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diff --git a/old/54987-0.txt b/old/54987-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 2805677..0000000 --- a/old/54987-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10907 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Seth's Brother's Wife, by Harold Frederic - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Seth's Brother's Wife - A Study of Life in The Greater New York - -Author: Harold Frederic - -Release Date: June 26, 2017 [EBook #54987] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SETH'S BROTHER'S WIFE *** - - - - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - - - - - - - -SETH’S BROTHER’S WIFE - -A Study Of Life In The Greater New York - -By Harold Frederic - -New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons - -1887 - - - -TO - -MY MOTHER - - - - -SETH’S BROTHER’S WIFE. - - - - -CHAPTER I.--THE HIRED FOLK. - -Ef ther’ ain’t a flare-up in _this_ haouse ’fore long, I miss _my_ -guess,” said Alvira, as she kneaded the pie-crust, and pulled it out -between her floury fingers to measure its consistency. “Ole Sabriny’s -got her back up this time to stay.” - -“Well, let ’em flare, says I. ’Taint none o’ aour business, Alviry.” - -“I knaow, Milton; but still it seems to me she might wait at least till -th’ corpse was aout o’ th’ haouse.” - -“What’s thet got to dew with it?” - -The callousness of the question must have grated upon the hired-girl, -for she made no reply, and slapped the dough over on the board with an -impatient gesture. - -It was near the close of a fair day, late in May, and the reddened -sunlight from the West would have helped to glorify any human being -less hopelessly commonplace than Milton Squires as he sat in its full -radiance on the doorstep, peeling and quartering apples over a pan which -he held between his knees. This sunlight, to reach him, painted -with warm tints many objects near at hand which it could not make -picturesque. The three great barns, standing in the shadow to the south, -were ricketty and ancient without being comely, and the glare only made -their awkward outlines and patched, paintless surfaces the meaner; the -score of lean cows, standing idly fetlock-deep in the black mire of -the barnyard, or nipping the scant tufts of rank grass near the trough, -seemed all the dingier and scrawnier for the brilliancy of the light -which covered them; the broken gate, the bars eked out with a hop-pole, -the wheelbarrow turned shiftlessly against a break in the wall, the -mildewed wellcurb, with its antiquated reach--all seemed in this glow of -dying day to be conscious of exhibiting at its worse their squalid side. -The sunset could not well have illumined, during that hour at least, a -less inspiring scene than this which Alvira, looking out as she talked, -or the hired man, raising his head from over the apples, could see from -the kitchen door of Lemuel Fairchild’s farm-house. But any student of -his species would have agreed that, in all the uninviting view, Milton -was the least attractive object. - -As he rose to empty his pan within, and start afresh, he could be -seen more fully. He was clumsily cased from neck to ankles in brown -over-alls, threadbare, discolored, patched, with mud about the knees and -ragged edges lower down. He wore rubber boots, over the bulging legs -of which the trousers came reluctantly, and the huge feet of these -were slit down the instep. His hat had been soft and black once; now it -seemed stiffened with dirt, to which the afternoon milking had lent a -new contribution of short reddish hair, and was shapeless and colorless -from age. His back was narrow and bent, and his long arms terminated -in hands which it seemed sinful to have touch anything thereafter to be -eaten. Viewed from behind, Milton appeared to be at least fifty. But his -face showed a somewhat younger man, despite its sun-baked lines and the -frowzy beard which might be either the yellow of unkempt youth or the -gray of untidy age. In reality he was not yet thirty-six. - -He slouched out now with a fresh lot of apples, and, squatting on the -door-stone, resumed the conversation. - -“I s’pose naow Sissly’s gone, ther’ won’t be no livin’ under th’ same -roof with Sabriny fer any of us. Ther’ ain’t nobuddy lef’ fer her to -rassle with ’cep’ us. Ole Lemuel’s so broken-up, he won’t dare say his -soul’s his own; ’n John--well, Lize Wilkins says she heerd him say he -didn’t know’s he’d come to th’ funer’l ’t all, after th’ way him ’n’ -Sabriny hed it aout las’ time he was here.” - -“I wasn’t talkin’ o’ _them!_” said Alvira, slapping the flour from her -hands’ and beginning with the roller; “it’d be nothin’ new, her tryin’ -to boss _them_. But she’s got her dander up naow agin somebuddy that -beats them all holler. They won’t no Richardsons come puttin’ on airs -’raoun’ here, an’ takin’ th’ parlor bedroom ’thaout askin’, not ef -th’ ole lady knaows herself--’n’ I guess she does.” - -“What Richardsons?” asked Milton. “Thought Sissly was th’ last of -’em--thet they wa’n’t no more Richardsons.” - -“Why, man alive, ain’t Albert’s wife a Richardson, th’ daughter of -Sissly’s cousin--you remember, that pock-pitted man who kep’ th’ fast -hoss here one summer. Of course she’s a Richardson--full-blooded! When -she come up from th’ train here this mornin’, with Albert, I see by th’ -ole lady’s eye ’t she meant misch’f. I didn’t want to see no raow, -here with a corpse in th’ haouse, ’n’ so I tried to smooth matters -over, ’n’ kind o’ quiet Sabriny daown, tellin’ her thet they had to -come to th’ fu-ner’l, ’n’ they’d go ’way soon’s it was through with, -’n’ that Albert, bein’ the oldest son, hed a right to th’ comp’ny -bed-room.” - -“’N’ what’d she say?” - -“She didn’t say much, ’cep’ thet th’ Richardsons hed never brung -nothin’ but bad luck to this haouse, ’n’ they never would, nuther. -’N’ then she flaounced upstairs to her room, jis’s she allus does when -she’s riled, ’n’ she give Albert’s wife sech a look, I said to m’self, -‘Milady, I wouldn’t be in _your_ shoes fer all yer fine fixin’s.’” - -“Well, she’s a dum likely lookin’ woman, ef she _is_ a Richardson,” said -Milton, with something like enthusiasm. “Wonder ef she wears one o’ them -low-necked gaowns when she’s to hum, like th’ picters in th’ _Ledger_. -They say they all dew, in New York.” - -“Haow sh’d I knaow!” Alvira sharply responded. “I got enough things to -think of, ’thaout both’rin’ my head abaout city women’s dresses. ’N’ -you ought to hev, tew. Ef you’n’ Leander’d pay more heed to yer work, -’n’ dew yer chores up ship-shape, ’n’ spen’ less time porin’ over -them good-fer-nothin’ story-papers, th’ farm wouldn’t look so run-daown -’n’ slaouchy. Did yeh hear what Albert said this mornin’, when he -looked ’raoun’? ‘I swan! ’ he said, ‘I b’lieve this is th’ seediest -lookin’ place ’n all Northern New York.’ Nice thing fer him to hev to -say, wa’n’t it!” - -“What d’ I keer what _he_ says? He ain’t th’ boss here, by a jug-full!” - -“’N’ more’s th’ pity, tew. He’d make yeh toe th’ mark!” - -“Yes, ’n’ Sabriny’d make it lively fer his wife, tew. Th’ ole -fight ’baout th’ Fairchileses ’n’ th’ Richardsons wouldn’t be a -succumstance to thet. Sissly’d thank her stars thet she was dead ’n’ -buried aout o’ th’ way.” - -These two hired people, who discussed their employer and his family with -that easy familiarity of Christian names to be found only in Russia -and rural America, knew very well what portended to the house when the -Richardson subject came up. Alvira Roberts had spent more than twenty -years of her life in the thick of the gaseous strife between Fairchild -and Richardson. She was a mere slip of a girl, barely thirteen, when she -had first hired out at the homestead, and now, black-browed, sallow from -much tea-drinking, and with a sharp, deep wrinkle vertically dividing -her high forehead, she looked every year of her thirty-five. Compared -with her, Milton Squires was a new comer on the farm, but still there -were lean old cows over yonder in the barnyard, lazily waiting for the -night-march to the pastures, that had been ravenous calves in their -gruel-bucket stage when he came. - -What these two did not know about the Fairchild family was hardly worth -the knowing. Something of what they knew, the reader ought here to be -told. - - - - -CHAPTER II.--THE STORY OF LEMUEL. - -Lemuel Fairchild, the bowed, gray-haired, lumpish man who at this time -sat in the main living room within, feebly rocking himself by the huge -wood-stove, and trying vaguely as he had been for thirty-six hours -past, to realize that his wife lay in her final sleep in the adjoining -chamber, had forty-odd years before been as likely a young farmer as -Dearborn County knew. He was fine-looking and popular in those days, and -old Seth Fairchild, dying unexpectedly, had left to this elder son his -whole possessions--six hundred acres of dairy and hop land, free and -clear, a residence much above the average farm-house of these parts, and -a tidy sum of money in the bank. - -The contrast now was sweeping. The Fairchild’s house was still the -largest residential structure on the Burfield road, which led from -Thessaly across the hills to remote and barbarous latitudes, but respect -had long since ceased to accrue to it upon the score of its size. To -the local eye, it was the badge and synonym of “rack and ruin;” while -sometimes strangers of artistic tastes, chancing to travel by this -unfrequented road, would voice regrets that such a prospect as opened to -the vision just here, with the noble range of hills behind for the first -time looming in their true proportions, should be spoiled by such a -gaunt, unsightly edifice, with its tumble-down surroundings, its staring -windows cheaply curtained with green paper, and its cheerless, shabby -color--that indescribable gray with which rain and frost and Father Time -supplant unrenewed white. The garden, comprising a quarter-acre to the -east of the house, was a tangled confusion of flowers and weeds and -berry-bushes run wild, yet the effect somehow was mean rather than -picturesque. The very grass in the yard to the west did not grow -healthfully, but revealed patches of sandy barrenness, created by feet -too indifferent or unruly to keep the path to the barns. - -Yet the neighbors said, and Lemuel had come himself to feel, that the -blame of this sad falling off was not fairly his. There had been a fatal -defect in the legacy. - -The one needful thing which the Hon. Seth Fairchild did _not_ leave his -elder son was the brains by means of which he himself, in one way -or another, had gathered together a substantial competency, won two -elections to the State Senate, and established and held for himself the -position of leading citizen in his town--that most valued and intangible -of American local distinctions. But while Lemuel’s brown hair curled -so prettily, and his eyes shone with the modest light of wealthy and -well-behaved youth, nobody missed the brains. If there was any change in -the management of the farm, it passed unnoticed, for all attention was -centred on the great problem, interesting enough always when means seeks -a help-meet, but indescribably absorbing in rural communities, where -everybody knows everybody and casual gallants never come for those -luckless damsels neglected by native swains--Whom will he marry? - -It boots not now to recall the heart-burnings, the sad convictions that -life would henceforth be a blank, the angry repinings at fate, which -desolated the village of Thessaly and vicinity when Lemuel, returning -from a mid-winter visit to Albany, brought a bride in the person of a -bright eyed, handsome and clever young lady who had been Miss Cicely -Richardson. He had known her, so they learned, for some years--not only -during his school-days at the Academy there, but later, in what was -mysteriously known in Thessaly as “society,” in whose giddy mazes he had -mingled while on a visit to his legislative sire at the Capital City. -No, it is not worth while to dwell upon the village hopes rudely -destroyed by this shock--for they are dim memories of the far, far past. - -But to one the blow was a disappointment not to be forgotten, or to grow -dim in recollection. Miss Sabrina Fairchild was two years younger than -her brother in age--a score of years his senior in firmness and will. -She had only a small jointure in her father’s estate, because she had -great expectations from an aunt in Ohio, in perpetual memory of whose -anticipated bounty she bore her scriptural name, but she was a charge on -her brother in that she was to have a home with him until she chose -to leave it for one of her own. I doubt not that her sagacious father -foresaw, from his knowledge of his daughter, the improbability that this -second home would ever be offered her. - -Miss Sabrina, even at this tender age, was clearly not of the marrying -kind, and she grew less so with great steadiness. She was at this early -date, when she was twenty-four, a woman of markedly strong character, of -which perhaps the most distinct trait was family pride. - -There has been a considerable army of State Senators since New York -first took on the honors of a Commonwealth, and unto them a great troop -of daughters have been born, but surely no other of all these girls -ever exulted so fondly, nay, fiercely, in the paternal dignity as did -Sabrina. She knew nothing of politics, and little of the outside world; -her conceptions of social possibilities were of the most primitive sort; -one winter, when she went to Albany with her father, and was passed in -a bewildered way through sundry experiences said to be of a highly -fashionable nature, it had been temporarily apparent to her -own consciousness that she was an awkward, ignorant, red-armed -country-girl--but this only for one wretched hour or so. Every mile-post -passed on her homeward ride, as she looked through the stage window, -brought restored self-confidence, and long before the tedious journey -ended she was more the Senator’s daughter than ever. - -Through this very rebound from mortification she queened it over -the simpler souls of the village with renewed severity and pomp. The -itinerant singing master who thought to get her for the asking into his -class in the school-house Wednesday evenings, was frozen by the amazed -disdain of her refusal. When young Smith Thurber, the kiln-keeper’s son, -in the flippant spirit of fine buttons and a resplendent fob, asked her -to dance a measure with him at the Wallaces’ party, the iciness of her -stare fairly took away his breath. - -Something can be guessed of her emotions when the brother brought home -his bride. With a halfcowardly, half-kindly idea of postponing the -trouble certain to ensue, he had given Sabrina no warning of his -intention, and, through the slow mails of that date, only a day’s -advance notice of his return with Mrs. Lemuel. The storm did not burst -at once. Indeed it may be said never to have really burst. Sabrina -was not a bad woman, according to her lights, and she did nothing -consciously to make her sister-in-law unhappy. The young wife had a -light heart, a sensible mind and the faculty of being cheerful about -many things which might be expected to annoy. But she had some pride, -too, and although at the outset it was the very simple and praiseworthy -pride of a well-meaning individual, incessant vaunting of the Fairchilds -quite naturally gave a family twist to it, and she soon was able to -resent slights in the name of all the Richardsons. - -After all, was she not in the right? for while the grass was scarcely -green on the grave of the first Fairchild who had amounted to anything, -there were six generations of Richardsons in Albany chronicles alone who -had married into the best Dutch families of that ancient, aristocratic -town, to say nothing of the New England record antedating that -period. Thus the case appeared to her, and came gradually to have more -prominence in her mind than, in her maiden days, she could have thought -possible. - -So this great Forty Years’ War began, in which there was to be no single -grand, decisive engagement, but a thousand petty skirmishes and little -raids, infinitely more vexatious and exhausting, and was waged until the -weaker of the combatants, literally worn out in the fray, had laid down -her arms and her life together, and was at peace at last, under the -sheet in the darkened parlor. - -The other veteran party to the feud, her thin, iron-gray hair half -concealed under a black knit cap, her bold, sharp face red as with -stains of tears, sat at the window of her own upper room, reading her -Bible. If Milton and Alvira had known that she was reading in Judges, -they might have been even more confident of a coming “flare-up.” - - - - -CHAPTER III.--AUNT SABRINA. - -NEIGHBORING philosophers who cared, from curiosity or a loftier motive, -to study the Fairchild domestic problem, in all its social and historic -ramifications, generally emerged from the inquiry with some personal -bias against Miss Sabrina, tempered by the conclusion that, after all, -there was a good deal to be said on the old lady’s side. - -Certainly, as the grim old maid in the rusty bombazine gown and -cap, which gave a funereal air even to the red plaid shawl over her -shoulders, sat at her upper window, and tried through a pained and -resentful chaos of secular thoughts to follow the Scriptural lines, -there was an extremely vivid conviction uppermost in her mind that -justice had been meted out neither to her nor to the Fairchilds. She -would have repelled indignantly, and honestly enough too, the charge -that there was any bitterness in her heart toward the sister-in-law -whose burial was appointed for the morrow. She had liked poor Cicely, in -her iron-clad way, and had wept genuine tears more than once since her -death. Indeed, her thoughts--and they were persistent, self-asserting -thoughts which not even her favorite recital of Gideon’s sanguinary -triumph could keep back--ran more upon the living than upon the dead. - -And what gloomy, melancholy thoughts they were! They swept over two -score of years, the whole gamut of emotion, from the pride and hope of -youth to the anguish of disappointed, wrathful, hopeless old age, as -her hand might cover all there was of sound in music by a run down her -mother’s ancient spinet which stood, mute and forgotten, in the corner -of the room. Her brother, this brother whom satirical fate had made -a Lemuel instead of a Lucy or a Lucretia, a man instead of a woman as -befitted his weakness of mind and spirit--had begun life with a noble -heritage. Where was it now? He had been the heir to a leading position -among the men of his county. What was he now? The Fairchilds had been as -rich, as respected, as influential as any Dearborn family. Who did them -honor now? - -The mental answers to these questions blurred Miss Sabrina’s spectacles -with tears, and Gideon’s performance with the lamps seemed a tiresome -thing. She laid the Book aside, and went softly down stairs to her -brother, who sat, still rocking in his late wife’s high, cushioned -arm-chair, disconsolate by the stove. - -There were also in the room his oldest son and this son’s wife, sitting -dumbly, each at a window, making a seemly pretence of not being bored by -the meagre prospect without. They looked at their aunt in that far-off -impassive manner with which participants in a high pageant or solemn -observance always regard one another. There was no call for a greeting, -since they had already exchanged whispered salutations, earlier in the -day. Miss Sabrina glanced at the young wife for an instant--it was not a -kindly glance. Then her eyes turned to the husband, and while surveying -him seemed suddenly to light up with some new thought. She almost -smiled, and her tight pressed lips parted. Had they followed the -prompting of the brain and spoken, the words would have been: - -“Thank God, there is still Albert!” - -Albert Fairchild would have been known in any company, and in any guise, -I think, for a lawyer. The profession had its badge in every line and -aspect of his face, in every movement of his head, and, so it seemed, in -the way he held his hands, in the very tone of his voice. His face -was round, and would have been pleasant, so far as conformation and -expression went, had it not been for the eyes, which were unsympathetic, -almost cold. Often the rest of his countenance was wreathed in amiable -smiles; but the eyes smiled never. He had looked a middle-aged man for -a decade back, and casual acquaintances who met him from year to year -complimented him on not growing old, because they saw no change. In fact -he had been old from the beginning, and even now looked more than his -age, which lacked some few months of forty. He was growing bald above -the temples, and, like all the Fairchilds, was taking on flesh with -increasing years. Nothing could have better shown the extremity of poor -Sabrina’s woe than this clutching at the relief afforded by the sight of -Albert, for she was not on good terms with him. Albert had been born and -reared through boyhood at a time when the farm was still prosperous -and money plenty. He had been educated far beyond the traditions of his -sires, and was the first University man of his family, so far as was -known. He had been given his own bent in all things, before he settled -down to a choice of profession, and then, at considerable expense, had -been secured a place with one of the greatest legal firms in New York -City. For years the first fruits of the soil, the cream off all the -milk--so the Aunt’s mingled scriptural and dairy metaphors ran--had -been his. And what return had they had for it? He had become a sound, -successful lawyer, with a handsome income, and he had married wealth as -well. Yet year after year, as the fortunes of the Fairchild homestead -declined, he had never interfered to prevent the fresh mortgage being -placed--nay, had more than once explicitly declined to help save it. - -“Agriculture is out of date in this State,” she had heard him say once, -with her own ears, “Better let the old people live on their capital, as -they go along. It’s no use throwing good money after bad. Farm land here -in the East is bound to decrease in value, steadily.” - -This about the homestead--about the cradle of his ancestors! Poor old -lady, had the Fairchilds been sending baronial roots down through all -this soil for a thousand years, she couldn’t have been more pained or -mortified over Albert’s callous view of the farm which her grandfather, -a revolted cobbler from Rhode Island, had cleared and paid for at ten -cents an acre. - -Then there was his marriage, too. In all the years of armed neutrality -or tacit warfare which she and Cicely had passed together under one -roof, they had never before or since come so near an open and palpable -rupture as they did over a city-bred cousin of Cicely’s--a forward, -impertinent, ill-behaved girl from New York, who had come to the farm on -a visit some ten years before, and whose father was summoned at last -to take her away because otherwise she, Sabrina, threatened to herself -leave the house. There had been a desperate scene before this conclusion -was reached. Sabrina had stormed and threatened to shake the dust of the -homestead from off her outraged sandals. Cicely for the once had stood -her ground, and said she fancied even worse things than that might -happen without producing a universal cataclysm. Lemuel had almost wept -with despair over the tumult. The two older boys, particularly John, had -not concealed their exuberant hope that their maiden Aunt might be taken -at her word, and allowed to leave. And the girl herself, this impudent -huzzy of a Richardson, actually put her spoke in too, and said things -about old cats and false teeth, which it made Sabrina’s blood still boil -to recall. - -And it was this girl, of all others in the world, whom Albert must go -and marry! - -Yet Sabrina, in her present despondent mood, felt herself able to rise -above mere personal piques and dislikes, if there really was a hope for -the family’s revival. She was not very sanguine about even Albert, but -beyond him there was no chance at all. - -John, the second brother, had talent enough, she supposed. People said -he was smart, and he must be, else he could scarcely have come in his -twenty-eighth year to be owner and editor of the Thessaly _Banner of -Liberty_, and put in all those political pieces written in the first -person plural, as if he had the power of attorney for all Dearborn -county. But then he was mortally shiftless about money matters, and -they did say that since his wife’s death--a mere school-teacher she had -been--he had become quite dissipated and played billiards. Besides she -was at open feud with him, and never, never would speak to him again, -the longest day _he_ lived! So that settled John. - -As for Seth, the youngest of the brothers, it is to be doubted if she -would have thought of him at all, had he not come in at the moment. He -had been down to the village to get some black clothes which the tailor -had constructed on short notice for him, and he, too, passed through the -sitting room to the stairs with the serious look and the dead silence -which the awful presence imposes. - -Then she did think of him for a moment, as she stood warming her fingers -over the bald, flat top of the stove--for though bright and warm enough -outside, the air was still chilly in these great barns of rooms. - -Seth was indisputably the handsomest of all the Fairchilds, even -handsomer than she remembered his father to have been--a tall, straight, -broadshouldered youth, who held his head well up and looked everybody -in the face with honest hazel eyes. He had the Richardson complexion, a -dusky tint gained doubtless from all those Dutch intermarriages of which -poor Cicely used to make so much, but his brown hair curled much as -Lemuel’s used to curl, only not so effeminately, and his temper was as -even as his father’s had been, though not so submissive or weak. His -hands were rough and coarse from the farm work, and his walk showed -familiarity with ploughed ground, but still he had, in his way, a more -distinguished air than either Albert or John had ever had. - -Looking him over, a stranger would have been surprised that his aunt -should have left him out of her thoughts of the family’s future--or -that, once pausing to consider him, she should have dropped the idea -so swiftly. But so it was. Miss Sabrina felt cold and aggrieved toward -Albert, and she came as near hating John as a deeply devout woman safely -could. She simply took no account of Seth at all, as she would have -expressed it. To her he was a quiet, harmless sort of youngster, who -worked prettily steadily on the farm, and got on civilly with people. -She understood that he was very fond of reading, but that made no -special impression on her. - -If she had been asked, she would undoubtedly have said that Seth was -her favorite nephew--but she had never dreamed of regarding him as a -possible restorer of the family glories. - -“Is yer oven hot enough?” she asked Alvira in the kitchen, a minute -later. “If they’s anything I _dew_ hate, it’s a soggy undercrust.” - -“I guess I kin manage a batch o’ pies by this time,” returned the -hired-girl with a sniff. Through some unexplained process of reasoning, -Alvira was with the Fairchilds as against the Richardsons, but she was -first of all for herself, against the whole human race. - -“Milton gone aout with the caows?” asked the old lady, ignoring for the -once the domestic’s challenge. “When he comes back, he ’n’ Leander -better go over to Wilkinses, and get what chairs they kin spare. I -s’pose there’ll be a big craowd, ef only to git in and see if there’s -any holes in our body-Brussels yit, ’n’ haow that sofy-backed set in -the parlor’s holdin’ out. Poor Cicely! I think they better bring over -the chairs tonight, after dusk. What people don’t see they can’t talk -abaout.” - -“Heard Milton say he was goin’ to borrer some over at Warren’s,” - remarked Alvira, in a casual way, but looking around to see how the idea -affected Miss Sabrina. - -“Well he jis’ won’t!” came the answer, very promptly and spiritedly. -“If every mortal soul of ’em hes to stan’ up, he won’t! I guess Lemuel -Fairchild’s wife can be buried ’thaout asking any help from Matildy -Warren. I wouldn’t ask her if ’twas th’ las’ thing I ever did.” - -“But Annie sent word she was comin’ over fus’ thing in th’ mornin’, so’s -to help clear up th’ breakfast things. If she’s good enough fer that, I -don’t see why you need be afeered o’ borryin’ her chairs.” - -“They ain’t her chairs, and you knaow it, Alviry. I ain’t got a word to -say agin’ Annie Fairchild, but when it comes to her gran’ mother, I kin -ride a high horse as well’s she kin. After all the trouble she made my -family, the sight of a single stick of her furnitur’ here’d be enough to -bring the rafters of this haouse daown over my head, I do believe!” - -“Well, of course, ‘tain’t none o’ my business, but seems to me there’ll -be a plaguey slim fun’r’l when _your_ turn comes if you’re goin’ to keep -up all these old-woman’s fights with everybody ’raound abaout.” - -“Naow Alviry!” began Miss Sabrina, in her shrillest and angriest tone; -then with a visible effort, as if remembering something, she paused and -then went on in a subdued, almost submissive voice, “You knaow jis’ haow -Matildy Warren’s used us. From the very day my poor brother William ran -off with her Jenny--and goodness knaows whatever possessed him to dew -it--thet old woman’s never missed a chance to run us all daown--ez -ef she oughtn’t to been praoud o’ th’ day a Fairchild took up with a -Warren.” - -“Guess you ain’t had none the wu’st of it,” put in Alvira, with sarcasm. -“Guess your tongue’s ’baout as sharp as her’n ever was. B’sides she’s -bed-ridden naow, ’n’ everybody thought she wouldn’t get threw th’ -spring. ’N’ ef Seth’s goin’ to make up to Annie, you ought to begin to -smooth things over ’fore she dies. There’s no tellin’ but what she -mightn’t leave the farm away f’m th’ girl at th’ last minute, jis’ to -spite you.” - -“Yeh needn’t talk as if _I_ wanted her pesky farm!” - -“Oh, well now, you knaow what I mean’s well’s I dew. What’s th’ use -o’ harpin’ on what yer brother William did, or what ole Matildy said, -’fore I was born, when you knaow th’ tew farms jine, and yer heart’s -sot on havin’ ’em in one--Yes, ’fore I was born,” repeated the -domestic, as if pleased with the implication of juvenility. - -Miss Sabrina hesitated, and looked at Alvira meditatively through her -spectacles, in momentary doubt about the propriety of saying a sharp -thing under all the circumstances; but the temptation was not to be -resisted. “’N’ you ain’t percisely a chicken yourself, Alviry,” she -said and left the kitchen. - -Later, when Milton had returned from the pasture, and hung about the -kitchen, mending the harness that went with the democrat-wagon while -waiting for Leander to return from the cheese factory, Alvira remarked: - -“Seems ’if Sabriny’d lost all her sper’t this last day or tew. Never -see sech a change. She don’t answer up wuth a cent. I shouldn’t be -s’prised if she didn’t tackle Albert’s wife after all. Oh yes, ’n’ you -ain’t to go to Warren’s for them chairs. Sa-briny’s dead-set agin that.” - -“What’s up?” asked Milton, “Hez Seth broke off with Annie?” - -“Don’t knaow’s they ever was anything particular to break off. No, ’t -’aint that; it’s the same raow ‘tween the two ole women. Goodness -knaows, I’m sick ’n’ tired of hearin’ ’baout it.” - -“No, but ain’t Seth ’n’ Annie fixed it up?” persisted Milton; “Daown’t -th’ corners they say it’s all settled.” Then he mutteringly added, as -he slouched out to meet Leander, who drove up now with a great rattle of -empty milk-cans. “I wish’t _I_ was in Seth’s shoes.” - -“Oh, you _dew_, dew yeh!” said Alvira, thus left to herself. - - - - -CHAPTER IV.--THE TWO YOUNG WOMEN. - -The young girl whose future had been settled down at the corners, came -along the road next morning toward the Fairchild house, all unconscious -of her destiny. She lived in a small, old-fashioned farm-dwelling back -in the fields, alone with her grandmother, and although there was a -bitter feud between the heads of the two houses, it had not stopped her -from being a familiar and helpful figure in her uncle’s homestead. - -Annie Fairchild was a country girl in some senses of the term, -calm-faced, clear-eyed, self-reliant among her friends, but with a -curious disposition toward timidity in the presence of strangers. She -was held to be too serious and “school-ma’am-ish” for pleasant company -by most rural maidens of her acquaintance, and the few attempts of young -farmers of the country-side to establish friendly relations with her -had not been crowned with conspicuous success. It could scarcely be said -that she was haughty or cold; no one could demonstrate in detail that -her term of schooling in a far-off citified seminary had made her proud -or uncivil; but still she had no intimates. - -This was the more marked from the fact that she was a pretty girl--or if -not precisely pretty, very attractive and winning in face. No other -girl of the neighborhood had so fine and regular a profile, or such -expressive, dark eyes, or so serenely intelligent an expression. It had -been whispered at one time that Reuben Tracy, the school-master, was -likely to make a match of it with her, but this had faded away again as -a rootless rumor; by this time everybody on the Burfield road tacitly -understood that eventually she was to be the wife of her cousin Seth, -when it “came time for the two farms to join.” And she had grown -accustomed long since to the furtive, half-awed, half-covetous look -which men cast upon her, without suspecting the spirit of reluctant -renunciation underlying it. - -She met Milton Squires on the road, close in front of the Fairchild’s -house, this morning, and, nodding to him, passed on. She did not -particularly note the gaze he bent upon her as she went by, and which -followed her afterward, almost to the Fairchild gate. If she had done -so, and could have read all its meaning, she would not have gone on -with so unruffled a face, for it was a look to frighten an honest young -woman--an intent, hungry, almost wolfish look, unrelieved by so much as -a glimmer of the light of manliness. - -But she was alike unconscious of his thoughts and of the gossip he had -heard at the corners. Certainly no listener who followed her to the -gate, where she encountered Seth at work screwing on a new hinge, would -have gathered from the tone or words of the greeting on either side any -testimony to confirm the common supposition that they were destined for -each other. - -“Good morning, Seth,” she said, halting while he dragged the great gate -open for her, “you’re all through breakfast, I suppose?” - -“No, I think Albert and his wife are at the table still. We didn’t call -them when the rest got up, you know. They’re not used to country ways.” - -“Anybody else here?” - -“No, except John.” - -“Oh, I’m so glad he came. That Lize Wilkins has been telling everybody -he wouldn’t come on Sabrina’s account. And it would have looked _so_ -bad.” - -“Yes, Lize Wilkins talks too much. All John ever said was that he -wouldn’t stay here in the house any more than he could help. It’s too -bad he can’t get along better with Aunt; it would make things so much -pleasanter.” - -“How’s your father, Seth? He seemed at first to take it pretty hard.” - -“He appeared a little brighter yesterday, after Albert came, but he’s -very poorly this morning. Poor old man, it makes a sad difference with -him--more I suppose than with us boys, even with me, who never have been -away from her hardly for a day.” - -“Yes, Seth, a boy outgrows his mother, I suppose, but for an old couple -who have lived together forty years a separation like this must be -awful. I shall go up to the house now.” - -Seth followed her with his eyes as she walked up the road, past the -old-fashioned latticed front door with its heavy fold of crape hanging -on the knocker, and turned from sight at the corner of the house; -and the look in his face was soft and admiring, even if it was hardly -loverlike. In his trouble--and he felt the bereavement most keenly--it -seemed restful and good to have such a girl as Annie about, Indeed, a -vague thought that she had never before seemed so sweet and likeable -came to him, as he turned again to the hinge, and lightened his heart -perceptibly, for almost the last words his mother had spoken to him had -been of his future with Annie as his wife. - -“You will have the farm before long, Seth,” she said, smiling faintly -as he stroked her pale hair--somehow to the last it never grew grey--and -looked at her through boyish tears, “and Annie will bring you the Warren -farm. Her grandmother and I have talked it over many a time. Annie’s a -good girl, there’s no better, and she’ll make my boy a good, true wife.” - -For a year or two back Seth had understood in a nebulous way that his -parents had an idea of his eventually marrying Annie, but his mother’s -words still came to him in the form of a surprise. First, it had been -far from his thoughts that old Mrs. Warren, Annie’s invalid grandmother, -would listen to such a thing, much less plan it. There was a bitterness -of long standing between the two families, he knew. His father’s younger -brother--a halfbrother--named William Fairchild, had married Mrs. -Warren’s only daughter under circumstances which he had never heard -detailed, but which at least had enraged the mother. Both William and -his wife had died, out West he believed, years and years ago, leaving -only this girl, Annie Fairchild, who came an orphan to the grandmother -she had never seen before, and was reared by her. In this Mrs. Warren -and his aunt Sabrina had found sufficient occasion for a quarrel, -lasting ever since he could remember, and as he had always understood -from his aunt that her battle was in defense of the whole family, he -had taken it for granted that he not less than the other Fairchilds was -included in Mrs. Warren’s disfavor. He recalled, now, indeed, having -heard Annie say once or twice that her grandmother liked him; but this -he had taken in a negative way, as if the grandmother of the Capulets -had remarked that of all the loathed Montagus perhaps young Romeo was -personally the least offensive to her sight. - -And second, he was far from being in a Romeo’s condition of heart and -mind. He was not in love with Annie for herself--much less for the -Warren farm. To state plainly what Seth had not yet mustered courage to -say in entire frankness even to himself, he hated farming, and rebelled -against the idea of following in his father’s footsteps. And the -dreams of a career elsewhere which occupied the mutinous thoughts Seth -concealed under so passive an exterior had carried him far away from -the plan of an alliance with the nice sort of country cousin who would -eventually own the adjoining farm. So in this sense, too, his mothers -dying words were a surprise--converting into a definite and almost -sacred desire what he had supposed to be merely a shapeless fancy. - -Not all this crossed his mind, as he watched Annie till she disappeared, -and then turned back to his work. But the sight of her had been pleasant -to him, and her voice had sounded very gentle and yet full of the -substance of womanliness--and perhaps his poor, dear mother’s plan for -him, after all, was the best. - -The gate swinging properly at last, there was an end to Seth’s out-door -tasks, and he started toward the house. The thought that he would see -Annie within was distinct enough in his mind, almost, to constitute -a motive for his going. At the very door he encountered his brother -Albert’s wife, coming out, and stopped. - -Isabel Fairchild was far from deserving, at least as a woman, the -epithets with which Aunt Sabrina mentally coupled her girlhood. There -was nothing impertinent or ill-behaved about her appearance, certainly, -as she stood before Seth, and with a faint smile bade him good-morning. - -She was above the medium height, as woman’s stature goes, and almost -plump; her hair, much of which was shown in front by the pretty Parisian -form of straw hat she wore, was very light in color; her eyes were blue, -a light, noticeable blue. She wore some loose kind of black and gray -morning dress, with an extra fold falling in graceful lines from her -shoulders to her train, like a toga, and she carried a dainty parasol, -also of black and gray, like the ribbons on her dark hat. To Seth’s eyes -she had seemed yesterday, when he saw her for the first time, a very -embodiment of the luxury, beauty, refinement of city life--and how much -more so now, when her dingy traveling raiment had given place to this -most engaging garb, so subdued, yet so lovely. It seemed to him that his -sister-in-law was quite the most attractive woman he had ever seen. - -“I thought of going for a little stroll,” she said, again with -the faint, half-smile. “It is so charming outside, and so blue and -depressing in the house. Can I walk along there through the orchard -now?--I used to when I was here as a girl, I know--and won’t you come -with me? I’ve scarcely had a chance for a word with you since we came.” - -The invitation was pleasant enough to Seth, but he looked down -deprecatingly at his rough chore clothes, and wondered whether he ought -to accept it or not. - -“Why, Seth, the _idea_ of standing on ceremony with _me!_ As if we -hadn’t played together here as children--to say nothing of my being your -sister now!” - -They had started now toward the orchard, and she continued:-- - -“Do you know, it seems as if I didn’t know anybody here but you--and -even you almost make a stranger out of me. Poor Uncle Lemuel, he is so -broken-down that he scarcely remembers me, and of course your Aunt and -I couldn’t be expected to get very intimate--you remember our dispute? -Then John, he’s very pleasant, and all that, but he isn’t at all like -the John I used to look up to so, the summer I was here. But you--you -have hardly changed a bit. Of course,” she made haste to add, for Seth’s -face did not reflect unalloyed gratification at this, “you have grown -manly and big, and all that, but you haven’t changed in your expression -or manner. It’s almost ten years--and I should have known you anywhere. -But John _has_ changed--he’s more like a city man, or rather a villager, -a compromise between city and country.” - -“Yes, I’m a countryman through and through, I suppose,” said Seth, with -something very like a sigh. - -“John has seen a good deal of the world they tell me, and been on papers -in large cities. I wonder how he can content himself with that little -weekly in Thessaly after that.” - -“I don’t think John has much ambition,” answered Seth, meditatively. “He -doesn’t seem to care much how things go, if he only has the chance to -say what he wants to say in print. It doesn’t make any difference to -him, apparently, whether all New York State reads what he writes, or -only thirty or forty fellows in Dearborn County--he’s just as well -satisfied. And yet he’s a very bright man, too. He might have gone to -the Assembly last fall, if he could have bid against Elhanan Pratt. He -_will_ go sometime, probably.” - -“Why, do you have an auction here for the Assembly?” - -“Oh, no, but the man who’s willing to pay a big assessment into the -campaign fund can generally shut a poor candidate out John didn’t seem -to mind much about being frozen out though--not half so much as I did, -for him. Everybody in Thessaly knows him and likes him and calls him -‘John,’ and that seems to be the height of his ambition. I can’t imagine -a man of his abilities being satisfied with so limited a horizon.” - -“And, you, Seth, what is your horizon like?” asked Isabel. - -They had entered the orchard path, now, and the apple blossoms close -above them filled the May morning air with that sweet spring perfume -which seems to tell of growth, harvest, the fruition of hope. - -“Oh, I’m picked out to be a countryman all the days of my life I -suppose.” There was the sigh again, and a tinge of bitterness in his -tone, as well. - -“Oh, I hope not--that is, if you don’t want to be. Oh, it must be such a -dreary life! The very thought of it sets my teeth on edge. The dreadful -people you have to know: men without an idea beyond crops and calves -and the cheese-factory; women slaving their lives out doing bad cooking, -mending for a houseful of men, devoting their scarce opportunities for -intercourse with other women to the weakest and most wretched gossip; -coarse servants who eat at the table with their employers and call them -by their Christian names; boys whose only theory about education is -thrashing the school teacher, if it is a man, or breaking her heart -by their mean insolence if it is a woman; and girls brought up to be -awkward gawks, without a chance in life, since the brighter and nicer -they are the more they will suffer from marriage with men mentally -beneath them--that is, if they don’t become sour old maids. I don’t -wonder you hate it all, Seth.” - -“You talk like a book,” said Seth, in tones of unmistakable admiration. -“I didn’t suppose any woman could talk like that.” - -“I talk as I feel always, when I come into contact with country -life, and I get, angry with people who maunder about its romantic and -picturesque side. Where is it, I should, like to know?” - -“Oh, it isn’t all so bad as you paint it, perhaps, -Isabel. Of course----“--here he hesitated a little--“you don’t quife see -it at its best here, you know. Father hasn’t been a first-rate manager, -and things have kin all so bad as you paint it, perhaps, Isabel. Of -course----” here he hesitated a little--“you don’t quife see it at its -best here, you know. Father hasn’t been a first-rate manager, and things -have kind o’ run down.” - -“No, Seth, it isn’t that; the trail of the serpent is over it all--rich -and poor, big and little. The Nineteenth century is a century of cities; -they have given their own twist to the progress of the age--and the -farmer is almost as far out of it as if he lived in Alaska. Perhaps -there may have been a time when a man could live in what the poet calls -daily communion with Nature and not starve his mind and dwarf his soul, -but this isn’t the century.” - -“But Webster was a farm boy, and so was Lincoln and Garfield and -Jackson--almost all our great men. Hardly any of them are born in -cities, you will find.” - -“Oh, the country is just splendid to be born in, no doubt of that; but -after you are born, get out of it as soon as you can.” - -“I don’t know as I can leave Father very well,” said Seth slowly, and as -if in deep thought. - -They walked to the end of the pasture beyond the orchard, to within -view of the spot where all the Fairchilds for three generations had been -laid, and where, among the clustering sweet-briars and wild-strawberry -vines Milton had only yesterday dug a new grave. The sight recalled -to both another subject, and no more was said of country life as they -returned to the house. Indeed, little was said of any sort, for Seth had -a thinking mood on. Nothing was very clear in his mind perhaps, but more -distinctly than anything else he felt that existence on the farm had all -at once become intolerable. - - - - -CHAPTER V.--THE FUNERAL. - -The American farm-house funeral is surely, of all the observances with -which civilized man marks the ending of this earthly pilgrimage, the -most pathetic. The rural life itself is a sad and sterile enough thing, -with its unrelieved physical strain, its enervating and destructive -diet, its mental barrenness, its sternly narrowed groove of toil and -thought and companionship--but death on the farm brings a desolating -gloom, a cruel sense of the hopelessness of existence, which one -realizes nowhere else. The grim, fatalist habit of seizing upon the -grotesque side, which a century of farm life has crystallized into what -the world knows as American humor, is not wanting even in this hour; -and the comforting conviction of immortality, of the shining reward to -follow travail and sorrow, is nowhere more firmly insisted upon than -among our country people. But the bleak environment of the closed -life, the absence of real fellowship among the living, the melancholy -isolation and vanity of it all, oppress the soul here with an -intolerable weight which neither fund of sardonic spirits nor honest -faith can lighten. - -Something of this Isabel felt, as the mid-day meal was hurried through, -on Alvira’s sharp intimation that the room couldn’t be cleared any too -soon, for the crowd would begin coming now, right along. There were -three strangers at the table--though they seemed to be scarcely more -strangers than the members of her husband’s family--of whom two were -clergymen. - -One of these, who sat next to her, was the Episcopalian minister at -Thessaly, a middle-aged, soft sort of man, with short hair so smooth -and furry that she was conscious of an impulse to stroke it like a -seal-skin, and little side-whiskers which reminded her of a baby brush. -He impressed her as a stupid man, but in that she was mistaken. He was -nervous and ill at ease, first because he could not successfully or -gracefully use the narrow three-tined steel fork with a bone handle -that had been given him, and second, because he did not understand the -presence of the Rev. Stephen Bunce, who sat opposite him, offensively -smacking his lips, and devoting to loud discourse periods which it -seemed might better have been employed in mastication. - -If quiet Mr. Turner was ill at ease, the Rev. Stephen was certainly not. -He bestrode the situation like a modern Colossus. The shape of his fork -did not worry him, since he used it only as a humble and lowly adjunct -to his knife. The presence of Mr. Turner too, neither puzzled nor pained -him. In fact, he was rather pleased than otherwise to have him there, -where he could talk to him before sympathetic witnesses, and make -him realise how the man of the people who had a genuine call -towered innately superior to mere beneficed gentility. “Beneficed -gentility”--that was a good phrase, and he made a mental note of it for -future use; then--the temptation was too strong--he bundled it neck and -crop into the florid sentence with which he was addressing Albert--and -looked at the Episcopalian to watch its effect. - -Mr. Turner was occupied with his javelin-shaped fork, and did not seem -to hear it. - -Mr. Bunce suspected artifice in this, and watched the rector’s meek face -for a sign of secret confusion. After a moment he said, with his full, -pompous voice at its loudest and most artificial pitch:-- - -“Ah, Mr. Turner, this is a sad occasion!” - -The rector glanced up with some surprise, for he had not expected this -overture, and answered “Yes, truly it is; extremely sad.” - -“Yet it is consoling to feel that even so sad an occasion can be -converted into a means of grace, a season of spiritual solace as it -were.” - -Mr. Turner only nodded assent to this; he felt that the whole company -around the table, hired people and all, were eagerly watching him and -the burly, bold-faced preacher opposite, as if they were about to engage -in gladiatorial combat. - -But Mr. Bunce would not permit the challenge to be declined. He stroked -his ochre-hued chin whisker, looked complacently around the board, and -asked: - -“I s’pose you’ve brought your white and black riggins’ along, eh? Or -don’t you wear ’em except in Church?” - -There was a pained look in Mr. Turner’s face; he made a little gesture -toward the folding doors leading to the parlor, beyond which lay the -dead, and murmured: - -“It will be better, will it not, to speak of these matters together, -after dinner?” - -Again the Rev. Stephen glanced around the table, looking especially -toward Miss Sabrina for approval, and remarked loftily: - -“There is no need of concealment here, sir. It is all in the family -here. We all know that the Mother in Israel who has departed was -formerly of your communion, and if she wanted to have you here, sir, at -her funeral, why well and good. But the rest of this sorrowin’ family, -sir, this stricken household, air Baptists--” - -“I declare! there’s the Burrells drivin’ into the yard, a’ready!” said -Alvira, rising from her chair abruptly. “If you’re threw we better -hustle these things aout, naow; you women won’t more’n have time to -dress ’fore they’ll all be here.” - -The interruption seemed a welcome one to everybody, for there was a -general movement on both sides of Mr. Bunce, which he, with his sentence -unfinished, was constrained to join. - -The third stranger, a small, elderly man with a mobile countenance -and rusty black clothes, drew himself up, put on a modifiedly doleful -expression, and, speaking for the first time, assumed control of -everything: - -“Naow, Milton, you ’n’ Leander git the table aout, ’n’ bring in all -the extry chairs, ’n’ set ’em ’raound in rows. Squeeze ’em pooty -well together in back, but the front ones kind o’ spread aout. You, -Miss Sabriny, ’n’ the lady”--indicating Isabel with his thumb--“’n’ -Annie’d better go upstairs ’n’ git yer bonnets on, ’n’ things, ’n’ -go ’n’ set in the room at the head o’ the stairs. You men, tew, git -your gloves on, ’n’ naow be sure ’n’ have your hankch’fs in some -pocket where you can git at ’em with your gloves on--’n’ have your -hats in your hands, ‘n’ then go ’n’ set with the ladies. Miss Sabriny, -you’ll come daown arm-in-arm with yer brother, _when_ I call, ’n’ then -Albert ’n’ his wife, ’n’ John with Annie, ’n’ Seth with--pshaw, -there’s odd numbers. Well, Seth can come alone. And dew keep step comin’ -daown stairs!” - -“’N’ naow, gents,” turning to the Rev. Mr. Turner, “your gaown’s in -the fust room to the right on the landin’, and if you”--addressing Mr. -Bunce--“will go up with him, and arrange ’baout the services, so’s -to come daown together--it’ll look pootier than to straggle in by -yourselves,--’n’ you, Milton, ain’t you got somethin’ besides -overalls to put on?” - -Thus the autocrat cleared the living room. Then, going around through -the front hall, he entered the parlor to receive, with solemn dignity -and a fine eye to their relative social merit, the first comers. - -These were almost exclusively women, dressed in Sunday garb. As each -buggy or democrat wagon drove up inside the gate, and discharged its -burden, the men would lead the horses further on, to be hitched under or -near the shed, and then saunter around to the kitchen side of the house, -where cider was on tap, and other men were standing in the sunshine, -chewing tobacco and conversing in low tones, while the women from each -conveyance went straight to the front door, and got seats in the parlor -as close to the coffin as possible. The separation of the sexes could -hardly have been more rigorous in a synagogue. There were, indeed two or -three meek, well-brushed men among the women, sitting, uncomfortable but -resigned, in the geranium-scented gloom of the curtained parlor, but, -as the more virile brethren outside would have said, they were men who -didn’t count. - -The task of the undertaker was neither light nor altogether smooth. -There were some dozen chairs reserved, nearest the pall, for the -mourners, the clergymen and the mixed quartette expected from Thessaly. -Every woman on entering made for these chairs, and the more unimportant -and “low-down” she was in the rural scale of social values, the more -confidently she essayed to get one of them. With all of these more or -less argument was necessary--conducted in a buzzing whisper from which -some squeak or guttural exclamation would now and again emerge. With -some, the undertaker was compelled to be quite peremptory; while one -woman--Susan Jane Squires, a slatternly, weak-eyed creature who presumed -upon her position as sister-in-law of Milton, the hired man--had -actually to be pushed away by sheer force. - -Then there was the further labor of inducing all these disappointed ones -to take the seats furthest back, so that late comers might not have to -push by and over them, but efforts in this direction were only fitful at -the best, and soon were practically abandoned. - -“Fust come, fust sarved!” said old Mrs. Wimple. “I’m jes ez good ez them -that’ll come bimeby, ’n’ ef I don’ mind their climbin’ over me, -_you_ needn’t!” and against this the undertaker could urge nothing -satisfactory. - -In the intervals of that functionary’s activity, conversation was quite -general, carried on in whispers which, in the aggregate, sounded like -the rustle of a smart breeze through the dry leaves of a beach tree. -Many women were there who had never been in the house before--could -indeed, have had no other chance of getting in. These had some fleeting -interest in the funeral appointments, and the expense incident thereto, -but their chief concern was the furnishing of the house. They furtively -scraped the carpet with their feet to test its quality, they felt of the -furniture to see if it had been re-varnished, they estimated the value -of the curtains, speculated on the cost of the melodeon and its age, -wondered when the ceiling had last been whitewashed. Some, who knew the -family better, discussed the lamentable decline of the Fairchilds in -substance and standing within their recollection, and exchanged hints -about the endemic mortgage stretching its sinister hand even to the very -chairs they were sitting on. Others, still more intimate, rehearsed the -details of the last and fatal illness, commented on the character of -individuals in the family, and guessed how long old Lemuel would last, -now that Cicely was gone. - -In the centre of these circling waves of gossip lay the embodiment of -the eternal silence. Listening, one might fain envy such an end to that -living death of mental starvation which was the lot of all there, and -which forced them, out of their womanhood, to chatter in the presence of -death. - -The singers came. They were from the village, belonging to the -Congregational church there, and it was understood that they came out of -liking for John Fairchild. None of the gathering knew them personally, -but it was said that the contralto--the woman with the bird on her -bonnet, who took her seat at the melodeon--had had trouble with her -husband. A fresh buzz of whispering ran round. Some stray word must have -reached the contralto, for she colored and pretended to study the music -before her intently, and, later, when “Pleyel’s Hymn” was being sung, -she played so nervously that there was an utter collapse in the sharps -and flats of the third line, which nearly threw the singers out. - -The undertaker now stalked in, and stood on tiptoe to see if the back -room was also filled. He had been out with the men at the kitchen door, -fixing crape on the arms of six of the best dressed and most respectable -looking farmers in an almost jocular mood, and drilling them affably -in their duties; drinking cider, exchanging gossip with one or two -acquaintances, and conducting himself generally like an ordinary mortal. -He had now resumed his dictatorship. - -Most of the men had followed him around to the front of the house, and -clustered now in the hall, or in a group about the outer door, holding -their hats on a level with their shoulders. - -A rustle on the stairs told that the mourners were descending. Then -came the strains of the melodeon, and the singing, very low, solemn and -sweet. - -A little pause, and the full voice of the Baptist preacher was heard -in prayer--then in some eulogistic remarks. What he said was largely -nonsense, from any point of view, but the voice was that of the born -exhorter, deep, clear-toned, melodious; there seemed to be a stop -in it, as in an organ, which at pathetic parts gave forth a tremulous, -weeping sound, and when this came not a dry eye could be found. He was -over-fond of using this effect, as are most men possessing the trick, -but no one noticed it, not even Isabel, who from sitting sternly -intolerant of the whispering women around her, and indignant at Mr. -Bunce for his dinner performance, found herself sobbing with all the -rest when the tremulo stop was touched. - -There was more singing, this time fine, simple old “St. Denis” and then -the bearers were summoned in. - -The men asked one another in murmurs outside if the Episcopal clargyman -was to take no part in the services. Within, Mrs. Wimple went straighter -to the point. She plucked him by the sleeve of his robe and leaning over -with some difficulty, for she was a corpulent body, whispered to the -hearing of a score of her neighbours: - -“What air you here fer, mister, if you ain’t goin’ to say nor dew -nothin’?” - -“I officiate at the grave,” he had said, and then regretted all the -remainder of the day having answered her at all. - -***** - -On the return of the procession from the little knoll where the slate -and marble tomb-stones of long dead Fairchilds bent over the new brown -mound, Annie and Seth walked together. There was silence between them -for a time, which he broke suddenly. - -“It’s _all_ very hard, Annie, for you know how much mother and I loved -each other. But, truly, the hardest thing of all is to think of staying -here among these narrow dolts. While she was here I could stand it. But -I can’t any more.” - -Annie said nothing. She felt his arm trembling against hers, and his -voice was strained and excited. What _could_ she say? - -“They’re not like me,” he went on; “I have nothing in common with them. -I hate the sight of the whole of them. I never realised till to-day how -big a gulf there was between them and me. Didn’t _you_ see it--what a -mean, narrow-contracted lot they all were?” - -“Who do you mean, Seth?” - -“Why all of them. The Burrells, the Wimples, old Elhanan Pratt, old -Lyman Tenney, that fellow Bunce--the whole lot of them. And the women -too! Did you watch them--or, what’s worse, did you hear them? I wonder -you can bear them yourself, Annie, any more than I can.” - -“Sometimes it _is_ hard, Seth, I admit; when I first came back to -grandma from school it was awfully hard. But then I’ve got to live here, -and reconcile myself to what the place offers,--and, after all, Seth, -they are well-meaning people, and some of them are smart, too, in their -way.” - -“Oh, well-meaning--in their way,--yes! But I haven’t got to live here, -Annie, and I haven’t got to reconcile myself, and I _won’t_ That’s the -long and short of it. I can make my living elsewhere--perhaps more than -my living--and be among people who don’t make me angry every time I set -eyes on them. And I can find friends, too, who feel as I do, and look at -things as I do, instead of these country louts who only know abominable -stories, and these foolish girls--who--who--” - -“Nobody can blame you to-day, Seth, for feeling blue and sore, but -you ought not to talk so, even now. They’re not all like what you say. -Reuben Tracy, now, he’s been a good friend and a useful friend to you.” - -“Yes, Rube’s a grand, good fellow, of course. I know all that. But then -just take his case. He’s a poor schoolmaster now, just as he was five -years ago, and will be twenty years from now. What kind of a life is -that for a man?” - -“And maybe the girls _are_--foolish, as you started to say, but--” - -“Now, Annie, don’t think I m’eant anything by that, _please!_ I know -you’re the dearest girl and the best friend in the world. Truly, now, -you won’t think I meant anything, will you?” - -“No, Seth, I won’t” said Annie softly. It was her arm that trembled now. - - - - -CHAPTER VI.--IN THE NAME OF THE FAMILY. - -MISS Sabrina sat by her accustomed window an hour after the return -from the grave, waiting for Albert. The mourning dress, borrowed for -the occasion from a neighbor, was cut in so modern a fashion, contrasted -with the venerable maiden’s habitual garments, that it gave her spare -figure almost a fantastic air. The bonnet, with its yard of dense, -coarse ribbed crape, lay on the table at her elbow, beside her -spectacles and the unnoticed Bible. Miss Sabrina was ostensibly looking -out of the window, but she really saw nothing. She was thinking very -steadily about the coming interview with her nephew, and what she would -say to him, and wondering, desponding, hoping about his answers. - -The door opened, and Albert entered. “You wanted to see me, Aunt, so -Annie said,” he remarked! gravely, in a subdued tone. - -She motioned him to a chair and answered, in a solemn voice curiously -like his own: “Yes, there’s some things I want to say to you, all by -yourself.” - -They sat for some moments in silence, the lawyer watching his aunt with -amiable forbearance, as if conscious that his time was being wasted, and -she, poor woman, groping in a novel mental fog for some suitable phrases -with which to present her views. Under Albert’s calm, uninspiring gaze -those views seemed to lose form, and diminish in intelligence as much -as in distinctness. It had all been so clear to her mind--and now she -suddenly found it fading off into a misty jumble of speculations, mere -castles in the air. She had expected to present an unanswerable -case lucidly and forcibly to her lawyer nephew; instead, it seemed -increasingly probable that he would scout the thing as ridiculous--and, -what was worse, be justified in so doing. So it was that she finally -made her beginning doubtingly, almost dolefully: - -“Of course I dunno haow you feel abaout it, Albert, but I can’t help -thinking something ought to be settled abaout th’ farm, while yer here.” - -“Settled? How settled?’’ asked Albert. There was a dry, dispassionate -fibre in his voice which further chilled her enthusiasm. - -“Why--well--you knaow--what I mean, Albert,” she said, almost -pathetically. It was so hard to know just how to say things to Albert. - -“On the contrary, I don’t in the least know what you mean. What do you -want settled about the farm? What is there to settle about it?” - -“Oh, nothin’, ef yeh don’t choose to understand” said Miss Sabrina. - -Another period of silence ensued. Albert made a movement as if to rise, -and said: - -“If there is’nt anything more, I think I’ll go down again.” - -There was an artificial nicety of enunciation about this speech, which -grated on the old lady’s nerves. She squared her shoulders and turned -upon her nephew. - -“Naow what’s the use of bein’ mean, Albert? Yeh dew knaow what I’m -thinking of, jis’ ez well ez I dew! Yeh unly want to make it ez hard fer -me to tell yeh as yeh possibly kin. I s’pose thet’s the lawyer of it!” - -Albert smiled with all his face but the eyes, and slightly lifting his -hands from his fat knees, turned them palms up, in mute deprecation of -his aunt’s unreasonableness. The gesture was as near the shoulder-shrug -as the self-contained lawyer ever permitted himself to go. It was a -trifle, but it angered the old maid enough to remove the last vestige of -hesitation from her tongue: - -“Well, ef yeh _don’t_ knaow what I mean, then I’ll tell yeh! I mean that -ef th’ Fairchilds are goin’ to be a Dearborn caounty fam’ly, ’n’ hole -their heads up amongst folks, ther’s got to be a change o’ some sort -right away. Your father’s let everything slide year after year, till -there’s pesky little lef’ naow to slide on. He’s behine hand agin in -money matters, even with th’ Pratt mortgage on top of t’others. What’s -wuss, it’s in everybody’s maouth. They’ve left him off th’ board at th’ -cheese-factory this year, even; of course they say, it’s cuz he -never ’tended th’ meetin’s--but I knaow better! It’s jis cuz Lemuel -Fairchild’s goin’ deown hill, ’n’ the farm’s goin’ to rack ’n’ -ruin, ’n’ ev’rybuddy knaows it. Jis’ think of it? Why, ’twas th’ -Fairchilds made that cheese-factory, ’n’ it’s allus gone by aour -name, ’n’ we used to sen’ th’ milk of a hundred ’n’ thirty caows -there--almost as much as all th’ rest of ’em put togither--’n’ ez -I said to Leander Crump, when he was squirmin’ raound tryin’ to make me -b’lieve they didn’t mean nothin’ by droppin’ Lemuel aout o’ th’ board, -says I--‘nobuddy ever ’spected a table spoonful o’ water in aour -milk!’--’n’ he colored up, _I_ tell yeh!” - -“No doubt” said Albert, impassively. - -Miss Sabrina paused to mentally retrace her argument, and see if this -remark had any special bearing. She could discover none, and grew a -little angrier. - -“Well, then, th’ question’s right here. My father, your grand father, -made a name fer hisself, and a place for his fam’ly, here in Dearborn -caounty, second to nobuddy. Fer years ’n’ years I kin remember thet -th’ one question people ast, when it was proposed to dew anything, was -‘what does Seth Fairchild think ’baout it?’ He went to th’ Senate -twice; he could ’a gone to Congress from this dees-trick time ’n’ -time agin, if he’d be’n a mine to. Ev’rybuddy looked up to him. When he -died, all of a suddent, he lef’ Lemuel th’ bes’ farm, th’ bes’ stock, -th’ bes’ farm haouse, fer miles raound. Well, thet’s forty year ago. -I’ve lived here threw it all. I’ve swallered my pride every day in th’ -week, all thet time. I’ve tried to learn myself a humble spirit--but -I’ve hed to see this place, and the fam’ly, going daown, daown, daown!” - -There were tears in the old maid’s eyes now, as she spoke, tears of -mortification and revolt against her helplessness, for she seemed to -read the failure of her appeal in the placid face of her nephew, with -its only decent pretence of interest. She went on, with a rising voice: - -“You knaow a little of haow things hev’ gone, though you’ve allus took -precious good pains to knaow ez little ez yeh could. You knaow that -when you were a boy you were a rich man’s son, with yer pony, ’n’ yer -dancin’ lessons, ’n’ yer college eddica-tion; ’n’ yer mother dressed -well, ’n’ had a kerridge, ’n’ visited with th’ bes’ people of -Albany, people who were _my_ friends tew when I used to go to Albany -with yer grandfather. ’N’ what hev we come to? Yer mother slaved her -life aout, lost all her ambition, lost all her pride, saw things goin’ -to th’ dogs and didn’t knaow haow to stop ’em--sakes forbid thet I -should say anything agin Sissly; she did all she could; p’raps ’twould -’ev gone different if she’d be’n a different kine o’ woman, p’raps -not; there’s no use talkin’ ’baout thet. ’N’ ef I’d hed _my_ say, -tew, maybe things’d be’n different; but its ez it is, ’n’ it’s no use -cryin’ over spilt milk. - -“Father never meant to be hard with me. When he lef’ me nothin’ but -a living aout o’ th’ farm, he expected, everybuddy expected, my Aunt -Sabrina’d leave me a clean sixty thaousand dollars when she died. She -was an ole woman, ’n’ a widow, ’n’ she hed no childern. She’d allus -promised my father thet if I was named after her--confaound her name!--I -shaould be her heir. ’N’ then, Iess’n a year after his death, what -does the old huzzy up ’n’ do but marry some fortune hunter young -enough to be her son, ’n’ give him every cent she hed in the world. He -led her a fine dance of it, tew, ’n’ serve her right! But there I was, -lef ’thaout a thing ’cep a roof over my head. - -“’N’ then Lemuel, nothin’ ud do but he must go to Californy when the -gold cry riz, ’n’ no sooner’d he git there than he was homesick ’n’ -hed to come back; ’n’ when he got back, ’n’ begun to hear what -fortunes them who’d gone aout with him were a making, than he must -start aout again. But where it’d be’n wilderness a few months b’fore, -he faound cities naow, ’n’ ev’ry chance took up; then he got robbed -o’ all his money, ’n’ hed to borrer, ’n’ then he took chills -’n’ fever off th’ isthmus, n’ hed to lay in quarantine fer weeks, on -’caount o’ th’ yellah fever; it’d be’n a poor year on the farm, ’n’ -when he got back, it took ev’ry cent of his ready-money to set himself -right. - -“From thet day to this, his Californy luck hez stuck to him like death -to a nigger, tell here, to-day, the Fitches don’t think it wuth while -to come to your poor mother’s fun’ral--I kin remember Lije Fitch when -he was glad enough to beg beans o’ my father fer seed--’n’ I’m wearing -borrered mournin’ of Sarah Andrewses, _a mile tew big for me!_” - -“It seems to me I’ve been told all this a good many times, Aunt -Sabrina,” said Albert, as his aunt stopped and glared at him trembling -with the excitement of her peroration. “There’s nothing very-pleasant in -it, for either of us, to listen to or talk about; but I don’t see that -there’s anything more than I’ve heard over and over again, except about -your having on another woman’s dress, and I don’t assume that I am -expected to interfere about _that!_” - -Poor Miss Sabrina was too deeply moved, and too much in earnest, to note -the sarcastic levity underlying the lawyer’s conclusion. She caught -only the general sense of a negative response, and looked at her nephew -steadily with a gaze half-indignant, half appealing. - -“Then you won’t dew anything, ay?” she asked at last. - -“Oh, I am very far from saying that. _That’s_ another thing. You send -for me, saying that you have an important communication to make to -me--at least, I assume that it is important, from the circumstances -surrounding the request. I come, and you first insist that I know as -well as you do what you mean, and then, when I demur, you rehearse all -the unfortunate details of my father’s failure in life. I suggest that -these are already tolerably familiar to me, and _this_ mild statement -you construe as a definite refusal on my part to do something--what, I -don’t know.” - -“I declare, Albert, you better send in a bill fer givin’ me this -consultation. _I_ never knew a son who could take his father’s ruin -’n’ his fam’ly’s disgrace so cool, before. I s’pose _that’s_ th’ -lawyer of it, tew!” - -“Perhaps it’s an advantage that some one of the family should keep cool, -Aunt, and look at things one by one, in their true relation. Now, if -you have any proposition to make to me, any plan to present for my -consideration, I should like to hear it--because really this other style -of conversation is profitless beyond description. In a word, what do you -want me to do?” - -“What do I want yeh to do?” The old maid leaned forward and put a -thin, mitted hand on Albert’s knee, looking eagerly into his face, and -speaking almost shrilly. “I want yeh to take this farm, to come here to -live, to make it a rich gentleman’s home agin! to put the Fairchilds up -once more where my father left ’em.” - -“Yes?” was the provokingly unenthusiastic response. - -Miss Sabrina felt that she had failed. She put her spectacles on, and -took the Bible into her lap, as if to say that she washed her hands of -all mundane matters. But it did not suit Albert to regard the interview -as closed. - -“There is one thing you don’t seem to see at all, Aunt,” he said. “That -is, that Dearborn County is relatively not altogether the most important -section of the Republic, and that it is quite possible for a man to -win public recognition or attain professional distinction in other -communities which might reconcile him to a loss of prestige here. It may -sound like heresy to you, but I am free to admit that the good -opinion of the business men of New York City, where I am regarded as a -successful sort of man, seems to me to outweigh all possible questions -as to how I am regarded by Elhanan Pratt and Le-ander Crump and--and -that Baptist gentleman, for instance, whom you had here to-day. The -world has grown so large, my dear aunt, since your day, that there are -thousands upon thousands of Americans now who go all their lives without -ever once thinking about Dearborn County’s opinion. Of course I can -understand how deeply you must feel what you regard as a social decline -in the eyes of your neighbours. But truly, it does not specially -affect me. They are not my neighbours; if I seem to them to be of less -importance than I was in my boyhood, when I had a pony, I can’t help it, -and I am sure I don’t want to. Frankly, to use my mother’s old phrase, I -don’t care a cotton hat for their opinion good, bad, or indifferent. It -is this, I think, which you leave out of your calculation.” - -Miss Sabrina had listened, with the Book opened only by a finger’s -width. The elaborate irony of her nephew’s words had escaped her, but -she saw a gleam of hope in his willingness to discuss the matter at all. - -“But then this is the home o’ the Fairchilds; the fam’ly belongs to -Dearborn Caounty; father was allus spoken of ez Seth Fairchild o’ -Dearborn, jis’ as much ez--ez Silas Wright o’ Dutchess.” - -“Of course that last is a powerful argument,” said Albert with a furtive -smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “But, after all, the county -family idea doesn’t seem to attract me much. Why, aunt, do you know that -your grandfather Roger was a journeyman shoemaker, who walked all the -way here from Providence. There was nothing incongruous in his son -becoming a Senator. Very well; if you have a state of society where -sudden elevations of this sort occur, there will inevitably be -corresponding descents--just as lean streaks alternate with fat in the -bacon of commerce. The Fairchilds went up--they, come down. They have -exhausted the soil. Do you see?” - -“Nao! I don’t see a bit! ’N’ I b’lieve at heart you’re jis’ ez praoud -ez I be!” - -“Proud? Yes! Proud of myself, proud of my practice, proud of my -position. But proud because three or four hundred dull countrymen, -seeing my cows sleek, my harness glossy, my farm well in order, and -knowing that my grandfather had been a State Senator, would consider me -a ‘likely ’ man--no, not at all.” - -Albert rose at this to go, and added, as he turned the door-knob: - -“As soon as he’s equal to it, Aunt Sabrina, I’ll get father to go over -his affairs with me, and I’ll try and straighten them out a trifle. I -dare say we can find some way out of the muddle.” - -“But yeh won’t take up the thing yerself? Yeh won’t dew what I wanted -yeh tew?” - -The lawyer smiled, and said: “What really? Come here and be a farmer?” - -Miss Sabrina had risen, too, and came toward her nephew. “No” she said, -“not a farmer. Be a country gentleman, ’n’--’n’--a Congressman!” - Albert smiled again, and left the room. He smiled to himself going down -the stairs, and narrowly escaped forgetting to change his expression of -countenance when he entered the living room, where were sitting people -who had not entirely forgotten the fact that it was a house of mourning. - -For Albert had a highly interesting idea in his mind, both interesting -and diverting. Curiously enough, he had begun developing it from the -moment when his aunt first disclosed her ambition for him. At the last -moment, in a blind way she had suggested the first political office that -entered her mind as an added bribe. She could not know that her astute -nephew had, from the first suggestion of her plan, been trying to -remember whether it was Jay and Adams Counties, or Jay and Morgan, that -were associated with Dearborn in the Congressional district; or -that, when she finally in despair said “Be a country gentleman and a -Congressman,” his brain had already turned over a dozen projects in as -many seconds, every one Congressional. - - - - -CHAPTER VII.--THE THREE BROTHERS. - -After the early supper of stale bread, saltless butter, dark dried -apple sauce, and chippy cake had been disposed of, Lemuel returned to -his rocking chair by the stove, Aunt Sabrina and Isabel took seats, each -at a window, and read by the fading light, and Albert put on his hat, -lighted a cigar, and went out. His brother John stood smoking a pipe -in the yard, leaning against the high well-curb, his hands deep in his -pantaloons pocket, and his feet planted far to the front and wide apart. -Seth was coming from the barns toward the well, with a bucket in his -hand. Albert walked across to the curb, and the three brothers were -alone together for the first time in years. - -“It does one good to be out of doors such an evening as this,” said -Albert. “It seems to me it would be better if father would get out in -the open air more, instead of sitting cooped up over that stove all the -while.” - -“When a man’s been out in the open air, rain or shine, snow or blow, -for fifty years, he ought to have earned the right to stay inside, if -he wants to. That’s about the only reward there is at the end of a -farmer’s life,” answered Seth, turning the calfbucket upside down beside -John, and sitting on it. Seth had his old clothes on once more, and -perhaps there was some consciousness of the contrast between his apparel -and that of his black-clad brethren in the truculent tone of his reply. - -John had nodded at Albert on his approach, and thrust his feet a trifle -further forward. He still stood silent, looking meditatively at the row -of poplars on the other side of the road through rings of pipe smoke. - -“So you don’t think much of farm work, eh?” said Albert. - -“Who does?” replied Seth, sententiously. - -A considerable period of silence ensued. Albert had never had a very -high idea of his younger brothers’ conversational qualities, and had -rarely known how to talk easily with them, but to-night it seemed a -greater task than ever. He offered them cigars, in a propitiatory way. -Seth accepted and lit one; John said “Thanks, I prefer a pipe,” and -silence reigned again. - -It was twilight now, and in the gathering dusk there was no sign of -motion about, nor any sound save the tinkle of a sheep-bell in the -pasture opposite. - -John’s pipe burned out, and Albert pressed a cigar upon him again. - -“I _want_ you to try them,” he said, almost pleadingly, “I’m sure you’ll -like them. They are a special brand the steward at the Union League gets -for me.” - -This time John consented, and he seemed to feel that the act involved a -responsibility to talk, for he said, with an effort at amiability as he -struck a match: - -“Your wife seems to be looking very well.” - -“Yes, Isabel’s health is perfect, and it always benefits her to get out -in the country. That’s a kind of Irishism isn’t it? I mean it makes her -good health more obvious.” - -“Good health is a great thing,” John answered. - -The conversation was running emptings again, almost at the start. Albert -made a heroic effort to strengthen it. - -“Well, this is a regular quakers’ meeting,” he said, briskly. “We see -each other so seldom, we are almost strangers when we do meet. I want to -be frank with you, come now, and you should be frank with me. You have -something on your minds, I can see. Isn’t it something I ought to know?” - -Seth spoke again: “Perhaps on the evening of one’s mother’s funeral it -isn’t to be expected that even brothers should feel chatty.” - -The village journalist felt the injustice of this comment from the -youngster. - -“No, Seth,” he said, “Don’t snap Albert up in that fashion. I dare say -he feels the thing, in his own way, as much as the rest of us. You are -right, Albert; there _is_ something, and I’ll tell you plainly what it -is. Do you see those poplars over there? In the morning their shadows -Come almost to our front door. Father planted them with his own hands. -When I was a boy, I used to play over there, and climb up on to the -bolls, and pretend I was to build houses there, like in Swiss Family -Robinson. Well, that land passed out of our hands so long ago--it’s been -an old story for years. Do you see the roof of the red school-house over -back of the hill?” turning toward the South. “Or no, the light is too -poor now, but you know where it is. When I used to cut ’cross lots to -school there, I went the whole way over father’s land. Now, if I wanted -to go there, how many people would I trespass on, Seth?” - -“Ferguson owns the clover meadow, and Pratt has the timothy meadow, and -what we used to call the berry patch belongs to Sile Thomas; he’s begun -to build a house on it.” - -“Precisely. Why even the fence close to where mother’s grave is, divides -ours from another man’s land now.” - -“Sabrina spoke to me about all this this afternoon,” said Albert -hesitatingly, “and I tried, as I often have before, to make her -understand that that must be the natural course of affairs, so long as -the East tries to compete with the West in farming.” - -“Well that may be all right, but Elhanan Pratt seems to manage to -compete with the West, as you call it, and so do the Fergusons and all -the rest of them. We are the only ones who appear to get left, every -time. Of course, it’s somebody’s fault. Father’s been a poor manager, -no use of denying that. But that doesn’t make it any the easier to bear. -Father hardly knows which way to turn for ours from another man’s now. -Money; he might have scraped through the year if hops had had a good -season, but at nine cents a pound it was hardly worth while to take them -to the depot. You can’t clear expenses at less than eleven cents. And -then if he does have a fairly decent year, his hop-pickers are always -the most drunken, idle gang of them all, who eat their heads off, and -steal more fruit and chickens than they pick boxes, and if anybody’s -hops are spoiled in the kiln, you can bet on their being Fairchild’s, -every time. And three years ago, it was the hop merchant who failed, -just at the opportune moment, and let Father in for a whole years’ -profit and labor. Of course, it’s all bad luck, mismanagement, whatever -you like to call it, and it can’t be helped, I suppose. But it makes a -man sour, and it broke poor mother’s heart. And then here’s Seth.” - -“Oh, never mind me, I can stand it, I guess, if the rest can. I’m not -complaining” came from the figure on the bucket--only dimly to be seen -now, in the shadow of the curb, and the increasing darkness. - -“Here’s Seth,” continued John, without noting the disclaimer. “You and -I had _some_ advantages--of course, mine were not to be compared with -yours, but still I was given a chance, such as it was and I don’t know -that I would trade what I learned at work during college years for a -college education--but this poor boy, who’s thought about him, who’s -given him a chance to show what’s in him? He’s been allowed to come up -as he could, almost like any farm laborer. His mother tried to do her -little, but what spirit did she have for it, and what time did the -drudgery here give him? Thank God! He’s had the stuff in him to work at -education himself, and he’s got the making of the best man of us three. -But it’s no thanks to you. And _that’s_ why we feel hard, Albert. Nobody -supposes you could make a good farmer and manager out of father; nobody -blames you for a bad hop season, or the dishonesty of Biggs. But I do -say that of us three brothers there’s one who frets and worries over -the thing, and though he’s a poor man, does all he can afford to do, and -more too, to help make it better; and there’s another, young, ambitious, -capable, whose nose is held down to the grindstone, and the best years -of whose life are being miserably spent in a hopeless wrestling with -debt and disaster; and there’s a third brother, the oldest brother, -rich, easy, enjoying all the luxuries of life, who don’t give a damn -about it all! _That’s_ what I say, and if you don’t like it, you -needn’t!” - -The silence which ensued was of the kind that can be felt. The two -cigars at the corners of the old curb glowed intermittently in the -darkness. John’s had gone out during his speech, and as he re-lighted -it, the glare of the match showed an excited, indignant face. There was -no room for doubt, after the momentary exhibit which the red light made, -that John was very much in earnest. - -Albert was thinking laboriously on his answer. Meantime, he said, to -fill the interval “Do you like the cigar?” - -“Yes; a fifteen center, isn’t it?” - -Albert had it in his mind to say truthfully that he paid $180 per -thousand, but the fear of invidious comparisons rose before him in time, -and he said “About that, I think.” - -He waited a moment, still meditating, and threw out another stop-gap: -“It’s curious how the rhetorical habit grows on a man who writes leading -articles. I noticed that you used three adjectives every time, the -regular cumulative thing, you know.” - -“Maybe so; it would be more to the purpose to hear what you think about -the spirit of my oration; the form doesn’t matter so much.” - -“Well, I will tell you, John,” said Albert, slowly, still feeling his -way, “to speak frankly, no doubt there’s a good deal in what you say. I -feel that there is. But you ought to consider that it isn’t easy for a -man living in a great city, immersed in business cares, and engrossed in -the labors of his profession, to realise all these things, and see them -as you, who are here on the ground, see them. It’s hardly fair to attack -me as heartless, when you present these facts to me for the first time.” - -“For the first time! You ought to have seen them for yourself without -presenting. And then you said Sabrina had often discussed the subject -with you.” - -“Oh, but her point of view is always family dignity, the keeping up of -the Fairchilds’ homestead in baronial state, and that sort of thing. You -should have heard her this afternoon, telling me how her fathers name -used to be coupled with Dearborn County, just as Silas Wright’s was with -Dutchess--either Dutchess or Delaware, I forget which she said--but it -was very funny.” - -“Sabrina and I haven’t spoken for I don’t know how long, and we’re not -likely to again in a hurry, but for all that I’m bound to say I wish -some others of the family had as much pride as she’s got,” said John. -“Whatever else she may be, she’s as loyal and as faithful to the family -idea, as jealous of the family’s name, as any old Spanish grandee. And -I confess the Silas Wright thing doesn’t seem funny to me at all--any -fellow with the right kind of a heart in him would feel that it was -deucedly pathetic--the poor old maid clinging through the shipwreck to -that one spar of support--the recollection of a time when her father was -bigger than his county. Such things oughtn’t to be laughed at.” - -Albert lost his patience. “Confound it, man, do you want to force me -into a quarrel--this night of all others! By George, was there ever such -a brace of brothers! I come out here to get you by yourselves, to talk -over with you some plans that have occurred to me for setting things -right here--and I haven’t had a civil answer yet from either of you. -First it’s the youngster who scowls and snarls at me, and then you read -me lofty lectures on my behavior, and then both together in concerted -condemnation. No wonder I come rarely to the farm! It’s enough to sicken -any man of family ties, to be bullyragged in this way. I’ve a good mind -to tell you you can all go to the devil, and be hanged to you!” - -The figure on the bucket rose to its feet with a spring, so -energetically that there seemed a menace in the action. The village -editor restrained this movement with a quiet hand, and a whispered “Keep -cool, Seth.” Then he said with exaggerated calmness of voice: - -“Personally, perhaps I shouldn’t mind much if you did. But there are -others to look after, and so, before you do, it might be worth while to -learn what the fine alternative was to have been. It would be a great -pity to not even to hear these noble plans with which you were primed, -you say, when you came out.” - -“But you must admit, John, that you and Seth tonight have been enough to -try the patience of a saint.” - -“Oh, yes, we admit that. Go on!” - -“Well, you’ve made it a little difficult for me to develop my -plans--they were scarcely formed in my mind. In a general way, I wanted -to consult you about freeing the farm, perhaps buying back some of the -original land that has gone, putting the house in shape again, improving -the stock, placing Father and Sabrina beyond the chance of ever being -embarrassed again--and--and--doing something for Seth.” - -“Nobody wants you--” began the impatient Seth. - -“Youngster, _you_ shut up!” said John, again using the quieting hand. -“Do you really mean all this, Albert?” - -“I should scarcely have spoken in detail as I have, otherwise,” answered -the lawyer loftily. - -“Well, this--” said John, “this takes a fellow’s breath away.” - -“If you hadn’t been in such haste to impute bad motives and convict me -without judge or jury, perhaps the effect of my plans might not have -been so overpowering.” - -“Yes, we did you an injustice, Albert, clearly we did. We were full of -the idea that all these troubles rolled off you like water off a duck’s -back. It seems that was our mistake. But--what’s your scheme?” - -“Definitely, I have none, except to do all I can, in the way we may -decide will be best all around. I have been thinking some of coming to -live here myself, say from May to November of each year, and taking the -farm into my own hands.” - -“H’m--m! That might have its advantages, perhaps--_but_----” - -“Oh, I know what you mean. If I do, everybody’s rights shall be -respected. We’ll fix that beyond question, to your satisfaction, before -a thing is done.” - -“I don’t care about myself, particularly; you know that: but then -there’s Seth, you know--we’ve always figured on the farm as his. It’s -true he don’t want to be a farmer, that he hates the whole thing, but -still that represents all his capital, so to speak, and--” - -“My dear John, that shall all be arranged. I am a childless -man--probably always shall be. As long as Father lives the farm shall -remain in his name. Either his will can be in my favor, or I can manage -the farm as a trustee for all three of us, after he’s gone. In either -case, you shall both be protected in turn by my will--absolutely -protected. Meantime, what do you want me to do for Seth? What does he -want to do?” - -“Nothing needs to be done for me,” began Seth, “I can--” - -“Now, youngster, _will_ you be quiet!” said John, in mock despair. “I’ll -tell you what you can do for Seth, and do easily. Get him a place on -some decent newspaper, in New York or one of the larger cities of the -State, and let him have money enough to eke out a small salary at first, -so that he can begin at editorial work instead of tramping up through -the reporter’s treadmill, as I had to. That’s all Seth’ll ask, and it -will be the making of him.” - -“Begin at editorial work--Seth? Nonsense!” - -“No nonsense about it. For two years back Seth has been doing some of -the best work on my paper--work that’s been copied all over the State.” - -“Bless my soul, what a literary family we are!” said the lawyer. “Does -Aunt Sabrina write, too? Perhaps those love poems you have on the last -page are hers.” - -John continued without noticing the interjection. “Do you remember -that long article on Civil Service Reform we had in the _Banner_ last -January?” - -“I don’t think I do, John. To be frank, although we enjoy having you -send us the _Banner_ immensely, occasionally it happens that the stress -of professional duties compels me to miss reading a number.” - -“Well that article was reprinted in all the big papers, from Boston to -Chicago. I never knew any other thing from a little village paper to -travel so far, or attract so much attention. I had lots of letters about -it, too. That article was Seth’s--all his own. I didn’t change a word in -it. And he’s hardly seen any thing of the world yet, either.” - -The lawyer was heard chuckling, when John’s voice died away in the -darkness. The cigars had long since burned out, and the men could with -difficulty see one another. The two younger brothers waited, the one -surprised, the other increasingly indignant, to learn the cause of -Albert’s hilarity. - -“Do you realise, John,” he said at last, with merriment still in his -voice, “what a delightful commentary on Civil Service Reform your words -make. The best article on that doctrine is written by a youngster who -has never left the farm, who doesn’t know the difference between a -Custom House and a letter-box on a lamp-post! Ho, ho, I must tell that -to Chauncey when I see him.” - -An hour later, John and Seth still leaned against the mossy curb, -smoking and talking over the words of their elder brother, who sometime -before had gone in to avoid the dew-fall. - -“I wonder if we _have_ misjudged him, after all,” said Seth. “I’m almost -ashamed to accept his favors, after the way I pitched into him.” - -“I wonder what his scheme really is,” mused the more experienced village -editor. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII.--ALBERT’S PLANS. - -It became generally known, before Sunday came again, that Albert was to -take the farm, and that Seth was to go to the city--known not only along -the rough, lonesome road leading over the Burfield hills, which had once -been a proud turnpike, with hospitable taverns at every league, and the -rumbling of great coaches and the horn of the Postboy as echoes of its -daily life of bustle and profit, and now was a solitary thoroughfare -to no place in particular, with three or four gaunt old farmhouses, -scowling in isolation, to the mile--not only on this road, and at the -four corners below, but even at Thessaly people learned of the coming -change as if by magic, and discussed it as a prime sensation. It need -not be added that the story grew greatly in telling--grew too ponderous -to remain an entity, and divided itself into several varying and, -ultimately, fiercely conflicting sections. - -The Misses Cheesborough had the best authority for saying that Albert -had acted in the most malignant and shameful manner, seizing the farm, -and turning poor Seth out of doors, and it was more than a suspicion in -their minds that the feeble old father would soon be railroaded off to -an asylum. - -On the other hand, Miss Tabitha Wilcox, who by superior vigor and -resource held her own very well against the combined Misses Cheesbrough, -knew, absolutely _knew_, that Albert had behaved most handsomely, paying -off all the mortgages, making a will in favor of John and Seth, and -agreeing to send Seth to College, and what was more, Miss Tabitha would -not be surprised, though some others might be, if the public-spirited -Albert erected a new library building in Thessaly as a donation to the -village. - -Between these two bold extremes there was room for many shades of -variation in the story, and many original bents of speculation. Down at -the cheese factory they even professed to have heard that a grand coal -deposit had been surreptitiously discovered on the Fairchild farm, and -that Albert was merely the agent of a syndicate of city speculators who -would presently begin buying all the land roundabout. Old Elhanan Pratt -did not credit this, but he did write to his son in Albany, a clerk in -one of the departments, to find out if a charter for a railroad near -Thessaly had been applied for. The worst of it was, neither John nor -Seth would talk, and as for Albert, he had gone back to New York, -leaving his wife behind. - -On the farm the fortnight following the funeral passed without event. In -the lull of field labor which precedes haying time, there was not much -for Seth to do. He went down to the river several times on solitary -fishing trips; it seemed to him now that he was saying farewell not only -to the one pastime which never failed him in interest or delight, but to -the valley itself, and the river. How fond he was of the stream, and all -its belongings! - -More like home than even the old farmhouse on the hill seemed some of -these haunts to which he now said good-bye--the shadowed pool under the -butternut tree, with its high steep bank of bare clay where, just under -the overhanging cornice of sod, the gypsy swallows had made holes for -their nests, and at the black base of which silly rock bass lay waiting -for worms and hooks; the place further up where the river grew sharply -narrow, and deep dark water sped swiftly under an ancient jam of rotting -logs, and where by creeping cautiously through the alders, and gaining -a foothold on the birch which was the key to the obstructing pile, there -were pike to be had for the throwing, and sometimes exciting struggles -with angry black bass, who made the pole bend like a whip, and had an -evil trick of cutting the line back under the logs; and then the broader -stretch of water below the ruined paper mill’s dam, where the wading -in the thigh-deep rifts was so pleasant, and where the white fish would -bite in the swift water almost as gamely as trout, if one had only the -knack of playing his line rightly in the eddies. - -A score of these spots Seth had known and loved from the boyhood of -twine and pin hooks; they seemed almost sacredly familiar now, as he -wandered up and down the stream, dividing his attention between the -lures and wiles of the angler’s art and musings on the vast change of -scene which was so close before him. Ah, how fair were the day dreams -he had idly, fondly built for himself here in these old haunts, with -kingfishers and water rats for sympathizers, and the ceaseless murmur -of the water, the buzz of the locusts in the sun, the croak of the frogs -among the reeds, for a soft inspiring chorus of accompaniment to his -thoughts! - -Now these dreams were really to come true; he was actually going to the -city, to wear decent clothes, to mingle as much as he chose with men of -wisdom and refinement, to attain that one aim and vision of his life, a -place on a great paper! - -It was only here by the river, rod in hand, that he seemed able to fully -realize the beatitude of the vista. So as often as he could he came, and -if there was a ground note of sorrow at leaving these nooks, this dear -old river, there was also a triumphant song of exaltation in the air, -the water, the sunshine, which he could not hear on the farm. - -Partly because these excursions generally led him from the house before -she made her appearance mornings, partly because he felt vaguely that -his own victory over fate involved disappointment for her, Seth did not -see much of Isabel during her husband’s absence. So far as he knew, she -had taken the news of Albert’s determination to move into the country -quietly enough. Neither by word or sign had she discovered to Seth -any distaste for the prospect. But none the less he had a half-guilty -conviction that she did not like it, and that she must blame him, or at -least have some feeling against him, for it. She had spoken so -earnestly to him about the curse of existence in the country; it was not -conceivable to him that she should suddenly accept for herself without -protests or repining, the very life she had thus commiserated with him -about. - -Yet it seemed after all that he was mistaken. It was the evening after -Albert’s return, and Annie had come over after supper, ostensibly -to borrow a wrapper-pattern from Isabel, but really, it need not be -doubted, to hear the news. - -What news there was to be given out the eldest brother dispensed to the -family circle, after Alvira had cleared away the “tea-things.” - -That domestic had a clear idea of making one in the circle, and, -hastening in from the kitchen without her apron, drew up a chair to sit -with the others, and enjoy the revelations which, from Albert’s manner -during supper, all felt to be impending. But the invasion of city -manners, which she and Milton had deplored and ridiculed for a fortnight -back, had an unsuspected bitterness in its train for her. The lawyer -looked at her coolly, as he struck a match on the under side of the -mantel-piece, and asked: “Hadn’t you better go out, Alvira, and see that -the chickens don’t get into the kitchen?”--and she flounced out again, -with nose in air, and black eyes flashing. - -Albert lighted his cigar, put an arm chair down near the old rocker in -which his father sat and took his seat. Near the open door, overlooking -the farmyard and the barns, and full in the light from the west, sat -Miss Sabrina, knitting, and Isabel, with a paper. At the latter’s feet, -on a hassock, was Annie, and Seth sat on the doorstep. - -“Father,” said Albert, “things have been arranged in New York so that I -can speak, now, about the plans which I hinted of ten days ago.” - -The old man nodded his head, and said plaintively, “Whatever yew think -best, Albert, s’long as the boys git a fair shaow.” - -“You needn’t worry about that. My business is settled now, I think, so -that I can live here six or eight months in the year, say from March -till October, running down occasionally, perhaps, but making this my -residence. I will take up all the mortgages--perhaps buy back some of -the old farm, may be all of it. There are three or four ways in which -this can be equitably arranged--we’ll talk of those in detail later on, -some day when John can come up. I will have the carpenters here in a few -days, to look over the house, and figure on putting it in first-class -repair. The barns will have to be new throughout. There must be new -machinery, new fences, and a pretty thorough weeding out of the cattle. -We shall want a carriage house--but then its no use of enumerating, -there is so much to be done. We will put some money into horseflesh -down on Long Island, and see if something can’t be done in the way of a -stock-farm. I’m thinking of a trout pond, up beyond the orchard, in the -ravine there, too.” - -“Oh, Albert, this is what I’ve be’n prayin’ for this thirty year!” It -was Sabrina who spoke. There were tears of joy in her eyes. - -Lemuel Fairchild seemed rather dazed, not to say dismayed, at the -prospect thus bewilderingly unfolded. “It’ll cost a heap o’ money, -Albert,” he said at last, rather dubiously, “an’ I dunnao’ ’baout yer -gittin’ it back agin.” - -“That will be _my_ look out,” said the lawyer, confidently. “At any -rate, Isabel and I will make a good home for you and Aunt Sabrina, as -long as you both live. It will be a pleasant change for us both. As for -Seth--” - -There was a pause, and Annie nestled closer to Isabel, with a soft “Oh -yes, about Seth.” - -“As for Seth, it’s time he saw something of life besides grubbing here -like a farm-hand. We will try and get along without him here. I’ve -talked the matter over with a friend of mine, the proprietor of the -Tecumseh _Chronicle_ and he is willing to give him a start there, under -the most favorable conditions. The salary will be small at first, -of course, but I will supplement it with enough to give him a decent -living, if he is frugal. After that of course it all depends on -himself.” - -Seth stood up, as these last words were spoken, and replied, -stammeringly. “You needn’t be afraid of my not trying hard, Albert. I’m -sure I’m very grateful to you. It’s more than I dared expect you would -do for me.” He pushed his way past the women to shake hands with his -brother, and say again “It’s so good of you.” - -Albert received these expressions of gratitude benevolently, adding some -words of advice, and concluding with “You had better get ready to start -as early next week as you can. One of the _Chronicle_ men is going on a -vacation, and its Workman’s idea that you would be handy in his absence. -You could go, say, Wednesday, couldn’t you?” - -“So far as getting ready is concerned, I don’t know that there is -anything to do which couldn’t be done in a day. But--but--” - -“Of course you will need some things. I’ll talk with you about that in -the morning. We’ll drive down to Thessaly day after to-morrow together.” - Albert rose with this to go out and see Milton, and the family interview -was at an end. - -Miss Sabrina hurried out to the kitchen, impatient to begin discussing -with Alvira, as had been her wont for years, this new development in the -affairs of the household. - - - - -CHAPTER IX.--AT “M’TILDY’s” BEDSIDE. - -Lemuel Fairchild sat still, smoking his wooden pipe, and looking -absently, straight ahead, into the papered wall. This habit of gazing at -nothing was familiar to them all, and when, at Isabel’s suggestion, the -three young people started for a stroll through the orchard path, they -left him entirely without ceremony. This was growing to be the rule; no -one in the family now consulted him, or took the trouble to be polite -to him. He seemed to have become in his own house merely an article of -animated furniture, of not much more importance than the rough-furred -sickly old cat who dozed his life away back of the stove. - -He sat thus in solitude for some time, blankly studying the grotesque -patterns in the old-fashioned wall-paper, and drawing mechanically at -the pipe in his mouth, unconscious that no smoke came. Thus Miss Sabrina -found him when, after a more than ordinarily sharp passage at arms with -Alvira, she returned from the Kitchen. - -“I swaow! thet girl gits wuss tempered ’n’ more presumin’ ev’ry day o’ -her life,” she exclaimed. - -“Who--Annie?” asked her brother, rousing himself as if from a nap. - -“Annie! nao! who’s talkin’ abaout _her?_” - -“Oh nothin’, unly I was thinkin’ ’baout Annie--‘baout her ’n’ Seth, -yeh knaow,” answered Lemuel, apologetically. - -“Well, what abaout ’em?” The query was distinctly aggressive in tone. - -“Oh, nothin’ much. I was sort o’ thinkin’--well, _you_ knaow S’briny, -haow Sissly used to lot on their makin’ a match of it--’n’ I was kine -o’ wond’rin’ ef this here notion o’ Seth’s goin’ away wouldn’t knock it -all in th’ head.” - -“Well?” Miss Sabrina’s monosyllabic comment had so little of sympathy -or acquiescence in it, that Lemuel continued in an injured tone and with -more animation, not to say resolution: - -“Well, I’ve hed kine of an idea o’ goin’ over ’n’ talkin’ it over with -M’tildy. Mebbe that’ll be the best thing to dew.” - -“Oh _you_ think so, dew yeh? Thet’s all th’ pride _you’ve_ got lef’, is -it? I think I see _my_self goin’ hangin’ raound Matildy Warren, beggin’ -her to let her granddaughter marry a Fairchild! I’m ashamed of yeh, -Lemuel.” - -“I don’ see, much, what ther’ is to be ashamed on.” He added, with the -faintest shadow of a grin on his face. “’N’ b’twixt you ’n’ me, I -don’t see ’s there’s so blamed much fur me to be praoud abaout, nuther. -‘Tain’t’s if I was goin’ to ask a favor o’ M’tildy, at all. She ’n’ -Sissly used to talk ‘baout the thing’s if ’twas settled. ’N’ now’t -she’s gone, ’n’ Seth’s talkin’ o’ quittin’ th’ farm, seems to me it’d -be the sensible thing to kind o’ fine aout ef M’tildy wouldn’t offer th’ -young folks her farm, ef they’d stay.” - -“_Very_ well, sir. Hev’ yer own way,” answered Miss Sabrina, with stern -formality. “You allus _would_ hev yer own way--and yeh kin go muddle -things up to yer heart’s content, for all o’ me!” - -Lemuel watched his sister march to the stairs door and close it -decisively behind her. He was accustomed of old to this proof of her -wrath; as far back as he could remember it had been Sabrina’s habit -to figuratively wash her hands of unpleasant complications on the -ground-floor by slamming this self-same door, and going up to sulk in -her own room. She did it as a young girl, in the first months of her -disagreements with his young wife; it seemed to him a most natural -proceeding now, when they were both old, gray-headed people. - -Just now, it was a relief to him that she had gone, for if she had -stayed he might not have had the courage to put his thoughts into -actions. As it was he took his hat from its nail back of the kitchen -door, and started across-lots for the Warren homestead. - -***** - -There was no danger of not finding Mrs. Warren at home. For seven or -eight years she had scarcely stirred beyond her own door, and for the -past eighteen months she had been bed-ridden. The front door was -opened to Mr. Fairchild by a young slip of a girl, one of the brood of -daughters with which a neighboring poor family was weighted down, and -all of whom had been driven to seek work at any price among the farmers -of the vicinity. It seemed as if there was a Lawton girl in every other -farmhouse the whole length of the Burfield road. - -The girl ushered him into the gloomy hall, gloomier than ever now in the -gathering twilight, and unceremoniously left him there, while she went -to announce his presence. He heard through a door ajar at the end of the -hall a thin, querulous voice ask, “Which one of the Fairchilds is it?” - and the girl’s reply “The old man.” - -Then the servant returned to him and with a curt “Come ahead,” led him -to the mistress of the house, who lay in her bed-home, in a recess off -the living room. - -Mrs. Matilda Warren had never been what might be called a popular woman -in the neighborhood. She and her husband, the latter dead now for many -years, had come from Massachusetts. They were educated people in a -sense, and had not mingled easily with their rougher neighbors. -The widow Warren had, after her daughter’s escapade, carried this -exclusiveness to a point which the neighborhood found disagreeable. -Gradually she had grown into the recluse habit, and younger generations -on the hillside, eking out the gossip of their elders with fancies of -their own, born of stray glimpses of her tall, gaunt figure and pale -face, came to regard her with much that same awe which, two centuries -before, reputed witches had for children, young and old. - -Something of this feeling Lemuel himself was conscious of, as he stood -before her. The coverlet came up close under her arms. She wore a -wrapper-dress of red flannel. As he entered she raised herself, with an -evidently cruel effort, upon her elbow, dragging the pillow down to -aid in supporting her shoulder. She panted with this exertion as she -confronted him. Her scanty white hair was combed tightly back from her -forehead, and bound in place with a black-velvet band; a natural parting -on the side of the hair gave the withered face a suggestion of juvenile -jauntiness, in grotesque, jarring contrast with the pale blue eyes -which glittered from caverns of dark wrinkles, and the sunken, distorted -mouth. She had changed so vastly since their last meeting that Lemuel -stood bewildered and silent, staring at her. - -She spoke first. “I’m trying to think--it must be twenty year since -we’ve met, Lemuel Fairchild.” - -“Nigh onto that, M’tildy,” he replied, turning his hat in his hands. - -“I didn’t expect ever to lay eyes on you again, I couldn’t come to you, -and wouldn’t if I could, and I didn’t dream you would ever show your -face here.” The aged woman said this in a high, sharp voice, speaking -rapidly and with an ungracious tone. - -Lemuel fidgetted with his hat and moved his feet uneasily on the -dog-skin rug. “Yeh needn’t be afeered, M’tildy, I wouldn’t hev come naow -ef it hadn’t been somethin’ partikler ’baout Annie.” - -The invalid raised her shoulder from the pillow with a sudden movement, -and bent her head forward. “What’s happened to her? Is she hurt? Tell -me, quick!” - -“Oh nao, they ain’t nothin’ th’ matter with her. It’s unly ’baout her -’n’ Seth. I kine o’ thought we ought to talk it over ’n’ see haow -the land lay. That’s all.” - -“Oh that’s it, is it? _Samantha!_” - -Betrayed out of her shrewdness by the suddenness of the summons the -servant girl made her immediate appearance through the hall door. - -“Yes, I knew you were listening, you huzzy,” said Mrs. Warren grimly. -“You get along up stairs, go into Annie’s room, an’ make a noise of some -sort on the melodeon till I call you. Not too much noise, mind; jest -enough so I can know you’re up there.” As the girl left the room, the -invalid explained: “What she don’t hear, the rest of the Lawtons won’t -know. That family’s as good as a detective force for the whole county.” - Then, in a less amiable tone: “You might as well set down. What is it -about my girl an’ Seth?” - -As Lemuel awkwardly seated himself near the bedside and prepared to -answer, a wailing, discordant series of sounds came from the floor -above. The knowledge that the girl was creating this melancholy noise -to order, and on his account, confused his thought and he found himself -stating the case much more baldly than he had intended. “The fact is,” - he said, stroking his hat over his knee, “Seth’s thinkin’ o’ goin’ away -to Tecumsy--Albert’s got him a place there--’n’ so I s’pose it’ll be -all up b’twixt him ’n’ Annie.” - -The grandmother never took those light, searching eyes off her visitor’s -face. He felt himself turning uncomfortably red under their malevolent -gaze, I and wished she would speak. But she said nothing. At last he -explained, deferentially: - -“I thought it’d only be right to tell yeh. I know Sissly ’n’ you use -to talk abaout th’ thing. Th’ way she use to talk, speshly jis’ ’fore -she died, it ’peared ‘s if you tew hed it all settled. But Albert’s -goin’ to take th’ farm, it seems, ’n’ Seth, he’s fig’rin’ on goin’ -away to be a neditor, ’n’ it looks to me’s if th’ hull plan’d fell -threw.” - -Still no reply from the bed. He added, helplessly “Don’t it kind o’ seem -so to you, M’tildy?” - -The wretched discords from the chamber above mocked him. The witch-like -eyes from the shadows of the recess began to burn him. It was growing -into the dusk, but the eyes had a light of their own, a cold, steely, -fierce light. Would she never speak? How he regretted having come! - -“I’ll tell you what seems to me, Lemuel Fairchild,” she said at last, -not speaking so rapidly now, and putting a sharp, finishing edge on each -of her words. “It seems to me that there’s never been but one decent, -honorable, likely human bein’ in your whole family an’ she came into it -by the mistake of marrying you. I blame myself for not remembering the -blood that was in you all, an’ for thinking that this youngest son of -yours was different from the rest. I forgot that he was a Fairchild like -the others, an’ I forgot what I owed that family of men, so mean and -cowardly and selfish that they have to watch each other like so many -hyenas. An’ so you’ve come to tell me that Seth has turned out like his -father, like his uncle, like all of his name, eh? The more fool I, to -need to be told it!” - -Lemuel’s impulse was to rise from his chair, and bear himself with -offended dignity, but the glitter in the old woman’s eyes warned him -that the attempt would be a failure. He scowled, put his hat on the -other knee, crossed his legs, pretended to be interested in the antics -of a kitten which was working havoc with a ball of yarn at his feet. -Finally he said: - -“You ain’t fair to Seth. He’s a good boy. He ain’t said nothin’ nor done -nothin’ fer yeh to git mad at. Fer that matter, you never was fair to -any of us, ’cept Sissly.” - -“Fair! _Fair!_” came the answer promptly, and in a swifter measure. -“Hear the man! Why, Lemuel Fairchild, you know that you cheated your own -brother out of the share in that farm that was his by all rights as much -as yours. You _know_ that your father intended you both to share alike, -that he died too suddenly to make a new will and that you grabbed -everything under a will made when your brother William was thought to be -too sickly to ever raise. You _know_ that you let him grow up an idle, -worthless coot of a fellow, an’ then encouraged him--yes, don’t deny it, -encouraged him I say--to make a fool of my daughter, and run away with -her. - -“You knew I wouldn’t look at him as a suitor for Jenny; but you thought -I would be soft enough, once they were married, to give him my farm, an’ -you counted on getting it away from him afterwards, just as your father -got the Kennard farm before you. You egged him on into the trouble, -an’ you let him die in it, without help. Oh _I_ know you, Lemuel -Fairchild--I know your breed! - -“Your _wife_ was a good woman--a million times better than you deserved. -_She_ knew the wrongs that had been done me, an’ Annie, an’ her poor -ne’er-do-well of a father before her; _she_ was anxious to make them -good, not I. It was she who talked, year after year, when she ran over -here on the sly to visit me, of squaring everything by the young folk’s -marriage. For a long time I didn’t like it. I distrusted the family, -as, God knows, I had reason to. But all that I heard of Seth was in his -favor. He was hardworking, patient, even-tempered, so everyone said. -What little I saw of him I liked. An’ I felt sorry for him, too, knowing -how dear he was to his mother, and yet how helpless she was to give -him advantages, an’ make something besides a farm-drudge out of him. -So little by little, I gave in to the idea, an’ finally it became mine -almost as much as Cecily’s. - -“As for Annie, I don’t know how much she has grown to care for him; -I’m afraid she’s known about our talks, and lotted on ’em, though if -anything has passed between them she would have told me. For she’s a -good girl--a _good_ girl--and she’ll stand by me, never fear, and say -as I say now, that it’s good riddance! D’ye mind? Good riddance to bad -rubbish--to your whole miserable, conniving, underhanded family! There -ain’t an honest hair in your head, Lemuel Fairchild, and there never -was. And you can go back to them that sent you, to your old catamaran of -a sister and your young sneak of a son, and tell ’em what I think of -them, and you, and the whole caboodle of you, that ruined and killed my -Jane, and made me a broken old woman before my time, and now tries to -break my grand-daughter’s heart! And the longest day you Jive, don’t -ever let me lay eyes on you again. That’s all!” - -Lemuel groped his way out again through the dark hall, to the front -door. The groaning discords from upstairs rose to a triumphant babel of -sound as he knocked against the hat-rack, and fumbled for the latch, as -if to emphasize and gloat over his discomfiture. The cold evening air, -after the sweltering heat of the sick-room, was a physical relief, but -it brought no moral comfort. - -Old Lemuel was much pained, and even more confused, by the hard words to -which he had had to listen. They presented a portrait of himself which -he felt to be in no way a likeness, yet he could not say wherein a -single line should be altered. He knew that he was not a bad man; -he felt conscious of having done no special wrong, intentionally, to -anybody; he had always tried to be fair and square and easy-going with -everybody: yet the mischief of it was that all these evil things -which the witchlike M’tildy had piled at his door were of indubitable -substance, and he could not prove, even to himself, much less to her, -that they did not belong there. It was a part of the consistently vile -luck of his life that all these malignant happenings should be charged -up against him, and used to demonstrate his wickedness. He had not -enough mental skill or alertness to sift the unfair from the true in the -indictment she had drawn, or to put himself logically in her place, and -thus trace her mistakes. He only realized that all these events which -she enumerated had served to convince Mrs. Warren that he was a villain. -The idea was a new one to him, and it both surprised and troubled him to -find that, as he thought the matter over he could not see where she was -particularly wrong. Yet a villain he had certainly never intended to -be--never for a moment. Was this not cruelly hard luck? - -And then there was this business about Seth. He had meant it all in -the friendliest spirit, all with the best of motives. And how she had -snapped him up before he had a chance to explain, and called him a -scoundrel and his boy a sneak, and driven him from the house! Here was a -muddle for one--and Sabrina had said he would make a muddle of it, as -he had of everything else, all through his life. The lonely, puzzled, -discouraged old man felt wofully like shedding tears, as he approached -his own gate--or no, it was Albert’s gate now--and passed the young -people chatting there, and realized what a feeble old fool they all must -think him. - - - - -CHAPTER X.--THE FISHING PARTY. - -The young people were arranging, as Lemuel slunk past them in the -dark, a fishing party for the following day. The proposal had been -Isabel’s--she had a fertile mind for pleasure planning--and Annie and -Seth were delighted with it. They would take a basket of food, and make -the tea over a fire in the woods, and the two women could take turns in -playing at fishing with a little rod which Seth had made for himself as -a boy. It would be an ideal way of bidding good-bye to Seth, said -his pretty sister-in-law, and Annie, feeling more deeply both the -significance of saying good-bye and the charm of having a whole day to -herself along the river and in his company, had assented eagerly. - -As for Seth, this sudden accession of feminine interest in, and concern -for, him was extremely pleasant and grateful. The very suggestion of the -trip, in his honor, was like a sweet taken in advance from the honeyed -future which he was so soon to realize. Long that night, after he had -walked over to the Warren gate with Annie, and returned to the unlathed -attic where Milton lay already snoring, he thought fondly of the -morrow’s treat. - -The morning came, warm but overcast, with a soft tendency of air from -the west. “It couldn’t have been better if it had been made to order,” - Seth said enthusiastically, when Isabel made her appearance before -breakfast. “It will be good fishing and good walking, not too hot and -not wet.” - -Albert smiled a trifle satirically when the project was unfolded to -him--with that _conceited tolerance which people who don’t fish -always extend to those who do_. “You’ll probably get wet and have the -toothache” he said to his wife, but offered no objection. - -The lunch was packed, the poles were ready, the bait-can stood outside -the shed door, breakfast was a thing of the past, and Isabel sat with -her sunhat and parasol--but Annie did not come. Seth fidgeted and fumed -as a half-hour went by, then the hour itself. It was so unlike Annie to -be late. He made an errand to the hay-barn, to render the waiting less -tedious, and it was there that Milton found him, rummaging among some -old harness for a strap. - -“Annie’s come over,” said Milton, “I heerd her say somethin’ ’baout -not goin’ fishin’, after all. Looks ’sif she’d be’n cryin’ tew. I tole -’em I’d fetch yeh.” - -Seth came out into the light, slapping the dust off his hands. “What’s -that you say? Why isn’t she going?” - -“I dunnao nothin’ more ’n I’ve told yeh. Ask her yerself. I ’spose -she’s be’n cryin’ at the thought of yer goin’. That’ll be the eend o’ -ev’rythin’ atwixt you two, won’t it?” - -“Oh, do mind your own business, Milton!” Seth said, and hurried across -the barnyard to where the two young women stood, on the doorstep. -“Why aren’t you going, Annie? What’s the matter?” he called out as he -approached. - -Poor Annie looked the picture of despair. Her face bore the marks of -recent tears and she hung her head in silence. Isabel answered for her. - -“Going? Of course she is going. It would be ridiculous not to go, now -that everything’s arranged. Get the things together, Seth, and let us -make a start.” - -“But Milton said she wasn’t going,” persisted Seth. - -“Dear, dear, how downright you are! Don’t I tell you that she _is_ -going, that there is nothing the matter, that we are waiting for you?” - And there was nothing more to be said. - -The sun came out before the trio had gone far, but not before they had -begun to forget the cloud at the start. The grass in the pastures was -not quite dry yet, but wet feet were a part of the fun of the thing, -Isabel said gaily. The meadow larks careened in the air about them, -and the bobolinks, swinging on the thistle tops, burst into chorus from -every side as the sunlight spread over the hill-side. There were robins, -too, in the juniper trees beyond the white-flowering buckwheat patch, -Seth pointed out, too greedy to wait till the green berries ripened. A -flock of crows rose from the buckwheat as they passed and who could help -smiling at Isabel’s citified imitation of their strident hawing? They -came upon some strawberries, half-hidden in the tall grass beside the -rail-topped wall, and Isabel would gather them in her handkerchief, to -serve as dessert in their coming _al fresco_ dinner, and Annie helped -her, smiling in spite of herself at the city lady’s extravagant -raptures. - -When they stopped to rest, in the fresh-scented shadow of the woods, and -sat on a log along the path, two wee chipmunks came out from the brake -opposite and began a chirping altercation, so comical in its suggestions -of human wrangling that they all laughed outright. The sound scared -away the tiny rodents in a twinkling, and it banished as swiftly the -restraint under which the excursion had begun. - -From that moment it was all gayety, jesting, enjoyment. Isabel was the -life of the party; she said the drollest things;--passed the quaintest -comments,--revealed such an inexhaustable store of spirits that she -lifted her companions fairly out of their serious selves. Seth found -himself talking easily, freely, and even Annie now and again made little -jokes, at which they all laughed merrily. - -The fisherman’s judgment as to the day was honored in full measure. The -fish had never bitten more sharply, the eddies had never carried the -line better. It seemed so easy, to let the line wander back and forth -between the two currents, to tell when the bait was grabbed underneath, -and to haul out the plunging, flapping beauty, that Isabel was all -eagerness to try it, and Seth rigged the little pole for her, baited the -hook self-sacrificingly with his biggest worm, which he had thought of -in connection with a certain sapient father of all pike further up the -river, and showed her where and how to cast the line. - -Alas, it was not so simple, after all, this catching of fish. - -First she lost a hook on a root; then it seemed to her that ages -passed in which nothing whatever happened and this was followed by the -discovery that her hook had entirely been stripped of bait without her -suspecting it. At last there came a bite, a deep, determined tug, which -she answered with a hysterical pull, hurling through the air and into -the thistles far back of her a wretched little bull-head which they were -unable to find for a long time, and which miserably stung her thumb with -its fin when she finally did find it. - -After this exploit Annie must try, and she promptly twitched her line -into the tree overhead. And so the day went forward, with light-hearted -laughter and merriment, with the perfect happiness which the sunshine -and color and perfume of June can bring alone to the young. - -They grew a trifle more serious at dinner time. It was in the narrow -defile where the great jam of logs was, and where the river went down, -black and deep, under the rotting wood with a vicious gurgle. Just above -the jam there was a mound, velvety now with new grass, and comfortably -shaded--a notable spot for dinner and a long rest, and then the girls -could watch to much advantage Seth’s fishing from the logs, of which -great things were prophesied. Here then the cloth was spread on the -grass, the water put on over a fire lighted back of the mound, and the -contents of the basket laid in prandial array. It was in truth a meagre -dinner, but were appetites ever keener or less critical? - -Once during the forenoon, when allusion was made to Seth’s coming -departure, Isabel had commanded that nothing be said on that subject all -day long. “Let us not think of it at all,” she had said, “but just -enjoy the hours as if they would never end. That is the only secret of -happiness.” But now she herself traversed the forbidden line. - -“How strange it will all seem to you, Seth,” she mused, as she poured -out the tea. “As the time draws near, don’t you almost dread it?” - -“What I’ve been thinking most about to-day is your coming to the farm to -live. It can’t be that you are altogether pleased--after what I’ve heard -you say.” - -“Oh yes, why not?” said Isabel. “My case is very different from yours. I -shall be just as idle as I like. I shall have horses, you know and a big -conservatory, and a piano, and all that. We shall have lots of people -here all summer long--just think what fishing parties we can make -up!--and whenever it gets stupid we can run down to New York. Oh, I’ve -got quite beyond the reconciled stage now. I am almost enthusiastic over -it. When you come back in a year’s time, you won’t know the place. It -will have been transformed into a centre of fashion and social display. -I may get to have a veritable salon, you know, the envy and despair -of all Dearborn County. Fancy Elhanan Pratt and Sile Thomas in evening -dress, with patent leather pumps and black stockings, scowling at -Leander Crump, with a crushed hat under his arm, whom they suspect of -watering his milk! Oh, we shall be gay, I assure you.” - -Seth looked at her attentively, puzzled to know how much of this -was badinage, how much sincerity. She smiled archly at him--what a -remarkably winning smile she had!--and continued: - -“Then Annie will be company for me, too. I mean to bring her out, you -know, and make her a leader of society. In a year’s time when you -come back and I introduce you to her, you won’t be able to credit your -senses, her air will be so _distingué_, and her tastes so fastidious.” - -She ceased her gay chatter abruptly, for Annie had turned away and they -could see that her eyes were filling with tears. - -Seth bethought him of those earlier tears, the signs of which had been -so obvious when they started, and it was natural enough to connect the -two. - -“Something _has_ happened, Annie,” he said. “Can’t you tell us what it -is?” - -And then he bit his tongue at having made the speech, for Annie turned a -beseeching look at him, then at Isabel, and burst into sobs. - -“Isn’t it reason enough that you are going away?” said Isabel. “What -more could you ask?” - -“No, it isn’t that alone,” protested Annie through her tears. Her pride -would not brook the assumption. “There is something else; I can hardly -tell you--but--but--my grandmother has suddenly taken a great dislike to -Seth; if she knew where I was she would be very angry: I never deceived -her, even indirectly, before, but I couldn’t bear not to come after I -got to the house, and if I’ve done wrong--” - -“Now, now dear” cooed Isabel, leaning over to take Annie’s hands, “what -nonsense to talk of wrong; come now, dry your eyes, and smile at us, -like a good girl. You are nervous and tired out with the task of tending -your grandmother--that’s all--and this day in the woods will do you -a world of good. Don’t let us have even the least little bit of -unhappiness in it.” - -Seth watched his sister-in-law caress and coax away Annie’s passing fit -of gloom, with deep enjoyment. The tenderness and beauty of the process -were a revelation to him; it was an attribute of womanhood the existence -of which he had scarcely suspected heretofore, in his untutored, bucolic -state. Annie seemed to forget her grief quickly enough, and became -cheerful again; in quaint docility she smiled through her tears at -Isabel’s command, and the latter was well within the truth when she -cried: “There! You have never looked prettier in your life!” - -Seth nodded acquiescence, and returned the smile. But somehow this -grief of Annie’s had bored him, and he felt rather than thought that -his country-cousin, even in this radiant moment, was of slight interest -compared with the city sister-in-law, who not only knew enough not to -cry herself, but could so sweetly charm away tears from others. - -Seth tested all the joints of his pole, and changed the hook and baited -it with studious care, before he climbed out on the jam. Gingerly -feeling his way from log to log, he got at last upon the wet mossy -birch which projected like a ledge at the bottom of the pile. The women -watched his progress from the mound, and gave a little concerted shout -of triumph when, at the very first cast of his line into the froth of -the dark eddy, it was caught and dragged swiftly across the stream, and -a handsome pike a moment later paid the penalty. - -“That’s by far the biggest yet, isn’t it?” Annie asked. - -“Wait, there are bigger yet. Watch this!” - -The line, thrown in again, had been sharply jerked and was now being -drawn upstream under the logs. Seth moved down to the end of the birch, -stooping under the jutting heap of logs above, to be able to play the -pole sidewise, and save the fish. It was a difficult position to stand -in; he held the rod far forward with one hand, and grasped a bough above -for support as he leaned out over the stream. - -The thing snapped--exactly how it was no one knew--a log released from -its bondage shifted position, a dozen others rolled over it rumbling, -and the women held their breath affrighted as they saw, without moving, -the whole top of the jam tremble, lift a jagged end or two, and then -collapse with a hollow noise. As they found voice to scream, the water -was covered with floating debris, and the air filled with a musty -fungus-like smell. - -There was no sign of Seth. - -The roar of the falling timber had scarcely died away before Annie had -left the mound, had torn her way through the alders at the bottom, and -stood panting on the wet slimy rocks at the edge of the stream. -She hardly heard the frightened warning which Isabel, pale and -half-fainting, called out to her: - -“Keep away from the water, Annie! You’ll surely be drowned!” - -She was painfully intent upon another thing, upon the search for -some indication of her cousin. The logs were moving but slowly in the -current, and were heaped so irregularly that no clear survey of the -whole surface could be had. There seemed an eternity of suffering in -every second which she spent thus, scanning the scene. Could the crush -of logs have killed him? Even if he had escaped that, would he not be -drowned by this time? The grinding of the logs against each other, the -swash of the water at her feet, Isabel’s faint moaning on the mound -above, seemed to her dazed terror a sort of death dirge. - -Oh, joy! She caught sight of something in cloth between two great -tree-trunks, drenched, covered with the red grime of rotten wood, -motionless; but it was Seth. His face she could not see, nor whether it -was under water or not. She walked boldly into the stream--kneedeep at -the outset, and the slippery rocks shelving off swiftly into unknown -brown-black depths--but there was no hesitation. A halfdozen steps, and -she disappeared suddenly beneath the water. Isabel wrung her hands in -despair, too deep now to find a voice; but Annie had only slipped on the -treacherous slates, and found her footing again. The water came to her -shoulders now, and was growing deeper steadily. - -With a strength born of desperation she clambered up on the birch, which -floated nearest her, and pulled herself along its length, swaying as it -rolled in the current under her weight, but managing to keep on top. It -was nothing short of miraculous to Isabel’s eyes, the manner in which -she balanced herself, clambered from log to log, overcame all the -obstacles which lay between her and the inanimate form at the other -side. The distance was not great, and a swimmer would have made nothing -of the feat, but for a girl encumbered with heavy wet skirts, and in -deep water for the first time, it was a real achievement. - -At last she reached Seth--her progress had covered three minutes, and -seemed to her hours long--and, throwing herself across both logs, with a -final effort lifted his head upon her shoulder. - -“He is alive!” she said to Isabel, feebly now, but with a great sigh of -relief. - -The city woman ran down at this, all exultation. At Annie’s suggestion, -she tied their two shawls together, fastened one end to a pole, and -managed to fling the other over to the rescuer; it was easy work after -that to draw the logs to the bank, and then Annie, standing knee-deep -again in the water, made shift to get the heavy dead weight safe on -land. The two women tugged their burden through the alders, and up to -the place where the dinner dishes still lay, with scarcely a word. Then -exhausted, excited, overjoyed, Isabel threw herself in Annie’s arms and -they both found relief in tears. - -Seth had been struck on the head and stunned by the first falling log; -how much he had been in the water or how near he had been to drowning -could not be discovered. - -He presently opened his eyes, and a smile came almost instantaneously to -his face as he realised that his head was resting in Isabel’s lap, that -he was muffled up in her shawl, and that she was looking down upon him -anxiously, tenderly. A second sufficed to bring the whole thing to his -mind, or at least the facts that he had gone under with the logs and by -some agency had been landed here safe and comfortable, if not dry--and -to bring also the instinctive idea that it would be the intelligent part -to lie still, and be petted and sympathised with. - -Isabel scarcely returned his smile. She had not recovered from her -fright. - -“Oh, Seth,” she asked earnestly, “Are you hurt? Do you feel any pain?” - -“Not a bit” he replied--“only dizzy like. By George! How they did come -down though. I must have had a pretty narrow squeak of it. Funny--I -don’t remember coming out at all.” - -She smiled now. “I should think not. You lay perfectly senseless way out -there among the logs. We fished you out, and dragged you up here. I feel -like a heroine in a Crusader’s romance, really!” - -It entered Seth’s mind to say something nice in reply, that she looked -like one, or that they were not equal in those benighted ages to -producing such women, or something of that sort; but his tongue did not -seem to frame the words easily and as he looked up at her he grew shy -once again, and felt himself flushing under her smile, and only said -vacuously, “Mightly lucky I wasn’t alone, isn’t it?” Annie appeared -on the scene now, her clothes steaming from the heat of the fire, -over which she had endeavoured to dry them, and her teeth displaying a -spasmodic tendency to knock together between sentences. She too was full -of solicitude as to Seth’s condition, and to satisfy this he reluctantly -sat up, stretched his arms out, felt of the bump on his forehead, beat -his chest, and finally stood erect. - -“I’m all right, you see” he said--“only, bo-o-o, I’m cold,” and he made -for the fire, upon which Annie had heaped brushwood, which crackled and -snapped now, giving forth a furious heat. - -They stood about the fire for a considerable time. Isabel was opposite -Seth, rather ostentatiously drying sundry damp places in her dress which -had come in contact with the rescued man’s dripping hair and clothes. -He was so interested in watching her, and in thinking half-regret fully, -half-jubilantly, that she had been put to this discomfort in saving his -life, that he failed to notice how completely drenched his cousin had -been. The conversation turned entirely, of course, upon the recent great -event, but it was desultory and broken by long intervals of silence, and -somehow Seth did not get any clear idea of how he was saved, much less -of the parts the two women had respectively played in the rescue. - -It would be unfair to say that Isabel purposely misrepresented anything; -it is nearer the truth to describe her as confounding her own anxiety -with her companion’s action. At all events, the narrative to be gleaned -from her scattering descriptions and exclamations had the effect -of creating in Seth’s mind the impression that he could never be -sufficiently grateful to his sister-in-law. - -As for Annie, the whole momentous episode had come so swiftly, had been -so imperative, exhaustive in its demands of all her faculties, and then -had so suddenly dwindled to the unromantic conditions of drying wet -clothes at a brush fire, that her thoughts upon it were extremely -confused. She scarcely took part in the conversation. Perhaps she felt -vaguely that her own share in the thing was not made to stand forth with -all the prominence it deserved, but she took it for granted that, in his -first waking moments, while he was alone with Isabel, Seth had been told -the central fact of her going into the water for him, and, if he was -not effusively grateful, why--it was not Seth’s way to be demonstrative. -Besides she said to herself, she did not want to be thanked. - -Still, late that night, long hours after Seth had said good-night to her -at the Warren gate, and she had almost guiltily stolen up to her room -without braving her grandmother’s questions, Annie could not go to sleep -for thinking:-- - -“He might at least have _looked_ some thanks, even if he did not speak -them.” - -***** - -Three days later, Seth departed for the city. It was not a particularly -impressive ceremony, this leave-taking, not half so much as he had -imagined it would be. - -He had risen early, dressed himself in one of the two new, ready-made, -cheap suits Albert had bought for him at Thessaly and packed all his -possessions in the carpet satchel which had been in the family he knew -not how long--and still found, when he descended the stairs, that he was -the first down. It was a dark, rainy morning, and the living room looked -unspeakably desolate, and felt disagreeably cold. He sat for a long time -by a window pondering the last copy of John’s _Banner_, and trying to -thus prepare his mind for that immense ordeal of daily newspaper work, -that struggle of unknown, titanic proportions, now close before him. - -Alvira at last came in to lay the breakfast table. - -“Hello, you up already?” was all she said; but he felt she was eyeing -him furtively, as if even thus soon he was a stranger in the house of -his birth. - -Aunt Sabrina next appeared. “There! I knew it ’d rain,” she exclaimed. -“I told Alviry so last night. When th’ cords on th’ curtains git -limp, yeh can’t fool me ’baout it’s not rainin’. ’N’ Seth, I hope -you’ll go to Church regular whatever else you dew. ’N’ ef yeh could -take a class in th’ Sunday schewl, it’d go a long ways tow’rd keepin’ -yeh aout o’ temptation. Will yeh go to th’ Baptist Church, think? Th’ -Fairchilds ’v’ allus be’n Baptists.” - -The breakfast passed in constrained silence, save for Albert, who -delivered a monologue on the evils of city life, and the political and -ethical debauchery of the press, to which Seth tried dutifully to pay -attention--thinking all the while how to say goodbye to Isabel, how to -invest his words with a fervor the others would not suspect. - -When the time came, all this planning proved of no avail. He found -himself shaking hands as perfunctorily with her as with her husband, -and his father and aunt. Only the latter kissed him, and she did it with -awkward formality. - -Then he climbed into the buggy where Milton and the carpet bag were -already installed, and, answering in kind a chorus of “Good-byes” drove -out into the rain--and the World. - - - - -CHAPTER XI.--ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE WORLD. - -Seth’s first impressions of the World, gathered when he found himself -and his valise alone on the sidewalk of one of Tecumseh’s chief streets, -were distinctly gloomy. - -Other passengers who had left the train here, and in whose throng he -had been borne along thus far, started off briskly in various directions -once they reached the busy thoroughfare, elbowing their way through the -horde of clamorous hotel porters much as one might push through a clump -of obstructing bushes. He had firmly fixed in his mind the cardinal -rule of traveling countrymen, that these shouting runners were brigands -intent upon robbing him, and he was clear in his resolution to give -them no hold upon him, not even by so much as a civil expression of -countenance. He said “No, thank you!” sternly to at least a dozen -solicitations, so it seemed to him, and walked away steadily, fearful -that their practised eyes had detected in him an utter stranger, and -intent only upon proving to them that he knew where he was going. When -at last it seemed likely that they were no longer watching him, he -stopped, put his bag down in a door way, and looked about. - -It was half-past six of a summer afternoon (for a failure to make -connections had prolonged the sixty-mile journey over eight hours), and -the sun, still high, beat down the whole length of the street with an -oppressive glare and heat. The buildings on both sides, as far as -eye could reach, were of brick, flat-topped, irregular in height, and -covered with flaring signs. There was no tree, nor any green thing, in -sight. - -Past him in a ceaseless stream, and all in one direction, moved a swarm -of humanity--laborers and artisans with dinner-pails, sprucely dressed -narrow-chested clerks and book-keepers, and bold faced factory-girls in -dowdy clothes and boots run down at the heels--a bewildering, chattering -procession. No one of all this throng glanced at him, or paid the -slightest attention to him, until one merry girl, spying his forlorn -visage, grinned and called out with a humorous drawl “Hop-pick--ers!” - and then danced off with her laughing companions, one of whom said, “Aw, -come off! You’re rushin’ the season. Hop’s ain’t ripe yet.” - -Seth felt deeply humiliated at this. He had been vaguely musing upon the -general impudence of his coming to this strange city to teach its people -daily on all subjects, from government down, while he did not even know -how to gracefully get his bag off the street. This incident added -the element of wounded self-pride to his discomfort--for even casual -passers-by were evidently able to tell by his appearance that he was -a farmer. Strange! neither Albert nor John had told him anything -calculated to serve him in this dilemma. They had warned him plentifully -as to what not to do. Indeed his head was full of negative information, -of pit-falls to avoid, temptations to guard against. But on the -affirmative side it was all a blank. John had, it was true, advised -him to get board with some quiet family, but if there were any -representatives of such quiet families in the crowd surging past, how -was he to know them? - -While he tormented himself with this perplexing problem, two clerks -came out of the store next to which he stood, to pull up the awning -and prepare for night. A tall young man, with his hands deep in his -trouser’s pockets, and a flat straw hat much on one side of his head, -sauntered across the street to them, and was greeted familiarly. - -“Well, Tom,” shouted one of these clerks, “you just everlastingly gave -it to that snide show to-night. _Wasn’t_ it a scorcher, though?” - -The young man with the straw hat put on a satisfied smile: “That’s the -only way to do it,” he said lightly. “The sooner these fakirs understand -that they can’t play Tecumseh people for chumps, the better. If the -_Chronicle_ keeps on pounding ’em, they’ll begin to give us a wide -berth. Their advance agent thought he could fix me by opening a pint -bottle of champagne. That may work in Hornellsville, but when he gets -to-night’s _Chronicle_ I fancy he’ll twig that it doesn’t go down here.” - -“Oh, by the way, Tom,” said the other clerk, in a low tone of voice, “my -sister’s engaged to Billy Peters. I don’t know that she wants to have it -given away, that is, names, and everything, but you might kind o’ hint -at it. It would please the old folks, I think--you know father’s taken -the _Chronicle_ for the last twenty years.” - -“I know” said Tom, producing an old envelope from a side pocket and -making some dashes on it with a pencil--“the regulation gag: ‘It is -rumored that a rising young hat-dealer will shortly lead to the altar -one of the bright, particular social stars of Brewery street ’ eh? -Something like that?” - -“Yes, that’s it. You know how to fix it so that everybody’ll know who is -meant. Be around at Menzel’s to-night?” - -“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll look in. The beer’s been fearfully flat there, -though, this last carload. So long, boys!”--and Tom moved down the -street while the clerks re-entered the store. - -Seth followed him eagerly, and touched him on the shoulder, saying: - -“I beg your pardon, sir, but I heard you mention the _Chronicle_ just -now. I would be much obliged if you could tell me where the office is.” - -The young man turned, looked Seth over and said, affably enough: - -“Certainly. But you’ll find it shut up. The book-keeper’s gone home.” - Then he added, as by a happy afterthought: “If you want to pay a weekly -subscription, though, I can take it, just as well as not.” - -“No,” answered Seth, “I’ve come to work on the _Chronicle_.” - -“Oh--printer? I guess some of the fellows are there still, throwing in -their cases. If you like, I’ll show you.” - -Seth replied, with some embarrassment, “No, I’m not a printer. I’ve come -to be--to be--an editor.” - -Tom’s manner changed in a twinkling from civility to extreme cordiality. - -“Oh--ho! you’re the new man from Thessaly, eh? Jack Fairchild’s brother! -By Jove! How _are_ you, anyway? When did you get in? Where are you -stopping?” - -“I’m not stopping anywhere--unless it be this stairway here,” Seth -replied, pointing to his carpetbag with a smile, for his companion’s -cheerfulness was infectious. “I came in half an hour ago, and I scarcely -knew where to go, or what to do first. I gather that you are connected -with the _Chronicle_.” - -“Well, I should remark!” said Tom, taking the bag up as he spoke. “Come -along. We’ll have some supper down at Bismarck’s, and leave your grip -there for the evening. We can call for it on our way home. You’ll stop -with me to-night, you know. It ain’t a particularly fly place, but we’ll -manage all right, I guess. And how’s Jack?” - -In the delight of finding so genial a colleague, one, too, who had known -and worked with his brother, Seth’s heart rose, as they walked down the -street again. He had been more than a little dismayed at the prospect -of meeting these unknown writers whose genius radiated in the columns -of the _Chronicle_, and in whose company he was henceforth to labor. -Especially had he been nervous lest he should not speak with sufficient -correctness, and should shock their fastidious ears with idioms -insensibly acquired in the back-country. It was a great relief to -find that this gentleman was so easy in his conversation, not to say -colloquial. - -They stopped presently at a broad open door, flanked by wide windows, in -which were displayed a variety of bright-tinted play bills, and two huge -pictures of a goat confidently butting a small barrel. There was a steep -pile of these little, dark-colored barrels on the sidewalk at the -curb, from which came a curious smell of resin. As they entered, Seth -discovered that this odor belonged to the whole place. - -The interior was dark and, to the country youth’s eyes, unexpectedly -vast. The floor was sprinkled with gray sand. An infinitude of small, -circular oak tables, each surrounded with chairs, stretched out in every -direction into the distant gloom. Away at the farther end of the place, -somebody was banging furiously on a piano. In the middle distance, three -elderly men sat smoking long pipes and playing dominoes, silently, save -for the sharp clatter of the pieces. Nearer, three other men, seated -about a table, were all roaring in German at the top of their lungs, -pounding with their glasses on the resounding wood, and making the most -excited and menacing gestures. While Seth stared at them, expecting -momentarily to see the altercation develop into blows, he felt himself -clutched by the arm, and heard Tom say: - -“Bismarck, this is Mr. Fairchild, a new _Chronicle_ man. You must use -him as well as you do me.” - -Seth turned and found himself shaking hands with an old German monstrous -in girth, and at once fierce and comical in aspect, with short, upright -gray hair, a huge yellowish-white moustache, and little piggish blue -eyes nearly hidden from view by the wave of fat which rendered his great -purple face as featureless as the bottom of a platter. - -“Who effer vas Misder Vott’s frent, den you bed he owens dis whole -houwus,” this stout gentleman wheezed out, smiling warmly, and releasing -Seth’s hand to indicate, with a sweeping gesture of his pudgy paw, the -extent of Seth’s new and figurative possessions. - -On the invitation of the host they all took seats, and a lean, -wolfish-faced young man named “Ow-goost,” who shuffled along pushing -his big slippers on the floor, brought three tall foaming glasses -of dark-brown beer. Seth did not care for beer, and had always, in -a general way, avoided saloons and drink, but of course, under these -circumstances, it would be ridiculous not to do as the others did. The -beverage was bitter, but not unpleasant, and with an effort he drank it -half down at a time, as he saw his companions do. Then he looked about, -while they discussed the merits of this new “bock,” Tom speaking with an -air of great authority, and pronouncing it better than the last, but a -bit too cold. - -The piano was still jangling, and the dominoes were being rattled around -for a new game. The three noisy old men had grown, if possible, more -violent and boisterous than ever. One of them now sprang to his feet, -lifted his right hand dramatically toward the dusky ceiling, and -bellowed forth sonorously something which Seth thought must be at least -a challenge to immediate combat, while the others hammered their glasses -vehemently, and fairly shrieked dissent. - -“I’m afraid those men are going to fight,” he said. - -“Fight? Nonsense! They’re rather quieter than usual,” remarked Tom. -“What are they chewing on to-night, Bismarck--the Sigel racket?” - -“Yes,” said their host, listening indifferently. “Dot’s Sigel.” Then, -addressing Seth, he explained: “Somedimes it’s Sigel, unt somedimes the -reffolution uff forty-eighd, unt den somedimes der k-vestion of we haf -a vood bafement by Main streed. It all makes no differunce to dem, -vicheffer ding dey shdarts mit, dey git yust so much oxcited. Dot -rooster you see standing up mit der spegtacles, dot Henery Beckstein, -he’s a tailor; he sits mid his legs tvisted all day, den when night -comes he neets some exercises. Efery night for tweluf years he comes -here, unt has his liddle dalk, und de udders, dey alvays pitches into -him. He likes dot better as his dinner. De vurst is, dey all don’t know -vat dey talk aboud. I bleef, so help me Gott, no one of ’em ever laid -eyes by Sigel, unt dey all svear he vas deir dearest frent. Now--hear -dot! Dot Beckstein say uff he didn’t shleep mid him four years in his -dent, in de same bet! How was dot for lies, huh?” The host, pained -and mortified at this mendacity, left his seat and waddled over to -the disputants, shouting as he went, and joined the conversation so -earnestly that his little eyes seemed bursting from his beet-red face. - -“Great old man, that,” said Tom, pounding with his glass for the waiter; -“there’s no flies on _him!_ I named him Bismarck three or four years -ago--everybody calls him that now--and it tickled him so, there’s -nothing here too good for me. You like cheese, don’t you?” - -“Well, yes, I eat cheese sometimes.” - -Seth never _had_ eaten this kind of cheese which Owgoost presently -slapped down before them, along with a mustard cup, a long bulging roll -of black bread, and more beer. It was pale and hard and strong of -scent, was cut in thick slabs, and was to be eaten, he judged from Tom’s -procedure, under a heavy top-dressing of the brown mustard. He liked -it though, and was interested to find how well beer went with it, or it -went with beer. Then they had each a little pickled lambs-tongue, -pink and toothsome, to be eaten with plenty of salt, and it was quite -remarkable how ideally beer seemed to go with this, too. In all, three -large glasses went. - -Tom was a delightful companion. It was simply charming to hear him talk, -as he did almost continuously, describing the round of life in Tecumseh, -relating gay little anecdotes of personal experience, and commenting -trenchantly on various men as they came in. To some of these he -introduced Seth. They seemed extremely affable young people, and some -of them who took seats near by invited Tom and him with much fervor and -still greater frequency, to have their glasses filled up. The former -accepted these proffers very freely, but the beer did not taste as -good to Seth as it had during supper, and he kept to his one glass--the -fourth--sipping at it from time to time. Tom was so urgent about it, -though, that he did take a cigar, a dark, able-bodied cigar which -annoyed him by burning up on one side. - -The beer-hall presented a brilliant appearance now, with all the lights -flaming, with most of the chairs filled by merry young men, with three -or four white-jacketed waiters flitting about, bearing high in air -both hands full of foaming glasses--a fine contrast to the dingy, bare -interior of the twilight, with only the solitary Owgoost. Above the -ceaseless hum of conversation and laughter, rose, at intervals, the -strains of lively music from the far-off piano, reinforced now by a harp -and a flute. - -After a time cards were proposed, and Tom made one of a quartette who -ranged themselves at the table. Seth could not play, and so moved his -chair back, to watch the game. His cigar burned badly and he relighted -it. Then it tasted bitter, and, after some hesitation, he threw it -away. The game, called seven-up, was one he had never seen before; the -ten-spots were invested with a fictitious value which puzzled him. Tom, -over whose shoulder he watched had three of these tens, and silently -indicated to Seth that they were of especial interest. Seth fixed his -eyes upon them, to see how they were to be managed. They were very -curious ten-spots, being made of beer-glasses running over with -lambs-tongues, with lambs chasing them to rescue their lamented members, -and burly “Bismarck” striving in vain to secure order. General Sigel -came to help him, and Tom dealt him a terrific blow. Here _was_ a fight -at last, and John Fairchild stood by, rapidly taking notes. Then it came -bed-time, and--Seth was being shaken into sensibility by Tom, who said -between fits of chuckling: - -“Wake up, old boy! Wake up!” - -Another great change had taken place in the beer-hall--the lights -were out, the music had ceased, the crowd was gone. A solitary gas-jet -flickered from the chandelier over the table; the game was ended, and -the players were standing ready to depart, and laughing. Fat Bismarck -stood behind him, in the half-shadow, looking very sleepy, and he seemed -to be grinning too. - -Seth saw all this first. Then he discovered that he held his collar and -necktie in his hand, and that his coat and waistcoat were on the table. -He dimly began to understand that he had been asleep, and that, in -the operation of his dream, he had commenced undressing. Everybody was -laughing at him, his friend Tom, who now was helping him on with his -coat, most heartily of all. - -“I declare,” Seth said, “I must have fallen asleep. I had no idea--I -suppose I was dreaming of getting ready for bed.” - -“Oh, dots all right, dots all right,” said Bismarck heartily. “Ve don’d -mind it a bit. You vas only dired owut.” - -“Yes, that’s it,” said Tom, “he’d had a hard day of it, traveling all -the way from Thessaly. Are you ready? We’ll get the bag, and trot along -home. Good night, boys!” - -Seth responded to the chorus of answering “good nights,” and the twain -started out. Tom not only carried the bag, but took his companion’s -arm--much to Seth’s satisfaction, for he felt very tired, and it seemed -unusually difficult for him to shake off his sleepiness. Tom was more -talkative than ever, and he seemed to be saying extremely clever things, -but Seth somehow did not follow their meaning, and he could think of -nothing to say in reply. They were in a dark side street now. - -“Ah, I thought he’d be open!” said Tom, abruptly, stopping before a -place, through the closed shutters of which long horizontal threads of -light gleamed. “Let’s go in and have a night-cap. It’ll set you straight -in a minute.” - -The curious reluctance to speak, of which Seth had felt vaguely -conscious all along, now prompted acquiescence as the easiest course, -and he followed Tom into a small, low room, thick with cigar-smoke and -the odor of kerosene, where four or five men, with their hats tilted -over their eyes, were playing cards: there was a pile of money in the -centre of the table, to which each in turn seemed to be adding from a -smaller heap before him. They were so much engrossed in the game that -they only nodded at Tom, and Seth felt relieved at escaping the ordeal -of being introduced to them. At Tom’s suggestion he took a little glass -of brandy--“to do their duty by the National debt,”--what ever that -meant. It was burning, nauseous stuff, which brought the tears to his -eyes, but it made him feel better. - -It especially enabled him to talk, which he proceeded to do now with -a fluency that surprised him. Tom was evidently much impressed by his -remarks, saying little, it is true, but gripping his arm more closely. -Thus they walked to Tom’s lodgings--a tall, dark brick house opposite -a long line of coal sheds. The hall was so dark that Seth, in trying to -follow his guide, stumbled over an umbrella-rack, and fell to the floor. -Tom assisted him to rise, with a paternal “steady now, steady; that’s -it, lean on me,” and so helped him up the two flights of steep, narrow -stairs. In all the world, it seemed to Seth, he could not have met a -more amiable or congenial friend than Tom, and he told him so, as they -climbed the stairs, affectionately leaning upon his arm, and making his -phrases as ornate in diction and warm in tone as he could. - -“Here we are,” said Tom, opening a door, and lighting a lamp which -revealed a small, scantily furnished room, in extreme disorder. “Make -yourself at home, my boy. Smoke a pipe before you go to bed?” - -“Oh, mercy, no. I thinks--do you know, I feel a little dizzy.” - -“Oh, you’ll be all right in the morning. Just undress and pile into bed. -I’ll smoke a pipe first.” Half an hour after Seth’s first day in the -World had closed in heavy slumber, Tom looked at him before blowing out -the light, and smiled to himself: “He _is_ about as fresh as they make -’em.” - - - - -CHAPTER XII.--THE SANCTUM. - -The young men dressed next morning in almost complete silence. Tom was -still sleepy, and seemed much less jovial and attractive than he had -been the previous evening; Seth, accustomed to far earlier rising, -was acutely awake, but his head ached wearily and there was a dreadful -dryness in his mouth and throat. They went through the forms of -breakfast in the basement, too, without much conversation. Seth was -ashamed of the number of cups of coffee he drank, and carried away only -confused recollections of having been introduced to a middle-aged woman -in black who sat at the head of the table, and of having perfunctorily -answered sundry questions about business in Dearborn County, put by a -man who sat next to him. - -They were well on their way to the office before Tom’s silent mood wore -away. - -“You must brace up!” he said. “Don’t let Workman know that we were out -together last night. He’s a regular crank about beer--that is, when -anybody but himself drinks it. What’s the matter? You look as melancholy -as a man going to be hanged.” - -“I suppose I’m nervous about the thing. It’s all going to be so new and -strange at the start.” - -“Oh, that’ll be all right. You’ll get the hang of it fast enough. They -are rather decent fellows to work with upstairs, all but Samboye. He’ll -try to sit on you from the start, but if you hold your own with him -you’ll get along with the rest.” - -“Samboye--he’s the editor, isn’t he?” - -“Yes. You don’t know any of them, I suppose?” - -“Not even by name.” - -“Well, after Workman, who’s very rightly named, and who runs the thing, -there’s Samboye, who koo-toos to Workman and bullies all the rest. He -puts on more airs than a mowing machine agent at a state fair. He makes -_everybody_ tired. Next to him comes Tyler--Tony Tyler, you’ll like -him--that is, if he takes a fancy to you. He knows about eighteen -hundred times as much as Samboye does, only somehow he hasn’t the -faculty of putting it on paper. Too much whisky. Then there’s Dent--he’s -a Young Man Christian; plays duets on the piano with his sister, you -know, and all that sort of thing--but he’s away now on his vacation. And -then Billy Murtagh--he’s a rattling good fellow, if you don’t let him -borrow money of you. He does part of the telegraph and news. Those are -the only fellows upstairs.” - -“But where do you come in?” - -“Me? Oh, I’m the City Editor. I and my gang are downstairs. I made -a strike to have you down with me, and put you on police court, but -Workman wouldn’t have it. It’s all poppycock, for they’ve got more men -upstairs now than they know what to do with. However, if Workman thinks -the people want to read editorials on the condition of Macedonia more -than they do local news, he can go ahead. It’s none of my funeral.” - -“Do you know what special work I am to do?” - -“From all I hear, it would be easier to tell what you’re not to do. -Everyone of them has got a scheme for unloading something on you. First -you’re to do a lot of Dent’s work, like the proofs and Agricultural and -Religious; then Murtagh wants to put State News on you, and Tyler tells -me you’ve got to do the weekly as soon as you get your hand in, and -Art, Music and the Drama is a thing that must go up stairs, now that the -baseball season has begun, for I can’t attend to it. But if they play it -too low down on you, just you make a stout kick to Workman about it.” - -While Seth pondered this outlook and advice, they reached the -_Chronicle_ office, and presently, by a succession of dark and devious -stair-ways, he found himself in an ancient cockloft, curiously cut up by -low partitions into compartments like horse-stalls, each with a window -at the end, and was introduced as “the new man” to Mr. Anthony Tyler, -otherwise Tony. - -This gentleman bore no outward signs of the excess of spirituous liquor -to which Tom had alluded, and was very cordial and pleasant. He was -extremely dark in hair, beard and eyes, seemed to be not more than -thirty, and sat at a table piled high with books, clippings and the -like, and surrounded by great heaps of papers. Tom glanced over two -or three of these latter, and then went off humming a tune lightly and -calling out to Seth in imitation of a popular air, as he rattled down -stairs “I’ll meet you when the form goes down.” - -Among other polite questions Tyler asked Seth where he was stopping. - -“Nowhere permanently. I must find some place. I stopped last night with -Mr. Votts.” - -“With whom?” - -“With Mr. Votts, the gentleman who just left us.” - -“Oh, you mean Tom Watts. You’ve got his name wrong.” - -“Come to think of it, it was a German who called him that last evening, -and I was misled by his pronunciation.” - -Mr. Tyler’s face grew more serious. - -“You are a stranger here. Let me give you some advice. Don’t cultivate -Mr. Watts’ German friends. He’s not a bad chap of his sort, but he -drinks altogether too much beer. Who drinks beer, thinks beer, as -Johnson says. Perhaps I can be of use to you in the matter of a boarding -house. Oh, here’s Mur-tagh,” he continued introducing Seth to another -tall, slender young man who had come up the stairs with an arm-full -of papers; “he will take you now, and give you an idea of your work.” - Whereupon Mr. Tyler turned again to his papers and shears, and Seth -followed the new comer to the farthest stall in the row, which was -henceforth to be his own. - -***** - -There came a brief quarter of an hour in the afternoon when what seemed -to the novice a state of the wildest excitement reigned in the editorial -room. An inky boy in a huge leather apron dashed from stall to stall -shouting an interrogative “Thirty for you?” His master and patron, the -foreman, also aproned from chin to knees, with shirt-sleeves rolled -to the biceps, followed with the same mysterious question, put in -an injured and indignant tone. A loud, sharp discussion between this -magnate and Tyler, profanely dictatorial on the one side, profanely -satirical on the other, rose suddenly and filled the room with its -clamor. An elderly man, bald as a billiard ball, and dressed like a -clergyman, came bounding up the stairs, pulling out his watch as he -advanced, and demanding fiercely the reason for this delay. There was an -outburst of explanation, in which four or five voices joined, mingling -personal abuse freely with their analysis of the situation. Tom Watts -leaped up the stairs four steps at a time and hurled himself into the -controversy. Seth could distinguish in this babel of exclamations such -phrases as-- - -“You better get some india-rubber chases!” - -“If that fire’s cut down, you might as well not go to press at all!” - -“If somebody would get down here in the morning, we could get our matter -up in time.” - -“I’m sick and tired of getting out telegraph for these chuckle-headed -printers to throw on the floor!” “That Mayhew matter’s been standing on -the galleys so long already that it’s got grey-headed!” - -“By the Lord Harry, I’ll make a rule that the next time we miss the -Wyoming mail it shall be taken out of your wages!” - -Here the inky boy galloped through to Seth with a proof-sheet, shouting, -“You’ve got a minute and a half to read this in!” The bald, elderly -gentleman, who seemed to be Mr. Workman, came and stood over Seth, watch -in hand, scowling impatiently. Under this embarrassment the wet letters -danced before his eyes, and he could find no errors, though it turned -out later that he had passed “elephant” for “elopement” and ruined -Watts’ chief sensation. A few minutes later, the clang of the presses -in the basement shook the old building, and the inky boy bustled through -the room again, pitching a paper into each of the stalls. There was a -moment of silence, broken only by the soft rustling of the damp sheets. -Then simultaneously from the several tables rose a chorus of violent -objurgation. - -Seth heard the voice which he had learned was Samboye’s roar out, -“What dash-dashed idiot has made me say ‘our martyr President Abraham -Sinclair? ’ Stop the press!” There were other voices: “Here’s two -lines of markets upside down!” “Oh, I say, this is _too_ bad. _Moyen -age_ is ‘mayonaise ’ in my Shylock notice, and it’s Mrs. McCullough -instead of Mr. --------.” - -“I’m dashed if the paper looks as if it had been read at all. We can’t -have such proof-reading as this!” - -While these comments were still proceeding the noise of the -press suddenly ceased. The silence was terrible to Seth’s guilty -consciousness, for he had heard enough to know that it was his fault. -Mr. Workman entered the room again, and again Sam-boye’s deep voice was -heard, repeating the awful Sinclair-Lincoln error. Seth had looked at -his fresh copy of the _Chronicle_, with some vague hope that the Editor -was mistaken, but alas! it was too true. Mr. Workman came over to his -stall; he had put his watch back in his pocket, but his countenance was -stern and unbending. - -“You are Mr. Fairchild, I presume,” he said. - -Seth rose to his feet, blushing, and murmured, “Yes, sir.” - -“I understood from your brother that you were used to newspaper work.” - -“Well, I thought I was. I have been around the _Banner of Liberty_ -office a great deal, but it seems so different on a daily.” - -“H’m,--yes. Well, I dare say you’ll learn.” - -Luckily the press started up again here, and Mr. Workman, looking at his -watch once more, went down stairs. - -Seth felt most grievously depressed. Looking back, his first day had -been full of mortification and failure. The use of scissors and mucilage -brush was painfully unfamiliar to his clumsy fingers. The scope and -intention of the various news departments he had been told to take -charge of were unknown to him, and he had watched Murtagh go over the -matter he submitted, striking out page after page, saying curtly, “We’ve -had this,” “This is only worth a line or two,” or “this belongs in -county notes,” with a sinking heart. His duties were so mechanical and -commonplace, after what he had conceived an editor’s functions to be, -that his ineptitude was doubly humiliating. - -Then there was this dreadful proof-reading failure. Murtagh had given -him the sample proof-sheet in the back of the dictionary to copy his -marks from--and he had copied them with such scrupulous efforts after -exactness that the printers couldn’t understand them. These printers--he -could see them through the windows opposite, standing pensively over -their tall cases, and moving their right arms between the frames -and their sticks with the monotonous regularity of an engine’s -piston-rod--seemed a very sarcastic and disagreeable body of men, to -judge by the messages of criticism on his system of marking which the -inky boy had delivered for them with such fidelity and enjoyment during -the day. He had eaten nothing since the early breakfast, and felt faint -and tired. The rain outside, beating dismally on the window and the -tin roof beyond, added to his gloom, and the ceaseless drumming of the -presses below increased his headache. - -The other men seemed to have nothing to do now save to talk, but he -turned wearily to the great mound of exchanges from which Murtagh had -directed him to extract “Society Jottings” and “Art, Music and the -Drama” after the paper went to press. - -He spent a few despairing minutes on the threshold of the task--enough -to see clearly that it was beyond his strength. Society was Syriac -to him, and he had never seen a play acted, beyond an occasional -presentation of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” or “The Octoroon” by strolling -tenth-rate mummers in the tiny hall at Thessaly. How could he -select matter for such departments? He wavered for a time, from a -disinclination to confront men who had just condemned his work so -unsparingly, but at last he got up from the table where he had been -pinned all day, and went over to the further end of the room. - -There was a sort of conclave about Tyler’s table. Both he and Samboye -reclined in tipped-back chairs, with their feet upon it; Watts sat on -the table swinging his legs, his straw hat still on the back of his -head, and Murtagh was perched in the window seat. Their conversation, -which had been flowing freely, stopped as Seth approached. He had -expected to be introduced to his Editor, Mr. Samboye, but no one -seemed to think of it, and that gentleman himself relieved him of the -embarrassment by nodding not uncourteously but with formality. - -“Mr. Fairchild,” he said, with impressive slowness, “in the pursuit of a -high career you will be powerfully aided by keeping in recollection the -fact that the sixteenth President of the United States was named Lincoln -and not Sinclair. We have a prejudice too, weak as it may seem, in favor -of spelling ‘interval’ with a ‘v’ rather than an ‘n’.” - -Seth did not find it so difficult to address this great man as he had -anticipated. He said simply that he was very sorry, but the work was -utterly new to him, it was his first day, he hoped to learn soon, etc. -Emboldened by the sound of his own voice, he added his doubts about -being able to satisfactorily preside over such exacting columns as -“Society Jottings” and “Art, Music and the Drama”--and gave reasons. - -“By George!” cried Watts, “I envy you! Just fancy a man who has never -seen anything but ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin’--and not even that with real -Siberian bloodhounds. You shall begin going tonight. I’ll take you to -‘Muldoon’s Picnic.’” - -“Well, at any rate,” remarked Mr. Tyler, “you can do ‘Agricultural.’ You -must know that right down to the ground.” - -“Yes,” assented Seth, “I think I ought to manage that. The truth -is, most of the stuff the papers print for farmers is nonsense--pure -rubbish.” - -“I suppose it is. I know that Dent--he is a New York city boy, who -doesn’t know clover from cabbage--once put in a paragraph about the -importance of feeding chickens on rock salt, and an old farmer from -Boltus came in early one morning and whaled the bookkeeper out of his -boots because he had followed the advice and killed all his hens. -There must be some funny man out West somewhere who makes up these bad -agricultural paragraphs, and of course they get copied. How can fellows -like Dent, for instance, tell which are good and which are not? But they -can’t fool you, and that’ll be an advantage. Then there’s Religious. You -can do that easily enough. I should think.” - -“Yes,” interposed Murtagh, “all you have to do is to lay for the Obago -_Evening Mercury_. Every Saturday that has a column of religious. -Alec Watson, a fellow in that office, has fifty-two of these columns, -extracts from Thomas à Kempis, and Wesley and Spurgeon and that sort of -thing, which have been running in the _Mercury_ since before the war. -When New Year’s comes he starts ’em going again, round and round. -Nobody knows the difference. Well, their columns are longer than ours, -so each week you can run about half their paragraphs--the shortest -ones--and then fill in with some news notes, statistics, you know, about -how many churches the Moravians have now, and that sort of thing. You -can pick those up during the week, anywhere.” - -“Then there ought to be some originality about it too,” said Tom Watts. -“It is just as well to sling in some items of your own, I think, such -as ‘There is a growing desire among the Baptists to have Bishops, like -other people,’ or, ‘It is understood that at the coming Consistory -the Pope will create seven new American Cardinals.’ That last is a -particularly good point. Every once in a while, predict more Cardinals. -It doesn’t hurt anybody, and it makes you solid when the thing does -happen. There’s nothing like original news to show the influence of -journalism. One morning, after the cakes had been bad for a week, heavy, -sour or something else, I said to my landlady that I believed the fault -must be in the buckwheat. She said no, she didn’t think so, for the -flour looked very nice indeed. I put a line in ‘Local Glimpses’ that -day, saying that unfortunately the buckwheat this year was of inferior -quality, and the very next morning she apologised to me: said I was -right; the buckwheat _was_ bad; she had read so in the _Chronicle_. Can -you imagine a nobler illustration of the power of the press?” - -Seth looked attentively at the speaker, to see if he was joking, but -there was no more evidence of mirth in his thin face than in the serious -tone of his voice. None of the others laughed. - -Mr. Samboye said some of the most remarkable things, at once humorous -and highly original, and put in an elaborate frame of big unusual words. -He was a huge man in frame, with an enormous head, bushy eyebrows, heavy -whiskers, a ponderous manner, a tremendous voice--in fact seemed to Seth -precisely the kind of man from whom delicate wit, and soft shading of -phrases were not to be expected. He happened for the nonce to be in a -complaisant mood, and was relaxing himself in the company of “his -young men,” as he liked to call his colleagues. But ordinarily he was -overbearing and arbitrary, and this had rankled so deeply in their minds -that they listened with apathy, unresponsive, to his choicest sallies, -and Watts even combated him, with scant courtesy it seemed to Seth. - -To him this monologue of the Editor’s was a revelation. He had never -heard such brilliant talk, such a wonderful mastery of words, such -delicious humor. He drank it all in eagerly, and laughed aloud at its -broader points--the more heartily, perhaps, because no one else smiled. -This display of appreciation bore fruit after its kind. Before Mr. -Samboye went he spoke some decidedly gracious words to Seth, saying -among other things: - -“However harshly we may be tempted by momentary stress of emotion to -speak, always remember that we unitedly feel your fresh bucolic interest -in things, your virginal capacity for admiration, and your pristine -flush of enthusiasm for your work to be distinct acquisitions to the -paper,” which Seth felt to be somewhat nonsensical, but still was -grateful for. - -After Mr. Samboye had gone, Tom Watts took occasion to warn him in an -aside: - -“Be careful how you appear to curry favor with Samboye before the other -fellows. Oh, I know you didn’t think of it--but don’t laugh at his -jokes. They’ll think you’re trying to climb over them, and they’ll be -unpleasant to you, perhaps.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII.--THIRTEEN MONTHS OF IT. - -GROWING familiarity with his work did not restore to Seth the lofty -conceptions of journalism’s duties and delights which he had nourished -on the hill-side farm, and which had been so ingloriously dimmed and -defaced by his first day’s experience. - -The tasks set before him, to which he gradually became accustomed, -seemed almost as unintellectual and mechanical as the ploughing and -planting he had forsaken. The rule of condensation, compression, -continually dinned into his ears by his mentors, robbed his labors of -all possible charm. To “boil down” columns of narrative into a few lines -of bald, cold statement; to chronicle day after day in the curtest -form, fires, failures, crimes, disasters, deaths, in a wearying chain of -uninteresting news notes; to throw remorselessly into the journalistic -crucible all the work of imagination, of genius, of deep fine thought -which came into his hands, together with the wordy dross spun out by -the swarm of superficial scribblers, and extract from good and bad alike -only the meaningless, miserable fact--this was a task against which, in -the first weeks of experience, his whole soul revolted. - -By the time he had become reconciled to it, and had mastered its tricks, -his dream of journalism as the most exalted of all departments of -activity seemed to him like some far-away fantasy of childhood. - -He not only had failed to draw inspiration from his work; it was already -ceasing to interest him. Under pleasanter conditions, he felt that -he would have at least liked the proof-reading portion of the daily -routine; but the printers were so truculent and hostile, and seemed -so pre-determined to treat him as their natural enemy, that this was -irksome, too. There was no relief to the distasteful monotony in -other branches of his work. Even the agricultural column, which he had -promised himself to so vastly improve, yielded no satisfaction. The -floating, valueless stuff from which his predecessors had selected their -store came so easily and naturally to the scissors that after a week or -two he abandoned the idea of preparing original matter: it saved time -and labor, and nobody seemed to know the difference. These words, in -fact, came to describe his mental attitude toward all his work. He -had no pride in it. If he escaped curses for badly-read proofs, and -criticism for missing obvious matters of news, it was enough. - -Seth did not arrive at this condition of mind without much inner -protest, or without sundry efforts to break through the crust of -perfunctory drudgery which was encasing him. At the start he bestowed -considerable thought and work upon an effort to brighten and improve, -by careful re-working of materials, one of the departments entrusted to -him, and, just when he expected praise, Tyler told him to stop it. Then -he tried to make his religious column a feature by discarding most -of the ancient matter which revolved so drolly in the Obago _Evening -Mercury_, and picking out eloquent bits from the sermons of great -contemporary preachers; but this elicited denominational protest from -certain pious subscribers, and Mr. Workman commanded a return to the old -rut. - -But _the_ cruel humiliation came when Seth took to Mr. Samboye an -editorial paragraph he had written with great care. It was a political -paragraph, and Seth felt confident that it was exactly in the -_Chronicle’s_ line, and good writing as well. The Editor took it, after -regarding the young writer with a stony, half-surprised stare, and read -it over slowly. He delivered judgment upon it, in his habitual pomposity -of phrases: “This is markedly comprehensive in scope and clarified in -expression, Mr. Fairchild.” Then, as Seth’s heart was warming with a -sense of commendation and success, the Editor calmly tore the manuscript -in strips, dropped them in his waste-basket, and turned reflectively to -his newspaper. - -Seth’s breath nearly left him: “Then you can’t use it;” he faltered. “I -thought it might do for an editorial paragraph.” - -There was the faintest suggestion of a patronising smile on Mr. -Samboye’s broad, ruddy face. - -“Oh, I am reminded, Mr. Fairchild,” he answered, with bland irrelevance; -“pray do not allow Porte to pass again with a small p, as you did -yesterday in the proof of my Turkish article. It should be capitalized -invariably.” - -The beginner went back to his stall both humiliated and angry. The cool -insolence with which he had been reminded that he was a proof-reader, -and warned away from thoughts of the editorial page, enraged and -depressed him. He passed a bitter hour at his table, looking savagely -through the window at the automatic motions of the printer directly -opposite, but thinking evil thoughts of Samboye, and cursing the fate -which had led him into newspaper work. So uncomfortable did he make -himself by these reflections that it required a real effort to throw off -their effects when Watts came upstairs, and the two left the office for -the day. It was impossible not to relate his grievance. - -Tom did not see its tragic side, and refused utterly to concede that -Seth ought to be cast down by it. - -“That’s only Samboye’s way,” he said, lightly. “He won’t let any of the -fellows get on to the page, simply because he’s afraid they’ll outwrite -him. He’d rather do it all himself--and he does grind out an immense -load of stuff--than encourage any rivals. Besides, he never loses a -chance to snub youngsters. Don’t let it worry you for a minute. If he -sees that it does, he’ll only pile it on the thicker. In this business -you’ve got to have a hide on you like the behemoth of Holy Writ, or -you’ll keep raw all the while.” - -Seth found some consolation in this view, and more still in Tom’s cheery -tone. The two young men spent the evening together--at Bismarck’s. - -This came gradually but naturally to be Seth’s habitual evening resort. -It represented to him, indeed, all that was friendly and inviting in -Tecumseh society. He was able to recall dimly some of the notions of -coming social distinction he indulged in the farm days--dreams of a -handsome young editor who was in great request in the most refined and -luxurious home circles, who said the most charming things to beautiful -young ladies at parties and balls, who wavered in his mind between -wedding his employer’s daughter and taking a share in the paper, or -choosing some lowlier but more intellectual maid to wife, and leading -with her a halcyon and exaltedly literary career in a cottage--but they -were as unreal, as indistinct now as the dreams of night before last. -All the social bars seemed drawn against him as a matter of course. - -This did not impress him as a hardship, because he was only vaguely -conscious of it, at first, and then grew into the habit of regarding it -as a thing to be grateful for. Tom Watts pointed out to him frequently -the advantage of being a Bohemian, of being free from all the fearsome, -undefined routine and responsibility of making calls, of dressing up -in the evening, and of dangling supine attendance upon girls and their -mammas. This “social racket,” the city editor said, might please some -people; Dent, for instance, seemed to like it. But for his part it -seemed quite the weakest thing a young man could go in for--entirely -incompatible with the robust and masculine character demanded in a -successful journalist. - -This presented itself to Seth as an extremely sound position, and he -made it his own so willingly that very soon he began to take credit -to himself in his own eyes for having turned a deaf ear to the social -siren, and having deliberately rejected the advances of fashionable -Tecumseh. He grew, really, to believe that it was by preference, by -a wise resolution to preserve his freedom and individuality, that he -remained outside the mysterious, impalpable regions which were labelled -in his mind as “Society.” - -On the other hand, there was no nonsense at Bismarck’s, or at the other -similar beer halls to which Tom introduced him. One dressed as one -chose, and did as one liked; seven-up or penochle provided just the -mental recreation a wearied literary brain demanded; and the fellows one -met there were cheerful, companionable young men, who likewise had no -nonsense about them, who put on no airs of superiority, and who glided -swiftly and jovially through the grades of acquaintanceship to intimacy. - -Seth was greatly strengthened in his liking for this refuge from -loneliness in a strange city by what he saw of Arthur Dent, whom -Watts had prepared him to regard as the embodiment of the other and -strait-laced side. - -This young man was not at all uncivil, but he was delicate, almost -effeminate in frame, wore eye-glasses, dressed with fastidious neatness, -never made any jokes or laughed heartily at those of others, and rarely -joined the daily lounge and smoke around Tyler’s table after the -paper had gone to press--and in all these things he grated upon Seth’s -sensitiveness. He was the one member of the staff whom Mr. Workman -seemed to like and whom Mr. Samboye never humiliated publicly by his -ponderous ridicule, and these were added grievances. He worked very -steadily and carefully, and was said to do a good deal of heavy reading -at home, evenings, in addition to the slavish routine of high social -duties in which Seth indefinitely understood him to be immersed. His -chief tasks were the book reviews, the editing of correspondence, and -the preparation of minor editorial paragraphs in a smaller type than -Mr. Samboye’s. Seth thought that his style, though correct and neat, was -thin and emasculated, and he came to associate this with his estimate of -the writer, and account for it by his habits and associations--which the -further confirmed him in his judgment as to the right way to live. - -But there was something more than this. The first few days after his -return from his vacation, Dent had tried to be courteous and helpful -to the newcomer from the country, in his shy, undemonstrative way, and -Seth, despite his preconceived prejudice, had gone a little way on -the road to friendship. Then one night, as he and Watts were returning -arm-in-arm to their joint lodgings from Bismarck’s, a trifle unsteadily -perhaps, they had encountered Dent walking with a young lady, and Tom -had pleasantly accosted them--at least it seemed pleasantly to Seth--but -Dent had not taken it in the right spirit at the time, and had been -decidedly cool to Seth ever since. This was so unreasonable that the -country boy resented it deeply, and the two barely spoke to each other. - -His relations with the others were less strained, but scarcely more -valuable in the way of companionship. Mr. Tyler did not seem to care -much for his company, and never asked him to go to the “Roast Beef”--a -sort of combination of club and saloon where he spent most of his -evenings, where poker was the chief amusement and whisky the principal -drink. From all Seth could learn, it was as well for him that he was not -invited there. As for Murtagh, all his associations outside the office -seemed to be with young men of his own race, who formed a coterie by -themselves, and frequented distinctively Irish resorts. Like most other -American cities Tecumseh had its large Irish and German elements, and -in nothing were ethnographic lines drawn so clearly as in the matter of -amusements. There were enough young Americans holding aloof from both -these foreign circles to constitute a small constituency for the “Roast -Beef,” but a far greater number had developed a liking for the German -places of resort, and drank beer and ate cheese and rye bread as if to -the manner born. Seth found himself in this class on his first step over -the threshold of city life; he enjoyed it, and he saw very little of the -others. - -The two most important men on the _Chronicle_, Mr. Workman and Mr. -Samboye, were far removed from the plane upon which all these Bohemian -divisions were traced. They belonged to the Club--the Tuscarora Club. -Seth knew where the club house was--but he felt that this was all he was -ever likely to know about it. The first few days in Tecumseh had taught -him the hopelessness of his dream of associating with his employer. -Socially they were leagues apart at the outset, and if the distance did -not increase as weeks grew into months, at least Seth’s perception of it -did, which amounted to the same thing. - -He did not so readily abandon the idea of being made a companion by -Samboye, but at last that vanished too. The Editor held himself very -high, and if he occasionally came down off his mountain top, his return -to those heights only served to emphasize their altitude. There were -conflicting stories about his salary. Among the lesser lights of the -editorial room it was commonly estimated at forty-five dollars a -week, but some of the printers had information that it was at least -fifty--which fatigued the imagination. Seth himself received nine -dollars, which his brother supplemented by five, and he found that he -was regarded as doing remarkably well for a beginner. But between this -condition and the state of Samboye with his great income, his fine house -on one of the best streets, his influential position in the city, and -his luxurious amusements at the Club, an impassable gulf yawned. - -There is no pleasure in following further the details of the country -boy’s new life. He lost sight of his disappointment in the consolations -of a phase of city existence which does not show to advantage in -polite-pages. He did not become vicious or depraved. - -The relentless treadmill of a daily paper forbade his becoming indolent. -By sheer force of contact his mind expanded, too, more than even he -suspected. But it was a formless, unprofitable expansion, which did not -help him to get out of the rut. He performed his work acceptably--at -least he rarely heard any criticisms upon it--lived a trifle ahead -of his small income, and ceased to even speculate on the chance of -promotion. - -When, thirteen months after his advent in Tecumseh, the news came to -him from the farm that his father was dying, he obtained leave to go -home. Mr. Workman remarked to Mr. Samboye that afternoon: - -“I shan’t mind much if Fairchild doesn’t come back.” - -“Is that so? He seems to get through his work decently and inoffensively -enough. He will never set the North River ablaze, of course, but he is -civil and all that.” - -“Yes, but I can’t see that there’s anything in him. Beside, I don’t -like his influence on Watts. I’m told you can find them together at -Bismarck’s every night in the week.” - -“Of course, that makes it bad,” said Mr. Samboye. - -Then the proprietor and the editor locked up their desks, went over to -the Club, and played pyramid pool till midnight. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV.--BACK ON THE FARM. - -The farm seemed very little like home to Seth, now that he was back -once more upon it. He could neither fit himself familiarly into such of -the old ways as remained nor altogether appetize the changes which he -felt rather than discerned about him. - -Of all these alterations his father’s disappearance was among the least -important. Everybody had grown out of the habit of considering Lemuel -as a factor in any question. Nobody missed him now that he was gone, or -felt that it was specially incumbent to pretend to do so--nobody save -Aunt Sabrina. Those who cared to look closely could see that the old -maid was shaken by her weak brother’s death, and that, though she said -little or nothing about it, an augmented sense of loneliness preyed upon -her mind. For the rest, the event imposed a day or two of solemnity, -some alterations of dress and demeanor, a sombre journey with a few -neighbors to the little burial plot beyond the orchard--and then things -resumed their wonted aspect. - -To the young journalist this aspect was strange and curious. The farm -had put on a new guise to his eyes. It was as if some mighty hand and -brush had painted it all over with bright colors. It was not only that -the house had been restored and refurnished, that new spacious buildings -replaced the ancient barns, that the fences had been rebuilt, the farm -yard cleaned up and sodded, the old well-curb and reach removed--the -very grass seemed greener, the bending of the boughs more graceful, the -charm of sky and foliage and verdure far more apparent. The cattle were -plumper and cleaner; there were carriage horses now, with bright harness -and sweeping tails, and a costly black mare for the saddle, fleet as the -wind: the food on the table was more uniformly toothsome, and there were -now the broad silver-plated forks to which Seth had somewhat laboriously -become accustomed in his Tecumseh boardinghouse. He admired all these -changes, in a way, but somehow he could not feel at home among them. -They were attractive, but they were alien to the memories which, in his -crowded, bricked-up city solitude, had grown dear to him. - -There were droll changes among the hired people. For one thing, they no -longer all ate at the table with the family. An exception was made in -favor of Milton Squires, who had burst through the overalls chrysalis -of hired-manhood, and had become a sort of superintendent. He had -not learned to eat with a fork, and he still talked loudly and with -boisterous familiarity at the table, reaching for whatever he wanted, -and calling the proprietor “Albert,” and his aunt “Sabriny.” He did not -bear his social and industrial promotion meekly. He bullied the inferior -hired men--Leander had a colleague now, a rough, tow-headed, burly young -fellow named Dana Pills-bury--and snubbed loftily the menials of -the kitchen. This former haunt scarcely knew him more, and his rare -conversations with Alvira were all distinctly framed in condescension. -This was only to be expected, for Milton wore a black suit of -store-clothes every day, with a gold-plated watch chain and a necktie, -and met the farmers round about on terms of practical equality. He was -reputed to be a careful and capable manager; his wrath was feared at -the cheese-factory; his judgment was respected at the corners’ store. -Naturally, such a man would feel himself above kitchen associations. - -Of course this defection evoked deep wrath in Alvira’s part of the -house, some overflowings of which came to Seth’s notice before he had -been a day at the farm. Alvira was not specially changed to the young -man’s eyes--indeed her sallow, bilious visage, dark snapping eyes and -furrowed forehead seemed the most familiar things about the homestead, -and her acidulous tones struck a truer note in his chords of memory than -did any other sound. - -Aunt Sabrina, wrapped as of old in her red plaid shoulder shawl, but -seemingly less erect and aggressive, spent most of her time in the -kitchen, ostentatiously pretending to pay her board by culinary labor. -Behind her back Alvira was wont to say to her assistant, a slatternly -young slip from the ever-spreading Lawton family tree, that the old -lady only hindered the work, and that her room would be better than -her company. But when Aunt Sabrina was present, Alvira was customarily -civil, sometimes quite friendly. The two were drawn together by -community of grievance. - -They both hated Isabel, with her citified notions, her forks and -napkins, and stuck-up airs generally. It had pleased Aunt Sabrina’s mood -to regard herself as included in the edict which ordained that servants -should eat in the kitchen, and only the sharpest words she had ever -heard Albert speak had prevented her acting upon this. She had come to -the family table, then, but always with an air of protest; and she had a -grim pleasure in leaving her napkin unfolded, month after month, and in -keeping everybody waiting while she paraded her inability to eat rapidly -or satisfactorily with the new fangled “split spoon.” - -She and Alvira had a never-failing topic of hostile talk in the new -mistress. To judge by their threats, their jibes and their angry -complaints, they were always on the point of leaving the house on her -account. So imminent did an outbreak seem to Seth, when he first heard -their joint budget of woes and bitter resolves, that he was frightened, -but the Lawton girl reassured him. They had talked just like that, she -said, every day since she had been there, which would be “a year come -August,” and she added scornfully: “They go away? You couldn’t chase -’em away with a clothes-pole!” - -The two elderly females had another bond of sympathy, of course, in -Milton’s affectation of superiority. - -They debated this continually, though as Sabrina had the most to say -about her niece-in-law, with Alvira as a sympathetic commentator, so the -hateful apotheosis of the whilom hired-man was recognized to be Alvira’s -special and personal grievance, in girding at which Sabrina bore only a -helping part. - -Seth accounted for this by calling up in recollection an old vague -understanding of his youth that Milton was some time going to marry -Alvira. He could remember having heard this union spoken of as taken -for granted in the family. Doubtless Alvira’s present attitude of ugly -criticism was due to the fear that Milton’s improved prospects would -lead him elsewhere. The Lawton girl indeed hinted rather broadly to him -that there were substantial grounds for Alvira’s rage. “I’d tear his -eyes out if I was her, and he wouldn’t come up to the scratch,” she -said, “after all that’s happened.” Seth understood her suggestion, but -he didn’t believe it. The Lawtons were a low-down race, anyway. He had -seen one of the girls at Tecumseh once, a girl who had gone utterly to -the bad, and this sister of hers seemed a bold, rude huzzy, with a mind -prone to mean suspicions. - -It was a relief to go back again to the living-room, where Isabel was, -and he both verbally and mentally justified her gentle hint that the -kitchen was not a good place for young men to spend their time. - -“You have no idea,” she said, letting her embroidery fall in her lap -for the moment, “how ruinous to discipline and to household management -generally this country plan of making companions of your servants is. I -had to put a complete stop to it, very soon after I came. There would be -no living with them otherwise. There’s not much comfort in living with -them as it is, for your Aunt sits out in the kitchen all day long, -pretending that she is abused and encouraging them to think that they -are ill-used too. She makes it very hard for me--harping all the time on -my being a Richardson, just as she did with your mother. - -“Then there’s Milton. I did not want to make any difference between him -and the other hired people, but your brother insisted on it--on having -him at the table with us, and treating him like an equal. He is as -coarse and rough and horrid as he can be, but it seems that he is very -necessary on the farm, and your brother leaves so much to him and relies -so much on him that I couldn’t help myself. He hasn’t got to calling me -‘Isabel’ yet, but I expect him to begin every day of my life. You can’t -imagine what an infliction it is to see him eat--or rather, to hear him, -for I try not to look.” - -Isabel took up her work again, and Seth looked at her more closely than -he had done before. She sat at the window, with the full summer light -on her bright hair and fair, pretty face. Her tone had been melancholy, -almost mournful; looking at her, Seth felt that she was not happy, and -more--for he had never supposed her to be particularly happy--that she -was bitterly disappointed with the result of the farm experiment. She -had not said so, however, and he was in doubt whether it would be wise -for him to assume it in his conversation. - -“Albert seems to thrive on country fare,” he said, perhaps unconsciously -suggesting in his remark what was turning in his mind--that she herself -seemed not have thrived. The rounded outlines of her chin and throat -were not so perfect as he remembered them. She looked thin and tired -now, in the strong light, and there was no color to speak of in her -face. - -“Oh, yes!” she said, with that falling inflection which is sister to the -sigh, and keeping her eyes bent upon her work, “_he_ grows fat. I -did not imagine that a man who had always been so active, who was -so accustomed to regular office work and intellectual professional -pursuits, could fall into idle ways so easily. But it is always a bore -to him now when he has to go down to New York at term time. Once or -twice he has had a coolness with his partners because he failed to go -at all. I shouldn’t be surprised if he gave New York up altogether. -He talks often of it--of practising at Tecumseh instead. Oh, and that -reminds me. You can tell. What relation does Tecumseh bear to this -place? I know they have some connection in his mind, because he spoke -once of the ‘pull’--whatever that may mean--being a Tecumseh lawyer -would give him here. I know they are not in the same county, for I -looked on the map. Whatever it is, that would be his purpose in going -there, I am curious to learn. You know,” she added, with a smile and -tone pathetic in their sarcasm, “a wife ought to be interested in -whatever concerns her husband.” - -“They are in the same Congressional district,” Seth replied. “There are -three counties in the district, Dearborn (where we are now), Jay, which -lies east of us, and then Adams, which is a long, narrow county, and -runs off South of Dearborn. Tecumseh is away at the extreme southern end -of Adams county. Perhaps that is what you have in mind.” - -“It is what _he_ has in mind,” she said. - -“But how does Albert fill his time here--what does he do?” - -“In about equal parts,” she made answer, lifting her eyes again, with -the light of a little smile in them now, “he reads novels here in the -house, and drives about the neighborhood. What time he is not in the -easy-chair upstairs, devouring fiction, he is in his buggy on the road. -He won’t let me have anybody up from New York, even of the few I know, -but he has developed a wonderful taste for striking up acquaintances -here. He must by this time know every farmer for twenty miles around. -First of all, in buying his stock when he took the farm, he spread his -purchases around in the queerest way--getting a cow from this man, -a colt from another, a pig here and a bull there. Milton and he went -together, and they must have driven two hundred miles, I should think, -collecting the various animals. - -“I didn’t understand it at first, but I begin to now. He wanted to -establish relations with as many men here as he could. And the farmers -he invites here to dinner--you should see them! Sometimes I think I -shall have to leave the table. It’s all I can do, often, to be decently -civil to them, rough, vulgar men, unwashed and untidy, whom he waylays -out on the road and brings in. He thinks I ought to exert myself to make -them feel at home, and chat with them about their wives and children, -and ugh! call on them and form friendships with them. But I draw the -line there. If he enjoys bringing them here, why I can’t help it; and if -he likes to drive about, and be hail-fellow-well-met with them, that is -his own affair. But----” - -She stopped, and Seth felt that the silence was eloquent. He began to -realize that his pretty sister-in-law was in need of sympathy, and to -rank himself, with indignant fervor, on her side. - -Annie Fairchild came in. Seth had seen and spoken with her several -times, during the period of his father’s death and funeral, but -hurriedly and in the presence of others. Her appearance now recalled -instantly the day of the fishing trip--a soft and pleasant memory, which -during his year’s exile had at times been truly delicious to him. - -The women thought of it too, now, and talked of it, at Seth rather than -to him, and with a playful spirit of badinage. As of old, Isabel did -most of the talking. Annie had become quite a woman, Seth said to -himself, as she took off her hat, tidied her hair before the glass, and -laughingly joined in the conversation. She talked very well, too, but -she seemed always to think over her words, and there appeared to be in -her manner toward him a certain something, intangible, indefinite, which -suggested constraint. He could feel, though he could not explain, it. - -During his stay in Tecumseh he had seen almost nothing of the other sex. -There were often some young women at the boarding-house, but he had not -got beyond a speaking acquaintance at the table with any of them, in the -few instances where his shyness had permitted even that. His year in -a city had improved him in many ways. He could wear good clothes now -without awkwardness; he spoke readily among men, and with excellent -choice of language; he knew how to joke without leading the laughter -himself. But he had had no chance to overcome by usage his diffidence -in female company, and he had not been quite at ease in his mind since -Annie came in. She seemed to make a stranger of him. - -He thought upon this, and felt piqued at it. He wondered, too if he -was not sitting clumsily in his chair--if it was not impolite in him -to cross his legs. Gradually, however, he grew out of his reserve. It -dawned upon him that Annie was timorous, nervous, about the impression -she was making on him, and that Isabel listened with real respect and -deference to what he had to say. He grew bold, and took the lead of the -conversation, and the two women followed meekly. It was a delightful -sensation. He said to himself: “It is the easiest thing in the world, -once you make the plunge. I could talk with women now in the finest -drawing room in the land.” He sat back in his chair, and told them some -anecdotes about Mr. Samboye, from which somehow they gathered the notion -that he was at the best coordinate in rank with Seth. They were more -than ever proud of their relative, who had so rapidly conquered a high -and commanding position for himself in that mystic, awesome sphere of -journalism. Seth expanded and basked in this admiration. - -He had heretofore found the evenings on the farm stupidly tedious. To -sit at the big table till bed time, reading by the light of a single -kerosene lamp, or exchanging dry monosyllables with Albert, offered a -dismal contrast to the cheerful street lamps, the bright store-windows, -the noise and gaiety and life of the places of evening resort in -Tecumseh. But this evening revealed a far more attractive side of -country life than he had known before. Annie stayed after tea, and the -three played dominoes. Albert seemed somewhat out of sorts, but they did -not mind his silence in the least. They chatted gaily over their games, -and time flew so merrily and swiftly, that Seth was surprised when Annie -said she must leave, and he discovered that it was a quarter to ten. - -“How pleasantly the evening has passed,” Isabel said, and smiled at him, -and Annie answered, “Hasn’t it! I don’t know when I have enjoyed myself -so much--” and she, too, smiled at him. - -The old walk over the fields, down the poplar lane, to see Annie -home--how like the old times it seemed! And yet how far away they were! -Sometimes in these bye-gone walks, as they came up now in Seth’s memory, -he and Annie had been almost like lovers--not indeed, in words, but in -that magnetic language which the moon inspires. It occurred to neither -of them to saunter slowly, now. They walked straight ahead, and there -were no “flashes of eloquent silence.” Their conversation was all of -Isabel. - -“Not as happy as she expected!” said Annie, repeating a question of -Seth’s; “you can’t guess how wretched she is! Sometimes it’s all she can -do to keep from breaking down. I am literally the only person she has -to talk to, that she cares about, week in and week out. Albert is away a -great deal. I don’t think he is much company when he _is_ home. She did -try, when she first came, to make some acquaintances round about, among -the well-to-do farmers’ wives. But she couldn’t bear them, and they said -she was stuck up, and so _that_ came to nothing. She doesn’t get on at -all with Aunt Sabrina, either. Poor girl! she is so blue at times that -my heart aches for her. Of course she wouldn’t let you see it. Besides -she has been ever so much more cheerful since you came. I _do_ hope you -will stay as long as you can--just for _her_ sake.” - -She added this explanation with what sounded to Seth’s ear like -gratuitous emphasis. The disposition rose swiftly within him to resent -this. - -“You are very careful,” he said, “to have me understand that it’s for -her sake you want me to stay.” Then he felt, even while the sound of his -voice was in the air, that he had made a fool of himself. - -His cousin did not accept the individual challenge. “No, of course we -are all glad to see you. You know we are. But _she_ specially needs -company; it’s a mercy to her to have somebody to brighten her up a -little. Really, I get anxious about her at times. I try to run over as -much as I can, but then I have grandmother to tend, you know.” - -“How is the old lady, by the way? And oh--tell me, Annie, what it was -that all at once set her against me so. You remember--the day before we -went fishing, and Isabel saved my life.” - -The answer did not come immediately. In the dim starlight Seth could see -that his cousin’s face was turned away, and he guessed rather than saw -that she was agitated. - -“I will tell you,” she said at last, nervously, “why grandmother--or, -no, I will _not_ tell you! You have no right to ask. Don’t come any -further, I am near enough to the house now. Good night.” - -She had hurried away from him. He watched her disappear in the darkness, -then turned and walked meditatively home. - -He was not so sure as he had been that it was easy to understand women. - - - - -CHAPTER XV.--MR. RICHARD ANSDELL. - -It was no light task to spend a vacation contentedly on the farm. There -were thousands of city people who did it, and seemed to enjoy it, but -Seth found it difficult to understand how they contrived to occupy -themselves. What work on a farm meant, he knew very well; but the trick -of idling in the country was beyond him. It was too hot, in these July -days, for driving much, and besides, Albert rarely invited him into the -buggy when the grays were brought around to the step. The two brothers -saw little of each other, in fact. It was not precisely a coolness, -but Albert seemed to have other things on his mind beside fraternal -entertainment. The old pastime of fishing, too, failed him. In -the renovation of the house his fine pole and tackle had somehow -disappeared, and he had no money wherewith to replace them. He had -entered upon his vacation unexpectedly, at a time when he happened to be -particularly short of cash--and there was something in Albert’s manner -and tone which rendered it impossible to apply to him, even if pride had -not forbidden it. - -There was, it is true, the increasing delight of being in Isabel’s -company, but alongside this delight grew a doubt--a doubt which the -young man shrank from recognizing and debating, but which forced its -presence upon his mind, none the less--a doubt whether it was the part -of wisdom to encourage too much of a friendship with his sister-in-law. -This friendship had already reached a stage where Aunt Sabrina sniffed -at its existence, and she hinted dimly to Seth of the perils which -lurked in the lures of a citified siren, with an expression of face -and a pointedness of emphasis which clearly had a domestic application. -There was nothing in this, of course, but the insensate meddlesomeness -of a disagreeable old maid, Seth said to himself, but still it annoyed -him. - -More serious, though, was his suspicion--lying dormant sometimes for -days, then suddenly awakened by a curt word or an intent glance--that -Albert disliked to see him so much with Isabel. Often this rendered him -extremely nervous, for Isabel had no discretion (so the young man put -it to himself) and displayed her pleasure in his society, her liking for -him, quite as freely in her husband’s presence as when they were alone. -There was nothing in this, either, only that it made him uneasy. Hence -it came about that, just when one set of inclinations most urgently -prompted him to stay about the house, another set often prevailed upon -him to absent himself. On these occasions he generally walked over to -Thessaly, and chatted with John. - -“John and I have so much to talk about, you know, being both newspaper -men,” he used to say, with a feeling that he owed an explanation of some -sort to Isabel. “And then I can see the daily papers there. That gets to -be a necessity with a journalist--as much so as his breakfast.” - -“I scarcely dare to read a paper now,” Isabel once replied. “It drives -me nearly mad with longing to get back among people again. I only read -heavy things, classic poetry and history--and then, thank Heaven, there -is this embroidery.” - -It was at John’s, or rather on the way there, that Seth met one day -a man of whom he was in after life accustomed to say, “He altered the -whole bent of my career.” Perhaps this was an exaggerated estimate -of the service Richard Ansdell really rendered Seth; but it is so -difficult, looking back, to truly define the influence upon our fortunes -or minds by any isolated event or acquaintance, and moreover, gratitude -is so wholesome and sweet a thing to contemplate, and the race devotes -so much energy to civilizing it out of young breasts, that I have not -the heart to insist upon any qualification of Seth’s judgment. - -Mr. Ansdell at this time was nearly forty years of age, and looked to be -under thirty. He was small, thin-faced, clean-shaven, dark of skin -and hair, with full, clear eyes, that by their calmness of expression -curiously modified the idea of nervousness which his actions and mode -of speech gave forth. He was spending his fortnight’s vacation in the -vicinity, and he was strolling with his friend the school-teacher, -Reuben Tracy, toward the village when Seth overtook them. Seth and -Reuben had been very intimate in the old farm days--and _here_ was -a young man to the latent influence of whose sobriety of mind and -cleanliness of tastes he never fully realized his obligation--but since -his return they had not met. After greetings had been exchanged, they -walked together to the village, and to the _Banner of Liberty_ office. - -It was the beginning of the week, and publication day was far enough off -to enable John to devote all his time to his visitors. There was an -hour or more of talk--on politics, county affairs, the news in the city -papers, the humors and trials of conducting a rural newspaper, and so -forth. When they rose to go, John put on his hat, and said he would -“walk a ways” with them. On the street he held Seth back with a -whispered “Let us keep behind a bit, I want to talk to you.” Then he -added, when the others were out of hearing: - -“I have got some personal things to say, later on. But--first of -all--has Albert said anything since to you about the farm?” - -“Not a word.” - -“Well, I have been thinking it all over, trying to see where the -crookedness comes in--for I feel it in my bones that there _is_ -something crooked. But I am not lawyer enough to get on to it. I’ve had -a notion of putting the whole case to Ansdell, who’s a mighty bright -lawyer, but then again, it seems to be a sort of family thing that we -ought to keep to ourselves. What do you think?--for after all, it is -mostly your affair.” - -“I can’t see that Albert isn’t playing fair. It must be pretty nearly as -he says--that he has put as much money in the farm as it was worth when -he took it. It’s true that father’s will leaves it to him outright--and -that wasn’t quite as Albert gave us to understand it should be--but -Albert pledges us that our rights in it shall be respected, and it seems -to me that that is better than an acknowledged interest in a bankrupt -farm would be, which we hadn’t the capital to work, and which was -worthless without it.” - -“Perhaps you are right.” John paused for a moment, then began again in -a graver tone: “There’s something else. How are you getting on on the -_Chronicle?_” - -“Oh, well enough; I get through my work without anybody’s finding fault. -I suppose that is the best test. A fellow can’t do any more.” - -“That is where you are wrong. ‘A fellow’ can do a great deal more. And -when you went there I, for one, expected you were going to do a deuced -sight more. You have been there now--let’s see--thirteen months. You are -doing what you did when you went there--sawing up miscellany, boiling -down news notes, grinding out a lot of departments which the office boy -might do, if his own work weren’t more important. In a word you’ve just -gone on to the threshold, and you’ve screwed yourself down to the floor -there--and from all I hear you are likely to stay there all your life, -while other fellows climb over your head to get into the real places.” - -“From all you _hear?_ What do you mean by that--who’s been telling you -about me?” - -“That you shan’t know, my boy. It is enough that I _have_ heard. You -haven’t fulfilled your promise. I thought you had the makings of a big -man in you; I believed that all you needed was the chance, and you would -rise. You were given the chance--put right in on the ground floor, and -there you are, just where you were put. You haven’t risen worth a cent.” - -“What do you expect a fellow to do? Get to be editor-in-chief in -thirteen months? What could I do that I haven’t done? There have been no -vacancies, so no one has climbed over my head. I’ve done the work I was -set to do--and done it well, too. What more can you ask?” - -Seth spoke in an aggrieved tone, for this attack seemed as unjust as it -had been unexpected. - -John replied, “Now keep cool, youngster! Nobody expected you to get to -be editor-in-chief in thirteen months, so don’t talk nonsense. And I -am not blaming you for not getting promotion, when there have been no -vacancies. What I do mean, if you want to know, is that you have failed -to make a good impression. You are not in the line of promotion. Workman -doesn’t say to himself when he thinks of you ‘There’s a smart, steady, -capable young man on whom we can count, who’s able to go as high as we -are able to put him.’ No! instead of that he says--but no, never mind. I -don’t want to hurt your feelings.” - -“Oh, you are mighty considerate, all at once,” retorted Seth, angrily. -“Go on! Say what you were going to say! What is it that Workman says, -since you’ve been spying on me behind my back?” - -“Now you are talking like a fool,” said the elder brother, keeping his -temper. “I haven’t been spying on you. I have only been commenting on -facts which have come to my knowledge without seeking and which were -brought to me by one who has your interests at heart. I have only been -talking to you as I ought to talk, with the sole idea of benefiting you, -helping you. If you don’t want to hear me, why I can shut up.” - -Seth did not reply for a minute or so; then he growled moodily: “Go -ahead! Let’s hear it all.” - -“The ‘all’ can be said in a few words. You have been wasting your time. -I grant that you have done your work well enough to escape blame--but -what credit is there in that? a million mechanics do that every day. -Instead of improving yourself, elevating and polishing yourself, by -good reading, by studying the art of writing, above all by choosing -your associates among men who are your superiors, and from whom you can -learn, you have settled down in a Dutch beer saloon, making associates -out of the commonest people in town, and having for your particular chum -that rattle-headed loafer Tom Watts. Do you suppose Mr. Workman doesn’t -know this? Do you suppose he likes it, or that it encourages him to hope -for your future?” - -Seth was silent longer than ever, this time. When he spoke it was to -utter something which he instantly regretted: “I haven’t been able to -gather from your old friends that you were altogether a bigot, yourself, -on the subject of beer, when you were my age.” - -Fortunately John did not get angry; Seth honestly admired and envied his -elder brother’s good temper as he heard the reply: - -“That’s neither here nor there. Perhaps I did a good many things that I -want you to avoid. Besides, there was nothing in me. I am good enough as -far as I go, but if I had worked on a daily paper till my teeth all -fell out, I should never have got any higher than I was. With you it is -different; you can go up to the head of the class if you are a mind to. -But the beer saloon isn’t the way--and Tom Watts isn’t the guide.” - -“He is the only friend I have got. What was I to do? It is easy enough -to talk, John, about my knowing good people and all that, but _how?_ -That is the question? It isn’t fair to blame me as you do. All the men -like Workman and Samboye--I suppose you mean them--hold themselves miles -above me. Do you suppose I’ve ever seen the inside of their houses or of -their club? Not I! You dump a young countryman in a strange city, new at -his work, without knowing a solitary soul--and then you complain because -he gets lonesome, and makes friends with the only people who show any -disposition to be friendly with him. Do you call that fair play?” - -“Well, there’s something in that,” John replied, meditatively. “Some -time I’m going to write a leader on the organized indifference of modern -city society to what becomes of young men who deserve its good offices -and drift into beer saloons because they are not forthcoming. It would -make the _Banner_ immensely solid with orthodox people.” - -“You wouldn’t have wanted me to go to the Young Men’s Christian -Association, I suppose?” - -“No-o, I don’t know that I would. I don’t know, after all, that you -could have done much differently. But you’ve done enough of it, do you -understand? You have served your time; you have taken your diploma. It -is time now to quit. And I can put you on to a man, now, who will help -you on the other tack. Do you see Ansdell, ahead there?” - -“Yes;--is he the man who told you about Workman and me?” - -John ignored the question. “Ansdell is one of the cleverest men going; -he’s head and shoulders over anybody else there is in Tecumseh, or in -this part of the State. For you to know him will be a college education -in itself. He is more than a big lawyer, he is a student and thinker; -more than that, he is a reformer; best of all, he is a man of the world, -who has sown more wild oats than would fill Albert’s new bins, and -there’s not an atom of nonsense about him. He knows about you. We’ve -talked you over together. He understands my idea of what you ought to -be, and he can help you more than any other man alive--and what is more -he will.” - -“It was he who told you about me, wasn’t it?” Seth persisted. - -“If you will know, it was and it wasn’t. All he said was that he had -heard Workman speak of you; that he had got the idea from his tone that -you were not making the most of your opportunities; that he thought this -was a great pity; and that if he could be of any use to you he would be -very glad. That is all--and not even your sulkiness can make anything -but kindness out of it.” - -This practically ended the dialogue, for the others had stopped to let -the brothers come up, and John shortly after left the party. - -The three men had a long stroll back to the hillside road, with a still -longer lounge on the grass under the elms by the bridge. Seth watched -and listened to this swarthy, boyish-looking mentor who had, so to -speak, thrust himself upon him, very closely, as was natural. Did he -like him? It was hard, he found, to determine. Mr. Ansdell was extremely -opinionated. He seemed to have convictions on almost every subject, -and he clung to them, defended them, expanded them, with almost tearful -earnestness. His voice was as strong and powerful as his figure was -diminutive; he talked now chiefly about the Tariff, which he denounced -with a vibrating intensity of feeling. Seth knew nothing about the -Tariff, or next to nothing, but he admired what Ansdell said, mainly -because it was said so well. But he grew quite enthusiastic in his -endorsement when he heard his Editor, Mr. Samboye, used as a typical -illustration of the dishonesty with which public men treated that -question. After that he felt that it would be easy to make friends with -Mr. Ansdell. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI.--DEAR ISABEL. - -It was the last day but one of Seth’s vacation on the farm. He was not -sorry, although the last week, by comparison, had been pleasant enough. -He had seen a good deal of Mr. Ansdell, who interested him extremely, -and who had come for him three or four times for long walks in the -fields. He sat now in the living room near Isabel, dividing his -attention between her and his book--one of Albert’s innumerable novels. -The desultory conversation mixed itself up with the unfolding work of -fiction so persistently that he presently gave over the attempt to read, -and drew his chair nearer to his sister-in-law. It was raining outside, -and wet weather always made her want to talk. She said: - -“Tell me, Seth, if you have noticed any change in Alvira.” - -“No, I can’t say that I have. In fact, she seems to me the one person -about the place who has _not_ altered a bit.” - -“See what eyes men have! Why, she has grown ages older. She goes about -now muttering to herself like an old, old woman. And the way she looks -at one, sometimes, it is enough to give one the chills. I tell Albert -often that I am almost afraid to have her in the house.” - -Seth chuckled audibly, in good-natured derision. “What a mountain out of -a mole hill! Why Alvira has glared at people that way, with her little -black-bead eyes, ever since I was a boy. She doesn’t mean anything by -it,--not the least in the world. The trouble is, Isabel, that you let -your imagination run away with you. You are desperately lonesome here, -and you amuse yourself by conjuring up all sorts of tragic things. You -will have Aunt Sabrina a professional witch next thing you know, and -Milton a mystic conspirator, and this plain old clap-boarded farm house -a castle of enchantment.” - -He had never before assumed even this jocose air of superiority over -his blond sister-in-law, and he closed his sentence in some little -trepidation lest she should resent it. But no, she received it with -meekness, and only protested mildly against the assumption underneath. - -“No, I am sure there is something in it. She is brooding about Milton. -Not in any sentimental way, you know, but it used to be understood, I -think, that they were to marry, and now he carries himself way above -her. Why, I can remember, as long ago as when I visited here that -summer, when we were all boys and girls and cousins together, I heard -your mother say they would make a match of it some time. But now he -avoids the kitchen and her. It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it, for me to -be speculating in this way about the love affairs of the servants. But -you are driven to it here. You have no idea how grateful one gets to be, -here in the country, for the smallest item of human gossip.” - -Seth was still considering whether it was possible for him, in careful -language, to suggest his own--or rather the Lawton girl’s--view of the -Milton-Alvira affair, when Isabel spoke again: - -“Speaking of gossip, there is something I have been tempted half a dozen -times to mention to you--something I heard almost every day during the -little time that the women round-about were calling on me. You will -guess what I mean--the talk about you and Annie.” - -Seth did not immediately answer, and she continued: - -“Of course, you know, Seth, that I wouldn’t speak of it if I thought it -would be distasteful to you. But I know it used to be the idea that you -two were marked for each other. I have heard ever so much about it -since we have lived here. And yet you don’t seem to me to be at all like -lovers--hardly even like affectionate cousins. I think she has rather -avoided the house since you have been here, although that, of course, -may be only imagination. She is such a dear, good girl, and I am _so_ -fond of her, but still I can hardly imagine her as your wife. You don’t -mind my speaking about it, do you?” - -Seth was still at a loss what to say, or, better, how to say it. While -she had been speaking the contrast between the two young women, which -had been slumbering in his mind for a year, had risen vividly before -him. The smile, half-deprecating, half-inviting, with which she looked -this last question at him, as she laid the everlasting embroidery down, -and leaned slightly forward for a reply, gave the final touch to his -vanishing doubts. - -“Mind _your_ speaking about it? No, no, Isabel.” He scarcely knew -his own voice, it was so full of cooing softness. “I am glad you -did--for--for who has a better right? No, there is nothing in the -gossip. Our people--my mother, her grandmother--had it in mind once, -I believe, but Annie and I have never so much as hinted at it between -ourselves. Ever since mother’s death old Mrs. Warren has, however, taken -a deep dislike to me--you remember how she forbade Annie to go with us -on that fishing trip--but even without that----” - -“Ah, I shan’t forget that fishing trip,” Isabel whispered, still with -the tender smile. - -“Nor I, you may be very sure.” The caressing tone of his voice sounded -natural to him now. “As I was saying, even if we two young people had -once thought of the thing, I fancy it would be different now, anyway. -_Then_, I was going to be a farmer. _Now_, of course, that is all -changed. My career is in the city, in circles where Annie would not be -at home. She is a dear, good girl, as you say: nobody knows that better -than I do. But you must admit she _is_--what shall I say?--rural. Now -that I have got my foot on the ladder, there is no telling how far I may -not climb. It would be simply suicide to marry a wife whom I perhaps -would have to carry up with me, a dead weight.” - -The youngster was not in the least conscious of the vicious nonsense -he was talking. In the magnetic penumbra of Isabel’s presence his words -seemed surcharged with wisdom and good feeling. And the young woman, -too, who was four years his senior, and who should have known better, -never suspected the ridiculous aspect of the sentiments to the -expression of which she listened with such sweet-faced sympathy. We -_are_ such fools upon occasion. - -“Besides, there is no reason why I should think of marriage at all, -for a long time to come--at least not until I have made my way up in -my profession a bit. When the time does come, it will be because I have -found my ideal--for I have an ideal, you know, a very exalted one.” - -He looked at her keenly, blushing as he did so, to discover if she had -caught the purport of his words; then he addressed himself, with an -absence of verbal awkwardness at which he was himself astonished, to -making it more clear. - -“I mean, Isabel, that my brother has won a prize which would make -anything less valuable seem altogether worthless in my eyes. If there -is not another woman in the world like my brother Albert’s wife, then I -shall never marry.” - -“Brother Albert’s wife” looked up at the speaker for an instant--a -glance which seemed to him to be made of smiles, sadness, delight, -reproach and many other unutterable things; then she bent over her work, -and he fancied that the pretty fingers trembled a little between the -stitches. There was a minute of silence, which seemed a half hour. At -last she spoke: - -“Does your brother impress you as being a particularly happy man? I -won’t ask a similar question about his wife.” - -Seth found it necessary to stand up, to do this subject justice. “No!” - he answered. “He doesn’t deserve such a wife. But because one man is -incapable of appreciating a treasure which he has won, it’s no reason -why another man shouldn’t--shouldn’t say to himself ‘I will either marry -that kind of woman or I’ll marry none.’ Now, _is_ it, Isabel?” - -“Perhaps this wife is not altogether the treasure you think she is,” the -young woman answered, with the indirection of her sex. - -Seth found words entirely inadequate to express his dissent. He could -only smile at her, as if the doubt were too preposterous to be even -suggested, and walk up and down in front of her. - -Still intent upon her work, and with her head inclined so that he saw -only a softened angle of face beneath the crown of glowing light-hued -hair, she made answer, speaking more slowly than was usual with her, and -with frequent pauses: - -“I don’t think you know all my story, though it is a part of your -family’s history on both sides. You remember my father--a sporting, -horse-racing man of the world, and you know that my mother died -when I was a baby. You knew me here, one summer, as a visiting cousin, -and we played and quarrelled as children do. Now you know me again as -your brother’s wife--but that is all. You know nothing of the rest--of -how my father, proud about me as he was common in other things, kept me -mewed up among governesses and housekeepers in one part of the house, -while his flash companions rioted in another part; of how my wretched, -chafing girlhood was spent among servants and tutors, with not so much -as a glimpse of the world outside, like any Turkish girl; of how, when -your brother, because he was a cousin, did become the one friend of my -father’s who might be invited into the drawing room, and be introduced -to me, and took a fancy that he would like to marry me, I welcomed even -such a chance for emancipation, and almost cried for joy; and of how -I woke up afterward--no, this is what you do not know.” There was a -considerable pause here. “And I do not know why I tell this to you now, -except that I want you to understand.” - -“I _do_ understand, Isabel.” - -As a matter of fact he did not understand at all, but he thought he did, -which, for present purposes, came to the same thing. - -“And you can realize,” she went on, “how I feel at the thought of -staying here the rest of my life--or, even if we go elsewhere--of -having my life mapped out for me without any regard to my wishes and -aspirations, while you are just pluming your wings for soaring, and can -fly as high as you like with no one to gainsay you. Oh, what it must be -to be a man!” She was looking up at him now, with enthusiasm supplanting -the repining in her eyes. “And you love your work, so, too! You are so -clever and capable! You can be anything you like in your profession--and -it is impossible that I should ever be anything that I want to be.” - -A month ago, when he first came to the farm, this calm assumption of his -ability to carve whatever part he desired out of the journalistic cake -would have fallen upon Seth like cruel and calculated sarcasm. As -it was, he winced a little under its exaggeration, but the substance -pleased him. He squared his shoulders unconsciously as he answered: - -“Well, I am only at the threshold as yet, but if there is any such -thing as doing it, I am going to push my way on. It doesn’t seem so easy -always, when you are right in the thick of the fight, but now, after my -rest here, I feel like an eagle refreshed. I am full of new ideas and -ambitions. I owe a good deal of it to Ansdell, I suppose. You never -saw such a fellow for making everybody believe as he does, and take -an exalted view of things, and long to be doing something great. John -prescribed him to me as a doctor would some medicine, and I took him -more or less under protest, but I feel immensely better already.” - -Isabel took only a languid interest in the inspiring qualities of this -prodigy, and reverted to her own grievance: - -“Yes, you will go and conquer your position. I will stay here and -count those miserable poplars across the road--did you ever see a more -monotonous row?--and work anti-macassars for no one to see, and mope my -heart out. Why, do you know, I haven’t one single correspondent!” - -The full enormity of the situation thus revealed was lost upon Seth, who -had never written more than half-a-dozen letters in his life, and did -not see why people who did not have to write letters should want to do -so. But he said “Indeed!” as compassionately as he could. - -“No, not one. I did think you might have taken pity on me, but for all -the year that you have been away, I have never heard a word from you.” - -“I wrote once or twice to Albert,” Seth answered, tentatively, to occupy -time until he could turn around in his mind the immense suggestion -involved in this complaint. - -“Yes, and I used to hear at the breakfast table--‘Oh, by the way, Aunt -Sabrina, Seth sends his love to you and Isabel--’ only this and nothing -more! What is the good of having a literary man in the family, if he -doesn’t write you long, nice letters?” The vista which had flashed -itself before Seth’s mental vision was filled with dazzling light. He -could not mask the exultation in his voice as he asked: - -“Do you really want me to write to you?” - -“You ought not to have waited to be asked,” she said, smiling again. -“Yes, you shall write me--and long letters too, mind--as often as you -like.” She added after a moment’s pause, in which both had been turning -over the same idea, “You needn’t be afraid of writing too often. The -bundle from the post office always comes to me in the morning, hours -before _he_ gets downstairs. Dana brings it up when he comes back from -the cheese-factory, and it never goes into any one’s hands but mine. -Beside, henceforth I shall watch for it all the more carefully.” - -***** - -Next morning Seth prepared once again to leave the homestead, but this -time with a light heart and a gay demeanor. A month’s absence had served -so to remodel his views of the _Chronicle_, that he already felt himself -to be a personage of importance, in its control. He had been constantly -spoken of in the village as “one of the editors” of that journal, and -found so much pleasure in the designation that he had come to use it in -thinking of himself. He felt himself fired, too, with new enthusiasm and -power by his talks with Ansdell, and he believed, not only that he -saw where his past errors had lain, but that he knew now the trick of -success. Above all, he was to write long letters to Isabel, and receive -answers equally long and nice from her, and--this gave him an especial -sense of delight--it was all to be a secret between them. - -The sun shone brightly, too, after the rain, as if to be in harmony with -his mood. Albert was more affable than he had been before, and after -breakfast, and while the carriage was being brought around, gave him -some cigars for the journey, and a $20 bill for pocket money. These were -pleasant preludes to a little brotherly conversation. - -“I wish you would hurry up and get to have a say on the _Chronicle_ as -soon as you can, Seth,” said the lawyer, holding him by the lappel in -fraternal fashion. “You can help me there, help me very materially. I -am going to be nominated for Congress in this district next year--don’t -whisper about it yet, but I’ve got it solid. I haven’t let any grass -grow under my feet since I moved here, and they can’t beat me in the -Convention. But the _Chronicle_ can do a good deal in the election, and -I look to you for that. I am not going to Washington without knowing my -business after I get there. There is a big thing on hand, big for -me, big for you too. Good-bye now, my boy; I must get upstairs to my -writing. You won’t forget!” - -No, Seth promised, very cordially and heartily, he would not forget. - -When his traps had been piled again into the carriage, and he said -good-bye to his Aunt and to Alvira, no Isabel was to be seen. She had -been at breakfast, but had subsequently disappeared. Seth went into -the living room--no one was there. He opened the door to the stairs and -called out her name--no answer. As he closed the door again, he heard -the faintest tinkle imaginable from a piano key. He had not thought -of the parlor, which was ordinarily unused, but he hastened to it -now. Isabel stood at the instrument, her head bowed; her finger still -pressing the key. She turned with a dear little exclamation, which might -be either of surprise or satisfied expectancy, and held out her hand. - -“So you _wouldn’t_ go, after all, without saying good-bye to me!” - -“Why, Isabel, you know better!” answered Seth, still very downright for -his years. He was actually pained at her having fancied him capable of -such a thing, and while he held her hand, he looked at her with mild -reproach in his eyes. - -“Oh, do I?” she answered, rather inconsequently. Then she sighed, and -bowed her fair head again. “Have you given it a thought at all--how -lonely it will be after you are gone for--for those who are left behind? -I can’t bear to think of it--I came in here because I couldn’t stand and -see the horses at the door, and the preparations for your going. It -is as if the tomb door were swinging back on me again. I am foolish, -I know--” here the words were much hampered in their flow by incipient -sobs--“but if you could realize my position--the awful desolation of it, -the--the--” She broke down altogether, and, with the disengaged hand, -put her handkerchief to her eyes. - -Seth had never seen a young and beautiful woman in tears before, off the -stage, but his racial instincts served him in the emergency. He gently -took her hand down again, holding them both, now, in his. He told her, -again surprising himself by the smoothness and felicity of his words, -how delightful she had made his visit, how deeply he prized her sympathy -and compassionated her lot, and how the pangs of regret at parting were -only solaced by the thought that she had permitted him to write. Then he -kissed her--and hurried out to the carriage. - -The handsome, high-bitted grays made short work of the drive to Thessaly -station, where John was waiting to have a parting word, so that Seth -scarcely had time to collect his thoughts and settle accounts with -himself, before the train started. Three hours later when he got off at -Tecumseh, he had progressed no further in his work of striking a moral -balance than: - -“After all, she is my cousin as well as my sister-in-law.” - - - - -CHAPTER XVII.--AN UPWARD LEAP. - -WHAT man of achievement cannot recall some one short period of his life -which seems to transcend in significance and value all the rest of his -career--when great things for which he had only unconsciously waited -came to him without the asking; when the high court of events rendered -its sudden, unexpected verdict of success, without costs to him who had -never made a plea; when the very stars in their courses seemed to -have privily conspired to fight for him? How swift, inexplicable, even -amazing it all was! And yet how simple too! And when the first flush of -astonishment--half delight, half diffidence--had passed, how natural it -all seemed; how mind and manners and methods all expanded to meet the -new requirements; how calmly and as a matter of course the dignity -was worn, the increment appropriated, the mental retina adapted to the -widened focus! How easily, too, he sloughed off his own conviction that -it was all pure luck, and accepted the world’s kind judgment of deserved -success! Who is it that accuses the world, and rails at its hardness of -heart? What man among us all, in the hour of honest introspection, does -not know that he is rated too high, that he is in debt to the credulity, -the generosity, the dear old human tendency to hero-worship, of his -fellows? - -This is an extract from a letter which the successful Seth Fairchild -wrote a few months ago. Chronologically, it is dated only a couple of -years after the occurrences with which we are now concerned--but to him -an interval of decades doubtless seemed to separate the periods. Perhaps -the modesty of it is a trifle self-conscious, and the rhetoric is of -a flamboyant kind which he will never, apparently, outgrow, but at all -events it shows a disposition to be fair as between himself and history. -The period of great fortune, to which he alludes, is to be glanced at in -this present chapter--to be limned, though only in outline, more clearly -no doubt than he himself could be trusted to do it. For, though a -man have never so fine a talent for self-analysis, you are safe to be -swamped if you follow him a step beyond your own depth. In cold fact, -Seth could no more tell how it was that, within one short year, he rose -from the very humblest post to become Editor of the _Chronicle_, than -Master Tom here can explain why he has outgrown his last summer’s -knickerbockers while his twin brother hasn’t. - -He had been back at his work in Tecumseh only a month when word came to -the office one morning that Mr. Tyler could not come--that he had been -seriously injured in the havoc wrought by a runaway horse. It was too -early for either editor or proprietor to be on the scene, and Arthur -Dent at that hour was the visible head of the staff. He and Seth -had scarcely spoken to each other for months--in fact since that -disagreeable evening encounter--but he walked over now to our young -man’s desk and said: - -“Mr. Fairchild, you would better take the News to-day. Tyler has been -badly hurt.” - -Marvelling much at the favoritism of the selection, for Dent had not -only passed Murtagh over but had waived his own claims of precedence, -Seth, changed desks. He got through the work well enough, it appeared, -but he mistrusted deeply his ability to hold the place. Mr. Samboye -did not seem to approve his promotion, though he said nothing, and -the manner in which Mr. Workman looked at him in his new chair seemed -distinctly critical. - -After the paper had gone to press, and some little routine work against -the next morning’s start was out of the way, he wavered between idling -the remaining two hours away among the exchanges, or attempting an -editorial article for the morrow, such as Mr. Tyler occasionally -contributed. His former experience with Mr. Samboye dismayed him a bit, -but he concluded to try the editorial experiment again. Some things -which Ansdell had said one day on the Silver question remained in -his mind, and he made them the basis of a half-column article. He was -finishing this when the office-boy told him Mr. Workman wished to see -him below. He took his Silver article with him, vaguely hoping, hardly -expecting, to be congratulated on his day’s work, and told to keep the -desk. - -Seth’s impressions of his employer were that he was a hard, peremptory -man, and he searched his face now for some sign of softness in vain. Mr. -Workman motioned him to a seat, and said abruptly: - -“You were on the News desk to-day. Did you take it yourself, or were you -sent there?” - -“Mr. Dent told me to take it, sir.” - -“Why didn’t he take it himself, or put Murtagh on?” - -Seth had it in mind to explain that Murtagh did not come down early -enough, but he remembered how strenuous the rules were in the matter of -matutinal punctuality, and concluded to say simply that he didn’t know. -Mr. Workman looked at him for a moment, made some arabesque figures with -his pencil on the edge of the blotter, looked at him again, and then -said, in a milder tone than Seth had supposed his voice capable of: - -“I may as well be candid with you. I have been very much disappointed -in you so far. You haven’t panned out at all as your brother led me to -expect you would.” - -This was a knock-down blow. Poor Seth could only turn his copy about in -his hands and stammer: “I am very sorry. In what way have I failed?” - -“It would be hard to tell exactly in what way. I should say it was in a -general failure to be the sort of young man I thought you were going to -be. You have shown no inclination, for example, to write anything--and -yet your brother praised you up to the skies as a writer.” - -“But what was the good? I did write a long paragraph when I first came -here, and handed it in to Mr. Samboye, and he tore it up before my eyes! -That would be enough to discourage anybody!” - -“Oh, he did that with you too, did he?” Mr. Workman made more arabesques -on his blotter, shading them with great neatness. - -Seth thought this was a favorable opportunity to get in his Silver -article, and handed it to the proprietor with a word of explanation. Mr. -Workman read it over carefully and laid it aside without a syllable of -comment. There was nothing in his face to show whether he liked it or -not. He surrounded all his penciled figures with a wavy border, and said -again: - -“Then there are your associations. Before ever you came I was -discouraged at the amount of money and time and health my young men were -squandering in saloons. It had become a scandal to the town. I get a -young man in from the country, whose habits are vouched for as perfect, -with an idea that he will influence the rest, and lo and behold! he -becomes the boss guzzler of the lot!” - -“There is a good deal of justice in that, Mr. Workman--or there was. But -since I’ve been back this time it has been changed. I have moved into -another boarding house where I have a room to myself, and I have read at -home almost every evening when I was not with Mr. Ansdell. I think I see -the folly of that old way, as clearly as any one can.” - -“Ansdell and I had a long talk about you the other day. It was he who -gave me my first idea that there was anything in you. He is something of -a crank on certain subjects, but he knows men like a book. I have been -saying to myself that if he liked you there must be more in you than I -had discovered. If I am right in this, now is your time to show it. It -is a toss up, the doctors say this afternoon, whether poor Tyler lives -or dies. In any case he won’t be about in months. You can keep on at the -desk for a while. We’ll see how you make it go.” - -The next afternoon, when the inky boy brought up the damp first copies -from the clanging, roaring region of the press, Seth was transfixed -with bewilderment at seeing his article in the position of honor on the -editorial page. While he still stared at it, amazed and troubled, Mr. -Samboye with an angry snort swung around in his chair to face him: - -“Is this Silver thing yours?” - -“Yes.” - -“And it is your conception of the ethics of journalism, is it, to sneak -leaders into the composing, room without authority?” - -“I sneaked nothing in! I gave the copy to Mr. Workman last night. I am -as much surprised to see it the leader as you are.” - -Mr. Samboye rose abruptly, and strode through the room to the stairs. -They were ricketty at best and they trembled, the whole floor trembled, -under his wrathful and ponderous tread. - -The fat-armed foreman, who was in on his eternal quest for copy, had -heard this dialogue. He grinned as the Editor slammed the door below, -and chuckled out “He’ll get his comb cut now. The boss ordered your -thing to be the leader himself.” - -Mr. Samboye presently returned with his broad face glowing crimson, -and seated himself at his work again in gloomy silence. He made more -erasures than usual, and soon gave it up altogether, taking his hat and -stick with an impatient gesture, and stamping his way out. - -Time went on. The luckless Mr. Tyler died, and Seth became confirmed in -his place. He had developed more strongly, perhaps, than any other -one trait, the capacity for system, and he was able to so remodel and -expedite the routine work of the News desk that he had a good deal of -time for editorial writing. His matter was never again given the place -of honor, but it came to be and important and regular feature of the -page. - -He worked hard on the paper--and almost equally hard, by spells, at home -evenings. He did drop in at Bismarck’s or some like place, for a few -moments now and then, but he was careful to avoid games, or any further -intimacy with habitués. Had it not been for Ansdell and Dent, this -part of his new regimen would have been well nigh impossible, for the -gregarious instinct was strong in him--as it is in any young man worth -his salt--and associations of some sort were as necessary as food -to him. He had discovered, long before this, that Dent was an old -acquaintance of Ansdell’s, and that he, in fact, had told the latter -about Seth and his profitless courses, and interested the lawyer in his -case. - -He had learned, too, that this pale “Young Man Christian” as Watts had -called him derisively, had from the first been well-disposed toward -him, and, when the emergency of Tyler’s absence came up, had waived -alike his own claims to preferment and his justifiable personal pique, -and thrust Seth forward into the place because he felt that he needed -some such incentive to make a man of himself. This was very high -conduct, and Seth tried hard to like Dent a great deal in return. He -never quite succeeded. They were too dissimilar in temperament to ever -become close friends. Seth explained it to himself by saying that Dent -was too cold and non-emotional. But Dent himself never seemed conscious -of anything lacking in their relations, and they were certainly cordial -and companionable enough when they met, generally two evenings a week, -at Mr. Ansdell’s chambers. - -Nothing less like the bachelor’s den dear to tradition can be imagined. -There were no pipes, for the lawyer smoked cigars and nothing else; -there was no litter of papers, opened books, pamphlets, scraps and -the like, for he was the soul of order; no tumbled clothes, odd boots, -overflowing trunks, etc., for he was the pink of neatness. He used -to like to describe himself in the words with which Evelyn paints his -father, as “of a thriving, neat, silent, methodical genius,” but it was -always with a twinkling eye, for surely no man was ever less silent. He -was a born talker--nervous, eager, fluent, with a delicate sense of the -sound and shading of words, a keen appreciation of all picturesque -and salient points, a rare delight in real humor, and, above all, with -tremendous capabilities of earnestness. Conceive such a man, if you -can--for there will never be another like him--and then endow him in -your mind with a marvelous accumulation of knowledge, with convictions -upon every conceivable subject, and with nothing short of a passion for -enforcing these upon those of whom he was fond--and some idea of the -perfect ascendancy he gained over Seth will have been obtained. - -Mr. Ansdell was neither impeccable nor omniscient. There was much in -both his theories and his practice which would not commend itself to the -moral statutes of the age; he attempted no defense, being incredulous -as to the right of criticism upon personal predilections. But he had a -flaming wrath, a consuming, intolerant contempt, for men who were unable -to distinguish between private tastes and public duty. On this subject -of public duty he was so strenuous, so deeply earnest, that often there -seemed but a microscopic line between his attitude and fanaticism. But -this zeal had its magnificent uses. Often it swayed despite themselves -the politicians of his party who had least in common with him, and who -disliked him and vaunted their conventional superiority to him even -while they were being swept along toward nobler purposes than their own -small souls could ever have conceived, in the current of feeling which -his devotion had created. - -He took complete possession of Seth’s mind, and he worked wonders -upon it. There is neither room here, nor power, to analyze these -achievements. The young man, heretofore through circumstances slow and -mechanical, revealed under the inspiration of this contact his true -temperament. He became as receptive as a sensitized plate in the camera. -He seemed to take in facts, theories, emotions, prejudices, beliefs, -through the very pores of his skin. He found himself hating one line of -public action, and all its votaries, vividly; he found himself thrilling -with violent enthusiasm for another line, and its exponents--such an -enthusiasm as exiled men tremble under when they hear the national air -of their native land. - -He was not always right. Very often indeed he did injustice, in his -mind, and in the types as well, to really well-meaning men who after -their lights were just as patriotic as he was. He condemned with undue -ferocity where he could not unreservedly praise, and, like most men of -three-and-twenty who sit on the tripod of judgment upon their fellow -mortals, he made many mistakes. But his mental and moral advance, -despite these limitations, was tremendously swift, and, in the main, -substantial. No man ever made the world budge an inch ahead who had not -well developed the capacity for indignation at weak and wrong things. -This indignant faculty grew and swelled in Seth’s nature like a strong -vine, spreading upon the tree of his admiration for his ideals. - -He had a fair income now--twenty dollars a week--and he lived very well, -having a room in a good house, and taking his meals down town. This -was a condition of life which had always commended itself to his -imagination, and he revelled now in realising it. Of course he saved -no money. Through Ansdell and others he had made the acquaintance of a -number of Tecumseh men of position, and he had been asked a little to -their houses, but he had not gone more than once. This single experience -did not dismay or humiliate him; he flattered himself that he came out -of it with credit. But it did not interest him; it was wofully difficult -to talk to the women he met--to know what to say to them. It was the -easier to come back from this one excursion to his old Bohemian bachelor -notions, and justify them to himself. - -The correspondence with Isabel had not been altogether so attractive as -he had anticipated. It had its extremely pleasant side, of course, but -there were drawbacks. She wrote well, but then most of her writing was -about herself, which grew wearisome after a time. It was difficult too, -to find time to answer her letters always when the philandering mood was -upon him, and in this matter he found himself curiously the creature of -his moods. The routine of daily newspaper toil had rendered him largely -independent of them in his ordinary work. He wrote about as well one day -as another. But there were seasons when he could not write to Isabel -at all. Then he would say to himself that the need of doing so was -a nuisance, and in this frame of mind he would generally end by -reproaching himself for even entertaining the idea of a mild flirtation -with his brother’s wife. Not that there was anything wrong in it, of -course; he was quite clear on this point; but it was so useless, such a -gratuitous outlay of time and talent! - -But then next day, perhaps, a good dinner, or a chance glimpse of fresh -romance in the exchanges, or some affecting play at the theatre of an -evening, would bring back all the glamour of her pretty, tender face, -the magic of her eyes, the perfume of her tawny hair. And then he could -write, and did write, often with a force of sweet rhetoric, a moving -quality of caressing ardor, which it is difficult to distinguish from -love making. - -To him these letters did not mean that at all; they were really abstract -reflections of the sentimental side of his nature, which might have been -evoked by almost any likable, intelligent woman. - -But to the wife on the farm they seemed deeply, deliciously, personal. - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII.--BOLTING THE TICKET. - - -It was the year of a great political revival--coming none too soon. - -It is a part of the history of human progress that grand moral -movements, once they have fulfilled their immediate purpose, swing -backward to the establishment of some new abuse. The net gain is, -no doubt, century by century, continuous. But to those who look for -episodic interest rather than epochal meaning the march of the race must -often seem crab like--as when a Henry VIII utilizes a reforming -revolt to crush and plunder a vast system of benefaction, and create -a hard-fisted, commercial plutocracy with one hand, while calling into -existence with the other a permanent class of starving poor; or when a -Bonaparte makes the waning impetus of a democratic uprising serve his -imperial ambition, and converts the legions of the Republic into the -guards of a Caesar. - -So, in our own time, in our own country, craft and greed had climbed to -the control of a great organization, baptized in the name of Freedom -and excited still with the thoughts of its tremendous achievements, and -diverted its forces to the service of base ends. - -This ignoble mastery had not gone unchallenged. More than one revolt -against it had given promise, for a little, of success. But each in its -failure had but repeated the familiar experience of yeomanry against -trained troops, of sporadic, scattering popular impulses against the -cool, consecutive plans of organized power. But it is the fate of -despotisms, whether of a man or of a machine, to by excesses sap their -own foundations. There came a time when the political usurpers who, -through the listlessness of some citizens, the ancient prejudices of -others, the mean lust for profit and place of still a third class, had -attained power, went just a step too far. - -As this is a romance, and not a political history, it is permitted to -avoid both dates and any details which might seem to fix a particular -occurrence, and ask the reader to conceive that the crisis grew out of -the manner in which these politicians obtained control of an imaginary -but important Convention--that they bribed delegates, that they -forged telegrams to secure a majority for themselves on the organizing -committee, and that they made drunk the poor tool they had selected for -Chairman and locked him in his hotel room that he might not escape them. -It strains credulity to assume all this, I know, but its acceptance is -essential to the story. Fortunately it is less difficult to credit the -corollary--that the decent people of the State, led by an honest press, -rose _en masse_ and pulverized this machine at the following election. - -It was at the outset of this crisis that Seth became Editor of the -Tecumseh _Chronicle_. The young man had been, it need scarcely be said, -deeply interested in the events which led up to it, and when the first -of the party papers came out frankly, the morning after the Convention, -refusing to support its nominations, he was in a tremor of delight. He -scarcely dared hope that the _Chronicle_ would follow their lead, but -still he did hope. Mr. Samboye remained downstairs in consultation -with Mr. Workman longer than usual on that eventful forenoon. They were -settling the policy of the paper, of course, and the young news editor, -perfunctorily weeding out copy for the “first side,” was conscious all -the while of being eagerly anxious to know what this policy was to be. - -Mr. Samboye presently came up, took his seat without the ordinary -prelude of conversation, and began writing. He finished his article, -still without a word to any one, and took it down to Mr. Workman. He was -absent but a few moments. On his return Seth asked him: - -“Do we bolt the ticket?” - -Before he could answer, a telegraph boy came running up the stairs (this -one actually did run) with a dispatch for Mr. Samboye. The editor opened -and read it in a puzzled way at first, then more carefully and with -a light of comprehension on his broad face. He folded the telegram up -carefully, put it into his inner vest pocket and said to Seth: - -“No, we occupy a picturesque position on the top rail of the fence.” - -The editor did not seem quite himself that day. He stayed about the -editorial room instead of going out to lunch, until the leader proof was -ready, and then he asked to read it himself, instead of letting it go in -the ordinary course to the proof-reader. He made a good many corrections -on it, which was unusual for him. Finally, about half-an-hour before the -paper went to press, he took his departure, saying briefly to Seth that -he would not return that day. - -Two hours later the office boy summoned Seth to the counting-room below. -Mr. Workman sat alone at his desk, with the day’s _Chronicle_ spread out -before him, and with the original proof-sheet of the leader in his hand. -He motioned Seth to close the doors, and to take a seat close beside -him. - -“You have read this leader?” he asked, after a moment’s silence. - -“Yes.” - -“What do you think of it?” - -“I shouldn’t like to say all that I think of it.” - -“Neither should I,” replied Mr. Workman with an iron-clad smile. He -was very pale, and Seth scented a storm in the manner in which the grim -smile faded from his face after an instant of hovering, as a gleam of -wintry sunshine passes off the snow. “There’s a story--a very curious -story--back of this leader. I only know part of it; perhaps you can help -me to get at the rest.” - -Not knowing what to say, Seth remained silent. The proprietor continued: -“When this leader left my hands this morning, it bolted the ticket, out -and out. There was no mistake about it. It was squarefooted. As it is -now, it’s neither fish, flesh nor fowl. It condemns the Convention and -the frauds, but it practically says that the result must be accepted. -The worst of it is I didn’t see the paper until the edition had been -worked off. The alterations in the proof here, which make all the -difference between white and black, are in Samboye’s hand. Did he say -anything to you about it? Was anybody up in the editorial room to see -him?” - -“No one came up to see him; he said nothing to me except that we were on -the fence. That disgusted me so much that I asked nothing further.” - -“Did he say that when he came up from here--or later, after he had gone -over the proof?” - -“He said it when--or no, hold on--he received a dispatch just before;” - and Seth recounted the episode of the telegram. - -Mr. Workman was much impressed with this. He covered his blotter thick -with scrolls and geometrical figures while he pondered it. At last he -spoke. - -“You don’t know where the telegram came from?--no, of course not. I -think I know about where, and I think I can guess about what it said. It -said that, in this matter of bolting tickets, one day’s delay might make -an immense amount of difference, and that it would be worth his while -to keep the _Chronicle_ non-committal in its first issue by hook or -by crook. Take my word for it, that is what it said in substance. The -fellows who sent it were scared about the _Chronicle_. They knew what an -effect its course would have on the weeklies, most of which go to press -to-morrow. They couldn’t spend money better than in having us accept -the ticket, and not only commit ourselves but the country editors--and -_they’ve bought Samboye!_” - -There was a long silence. The two men looked at each other. Finally -Workman said: - -“The worst feature of it is, there is no way of getting at the thing--of -proving it. I suppose I could get an order compelling the Company to -produce the telegram, but I am not sure, and then it would be a big -scandal and a big expense.” He lapsed into pencil work again and sighed. - -“But is Samboye that kind of man?” asked Seth. “Oh yes, I have no -illusions on that score. I very nearly caught him in a thing of this -sort--on a smaller scale, of course--three years ago.” - -“But why then----” - -“Why have I kept him? You were going to ask. Well, he is a good man in -his way. He is an immensely clever writer, if you don’t care much for -solid argument, and do care for decorative stuff, with a good deal of -fun, and epigram, and big words. People used to talk about his articles. -I suppose hundreds of people buy the _Chronicle_ just to read them. -Well, we will have to lose those people, and all the others who will -quarrel with us for bolting the ticket. For she’s going to be bolted! -So you better go to bed early to-night, and eat raw meat for breakfast, -for we want a leader to-morrow that will make their hair curl.” - -“Do you mean----” began Seth in a flutter of strange excitement. - -“Yes, you will have to take hold. Samboye shall never show his face in -that room again. That’s settled! I may get somebody else, later--we’ll -see. But you can carry it along for a time, can’t you?” - -“I’ll try--but I am afraid----” - -“You needn’t be afraid. In a campaign you simply want straightforward, -red-hot, to-the-point writing. It is the rest of the year, when one must -write general matter, that pulls on a man. Besides, Ansdell will help -you out, if you need him. Oh, yes, and that reminds me--your brother -Albert didn’t show to very good advantage in that Convention. He might -easily have made a better beginning in politics than that. From all -accounts he had the Dearborn County delegates in his pocket, and, -although these other scandals have diverted attention from it, I think -the way they ratted over was about the worst thing in the whole affair.” - -“It wasn’t nice, for a fact,” said Seth. - -“I haven’t had it mentioned in the paper, mostly on your account. But I -am not so clear about keeping silent next week, when the Congressional -Convention comes up. Your brother, I suppose, has Dearborn County solid -for his own candidacy. But here in Adams County the delegates are for -Ansdell--and of course he is our sort of man. I don’t think much of a -party paper interfering before the nomination is made, but this may be -a case where it will be necessary--especially if Abe Beekman, up in Jay -County, tries any of his funny work. However, it will be time enough -to cross that bridge when we get to it. Meanwhile, say not a word to -anybody, in the office or out of it, about what has happened. Just go -ahead with the work, and pay attention to no one.” - -There was no scandal. Mr. Samboye took his punishment quietly, and left -Tecumseh shortly afterward, ostensibly on a long vacation. There was -some little gossip, but no whisper of the actual facts in the case. - -Seth surprised himself by the excellence and evenness of his work in the -new position. Probably he will never do better or stronger writing than -he did in this his first campaign. For one thing, it is doubtful if any -political contest can ever again appeal to his enthusiasm, and stir all -his emotions to the glowing point of ardency, as this one did. In one -sense his new position was embarrassing, for a number of the old time -readers of the _Chronicle_ refused to support it now against their -party, and some of them said very disagreeable things about the -youngster rattling about in Samboye’s shoes. But there was another -class, a larger class it seemed to him, who shared his enthusiasm, and, -in their excited admiration for the course of the paper, heaped praises -upon him even beyond his deserts. So he worked on, writing almost the -entire page daily, coming down early in the morning and staying long -after the paper was out, and giving scarcely a thought to the outside -world. - -He had barely seen Ansdell since his promotion. He felt an even -greater sense of loss in this than he would have done under ordinary -circumstances, for the tremendous mental outpouring to which he was -daily subjected made him almost famished, at times, for food in the form -of conversation with this man who, of all others, most sympathized with -him. - -But there was a difficulty in the way--of which Seth’s sensitiveness -made, no doubt, a great deal too much. The fight for the Congressional -nomination in the district was attracting attention all over the State, -and, as evil luck would have it, Seth’s brother was pitted against -Seth’s dearest friend. It was no ordinary contest, in which a man could -with ease maintain a friendly neutrality. Everywhere the struggle in the -Thirty-sixth District was regarded as a sample conflict, as embodying in -itself all the features of the larger issue between the machine and the -people. Albert Fairchild had identified himself so thoroughly with the -party organization, and had played so prominent a part in the scandals -which provoked the revolt, that his cause was distinctly that of the -politicians; while Ansdell was just as distinctively the representative -of the independent and rebellious element. In no other district of the -State were the lines so clearly drawn. - -It was a fortnight or so after Seth’s assumption of the editorship that -the District Convention was held--at the little village of Tyre, some -dozen miles from Thessaly, up in Jay County. The _Chronicle_ had taken -no part in the contest. No one doubted that its sympathies were with -Ansdell, but still it had not said so. The night before the Convention -Mr. Workman advised Seth to write to his brother, warning him that if he -were nominated the _Chronicle_ could not support him. - -“So long as we are in the bolting business, we might as well be hanged -for a sheep as a lamb,” said the proprietor. - -It was not a pleasant task, but Seth performed it as graciously as he -could. - -There was no news from Tyre next day save that Mr. Beekman of Jay was -also a candidate, and that the Convention was in a deadlock. The -second day, along with the news announcement that the Convention, after -seventy-odd fruitless ballots, had adjourned for a week, came a despatch -from Albert begging Seth to visit the farm for a couple of days, -and talk the thing over, before the _Chronicle_ took action. Upon -consultation with Mr. Workman Seth replied that this was impossible, -owing to the necessities of his work. - -Then there came a letter from Albert, brief, but very much to the point. - -“_DEAR Brother: I am sorry if your work must suffer by your coming to -me, but I think I have a claim upon you superior to even that of the -_Chronicle_. If I have not, I ought to have. I decline to believe that, -if you represent the matter to him as really imperative, my former -friend, Mr. Workman, will place any obstacles in your way. But if he -does I still insist that your choice between him and me must be a final -one. I do not write a word to you about gratitude. I simply say, be here -at the farm on Sunday--or never again._ - -“_Albert_.” - -After this there was nothing to do but for Seth to telegraph that he -would come. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX.--THE WELCOME. - -When Seth walked over from the Thessaly station, Sunday forenoon, to -the farm, he was not, it may be imagined, in a placid frame of mind. -There lay before him an interview with his brother which could not, -in the nature of things, be pleasant, and which might very easily be -distinctly unpleasant. It was his duty to say sundry things to Albert -which were not in themselves nice, and if Albert was still in the mood -shown forth by his peremptory letter, these remarks would very likely -produce a scene. Seth was in no sense afraid of his brother, nor had the -thrifty thought that this brother was a rich, childless man, to offend -whom would be a gratuitous economic blunder, ever entered his head. The -youngster had no faculty whatever for financial prudence. But he was -grateful--almost ridiculously grateful--by nature. The trait is not a -rare one, even in these days when a new civilization has substituted for -individual patronage and beneficence the thanks-to-nobody trade-unionism -of universal conceit and rivalry, but it was abnormally developed in the -youngest of the Fairchilds. - -He said to himself, as he crossed the fields toward the white and red -land-mark of house and barns on the side hill, that he owed everything -in the world to this brother. Whatever there might be in his public -attitude to condemn, however pernicious his politics might be, still it -was his fraternal feeling and generosity which had created the vast -gulf between Seth the plow-yokel and Seth the editor. These reflections -brought no comfort to the young man. - -Some perverse agency whispered to him, as he strode along over the -stubble, that after all he had never really liked Albert; and this -liberality of his, too, might it not be a mere cheap mess of pottage, -thrown to Seth to console him for the loss of his rights in the farm? -John had always been incredulous as to Albert’s true goodness in this -matter; might there not be something in these suspicions? Seth tried -manfully to combat these ungenerous doubts, but they forced themselves -upon his mind. - -Then there was Albert’s treatment of his wife! Seth had never been clear -as to the exact nature of Isabel’s grievance against her husband. No -specific allegation of cruelty or neglect, much less of infidelity, had -ever been laid by her at Albert’s door in his brother’s hearing. Indeed, -so far as Seth’s observation went, Albert had always appeared to be a -decent enough sort of husband, complaisant even if somewhat indifferent, -and acquiescent to the verge of weakness, in her whims. He seemed to -refuse her nothing, in the matter of having her own way, and if he most -often broke the ruling conjugal dumbness by satirical comments on her -actions and opinions, he at least never seriously attempted to fetter -either. This sounded like the description of a tolerable husband, -as husbands go. But up against it was to be set Isabel’s plaintive, -pitiful, persistent assertion of unhappiness with him. And clearly -she ought to know what her husband was like a good deal better than an -outsider could. - -So the arguments did battle in Seth’s mind, as he climbed the last -fence, and felt his feet on ancestral soil. He had now only to cross a -short stretch of pasture land to be at his journey’s end. - -Perfect silence rested on the farm. The fat cows lay lazily about him, -comfortably chewing the cud of sweet aftermath; the cluster of bright, -neat buildings fell into picturesque lines of composition before him, in -the soft, hazy sunshine of Indian summer. The background of scarlet and -ochre and deep purple-browns in the woods beyond, of warm mauve hills -and pale, fluffy clouds above; the shaggy old horse, standing in -tranquil bliss, with his head over the fence; the aged shepherd-dog -stretched asleep on the kitchen door-stone in the sunny distance--all -brought to him a sense of content and beauty which warmed his heart and -calmed his thoughts. The spell of the peaceful, restful scene soothed -him. Then, as by magic, the whole picture seemed to take on the charm of -Isabel’s presence. “I am to see her!” he said aloud, almost exultantly. - -There had been no special pleasure in this prospect, a few hours before. -Indeed, it had been months since he had been conscious of a genuine -desire to meet his sister-in-law. At times of late it had even seemed -to him that a meeting would be a source of embarrassment, just as the -necessity of keeping up the clandestine correspondence presented itself -often to him in the light of a bore. - -But now--yes! she was walking forth swiftly to meet him--coming over -the grass with a gliding haste which had a wealth of welcome in every -motion. The very genius of the mellow, warm-hearted season she seemed -to his eyes as she advanced, clad in some soft, indefinite stuff, -loose-flowing, and that in tint under the red noon sun could be the -shadow on golden grain, or the light on dark puce grapes, or the dim, -violet haze over the distant valley. She was near him now, beaming with -unaffected delight, reaching out her hands in greeting--and his heart -went to meet her. - -“Oh, Seth! How good of you to come!” - -She had almost thrown herself into his arms, and had stood upon tiptoe -to be kissed. He held himself back from the embrace, but he did kiss -her, and he swung her hands now in his, looking into her glowing eyes -with tender, responsive intentness, and smiling his joy. This reception -did make him very happy, but he had also a great uneasiness lest some of -the folks should be observing them from the windows of the house. - -She divined his thoughts, and said, gayly: “They are all at church!” - -“What? Albert too?” Seth knew that his brother was not of a religious -turn; but he swiftly bethought himself, and added “Oh, I forgot that -election is coming on.” - -“No,” she chirruped, springing along by his side, her arm tight in his, -her walk reflecting exultantly her emotion, “he is in New York. He will -be back to-morrow. He has telegraphed me to have you wait.” She dropped -into a mock-serious tone: “That is, of course, if you would _like_ to -wait?” She looked up archly: “Do you much mind waiting?” - -“Do I _mind!_” He could only look his delight. His voice trembled. - -She made a tiny skip, and lifted her face to him again, radiant with -happiness. “Do you know,” she said, “I could run and jump like any -little child, I am so wild with joy! It seems such an age since we were -together last! Only letters--but they were very nice, though. You dear -boy, who taught you to write such pretty letters--?” - -He pressed her arm closer in his. “Who taught me everything that is -sweet?” he whispered. It was all very delicious, but still it troubled -him. - -They entered the house, and he excused himself while he took his -hand-bag up to his old room, and made his toilet after the long hot -walk. As he occupied himself thus, and brushed his novel beard, his -thoughts were much perturbed. It was very far from his ideas to make -love to his brother’s wife. This bald statement of the situation which -framed itself now in his mind, almost for the first time, repelled and -alarmed him. Yet it seemed to sum up the state of affairs fairly. If -there was not lovemaking in every feature of that meeting out on the -lawn, then his conceptions of the tender passion were all at fault. - -“By Jove, it mustn’t come to that!” he said to himself. “A fellow ought -to be able to be fond of his sister-in-law, and be pleasant to her, and -sympathize with her and all that, without going beyond the bounds, and -making a scoundrel of himself.” - -And it was with a deep resolution to be careful, and watch all his -words, that he descended the stairs. He had taken out of his valise two -front pages of a Sunday newspaper, containing “Jeff Brigg’s Love Story,” - which he had saved a while before for Isabel, and he gave them now to -her. - -“Here is something I cut out for you, Isabel; it is a very pretty story, -and I know you will like it.” - -“Oh, how sweet of you! How well you know just what will please me most -of all! And you shall read it to me! The other stories you have sent -me were only moderately nice, because I had to read them by myself, but -this--oh! this will be enchanting!” - -She arranged an easy chair--a low, capacious chair with light blue the -dominant color in its covering--close beside the window in the parlor -which overlooked the poplars, and seated herself in it. Seth brought a -hassock for her feet, and then put his own chair along side, where he -could see her, and still get a good light on the print. It was not easy -for him to begin the reading, so great was the fascination of looking -at his companion. The sunlight flared upon the white curtains above her, -and its reflections glowed back again from her crown of golden braids, -luminous against the azure of the chair, and tipped with soft radiance -her rounded profile, in cameo-relief against the deep olive of the -poplars. Isabel was an artist. - -He made a beginning at last, and read until the democrat-wagon drove up -in the yard, with its load of church-goers. She made a little mouth at -the interruption. - -“I suppose Sabrina will come in now, and dinner will be ready soon. But -afterwards we can be quiet again, for she always reads the Bible in her -own room Sunday afternoons.” - -All through the cold dinner, despite the necessity of answering Aunt -Sabrina’s and Milton’s remarks, Seth found his mental vision fixed on -that beautiful profile against the leafy background; especially sweet -was the portrait when the eyes were closed, and the lovely fullness -above the lids, as in the face of a Madonna, was revealed in the -wavering light. - -The story was not to be finished that afternoon, for Elhanan Pratt -and his daughter dropped in almost before the meal was finished, and a -little later Annie Fairchild came. There was not even much consolation -in the pretty grimaces expressive of discontent which Isabel from time -to time, when the visitors were not looking, confided to Seth. It was a -very dull afternoon. - -The venerable Mr. Pratt, a weazen, verbose little “gentleman-farmer,” - who wore a huge black satin stock over his high flaring collar opening -behind, and remained clean-shaven, in pious memory of Henry Clay and the -coon campaign, sat on the edge of his chair and droned commonplaces by -the hour. He evidently had an axe to grind by his visit, and he was much -disappointed by Albert’s absence. But if he could not see “the coming -Congressman,” as he called him once or twice, and sound that new -political magnate as to his own renomination for the Assembly, he could -at least enjoy the monopoly of a long conversation with the Editor of -the Tecumseh _Chronicle_, and impress that young man with the breadth -and value of his views. So Seth was forced to spend three dreary hours, -answering as briefly as might be, listening wearily, and stealing stray -glances at the three young women, who made a brighter group on the other -side of the parlor stove. Once or twice he tried tentatively to engraft -himself upon their conversation, and choke old Elhanan off, but the -solemn little bore relentlessly brought him back to the dry bones of -politics. Thus it happened that he had barely had an opportunity of -exchanging a word with his cousin Annie, when she stood up and said, “I -must be going.” - -He walked over to her now, and put his hand in a brotherly way on her -shoulder, as he helped her on with her cloak. - -“I’ve scarcely had a word with you, Annie,” he said, smiling. “How -is your grandmother? I needn’t ask how _you_ are. You grow prettier -everyday. And how do you get on with your school?”--for the girl was now -teaching in the district school house over the hill. - -She answered, “Oh, grandmother is about the same; perhaps a little -weaker, but as bright mentally as ever. You are looking well, Seth, and -quite the man now. Your beard becomes you--doesn’t it, Isabel? We are so -sorry you can’t come to-morrow night. We see so little of you since you -have become a city man.” - -“Sorry that I can’t come!” repeated Seth after her. - -“Come where?” Isabel interposed with a ready explanation. “There is to -be a husking over at Crump’s to-morrow evening--the first of the season. -There will be a big party of young people, and Crump sent over by -Annie an invitation for us. But I have explained that you are here on -business, which may very likely occupy you to-morrow evening, and that -in any case you would have to write your leaders for the next day’s -paper. We are ever so sorry, Annie,” she added, turning to the -school-teacher now, “but you know this is a terribly busy time with -Seth, and we mustn’t think of letting our little country sociables -interfere with his work. Some time, soon, he will come for a real -vacation, instead of a flying business trip, and then we can monopolize -him--and we will, too, won’t we, Annie?” - -Annie smiled, a little faintly, as if her heart were not altogether in -it, and replied, “Yes, to be sure we will.” She added, to Seth, “I won’t -say goodbye. I suppose I shall see you again.” - -He assented, and went to the door with her, and stood on the steps -watching her as she walked away in the autumn dusk. Decidedly she _was_ -a pretty girl! - -The Pratts, father and daughter, consented upon the shadowiest -suggestion of an invitation to stay and partake of the picked-up Sunday -tea, and that involved their spending the evening. Aunt Sabrina came in, -and the talk was dreary and general. So “Jeff Briggs” and his amatory -affairs went over to the morrow. - -In the morning Seth walked over to Thessaly and saw John. The interview -depressed him. John had had some idea of following the _Chronicle’s_ -lead, and bolting the State ticket, but the county politicians had -bullied him out of the thing by threatening the destruction of the -job-printing business connected with the _Banner of Liberty_, and the -boycotting of the paper itself. All his inclinations, too, were toward -Ansdell in the Congressional race; but Albert had loaned him some money, -and, beside, he couldn’t see his way clear to disregarding, openly at -least, the fraternal tie. He was consequently in a savage mood. - -“I’m thinking of taking out the head-line of the paper this week,” - he growled, with a sardonic humor, “and putting in instead a cut of a -runaway slave, with a bundle over his shoulder, which is in the job-room -here, left over from the days when there was slavery in New York State, -and masters used to advertise in the old paper for fugitives. ‘_Banner -of Liberty_ ’ indeed! By heaven, it ought to be ‘_Banner of Bondage!_” - -There was no comfort or profit in discussing the situation, either -general or local, with John. He neither knew nor cared, he swore, what -Albert’s chances were to dissolve the deadlock on the morrow. He might -or he mightn’t; it was all one to him, and apparently to the party, who -were the----! - -Seth left John to his bad temper and language, and returned to the farm -in the afternoon. A telegram from Albert awaited him. - -_“New York, Oct. 19.--If possible conclude business, home to-night, at -latest to-morrow morning. Wait for me at all hazards.--Albert.”_ - -To provide against a possible delay over Tuesday, Seth devoted the -afternoon, and the earlier part of the evening, to writing matter for -his paper, which Dana was to convey to Thessaly for the early morning -train, when he went to the cheese-factory. If Albert was coming at all -that night, he would arrive about eight. - -Nine o’clock came. Aunt Sabrina, after sitting in stem silence by the -living-room stove for an hour or two, looking at the wall-paper as her -brother Lemuel had been won’t to do, went up to bed with a frigid “good -night.” The farm people had all retired with the chickens, long before. - -Scarcely raising his eyes from his writing, Seth remarked: - -“How Aunt Sabrina has failed since I left the farm! She grows ever so -much like father. Poor old woman, she was so eager to have Albert come -here, so elated with the idea that the family was to be restored to -social and political dignity again--and now the apples seem to be all -dead-sea fruit to her. I can’t see that she takes the slightest interest -in Albert’s campaign. Odd, isn’t it?” - -Isabel was sitting near the stove, around the corner of the table from -him. The reddish radiance reflected down from the shaded lamp fell upon -her rounded chin and her smooth white neck, dainty in tint as the ruffle -in which it lost itself. Above this lace at the back, as she bent over -her embroidery, some stray curling wisps of hair gleamed like gold in -the light. She replied: - -“It isn’t that at all. She’s interested enough in the Congress idea, or -would be if she hadn’t something else on her mind. The prying old piece -found out, by quizzing Dana, about our writing to each other. She -has got it into her ridiculous old head, I feel sure, that there is -something between us. Didn’t you notice the way she eyed us at the -dinner table yesterday?” - -Seth did not answer. His article was unfinished, but he suddenly found -himself in doubt whether it was not already long enough. He reflected, -or tried to reflect, for a moment, while the soft tones of her voice -murmured in his ears, then added a sentence which might serve as a -conclusion, and scrawled a dash underneath. - -“There! I’m through!” he said, and looked up. - -Her eyes were fixed upon his face. They were in the shadow of the tinted -lamp-shade, but they had a light of their own--a languorous, alluring -glow. He had never looked into such eyes before; they fascinated him, -and he knew, in a delicious trembling, that his own were answering them -in kind. - -“You can read to me now,” she said, the rapt, wistful gaze melting into -a smile. “He will not come to-night.” - -Seth took the story, as she gave it to him from her workbox, and -glanced over it to pick up the thread of the narrative where it had been -dropped. As he was still thus engaged, he felt her hand laid upon his, -and, as their eyes met again, heard her low, soft voice murmur: - -“Do you know why I declined our invitation for the husking?” - -There was a silence, which the young man felt that his face made full of -acquiescent meaning. - -She answered her own question: “I wanted you here, all for myself.” - -Seth lost himself in an uplifting, floating sensation of ethereal -beatitude. Her hand was in his now, warm and palpitating, and he raised -it to his lips. It was difficult to breathe, but the oppression in his -breast was all delight. He rose to his feet, his arms outstretched, -his heart beating in exultant tumult. He heard her whisper--he could -scarcely see her for the magnetic waving before his eyes--the refrain of -the story: “So strong and yet so gentle!” His lips were formed for the -passionate utterance--already framed in his heart--“My darling!” when -there came the sound of footsteps on the path without, and of a hand -upon the latch. - -Seth mechanically took up the manuscript of his article, and turned -toward the door. Beneath an impassive mien, far more composed than -he dared to hope, there was the sensation of being hurled down, down, -through the air, to unwelcome earth. - -It was Albert. He looked at the two cursorily but closely, and only -said, as he tossed his bag into a chair: - -“Train was late. You go to bed at once, Isabel. I have particular -business with Seth.” - - - - -CHAPTER XX.--THE NIGHT: THE BROTHERS. - -Albert seemed in an amiable mood as, divesting himself of his outer -garments, he drew up a chair by the fire, offered Seth a cigar from his -case and lighted one himself. He examined Seth’s face by the flame of -the match, as the latter lighted his cigar, and appeared to be satisfied -with the inspection. - -“Sit down here,” he said pleasantly. “I want a good long talk with you. -It was too bad to keep you waiting so long, but there was no help for -it. I couldn’t see the people in New York that I wanted to see until -to-day, and it was only by good fortune that I caught the train as it -was. Then we were delayed on the road, of course. If an engineer on this -one-horse line should ever get a train through on time I believe he’d -have a fit, just from the shock of the thing. And then I had to wake -up the man at the livery stable in Thessaly--fancy his being asleep at -eight o’clock!--and he would only bring me as far as the foot of the -hill, because he had been up to a dance all the previous night. But of -course, in my position now, running for office, I couldn’t complain. -Beside, I ought to be used to all these little delights of rural -existence by this time.” - -Albert stretched his feet out comfortably on the rail of the stove, and -leaned back in his chair with an air of enjoyment. He had been growing -very stout this past year, Seth noticed, and the bald spot on his crown -had visibly spread. He seemed unwontedly good-natured too--a natural and -proper accompaniment to increasing obesity. - -“But all this has nothing to do with my asking you to come here, has it? -Did Workman raise any objections to your coming?” - -“No, of course not, after he read your letter.” - -The lawyer smiled complacently: “I thought that letter would fetch him. -Of course, my boy, the harshness of the letter was for effect on him, -not on you. It simply gave you a chance to say you had _got_ to come.” - -Seth did not find himself wholly clear on this point, but he nodded -assent. Albert looked at him, and seemed a trifle annoyed at having -the conversation all to himself, but he went on after a moment’s pause, -speaking now with good humored gravity: - -“First of all, I ought to tell you how proud I have been of your fine -progress on the _Chronicle_. I doubt if there is another young man of -your age in the State who has done so much climbing in so short a time. -I take a real satisfaction in thinking that you are my brother. I can’t -tell you how often I say to myself: ‘Albert Fairchild, the best thing -you ever did in your life, or ever will do, was to give that boy a -chance.’” - -This was gall and wormwood to the young man. He had almost succeeded -in regaining the composure so abruptly scattered by Albert’s unexpected -arrival. The fluttering agitation came back now, and brought with it a -painful sense of shame and self-reproach as Albert’s words recalled the -scene which his entrance had interrupted. Seth did not look his brother -in the face, but murmured some commonplace of gratitude. He was glad -that there was a red shade on the lamp; it might conceal his flush of -humiliation. - -Albert went on: “But you were not invited here so peremptorily just -to hear this. Brotherly pride and affection are things that don’t need -words--that can be taken for granted--are they not?” - -Seth tried to smile, and said, “Yes, of course they are.” - -“Well, youngster, I am taking them for granted in your case. Mind, as I -said in my letter, I am not saying a word about gratitude. I don’t want -the thing to be put on that footing at all. Brothers ought to be able -to help each other, and all that, without lugging in the question of -gratitude. I am talking to you as one man should to another who bears -the same name, and was of the same mother. By George! poetry, isn’t it? -Well, the point is this. The time has come when you can help me, help -me immensely. I am not in this fight for myself alone. Personally I -care very little about going to Congress. But I have got the family to -consider, and I am in a position now where I can make a ten-strike for -it. A good deal of it I have created myself. These countrymen up here in -Dearborn County fancy they are shrewd politicians, but it has taken -me, almost a novice in politics, less than two years to get the whole -machinery right under my thumb. It’s in the blood, I tell you! There -wasn’t another manager in this whole section that could hold a candle to -the old Senator, in his day,--and if he could keep track of things now I -imagine he’d admit that his grandson was no slouch.” - -Albert chuckled quietly at the slang word, the expressiveness of which -pleased him, and at the vision of the satisfaction of the departed -ancestor which it suggested. He proceeded: - -“I can’t tell you all my plans, but I am in a big combination. I have -made use of my large connections as a lawyer in New York to arrange some -things which would open your eyes if you knew them. It is all settled -that I am going on to a Committee which will be worth while, I can tell -you. And then, once started in the thing, with my grandfather’s name -back of me, there is no telling where I may not climb. A name that has -figured in the blue book as ours has is a tremendous power. The Republic -derides heredity, but the public believes in it. It is human nature, -my boy. And in this rehabilitation of the family name you have as much -concern as I have--in fact more than I have--for you will enjoy even -more than I shall the fame and wealth I am going to get out of this -thing, for the family.” - -“Where does the wealth come in, Albert? There is no money honestly to be -made in politics.” Seth had forgotten his earlier embarrassment now, and -the spirit of dispute was rising within him. - -“My dear fellow,” said the elder brother, comfortably contemplating -the rings of cigar smoke he was making, “to the wise there is money -everywhere. The word ‘honesty’ in politics is a purely relative term, -just as it is in your line, or in law, or in medicine. If we lawyers -strictly graded our charges by the net value of our services to our -clients, if doctors refused to make all calls upon patients that were -not altogether necessary, and based their bills rigidly upon the -actual good they had done--by George! the poor-houses would have to be -enlarged. Take your own business, for instance, or I ought to call it -a profession, too, I suppose. Are editors invariably candid with their -readers, do you think? Do they always tell the disagreeable truth about -people they make their money from? And don’t they have an open hand -behind the back about the same as other folks do? Occasionally, I admit, -an ass like our brother John does drift into the profession, and retains -his childhood belief that the moon is made of green cheese. But I have -noticed that such fellows as he, who run their papers on an exalted -moral plane, generally come around to borrow money from the ungodly, -toward the close of the year, to make their accounts balance. I am -sorry to see that John and Ansdell have filled your head with all this -nonsense. A newspaper man tearing his shirt in defense of financial -fastidiousness in politics presents rather a comical spectacle, if you -only knew it.” - -“You have no right at all to say that!” Seth answered hotly. “I believe -firmly that the newspaper men of this country, considering their -influence and the great temptation to make money out of it, are as -honest a body of men as you can find in America. This conventional talk -about their venality is the cruellest kind of libel, and if you knew -them as I do you wouldn’t lend yourself to circulating it.” - -“Oh, I am not entirely without acquaintance in this white-winged -profession of yours,” replied the lawyer, smilingly. “I know Mr. -Mortimer Samboye, for example. I could tell you too, you confiding -youngster, just his figure, and where the cheque, made payable to his -wife, was cashed.” - -“If you do know about Samboye, you know what I believe to be the one -exception to the rule in the State. I don’t for a moment believe that -there is another editor whom your people could have bought. It is -an odious exception, to be sure, but exceptions prove the rule. If -journalists and journals were in the market, as you and your machine -friends seem to imagine, there would be no such widespread bolt against -your machine ticket to-day.” - -“Oh, you think so, do you?” - -The lawyer was getting vexed. He stood up, thrust his hands deep into -his trowsers pockets, and spoke with more sharpness than before. - -“You think so! Why, man alive, this same d----d _Chronicle_ of yours -has been in the market since before you were born. I bet you to-day that -Workman would rather plank out five thousand dollars from his own pocket -than let me cross-examine him in the witness box on his recollections of -the _Chronicle’s_ record. Why, that is the very last paper in the State -that has a title to throw stones! Do you want to know when this new -reforming zeal of Workman’s was born? I can tell you. It was the day -that another man (Dick Folts, if you wish names), was appointed to the -Territorial Governorship that Workman wanted for his brother. So you -thought it was only high morality and noble patriotic sentiments that -ailed the _Chronicle_, did you? You never suspected that it was simply -a bad case of brother--that it all happened because Samuel M. Workman of -Toboggan was compelled to continue to adorn a private station? You think -the world is run on kid-gloved, scriptural ethics? It reminds me of -a novel I read here awhile ago. It set out to describe An American -Politician--and in almost every scene in the book where he appeared, he -was drinking tea in some lady’s drawing room, declaiming to the fair sex -on how he was going to reform politics. He thought he was a deuce of a -fellow, and so did the women and the author too. This politician was -a good sample of all your reformers. I tell you, the men who go to -afternoon teas in America, exert no more influence on American politics -than--than a hen who was too refined to scratch in the barn-yard for -worms would exert on the question of female suffrage. Now _don’t_ make -a fool of yourself, Seth. Your predecessor, Samboye, was in no way your -equal--some fellow at the club once, I remember, just hit him off in -a phrase which he had hunted up in the dictionary to sling at him: ‘a -nugipolyloquous numbskull ’--but he knew enough to feather his own -nest, and to take men as they are, and not as the Prophet Jeremiah might -think they ought to be. _Don’t_ make me angry with this pharisaical -nonsense! You are very young yet. You will see things differently when -you have rubbed up against the world a while longer.” - -Seth also stood up now, with his hands deep in his pockets--a trick of -all the Fairchilds when they were excited. - -“I have no desire to make you angry,” he answered, beginning with an -effort at calmness, but soon raising his voice, “and I shouldn’t have -dreamed of inflicting my juvenile views on you if you hadn’t insisted, -even to the point of a threat, on my coming here. I would rather not -argue the thing at all. We regard politics from totally different -standpoints. I believe that your methods and aims--by ‘your’ I mean your -wing of the party--are scandalous, corrupting and ruinous. I believe -that if some check is not put upon the rule of the machine, if the -drift of public acquiescence in debased processes of government is -not stopped, it will soon be too late to save even the form of our -institutions from the dry rot of venality.” - -“Seems to me I’ve read all this. Don’t work your old leaders off on me. -Talk sense!” said Albert. - -Seth dropped rhetoric: “All this is very real, very big, to me. To you -it is impracticable and meaningless. You don’t at all believe in the -dangers which are so apparent to me. Perhaps if you did you wouldn’t -care. That is all right. I have no desire to convert you, or to debate -the question with you. I simply want to explain that there is no -community of premises, even, between us on this subject. As for your -explanation of the motives underlying the _Chronicle’s_ attitude, I -shan’t contradict you. So far as I am concerned, the matter is not in -argument. It is enough for me that we bolt the State ticket, and occupy -the ground we do. It is no concern of mine by what path we got there.” - -Albert had heard his brother through with contemptuous impatience. He -said now, with one foot on the stove hearth, and in a voice which, -by its very coldness of calm, ought to have warned Seth of the temper -underlying it: - -“You may bolt the State ticket as much as you d----d please. I don’t -like your doing it, and it will injure you more than any efforts of mine -can make good, but I can’t help it, and it wasn’t for that that I wanted -to see you. But if you bolt _me_, Mr. Seth, or put so much as a straw in -my path, by God! I’ll grind you, and your paper, and everybody -responsible for it, finer than tooth-powder! However--we will exhaust -the other side of the subject first. I’ve had it in mind for a long -while, in fact ever since I first procured you a place there, to buy you -a share in the _Chronicle_. Workman would be glad of the ready money--he -itches for it as much as any living man--and it would be a good thing -for you. Would you like that?” - -“You haven’t told me yet what you dragged me up here, away from my work, -for,” said Seth. “You presumably had an object of some sort.” - -“Ah, you want to get down to business, do you? You shall have it, in a -nutshell. I want you to see Ansdell, and get him to promise that if I -beat him in the Convention he will support me squarely at the polls; I -want you to get a pledge from Workman that the _Chronicle_ will come out -for me, solid, the day after I am nominated. _That’s_ what I want, and -it is mighty little for _me_ to ask of _you!_ And you may tell Workman -for me that if he and his paper give me the smallest ground for -complaint, and waver in the least in backing me up, I’ll start a paper -in Tecumseh before Christmas that will crush the _Chronicle_ out of -sight. The paper is no good, anyway. I know hundreds of good citizens -who would rejoice to have a decent substitute for it.” The pride of the -editor was wounded. “You seem to worry a good deal about this worthless -paper, at all events,” he said, bitterly. - -“Don’t bandy words with me, youngster!” cried Albert, scowling -and pacing the floor. “I want your answer, or the answer of your -employer--yes or no! I’ll have none of your impudence!” - -Seth held his temper down. He could not help feeling that his brother, -from the fraternal standpoint at least, had some pretty strong arguments -on his side. He made answer: - -“I should have no influence with Ansdell, one way or the other, even if -I talked with him. He knows his own business best, and if he has made up -his mind to a certain course, nothing that I could say would move him. -As for the _Chronicle_ we’ve kept our hands off, thus far, on your -account, and we’ve said nothing at all about your leading the Dearborn -County delegates into the machine camp at the State Convention, although -the whole rest of the State is ringing with it. But I am charged to say -that that is as much as we can do. If you are nominated, we can’t and -won’t support you. It is not a nice thing for me to have to say to you, -but there’s no good mincing matters. Besides, you know--there may be a -way out of it; you may not be nominated to-morrow.” - -“All hell can’t prevent it!” The words came forth in an explosion of -wrath. Albert stamped his foot and clenched his fists as Seth had -never seen him do before. He tapped his breast three or four times, -significantly, as if there were something in the pocket to which he was -referring--Seth remembered the gesture long afterward--and repeated that -his nomination was assured. He seemed to dislike his passion, and -strive to restrain it, but the choleric vein between his brows grew more -swollen, and his black, keen eyes flashed more angrily than ever, as he -strode up and down before the stove. - -“Yes, and I’ll be elected too! All the white-livered hounds in Adams -County, from my own brother up, shall not stop me! I’ll stump the -district every night and day till election. I’ll speak in Tecumseh--yes, -in Tecumseh, at the biggest meeting money and organisation can get -together--and I’ll handle this whole bolting business so’s to warm the -hearts of honest men all over the State. By God! I’ll shake Workman as a -terrier shakes a rat, in view and hearing of his whole community! Won’t -he squirm though! And won’t the crowd enjoy having him shown up! -And _you_”--there followed some savage personal abuse, profane in -form--“after to-morrow morning, never let me lay eyes on you again!” - -“It is not for the pleasure of seeing you that I come here, ever,” Seth -retorted, the words coming quick and fierce. “Be sure I’d never trouble -you again, if you were the only one in this house!” - -The lawyer’s eyes sparkled with a sardonic meaning, and Seth, as he -saw it, bit his tongue with impatience at the thoughtless form of his -speech; for he read in this cold, glancing light that nothing had been -lost upon his brother’s perception when he entered the room. - -There was a full minute’s silence, in which the two men faced each -other. Albert was busy thinking how to put most effectively the things -he was now moved to say. At last he spoke, coolly, incisively once more, -while Seth, flushed and anxious, pretended to regulate the flame of the -lamp. - -“Yes, I have no illusions about the motive of your visits to the farm. -I am not blind; even if I were, others about the house are not. I am not -going to say what you are doubtless expecting. I might point out to you -that a young man who comes to a brother’s house--I will say nothing of -the debt of gratitude he owes him--and steals chances to make love to -that brother’s wife, is a pitiful cur. Stop!”--for Seth had straightened -himself angrily at this epithet, despite his consciousness of -self-reproach. - -“I repeat that I _might_ say this--but I will not. I prefer to view it -in another light. I don’t think you are a knave. To be that requires -intelligence. You are a fool,--a conceited, presumptuous, offensive -fool. You set yourself up to judge _me_; you arrogate to yourself airs -of moral superiority, and assume to regulate affairs of State by -the light of your virtue and wisdom--and you have not brains enough -meanwhile to take care of yourself against the cheapest wiles of a silly -woman, who amuses herself with young simpletons just to kill time. You -take upon yourself to lay down the law to a great National party--and -you don’t know enough to see through even so transparent a game as this. -Get out of my sight! I have wasted too much time with you. It annoys me -to think that such an idiot belongs to the family.” - -Albert had rightly calculated that he could thus most deeply and surely -wound Seth, but he was mistaken in his estimate of the nature of the -response. If Seth’s vanity was scalded by his brother’s words, he at -least didn’t show it. But he did advance upon Albert with clenched -fists, and gleaming eyes, and shout fiercely at him: - -“A man who will speak that way of his wife is a coward and a scoundrel! -And if it is my cousin Isabel he means, he is a liar to boot! If you -were not my brother----” - -“If I were not, what then?” - -Albert waited a moment for the answer, which the conflict between Seth’s -rage and his half-guilty consciousness choked in the utterance, and then -calmly turned on his heel and left the room, by the same outside door at -which he had entered. - -As Seth went upstairs, he heard Isabel’s door close softly. “I wonder -how much of it she heard?” he said to himself. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI.--THE NIGHT: MASTER AND MAN. - -ALBERT walked across the yard toward the larger of the new stable -buildings. It was a dry, warm, luminous night, radiant overhead with -the glory of a whole studded heaven of stars. The moon, the full, -shining-faced moon of October, would rise in an hour or so, and then -would come pale mists along the valley bottom-lands, and perhaps clouds -in the eastern sky. But one could walk bareheaded in this soft starlight -now, without a fear of cold. - -The lawyer paid no sort of attention to the night, but strode across the -grass, swung himself over the stile, and pulled back the great stable -door, creaking shrilly on its rollers, with angry energy. He stopped -upon the threshold of the darkness, through which the shapes of -carriages covered with white sheets vaguely loomed, and called out: - -“Milton!” - -There was the answering sound of footsteps overhead. A door at the top -of the stairs was opened, and a flood of light illumined the staircase. - -“Oh, you’ve got back, ay?” said a voice from the top. - -It had been Milton’s idea, when the new buildings were erected, -to achieve complete domestic autonomy by arranging for himself a -residential room above the carriage place. The chamber was high -and commodious. It had been lathed and plastered, and, in lieu of -wall-paper, the sides were decorated with coarsely-colored circus bills, -or pictures from sporting weeklies, all depicting women in tights. There -was a good corded bed in one corner. Two chairs, a stained pine table on -which, beside the lamp, were some newspapers, a little wood stove, and a -mantel-shelf covered with tin-types and cheap photographs, completed the -scene. Milton enjoyed living here greatly. It comported with his -budding ideas of his own personal dignity, and it freed him from the -disagreeable supervision which the elder Miss Fairchild was so prone to -exercise over all who lived in the house. Only the Lawton girl, Melissa, -came across the yard each forenoon, to tidy up the room, and chuckle -over the pictures and the tastes which these, and the few books Milton -from time to time brought home from a sporting-library at Thessaly, -indicated. - -“It’s lucky you hadn’t gone to bed,” said the lawyer, curtly, pulling -his hat over his eyes to shade them from the flaring light, and sitting -down. “I was going to wake you up. What’s your news?” - -“I’ve been over to Tyre twice to see Beekman, ’n’ no use. Once he -wouldn’t talk at all--jis’ kep his ole lantern-jaws tight shet, ’n’ -said ’Ef Albert Fairchild wants to see me, he knaows where I kin be -faound.’ Th’ other time he was more talkative--tried his best to fine -aout what I was drivin’ at, but I couldn’t git no satisfaction aout o’ -him. He wouldn’t bine himself to nothin’. He jis’ stood off et arm’s -lenth, ’n’ sized up what I was a sayin’ in that dum sly way o’ his. I -couldn’t make head nor tail of him. He wouldn’t say he would take money, -’n’ he wouldn’t say he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t say yes or nao to th’ -post office scheme, or anythin’ else. He jis’ kep’ his big eyes on me, -as much as to say, ‘You ketch a weasel asleep!’ ’n’ listened. Naow yeh -knaow th’ hull of it. If yeh want anythin’ more done, yeh better do it -yerself.” - -The lawyer looked attentively at his hired man, and drummed with his -fingers on the-table. “So that’s all, is it? You are no further -ahead with Beek-man than when the Convention adjourned? You’ve got no -proposition from him--no statement as to how he takes my proposals?” - -“That’s it, Albert--jest it!” - -Something in Milton’s tone seemed to annoy Albert even more than his -confession of failure had done. He rose to his feet abruptly. “Don’t -‘Albert’ me!” he said, raising his voice out of its accustomed calm; “I -don’t like it! You take too much upon yourself. But--I am to blame for -it myself. I’ve let you run things with too free a hand, and trusted -affairs to you that I ought to have kept to myself. It is always my -way,” he went on, in petulant selfcriticism. “I never did trust anybody -who was worth the powder to blow him up. I ought to be used to it by -this time. But to encounter two such fools in one evening--and this -evening of all others, too--by George! it’s enough to make a man strike -his mother!” - -“I ain’t no fool, Mister Fairchild”--the hired man was standing up -too, and his harsh tones gave the title an elaborate, almost ridiculous -emphasis--“’n’ I’ll thank yeh to keep yer tongue civil, tew! Ef yeh -don’t like my style, yeh kin git sum’un else to do yer dirty work for -yeh. I’ve no hankerin’ fer it. I’m hired to manage this farm, I am. -Nothin’ was said ’baout my hevin’ to run a Congresshn’l campaign into -th’ bargain. I ain’t sayin’ but what I kin do it’s well’s some other -folks. I ain’t sayin’ that it’s beyon’ me. P’raps I’ve got my pull ’n’ -this caounty, ’s well ’s some other people. P’raps ’f I was amine to, -I could knock somebuddy’s game skyhigh, jis’ by liftin’ my little finger -tomorrer. I ain’t sayin’ I’m goin’ to dew it. I ain’t findin’ no fault -with yeh. All I say is I ain’t goin’ to take one ioty o’ slack from you, -or anybody else, about this thing. You hear _me!_” - -The hired man had spoken aggressively and loudly, with his thumbs in the -arm-holes of his vest, and his shaggy head well up in the air. He knew -his employer pretty well, and had estimated with some precision the -amount of impudence he would bear. This full measure he was not disposed -to abate one atom. He had failed to buy the Jay County boss, or even to -satisfactorily gauge his intentions, it was true, but that was no reason -why he should submit to being called a fool by Albert Fairchild, who -couldn’t run his farm, let alone his Congressional campaign, without -him. So the mean-figured, slouching countryman, with his cheap, -ill-fitting clothes, frowzy beard, and rough, red hands truculently -spread palm outward on his breast, stood his ground before the city -lawyer and grinned defiance at him. - -The lawyer did not immediately reply. He was not ordinarily at a loss -for words or decisions in his dealings with men, but this rude, uncouth -rustic, with his confident air and his fund of primordial cunning, -puzzled him. There was some uneasiness in the feeling, too, for he could -not remember the exact limits of his confidences with Milton. Moreover -he could not afford, at any price, to quarrel with him now on the eve -of the Convention. “After the election we’ll clip your wings, my fine -fellow,” he thought to himself, but he gave the words upon which he -finally decided a kindlier turn. - -“Yes, I hear you. Almost anybody on the side-hill could, the way you -are talking. There is no reason why you should lose your temper. If you -couldn’t fix Beekman, why that’s all there is to it. We must go at it -in a different way. I can see through him. He’s standing out for a cash -payment. The old fox wants money down.” - -“Well, you’ve got it fur him, hain’t yeh? Go ’n’ give it to him, -straight aout!” - -“But that’s it--I wanted you to bring back an idea of his figure.” - -“His figger. How much hev yeh got?” - -“Never mind that--it’s a d----d sight more than the office is worth; -but when a man gets into a fight of this sort, he’s got to force his way -through, cost or no cost.” - -“Air yeh sure it can’t be traced? Wuz yeh careful to raise it so nobuddy -cud spot yeh, and give aout that yeh got so much money together for -purposes o’ bribery?” - -“Yes, it is perfectly safe. There is no record.” - -“’N’ nobuddy on airth knaows yeh’ve got th’ money?” - -“Not a living soul!” - -The two men communed together as to the importance of immediate action. -The Convention was to reassemble at Tyre, fifteen miles away, at eleven -the following forenoon. The political master of Jay County, Abe Beekman, -who held in his hands the deciding power, lived near Tyre, but in the -valley some miles further on. The first train from Thessaly in the -morning would be too late, for Beekman would have already arrived on the -ground at Tyre, coming from the opposite direction, and would have begun -work on his own hook. He must be seen at his home, early in the morning. -The question was--how to encompass this. - -“You might drive across to-night,” Albert suggested; “it can’t be more -than twenty miles. It’s a bad, up-hill road, but four or five -hours ought to do it, easily enough. By George--I believe I’ll go -myself--start at once, see Beekman about daybreak, and then come back to -Tyre by breakfast time; as if I had just driven over from here. No one -will suspect a thing.” - -“Yes, thet’s a fust-rate idee,” assented Milton; “only be keerful ’n’ -put yer money in a safe place.” - -The lawyer again slapped his breast with a confident “Never fear about -that,” and went to the house to get some wraps for the night ride, -leaving Milton to harness the grays, and drag out the sidebar buggy -with the pole. The hired-man hummed to himself as he moved quietly, -dextrously in the semi-darkness in the performance of this task. - -Albert returned, just as the hame straps were being buckled. - -“Everybody seems to be asleep in the house,” he said. “If they ask any -questions in the morning, mind you know nothing whatever. That brother -of mine is no friend. Be careful what you say to him. Let him walk to -the depot in the morning. It’ll do him good. Oh yes, by the way, better -let me have one of those revolvers of yours--you have ’em upstairs, -haven’t you--give me the one that strikes fire every time.” - -Milton came down and out presently, saying that he just remembered -having lent the weapon. “’Tother’s no good,” he added; “yeh don’t need -no pistol anyway. Th’ moon’ll be up direc’ly.” - -Albert gathered up the lines, and drove out slowly toward the road. - -“Yeh better save th’ beasts till after yeh git over Tallman’s hill, -’n’ rest ’em there by th’ gulf!” Milton called after him, as a last -injunction. - -The hired man stood at the stable door, and watched the buggy pass the -darkened, silent house, turn out on the high-road, and disappear beneath -the poplars. The moon was just coming up, beyond this line of trees, and -it made the gloom of their shadow deeper. His eyes, from following the -vehicle ranged back to the house, which reared itself black against the -whitening sky. There was there no sound, nor any sign of life. He took a -revolver out of his pocket, and examined it in the starlight, cocking it -again and again to make sure that there had been no mistake. Satisfied -with the inspection, he put it back in his side coat-pocket. He went -upstairs, changed his hat, took a drink out of a flat brown bottle in -his cupboard, and spent a minute or two looking at one of the tin-type -portraits on the mantel-shelf. He held the picture to the light, and -grinned as he gazed--then put it in his breast pocket, blew out the -lamp, and felt his way softly down stairs. - -A few minutes later he came out from the stable, leading the swift black -mare. She was saddled and bridled, and seemed to understand, as he led -her over the grass, that he wanted no noise made. The man and beast, -throwing long, grotesque shadows on the lawn, in the light of the low -moon, stole past the house, and out upon the road. Milton here climbed -into the saddle, and with an exultant little cluck, started in the -direction his master had gone, still keeping the black mare on the -grass. They, too, disappeared under the poplars. - -The moon mounted into the heavens, pushing aside the aspiring clouds -which sought to dispute her passage, then clothing them in her own -livery of light, and drawing them upward after her, in a glittering -train of attendance. All over the hill-side the calm radiance rested. -The gay hues with which autumn’s day brush painted the woods, the hedge -rows, the long stretches of orchard, stubble, and field, sought now -to only hint at their beauty, as they yielded new outlines, mystic -suggestions of form and color, in the soft gray picture of mezzotint. -Thin films of vapor rose to enwrap the feet of the dark firs, nearer to -the sky, and in the valley below the silver of the moonlight lost itself -on the frost-like whiteness of the gathering mist. It was a night for -the young to walk together, and read love’s purest, happiest thoughts in -each other’s eyes--for the old to drink in with thankful confession the -faith that the world was still gracious and good. - -Milton was walking the mare now, still on the grass. He could hear the -sound of wheels, just ahead. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII.--THE NIGHT: THE LOVERS. - -Seth had gone up to his room in a state of wretchedness which, seeming -insupportable at the outset, had grown steadily worse upon reflection. -He said to himself that he had never before in his whole life been so -humiliated and unhappy, and then smiled with pitying contempt for the -inadequacy of such a statement of the case. One’s career must have been -titanic in its tragic experiences to warrant such a comparison. “I have -never known before what suffering was,” he thought, as he paced up -and down his little room, scourging himself with the lash of bitter -reflections. - -To try to sleep did not enter his head. He sat for a long time on the -side of the bed, seeking to evolve something like order from the chaos -of his wits, but he could not think. Had he tried to write, to discuss -the thing in a letter, the simple familiar operation of the pen might -have led him out of the _cul de sac_. As it was, whichever turn his mind -sought to take, there rose an impassable barrier of shame, or rage or -self-recrimination. In whatever light he tried to view the situation, it -was all pain. He had been curtly, cruelly thrown off by his brother--the -man to whom he owed everything--and he had had to listen to the most -cutting, insulting language from this brother before they parted. -Then, as he clenched his fists and fumed with impotent anger at the -recollection of this language, there would come to divert this wrath, -and turn it back upon himself, the facts that he had interposed his own -boyish vanity and conceit to balk this brother’s purposes, and had been -caught trembling on the very brink of making love to this brother’s -wife. Did he not richly merit Albert’s scorn? He could remember--should -he ever forget?--the exact words of Albert’s contemptuous -characterization: “A conceited, presumptuous, offensive fool.” Did he -not deserve them all? He owed this brother everything: the honest boy -insisted upon saying this to himself over and over again, as the basis -of all argument on the subject; the opportunity came for him to repay -something of this debt. How had he improved it? By setting himself up -to oppose this brother in the chief object of his life, and, as if this -were not enough, by yielding weakly to the temptation to rob him of his -domestic honor as well! “I must be a villain as well as a fool, must I!” - the youngster growled between his set teeth, as he threw himself from -the bed, and began the gloomy pacing up and down again. - -He had not lighted his lamp. The soft half-darkness of the starlight, -sufficing barely to render objects visible in the room, suited his mood. -He heard the sound of wheels now on the gravel below. Looking out, -he could see that the grays were being driven out; as they turned the -corner of the house, the full moonlight fell upon them and the carriage, -and Seth saw distinctly that it was his brother who was driving, and -that he was wrapped as for an all-night ride. - -“He won’t even stay under the same roof with me!” he said half-aloud, -with a fresh bitterness of self-accusation--and then the torment of -reproaching voices began in his breast again. - -As he turned from the window he heard a low rapping at his door; a -minute later, he heard Isabel’s voice, almost a whisper: - -“Seth! Don’t open the door, but tell me, who was it that went out -with the carriage just now? I heard it, but from my window I could see -nothing. Was it _he?_” - -Seth answered, as calmly as he could: “Yes, I am sure of it. I -recognized him.” He stood close to the door, and the thought that only -the thin pine panels divided him from her was uppermost in his mind. - -There was a little pause. Once his hand involuntarily moved toward the -latch, but he drew it back. Then she spoke again: - -“You had a terrible quarrel, didn’t you, and all for me! I heard your -answer, Seth, way up here. How nobly you spoke! It went straight to my -heart, to hear his brutality rebuked in that manly way. I shan’t forget -it.” - -There was a moment’s silence; then she whispered with a lingering -softness, “Good night!” and he heard the faint rustling of her garments -down the hall. - -Brief as the interruption was, it had changed the whole spirit of his -thoughts. The vindictive accusing demons had vanished, and left no -more than a numbing sense of past torture in his breast. The anguish of -self-condemnation, the crushing burden of self-humiliation, had passed -away. The moonlight, as it spread over the slope toward Thessaly -village, seemed to bring healing in its peaceful radiance. His own -provocation grew mountain high; his brother’s justification for his -insults and barbarity diminished. “I was doing only my duty in opposing -him,” he said confidently, and there was no voice of dissent now. “Still -more was I right in defending poor Isabel from his unmanly imputations. -If a man is incapable of appreciating such a wife----.” - -He did not follow out his thought, but surrendered himself instead -to calling up, and enjoying in detail, the sweet scene which Albert’s -coming had so rudely broken into. How delicious it all was, as fancy now -limned its outlines--yet not all the dainty graces of imagination and -memory could reproduce in its full charm the original. He could think, -and think, until the whole room seemed instinct with her presence, but -how poor a counterfeit it all was, lacking the perfume of her hair and -laces, the deep, languorous glow of her eyes, the thrilling melody of -her low voice. The tender, caressing prolongation of syllables in that -whispered “good night” made soft soul-music still in his ears. The -insane thought--he did not dare ask himself if it were also a hope--that -she might come again, took possession of him, and he stood for a long -time close by the door, listening, waiting. - -It was while Seth stood thus, seeing only with the eyes of the mind, -that Milton stole past on the grass below, with the black mare, on his -mission of murder. Had the young man been at the window instead, much -that followed might have been different. - -Seth stood at the door for what seemed to him a long time, until -gradually the futility of the action became apparent to him. “Of course -she would not come!” he said, and resumed his pacing once more. - -The Faust-like vision began to dance before his eyes again, but with -a witchery now which was uncanny. The calm of waiting had brought him -enough strength of control to feel the presence of the cloven hoof in -it all. The temptation was more urgent, strenuous than ever, but he was -conscious of a deeper, more dogged spirit of resistance within him -than ever, as well. There was no renewal of the savage, chaotic war -of emotions under which he had suffered at the outset, groaning in -the self-infliction of purposeless pain. This was a definite, almost -scientific, struggle between two distinct forces, and though they -fought their battle with all manner of sophistical weapons, and employed -feints, pretended retreats and false advances in highest strategical -form, he was never deceived for a moment as to which was the bad and -which the good. - -The issue forced itself upon him, finally, with a demand for decision -which was imperative. He could stay no longer in his room. There was -neither sleep nor rest of any kind there for him. - -He went to the door, and opened it. Through the blackness he could see -a faint vertical line of light at the front end of the low hall, as of a -lamp burning, and a door left ajar. The yellow ray gleamed as he looked -at it, and seemed to wave itself in fascinating motions of enticement. -He stood for a moment undecided, all his impulses strongly swaying -towards the temptation, all his resisting reasons growing weaker in -their obstruction, and some even turning coward, and whispering, as they -laid down their arms, “After all, youth has its rights.” Then he squared -his shoulders, with the old gesture of resolution, and walked steadily -away from the line of light, down the stairs, and out of the door, -bareheaded under the stars. - -He had walked for a long, long time, before he became conscious that he -had left his hat behind. The night air was exceptionally mild for the -season, but it grew cool enough to bring this fact to his notice. As he -put his hand to his head, and stopped short at the discovery, his whole -mind seemed to clarify itself. He had been walking aimlessly, almost -unconsciously--it must have been for much more than an hour. In a vague -way, he knew where his steps had led him. He had walked through the -orchard to his mother’s grave, and stood for some time by the brier-clad -wall and fence which surrounded it, thinking of his boyhood, and of -her. Then he had struck across through Sir Thomas’s pasture, to the main -road; thence by the way of the school-house, and skirting the hill, to -the Burfield road, at the farthermost end of the line of poplars. - -As he stopped here now collecting his thoughts, awakening himself as -it were, the sound of chorussinging reached him, faint at first, then -growing more distinct. A wagon-load of young people were returning from -Leander Crump’s husking, enjoying themselves in the fair moonlight. -From the sounds, they must have been about in front of the Fairchild -homestead, and they were coming rapidly toward Seth. If he remained in -the road, they must pass and recognize him. - -There was a division line of thorn hedge, long since grown into tall -young trees, coming to the road here, and a path beside it leading to -a rude stile in the turnpike fence. This path went straight to Mrs. -Warren’s house, as Seth had known from boyhood, but he gave this no -thought as he stepped over the stile, and moved along in the shadow of -the thorns. He walked a score of yards or so, and then stepped closer -into the obscurity of the hedge, to wait till the hay-wagon and its -caroling crew had passed by on the road outside. He was feeling very -cold now, and tired to boot, and said to himself that as soon as the -road was clear he would go home and go to bed. - -To his surprise the singing came to an abrupt halt, just as the wagon -approached the end of the hedge. - -There was a chorus of merry “whoas!” as the horses drew up, and through -the clear air Seth could hear a confused babel of voices, all jovially -discussing something. One male voice, louder than the rest, called out: - -“You’d better let me come along with you!” - -There was some giggling audible, out of which rose a clear, fresh -girlish voice which Seth knew: - -“No, thanks! I can cut across by this path in less than no time. I’m -not afraid. The tramps are all abed and asleep by this time, like other -honest people.” - -With more laughter, and a salvo of “good nights!” the wagon started off -again, and Annie Fairchild, singing lightly to herself the refrain of -the chorus, and holding her face up to catch the full radiance of the -moonlight, came walking briskly down the path. - -Despite her valiant confidence the young woman gave a visible start of -alarm as Seth stepped out from the shadows to speak to her. She threw -herself forward as if to run, then looked again, stopped, and then gave -a little tremulous laugh, and cried: - -“Why, Seth! is that you. Mercy! How you frightened me!” - -He could think of nothing better than a feeble parody of her words: -“Yes, it is time all honest people were abed and asleep.” - -He said this with a half-smile, but the girl’s face grew more serious -still as she looked at her cousin. She spoke eagerly:-- - -“Why, what’s the matter with you to-night? Where is your hat? You look -as white as a ghost! Oh--have you come from our house? Is it something -about grandmother?” - -“No, it’s nothing about her. I haven’t been nearer your place than this. -I only stepped in here so as to avoid the wagon. I didn’t want them to -see me like this.” - -“But why should you _be_ like this? Now, Seth, I know something _has_ -happened. What is it? Am I wanted? Can I do anything?” - -“Let me walk with you to your house,” he said, and they turned together -down the path. “Something _has_ happened. I don’t know that I can tell -you what it is, but only to be with you like this rests and comforts -me.” - -He was walking in the shadow; the strong light, which only tipped his -shoulder occasionally, enveloped her. He watched her furtively as they -moved along, and, just in proportion as he found relief and solace -in the contemplation of her clear, frank, serene face, he shrank from -confiding his own weak woes to her. But, as he said, it was a comfort to -be with her. - -They had walked almost to within sight of the Warren farmhouse before -he broke the silence. She had scarcely looked at him since they started, -but kept her gray eyes straight ahead, as if viewing some fixed, distant -object. Her lips were tightly pressed together--the only sign of emotion -on her face--and this proof that she was hard at work thinking tended -further to embarrass him. - -“I truly don’t know how to tell you, Annie,” he said at last. “But -Albert and I have--have had words together; in fact--we’ve quarrelled.” - -Her lips quivered a little. She did not turn her face toward him, but -said, nervously: “I have been expecting that.” - -Seth did not ask himself the cause of his cousin’s anticipatory -confidence, but went on gloomily: “Well, it has come. We had it out, -this evening, to the very last word. And then, as if that were not -enough, the devil himself got hold of me afterward, and tugged and tore -at me to--but I can’t tell you _that_. I can scarcely realize myself -what I’ve been through this night. Why, I’ve been wandering about here -on the hill-side for hours, not knowing where I was going, or even -what I was thinking of, like a mad man. You can see how my hands -are scratched, and my clothes torn; that is from the berry-bushes, I -suppose, up by mother’s grave. I remember being there. I didn’t even -know that my head was bare, until just before the wagon came up.” Before -this remarkable recital of insane things, Annie was properly silent. - -Seth added, after a pause, “But it is all over now. And I can’t tell -you, you can’t begin to guess, how it brings me to my senses, and -soothes and restores me to have met you like this.” - -As he paused suddenly, they both turned to listen and look. From the -knoll to the east, where the turnpike ran through a cutting, there came -a curiously muffled sound, like yet unlike the first measured drumming -of a partridge. It swelled a second later into something more definite, -as they saw a dark horse, the rider crouching low over its neck, -galloping like the wind along the high-road toward Thessaly. The pace -was something prodigious--the horse had vanished like an apparition -before they could look twice. But there had been nothing like a -commensurate volume of sound. - -“The horse was running on the grass beside the road,” Seth remarked. - -“Probably going for a doctor,” was her comment. “I wonder who is ill!” - -“It looked to me more like the headless horseman than a sick-messenger.” - -As he said this, and they turned to walk again, his face lighted up -once more. The thought seemed to please him, and he smiled on her as he -added: - -“Let me be superstitious enough to fancy that the thing which just -flashed by, in a rumble of low thunder, was the demon that has been -torturing me all this while. We will say that he has been defeated, -baffled, and has fled in despair, and that”--he looked still more -smilingly at her--“the fiend has been beaten and driven away by you. Do -you know, Annie, that here in this lovely light you are the very picture -of a good angel? Perhaps angels don’t wear seal-skin cloaks, or have -such red cheeks, but if they knew how becoming they were, they would.” - -Annie’s face, which had been immobile in thought, softened a little. She -was accustomed to her cousin’s hyperbole. - -“I am delighted if you feel better,” she laughed back. “But it is no -credit specially to me. Contact with any other rational human being -would probably have had the same effect upon you. If I had helped you -in any way, or advised you, perhaps I might own the angelic impeachment. -But I don’t even know the first thing about your trouble, except that -you’ve quarrelled with Albert, and--and had a temptation.” - -She had begun gayly enough, but she uttered the last words soberly, -almost gravely. Instinct and observation alike told her that Seth’s -experiences had been of a deeply serious nature. - -He sighed heavily, and looked on the ground. How much could he tell -her?--in what words should he put it? Even as he sought in his mind -for safe and suitable phrases, an Idea--a great, luminous, magnificent -Idea--unfolded itself before his mental vision. It was not new to -him--years ago he had often entertained and even nourished it--yet it -had been hidden, dormant so long, and it burst forth now so grandly -transformed and altered, that for an instant he stopped abruptly, and -put his hand to his breast as if to catch his breath. Then he walked -on again, still with his eyes on the ground. He fancied that he was -meditating; instead, he was marvelling at the apotheosized aptness of -the Providence which had sent this Idea at just this time, and swearing -grateful fealty to it with all the earnestness of his being. - -He looked up at last, and drew her arm through his. They were near the -house now. “I am going to make a clean breast of it, Annie,” he said. -“If I have not finished when we get to the bars, shall we turn back? I -want you to hear it all.” - -“It is pretty late, Seth,” she said, but neither in tone, nor in the -manner in which she allowed her arm to be taken, was there the kind of -refusal which dismays. - -There was no need now to seek words. They came fast, keeping pace with -the surge of his thoughts. - -“Annie,” he began, “I have been as near the gates of hell to-night as -it is given to a man to go, and bring back his soul. I have fancied -all this while that I was strong because I was successful; that I was -courageous because I happened to be clever. I found myself put to the -test to-night, and I was weak as water. I am afraid of myself. More, -I have been making a fool of myself. I know now the measure of my -weakness. I have the brains, perhaps, but I have no balance-wheel. I fly -off; I do insensate things; I throw myself away. I need a strong, sweet, -wise nature to lean upon, to draw inspiration from. Oh if you could -realize the peace, the happiness your simple presence brought me this -evening! I haven’t said it yet, Annie, but you have guessed it--I want -to pledge myself to you, to swear that you are to be my wife.” - -The girl had drawn her arm from his before the last sentence was -finished, and stood facing him. They were within call of the house, but -she did not offer to renew the walk. She answered him with no trace of -excitement, looking him candidly in the face: - -“I am not sure just how to answer you, Seth. Hardly any girl would know, -I think, how to treat such a declaration as that. Wait a moment--let me -finish! In the first place, I am in doubt whether I ought to treat it -seriously at all. You are disturbed, excited, to-night; when we first -met you looked and acted like a madman. And then again--understand, I -am trying to talk to you as a friend of all your life, instead of a -mere girl acquaintance--I would not marry any man who I did not firmly -believe loved me. You have not even pretended that you love me. You -have simply complimented me on my disposition, and pledged yourself to a -partnership in which I was to be a balance-wheel.” - -“You are laughing at me!” - -“No, Seth, my dear cousin, not at all. I am only showing you the exact -situation. You are too excited, or too unpractical, to see it for -yourself. You talk now about being at the gates of hell and expressions -like that--wild words which signify only that you have had trouble -during the evening. I fancy that all men are apt to exaggerate such -things--I _know_ you are. Why, do you even know what trouble is? Have -_I_ had no trouble? Have I not lived a whole life of trial here with a -bed-ridden invalid? And there are other things that--that I might speak -of, if I chose to complain. For instance”--her face brightened as she -spoke, now, and a suggestion of archness twinkled in her eyes--“was it -not a terrible thing that I should have waded into the water, that day -of the fishing party, and got you out all by myself, and then heard the -credit coolly given to another--person, who never got so much as the -soles of her shoes wet?” - -Annie had begun seriously enough, but the softness of her real mood -toward her cousin, together with the woman’s natural desire to have -justice done her in affairs of the heart, had led her into a halfplayful -revelation of pique. Seth would have answered here, but she held up her -hand, and went on: “Wait till I am through. You didn’t know the truth -in that matter of the log-jam. I understand that. There are a good many -other things the truth of which you don’t know. You don’t, for -instance, know the real facts about your own mind. You have had trouble -to-night--for all your talk about making a clean breast of it you -haven’t told me yet what it was--and your imagination makes a mountain -out of what was probably a molehill, and you straightway rush off -bareheaded to wander about like a ghost, and frighten people out of -their wits; and then, happening to meet a girl who, by the deceptive -light of the moon, looks as if she had some sense about her, you take -without consideration the most important step a man can take in his -whole life. Isn’t that a fair statement of the case? And, thinking -it all over, don’t you agree with me that you would better tie my -handkerchief about your head and go home and go to bed?” - -Seth laughed--a reluctant, in-spite-of-himself laugh. “You always would -make fun of me when I tried to be serious. But if I ever _was_ serious -in my life, it is now. Listen to me, Annie! It is not my fault if I see -you now, truly as you are, for the first time. I have been a fool. -I know it I said so at the start. But a man is the creature of -circumstances, you know. Things have happened tonight which have opened -my eyes. I realize now that you have been closest to my heart all the -while, that I have loved you all----” - -Annie stopped him, with her hand upon his arm. - -“I don’t want you to finish that to-night. Please don’t, Seth. It would -not be fair to me--or to yourself. Perhaps some other time when you have -thought it over calmly--we will talk about it--that is, if you are of -the same mind. If you are not, why, everything shall be just as it was -before. And more than that, Seth, you--you mustn’t feel in the least -bound by what has been said to-night. You know that I am older than -you--two whole months! That isn’t as much as four years”--the meekest of -her sex could scarcely have foregone that shaft--“but it gives me some -sort of authority over you. And I am going to use it for your good. If -it becomes necessary, I shall treat you like a perverse little boy, who -doesn’t in the least know what is good for him.” - -There was no discouragement to Seth in the tones of her speech, however -non-committal its text might be. He put his arm about her and murmured: - -“To think that I never _knew_ until now! Ah, you make me very happy, -Annie. And shall you be happy, too, do you think, happier than if we -hadn’t met?” - -She smiled as she disengaged herself, and gave him both hands to say -that they must separate: “Happier at least than on the night of the -fishing party. I cried myself to sleep that night.” - -Seth found the house wholly dark, upon his return. He had no difficulty -in getting to sleep, and his heavy slumber lasted until long after the -breakfast hour the following forenoon. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII.--THE CONVENTION: THE BOSS. - -Tyre had seen better days. In the noble old time of stage coaches it -had been a thriving, almost bustling place, with mills turning out -wares celebrated through all the section, with a starch factory which -literally gave the name of the town to its product as a standard of -excellence, and with taverns which were rarely left with a vacant room -more than a day at a time. In those days it had been a power in politics -too. The old court-house which frowned now upon the village green, -elbowing the more modern brick jail out of public sight, was supposed to -have echoed in its time about the tallest eloquence that any court-house -in the State had heard. From Tyre had come to Albany, and Washington as -well, a whole cluster of strong, shrewd, stalwart-tongued politicians, -who forced their way to speakerships, and judgeships, and even -senatorships, like veritable sons of Anak. It was a Tyre man who had -beaten Aaron Burr in such and such a memorable contest. It was another -Tyre man who, by assuming lead of the distracted Bucktails at a certain -crucial period, had defeated sundry machinations of the Clintonians, -and sounded the death-knell of their hopes. There was a Tyre man in -the Regency, of course, and he is popularly believed, at least in Jay -County, to have held that storied syndicate up by the tail, so to -speak, years after it would otherwise have collapsed. At every State -Convention, in this fine old time, inferior politicians from other -sections dissembled their appetites until Tyre had been fed to satiety. -And in the sowing season of politics, when far-seeing candidates began -arranging for a share in the autumn harvest of offices, no aspirant felt -that his seed had a chance of sprouting until he had paid a pilgrimage -to Tyre, and invoked the mercy, if he could not have the smiles, of the -magnates there. - -It was due doubtless to the traditions of these visits, when Judge -Gould, the hero of the great Biggs murder case, would be at the Nedahma -House, and Senator Yates, who unravelled and dragged to the pitiless -light the masonic plot to blow up Mount Vernon, was to be found at the -turnpike tavern, and both would keep pretty well in-doors toward evening -because Colonel De Lancey, who had shot four men before Hamilton’s death -discredited duelling, was in town on private business--it was no doubt -due to these memories that Tyre kept up its political tastes and, in a -faded way, its political prestige, long after its material importance -and interest had vanished. The mills were remembered now only by the -widened reaches in the stream where their dams had once been; the starch -factory was a dismantled ruin, from which what woodwork the lightning -had spared had long since been abstracted for fuel; one of the -taverns was now a private dwelling, and the other two neither profited -themselves nor pleased the wives of the village by their dependence upon -local custom. But the men of Tyre were still intense politicians. Indeed -their known virulence had given to their county sobriquet of Jayhawker -an almost national fame. Nowhere else in the State, proportionately, -were so many weekly partisan papers taken--not tame, dispassionate -prints, but the fire-eaters of both party presses, with incessant -harrowing accounts of peaceful and confiding negroes being massacred -in the South, on the one side, answered regularly on the other by long -imposing tables of the money stolen by notorious criminals in the public -service. This was the meat Tyre fed on, and contending editors could not -serve it out too rank or highly peppered for its taste. - -The one excitement of Tyre too--far transcending the county fair, which -had only interested them casually, and which they had seen moved over -to Sidon, on the line of the newly-extended railroad, without a -protest--was a political convention. There would be such a crowd about -the Court House then as scarcely the spectacle of its being consumed -by flames could draw at another time. The freeholders of Tyre paid much -more than their fair share of county taxes; they knew it, and did not -grumble at the injustice. In fact it rather pleased them than otherwise -to see their town rated on the Supervisor’s assessment-rolls according -to its ancient wealth; the amercement was a testimonial to their -dignity. Upstart towns like Sidon might wrangle over a few hundred -dollars, and cheapen their valuation in the public eye by unworthy -tricks; Tyre would have none of such small doings; it would preserve -a genteel exterior, even if it had to eat pork grease on its buckwheat -cakes in domestic seclusion. But if there had been so much as a hint -about holding a county convention anywhere else than in the Tyre Court -House--then, to use Abe Beekman’s homely expression, you would have seen -the fur fly! Other towns might indulge their modern and mercenary tastes -in county fairs, railroads, gas, reservoirs and the like, to their -hearts’ content, but they must keep their hands off political -conventions. He would be a brazen Jayhawker indeed who should question -Tyre’s monopoly of these! - -So new generations of county politicians followed precedent without -thought of murmuring, and accepted the discomforts of jolting in crowded -democrat-wagons over the stony, bleak hills to Tyre, of eating cold, -bad dinners in the smoke-dried, draughty barracks which had once been -hotels, of drinking limed well-water with the unspeakable whiskey--as -natural consequences of being interested in the public affairs of the -nation. This resignation of other Jay County towns to the convention -claims of Tyre swelled into a spirit of truculent defence every two -years, when the question of a joint Congressional gathering for all -three counties of the district came up. Precisely what would have -happened if the bigger shires of Dearborn and Adams had combined in -a refusal to come to Tyre, I am not bold enough to guess. The general -feeling would probably have been that a crisis had arisen in which Jay -County could do no less than dissolve her relations with the Federal -Union. - -Fortunately no such menace of secession and civil war was ever suffered -to rise glowering on the horizon. Abe Beekman, the boss of Jay County, -always managed to have Tyre designated by the District Committee, -and the politicians from Dearborn and Adams amiably agreed to console -themselves for the nuisances of the trip by getting as much fun out of -it as was possible--which, reduced to details, meant bringing their own -whiskey, sternly avoiding the dangerous local well-water, and throwing -at each other during the dinner scramble such elements of the repast -as failed to attract their metropolitan tastes. This procedure was -not altogether to the liking of the Tyre landlords, who, however, -compensated themselves for the diminution of the bar traffic and the -havoc wrought in the dining room, by quadrupling their accustomed -prices; and the invasion of boisterous aliens had its seamy side for the -women of the place, who found it to the advantage of their dignity to -stop indoors during the day which their husbands and fathers consecrated -to the service of the Republic. But Tyre as a whole was proud and -gratified. - -On the morning when the adjourned District Convention was to reassemble, -political interest throbbed with feverish quickness in all the pulses of -Tyre. - -The town could remember many a desperate and stirring combat on its -well-worn battle-field, but never such a resolute, prolonged, and -altogether delightful contest as this. The fight had its historic side, -too. Every voter in Tyre could remember, or had been taught in all its -details about, the famous struggle of the wet fall of ’34, when Hiram -Chesney, the Warwick of Jay County then, locked horns with the elder -Seth Fairchild of Dearborn, and, to pursue the local phraseology, they -pawed up more earth in their fierce encounter than would dam the Nedahma -creek. Poor Hiram had finally been worsted, falling ignobly on his -native stamping ground, before the eyes of his own people. He had long -since passed away, as Warwicks should when their king-making sinews have -lost their strength. But another boss, perhaps in some ways a greater -boss, had arisen in Jay County, in the person of Abram K. Beekman, -and now, nearly half a century later, he was to try conclusions with a -second Fairchild of Dearborn--a grandson of the hero of ’34. They had -grappled once, a fortnight before, and had had to separate again, after -an all-day tug, with a fall credited to neither. Now, in a few hours, -they were to confront each other once more. What wonder that Tyre was -excited! - -The two gladiators had been the observed of all observers during the -preliminary skirmish. Tyre was almost disposed to fancy the Dearborn -man. In his portly, black-clad figure, his round, close-shaven, aquiline -face, and his professional capacity for oratory, he had recalled -pleasantly the days when the Jay County bar was famous. The local -magnate, Beekman, was not a lawyer; he could not make a speech; he -didn’t even look as if he could make a speech. He had none of the -affable, taking ways which Albert Fairchild used to such purpose, -but was brusque, self-contained, prone to be dogmatic when he was not -taciturn. Thus the balance turned enough in Fairchild’s favor to about -offset Beckman’s claims to local sympathy as a Jayhawker, and put Tyre -people in excellent mental trim to enjoy all the points of the duel. - -For in the minds of these practical politicians, it _was_ a duel. There -was a third candidate, named Ansdell, it was true, supported by nearly -all the Adams delegation, but then he was a reformer, and had not even -come to the Convention, and Tyre had no use for him. A county boss who -had got a machine, and purposed doing certain definite things with -it, either to build up himself or crush somebody else, was natural and -comprehensible; but a man who set himself up as a candidate, without -the backing of any recognized political forces, who came supported by -delegates elected in a public and lawless manner without reference -to the wishes of leaders, and who pretended that his sole mission in -politics was to help purify it--who _could_ make head or tail out of -that? - -Thus Tyreans talked with one another, as the village began to take on -an air of liveliness after breakfast, and groups slowly formed on -the sidewalks in front of the two hotels. There were many shades of -diverging opinion as to the merits and the prospects of the approaching -contest, but on one matter of belief there was a consensus of agreement. -The fight lay between Beekman and Fairchild, and the third man--it was -interesting to note that ignorance of his name was fashionable--wasn’t -in the race. Steve Chesney, whose right to speak oracularly on politics -was his sole inheritance from the departed Warwick, his father, summed -up the situation very clearly from the standpoint of Tyre when he said, -leaning comfortably against the post office hitching post, and pointing -his arguments in the right places with accurate tobacco juice shots at a -crack in the curb: - -“The hull p’int’s this: Dearborn’s got seventeen votes, ain’t -she?--solid for Fairchild. Then he’s got two ’n’ Adams, ain’t -he?--makin’ nineteen ’n’ all. Th’ dude, he’s got what’s left of Adams, -fifteen ’n’ all. Jay County’s only got ten votes, ain’t she? Very -well, they’re solid for Abe. _Now!_ Twenty-three’s a majority of the -convention. Git twenty-three ’n’ that settles it. Th’ reformer, he -needs eight votes. Kin he git ’em? Whair frum? Frum Dearborn? Not -much! Frum Jay? Well, not _this_ evening! Count him out then. Of th’ -other two, Fairchild wants four votes, Abe needs thirteen. Thet looks -kind o’ sickly for Abe, mebbe yeh think. But bear in mine thet th’ Adams -men air pledged agin’ Fairchild by th’ same resolution which bines -’em to th’ other chap. Abe wasn’t a candidate then ’n’ he didn’t git -barred out. But they made a dead set agin Fairchild all through Adams, -on ’count of his funny work at th’ State Convention. _So_, Adams kin -go to Abe, ’n’ she can’t go to Fairchild. I tell yeh, Jay can’t be -beat, ef she’s only a mine to think so--thet is, of course, ef Dearborn -fights fair. Ef she don’t, p’raps she may win to-day, but I tell yeh, -in thet case ther won’t be enough left of her candidate come ’lection -night to wad a hoss-pistol with.” - -The Jay County delegates had begun to straggle into town, and percolate -aimlessly through the throngs in and about the bar-rooms, listening -to the discussions, and exchanging compliments and small talk with -acquaintances. Pending the appearance of their leader there was nothing -else for them to do. There was a rumor that Abe Beekman was in town, -sending for men as he wanted to see them, one by one, but nobody -professed to be in the secret of his hiding place, and nobody dreamed of -attempting to find out what Abe wished to keep dark. - -The Adams County men, delegates and others, came over the hill from the -Spartacus station in a carryall, with four horses, and created a genuine -sensation as they drew up with a great clatter and splashing of mud in -front of the Nedahma House, and descended jauntily from the rear step to -the curb-stone. The natives eyed them all with deep interest, for upon -their action depended the issue of the day, but there was a special -excitement in watching the nine delegates with stove-pipe hats and -gloves, and tight rolled umbrellas, who came from Tecumseh itself. -Tecumseh was the only city in the district, or the whole section, for -that matter, and Jay County people timidly, wistfully dreamed of its -gilded temptations, its wild revels of sumptuous gayety, its dazzling -luxuriance of life, as shepherd boys on the plain of Dura might have -dreamed of the mysteries and marvels of Babylon. It was something, at -least, to touch elbows with men whose daily life was passed in Tecumseh. - -Such of the younger Tyreans as had been introduced to these exalted -creatures on their previous visit crowded around them now, to -deferentially renew the acquaintance, and shine before their neighbors -in its reflected light. - -Then the news filtered through the groups round about that Ansdell -himself had come up this time, and was the short, wiry little man with -the drab overcoat and the sharp black eyes. This aroused a fleeting -interest, and there was some standing on tip-toe to get a good view of -him, but it could not last long, for Ansdell as a politician was not a -tangible thing on which the tendrils of Tyre’s imagination could get a -real grip. - -It was of more importance to learn whether the views of the Adams -delegates had undergone any change--whether a new light had dawned upon -them in the interim. They submitted graciously to the preliminary test -of drinks at the bar, and pretended with easy affability to remember -distinctly the various Tyre men who came up and recalled their -acquaintance of a fortnight ago, but they had nothing to say that was -to the purpose. They were waiting; they would see what turned up; they -would certainly vote for Ansdell on the first ballot; further than that -they couldn’t say, but they saw no reason now why they shouldn’t keep on -voting for him; still, perhaps something might happen--this and nothing -more. - -Meanwhile there was an uneasy whisper going the rounds to the effect -that the two Adams men who had previously voted for Fairchild were now -for Ansdell, having succumbed to local pressure during the fortnight. -The story could not be verified, for the two gentlemen in question had -secreted themselves upon their arrival, and the other Adams men only -grinned bland mystery when interrogated on the subject. This worried the -Tyre men a good deal more than they would have liked to admit, but there -was a certain element of pleasure in it, too, for it added piquancy to -the coming fight. - -The wooden minute hand of the old clock on the court house cupola had -laboriously twitched along to the zenith of the dial once more, marking -ten o’clock; only half an hour remained now before the time for the -Convention to reassemble, and the Dearborn delegates were still absent. -People began to stroll toward the court house, and casually attach -themselves to the outskirts of the cluster of saturnine, clean-shaven, -thin-featured old villagers, in high black stocks and broad-brimmed -soft hats, who stood on the steps, behind the fluted columns of the -building’s ambitious Grecian front, and chewed tobacco voraciously while -they set up the rival claims of Martin Van Buren and Francis Granger, -or mumblingly wrangled over the life and works of De Witt Clinton. These -old men, by reason of the antiquity and single-heartedness of their -devotion to their country, had two inalienable and confirmed rights: -to sit on the platform close by the speakers when the Declaration of -Independence was read each Fourth of July and to have the first chance -for seats when the doors were opened at a political Convention. - -At last the eyes of those who had lingered about the Turnpike Tavern -were gladdened by the sight of the Dearborn crowd, driving furiously up -in three or four vehicles. Milton Squires was in the foremost wagon, and -he was the first to alight. - -He trembled and turned around swiftly as a man laid a hand on his -shoulder. - -“What d’yeh want?” he demanded, with nervous alertness. - -The man whispered in his ear: “Abe Beekman is over in the back settin’ -room at Blodgett’s, ’n’ he wants to see your man Fairchile right off.” - -Milton had regained his composure. “So do I want to see him. Whair -abaouts is he? I was to meet him here.” - -“There ain’t been no sign of him here, this mornin’. Nobuddy ’n Tyre’s -laid eyes on him, so far’s I kin fine aout.” - -“Thet’s cur’ous,” said Milton reflectively. “He started to drive over -early enough. We cum by train, expectin’ to fine him here. P’raps he’s -seen Beekman by this time, on th’ quiet.” - -“No, he ain’t!” The messenger’s tone was highly positive. - -“Then mebbe I’d better go ’n’ see Beekman myself. Whair is -Blodgett’s?” - -The man led the way off the main street, to a big, clap-boarded, dingy -white house, fronting nowhere in particular, and stopped at the gate. - -“Ain’t you comin’ in?” Milton asked him. - -“I dasen’t.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV.--THE CONVENTION: THE NEWS. - -There were two strange men in the low-ceilinged, grimly-furnished -“settin’ room,” as Milton was ushered into the presence of the Boss, but -at a gesture from this magnate they went out; the Boss surveyed the new -comer without a word of greeting or comment. - -Mr. Beekman was a tall, angular man, past the prime of life, as was -shown by the gray in his thick hair, curling at the ends, and in the -stiff, projecting ruff of beard under his chin. His face was thin, -hungry, with a plaintive effect of deep lines, and his great blue-black -eyes were often tearful, like a young robin’s, in their intent -watchfulness. He was almost wholly Dutch in parentage--of that silent, -persistent, quietly-masterful race which, despite all the odds, has -still held more than its own in Stuyvesant’s State--and the descent -showed itself in the dusky hue of his skin. He had never been a wealthy -man, though he came of a family decently supplied with substance, and -of long settlement in the county. He had climbed to his present eminence -after a long career in local politics, by that process of exhaustion -which we call the survival of the fittest. Having attained it, his rule -was that of a just despot, rewarding and binding still more closely -to him the faithful, remorselessly crushing all signs of rivalry, and -putting the recalcitrant without pity to fire and sword. He had an -almost supernatural faculty of organizing information, and getting at -the motives of men. He sniffed treachery as a deer in the breeze sniffs -the dog, and he had an oriental way of striking with cruel swiftness, -before anybody but the guilty victim suspected offence. Withal, he was -a kindly man to those who deserved well of him, an upright citizen -according to his lights, and a profound believer in his party. - -He sat now chewing an unlighted cigar, with his feet on the hearth -of the stove, and contemplated Milton at his leisure. He did not like -Milton at all, and one of his chief reasons for doubting the real -ability of Albert Fairchild was his choice of such an agent and -confidant. At last he said, curtly: - -“It’s you, is it? I’ve got no business with you! Where’s Fairchild?” - -There was something in Beekman’s eager, searching way of looking at a -man with those big bright eyes of his which, coupled with the question, -embarrassed Milton, and he fumbled with his hat as he repeated the -explanation he had given to the messenger. He was annoyed with himself -for being thus disturbed. - -The Boss looked his visitor out of countenance once more. Then he said: -“Sit daown! Well, what is it to be?” - -‘Milton grinned, and leaned forward familiarly in his chair. - -“I sh’d ruther think that was fur you to say.” - -“Oh, you think so, do yeh? You imagine you’ve got me on the hip, ay?” - -“Well, p’raps we’re no jedge, but it sorts o’ looks that way, now, don’t -it?” Milton tipped back his chair, satisfiedly, and put one of his big -feet up on the hearth, to dispute possession with the Boss. - -Beekman reflected for a minute: then he began, after glancing at the -clock: - -“There’s no time to waste. I might as well talk up ’n’ daown with yeh. -Your man Fairchild makes me tired. Ef he’d set his heart on goin’ to -Congress, why on airth didn’t he come to me in the first place, ’n’ -say so? It could ’a’ been arranged, easy’s slidin’ off a log. But no, -instid of that, he must go ’n’ work up th’ thing his own way, ’n’ -then come ’n’ buck agin me in my own caounty, ’n’ obleege me to -fight back. D’yeh call that sense? He’s smart enough in his way, I -grant yeh. He’s fixed up a putty fair sort o’ organisation in Dearborn, -although it can’t last long, simply because it’s all built up on money, -’n’ I don’t go a cent on that kind of organising. Still it’s good -enough in its way. _But_, he made his mistake in lettin’ the idea run -away with him that he could skeer me into a conniption fit with his -musharoon organisation. He didn’t knaow me. He never took the trouble -to find aout abaout me. He jest took it fur granted that I’d crawl daown -aout o’ my tree, like Davy Crockett’s coon, as soon’s he pinted his gun -at me. Well, I didn’t come worth a cent. Then, when he faound aout -that he’d struck a snag, ’n’ that Dearborn County wasn’t the hull -deestrick, he turns raoun’ ’n’ aouts with his wallet, ’n’ tries to -hire me to come daown. Fur that’s what you was here for last week, ’n’ -you knaow it’s well’s I do.” - -Milton tried to get in some words here, of dissent or explanation, but -the Boss would not hear them. - -“Lem me go on; ’s no use your lyin’. That was Fairchild’s second -mistake. He thought politics was all money. Ef I was poorer than Job’s -turkey, he couldn’t buy me to so much as wink an eye fur him. I’m not -in politics fur what I kin make aout of it. I’m in because I like it; -because it’s meat ’n’ drink to me; because I git solid, substantial -comfort aout of it. Ther’s satisfaction in carryin’ yer eend; there’s -pretty nigh as much in daownin’ them that’s agin yeh. Jest naow I’m -a thinkin’ a good deal what fun it ’d be to let the floor aout from -under your man altogether, ’n’ nominate this feller from Tecumsy.” - -“But,” broke in Milton, “you’re a candidate yer-self, ’n’----” - -“Wait till I’m threw, will yeh? I _said_, I’m leanin’ a good deal jest -naow to’rd this man from Tecumsy. I c’d beat him easy ’nough at the -polls, ef he turned cranky, but I daoubt ef it ’d be wuth while. I -ain’t seen him yet, but I’m told he’s here, ’n’ ef I like his looks -durn me ef I ain’t a mine to nominate him. He can’t do no harm, even ef -he tries. These reform spurts don’t winter well. They never last till -spring. The boys lose their breath for a few months. But then they git -daown to work agin, and baounce the reformers to the back seats where -they belong. But it ’d be one thing to elect a high-toned, kid-gloved, -butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-maouth kind o’ man like what’s-his-name, -’n’ a hoss o’ quite another color to ’lect Fairchild. _He’d_ make me -trouble from the word ‘go!’ Understan’, I ain’t afraid of his meddlin’ -with me here in Jay caounty; not a bit of it. But he’d use his position -to cripple me in the deestrick. The present Congressman tried that on-- -’n’ you ain’t so much as heerd his name mentioned fur a re-nomination. -But it was bother ’nough to squelch him. I ain’t goin’ to hev it to do -all over agin.” - -“Right you air, tew!” Milton responded. - -The Boss held up his hand to forbid further interruption, while he -looked curiously at his visitor, as if puzzled by his acquiescence. He -went on: - -“Ef you was a man of any readin’ you’d hev heerd of a custom among -Europe-ian kentries, when one whips another, of makin’ the under dog in -the fight pull aout his front teeth, like. The beaten kentry has to tear -daown its forts, ’n’ blow up its men-o’-war, ’n’ so on, jest as a -guarantee not to make any more trouble. Well, ef I’d concluded to hev -any dealin’s at all with Fairchild, that’s what I’d hev done with him. -I’d ’a’ made him turn over the appintment of all Dearborn’s men on the -deestrick Committee; ’n’ I’d ’a had a written agreement that half -the Postmasters in Adams ’n’ Dearborn, as well as all in Jay, should -be o’ my namin’. My wife’s brother should hev hed the Thessaly post -office, tew, right under Fairchild’s nose, so’s to keep an eye on him. -It’s the duty of every man to purvide for his own fam’ly.” - -“Nothin’ small about _you!_ You only wanted the hull airth!” chuckled -Milton, ingratiatingly. - -“No, it was Fairchild who wanted the airth ’n’ thought he’d got it, -’n’ while he was deliberatin’ whether he’d have it braowned on both -sides or not, lo ’n’ behold I went in ’n’ took it away from him -slick ’n’ clean.” - -The Boss rose as he was speaking, reached for his overcoat and put it -on. “Time’s up!” he said, sententiously. - -Milton had risen too, and placed himself between Beekman and the door. -“There’s seven minutes yit,” he said eagerly, “I’ve got something yeh -can’t afford to miss. Don’t you want th’ nomination yer-self?” - -“No. What good’d Washington be to me? New York State’s big enough for -me. If yeh don’t understand that I put my name before the Convention -jest to hold my caounty together, ’n’ block Dearborn, yer a dummed -sight bigger fool than even I took yeh to be.” - -“But s’pose Dearborn’s votes cud be thrown to you! They’d nominate yeh! -What’d thet be wuth to yeh?” - -“What ’d it be wuth?” mused the Boss, looking intently at Milton. - -“Yes! in ready money, here! naow!” - -The Boss took up his hat, meditatively, and gazed at his companion -again. “Did you knaow th’ man that brought yeh here?” he asked. - -“Yes--’twas Jim Bunner, wa’nt it?” - -“That man ’d wade threw fire ’n’ water fer me. Yeh couldn’t tempt -him with a hundred thaousan’ dollars to so much as say an evil word -abaout me, let alone injure me. Yit he’s desprit poor, ’n’ th’ unly -thing I ever did fer him in my life, excep’ givin’ him a day’s work naow -’n’ then, was to help him bury his child decently, ten years ago. But -_I_ know my _men!_ Here Fairchild has took you off a dunghill, where all -yer hull humly, sore-eyed, misrubble fam’ly belong, ’n’ made a man of -yeh, trusted his affairs to yeh, clothed yeh, fed yeh, yes, ’n’ -let yeh fatten yerself on the profits of his farm--and naow yeh turn -’raound ’n’ offer to sell him aout. By gum! I was right. Fairchild -hain’t got no sense! ’N’ you, yeh skunk, git aout! Don’t yeh walk on -the same side of the street with me, or I’ll swat the hull top of yer -head off!” - -“We’ll nominate Ansdell ’fore you git a chance!” snarled Milton. - -***** - -The Convention met, depressed by the evident feeling of disappointment -among the spectators, who swarmed on all the high, pewlike seats back -of the bar railing, while the delegates sat in rows of chairs inside the -space reserved in term time for the lawyers. There was ground enough for -this disappointment. Fairchild had not come, and the prospects of a good -speech, or even a bitter personal contest, were fading away. No one had -an explanation for his absence. The Dearborn delegates were more in the -dark than outsiders even, for they had been told to meet him in Tyre, -before the Convention, and that he would breakfast at the Turnpike -Tavern. Milton reassured them for a time by enlarging upon the bad -condition of the roads, but even he ended as they took their seats, -by professing some fear of an accident. “However, I’ll cast th’ solid -vaote, th’ same as before, I suppose?” he said, and the bondsmen nodded -assent. - -The proceedings opened tamely. The Chairman was a professor from the -Tecumseh Academy; the other counties each had a secretary. Two written -announcements were handed up to be read, one that Milton Squires was -authorized to cast seventeen votes for Dearborn County, the other naming -a man to perform a similar function for the ten votes of Jay. There -was to be no break yet awhile, apparently, in the two machine counties. -But--what would Adams do? - -As this question flashed through the minds of the assemblage, one of the -Adams delegates rose, walked to the bench, gave a paper to the presiding -officer, and then joined the little throng of spectators to one -side. Did this mean that he left the Convention? What _did_ it mean? -Experienced observers began to feel that something startling was coming. - -The paper being read, turned out to be an announcement that Abram K. -Beekman had been substituted in the Adams County delegation for the -delegate who had just vacated his seat, and as the words died away the -Boss himself pushed his way down the aisle, threw his long leg over -the bar-rail, and took his seat. The master of Jay County getting -substituted for Adams County--here _was_ a mystery! Did it portend -that Adams had been won for Beekman’s candidature? Yes, it must mean -that--and Tyre’s heart leapt for joy. Or no--it couldn’t mean that. The -Boss would hardly thrust himself forward in that brash way if he were -sure of winning--and Tyre’s heart sank again, sadly. - -The Chairman announced that balloting would be resumed; that the -counties would be called in alphabetical order, and that, in the case -of Adams County, which did not signify a desire to vote as a unit, the -names of the delegates would also be called in that order. Before -the words were fairly out of his mouth a hundred shrewd brains had -discovered that this meant Beekman’s being the first name called. But -what was his game? - -So perplexed were the men of Tyre with this problem that they almost -forgot to cheer when their man rose to his feet, in response to -his name. It was rarely that one saw Abe Beekman in Conventions; he -preferred to run them from the outside; and no one in the hall had ever -heard him make a speech. Imagine how they listened now! - -He spoke with an almost boyish nervousness, resting his hands on -the table before him, and clinging, as it were, with his eyes to the -Chairman for support. What he said was brief, to the point, and worth -repeating here: - -“I got substituted, ez p’raps some of yeh hev guessed, because I wanted -a word at the very start. I hev my reasons. I ain’t a’ goin’ to mention -no names--” he darted a swift, significant glance over toward the -Dearborn County men, singling out Milton for a second, then reverting -his troubled gaze to the Chairman--“but I kin feel it in my bones that -things ain’t on the square here. Ther’s a nigger in the fence. Mebbe -it’s no business of mine to yank him aout, but it’s only fair to my -caounty that we shouldn’t let anybody git ahead of us in doin’ what -we want to dew. It’s trew that D. comes ahead o’ J. in the alph’bet, -but”--and there was a momentary relaxation of his eager, sombre face as -he enunciated this undoubted fact--“its jest as trew that A. comes in -front o’ D. Ef any set o’ men--mind, I mention no names, but--ef any set -o’ delegates come here with the idee o’ sellin’ their man aout, or o’ -makin’ a combination which’ll put them solid with the next Congressman, -and leave Jay aout in the cold, perhaps ’fore I’m threw they’ll see -thet they bit off more’n their jaws could wag. - -“Mr. Cheerman, I don’t want to go to Congress. I never ’v’ hed the -least hankerin’ after it. This State of aours is good enough for me. I -wouldn’t feel like myself ef I had to stan’ ’raoun’ ’n’ see chaps -from Rhode Island or Floridy puttin’ on airs, and pretendin’ to cut as -big a swath as New York did. I’m too much of a State man fer thet. -I’d be itchin’ to jump on ’em all the while. So I want to say that I -withdraw my name----” - -The Hon. Elhanan Pratt rose here, his weazen little figure coming up -with a spring like a jack-in-the-box, and squeaked out sharply: “I rise -to a point of order. The Abram K. Beekman whose name is before this -Convention is a Jay County man, nominated by Jay County, and voted -for alone by Jay County. No Adams County man”--there was an elaborate -sarcasm in the tone--“has any right to withdraw that name.” - -“The point of order is well taken,” said the Chair. - -“Well, in thet case I won’t ask to withdraw my name,” responded Beekman. -“But I don’t think it’ll make much differ’nce. A wink is as good as a -nod to a bline man. P’raps you kin git an idee by this time haow the Jay -caounty cat’s goin’ to jump; p’raps you can’t. I’m-goin’ to vaote fer -Mr. Richard Ansdell, ’n’ I wan’ to say----” - -He was interrupted here by a stout, sharp burst of hand-clapping from -the Adams delegates, and the few Adams men in the audience. The Tyre -crowd were taken aback for an instant, and sat bewildered; then the fact -that their man had played his game, and was acting as if he had won, -inspired them to join tumultuously in the applause, though they were in -total darkness as to the nature of the stakes played for. - -The Boss went on: “I wan’ to say that I’ve never laid eyes on him but -once, ’n’ never spoke a word with him in my life. But I ain’t lived -all this while ’thaout learnin’ to read somethin’ of a man’s natur’ -in his face. I believe he’s honest and straight-aout; I don’t believe -there’s a crookid hair in his head. P’raps he’s got some naotions that -we’d look on as finnickin’ up here in Jay, but I ain’t afeard o’ them. -It’s better to hev a man standin’ so upright thet he bends back’rd, then -to hev---- to hev---- the fact is, Mr. Cheerman, _I_ think I’ve said -’baout enough. Th’ other candidate hain’t showed up today! P’raps it’s -jest as well fur him that he hain’t. I guess he’ll consider that he’s -got abaout threw with deestrick politics--but I don’t want to appear to -be rubbin’ it in. The lawyers hev a Latin sayin’ abaout speakin’ nothin’ -but good o’ the dead----” - -Beekman stopped short. The Chairman had risen to his feet. Half the -delegates had followed his example, and were gazing intently at one of -the tall, small-paned windows on the right side of the room. The three -reporters who were sitting in the clerk’s desk had begun climbing over -the rails and weaving their way between the chairs toward this same -window. A hum of rising murmurs was running through the audience. -Beekman, finding suddenly that he had no auditors, and disconcerted at -the interruption, looked about the room for a moment, in search of an -explanation. Then he followed the direction of the faces, and saw his -retainer, Jim Bunner, clambering in under the lifted sash, and making -strenuous, almost frantic, efforts meanwhile to attract his attention. - -The man was breathless with excitement. He had climbed to the window -from the roof of a low adjoining shed, and he could be heard now, as he -found a footing on the back of a bench, in panting explanation of his -conduct: “I _hed_ to come this way! It’d ’a taken me tew long to’ve -got threw the crowd at th’ door. I’ve got news for th’ Boss that won’t -keep a second!” - -He had pushed his way roughly through the throng now, brushing the -reporters aside with especial impatience, and stood whispering, gasping -his tidings in Beekman’s ear. The assemblage, silent now as the midnight -watch, read in the deepening shadows and shocked severity of the Boss’s -face that something far out of the ordinary had happened. Beekman -appeared to be asking some questions, and pondering the whispered -answers with increasing emotion. - -The waiting hundreds, all on their feet now, watched him in a tremor of -expectation. - -At last he spoke, in a low, changed, yet extremely distinct voice: - -“Mr. Cheerman, when I spoke abaout sayin’ nothin’ but good o’ th’ dead, -I spoke unbeknaown to myself like a prophet. My friend here brings some -awful news. Mr. Fairchild o’ Dearborn has jest been faound, stark -’n’ cold, crunched under his hosses ’n’ carriage, at the bottom of -Tallman’s ravine!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXV.--“YOU THOUGHT I DID IT!” - -WHEN Seth awoke next morning, the position of the shadow cast by the -thick green-paper curtain which covered the upper half of his window, -told his practised faculties that it was very late, and impelled him to -get out of bed, before he began at all to remember the several momentous -events of the previous evening. As he dressed he strove to get these -arranged in their proper order in his mind. Curiously enough there -were certain inchoate recollections of feminine screams, of bursts of -hysterical sobbing, of low but rough and strange male voices, doleful -and haunting, which confusedly struggled for place in his sleepy -thoughts, and seemed now to be a part of the evening’s occurrences, now -to belong to this present morning, and to have come to him while he was -nearing the end of his sleep. - -As he passed his Aunt Sabrina’s door on his way to the stairs, he heard -from within this same sound of suppressed weeping. This much at least -of the unlocated recollections must have belonged to the first stages of -his waking. “Another quarrel with Isabel!” he thought, as he descended -the stairs. “Why is it that women must always be rowing it with each -other!” Then his own dispute with Albert came fresh and overpowering -in distinctness of impression across his mind, and the grounds of his -grievance against the temper of the other sex faded away. - -The living-room was vacant--the breakfast table still standing in the -disorder of a meal just finished, and the shades down as though the day -had not yet begun, although the clock showed it to be past ten. One of -the folding doors of the parlor was open and he heard Isabel’s voice--it -struck him as being strangely altered toward harshness of fibre--calling -him to enter. - -She stood, as he remembered her once before, in front of the piano. In -the dusk of the drawn curtains--how gloomy and distrait everything about -the house was this morning!--her figure was not very clearly visible, -but her face was so pale that it seemed to be independent of any light. -Her eyes had the effect of slight distention, and, in the shadow, were -singularly dark of tint. They were gazing at him with a strange, intent, -troubled look, and the expression of the pallid face went with this to -disturb him vaguely. He said to himself, in the moment of waiting for -her to speak, that he must keep his troth with Annie resolutely in mind, -and, if needs be, not shrink from avowing and standing by it. - -Isabel did not offer him her hand, or tender him any greeting whatever; -only looked him through and through with that searching, unaccustomed -gaze. - -“I wouldn’t let them call you,” she said at last, speaking slowly, as -if with an effort to both form these words, and repress others. “I knew -that you needed the sleep.” - -“I am sorry if I put anybody out by my laziness. But it is such a relief -to be able to sleep like that once in a while, instead of having to get -down to the office by eight.” - -“I heard you go out last night. I heard you come in this morning. But -not another soul in the house suspects that you were out; not one!” - -The tone was unmistakably solemn, and weighted with deep feeling of some -sort. Seth uneasily felt that a scene was impending, though he could not -foresee its form. He felt, too, that the part he must play in it would -of necessity be an awkward one. - -“Yes,” he answered, “the night seemed too fine to stay in doors. -Besides, I was nervous, and it did me good to walk it off. You -can’t imagine how light-hearted I was when I returned, or--for that -matter--how heavy-hearted when I went out.” - -“Seth!” - -The word came forth like the red flash from clouds which can no longer -retain their pent-up, warring, swelling forces--an interjection of -passion, of dread, of infinite troubling, of doubt wreathed in struggle -with pain. She swayed slightly toward him, her hands clasped and -stretched down and forward with a gesture of excessive perturbation, her -great eyes lustrous with the excitement of this battle of emotions. Seth -fancied that the dominant meaning of the look was reproach. He could not -in the least see his way through the dilemma, or even understand it. He -could only say to himself that the enchantment was ended, and that, come -what might, he would not forget Annie. - -The woman glided a step nearer to him. She put one hand to her brow with -a sudden movement, and rested the other upon the piano, as if all -at once conscious of needing support. With a painful little laugh, -hysterically incongruous, she said: - -“I am almost beside myself, am I not? I can not speak to you, it seems! -And yet there is so much to say--or no! isn’t silence better still?” Her -voice trembled as she went on: “For what _could_ we say? How meaningless -all our words would be in the face of---- of-----.” - -She swept both hands to her eyes, with an impetuous gesture. Her form -seemed to totter for a moment, so that Seth instinctively moved toward -her. Then with a wild outburst of sobs she threw herself upon his -breast, convulsed with incessant paroxysms of passionate weeping. - -They stood thus together for some minutes. The young man, moved to -great tenderness by her evident suffering, the cause of which he vaguely -referred to the previous evening’s events, put his arm about her, -whispered gently to her to be comforted, and stroked her hair with a -soft, caressing touch. His hand touched her cheek, and she shuddered at -the contact; then swiftly took the hand in hers, and raised it to her -lips, murmuring between the sobs: - -“Ungrateful! was it not done for me? Ah, dear, I shall not shudder -again.” - -She kissed the hand repeatedly, and pressed it to her bosom, as she -spoke. She was still trembling like a leaf in his arms. - -What could it all mean? he asked himself--and found no answer. - -“We must be brave, dear,” she whispered now. “We must be on our guard -every instant! Oh--h! they shall tear my heart out before they learn -anything--so much as a syllable! We must keep our nerves.” She looked -up into his astonished face, with almost a smile in her effort to -strengthen his courage. “We _will_ be brave, won’t we, mine? The test -will come soon now. Perhaps in an hour they will bring--_it!_” - -The trembling seized her frame, and shook it with cruel force. She -buried her face in his breast with along, low cry of anguish, and sobbed -there piteously, clinging to his hand still. Once she bent as if to -kiss it again, but stopped, then turned her head aside, groaning “Oh how -terrible! how terrible!” - -The mystification now demanded light of some sort. - -“What is it that is so terrible, my poor girl?” he asked. “What are they -going to bring in an hour? Tell me, Isabel--my sweet sister--what does -it all mean?” - -She looked up into his face, with flickering suggestions of a mechanical -smile at the comers of her pale lips, and with soft reproach in her -eyes: - -“Are you going to pretend to _me_, too, dear one? As if it were not all -here in my heart--all, all! Ah, they shan’t get it! They shan’t get the -shadow of a hint. You were home here all the while! You were asleep, -sound asleep! If it be necessary, I could swear that I _knew_ you were -asleep, that--but no, there might be suspicion then. That we mustn’t -have! Don’t fear for me, dear one! I shall be so discreet, so -circumspect, watching, weighing every word! But oh--h--shall we dream of -_it?_ What if we should, and should cry out in our sleep--Oh-h, my God! -my God!” - -She sank again, convulsively clutching his hand, and quivering with -feverish sobs upon his breast. - -“Upon my soul, I don’t in the least know what you are talking about, -Isabel! Do try and be calm, and tell me what it is!” - -“_He_ asks _me!_” she cried, with the same jarring, painful half-laugh -he had heard before. - -He held her from him, so that he might look into her face. - -“Come, come! You are acting like a tragedy-queen on the stage. Do be -sensible, and tell me what the matter is. You make me out of patience -with you!” - -He spoke in the vexed tone of a man needlessly perplexed with foolish -mysteries. To her strained senses the simple expression of impatience -was cruel mockery. She drew herself still further back from him, and -dropped his hand. She was able to speak collectedly now: - -“It is _you_ who are the actor. You persist in playing the part--to -_me!_” - -“Still in riddles! _What_ part, Isabel?” - -“You _will_ have me tell you? You want to hear the thing--in words?” - -“Yes, by all means.” - -She had never once taken her frightened, fascinated gaze from his face. -“You insist on hearing from my lips that while you were out last night -your brother was murdered----” - -“What!” - -“Murdered not four miles from here, as he was driving on the road, and -his body thrown down into a ravine. Some boys found it. Fortunately, -everybody thinks it was an accident. The men who brought the news -thought so.” - -She had spoken the words coldly, as if they were commonplaces and had -been learnt by rote; but all the passion of her being was flaming in her -eyes, which transfixed him with their stare. - -“Mur-dered!” the young man stammered, feeling his senses reeling. -“Albert murdered! Oh-h this must be nonsense! It is too terrible to -think of even! You are out of your mind, Isabel!” - -Her lips quivered: “It would be no wonder if I were, after _this!_” - -The darkened rooms, the sobbing of his Aunt upstairs, the sounds of -anguish that he knew now had partially awakened him, the crazed demeanor -of Isabel--all these rose around him, like a black fog, to choke and -confound his mind. Her fixed gaze burned him. - -“Tell me what you know!” he cried, wildly. - -“Wouldn’t it be easier to tell me what _you_ know?” The chilling tone -of the words startled him, as might a sudden contact of warm flesh with -ice, before his bewildered brain had grasped their meaning. Then, like -the crimson, all-pervading outburst of a conflagration, the thing dawned -upon him, and his thoughts seemed blood-red in its hideous light. He -pushed her from him fiercely, returning her piteous look of fright with -a glare, and biting his tongue for words that should be great enough to -fairly overwhelm her. As she cowered, he strode toward her: “You thought -I did it!” he shouted at her. - -Her only answer was to bury her face in her hands, and sink weakly at -his knees. - -He stood relentlessly glowering down upon her. The bitter, brutal words -that might be heaped upon her, nay, that ought to be, crowded upon his -tongue. It was too great a task to restrain them, to keep silence. - -“_You_ thought _I_ did it,” he repeated. “And you didn’t object--you -didn’t shrink from me! Why, I remember--my God!--you kissed my hand! You -said: ‘it was done for me! ’ Oh-h!” - -The woman at his feet, her face hidden, had been sobbing violently. She -lifted her eyes now, and strove appealingly to conquer him with their -power. She rose, unaided, to her feet, and confronted him. Terror and -tenderness visibly struggled for the mastery of her facial expression, -as for the mood behind it. - -“Don’t, Seth, don’t! Can’t you see how I am suffering? Have you no pity? -How _can_ you have the heart to speak to me like this?” - -“_You_ talk about pity--about hearts!” - -“How long ago was it that they were on your tongue--that you had your -arms stretched open for me?” - -“Don’t recall it!” - -“If I were to die this day, this hour, it would be the one thing I -should want to remember, the one thing of my life that I should hug -to my heart. What is changed since then? A man dead?--a man dies every -minute of the day somewhere in the world! Suppose I was wrong! Suppose -it _was_ an accident--yes, we’ll say it was! _Don’t_ you see--how little -that is, how unimportant, compared with--with----” - -She finished the sentence by a faltering step toward him, her arms -outstretched, her lips parted, her form offering itself for his embrace -with a sinuous seduction of moving outlines. - -The old witchery flamed up for a second in his pulses; then it was -emberless ashes. - -Without a word he turned and left her. - -***** - -Aunt Sabrina opened the door of her room in response to his strenuous -rapping, and wiped her tear-stained face with the end of her -shoulder-shawl as her nephew entered. At his behest, she told all the -tidings that had come to the farm. Its master had been found at the -bottom of Tallman’s ravine, by some boys who had climbed down to see -if the beech-nuts were turning. The whole equipage had pitched off the -narrow road which crossed the gulf at this point, high above. The buggy -was smashed. One of the horses was dead; the other had two of its legs -broken. Half hidden under the carriage and one of the beasts was Albert, -quite lifeless and cold. The men who brought the news believed every -bone in his body must have been broken. - -As she concluded the bare recital of facts, the poor old maid began her -sobbing afresh. - -“I might uv knaowd it’d ’a’ come to this,” she groaned; “‘pride goeth -before a fall,’ ez Solomon says. I hed my heart tew much sot on his -goin’ to Congress; I was exaltin’ my horn tew high. I was settin’ by -the window, that very minute, watchin’ Sarah Andrews go by perked up in -their democrat wagon, with her injy shawl ’n all her fine feathers on, -’n’ never so much’s turnin’ her head this way, ’n’ I was sayin’ to -myself, ‘M’ lady, you’ll come daown a peg ’r two off ’n your high -hoss when Albert goes to Congress’--’n’ there the men was comin’ in -the gate, thet identical minute, with the news. I tell you!” she roused -herself into indignant declamation here, “men like Zeke Tallman ought to -be hung, who ’re tew shiftless or penurious to fix up their fences on -pieces o’ raoad like thet, sao’s to keep folks from drivin’ off in the -dark, ’n’ killin’ themselves! That’s what they ought!” - -“But it wasn’t dark, Aunt Sabrina,” said Seth; “the moon was so bright -all last night, you could have seen to read by it.” - -The old lady was too occupied with her own thoughts to even think of -inquiring as to her nephew’s source of information. She only rocked to -and fro, desolately, and said, as if talking to herself: - -“Sao much the wuss, Seth. It _was_ to be! Nothin’ could a’ stopped it. -Thet old witch, M’tildy Warren, is right. There’s a cuss on aour fam’ly. -Here, almost inside tew years, Sissly’s gone, ’n’ Lemuel’s gone, ’n’ -naow its poor Albert! ’N’ he was gittin’ so like his grandfather, -the Senator, tew, gittin’ to look like him, ’n’ ack like him; I kin -remember my father----” - -Seth had left the room, with soft footsteps. He would go at once to the -scene of his brother’s death. - -At the outside door, as he opened it, he stood face to face with Annie. -She gave him her hand silently. Her face was paler than he had ever seen -it before, and she looked on the ground, after the first little start of -surprise at the meeting, instead of into his face. - -“You have heard?” he whispered. - -“Yes. Isn’t it awful?” - -“Will you go upstairs and see Aunt Sabrina? She is in her room. I think -the sight of you would do her good.” - -“Yes. What a terrible shock it must be to her. And----?” - -“The widow? You’ll find her in the parlor. Strange enough, she was -weeping her eyes out when I last saw her.” He could not keep the -bitterness out of his tone. - -“Poor woman!” was all that Annie could find it in her heart to murmur, -as Seth passed her on his gloomy errand, and she entered the house of -mourning. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI.--THE CORONER. - -THERE was a short cut by which, using a rough back road across the -hill, and then a dimly-marked bridle path down the bed of the creek, one -could get to Tallman’s ravine in less than an hour on foot. Seth saddled -the black mare, and brought her up on the meadow plateau overlooking the -gulf, panting and white on breast and barrel with foam, inside fifteen -minutes. He had galloped furiously, unable to think save in impatient -flashes, and reckless alike of his own neck and the beast’s wind and -limbs. He reined up the plunging mare at the very edge of the ravine, -where some score of farmers and boys were standing clustered under the -trees, watching his excited approach. - -As he threw himself from the saddle among them, and looked swiftly from -face to face for the right one to speak to first, the attention of the -elder bystanders concentrated itself upon the mare. They would have -given their foremost thoughts to her anyway, for they were owners of -livestock even before they were neighbors, and her splashed and heated -condition appealed in protest to their deepest feeling--reverential -care for good horseflesh. But there was something more: the mare was -strangely, visibly agitated at the sight of the glen before her, and -reared back with outstretched trembling forelegs, lifted ears, and -distended, frightened eyes. - -“By Cracky!” cried Zeke Tallman himself, “don’t it beat natur’! This -’ere mare knaows what’s happened! Look at her! She senses what’s -layin’ down there at the bottom!” - -“’N’ it they say dawgs has got more instinck than a hoss!” said a -younger yokel. He kicked a mongrel pup which was lounging around among -the men’s legs, with a fierce “Git aout! yeh whelp, yeh! What d’_you_ -knaow abaout it!” to illustrate his contempt for this canine theory. - -A third farmer, more practically considerate, took the shivering, -affrighted beast by the bridle, and led it away from the gulf’s edge, -patting its wet neck compassionately as they went. - -Meanwhile Seth had found his way through the group to his brother John, -who stood with his back against a beech tree, springing from the very -brink of the gulf, his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the trampled -grass at his feet. A half circle of boys, with one or two girls of the -school age, stretched about him at some distance, like the outer line -of an open fan, mutely eyeing him as the second most important figure in -the tragedy. They separated for Seth to make his way, and made signs to -each other that the interest was doubled by his arrival. The brothers -shook hands silently and scarcely looked at each other. - -There came the sound of a pistol shot from the glen below; somebody -said: “There! they’ve killed th’ off-hoss. Ther’ goes th’ best matched -team o’ grays in Dearborn Caounty!” - -“Have you been down yet, John?” Seth asked softly, as the low buzz of -conversation began about them once more. - -“No, not yet. I suppose I could if I had insisted on it, but when I got -here, twenty minutes or so ago, they told me here that Timms had got his -jury together down there, and forbidden anybody coming down till they -were through. So I’ve stayed here. Not that I care about Timms, but--I -can wait.” - -“Let’s go down!” As he spoke, Seth swung himself around the beech, -and began the descent, letting himself swiftly down the steep, mossy -declivity by saplings and roots. His brother followed. One or two -boys started also, but were roughly restrained by their elders, with a -whispered “Stay back, can’t yeh! H’ain’t yeh got no sense. Them’s the -brothers!” - -The scene at the bottom was not unlike what Seth’s fancy had painted it, -adding the terrible novelties of the night to a spot he had known from -boyhood. Half-shaded even in the noon sunlight by overhanging branches -from the towering, perpendicular sides of the glen, the miniature valley -lay, a narrow stretch of poor, close-cropped grass, with the spiral, -faded mullein stalks, the soft brown clumps of brake, the straggling, -bloomless thistles, and even some tufts of glowing golden-rod, which -push their way into unfrequented pasture-lands and encompass their -sterility. The stream, which once had been a piscatorial glory of the -section, but now, robbed of its water and its life by distant clearings, -mills and reservoirs, wandered sadly and shallowly on an unnoted course, -divided itself here to skirt each side of the gulf with a contemptible -rivulet--the two coming together abruptly at the mouth of the low stone -culvert, and vanishing into its dark recesses, above which rose, sloping -steeply, the high embankment of the road traversing the ravine. - -It was over this embankment that horses, carriage and owner had -precipitately pitched; it was at its base, on the swail and gravel of -the stream’s edge, that the wreck lay, surrounded by a little knot of -men. Vertical gashes in the earth down the bank, with broken branches -and tom roots, marked the awful track of the descent; the waters of the -brook to the right, dammed by the body of the horse killed in the fall, -had overflowed the sands and made muddy rivulets across to the culvert. - -The Coroner turned with obvious vexation at the sound of the brothers’ -approach. “I thought I give word--” he began; then, recognizing the -newcomers, added, without altering his peremptory, officious tone: “It’s -all right; you can come now, if you want to. The gentlemen of the -jury have completed their labors for the present. I was on the pint of -adjourning the ink-west.” - -The brothers joined the jurors, and dumbly surveyed the spectacle at -their feet. One of the grays lay across the rivulet; the other, more -recently dead, was piled awkwardly upon its mate’s neck and shoulders, -in an unnatural heap. The front portions of the buggy, scratched but not -smashed, were curiously reared in the air, by reason of the pole being -driven deep into the soft earth, between the horses; the rear wheels -and the seat, broken off and riven by the violence of the shock, were -imbedded in the marsh underneath. On the higher ground, close in front -of the brothers, lay something decorously covered with horse-blankets, -which they comprehended with a sinking of the heart. - -“He lay in theer, part under the hind wheels ’n’ part under the nigh -hoss,” explained the Coroner, with dignity. “The fall was enough to brek -his neck twenty times over, let alone the hosses may’ve kicked him on -the way down. We hev viewed the remains, ’n’ we’ve decided-- - -“We ain’t decided nothin’!” broke in one of the jurors, a serious, -almost grim-faced farmer, with a bushy collar of gray whiskers framing -his brown square jaw. “How kin we decide till we’ve heerd some evidence, -’n’ before the ink-west is threw with?” - -“There’s some men’d kick if they was goin’ to be hung. Did I _say_ -we’d arrived at a verdict? What I mean is we’ve agreed to adjourn the -ink-west now till arter the funeral.” - -“Well, why daon’t yeh say what yeh mean, then?” rejoined the objecting -juror. “They can’t no cor’ner make up my verdict fur me, ’n’ you’ll -fine it aout, tew.” - -“The more fool me fur panelin’ yeh!” was the Coroner’s comment. - -The brothers insensibly edged away from this painful altercation. A -little elderly man, in shabby broadcloth which seemed strangely out -of place among the rough tweeds and homespuns of the farmers, detached -himself from the group of jurors, and came over to them, with a subdued -halfsmile of recognition. It was the Thessaly undertaker. - -“Tew bad, ain’t it?” he said glibly, “allus some such scrimmage as -thet, on every one of Timms’ juries. He ain’t got no exec’tive ability, -_I_ say. I’d like to see _him_ run a funer’l with eight bearers--all -green han’s! I told him thet once, right to his face! But then of course -yeh knaow _I_ can’t say much. He’s techy, ’n’ ’twouldn’t do fur me -to rile him. We hev a kind o’ ’rangement, you see. I hev to be on hand -any-way, ’n’ he allus puts me on the jury; it helps him ’n’ it helps -me. I kin always sort o’ smooth over things, if any o’ th’ jurors feels -cranky, yeh knaow. They’ll listen to me, cuz they reelize I’ve hed -experience, ’n’ then there’s a good deal in knaowin’ haow to manage -men, in hevin’ what _I_ call exec’tive ability. Of course, this case is -peculiar. They ain’t no question abaout th’ death bein’ accidental. But -this man you heerd kickin’, this Cyrus Ballou, he’s makin’ a dead set to -hev’ Zeke Tallman condemned fur hevin’ his fence up there in bad repair. -He ’n’ Tallman’s a lawin’ of it abaout some o’ his steers thet got -into Tallman’s cabbages, ’n’ thet’s why-----” - -“I suppose we can leave this to you!” John broke in, impatience -mastering the solemnity of the scene. “Have you made any arrangements? -You know what ought to be done.” - -“Yes, my boy ought to be here by this time with my covered wagon, what I -call my ambulance.” - -The brothers turned away from him. The little man remembered something -and hurrying after them laid his hand on John’s arm. - -“When I spoke abaout allus bein’ on the jury, you knaow, p’raps I ought -to’ve explained.” He proceeded with an uneasy, deprecating gesture. “You -see, a juror gits a dollar a day, ’n’ sometimes friends of the -remains think I ought to deduck thet f’m my bill, but ef you’ll jest -consider----” - -“Oh for God’s sake! leave us alone!” - -It was Seth who spoke, and the undertaker joined his fellow-jurors at -the foot of the hill forthwith. The brothers went back, and stood again -in oppressed silence over the blanketed form. - -Dr. William Henry Timms meanwhile conversed apart with his panel. He -was a middle-aged, shrewdfaced man, who, like so many thousands of -other Whig babes born in the forties, had been named after the hero -of Tippecanoe. He was more politician than coroner, more coroner than -doctor. He hung by a rather dubious diploma upon the outskirts of his -profession, snubbed by the County Society, contemned by most sensible -Thessaly families as “not fit to doctor a sick cat.” But he had a -powerful “pull” in the politics of the county, and the office could not, -apparently, be wrested from him, no matter how capable his opponent. - -In the earlier years of his official service he had been over zealous -in suspecting mysteries, and had twice been reprimanded by the Supreme -Court Judge, and much oftener by the District Attorney, for enveloping -in criminal suspicion cases which, when intelligently examined, were -palpable and blameless casualties. These experiences had sensibly -modified his zeal. He had put the detective habit of mind far away -behind him, and, like a wise official, bent all his energies now to the -more practical labor of dividing each inquest into as many sessions as -possible. Had he been a Federal Deputy Marshal, he could not have been -more skilled in this delicate art of getting eight days’ pay out of -a three hours’ case. A bare suggestion of mystery at the start, to be -almost cleared up, then revived, then exploited carefully, then finally -dissipated, and all so deftly that the District Attorney, who lived at -Octavius, would not be inspired to come over and interfere--this was Dr. -Timms’ conception of a satisfactory inquest. Occasionally there would -be the added zest of an opportunity to formally inflict censure upon -somebody, and if this involved some wealthy or potential person, so much -the better: to withhold the censure meant tangible profit, to sternly -mete it (failing a fair arrangement) meant public credit as a bold, -vigilant official. - -Dr. Timms was still turning over in his mind the professional -possibilities involved in Tallman’s bad fence-building, and casually -sounding his jurors as to their private feelings toward the delinquent; -the brothers had followed the jury up to the meadow plateau, and -were standing aloof from yet among their neighbors, answering in -monosyllables, and following mentally the work of the undertakers’ -squad down in the bottom; the farmers were beginning to straggle off -reluctantly, the demands of neglected work and long-waiting dinners -conquering their inclination to remain--when a big carry-all from Tyre -drove up on the road outside, and a score of men clambered out and -over the fence to join the group. They had driven post-haste from the -Convention, and among them were Ansdell, Beekman, and Milton Squires. - -Mr. Ansdell came straight to the two brothers, giving a hand to each -with a gesture full of tender comprehension. While they talked in low -tones of the tragedy, they were joined by Abe Beekman; upon the normal -eagerness and wistful solemnity of his gaunt face there was engrafted -now a curious suggestion of consuming interest in some masked feature -of the affair. He was so intent upon this, whatever it might be, that -to the sensitive feelings of the other three he seemed to dash into the -subject with wanton brusqueness. - -“How air yeh, Fairchild?” he nodded to John, “I want somebody to tell -me this hull thing, while it’s fresh. Who knaows th’ most ’baout it? -Where’s th’ Cor’ner? What’s he done so far?” - -Obedient to a word from John, the Coroner dignifiedly came over to -the beech tree, where our little group stood, and listened coldly to a -series of searching questions put by the Jay County magnate. When they -were finished he made lofty answer: - -“I ain’t institooted no inquiries yit. That’ll be arranged fur later, -to convenience the family ’n’ the officers of the law. It ain’t -customary, in cases of accident like this, to rush around like a hen -with her head cut off, right at the start. The law takes these things -ca’mly, sir--ca’mly ’n’ quietly.” - -“But have you made an examination?--you are a doctor, I think,” - interposed Ansdell. “Have you satisfied yourself when the death -occurred? Have you learned any of the circumstances of it? Were there -any witnesses?” - -The Coroner looked at the questioner, then at the brothers, as if -including them in his pained censure, then back again at Ansdell: - -“I don’t know ez it’s any o’ _your_ business,” he said. “Who _air_ yeh, -any way?” - -Before anyone else could answer, Beekman spoke: “He’s the next -Congressman from this deestrick--nominated by acclamation over at Tyre -to-day--that’s who _he_ is. But never mind that, what I want to knaow -is--air yeh sure he died from an accident? Kin yeh swear to thet ez a -doctor?” - -“Toe be sure I kin!” responded the official, in a friendlier tone. “He -was simply mashed out o’ shape by the fall. He come down forty feet, ef -it was an inch, plum under the horses. They jest rolled over each other, -all the way down.--And so this is Mr. Ansdell, I presewm. I’m proud to -make yer acquaintance, sir. Only by the merest accident I wasn’t at the -Convention to-day, sir.” - -The undertaker came up now to announce that the first stage of his -labors was completed and that the ambulance wagon was on the road -outside, ready to start for the Fairchild homestead. - -“We went up by t’other side, lower daown the gulf,” he explained; -“’twas easier, ’n’ then there was no shock to yer feelin’s. Ef I -might be ’lowed to s’jest, it ’ud look kine o’ respectful to hev all -these friends of the remains walk two by two, behine the wagon, daown -to the haouse. Yeh might let the carry-all come along arterwards, empty, -yeh knaow, ez a sort o’ token of grief.” - -The suggestion was passively accepted as the proper thing under the -circumstances, and the little procession began to shape itself on the -road outside. Seth was moving toward the fence with the others, when the -thought of the black mare he had ridden to the scene occurred to him. A -farm-boy was holding the animal a little way off, near some bars opening -from the meadow to the road. Seth saw Milton getting over the rails--he -had been busy on the outskirts of the assemblage gathering accounts from -those earlier on the ground--and said to him: “Won’t you get the mare, -and ride her home, along with the carry-all. I shall walk--with the -rest.” - -The cortege had formed just beyond the fateful narrowing of the road, -where it crossed the gulf, and the men who were to follow Albert to the -homestead, including all the late comers from Tyre and a few neighbors, -had looked down the steep declivity, and noted the new breaking away of -earth on the road’s edge, before they passed on to fall in line behind -the black, shrouded vehicle. The procession had moved some rods when -there came sounds of excitement from the rear; at these some of the -walkers turned, then others, and even the driver of the ambulance drew -up his horses and joined the retrospective gaze. - -The black mare was balking again, on the road directly over the gulf, -and was crowding back with her haunches tight against the fencing on the -side opposite to that over which her late master had fallen. It was a -moment of cruel tension to every eye, for the fence was visibly yielding -under the animal’s weight, and another tragedy seemed a matter of -seconds. Milton appeared to have lost all sense, and was simply clinging -to the mare’s neck, in dumb affright. Luckily a farmer ran forward at -this juncture, and contrived to lead the beast forward diagonally away -from the spot. Milton sat up in the saddle again, turned the mare away -from the gulf, and galloped off. - -“Dummed cur’ous thet!” whispered Beekman to Seth; “does thet mare ack -thet way often?” - -“I never knew her to balk before to-day. She acted like that when I -first brought her up to the ravine. It _is_ curious, as you say. But -animal instinct is a strange, unaccountable thing any way.” - -“Hm-m!” answered the Boss of Jay County, knitting his brows in thought, -as the procession moved again. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII.--ANNIE AND ISABEL. - -Annie found the living room of the Fairchild homestead unoccupied. She -could hear Alvira talking with the Lawton girl out in the kitchen, and -from the parlor on the other side there came a murmuring sound which she -did not comprehend at once. As she laid her hand upon the stair door, -with the purpose of ascending to Sabrina’s room, this sound rose to -a distinguishable pitch. It was a woman’s weeping. Annie hesitated, -listening for a moment; then she turned, rolled one of the parlor doors -back, and entered. - -Isabel lay buried in the blue easy-chair, her face, encircled by one -arm, hidden against its back. The great braids of her yellow hair were -dishevelled and loosened, without being in graceful disorder. Her whole -form trembled with the force of her hysterical sobbing. - -At Annie’s touch upon her shoulder she raised her face quickly. It was -tear-stained, haggard, and looked soft with that flabbiness of outline -which trouble may give to the fairest woman’s beauty when it is not -built upon youth; over this face passed a quick look of disappointment -at recognition of Annie. - -“Oh, it is you!” - -The almost petulant words escaped before Isabel could collect herself. -She sat up now, wiping her eyes, and striving with all her might for -control of her thoughts and tongue. - -“Yes, Isabel. I _was_ going up to Sabrina’s room, but I heard you -sobbing here, and I felt that I must come to you. It is all so -terrible--and I do so feel for you!” - -“Terrible--yes, it _is_ terrible! It was kind of you to come--very kind. -I--I scarcely realize it all, yet. It was such a shock!” - -“I know, poor dear.” Annie laid her hand caressingly on the other’s -brow. She had not come with over-tenderness in her heart, but this -unexpected depth of suffering, so palpably real, touched her keenly. “I -know. Don’t try to talk to me--don’t feel that it is necessary. Only let -me be of use to you. It will be a dreadful time for you all--and perhaps -I can spare you some. I shan’t go to the school to-day. Oughtn’t you to -go up to your room now, Isabel, and lie down, and leave me here to--to -arrange things?” - -“No, not yet! Perhaps soon I will. My impulse is to stay down, to spare -myself nothing, to force myself to suffer everything that there is to be -suffered. I’ll see; perhaps that may not be best. But not now! not now! -No--don’t go! Stay with me. I dread to be left alone; my own thoughts -murder me!” She rose to her feet, and began pacing to and from the -piano. “Let me walk--and you talk to me--anything, it doesn’t matter -what--it will help occupy my mind. Oh, yes--were you at Crump’s last -night? I heard them come by, late, singing.” - -“Oh, Isabel, how _can_ we talk of such trivial things? Yes, I was there; -I was in the singing party, too. It makes me shudder to think that at -that very minute, perhaps----” The girl paused for a moment, with -parted lips and troubled face, as if pondering some sudden thought; then -exclaimed, “_Oh-h!_ the horse! Could it have been!” - -“Could what have been!” Isabel stopped in her caged-panther-like pacing, -and looked deep inquiry. - -“But no, of course not! What connection _could_ there have been! You -see, after I left the wagon, to cut across by the path at the end of the -poplars, a horse came galloping like the wind up the road, with some -figure lying low on its back. We were too far away to see distinctly, -though the night was so light”--she had insensibly drifted into the use -of the plural pronoun--“but the thing went by so like a flash that it -seemed an apparition. And come to think of it, there was an effort to -avoid noise. I know I wondered at there being such a muffled sound, and -Seth explained----” - -She stopped short, conscious of having said more than she intended. - -“Seth was with _you_, then?” - -“Yes--he met me, quite unexpectedly, by the thorns. He had been out -walking, he said; the night was too fine to sleep.” - -“Yes, I heard him go out, an hour and a half at least before the singers -came by. Did he say anything to you about what had happened, here in the -house, during the evening?” Isabel’s azure eyes took on their darkest -hue now, in the intentness of her gaze into her companion’s face. - -“Only that he had had words with Albert--poor boy! how like a knife the -memory of them must be to him now!” - -“Did he tell you what the words were about?” - -“No.” - -“Did he say anything else to you?” - -Annie grew restive under this persistent interrogation. The habit of -deference to the older, wiser, more beautiful woman was very strong with -her, but this did seem like an undue strain upon it. - -“Why yes, no doubt he did. We talked of a number of things.” - -“What were they? What did he say?” - -“Well, really, Isabel, I----” - -The elder woman gave a little click with her teeth and, after a -searching glance into the other’s face, resumed her walk up and down, -her hands clenched rather than clasped before her, and her movement more -feline than ever. “Well, really you--what?” she said with the faintest -suggestion of a mocking snarl in the intonation. - -The girl drew herself up. It was not in human nature to keep her tone -from chilling. “Really, I think I would better go up to Sabrina. I -fancied I might be of some service to you.” - -“Annie! Are you going to speak like that to me?--_now_ of all times!” - The tone was outwardly appealing. Annie’s sense was not skilled enough -to detect the vibration of menace in it. - -“No, Isabel, not at all. But you make it hard for me. Can you wonder? I -think to comfort a desolate, stricken woman in her hour of sorrow, and -she responds by peremptory cross-examination as to what a young man may -have said to me, in the moonlight. Is it strange that I am puzzled?” - -“Strange! Is not everything strange around and about me! That I should -have married as I did; that I, loathing farm life, should have come -here to live; that I should be waiting here now for them to bring -my husband’s corpse home to me--is it not all strange, unreal? The -conversation ought to be to match, oughtn’t it?”--she spoke with an -unnatural, tremulous vivacity which pained and frightened the girl--“and -so, while we wait, I talk to you about young men, and the moonlight, and -all that. _Can’t_ you see that my mind is tearing itself to pieces, -like a machine in motion with some big rod or other loose, pounding, -crushing, right and left like a flail! We _must_ talk! Tell me what he -said, anything--everything.” - -“Why, that isn’t so easy,” Annie replied dubiously, much mistrusting the -sanity of all this conversation, but pushed along with it in spite -of herself. “He said something about a misunderstanding with his poor -brother, and then--then something that I didn’t at all understand about -a temptation, a great temptation leading him to the gates of hell he -called it--but you know how Seth is given to exaggerate everything--and -then----” - -“He told you all this, did he. How confiding! How sweet! Go on--what -_else_ did he say to you--in the moonlight.” - -Annie felt vaguely that the tone was cruel and hostile. As she paused in -bewildered self-inquiry, Isabel glided forward and confronted her, with -gleaming eyes and a white, drawn face. - -“Why do you stop there?” she demanded in a swift, bitter whisper. - -“There _are_ things which--a girl doesn’t like to--have dragged from her -in this----” - -Even as Annie was forming this halting halfsentence, a change came over -the elder woman. She dropped the hand which had been raised as if to -clutch Annie’s shoulder. The flashing light passed from her eyes, and -something of color, or at least of calm, came back into her face. - -“I understand!” she said, simply. - -“You can see, Isabel, that this is not a time I should have chosen to -speak of such things to you, if you had not insisted. It seems almost -barbarous to bring my joy forward, at such a time, and appear to -contrast it with your affliction. You _won’t_ think I wanted to do it, -will you?” - -The widow of a day was looking contemplatively at her companion; she -had effaced from both expression and voice every trace of her recent -agitation. “Are you sure it is all joy?” she asked calmly. - -“I wouldn’t admit it to him. And at first I was not altogether clear -about it in my own mind. Indeed, with this other and terrible thing, I -can scarcely think soberly about it, as it ought to be thought of. But -still--you know, Isabel, we were little children together--and I have -never so much as thought of anybody else.” Annie spoke more confidently, -as she went on; the notion that there had been malevolence in Isabel’s -tone had faded into a foolish fancy: there seemed almost encouragement, -sympathy, in her present expression. “I should have lived and died an -old maid if he had not come to me. And it comforts me, dear, too, to -think that in your great trouble I shall have almost a sister’s right to -be with you, and help you bear it.” - -Isabel did not respond to this tender proffer of solace. She still stood -eying her companion reflectively. “You are very certain of being happy, -then?” she mused. - -A sense of discordance touched the girl’s heart again--a something -in the restrained, calm tone which seemed to sting. She looked more -searchingly into the speaker’s eyes, and read in their blue depths a -mystery of meaning which froze and silenced her. While Annie looked, in -growing paralysis of thought, Isabel spoke again, slowly: - -“Your married life at least won’t be deadly dull, as mine was. There -must be great possibilities of excitement in living with a man who can -propose marriage to a girl--in the moonlight--_on his way home from -having murdered his brother!_” - -***** - -Young Samantha Lawton, the member of the tribe who served as -maid-of-all-work at the Warren homestead, had a mind at once imaginative -and curious. From an upper window she had caught sight of the mournful -procession from Tallman’s ravine, winding its way down the hill, in the -distance. She stole out from the house, whose bedridden occupant could -at best only yell herself hoarse in calling if she chanced to need -anything during her absence, and walked up the path by the thorns to the -main road, over which the cortege would presently pass. Inside the sharp -angle of shade made at this corner, where the thorns aspiringly joined -the poplars, there was an old board seat between two trees, the relic of -some past and forgotten habit of rendezvous, perhaps whole generations -old. Samantha knew of this seat, and stood on it now; from it, she had a -clear view of the road in front and, through the tangled thorns, of the -meadow-path to the left, while there were branches enough about her to -render her practically invisible. From this coign of vantage Samantha -saw some things which she had not expected to witness. - -Annie Fairchild came suddenly across the line of vision, from the -direction of the dead man’s house, and walked straight to the stile -at the edge of the thorn row. There was something so curious in -the expression of her face, as she advanced, that Samantha scented -discovery, and prepared on the instant an exculpatory lie. But Annie -passed the one place where discovery was probable, and the hidden girl -saw now that the strange look had some other explanation. She crossed -the stile, and clung to the fence post, as if for support; glanced up -the road, where now the black front of the nearing procession could be -discerned; then with a shudder turned her face in profile toward -her unsuspected observer, and looked vacantly, piteously up into the -afternoon sky. - -Annie’s face, with its straight, firm outlines, was not one which lent -itself to the small facial play of evanescent emotions. Its regular -features habitually expressed an intelligent, self-reliant composure, -not easily responsive to shades of feeling. To see this calm countenance -transfixed now with a helpless stare of anguish was to comprehend that -something terrible had happened. - -She stood at the stile, desperately clinging to the rail at first, then -edging into the thorns to be more out of sight, as the ambulance and -the little file of friends moved slowly by. She noted nothing of the -peculiarities of the procession--that most of the silent followers -were strange men, in city dress--but only gazed at Seth, walking along -gravely behind the vehicle, beside his brother John. She saw him with -eyes distended, fixed--as of one following the unfolding of a hideous -nightmare. So long as the party remained in sight, these set, affrighted -eyes followed him. Then they closed, and the sufferer reeled as if in a -swoon. - -Samantha’s first and best impulse was to get down and go to the agonized -woman’s aid; her second, and controlling, thought, was to stop where she -was, and see and hear all that was going. - -Annie seemed to recover her strength, if not her composure. She wrung -her hands wildly and talked with strange incoherence aloud to herself. -Once she started, as if to cross the stile again and return to the house -of mourning, but drew back. At last, walking straight ahead, like one in -a dream, she moved toward her home. - -Samantha followed at a safe distance, marvelling deeply. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII.--BETWEEN THE BREAD-PAN AND THE CHURN. - -WELL, I don’ knaow ’s I go’s fur’s Sabriny, ’n’ say ther’s a cuss -on th’ fam’ly, ’n’ thet M’tildy Warren put it there, fur after all, -three deaths hand-runnin’ in tew years ain’t an onheerd-of thing, but -I don’t blame her fur gittin’ daown-hearted over it. Poor ole creetur, -she’s be’n a carryin’ the hull load o’ grief on her shoulders sence -Sissly died. I shouldn’t wonder if it’d be tew much for her naow.” - -Alvira sighed, and let her eyes wander compassionately from the kneading -board and its batch of dough to the old, cushioned arm chair by the -kitchen stove where Aunt Sabrina customarily sat. This last bereavement -had rendered the hired-girl almost sentimental in her attitude toward -the stricken old maid--so much so that when young Samantha Lawton -dropped in, toward evening, and offered to sit down in this chair, -Alvira had sharply warned her to take another. - -The girl had brought a note over from Annie to Seth, and was not -a little vexed that Alvira should have taken it from her, and gone -upstairs to deliver it herself, instead of allowing the messenger to -complete her errand. She declined, therefore, to display any interest -in the subject of the aged aunt, and warmed her hands over the glowing -stove-griddles in silence. The elder Lawton girl, Melissa, resting for a -moment from her churning, turned the talk into a more personal channel. - -“Fur _my_ part, I think it’s a pesky shame, where there’s three -big strappin’ men ’raoun’ th’ haouse, to make a girl wag this old -chum-dash till her arms are ready to drop off. ’N’ I’ll tell ’em -sao, tew.” - -“I sh’d thought Dany’d done it fur yeh” said her younger sister, with -a grin. “He allus seemed to me to be soft enough to do all yer work fur -yeh, ef you’d let him.” - -“Not he! Both he ’n’ Leander ain’t so much’s lifted a finger ’raoun’ -th’ haouse to-day. They’re off daown to th’ corners, hangin’ raoun’ th’ -store, ’n’ swoppin’ yarns ’baout th’ accident. _They_ wouldn’t keer -’f I churned away here till I spit blood. In th’ mornin’ he’ll be -awful sorry, of course, ’n’ swear he furgot all ’baout Wednesday’s -bein’ churnin’ day. Thet’s th’ man of it!” - -“’N’ I s’pose Milton never does nothin’ ’baout th’ haouse -naowadays,” remarked Samantha, interrogatively. - -“No, siree!” snapped Alvira. “You bet he daon’t! He’s tew high ’n’ -mighty fur thet! Prob’ly he’s furgot so much as th’ name of a churn, -even. He might git his broadcloth suit spotted, tew. I wouldn’t dream o’ -askin’ _him_. I’d ruther ask Seth any day then I hed Milton. _He_ don’t -put on half so many airs, even if he does git thirty dollars a week in -Tecumseh, ’n’ live ’mong ladies ’n’ gentlemen ev’ry day ’f his -life.” - -Melissa rested from her labors again, to say sneeringly: “Pritty ladies -’n’ gentlemen he _use’t_ to travel with, there in Tecumsy, accordin’ -to all accaounts!” Alvira paused in turn, with her arms to the elbow in -the floury mixing, and an angry glitter in her little black eyes. “Ef I -was _some_ folks, ’n’ hed _some_ folk’s relations in Tecumsy, ’pears -to me I’d keep my maouth pritty blamed shut ’baout what goes on -there!” - -The retort was ample. There was no answering sound, save the muffled -splash and thud of Melissa’s vigorously-resumed churning. - -The lull in conversation was beginning to grow oppressive when the young -visitor asked: “Haow does th’ fine lady take it?” - -“She seems more opset than anyone’d given her credit fur,” Alvira -answered, sententiously. - -Melissa interposed to expand this comment, and rest her arms: “Yes, she -_seems_ opset enough. P’raps she _is_. But then agin, p’raps ef you was -young ’n’ good lookin’, with blew eyes ’n’ a lot o’ yalleh hair thet -was all yer own, ’n’ you hed a hus-ban’ twice as old as you was, ’n’ -he sh’d fall daown ’n’ break his neck, ’n’ leave you a rich young -widder, p’raps you’d cry yer eyes aout--when people was lookin’--speshly -if thet husban’ o’ yours left a likely young brother who was soft on -yeh. When you git as old ’s I be, S’manthy, you’ll learn ther’s a good -deal in appear’nces.” - -“When she gits as old as you air,” broke in Alvira, sharply, “I hope -she’ll learn better ’n’ to blab everythin’ thet comes into her head! -You’ll let that cream break, ef yeh don’t look aout!” - -“I don’t b’lieve its within an ’aour o’ comin’” said Melissa, wearily -resuming her task. - -“No, but--reelly,” began Samantha, “_is_ Seth----?” - -“Never you mind whether Seth is or whether he isn’t,” answered Alvira. -“A young tadpole of a girl like you’s got no business pryin’ ’raoun’ -older folks’ affairs. You better go home! M’tildy may need yeh. Yer -sister’s got her work to dew, ’n’ so ’ve I.” - -This plain intimation produced no effect upon Samantha. She continued to -warm her hands, which were already the hue of a red apple with the heat, -and remarked: “No, she don’ want me. Annie said I might stay ’s long -’s I wanted to. She said she wanted to be left alone. She’s abaout the -wuss broke up girl _I_ ever sot eyes on. You ought to see the way _she_ -takes on, though. I bet the widder ain’t a succumstance to her. Ef you’d -seen what _I_ saw, ’n’ heern what _I_ heerd this afternoon, I guess -you’d think so tew.” - -The girl spoke calmly, with a satisfied conviction that nobody would -tell her to go home again in a hurry. - -“What was it?” came simultaneously from the kneading-board and the -churn. - -“Oh, I dunnao,--I ain’t much of a han’ to blab everythin’. A young -tadpole of a girl like me, yeh knaow, ain’t got no business----” - -“Come naow! _Don’t_ be a _fool_, S’manthy! Ef you’ve got anythin’ to -say, spit it aout!” - -Thus adjured by the commanding tones of Alvira, the girl trifled no -more, but related what she had seen, while hidden behind the thorns. She -had a talent for description, and made so much of Annie’s stony face -and strange behavior, that she succeeded in producing an effect of -mystification upon her listeners scarcely second to that under which -she, as an involuntary spectator, had labored. The success of her -recital was not lost upon Samantha, as she went on: - -“Et was after th’ undertaker’s waggin ’n’ th’ men--some gallus lookin’ -young fellers, f’m Tecumsey I guess, was amongst ’em--et was after -these’d all gone by, thet I heerd her talk. She kind o’ hid herself in -th’ bushes while they was a goin’ by, ’n’ stared at ’em like mad, -ez fur’s she c’d folly ’em. Then she bust aout--not a-cryin’ mind yeh, -fur she never shed a tear--but wringin’ her han’s ’n’ groanin’ ’n’ -actin’ ’s ef she was goin’ to faint. I c’d see her jest ez plain ’s I -kin see you stan’in’ there naow, ’n’ heer her, tew. All to onc’t she -up ’n’ said----” - -The young girl stopped here in the narrative abruptly, with a fine -disregard for the consuming interest with which her companions were -regarding her; she lifted her nose, and drew two or three leisured -sniffs. Then she bent down at the side of the stove and repeated them. - -“Ther’s somethin’ burnin’ in thet oven,” she said at last, confidently. - -“Et’s th’ barley. I knowed S’briny’d traipse off ’n’ leave it. She -allus does;” said Alvira, flinging open the oven door, and dragging out -with her apron a smoking pan of scorched grain. - -Through the dense, pungent smudge which temporarily filled the room, -Samantha was heard to remark with offensive emphasis: “We allus drink -genu-wine coffee over to M’tildy’s. She’s mean enough ’baout -some things, but she wouldn’t make us swell ourselves aout with no -barley-wash.” - -“’N’ sao do we here, tew--all but S’briny!” retorted Alvira, -indignantly. “She got use’ to drinkin’ it in war-times, when yeh -couldn’t git reel coffee fur love n’r money, jes’ ez all th’ other -farm-folks did. On’y she’s more contrary ’n’ th’ rest, ’n’ she -wouldn’t drink nothin’ else naow, not ef yeh poured it into her maouth -with a funnel. But go on ’th yer yarn!” - -Samantha had to cough a little, on account of the smoke, and then it -took her some moments to collect the thread of her narrative. But at -last even the spirit of Tantalus could invent no further delay, and she -proceeded: - -“Well, she didn’t say much, fer a fact, but they was business in ev’ry -word she did say. Fust she hollered aout--right aout, I tell yeh: ‘_Et’s -a wicked lie! She’s a bad, wicked woman!_ ’ Then she stopped fer -awhile ’n’ put her han’s up to her for’id--like this. Then she shuk -herself, ’n’ commenced to climb back over th’ stile, but she seemed to -think better of it, ’n’ started fer her own haouse, like’s ef she was -a walkin’ in her sleep, ’n’ a groanin’ to herself: ‘_Seth a murd’rer! -Seth a murd’rer!_’ Thet’s what I heerd!” - -The girl put both feet up on the stove hearth, and tilted her chair back -in conscious triumph. “Got ’n’ apple handy?” she inquired of Alvira, -carelessly, in the tone of one whose position in life was assured. - -To this strange recital, involving such terrible suggestions, there -succeeded a full minute of silence in the kitchen, broken only by the -ponderous clucking of the high wooden clock. Alvira and Melissa looked -at each other dumbly--each for once willing to forego the first word. - -“Well, what d’yeh say to _thet?_” finally asked Melissa. - -After some reflection, Alvira answered, “I sh’d say S’manthy was a -lyin’.” - -“S’elp me die, crisscross, I ain’t!” protested the girl at the stove: -“I’ve told it all, jest’s it happened, straight’s a string. Where’s yer -apples?” - -Alvira meditated again for a moment. Then she said to her subordinate: -“Go down ’n’ git that sister o’ yourn a Spitzenberg--’n’ bring up -some cider, yeh might’s well, too.” - -When Melissa had gone, Alvira went over to the ‘younger girl, and -gripped her sharply by the shoulder: “Look here, you, is what you’ve -be’n tellin’ us here honest? Don’t lie to _me!_” - -“Honest Injun? Alviry! ev’ry word!” - -Alvira returned to her dough, and slapped it savagely into a huge, -unnatural pancake. She maintained silence until Melissa had returned, -and not only supplied her sister’s wants, but poured out a cupful of -the new cider for herself, as a proof of her appreciation of the Lawton -family’s supremacy over the existing crisis. Then Alvira spoke: - -“I don’t ’tach th’ least ’mportance in th’ world to what S’manthy -heerd. Annie’s a school-teacher, ’n’ she’s be’n workin’ pritty -hard, ’n’ this thing’s kind o’ opset her--what with tendin’ to her -gran’mother, ’n’ then this teachin’, which is narvous, wearin’ kine o’ -work. Thet’s th’ trewth o’ th’ matter. _I_ kin un-derstan’ it. She was -jest aout of her senses. But other folks won’t understan’ it as I dew. -Once a hint gits flyin’ amongst outsiders, who knaows where it’ll stop? -Naow, girl ’n’ woman, I’ve be’n in this haouse twenty year ’n’ -more. I’m more a Fairchild than I’m anythin’ else. I remember th’ man in -there--layin’ dead in th’ parlor--when he was a youngster, comin’ home -f’m college; I remember Seth when he was a baby. I ain’t got no folks -of my own thet I keer a thaousandth part ‘s much abaout, nur owe a -thaousandth part ’s much tew, ez I dew this Fairchile fam’ly. _Well!_ -They’ve hed trouble enough, this las’ tew year, ‘thout havin’ any added -onto it by th’ tattlin’, gossipin’ tongues of outsiders. I ain’t goin’ -to _hev_ it! D’yeh understan’! Ef I heer s’ much’s a whisper of this yere -crazy school-teacher’s nonsense reported ‘raound, by th’ Lord above, -I’ll skin yeh both alive!” - -“Who’s _b’en_ a gossipin’?” asked Samantha, reproachfully. “I shouldn’t -never said a word, ef you hadn’t insisted, ’n’ called me a fool fur -holdin’ my tongue.” - -“I dunnao where you’ll gao to when you die, S’manthy,” said Alvira, -reflectively. “But nao, girls, trewly naow, this mustn’t be mentioned. -Yeh kin see with half ’n eye what a raow it’d stir up. Naow prommus -me, both o’ yeh, thet not a word of it shell pass yer lips. Yeh can see -fer yerself haow foolish it is! Ev’rybody knaows he driv off th’ raoad, -’n’ killed himself ’n’ th’ hosses by th’ fall. It’s ez plain ‘s th’ -nose on yer face. Still it’s jest sech cases as this thet people git -talkin’ abaout, once they’re sot goin’--so yeh _will_ promise me, won’t -yeh?” - -They promised. - -“Hon’r bright, ye’ll never say a word to nao livin’ soul?” - -They asseverated solemnly, honor bright, and Samantha had a doughnut as -well as another cup of cider. - -***** - -The tiresome butter came at last, and the dough passed into a higher -form of existence through the fiery ordeal of the oven; supper was laid -and silently eaten; two neighbors, volunteers for the night-watch with -the dead, came, and were ushered into the gloomy parlor; while apples, -cheese, doughnuts and a pitcher of cider were placed on the table -outside, for their refreshment in the small hours. Night fell upon the -farm. - -***** - -Melissa Lawton stole out-doors as soon as Alvira retired to her room, -and made her way through the darkness to the barns. As Albert had done -on the fatal previous evening, she opened the sliding door of the big -stable, and called up the stairs to Milton. There was no response, and -investigation showed that he was not in his room, although the lamp was -burning dimly. The girl stopped long enough to look over the familiar -coarse pictures on the walls and the shelf, and then crept down the -steep stairs again. - -As she groped her way through the blackness to the stable door she came -suddenly in contact with a person entering, and felt herself rudely -seized and pushed back at arms’ length. - -“Who’s here? What d’yeh want?” demanded a harsh voice, which seemed -despite its gruffness to betray great trepidation. - -“It’s me--M’lissy!” - -“Come along aout here into the light, so I kin see yeh. What a’ yeh -doin’ here, praowlin’ ’raoun’ ’n th’ dark, skeerin’ people fur?” - -The Lawton girl’s native assurance all came back to her as she -confronted Milton in the dim starlight outside--which was radiance by -contrast with the stable’s total darkness--and she grinned satirically -at him. - -“You’ve got a nerve on you like a maouse, I swaow! You trembled all -over when yeh tuk holt o’ me, in there. What was yeh skeert abaout? I -wouldn’t hurt yeh!” - -“I wa’n’t skeert,” the man replied, sullenly. “What was yeh after in -there?” - -“I was lookin’ fur you.” - -“What fur?” The tone was still uneasily suspicious. - -“I got somethin’ to tell yeh.” - -“Well?” - -“D’yeh knaow, I more’n half b’lieve this thing wa’n’t an accident at -all. What’d yeh say ’f it sh’d turn aout to be a murder?” - -Even in this faint light Melissa could see that Milton was much taken -aback by the suggestion. He thrust his hands into his pockets, pulled -them out again, shuffled his feet, stammered, and betrayed by other -signs general among rustics his surprise. - -“Pshaw--git aout!” he said at last; “what nonsense! Of caourse ’t was -’n accident. Didn’t th’ Cor’ner say sao? Daon’t ev’rybody knaow it?” - -“Annie Fairchile don’t say sao. _She_ don’t knaow it.” - -The girl went on to relate the substance of Samantha’s revelations, -adding unconsciously sundry embellishments which tended to throw a -clearer light upon Seth as the chief figure in the mystery. - -Milton listened with deep attentiveness. His slow, inefficient brain -worked hard to keep up with the recital, and assimilate its chief -points. When the girl had finished he still thought steadily on this -strange story, with its unforeseen, startling suggestions. Gradually two -items took shape in his mind as most important: that Annie believed Seth -to be the criminal, and hence would be estranged from him; and that if -by any unexpected means people came to suspect foul play, here were the -elements of a ready-made suspicion against Seth. The first of these -was very welcome; it would be time enough to think of the other if a -discovery were made. - -“What dew I think?” he said at last, in response to the girl’s repeated -inquiries. “I think thet sister o’ yourn lied, ’n’ I think yeh better -keep yer maouth, ’n’ her’n tew, pritty dum shet, ef yeh don’t want to -git into trouble.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX.--THE BOSS LOOKS INTO THE MATTER. - -COUSIN Seth--_There are reasons why I cannot come to the house again, -even to the funeral; and why I shall not see you again during your stay. -I think you will understand them. If you explain to Aunt Sabrina that -I am ill, it will not be a falsehood. I have been and am -suffering--terribly. But nobody can help me, save by leaving me to -myself. I am trying to forget, too, everything that was said when we -last talked together, and I shall succeed. Never fear, I shall succeed. -A._ - -It was this note, scrawled in a hand very unlike Miss Annie’s customary -prim, school-teacher’s writing, which Samantha had borne over from the -Warren house. Seth had studied it, perplexedly, for a long time on the -evening of its arrival. He ruminated now again upon it, as he walked -along the road toward Thessaly, the following forenoon. The temptation -to confide the thing to John, who had stayed over night with him at the -homestead, and now was walking silently by his side toward the village, -wavered in his mind. Perhaps John could assist him to comprehend it; but -then, it would be necessary to explain so much to him first. Finally the -arguments in favor of confession triumphed, and with a “Here, old man; -this is a letter from Annie. I want you to help me guess what it means,” - he made the plunge. - -John read the note carefully. “What was it you talked about on this -occasion she refers to, and when was it?” he asked. - -“It was night before last, _the_ night, and I asked her to marry me.” - -“And what was her answer?--I’ll tell you afterward how glad I am to hear -what you’ve just told me.” - -“Well, it wasn’t decisive--but she admitted that it made her very -happy.” - -“And you haven’t seen her since?” - -“No--or yes! I did. I met her just for a moment yesterday forenoon, as -I was starting out from the house after hearing--the _news_. We only -exchanged a word or two, though.” - -“Did she seem angry with you then?” - -“Not at all!” - -“Well, what can have happened since? Try and think! She has reasons, she -says, which she thinks you will understand. When a woman says she has -‘reasons’ she means that some mischief-maker has told her something -disagreeable. Now----” - -“Oh, my God! I see it now!” Seth stopped short in the road, and clenched -his fists. - -“Well, what is it?” - -“She went into the house, and saw Isabel!” Seth continued, as if talking -to himself. - -“What has that got to do with it?” - -Seth looked up at his brother with a blanching face, in which fright and -amazement blended. “What is that line of Congreve’s about Hell having no -fury like a woman scorned?” he asked mechanically. - -It was John’s turn to stare. Gradually a light began to spread in his -mind, and make things visible whose existence he had not suspected -before. “Well, you _are_ a simpleton!” he said. - -“Don’t I know it?” was the pained, contrite response. - -The brothers walked on a few yards in silence. Then John said “Of -course, you needn’t tell me any more of this than you want to--but at -least I can ask you--how _much_ of a fool have you made of yourself up -at the farm?” - -“That’s hard to say. Just now I’m inclined to think that I am the -champion ass of the world.” - -“Well, you’re displaying some sense _now_, anyway. What have you done?” - -“I haven’t done anything. That’s the foolish part of it all.” - -John stopped in turn, and looked his brother’s face attentively over. -“Go on, now,” he said, “and tell me what there is of it. There’s no use -in my butting my brains out against a stone wall, guessing at such an -inscrutable mess as this seems to be.” - -“It’s hard to tell--there isn’t anything specially _to_ tell. I simply -got sort of sentimental about Isabel, you know--she was lonely and -disappointed in life, and my coming to the farm was about the only -chance for company she got, and all that--and then I found the thing -might go too far and so I stopped it--and to clinch the thing, asked -Annie to marry me. That’s what there is of it.” - -“That’s good as far as it goes. Go on, youngster; out with the rest of -it!” - -“I tell you that _is_ all.” - -“Humbug! Annie never wrote this letter on the strength of such -philandering nonsense as that. You say Isabel must have told her -something. What _was_ that something? Do you know?” - -“Yes!” The answer was so full of despondent pain, that John’s sympathy -rose above his fraternal censariousness. - -“Come, my boy,” he said, “you’d better make a clean breast of it. It -won’t seem half so bad, once you’ve told me. And if I can help you, you -know I will.” - -“Well, I _will_ tell you, John. Night before last, Monday night, I had -hard words with Albert, up at the house. You know how he sent for me, -insisted on my coming, and what he wanted. Of course I could only say -no, and we quarreled. Toward the end we raised our voices, and Isabel, -who was upstairs, overheard us. Just then he began about me and her--it -seems he had noticed or heard something--and she, hearing her name, took -it for granted the whole quarrel was about her. I went upstairs, and -presently he drove out of the yard with the grays. I couldn’t sleep, I -was so agitated by the idea of our rupture, and I went out to walk it -off. It was while I was out that I met Annie and had the talk I have -told you about. Then I came home, went to bed, and slept till after -ten--long after everybody else had heard the news. I heard of it first -from Isabel, and she--she----” - -He came to an abrupt halt. The duty of saying nothing which should -incriminate the woman rose before him, and fettered his tongue. - -“And she--what?” asked John. - -“Well, she somehow got the idea that I had followed Albert out -and--and--was responsible for his death! _Now_. you have it all!” - -There was a long silence. They were nearing the four corners, and -walking slowly. Finally John, with his eyes on the ground, said: “And so -that’s what she has told Annie, you think?” - -“That’s the only way I can explain the note.” - -“But Annie couldn’t possibly believe such a thing as that!” - -“No--but there’s an explanation for that too. Come to think of it, I -must have said a lot of things to her, that night, which seem now to her -to fit in with this awful theory. Poor girl! I don’t blame her.” - -John answered, after a pause, “There’s no use of my saying anything to -show you what a situation you are in, or to scold you for it. I suppose -you realize it fully enough. What’s more to the purpose, we must -consider what is to be done. It is safe enough to assume that if Isabel -thinks this and has said it to one person, either some one else will -think it, or she will hint about it to another. The thing is too -terrible to have even one person, even if she were silent as the grave, -think about it. The obvious thing, I should think, would be to have a -postmortem examination.” - -“I thought they always had them at inquests.” - -“No, the Coroner can dispense with one if he and the jury agree that it -isn’t necessary. Timms sent me word that he had decided to dispense -with one, in this case, ‘out of consideration for the feelings of the -family.’ That means, of course, that he wants the _Banner_ to help -re-elect him next year. But now out of ‘consideration for the family’ -we’ll have to have one. Don’t be so down in the mouth about it, boy; it -will all come right, never fear!” - -The brothers had reached the solitary building at the corners--a low, -dingy store, with its sloping roof turned to the road, and a broad -platform and steps stretching along its entire front. A horse and vacant -buggy stood at the hitching-post. John proposed to go in and get some -cigars, if Turner had any fit to smoke. - -Their surprise was great at meeting on the steps Mr. Beekman of Jay -County, who was coming out. After terse salutations had been exchanged, -Beekman said: - -“Lucky you fellows come daown jest ez yeh did. I come over this mornin’ -a-purpose to see yeh, ’n’ yit I didn’t quite like to go up to th’ -farm. I’ve got ever so many things I want to ask yeh, ’n’ say to yeh.” - He led the way over to the farther end of the steps, and, following his -example of sitting down on the platform, they waited curiously for him -to proceed: - -“Fust of all, I was daown to Tecumsy last night, ’n’ saw Workman. He -said you”--turning to Seth--“needn’t worry yerself ’baout comin’ back -till yeh was ready. They kin keep th’ paper runnin’ for a week or sao, -while you stay up here ’n’ dew yer duty like a Christian.” - -Seth said he was much obliged, and then asked how it happened that -Beekman had posted off to Tecumseh--over seventy miles--and returned so -soon. - -“Well, there was some things I wanted to see abaout daown there, ’n’ -more thet I’m interested in keepin’ an eye on up here. So I kind o’ -humped myself.” - -“I’m glad to see you taking such an interest in Ansdell’s campaign,” - said John. - -Mr. Beekman’s gaunt visage relaxed for a second: “So yeh calc’late -_thet’s_ what I’m buzzin’ ’raoun’ th’ State fur, do yeh? Yeh never’s -more mistaken in yer life. I’ve heerd reports circ’latin’ ’raoun’ thet -ther’d be an election a fortni’t or so from naow, ’n’ thet Ansdell -’n’ I was concerned in it, but yeh can’t prove it by _us_. We ain’t s’ -much as give a thought to politics sence th’ Convention ended. _We’ve_ -got somethin’ else to occupy aour minds with b’sides politics. I got -a telegraph dispatch from him, sent from New York this mornin’, thet I -want to talk to yeh ’baout presently, but fust----” - -“Ansdell in New York?” asked Seth, all curiosity-now. - -“Yes, he went on daown, while I got off at Te-cumsy, ’n’ I sh’d jedge -from his telegraph thet he’d be’n on the go some sence he got there. But -what I want to ask yeh ’baout is this: Do yeh knaow haow much money -yer brother hed on him night ‘fore last, when he was--when he met his -death?” - -The brothers looked at each other, then at, the speaker, “No,” answered -Seth, finally. “We haven’t the least idea. Why do you ask?” - -“I’ll come to that bimeby. Naow next, do you knaow where he was th’ day -b’fore th’ Convention?--thet is, Monday.” - -“Yes, I can tell you that. He was in New York. He only got back Monday -evening.” - -“Pre-cisely. Well, naow, do yeh knaow what he went there for?” - -“No. Something connected with politics, I suppose, but I can’t say for -certain. He had business there very often, you know.” - -“Yes, I knaow. But he hed very special business this last time. Naow -look at this telegram.” - -The two took the oblong sheet, and read: - -“_New York--Oct. 21. 942 A.M. Unexpectedly easy sailing. Found clue to -money almost without looking. Fancy now must been sixteen instead ten. -Hope return to-night. Ansdell_.” - -“Well, still I am in the dark,” John said, after reading and re-reading -the dispatch. “What is it all about? I suppose you understand it.” - -“I’m beginnin’ to see a leetle ways threw th’ millstone, I think, -myself,” replied Beekman. “But it’s all so uncert’n yit, I don’t want to -say nothin’ thet I can’t back up later on.” - -Seth too had been busily pondering the dispatch, and he said now, with -a flushing face: “_I_ know what you think! You and Ansdell have got an -idea there was foul play!” - -“Well, yes, it ain’t much more’n an idee, _yit_;” assented Beekman. - -“What do you base your idea on?” demanded John, full of a nameless, -growing fright lest there _might_ be something further which Seth’s -confession had not revealed. - -“Jest you wait one day more,” said the Boss of Jay County, grimly, “one -day more ’ll dew. Then I miss my guess ef we ain’t in shape to tell -yeh. Fust of all, there’s got to be a post-mortem.” - -John’s impulse was to say that he and Seth had already agreed upon this, -but a second thought checked his tongue. - -“’N’ it’ll hev to be on th’ quiet. Everything depends on thet--on -keepin’ it dark. There’s some folks might get skeered, ’n’ complicate -things, ef it ain’t kep’ mum. ’N’ thet’s what I wanted to ask yeh -’baout. I’ve thought of Dr. Bacon, over at Thessaly, ’n’ Dr. Pierce -daown at the Springs. They’re both good men, ’n’ got level heads on -’em. What d’yeh say to them?” - -“I’ve no objection to them in the world, but the Coroner----” - -“Oh, I know ’bout him. He’s th’ blamedest fool in th’ caounty. Over -in Jay we wouldn’t elect sech a dumb-head to be hog-reeve. But you ’n’ -Ansdell kin fix it with him to-morrow, ’n’ I’ll drive to-day ’n’ see -both doctors, ’n’ put ’em straight. ’N’ naow yeh must prommus me, -both of yeh, thet yeh won’t breathe a word of this to any livin’ soul.” - -They promised, and he climbed into his buggy, and gathered up the reins. -“Oh, there’s one thing more,” he said, on reflection. “P’raps you wonder -why I’m takin’ so much on myself. I’ll tell yeh bimeby. I’ve got my -reasons. I’m mixed up in it, more’n you’d think.” - -He turned about, and drove off briskly toward Thessaly. The brothers -stood in perplexed silence by the roadside for some minutes. There was -surely enough to think about. - -At last, with a frank gesture, John stretched his hand out to Seth: - -“Old boy,” he said, “I don’t know how this thing is coming out, but -we’ll see it through together. You go down to the office and wait for -me. You might do some things to fill up the paper this week if you’ve -got nerve enough. I’m going back to the farm.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXX.--JOHN’S DELICATE MISSION. - -While Seth tried to divert his thoughts at the _Banner_ office by going -over the freshly-arrived batch of morning dailies, and fastening his -attention upon their political editorials and reports of speeches -instead of their displayed and minute reports of the sensational tragedy -in Tallman’s ravine--John Fairchild retraced his steps toward the -farm. He had a definite purpose in his mind--to confront and silence -Isabel--and he strove hard as he went along to plan how this should be -done, and what he should say. - -He felt that his dominant emotion was wrath against this sister-in-law -of his, and he said to himself as he strode along that he had never -liked her. He could recall the summer a dozen years before when she came -to the farm as a visiting cousin. He had been civil to her then, even -companionable, for she was bright, spirited, in a word good company, -but it seemed to him now that even then he had suspected the treachery -ingrained in her nature--that he had been instinctively repelled by -those hateful qualities, dormant in her girlhood, which were later to -plot infidelity to one of his brothers, and lure into trouble, shame, -perhaps even crime, the other. - -This latter phase of her work was peculiarly abominable in John’s eyes. -He was not going to get up any special indignation on the first count -of the indictment; a bachelor of nearly forty who marries a sentimental -young girl does it at his own risk, John felt, and Albert had invited -just this sort of thing by exiling her to a farm, and forcing her -romantic mind to feed on itself. But that she should have selected -Seth--her own husband’s brother, the Benjamin of the flock, a veritable -child in such matters--to practise her arts upon, was grievously -unpardonable. To be sure, Seth ought to have had more sense. But then -John, habitually thinking of him as “the youngster,” thought he could -see how he had been led on, step by step, never realizing the vicious -tendency of it all, until he had all at once found himself on the brink -of a swift descent. Then, to do the boy justice, he seemed to have -stopped short, turned his back upon the siren, and for the sake of -further security, irrevocably committed himself to Annie. He had been -sadly weak in the earlier stages of the affair, no doubt; but this last -course appeared manly and sensible--and wholly incompatible, too, -with any idea of malice or crime on Seth’s part. What fault there was -belonged-to the woman, and she should be told so, too, straight and -sharp. - -Thus John’s thoughts ran as he entered the house, and bade the Lawton -girl tell her mistress he wished to speak with her. He had not -seen Isabel since her husband’s death--she having kept her room -constantly--nor for a long time previous. They had, indeed, scarcely met -more than half-a-dozen times since she came to live at the homestead, -and then with considerable formality on both sides. As he stood by the -stove in the living-room, awaiting her coming, he knitted his brows and -framed some curt, terse words of address. - -She entered, clad in the same black and dark-gray wrapper which his -memory associated with his mother’s funeral, and which gave the effect -of height and slender dignity to her figure. Her face was pale and -pathetic in expression, and the ghost of a smile which flitted in -greeting over it for a second accentuated its stamp of suffering. She -offered him her hand, and said, in a low mournful voice: - -“It was good of you to come to me, John. I have been expecting, hoping -you would. Won’t you take off your coat and sit down?” - -He had shaken hands with her, loosened his overcoat and taken a seat -before he had time to reflect that he ought to have ignored her greeting -and her proffered hand. The sharp words, too, that he had arranged in -his mind seemed too brusque now to utter to a weak, lone woman who was -so evidently suffering. - -“Yes,” he said, “I thought I ought to talk things over with you. You’ve -got nobody else.” - -“No--not a soul! I couldn’t be more wholly alone if I were at the North -Pole, it has seemed to me this last day. I have eaten nothing; I haven’t -slept an hour. So you must make allowances for me,” she said, with a -weak shadow of a smile, “if I seem nervous or incoherent. My mind goes -all astray, sometimes now, and I seem unequal to the task of controlling -it.” - -He had thought at last of a question which might introduce the desired -subject without wounding her feelings. “Do you happen to know,” he -asked, gently, “whether Albert brought a large sum of money with him -from New York Monday?” - -“I haven’t the least idea, I am sure. In fact, I only saw him for a -moment after his return. And besides, you know, he never told me a -syllable about his business arrangements. No one could be in more -complete ignorance of his affairs than I have always been.” There was -the tone of resigned regret in her voice which a wife might rightly use. -“I do indeed--there is one exception--know about his will. He told me -that, not by way of confidence, but because it came out--in some words -we once had about property of mine in New York. I might as well tell -you. The will gives everything except my third to you and your -aunt and--your brother. _He_ has the lion’s share. Don’t think I am -complaining, John. I wouldn’t have had it altered if I could. I am more -than independent, you know, apart from right of dower. If I had had the -making of the will, it would have been just the same. It is only right -that his money should go to his family.” - -John reflected for some moments before he answered. “I am almost sorry -you told me,” he said then. “It makes me wretched and ashamed to think -of the injustice I have done him in my mind. It sounds brutal, in the -light of what you have told me,--but I am going to confess it to you--I -suspected all along that he intended to come some game over us about -the farm; and now, instead----. Oh, it’s _too_ bad. I wish he could -hear me!” John continued, with a glance toward the folding doors of -the parlor, once more the chamber of death. “I wish he could know how I -despise myself for having wronged him in my mind.” - -Isabel said nothing, but her responsive eyes seemed to express -appreciation and sympathy. John lost all sense of wrath toward her as he -went on: - -“Yes, from the very start we wronged him. We didn’t understand him. -He was different from us--he was a man of the world, and we were -countrymen, and we thought all the while that he held himself outside -the family. I never gave him credit for good motives when he came to the -farm; neither did Seth. We both thought he was playing his own game, for -himself, and nobody else. And here, by George! he turns out to have had -more brotherly feeling, more family feeling, than we ever had. It makes -me miserable to think of it. It’ll break Seth’s heart, too; he’ll always -torture himself with the thought that the last time he ever saw Albert -alive they parted in anger.” - -The words were out before he realized their significance. He stopped -short, and felt himself changing color as he looked at her to see -whether she too was thinking about that terrible night. - -She made a motion as if to rise from her chair; then dropped back again -and returned his inquiring glance with a fixed, intent look. - -“So you know something about _that_,” she said. - -“Did Seth tell you?” - -“Yes!” he answered, falteringly. “Seth told me. We had a long talk this -forenoon. I think he told me about every thing there was to tell. In -fact, that is mostly why I’ve come back now to see you.” - -She was silent, but her eyes seemed to John to be saying disagreeable -things. - -He began again to realize that it was his duty to be indignant in -attitude and peremptory in tone, but he was also conscious of feeling -very sorry for Isabel. The village editor often described himself, and -was uniformly characterized by others, as being “no hand for women.” His -own brief career as a married man--it seemed almost a dream now, and -a very painful dream, with a short period of great happiness, then a -slightly longer season of illness, poverty, debt, despair, and then the -rayless gloom of death in his scarcely established home--had taught him -next to nothing of the sex, and inclined him against learning more. -The impressions of womankind which clustered about the memories of -his girl-wife were, however, all in the direction of gentleness and -softness. As he reflected, it grew increasingly difficult for him to put -on a harsh demeanor toward his sister-in-law. She might deserve it well -enough, but it was not in his heart to speak ugly words to a pretty and -troubled woman at such a time. He stumbled on: - -“Yes, the youngster is fearfully cut up about the whole thing, and -he _had_ to talk to somebody. He’s always been used to telling me -everything. He is not a tattler, though, and I’m bound to say he only -told me because I questioned him, and insisted on his making a clean -breast of it. Then I sent him down to the office, and I came back here, -thinking it might be best for all concerned to have a frank talk with -you about it.” - -She had a course mapped out now in her mind. “I am sure that your -motives are good, John,” she said, “and that you will be fair and -candid. I confess I don’t see what there is to be gained, specially, but -you no doubt know best. What is it you wanted to talk over?” - -“Well, it isn’t easy to state it, off hand. Perhaps I might as well -begin by speaking of motives, as you did. I own that when I came in I -wasn’t so sure that your motives were good, as you say you are about -mine.” - -“That is candid, at all events.” - -“I want to be perfectly open and above-board with you, Isabel. You seem -to have got into your head yesterday--I won’t say you have it now--some -horrible and ridiculously wild suspicion of Seth----” - -“I know what you mean,” she interposed, with nervous haste. “You -mustn’t think of that at all! You mustn’t blame me for it! I was simply -distracted--mad--out of my senses. I don’t know _what_ awful thing my -fancy didn’t conjure up. Don’t pay any attention to that!” - -“But the mischief of it is that you seem to have spoken of this -to--to somebody else. It would have been unimportant otherwise. _This_ -complicates it badly. Don’t you see it does?” - -She made no answer, and kept her eyes on the figures in the carpet. - -“Don’t you see it does?” he repeated. - -“How do you know that I spoke of it to anybody?” she asked, after a -pause, and still with downcast eyes. - -“That has nothing to do with it, Isabel. It’s true, isn’t it, that you -did speak of it?” - -To his surprise and embarrassment she began weeping, and hid her face -in her handkerchief. He sat mutely watching her, wishing that she -would stop, and perplexed at encountering on the very threshold of -his inquiries and argument this un-meetable demonstration of a woman’s -resources. - -She presently sobbed out, from behind the perfumed cambric: “You _can’t_ -hold me accountable for what I did yesterday, or what I said! I was -beside myself! I scarcely know what I thought, or what I said! I acted -like a crazy woman--and felt like one, too! It is easy enough for you to -be cool and collected about the thing. You are a _man!_” - -“Yes, I know, Isabel,” he said, kindly, “I understand all that, and I -can make all the allowances in the world for you, in your position. But -still that doesn’t alter the fact that the thing has been said, and the -harm done. To be sure, I suppose, the harm will be only temporary, but -as it stands it affects the prospects of more than one person--of two -persons, in fact, near to us--very materially. You know what I mean?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, what can be done to remedy it? That is the question. I am not -going to blame you, but still the fault _was_ yours, and the steps to -set it right ought to be yours, too, oughtn’t they?” - -“What do you mean?” She looked up now, forgetting her tears. - -“I am not quite sure what I do mean. I haven’t thought over details. -There is simply a given situation, with the question how to get out of -it, and the onus of action on you. I want you to help me think what the -best way will be.” - -“How logically you state it! Suppose I disavowed the whole thing, -ignored it, refused to do anything or say anything. What then?” - -“I won’t consider that at all. You couldn’t be so unfair as that--so -ungenerous.” - -“Unfair! Ungenerous!” Isabel rose to her full height, and frowned down -at her brother-in-law, without a trace of tears in her eyes. “Fine -fairness, distinguished generosity, have been shown to _me_, haven’t -they! There has been so much delicacy in regarding _my_ feelings! I -ought to leap at the opportunity of smoothing over matters between Mr. -Seth and his lady-love. My husband’s awful death, my position here, -alone in the world, the shock and suffering of it all--these are mere -trifles compared with the importance of seeing that their love affairs -are uninterrupted! Perhaps I might get a chance at the funeral to have -them kiss and make up--or would you prefer me to leave my dead now and -go----” - -“_Your_ dead!” - -The brother had risen also, and taken his hat. The exclamation carried -in its tone all the bitterness with which his mind had stored itself on -his walk back to the farm. Pity for the woman, perhaps something too of -innate susceptibility to beauty and grace, had restrained and covered up -this bitterness, so that he had supposed it gone. It flamed forth now, -in wrathful satire. - -As she put her handkerchief up again to her eyes, as a token of more -tears, he went on, in a cold kind of excitement: - -“You talk very cleverly--more so than any other woman I ever knew. -But you should pick your strong phrases with more discrimination. For -instance, when you want to produce a really striking effect upon me, it -is unwise to use an expression which recalls to me at once things that -you would rather I didn’t think about. I wouldn’t say ‘_my_ dead ’ if -I were you, especially when you are talking to his brother. It may do -for outsiders, but here in the family it is a bad waste of words.” - -Her only answer was a gust of sobs. They failed to move him and he went -on: - -“I don’t know that I have any means of forcing you to do anything, or -say anything, against your will. If you take that position, perhaps -it won’t be necessary. The wicked, ridiculous thing you thought, or -pretended to think, and said to that poor girl, can be straightened out -very easily. We can’t prevent the pain it has already caused, but we can -stop its causing more. But if you lisp it to another human being--well, -I don’t know what to threaten you with. It isn’t easy to guess what -considerations will weigh with a woman who has your ideas of wifely -duty, and of her responsibilities towards young and foolish members of -her husband’s family, and----” - -“How _can_ you be so cruel, so mean, John? What right have you to talk -to me like that? Everybody attacks me like an enemy. You never have been -decent to me since I was married. Your whole family has treated me like -an outsider, almost a criminal, since I came here. Your old cat of an -aunt never looked at me except to wish me evil. Your brother--yes, if he -could hear me now, from where he lies, I would say it!--never was fond -of me, never tried to make a companion of me, never treated me as a wife -should be treated, or even as his intellectual equal. _You_ avoided me -as if I were poison. The neighborhood disliked me, gossiped about me, -and I hated them. Only one there was of you all who was pleasant with -me, and good to me--and now that you have turned him against me, too, -you come and insult me because I was pleased and grateful for his -friendship. That is _manly_ isn’t it?” - -John had listened to the beginning of this impassioned speech with -a callous heart. But he was a just man, and he had in almost unmeted -degree that habit of mind which welcomes statements of both sides of a -controversy. He might have been a wealthier man, and the owner of a more -thriving paper, if he had had more of the partisan spirit. But to -be strictly fair was the rule of his being. He would not criticise -political opponents for doing things which in his heart he approved, -and, on the same principle he would not condemn unheard even this woman, -if she had any justification. As she went on, he began to feel that -there was considerable force in her argument. She certainly had been -most disagreeably situated, connubially and socially, and her definition -of the Seth episode was plausible, if that were all there was of it. He -softened perceptibly in tone as he answered: - -“No, I am sorry if you think I wanted to insult you. Perhaps I did speak -too strongly. I apologize for it. But I feel very earnestly on this -subject. I’ve always been a sort of father and big brother combined -to Seth, and the idea of his getting into a mess, or doing foolish or -discreditable things, cuts me to the quick. You can see my position in -the matter. I am anxious not to hurt your feelings, but my first duty is -to him. Perhaps the two need not come into conflict. After all, no real -harm has been done, I fancy, except in this one case of repeating your -hysterical suspicion of him. _That_ was inexcusable; can’t you _see_ -that it was? I’m sure that if you’ll think it over calmly, you’ll be -disposed to do what is fair and right. I’m not blaming you particularly -for the other thing. You might have remembered that you were older than -Seth, to be sure, but then I realize that you were not at all pleasantly -placed----” - -“Never mind what you realize! We won’t discuss that at all. There is -nothing to discuss. You and your aunt seem bound to make yourselves -ridiculous about me. I won’t demean myself by answering--or no! I _will_ -say this much to you. There has never a word passed between Seth and me -that every soul of you might not have heard, and welcome. He was simply -pleasant and friendly to me--and I was grateful to him and fond of him, -as I might be of a brother. Where was the harm? In no decent state of -society would any one ever have dreamed of suspecting wrong. But -_here_--why, people live and breathe suspicion! It is the breath of -their nostrils.” - -“I thought you used to correspond,” John said, tentatively. - -“Correspond! There it is again! What of it, I should like to know? -Why shouldn’t my cousin, my brother, write to me? I have all the -letters;--you may see them every one. They gave me a great deal of -pleasure. They represented my sole point of contact with civilization, -with fine feelings and pretty thoughts. But you can go over them all, if -you like. You won’t find a single whisper of proof of your aunt’s mean -suspicion. I am almost ashamed of myself for having stooped to defend -myself--but it is just as well to let you know the truth.” - -“Yes!” John breathed a sigh which was not altogether of relief, but -carried a fair admixture of bewilderment. This ingenious explanation -did not at all points tally with the inferences drawn from Seth’s -confession. Perhaps it was true enough in the letter, but he felt that -as a revelation of the spirit it left much to be desired. He added: - -“Well, I am sorry if I misjudged you. Probably I did. However, even if -Seth had come near getting into a scrape, he’s safe out of it now.” - -This complaisant conclusion nettled-the woman. She went on, as if her -explanation had not been interrupted: - -“Of course, we had what you might call a community of grievance to talk -about, and draw us together. It wouldn’t be fitting in me to say more -now than that my life here was not congenial: you won’t mind my -saying _that_ much? I had dreamed of a very different kind of married -existence. Seth, too, had his trouble. In his boyhood, when it seemed -assured that he was to remain the farmer of the family, his mother had -planned a marriage for him. It isn’t for me to say a word against Annie. -She is a good enough girl, in her way. But when Seth got out of his -chrysalis, and learned what there really was in him, the thought that he -was committed in a sense to marrying a farm girl made him very gloomy. -He used to talk with me about it, not saying anything against Annie, -mind you, but----” - -“That’ll do!” said John, curtly. “We won’t go into that. Evidently there -was no limit to Seth’s asininity. Let that pass. Whatever he said, or -didn’t say, during his vealy period, he’s going to marry Annie now. -There never was a time, and I fear there never will be one, when I would -not call her his superior. The question is: Are you going to retract -before her the false, cruel things you have said?” - -“I am going upstairs again,” she said. “I think I will lie down awhile,” - and moved towards the stair-door. - -The brother looked at her, amazed, pained, indignant. She had her hand -on the latch by the time his emotions found words: - -“I’ve wasted my time in pitying you. God forbid that any of our family, -young or old, should ever fall in with such a woman as you are again!” - He pulled on his hat and left the house. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI.--MILTON’S ASPIRATIONS. - -The lamps were lighted in the little partitioned-off square which -served as the editorial room of the _Banner_ when John returned. He -found Seth weakly striving to write something for the editorial page, -and in substance laid the situation before him. He was not feeling very -amiably toward his young brother at the moment, and he spoke with cold -distinctness. The tone was lost upon Seth, who said wearily: - -“I don’t see that it makes much difference--her refusing. What good -would it have done, if she _had_ gone to Annie? She could only tell her -that she had abandoned such and such ideas. That isn’t what counts. The -fact of importance is that she ever entertained them, that they ever -existed. To my notion, there’s nothing to do but to wait and see what -comes of Beekman’s suspicions. What do you think of them, anyway? I have -been trying to imagine what he is aiming at, but it puzzles me? What do -you think?” - -“To tell the truth, I haven’t been thinking of that. My mind has been -occupied with the female aspects of the thing. I’m not impatient. -Evidently Beekman and Ansdell think they have got hold of something. -They are not the men to go off on a wild-goose chase. Very good: I can -wait until they are ready to explain. But what I can’t wait for--or bear -to think about--is poor Annie, suffering as she must be suffering to -have written that letter.” - -“Yes, I’ve thought of that, too, but I’m helpless. I can’t think of -anything: I can’t do anything.” - -“You don’t seem to be of much use, for a fact,” mused the brother. “I’ll -tell you what I’ll do, if you think best. To-morrow afternoon, after -I’ve seen Ansdell, or before that if he doesn’t come, I will go over and -see Annie myself. I can go over to the school-house by the back -road, and walk home with her. Perhaps by that time, too, I shall have -something tangible to explain to her. Until then, I suppose she must -continue in suspense. It is the penance she ought to do, I dare say--” - the brother added this in mildly sarcastic rebuke--“for the luxury of -being in love with such a transcendant genius as you are.” - -***** - -Something like an hour before this, Annie had dismissed her classes and -locked up the school-house for the night. As she did so, she mentally -wondered if she should ever have the strength to walk home. - -The day had been one long-drawn out torture from its first waking -moments--indeed there seemed to have been nothing but anguish since her -interview with Isabel the previous day, not even the oblivion of sleep. -Her impulse, and her grandmother’s advice, had been to remain at home; -but she had already left the school unopened on the fatal Tuesday, in -the shock of the news of Albert’s death: to absent herself a second day -might prejudice the trustees against her. Besides, the occupation might -serve to divert her thoughts. - -Perhaps the trustees were satisfied, she said to herself now, locking -the door, but there certainly had been no relief in the day’s labor. The -little children had been unwontedly stupid and trying; the older boys, -some of them almost of her own age, had never before seemed so unruly -and loutishly impertinent. Even these experiences alone would have -availed to discourage her; as it was they added the stinging of insects -to her great heartache. With some organizations, the lesser pain -nullifies the other. She seemed to have a capacity for suffering, now, -which took in, and made the most of, every element of agony, great and -small. She turned from the rusty, squat little old building and began -her journey homeward, with hanging head and a deadly sense of weakness, -physical and spiritual, crushing her whole being. - -Milton Squires had been watching for her appearance for some time, from -a sheltering ridge of berry-bushes and wall beyond the school, and -he hurried now to overtake her, clumsily professing surprise at the -meeting. - -“I jes happened up this way,” he said, “Dunnao _when_ I be’n up here on -this road b’fore. Never dreampt o’ seein’ yeou.” - -She made answer of some sort, as unintelligible and meaningless to -herself as to him. She did not know whether it was a relief or otherwise -that he was evidently going to walk home with her. Perhaps, if she let -him do all the talking, the companionship would help her to get over the -ordeal of the return less miserably. But she could not, and she would -not, talk. - -“I kind o’ thought mebbe you’d shet up schewl fer a week ’r sao,” he -proceeded, ingratiatingly, “but then agin I said to m’self ‘no siree, -she ain’t thet kine of a gal. Ef she’s got any work to dew, she jes’ -does it, rain ’r shine’. Thet’s what I said. Pooty bad business, -wa’n’t it, this death of yer cousin?” - -“Dreadful!” she murmured, wishing he would talk of something else. - -“Yes, sir, it’s about’s bad’s they make ’em. Some queer things -’baout it tew. I s’pose yeh ain’t heerd no gossup ’baout it, hev -yeh?” - -“No,” she whispered with a sinking heart; a real effort was needed to -speak the other words: “What gossip? Is there gossip?” - -“Dunnao’s yeh kin call it real gossup. P’raps nobuddy else won’t -’spicion nothin’. But to me they’s some things ’baout it thet -looks darned cur’ous. Of caourse, it ain’t none o’ my business to blab -’baout the thing.” - -“No, of course.” - -These little words, spoken falteringly, confirmed all that Milton had -wished to learn the truth about. Over night a stupendous scheme had -budded, unfolded, blossomed in his mind. Originally his primitive -intellect had gone no further than the simple idea of committing -homicide under circumstances which would inevitably point to an -accident. The plan was clever in its very nakedness. But through some -row among the women, probably out of jealousy, the hint of murder had -been raised, and coupled with Seth’s name. If this hint ripened into a -suspicion and an inquiry, a new situation would be created, but Milton -could not see any peril in it for him, for Seth would obviously be -involved. But it would be better if no questions of murder were raised -at all, and matters were allowed to stand. This would not only -place Milton’s security beyond peradventure, but it would give him a -tremendous grip upon Annie. It was in this direction that his mind -had been working steadily since he heard of Annie’s suspicions. The -opportunity seemed to have come for placing the cap-stone of acquisition -upon the edifice of desire he had so long and patiently been rearing. - -As for the poor girl, she had reasoned herself out of the suspicion of -Seth’s guilt a thousand times, only to find herself hopelessly relapsing -into the quagmire. Milton’s hints came with cruel force to drag her back -now, this time lower than ever. Even he seemed to know of it, but he -proposed to maintain silence. Of course, he _must_ be induced to keep -silent. Oh! the agony of her thoughts! - -“You’n’ Seth was allus kine o’ frenly,” he proceeded. “Way back f’m -th’ time yeh was boys ’n’ gals.” - -“Yes, we always were.” - -“’N’ they used to say, daown to th’ corners, that yeou two was baoun’ -to make a match of it.” - -“There wasn’t anything in that at all!” She spoke decisively, almost -peremptorily. - -“Oh, they wa’n’t, ay?” There was evident jubilation in his tone. -“Never was nothin’ in that talk, ay?” - -“No, nothing.” - -The pair walked along on the side of the descending road silently for -some moments. A farmer passed them, hauling a load of pumpkins up -the hill, and exchanged a nod of salutation with Milton. This farmer -remarked at his supper-table an hour later, to his wife: “I’d bet a yoke -o’ oxen thet Milton Squires is a’makin’ up to the schewl-teacher. I seed -’em walkin’ togither daown th’ hill to-night, ’n’ he was a lookin’ -at her like a bear at a sap-trough. It fairly made me grit my teeth to -see him, with his broadcloth cloze, ’n’ his watch-chain, ’n’ his -on-gainly ways.” To which his helpmeet acidulously responded: “Well, I -dunnao’s she c’d dew much better. She’s gittin’ pooty well along, ’n’ -fer all his ongainly ways, I don’t see but what he comes on, ‘baout’s -well’s some o’ them thet runs him daown. A gal can’t jedge much by a -man’s ways haow he’ll turn aout afterwards. _I_ thought _I’d_ got a -prize.” Whereupon the honest yeoman chose silence as the better part. - -The red sun was hanging in a purplish haze over the edge of the hill as -the two descended, and the leaves from Farmer Perkins’s maples rustled -softly under their feet. Milton drew near his subject: - -“I’ve be’n gittin’ on in th’ world sence yeou fust knew me, hain’t I?” - -“Yes, everybody says so.” - -“’N’ yit everybody don’t knaow half of it. I ain’t no han’ to tell all -I knaow. Ef some folks c’d guess th’ speckle-ations I be’n in, ‘n’ th’ -cash I’ve got aout in mor’giges ’n’ sao on, it’d make ’em open their -eyes. It’s th’ still saow thet gits th’ swill, as my mother use’ to say, -’n’ I’ve be’n still enough abaout it, I guess.” - -His coarse chuckle jarred on the girl’s nerves, but the importance of -placating him was uppermost in her mind, and she answered, as pleasantly -as she could: - -“I’m sure I’m glad, Milton. You have worked hard all your life, and you -deserve it.” - -“Yeh _air_ glad, reely naow?” - -“Why yes! Why shouldn’t I be? It always pleases me to hear of people’s -prosperity.” - -“But me purtic’ly?” he persisted, earnestly. - -“Oh, yes,” she replied, absent-mindedly. Then the odd nature of -the question occurred to her, but she was too distrait to think -consecutively, and she added no comment to her answer. - -“Well, it eases me to hear yeh say thet,” he went on, with awkward -deliberation, “fer they’s somethin’ I’ve be’n wantin’ to say to yeh fer -a long time. I don’t s’paose you reelize haow well off I am?” She did -not answer. Her mind seemed to refuse to act, and she heard only the -sound of his words. He took her reply for granted and continued: - -“I c’d eena’most buy up thet farm there”--pointing over to the Fairchild -acres on the slope, now within sight--“’n’ I ain’t so all-fired sure -yit thet I won’t, nuther! But what’s th’ good o’ money, on-less yeh kin -git what yeh want with it, ay?” - -The impulse of her soul-weariness was to let this aimless question pass -like the other, without reply. But she was reminded of the importance of -being pleasant to this tedious man, and so answered, entirely at random: - -“What is it you want, Milton?” - -“I dunnao--I’m kind o’ feared o’ puttin’ my foot in it; yeh won’t be mad -ef I tell yeh?” - -“Why no, of course not. What is it?” - -“Well, then,” he blurted out, “I want _yeou!_” The girl looked dumbly at -him, at first not realizing at all the meaning of his words, then held -as in a vise between the disposition to reply to him as he deserved -and the danger, the terrible danger, of angering him. There fluttered -through her senses, too, a mad kind of yearning to shriek with -laughter--born of the hysterical state of her long-oppressed nerves. She -eventually neither rebuked nor laughed, but said vacuously: - -“Want _me?_” - -“Ef yeou’ll marry me, I’ll make one o’ th’ fust ladies o’ Dearb’rn -Caounty aout o’ yeh. Yeh need never lay yer finger to a stitch o’ work -agin, no more’n Is’bel did, daown yander.” He spoke eagerly, with more -emotion in his strident voice than she had ever heard there before. - -The difficulty of her position crushed her courage. Of course she must -say no, but how do it without affronting him? The idea of reasoning him -gently out of the preposterous wish came to her. - -“This is some flying notion in your head, Milton,” she said, civilly. -“You will have forgotten it by next week.” - -“Forgott’n it, ay! Yeh think sao? What ’f I told yeh I hain’t thought o’ -nothin’ else fur nigh onto ten year?” - -His tone was too earnest and excited to render further trifling safe. -He pulled out of an inner pocket and held up before her a little, -irregularly squared tin-type--which she recognized as having been made -in whimsical burlesque of her lineaments by an itinerant photographer -years before. - -“How did you come by that?” she asked, to gain time. - -“I got it fr’m th’ man thet made it, ’n’ I paid a dollar bill fer it, -tew,” he answered triumphantly, “’n’ I’ve kep it by me ever sence!” - -After a pause she said, as calmly as she could: “I never dreamed that -such a thought had entered your head. Of course, it--it can’t be.” - -“Why not, I’d like to knaow?” he demanded. “Don’t yeh b’lieve what I’ve -told yeh ’baout my bein’ well off?” - -“That hasn’t anything to do with it. There are other reasons--a good -many other reasons.” - -“What air they?” His tone was peremptory. - -“I don’t know that I can explain them to you. But truly there are -so many of them--and your words took me so wholly by surprise, -that--that----” - -“Yeh needn’t mince matters! I _knaow!_ Yeh hev sot yer idees on Seth! -Yeh needn’t tell me yeh hain’t!” - -“I won’t talk with you at all if you shout at me in that way, and -contradict me flat when I assure you to the contrary.” - -Milton paused for a moment, to consider the situation. They were -approaching the poplars now, along the lonely turnpike, and the -conversation could not be much protracted. What he had to say must -be said without delay. But what was it that he wished to say? A dozen -inchoate plans rose amorphously to the surface of his mind--to cajole -her, to strive further to impress her with his wealth, to entreat her, -to attempt to bully her. This last resource ran best with his mood, but -there were difficulties. Annie was the reverse of a cowardly girl; there -was nothing timid or tremulous about her; if he attempted to intimidate -her, the enterprise would most probably be a ridiculous failure, for -he stood too much in awe of her self-reliance and intelligence to have -confidence in his own mastery. - -But stay--she was fearful about Seth. Whether it was true or not that -she had no idea of marrying her cousin, she was evidently solicitous -for his safety. An idea born of this conclusion swiftly engrafted itself -upon the hired man’s general strategy. He lifted his light, shifty eyes -from the grass of the roadside path to her face, once more, and said: - -“Well, ef you’re a mine to be mean, I kin be mean tew--meaner ’n’ -pussly. Ef yeh think I’m goin’ to stan’ still, ’n’ let yeou ’n’ Seth -hev it all yer aown way, yer mistaken. I’ve only got to open my maouth -to th’ Cor’ner, ’n’ whair’d _he_ be, ’n’ yeou tew?” - -There was a certain indefinable suggestion of bravado in his tone which -caught Annie’s attention. It was the barest, most meagre of shadows, but -she grasped at the chance of substance behind it. - -“I don’t believe you could say anything, or do anything, which would -injure him,” she said, with more confidence in her words than she felt -in her heart. - -“Oh, yeh daon’t, ay!” he growled. “Ef yeh knaowed what I knaow, p’raps -yeh’d change yer teune.” - -“What do you know, then? Come now, let us hear it!” She grew defiant, -with an instinctive sense that the inferior being beside her was ready -to retreat, if only she could keep up her boldness of front. - -“Never yeou mind what I knaow!” he answered, evasively. “It’ll be -enough, I guess, to cook _his_ geuse, when th’ time comes.” - -“Ah, I thought so!” she exclaimed. “You were simply talking to hear -yourself talk--to scare me. Well, you see now that you wasted your -breath.” - -“Oh, _did_ I! Well, I won’t waste any more of it, then, till I talk to -th’ Cor’ner. I kin tell him some things ’baout who rid th’ black -mare aout thet night, after Albert’d gone. Guess thet’ll kind ’o’ fix -things!” - -His slow imagination, working clumsily in the mazes of falsehood, had -carried Milton a step too far; his simple plan of substituting Seth for -himself in the events of the fatal night miscarried in a way he could -not suspect. - -Annie did not answer. An exclamation had risen to her lips, but -something akin to presence of mind checked it there. Her brain seemed to -be working with lightning flashes. The black mare had played a part -in the tragedy, then; Seth had certainly not had the animal out that -evening; the rushing, almost noiseless apparition which had startled -them in the moonlight must have been the mare; it was coming from the -direction of Tallman’s; it had a rider; who could that rider have been? -and how did Milton know about it?--so the swift thoughts ran, in a -chain which seemed luminous in the relief it brought to her. These two -questions she could not answer--in her joy at the apparent exculpation -of Seth it did not seem specially important that they should be -answered--and she had self-possession enough to ask nothing about them. - -It was a nice question what she should say to her companion, who was -now, without any distinct suspicions on her part, growing luridly -loathsome and repugnant in her eyes. The fear of angering him had died -away, but a vague sense that mischief might be done by arousing his -curiosity or apprehensions had come to take its place. She spoke -cautiously: - -“I hope you won’t do anything rash, that you would regret afterwards.” - -“They ain’t nao need o’ my doin’ nothin’, ef yeou’d only hev some sense. -But if yeou’re goin’ to be agin me, ther’s nao tellin’ what I won’t -dew,” he answered with sullen terseness. - -They had come to the poplars, and Annie stopped at the stile under the -thorns. - -“I shall have to leave you here,” she said. - -“Then yeh won’t hev me, ay? Yeh better think twice ’fore yeh say nao! -Yeh won’t git another sich a chance--to live like a lady, ’n’ hev -ev’rything yeh want. ’N’ ef yeh dew say nao, yeh kin rest ’sured yeh -ain’t heerd th’ last of it, ner him nuther.” Milton’s little green-gray -eyes watched her face intently, and he fingered his flaring plated -watch-chain with nervous preoccupation. “What d’yeh say, yes’ ’r nao?” - -“I can’t say anything more than I have said--_now_,” she answered, and, -stepping over the stile, left him. - -For a long time afterward Annie’s conscience debated the justification -of that final word, the last one she ever addressed to Milton, and which -was obviously intended to keep alive a hope that she knew to be absurdly -without ground or reason. Sometimes even now she has momentary -doubts about it--but she silences cavil by whispering to herself in -unanswerable defence: “I thought then that possibly it might be needed -to help Seth--perhaps even to save him.” - -She had little leisure just then, however, to devote to moral -introspection, for Samantha met her, half-way down the thorn-walk, to -excitedly tell her that her grandmother, Mrs. Warren, was very much -worse than usual. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII.--“A WICKED WOMAN!” - -When Isabel looked into her mirror next morning, the image shown back -fairly startled her. Day by day during this eventful week the glass -had helped her to grow familiar with reddened eyes, with harsh, ageing -lines, and with a pallor which no devices of the toilet could efface. It -was not so much an added accentuation of these which riveted her gaze, -now, upon the mirror, as the suggestion of a new face--of a stranger’s -countenance, reflecting meanings and thoughts of the uncommon kind. - -She studied the face at first with an almost impersonal interest; then -as the brain associated these lineaments with her own, and made their -expression a part of her own spiritual state, she said to this other -self in the glass, audibly: - -“Another week of this will make you an old woman.” She added, after a -pause of fascinated yet critical scrutiny: “Yes, and a wicked woman, -too!” There has been what one can only hope is an intelligible -reluctance, from the beginning of this recital, to essay analysis or -portrayal of Isabel’s thoughts and motives. A complex, contradictory -character like hers, striving now to assimilate, now to sway the simple, -straightforward, one-stringed natures with which it is environed, may be -illustrated; it is too great a task to dissect it. Yet for the once we -may venture to look into this troubled mind. - -A wicked woman! The phrase which she had addressed aloud to the -mocking image in the glass, in mingled doubt and irony, clung to her -meditations. Had she ever meant to be wicked--ever deliberately, or -even consciously, chosen evil instead of good? No! There was no dubious -reservation in her answer. Yet within the week--oh, the horrible -week!--she had come to occupy a moral position for which hell could not -hold too relentless or fierce a punishment. She had hugged to her heart -thoughts which, when they are linked with acts, go to expiation on the -gallows. She shuddered now at the recollection of them; she could recall -that she had shuddered then, too. Yet all the same these thoughts were a -part of her--belonged to her. She had not repelled them as alien, or as -unwelcome. Even while in terror at their mien, she had embraced them. -Was this not all wickedness? - -The reply came, in sophistical self-defense, that no one act or emotion -of a life could be judged by itself. The antecedent circumstances, -leading up to it, must be taken into account. She had been borne -along on the current of a career shaped for her by others. She was not -responsible--she had never fought with her destiny--she had done nothing -but seek to bring some flowers and light and color into the desolate -voyage of life. Was it fair to say that these little innocent, -womanish efforts to soften a sterile existence were the cause of the -shipwreck--that it was these which had brought her so suddenly, dazed -and terrified, into the very breakers on the sinister rocks of crime? -No, the answer came again; surely it could not be fair. - -Yet she had hated her husband; she had been overjoyed, even while -she was affrighted, by the news of his death--or at least there was a -tremulous sensation very like joy; she had hailed as her deliverer the -young man whom her wild fancy made responsible for that death--yes, had -even in her frenzy kissed his hand, the hand which she then believed to -have blood upon it, his brother’s blood! her husband’s blood! Were not -these the thoughts and actions of a wicked woman? What difference -was there between her and the vilest murderess confined for life in a -penitentiary? - -Or no! What nonsense this was! What single thing had she said or done to -bring on the catastrophe? It was an accident--everybody knew that now. -But even if it had not been an accident, how would she have been to -blame? Was it her fault that she was pleasing in men’s eyes, or that -Seth had been attracted by her, and had been sympathetic to her? How -could she have helped it? Was there any reason why she should have tried -to help it? Was it wrong for her, exiled as she was to this miserable -farm life, to make a friend of her cousin--her husband’s brother? And if -they had grown to be attached to each other, could it be wondered at? - -And it had all been so innocent, too! What single compromising word, -even, had ever been spoken! Might not the most blameless of women have -had just such a pretty little romantic friendship, without dream of -harm? - -As for the frantic things she had thought and said on that awful -forenoon after the discovery, she strove to put them away from her -memory, as born of a hysterical, wholly irresponsible state. - -But they would come back, no matter how often banished. - -Then, too--perhaps worst of all, for honest John seemed to lay -particular stress upon it--was the terrible declaration she had made -to Annie. About this there could be no self-deception. She would not -pretend to herself that this had been done through any but revengeful? -spiteful motives--pure cruelty, in fact. But was she to be thus coolly -pushed aside, her romance shattered, her dear day-dream dissipated--and -not to be justified in striking back? - -This conceited boy--she was able thus to think of Seth now, in his -absence, and in the light of the affront she felt he had put upon -her--and this country school-teacher, to come billing and cooing in the -very hour of her supreme excitement--did they not deserve just what -they had received? After all, her words had done no permanent harm.. -Doubtless by this time they had all been cleared up. And if Miss Annie -_did_ suffer a little, what better was she than other people, to be free -all her life from heartaches? - -But then came a mental picture of Annie’s calm, sweet, lightful face -transfixed with speechless horror at the brutal words--and after it, -close and searching, the question: “Why should I have stabbed Annie? She -was always kindness itself to me. Was it not heartless to make that poor -girl suffer?” And there followed in her mind, as an echo of her first -exclamation to the mirror--that had gathered reverberating force from -all the thoughts we have striven to trace--the haunting cry: “A wicked -woman!” - -Afternoon came, and the battle still went on. Bitter condemnation of her -own conduct struggled with angry pleas of grievance against others, and -the conflict wearied her into what threatened to be a sick headache. -The idea of getting out into the open air and seeking relief in a walk, -which had been dormantly in her mind all day, finally took form, and led -her outside the homestead for the first time since her husband’s death. - -Once outside, she walked aimlessly through the orchard--in preference to -the high road, where she might meet neighbors--toward the little family -graveyard. It was not until she had nearly reached this spot that she -recalled having heard that Seth, too, came here on that terrible night. -The recollection brought an added sense of all the wrongs she held to -have been done her. She stood for a long time by the old board fence, -with its coating of dry, mildew-like moss on the weather-beaten surfaces -turned to the north, and its inhospitable hedging of brown, half-bare -briars, and looked in reverie upon the tombs within the enclosure. - -Three generations of the Fairchilds lay here under the straggling mat -of withered strawberry vines. She saw the low blue-slate slabs, nearly -covered now by aspiring weeds and brambles, which modestly pleaded in -antique letters that the original shoemaker, Roger, and his lowly spouse -might not be altogether forgotten. Rising ostentatiously above these -timid, ancient memorials, as if with intent to divert attention from -their humility, was the marble obelisk marking the resting-place of the -family’s greatest man, the Hon. Seth Fairchild. The monument was not so -white or so imposing now as it once had been, and the proud inscription -setting forth how its subject had been “twice Senator of the State of -New York,” was almost illegible from the storm-stains and mould on its -venerable front. There were some other stones, gray and small, tipping -humbly toward the central monolith, as if mutely begging at least a -little share of the Senator’s greatness for his wife and sisters, and -nearer were two plain modern slabs recounting the sole interesting facts -of the colorless lives of Lemuel and Cicely Fair-child--that they had -been alive, and now were dead. - -Here still nearer her, almost at her feet, the widow saw some pegs -driven in the ground, with string stretched around them to form a long -rectangle. The sight brought no thrill to her. She was conscious of all -its meaning, but felt herself scarcely interested. In life she had -owed nothing but dislike to the man whose last coming these signs of -preparation betokened. His death had shocked her at first by its fearful -suddenness; it did not especially disturb her now, save at times with a -furtive elation at the accompanying thought that at last she was free. -Her thoughts were with the living--and their relation to those long -since dead. - -If these rambling thoughts could have been summarized in words they -would have run in this fashion: - -“What has all your family pride brought you, all your planning and -manoeuvring, you dull countrymen? _I_ wasn’t good enough for you, -eh? Your breed must conspire against me, eh? and treat me like an -interloper, an outsider, eh? You thought I was to be brought here too, -did you, when my time arrived, and be snubbed and bullied into some back -corner like the rest of your wives, while my husband, ‘the Congressman,’ -had a big monument like this of your old humbug, the Senator? And you -expected to patronize me, or cut me dead, as the living dolts here on -the turnpike have done, did you? Well, you are fooled! I’ve escaped you! -I shall never come here but once again--to bring you your ‘Congressman.’ -You can have him and welcome. And that old cat of an aunt of his, she -will come presently, too, and I wish you much joy of _her!_ And perhaps -you will give up your idea, then, that you amount to anything, or ever -will amount to anything. The farm is going to a young man who will sell -it, and who doesn’t care a cent for the whole crowd of you, and who will -live in a city, and eat with his fork, and forget that there ever were -such people as you. And he will forget, too, that----” - -She came to a full stop in her meditations. Yes, Seth would forget her, -too. She had no illusions on this point. Perhaps this was too kindly a -view of it, even--he might be compelled to remember her by sheer force -of his bitterness toward her. There could be no doubt, after his cruel -words on the eventful forenoon--their last meeting--that he scorned -and despised her. What an idiot she had been to disclose to him her -thoughts--those mad fancies and beliefs of that frantic morning! She -might have known that the idea of his fighting his brother, on _her_ -account, was preposterous. What did he care about her? He had been nice -with her, had written her pretty, graceful letters when she asked him to -do so, and had sent her books to read--that was all. There was nothing -else. She had been a fool to dream that there was anything else. He -would sell the farm, and go back to Tecumseh, and marry Annie--yes, -marry Annie! And they, too, would refer to her now and then, and comment -on her wickedness, and hope that they might never have a daughter like -her. That would be all. - -She turned from the little enclosure of graves, without giving them -another thought. The mental picture which she conjured up of the young -couple, contented by a fireside of their own, perhaps with a child, tore -at her heart-strings. - -In the farm-yard she was met by Mr. Ansdell, who was evidently watching -for her, and who introduced himself courteously. - -“The Coroner is here,” he said, “with some medical gentlemen, and there -are also your late husband’s partner, Mr. Hubbard, who accompanied me -from New York last night, and the District Attorney and some others. In -a couple of hours or so we expect to be able to tell you what brought -us. Meanwhile, we are anxious to spare you any possible intrusion--and -also a possible scene. It is for this that I have waited outside for -you. If you could prolong your walk for that length of time, going to -some friend’s house near by, for instance, without saying that anything -unusual was transpiring here----” - -“Yes, I will go,” she answered. “Will two hours be long enough?” - -“I hope so,” he said, bowing his thanks. - -She walked out through the great swing-gate to the turnpike, and -idly chose the westward turning, along under the poplars. The curious -incident of all these visitors at the house did not excite her -attention. Her mind was too busy torturing itself with that marriage -which was already spoken of as assured. - -At the stile by the thorns, the idea of going to the Warren house -suddenly occurred to her. It was a bold, purposeless, almost crazy -thought; perhaps for those very reasons it commended itself to her mood. -She felt herself impelled alike by good and malignant impulses to cross -the stile; she walked down the thorn path, scarcely knowing whether her -purpose was to bless or to curse. - -The door was opened by Samantha, whose scared face took on an added -expression of anxiety on recognizing the visitor. - -“Go into the parlor, ’n’ I’ll light the stove fer yeh,” she whispered. -“Th’ old lady’s very laow. Soon’s she comes hum from schewl I’ll send -Annie in to see yeh.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII.--THE SHERIFF ASSISTS. - -While Isabel sat over the stove in the cold, austere parlor of the -Warren house, with its ancient furniture, the never failing photograph -album, and those huge pink shells on the mantle-shelf without which -no rural home used to be complete--waiting for she scarcely knew -what--strange things were going forward in the home of the Fairchilds. - -On the forenoon of this same day, Thursday, there had been a gathering -in the office of the Thessaly _Banner of Liberty_. It was the -publication day of the paper, but for once it went to press without -enlisting even the most careless scrutiny, let alone the solicitude, of -its editor-proprietor. He had more serious business on hand. Closeted -with him in the little editorial room, whose limited space had rarely -before been so taxed, were Beekman, Ansdell, the District Attorney, -the Sheriff, and the younger of the dead man’s two New York partners, a -shrewd, silent, long-faced man. Seth had desired to be of the party but -his brother had sent him off, to return after dinner. - -These men gravely discussed some subjects with which our readers are -familiar, and some now first brought to light. John had a letter from -Annie, sent by hand the previous evening, detailing the strange things -Milton had said to her about the black mare. Ansdell and Mr. Hubbard, -the partner, recited how they had discovered that Albert Fairchild, on -the preceding Monday, sold $16,000 worth of government bonds, and the -abortive effort he made to so arrange the transfer that it would not be -traced. Beekman recalled how the black mare had balked on the edge of -the gulf the day after the murder--for they all thus characterized it -now. Later, the Coroner came in by appointment, and in the presence of -the dreaded District Attorney was meekness itself. He even heard that -two physicians were to go out with the party, and make an examination, -without taking offence. - -After the noon-day dinner the gathering was reinforced by the two -doctors and by Seth, the latter devoured by curiosity and vexed at being -kept so long in the dark. Soon after, all of the party save the Sheriff -made their way to the Fairchild house, driving by twos or threes, and at -intervals, to avoid exciting suspicion. It was after the arrival of the -last division that Ansdell met Isabel, and advised her to stay away from -the house for a time. - -The two surgeons and the Coroner went silently into the parlor, and -closed the door behind them. In the living-room Ansdell, Hubbard, John, -and the District Attorney took chairs around the stove, having given -word that Milton, who was off on the other side of the hill, arranging -the sale of some apples, should be sent in to them when he arrived, -which could not be very long now. In the kitchen, opening back from the -living-room as this in turn did from the parlor, Seth and Beekman sat -with the three women of the household. - -These latter had been told that something was going on, or rather had -inferred it from being forbidden to leave the room, and were agog with -puzzled excitement. They had no clue, save a vague understanding that -important personages were in the front portions of the house, but Alvira -and Melissa stole unhappy glances toward Seth, in uneasy fear that the -worst suspicions born of Samantha’s recital were to be realized in fact. -Aunt Sabrina, sitting with her shawl wrapped about her gaunt shoulders, -and with her feet on a piece of wood in the oven, did not know of this -story which gave point to the other women’s anxiety, but was in misery -between a deep yearning to learn what had happened, and a pessimistic -conviction that it must be another addition to the Fairchilds’ load of -calamities. - -They heard Milton drive up presently, and hail Dana with instructions to -put the horse out, and a query concerning the several strange vehicles -under the shed. Then he came into the kitchen, stamping his feet with -the cold, and walking straight to the stove to warm his hands. It was -growing dark in the low room, and he did not recognize Beekman. - -Seth delivered his errand, saying that his brother John wished to see -Milton, as soon as he returned, in the living-room. The hired man -gave the speaker a curious glance, and, after a moment or two of hand -warming, went in to learn what was wanted. - -Almost as he closed the door behind him, the Sheriff entered the kitchen -from the outside, and after an interrogative glance toward Beekman, -which the latter answered by a nod, drew up a chair leisurely by the -stove. - -“Who’d a thought it ’d a turned out so cold, ‘fore the moon changed?” - he asked of the company collectively. “Hev yeh got any cider abaout -handy? ’N’ a daoughnut, tew, ef yeh don’t mine.” - -While Melissa was in the cellar, the Sheriff, who was a Spartacus man -and a stranger to both Seth and the females, asked of Beekman: “What did -yeh agree on fer a sign?” - -“Th’ shakin’ of th’ stove.” - -Seth had been annoyed all day at the pains taken by John to keep the -facts of the enterprise now in hand from him, and he displayed so much -of this pique in the glance he now cast from the Sheriff to Beekman, -that the latter felt impelled to speak: - -“P’raps you disremember my askin’ yeh ’t’ other day ’baout whether -yer brother had much money on him that night. Well, we’ve settled thet -point. He did hev’--’n’ ’twas a considerable sum tew--‘baout sixteen -thaousan’ dollars.” - -“No!” Seth’s exclamation was of incredulous surprise. - -“Yes, sixteen thaousan’. We knaow it.” - -“Oh! I remember now,” said Seth, searching his impressions of the night. -“I remember that when I said he might fail to be nominated, he slapped -his breast two or three times as if he had something in the pocket. By -George! I wonder----” - -“Yeh needn’t waste no more time wond’rin’. Thet was it! ’N’ d’yeh -knaow what he was goin’ to dew with thet money? No, yeh daon’t! He was -agoin’ to buy me! I wouldn’t say this afore aoutsiders; I dunnao’s I’d -say it to yeou ef your paper wa’n’t so dum fond o’ pitchin’ into me fer -a boss, ’n’ a machine man ez yeh call it, ’n’ thet kine o’ thing. -Yer brother hed th’ same idee o’ me thet your paper’s got. He was wrong. -They tell me ther air’ some country caounties in th’ State where money -makes th’ mare gao. But Jay ain’t one of ’em. Yer brother wanted to -git into Congress. Ther was nao chance fer him in New York City. He come -up here ’n’ he worked things pooty fine, I’m baoun’ to say, but he -slipped up on me. Bribes may dew in yer big cities, but they won’t go -daown in Jay. I don’t b’lieve they’s ez much of it done anywhere ez -folks think, nuther.” - -“But this money, then, was----” - -“Lemme go on! P’raps this ’d never be’n faound aout, ef yer brother -hadn’t made mistake number tew in pickin’ aout the wust ’n’ meanest -cuss in th’ caounty to be his gao-between. I kin tell mean cusses when -I see ’em, ’n’ this feller he had was jest _the_ dirtiest scalawag I -ever did see. I kin stan’ a scoundrel in a way ef he’s bright abaout it, -but this was a reg’lar, natchul born fool. Somehaow in th’ kentry, these -men don’t seem to hev no sense. Ef they’re goin’ to rob a man, or set -his barns afire, or kill him, they dew it in the darnedest, clumsiest -saort o’ way, so they’re sure to git faound aout the minute anybody -looks an inch beyond his nose into th’ thing. It makes a man ashamed to -be a kentry-man to see th’ foolish way these here blockheads git caught, -ev’ry time.” - -The women had been listening intently to this monologue. They looked -at one another now, with the light of a strange new suspicion in their -eyes. - -“Who is this man? Who are you talking about?” Seth asked eagerly. - -At that moment the sound of a stove being shaken vigorously came from -the living-room. The Sheriff rose to his feet, and strode toward the -door of this room. - -“I’ll shaow him to yeh in th’ jerk of a lamb’s tail,” he said. - -***** - -The conversation in the living-room, after Milton entered, had been -trivial for a time, then all at once very interesting. He had been -disagreeably surprised at finding three men with John, but had taken -a seat, his big hands hanging awkwardly over his knees, and had been -reassured somewhat by the explanation that Mr. Hubbard, the dead man’s -partner, was anxious to hear all he could about the sad occurrence. The -District Attorney he did not know by sight, and he did not recognize -Ansdell, who stood looking out of the window, softly drumming on the -panes. - -Milton told a lot of details, about Albert’s return, about hitching up -the grays for him, about how the news was received at the Convention and -the like, all recited with verbose indirectness, and at great length. -Once he stopped, his attention being directed to a slight sound in the -parlor, and looked inquiry. John promptly explained that it was the -undertaker, and the hired man went on. - -At last the District Attorney, who had hitherto been silent, asked -quietly: - -“You went back to the stable--to your own room--after Mr. Fairchild -drove away?” - -“Yes, ’n’ went to bed.” - -“Did you hear any one enter the stables afterward?” - -“No, nary a soul.” - -“There is a black mare in the stables, used under the saddle. Was she -taken out that night?” - -“Not thet I knaow of. Why?” - -“Well, there seems to be a pretty positive story that she was. She was -seen on the road, in fact, late that night, coming from the ravine. -The rider was not recognized, but the mare was. How do you account for -that?” - -“Tain’t none o’ my business to ’caount for it.” Milton did not like -the tendency of the conversation. - -“No, I know that, but we are interested in finding out. I don’t think -you know me--I am the District Attorney--and I shall take particular -pains to find out.” - -A gulf suddenly yawned before Milton’s feet, and he made a prompt, bold -attempt to leap it. “I didn’t like to say nothin’ ’baout it, bein’ as -it’s in th’ fam’ly”--he cast an uneasy glance at John here--“but Seth -Fairchild rides th’ mare a good deal. I did hear somebody saddlin’ th’ -mare, but I took it fer granted it was him, ’n’ sao I didn’t git up. -It’d be jes like him, I said to myself, to go ridin’ in th’ moonshine. -He’s thet sort of a feller, naow ain’t he, John?” - -The sound of his own voice frightened Milton as he went on, and his -closing appeal to the brother for corroboration carried the nervous -accent of fear. John did not answer, but rose and walked over to join -Ansdell at the window. - -“Of caourse,” Milton began, in a lower voice, to which he sought to give -a confidential tone, “I don’t wan’ to say nothin’ agin Seth. Of caourse, -he’s John’s brother, ‘n’----” - -The words were cut short by the rolling back of one of the parlor doors, -and the entrance of the three doctors. The Coroner, who came last, -pulled the door shut again. The older of the other two came to the -District Attorney and said, with deliberate distinctness: - -“We are both prepared to swear that Mr. Fairchild’s death was caused by -a gunshot wound in the head.” - -It was then that John sprang to the stove, and shook its grate -vehemently. - -At sight of the Sheriff, who advanced upon him with a directness which -left no ambiguity as to his purpose, Milton rose excitedly from his -chair, cast a swift scared glance around the company, and then, while -the handcuffs were being snapped upon his wrists, began to whimper. - -“I didn’t do it! It’s a put-up job! It’s them brothers o’ his thet allus -hankered after his money, ’n’ naow they got it they’re tryin’ to put -the thing on me. ’N’ his wife, tew, thet stuck-up city gal, she----” - -“Come naow, yeou better shut up,” said the Sheriff sententiously. “Th’ -more yeh say th’ wuss it’ll be fer yeh.” - -Most of the men present averted their gaze during the brief period of -alternate threats and cringing, of rough curses and frenzied fawning on -the Sheriff, the District Attorney, and even the Coroner, which ensued; -but Mr. Hubbard watched it all carefully with evident interest. - -“That is a very curious type of criminal,” he said, as the Sheriff and -his prisoner left the room; “very curious indeed! I never saw a murderer -before who had so little nerve, and funked so absolutely when he was -confronted with detection. Why, I’ve seen men, guilty as guilty could -be, who would deceive even their own lawyers. But such a simpleton as -that--he’s not worth his rope.” - -“That is because you are a city man,” explained the District Attorney. -“You don’t know the kind of murderers we raise here in the country. The -chances are that your city assassin would be tortured by remorse, if -he escaped discovery, and that he committed the deed in a moment of -passion. But the rural murderer (I am speaking of native Americans, -now) plans the thing in cold blood, and goes at it systematically, with -nerves like steel. He generally even mutilates the body, or does some -other horrible thing, which it makes everybody’s blood boil to think of. -And so long as he isn’t found out, he never dreams of remorse. He has no -more moral perspective than a woodchuck. But when detection does -come, it knocks him all in a heap. He blubbers, and tries to lay it on -somebody else, and altogether acts like a cur--just as this fellow ’s -doing now, for instance.” - -A hubbub of shrieks and sobs rose from the kitchen as he finished this -sentence, and they with one accord moved toward the door. - -The Sheriff, with an eye to his promise to the two men in the kitchen, -had led the livid and slinking wretch out to the centre of the room, -where the dim candles had now been lighted, and, forcing him to hold up -his hands so that the manacles might be fully visible, said to Seth: - -“Here yeh air! I said I’d shaow him to yeh! Here is the whelp thet did -th’ mischief. Look at him!” - -There was a second of dead silence, as the several listeners took in the -significance of his words, and of the spectacle. - -The silence was broken by an inarticulate, indescribable cry from -Aunt Sabrina. Then came with startling swiftness a confusion of moving -bodies, of screams, and the rattling of the handcuffs’ chain, which no -one could follow. When the intervention of the Sheriff and Beekman had -restored quiet, it was discovered that the old lady, with an agility of -which none could have supposed her capable, had snatched a potato -knife from the table, and made a savage attempt to wreak the family’s -vengeance upon Milton. She had not succeeded in inflicting any injury, -save a slight cut on one of his pinioned hands, and Seth now with some -difficulty persuaded her to leave the room. - -It fell to Alvira’s lot to bind up the bleeding hand--for Melissa, -undertaking the task, was too nervous and trembling to perform it. - -A little dialogue, in hushed whispers, which only imperfectly reached -even the sentinel Sheriff, ensued: - -“Sao this is what yeh’ve come tew!” - -“It’s all a lie!” - -“Oh, don’t tell _me!_ Ef you’d be’n contented with yer lot in life, -’n’ hadn’t tried to swell yerself up like a toad in a puddle, this -wouldn’t a happen’d. But nao, yeh poor fewl, yeh must set yerself up to -_be_ somebody! ’N’ naow where air yeh?” - -Words with which to answer rose to Milton’s bloodless lips, but he could -not give them utterance. He could not even look at her, but in a dazed -way stared at the hand, which he held so that she could wind the bandage -in spite of the gyves. - -“I didn’t use to think yeh was aout-’n-aout bad,” she continued, -more slowly; “they was a time when yeh might a made a decent man o’ -yerself--ef yeh’d kep’ yer word to me.” - -This time he did not make an effort to answer. - -The task of sustaining the talk alone was too great for her. The tears -came into her eyes, and blinded the last touches to the bandage. As -it was completed, the Sheriff put his hand roughly on the prisoner’s -shoulder. The meaning of this movement spread over her mind, and -appalled her. With a gesture of decision she stood on tiptoe, lifted -her face up to Milton’s, and kissed him. Then, as he was led away, she -turned to the onlookers, and said defiantly, between incipient sobs: - -“I daon’t keer! Ef t’ was th’ last thing I ever done in my life, I’d dew -it. We was--engaged--once’t on a time!” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV.--AT “M’TILDY’S” BEDSIDE AGAIN. - -Do you clip over and tell Annie,” John had said to Seth, when the first -excitement of the scene had passed off, and they stood at the kitchen -window, watching the Sheriff’s buggy fade off in the dusk down the hill -toward Thessaly jail. “It’s the thing for you to do--the quicker the -better!” - -Annie had been home from her day’s task some minutes, and sat by -her grandmother’s bedside. The patient was in a semi-comatose state, -breathing with unnatural heaviness, and Samantha had been dispatched -with all haste to bring a doctor from Thessaly. It seemed terribly -probable that Mrs. Warren’s last day had come. - -Yet as she sat by the curtained recess, holding in her’s the withered -hand which lay inanimate on the high edge of the bed, Annie still -thought very little of the great change impending over her home; she had -faced this death in life so long that its climax did not startle her, -or wear the garb of strangeness. Instead, she was pondering the -unaccountable, unwelcome fact with which Samantha had greeted her on her -return--that Isabel was in the adjoining room, and had asked to see her. - -What could it mean? What could Isabel’s purpose be in coming? And ought -she to sacrifice her own feelings to the dictates of politeness, and go -in to see this wicked, cruel woman? Perhaps she had come to retract and -apologize for the fearful words of Tuesday. Perhaps her intention was to -reiterate them, or worse, to recount that now the whole world would know -of them--and gloat over her pain. No, that could scarcely be, for -since her interview with Milton Annie felt satisfied at least of Seth’s -innocence. But still something new might have been disclosed--Isabel -might have evil tidings of some sort with which to overwhelm her afresh. -What should she do? - -The parlor door was ajar, and though she could not see her visitor, she -could plainly hear the snapping of the wood fire within, which Samantha -had kindled. Isabel must be perfectly aware of her return, and of her -presence in this sick chamber. Every minute that she hesitated would -only augment the widow’s anger at being thus inhospitably neglected. -Even if she had relented, and had come with kindly intent, this -reception might alter her impulses. - -She rose to enter the parlor, but still stood irresolute, holding her -grandmother’s hand, when there came the sound of footsteps in the front -hall--then of a hasty knock on the door opening from the hall into this -room in which she was. She opened the door, and before her, excited and -jubilant, stood her cousin Seth. - -“I’ve come to tell you!” he burst out, “It’s all cleared up. There -_was_ a murder. Milton did it! He’s just been arrested! I tried to -ring your bell, but it didn’t seem to work. So I _had_ to come in! And -now----” - -He opened his arms with an unmistakable gesture, and they closed fondly -upon an overjoyed maiden, who sobbed upon his breast for very relief. - -When she found breath and words, it was to say: - -“Oh, you can’t guess what I have suffered these last two days; I thought -I should never live through them! And now it seems as if I should go -wild with joy--as if I couldn’t keep my feet down on the floor!” - -“Yes, yes, I know, my darling. But we shall be all the happier for -this spell of wretchedness. Dry your eyes, pet. There shall be no more -thought or talk of tears--much less of dying.” - -“O Seth!--I forgot!--my grandmother!” - -She lowered her voice, and told him her fears. - -Hand in hand, and with his arm about her shoulder, they moved softly to -the bedside of the dying woman. The noise of the talking, or some less -apparent influence, had aroused her from her lethargy. Her pale eyes -were brilliant still, with an unearthly light, it seemed to the awed -young man, and she rested their gaze fixedly upon the couple. - -“Who is that?” she asked in a querulous whisper. - -“It is Seth, Granny,” the girl answered, relapsing unconsciously into -the familiar form she had not used since childhood. - -The aged woman restlessly moved her head, and her eyes snapped with -impatience at her inability to raise herself from the pillow. - -“I won’t have him here! Tell him to take his arm away. What’s he doin’ -here, anyway? He desarted yeh! His own father told me so! Tell him to go -away! I hate the sight of the hull breed!” - -“But he’s come back to me, Granny,” the girl pleaded, while Seth shrank -backward in the shadow of the curtain. “Truly he has, and he’s not to -blame. And I love him very dearly”--a pressure from the young man’s -hand answered the sweetness of this avowal--“and he will be all I shall -have left when--when--” she stopped, unwilling to conclude her thought -in words. - -“An’ will he take yeh away, an’ do by yeh ez a husban’ ought to do, or -will he take yeh onto that Fairchild farm, an’ break yer heart out ez -his father did his mother’s, an’ ez his uncle did yer mother’s, an’ ez -his brother, so they tell me, is doin’ with his wife?” - -“Oh, mercy!” the girl exclaimed, involuntarily; then she whispered -to Seth, back of the curtains: “What shall I do! I forgot all about -it--Isabel is there in the parlor and she has heard every word we’ve -said.” - -The quick ears of the invalid caught the whispered explanation. . - -“Isabel!” she said, sharply. “That’s Albert Fairchild’s wife ain’t it?” - -“Yes!” the girl answered. She tried in dumb show to convey to Seth that -her grandmother was ignorant of his brother’s death. - -“Go an’ fetch her in here,” said Mrs. Warren, with more animation in her -voice than it had shown before. “I want to see her--to talk with her.” - -“But, Granny, you ought’nt to see strangers; you know, the doctor----” - -“I guess she ain’t much more of a stranger than this young man you’ve -got here. Go an’ fetch her, I say! I won’t hurt her, an’ she won’t hurt -me.” - -There was nothing for Annie to do, but go into the parlor, and bow -shamefacedly to Isabel, and say, with embarrassment in every syllable: -“Excuse me for not coming before, but I think my grandmother is dying. -She wants very much to see you. Won’t you come, please?” - -Isabel had risen to her feet upon Annie’s entrance. To the latter’s -surprise and increased confusion she held forth her hand with a friendly -gesture. “Yes, I will come with you,” she said, as Annie doubtingly took -the proffered hand, and the two women entered the sick-room. - -Isabel did not seem to see Seth, who stood at the head of the bed, among -the drawn curtains, but walked to the bedside and said softly: “I am -Isabel, Mrs. Warren; I am sorry that our first meeting should find you -so low.” - -“So you’re Albert’s wife, eh?” The old woman eyed her keenly, for what -seemed a long time. “I’ve heered tell o’ you. Would you mind gettin’ -that candle there, on the mantle-piece, an’ holdin’ it, so’t I kin see -yer face?” - -Isabel gravely complied with the request, and stood before the invalid -again, with the yellow light glowing upon her throat and lower chin and -nostrils and full, Madonna-like brows. Her face was at its best with -this illumination from below. She would have been a rare beauty close -before the footlights. - -“Well,” said Mrs. Warren, after a long inspection, “P’raps it’ll sound -ridiculous to yeh, but yeh don’t look unlike what I did when I was your -age. The farm ain’t had time to tell on yeh yit. But it will! It made -me the skeercrow that you see; it’ll do the same for you. When I was a -girl, I was a Thayer, the best fam’ly in Norton, Massachusetts. We held -our heads high, I kin tell yeh. Why, when I brought my side-saddle -here, stitched with silk, ’twas the fust one they’d ever seen in these -parts. But I married beneath me, an’ I come up here into York State to -live, on this very farm. With us, farmin’ don’t mean a livin’ death. -P’raps we don’t hev sech fine big barns ez yeh build here, but our -houses are better. We don’t git such good crops, but we pay more heed -to education and godly livin’. It’s th’ diff’rence ’twixt folks who -b’lieve there’s somethin’ else in life b’sides eatin’ an’ drinkin’ an’ -makin’ money, an’ folks that don’t. Well, I left a good home, an’ I -come here, an’ here I am. Look at me! Look at Lemuel Fairchild’s wife, -Cicely--she was a relation of yours, wasn’t she?--see how the farm made -an ole woman o’ her, an’ broke her down, an’ killed her! You’re young, -an’ you’re good lookin’ yit, but it’ll break yeh, sure’s yer born. -Husban’s on these farms ain’t what they air in the cities, nor even -in the country in New England. I’m told your husban’ don’t treat you -right.” - -“Don’t let us talk about that--please!” said Isabel: she stole a swift, -momentary glance toward Seth as she spoke. - -The keen eyes in the recess followed this look. “Well, no,” the husky, -whispering voice went on, “p’raps it ain’t none o’ my business. But -tell me about this young man here--yer husband’s brother. I want to know -about him.” - -“What about him?” asked Isabel slowly, after a pause. - -“Why, is he a likely man? Air his habits good? Could he take this girl -o’ mine--an’ she’s a good girl, Annie is--could he take her to Tecumsy, -an’ make a fit home fer her? An’ _would_ he do it? Would he make her a -good husban’--ez good ez she desarves? I ask you, ’cause you know him. -I leave it to you--would you yerself marry him ef yeh was free, an’ feel -safe about him? Come, now, tell me that!” - -Isabel hesitated so long that the old woman, seemingly wandering a -little after her long, laborious concentration of thought, broke in -again: - -“Oh, I know ’em! I know ’em! Of all the Fair-childses, there never -was one decent one. They stole my daughter, an’ let her die ’mongst -strangers, an’ they made a broken ole woman o’ me, an’ they slaved -Cicely’s life out o’ her, an’ now they want my Annie----” - -“No,” said Isabel here, speaking softly, and putting her hand on the -wasted arm which lay above the coverlet. “I think you wrong Seth. -Whatever the rest may have done, I think he will be a good husband to -Annie. I am _sure_ he will.” - -No answer, save a low, incoherent murmuring, came from the recess. The -invalid had lapsed into the lethargy of exhausted nature. As the trio -stood by the bedside even this sound ceased. Nothing was to be heard but -the labored, unnatural breathing. - -Isabel placed the candle again upon the shelf. She had not removed her -bonnet and wrap, and she turned now irresolutely toward the door. - -Annie went to her, and silently took her hand. “I forgive you,” she -whispered. “Was there anything else? Did you want to speak to me?” - -“I don’t know what I wanted when I came. Let me go now. Perhaps if I -said any more, I should hate myself afterward.” - -And thus, without a glance at Seth, she went. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV.--“SUCH WOMEN ARE!” - - -THE story, such as it is, is told. - -Before the daily press of the State, which had given great attention -to the tragedy in Dearborn County, became fairly aware that a mystery -attached to it, the wretched Milton had confessed his crime. He had -followed and come up with his employer, who stopped at his call. There -was a conversation--then the killing. The prisoner made a weak effort -to pretend that there was a quarrel first, and that his deed was in -self-defence, but he deceived no one. He had with much difficulty led -the grays off the side of the ravine, the murdered man being first -thrown over, and the horses and buggy purposely hurled down upon him. -There was some angry criticism when it became known that the District -Attorney had agreed to accept a plea of murder in the second degree, and -the popular explanation--that it was done from motives of consideration -for the family--provoked not a few jibes from people who wanted to know -why the Fairchilds were any better than other folk. But the course of -the law was not affected by this comment, nor did the District Attorney -suffer appreciably from it when he came up the succeeding autumn for -re-election. The money was all recovered--and, if you have the influence -requisite to obtain a visiting pass to New York’s forest-girt prison -on the Eastern watershed of the Adirondacks--that terrible subterranean -place of woe from which even Siberian gaolers might get some hints of -new things in anguish--you may still see a thin, bent, evil-faced wretch -dragging out existence in the mines, who once was reckoned a likely man -in Dearborn County, and who cast its united vote at the most famous of -all Tyre’s Conventions. - -The funeral of Albert Fairchild will long be remembered in all the -section round. More than one State official attended, and there was a -vast concourse of lesser political lights, who kept a shrewd eye upon -opportunities for profitable discourse with each other, before and after -the services, while they put themselves dignifiedly in evidence before -the public by getting their names in the local papers. - -There were no surprises to the inner circle of the family when the will -came to be read. Subject to the widow’s third, the farm was devised -in equal parts to the two brothers, but the major share of the other -property went to Seth. The partner from New York remained at the -homestead long enough to arrange the details by which the widow’s -portion was bought by the brothers, and her leave-taking accomplished. - -John Fairchild lives in high contentment on the ancestral farm. He grows -stout now, in the accustomed Fairchild fashion, and though his light -ruddy face and brown beard are hostile to the suggestion, people profess -to see the family likeness in him as he grows older. Aunt Sabrina -especially cherishes this fancy with fondness. She has come to regard -this nephew, whom once she so deeply disliked, with some affection and -vast esteem, and she devotes her hours to dreaming of the great things -he may accomplish as the Fairchild of Dearborn--what time she is not -joining Alvira in prayer that he may not be moved to marry a city woman. -Thus far there are no indications that he thinks of marrying any one, -and his ambitions seem to take no higher form than the re-invigoration -of the _Banner of Liberty_, which he drives over to Thessaly three times -a week to superintend, and which, they say, promises soon to blossom -into a daily. - -***** - -One closing scene we may glance at--a pretty room, with modern -furniture, and wide, flower-clad windows looking upon one of the best of -Tecum-seh’s residential streets. Annie, grown brighter-faced and yet no -older in looks, despite the nearly four years of married life which have -gone by, stands at the window with a baby in her arms, and laughs as she -tosses the infant forward toward the panes, in greeting to the paternal -parent, who is coming up the front steps. The wife is in gay spirits, -not only because the head of the house has come home to dinner instead -of stopping at the Club, but for another reason, compared with which all -dinners were trivial. - -“O Seth, her first tooth has come through!” - -“That so? It’s about time, I should-think.” - -His reception of the great tidings is so calm, not to say indifferent, -that the beaming wife looks at him in mock surprise. Seth has not -aged specially either, but he wears this evening an unwontedly serious -expression of face, and gets into his dressing-gown and slippers with an -almost moody air. - -Baby is brought up in frowning, blinking proximity to her sire and made -by proxy to demand an explanation of this untoward gloom, on an occasion -which ought to be given over to rejoicing. - -“Oh, I’m tired,” Seth answers; “and then--then I have a letter which -puzzles and annoys me a little.” - -“Is it anything that I know about?” Annie has seated herself beside him -now, and looks sweet inquiry. - -“Well, yes. It is a letter from Dent--you know I’ve let him go down to -Washington to get an idea of the place and the men while the session -is on--and along with a letter to the paper, pretty good stuff, too, he -sends me this personal note. Read it for yourself.” - -Annie took the letter, and reads steadily along through its neat -chirography: - -“Washington, March 7th. - -“Dear Fairchild: - -“I send a letter going into the Silver question from the standpoint of -some of the Western men I have talked with. They impress me as being -more sincere than sensible on the subject. I think the trip will be of -vast service to me--and also, I trust, to the paper. - -“Last evening, I met for the second time since I have been here, an -elderly gentleman from your part of the State, named Beekman. Like -myself, he is down here to look around, and get an idea of things. It is -the first time, I should judge, that he has been so far away from home, -and his comments are extremely droll--often very clever, too. He seems -to know you very well, and asked me to remember him kindly to you, and -express his congratulations upon your purchase of a controlling interest -in the paper. He wanted me to be sure and say to you that while the -experiment of electing Ansdell had worked very well--he seems to admire -Ansdell greatly--you mustn’t allow that to lead you into the habit of -thinking that all bolters are saints and all straight-party men devils. -It seems that since he has been here he has encountered some foolish -and exceptional Southern Congressman who provoked him by saying ‘_Your_ -Government’ and _your_ laws’ instead of using the pronoun and that has -made him a great Stalwart again--for the time-being.” - -Annie looked up from the sheet. “I must say I don’t see anything in all -this to particularly disturb anybody. This seems just the harmless sort -of letter I should expect your innocuous Mr. Dent to write.” - -“Read the rest of it,” was Seth’s reply. - -She went on:-- - -“By the way, I met your sister-in-law among the guests at a reception -the other evening, to which Mr. Ansdell kindly secured me an invitation. -Her residence on K street--she gave me the number, which I have -somewhere--is said to be one of the most charming homes in Washington. -She is very-popular in society here, and I am told that you meet her at -every fashionable gathering. She was certainly very pleasant with me, -when Mr. Ansdell presented me and explained who I was. She especially -asked me if I knew what you had named your baby-girl, but I could not -tell her. - -“_I_ could tell her if she asked _me!_” remarked the young wife, grimly. -“The very idea!” - -“Go on,” said Seth--“or I shall feel that we ought to have named her -Proscrastinatia instead of Annie; get to the end of the thing.” - -Annie got to the end with a single sentence: - -“By the way, it may interest you--and I hope you won’t be annoyed at -my mentioning it, and indeed you may very possibly have heard it -already--to learn that everybody here seems to understand that Mr. -Ansdell is shortly to marry your sister-inlaw, and he himself, speaking -to me, referred to her in a way which amounted to a declaration of the -fact.” - -“Well, there you have it!” said Seth slowly, after a long pause in which -husband and wife looked at each other. “That _is_ news, isn’t it?” - -“I should think so!” Annie spoke deliberately, too, turning the letter -over with a meditative air. “I should think so!” - -The gravity of his wife’s tone seemed to Seth to be more profound than -the circumstances altogether demanded. - -“I don’t know after all,” he said, in half-apology for his own earlier -confession of gloom, “but that it would be a tolerable match. I don’t -say that they would be happy in the sense that we are happy, my girl; -but she has a great many qualities which would make her a helpful wife -to an ambitious, successful, masterful sort of public man like Ansdell. -Come, now, let’s be fair to her. Dent says that she is very popular in -Washington.” - -“Yes,” replied Annie thoughtfully, drawing her daughter closer to her -breast, “she always will be popular with people who are not married to -her. Such women are!” - - -THE END. - - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Seth's Brother's Wife, by Harold Frederic - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SETH'S BROTHER'S WIFE *** - -***** This file should be named 54987-0.txt or 54987-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/4/9/8/54987/ - -Produced by David Widger from page images generously -provided by the Internet Archive - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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