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diff --git a/old/55601-8.txt b/old/55601-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 626def6..0000000 --- a/old/55601-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,2749 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lovers' Saint Ruth's, by Louise Imogen Guiney - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: Lovers' Saint Ruth's - and Three Other Tales - -Author: Louise Imogen Guiney - -Release Date: September 22, 2017 [EBook #55601] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVERS' SAINT RUTH'S *** - - - - -Produced by Emmy, David E. Brown, MFR and the Online -Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This -file was produced from images generously made available -by The Internet Archive) - - - - - - - - - - LOVERS' SAINT RUTH'S - And Three Other Tales - - BY - LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY - - [Illustration] - - BOSTON - COPELAND AND DAY - M DCCC XCV - - - COPYRIGHT BY COPELAND AND DAY 1895 - - - - - TO CLARENCE J. BLAKE AND FRANCES - H. BLAKE, A BOOK FINISHED ON THEIR - OWN WILD ACRES OF THE MAINE COAST. - - October, 1894. - - - - -AUTHOR'S PREFACE. - - -THE contents of this book have, hitherto, never been printed nor -published. One chapter among them, _The Provider_, is based very -literally on a tragic thing which happened, some years ago, in Dublin, -and which, figuring as a cable despatch of some ten lines in a Boston -daily newspaper, fell under my eye, to be remembered, and afterwards -cast into its present form. In the September (1895) number of _Harpers' -Magazine_, little Father Time and his adopted brother, in _Hearts -Insurgent_, end their innocent lives from Hughey's strange motive, -though not in his manner. It is perhaps worth while to state that my -story was finished and laid by, prior to the appearance of the novel in -its serial form, lest I should seem fain to melt my waxen wings in the -fire of the Wessex sun. It is possible that the actual incident had -come to Mr. Hardy's notice also, and with a keen and pitiful interest -for so expert a student of human nature. A curious circumstance in -his relation of it is that the elder child, in order that there may -be more room in a hard world for the persons he loves, disposes not -only of himself, but presumably of the younger child as well; and in -the original version of my story Hughey jumped into the river with his -sister Nora in his arms. But a friend of mine, who read the manuscript -in 1894, a writer of great insight whose opinion I value in the -extreme, so wrought with me to change the cruel ending, that I did so -then and there, after some argument, and sent the boy of "long, long -thoughts" uncompanied to his fate. The point of all this is, of course, -that I now perceive my small invention had dared, unconsciously, to -keep yet closer pace than would appear with Mr. Hardy's; for the -suicide of real life was the suicide of one child alone. - -The other three sketches here are more imaginative; and the first of -them, which bears the earliest date, was, from end to end, a dream, -and is somewhat reluctantly included. They stand for apprentice-work in -fiction, and are my only attempts of that kind. - - L. I. G. - - LONDON, September 6th, 1895. - - - - -Contents - - - Lovers' Saint Ruth's Page 1 - - Our Lady of the Union 29 - - An Event on the River 63 - - The Provider 93 - - - - -LOVERS' SAINT RUTH'S. - - -THOUGH his curate was away, the incumbent of Orrinleigh, my kind Cyril -Nasmith, had thrown aside his everlasting scrolls and folios, and spent -the whole morning out-of-doors with me. We had been over the castle -park and gallery, and even into the dairy, and thence up the path -by a trout-stream to the site of a Saxon city; and Nasmith had been -enthusiastically educating me all the way. I knew that there was little -enough for him to do meanwhile. His village sheep were very tame and -white; and his other sheep, at the manor, all wild and black: theology -seemed to fall rather flat between them. So, by the dispensation of -Providence, in his work-day leisure he had relapsed into the one -intellectual passion of his life, archæology: a wise, worshipping sort -of man, and the prince of Anglican antiquaries. As for me, he loved -me better than ever when he found what genuine interest I took in his -quiet hidden corner of ----shire, whither I came from London to pass a -memorable night and day with him, after a sixteen years' separation; -for his boyhood had been spent in my own Maryland, his mother's -family being Americans. It was a little sober, pastoral place, this -Orrinleigh, with its straw-browed cottages bosomed in roses, sitting -all in a row upon the overshaded lane, and, from the height where we -stood, looking like so many sepia-tinted mushrooms in the broad green -world. Just beyond us, in the near neighborhood of Orrinleigh House, -the gray sham-Grecian porch of his ritualistic Tudor church skulked in -the faint May sun. "What do you call that?" I said. "It is the one ugly -thing hereabouts." He smiled. "Of course it is ugly, structurally," he -answered in an apologetic tone; "Saint Ruth's was built in King James -the First's time; I do not pride myself on that. But you should see -the ruin, Holden! a darling bit of Early Decorated. Walk over there -now with me. We have the time to give; and it is only a couple of -miles away." And off he started at his brisk bachelor pace, fixing his -shovel-hat well on his forehead, for we were in the teeth of the inland -breeze. "This enormity," I remarked, casting a sportive thumb over my -shoulder, "has an odd name: Saint Ruth's." He corrected me in his most -amiable fashion. "The title is not unique; and it has every precedent, -pre-Christian as it is. Have you never heard, good sceptic, of Saint -Joachim? nay, of Saint Michael, another person who might have proved an -_alibi_ if he ever came up for Roman canonization? Besides, the name -has ancient local sanction. This Saint Ruth's-on-the-Hill continues the -dedication of the other to which we are going: Lovers' Saint Ruth's." -"Lovers' Saint Ruth's?" I exclaimed, keen at the scent. "Come now, -Nasmith, there's some legend back of that; you know there is. Let us -have it." And that is how I heard the story. - -He told it not without reluctance, as if it were a precious thing he -could not easily part with, even to an old friend. All along the road, -as we went between the pleasant farm-lands, stepping over golden pools -of primroses between the wheel-tracks, little silences broke into his -talk. Nasmith's heart is truly in the past; and humbly happy indeed it -keeps him. We had been through the gallery before breakfast, and he -reminded me of it, by way of prelude. "Do you remember how pleased you -were with the great Vandyck on the east wall?" The grouped portrait of -a blonde man, a blonde woman, and a child unlike either; how beautiful -it was! the two unforgettable melancholy faces contrasting oddly with -the ruddy dark-eyed boy in a yellow doublet, playing with his dog -before them on the floor. - -"Well, you saw there the Lord Richard, and his wife, the Lady Eleanor. -He was the third Earl's only son, born in the year 1606. The house -of Orrinleigh was founded by his grand-uncle, on murder and fraud. -Richard, almost the only Langham with a conscience, had it in too -great a degree, and grew up, one knows not why, with a diseased -sense of impending retribution; and, therefore, when misfortune for -a while overwhelmed him and his, it found him not unprepared. His -mother was a Neville; he had great prospects and possessions. Lady -Eleanor was a sweet lass of honorable blood, a good squire's daughter, -and the youngest of a family of eight. She belonged over there in -Frambleworth, where you see the twin spires. From boyhood and girlhood -these two clung to each other. I wonder if one ever sees such fast -love now-a-days: so simple, so deep, so long-suffering, all made of -rapture and grief! They were betrothed early, with a kiss given under -the shadow of the king yew in the old church-yard; they both cherished -the place to the end, and there lies their dust. You see, the original -Saint Ruth's was a monastic chapel; and it was stripped, and left to -fall to pieces, by the greed of the rascally Reformers, (excuse me; -that's what I must call them!" muttered my filial High Churchman), -"and it was nearly as much of a ruin in Lord Richard's youth as it is -to-day. For a whole generation, Orrinleigh had no Christian services -at all, and dropped into less than paganism; for which nobody seemed -to care, until the architectural hodge-podge on the hill was raised -by the old Earl, and the people were gradually gathered in to learn -all about a new code of moral beauty from the nakedest, dullest, and -vulgarest object in the three kingdoms. As I was saying, the two young -people made their tryst by the priory wall, secretly, as it had to be; -for the Earl would not hear of penniless Eleanor Thurlocke for his -heir's bride; and the squire, a staunch Elizabethan Protestant, favored -young Kit Brimblecombe, or his cousin Austin, for her suitor, and held -aloof from the Lord Richard, whom he suspected of having reclaimed his -ancestors' faith and become a Papist, while at Oxford. That, as it -happened, was true enough; and, moreover, the girl herself had followed -her lover back into the old religion: so that there were disadvantage -and danger of all kinds, in those days, behind them and before. The -little church meant much to them both, the pathetic ghost of what had -been so famous and fair. There they used to meet, when luck served, for -what great comfort they could still reap out of their narrowing lives, -shedding tears on each other's breasts over that outlook which seemed -so cruelly hopeless. But a terrible tragedy broke up and changed their -youth, and it was at Lovers' Saint Ruth's that it happened. - -"Eleanor was barely past eighteen, and Richard not one-and-twenty. It -was spring twilight, when he rode down alone to the valley, galloping, -because, for once, he was a little late to meet his maid. She also had -started on foot, across the dewy field-path from Frambleworth, having -for company part of the way an old market-woman and her goodman, who -would not have betrayed the object of her journey for worlds. They -left her at the lonely cross-roads, whence she gayly took her way -west, with Orrinleigh Church, as it was still called, almost in sight. -The next morning their bodies were found, not fifty rods away; and it -is clear to me, that, hearing Eleanor's first stifled call, they had -turned back to her rescue, and so perished at the hands of the wicked. -With whom the guilt lay, none ever knew; the blame was laid upon the -gypsies, I think unjustly, and three of them were hanged on these very -downs. It was a wild time; and desperate men, singly, or in bands, -mad for food and plunder, and reeling drunk from cellar to cellar, -were over this peaceful county. The squire's ewe lamb, whom, in his -senses, a devil might have spared with a blessing on her sweet looks, -was foully waylaid, and worse than murdered. In the face of agony and -humiliation, her spirit fainted away. Hours later, when all was still, -and the dazzling moon was up over the sycamores, Eleanor Thurlocke -awoke, and, with her last spasmodical strength, dragged herself to the -end of the lane, and on to the hollow stone step of the church, to die. -It was past midnight. Who should be within those crumbling walls, even -then, but her own Richard, kneeling in his satin dress, with a lighted -hand-lamp by his side, his brow raised to Heaven? He had missed her; -and he knew not what to think for disappointment and anxious love; -and, sleep being far from him, there had he waited until now before -the fallen altar-stone where they had so often prayed together. As -dejectedly he swung back the outer door, he saw his dear, her thick -gold locks unbound, her vesture in disorder, her hands chilled and -bleeding from the stony travel and the briers. Without a question, for -he was ever a ready courageous lad, he put out the lantern, and cast -it under a bush; and, gathering Eleanor into his strong arms, first -making the sign of the cross upon her brow, he climbed the hill slowly, -steadily, and bore her straight into Orrinleigh House, and into his -dead mother's chamber. He made no sound; but he left her long enough -to get restoratives, and then hurried back, and laid her tenderly in -the high-canopied bed there, radiant in the moonshine; and, keeping -his own heart smothered, so that it could utter no least cry, placed -the door ajar, and began to pace, soft as a tiger, to and fro, to and -fro, to and fro, outside. When the white of dawn appeared, he crept in -and crouched low beside the pillows. She opened her eyes, and, with -his haggard cheek close to hers, stammered to him, piteously, as best -she could, her knowledge of what had befallen. He did not speak nor -move for a long while, partly because he feared so for her jarred mind. -But he knew the house would be stirring with the day, and events lay -in his hands. It was a strange, inconsistent thing, but entirely in -harmony with the Lord Richard's fatalistic character, that neither -then, nor ever after, would he proclaim the true fact. To save her -from certain slander, to wall her in with reparation on every side, -was his one passionate impulse. He knew that having carried her by -night to Orrinleigh, he must bear the burden of his own deed. He made -his resolve to explain nothing, for her sake, and to act as became the -overmastering affection he had for her. He breathed quickly and firmly -in her ear: 'Nell!' She smiled faintly at him. 'Nell, darling, this -must be our bridal-morn.' A low groan, such as made him shiver like -the air around a fire, was her only answer; such a heart-rending groan -of pure unreasoning horror as his ears had never heard. But he could -not flinch now; the morn was breaking, fresh and undelayed, over his -altered world. With the still force which was in him, and which, from -his boyhood, could compel every one he knew, the Lord Richard said: -'Yes.' 'Yes!' she echoed, after a while, as if in a weary dream, and -fell unconscious again. Then he rose, and called old Stephen Bowles, -the servant whom he could best trust, and despatched him, on his own -horse, ere the sun was up, for a priest eleven miles away. And there, -in his dead mother's chamber, with one only witness, and in such -wretchedness, the two were hastily wed, Eleanor lying quietly, since -they dared not raise her, and the hope of Orrinleigh kneeling with his -curly bronze head buried in her white little hands. When the others had -gone, for he had set himself much to do, he sought his father. Sealing -his lips thenceforward against the mystery which had hurried his -action, he spoke out, and told him he had married Eleanor Thurlocke, -and that he hoped he might be forgiven if he had seemed undutiful; and -before the old Earl, who was dressing, could show his rage, quietly -walked away, and rode over to Frambleworth, and made almost the same -speech, in Eleanor's behalf, to the squire. Such wrath, and curiosity, -and excitement, and upbraiding were never in this neighborhood before; -for the two young people lived in the eyes of many who wished them -well, and who looked for a great wedding, with masques, and dancing, -and holiday arches, and public largesses of drink and money, such as -had not been in mid-England for a generation. Wonderful as it seemed, -the turmoil soon passed; and the two, never stirring from the very -heart of the disturbance and opposition, somehow lived on, and were not -parted, and slowly established a peace with their angry kindred. Malice -itself could not hold out long against the Lord Richard's winning ways; -and ever, as he grew older, he became sadder and gentler, and more to -be honored by all men. But the Lady Eleanor lost the merry laughter she -once had, and shrank, in great mistrust, even from her own family, so -that it was plain at times that her reason was shaken. None on earth, -meanwhile, save the lovers themselves, held the clew to their blighted -lives. He never left her; he never travelled, nor went to court, as -became his station, but sat patiently awaiting, at home, the crowning -distress which he now knew must come upon them. Gossip broke out again, -ere long, as much as it dared, in the village taverns; and there was -a lifting of willing eyebrows among the gentry dwelling near, when, in -the autumn, the incarnate disaster, the child in the Vandyck picture, -was born. They rang the joy-bells from the church-tower, and the -tenantry came under the eaves and cheered until faithful old Stephen -threatened them with his blunderbuss, and drove them away. The Earl was -sitting at his cards, with his bad foot on a stool before him, when the -Lord Richard came in, with a silken parcel in his arms, followed only -by a couple of his sniffing hounds. 'Well, what hast thou there, Dick?' -cried the big blustering man, not unkindly. 'Father,' said the young -stricken Lord Richard, in his impassioned fidelity, holding the parcel -forth, 'I have my son.' And thereupon such a mortal paleness came upon -him, and his knees shook so under him, for the deceit, that he scarce -could stand. Seeing him quake, the old Earl, a rough jolly creature in -his better moods, laughed long and loud. - -"And so it seemed to the only ones who sat tongue-tied amid the great -rejoicing, as if the divine wrath had indeed spent itself upon their -house; the doom of the iniquity of the forefathers, as the Lord Richard -would say to himself. What fresh and mistaken thinking there was to do, -the miserable lad, being sane, did for both, believing that a curse -was upon them, and that they must endure it, and accept the torture of -that alien child's presence for some purpose hidden from human eyes. -Their pact and horrible habit of silence weighed upon their hearts; -and had not one constrained the other, she was very fain at times to -confess, and go, if needs be, into disgrace for the lie. They would -wander sometimes on the terrace, hand-in-hand, without speech, looking -like brother and sister under a common ban. It seems impossible to -understand this deliberate choice of a wrong attitude towards life, -except in the light of that mysticism, - - 'With shuddering, meek, submitted thought,' - -which ruled the Lord Richard's nature. Meanwhile the infant changed to -a noisy, bounding rogue with black eyes, whom his young mother hated. -They called him Ralph, a name not borne before by any of the Langham -race. From his cradle, the poor waif clung to the Lord Richard, as -to his only friend; and that saintly soul, as one might take sweetly -a bitter penance, reared him in right ways, and encouraged or chided -him at need, and won from him an awe and gratitude affecting to see. -But the Lady Eleanor would never have him so much as touch her gown, -which the maids about the manor laid to her troubled wits, and felt -sorry for, without more ado. The old Earl, who liked the boy's health -and pluck, had the portrait painted for the gallery; and even there -you will notice that Ralph is far away from her, and at her husband's -feet. Years of dereliction, therefore, these were to the Lord Richard, -having no child of his own, and watching his intruding heir gaining -daily some virtue and seemly knowledge, and coming, either by nature -or by his careful breeding, fully to deserve those things to which he -had no right before God and the king. And the boy grew, and was worthy -to be loved, so brave he was, and so truth-speaking, and so tractable, -despite his fits of temper. When he had passed his tenth birthday, he -was sent to Meldom School; and his first absence lifted, as it were, -the black load from his mother's spirit; and the beginning of her -recovery, after all that she had endured, was from that day. There came -soon to her and the Lord Richard an unexpected happiness; for the year -1636 saw the birth of their own little Vivian. You may believe that -his father, perplexed by the fresh aspect of the problem before him, -tried to solve it by prayer and patience; the good heart, chastened -ever with much sorrow, and melted away with thinking, thinking. His -wife, free of his morbid scruples, cried out at last irresistibly for -the vindication of her little one. But the Lord Richard was visited by -a prophetic dream, and was wrung with misgivings, less like a man's -than a woman's, in searching to divine his duty. For he foresaw, of a -surety, in his sleep, what a poor vicious thing his son was to be. All -the estates, being entailed, were to pass to the acknowledged eldest, -passing, therefore, by unjust consent, in this case, to an interloper, -to the detriment of the true inheritor; and to maintain Ralph's -right would be a legal crime. On the other hand, the great power and -responsibility of which he promised to make such fair use,--what if -these should become, in the hands of that other to whom they would be -intrusted, engines for havoc in the world, since then to disown Ralph -were a moral crime? Lord Richard wrestled hard with his demon of doubt, -to no avail. In good time, alas, as it was ordained, when Vivian was a -bonny babe in his third summer, the unforeseen deliverance came. Ralph -Langham was thrown from his pony at Long Meldom Cross, and brought -home for dead. He never spoke a word, but passed to eternity with his -fingers clasped tight on the Lord Richard's compassionate hand, and a -great tear rolling down his round brown cheek. His short career had -been like a cheerful cloud swimming in the sun, and itself casting damp -and darkness on the hills below. The strangest thing of all was the -ungoverned joy which came, at the news, upon the Lady Eleanor, a joy -dreadful, at that time, to those about; but when it faded away, all -the evil else linked with it seemed to fade too, and very shortly she -was wholly restored, and became her own comely, gracious self again, -even as she was when first the beardless Lord Richard had told her his -love. So that the liberty of those hunted young spirits was established -in the grave of him whom heraldry yet names as their first-born. They -laid him yonder, in Lovers' Saint Ruth's. Where else but there? as if -in unuttered thanksgiving that mercy had reached them at last upon its -fatal threshold. There is the tower, Holden, and the broken top mullion -(is it not graceful?) of the great west window." - -We swung into the prettiest open space imaginable, close to a glassy -lake, and found the fourteenth-century church, with its yews and -leaning stones, before us. I went silently in at Nasmith's heels. The -flooring was the perfect plush of English grass; the roof of the nave -was living boughs. For a single huge ash-tree had rooted itself there -generations ago, and grown much larger round than our four arms could -span, and lifted its spread of leaves nearer heaven than the level -of the walls. Ivy hung on the chancel arch, and many bright-colored -wildflowers, whose seeds had lodged in the crevices and in the blank -windows, filled the whole enclosure, bay after bay, with a riot of -color and fragrance. Soft green daylight everywhere caressed the eye. -The chancel roof, of exquisitely groined limestone, was still unfallen, -though it had a rift or two; and on either side, where the monks' -stalls must have stood a dozen deep, there were crumbling tombs, with -effigies in alabaster. I went directly up one step to a plain small -brass over against the piscina, and pushed the weeds aside. Nasmith -knew I should not be able to decipher the inscription, on which the -rain of three hundred summers had been sifted in. Leaning his head -against one of the piers, a good distance down, he looked over at me, -and began to recite, in an agreeable monotone: "'Here lieth Ralph, -thirteen years old, heir while he lived to Orrinleigh and Gaynes; whom -do thou, O Lord! receive among the innocent. - - For Time still tries - The truth from lies, - And God makes open what the world doth blind. - -A. D. 1639.' Do you recognize the verse? Robert Greene's. The choice -of it was so significant it must have been the Lord Richard's doing. -You will notice that the epitaph is sensitively worded; it is pure -fact, and nothing else; and it has, too, an affectionate sound which -has always been a sort of satisfaction to me." "How immensely dramatic -the upshot might have been if he had lived!" I said. "The poor -little fellow, _infelix natu, felicior morte_." I was astonished to -find a slight mist over my eyes. "Tell me of these others next him, -Nasmith: a knight and his lady side by side, recumbent, and therefore -pre-Reformation." Nasmith's slow, radiant, indulgent smile was upon me, -as he moved forward from the light to where I stood. "No," he said. -"Look at the armor and the fashion of the dress, not at the attitude, -which is unusual, of course, for the Caroline period. Those are the -blessed twain of whom I have been telling you. See!" He pointed to the -discolored raised Latin text which ran around the wide slabs beneath. -I traced it out. "Pray for the souls of Richard Esme Vivian Langham, -Viscount Gaynes, and of Eleanor his adored wife, neither of them ripe -in years, who together, in this venerable sanctuary, suffered calamity, -and sought repose in Christ." There were no dates. I waited for Nasmith -to go on. He did so, in that tone of grave personal interest which he -reserves for these "old, unhappy, far-off things." - -"They had to lead very private lives, on account of their proscribed -creed; a constraint which to them was not unwelcome. Their good works, -however, were known over the whole countryside, which is loyal to their -memory. She was the first to die, in 1640, contracting a fever, and -fading gradually away. There were two young children to remember her -and take pattern after her, (would that they had done so!) Vivian and -Joan. When the civil wars began, the old Earl was feeble and near his -end; and the Lord Richard, whose principles and natural sympathies -were all for King Charles, joined the unanimous Catholic gentry, and -sought with eagerness the only use that seemed left to him. His -bright beloved presence graced the camp but a little while, for in his -thirty-seventh year he was killed at the second battle of Newbury, -while carrying the royal standard. They brought him back to the old -chapel where he wished to be buried, and where none of his house have -been buried since. Both these figures were made under his own eye, -when his wife's dust was laid below. Are they not nobly and delicately -wrought, and full of rest? His hand holds hers; he had always said they -should lie so, as his namesake king and Anne of Bohemia, long ago, -lay in the Abbey at Westminster. The ruin has taken its traditional -distinctive name of Lovers' Saint Ruth's from them. All my parish -maids steal in on Hallowe'en to kiss these joined hands, and wish -themselves good fortune, and hundreds of ----shire sweethearts have -plighted their troth here, under the stars. It has always been a place -of pilgrimage, though its full history is not even guessed at. Saint -Ruth's-on-the-Hill, my friend, can never buy or borrow such a charm as -this." - -As he paused, we heard the plaintive interruptive note of a pair of -wood-doves in the ash. He looked at me again. "I forgot to say that -they were content to die, my martyr hero and heroine of Orrinleigh, -for they had won four years, at the end, of absolute unbroken bliss. -They used to come down here every evening for a talk, or a hymn to -Our Lady, arm in arm, and happy as children all the way. Their day -of storms was brief, and it had a lovely sunset." "Ah, Nasmith," I -exclaimed, like a sentimental girl, "I am glad of that. How did you -know?" He drew his foot idly through the soft sward as he spoke. "I -had the whole story in the Lord Richard's own hand. He wrote it out -during the last night he spent at the manor, with his spurs and sword -lying by him ready for the morrow: the whole tender, tragic story, -with his curious mental struggles laid bare. He thought the truth due -to his father, and to his dead stainless Eleanor, to clear her memory -from erring rumor which had early got abroad. The manuscript was put -away under a seal; and as soon as his son's will was opened, the Earl -knew where to find it; I have seen it all scorched and stained with -the old man's tears. No eye, from his to mine, has read it since. -You see, the next and fourth Earl, Vivian, grew up a graceless cynic -reprobate in London, never visited his estates, and cared nothing for -his lineage. His sister was little better. I ought to spare her and -her second husband any vituperations, since they did me the courtesy -of becoming my great-great-great-great-grandparents! Did I never tell -you? The Langhams, bad enough in the beginning, have been a worse crew -than before, since the Lord Richard's time. Almost 'every inch that is -not fool is rogue,' as Dryden says of his giant. Francis, the ninth -of the line, lately dead, and his Countess, being my very distant -relatives, and impressed with my virtues, which were then being wasted -on the desert air, offered me the benefice. The first thing I did, -after setting Saint Ruth's in order, was to look about for materials -for a history of the parish from a period before the Conquest. During -the summer, they put a world of papers, grants, charters, registries, -and so on, into my way, which had been heaped in some old chests in -the tool-house. One of these papers was that letter, a pearl in -sea-kelp. I took it promptly over to Orrinleigh. The Earl was in his -hunting-coat, swearing, over his glasses, at some excellent Liberal -news in his morning journal. 'Read this,' I said; 'it is one of your -ancestral romances, and ought to be reverently preserved.' He laid it -by. A few days afterwards, while I was gathering fruit and vines for -a Harvest Sunday, he pulled it from his pocket, and threw it at me -over the garden wall, remarking that as my reverend appetite was for -musty parchments, he did not know but what I had best have this one, -especially as his wife and niece, having glanced at it, would not give -it house-room! So I had the keepership of that mournful secret of the -Lord Richard's wonderful love and patience, which came near altering -the local annals I was to write. It was like the unburied dead; it -tormented me. Not one of those vulgarians to whom it really belonged -was fit to touch it, much less understand it; and I did not wish to add -it to any collection, mine or another's. I hesitated a good bit, and -then I stole off, on a chilly Martinmas eve, and piously burned it here -in Lovers' Saint Ruth's, on this tomb, and scattered the ashes into the -grass." A gust of wind came into the choir, and the clock half a mile -away struck one. At the sound, we reached for our hats, which we had -instinctively laid aside, and crossed the little transept to the door, -Nasmith first, I following, as we had entered. Once more, as we left -the porch, dark with ivy and weather-stains, we heard the wood-doves, -over our heads in the nave, utter a slow musical moan, one to the -other. "Their souls," I whispered suddenly. "Peace to all such, after -pain," said poetic Cyril. "_Amen_," I answered. We both smiled. How we -two were enjoying our renewed society, back in a bygone England! - -Hardly had we gained the road, when a carriage rolled by, with a -single figure on horseback clattering alongside. A black-bonneted -girl in mourning, handsome, if furtive, under her parasol, and both -her companions, the younger of whom sat beside her, saluted Nasmith -in what I thought to be a cold, perfunctory manner. I guessed -something, for his honest cheek flushed. "I fear these are the great -folk of Orrinleigh," I remarked. "The men have selfish, stupid faces, -more's the pity." "Yes," he replied; "you have seen some of the Lord -Richard's degenerate descendants. I once meant to give his manuscript -to Audrey--to the young lady in the carriage. I hoped she might value -it. But, as I said, I destroyed it instead. You are the only person to -whom I ever repeated the tale, and almost in the original words. Go put -it in a book, if you like, Holden; make what you can of it; develop -and proportion it; I trust your handling." I thanked him. "No. Your -chivalrous Cavalier is too complex a subject for me," was my frank -reply; "I feel safer with a history than with a mystery." I was a -hardened republican novelist even then, and his senior, and not blind -to the "human document," neither of the seventeenth century, nor of the -nineteenth. "Nasmith," I began cunningly, "you were in love with the -Honorable Audrey, and she refused you. How fortunate for you! Yours was -the neatest and most spiritual revenge I ever heard of: to keep from -her what might have helped transform her woman's nature, stifled in an -ill atmosphere,--the knowledge that she was of the blood of the saints, - - 'Tho' fallen on evil days, - On evil days tho' fallen, and evil tongues.'" - -He gave my hand a half-humorous pressure, his head turning neither to -right nor to left, dear old Nasmith! He must be past forty now, and -they tell me, moreover, that he is a Benedictine monk at Downside: he -will care nothing what I say of him. And thus we climbed the balmy -downs, back to our lunch at the vicarage, without another word. - - - - -OUR LADY OF THE UNION. - - -THE Surgeon and the Chaplain had been bidden to roast beef and mashed -potatoes in the great tent; and the former, leaving its pleasant -firelight, had come out through the night air a little before taps, to -spread himself and his triumphs in the eyes of the officers' mess. The -Surgeon was a widower in his early prime, and tenderly condescending -to the known ways of women. He talked much of the two who in that camp -represented all inscrutable womankind, Miss Cecily Carter and Mrs. -Willoughby. They had come from New York on a visit, Braleton being just -then in profound quiet. The Surgeon adored Miss Cecily, in which mood -he was by no means alone; but he had his own opinion of her sister, -the Colonel's wife. "The Sultan has hinges in him, and can unbend," -he would say; "but the Sultana--O Jerusalem, my Happy Home!" He had -also discovered that the train of trunks at the sutler's, objects of -deep and incessant objurgation, were hall-marked "A. W.," and that Miss -Cecily came to the war with one hand-bag. His auditors sat long astride -their chairs, each in his hood of good government tobacco-smoke. -The Adjutant's silver-coated hound was asleep on the boards, still -as a little mountain-tarn among thunder-clouds. The gusts of genial -mirth were suddenly interrupted from without by the even voice of the -orderly: "Sergeant Blanchard is wanted at the Colonel's quarters." - -A young man playing chess in the corner arose at once, and followed. -All along the company streets, the lamp-light streamed through the -chinks in the tents; charming tenors and basses, at the far end, -were laying them down and deeing for Annie Laurie; and from the long -sheds nigh, in the grove, came the subdued pawing and tossing of the -horses. Robert Blanchard saluted, and stood outside in the dark, for -the Colonel was in his doorway. "They have sent another commission -for you," he said shortly. "You deserve it; your behavior has been -admirable, a source of immense pride to me, and to all my men." The -Sergeant looked at him with a visible gladness. "I thank you. You know -I prefer not to be promoted." "I have humored you no fewer than three -times before," resumed the Colonel, in an altered tone; "I can't do it -always. You are known; the General has complimented you. The rise of a -man of your stamp can't be prevented, even by himself. You are meant, -if you live, to move rapidly, and go high. This second-lieutenantship -is the lowest step; mount it, in Heaven's name, and don't maunder." - -The other hesitated, silent. Then he said: "May I have my condition, -if I accept,--may I remain color-bearer?" "I can promise nothing of -the kind. I fear it would be unusual, to say the least; it has no -precedent in any service that I ever heard of. Don't ask me that -again." Blanchard, in sober fashion, brought his hand to his cap. -"Good-evening, Colonel." The superior officer was exasperated. "Bob," -he exclaimed discursively, "you're a fool. God bless you!" - -The drums began, quick and light; it was nine o'clock. The Sergeant -went back, cheerful as Cincinnatus refusing empery. Before he confided -himself to his blanket, lumped on boughs, he made sure that a fold of -old bunting on a provisionary stick was slanted securely against the -canvas; for he had a sentimental passion for the flag. When it was -hauled down at sunset, it went into his hands until daybreak. He had -borne it in the van since his first bloody day at Little Bethel; it -had been riddled, stained, smoke-blackened, snapped from its support; -but he had never dropped it, not when a minie-ball fizzed through -his shoulder, not when, fresh from the hospital, he had fallen face -downward from his dying horse, in Beauregard's plunging fire of shell. -In this lad of twenty-two there burned a formal loyalty so intense, -so rooted in every fibre of his grave character, that his comrades, -for whom military routine had lost much of its glamour, loved him for -it, envied him, and consistently nagged the life out of him with the -nickname of Our Colored Brother, and other nicknames based on other -puns more or less felicitous. Because in New York, they had several -dear friends in common, the Colonel, on the morning of the ladies' -arrival at Braleton, had asked him to lunch with them. "My Sergeant, -Adela," so James Willoughby, in his eagles, presented him to the wife -of his bosom, "my Sergeant; and such a Sergeant!" For he read in her -tacticianary social eye that a Sergeant was a minnow indeed for a -Colonel's friend and guest, even if he were a gentleman, a cousin of -the Windhursts, and the hero of his corps. And she wondered at him the -more that he should be a mere color-bearer; a spirited able-bodied -creature two years in the army, with nothing to show for it! He had -no explanation to give her, but he had an unaccountable hunger, from -the first, to confide his secret to Cecily. He had seen her from a -distance, and his heart stood still there in the grass; when he came -nearer, it gave him, for a certain reason, the veriest wrench in all -his life, such as True Thomas may have felt when the sweet yet awful -call came to him at last in the market-place, that it was time to say -good-bye to earth, and go back to fairyland; to leave for the things -which can never be the things that are. He often found her sewing on a -silken tri-color, and working its correct number of stars in a pattern. -She had begun it in her father's house, for her brother-in-law's -regiment, and none too soon, for the flag in use was aging fast. Robert -Blanchard never saw her head bent over that bright glory, filling her -lap and falling around her feet, without a tightening of the throat. -And when she nodded to him going by, with that candid, affectionate -grace which never changed, it reminded him inevitably of something -which made him happy and unhappy. He could not remember, he said to -himself, when he had not loved her, and yet they had never met until -this Virginian winter of 1863. - -Cecily had taken up her abode in a wee log-house built for her as an -ell from the Colonel's tent, delighting much in its frugalities and -small hardships. She was becoming attached to the sights and sounds -of camp-life: the tags and tassels, the shining accoutrements, and -the endless scouring and brushing thereof; the rosy drummer-boy; the -company drills in the rain; the hollow pyramids of the stacked short -bayonets; the muddy wells on the bluish and reddish lowlands; the loud -sing-song of the little bearded Corporal interruptedly reading _David -Copperfield_ to a ring of enraptured privates; the welcome drone of -the cook announcing his menu; the arrival of despatches, with the -thundering and jingling of the cavalry heard a mile away; even the -occasional alarms. The long inactions under McClellan, hateful to her -mettlesome brother-in-law and to his men, proved pleasant enough to -Cecily; she never lacked entertainment. While Adela was at her accurate -toilets, and the Colonel, a severe disciplinarian, busy with his -troops, she, active and curiously adventurous, walked or rode about -alone. - -The nine-hundred-acred Brale house topped the hill not far away; the -owner, a fine old planter, lived there with the survivors of his -family. Six months before, an infantry regiment had bivouacked on the -place. A lieutenant, sent on the reasonable suspicion that a number of -escaped Confederates were harbored on the premises, clattered up, with -an escort, to demand them. The eldest son, with true sullen Confederate -pluck, refused him admission. After no long parley, the infantry -lieutenant, losing control of himself, shot him dead: a proceeding, -which, when it came to the ears of the authorities, cost the bully -his commission. The two other sons, Julian and Stephen, were then in -the Southern army; the younger had since perished from fever. To this -doomed and outraged household, shut in from the world, hopelessly -embittered against the Government in whose name murder and devastation -stalked, Colonel Willoughby appeared as a new and strange being. He -made it his business to see that there were no trespassings, and -that the Brales lived not only in peace, but in comfort. He rode out -repeatedly to the picket-lines, where a goodly quantity of commissary -supplies, spirits, flour, tobacco, tea, and coffee, and divers other -necessaries difficult to obtain, were handed over to the slaves in -exchange for the chickens, milk, and eggs. On several occasions, he -had ridden as far as the door, once to give the married daughter her -pass through the lines; once to bring her little girl, who was ill, -some delicacies sent in a hamper from his own home. These things broke -the proud Brale hearts. They barely thanked him; his Federal uniform -was like a dagger in their eyes. But a while ago, when they heard -that his wife and his sister were coming to Braleton from the north, -the stately old squire had sent him a royal gift, with a short letter -in the style of the last century. The gift was Molly, the beautiful -black, famous all over the country for her strength and speed; and -on her back was a saddle of magnificent workmanship, with a movable -pommel, which might be adjusted to suit the ladies. While these were -in camp, therefore, the Colonel rode Messenger, his stocky sorrel, and -Adela or Cecily sat majestically enthroned upon the majestic Molly. -The former was a horsewoman of experience, erect, neat, orthodox, -approved of connoisseurs everywhere. But the regiment was in this, as -in other things, all for the favorite; and when she came in sight, -(with the dare-devil mare going it, six leaps to a mile,) lying flat -forward, like her own cavalrymen, with breathless, laughing face, and -hair shaken loose along Molly's mane like the sun on a torrent,--such -a cheer as would go up from the distracted Eleventh! Cecily and Molly, -in the tingling pine-odorous Braleton air, made a familiar and joyful -spectacle. - -South from the mansion lay an Episcopal chapel, now dismantled, with a -squat, broad, mossy roof pulled down over its eaves like a garden-hat; -and around it spread the small old churchyard, with its stones -neck-deep in freshening grass and clover. From this point there was a -most lovely view over the melancholy landscape, silvered midway with -a winding stream. Hither Cecily loved to climb, tying Molly in the -copse below, to lie upon the shaded escutcheoned tomb of one Reginald -Brale, "borne in Salop in olde Ingland," and to muse long and happily, -forgetful of battles, on - - "The great good limpid world, so still, so still!" - -She and Robert Blanchard had had much constant companionship; it was -natural that these musings should turn much, and indeed more and -more, upon him. Surely, he was like no one else; and his presence gave -Cecily a sense of infinite rest. She, too, had her obedient energies -and controlled fervors. A great crisis like this, holding great -issues, brought the two so sensitive to it very near together. She -felt under her, even as he did, the tide-wave of patriotic emotion, -sweeping the more generous spirits from all our cities out upon -its fatal crest. She had seen the companies marching to the front -through awe-stricken crowds, watched for the bulletins, worked for -the hospitals, heard the triumphal never-to-be-forgotten eloquence -and music sacred to the returning dead at home, and felt to the full -the heartache and enthusiasm of all the early war. These things had -formed her, pervaded her, projected her out of herself, and brought -her, lingeringly a child, into thought and womanhood. Before she knew -herself for an abolitionist, the day of Sumter swept over her like -a flood, and diverted all the little idle streams of her being. Her -brothers found her against the old tree in the garden, the newspaper -in her hand, like one entranced; and one of them, soon to devote -his youth to the cause of Michael against Lucifer, forbade her being -teased to account for her mood. Unlike Robert, Cecily came of a soldier -race, and from swords drawn, each in its generation, at Naseby, at -Brandywine, at Monterey. That fortune seemed good to her which had led -her to Virginia, a ground balancing in the scales of fate, and rich -already with hallowed graves. To the living men about her, she was -as march-music never out of their ears, to hold them to their vows. -Subdued from common cares, Cecily was in the current of the national -peril, inspiring and inspired, and open to every warmth and chill of it -as if it were indeed her own. - -She was on the hills, reading, in balmy February weather, when she -became aware of a low whinny at her ear. The Brale paddocks were on the -other side of the fence. A young colt was there, startled and timid, -stretching towards her; then another came as near, and another, and the -heads of the older horses, confiding, appealing, crowded over these. -She patted their tremulous nostrils, divining instantly that something -had occurred to alarm them. She raised herself from Reginald Brale's -venerable slab, and listened; the sharp ping! ping! of blank cartridges -struck the oak-leaves on her left. Standing, and peering down the -steeper side of the incline, she saw the familiar moving glitter -of gold braid, far below; and, stripping a bough, and knotting her -handkerchief, she made a signal of distress, and waved it vigorously. -The shout that followed told her that danger was over, both for the -gentle intelligent creatures in the enclosure, and for her; the reports -ceased. A moment after, a man sprang over the churchyard wall from the -road. It was the Sergeant, more excited than he dared show. - -"Miss Carter!" His heart-thuds made it hard for him to be punctilious. -"Are you hurt? Idiots that we were to choose this place! We might have -known. Tell me you're not hurt, Miss Carter." "I am not hurt at all," -she answered gayly, "nor even frightened. It was these dear four-legged -'rebs' who were frightened." She slipped her book in her pocket, and -took up her gloves and the dainty whip which Molly had never felt, -save when it flicked a fly from her ear. "You are a brave soul!" the -Sergeant said. Cecily took refuge in the significant flippancy of -gamins: "You're another!" which was so apposite that they both laughed. -As they descended the rough foot-path, the Sergeant longed to offer his -arm; but he knew her stoicisms, her natural physical _savoir-faire_, -and he chivalrously refrained. How nimble and graceful, how fawn-like -she was! He noted the wide lace collar and the brooch at her chin; -the sober Gordon plaid gown, not too long; the firm little wrist; the -beautiful hair parted, and looped low. - -"What were you doing just now?" - -"A party of us were enjoying ourselves, shooting." - -"Birds?" in a cold, regretful tone. - -"Birds! No. A soldier, unless he is spoiling with garrison idleness, -won't waste his genius for killing on innocent birds and their like. -Besides, the artillery fellows over yonder have scared them away from -the whole neighborhood. We were target-shooting with pistols. Oh, if -you knew the hot coals and icicles I had to swallow when I recognized -you up there!" He looked ahead, and saw with joy that his companions -had departed. "Here is Molly, and my bay is behind the rock. May I ride -home with you?" He helped her to mount, and sprang into his own saddle. -The lonely, lovely earth and sky were theirs together; they went -slowly, slowly down to the ford. Molly was thirsty, or else perverse; -for she paused, lowered her aristocratic little head, and began to -drink. Presently Saladin, the bay, standing by her on the brink, did -the same; and the two riders sat, perforce, conscious of their like -silent sympathy and society. An impulse rushed on each to lean over -towards the other also, to lay cheek to happy cheek over the shallow -water, in their youth, in the sun. The Sergeant stiffened himself with -an effort. - -"Although it is a holiday," he said, scanning the distance, "and -although there's no end of jollity afoot, greased poles, football, -leap-frog, hurdle-races, and all that--and did you know that Mrs. -Willoughby, escorted by the Colonel and the Adjutant, had gone for the -day? There are to be charming diversions at the infantry camp, and a -ball to wind up with. You were asked, too, I hear; but you missed it, -straying off to your hermitage." - -"I am glad I did! Please finish your sentence." - -"Oh, I forgot. I was going to add that this sort of relaxation, just -now, might be risky, when Old Glory and I may be ordered out before -morning to waltz to fife-music!" - -"A battle? Do you truly think it likely?" - -"I half believe it. I don't mind telling you I have a premonition of -it, involving another premonition regarding myself. But what of it? Our -old friend Cicero, I think it was, used to say that we are born not -for ourselves, but for the Republic." He laughed, as if he had said a -jocund thing. He had not meant then to test her feeling for him; but he -had allies in the hour and its emotion. Cecily rejoiced in his cheerful -acceptances, and remembered her impersonal pride in the circumstances -of his enlistment, of which she had heard on all sides at home. -Her voice fell, unawares, into its shy inflections, its little wild -spontaneous minors, as she said, seeing the horses rear their heads: -"Will you please tell me, Sergeant Blanchard, how you came to join the -army? All that I know is that you were abroad, and that you gave up -your pleasure, and came back." - -He began quietly, as they passed the stream and made for higher ground: - -"It is quite a story. I was off on a tour through India and Egypt, -with my college chum, my dear old Arthur Hughes. Neither of us had any -notion of returning home, and we were in the middle of the best time -two fellows ever had on this earth, when I had a queer sort of warning. -We were both curled up on the window-sill of my room, in our hotel -at Cairo, one hot night, sleepless, and enjoying a smoke. Suddenly, -above the street, among the shadows and spangled points of all those -near domes and pinnacles, I saw what I thought was our national flag, -hanging, hardly stirring. It seemed to spring up out of nothing, in -its familiar, varied colors, to startle my eye. Then, in a moment, -I perceived that it was no flag, but a living spirit, a genius, a -guardian angel, whatever you like to call it, which bore the oddest -resemblance to one. There before me was the dreamiest figure; a tall -beautiful young woman in a helmet, the moon shining on the little -spike of it. A long blue veil, bluer than the atmosphere, covered her -face, and was blown about her shoulders, not so heavy of texture but -that the jewels in her flowing hair flashed through it with wonderful -lustres; and her garment fell away in long alternate whites and reds, -like the liquid bars we sometimes see flushing and paling in our own -sky in the north, when the aurora borealis comes in the March evenings. -There she floated many minutes before fading away; and once she raised -her veil and beckoned, and her eyes dwelt on me so imploringly that -they have become more real to me than anything else in my life. I tell -you it shook my heart.... Miss Carter, if you will allow me, I must -say that the vision was like, was very like,"--the Sergeant choked a -little,--"like you. When I first saw you, I was so startled, it gave -me, well, almost a swoon. That is a novel word, and ludicrous, perhaps, -but I can use no other. At any rate, the resemblance has drawn me -towards you, I can't say how strongly or how much. Please forgive me." -For Cecily's wild-rose face was warm. - -"I had forgotten all about Arthur. But when I turned to clutch him -in my excitement, my first glance told me that he had not seen the -phantom, and that he would deride my faith in it. So I tried to laugh -off my sudden attack of second-sight; but it was of no use. I dropped -into silence when it was my turn to speak, and abandoning presently the -effort to seem indifferent, I parted from him, and went to bed. - -"It was the only ghostly thing that had ever happened to me, and it -impressed me tremendously. For my part, I could get no rest by day or -night; that influence was over me like a bad star. I racked my brain to -explain it by natural agencies, and it only set me thinking the more -of our blessed country being in some terrible trouble. When I came to -that, I jumped up and started for the bath, to cool off, and then -changed my mind, and struck first for the ticket-office. Whom should -I knock into on the way but old Arthur in his fez, fierce as a lion. -'Bob,' he said, dragging me into a booth, 'it's war, war! President -Lincoln is calling for men, and I'm going home to spite the devil.' -'There's no choice. I am going home anyhow,' I said. 'What news is -there?' - -"The little which had travelled that far, I heard from him. Sumter was -being fired upon, on the 11th of April, 1861, when I saw Our Lady of -the Union. I call her that; but I never spoke of her to Arthur, or to -any one. Before June set in we arrived in New York, and we volunteered. -Arthur has distinguished himself right and left. He is in Andersonville -now, dear fellow. I should hate to end there." - -"A martyr is a martyr; the place matters nothing," the girl replied. - -"I know," he said; "I did not mean to speak lightly; but I am one of -those who cannot always avoid it when they feel much." - -The Sergeant's cheeks were burning too, and he quickened his pace. -Cecily did not speak, following the bounding bay. But a loneliness -which she could not define came upon her; a resentment of the sacred -ideal which could yet be to her friend his divinity, his beauty, his -bride, in a world from which she was shut out as an irrelevance. And -almost as soon, she questioned herself whether because of a tie dearer -than the human, this golden-hearted Robert must lose, she in him must -lose--what? For answer, the noble and foolish tears welled up from the -depths, and fell into the folds across her knee. Her companion drew his -own rein, and laid his hand upon Molly's. - -"Oh, why do you cry? I can't bear it. What have I done?" - -"Nothing." - -"I did not intend to disturb you, to make you care about it, or pity -me; I am much happier since that happened. Could it be--oh, could it -be--" He gazed a moment upon her, absorbedly and absorbingly, and she -turned away. For who can make conscious preparation for the imminent? -Sudden ever is the finger of Death, to the watchers; sudden also is -Love. - -They were under the shade of some giant pines. The young man vaulted -lightly to the ground, close to Molly's satin stirrupless flank, -his hands clasped, his head thrown back, fired with adoring hope. -When Cecily inclined towards him again, he saw in her (or was it his -bewitched fancy?) the remote, incredible radiance of his old day-dream. -The great flush rolled responsive to his own clear brow. He shook -himself free, and found his voice. "Cecily," he said simply, "I love -you; you must know that I love you. Such a love has no beginning and no -end. You understand that and me. Of myself I have nothing to say. You -have seen me only among Willoughby's recruits; but I never wished to be -elsewhere. Judge of me, as we two are, now and here. Can you, do you -think you could be my wife, by and by? Tell me. Tell me!" Then Cecily, -simple too, in the same tremor of exaltation, put out her right hand. -He caught at it with both his own, and buried his face there. His -wide hat had fallen; the warm light was on his clustering hair. With a -sweet instinct like motherliness, his maid, bending over, kissed it in -benediction. - -It was two o'clock when they crossed the ford, and the late afternoon -found them still pacing on their roadless way, like the lost enchanted -knight and lady of the Black Forest. They were less than a mile from -Braleton, on the rocks, in sight of the tents, when they unsaddled and -tethered the horses, and made the last halt. "Dearest," the Sergeant -had said, lying at her feet, his elbow in the grass, "dedicate my -sword." Raising himself, he made a motion as if drawing it, and held -it towards her and the sunset; Cecily, in the same pretty pantomime, -touched her lips to the viewless blade, priestess of a new investiture. -"One thing we both love better than ourselves; is it not so?" She was -not jealous now. "These United States, right or wrong!" - -"Oh, no!" The soldier sheathed his sacred weapon. "Say justice, -liberty, the rights of man; the things our United States ought to -stand for." Then the light heart in him laughed; and Concrete and -Abstract blessed each other. Happy and silent, they lingered on -the brow of the pine copse; a breeze sprang up; vast and gorgeous -sky-colors spread and deepened. The Sergeant's uplifted face was fixed -upon his betrothed. She seemed to dissolve away before him, or before -him, rather, to be vivified and set free. Slowly between her and him, -transubstantiating her touching beauty, gathered a solemn, changeful, -wavering cloud-splendor of ivory, rose, and sapphire, gathered out of -the land of myths into recognized and unforgotten fact. For a quarter -of an hour he endured that mystical glory; then his head dropped -forward on her knees. A thing seen was yet upon him: once more Our -Lady of the Union, but with a smile as if of one assured at last of -ransom, and ineffably content. When Cecily touched him, wondering, he -shuddered, and brushed an imagined film from his eyes. She sat there, -innocent of any magic, unaware in what potter's hand her spirit was so -much fine clay. - -From the depths of the vale the croak of frogs arose, faint here and -shriller there, then long-drawn and general: ever a most mournful, -homesick, and foreboding sound to our armies in the South. The -distant camp seemed ominously quiet; but on the outskirts of it was a -dissolving shadow, a moving dark clot, there, a moment back, between -them and the scarce-fluttering flag, and still there, now that the -flag was hauled down, its bright hues effaced against the more vivid -evening air. Presently the group of men, for such it was, scattered. -Cecily's keen sight read what was written afar; the familiar figure of -the one-armed brisk Lieutenant-Colonel in the saddle coming towards the -hill, with others following on the gallop behind. - -"You are needed," she said without preamble; "you must go to them." -With emphasis and authority, slight and quick, yet irrevocable, she -spoke. He turned about, and sprang to his feet from his enchantment -at her side; for the divine day, the Sergeant's field-day, was over. -"Is this the way of women, or only your way? You send me from you on a -supposition, a scruple," he answered, plaintively. - -"Go." She repeated it softly, and with closed eyes, lest she should -look upon her own heart-break. "It is unnecessary, as you know," he -replied; "but if you make it a point of honor, I am glad to obey." He -held out his hands, and she took them, cherishing, steadfast, as in -a pact. Her voice and step were strangely unsteady; they held up the -mirror, as it were, to his. What was there in a commonplace incident to -move them so to the depth? In a passionate presentiment, he drew her -closer to him. "Are we to be given to each other only that we may be -severed, and suffer the more? What if the end should be now? Cecily!" - -But the young heroic mettle rose to meet his. "Beloved, you are mine -and not mine. You are consecrated for the term of the war; so am I. I -will always give you up to your task. Perhaps you may measure by that -whether I love you." He looked down with a grateful sigh on her who so -mysteriously held him to his sacrifice, and shared it, and through her -and in her, on the old, old fate which he knew now was driving him to -the cliff. - -"If there is to be a fight, I want your flag, the flag you made!" he -whispered, grasping at anything to hide this rending in him of the -spirit from the flesh. "However, whenever I fall, I want to be buried -in it. Is it done? May I take it for mine, before it is presented to -the regiment?" - -"Yes. You shall carry my colors here and in heaven. I will pray for my -knight." - -He kissed her once, twice, for the betrothal, and yet again for the -farewell. - -He took Molly, the fresher animal of the two, and spurred to the open -ground below, breaking out from the wood-path, ready for any duty, on -time. He looked illumined, detached, transfigured: a Saint Michael to -be remembered after by his companions in the moral crises of their -lives. The Lieutenant-Colonel drew rein, relieved. "I was wishing for -you, of all people," he said; "I feared you were far away. There has -been an alarm; we must sleep under arms. The Colonel and most of the -officers have not returned. I will go back now. Take these six with -you, and cross the railway tracks to Palmer's. It is a rough road, and -a long journey; but report as soon as you can." The Sergeant started -with his bayoneted cavalcade in a dash westward. Cecily, apprehensive -of something unusual, saw the slow-rising dust, and, ahead of it, the -erect leader, scaling the horizon, and vanishing into the yet glowing -sky. A pang unutterable tore her; but, uttered, it would have been none -other than _Amen_. - -Poor Saladin was tired enough, having been out all day long; and Cecily -led him carefully to the plain. Every clapping leaf, every crackling -twig underfoot, struck a chill into her bosom, on the over-shadowing -hill-slopes. She had played too brave a part under her mental turmoil, -and in the presence of her lover, himself too easily enamoured of -death. A spell greater than any he had felt was over her, breathing a -blackness between her and the light. Now her ample courage was fast -giving out. She saw a face in the thicket, and was barely able to -nerve herself not to scream. A man, in a military dress she did not -know, came forward, and raised his cap. It was Major Julian Brale, -free at last to do some scouting over his ancestral acres, alone, -and with hot revenges in his heart. He was sorry for her, and angry -at her discovery. He apologized briefly, and helped her to mount, not -without concern, but with a scornful coldness of manner which he could -not help. When she had gone, he returned to the bushes, cursing the -Eleventh; for he had recognized the saddle on the bay. The two forces -were on the brink of battle; but he was not an expert sharp-shooter for -nothing, and if he could but get sight of that thief, that coward, that -hell-born villain who had taken his old father's precious Molly from -him-- A moonbeam straggled in where he bent over, priming his rifle, -and he moved from it into the dark. - -Dinnerless, supperless, much too overwrought to go to bed, Cecily -Carter sat in the Colonel's empty tent. For company, she had shaken out -her great silken banner over the lounge, where the firelight, falling -on it, seemed to praise its divine destroying loveliness with a poet's -Pentecostal tongue. Once she murmured prayerfully: "Dear Robert, dear -Robert." Something not herself had bade him go, and he was gone; -there was all of herself now in these fears. The little parting from -him which she was enduring became magnified and abiding, so that she -looked upon him slain, and thought with a sort of joyous satisfaction -how under the buttons of his old blue jacket, where nobody, not even -his mother, knew of them, were rose-leaves all about the open wound -next his heart; rose-leaves pressed most fervently, one by one, to her -lips, and laid there. Other caress she could not give him; though she -was his, he was the Republic's, for ever and ever. Again, she saw him -carried on a howitzer to a green lonely place. A stone reared itself -before her, and she read upon it an odd inscription: _If ye seek -the summit of true honor, hasten with all speed into that heavenly -country._ She started up. Was her brain indeed giving way? Who had -spoken? Where had she heard those words? How piercing a beauty they -had! Were they in the Church ritual? What did they mean? Why should -they hound her from her rest? - -The Colonel's little ormolu clock struck eleven. Almost on the stroke, -the delayed revellers entered. Adela could not fail to notice her -sister's nervousness, but attributed it to anxiety for herself. The -Sultana of the Surgeon's christening had been prodigally feasted and -flattered; she had come home with an armful of hothouse flowers, -effulgent with gratification, and in a talking mood. The Colonel's boy -brought in the lamps. When the Colonel himself followed, grown grim -with the sudden tension and commotion about, his remark was to the -point. "I'm afraid you women will have to get out of camp, quick. I -smell powder. It is likely to be damned disagreeable." His handsome, -worldly wife, coming, butterfly-like, in yellow, out of her dark -wrappings, fixed him with her censorious eye. "James Willoughby! You -have been drinking." He was wont, on such occasions, to cast a comical -appealing glance at Cecily, of whom he was fond. She did not smile in -return, and her pallor touched him; so that he went over to her at -once. "What's the matter, child?" he asked, with affectionate anxiety. -But an approaching clang and clatter, and the challenge of the sentry -without, took from him what he meant to say; he left Cecily to her -sister, and hurried into the air. His going added to her trouble; and -yet she would have had no solace in keeping a friend near. Oh, the -stress and strain of dull daily incident upon that inner universe, -frangible as a bubble, where she and Robert had begun to live!--she -and Robert, and the Love of Country alone, for between this and them -must be union everlasting. Oh, the tyranny of all that is, laid upon -him, faithful in his place; upon her, faithful in hers; the speechless -dealings of lonely lovers with the Lone! - -Private Cobbe, being foremost, saluted breathlessly: "Colonel, the -pickets are being driven in; the enemy is advancing." The gallant -fellow pressed his hand to his thigh; he was wounded, and he was -soldier enough to feel that wound an ignominy which had been received -obscurely, and elsewhere than on the field. Immediately, all along the -tents, arose the multitudinous yet unconfused cries of "Form!" and -"Fall in!" from the captains; the flapping guidons were borne hither -and thither to their places, and the thousand horses, wheeling on their -dancing hoofs by the gleam of lantern and torch under the watery moon, -began to make huge, fantastic shadows along the old parade-ground. The -Colonel, drawing on his gauntlets, and still afoot, noticed for the -first time that Cobbe and McGrath held between them, each with an arm -around him, an officer. For an instant, in the imperfect light, he -thought him some prisoner, until he recognized, in a flash, Molly with -her great liquid, excited eyes, Molly with her even mane hanging wet -and limp, confronting him. Private McGrath had held in until now. He -blurted: "I'm afraid he's gone, sir." The Colonel took a step forward, -as if it were into eternity. The Surgeon, standing by, echoed after -him: "My God!" - -They lifted their friend down together, and carried him in, and laid -him with extreme gentleness where by chance the new flag, a kingly -winding-sheet, was above him and under. The Surgeon bent very low for -a while over the lounge. The many in the tent, used to calamity less -great than the loss of their best, held their breath; the Adjutant's -dog, close to his master's legs, lifted his long gray throat and -crooned softly and mournfully, as the band outside, far down the -disparting columns, broke into a loud, thrilling strain, impatient for -victory. The Sergeant was dead, with a ball in his breast. No one moved -until Cecily groaned and dropped. - - - - -AN EVENT ON THE RIVER. - - -MORNING lay over Portsmouth and her great stretches of opaline sea. The -little islands, north to the Maine shore, and east to the harbor-buoys, -were ablaze with red and yellow bushes to the water-brink; the -low-masted gunlows were beating out like a flock of dingy gulls; and -from afar, pleasantly, musically, sounded the bugle at the Navy Yard. -The Honorable Langdon Openshaw, standing among ruinous warehouses and -wharves, built by the Sheafes in the hour of their commercial glory -under the second George, looked down upon the clear Piscataqua at -full flood, breathing between its day-long, Samson-like tugs at the -yet enduring piers. It was a lonely spot; the wind had a way there, -sometimes, of waking momentary, half-imagined odors, the ghosts of the -cargoes of wines and spices in the prodigal past. His own solitude, -the washing tide, the one towering linden yonder, the gambrel roofs -and ancient gardens, the felt neighborhood of the dear wild little -graveyard where his forbears slept, steeped his heart in overwhelming -melancholy. He had already passed a week at the Rockingham. It was a -strange date to choose, out of all his free and prosperous life, for a -first visit since childhood to the fair old New England borough where -he was born. A sort of morbid home-sickness had driven him back now, -in his distresses, to her knee. For the Honorable Langdon Openshaw, -innocent of the astounding crime with which he was charged, was out on -bail. - -The accusation was the most inexplicable of things. His chief -characteristic had been an endearing gentleness, which brought him the -popular favor he cared nothing for. He was the captain citizen of his -town; he had held, in turn, every office public esteem could give him; -he was president of a wealthy corporation which controlled a bank. It -was this treasury which he was said to have rifled, and its cashier -whom he was said to have murdered. No living creature was there in -all Connecticut but laughed aloud when the report began to spread; -but time and circumstantial proof sobered them, and increased the -breed of cynics and sceptics the country over. The philanthropist, the -good man, the Sunday-school paragon, forsooth, once again exposed in -all his gangrened sanctity! Two sickening circumstances, in the dark -designs of Providence, pointed at him with deadly finger. One was, -that at the time of the robbery, there was an impending crash in his -vested finances, since wholly and finally averted by his foresight and -skill; the other, that sometime before, in the discharge of duty, he -had incurred the enmity of the victim. Was it not possible, during Mr. -Openshaw's interval of anxiety, he, that is, any other than he, might -have dared retrieve his fortune, and silence the witness of his crime, -George Wheeling, found unexpectedly at his desk at midnight over his -accounts, and thrown down the stair into the vaults? But there was a -more certain and horrible evidence. He had been seen escaping; he had -been recognized. The scuffle had roused the occupants of houses near; -and these, looking forth by the city lamplight, saw the flying figures, -one of them, alas, inconceivably, yet unmistakably, so help us God! the -Honorable Langdon Openshaw. Had they not a perfect unanimous knowledge, -for many years, of his face, his unique gait, his uncommon stature? -Where was there another such odd and definite physical personality? As -to the confederates, well, there were reasons, no doubt, why bravos -should be hired. - -Wearily, wearily, he parted his gaze from the alluring eternity in the -river, and strolled a little distance to the warm wall, and sat down -in the late September grasses against it, like the broken man he was. -He took off his hat, a characteristic dark soft felt such as he always -wore, and the air was good upon his brow. His thoughts reverted to -old times. He had no kindred except a sister living in Santa Barbara -with her family of daughters, and between them there had never been -any marked natural affection. The distant cousin of his own whom he -had married, had borne him no children, and she was dead: a gentle, -negative soul, to whom he confided little of what touched him most. He -had formed no intimate companionships. No one save his mother, whom he -lost in his boyhood, and whose maiden name he bore, had ever possessed -much influence over him. He was a man's man, as the saying is, hitherto -of any age he chose, and rich in all resources. But he had strong -dormant affections, shamefacedly expended on public orphanages and -hospitals, and on the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; -and he felt rightly that he could have been fatherly, brotherly, even -filial, with a son. Ah, if he but had a son! Bulwarked about with -modern conveniences, that, his one necessary, he had missed. And here, -in strange opprobrium, was the end of his career and of his name. -"Lover and friend hast Thou put far from me!" he breathed to himself, -feeling, for the first time since his calamity, a profound submission -of the soul. - -He heard voices in the windless air. He did not rise, for they were not -approaching him. He could not help distinguishing the animated words. - -"This is as far as I ought to go. I guess I'll say good-bye." - -"They will miss you notta yet. Oh, please do, please do stay! I starve -if I am absent. Come, one kissa more." - -"No; wait till to-morrow, you great baby. Go away now, and do your best -to be good." - -"Alla righta; if you give to me one little song." - -"Truly?" - -"Truly, Anita mia. I desire indeed, this hour, the mandolin. But no -matter: sing. All is quiet: see! it can begin." - -Then the girl's thin bird-like voice soared alone, not in any expected -love-lyric of the seaport streets, but in a Christian folk-song of -artless beauty. - - "All in the April evening, - April airs were abroad; - The sheep with their little lambs - Passed me by on the road. - - "The sheep with their little lambs - Passed me by on the road: - All in the April evening - I thought on the Lamb of God. - - "The lambs were weary, and crying - With a weak human cry: - I thought on the Lamb of God - Going meekly to die. - - "Up in the blue, blue mountains, - Dewy pastures are sweet, - With rest for the little bodies, - And rest for the little feet. - - "But for the Lamb of God, - Up on the hill-top green, - Only a Cross of shame, - Two stark crosses between! - - "All in the April evening, - April airs were abroad; - I saw the sheep with their lambs: - I thought on the Lamb of God."[1] - -There was a pause after. Then Openshaw sighed. He knew they were in -each other's arms, the morning heaven blessing them; but with him it -was spiritual darkness, and bitter evenfall. A boat passed below, the -oarsmen curious; and the young loiterers on the old wharf stood apart. - -"My angel, my sainta!" - -"Hush! It is twelve already; I must be off." - -"Ah, the time is so short! Cruel!" - -"Dear, you are nicest when you are good." - -"Behold, I am." - -At last the farewells and vacancy; and then footsteps making towards -the angle of the wall. Mr. Openshaw's stately head, crowned with the -abundant glossy black and gray which gave it such distinction in a -land of bald pates, arose upon the surprised view of the new-comer. -He, on his part, with no question as to a gentleman's supposed -midday slumbers, stooped, and offered Mr. Openshaw his hat. The two, -confronted, smiled a little; both tall, aquiline, clean-shaven. - -"I thank you. Perhaps you would rather have me say, _molte grazie_. You -are an Italian, are you not?" - -The other, wonderingly, but with native grace, assented. "I am a -Florentine." How he said it! Where did he get that gypsy princeliness, -his clear pallor, the nameless magic that takes the heart? - -"You speak English fairly." - -"I have been in youra country long." - -"And I in yours, many years ago." Now Openshaw was dallying, and -consciously. What impelled him to open sociabilities with such an one, -he did not know. This stripling of another grade reminded him dimly -of something, and teased his eye. "What a bearing the fellow has!" he -thought again. Having snapped every tie with his own life, he could -afford to be interested in that of others. He took pleasure in the -diverting accent and idiom, and the abandon with which the loose, rough -clothes were worn. - -"Florence is the most beautiful of cities. You ought almost to go -back." It relieved his heart somehow, the foolish commonplace, as might -the colloquy about the weather among aristocrats in the tumbrils of -the French Revolution. All time hung a mortal weight upon his hands; -nor did the un-Americanized stranger seem to be in a hurry. But now he -started a little. - -"Go back? Santa Maria! I suffer: I go back so soona that I can!" As he -spoke, with the soft round harp-like Tuscan tone which the east wind -of New England had not rasped, he glanced around apprehensively. "With -money, nexta month, I sail on the sea, and I arrive." - -"Well, that might be worse," said the elder man, indulgently. "May I -ask your name?" - -"Ralph Power." - -"Ralph Power? That is not an Italian name." - -"Sir, I know. My mother, she have the marriage name Potenza. Rodolfo, -that is mine. I translate the two, and that is Ralph Power, whicha make -it easy for the tongue of many." - -Mr. Openshaw had drawn his hand over his eyelids, as if feeling the -sting of memory. - -"What do you do for a living here?" - -"I serva the market. Once I assist to builda boats for the Capitan, -but now he work no more; the beautiful Anne, she is his daughter. Ah, -signor!" Ingenuously, boyishly, he sighed. - -"How old are you?" - -"Twenty-two." - -"How many questions I have asked you! I am afraid I have kept you from -your duties. Pray go now." - -The other bowed, and turned townwards. But Openshaw felt on the instant -a sort of loneliness. "Rodolfo!" he exclaimed, "do me the favor to -spend this." He slipped a coin into an uninviting hand, partly, as he -would have said himself, from natural depravity, partly, from the sheer -luxury of his own incognito, and that of giving away to a young man -what no young man could inherit. "It may help you out of your trouble. -Trouble is very hard to bear, sometimes." - -If he were aware of expecting anything in return, from a poor Italian, -it was the usual ecstatic thankful benediction of poor Italians in -like luck. Once he had lived among them on their own soil; he knew the -simple-hearted, engaging, vagabond breed through and through. But this -specimen of it flushed and scowled, while trying to seem courteous; and -his would-be benefactor was puzzled. As they stood opposite, they were -of equal height; for the younger had drawn himself up a good inch. - -"I am afraid you are proud. You have picked that up in New England." - -Rodolfo answered resentfully: "Sir, I have the blood of New England -also, and it is for me the destiny to earn my money, most of all after -what I promise to the beautiful Anne." - -As he said it, warming thus into his very self, the eyes of Openshaw, -watching him, were dazzled, as one may be who crosses an alcove towards -a door in plain sight, and finds that seeming door a mirror. A little -alarum-bell rang in his brain. He shuddered, for all the forces within -him were rallying together: triumph, hate, revenge, deadly delight; -things he had not known were possible to him swarmed into his spirit -with a clang. He recognized, at a stroke, that this vagrant youth, -this common workman, looking at him with no smile now, bore a violent -resemblance to himself. He searched for details, lightning-quick, -and devouringly. Yes! there were the dark, fine, pendulous hair, the -small, close ear, the strong nose and jaw, even the large, slender -hand toil had hardly scarred, the back of it smooth and hard as veined -marble; how like the Openshaw hand, plain in the old Lely portrait, -plainer yet in the Stuarts, on the melancholy walls of his own home! -And what followed? The voice, significant, prophetic, of the demon of -self-preservation in his ear: "This may be the man who killed George -Wheeling. This must be the man. Impeach him; clear yourself!" Openshaw, -in his calmer mood, a few moments back, had measured the character -before him. Whatever else it was, it was not astute. He foresaw no -trouble in worming the secret out of him. - -"Very well," he replied, as if æons on æons of thought had not passed -since he spoke last. "I will take the gold-piece back, on your own -condition: I will see that you earn it. Have you business on hand?" - -"Oh, no. The venerable butcher, the fever kills him; we bury him, and -locka the door for all day." Rodolfo was sullen yet. - -"Then, will you kindly go into the square, buy me cheese, pilot bread, -two quart bottles of Sauterne, and two glasses, and return by way of -Daniels Street? I shall be waiting at the landing. I should like to -hire a boat for an hour, and have you row me up river. Will you do so?" - -The lad hesitated. Finally, touched, or put upon his mettle by a -seeming confidence, he set out, with the greenback in his pocket -which Mr. Openshaw had given him. The latter, at this pause in their -colloquy, was made aware that he was suffering keenly. He had exceeding -self-control; his successes in life had sprung from it. But every -mastered nerve in his body, having already undergone so much, and -having so much to undergo, was humming like a beehive. He could not -stand still. He wandered about, meeting few pedestrians, across Water -Street, up Manning Street to Puddle Dock with its liberty pole, and -again past the graveyard, lingering wherever he could command a view of -the broad glorious anchorage, tragic with the exposed ribs of rotting -ships. Into the happier neighborhoods near, he would not penetrate; -this one had been happy too, when he was a child. There he saw but -visions of greatness gone, of comfort broken, and an hour ago, could -have laid his cheek to the old flaggings, and wept. But he had now a -terrible just purpose, and for that he must save his strength. - -He was at the landing later than Rodolfo, who sat in a white wherry -ballasted with his purchases, the oars already in hand. Openshaw rested -his cane on the gunwale, and stepped quietly into the stern; they -backed out of the cramped spaces, and shot away. The surface of the -harbor was dimpling, little by little, with the great hidden swirls -of the turning tide; deceptively glassy between its deflected banks, -it gleamed like the thin ice which forms in November, and over which -boys send pebble after pebble, and laugh to hear them chirruping. But -Rodolfo had learned long since how to cajole the fierce Piscataqua; -and tacking artfully by St. John's Point, he labored through the end -arch of the great bridge, and gained the blue highway beyond. A train -thundered overhead. Two women in the footpath, leaning over the rail, -stared fixedly at the little boat, and from one sensitive face to -the other, and again at their contrasted attire. They were Rodolfo's -neighbors, and pleased that he had fallen in with a gentleman. - -The cruisers were not back within the hour, nor within three hours. -The whole world was to change strangely for them both, meanwhile. -The order of what Langdon Openshaw had intended to say and do came to -naught, because what happens to happen is lord over the strongest human -will. He had prepared his cunning questionings, as if to force his -own fate, forgetting that the aggregation of outer circumstance which -we call fate is itself an irresistible vortex; the trapper, and not -the trapped. Up stream, by Frank's Fort, under a sapphire sky, while -as yet little had been said, he found that his watch had run down, -and he asked for the correct time. Rodolfo set him right from a cheap -timepiece. As he handled it, there appeared, linked to the guard, an -artistic bit of bronze, a tiny Renaissance figure, with bow and hound, -the blown draperies minutely fair. Openshaw saw it, and the whole -universe was not so manifest to him as that small ominous curio within -it. - -"The Diana! On your soul, where, how, did you get that?" It was -familiar to him; he knew it, though he had not seen it for more than a -score of years. The rower dropped it back into his breast, definitely. - -"It is mine, and dear to me. My mother who gave it, she is dead." - -"Did you say your mother's name was Potenza? Was it Agata Potenza? -Agata Boldoni once?" - -"Yes." - -There was a thronging pause. - -"When did she die?" - -"It was sixa years ago; I proceed to America." - -"Have you brothers and sisters?" - -"I have, in Italy, twin brothers, older; their lame-a father, Niccola -Potenza, live with them. But he is notta mine." - -Quick, loud, sure, the queries and the answers fell, like the -hammer-strokes of a coffin in the making. - -"Your father was--?" - -"How can I know? They tell me he was vera handsome, vera rich, and from -this America. _Malfattore!_ He steal away, and I am born after; and she -see him not in her life, I see him not in mine." - -The crew had apparently hurt the passenger, for the latter heaved -against the thwarts. - -"Once more. Was your mother ever married to your father?" - -Rodolfo knit his brows, and set his teeth. "No." - -For a long, long time there was no sound but the little singing keel -on its joyous flight, and Openshaw's head was hidden in his hands. -Rodolfo, of his own vigorous accord, took the way of Dover Bridge, -across the noble inland bay, and branched up the shallowing Oyster. -There by the bank, in the stiller solitudes, he shipped his oars, and, -reaching forth, touched the bowed shoulder, not without compassion. - -"_Illustrissimo_, look up! Tell me." Then did Openshaw begin, steadily, -but hardly above his breath, intent the while on the image of his own -youth before him, as if from that only he might draw courage to confess. - -"I have a dear friend who, when he was no older than you are now, -went to Italy. He spent his best years in a delusion, for he thought -then he might become a great painter. His character, such as it was -and is, turned to the things of good report; he was an orphan, with -a competence; but he had had no home, and no moral training. Being -something of a recluse, he developed late and slowly. At a time when -the storm-clouds in most young men's lives are lifting, his were -surcharging themselves, and getting ready to burst. On his thirtieth -birthday, in Ferrara, he--" - -"In Ferrara, yes!" broke the eager interruption. - -"He persuaded another man's wife to run away with him. She was a -peasant, very young and innocent, with a sweet pensive Perugino face; -she had been his model, up to her marriage with Niccola Potenza." - -There was a sharp affirmative breath from the listener. - -"Niccola Potenza was a cooper, with good prospects. He was considered -quite a match for the girl; but he turned out to be dull, silent, and -preoccupied. Little Agata was romantic; and her thoughts ran easily -back to my friend. The fault was, assuredly, all his. He thought that -he loved her, and so, indeed, he did; although he loved better, alas, -the adventure and the rebellion. At any rate, he took her away boldly -from her husband and her babes, and set up life in his old studio, in -Florence. The cooper, sworn to revenge himself, had nearly hunted my -friend down, when on Easter Day he fell from a crowded and festooned -inn-balcony, and broke his thigh. Somehow, after that, his fury failed -him; and he sank, under his misfortune, into a sort of apathy. Things -went wrong also with the lovers. Agata kept only for a while her soft, -joyous, docile ways, and then grew restless and wretched, with the -canker of a good heart spoiled, which nothing on earth can cure. She -would spend hours in the chapel near by, her face covered, thinking and -weeping; and then she would go back to her little household tasks, and -move about in my friend's sight, her pale penitent face driving him -wild more effectually than any audible reproach could have done. Of -course he saw what was in her soul: the struggle between her foolish -passion for him, and mortal home-sickness for the inner peace which -had attended her old honorable life. He, on his part, resented the -moral awakening in her, and stamped down both her conscience and his -own. Against the voice within which bade him, since he had done her -an irretrievable wrong, to take the legal burden of it upon himself, -and make her his wife in America, arose his tyrannous social cowardice. -He dared not; he had a depraved but intelligent dread of discord and -incongruities. And so, as many another man as weak has done, he served -his æsthetic sense, and threw honor to the winds. He was never, I -think, wilfully unkind to Agata; his selfishness would seem to me now -less diabolic had he tried to estrange her from him. But as soon as -their first apprehensive year together had passed, without any talk -on the subject, he left her. Before he took his train, that night in -May, my friend drew up a paper for poor Agata's maintenance. The sum -was small, but much more than she had been accustomed to call her own. -I know he had no forewarning of--of his child; he provided for her -alone." Mr. Openshaw was speaking with some difficulty. "When were you -born?" - -"On the feast of San Stefano, the twenty-sixta of December, eighteen -hundred sixta-five." - -Rodolfo had been listening under a strain keener than that of physical -deafness. The more nervously overwrought of the two at this particular -moment, he was likewise the more restrained. A certain question was -hot in his throat. Though he had not understood all of Mr. Openshaw's -melancholy monologue, he had apprehended the heart of it only too well. -But he said nothing further. - -A flock of pioneer blackbirds, in delirious chatter, were gathering -overhead for their autumn migration, darkening the narrow sky-space -with their circling wings. Openshaw looked up. - -"Those birds go from pole to pole to find--what? So did he. His youth -was killed in him; and before long, nevertheless, he was cheerful and -active again, and courted by the world. He came home to his own honest -and normal life, and after a while he married. He had no tidings of -Agata, and had actually resolved once to try to find her, when he heard -what must have been a false report, that she had died; and he did not -doubt it, for he used to see her faithful patient little face in all -his dreams. From what I have learned of late, I believe that he is -most miserable, and near his own end. He does not deserve to hear of -her last days. But if by letting me know, you can punish him through -me, do not spare him. I will not, I promise you." - -Rodolfo sat in the boat, immovable, the thin leaves of the bowery -wild-grape flapping overhead, and flickering him with elfin light and -shade. "My mother," he began in a low voice, "did the best: the grace -of God was in her. Niccola was sick; the trade was gone, and then was -mucha poverty. With me in her amiable arms, she return on the feet to -Ferrara, and petition him; and, lo! the good cripple man, he pardon. -There us four in one family, we flourish. The American money she could -notta help, go among all till all are grown; she die of the fever sixa -year ago, with many candles and masses for her soul; and because it is -notta fit that my brothers spend on me, I ask Niccola's blessing, and -come to America. That is the end." - -Openshaw inquired presently, when he could do so: "Had you any -education, as a child? Can you read and write, Rodolfo?" - -"No." He sat sheepishly for a moment, then seized his oars. - -"How have you prospered over here? Have you been able to save a little? -You spoke of wishing to return." - -Rodolfo quivered. "It musta be." - -"Why so?" There was genuine tenderness in the two words. - -"There is nothing of hope for me. I am in a greata fix. I leave, I go; -I cannot stay. I have a sin also. Only my beloved, she know how it was -I transgress, so thatta perhaps my guilt is not for eternity." - -Openshaw laid the tip of his stick upon the rowlock, with authority. -"Do not start yet; let the boat drift. You must be hungry with this -long exercise. Pray pass me those things near you, and the wine; and -while you lunch, I hope you will be as frank with me, Rodolfo, as I -have been with you.... I look upon it as a miracle of mercy that at -the eleventh hour we have found each other." He knew that the young -man's blazing black eyes were full upon him. "I can help you. Only keep -nothing back." He filled one of the glasses from the fizzing bottle, -and passed it. But it was struck aside, and the cry that followed was -so sincere it gave the rudeness dignity. - -"Ah! No, no, no. Sir, I touch the spiritual drink no more till I die. -I vow to Anita mia, after the terrible night. For see! The evil ones, -companions, take me on a burst in a city notta this, Hartaford, -and thieve." His voice dropped under the excitement, like a file of -infantry under fire. "They thieve a banka; and I watch, in gin so drunk -as Bacco; and when the invisible man arise pugnacious, I throttle him, -and curse, and rolla him down to the cellar. He moan and expire, so -that we go down to thieva more; but the city she hears, there is a -sound, then a sound on top of him, and we fly, fly, fly, this streeta, -that streeta, till I come back awake to this Portsmouth, and fall on my -knee to Anne, and cry tears. Ah, my sainta! she comfort me in charity, -and talk to me, and keepa me from the bad; and for penance I go vera -dry always, not to be damn. I tell it not to Niccola at home when I go; -and I pray to go soon, that the Statesa Prison notta hanga me." - -Such is the equilibrium between the infinite and folly, that at this -juncture, as he recalled afterwards, Mr. Openshaw was eating his -cheese. He answered, marvelling at his own composure. - -"I read about it in the newspapers. You are in great danger, my poor -boy. Now listen. There is a ship sailing for Genoa from New York next -Saturday; and on her I wish you to engage your passage. That will give -you a week to adjust your little affairs here; and you must, moreover, -see your excellent sweetheart, and persuade her to marry you and go -with you. Will you do that?" - -Rodolfo opened his fine eyes very wide, and then closed them. "Oh, -voluptuous as it would be, I cannot. The Capitan he make Anne deny -me until I shall have many riches. She is a handmaid of domestic -service on Pleasanta Street; but the old one, he is proud for her, and -with the mosta reason in all the world. I shall coop with thesea my -brothers cooping always in Ferrara, and do my parta with my soul. For -bye-and-bye we make a marriage; and then she will be content to live in -the sympathetic Italy, where safeness is for me." - -"But we mean to mend all that, Rodolfo. Your father, whom I know very -well, is growing old, and has a great deal of property with no one to -share it. The least he can do for you (I am sure he feels that), is to -put you out of the reach of want. He will not ruin you, nor throw you -into temptations of a kind other than those you have undergone; for you -are his son, and as such he must love you. But he will hope to hear by -next spring, that you have bought a farm and vineyard, and that your -kind kins-people at home, and your wife, sometimes pray for him; yes, -and for me. Trust me; we need say no more about it. He will have it all -settled by law as soon as he is able, but certainly within a month." -He passed his hand over his hair, absently, and resumed. "You will go -across the ocean now; and if my friend lives, he may come to you; but -he may not live, and he may not come. It is his punishment not so much -to lose you, or what you might, after all, be to him, as to recognize -that his awful breach of duty has established between you what I may -call, perhaps, in the long run, an incompatibility." Poor Openshaw, on -the rack of his own candor, groaned aloud. - -Once more they were crossing Greenland Bay, and the lone and lovely -miles seaward. Rodolfo crept up quietly to his strange benefactor, who -was absently gazing far away, so quietly that the wherry moved not a -muscle under him. - -"It is you," he said. "The 'friend' is a made-up. I know. _Padre, si!_" -He threw his arms about Mr. Openshaw, his old hatred melted away, -and lay there on his knees like a little boy, sobbing, sobbing. "It -is for nothing at all," he explained with his endearing semblance of -good-breeding; "but the gentle goodaness of God. The beautiful Anne,--O -you musta see her, and letta yourself be thank in so harmonious the -voice of seventeen! she will taka me. Behold, I am so vera, vera -happy." Quite overcome, he did not even raise his head when he was -spoken to. - -"Am I forgiven, Rodolfo? Can you forgive me for your poor mother's -sake?" - -For answer, the lad covered the hand he held with kisses of southern -fervor, and pressed into it the little delicate charm from his -watch-string. - -At the touch of it, the tyranny of yesterday and to-morrow, and all -his suffering present and to come, departed from Openshaw. A divine -felicity began now to possess him; he was grateful, he was at peace; -whatever his retribution was to be, he embraced it, in spirit, like -a bride. In his revery, he seemed to stand before the everlasting -tribunal, with inscrutable truth on his lips: "Of this that was mine -I was heedless. Because of my heedlessness, Poverty and Ignorance and -Inferiority and Exile took him by the hand, and led him to the pit. -He is rescued from the worst; he will cling to the highest which he -sees, with an elected soul to help him; but what he might have been -he can never be. It was I that sowed; let it be mine to reap. The -indelible blood that is shed is on my hands, not on his. Visit Thy -wrath upon me, for here is it due. With body and soul, will, sense, and -understanding, from first to last, in every fibre of my being, I affirm -me accountable for this thing." To the tribunal on earth, its magnate -of unblemished reputation had no explanation to offer. He foresaw only -his arraignment, and the words with which to clinch it: "Gentlemen of -the jury, I plead guilty." - -Rodolfo spoke first. "I am so glad I guess, I guess from the teara in -your eye, that time." - -The tears welled up again as the other replied: "There is something -else you will never guess, thank God." - -"No?" - -"No, my boy." - -Rodolfo looked up, and smiled, without irrelevant curiosity. He was too -content, afloat there. - -The Honorable Langdon Openshaw took charge of the tiller, the son to -whom he had twice given life still at his feet. With neither oar nor -sail the guided boat came home from the upper waters to the port, -in the mellowing afternoon, borne on the mighty ebb-tide of the -Piscataqua. - - - - -THE PROVIDER. - - -NORA cried out: "'Tis so pretty to-day!" The barefooted children were -threading the slopes of Howth towards Raheny. Far-off, the city, with -its lights and stretches of glorified evening water, was lying there -lovely enough between the mountains and the sea. It was Nora's tenth -birthday, and, to please her, they had been on the march all afternoon, -their arms full of rock-born speedwell and primrose. "'Tis so pretty!" -echoed little Winny, with enthusiasm. But the boy looked abroad without -a smile. "'T'd be prettier when things is right," he answered severely. -Hughey was a man of culture; but his speech was the soft slipshod of -the south. The three trudged on in silence, for Hughey was a personage -to his small sisters; and Hughey in a mood was to be respected. He, -alas, had been in a mood too long. He had carried Winny over the -roughest places, and shown her Ireland's Eye, and, alongshore, the -fishing-nets and trawls; he had given his one biscuit to be shared -between them all; and lying in the velvet sward by the Druid stone, he -had told them all he knew of the fairy-folk in their raths, for the -seventieth time. But he was full of sad and bitter brooding the while, -thinking of his mother, his poor mother, his precious mother, working -too hard at home, for whom there never seemed to be any birthdays or -out-of-door pleasures. - -Hugh was nearly twelve now, and mature as the eldest child must -always be among the poor. He could remember times in the county -Wexford, before his father, who was of kin to half the gentry in the -countryside, died; times when life had a very different outlook, and -when his peasant mother, with short skirts and her sleeves rolled -up, would go gayly between her great stone-flagged kitchen and the -well or the turkey-hen's nest under the blackthorn hedge, singing, -singing, like a lark. They had to leave that pleasant farm, and the -thatched roof which had sheltered them from their fate, and move up to -cloudier Dublin, to a stifling garret over a beer-shop; and it was a -miserable change. Malachi O'Kinsella, the cheerful thriftless man, with -his handsome bearing and his superfluous oratory, was gone; and his -Hughey was too young to be of service to those he left behind. A fine -monument, with _Glory be to God_ on it, had to be put up over him in -the old churchyard, two years ago; and there had been since the problem -of schooling, feeding, and clothing Hughey, Nora, and Winny. Then Rose, -three years old, fell into a lime-kiln, and was associated with the -enforced luxury of a second funeral; and Dan, the baby, born after his -father's death, was sickly, and therefore costly too; and now the rent -had to be paid, and the morrow thought of, on just nothing a week! All -of which this Hugh, with his acumen and quick sympathy, had found out. -He worshipped his mother, in his shy, abstinent Irish way; his heart -was bursting for her sake, though he but half knew it, with a sense of -the mystery and wrong-headedness of human society. - -That April Tuesday night, when the wildflowers were in a big earthen -basin on the table, like streaks of moonlight and moon-shadow, and -the girls were in bed, Hughey blew out his candle, shut up his penny -_Gulliver_, and went over to the low chair in their one room, where -his mother was crooning Dan to sleep on her breast. It shocked him to -see how thin she was. Her age was but three-and-thirty; but it might -have been fifty. She wore a faded black gown, of decent aspect once in -a village pew; her thick eyelashes were burning wet. Outside and far -below, were the polluted narrow cross-streets, full of flaring torches, -and hucksters' hand-carts, and drunken voices; and beyond, loomed the -Gothic bulk of Saint Patrick's, not a star above it. - -"Mother! 'tis not going to school any more Oi'll be." His tired, -unselfish mother swallowed a great sigh, but said nothing. "Oi'll -worruk for ye, mother; Oi'll be your man. Oi can do't." - -There was another and a longer pause; and then Moira O'Kinsella -suddenly bent forward and kissed her first-born. Like all the -unlettered class in Ireland, she adored learning from afar, and -coveted it for her offspring. That he should give up his hope of -"talkin' Latin" touched her to the quick. "God love ye, Hughey darlint! -Phwat can a little bhoy do?" But she slept a happier woman for her -knight's vow. - -As for Hughey, there was no sleep for him. By the first white light he -could see the two pathetic pinched profiles side by side, the woman's -and the babe's, both set in the same startling flat oval of dark locks. -The faces on the mattress yonder were so round and ruddy! They had not -begun to think, as Hughey had; even scant dinners and no warmth in -winter had not blighted one rose as yet in those country cheeks. Up to -yesterday, he had somehow found his mother's plight bearable, thanks -to the natural buoyancy of childhood, and the hope, springing up every -week, that next week she would have a little less labor, a few more -pence. Besides, it was spring; and in spring hearts have an irrational -way of dancing, as if a fairy fiddler had struck up _Garryowen_. But -now Hughey was sobered and desperate. - -There was no breakfast but a crust apiece. The McCarthy grandmother, on -the stairs, gave Nora, starting for school, some fresh water-cresses. -Just then Mrs. O'Kinsella happened to open the door. Poor Nora had -yielded to temptation and filled her mouth, and pretended, holding -her head down, to be much concerned about a bruise on her knee. She -could not look in her mother's honest eyes, ignorant as these were -of any blame in Nora. Mrs. O'Kinsella went wearily to her charing, -and seven-year-old Winny set up housekeeping with Dan, the primroses -and a teapot-shaped fish-bone for their only toys. Hughey had already -gone, nor was he at his desk in the afternoon, when his teacher and -Nora looked vainly for him; nor did he return to his lodgings until -after sundown. When he came, he brought milk with him, earned by -holding a gentleman's horse at the Rotunda; and with that and some -boiled potatoes, there was a feast. Hughey's vocation, it would -appear, had not yet declared itself. He had haunted Stephen's Green -and its sumptuous purlieus in vain. He had not been asked to join -partners with Messrs. Pim, nor to accept a Fellowship at Trinity. The -next day's, the next month's history was no more heroic. There were -so many of those bright, delicate-featured, ragged-shirted boys in -Dublin, coming about on foggy mornings with propositions! The stout -shop-keepers were sated with the spectacle of the unable and willing. - -The days dragged. An affable policeman who had known Hughey's mother at -home in New Ross, seeing him once gazing in a junk-shop door, finally -presented him to the proprietor: "Toby, allow me t' inthroduce a good -lad wants a dhrive at glory. Can ye tache um the Black Art, now? He can -turrun his hand to most anythin', and his pomes, Oi hear, do be grand, -for his age." - -The junk-man, good-naturedly scanning Hughey, saw him burst into -tears, and beat the air, though the giant of the law had passed on. -That his chief and most secret sin should be mentioned aloud, to -prejudice the world of commerce against him, was horrible. His mother -had told on him! She must have found some lines on Winny's slate last -Sunday, entitled _Drumalough: a Lament for the Fall of the Three -Kings, Written at Midnight._ Worra, worra! Hughey was descended, on -the paternal side, through a succession of ever-falling fortunes, from -a good many more than three kings, and used to wonder where their -crowns and sceptres were, not that he might pawn them, either. The -O'Kinsellas were a powerful aboriginal sept in the old days, and lived -in fortress castles, and playfully carried off cattle and ladies from -their neighbors of the Pale. Malachi O'Kinsella's mother, a heroine of -romance who ran away with a jockey lover, and never throve after, was -of pure Norman blood, and most beautiful, with gray eyes, water-clear, -like Hughey's own, and the same bronze-colored hair; and it was said -she could play the harp that soft it would draw the hearing out of -your head with ecstasy! Now the junk-man was fatherly, and presented -Hughey, in default of a situation, with a consolatory coin; but -foregoing events had been too trying for the boy's nerves: he dropped -it, and fled, sobbing. He simply couldn't live where his po'try was -going to rise up against him, and wail like a Banshee in the public -ear. He charged, in his wrath and grief, across the crowded bridge, and -down the line of quays east of it, straight into a fat, gray-headed, -leather-aproned person directing a group of sailors unloading a boat. - -This person, sent of Heaven, with miraculous suddenness, and with -musical distinctness, exclaimed: "'Aven't I been a-wishin' of 'im, and -directly 'e runs into me harms! Crawl into that barrel, sonny, and if -you 'old it steady, I'll 'eave you tuppence." Hughey, foreordained -likewise, crawled in. When he came out, Mr. J. Everard Hoggett looked -him over, from his moribund hat to his slight patrician ankle. "I -likes a boy wot's 'andy, and 'as little to sy, like you." He resumed -critically, "'E don't appear to be from any of 'Er Marjesty's carstles, -'e don't. Perhaps 'e might like to 'ang about 'ere, and earn three bob -a week?" Hughey hugged his twopenny piece, blushed, trembled, twisted -his legs in the brown trousers too big for him, and replied in gulps: -"O sir! Yes, sir." Whereby his annals begin. - -This perfectly amazing luck befell towards the end of May. Mr. Hoggett, -going home, beckoned him, took him into a little eating-house, sat -him down, paid for a huge order, and departed. "There's a couple o' -lion cubs hinside wot ought to be your westcot, needs 'am and heggs. -Fill 'em full; and mind you come to-morrow at a quarter to ight. I'll -'ave no lyzy lubbers alongside o' me." With which fierce farewell, and -disdaining thanks, Mr. Hoggett faded wholly away. - -Hughey, half-dazed, sat at a table alone, sniffing celestial fragrances -from the rear, with the joy in his breast jumping like a live creature -in a box. To quiet it, while he waited, he took up a torn journal which -was lying on the nearest chair. At first, what he read seemed to have -no meaning, but when some moments had passed, still odorous only, and -non-flavorous, Hughey's collected and intelligent eye had taken in the -dramatic political crisis, the stocks, the African news, the prospects -of Irish literature, and the latest London wife-beating. On the -advertisement page, one especial paragraph in sensational print rooted -his attention. This was it:-- - - "SERVANTS AND APPRENTICES, ATTENTION! Here is the best Chance of - your lives. It will Never come again. _Trade with us, and you lay - the_ FOUNDATION _of your_ FORTUNE! With every sixpenny worth of - goods bought of us on any Saturday night, we give a COUPON on the - Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank of Belfast. _Fifty of these_ entitle the - Bearer at the end of the year to a gift of TEN POUNDS IN GOLD!! - Honesty the best Policy our motto. Best Material at Lowest Prices; - come and see. _Do not Neglect your own_ GOOD. McClutch & Gullim, - Linen-drapers, No. 19-- ---- St." - -Hughey, the innocent prospective capitalist, took a stubby pencil -from the only sound pocket in his habiliments, and began to figure on -the margin of the paper; for he had an inspiration. "Mother would be -thundherin' rich!" was what flashed into his mind. Before he had done -with his emergency arithmetic, ham and eggs, with all their shining -train, were set before him. With them, he gallantly swallowed his -conscience, for Hughey, like a nobler Roman before him, was resolving -to be gloriously false, and, for piety's sake, to trade his soul. He -foresaw vaguely that he would not be allowed, out of his royal wages of -three shillings, to spend full half every Saturday night, at McClutch -and Gullim's; yet to do it was the imperative thing now, and that he -felt impelled to do it was his own super-private business, and his -warrant. Therefore would he keep his secret close, and make what excuse -he might. He could not even think of asking advice; how should any one -else be able to realize how he must act towards his mother? The angels -had given her into his hands; and he knew at last what was to be done -for her. She should be rich and gay, and have a coach, perhaps, like -a real lady; and Danny should have a goat, and a sash with stripes in -it, like the little twin Finnegans; and the Misses Honora and Winifrid -O'Kinsella should walk abroad with parasols! Proper manoeuvring now -would fetch twenty-five pounds sterling next summer. But he would hide -away what he bought, and never tell until the beatific hour when his -mother should have the money, and the linen, and the truth about them, -all together! - -Hughey went home in a series of hops and whirls, like a kitten's. He -brought a flood of riotous sunshine in with him. It was supper-time; -the children had each a ha'penny bun, and some tea. Mrs. O'Kinsella was -lying down, with an ache between her lungs and her spine, after a long -day's lifting and scrubbing. She felt the good news, before the child -spoke. "O mother! 'tis the most illigant thing's happened: ye niver -heard the loike." Hughey's pale comely little face was radiant. - -"Phwhere is ut, and phwhat d'ye get, dear?" Then Hughey screwed up his -courage, and told his only, his masterly lie: "North Wall, mother; and -a shillin' and six every week." "A shillin' and six!" shrieked Nora. -"O Hughey!" But the critic for whose opinion he cared was not quite so -enraptured. She smiled, and praised him, but took it too tamely, her -son thought. However, he reflected that she little knew the felicities -in store. - -In the morning, his career began, and it maintained itself with vigor, -inasmuch as by the autumn he was of real value to his employers. He -had many duties and some trusts. His orders all came directly from -the benevolent bluff Mr. Hoggett, or from his mild reflection and -under-study, a small, bald, capable head-clerk from the north, who -was known as Jibtopsails; for what reason, Hughey could never divine, -unless it was that his ears were uncommonly large and flapping. -Jibtopsails sent him here and there with parcels and messages, and -he had been faithful; he had made no grave mistake yet, nor had he -been unpunctual. But every Saturday of his life saw him posing as -a purchaser at 19-- ---- Street, where a hard-featured old woman, -supposed mother of the supposed junior partner, served him always with -the same ironically deferent, "Good day, sir; and what can I show you?" -Jibtopsails inquired occasionally after the health of Hughey's family, -particularly after Hughey had told him that Mrs. O'Kinsella was not so -well as she used to be. For the rest, the sympathy of that gentle cynic -made the child's blood run cold: he had such a paralyzing fear that -Jibtopsails might call there at the house, and talk to his mother, and -say something about three shillings a week! Kind people in the parish, -if they knew, would bring her in wood, and coal, and wine; but again, -in the hallucination of his jealous determined heart, the boy prayed -passionately that they might not know, and that he alone should be the -deliverer. The dread of his secret being found out, little by little -made his life intolerable. He had grown older since he had that to -cherish in his bosom, and it seemed less delicious than while as yet it -was nothing but a dream. - -His mother broke down, and could toil no longer. Mrs. Drogan, who -lived downstairs, began to come up with her mending, and sit between -the bed and the window. Nora was clever, for so young a girl; but she -stumbled a great deal in her roomy charity boots, and had to be scolded -for awkwardness by Mrs. Drogan, who had brought up sixteen rebels, and -was disposed to command. As for Winny and Dan, they made a noise, and -therefore had to be exiled to the street, foul and dangerous as it was, -almost all day, while the invalid slept the sleep of utter exhaustion. -It occurred often to Hughey, and with increasing force, that to secure -a future good, he was doing a very vicious wrong; that it would be far -better for his mother to have the money now, to provide comforts and -make her well, than for her to do without it now, and be too feeble -in consequence to enjoy it when it would come, all in a lump. Heavy -and sharp was this dilemma to the little fellow, as he labelled the -great bales, or set Mr. Hoggett's dusted ledgers back on their shelves. -"Phwhat ought I be doin'?" he would groan aloud, when he was alone. -If he confessed to his mother, and handed over hereafter the total of -his wages, there was an end to the big income sprouting and budding -wondrously at Belfast, the income which would be hers yet, with ever so -little patience. But if he should not confess, and, meanwhile, if she -should not recover,--what would all the world's wealth be then to poor -Hughey? - -October was damp and dispiriting; Mrs. O'Kinsella coughed more, but -apparently suffered little. Hughey still brought her, week by week, -his pittance of a shilling and sixpence. Ill as she was, her alert -instinct divined that something ailed him; she pitied him, and worried -about him, and kissed his tears away with a blessing, very often. -Doctor Nugent was called in for the first time, one rainy noon. He -told Mrs. Drogan, laconically, that his patient was going to die, and -stopped her gesture of remonstrance. "Say nothing to those children of -hers," he added, aside, on the threshold; "there is no immediate need -of it, and the eldest looks melancholy enough without it." - -But the eldest was at his elbow. With a still ardor painful to see, -he raised himself close to the tall doctor, and whispered into his -ear. "Phwhat wud save me mother? Wudn't money do it, MONEY?" The boy -looked so thrillingly, impressively earnest that the doctor rose to the -occasion. "Perhaps! That is, a winter in France or Italy might delay -the end. But dear me! how on earth--" His voice wavered, and he hurried -down. - -On the way back to the office, Hughey crossed Augier Street, and -stalked into McClutch and Gullim's. He had business with the old woman, -imminent business. Would the Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank of Belfast -advance half of an annual interest? that is, would they allow him, -Hugh O'Kinsella of Dublin, merchant's errand-boy, what was due on his -receipts of purchases up to date? He found that circumstances over -which he had no control prevented his waiting until May: please might -he draw out the eleven odd pounds now? The old woman had recently -had other queries of that nature, which proved that the victims were -getting restless; that it would soon be advisable, in short, to strike -camp, and betake herself and her nefarious concerns to Leeds or -Manchester. Her sourness vented itself promptly on Hughey. Decidedly, -the Ninth anti-Sassenach Bank would do nothing of the sort; it was -against the rules; it never advanced cash except in case of death, when -coupons from McClutch and Gullim's would hold good for a life-insurance -policy to the corpse's relatives. "And now g'long to the divil wid ye, -ye limb!" concluded Mrs. Gullim, in a burst of vernacular indignation. - -Hughey fairly reeled out to the pavement, with wheels humming in his -brain, and a large triangular rock, sharper than knives and smeared -with poison (a not unfamiliar rock, of late), lodged in the middle of -his throat. As he turned down the windy North Wall, among the sleek -cattle waiting for exportation, and pushed open the warehouse door by -the Liffey, Jibtopsails took his pen from behind his capacious ear, and -peered over his spectacles. - -"_Cead mille failthe, Brian Boruihme!_ and how is the royal fam----." -He got no further; the young face opposite was so awry with the -spirit's mortal anguish that Jibtopsails was truly sorry he had tried -to be jocose. It was almost a first offence. - -And now, with much introspection, and heart-searching, and resolve, -Hughey's tragedy gathered itself together. On Sunday, after church, -he had occasion to go out of town. As he wished to deal with Nora, he -offered to give her a ride on the tram: a species of entertainment -which she accepted with enthusiasm. When they were at the end of their -route, they set forth on foot, up-hill, over two miles of exquisite -moorland, to the house of the retired first mate of the Grace Greeley, -who was summoned by the firm of Hoggett as witness in a lawsuit. Nora -was in her usual spirits, and her brother tried to wait until they -should show signs of flagging. O the heavenly freedom of the country! -the pleasant smell of damp leaves! But Hughey's heart would not rise. -As they passed the sheep-folds, the pretty huddled creatures made Nora -laugh, standing still, agape, in her blue faded frock; and he grabbed -her roughly by the arm, albeit his sad forbearing tone was not rough. -"D'ye love me at all, Nora?" - -"That Oi do, Hughey O'Kinsella; and ye needn't be scrunchin' of me to -foind ut out." - -"Nora!" - -"Phwhat is ut?" - -"There's somethin' Oi do be bound to say to ye." A pause. - -"Can ye keep a secret?" - -"Shure, Oi can." - -"'Tis turrible." - -"Niver ye moind, Oi'll keep ut!" said the loyal other. - -Hughey lifted his face to the sweet blowy autumn afternoon, took -breath, and increased his pace. "Mother is loike to be doyin' soon. -Maybe ye didn't hear o' that. But she cud live a hunderd year if ut -wasn't so cruel poor we are. Oi've been a-thinkin' wan reason of ut is -she has too many childher. 'Tis good little Rosy is with the saints. -Childher all eats and wears clothes, and isn't much use. If mother -wasn't ill, there'd be nothin' the matther wid me; we cud go on along, -and Oi'd have power to do the beautiful things, Nora dear. Ye'd all be -proud as paycocks o' me whin next the cuckoo'll be in the green bush -down be the Barrow; only mother wud be undher the ground. So 'tis long -before that Oi must be doin' phwhat Oi'm meanin' to do. Now's the toime -for her to be cured, and the toime for me to behave the usefullest to -her is to-morrow, just afther Oi'm dead." - -The younger child was bewildered, over-awed. "May the Lorrud have mercy -upon your sowl, Hughey!" she murmured with vague solemnity, taking -in the legendary word "dead" and nothing else. Her light feet ran -unevenly beside his, up the slope and down the hollow, and over stiles -and pasture-walls, bright with their withering vines. She was all ear -when her brother began again, irrelevantly and more softly, on his -tremendous theme, so old now to his thoughts that he was conscious of -no solecism in the abrupt utterance of it. "Whin ye dhrown, ye niver -look bad at a wake. A man kilt in the battle looks bad, but not a -dhrowned man. 'Tis grand to be a marthyr to your counthry; howsomiver, -the guns isn't convanient, and Oi must hould to the wather. The rest -Oi can't tell, becaze ye're a woman, and wudn't undhersthand; but -there's pounds and pince in ut, and 'tis the foine thing intoirely for -mother." He turned upon her his most searching gaze. "Ye'll be constant -and koind to her, now? Ye'll be runnin' and bringin' her a chair, and -takin' the beef out o' your mouth for her as long as ye live? (Shure -Oi forgot there's goin' to be tons o' beef for yez all.) Promus me, -Nora." She looked at him, and her wide blue eyes filled; and presently -she sank down all in a heap, her face in the grass, her heels in the -air. It looked like revolt; but it was regret, or rather the utter -helplessness of either. The boy never flinched. "Promus me, Nora." -"Oh, Oi do, brother Hughey, Oi do!" she sobbed. He stood by her a -moment, then with firmness followed the path out of sight, his slender -withdrawing figure significant against the sky. - -When he came back, the anxious Nora was on the road, whence she could -see far and wide. Little was said as they returned home, through ways -thickening with cabs and passers-by. But skirting Dean Swift's dark -Cathedral, they heard the treble voices at evensong in the choir, and -the grave sweetness of Tallis' old music seemed to thaw Hughey's blood. -He drew his sister closer as they walked, and bent his curls over her. -He had received a fresh illumination since he spoke last. - -"You're what mother needs," he whispered, "and so's Dan, seein' he's no -bigger than a fairy. But Oi'd be betther away, and so'd Winny, for the -sake o' leavin' plenthy to eat and plenthy o' room. Ye'll give me Winny -in her little coat whin Oi ax ye to-noight, will ye, Nora?" The child -glanced up mournfully at her ruling genius, without a word, but with a -look of supernatural submission. They went up the rickety stairs, arm -in arm. - -Mrs. O'Kinsella, who had had a trying day, had just said to Mrs. -Drogan, rising with a view to supper for her husband: "Oi'm of that -moind meself. Johanna Carr'd be a widdy contint in her ould age, -if she'd had childher, if she'd had a son loike Hughey. Me blessid -darlint! he's gould an' dimonds. By the grace o' God Almighty, Oi cud -bow me head if He tuk the rest away from me, but He cudn't part me and -the bhoy, me and the bhoy." She began to cough again. - -Her son asked to sit up late. "Oi'd be writin', mother," he pleaded. -Her pride in him came to her poor thin cheeks. "'Tis a Bard ye'll be -yet, loike the wans your father read about in the histhory!" Hughey -knew he had been misunderstood; but trifles were trifles, and must be -ignored, now that the hour of action had struck. - -Having taken off his shoes, he sat down in the broken chair by the -table, with his pencil, and the paper which Jibtopsails had given him. -The inmates of the room were all unconscious in half an hour, except -himself and Nora. She, in a fever of excitement, kept vigil, lying as -usual since consumption had come openly under their roof, between Winny -and the baby. Winny, dirty, hungry, and tired out with dancing to a -hurdy-gurdy, had fallen asleep in her clothes. Nora did not require her -to undress. These were the three letters which Hughey wrote. - - _Mr. Everard Hoggett, Limited._ - - DEAR SIR: Thank you for being kind to me. I was fond of you. I hope - you won't be out of a boy long. There do be a very honest boy named - Mickey McGooley goes to my school I used to go to. He has a iron - foot, but he is good-looking in the rest of him. I think he would - come if you asked him. Please tell the other gentilmen I won't - forget him either. - - Your respeckful friend, - HUGH. - - - _Ninth Anti-Sassenach Bank, Belfast, Ireland._ - - SIR: My mother she is named Mrs. M. O'Kinsella, will send you the - papers from McClutch and Gullim. As I will be dead you pay my money - please to her. I let you know now so that it will be all rite. It - began last May 28th and stops Saturday, October 21st. Yours truly, - hoping you will send it soon, - - Yours, - H. O'KINSELLA. - - - 11 ---- ST., DUBLIN. - October 22nd, 1893. - - DEAR MOTHER: You must cheer up and not cough. You can go to France - or somewhere. You will find a heap of lengths of linen stuff in a - box under the steps of old Tom's shop. He doesn't know about it. It - is mine and the nicest they is, and if you don't be wanting it, you - can sell it. Then you look in the lining of Danny's cap, and find - some bank papers, and you send them to the Ninth anti-Sassenach - Bank in Belfast and it will send you nigh twelve pound gold. You - will find Winny and me by Richmond Bridge, and it will not be so - expencive without us. I hope you won't be low for me, for Nora says - she will be good. Dear mother, I dident know any other way to make - you happy and well at this present. Goodbye from your loving son, - - HUGH CORMAC FITZEUSTACE LE POER O'KINSELLA. - - -After that laborious signature, he folded and addressed the first two -sheets, and after a plunge into the recesses of his pocket, stamped -them. The last one he slipped beneath his mother's pillow. He looked -at her wistfully, lying there on the brink of all compensation, at -last! She turned over, and sighed feebly: "Go to bed, Hughey dear." He -did not dare to kiss her, for fear she should become wide awake. Back -into the shadow he shrank, and so remained a long time. A dim sense -of defeat stole over him, like a draught through a crack, from a wind -which pushes vainly without. But he had never in his life hugged any -thought whose interest centred in himself; and immediately his whole -being warmed again with the remembrance that his defeat meant victory -for a life dearer to him than his own. When the great bell outside had -struck two, he crept across the room. - -"Is she ready, Nora?" - -"She is, Hughey." - -He stooped to the floor, and gathered the drowsy body in his arms. On -the landing, one floor below, the little sister cried aloud. "No, no, -no, no!" he crooned, in a passion of apprehension: "Brother will show -Winny the bright moon." - -They came safely to the street; the moon indeed was there, flooding the -world with splendor. When Nora had buttoned Winny's coat, and the boy -had posted his letters, they took her by either hand, and started. - -Hughey had planned out his difficult campaign to the end, and his -brain was quiet and clear. Passing through Church Street, he raised -his hat with reverence, as he had always done since he came to Dublin, -to a blank stone on the south side in the ancient yard of Saint -Michan's; for under that stone, according to a tradition, Robert -Emmett's sentinel dust reposes. There on the old Danish ground, at the -crisis, Winny's fiery Gaelic temper came again to the fore. Struck -with the solitude and the dark, the dread faces of unusual things, and -jostled by the wind which pounced at her from its corner lair on the -north bank of the river, she hung back and rebelled. "Let me go, let -me--go! Hughey! Oh!..." The little silver lisp arose in very real, in -irresistible alarm. - -Never once, in all his mistaken planning, had Hughey paused to consider -that she had a voice in the matter. If she were unwilling to die for -his dearest, why, what right had he, Hughey, though scornful and -disappointed because of it, to compel her? After all, she was only -seven, and silly! He looked at Nora over the capped head between them. -Then he fetched a deep, deep sigh, and the tears came to his eyelids, -burned, and dried. - -They went on, ever slower; and at Richmond Bridge Hughey spoke to -Winny, as he felt that he could do at last, tenderly, and even with -humorous understanding. "Now 'tis the end o' your walk, an' ye'll trot -home wid Nora, and niver moind me at all, dear. Some day she'll be -tellin' ye phwhat ye missed." But to Nora herself he said softly: - -"Take care o' mother, mavourneen." - -"Oi will, Hughey." - -She kissed him twice; her smooth cheek against his was cold as a shell. -He made a gesture of dismissal, which she did not disobey; and he -watched them go, without further sign. The two childish figures were -swallowed by the blue-black shadows, and the pavement under their naked -feet gave forth no receding sounds. Yet Hughey, bereft of them so -quickly and utterly, listened, listened, tiptoeing to the central arch -of the bridge. - -The autumnal Sabbath breath of the slumbering capital floated in a -faint white mist against the brick and stone. Every high point was -alive with light: the masts in port, the roof of the King's Inns, the -Park, the top of the Nelson monument, the Castle standard, the nigh -summits of the gracious Wicklow hills. Below were the dim line of -Liffey bridges, processional to the sea, and the sad friendly wash of -the chilly water. Clear of any regret or self-pity, he would have his -farewell grave and calm, and he would set out with the sign of faith. -So he knelt down, in prayer, for a moment, and with his eyes still -closed, dropped forward. - -In another eternal instant, he came into the air. He had a confused -sense of being glad for Winny, and otherwise quite satisfied and -thankful. There, next the wall, was a rotten abandoned raft, a chance -of life within clutch; he saw it, and smiled. Then Hughey sank, and the -black ebb-tide took him. - -Nora's knowledge, meanwhile, was too torturing to be borne. No sooner -had she left her brother than she caught the heavy little one into her -slight arms, and ran. Breathless, and choked with sorrow, she told her -mother all she knew, and roused the Drogans, who in turn called up the -Smiths, the Fays, the Holahans, the McCarthys. From right and left the -neighbors swarmed forth on a vain and too familiar trail: the Spirit of -Poverty flying unmercifully ever to the rescue of her own, she - - ----"that would upon the rack of this rough world - Stretch them out longer." - - * * * * * - -Two of Hughey's letters had to go undelivered: one belonging to a -corporation which never existed, and one to a heartbroken woman who set -sail for the Isles of Healing, before the dawn. - - -THE END. - - - - THIS BOOK HAS BEEN PRINTED DURING - DECEMBER 1895 BY JOHN WILSON AND - SON OF CAMBRIDGE MASSACHUSETTS - - - - - FOOTNOTES: - - [1] Katharine Tynan Hinkson. - - - - - TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: - - Italicized words are surrounded with underscores: _italics_. - - Obvious spelling and punctuation errors have been standardized. - - This eBook is dedicated to the memory of Emmy Miller. - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Lovers' Saint Ruth's, by Louise Imogen Guiney - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVERS' SAINT RUTH'S *** - -***** This file should be named 55601-8.txt or 55601-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/5/6/0/55601/ - -Produced by Emmy, David E. 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