or, why was
+he not well-born and wealthy? Could she find strength to face, for his
+sake, the scorn of her friends?
+
+She must decide at once. She is sitting and thinking all these things in
+her own room at Mrs. Cathcart's, and in front of her lies a letter in
+which Gerald announces his intention of calling upon her to-morrow. She
+knows that if she receives him she will be bound to proclaim herself his
+affianced wife.
+
+He called. She saw him. Mrs. Cathcart was out, So Eugenia was alone
+when the servant announced Mr. Leigh. She started and turned pale. She
+trembled in every limb as he crossed the room to where she stood. He
+took her hand and looked into her face. He spoke, and his rich musical
+voice thrilled her.
+
+"Eugenia, is it life or death?"
+
+She could not answer. She could not turn her eyes from his. She saw the
+intensity of their expression deepen; saw a fierce yearning look come
+into them, a look which startled her.
+
+"Is it life or death?" he repeated.
+
+His love conquered. "Gerald, it is life," she said.
+
+Drunk with joy, he threw his arms around her and kissed her until the
+blushes dyed her cheeks. He stayed with her as long as she would allow,
+but his delight was too delicious to permit him to say much about his
+plans for the future. When at last she made him leave her, he gave her
+the number of a studio at Chelsea, which he had taken, and she promised
+to write and let him know when he might call again.
+
+They parted. Eugenia walked to the window, and for a long time looked
+out on the gay thoroughfare, now full of carriages going to and
+returning from the park. Of course, she loved Gerald dearly; that was
+now beyond a doubt. But what would she have to go through when the
+engagement was announced? what had she to look forward to as his wife?
+Must love and worldly misery be synonymous?
+
+The current of her thoughts was interrupted by the arrival of another
+visitor--her brother. James Herbert was a tall young man, faultlessly
+dressed, and bearing a general look of what is termed high breeding. He
+bore a likeness to his father, but the likeness was but an outward one.
+By this time he was a cold cynical man of the world. He had not lived
+the best of lives, but, being no fool, had gained experience and
+caution. He was clever enough to study human nature with a view of
+turning his knowledge to account. Eugenia had some pride of birth;
+her brother had, or affected, a great deal more. He was by no means
+unpopular; few men could make themselves more agreeable and fascinating
+than James Herbert when it was worth his while to be so. In his way he
+was fond of his sister; certainly proud of her beauty; and she, who knew
+nothing of his true nature, thought him as perfect as a brother can be.
+
+He kissed her, complimented her on her good looks, then sat down and
+made himself pleasant. She answered his remarks somewhat mechanically,
+wondering all the time what effect her news would have upon him. She
+hated things hanging over her head, and had made up her mind to tell him
+of her intentions, if not to-day the next time she met him.
+
+"The lawyers have almost settled your little matter," he said. "It's
+lucky for you I made up my mind at once; things haven't turned out so
+well as we expected."
+
+She thanked him--not effusively, as if he was doing no more than she had
+a right to expect. Yet the thought flashed across her that before she
+took his bounty she was by honor compelled to make him acquainted with
+what she proposed doing.
+
+"By-the-bye, Eugenia," said Herbert, "you know Ralph Norgate?"
+
+"Yes. He called a day or two ago. I did not see him."
+
+"Well, I expect he'll soon call again. He has been forcing his
+friendship on me lately. In fact--I'd better tell you--his mind is made
+up--you are to be the future Lady Norgate. Now you know what to look
+forward to."
+
+Her face flushed. Her troubles were beginning.
+
+"But, James," she stammered, "I was just going to tell you--I am already
+engaged."
+
+He raised his eyebrows. To express great surprise was against his creed,
+and the idea that Eugenia was capable of disgracing herself did not
+enter his head.
+
+"So much the worse for Norgate," he said. "Who is the happy man?"
+
+"You will be angry, very angry, I fear." She spoke timidly. His manner
+told her she had good grounds for fear. His mouth hardened, but he still
+spoke politely and pleasantly.
+
+"My dear girl, don't discount my displeasure; tell me who it is?"
+
+"His name is Gerald Leigh."
+
+"A pretty name, and one which sounds familiar to me. Now, who is Gerald
+Leigh?"
+
+"He is a sculptor."
+
+"Ah! now I know. Son of that excellent old tenant of my father's. The
+genius he discovered on a dungheap. Eugenia, are you quite mad?"
+
+"He will be a famous man some day."
+
+Herbert shrugged his shoulders in a peculiarly irritating way.
+
+"Let him be as famous as he likes. What does it matter?"
+
+"The proudest family may be proud of allying themselves to a great
+artist."
+
+Herbert looked at his sister with a pitying but amused smile. "My poor
+girl, don't be led astray by the temporary glorification of things
+artistic. When these fellows grow talked about we ask them to our houses
+and make much of them. It's the fashion. But we don't marry them.
+Indeed, as they all begin in the lower ranks of life, like your friend,
+they are generally provided with wives of their own station, who stay at
+home and trouble no one."
+
+She winced under the sting of his scorn. He saw it, and knew he was
+pursuing the right treatment for her disease.
+
+"Now, this young Leigh," he continued. "What will he be for years and
+years? A sort of superior stone-cutter. He will make what living he
+can by going about and doing busts of mayors and mayoresses, and other
+people of that class, who want their common features perpetuated.
+Perhaps he might get a job on a tombstone for a change. Bah! Of course
+you have been jesting with me, Eugenia. I shall tell Norgate to call as
+soon as possible."
+
+"I shall marry Gerald Leigh," said Eugenia, sullenly. All the same the
+busts and tombstones weighed heavily upon her.
+
+"That," said her brother, rising, and still speaking with a smile, "I
+am not the least afraid of, although you are of age and mistress of two
+thousand pounds. You are not cut out to ornament an attic. I need not
+say I must countermand that settlement. It must wait until you marry
+Norgate or some other suitable man."
+
+He kissed her and walked carelessly away. To all appearance the matter
+did not cause him a moment's anxiety. He was a clever man, and flattered
+himself he knew how to treat Eugenia; human nature should be assailed at
+its weakest points.
+
+His carelessness was, of course, assumed; for, meeting Mrs. Cathcart as
+she drove home, Eugenia's news was sufficiently disturbing to make him
+stop the carriage, seat himself beside his aunt, and beg her to take
+another turn in the park, during which he told her what had transpired.
+
+They were fitting coadjutors. Mrs. Cathcart was delighted to hear of Sir
+Ralph's overtures, and was shocked to find that Eugenia was entangled
+in some low attachment. She quite agreed that the girl must be led, not
+driven; must be laughed, not talked, out of her folly. "Girls nearly
+always make fools of themselves once in their lives," said Mr. Cathcart,
+cynically.
+
+"They do," said James Herbert, who knew something about the sex. "All
+the same, Eugenia shall not. Find out all about the fellow, where he
+lives, and all the rest of it. She doesn't know I've told you about
+this. Keep a sharp lookout for any letters."
+
+So the next day, when Eugenia and her aunt were together, the latter, a
+skilled domestic diplomatist, commenced operations by regretting that
+Mr. Herbert, although so fond of statuary, had never employed a sculptor
+to make his own bust. Mrs. Cathcart spoke so naturally that Eugenia fell
+into the trap, and informed her that Mr. Herbert's likeness had been
+taken in clay two years ago by a young sculptor then staying at Acton
+Hall. It had been done for pleasure, not profit, but her father had
+always intended to order a copy in marble. Mrs. Cathcart was delighted.
+Did Eugenia know where the young man could be found?
+
+Eugenia did know. She told her with a tinge of color on her cheeks,
+and took advantage of the opportunity, and perhaps soothed her spirit
+somewhat by expatiating on what a great man her lover was to become.
+Mrs. Cathcart, in return, spoke of geniuses as struggling, poverty
+stricken persons, to befriend whom was the one great wish of her life.
+It was indeed pleasant for Miss Herbert to hear her aunt speak of her
+lover as she might of a hard-working seamstress or deserving laundress.
+She had not yet written to Gerald. She must find strength to throw off
+her brother's scorn and the busts and tombstones before she again met
+her lover.
+
+Sir Ralph Norgate called that morning. He was a man of about forty. Not
+ill-looking, but with the unmistakable appearance of one who had led a
+hard life. He was rich, and of fine old family. It was clear to Mrs.
+Cathcart that he meant business. Eugenia had met him several times last
+year, and it was no news to her that he was her ardent admirer. She was
+very cold towards him to-day, but Mrs. Cathcart did not chide her. She,
+clever woman, knew that men like Norgate value a prize at what it costs
+them to win it. So the baronet came, stayed his appointed time, then
+went away, presumably in fair train to a declaration by and by.
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The next day, whilst driving with her niece, Mrs. Cathcart was seized
+by a sudden thought. "My dear," she said, "let us go and see about that
+bust. Where did you say the sculptor man was to be found? Nelson
+Studios, King's Road. What number?"
+
+"No. 10," said Eugenia, wondering if her aunt's sudden resolve would be
+productive of good or evil.
+
+The carriage went to Nelson Studios; the ladies dismounted, and Mrs.
+Cathcart tapped at the door of No. 10, a studio which, being a
+sculptor's, was of course on the ground-floor.
+
+The door was opened by a handsome young man whose outside garb was a
+ragged old blouse, and whose hands were white with half-dried clay--one
+of those hands, moreover, held a short pipe. Indeed, Gerald Leigh was in
+as unpresentable trim as when years ago he first met Miss Herbert.
+
+He did not at once see the girl. She was behind Mrs. Cathcart, and that
+lady's majestic presence absorbed all his attention. Mrs. Cathcart put
+up her eye-glass.
+
+"Is your master in?" she asked.
+
+Gerald laughed. "I am my own master," he said.
+
+"This is Mr. Leigh, aunt," said Eugenia, coming forward.
+
+"Oh!" said Mrs. Cathcart, and the palpable meaning of that exclamatory
+monosyllable sent the blood to Eugenia's cheek.
+
+Gerald started as he heard the girl's voice and recognized her in the
+shadow. He stretched out his clay-covered hand, then withdrew it and
+laughed. Mrs. Cathcart, who saw the action, put on a look of supreme
+astonishment; then she recovered herself.
+
+"Oh, I forgot," she said to Eugenia. "Of course, you have seen Mr. Leigh
+before. May we come in, Mr. Leigh?"
+
+He moved aside and the ladies entered the studio. He placed his two
+chairs at their disposal. He wondered the while what had brought Eugenia
+to him. He gave her a questioning glance, but her eyes avoided his. Then
+Mrs. Cathcart began. She spoke in that manner which certain persons
+assume towards those whom they are pleased to think their inferiors.
+
+"I believe, some time ago, you made a bust of my late brother-in-law,
+Mr. Herbert, of Coombe-Acton."
+
+Gerald bowed.
+
+"I wish to have a copy of it. Can you make one?"
+
+"Certainly. In marble?"
+
+"In marble, of course. How much will it cost?"
+
+It was a painful experience to Eugenia, to hear her future husband
+talked to by Mrs. Cathcart much as that lady talked to the obliging
+young men and women at the various emporiums which enjoyed her
+patronage.
+
+"Mr. Herbert was my best friend," said Gerald. "My services are at your
+disposal."
+
+"You do not understand me," said Mrs. Cathcart, coldly. "I asked you
+what it would cost."
+
+Gerald colored and glanced at Eugenia. He was utterly puzzled. It could
+only have been through the agency of the girl he loved that this new
+patroness sought him.
+
+"Mr. Leigh was my father's friend, aunt," said Eugenia.
+
+"My dear! Mr. Leigh is not _my_ friend. I want to know his terms for a
+marble bust."
+
+"Eighty pounds, madam," said Gerald, rather shortly.
+
+"Oh, much too much! Eugenia, do you not think such a price
+extortionate?"
+
+Eugenia was silent, but her cheeks burned. Gerald's lip quivered with
+anger. Only Mrs. Cathcart was calm. "I will pay you forty pounds," she
+said, "but then it must be approved by a competent judge."
+
+"You have heard my terms, madam," said Leigh curtly.
+
+"Absurd! I will even say fifty pounds. If you like to take that you may
+call upon me. Good-morning. Come, Eugenia!"
+
+She swept out of the studio. Eugenia followed her. She looked back and
+saw Gerald's face wearing an expression of actual pain. For a moment her
+impulse was to run back, throw her arms round his neck, and defy every
+one. However, she did not yield to it, but followed her aunt to the
+carriage.
+
+"I call that young man a most common, ill-bred person," said Mrs.
+Cathcart.
+
+Eugenia flushed. "He is not," she said hotly. "Your manner towards him
+must have been most mortifying."
+
+"My dear child!" exclaimed Mrs. Cathcart, in innocent surprise, "and I
+was trying to befriend the young man? He presumes on his acquaintance
+with your father. I always told your poor father it was a mistake
+becoming intimate with persons of that class."
+
+Eugenia said no more. If she had thought of so doing it was not the
+moment to open her heart to Mrs. Cathcart. She went to her room
+intending to write to Gerald; but no letter was written that day. How
+could she ask him to call at her aunt's after what had occurred?
+
+"I love him," she said to herself, "but I am not brave enough to give up
+all for him. Oh, why did we ever meet?"
+
+The next morning she received a letter from Gerald. It contained no
+reproach--only an entreaty that she would name a time when he might see
+her. Mrs. Cathcart was true to her duty. Before James Herbert was out of
+bed she had sent him word that a letter had come for Eugenia. He went at
+once to his sister. His greeting was quite friendly.
+
+"Eugenia," he said presently, "of course by now you have put all that
+nonsense about that sculptor-fellow out of your pretty head?"
+
+"It is no nonsense."
+
+"Well, if you mean to be obstinate I must interfere. Have you seen him
+since?"
+
+"Aunt went to his studio. I was with her."
+
+"She ought to have known better. If she encourages you we shall quarrel.
+Do you correspond? Tell me the truth."
+
+She offered him Gerald's letter. He waved it aside as a thing beneath
+his notice.
+
+"Have you answered it?" he asked.
+
+"Not yet. I am just going to."
+
+Her brother still remained calm and polite, with that contemptuous,
+incredulous smile playing round his lips.
+
+"If you will make a fool of yourself, I can't stop you. If you, with
+your beauty and position, choose to go and live in a garret, you must do
+so. Still, as your brother, I have certain responsibilities which would
+still be mine were your lover the highest in the land. I must make
+inquiries as to his character and moral worth--these fellows are
+generally a loose lot."
+
+"You may make what inquiries you choose."
+
+"Thank you. Now one favor--a command, the last I shall ask or give. You
+will not answer this letter--you will not see the man--until I have
+satisfied myself on these points. It is not too much to ask, Eugenia."
+
+She felt the justice of his remarks--could it be she was weak enough to
+be glad of a little delay and breathing space? But Gerald's face, as
+last she saw it, rose before her.
+
+"You must name a time," she said.
+
+"So impatient for true love and social extinction," sneered Herbert.
+"Surely you can restrain yourself until this day week."
+
+It was longer than she had meant. But her brother's bitter sneers
+settled it. "So be it," she said, "until this day week."
+
+The promise given James Herbert dismissed the matter, but he filled up
+the next half-hour with the very cream of society gossip, which was
+undoubtedly as palatable to Eugenia as it would have been to any other
+woman. James Herbert lived within the inner circle, and as to-day, for
+purposes of his own, he spoke to Eugenia as if she were one of the
+initiated; his conversation was not without charm.
+
+He was clever to know when to trust. He had not the slightest fear that
+Eugenia would break her promise. So he cautioned Mrs. Cathcart to keep
+the little fool well within sight, and thus avoid danger of a chance
+meeting; to order the servants to refuse the sculptor admission if
+he ventured to call--and above all to be sure that Norgate had every
+opportunity of pressing his suit. After this he waited calmly, and did
+nothing more in the matter for six whole days.
+
+Days during which Gerald Leigh chafed and fretted. He refused to doubt,
+but his heart grew heavy within him. He felt sure that Mrs. Cathcart's
+visit boded no good. At last he could bear the suspense no longer. He
+called and asked for Eugenia. She was out. He called again--the same
+result. He went back to his studio and tried to conquer his growing
+uneasiness by hard work. One morning a gentleman called and introduced
+himself as James Herbert.
+
+Gerald received him courteously. Herbert was suave, smiling and bland.
+He spoke of the interest he felt in the young sculptor for his father,
+Mr. Herbert's sake. He admired some embryo designs, and wished and
+prophesied all success. Then, as Gerald began to hope that Eugenia's
+brother might some day be his friend, he turned upon him and tore him to
+pieces.
+
+"But, after all, Mr. Leigh, my great object in calling concerns my
+sister."
+
+Gerald grew very pale.
+
+"She is a good girl, but weak. She has confessed to me that some sort of
+romantic nonsense had passed between you."
+
+"She has vowed to be my wife--no more, no less."
+
+His impetuosity seemed to amuse Herbert. "I am afraid such a thing
+is an impossibility," he said serenely. "I shall not insult you by
+telling you she is all but penniless--geniuses, I know, never think of
+money--but I fear I must pain you by saying she repents of her hasty
+words."
+
+"That," said Gerald slowly, yet fiercely, "is a lie."
+
+"My good sir, I cannot allow you to use such words. My temper is fair,
+but it has its limits."
+
+"I apologize," said Gerald sullenly. "I should have said you were
+coercing her."
+
+"I never coerced any one in my life; much less my sister. Naturally, I
+shall object to her marriage with you; but that makes no difference."
+
+"Tell me what you have to tell," said Gerald nervously. He hated and
+feared this smooth, smiling man.
+
+"In a few words, then, my sister is unhappy and unsettled. For several
+days she has been trying to answer a letter you sent her. At last she
+confided all to me. I am sure I am not going too far when I say she
+would be glad to think that all boy and girl promises between you were
+forgotten."
+
+"She sent you to tell me this?" asked Gerald hoarsely.
+
+"No. She knew I was coming. I am putting her thoughts in my own words."
+
+"I don't expect you to understand what my love for your sister means;
+you could not," said Gerald. "But you know she has vowed to be my wife."
+
+"Yes; and will keep her promise if you insist upon it." The emphasis
+Herbert laid on insist made Gerald's heart sick.
+
+He said nothing; but, with a strange smile on his white face, he went
+to a table and wrote a few words. He handed the paper to his visitor.
+"Read," he said; "you say you are her messenger; now you can be mine."
+The words were:
+
+"Eugenia: If this is unanswered I shall believe you wish to recall
+everything that has passed between us."
+
+"Thank you," said Herbert. "This is all I could expect."
+
+With trembling hands the sculptor placed the paper in an envelope, and
+once more tendered it to Herbert.
+
+"No, thank you," said Herbert. "People have been tempted to suppress
+letters before now. Post it in the ordinary way."
+
+Gerald left the room. He returned in a few moments, and Herbert knew
+that the letter had been posted. He had nothing further to do with
+Gerald, so held out his hand affably.
+
+"No," said Gerald, "I would rather not." His eyes were gleaming
+strangely.
+
+"As you will," said Herbert with indifference.
+
+"I will change my mind," said Gerald in a low voice, and taking the
+other's hand; "condemned people always shake hands with the hangman,
+I think."
+
+He spoke with a ghastly attempt at mirth. Herbert left the studio
+without another word, but, as he drove to Mrs. Cathcart's, said to
+himself, "The sooner that beggar shoots or hangs himself the better."
+
+He went straight to his sister. He placed his hand on her shoulder,
+and, with a look she had never yet seen on his face, said in a cold,
+contemptuous manner:
+
+"Eugenia, I have been taking some trouble on your behalf. To-day two
+things are going to happen which will settle your future. Norgate will
+be here presently and ask you to be his wife. By the next post you will
+get a letter from that stone-cutter. Before you answer it, shut yourself
+up and think until you are in a proper frame of mind. Women are fools,
+but surely you can't be the biggest among them."
+
+"You have seen him?" asked Eugenia faintly.
+
+"Yes. An extremely nice young man--in his place."
+
+"Was he well?"
+
+"Very well, and very comfortable. My dear girl, he quite won my
+respect--a thoroughly practical young man, with lots of common-sense.
+Now good-bye. Don't make any mistake."
+
+Did she hear aright? Her brother found Gerald a thoroughly practical
+young man! The lie was so gigantic that it seemed impossible it could be
+all a lie. She was revolving it in her mind even when Sir Ralph Norgate
+was announced.
+
+As for the practical young man, he had locked his door, and thrown
+himself on the ground. James Herbert's words had impressed him, and
+perhaps his faith in Eugenia's faith was not so great as he fancied.
+To-morrow he would know the verdict. He felt sure that if his letter
+remained unanswered for twenty-four hours James Herbert had spoken the
+truth.
+
+Miss Herbert found her brother a true prophet. Sir Ralph Norgate offered
+his hand, and when the offer was refused, told her he did not mean to
+accept her answer as final. She did not, on her part, say anything about
+her love being given elsewhere. Then Gerald's letter came, and following
+her brother's advice she did think everything over; she sat for hours
+trying to nerve herself to answer the letter as love and faith
+demanded.
+
+She loved him. Had he been present her indecision would soon have
+vanished; but, as it was, she could reflect fully on what an answer to
+his letter must mean--alienation of all her friends--an end of social
+ambition--many years, if not a life, of poverty. Eugenia shuddered as
+she thought of the consequences, and wished that she and Gerald had
+never met. She wished moreover, that the temptations of rank and wealth
+held out by her other suitor were less.
+
+What would Gerald do if his letter was not answered? If she could but
+persuade herself that her brother's estimate of his character was the
+right one! Possibly it might be; James knew mankind well. If she could
+but think so--could believe that Gerald would forget--she might then
+find it easier to be wise, and, by taking him at his word, save herself
+and perhaps him from what must insure unhappiness.
+
+So she reasoned--so she excused her half-meditated treason--so she
+persuaded herself it would eventually be better for both if they parted.
+Yet all the while she knew she loved Gerald Leigh as she could love no
+other man. In this mental conflict the day passed and night found the
+letter unanswered. Then James Herbert came to her.
+
+"Eugenia, have you replied to that letter?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"Give it to me," he said.
+
+She did so. It was a relief to get rid of it. He tore it into fragments.
+
+"There," he said. "I knew I could trust your good sense. There is an
+end of the affair. It is a secret between you and me, and I shall never
+again allude to it."
+
+For good or ill the die was cast. She had freed herself. But she had
+left the room with swimming eyes, and went to Mrs. Cathcart.
+
+"Aunt," she cried, "will you take me abroad--for a long time?"
+
+It was hard for Mrs. Cathcart to be called upon to give up the rest of
+the London season. But then Mr. Herbert's recent death prevented her
+going out much, and it was paramount that Eugenia's future should be
+satisfactorily disposed of. So the excellent woman sacrificed herself at
+once.
+
+"I will take you abroad, Eugenia, if you will promise to be Sir Ralph's
+wife."
+
+Eugenia had chosen her own path, and knew where it would lead; yet for
+very shame she would not show her thoughts to others.
+
+"I can promise nothing," she said. "Take me away."
+
+Three days afterward, Gerald Leigh learned that Eugenia had gone abroad
+with her aunt.
+
+Although in his studio all day long, the sculptor did no work for
+weeks; at last he aroused himself, engaged a model and set to work with
+feverish energy. From morn to night he thumbed and pushed about the
+ductile clay. He laughed in a sort of bitter triumph. His hands had not
+lost their cunning. The work grew and grew apace until the clay was done
+with, and a fair white block of marble stood in the centre of the studio
+waiting to be hewn into the statue which was to be Gerald Leigh's first
+high bid for fame.
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+It was early in May. The Academy had been open about a week, long enough
+for the newspaper critics to tell the public what it ought to admire.
+Strange to say, this year the critics were unanimous in bestowing their
+highest praises on a piece of statuary, and a great future for the
+sculptor was predicted.
+
+No. 1460 in the catalogue appealed to no one by cheap sentiment or
+sensational treatment. It was but the lightly-draped figure of a
+beautiful girl; one in the first flush of womanhood. She was in the act
+of stepping hastily forward. Her arms were extended as if to welcome,
+perhaps embrace, some one who was coming towards her. Her face bore a
+smile of eager delight. The grace, the likeness, the life of the figure
+arrested each passer by. The fall of the drapery, the position of each
+well-rounded limb, conveyed the idea of rapid motion. It was indeed hard
+to believe that she was doomed to remain forever in one fixed attitude.
+The stock remark of the spectators was that in a minute they expected to
+see her at the other side of the room.
+
+This statute bore no distinguishing title, but those persons who turned
+to their catalogues found, under the number and the artist's name, a few
+words of poetry:
+
+        "Her hands outstretched
+    To greet the new love; whilst her feet
+    Tread, scornful, on the old love's gifts."
+
+After reading this one turned, of course, to her feet, and found that
+one of them was treading on flowers--roses and large star-shaped
+blossoms.
+
+Several people, whilst admiring the statue, fancied they had somewhere
+seen the original of that beautiful face; but, save the sculptor, only
+one, James Herbert, knew the truth. He cursed Leigh's impertinence, but
+was too wise to take any notice of it. Yet he determined to keep Eugenia
+from the Academy, if possible.
+
+She was in town, and in a week's time was to be married to Sir Ralph.
+Two months after Mrs. Cathcart had taken her niece abroad, the baronet
+joined them, and renewed his proposals; this time with success. The girl
+stipulated that the marriage should not take place until the spring.
+The truth is she wanted some months' delay in order to get rid of the
+memories of Gerald Leigh, and by the time she returned to England
+flattered herself she had successfully completed the operation.
+
+She had in the last few days heard some talk about the statue, but
+had steadfastly kept her eyes from the art criticisms, fearing to see
+Gerald's name. Nevertheless, she wished to visit the Academy, and was
+surprised when James Herbert, now amiability itself, refused to take her
+there.
+
+"You mustn't go this year," he said; "that fellow's statute is creating
+quite a furore."
+
+"Well, what of that!" asked Eugenia, coldly.
+
+"He has had bad taste enough to represent you. The likeness is
+unmistakable. It is a maudlin thing--a girl deserting her old love, or
+some such nonsense. Still, you'd better not go."
+
+Eugenia said no more, but all day long she was thinking of her
+brother's words, and longing to see what Gerald had wrought. That
+evening she dined out. At the table were several persons who worshipped
+art, and Eugenia's cheek burned as she heard the praise bestowed on the
+new sculptor and the great future prophesied for him. Had she, after
+all, been wrong? Would it not have been better to have followed the
+mandates of her heart? Had she not been weak and mercenary? No matter;
+it was too late now to repent. Poor Gerald! She must see this wonderful
+image of herself.
+
+Early next morning she went alone to Burlington House. Unlike others,
+she knew the meaning of the statue, knew the mute reproach it conveyed,
+knew why the marble foot trod down those particular flowers. She had
+never told him the fate of his boyish gift; but Gerald had often and
+often recalled his first meeting with her. Eugenia's heart swelled as
+she remembered his brave words and confidence in himself--how sure he
+felt of success. He had, indeed, succeeded, but the first great work
+from his hands was a memento of his love for a faithless woman--herself.
+
+Two gentlemen were at her side. They were talking of the work and the
+sculptor. One of them she knew. He was a lord, famous for his love of
+art and encouragement of rising artists.
+
+"I tried to buy it," he said, "but found it was not for sale."
+
+"Commercially speaking," said his companion, "it is as well you cannot
+buy it."
+
+"Why? The man must go to the top of his profession."
+
+"I think not. Indeed, my belief is he will do little more. I have
+inquired about him. He does not live the life a genius must live in
+these days if he wants to succeed."
+
+"I am sorry to hear it," said Lord ----, moving away.
+
+Miss Herbert left the Academy with an echo of Gerald's extravagant
+statement that life or death hung upon her love sounding in her ears.
+The conversation she had overheard distressed her greatly. The thought
+that her treachery had ruined a life full of promise would not be
+dismissed. She spent a most miserable day, and its misery was not
+diminished by the truth, which she could no longer conceal from herself,
+that she still loved Gerald. She loved him more than ever. Too late! too
+late! And Eugenia Herbert wept, as many others have wept, that the past
+could not be undone.
+
+Sir Ralph Norgate and James Herbert dined that evening at Mrs.
+Cathcart's. Their society was little comfort to Eugenia. She felt now
+that she hated her lover--hated his polite, hollow society ways and
+expressions--hated that _blasé_ look which so often settled on his face.
+She had never cared for him. Their love-making had been of a frigid
+kind--not, be it said, by Sir Ralph's wish. He was proud of, and perhaps
+really fond of, the beautiful girl he had bought; so it was scarcely
+fair that Eugenia should compare his polite wooing with that of the
+impassioned boy's, which recked no obstacles--heeded no consequences.
+
+Her bitter thoughts made it impossible for her to sit out the dinner.
+Very soon she pleaded headache and went to her own room to resume her
+self-revilings. She made no further attempt to banish Gerald from
+her thoughts. She lived again every moment she had spent in his
+company--heard again every word of wild love--felt his hand close on
+hers--his lips press her own--and shuddered as the dismal words "Life or
+death," seemed echoing through her ears. If she could but undo the past!
+
+Why not! The thought rushed through her. What hindered her save the
+false gods to whom she had bent? She was still legally free. Gerald
+was in the same town. Why should she heed her friends? Why trouble as
+to what people would think or say? By one bold step she could right
+everything. If to-morrow--nay, this very hour--she went to Gerald and
+bade him take her and hold her against all, she knew he would do so. He
+would forgive. To him her action would not seem bold or unmaidenly. In
+his eyes she would rank as high as ever; and what mattered the rest?
+To-morrow they might be miles away, and the bliss of being Gerald's wife
+might well compensate for what people would say about her conduct. She
+herself could forget all, save that she was now bound forever to the man
+she loved!
+
+She would do it. With feverish impatience she threw off her rich dress
+and wrapped herself in a plain cloak. She put on the quietest hat she
+could find, stole down stairs, and was out of the house before second
+thoughts had time to bring irresolution. Her heart beat wildly. She
+hailed a cab and was driven to Nelson Studios. On the way she remembered
+it was an unlikely hour to find an artist in his studio, but,
+nevertheless, now she had set out, resolved to complete her journey.
+
+She walked quickly to Gerald's door. She knocked softly, but met
+with no response. She dared not wait longer outside. The pictured
+consequences of her rash act were assuming tremendous proportions in
+her brain. Another minute's delay and she must leave the spot never to
+return. She turned the handle of the door and entered the room.
+
+Now, Miss Herbert's half-formed plan of action when she found herself
+face to face with her ill-treated lover, had been something like
+this--she would walk up to him and simply say, "Gerald, I am come." The
+rest must be left to him, but she believed, in spite of her weakness and
+treachery, he would freely forgive her all.
+
+Gerald was not in the studio. The gas was half-turned down, and the clay
+casts on the wall looked grim and spectral. But, if Gerald was not in
+the room it was still inhabited. On a low couch--a couch covered by a
+rich Oriental rug--lay a woman, fast asleep.
+
+She crept across the room and gazed on the sleeper. Even by the dim
+gas-light she knew that she gazed on beauty before which her own must
+pale. The woman might have been some five years older than herself, and
+those wonderful charms were at their zenith. The rich, clear, warm color
+on the cheek, the long black lashes, the arched and perfect eyebrows,
+told of Southern lands. The full, voluptuous figure, the shapely,
+rounded arms, the red lips, the soft creamy neck--before these the heart
+of man would run as wax before a fire. Eugenia, seeking her lover, found
+this woman in her stead.
+
+A bitter, scornful smile played on Miss Herbert's lips as she gazed at
+the sleeper. Somehow that oval, sunny face seemed familiar to her. Well
+might it be. In London, Paris, everywhere, she had seen it in the shop
+windows. There were few people in France or England who had not heard
+the name of Mlle. Carlotta, singer, dancer, darling of opera-bouffe,
+whose adventures and amours were notorious, who had ruined more men than
+she could count on the fingers of her fair hands.
+
+Eugenia recognized her, and her smile of scorn deepened. The sight of
+a half-emptied champagne bottle close to the sleeper, a half-smoked
+cigarette lying on the floor just as it had fallen from her fingers,
+added nothing to the contempt Miss Herbert's smile expressed. Gathering
+her skirts together to avoid any chance of contamination by touch, she
+was preparing to leave the studio as noiselessly as she had entered it,
+when suddenly the sleeper awoke.
+
+Awoke without any warning. Simply opened her splendid dark eyes, stared
+for half a second, then, with wonderful lightness and agility, sprang to
+her feet.
+
+"_Que faites vous la?_ Why are you here?" she cried.
+
+Without a word Eugenia moved towards the door. Mlle. Carlotta was before
+her. She turned the key and placed her back against the door.
+
+"_Doucement! doucement! ma belle_," she said. "Permit me to know who
+honors me with a visit?"
+
+"I wished to see Mr. Leigh. I suppose he is out. Be good enough to let
+me pass."
+
+"Are you a model, then? But no; models look not as you look."
+
+"I am not a model."
+
+"Not! _fi donc!_ You are, perhaps, one of those young misses who write
+Geraldo letters of love. _A la bonne heure!_ I wish to see one of
+them--_moi_."
+
+With a saucy smile Carlotta pocketed the key, turned up the gas, and
+commenced a cool scrutiny of her prisoner. Eugenia blushed crimson.
+
+"_Qui vous etes belle, ma chere--belle mais blonde_, and Geraldo, he
+loves not the blonde."
+
+"Let me pass!" said Eugenia, stamping her foot.
+
+Her tormentor laughed, but not ill-temperedly.
+
+"He will soon be here," she said mockingly. "Surely Mademoiselle will
+wait. He will be enchanted to see one of the young misses."
+
+Mlle. Carlotta, when not injured, was not vindictive or unkindly; but
+she was as mischievous as a monkey. No doubt, having teased the girl to
+her satisfaction, she would have soon released her, but it happened that
+Eugenia turned her head, and for the first time the light shone full
+upon her face. Her gaoler started. She sprang towards her, seized her
+arm and dragged her across the room. Still holding her captive, she tore
+down a sheet and revealed the clay model of the statue which had made
+Gerald famous. She looked from the lifeless to the living face then
+burst into a peal of derisive laughter. Eugenia's secret was discovered.
+
+"Ha! ha! ha! The young miss that Geraldo loved. The one who threw him
+away for a rich lover! Yet, she wishes to see him again--so at night she
+comes. Ah, Mademoiselle, you have w-r-r-recked him, c-r-r-rushed him,
+r-r-ruined him, still would see him. Good; good! it is now his turn. My
+Gerald shall have revenge--revenge!"
+
+Eugenia, thoroughly aroused, commanded her to let her go. Carlotta
+laughed in her face, was even ill-bred enough to snap her fingers and
+poke out her tongue at her prisoner. Eugenia humbled herself, and
+implored her by their common womanhood. Carlotta laughed the louder.
+Eugenia appealed to her venality, and tried to bribe her. Carlotta
+lowered her black eyebrows and scowled, but laughed louder than ever.
+"He will come very soon," was all she said. "He will not stop long away
+from me--Carlotta."
+
+Miss Herbert was at her wit's end. Yet, even through the shame of the
+situation, the anguish of her heart made itself felt. After having
+wrought herself up to make such a sacrifice, such an atonement, it was
+pitiable to find Gerald no better than the rest of his sex! She sat upon
+a chair longing for release, yet dreading to hear the step which would
+herald it.
+
+Half an hour passed. Mlle. Carlotta whiled it away by emptying a glass
+of champagne, smoking a cigarette, and making comments upon Gerald's
+prolonged absence. Presently she cried, "Ah, Mademoiselle, this is dull
+for you; see, I will dance to you," and therewith she raised herself on
+her toes and went pirouetting round her captive, humming the while
+an air of Offenbach's. Her dress was long, but she managed it with
+marvellous skill, and Eugenia, whilst loathing, could not help watching
+her with a sort of fascination. She was as agile as a panther; every
+attitude was full of grace, every gesture alluring.
+
+Suddenly she stopped short. Her great eyes sparkled even more brightly.
+She glanced at her victim. "Hist!" she said. "I hear him. I know his
+step. He comes!"
+
+A moment afterwards the door was tried. Eugenia covered her face with
+her hands. She knew not what the woman meant to do or say, but she felt
+that her crowning shame was at hand. Yet her heart beat at the thought
+of seeing Gerald once more, and a wild idea of forgiveness on either
+side passed through her.
+
+Mlle. Carlotta turned down the gas, unlocked the door, and, as it
+opened, threw herself into the arms of the new-comer. Eugenia heard the
+sound of kisses given and returned, and her heart grew like stone.
+
+"Geraldo, _mon ami_," she heard the dancer say in passionate tones,
+"_dis moi, que tu m'aimes--que tu m'aimes toujours!_"
+
+"_Je t'adore ma belle--tu es ravissante!_"
+
+"Tell me in your own dear barbarous tongue. Swear it to me in English."
+
+"I swear it, my beautiful gipsy. I love you."
+
+"Me only?"
+
+"You only;" and Eugenia heard him kiss her again and again.
+
+"Dis done, my Geraldo. You love me more than the pale-faced miss who
+scorned you?" He laughed a wild, unpleasant sounding laugh.
+
+"Why not? You can love or say you can love. She was the changeable white
+moon; you are the glorious Southern sun. She was ice; you are fire.
+Better be burnt to death than die of cold and starvation. Men have
+worshipped you--men have died for you. I love you."
+
+They came into the room. His arm was round her. Her radiant face rested
+on his shoulder. Again and again he kissed those beautiful lips. His
+eyes were only for her and saw not Eugenia.
+
+Miss Herbert rose. Her face was as white as her marble prototype's. She
+might have passed out unobserved by Gerald, but Mlle. Carlotta was on
+the watch. She pointed to her, and Gerald turned and saw Eugenia.
+
+He had but time to realize it was no vision--then she was gone. With a
+wild cry he turned to follow her, but the woman twined her arms around
+him and restrained him. She was strong, and for some moments detained
+him. Her resistance maddened him. With a fierce oath he grasped her
+round arms and tore them from his neck, throwing her away with such
+force that she fell upon the floor. Then he rushed after Eugenia.
+
+She was walking swiftly along the road. He soon reached her side; but,
+although aware of his presence, she neither spoke nor looked at him.
+
+"What brought you here?" he said hoarsely.
+
+She made no reply--only walked the faster.
+
+"Tell me why you came?" he said. "I will never leave you until you
+answer me."
+
+She turned and looked at him. Fresh from that scene in the studio--with
+those words still ringing in her ears--even the great change she saw in
+his face did not move her to pity.
+
+"I came," she said, "on the eve of my marriage, to ask forgiveness of a
+man whom I fancied I had wronged. I am glad I came. I found him happy,
+and in society after his own heart."
+
+Her voice was cold and contemptuous. He quivered beneath her scorn. At
+that moment a cab passed. Eugenia called it.
+
+"Leave me!" she said to Gerald. "Leave me! Our paths in life shall cross
+no more."
+
+He grasped her wrist. "Do you dare to reproach me? You! Eugenia, I told
+you it was life or death."
+
+"Life or death!" she repeated. "Death, at any rate, seems made very
+sweet to you."
+
+Still holding her wrist, he looked into her eyes in a strange, hopeless
+way. He saw nothing in them to help him. He leaned down to her ear.
+
+"Yes, death," he said in a solemn whisper; "but the moral and spiritual
+death comes first."
+
+His hand left her wrist. He turned, and without a word strode away.
+Whither? Even as Tannhauser returned to the Venusberg, so Gerald Leigh
+returned to his studio and Carlotta.
+
+Eugenia wept all the way home. Wept for herself and Gerald. Wept for
+the shame she had endured. Wept for the uselessness of the contemplated
+atonement. Wept for the life before her, and for a man's future and
+career wrecked by her weakness.
+
+The next week she married Sir Ralph Norgate. The ceremony was surrounded
+by befitting splendor. Yet, even at the alter, Gerald Leigh's pale
+passionate face rose before her, and she knew it would never leave her
+thoughts. She loved him still!
+
+On her wedding morning she received many letters. She had no time to
+read them, so took them with her, and perused them as she went north
+with her husband. Among them was one in a strange handwriting; it ran
+thus:
+
+"For your sake he struck me--Carlotta! But he came back to me and is
+mine again. Him I forgive; not you. We go abroad together to warm, sunny
+lands. Some day we shall quarrel and part. Then I shall remember you
+and take my revenge. How? That husband, for whom you deserted Gerald, I
+shall take from you."
+
+Eugenia's lip curled. She tore the letter and threw the pieces out of
+the carriage window.
+
+Two years afterwards Lady Norgate was listlessly turning the leaves of
+a society journal. Although she was a great and fashionable lady she
+was often listless, and found life rather a dreary proceeding. She
+read to-day, among the theatrical notes, that Mlle. Carlotta, the
+divine opera bouffe actress, was engaged to appear next month at the
+"Frivolity." Although the woman's absurd threat was unheeded, if not
+forgotten, her name recalled too vividly the most painful episode in
+Lady Norgate's life. She turned to another part of the paper and
+read that the gentleman who committed suicide under such distressing
+circumstances, at Monaco, had now been identified. He was Mr. Gerald
+Leigh, the sculptor, whose first important work attracted so much
+attention two years ago. It was hinted that his passion for a well-known
+actress was the cause of the rash deed.
+
+Lady Norgate dropped the paper, and covered her face with her hands. He
+had spoken truly. Her love meant life or death!
+
+Had she believed, or troubled about the concluding paragraph of the
+notice, had she ventured to tell herself it was true that Gerald had
+forgotten her, and Carlotta was responsible for his death, her mind
+would soon have been set at rest.
+
+Like a courteous foe who gives fair warning, Mlle. Carlotta wrote once
+more:
+
+"He is dead. He died for your sake, not mine. Your name, not mine, was
+on his lips. Look to yourself. I am coming to London."
+
+No doubt Carlotta meant this letter as a first blow towards revenge.
+She would hardly have written it had she known that Lady Norgate would
+cherish those words forever. Poor comfort as it was, they told her that
+Gerald had loved her to the last.
+
+Then Mlle. Carlotta, more beautiful, more enticing, more audacious than
+ever, came to London.
+
+For some months it had been whispered in society that Sir Ralph Norgate
+was not so perfect a husband as such a wife as Eugenia might rightly
+expect. After Carlotta's reappearance the whispers grew louder, the
+statements more circumstantial. Eugenia caught an echo of them and
+smiled disdainfully.
+
+Then the name of Carlotta's new victim became town-talk. Yet Eugenia
+made no sign.
+
+Not even when she met her husband, in broad daylight, seated side by
+side with the siren. The man had the grace to turn his head away, but
+Carlotta shot a glance of malicious triumph at the pale lady who passed
+without a quiver of the lip. James Herbert was with his sister, and
+found this encounter too much even for his cynicism. He was bound to
+speak.
+
+"The blackguard!" he said. "But Eugenia, I don't think I would have a
+divorce or a separation. It makes such a scandal."
+
+"It is a matter of perfect indifference to me," she said coldly.
+
+She spoke the truth. Carlotta's romantic vengeance was an utter failure.
+Lady Norgate and her husband were, in truth, no farther apart than they
+had been for many months. Eugenia was indifferent.
+
+And, as time goes on, grows more and more so. Indifferent to wealth,
+indifferent to rank, to pleasure, even to pain. She cherishes nothing,
+cares for nothing, save the remembrance that she was once loved by
+Gerald Leigh--that he bade her give him life or death--that although she
+gave him death, he died with her name on his lips!
+
+
+
+
+CARRISTON'S GIFT.
+
+PART I.
+
+_TOLD BY PHILIP BRAND, M.D., LONDON._
+
+
+I.
+
+I wish I had the courage to begin this tale by turning to my
+professional visiting books, and, taking at random any month out of the
+last twenty years, give its record as a fair sample of my ordinary work.
+The dismal extract would tell you what a doctor's--I suppose I may say
+a successful doctor's--lot is, when his practice lies in a poor and
+densely-populated district of London. Dreary as such a beginning might
+be, it would perhaps allay some of the incredulity which this tale may
+probably provoke, as it would plainly show how little room there is for
+things imaginative or romantic in work so hard as mine, or among such
+grim realities of poverty, pain, and grief as those by which I have been
+surrounded. It would certainly make it appear extremely unlikely that
+I should have found time to imagine, much less to write, a romance or
+melodrama.
+
+The truth is that when a man has toiled from nine o'clock in the
+morning until nine o'clock at night, such leisure as he can enjoy is
+precious to him, especially when even that short respite is liable to
+be broken in upon at any moment.
+
+Still, in spite of the doleful picture I have drawn of what may be
+called "the daily grind," I begin this tale with the account of a
+holiday.
+
+In the autumn of 1864 I turned my back with right good-will upon London
+streets, hospitals, and patients, and took my seat in the North Express.
+The first revolution of the wheels sent a thrill of delight through my
+jaded frame. A joyful sense of freedom came over me. I had really got
+away at last! Moreover, I had left no address behind me, so for three
+blessed weeks might roam an undisputed lord of myself. Three weeks were
+not very many to take out of the fifty-two, but they were all I could
+venture to give myself; for even at that time my practice, if not so
+lucrative as I could wish, was a large and increasing one. Having done
+a twelvemonth's hard work, I felt that no one in the kingdom could
+take his holiday with a conscience clearer than mine, so I lay back in
+a peculiarly contented frame of mind, and discounted the coming
+pleasures of my brief respite from labor.
+
+There are many ways of passing a holiday--many places at which it may be
+spent; but after all, if you wish to enjoy it thoroughly there is but
+one royal rule to be followed. That is, simply to please yourself--go
+where you like, and mount the innocent holiday hobby which is dearest
+to your heart, let its name be botany, geology, entomology, conchology,
+venery, piscation, or what not. Then you will be happy, and return well
+braced up for the battle of life. I knew a city clerk with literary
+tastes, who invariably spent his annual fortnight among the mustiest
+tomes of the British Museum, and averred that his health was more
+benefited by so doing than if he had passed the time inhaling the
+freshest sea-breezes. I dare say he was right in his assertion.
+
+Sketching has always been my favorite holiday pursuit. Poor as my
+drawings may be, nevertheless, as I turn them over in my portfolio, they
+bring to me at least vivid remembrances of many sweet and picturesque
+spots, happy days, and congenial companions. It was not for me to say
+anything of their actual merits, but they are dear to me for their
+associations.
+
+This particular year I went to North Wales, and made Bettws-y-Coed my
+headquarters. I stayed at the Royal Oak, that well-known little inn dear
+to many an artist's heart, and teeming with reminiscences of famous men
+who have sojourned there times without number. It was here I made the
+acquaintance of the man with whose life the curious events here told are
+connected.
+
+On the first day after my arrival at Bettws my appreciation of my
+liberty was so thorough, my appetite for the enjoyment of the beauties
+of nature so keen and insatiable, that I went so far and saw so much,
+that when I returned to the Royal Oak night had fallen and the hour of
+dinner had long passed by. I was, when my own meal was placed on the
+table, the only occupant of the coffee-room. Just then a young man
+entered, and ordered something to eat. The waiter knowing no doubt
+something of the frank _camaraderie_ which exists, or should exist,
+between the followers of the painter's craft, laid his cover at my
+table. The new-comer seated himself, gave me a pleasant smile and a
+nod, and in five minutes we were in full swing of conversation.
+
+The moment my eyes fell upon the young man I had noticed how singularly
+handsome he was. Charles Carriston--for this I found afterwards to
+be his name--was about twenty-two years of age. He was tall, but
+slightly built; his whole bearing and figure being remarkably elegant
+and graceful. He looked even more than gentlemanly,--he looked
+distinguished. His face was pale, its features well-cut, straight, and
+regular. His forehead spoke of high intellectual qualities, and there
+was somewhat of that development over the eye-brows which phrenologists,
+I believe, consider as evidence of the possession of imagination. The
+general expression of his face was one of sadness, and its refined
+beauty was heightened by a pair of soft, dark, dreamy-looking eyes.
+
+It only remains to add that, from his attire, I judged him to be an
+artist--a professional artist--to the backbone. In the course of
+conversation I told him how I had classified him. He smiled.
+
+"I am only an amateur," he said; "an idle man, nothing more--and you?"
+
+"Alas! I am a doctor."
+
+"Then we shall not have to answer to each other for our sins in
+painting."
+
+We talked on pleasantly until our bodily wants were satisfied. Then came
+that pleasant craving for tobacco, which after a good meal, is natural
+to a well-regulated digestion.
+
+"Shall we go and smoke outside?" said Carriston. "The night is
+delicious."
+
+We went out and sat on one of the wooden benches. As my new friend said,
+the night was delicious. There was scarcely a breath of air moving. The
+stars and the moon shone brightly, and the rush of the not far distant
+stream came to us with a soothing murmur. Near us were three or four
+jovial young artists. They were in merry mood; one of them had that day
+sold a picture to a tourist. We listened to their banter until, most
+likely growing thirsty, they re-entered the inn.
+
+Carriston had said little since we had been out of doors. He smoked
+his cigar placidly and gazed up at the skies. With the white moonlight
+falling on his strikingly-beautiful face--the graceful pose into which
+he fell--he seemed to me the embodiment of poetry. He paid no heed
+to the merry talk or the artists, which so much amused me--indeed, I
+doubted if he heard their voices.
+
+Yet he must have done so, for as soon as they had left us he came out of
+his reverie.
+
+"It must be very nice," he said, "to have to make one's living by Art."
+
+"Nice for those who can make livings by it," I answered.
+
+"All can do that who are worth it. The day of neglected genius is gone
+by. Muller was the last sufferer, I think--and he died young."
+
+"If you are so sanguine, why not try your own luck at it?"
+
+"I would; but unfortunately I am a rich man."
+
+I laughed at this misplaced regret. Then Carriston, in the most simple
+way, told me a good deal about himself. He was an orphan; an only child.
+He had already ample means; but fortune had still favors in store for
+him. At the death of his uncle, now an aged man, he must succeed to a
+large estate and a baronetcy. The natural, unaffected way in which he
+made these confidences, moreover made them not, I knew, from any wish
+to increase his importance in my eyes, greatly impressed me. By the
+time we parted for the night I had grown much interested in my new
+acquaintance--an interest not untinged by envy. Young, handsome, rich,
+free to come or go, work or play, as he listed! Happy Carriston!
+
+
+II.
+
+I am disposed to think that never before did a sincere friendship, one
+which was fated to last unbroken for years, ripen so quickly as that
+between Carriston and myself. As I now look back I find it hard to
+associate him with any, even a brief, period of time subsequent to our
+meeting, during which he was not my bosom friend. I forget whether our
+meeting at the same picturesque spot on the morning which followed our
+self-introduction was the result of accident or arrangement. Anyway, we
+spent the day together, and that day was the precursor of many passed in
+each other's society. Morning after morning we sallied forth to do our
+best to transfer the same bits of scenery to our sketching-blocks.
+Evening after evening we returned to dine side by side, and afterward to
+talk and smoke together, indoors or outdoors as the temperature advised
+or our wishes inclined.
+
+Great friends we soon became--inseparable as long as my short holiday
+lasted. It was, perhaps, pleasant for each to work in company with an
+amateur like himself. Each could ask the other's opinion of the merits
+of the work done, and feel happy at the approval duly given. An artist's
+standard of excellence is too high for a non-professional. When he
+praises your work he praises it but as the work of an outsider. You feel
+that such commendation condemns it and disheartens you.
+
+However, had Carriston cared to do so, I think he might have fearlessly
+submitted his productions to any conscientious critic. His drawings were
+immeasurably more artistic and powerful than mine. He had undoubtedly
+great talent, and I was much surprised to find that good as he was at
+landscape, he was even better at the figure. He could, with a firm, bold
+hand draw rapidly the most marvellous likenesses. So spirited and true
+were some of the studies he showed me, that I could without flattery
+advise him, provided he could finish as he began, to keep entirely to
+the higher branch of the art. I have now before me a series of outline
+faces drawn by him--many of them from memory; and as I look at them the
+original of each comes at once before my eyes.
+
+From the very first I had been much interested in the young man, and as
+day by day went by, and the peculiarities of his character were revealed
+to me, my interest grew deeper and deeper. I flatter myself that I am
+a keen observer and skilful analyst of personal character, and until
+now fancied that to write a description of its component parts was an
+easy matter. Yet when I am put to the proof I find it no simple task
+to convey in words a proper idea of Charles Carriston's mental
+organization.
+
+I soon discovered that he was, I may say, afflicted by a peculiarly
+sensitive nature. Although strong and apparently in good health, the
+very changes of the weather seemed to affect him almost to the same
+extent as they affect a flower. Sweet as his disposition always was, the
+tone of his mind, his spirits, his conversation, varied, as it were,
+with the atmosphere. He was full of imagination, and that imagination,
+always rich, was at times weird, even grotesquely weird. Not for one
+moment did he seem to doubt the stability of the wild theories he
+started, or the possibility of the poetical dreams he dreamed being
+realized. He had his faults, of course; he was hasty and impulsive;
+indeed to me one of the greatest charms about the boy was that, right
+or wrong, each word he spoke came straight from his heart.
+
+So far as I could judge, the whole organization of his mind was too
+highly strung, too finely wrought for every-day use. A note of joy, of
+sorrow, even of pity vibrated through it too strongly for his comfort or
+well-being. As yet it had not been called upon to bear the test of love,
+and fortunately--I use the word advisedly--fortunately he was not,
+according to the usual significance of the word, a religious man, or I
+should have thought it not unlikely that some day he would fall a victim
+to that religious mania so well known to my professional brethren, and
+have developed hysteria or melancholia. He might even have fancied
+himself a messenger sent from heaven for the regeneration of mankind.
+From natures like Carriston's are prophets made.
+
+In short, I may say that my exhaustive study of my new friend's
+character resulted in a certain amount of uneasiness as to his
+future--an uneasiness not entirely free from professional curiosity.
+
+Although the smile came readily and frequently to his lips, the general
+bent of his disposition was sad, even despondent and morbid. And yet few
+young men's lives promised to be so pleasant as Charles Carriston's.
+
+I was rallying him one day on his future rank and its responsibilities.
+
+"You will, of course, be disgustingly rich?" I said.
+
+Carriston sighed. "Yes, if I live long enough; but I don't suppose I
+shall."
+
+"Why in the world shouldn't you? You look pale and thin, but are in
+capital health. Twelve long miles we have walked to-day--you never
+turned a hair."
+
+Carriston made no reply. He seemed in deep thought.
+
+"Your friends ought to look after you and get you a wife," I said.
+
+"I have no friends," he said sadly. "No nearer relation than a cousin a
+good deal older than I am, who looks upon me as one who was born to rob
+him of what should be his."
+
+"But by the law of primogeniture, so sacred to the upper ten thousand,
+he must know you are entitled to it."
+
+"Yes; but for years and years I was always going to die. My life was not
+thought worth six months' purchase. All of a sudden I got well. Ever
+since then I have seemed, even to myself, a kind of interloper."
+
+"It must be unpleasant to have a man longing for one's death. All the
+more reason you should marry, and put other lives between him and the
+title."
+
+"I fancy I shall never marry," said Carriston, looking at me with his
+soft dark eyes. "You see, a boy who has waited for years expecting to
+die, doesn't grow up with exactly the same feelings as other people. I
+don't think I shall ever meet a woman I can care for enough to make my
+wife. No, I expect my cousin will be Sir Ralph yet."
+
+I tried to laugh him out of his morbid ideas. "Those who live will see,"
+I said. "Only promise to ask me to your wedding, and better still, if
+you live in town, appoint me your family doctor. It may prove the
+nucleus of that West End practice which it is the dream of every doctor
+to establish."
+
+I have already alluded to the strange beauty of Carriston's dark eyes.
+As soon as companionship commenced between us those eyes became to
+me, from scientific reasons, objects of curiosity on account of the
+mysterious expression which at times I detected in them. Often and often
+they wore a look the like to which, I imagine, is found only in the eyes
+of a somnambulist--a look which one feels certain is intently fixed upon
+something, yet upon something beyond the range of one's own vision.
+During the first two or three days of our new-born intimacy, I found
+this eccentricity of Carriston's positively startling. When now and then
+I turned to him, and found him staring with all his might at nothing, my
+eyes were compelled to follow the direction in which his own were bent.
+It was at first impossible to divest one's self of the belief that
+something should be there to justify so fixed a gaze. However, as the
+rapid growth of our friendly intercourse soon showed me that he was a
+boy of most ardent poetic temperament--perhaps even more a poet than an
+artist--I laid at the door of the Muse these absent looks and recurring
+flights into vacancy.
+
+We were at the Fairy Glen one morning, sketching, to the best of our
+ability, the swirling stream, the gray rocks, and the overhanging trees,
+the last just growing brilliant with autumnal tints. So beautiful was
+everything around that for a long time I worked, idled, or dreamed
+in contented silence. Carriston had set up his easel at some little
+distance from mine. At last I turned to see how his sketch was
+progressing. He had evidently fallen into one of his brown studies,
+and, apparently, a harder one than usual. His brush had fallen from his
+fingers, his features were immovable, and his strange dark eyes were
+absolutely riveted upon a large rock in front of him, at which he gazed
+as intently as if his hope of heaven depended upon seeing through it.
+
+He seemed for the while oblivious to things mundane. A party of
+laughing, chattering, terrible tourist girls scrambled down the rugged
+steps, and one by one passed in front of him. Neither their presence nor
+the inquisitive glances they cast on his statuesque face roused him from
+his fit of abstraction. For a moment I wondered if the boy took opium or
+some other narcotic on the sly. Full of the thought I rose, crossed over
+to him, and laid my hand upon his shoulder. As he felt my touch he came
+to himself, and looked up at me in a dazed, inquiring way.
+
+"Really, Carriston," I said, laughingly, "you must reserve your dreaming
+fits until we are in places where tourists do not congregate, or you
+will be thought a madman, or at least a poet."
+
+He made no reply. He turned away from me impatiently, even rudely; then,
+picking up his brush, went on with his sketch. After awhile he seemed
+to recover from his pettishness, and we spent the remainder of the day
+as pleasantly as usual.
+
+As we trudged home in the twilight, he said to me in an apologetic,
+almost penitent way,
+
+"I hope I was not rude to you just now."
+
+"When do you mean?" I asked, having almost forgotten the trivial
+incident.
+
+"When you woke me from what you called my dreaming."
+
+"Oh dear, no. You were not at all rude. If you had been, it was but the
+penalty due to my presumption. The flight of genius should be respected,
+not checked by a material hand."
+
+"That is nonsense; I am not a genius, and you must forgive me for my
+rudeness," said Carriston simply.
+
+After walking some distance in silence he spoke again. "I wish when you
+are with me you would try and stop me from getting into that state. It
+does me no good."
+
+Seeing he was in earnest I promised to do my best, and was curious
+enough to ask him whither his thoughts wandered during those abstracted
+moments.
+
+"I can scarcely tell you," he said. Presently he asked, speaking
+with hesitation, "I suppose you never feel that under certain
+circumstances--circumstances which you cannot explain--you might be
+able to see things which are invisible to others?"
+
+"To see things. What things?"
+
+"Things, as I said, which no one else can see. You must know there are
+people who possess this power."
+
+"I know that certain people have asserted they possess what they
+call second-sight; but the assertion is too absurd to waste time in
+refuting."
+
+"Yet," said Carriston dreamily, "I know that if I did not strive to
+avoid it some such power would come to me."
+
+"You are too ridiculous, Carriston," I said. "Some people see what
+others don't because they have longer sight. You may, of course, imagine
+anything. But your eyes--handsome eyes they are, too--contain certain
+properties, known as humors and lenses, therefore in order to see--"
+
+"Yes, yes," interrupted Carriston; "I know exactly all you are going to
+say. You, a man of science, ridicule everything which breaks what you
+are pleased to call the law of Nature. Yet take all the unaccountable
+tales told. Nine hundred and ninety-nine you expose to scorn or throw
+grave doubt upon, yet the thousandth rests on evidence which cannot be
+upset or disputed. The possibility of that one proves the possibility of
+all."
+
+"Not at all; but enough for your argument," I said, amused at the boy's
+wild talk.
+
+"You doctors," he continued with that delicious air of superiority so
+often assumed by laymen when they are in good health, "put too much to
+the credit of diseased imagination."
+
+"No doubt; it's a convenient shelf on which to put a difficulty. But go
+on."
+
+"The body is your province, yet you can't explain why a cataleptic
+patient should hear a watch tick when it is placed against his foot."
+
+"Nor you; nor any one. But perhaps it may aid you to get rid of your
+rubbishing theories if I tell you that catalepsy, as you understand it,
+is a disease not known to us; in fact, it does not exist."
+
+He seemed crestfallen at hearing this. "But what do you want to prove?"
+I asked. "What have you yourself seen?"
+
+"Nothing, I tell you. And I pray I may never see anything."
+
+After this he seemed inclined to shirk the subject, but I pinned him to
+it. I was really anxious to get at the true state of his mind. In answer
+to the leading questions with which I plied him, Carriston revealed an
+amount of superstition which seemed utterly childish and out of place
+beside the intellectual faculties which he undoubtedly possessed. So
+much so, that at last I felt more inclined to laugh at than to argue
+with him.
+
+Yet I was not altogether amused by his talk. His wild arguments and
+wilder beliefs made me fancy there must be a weak spot somewhere in his
+brain--even made me fear lest his end might be madness. The thought
+made me sad; for, with the exception of the eccentricities which I have
+mentioned, I reckoned Carriston the pleasantest friend I had ever made.
+His amiable nature, his good looks, and perfect breeding had endeared
+the young man to me; so much so, that I resolved, during the remainder
+of the time we should spend together, to do all I could toward talking
+the nonsense out of him.
+
+My efforts were unavailing. I kept a sharp lookout upon him, and let
+him fall into no more mysterious reveries; but the curious idea that
+he possessed, or could possess, some gift above human nature, was too
+firmly rooted to be displaced. On all other subjects he argued fairly
+and was open to reason. On this one point he was immovable. When I
+could get him to notice my attacks at all, his answer was:
+
+"You doctors, clever as you are with the body, know as little of
+psychology as you did three thousand years ago."
+
+When the time came for me to fold up my easel and return to the drudgery
+of life, I parted from Carriston with much regret. One of those solemn,
+but often broken, promises to join together next year in another
+sketching tour passed between us. Then I went back to London, and during
+the subsequent months, although I saw nothing of him, I often thought of
+my friend of the autumn.
+
+
+III.
+
+In the spring of 1865 I went down to Bournemouth to see, for the last
+time, an old friend who was dying of consumption. During a great part
+of the journey down I had for a travelling companion a well-dressed
+gentlemanly man of about forty years of age. We were alone in the
+compartment, and after interchanging some small civilities, such as the
+barter of newspapers, slid into conversation. My fellow-traveller seemed
+to be an intellectual man, and well posted up in the doings of the day.
+He talked fluently and easily on various topics, and judging by his talk
+must have moved in good society. Although I fancied his features bore
+traces of hard living and dissipation, he was not unprepossessing in
+appearance. The greatest faults in his face were the remarkable thinness
+of the lips, and his eyes being a shade closer together than one cares
+to see. With a casual acquaintance such peculiarities are of little
+moment, but for my part I should not choose for a friend one who
+possessed them without due trial and searching proof.
+
+At this time the English public were much interested in an important
+will case which was then being tried. The reversion to a vast sum of
+money depended upon the testator's sanity or insanity. Like most other
+people we duly discussed the matter. I suppose, from some of my remarks,
+my companion understood that I was a doctor. He asked me a good many
+technical questions, and I described several curious cases of mania
+which had come under my notice. He seemed greatly interested in the
+subject.
+
+"You must sometimes find it hard to say where sanity ends and insanity
+begins," he said thoughtfully.
+
+"Yes. The boundary-line is in some instances hard to define. To give in
+such a dubious case an opinion which would satisfy myself I should want
+to have known the patient at the time he was considered quite sane."
+
+"To mark the difference?"
+
+"Exactly. And to know the bent of the character. For instance, there is
+a friend of mine. He was perfectly sane when last I saw him, but for all
+I know he may have made great progress the other way in the interval."
+
+Then without mentioning names, dates, or places, I described Carriston's
+peculiar disposition to my intelligent listener. He heard me with rapt
+interest.
+
+"You predict he will go mad?" he said.
+
+"Certainly not. Unless anything unforeseen arises he will probably live
+and die as sane as you or I."
+
+"Why do you fear for him, then?"
+
+"For this reason. I think that any sudden emotion--violent grief, for
+instance--any unexpected and crushing blow--might at once disturb the
+balance of his mind. Let his life run on in an even groove, and all will
+be well with him."
+
+My companion was silent for a few moments.
+
+"Did you mention your friend's name?" he asked.
+
+I laughed. "Doctors never give names when they quote cases."
+
+At the next station my companion left the train. He bade me a polite
+adieu, and thanked me for the pleasure my conversation had given him.
+After wondering what station in life he occupied I dismissed him from my
+mind, as one who had crossed my path for a short time and would probably
+never cross it again.
+
+Although I did not see Charles Carriston I received several letters from
+him during the course of the year. He had not forgotten our undertaking
+to pass my next holiday together. Early in the autumn, just as I was
+beginning to long with a passionate longing for open air and blue skies,
+a letter came from Carriston. He was now, he said, roughing it in the
+Western Highlands. He reminded me of last year's promise. Could I get
+away from work now? Would I join him? If I did not care to visit
+Scotland, would I suggest some other place where he could join me?
+Still, the scenery by which he was now surrounded was superb, and the
+accommodation he had secured, if not luxurious, fairly comfortable. He
+thought we could not do better. A postscript to his letter asked me to
+address him as Cecil Carr, not Charles Carriston. He had a reason for
+changing his name; a foolish reason I should no doubt call it. When we
+met he would let me know it.
+
+This letter at once decided me to accept his invitation. In a week's
+time my arrangements for leave of absence were complete, and I was
+speeding northward in the highest spirits, and well equipped with
+everything necessary for my favorite holiday pursuit. I looked forward
+with the greatest pleasure to again meeting Carriston. I found him at
+Callendar waiting for me. The coach did not follow the route we were
+obliged to take in order to reach the somewhat unfrequented part of the
+country in which our tent was pitched, so my friend had secured the
+services of a primitive vehicle and a strong shaggy pony to bear us the
+remainder of the journey.
+
+So soon as our first hearty greetings were over I proceeded to ascertain
+how the last year had treated Carriston. I was both delighted and
+astonished at the great change for the better which had taken place in
+his manner, no less than his appearance. He looked far more robust; he
+seemed happier, brighter; although more like ordinary humanity. Not only
+had he greeted me with almost boisterous glee, but during our drive
+through the wonderful scenery he was in the gayest of spirits and full
+of fun and anecdote. I congratulated him heartily upon the marked
+improvement in his health, both mentally and physically.
+
+"Yes, I am much better," he said. "I followed a part of your advice;
+gave up moping, tried constant change of scene, interested myself in
+many more things. I am quite a different man."
+
+"No supernatural visitations?" I asked, anxious to learn that his cure
+in that direction was complete.
+
+His face fell. He hesitated a second before answering.
+
+"No--not now," he said. "I fought against the strange feeling, and I
+believe have got rid of it--at least I hope so."
+
+I said no more on the subject. Carriston plunged into a series of vivid
+and mimetic descriptions of the varieties of Scotch character which he
+had met with during his stay. He depicted his experiences so amusingly
+that I laughed heartily for many a mile.
+
+"But why the change in your name?" I asked, when he paused for a moment
+in his merry talk.
+
+He blushed, and looked rather ashamed. "I scarcely like to tell you; you
+will think my reason so absurd."
+
+"Never mind. I don't judge you by the ordinary standard."
+
+"Well, the fact is, my cousin is also in Scotland. I feared if I gave
+my true name at the hotel at which I stayed on my way here, he might
+perchance see it, and look me up in these wild regions."
+
+"Well, and what if he did?"
+
+"I can't tell you. I hate to know I feel like it. But I have always,
+perhaps without cause, been afraid of him; and this place is horribly
+lonely."
+
+Now that I understood the meaning of his words, I thought the boy must
+be joking; but the grave look on his face showed he was never further
+from merriment.
+
+"Why, Carriston!" I cried, "you are positively ridiculous about your
+cousin. You can't think the man wants to murder you?"
+
+"I don't know what I think. I am saying things to you which I ought not
+to say; but every time I meet him I feel he hates me, and wishes me out
+of the world."
+
+"Between wishing and doing there is a great difference. I dare say all
+this 's fancy on your part."
+
+"Perhaps so. Any way, Cecil Carr is as good a name up here as Charles
+Carriston, so please humor my whim and say no more about it."
+
+As it made no difference to me by what name he chose to call himself I
+dropped the subject. I knew of old that some of his strange prejudices
+were proof against anything I could do to remove them.
+
+At last we reached our temporary abode. It was a substantial, low-built
+house, owned and inhabited by a thrifty middle-aged widow, who, although
+well-to-do so far as the simple ideas of her neighbors went, was
+nevertheless always willing to add to her resources by accommodating
+such stray tourists as wished to bury themselves for a day or two in
+solitude, or artists who, like ourselves, preferred to enjoy the
+beauties of Nature undisturbed by the usual ebbing and flowing stream of
+sightseers.
+
+As Carriston asserted, the accommodation if homely was good enough for
+two single men; the fare was plentiful, and our rooms were the picture
+of cleanliness. After a cursory inspection I felt sure that I could for
+a few weeks make myself very happy in these quarters.
+
+I had not been twenty-four hours in the house before I found out one
+reason for the great change for the better in Charles Carriston's
+demeanor; knew his step was lighter, his eye brighter, his voice gayer,
+and his whole bearing altered. Whether the reason was a subject of
+congratulation or not I could not as yet say.
+
+The boy was in love; in love as only a passionate, romantic, imaginative
+nature can be; and even then only once in a lifetime. Heedless,
+headstrong, impulsive, and entirely his own master, he had given his
+very heart and soul into the keeping of a woman.
+
+
+IV.
+
+That a man of Carriston's rank, breeding and refinement should meet his
+fate within the walls of a lonely farm-house, beyond the Trossachs,
+seems incredible. One would scarcely expect to find among such humble
+surroundings a wife suitable to a man of his stamp. And yet when I saw
+the woman who had won him I neither wondered at the conquest nor did I
+blame him for weakness.
+
+I made the great discovery on the morning after my arrival. Eager to
+taste the freshness of the morning air, I rose betimes and went for a
+short stroll. I returned, and whilst standing at the door of the house,
+was positively startled by the beauty of a girl who passed me and
+entered, as if she was a regular inhabitant of the place. Not a rosy
+Scotch lassie, such as one would expect to find indigenous to the soil;
+but a slim, graceful girl, with delicate classical features. A girl with
+a mass of knotted light hair, yet with the apparent anomaly, dark eyes,
+eyelashes, and eyebrows--a combination which, to my mind, makes a style
+of beauty rare, irresistible, and dangerous above all others. The
+features which filled the exquisite oval of her face were refined and
+faultless. Her complexion was pale, but its pallor in no way suggested
+anything save perfect health. To cut my enthusiastic description short,
+I may at once say it has never been my good fortune to cast my eyes on a
+lovelier creature than this young girl.
+
+Although her dress was of the plainest and simplest description, no one
+could have mistaken her for a servant; and much as I admire the bonny,
+healthy Scotch country lassie, I felt sure that mountain air had never
+reared a being of this ethereally beautiful type. As she passed me I
+raised my hat instinctively. She gracefully bent her golden head, and
+bade me a quiet but unembarrassed good-morning. My eyes followed her
+until she vanished at the end of the dark passage which led to the back
+of the house.
+
+Even during the brief glimpse I enjoyed of this fair unknown a strange
+idea occurred to me. There was a remarkable likeness between her
+delicate features and those, scarcely less delicate, of Carriston.
+This resemblance may have added to the interest the girl's appearance
+awoke in my mind. Any way I entered our sitting-room, and, a prey to
+curiosity, and perhaps, hunger, awaited with much impatience the
+appearance of Carriston--and breakfast.
+
+The former arrived first. Generally speaking he was afoot long before I
+was, but this morning we had reversed the usual order of things. As soon
+as I saw him I cried,
+
+"Carriston! tell me at once who is the lovely girl I met outside?
+An angel with dark eyes and golden hair. Is she staying here like
+ourselves?"
+
+A look of pleasure flashed into his eyes--a look which pretty well told
+me everything. Nevertheless he answered as carelessly as if such lovely
+young women were as common to the mountain side as rocks and brambles.
+
+"I expect you mean Miss Rowan; a niece of our worthy landlady. She lives
+with her."
+
+"She cannot be Scotch, with such a face and eyes?"
+
+"Half-and-half. Her father was called an Englishman; but was, I believe,
+of French extraction. They say the name was originally Rohan."
+
+Carriston seemed to have made close inquiries as to Miss Rowan's
+parentage.
+
+"But what brings her here?" I asked.
+
+"She has nowhere else to go. Rowan was an artist. He married a sister of
+our hostess, and bore her away from her native land. Some years ago she
+died, leaving this one daughter. Last year the father died, penniless,
+they tell me, so the girl has since then lived with her only relative,
+her aunt."
+
+"Well," I said, "as you seem to know all about her, you can introduce me
+by and by."
+
+"With the greatest pleasure, if Miss Rowan permits," said Carriston. I
+was glad to hear him give the conditional promise with as much respect
+to the lady's wishes as if she had been a duchess.
+
+Then, with the liberty a close friend may take, I drew toward me a
+portfolio, full, I presumed, of sketches of surrounding scenery. To my
+surprise Carriston jumped up hastily and snatched it from me. "They
+are too bad to look at," he said. As I struggled to regain possession,
+sundry strings broke, and, lo and behold! the floor was littered,
+not with delineations of rock, lake, and torrent, but with images of
+the young girl I had seen a few minutes before. Full face, profile,
+three quarter face, five, even seven eight face, all were there--each
+study perfectly executed by Carriston's clever pencil. I threw myself
+into a chair and laughed aloud, whilst the young man, blushing and
+discomforted, quickly huddled the portraits between the covers, just as
+a genuine Scotch lassie bore in the plentiful and, to me, very welcome
+breakfast.
+
+Carriston did favor me with his company during the whole of that day;
+but, in spite of my having come to Scotland to enjoy his society, that
+day, from easily-guessed reasons, was the only one in which I had
+undisputed possession of my friend.
+
+Of course I bantered him a great deal on the portfolio episode. He took
+it in good part, attempting little or no defence. Indeed, before night
+he had told me, with all a boy's fervor, how he had loved Madeline Rowan
+at first sight, how in the short space of time which had elapsed since
+that meeting he had wooed her and won her; how good and beautiful she
+was; how he worshipped her; how happy he felt; how, when I went south,
+he should accompany me; and, after making a few necessary arrangements,
+return at once and bear his bride away.
+
+I could only listen to him, and congratulate him. It was not my place to
+act the elder, and advise him either for or against the marriage.
+Carriston had only himself to please, and, if he made a rash step, only
+himself to blame for the consequences. And why should I have dissuaded?
+I who, in two days, envied the boy's good fortune.
+
+I saw a great deal of Madeline Rowan. How strange and out-of-place her
+name and face seemed amid our surroundings. If at first somewhat shy and
+retiring, she soon, if only for Carriston's sake, consented to look upon
+me as a friend, and talked to me freely and unreservedly. Then I found
+that her nature was as sweet as her face. Such a conquest did she make
+of me that, save for one chimerical reason, I should have felt quite
+certain that Carriston had chosen well, and would be happy in wedding
+the girl of his choice, heedless of her humble position in the world,
+and absence of fitting wealth. When once his wife, I felt sure that
+if he cared for her to win social success her looks and bearing would
+insure it, and from the great improvement which, as I have already said,
+I noticed in his health and spirits, I believed that his marriage would
+make his life longer, happier, and better.
+
+Now for my objection, which seems almost a laughable one. I objected on
+the score of the extraordinary resemblance which, so far as a man may
+resemble a woman, existed between Charles Carriston and Madeline Rowan.
+The more I saw them together, the more I was struck by it. A stranger
+might well have taken them for twin brother and sister. The same
+delicate features, drawn in the same lines; the same soft, dark, dreamy
+eyes; even the same shaped heads. Comparing the two, it needed no
+phrenologist or physiognomist to tell you that where one excelled the
+other excelled; where one failed, the other was wanting. Now, could I
+have selected a wife for my friend, I would have chosen one with habits
+and constitution entirely different from his own. She should have been a
+bright, bustling woman, with lots of energy and common-sense--one
+who would have rattled him about and kept him going--not a lovely,
+dark-eyed, dreamy girl, who could for hours at a stretch make herself
+supremely happy if only sitting at her lover's feet and speaking no
+word. Yet they were a handsome couple, and never have I seen two people
+so utterly devoted to each other as those two seemed to be during those
+autumn days which I spent with them.
+
+I soon had a clear proof of the closeness of their mental resemblance.
+One evening Carriston, Madeline, and I were sitting out-of-doors,
+watching the gray mist deepening in the valley at our feet. Two of the
+party were, of course, hand-in-hand, the third seated at a discreet
+distance--not so far away as to preclude conversation, but far enough
+off to be able to pretend that he saw and heard only what was intended
+for his eyes and ears.
+
+How certain topics, which I would have avoided discussing with
+Carriston, were started I hardly remember. Probably some strange
+tale had been passed down from wilder and even more solitary regions
+than ours--some ridiculous tale of Highland superstition, no doubt
+embellished and augmented by each one who repeated it to his fellows.
+From her awed talk I soon found that Madeline Rowan, perhaps by reason
+of the Scotch blood in her veins, was as firm a believer in things
+visionary and beyond nature as ever Charles Carriston in his silliest
+moments could be. As soon as I could I stopped the talk, and the next
+day, finding the girl for a few minutes alone, told her plainly that
+subjects of this kind should be kept as far as possible from her future
+husband's thoughts. She promised obedience, with dreamy eyes which
+looked as far away and full of visions as Carriston's.
+
+"By the by," I said, "has he ever spoken to you about seeing strange
+things?"
+
+"Yes; he has hinted at it."
+
+"And you believe him?"
+
+"Of course I do; he told me so."
+
+This was unanswerable. "A pretty pair they will make," I muttered, as
+Madeline slipped from me to welcome her lover who was approaching. "They
+will see ghosts in every corner, and goblins behind every curtain."
+
+Nevertheless, the young people had no doubts about their coming bliss.
+Everything was going smoothly and pleasantly for them. Carriston had at
+once spoken to Madeline's aunt, and obtained the old Scotchwoman's ready
+consent to their union. I was rather vexed at his still keeping to his
+absurd whim, and concealing his true name. He said he was afraid of
+alarming her aunt by telling her he was passing under an _alias_, whilst
+if he gave Madeline his true reason for so doing she would be miserable.
+Moreover, I found he had formed the romantic plan of marrying her
+without telling her in what an enviable position she would be placed
+so far as worldly gear went. A kind of Lord Burleigh surprise no doubt
+commended itself to his imaginative brain.
+
+The last day of my holiday came. I bade a long and sad farewell to lake
+and mountain, and, accompanied by Carriston, started for home. I did not
+see the parting proper between the young people--that was far too sacred
+a thing to be intruded upon--but even when that protracted affair was
+over, I waited many, many minutes whilst Carriston stood hand-in-hand
+with Madeline, comforting himself and her by reiterating "Only six
+weeks--six short weeks! And then--and then!" It was the girl who at last
+tore herself away, and then Carriston mounted reluctantly by my side on
+the rough vehicle.
+
+From Edinburgh we travelled by the night train. The greater part of the
+way we had the compartment to ourselves. Carriston, as a lover will,
+talked of nothing but coming bliss and his plans for the future. After
+a while I grew quite weary of the monotony of the subject, and at last
+dozed off, and for some little time slept. The shrill whistle which told
+us a tunnel was at hand aroused me. My companion was sitting opposite to
+me, and as I glanced across at him my attention was arrested by the same
+strange intense look which I had on a previous occasion at Bettws-y-Coed
+noticed in his eyes--the same fixed stare--the same obliviousness to
+all that was passing. Remembering his request, I shook him, somewhat
+roughly, back to his senses. He regarded me for a moment vacantly, then
+said:
+
+"Now I have found out what was wanting to make the power I told you of
+complete. I could see her if I wished."
+
+"Of course you can see her--in your mind's eye. All lovers can do that."
+
+"If I tried I could see her bodily--know exactly what she is doing." He
+spoke with an air of complete conviction.
+
+"Then I hope, for the sake of modesty, you won't try. It is now nearly
+three o'clock. She ought to be in bed and asleep."
+
+I spoke lightly, thinking it better to try and laugh him out of his
+folly. He took no notice of my sorry joke.
+
+"No," he said, quietly, "I am not going to try. But I know now what
+was wanting. Love--such love as mine--such love as hers--makes the
+connecting link, and enables sight or some other sense to cross over
+space, and pass through every material obstacle."
+
+"Look here, Carriston," I said seriously, "you are talking as a madman
+talks. I don't want to frighten you, but I am bound both as a doctor
+and your sincere friend to tell you that unless you cure yourself of
+these absurd delusions they will grow upon you, develop fresh forms, and
+you will probably end your days under restraint. Ask any doctor, he will
+tell you the same."
+
+"Doctors are a clever race," answered my strange young friend, "but they
+don't know everything."
+
+So saying he closed his eyes and appeared to sleep.
+
+We parted upon reaching London. Many kind words and wishes passed
+between us, and I gave him some well-meant, and, I believed, needed
+warnings. He was going down to see his uncle, the baronet. Then he had
+some matters to arrange with his lawyers, and above all, had to select
+a residence for himself and his wife. He would, no doubt, be in London
+for a short time. If possible he would come and see me. Any way he would
+write and let me know the exact date of his approaching marriage. If I
+could manage to come to it, so much the better. If not he would try,
+as they passed through town, to bring his bride to pay me a flying and
+friendly visit. He left me in the best of spirits, and I went back to my
+patients and worked hard to make up lost ground, and counteract whatever
+errors had been committed by my substitute.
+
+Some six weeks afterward--late at night--whilst I was deep in a new and
+clever treatise on zymotics, a man, haggard, wild, unshorn, and unkempt,
+rushed past my startled servant, and entered the room in which I sat.
+He threw himself into a chair, and I was horrified to recognize in the
+intruder my clever and brilliant friend, Charles Carriston!
+
+
+V.
+
+"The end has come sooner than I expected." These were the sad words I
+muttered to myself as waving my frightened servant away I closed the
+door, and stood alone with the supposed maniac. He rose and wrung my
+hand, then without a word sank back into his chair and buried his face
+in his hands. A sort of nervous trembling seemed to run through his
+frame. Deeply distressed I drew his hands from his face.
+
+"Now, Carriston," I said, as firmly as I could, "look up, and tell me
+what all this means. Look up, I say, man, and speak to me."
+
+He raised his eyes to mine, and kept them there, whilst a ghastly
+smile--a phantom humor--flickered across his white face. No doubt his
+native quickness told him what I suspected, so he looked me full and
+steadily in the face.
+
+"No," he said, "not as you think. But let there be no mistake. Question
+me. Talk to me. Put me to any test. Satisfy yourself, once for all, that
+I am as sane as you are."
+
+He spoke so rationally, his eyes met mine so unflinchingly, that I was
+rejoiced to know that my fears were as yet ungrounded. There was grief,
+excitement, want of rest in his appearance, but his general manner told
+me he was, as he said, as sane as I was.
+
+"Thank heaven you can speak to me and look at me like this," I
+exclaimed.
+
+"You are satisfied then?" he said.
+
+"On this point, yes. Now tell me what is wrong?"
+
+Now that he had set my doubts at rest his agitation and excitement
+seemed to return. He grasped my hand convulsively.
+
+"Madeline!" he whispered; "Madeline--my love--she is gone."
+
+"Gone!" I repeated. "Gone where?"
+
+"She is gone, I say--stolen from me by some black-hearted
+traitor--perhaps forever. Who can tell?"
+
+"But, Carriston, surely, in so short a time her love cannot have been
+won by another. If so, all I can say is--"
+
+"What!" he shouted. "You have seen her! You in your wildest dreams to
+imagine that Madeline Rowan would leave me of her own free-will! No,
+sir; she has been stolen from me--entrapped--carried away--hidden. But
+I will find her, or I will kill the black-hearted villain who has done
+this."
+
+He rose and paced the room. His face was distorted with rage. He
+clinched and unclinched his long slender hands.
+
+"My dear fellow," I said; "you are talking riddles. Sit down and tell me
+calmly what has happened. But, first of all, as you look utterly worn
+out, I will ring for my man to get you some food."
+
+"No," he said; "I want nothing. Weary I am, for I have been to Scotland
+and back as fast as man can travel. I reached London a short time ago,
+and after seeing one man have come straight to you, my only friend,
+for help--it may be for protection. But I have eaten and I have drank,
+knowing I must keep my health and strength."
+
+However, I insisted on some wine being brought. He drank a glass, and
+then with a strange enforced calm, told me what had taken place. His
+tale was this:
+
+After we had parted company on our return from Scotland, Carriston went
+down to the family seat in Oxfordshire, and informed his uncle of the
+impending change in his life. The baronet, an extremely old man, infirm
+and all but childish, troubled little about the matter. Every acre of
+his large property was strictly entailed, so his pleasure or displeasure
+could make but little alteration in his nephew's prospects. Still, he
+was the head of the family, and Carriston was in duty bound to make
+the important news known to him. The young man made no secret of his
+approaching marriage, so in a very short time every member of the family
+was aware that the heir and future head was about to ally himself to
+a nobody. Knowing nothing of Madeline Rowan's rare beauty and sweet
+nature Carriston's kinsmen and kinswomen were sparing with their
+congratulations. Indeed, Mr. Ralph Carriston, the cousin whose name was
+coupled with such absurd suspicions, went so far as to write a bitter,
+sarcastic letter, full of ironical felicitations. This, and Charles
+Carriston's haughty reply, did not make the affection between the
+cousins any stronger. Moreover, shortly afterward the younger man heard
+that inquiries were being made in the neighborhood of Madeline's home as
+to her position and parentage. Feeling sure that only his cousin Ralph
+could have had the curiosity to institute such inquiries, he wrote and
+thanked him for the keen interest he was manifesting in his future
+welfare, but begged that hereafter Mr. Carriston would apply to him
+direct for any information he wanted. The two men were now no longer on
+speaking terms.
+
+Charles Carriston in his present frame of mind cared little whether his
+relatives wished to bless or forbid the banns. He was passionately in
+love, and at once set about making arrangements for a speedy marriage.
+Although Madeline was still ignorant of the exalted position held by her
+lover--although she came to him absolutely penniless--he was resolved in
+the matter of money to treat her as generously as he would have treated
+the most eligible damsel in the country. There were several legal
+questions to be set at rest concerning certain property he wished to
+settle upon her. This of course caused delay. As soon as they were
+adjusted to his own, or rather to his lawyer's satisfaction, he purposed
+going to Scotland and carrying away his beautiful bride. In the meantime
+he cast about for a residence.
+
+Somewhat Bohemian in his nature, Carriston had no intention of settling
+down just yet to live the life of an ordinary moneyed Englishman. His
+intention was to take Madeline abroad for some months. He had fixed
+upon Cannes as a desirable place at which to winter, but having grown
+somewhat tired of hotel life, wished to rent a furnished house. He had
+received from an agent to whom he had been advised to apply the refusal
+of a house, which, from the glowing description given, seemed the one
+above all others he wanted. As an early decision was insisted upon,
+my impulsive young friend thought nothing of crossing the Channel and
+running down to the south of France to see, with his own eyes, that
+the much-lauded place was worthy of the fair being who was to be its
+temporary mistress.
+
+He wrote to Madeline, and told her he was going from home for a few
+days. He said he should be travelling the greater part of the time, so
+it should be no use her writing to him until his return. He did not
+reveal the object of his journey. Were Madeline to know it was to choose
+a winter residence at Cannes she would be filled with amazement, and the
+innocent deception he was still keeping up would not be carried through
+to the romantic end which he pictured to himself.
+
+The day before he started for France Madeline wrote that her aunt was
+very unwell, but said nothing as to her malady causing any alarm.
+Perhaps Carriston thought less about the old Scotch widow than her
+relationship and kindness to Miss Rowan merited. He started on his
+travels without any forebodings of evil.
+
+His journey to Cannes and back was hurried; he wasted no time on the
+road, but was delayed for two days at the place itself before he could
+make final arrangements with the owner and the present occupier of the
+house. Thinking he was going to start every moment, he did not write to
+Madeline--at the rate at which he meant to return, a letter posted in
+England would reach her almost as quickly as if posted at Cannes.
+
+He reached his home, which for the last few weeks had been Oxford, and
+found two letters waiting for him. The first, dated on the day he left
+England, was from Madeline. It told him that her aunt's illness had
+suddenly taken a fatal turn--that she had died that day, almost without
+warning. The second letter was anonymous.
+
+It was written apparently by a woman, and advised Mr. Carr to look
+sharply after his lady-love or he would find himself left in the lurch.
+The writer would not be surprised to hear some fine day that she had
+eloped with a certain gentleman who should be nameless. This precious
+epistle, probably an emanation of feminine spite, Carriston treated as
+it deserved--he tore it up and threw the pieces to the wind.
+
+But the thought of Madeline being alone at that lonely house troubled
+him greatly. The dead woman had no sons or daughters; all the anxiety
+and responsibility connected with her affairs would fall on the poor
+girl. The next day he threw himself into the Scotch Express and started
+for her far-away home.
+
+On arriving there he found it occupied only by the rough farm servants.
+They seemed in a state of wonderment, and volubly questioned Carriston
+as to the whereabouts of Madeline. The question sent a chill of fear to
+his heart. He answered their questions by others, and soon learned all
+they had to communicate.
+
+Little enough it was. On the morning after the old woman's funeral
+Madeline had gone to Callendar to ask the advice of an old friend of her
+aunt's as to what steps should now be taken. She had neither been to
+this friend, nor had she returned home. She had, however, sent a message
+that she must go to London at once, and would write from there. That was
+the last heard of her--all that was known about her.
+
+Upon hearing this news Carriston became a prey to the acutest terror--an
+emotion which was quite inexplicable to the honest people, his
+informants. The girl had gone, but she had sent word whither she had
+gone. True, they did not know the reason for her departure, so sudden
+and without luggage of any description; true, she had not written as
+promised, but no doubt they would hear from her to-morrow. Carriston
+knew better. Without revealing the extent of his fears he flew back to
+Callendar. Inquiries at the railway station informed him that she had
+gone, or had purposed going, to London; but whether she ever reached it,
+or whether any trace of her could be found there, was at least a matter
+of doubt. No good could be gained by remaining in Scotland, so he
+travelled back at once to town, half-distracted, sleepless, and racking
+his brain to know where to look for her.
+
+"She has been decoyed away," he said in conclusion. "She is hidden,
+imprisoned somewhere. And I know, as well as if he told me, who has done
+this thing. I can trace Ralph Carriston's cursed hand through it all."
+
+I glanced at him askance. This morbid suspicion of his cousin amounted
+almost to monomania. He had told the tale of Madeline's disappearance
+clearly and tersely; but when he began to account for it his theory was
+a wild and untenable one. However much he suspected Ralph Carriston of
+longing to stand in his shoes, I could see no object for the crime of
+which he accused him, that of decoying away Madeline Rowan.
+
+"But why should he have done this?" I asked. "To prevent your marriage?
+You are young; he must have foreseen that you would marry some day."
+
+Carriston leaned toward me, and dropped his voice to a whisper.
+
+"This is his reason," he said; "this is why I come to you. You are not
+the only one who has entirely misread my nature, and seen a strong
+tendency to insanity in it. Of course I know that you are all wrong, but
+I know that Ralph Carriston has stolen my love--stolen her because he
+thinks and hopes that her loss will drive me mad--perhaps drive me to
+kill myself. I went straight to him--I have just come from him. Brand,
+I tell you that when I taxed him with the crime--when I raved at
+him--when I threatened to tear the life out of him--his cold, wicked
+eyes leaped with joy. I heard him mutter between his teeth, 'Men have
+been put in strait-waistcoats for less than this.' Then I knew why he
+had done this. I curbed myself and left him. Most likely he will try to
+shut me up as a lunatic; but I count upon your protection--count upon
+your help to find my love."
+
+That any man could be guilty of such a subtle refinement of crime as
+that of which he accused his cousin seemed to me, if not impossible, at
+least improbable. But as at present there was no doubt about my friend's
+sanity I promised my aid readily.
+
+"And now," I said, "my dear boy, I won't hear another word to-night.
+Nothing can be done until to-morrow; then we will consult as to what
+steps should be taken. Drink this and go to bed; yes, you are as sane as
+I am, but, remember, insomnia soon drives the strongest man out of his
+senses."
+
+I poured out an opiate. He drank it obediently. Before I left him for
+the night I saw him in bed and sleeping a heavy sleep.
+
+
+VI.
+
+The advantage to one who writes, not a tale of imagination, but a simple
+record of events, is this: He need not be bound by the recognized canons
+of the story-telling art--need not exercise his ingenuity to mislead his
+reader--need not suppress some things and lay undue stress on others to
+create mysteries to be cleared up at the end of the tale. Therefore,
+using the privilege of a plain narrator, I shall here give some account
+of what became of Miss Rowan, as, so far as I can remember, I heard it
+some time afterward from her own lips.
+
+The old Scotchwoman's funeral over, and those friends who had been
+present departed, Madeline was left in the little farm-house alone, save
+for the presence of the two servants. Several kind bodies had offered to
+come and stay with her, but she had declined the offers. She was in no
+mood for company, and perhaps being of such a different race and breed,
+would not have found much comfort in the rough homely sympathy which was
+offered to her. She preferred being alone with her grief--grief which
+after all was bound to be much lightened by the thought of her own
+approaching happiness, for the day was drawing near when her lover would
+cross the border and bear his bonny bride away. She felt sure that she
+would not be long alone--that the moment Carriston heard of her aunt's
+death he would come to her assistance. In such a peaceful, God-fearing
+neighborhood she had no fear of being left without protection. Moreover,
+her position in the house was well-defined. The old woman, who was
+childless, had left her niece all of which she died possessed. So
+Madeline decided to wait quietly until she heard from her lover.
+
+Still there were business matters to be attended to, and at the funeral
+Mr. Douglas, of Callendar, the executor under the will, had suggested
+that an early interview would be desirable. He offered to drive out to
+the little farm the next day, but Miss Rowan, who had to see to some
+feminine necessaries which could only be supplied by shops, decided that
+she would come to the town instead of troubling Mr. Douglas to drive so
+far out.
+
+Madeline, in spite of the superstitious element in her character, was
+a brave girl, and in spite of her refined style of beauty, strong and
+healthy. Early hours were the rule in that humble home, so before seven
+o'clock in the morning she was ready to start on her drive to the little
+town. At first she thought of taking with her the boy who did the rough
+out-door work; but he was busy about something or other, and besides,
+was a garrulous lad who would be certain to chatter the whole way,
+and this morning Miss Rowan wanted no companions save her own mingled
+thoughts of sadness and joy. She knew every inch of the road; she feared
+no evil; she would be home again long before nightfall; the pony was
+quiet and sure-footed--so away went Madeline in the strong primitive
+vehicle on her lonely twelve miles' drive through the fair scenery.
+
+She passed few people on the road. Indeed, she remembered meeting no one
+except one or two pedestrian tourists, who like sensible men were doing
+a portion of their day's task in the early morning. I have no doubt but
+Miss Rowan seemed to them a passing vision of loveliness.
+
+But when she was a mile or two from Callendar, she saw a boy on a pony.
+The boy, who must have known her by sight, stopped and handed her a
+telegram. She had to pay several shillings for the delivery, or intended
+delivery of the message, so far from the station. The boy galloped away,
+congratulating himself on having been spared a long ride, and Miss Rowan
+tore open the envelope left in her hands.
+
+The message was brief: "Mr. Carr is seriously ill. Come at once. You
+will be met in London."
+
+Madeline did not scream or faint. She gave one low moan of pain, set her
+teeth, and with the face of one in a dream drove as quickly as she could
+to Callendar, straight to the railway station.
+
+Fortunately, or rather unfortunately, she had money with her, so she did
+not waste time in going to Mr. Douglas. In spite of the crushing blow
+she had received the girl had all her wits about her. A train would
+start in ten minutes' time. She took her ticket, then found an idler
+outside the station, and paid him to take the pony and carriage back to
+the farm, with the message as repeated to Carriston.
+
+The journey passed like a long dream. The girl could think of nothing
+but her lover, dying, dying--perhaps dead before she could reach him.
+The miles flew by unnoticed; twilight crept on; the carriage grew dark;
+at last--London at last! Miss Rowan stepped out on the broad platform,
+not knowing what to do or where to turn. Presently a tall well-dressed
+man came up to her, and removing his hat, addressed her by name. The
+promise as to her being met had been kept.
+
+She clasped her hands. "Tell me--oh tell me, he is not dead," she cried.
+
+"Mr. Carr is not dead. He is ill, very ill--delirious and calling for
+you."
+
+"Where is he? Oh take me to him!"
+
+"He is miles and miles from here--at a friend's house. I have been
+deputed to meet you and to accompany you, if you feel strong enough to
+continue the journey at once."
+
+"Come," said Madeline. "Take me to him."
+
+"Your luggage?" asked the gentleman.
+
+"I have none. Come!"
+
+"You must take some refreshment."
+
+"I need nothing. Come!"
+
+The gentleman glanced at his watch. "There is just time," he said. He
+called a cab, told the driver to go at top speed. They reached
+Paddington just in time to catch the mail.
+
+During the drive across London Madeline asked many questions, and
+learned from her companion that Mr. Carr had been staying for a day or
+two at a friend's house in the west of England. That yesterday he had
+fallen from his horse and sustained such injuries that his life was
+despaired of. He had been continually calling for Madeline. They
+had found her address on a letter, and had telegraphed as soon as
+possible--for which act Miss Rowan thanked her companion with tears in
+her eyes.
+
+Her conductor did not say much of his own accord, but in replying to her
+questions he was politely sympathetic. She thought of little outside the
+fearful picture which filled every corner of her brain, but from her
+conductor's manner received the impression that he was a medical adviser
+who had seen the sufferer, and assisted in the treatment of the case.
+She did not ask his name, nor did he reveal it.
+
+At Paddington he placed her in a ladies' carriage and left her.
+
+He was a smoker, he said. She wondered somewhat at this desertion. Then
+the train sped down West. At the large stations the gentleman came to
+her and offered her refreshments. Hunger seemed to have left her; but
+she accepted a cup of tea once or twice. At last sorrow, fatigue, and
+weakness produced by such a prolonged fast had their natural effect.
+With the tears still on her lashes the girl fell asleep, and must have
+slept for many miles: a sleep unbroken by stoppages at stations.
+
+Her conductor at last aroused her. He stood at the door of the carriage.
+"We must get out here," he said. All the momentarily-forgotten anguish
+came back to her as she stood beside him on the almost unoccupied
+platform.
+
+"Are we there at last?" she asked.
+
+"I am sorry to say we have still a long drive; would you like to rest
+first?"
+
+"No--no. Come on, if you please." She spoke with feverish eagerness.
+
+The man bowed. "A carriage waits," he said.
+
+Outside the station was a carriage of some sort, drawn by one horse, and
+driven by a man muffled up to the eyes. It was still night, but Madeline
+fancied dawn could not be far off. Her conductor opened the door of the
+carriage and waited for her to enter.
+
+She paused. "Ask him--that man must know if--"
+
+"I am most remiss," said the gentleman. He exchanged a few words with
+the driver, and coming back, told Madeline that Mr. Carr was still
+alive, sensible, and expecting her eagerly.
+
+"Oh, please, please drive fast," said the poor girl, springing into the
+carriage. The gentleman seated himself beside her, and for a long time
+they drove on in silence. At last they stopped. The dawn was just
+glimmering. They alighted in front of a house. The door was open.
+Madeline entered swiftly. "Which way--which way?" she asked. She was
+too agitated to notice any surroundings; her one wish was to reach her
+lover.
+
+"Allow me," said the conductor, passing her. "This way; please follow
+me." He went up a short flight of stairs, then paused, and opened a
+door quietly. He stood aside for the girl to enter. The room was dimly
+lit, and contained a bed with drawn curtains. Madeline flew past her
+travelling companion, and as she threw herself on her knees beside the
+bed upon which she expected to see the helpless and shattered form of
+the man she loved, heard, or fancied she heard, the door locked behind
+her.
+
+
+VII.
+
+Carriston slept on late into the next day. Knowing that every moment
+of bodily and mental rest was a precious boon to him, I left him
+undisturbed. He was still fast asleep when, about mid-day, a gentleman
+called upon me. He sent up no card, and I supposed he came to consult
+me professionally.
+
+The moment he entered my room I recognized him. He was the thin-lipped,
+gentlemanly person whom I had met on my journey to Bournemouth last
+spring--the man who had seemed so much impressed by my views on
+insanity, and had manifested such interest in the description I had
+given--without mentioning any name--of Carriston's peculiar mind.
+
+I should have at once claimed acquaintanceship with my visitor, but
+before I could speak he advanced, and apologized gracefully for his
+intrusion.
+
+"You will forgive it," he added, "when I tell you my name is Ralph
+Carriston."
+
+Remembering our chance conversation, the thought that, after all,
+Charles Carriston's wild suspicion was well-founded, flashed through me
+like lightning. My great hope was that my visitor might not remember my
+face as I remembered his. I bowed coldly but said nothing.
+
+"I believe, Dr. Brand," he continued, "you have a young relative of mine
+at present staying with you?"
+
+"Yes, Mr. Carriston is my guest," I answered. "We are old friends."
+
+"Ah, I did not know that. I do not remember having heard him mention
+your name as a friend. But as it is so, no one knows better than
+you do the unfortunate state of his health. How do you find him
+to-day--violent?"
+
+I pretended to ignore the man's meaning, and answered smilingly,
+"Violence is the last thing I should look for. He is tired out and
+exhausted by travel, and is in great distress. That, I believe, is the
+whole of his complaint."
+
+"Yes, yes; to be sure, poor boy! His sweetheart has left him, or
+something. But as a doctor you must know that his mental condition is
+not quite what it should be. His friends are very anxious about him.
+They fear that a little restraint--temporary, I hope--must be put upon
+his actions. I called to ask your advice and aid."
+
+"In what, Mr. Carriston?"
+
+"In this. A young man can't be left free to go about threatening his
+friends' lives. I have brought Dr. Daley with me; you know him, of
+course. He is below in my carriage. I will call him up, with your
+permission. He could then see poor Charles, and the needful certificate
+could be signed by you two doctors."
+
+"Mr. Carriston," I said decidedly, "let me tell you in the plainest
+words that your cousin is at present as fully in possession of his wits
+as you are. Dr. Daley, whoever he may be, could sign no certificate, and
+in our day no asylum would dare to keep Mr. Carriston within its walls."
+
+An unpleasant sinister look crossed my listener's face, but his voice
+still remained bland and suave. "I am sorry to differ from you, Dr.
+Brand," he said, "but I know him better than you do. I have seen him as
+you have never yet seen him. Only last night he came to me in a frantic
+state. I expected every moment he would make a murderous attack on me."
+
+"Perhaps he fancied he had some reasons for anger," I said.
+
+Ralph Carriston looked at me with those cold eyes of which his cousin
+had spoken. "If the boy has succeeded in converting you to any of his
+delusions I can only say that doctors are more credulous than I fancied.
+But the question is not worth arguing. You decline to assist me, so I
+must do without you. Good-morning, Dr. Brand."
+
+He left the room as gracefully as he had entered it. I remained in a
+state of doubt. It was curious that Ralph Carriston turned out to be
+the man whom I had met in the train; but the evidence offered by the
+coincidence was not enough to convict him of the crime of endeavoring to
+drive his cousin mad by such a far-fetched stratagem as the inveigling
+away of Madeline Rowan. Besides, even in wishing to prove Charles
+Carriston mad he had much to say on his side. Supposing him to be
+innocent of having abducted Madeline, Carriston's violent behavior on
+the preceding evening must have seemed very much like insanity. In
+spite of the aversion with which Ralph Carriston inspired me, I scarcely
+knew which side to believe.
+
+Carriston still slept; so when I went out on my afternoon rounds I left
+a note, begging him to remain in the house until my return. Then I found
+him up, dressed, and looking much more like himself. When I entered,
+dinner was on the table; so not until that meal was over could we talk
+unrestrainedly upon the subject which was uppermost in both our minds.
+
+As soon as we were alone I turned toward my guest. "And now," I said,
+"we must settle what to do. There seems to me to be but one course open.
+You have plenty of money, so your best plan is to engage skilled police
+assistance. Young ladies can't be spirited away like this without
+leaving a trace."
+
+To my surprise Carriston flatly objected to this course. "No," he said,
+"I shall not go to the police. The man who took her away has placed her
+where no police can find her. I must find her myself."
+
+"Find her yourself! Why, it may be months, years, before you do that!
+Good heavens, Carriston! She may be murdered, or worse--"
+
+"I shall know if any further evil happens to her--then I shall kill
+Ralph Carriston."
+
+"But you tell me you have no clew whatever to trace her by. Do talk
+plainly. Tell me all or nothing."
+
+Carriston smiled very faintly. "No clew that you, at any rate, will
+believe in," he said. "But I know this much, she is a prisoner
+somewhere. She is unhappy, but not, as yet, ill-treated. Heavens! do
+you think if I did not know this I should keep my senses for an hour?"
+
+"How can you possibly know it?"
+
+"By that gift--that extra sense or whatever it is--which you deride. I
+knew it would come to me some day, but I little thought how I should
+welcome it. I know that in some way I shall find her by it. I tell you
+I have already seen her three times. I may see her again at any moment
+when the strange fit comes over me."
+
+All this fantastic nonsense was spoken so simply and with such an air of
+conviction that once more my suspicions as to the state of his mind were
+aroused. In spite of the brave answers which I had given Mr. Ralph
+Carriston, I felt that common-sense was undeniably on his side.
+
+"Tell me what you mean by your strange fit," I said, resolved to find
+out the nature of Carriston's fancies or hallucinations. "Is it a kind
+of trance you fall into?"
+
+He seemed loath to give any information on the subject, but I pressed
+him for an answer.
+
+"Yes," he said at last. "It must be a kind of trance. An indescribable
+feeling comes over me. I know that my eyes are fixed on some
+object--presently that object vanishes, and I see Madeline."
+
+"How do you see her?"
+
+"She seems to stand in a blurred circle of light as cast by a magic
+lantern. That is the only way that I can describe it. But her figure
+is plain and clear--she might be close to me. The carpet on which she
+stands I can see, the chair on which she sits, the table on which she
+leans her hand, anything she touches I can see; but no more. I have
+seen her talking. I knew she was entreating some one, but that some one
+was invisible. Yet, if she touched that person, the virtue of her touch
+would enable me to see him."
+
+So far as I could see, Carriston's case appeared to be one of
+over-wrought, or unduly-stimulated imagination. His I had always
+considered to be a mind of the most peculiar construction. In his
+present state of love, grief, and suspense these hallucinations might
+come in the same way in which dreams come. For a little while I sat
+in silence, considering how I could best combat with and dispel his
+remarkable delusions. Before I had arrived at any decision I was called
+away to see a patient. I was but a short time engaged. Then I returned
+to Carriston, intending to continue my inquiries.
+
+Upon re-entering the room I found him sitting, as I had left
+him--directly opposite to the door. His face was turned fully toward
+me, and I trembled as I caught sight of it. He was leaning forward; his
+hands on the table-cloth, his whole frame rigid, his eyes staring in one
+direction, yet, I knew, capable of seeing nothing that I could see. He
+seemed even oblivious to sound, for I entered the room and closed the
+door behind me without causing him to change look or position. The
+moment I saw the man I knew that he had been overtaken by what he called
+the strange fit.
+
+My first impulse--a natural one--was to arouse him; but second thoughts
+told me that this was an opportunity for studying his disease which
+should not be lost--I felt that I could call it by no other name
+than disease--so I proceeded to make a systematic examination of his
+symptoms.
+
+I leaned across the table; and, with my face about a foot from his,
+looked straight into his eyes. They betrayed no sign of recognition--no
+knowledge of my presence. I am ashamed to say I could not divest myself
+of the impression that they were looking through me. The pupils were
+greatly dilated. The lids were wide apart. I lighted a taper and held it
+before them, but could see no expansion of the iris. It was a case, I
+confess, entirely beyond my comprehension. I had no experience which
+might serve as a guide as to what was the best course to adopt. All I
+could do was to stand and watch carefully for any change.
+
+Save for his regular breathing and a sort of convulsive twitching of his
+fingers, Carriston might have been a corpse or a statue. His face could
+scarcely grow paler than it had been before the attack. Altogether, it
+was an uncomfortable sight: a creepy sight--this motionless man, utterly
+regardless of all that went on around him, and seeing, or giving one the
+idea that he saw something far away. I sighed as I looked at the strange
+spectacle, and foresaw what the end must surely be. But although I
+longed for him to awake, I determined on this occasion to let the
+trance, or fit, run its full course, that I might notice in what manner
+and how soon consciousness returned.
+
+I must have waited and watched some ten minutes--minutes which seemed to
+me interminable. At last I saw the lips quiver, the lids flicker once or
+twice, and eventually close wearily over the eyes. The unnatural tension
+of every muscle seemed to relax, and, sighing deeply, and apparently
+quite exhausted, Carriston sank back into his chair with beads of
+perspiration forming on his white brow. The fit was over.
+
+In a moment I was at his side and forcing a glass of wine down his
+throat. He looked up at me and spoke. His voice was faint, but his words
+were quite collected.
+
+"I have seen her again," he said. "She is well; but so unhappy. I saw
+her kneel down and pray. She stretched her beautiful arms out to me. And
+yet I know not where to look for her--my poor love! my poor love!"
+
+I waited until I thought he had sufficiently recovered from his
+exhaustion to talk without injurious consequences. "Carriston," I said,
+"let me ask you one question: Are these trances or visions voluntary or
+not?"
+
+He reflected for a few moments. "I can't quite tell you," he said; "or,
+rather, I would put in this way. I do not think I can exercise my power
+at will; but I can feel when the fit is coming on me, and, I believe,
+can if I choose stop myself from yielding to it."
+
+"Very well. Now listen. Promise me you will fight against these seizures
+as much as you can. If you don't you will be raving mad in a month."
+
+"I can't promise that," said Carriston, quietly. "See her at times I
+must, or I shall die. But I promise to yield as seldom as may be. I
+know, as well as you do, that the very exhaustion I now feel must be
+injurious to any one."
+
+In truth, he looked utterly worn out. Very much dissatisfied with his
+concession, the best I could get from him, I sent him to bed, knowing
+that natural rest, if he could get it, would do more than anything else
+toward restoring a healthy tone to his mind.
+
+
+VIII.
+
+Although Carriston stated that he came to me for aid, and, it may be,
+for protection, he manifested the greatest reluctance in following
+any advice I offered him. The obstinacy of his refusal to obtain the
+assistance of the police placed me in a predicament. That Madeline Rowan
+had really disappeared I was, of course, compelled to believe. It might
+even be possible that she was kept against her will in some place of
+concealment. In such a case it behooved us to take proper steps to trace
+her. Her welfare should not depend upon the hallucinations and eccentric
+ideas of a man half out of his senses with love and grief. I all but
+resolved, even at the risk of forfeiting Carriston's friendship, to put
+the whole matter in the hands of the police, unless in the course of a
+day or two we heard from the girl herself, or Carriston suggested some
+better plan.
+
+Curiously enough, although refusing to be guided by me, he made no
+suggestion on his own account. He was racked by fear and suspense, yet
+his only idea of solving difficulties seemed to be that of waiting. He
+did nothing. He simply waited, as if he expected that chance would bring
+what he should have been searching for high and low.
+
+Some days passed before I could get a tardy consent that aid should be
+sought. Even then he would not go to the proper quarter; but he allowed
+me to summon to our councils a man who advertised himself as being a
+private detective. This man, or one of his men, came at our call, and
+heard what was wanted of him. Carriston reluctantly gave him one of
+Madeline's photographs. He also told him that only by watching and
+spying on Ralph Carriston's every action could he hope to obtain the
+clew. I did not much like the course adopted, nor did I like the look of
+the man to whom the inquiry was intrusted; but at any rate something was
+being done.
+
+A week passed without any news from our agent. Carriston, in truth, did
+not seem to expect any. I believe he only employed the man in deference
+to my wishes. He moved about the house in a disconsolate fashion. I had
+not told him of my interview with his cousin, but had cautioned him on
+the rare occasions upon which he went out of doors to avoid speaking to
+strangers, and my servants had strict instructions to prevent any one
+coming in and taking my guest by surprise.
+
+For I had during those days opened a confidential inquiry on my own
+account. I wanted to learn something about this Mr. Ralph Carriston. So
+I asked a man who knew everybody to find out all about him.
+
+He reported that Ralph Carriston was a man well known about London. He
+was married and had a house in Dorsetshire; but the greater part of his
+time was spent in town. Once he was supposed to be well-off; but now it
+was the general opinion that every acre he owned was mortgaged, and that
+he was much pressed for money. "But," my informant said, "there is but
+one life between him and the reversion to large estates, and that life
+is a poor one. I believe even now there is talk about the man who stands
+in his way being mad. If so, Ralph Carriston will get the management of
+everything."
+
+After this news I felt it more than ever needful to keep a watchful
+eye on my friend. So far as I knew there had been no recurrence of
+the trance, and I began to hope that proper treatment would effect a
+complete cure, when, to my great alarm and annoyance, Carriston, while
+sitting with me, suddenly and without warning fell into the same strange
+state of body and mind as previously described. This time he was sitting
+in another part of the room. After watching him for a minute or two, and
+just as I was making up my mind to arouse him and scold him thoroughly
+for his folly, he sprung to his feet, and shouting, "Let her go! Loose
+her, I say!" rushed violently across the room--so violently, that I had
+barely time to interpose and prevent him from coming into contact with
+the opposite wall.
+
+Upon returning to his senses he told me, with great excitement, that
+he had again seen Madeline; moreover, this time he had seen a man with
+her--a man who had placed his hand upon her wrist and kept it there; and
+so, according to Carriston's wild reasoning, became, on account of the
+contact, visible to him.
+
+He told me he had watched them for some moments, until the man,
+tightening his grip on the girl's arm, endeavored, he thought, to lead
+her or induce her to follow him somewhere. At this juncture, unaware
+that he was gazing at a vision, he had rushed to her assistance in the
+frantic way I have described--then he awoke.
+
+He also told me he had studied the man's features and general appearance
+most carefully with a view to future recognition. All these ridiculous
+statements were made as he made the former ones, with the air of one
+relating simple, undeniable facts--one speaking the plain, unvarnished
+truth, and expecting full credence to be given to his words.
+
+It was too absurd! too sad! It was evident to me that the barrier
+between his hallucinations, dreams, visions, or what he chose to call
+them, and pure insanity, was now a very slight and fragile one. But
+before I gave up his case as hopeless I determined to make another
+strong appeal to his common-sense. I told him of his cousin's visit to
+me--of his intentions and proposition. I begged him to consider what
+consequences his extraordinary beliefs and extravagant actions must
+eventually entail. He listened attentively and calmly.
+
+"You see now," he said, "how right I was in attributing all this to
+Ralph Carriston--how right I was to come to you, a doctor of standing,
+who can vouch for my sanity."
+
+"Vouch for your sanity! How can I when you sit here and talk such arrant
+nonsense, and expect me to believe it? When you jump from your chair and
+rush madly at some visionary foe? Sane as you may be in all else, any
+evidence I could give in your favor must break down in cross-examination
+if an inkling of these things got about. Come, Carriston, be reasonable,
+and prove your sanity by setting about this search for Miss Rowan in a
+proper way."
+
+He made no reply, but walked up and down the room apparently in deep
+thought. My words seemed to have had no effect upon him. Presently he
+seated himself; and, as if to avoid returning to the argument, drew a
+book at hazard from my shelves and began to read. He opened the volume
+at random, but after reading a few lines seemed struck by something
+that met his eyes, and in a few minutes was deeply immersed in the
+contents of the book. I glanced at it to see what had so awakened his
+interest. By a curious fatality he had chosen a book the very worst for
+him in his present frame of mind--Gilchrist's recently published life of
+William Blake, that masterly memoir of a man who was on certain points
+as mad as Carriston himself. I was about to remonstrate, when he laid
+down the volume and turned to me.
+
+"Varley, the painter," he said, "was a firm believer in Blake's
+visions."
+
+"Varley was a bigger fool than Blake," I retorted. "Fancy his sitting
+down and watching his clever but mad friend draw spectral heads, and
+believing them to be genuine portraits of dead kings whose forms
+condescended to appear to Blake!"
+
+A sudden thought seemed to strike Carriston. "Will you give me some
+paper and chalk?" he asked. Upon being furnished with these materials he
+seated himself at the table and began to draw. At least a dozen times he
+sketched, with his usual rapidity, some object or another, and a dozen
+times, after a moment's consideration, threw each sketch aside with an
+air of disappointment and began a fresh one. At last one of his attempts
+seemed to come up to his requirements. "I have it now, exactly!" he
+cried with joy--even triumph--in his voice. He spent some time in
+putting finishing touches to the successful sketch, then he handed me
+the paper.
+
+"That is the man I saw just now with Madeline," he said. "When I find
+him I shall find her." He spoke with all sincerity and conviction. I
+looked at the paper with, I am bound to say, a great amount of
+curiosity.
+
+No matter from what visionary source Carriston had drawn his
+inspiration, his sketch was vigorous and natural enough. I have already
+mentioned his wonderful power of drawing portraits from memory, so was
+willing to grant that he might have reproduced the outline of some face
+which had somewhere struck him. Yet why should it have been this one?
+His drawing represented the three quarter face of a man--an ordinary
+man--apparently between forty and fifty years of age. It was a
+coarse-featured, ill-favored face, with a ragged ruff of hair round
+the chin. It was not the face of a gentleman, nor even the face of a
+gentle-nurtured man; and the artist, by a few cunning strokes, had made
+it wear a crafty and sullen look. The sketch, as I write this, lies
+before me, so that I am not speaking from memory.
+
+Now, there are some portraits of which, without having seen the
+original, we say, "What splendid likenesses these must be." It was so
+with Carriston's sketch. Looking at it you felt sure it was exactly like
+the man whom it was intended to represent. So that, with the certain
+amount of art knowledge which I am at least supposed to possess, it
+was hard for me, after examining the drawing and recognizing the true
+artist's touch in every line, to bring myself to accept the fact that it
+was but the outcome of a diseased imagination. As, at this very moment,
+I glance at that drawing, I scarcely blame myself for the question
+that faintly frames itself in my innermost heart. "Could it be
+possible--could there be in certain organizations powers not yet
+known--not yet properly investigated?"
+
+My thought, supposing such a thought was ever there--was not discouraged
+by Carriston, who, speaking as if his faith in the bodily existence of
+the man whose portrait lay in my hand was unassailable, said,
+
+"I noticed that his general appearance was that of a countryman--an
+English peasant; so in the country I shall find my love. Moreover, it
+will be easy to identify the man, as the top joint is missing from the
+middle finger of his right hand. As it lay on Madeline's arm I noticed
+that."
+
+I argued with him no more. I felt that words would be but wasted.
+
+
+IX.
+
+A day or two after I had witnessed what I must call Carriston's second
+seizure we were favored with a visit from the man whose services we had
+secured to trace Madeline. Since he had received his instructions we had
+heard nothing of his proceeding until he now called to report progress
+in person. Carriston had not expressed the slightest curiosity as to
+where the man was or what he was about. Probably he looked upon the
+employment of this private detective as nothing more useful than a salve
+to my conscience. That Madeline was only to be found through the power
+which he professed to hold of seeing her in his visions was, I felt
+certain, becoming a rooted belief of his. Whenever I expressed my
+surprise that our agent had brought or sent no information, Carriston
+shrugged his shoulders, and assured me that from the first he knew the
+man's researches would be fruitless. However, the fellow had called at
+last, and, I hoped, had brought us good news.
+
+He was a glib-tongued man, who spoke in a confident, matter-of-fact way.
+When he saw us he rubbed his hands as one who had brought affairs to a
+successful issue, and now meant to reap praise and other rewards. His
+whole bearing told me he had made an important discovery; so I begged
+him to be seated, and give us his news.
+
+Carriston gave him a careless glance, and stood at some little distance
+from us. He looked as if he thought the impending communication scarcely
+worth the trouble of listening to. He might, indeed, from his looks,
+have been the most disinterested person of the three. He even left me to
+do the questioning.
+
+"Now, then, Mr. Sharpe," I said, "let us hear if you have earned your
+money."
+
+"I think so, sir," replied Sharpe, looking curiously at Carriston, who,
+strange to say, heard this answer with supreme indifference.
+
+"I think I may say I have, sir," continued the detective--"that is if
+the gentlemen can identify these articles as being the young lady's
+property."
+
+Thereupon he produced from a thick letter-case a ribbon in which was
+stuck a silver pin, mounted with Scotch pebbles, an ornament that
+I remembered having seen Madeline wear. Mr. Sharpe handed them to
+Carriston. He examined them, and I saw his cheeks flush and his eyes
+grow bright.
+
+"How did you come by this?" he cried, pointing to the silver ornament.
+
+"I'll tell you presently, sir. Do you recognize it?"
+
+"I gave it to Miss Rowan myself."
+
+"Then we are on the right track," I cried, joyfully. "Go on, Mr.
+Sharpe."
+
+"Yes, gentlemen, we are certainly on the right track; but after all, it
+isn't my fault if the track don't lead exactly where you wish. You see,
+when I heard of this mysterious disappearance of the lady, I began to
+concoct my own theory. I said to myself, when a young and beautiful--"
+
+"Confound your theories!" cried Carriston fiercely. "Go on with your
+tale."
+
+The man gave his interrupter a spiteful glance. "Well, sir," he said,
+"as you gave me strict instructions to watch a certain gentleman
+closely, I obeyed those instructions, of course, although I knew I was
+on a fool's errand."
+
+"Will you go on?" cried Carriston. "If you know where Miss Rowan is, say
+so; your money will be paid you the moment I find her."
+
+"I don't say I exactly know where to find the lady, but I can soon know
+if you wish me to."
+
+"Tell your tale your own way, but as shortly as possible," I said,
+seeing that my excitable friend was preparing for another outburst.
+
+"I found there was nothing to be gained by keeping watch on the
+gentleman you mentioned, sir, so I went to Scotland and tried back from
+there. As soon as I worked on my own lay I found out all about it. The
+lady went from Callendar to Edinburgh, from Edinburgh to London, from
+London to Folkestone, and from Folkestone to Boulong."
+
+I glanced at Carriston. All his calmness seemed to have returned. He was
+leaning against the mantelpiece, and appeared quite unmoved by Mr.
+Sharpe's clear statement as to the route Madeline had taken.
+
+"Of course," continued Mr. Sharpe, "I was not quite certain I was
+tracking the right person, although her description corresponded with
+the likeness you gave me. But as you are sure this article of jewelry
+belonged to the lady you want, the matter is beyond a doubt."
+
+"Of course," I said, seeing that Carriston had no intention of speaking.
+"Where did you find it?"
+
+"It was left behind, in a bedroom of one of the principal hotels in
+Folkestone. I did go over to Boulong, but after that I thought I had
+learned all you would care to know."
+
+There was something in the man's manner which made me dread what was
+coming. Again I looked at Carriston. His lips were curved with contempt,
+but he still kept silence.
+
+"Why not have pursued your inquiries past Boulong?" I asked.
+
+"For this reason, sir. I had learned enough. The theory I had concocted
+was the right one after all. The lady went to Edinburgh alone, right
+enough: but she didn't leave Edinburgh alone, nor she didn't leave
+London alone, nor she didn't stay at Folkestone--where I found the
+pin--alone, nor she didn't go to Boulong alone. She was accompanied by
+a young gentleman who called himself Mr. Smith; and what's more, she
+called herself Mrs. Smith. Perhaps she was; as they lived like man and
+wife."
+
+Whether the fellow was right or mistaken, this explanation of Madeline's
+disappearance seemed to give me what I can only compare to a smack in
+the face. I stared at the speaker in speechless astonishment. If the
+tale he told so glibly and circumstantially was true, farewell, so far
+as I was concerned, to belief in the love or purity of women. Madeline
+Rowan, that creature of a poet's dream, on the eve of her marriage with
+Charles Carriston to fly, whether wed or unwed mattered little, with
+another man! And yet, she was but a woman. Carriston--or Carr, as she
+only knew him--was in her eyes poor. The companion of her flight might
+have won her with gold. Such things have been. Still--
+
+My rapid and wrongful meditations were cut short in an unexpected way.
+Suddenly I saw Mr. Sharpe dragged bodily out of his chair and thrown
+on the floor, while Carriston, standing over him, thrashed the man
+vigorously with his own ash stick--a convenient weapon, so convenient
+that I felt Mr. Sharpe could not have selected a stick more appropriate
+for his own chastisement. So Carriston seemed to think, for he laid on
+cheerfully some eight or ten good cutting strokes.
+
+Nevertheless, being a respectable doctor and a man of peace, I was
+compelled to interfere. I held Carriston's arm while Mr. Sharpe
+struggled to his feet, and after collecting his hat and his pocket-book,
+stood glaring vengefully at his assailant, and rubbing the while such
+of the weals on his back as he could reach. Annoyed as I felt at the
+unprofessional _fracas_, I could scarcely help laughing at the man's
+appearance. I doubt the possibility of any one looking heroic after such
+a thrashing.
+
+"I'll have the law for this," he growled. "I ain't paid to be beaten by
+a madman."
+
+"You're paid to do my work, not another's," said Carriston. "Go to the
+man who has over-bribed you and sent you to tell me your lies. Go to
+him, tell him that once more he has failed. Out of my sight."
+
+As Carriston showed signs of recommencing hostile operations, the man
+flew as far as the door-way. There, being in comparative safety, he
+turned with a malignant look.
+
+"You'll smart for this," he said; "when they lock you up as a raving
+lunatic I'll try and get a post as keeper."
+
+I was glad to see that Carriston paid no attention to this parting
+shaft. He turned his back scornfully, and the fellow left the room and
+the house.
+
+"Now are you convinced?" asked Carriston, turning to me.
+
+"Convinced of what? That his tale is untrue, or that he has been misled,
+I am quite certain."
+
+"Tush! That is not worth consideration. Don't you see that Ralph has
+done all this? I set that man to watch him; he found out the espionage;
+suborned my agent, or your agent, I should say; sent him here with a
+trumped-up tale. Oh, yes; I was to believe that Madeline had deserted
+me--that was to drive me out of my senses. My cousin is a fool after
+all!"
+
+"Without further proof I cannot believe that your suspicions are
+correct," I said; but I must own I spoke with some hesitation.
+
+"Proof! A clever man like you ought to see ample proof in the fact of
+that wretch having twice called me a madman. I have seen him but once
+before--you know if I then gave him any grounds for making such an
+assertion. Tell me, from whom could he have learned the word except
+from Ralph Carriston?"
+
+I was bound, if only to save my own reputation for sagacity, to confess
+that the point noted by Carriston had raised certain doubts in my mind.
+But if Ralph Carriston really was trying by some finely-wrought scheme
+to bring about what he desired, there was all the more reason for great
+caution to be exercised.
+
+"I am sorry you beat him," I said. "He will now swear right and left
+that you are not in your senses."
+
+"Of course he will. What do I care?"
+
+"Only remember this. It is easier to get put into an asylum than to get
+out of it."
+
+"It is not so very easy for a sane man like myself to be put in,
+especially when he is on his guard. I have looked up the law. There
+must be a certificate signed by two doctors, surgeons--or, I believe,
+apothecaries will do--who have seen the supposed lunatic alone and
+together. I'll take very good care I speak to no doctor save yourself,
+and keep out of the way of surgeons and apothecaries."
+
+It quite cheered me to hear him speaking so sensibly and collectedly
+about himself, but I again impressed upon him the need of great caution.
+Although I could not believe that his cousin had taken Madeline away, I
+was inclined to think, after the affair with the spy, that, as Carriston
+averred, he aimed at getting him, sane or insane, into a mad-house.
+
+But after all these days we were not a step nearer to the discovery of
+Madeline's whereabouts. Carriston made no sign of doing anything to
+facilitate that discovery. Again I urged him to intrust the whole affair
+to the police. Again he refused to do so, adding that he was not quite
+ready. Ready for what, I wondered!
+
+
+X.
+
+I must confess, in spite of my affection for Carriston, I felt inclined
+to rebel against the course which matters were taking. I was a prosaic
+matter-of-fact medical man; doing my work to the best of my ability and
+anxious when that work was done that my hours of leisure should be as
+free from worry and care as possible. With Carriston's advent several
+disturbing elements entered into my quiet life.
+
+Let Ralph Carriston be guilty or innocent of the extraordinary crime
+which his cousin laid at his door, I felt that he was anxious to obtain
+possession of the supposed lunatic's person. It would suit his purposes
+for his cousin to be proved mad. I did not believe that even if the
+capture was legally effected Carriston's liberation would be a matter of
+great difficulty so long as he remained in his present state of mind; so
+long as I, a doctor of some standing, could go into the witness-box and
+swear to his sanity. But my old dread was always with me--the dread that
+any further shock would overturn the balance of his sensitive mind.
+
+So it was that every hour that Carriston was out of my sight was fraught
+with anxiety. If Ralph Carriston was really as unscrupulous as my friend
+supposed; if he had really, as seemed almost probable, suborned our
+agent; he might by some crafty trick obtain the needful certificate, and
+some day I should come home and find Carriston had been removed. In such
+a case I foresaw great trouble and distress.
+
+Besides, after all that had occurred, it was as much as I could do to
+believe that Carriston was not mad. Any doctor who knew what I knew
+would have given the verdict against him.
+
+After dismissing his visions and hallucinations with the contempt which
+they deserved, the fact of a man who was madly, passionately in love
+with a woman, and who believed that she had been entrapped and was
+still kept in restraint, sitting down quietly, and letting day after day
+pass without making an effort toward finding her, was in itself _prima
+facie_ evidence of insanity. A sane man would at once have set all the
+engines of detection at work.
+
+I felt that if once Ralph Carriston obtained possession of him he could
+make out a strong case in his own favor. First of all, the proposed
+marriage out of the defendant's own sphere of life; the passing under a
+false name; the ridiculous, or apparently ridiculous, accusation made
+against his kinsman; the murderous threats; the chastisement of his own
+paid agent who brought him a report which might not seem at all untrue
+to any one who knew not Madeline Rowan. Leaving out the question what
+might be wrung from me in cross-examination, Ralph Carriston had a
+strong case, and I knew that, once in his power, my friend might
+possibly be doomed to pass years, if not his whole life, under
+restraint. So I was anxious--very anxious.
+
+And I felt an anxiety, scarcely second to that which prevailed on
+Carriston's account, as to the fate of Madeline. Granting for sake of
+argument that Carriston's absurd conviction that no bodily harm had as
+yet been done her, was true, I felt sure that she with her scarcely less
+sensitive nature must feel the separation from her lover as much as he
+himself felt the separation from her. Once or twice I tried to comfort
+myself with cynicism--tried to persuade myself that a young woman
+could not in our days be spirited away--that she had gone by her own
+free-will--that there was a man who had at the eleventh hour alienated
+her affections from Carriston. But I could not bring myself to believe
+this. So I was placed between the horns of a dilemma.
+
+If Madeline had not fled of her own free-will, some one must have taken
+her away, and if so our agent's report was a coined one, and, if a
+coined one, issued at Ralph's instance; therefore Ralph must be the
+prime actor in the mystery.
+
+But in sober moments such a deduction seemed an utter absurdity.
+
+Although I have said that Carriston was doing nothing toward clearing up
+the mystery, I wronged him in so saying. After his own erratic way he
+was at work. At such work too! I really lost all patience with him.
+
+He shut himself up in his room, out of which he scarcely stirred for
+three days. By that time he had completed a large and beautiful drawing
+of his imaginary man. This he took to a well-known photographer's, and
+ordered several hundred small photographs of it, to be prepared as
+soon as possible. The minute description which he had given me of his
+fanciful creation was printed at the foot of each copy. As soon as the
+first batch of these precious photographs was sent home, to my great
+joy he did what he should have done days ago; yielded to my wishes, and
+put the matter into the hands of the police.
+
+I was glad to find that in giving details of what had happened he said
+nothing about the advisability of keeping a watch on Ralph Carriston's
+proceedings. He did, indeed, offer an absurdly large reward for the
+discovery of the missing girl; and, moreover, gave the officer in charge
+of the case a packet of photographs of his phantom man, telling him
+in the gravest manner that he knew the original of that likeness had
+something to do with the disappearance of Miss Rowan. The officer, who
+thought the portrait was that of a natural being, took his instructions
+in good faith, although he seemed greatly surprised when he heard
+that Carriston knew neither the name nor the occupation, in fact,
+knew nothing concerning the man who was to be sought for. However, as
+Carriston assured him that finding this man would insure the reward as
+much as if he found Madeline, the officer readily promised to combine
+the two tasks, little knowing what waste of time any attempt to perform
+the latter must be.
+
+Two days after this Carriston came to me. "I shall leave you to-morrow,"
+he said.
+
+"Where are you going?" I asked. "Why do you leave?"
+
+"I am going to travel about. I have no intention of letting Ralph get
+hold of me. So I mean to go from place to place until I find Madeline."
+
+"Be careful," I urged.
+
+"I shall be careful enough. I'll take care that no doctors, surgeons, or
+even apothecaries get on my track. I shall go just as the fit seizes me.
+If I can't say one day where I shall be the next, it will be impossible
+for that villain to know."
+
+This was not a bad argument. In fact, if he carried out his resolve of
+passing quickly from place to place I did not see how he could plan
+anything more likely to defeat the intentions with which we credited his
+cousin. As to his finding Madeline by so doing, that was another matter.
+
+His idea seemed to be that chance would sooner or later bring him in
+contact with the man of his dream. However, now that the search had been
+intrusted to the proper persons his own action in the matter was not
+worth troubling about. I gave him many cautions. He was to be quiet and
+guarded in words and manner. He was not to converse with strangers. If
+he found himself dogged or watched by any one he was to communicate at
+once with me. But, above all, I begged him not to yield again to his
+mental infirmity. The folly of a man who could avoid it, throwing
+himself into such a state ought to be apparent to him.
+
+"Not oftener than I can help," was all the promise I could get from him.
+"But see her I must sometimes, or I shall die."
+
+I had now given up as hopeless the combat with his peculiar
+idiosyncrasy. So, with many expressions of gratitude on his part, we
+bade each other farewell.
+
+During his absence he wrote to me nearly every day, so that I might know
+his whereabouts in case I had any news to communicate. But I had none.
+The police failed to find the slightest clew. I had been called upon
+by them once or twice in order that they might have every grain of
+information I could give. I took the liberty of advising them not to
+waste their time in looking for the man, as his very existence was
+problematical. It was but a fancy of my friend's, and not worth thinking
+seriously about. I am not sure but what after hearing this they did
+not think the whole affair was an imagined one, and so relaxed their
+efforts.
+
+Once or twice, Carriston, happening to be in the neighborhood of London,
+came to see me, and slept the night at my house. He also had no news to
+report. Still, he seemed hopeful as ever.
+
+The weeks went by until Christmas was over and the New Year begun; but
+no sign, word, or trace of Madeline Rowan. "I have seen her," wrote
+Carriston, "several times. She is in the same place--unhappy, but not
+ill-treated."
+
+Evidently his hallucinations were still in full force.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At first I intended that the whole of this tale should be told by
+myself; but upon getting so far it struck me that the evidence of
+another actor who played an important part in the drama would give
+certain occurrences to the reader at first instead of at second hand,
+so I wrote to my friend Dick Fenton, of Frenchay, Gloucestershire, and
+begged him, if he found himself capable of so doing, to put in simple
+narrative form his impressions of certain events which happened in
+January, 1866: events in which we two were concerned. He has been good
+enough to comply with my request. His communication follows.
+
+
+
+
+PART II.
+
+TOLD BY RICHARD FENTON, OF FRENCHAY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE, ESQUIRE.
+
+
+I.
+
+As my old friend Phil Brand has asked me to do this, I suppose I must.
+Brand is a right good fellow and a clever fellow, but has plenty of
+crotchets of his own. The worst I know of him is that he insists upon
+having his own with people. With those who differ from him he is as
+obstinate as a mule. Anyhow, he has always had his own way with me. This
+custom, so far as I am concerned, commenced years ago when we were boys
+at school together, and I have never been able to shake off the bad
+habit of giving in to him. He has promised to see that my queen's
+English is presentable: for, to tell the truth, I am more at home across
+country than across foolscap, and my fingers know the feel of the reins
+or the trigger better than that of the pen.
+
+All the same I hope he won't take too many liberties with my style, bad
+though it may be; for old Brand at times is apt to get--well, a bit
+prosy. To hear him on the subject of hard work and the sanctity thereof
+approaches the sublime!
+
+What freak took me to the little God-forsaken village of Midcombe in the
+depth of winter is entirely between myself and my conscience. The cause
+having no bearing upon the matters I am asked to tell you about, is no
+one's business but mine. I will only say that now I would not stay in
+such a place at such a time of the year for the sake of the prettiest
+girl in the world, let alone the bare chance of meeting her once or
+twice. But one's ideas change. I am now a good bit older, ride some two
+stones heavier, and have been married ever so many years. Perhaps, after
+all, as I look back I can find some excuse for being such an ass as to
+endure for more than a fortnight all the discomforts heaped upon me in
+that little village inn.
+
+A man who sojourns in such a hole as Midcombe must give some reason for
+doing so. My ostensible reason was hunting. I had a horse with me, and a
+second-rate subscription pack of slow-going mongrels did meet somewhere
+in the neighborhood, so no one could gainsay my explanation. But if
+hunting was my object, I got precious little of it. A few days after my
+arrival a bitter, biting frost set in--a frost as black as your hat and
+as hard as nails. Yet still I stayed on.
+
+From private information received--no matter how, when or where--I knew
+that some people in the neighborhood had organized a party to go skating
+on a certain day at Lilymere, a fine sheet of water some distance from
+Midcombe. I guessed that some one whom I particularly desired to meet
+would be there, and as the skating at Lilymere was free to any one who
+chose to take the trouble of getting to such an out-of-the-way place, I
+hired a horse and an apology for a dog-cart, and at ten in the morning
+started to drive the twelve miles to the pond. I took no one with me. I
+had been to Lilymere once before, in bright summer weather, so fancied
+I knew the way well enough.
+
+The sky when I started was cloudy; the wind was chopping round in a way
+which made the effete rustic old hostler predict a change of weather. He
+was right. Before I had driven two miles light snow began to fall, and
+by the time I reached a little wretched wayside inn, about a mile from
+the Mere, a film of white covered the whole country. I stabled my horse
+as well as I could, then taking my skates with me walked down to the
+pond.
+
+Now, whether I had mistaken the day, or whether the threatening fall of
+snow had made certain people change their minds, I don't know; but, to
+my annoyance and vexation, no skaters were to be seen, and moreover,
+the uncut, white surface told me that none had been on the pond that
+morning. Still hoping they might come in spite of the weather, I put on
+my skates and went outside-edging and grape-vining all over the place.
+But as there was no person in particular--in fact, no one at all--to
+note my powers, I soon got tired. It was, indeed, dreary, dreary work.
+But I waited and hoped until the snow came down so fast and furiously
+that I felt sure that waiting was in vain, and that I had driven to
+Lilymere for nothing.
+
+Back I went to the little inn, utterly disgusted with things in general,
+and feeling that to break some one's head would be a relief to me in my
+present state of mind. Of course a sensible man would at once have got
+his horse between the shafts and driven home. But whatever I may be now,
+in those days I was not a sensible man--Brand will, I know, cordially
+indorse this remark--the accommodation of the inn was not such as to
+induce one to linger within its precincts; but the fire was a right good
+one, and a drink, which I skilfully manufactured out of some hot beer,
+not to be despised, and proved warming to the body and soothing to the
+ruffled temper. So I lingered over the big fire until I began to feel
+hungry, and upon the landlady assuring me that she could cook a rasher,
+decided it would be wiser to stay where I was until the violence of the
+snowstorm was over; for coming down it was now, and no mistake.
+
+And it kept on coming down. About half-past three, when I sorrowfully
+decided I was bound to make a move, it was snowing faster than ever. I
+harnessed my horse, and laughing at the old woman's dismal prophecy that
+I should never get to Midcombe in such weather, gathered up the reins,
+and away I went along the white road.
+
+I thought I knew the way well enough. In fact I had always prided myself
+upon remembering any road once driven over by me; but does any one who
+has not tried it really know how a heavy fall of snow changes the aspect
+of the country, and makes landmarks snares and delusions? I learned all
+about it then, once and for all. I found, also, that the snow lay much
+deeper than I thought could possibly be in so short a time, and it still
+fell in a manner almost blinding. Yet I went on bravely and merrily for
+some miles. Then came a bit of uncertainty--
+
+Which of those two roads was the right one? This one, of course--no, the
+other. There was no house near; no one was likely to be passing in such
+weather, so I was left to exercise my free, unbiased choice; a privilege
+I would willingly have dispensed with. However, I made the best
+selection I could, and followed it for some two miles. Then I began to
+grow doubtful, and soon persuading myself that I was on the wrong track,
+retraced my steps. I was by this time something like a huge white
+plaster of Paris figure, and the snow which had accumulated on the old
+dog-cart made it run heavier by half-a-ton, more or less. By the time I
+came to that unlucky junction of roads at which my misfortune began it
+was almost dark; the sky as black as a tarpaulin, yet sending down the
+white feathery flakes thicker and faster than ever. I felt inclined to
+curse my folly in attempting such a drive, at any rate I blamed myself
+for not having started two or three hours earlier. I'll warrant that
+steady-going old Brand never had to accuse himself of such foolishness
+as mine.
+
+Well, I took the other road; went on some way; came to a turning which
+I seemed to remember; and, not without misgivings, followed it. My
+misgivings increased when, after a little while, I found the road grew
+full of ruts, which the snow and the darkness quite concealed from me
+until the wheels got into them. Evidently I was wrong again. I was just
+thinking of making the best of my way out of this rough and unfrequented
+road, when--there, I don't know how it happened, such things seldom
+occur to me--a stumble, a fall on the part of my tired horse sent me
+flying over the dashboard, with the only consoling thought that the
+reins were still in my hand.
+
+Luckily the snow had made the falling pretty soft. I soon picked myself
+up and set about estimating damages. With some difficulty I got the
+horse out of the harness, and then felt free to inspect the dog-cart.
+Alas! after the manner of the two-wheel kind whenever a horse thinks fit
+to fall, one shaft had snapped off like a carrot; so here was I, five
+miles apparently from anywhere, in the thick of a blinding snow-storm,
+left standing helpless beside a jaded horse and a broken cart--I should
+like to know what Brand would have done under the circumstances.
+
+As for me, I reflected for some minutes--reflection in a snow-storm is
+weary work. I reasoned, I believe logically, and at last came to this
+decision: I would follow the road. If, as I suspected, it was but a
+cart-track, it would probably soon lead to a habitation of some kind.
+Anyway I had better try a bit further. I took hold of the wearied horse,
+and with snow under my feet, snow-flakes whirling round me, and a wind
+blowing right into my teeth, struggled on.
+
+It was a journey! I think I must have been three-quarters of an hour
+going about a quarter of a mile. I was just beginning to despair, when I
+saw a welcome gleam of light. I steered toward it, fondly hoping that my
+troubles were at an end. I found the light stole through the ill-fitting
+window-shutters of what seemed, so far as I could make out in the
+darkness, to be a small farm-house. Tying to a gate the knotted reins
+by which I had been leading the horse, I staggered up to the door and
+knocked loudly. Upon my honor, until I leaned against that door-post I
+had no idea how tired I was--until that moment I never suspected that
+the finding of speedy shelter meant absolutely saving my life. Covered
+from head to foot with snow, my hat crushed in, I must have been a
+pitiable object.
+
+No answer came to my first summons. It was only after a second and more
+imperative application of my heel that the door deigned to give way a
+few inches. Through the aperture a woman's voice asked who was there?
+
+"Let me in," I said. "I have missed my way to Midcombe. My horse has
+fallen. You must give me shelter for the night. Open the door and let me
+in."
+
+"Shelter! You can't get shelter here, mister," said a man's gruff voice.
+"This ain't an inn, so you'd best be off and go elsewhere."
+
+"But I must come in," I said, astonished at such inhospitality; "I can't
+go a step further. Open the door at once!"
+
+"You be hanged," said the man. "'Tis my house, not yours."
+
+"But, you fool, I mean to pay you well for your trouble. Don't you know
+it means death wandering about on such a night as this? Let me in."
+
+"You won't come in here," was the brutal and boorish reply. The door
+closed.
+
+That I was enraged at such incivility may be easily imagined; but if I
+said I was thoroughly frightened I believe no one would be surprised.
+As getting into that house meant simply life or death to me, into that
+house I determined to get, by door or window, by fair means or by foul.
+So, as the door closed, I hurled myself against it with all the might I
+could muster. Although I ride much heavier now than I did then, all my
+weight at that time was bone and muscle. The violence of my attack tore
+from the lintel the staple which held the chain; the door went back with
+a bang, and I fell forward into the house, fully resolved to stay there
+whether welcome or unwelcome.
+
+
+II.
+
+The door through which I had burst like a battering ram opened straight
+into a sort of kitchen, so although I entered in a most undignified way,
+in fact on my hands and knees, I was well-established in the centre of
+the room before the man and woman emerged from behind the door, where my
+successful assault had thrown them. I stood up and faced them. They were
+a couple of ordinary, respectably-attired country people. The man, a
+sturdy, strong-built, bull-necked rascal, stood scowling at me, and, I
+concluded, making up his mind as to what course to pursue.
+
+"My good people," I said, "you are behaving in the most unheard-of
+manner. Can't you understand that I mean to pay you well for any trouble
+I give you? But whether you like it or not, here I stay to-night. To
+turn me out would be sheer murder."
+
+So saying I pulled off my overcoat, and began shaking the snow out of my
+whiskers.
+
+I dare say my determined attitude, my respectable, as well as my
+muscular appearance, impressed my unwilling hosts. Anyway, they gave
+in without more ado. Whilst the woman shut the door, through which the
+snow-flakes were whirling, the man said sullenly:
+
+"Well, you'll have to spend the night on a chair. We've no beds here for
+strangers. 'Specially those as ain't wanted."
+
+"Very well, my friend. Having settled the matter you may as well make
+yourself pleasant. Go out and put my horse under cover, and give him a
+feed of some sort--make a mash if you can."
+
+After giving the woman a quick glance as of warning, my scowling host
+lit a horn lantern, and went on the errand I suggested. I gladly sank
+into a chair, and warmed myself before a cheerful fire. The prospect of
+spending the night amid such discomfort was not alluring, but I had, at
+least, a roof over my head.
+
+As a rule, the more churlish the nature, the more avaricious it is found
+to be. My promise of liberal remuneration was, after all, not without
+its effect upon the strange couple whose refusal to afford me refuge had
+so nearly endangered my life. They condescended to get me some tea and
+rough food. After I had disposed of all that, the man produced a bottle
+of gin. We filled our glasses, and then, with the aid of my pipe, I
+settled down to make the best of a night spent in a hard wooden chair.
+
+I had come across strange people in my travels, but I have no hesitation
+in saying that my host was the sullenest, sulkiest, most boorish
+specimen of human nature I had as yet met with. In spite of his recent
+ill-treatment of me I was quite ready to establish matters on a friendly
+footing, and made several attempts to draw him into conversation. The
+brute would only answer in monosyllables, or often not answer at all. So
+I gave up talking as a bad job, and sat in silence, smoking and looking
+into the fire, thinking a good deal, it may be, of some one I should
+have met that morning at Lilymere had the wretched snow but kept off.
+
+The long clock--that cumbrous eight-day machine which inevitably
+occupies one corner of every cottager's kitchen--struck nine. The woman
+rose and left us. I concluded she was going to bed. If so, I envied her.
+Her husband showed no sign of retiring. He still sat over the fire,
+opposite me. By this time I was dreadfully tired: every bone in my body
+ached. The hard chair which an hour or two ago, seemed all I could
+desire, now scarcely came up to my ideas of the comfort I was justly
+entitled to claim. My sulky companion had been drinking silently but
+steadily. Perhaps the liquor he had poured into himself might have
+rendered his frame of mind more pleasant and amenable to reason.
+
+"My good fellow," I said, "your chairs are excellent ones of the kind,
+but deucedly uncomfortable. I am horribly tired. If the resources of
+your establishment can't furnish a bed for me to sleep in, couldn't you
+find a mattress or something to lay down before the fire?"
+
+"You've got all you'll get to-night," he answered, knocking the ashes
+out his pipe.
+
+"Oh, but I say!"
+
+"So do I say. I say this: If you don't like it you can leave it. We
+didn't ask you to come."
+
+"You infernal beast," I muttered--and meant it too--I declare had I not
+been so utterly worn out, I would have had that bullet-headed ruffian up
+for a few rounds on his own kitchen floor, and tried to knock him into a
+more amiable frame of mind.
+
+"Never mind," I said; "but, remember, civility costs nothing, and often
+gets rewarded. However, if you wish to retire to your own couch don't
+let your native politeness stand in your way. Pray don't hesitate on my
+account. Leave plenty of fuel, and I shall manage until morning."
+
+"Where you stay, I stay," he answered. Then he filled his pipe, and once
+more relapsed into stony silence.
+
+I bothered about him no more. I dozed off for a few minutes--woke--dozed
+off again for some hours. I was in an uncomfortable sort of half sleep,
+crammed full of curious dreams--dreams from which I started, wondering
+where I was and how I got there. I even began to grow nervous. All sorts
+of horrible travellers' tales ran through my head. It was in just such
+places as this that unsuspecting voyagers were stated to have been
+murdered and robbed, by just such unmitigated ruffians as my host--I
+can tell you that altogether I spent a most pleasant night.
+
+To make matters worse and more dismal the storm still raged outside. The
+wind moaned through the trees, but it had again changed, and I knew from
+the sound on the window-panes that heavy rain had succeeded snow. As the
+big drops of water found their way down the large old-fashioned chimney,
+the fire hissed and spluttered like a spiteful vixen. Everything
+combined to deprive me of what dog's sleep I could by sheer persistency
+snatch.
+
+I think I tried every position which an ordinary man, not an acrobat, is
+capable of adopting with the assistance of a common wooden chair. I even
+lay down on the hard flags. I actually tried the table. I propped up the
+upper half of my body against the corner walls of the room; but found no
+rest. At last I gave up all idea of sleeping, and fully aroused myself.
+I comforted myself by saying that my misery was only temporary--that the
+longest night must come to an end.
+
+My companion had by now succumbed to fatigue, or to the combined effects
+of fatigue and gin-and-water. His head was hanging sideways, and he
+slept in a most uncomfortable attitude. I chuckled as I looked at him,
+feeling quite sure that if such a clod was capable of dreaming at all,
+his dreams must be worse even than mine. I filled another pipe, poked
+the smoldering logs into a blaze, and sat almost nose and knees over the
+fire, finding some amusement in speculating upon the condition of the
+churl before me, and thanking the Lord I was not like unto this man.
+Suddenly an idea flashed across me.
+
+I had seen this fellow before. But when or where I could not remember.
+His features, as I looked at them with keener interest, seemed to grow
+more and more familiar to me. Where could I have met him? Somewhere or
+other, but where? I racked my brain to associate him with some scene,
+some event. Although he was but an ordinary countryman, such as one sees
+scores of in a day's ride, only differing from his kind on account of
+his unpleasant face, I felt sure we were old acquaintances. When he
+awoke for a moment and changed his strained attitude, my feeling grew
+stronger and stronger. Yet puzzle and puzzle as I would I could not call
+to mind a former encounter; so at last I began to think the supposed
+recognition was pure fancy on my part.
+
+Having smoked out several pipes, I thought that a cigar would be a
+slight break to the monotony of the night's proceedings. So I drew out
+my case and looked at its contents. Among the weeds was one of a lighter
+color than the others. As I took it out I said to myself, "Why, old
+Brand gave me that one when I was last at his house." Curiously enough
+that cigar was the missing link in the chain of my memory. As I held it
+in my hand I knew at once why my host's ugly face seemed familiar to
+me.
+
+About a fortnight before, being in town, I had spent the evening with
+the doctor. He was not alone, and I was introduced to a tall pale young
+man named Carriston. He was a pleasant, polite young fellow, although
+not much in my line. At first I judged him to be a would-be poet of the
+fashionable miserable school; but finding that he and Brand talked so
+much about art I eventually decided that he was one of the doctor's many
+artist friends. Art is a hobby he hacks about on grandly. (Mem. Brand's
+own attempt at pictures are simply atrocious!)
+
+Just before I left, Carriston, the doctor's back being turned, asked me
+to step into another room. There he showed me the portrait of a man. It
+seemed very cleverly drawn, and I presumed he wanted me to criticise it.
+
+"I am a precious bad judge," I said.
+
+"I am not asking you to pass an opinion," said Carriston. "I want
+to beg a favor of you. I am almost ashamed to beg it on so short an
+acquaintance."
+
+He seemed modest, and not in want of money, so I encouraged him to
+proceed.
+
+"I heard you say you were going into the country," he resumed. "I want
+to ask you if by any chance you should meet the original of that drawing
+to telegraph at once to Dr. Brand."
+
+"Whereabouts does he live?"
+
+"I have no idea. If chance throws him in your way please do as I ask."
+
+"Certainly I will," I said, seeing the young man made the request in
+solemn earnest.
+
+He thanked me, and then gave me a small photograph of the picture. This
+photograph he begged me to keep in my pocket-book, so that I might
+refer to it in case I met the man he wanted. I put it there, went my
+way, and, am sorry to say, forget all about it. Had it not been for the
+strange cigar in my case bringing back Carriston's unusual request to my
+mind, the probabilities are that I should not have thought again of the
+matter. Now, by a remarkable coincidence, I was spending the night with
+the very man, who, so far as my memory served me, must have sat for the
+portrait shown me at Brand's house.
+
+"I wonder what I did with the photo," I said. I turned out my
+letter-case. There it was, right enough! Shading it with one hand, I
+carefully compared it with the sleeper.
+
+Not a doubt about it! So far as a photograph taken from a picture can
+go, it was the man himself. The same ragged beard, the same coarse
+features, the same surly look. Young Carriston was evidently a wonderful
+hand at knocking off a likeness. Moreover, in case I had felt any doubt
+in the matter, a printed note at the bottom of the photograph said that
+one joint was missing from a right-hand finger. Sure enough, my friend
+lacked that small portion of his misbegotten frame.
+
+This discovery threw me in an ecstasy of delight. I laughed so loudly
+that I almost awoke the ruffian. I guessed I was going to take a
+glorious revenge for all the discomforts I had suffered. No one, I felt
+sure, could be looking for such a fellow as this to do any good to him.
+I was quite happy in the thought, and for the remainder of the night
+gloated over the idea of putting a spoke in the wheel of one who had
+been within an ace of causing my death. I resolved, the moment I got
+back to civilization, to send the desired intelligence to Brand, and
+hope for the best.
+
+
+III.
+
+The end of that wretched night came at last. When the welcome morning
+broke I found that a great change had taken place out-of-doors. The
+fierce snow-storm had been the farewell of the frost. The heavy rain
+that followed had filled the roads with slushy and rapidly-thawing snow.
+I managed to extort some of a breakfast from my host, then, having
+recompensed him according to my promise, not his deserts, started, as
+soon as I could, on the bare back of my unfortunate steed, for Midcombe,
+which place, after my night's experience, seemed gifted with merits not
+its own.
+
+I was surprised upon leaving the house to find it was of larger
+dimensions than, from the little I saw of it during the night, I had
+imagined. It was altogether a better class of residence than I had
+supposed. My surly friend accompanied me until he had placed me on the
+main road, where I could make no possible mistake. He was kind enough to
+promise to assist any one I might send out in getting the dog-cart once
+more under way. Then, with a hearty wish on my part that I might never
+again meet with his like, we parted.
+
+I found my way to Midcombe without much trouble. I took off my things,
+had a wash, and, like a sensible man for once, went to bed. But I did
+not forget to send a boy straight off to the nearest telegraph station.
+My message to Brand was a brief one. It simply said: "Tell your friend I
+have found his man." This duty done, I dismissed all speculation as to
+the result from my mind, and settled down to make up arrears of sleep.
+
+I was surprised at the reply received that same evening from Brand:
+"We shall be with you as soon as we can get down to-morrow. Meet
+us at station." From this it was clear that my friend was wanted
+particularly--all the better! I turned to the time-table and found that,
+owing to changes and delays, they could not get to C----, the nearest
+station to Midcombe, until three o'clock in the afternoon. I inquired
+about the crippled dog-cart. It had been brought in; so I left strict
+instructions that a shaft of some sort was to be rigged in time for me
+to drive over the next day and meet the doctor and his friend.
+
+They came as promised. It was a comfort to see friends of any
+description, so I gave them a hearty welcome. Carriston took hold of
+both my hands, and shook them so warmly that I began to feel I had
+discovered a long-lost father of his in my friend. I had almost
+forgotten the young fellow's appearance, or he looked a very different
+man to-day from the one I had seen when last we met. Then he was a wan,
+pensive, romantic, poetical-looking sort of fellow; now he seemed full
+of energy, vitality, and grit. Poor old Brand looked as serious as an
+undertaker engaged in burying his own mother.
+
+Carriston began to question me, but Brand stopped him. "You promised I
+should make inquiries first," he said. Then he turned to me.
+
+"Look here, Richard,"--when he calls me Richard I know he is fearfully
+in earnest--"I believe you have brought us down on a fool's errand; but
+let us go to some place where we can talk together for a few minutes."
+
+I lead them across the road to the Railway Inn. We entered a room, and,
+having for the sake of appearances ordered a little light refreshment,
+told the waiter to shut the door from the outside. Brand settled down
+with the air of a cross-examining counsel. I expected to see him pull
+out a New Testament and put me on my oath.
+
+"Now, Richard," he said, "before we go further I want to know your
+reasons for thinking this man, about whom you telegraphed, is
+Carriston's man, as you call him."
+
+"Reasons! Why of course he is the man. Carriston gave me his photograph.
+The likeness is indisputable--leaving the finger-joint out of the
+question."
+
+Here Carriston looked at my cross-examiner triumphantly. The meaning of
+that look I have never to this hour understood. But I laughed because I
+knew old Brand had for once made a mistake, and was going to be called
+to account for it. Carriston was about to speak, but the doctor waved
+him aside.
+
+"Now, Richard, think very carefully. You speak of the missing
+finger-joint. We doctors know how many people persuade themselves into
+all sorts of thing. Tell me, did you notice the likeness before you saw
+the mutilated finger, or did the fact of the finger's being mutilated
+bring the likeness to your mind?"
+
+"Bless the man!" I said; "one would think I had no eyes. I tell you
+there is no doubt about this man being the original of the photo."
+
+"Never mind; answer my question."
+
+"Well, then, I am ashamed to confess it, but I put the photo in my
+pocket, and forgot all about it until I had recognized the man, and
+pulled out the likeness to make sure. I didn't even know there was a
+printed description at the foot, nor that any member was wanting.
+Confound it, Brand! I'm not such a duffer as you think."
+
+Brand did not retaliate. He turned to his friend and said gravely, "To
+me the matter is inexplicable. Take your own course, as I promised you
+should." Then he sat down, looking deliciously crest-fallen, and wearing
+the discontented expression always natural to him when worsted in
+argument.
+
+It was now Carriston's turn. He plied me with many questions. In fact, I
+gave him the whole history of my adventure. "What kind of house is it?"
+he asked.
+
+"Better than a cottage--scarcely a farm-house. A place, I should think,
+with a few miserable acres of bad land belonging to it. One of those
+wretched little holdings which are simply curses to the country."
+
+He made lots of other inquiries, the purport of which I could not then
+divine. He seemed greatly impressed when I told him that the man had
+never for a moment left me alone. He shot a second glance of triumph at
+Brand, who still kept silent, and looked as if all the wind had been
+taken out of his sails.
+
+"How far is the place?" asked Carriston. "Could you drive me there after
+dark?"
+
+At this question the doctor returned to life. "What do you mean to do?"
+he asked his friend. "Let us have no nonsense. Even now I feel sure that
+Fenton is mislead by some chance resemblance--"
+
+"Deuce a bit, old chap," I said.
+
+"Well, whether or not, we needn't do foolish things. We must go and
+swear information, and get a search-warrant, and the assistance of the
+police. The truth is, Richard," he continued, turning to me, "we have
+reason to believe, or I should say Carriston persists in fancying, that
+a friend of his has for some time been kept in durance by the man whom
+you say you recognized."
+
+"Likely enough," I said. "He looked villain enough for anything up to
+murder."
+
+"Anyway," said Brand, "we must do everything according to law."
+
+"Law! I want no law," answered Carriston. "I have found her, as I knew
+I should find her. I shall simply fetch her, and at once. You can come
+with me or stay here, as you like, doctor; but I am afraid I must
+trouble your friend to drive me somewhere near the place he speaks of."
+
+Foreseeing an adventure and great fun--moreover, not unmoved by thoughts
+of revenge--I placed myself entirely at Carriston's disposal. He
+expressed his gratitude, and suggested that we should start at once.
+In a few minutes we were ready, and mounted the dog-cart. Brand, after
+grumbling loudly at the whole proceeding, finished up by following us,
+and installing himself in the back seat. Carriston placed a parcel he
+carried inside the cart, and away we went.
+
+It was now nearly dark, and raining cats and dogs. I had my lamps
+lighted, so we got along without much difficulty. The roads were deep
+with mud; but by this time the snow had been pretty nearly washed away
+from everywhere. I don't make a mistake in a road twice, so in due
+course we reached the scene of my upset. Here I drew up.
+
+"The house lies about five hundred yards up the lane," I told Carriston;
+"we had better get out here."
+
+"What about the horse?" asked Brand.
+
+"No chance of any one passing this way on such a night as this; so let
+us put out the lamps and tie him up somewhere."
+
+We did so; then struggled on afoot until we saw the gleam of light which
+had been so welcomed by me two nights before.
+
+It was just about as dark as pitch; but guided by the light, we went on
+until we stood in front of the house, where a turf bank and a dry hedge
+hid us from sight, although on such a night we had little fear of our
+presence being discovered.
+
+"What do you mean to do now?" asked Brand in a discontented whisper.
+"You can't break into the house."
+
+Carriston said nothing for a minute; then I felt him place his hand on
+my shoulder.
+
+"Are there any horses; any cows about the place?" he asked.
+
+I told him I thought that my surly friend rejoiced in the possession of
+a horse and a cow.
+
+"Very well. Then we must wait. He'll come out to see to them before he
+goes to bed," said Carriston, as decidedly as a general giving orders
+just before a battle.
+
+I could not see how Brand expressed his feelings upon hearing this order
+from our commander--I know I shrugged my shoulders, and if I said
+nothing, I thought a deal. The present situation was all very well for a
+strongly-interested party like Carriston, but he could scarcely expect
+others to relish the prospect of waiting, it might be for hours, under
+that comfortless hedge. We were all wet to the skin, and although I was
+extremely anxious to see the end of the expedition, and find poetical
+justice meted out to my late host, Carriston's Fabian tactics lacked the
+excitement I longed for. Brand, in spite of his disapproval of the whole
+course of action, was better off than I was. As a doctor, he must have
+felt sure that, provided he could survive the exposure, he would secure
+two fresh patients. However, we made no protest, but waited for events
+to develop themselves.
+
+
+IV.
+
+More than half an hour went by. I was growing numbed and tired, and
+beginning to think that we were making asses of ourselves, when I heard
+the rattle of a chain, and felt Carriston give my arm a warning touch.
+No doubt my late host had made sure that his new door-fastenings were
+equal to a stronger test than that to which I had subjected the former
+ones; so we were wise in not attempting to carry his castle by force.
+
+The door opened, and closed again. I saw the feeble glimmer of a lantern
+moving toward the out-house in which my horse had been stabled. I heard
+a slight rustling in the hedge, and, stretching out my arm, found that
+Carriston had left my side. In the absence of any command from him I did
+not follow, but resumed the old occupation--waiting.
+
+In a few minutes the light of the lantern reappeared; the bearer stood
+on the threshold of the house, while I wondered what Carriston was
+doing. Just as the door was opened for the boor's readmittance, a dark
+figure sprung upon him! I heard a fierce oath and cry of surprise; then
+the lantern flew out of the man's hand, and he and his assailant tumbled
+struggling through the narrow door-way.
+
+"Hurrah! the door is won, anyway!" I shouted, as, followed closely by
+the doctor, I jumped over the hedge and rushed to the scene of the fray.
+
+Although Carriston's well-conceived attack was so vigorous and
+unexpected that the man went down under it; although our leader utilized
+the advantage he had gained in a proper and laudable manner, by bumping
+that thick bullet-head as violently as he could against the flags on
+which it lay; I doubt if, after all, he could have done his work alone.
+The countryman was a muscular brute and Carriston but a stripling.
+However, our arrival speedily settled the question.
+
+"Bind him!" panted Carriston; "there is a cord in my pocket." He
+appeared to have come quite prepared for contingencies. Whilst Carriston
+still embraced his prostrate foe, and Brand, to facilitate matters,
+knelt on his shoulders, sat on his head, or did something else useful, I
+drew out from the first pocket I tried a nice length of half-inch line,
+and had the immense satisfaction of trussing up my scowling friend in a
+most workmanlike manner. He must have felt those turns on his wrists for
+days afterward. Yet when we were at last at liberty to rise and leave
+him lying helpless on his kitchen-floor, I considered I exercised great
+self-denial in not bestowing a few kicks upon him, as he swore at us in
+the broadest vernacular in a way which, under the circumstances, was no
+doubt a great comfort to him.
+
+We scarcely noticed the man's wife while we rendered her husband
+helpless. As we entered she attempted to fly out, but Brand, with a
+promptitude which I am glad to record, intercepted her, closed the door,
+turned and pocketed the key. After that the woman sat on the floor and
+rocked herself to and fro.
+
+For some moments, while recovering his breath, Carriston stood, and
+positively glared at his prostrate foe. At last he found words.
+
+"Where is she? Where is the key, you hound?" he thundered out, stooping
+over the fellow, and shaking him with a violence which did my heart
+good. As he received no answers save the unrecordable expressions above
+mentioned, we unbuttoned the wretch's pockets, and searched those greasy
+receptacles. Among the usual litter we did certainly find a key.
+Carriston snatched at it, and shouting "Madeline! Madeline! I come!"
+rushed out of the room like a maniac, leaving Brand and me to keep guard
+over our prisoners.
+
+I filled a pipe, lit it, and then came back to my fallen foe.
+
+"I say, old chap!" I said, stirring him gently with the toe of my boot,
+"this will be a lesson to you. Remember, I told you that civility costs
+nothing. If you had given me Christian bed accommodation instead of
+making me wear out my poor bones on that infernal chair, you could have
+jogged along in your rascality quite comfortably, so far as I am
+concerned."
+
+He was very ungrateful--so much so that my desire to kick him was
+intensified. I should not like to swear I did not to a slight degree
+yield to the temptation.
+
+"Push a handkerchief in his mouth," cried Brand, suddenly. "A lady is
+coming."
+
+With right good-will I did as the doctor suggested.
+
+Just then Carriston returned. I don't want to raise home tempests, yet
+I must say he was accompanied by the most beautiful creature my eyes
+have ever lighted upon. True, she was pale as a lily--looked thin and
+delicate, and her face bore traces of anxiety and suffering, but for all
+that she was beautiful--too beautiful for this world, I thought, as I
+looked at her. She was clinging in a half-frightened, half-confiding way
+to Carriston, and he--happy fellow!--regardless of our presence, was
+showering down kisses on her sweet pale face. Confound it! I grow quite
+romantic as I recall the sight of those lovers.
+
+A most curious young man, that Carriston! He came to us, the lovely girl
+on his arm, without showing a trace of his recent excitement.
+
+"Let us go now," he said, as calmly as if he had been taking a quiet
+evening drive. Then he turned to me.
+
+"Do you think, Mr. Fenton, you could without much trouble get the
+dog-cart up to the house?"
+
+I said I would try to do so.
+
+"But what about these people?" asked Brand.
+
+Carriston gave them a contemptuous glance. "Leave them alone," he said.
+"They are but the tools of another--him I cannot touch. Let us go."
+
+"Yes, yes. But why not verify your suspicions while you can?"
+
+Just like Brand! He's always wanting to verify everything.
+
+In searching for the key we had found some papers on our prisoner. Brand
+examined them, and handed to Carriston an envelope which contained what
+looked like bank-notes.
+
+Carriston glanced at it. "The handwriting is, of course, disguised," he
+said, carelessly; "but the postmark shows whence it came. It is as I
+always told you. You agree with me now?"
+
+"I am afraid I must," said Brand, humbly. "But we must do something
+about this man," he continued.
+
+Hereupon Carriston turned to our prisoner. "Listen, you villain," he
+said. "I will let you go scot-free if you breathe no word of this to
+your employer for the next fortnight. If he learns from you what has
+happened before that time, I swear you shall go to penal servitude.
+Which do you choose?"
+
+I pulled out the gag, and it is needless to say which the fellow chose.
+
+Then I went off, and recovered the horse and cart. I relighted the
+lamps, and with some difficulty got the dog-cart up to the house,
+Carriston having exactly anticipated the events of the night. The parcel
+he had brought with him contained a bonnet and a thick, warm cloth
+cloak. His beautiful friend was equipped with these; then leaving the
+woman of the house to untie her husband at her leisure and pleasure,
+away we started; the doctor sitting by me; Carriston and the lady
+behind.
+
+We just managed to catch the last train from C----. Not feeling sure
+as to what form inquiries might take to-morrow, I thought it better to
+go up to town with my friends; so, as we passed through Midcombe, I
+stopped, paid my bill, and gave instructions for my luggage to be
+forwarded to me. By six o'clock the next morning we were all in London.
+
+
+DR. BRAND IN CONCLUSION.
+
+When I asked Fenton to relate his experiences I did not mean him to do
+so at such length. But there, as he has written it, and as writing is
+not a labor of love with him, let it go.
+
+When Madeline Rowan found the bed by the side of which she had thrown
+herself in an ecstasy of grief untenanted, she knew in a moment that she
+was the victim of a deep-laid plot. Being ignorant of Carriston's true
+position in the world she could conceive no reason for the elaborate
+scheme which have been devised to lure her so many miles from her home,
+and make a prisoner of her.
+
+A prisoner she was. Not only was the door locked upon her, but a slip of
+paper lay on the bed. It bore these words, "No harm is meant you, and
+in due time you will be released. Ask no questions, make no foolish
+attempts at escape, and you will be well-treated."
+
+Upon reading this the girl's first thought was one of thankfulness.
+She saw at once that the reported accident to her lover was but an
+invention. The probabilities were that Carriston was alive, and in
+his usual health. Now that she felt certain of this, she could bear
+anything.
+
+From the day on which she entered that room, to that on which we rescued
+her, Madeline was to all intents and purposes as close a prisoner in
+that lonely house on the hill-side as she might have been in the deepest
+dungeon in the world. Threats, entreaties, promises of bribes availed
+nothing. She was not unkindly treated--that is, suffered no absolute
+ill-usage. Books, materials for needle-work, and other little aids to
+while away time were supplied. But the only living creatures she saw
+were the women of the house who attended to her wants, and, on one
+or two occasions, the man whom Carriston asserted he had seen in his
+trance. She had suffered from the close confinement, but had always felt
+certain that sooner or later her lover would find her, and effect her
+deliverance. Now that she knew he was alive she could not be unhappy.
+
+I did not choose to ask her why she had felt so certain on the above
+points. I wished to add no more puzzles to the one which, to tell the
+truth, exercised, even annoyed me, more than I care to say. But I did
+ask her if, during her incarceration, her jailer had ever laid his hand
+upon her.
+
+She told me that some short time after her arrival a stranger had gained
+admittance to the house. Whilst he was there the man had entered her
+room, held her arm, and threatened her with violence if she made any
+outcry. After hearing this, I did not pursue the subject.
+
+Carriston and Madeline were married at the earliest possible moment,
+and left England immediately after the ceremony. A week after their
+departure, by Carriston's request, I forwarded the envelope found upon
+our prisoner to Mr. Ralph Carriston. With it I sent a few lines stating
+where and under what peculiar circumstances we had become possessed
+of it. I never received any reply to my communication; so, wild and
+improbable as it seems, I am bound to believe that Charles Carriston's
+surmise was right--that Madeline was decoyed away and concealed, not
+from any ill-will toward herself, but with a view to the possible
+baneful effect which her mysterious disappearance might work upon her
+lover's strange and excitable organization; and I firmly believe that
+had he not in some inexplicable way been firmly convinced that she was
+alive and faithful to him, the plot would have been a thorough success,
+and Charles Carriston would have spent the rest of his days in an
+asylum.
+
+Both Sir Charles--he succeeded to his title shortly after his
+marriage--and Lady Carriston are now dead, or I should not have ventured
+to relate these things concerning them. They had twelve years of
+happiness. If measured by time the period was but a short one; but I
+feel sure that in it they enjoyed more true happiness than many others
+find in the course of a protracted life. In word, thought, and deed they
+were as one. She died in Rome of fever, and her husband, without so far
+as I know any particular complaint, simply followed her.
+
+I was always honored with their sincerest friendship, and Sir Charles
+left me sole trustee and guardian to his three sons; so there are now
+plenty of lives between Ralph Carriston and his desire. I am pleased to
+say that the boys, who are as dear to me as my own children, as yet show
+no evidence of possessing any gifts beyond nature.
+
+I know that my having made this story public will cause two sets of
+objectors to fall equally foul of me--the matter-of-fact prosaic man who
+will say that the abduction and subsequent imprisonment of Madeline
+Rowan was an absurd impossibility, and the scientific man, like myself,
+who cannot, dare not believe that Charles Carriston, from neither memory
+nor imagination, could draw a face, and describe peculiarities, by
+which a certain man could be identified. I am far from saying there may
+not be a simple natural explanation of the puzzle, but I, for one, have
+failed to find it, so close this tale as I began it by saying I am a
+narrator, and nothing more.
+
+
+
+
+EERIE TALES OF "CHINATOWN."
+
+Bits of ... Broken China
+
+By WILLIAM E. S. FALES
+
+    A collection of captivating novelettes dealing with life in New
+    York's "Chinatown."
+
+    The struggles and ambitions of the Chinaman in America, his
+    loves and jealousies, his hopes and fears, his sorrows, his
+    joys, these are the materials on which Mr. Fales has built his
+    book....
+
+    It is a _new field_, and all the more interesting on that
+    account. The author has made a life study of his subject; and no
+    one is better qualified than he to present a picture of this
+    romantic corner of New York where lives the exiled Chinaman....
+
+    "Bits of Broken China" is undoubtedly one of the most delightful
+    volumes for lighter reading published this season....
+
+  Bound in cloth.    Gold top.     Fully Illustrated
+
+  Price, 75 Cents.
+
+STREET AND SMITH, _New York and London_
+
+
+
+
+A HERO OF THE SWORD.
+
+The King's Gallant
+
+By ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+    "The King's Gallant" is deserving of recognition, in that it is
+    not only a novelization of the earliest of Dumas' plays, but it
+    marks a distinct triumph in his career....
+
+    If this production is full of the rushing vigor of youth, it is
+    because its celebrated author was but a youth when he penned it,
+    yet it was the stepping stone which led to that upward flight
+    wherein he was speedily hailed as the "Wizard of Fiction."...
+
+    It is a volume full of action with a strong plot and a truly
+    masterful deliniation of character....
+
+  12mo. Cloth.      Price, $1.00.
+
+STREET AND SMITH, _New York and London_
+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF A FIGHT FOR A THRONE
+
+D'Artagnan, the King Maker ...
+
+By ALEXANDRE DUMAS.
+
+  Written originally by Dumas as a play, and now for the first time
+      novelized and translated into English.
+
+_The Philadelphia Enquirer says:_
+
+    "A pretty love story in which the debonair cavalier falls victim
+    to Cupid's wiles is one of the interesting threads running
+    through the book."...
+
+_The Chicago Record-Herald says:_
+
+    "It is singular that this bit of romance has been suffered to
+    remain hidden away for so long a time. D'Artagnan's manner of
+    winning the hermit kingdom contains enough thrills to repay a
+    careful reading. The story oozes adventure at every chapter."
+
+_The Brooklyn Eagle says:_
+
+    "It is a strong tale brimful of incident from the moment when
+    Cardinal Richelieu dispatches the redoubtable D'Artagnan on his
+    king-making mission to Portugal."...
+
+  12mo., Illustrated.      Price, $1.00.
+
+STREET AND SMITH, _New York and London_
+
+
+
+
+A BOOK FULL OF "HUMAN" INTEREST.
+
+QUEER PEOPLE
+
+By WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP.
+
+_Author of_ "DETMOLD."
+
+    Not one story, but a number of charming storyettes, terse,
+    snappy and absorbingly interesting....
+
+    There is a delightful pen sketch of a woman of small means who
+    aspires to a connection with the smart set. Her attempts to
+    disguise the true state of affairs from her out-of-town friends
+    are laughable; but the fun becomes tinged with pathos when she
+    borrows a furnished mansion for an evening, and a rich relative,
+    invited to dine with her, uncloaks the pitiable fraud....
+
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+    characters in another brilliant character study in "Queer
+    People."...
+
+  12mo., Cloth.      Price, $1.00.
+
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+
+
+
+
+THE STORY OF A HOPELESS LOVE.
+
+Tons of Treasure
+
+By WILLIAM HENRY BISHOP.
+
+_Author of_ "DETMOLD."
+
+    When two women love one man there is usually trouble brewing.
+    Nor is the story which Mr. Bishop has to tell an exception. His
+    hero is a manly New Yorker, who is fired with a zeal to "make
+    good" a defalcation accredited to his dead father....
+
+    In quest of gold he visits Mexico and there meets a dreamy-eyed
+    maid who straightway gives him first place in her heart. But an
+    American girl has already won his love. It is a pathetic
+    situation and if one true woman's heart breaks before the man's
+    mission is ended who is to blame?
+
+    There are many touching incidents in the book, but none more
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+
+  12mo., Cloth.      Price, $1.00.
+
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+
+
+
+
+A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES.
+
+Among the Freaks
+
+By W. L. ALDEN.
+
+    Here is a volume of unique interest, dealing as it does with the
+    fortunes and misfortunes of the various "freaks" to be found in
+    a Dime Museum. It relates the woes of the original Wild Man of
+    Borneo, tells how the Fat Woman tried to elope, of the marvelous
+    mechanical tail the dwarf invented, of how the Mermaid boiled
+    her tail, and of a thrilling plot hatched out by the Giant and
+    others. Full of telling illustrations. Easily one of the best
+    works this gifted writer has ever produced....
+
+  18mo., Cloth.      Price, 75 cents.
+
+STREET AND SMITH, _New York and London_
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note
+
+
+Words in italics were surrounded by _underscores_, and small capitals
+changed to all capitals.
+
+A table of contents has been added.
+
+In the original the pagenumbers started again from the second story,
+this has been changed for reader convenience.
+
+Obvious errors in punctuation have been corrected. Also the following
+corrections have been made, on page
+
+   55 "anb" changed to "and" (and up towards the dizzy crown)
+   68 "out" changed to "but" (understood and enjoyed at home, but
+      foreigners, especially)
+  117 "proprosition" changed to "proposition" (applause of her
+      proposition.)
+  135 "Cattelton" changed to "Cattleton" (Cattleton sprung to his
+      feet)
+  150 "come" changed to "came" (Mr. Herbert came to the rescue.)
+  153 "pursuade" changed to "persuade" (you would only persuade my
+      father)
+  156 "insistance" changed to "insistence" (Miss Herbert's insistence
+      that two or three roses)
+  157 double "to" removed (one of his many boys to take Jerry's
+      place.)
+  158 "striken" changed to "stricken" (were stricken with a great
+      wonder.)
+  160 "despict" changed to "depict" (that face might depict passions
+      stronger than those)
+  172 "XIII." changed to "III." (CHAPTER III.)
+  172 "neice" changed to "niece" (whilst driving with her niece)
+  177 "Ht" changed to "At" (At last he could bear)
+  182 "prom-" changed to "promise" (if you will promise to be)
+  185 "is" added (it is as well you cannot)
+  195 "tarning" changed to "turning" (listlessly turning the leaves
+      of)
+  200 "Bettwsy-Coed" changed to "Bettws-y-Coed" (and made
+      Bettws-y-Coed my headquarters.)
+  213 "with out" changed to "without" (possessed them without due
+      trial)
+  215 "apearance" changed to "appearance" (no less than his
+      appearance.)
+  220 "Cowan's" changed to "Rowan's" (inquiries as to Miss Rowan's
+      parentage.)
+  223 "augument" changed to "augmented" (embellished and augmented by
+      each one)
+  231 "stared" changed to "started" (before he started for France)
+  235 "neice" changed to "niece" (had left her niece all of which she
+      died possessed.)
+  257 "gibly" changed to "glibly" (If the tale he told so glibly and
+      circumstantially)
+  260 "Carrisson" changed to "Carriston" (as Carriston averred)
+  263 double "was" removed (of these precious photographs was sent
+      home)
+  267 "habi tof" changed to "habit of" (to shake off the bad habit of
+      giving in)
+  280 "misbegotton" changed to "misbegotten" (that small portion of
+      his misbegotten frame.)
+  282 "Midcomb" changed to "Midcombe" (nearest station to Midcombe,
+      until three o'clock)
+  288 "faciliate" changed to "facilitate" (to faciliate matters)
+  288 "immence" changed to "immense" (and had the immense satisfaction
+      of)
+  293 "rereived" changed to "received" (I never received any reply).
+
+Otherwise the original has been preserved, including inconsistencies in
+spelling, hyphenation and punctuation.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Fortnight of Folly, by Maurice Thompson
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 41660 ***