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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Erema
+       My Father's Sin
+
+Author: R. D. Blackmore
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #7112]
+Last Updated: March 6, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREMA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+EREMA; OR, MY FATHER'S SIN
+
+
+By R. D. Blackmore
+
+
+
+1877
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A LOST LANDMARK
+
+
+“The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth
+generation of them that hate me.”
+
+
+These are the words that have followed me always. This is the curse
+which has fallen on my life.
+
+If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not
+closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the grave,
+even if I could have buried and bewailed him duly, the common business
+of this world and the universal carelessness might have led me down the
+general track that leads to nothing.
+
+Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die. I knew
+that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home, and then
+himself to start again for still remoter solitudes. And when his mind
+was thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?
+
+If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father. And
+he showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life.
+“Captain, here I leave you all,” he shouted to the leader of our wagon
+train, at a place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from the moilsome
+mountain track. “My reasons are my own; let no man trouble himself
+about them. All my baggage I leave with you. I have paid my share of
+the venture, and shall claim it at Sacramento. My little girl and I will
+take this short-cut through the mountains.”
+
+“General!” answered the leader of our train, standing up on his board in
+amazement. “Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget. What is a hot
+word spoken hotly? If not for your own sake, at least come back for the
+sake of your young daughter.”
+
+“A fair haven to you!” replied my father. He offered me his hand, and
+we were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome, uncompanionable
+company with whom, for eight long weeks at least, we had been dragging
+our rough way. I had known in a moment that it must be so, for my father
+never argued. Argument, to his mind, was a very nice amusement for the
+weak. My spirits rose as he swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder,
+and the last sound of the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and
+the fresh air and the freedom of the mountains moved around us. It was
+the 29th of May--Oak-apple Day in England--and to my silly youth this
+vast extent of snowy mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.
+
+Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so long
+as we remained with people who could not allow for us. My father, by
+his calm reserve and dignity and largeness, had always, among European
+people, kept himself secluded; but now in this rough life, so pent in
+trackless tracts, and pressed together by perpetual peril, every body's
+manners had been growing free and easy. Every man had been compelled to
+tell, as truly as he could, the story of his life thus far, to amuse
+his fellow-creatures--every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor
+father. Some told their stories every evening, until we were quite
+tired--although they were never the same twice over; but my father could
+never be coaxed to say a syllable more than, “I was born, and I shall
+die.”
+
+This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women admired
+it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear, the speaker
+would have been insulted. But his manner and the power of his look were
+such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw fit to be rude to him.
+Nevertheless, there had always been the risk of some sad outrage.
+
+“Erema,” my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the
+caravan was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the
+wilderness alone--“do you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from
+them?”
+
+“Father dear, how should I know? You have done it, and it must be
+right.”
+
+“It is not for their paltry insults. Child, you know what I think all
+that. It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I do.”
+
+I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way that
+he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a little child
+instead of a maiden just fifteen. This he had never done before, and
+it made me a little frightened. He saw it, and spoke on the spur of the
+thought, though still with one arm round me.
+
+“Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a stern,
+cold father. So will you meet the world all the better; and, little one,
+you have a rough world to meet.”
+
+For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's manner;
+but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things. At the time
+I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled eagerness.
+
+Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion of
+body and spirit afterward. It may have been three days of wandering, or
+it may have been a week, or even more than that, for all that I can say
+for certain. Whether the time were long or short, it seemed as if it
+would never end. My father believed that he knew the way to the house
+of an old settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated
+him kindly some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until
+he had made arrangements elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway
+thither, night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable
+roof.
+
+My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought, in
+sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it. Although
+his will was so very strong, his temper was good about little things,
+and he never began to abuse all the world because he had made a mistake
+himself.
+
+“Erema,” he said, “at this corner where we stand there ought to be a
+very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at least
+twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa even. From the
+plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more. It stands higher up
+the mountainside than any other tree of even half its size, and that
+makes it so conspicuous. My eyes must be failing me, from all this
+glare; but it must be in sight. Can you see it now?”
+
+“I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow
+tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!”
+
+“Naturally. But now look again. It stands on a ridge, the last ridge
+that bars the view of all the lowland. It is a very straight tree, and
+regular, like a mighty column, except that on the northern side the wind
+from the mountains has torn a gap in it. Are you sure that you can not
+see it--a long way off, but conspicuous?”
+
+“Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
+broomstick. Far or near, I see no tree.”
+
+“Then my eyes are better than my memory. We must cast back for a mile or
+two; but it can not make much difference.”
+
+“Through the dust and the sand?” I began to say; but a glance from him
+stopped my murmuring. And the next thing I can call to mind must have
+happened a long time afterward.
+
+Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for mine.
+I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of it, being
+so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct. It is a fearful
+thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to save my own little
+worthless life I must have drained every drop of water from his flat
+half-gallon jar. The water was hot and the cork-hole sandy, and I
+grumbled even while drinking it; and what must my father (who was dying
+all the while for a drop, but never took one)--what must he have thought
+of me?
+
+But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it all
+the worse for me. We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic district of
+the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite early; and of
+natural springs there was none forth-coming. All we had to guide us was
+a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck fast on the pivot with
+sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to sight behind the hot, dry,
+driving clouds. The clouds were very low, and flying almost in our
+faces, like vultures sweeping down on us. To me they seemed to shriek
+over our heads at the others rushing after them. But my father said that
+they could make no sound, and I never contradicted him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A PACIFIC SUNSET
+
+
+At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth
+was visible. For a time--I can not tell how long--we had wholly lost
+ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without getting
+further. But my father said that we must come right, if we made up our
+minds to go long enough. We had been in among all shapes, and want of
+shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out of every thrup and thrum
+of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to find our way out and discover
+memory of men for us, when all of a sudden we saw a grand sight. The
+day had been dreadfully hot and baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust
+arising, and driving the great drought into us. To walk had been worse
+than to drag one's way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles. But now
+the quick sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the
+balance toward the flat places of the land and sea. And suddenly we
+looked forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.
+
+We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast brown
+patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra. On either side, in purple
+distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled glaciers,
+spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal forest. Before us
+lay the broad, luxuriant plains of California, checkered with more tints
+than any other piece of earth can show, sleeping in alluvial ease,
+and veined with soft blue waters. And through a gap in the brown coast
+range, at twenty leagues of distance, a light (so faint as to seem a
+shadow) hovered above the Pacific.
+
+But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water gleam.
+Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to urge him
+on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water. But, to my
+surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white as the distant
+snow. I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with the help of his own
+endeavors, and there let him rest and try to speak, while my frightened
+heart throbbed over his.
+
+“My little child,” he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten years,
+“put your hand where I can feel it.”
+
+My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it was,
+it moved. But cold fear stopped my talking.
+
+“My child, I have not been kind to you,” my father slowly spoke again,
+“but it has not been from want of love. Some day you will see all this,
+and some day you will pardon me.”
+
+He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain, with
+the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing. To me, I know
+not how, great awe was every where, and sadness. The conical point of
+the furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us, was broadening into
+a hazy disk, inefficient, but benevolent. Underneath him depth of night
+was waiting to come upward (after letting him fall through) and stain
+his track with redness. Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness
+to receive him: his upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was
+flaked with atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one
+bright glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after
+that a broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should never see
+the sun again, and among them would be my father.
+
+He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and the
+dark jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and all the
+beautiful expanse of liberal earth before him--even so he seemed to me,
+of all the things in sight, the one that first would draw attention.
+His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive calm, and the sad
+tranquillity which comes to those who know what human life is through
+continual human death. Although, in the matter of bodily strength, he
+was little past the prime of life, his long and abundant hair was white,
+and his broad and upright forehead marked with the meshes of the net
+of care. But drought and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to
+change or weaken the fine expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes
+alone would have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep
+with settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes
+might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who, having
+slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son of his
+generous host and savior.
+
+The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had made.
+My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form upright
+against the deepening background. He gazed as if the course of life lay
+vanishing below him, while level land and waters drew the breadth of
+shadow over them. Then the last gleam flowed and fled upon the face of
+ocean, and my father put his dry lips to my forehead, saying nothing.
+
+His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for three
+days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and even
+tremulous. “Let us run, let us run, my dear father!” I cried. “Delicious
+water! The dark falls quickly; but we can get there before dark. It is
+all down hill. Oh, do let us run at once!”
+
+“Erema,” he answered, with a quiet smile, “there is no cause now for
+hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to do, my
+child. For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky. We have escaped from
+that starving desert at a spot--at a spot where we can see--”
+
+For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony seat,
+and the hand with which he tried to point some distant landmark fell
+away. His face, which had been so pale before, became of a deadly
+whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony. I knelt before him and
+took his hands, and tried to rub the palms, and did whatever I could
+think of.
+
+“Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every thing
+to me! What a brute I was to let you do it! But I did not know; I never
+knew! Please God to take me also!”
+
+He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but he
+firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.
+
+“What does it matter? Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as I am!
+Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you.”
+
+“My child! my child!” were his only words; and he kept on saying, “My
+child! my child!” as if he liked the sound of it.
+
+At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or afterward.
+It may have been before the moon came over the snowy mountains, or it
+may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain repelled the daybreak.
+All I know is that I ever strove to keep more near to him through the
+night, to cherish his failing warmth, and quicken the slow, laborious,
+harassed breath. From time to time he tried to pray to God for me and
+for himself; but every time his mind began to wander and to slip away,
+as if through want of practice. For the chills of many wretched years
+had deadened and benumbed his faith. He knew me, now and then, betwixt
+the conflict and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and
+as if from out a dream,
+
+“Time for Erema to go on her way. Go on your way, and save your life;
+save your life, Erema.”
+
+There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him. I took
+his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing. I whispered
+into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to me; and when he
+could not speak, I tried to say what he would say to me.
+
+At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid,
+wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to
+please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in my
+weak arms quite dead. And in the anguish of my sobbing, little things
+came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how quietly he
+had prepared for this, and provided for me only. Cold despair and
+self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I lay at my father's
+side, and slept with his dead hand in mine. There in the desert of
+desolation pious awe embraced me, and small phantasms of individual fear
+could not come nigh me.
+
+By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the
+pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from me.
+How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now. Such
+times are not for talking of. How many hearts of anguish lie forlorn,
+with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died out, and all
+the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!
+
+Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay by
+my father's body, wringing out my wretchedness. Thirst and famine now
+had flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe the thought
+of water, and the smell of food would have made me sick. I opened my
+father's knapsack, and a pang of new misery seized me. There lay nearly
+all his rations, which he had made pretense to eat as he gave me mine
+from time to time. He had starved himself; since he failed of his mark,
+and learned our risk of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me,
+as well as his store of water. And I had done nothing but grumble and
+groan, even while consuming every thing. Compared with me, the hovering
+vultures might be considered angels.
+
+When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or sob.
+Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on truly
+hopeless misery. Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid wings came
+close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I tried to save my
+father's body by throwing my own over it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A STURDY COLONIST
+
+
+For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which my
+dim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the Lord in
+heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some very simple
+members of humanity.
+
+A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me
+steadfastly. She had seen that, under tender care, I was just beginning
+to revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she had learned to
+succor all of them. This I knew not then, but felt that kindness was
+around me.
+
+“Arauna, arauna, my shild,” she said, in a strange but sweet and
+soothing voice, “you are with the good man in the safe, good house. Let
+old Suan give you the good food, my shild.”
+
+“Where is my father? Oh, show me my father?” I whispered faintly, as she
+raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
+
+“You shall--you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you when
+have long Sunday time to think. My shild, take the good food from poor
+old Suan.”
+
+She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had been
+loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was now in
+the quick-reviving agony of starvation. The Indian woman fed me with
+far greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with some soothing
+process, into another abyss of sleep.
+
+More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life and
+death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or any
+thing. No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little bedroom except
+this careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to sleep whenever I wanted
+to ask questions. Suan Isco, as she was called, possessed a more than
+mesmeric power of soothing a weary frame to rest; and this was seconded,
+where I lay, by the soft, incessant cadence and abundant roar of water.
+Thus every day I recovered strength and natural impatience.
+
+“The master is coming to see you, shild,” Suan said to me one day, when
+I had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the water-fall;
+“if, if--too much Inglese--old Suan say no more can now.”
+
+“If I am ready and able and willing! Oh, Suan, run and tell him not to
+lose one moment.”
+
+“No sure; Suan no sure at all,” she answered, looking at me calmly, as
+if there were centuries yet to spare. “Suan no hurry; shild no hurry;
+master no hurry: come last of all.”
+
+“I tell you, Suan, I want to see him. And I am not accustomed to be
+kept waiting. My dear father insisted always--But oh, Suan, Suan, he is
+dead--I am almost sure of it.”
+
+“Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for him.
+Very good; more good than could be. Suan no more Inglese.”
+
+Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow,
+helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread which
+might have been but a hovering dream. I turned my face to the wall, and
+begged her not to send the master in.
+
+But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly, and
+turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at me. His
+face was plain and square and solid, with short white curls on a
+rugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple chin--fit base for
+remarkably massive jaws. His frame was in keeping with his face, being
+very large and powerful, though not of my father's commanding height.
+His dress and appearance were those of a working--and a really
+hard-working--man, sober, steadfast, and self-respecting; but what
+engaged my attention most was the frank yet shrewd gaze of deep-set
+eyes. I speak of things as I observed them later, for I could not pay
+much heed just then.
+
+“'Tis a poor little missy,” he said, with a gentle tone. “What things
+she hath been through! Will you take an old man's hand, my dear? Your
+father hath often taken it, though different from his rank of life.
+Sampson Gundry is my name, missy. Have you ever heard your father tell
+of it?”
+
+“Many and many a time,” I said, as I placed my hot little hand in his.
+“He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was you, Sir.”
+
+“Come, now,” he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my
+warmth of words; “you must not have that in your young head, missy. It
+leads to a miserable life. Your father hath always been unlucky--the
+most unlucky that ever I did know. And luck cometh out in nothing
+clearer than in the kind of folk we meet. But the Lord in heaven
+ordereth all. I speak like a poor heathen.”
+
+“Oh, never mind that!” I cried: “only tell me, were you in time to
+save--to save--” I could not bear to say what I wanted.
+
+“In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you. You must have fought when
+you could not fight: the real stuff, I call it. Your poor father lies
+where none can harm him. Come, missy, missy, you must not take on so. It
+is the best thing that could befall a man so bound up with calamity. It
+is what he hath prayed for for many a year--if only it were not for you.
+And now you are safe, and for sure he knows it, if the angels heed their
+business.”
+
+With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me, knowing
+that her soothing ways would help me more than argument. To my mind
+all things lay in deep confusion and abasement. Overcome with bodily
+weakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even feared that to ask any
+questions might show want of gratitude. But a thing of that sort could
+not always last, and before very long I was quite at home with the
+history of Mr. Gundry.
+
+Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England,
+betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last
+century. He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate
+fisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most respectable families
+at that time did--to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than
+twice in one season. A highly querulous old lieutenant of the British
+navy (who had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept “the
+rheumatics” in either stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the
+Cornish coast-guard; and he never rested until he had caught all the
+best county families smuggling. Through this he lost his situation, and
+had to go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused
+that (to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior
+people, and among them this Solomon Gundry. Now the Gundries had long
+been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion wrestlers; and
+Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of obstinacy. He made a
+bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150 pounds; and with no other sign
+than that, his partner in their stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope,
+of Mevagissey) allowed him to make sail across the Atlantic with all he
+cared for.
+
+This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he did,
+together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a thrifty race
+at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and his eldest son was
+Sampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at its headstrong period,
+sought the far West, overland, through not much less of distance, and
+through even more of danger, than his English father had gone through.
+His name was known on the western side of the mighty chain of mountains
+before Colonel Fremont was heard of there, and before there was any
+gleam of gold on the lonely sunset frontage.
+
+Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
+Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though he did
+not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have a wife and
+son, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears to me the more,
+the more I think of every thing) no one must assume to be aside the
+reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so small that she
+should not care to strike at him. At any rate, good or evil powers smote
+Sampson Gundry heavily.
+
+First he lost his wife, which was a “great denial” to him. She fell from
+a cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the substance of her
+frame prevented her from ever getting over it. And after that he lost
+his son, his only son--for all the Gundries were particular as to
+quality; and the way in which he lost his son made it still more sad for
+him.
+
+A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
+cattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the Indians
+was to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few white men as
+yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry vowed that, if
+the will of the Lord went with him, that woman should come back to her
+family without robbing them of sixpence. To this intent he started
+with a company of some twenty men--white or black or middle-colored
+(according to circumstances). He was their captain, and his son Elijah
+their lieutenant. Elijah had only been married for a fortnight, but was
+full of spirit, and eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have
+carried this too far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a
+lock of his hair and his blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on the
+western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and was
+buried by the Blue River.
+
+It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thus
+cut short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from the
+mountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led a sad and
+lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although of Cornish and
+New England race) to seize the glorious chance of wealth which lay at
+his feet beseeching him. By settlement he had possessed himself of a
+large and fertile district, sloping from the mountain-foot along the
+banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And this
+was not all; for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, the
+whole of the mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling water
+flows. And when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men
+could have done what he did without even thinking twice of it.
+
+For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own river,
+and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations to pollute
+it. He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends to back him; but
+his fame for stern courage was clear and strong, and his bodily presence
+most manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor a cradle rocked in the bed of
+the Blue River.
+
+But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages, and
+even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr. Gundry
+gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For now his
+grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having lost his
+mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need the more
+natural and maternal nutriment of money.
+
+Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought
+out a plan which he had long thought of. Nature helped him with all her
+powers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream. He set up a saw-mill,
+and built it himself; and there was no other to be found for twelve
+degrees of latitude and perhaps a score of longitude.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE “KING OF THE MOUNTAINS.”
+
+
+If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I can not
+express to any other mind a thousandth part of the gratitude which was
+and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor mind toward those who
+were so good to me. From time to time it is said (whenever any man with
+power of speech or fancy gets some little grievances) that all mankind
+are simply selfish, miserly, and miserable. To contradict that saying
+needs experience even larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it;
+and this I can not have, and therefore only know that I have not found
+men or women behave at all according to that view of them.
+
+Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of loyalty,
+to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like every one else)
+reserved and silent as to my father's history. But he always treated me
+as if I belonged to a rank of life quite different from and much above
+his own. For instance, it was long before he would allow me to have my
+meals at the table of the household.
+
+But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss, and
+loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had seen so
+many troubles. He had been here and there in the world so much, and
+dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of his mind was
+sharpened into caution. But any weak and helpless person still could get
+the best of him; and his shrewdness certainly did not spring from any
+form of bitterness. He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could
+not bear to be contradicted when he was sure that he was right, which
+generally happened to him. But above all things he had one very
+great peculiarity, to my mind highly vexatious, because it seemed
+so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine
+intellect. He never showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and
+indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as
+I grew older and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it
+always provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but
+to stand as some great axiom.
+
+The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or “Firm”
+ Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps, of race or
+nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged to a tribe of
+respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife of a chief among
+them, and the mother of several children. But Klamath Indians, enemies
+of theirs (who carried off the lady of the cattle ranch, and afterward
+shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their possession, having murdered her
+husband and children, and were using her as a mere beast of burden, when
+Sampson Gundry fell on them. He, with his followers, being enraged
+at the cold-blooded death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such
+purpose that women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
+propensities.
+
+But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
+stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief. She was in such
+poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest humanity
+would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble of her
+carriage. But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and Sawyer
+Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the value of
+uncultivated gratitude. And her virtues were so many that it took a
+long time to find them out, for she never put them forward, not knowing
+whether they were good or bad.
+
+Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it was
+a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them. But when I came to
+understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing I was ashamed
+of was my own mistrust of them. Not that I expected ever that any harm
+would be done to me, only that I knew myself to have no claim on any
+one.
+
+One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble, Sampson
+Gundry's grandson “Firm”--as he was called for Ephraim--ran up the
+stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
+
+“Miss Rema, will you come with us?” he said, in his deep, slow style of
+speech. “We are going up the mountain, to haul down the great tree to
+the mill.”
+
+“To be sure I will come,” I answered, gladly. “What great tree is it,
+Mr. Ephraim?”
+
+“The largest tree any where near here--the one we cut down last winter.
+Ten days it took to cut it down. If I could have saved it, it should
+have stood. But grandfather did it to prove his rights. We shall have a
+rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if we can tackle it. I thought you
+might like to see us try.”
+
+In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of the
+air made cloak or shawl unbearable. But when I ran down to the yard
+of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and gave me an
+order too.
+
+“You must not go like this, my dear. We have three thousand feet to go
+upward. The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we shall be home
+by night-fall. Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's cloak, and a pair
+of thicker boots for change.”
+
+Suan Isco never ran. That manner of motion was foreign to her, at
+least as we accomplish it. When speed was required, she attained it
+by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel. In this way she
+conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.
+
+The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a sudden
+joy to me. In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry, clearing all
+tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep places as if
+twoscore were struck off his threescore years and five. From time to
+time he turned round to laugh, or see that his men and trained bullocks
+were right; and then, as his bright eyes met my dark ones, he seemed
+to be sorry for the noise he made. On the other hand, I was ashamed of
+damping any one's pleasure by being there.
+
+But I need not have felt any fear about this. Like all other children,
+I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and behaved as if
+my state of mind was a thing to be considered. But the longer we rose
+through the freedom and the height, the lighter grew the heart of every
+one, until the thick forest of pines closed round us, and we walked in a
+silence that might be felt.
+
+Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much trouble
+with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a rugged cone, or
+crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of a tree. The tree
+was still there, but not its glory; for, alas! the mighty trunk lay
+prostrate--a grander column than ever was or will be built by human
+hands. The tapering shaft stretched out of sight for something like a
+furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose over us so that we could not see
+the mountains. Having never seen any such tree before, I must have been
+amazed if I had been old enough to comprehend it.
+
+Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every thing,
+collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-floor or area
+of the stump before he would say any thing. Here we all looked so
+sadly small that several of the men began to laugh; the bullocks seemed
+nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the branches or the fibres of
+the tree; and the chains and the shackles, and the blocks and cranes,
+and all the rest of the things they meant to use, seemed nothing
+whatever, or at all to be considered, except as a spider's web upon this
+tree.
+
+The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to
+do, looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and
+some cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called
+upon to work. The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the
+vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red,
+and soft gray where the lichens grew.
+
+Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little, having
+had lately some trouble with his throat. Then in his sturdy manner
+he spoke the truth, according to his nature. He set his great square
+shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered himself:
+
+“Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here, and I
+own to it. It serves me right for disbelieving what my grandson, Firm
+Gundry, said. I knew that the tree was a big one, of course, as every
+body else does; but till you see a tree laid upon earth you get no grip
+of his girth, no more than you do of a man till he lieth a corpse.
+At the time of felling I could not come anigh him, by reason of an
+accident; and I had some words with this boy about it, which kept me
+away ever since that time. Firm, you were right, and I was wrong. It was
+a real shame, now I see it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.'
+But, for all that, being down, we must use him. He shall be sawn into
+fifty-foot lengths. And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven
+good turns at him.”
+
+At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's manly
+truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these visits to
+the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good. But before the
+descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim did what appeared to
+me to be a gallant and straightforward thing. He stood on the chine
+of the fallen monster, forty feet above us, having gained the post of
+vantage by activity and strength, and he asked if he might say a word or
+two.
+
+“Say away, lad,” cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
+obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson
+was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of that
+tree--an act which had roused indignation over a hundred leagues of
+lowland.
+
+“Neighbors,” said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at first
+with diffidence, “we all have to thank you, more than I can tell, for
+coming to help us with this job. It was a job which required to be done
+for legal reasons which I do not understand, but no doubt they were good
+ones. For that we have my grandfather's word; and no one, I think, will
+gainsay it. Now, having gone so far, we will not be beaten by it, or
+else we shall not be Americans.”
+
+These simple words were received with great applause; and an orator,
+standing on the largest stump to be found even in America, delivered a
+speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be repeated. And
+Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his grandson's conduct.
+
+“Firm knoweth the right thing to do,” he said; “and like a man he doeth
+it. But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see in the
+distance yonner? Never mind, my dear, then. Tell me by-and-by, when none
+of these folk is 'longside of us.”
+
+But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under pain
+of his displeasure. I had spied on the sky-line far above us, in the
+desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father stood and bade
+me seek this landmark. His memory was true, and his eyesight also; but
+the great tree had been felled. The death of the “King of the Mountains”
+ had led to the death of the king of mankind, so far as my little world
+contained one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+UNCLE SAM
+
+
+The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me. The
+warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust were
+broken by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft green of
+leaves. We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the peach to the
+amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the river--not large,
+but most fantastic. Here I used to sit and wonder, in a foolish,
+childish way, whether on earth there was any other child so strangely
+placed as I was. Of course there were thousands far worse off, more
+desolate and destitute, but was there any more thickly wrapped in
+mystery and loneliness?
+
+A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change of
+place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of time.
+Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed out of me by
+any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky children
+huddled together in large cities. My father had never allowed me much
+acquaintance with other children; for six years he had left me with a
+community of lay sisters, in a little town of Languedoc, where I was the
+only pupil, and where I was to remain as I was born, a simple heretic.
+Those sisters were very good to me, and taught me as much as I could
+take of secular accomplishment. And it was a bitter day for me when I
+left them for America.
+
+For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals, and
+had almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with him. I used
+to be the one little comfort of his perpetual wanderings, when I was a
+careless child, and said things to amuse him. Not that he ever played
+with me any more than he played with any thing; but I was the last of
+his seven children, and he liked to watch me grow. I never knew it,
+I never guessed it, until he gave his life for mine; but, poor little
+common thing as I was, I became his only tie to earth. Even to me he
+was never loving, in the way some fathers are. He never called me by pet
+names, nor dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my
+hair and smiled. Such things I never expected of him, and therefore
+never missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have
+them.
+
+But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier children:
+I had the pleasure of knowing my own name. My name was an English
+one--Castlewood--and by birth I was an English girl, though of England
+I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought most easily in French.
+But my longing had always been for England, and for the sound of English
+voices and the quietude of English ways. In the chatter and heat and
+drought of South France some faint remembrance of a greener, cooler,
+and more silent country seemed to touch me now and then. But where in
+England I had lived, or when I had left that country, or whether I had
+relations there, and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl--all these
+questions were but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
+
+Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about them) I
+never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way,
+such as clever children have, get second-hand information. In the
+first place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had
+underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any
+thing about me. Like all other girls--and perhaps the very same tendency
+is to be found in boys--I had strong though hazy ideas of caste. The
+noble sense of equality, fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in
+life than childhood, which is an age of ambition. I did not know who in
+the world I was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
+
+One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with the
+aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting tackle
+were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr. Gundry, being
+full of the subject, declared that he would have his dinner in the mill
+yard. He was anxious to watch, without loss of time, the settlement of
+some heavy timbers newly sunk in the river's bed, to defend the outworks
+of the mill. Having his good leave to bring him his pipe, I found him
+sitting upon a bench with a level fixed before him, and his empty
+plate and cup laid by, among a great litter of tools and things. He was
+looking along the level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly
+intent; but when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and
+made me think that I was not interrupting him.
+
+“Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam,” I said; for, in spite of all his formal
+ways, I would not be afraid of him. I had known him now quite long
+enough to be sure he was good and kind. And I knew that the world around
+these parts was divided into two hemispheres, the better half being
+of those who loved, and the baser half made of those who hated, Sawyer
+Sampson Gundry.
+
+“What a queer world it is!” said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to
+consider that point. “Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years agone,
+that your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe to light
+for my father's son?”
+
+“Uncle Sam,” I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs which
+seem to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of blue
+smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy curls of
+hair--“dear Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor to a princess
+to light a pipe for a man like you.”
+
+“Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense,” he answered,
+very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I had offended
+him. Not knowing how to assert myself and declare that I had spoken my
+honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the bench and waited for him to
+speak again to me. But he made believe to be very busy, and scarcely to
+know that I was there. I had a great mind to cry, but resolved not to do
+it.
+
+“Why, how is this? What's the matter?” he exclaimed at last, when I had
+been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where it was going
+to. “Why, missy, you look as if you had never a friend in all the wide
+world left.”
+
+“Then I must look very ungrateful,” I said; “for at any rate I have one,
+and a good one.”
+
+“And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?”
+
+“You and Suan Isco and Firm--those are all I have any knowledge of.”
+
+“'Tis a plenty--to my mind, almost too many. My plan is to be a good
+friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me. Rest you quite
+satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have lived a good many years, and I
+never had more than three friends worth a puff of my pipe.”
+
+“But one's own relations, Uncle Sam--people quite nearly related to us:
+it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know.”
+
+“Do I, my dear? Then I wish that I did. Except one's own father and
+mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them. My own brother
+took a twist against me because I tried to save him from ruin; and if
+any man ever wished me ill, he did. And I think that your father had the
+same tale to tell. But there! I know nothing whatever about that.”
+
+“Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to tell
+me, or rather I demand it. I am old enough now, and I am certain my dear
+father would have wished me to know every thing. Whatever it was, I am
+sure that he was right; and until I know that, I shall always be the
+most miserable of the miserable.”
+
+The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning,
+and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles of
+inquiry. He quite forgot his level and his great post in the river, and
+tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on his big brown arm.
+“Lord bless me!” he said, “what a young gal you are! Or, at least, what
+a young Miss Rema. What good can you do, miss, by making of a rout? Here
+you be in as quiet a place as you could find, and all of us likes
+and pities you. Your father was a wise man to settle you here in this
+enlightened continent. Let the doggoned old folk t'other side of the
+world think out their own flustrations. A female young American you are
+now, and a very fine specimen you will grow. 'Tis the finest thing to be
+on all God's earth.”
+
+“No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an Englishwoman.
+The Americans may be more kind and generous, and perhaps my father
+thought so, and brought me here for that reason. And I may be glad to
+come back to you again when I have done what I am bound to do. Remember
+that I am the last of seven children, and do not even know where the
+rest are buried.”
+
+“Now look straight afore you, missy. What do you see yonner?” The Sawyer
+was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long interruption.
+
+“I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't even
+know the names of. Also I see a bright, swift river.”
+
+“But over here, missy, between them two oaks. What do you please to see
+there, Miss Rema?”
+
+“What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill.”
+
+“But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been at
+all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my family.
+Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power and human
+ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months of a stretch,
+except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after night, and bending
+all my intellect over it? And could I have done that, think you now,
+if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs, and this, that, and the
+other?”
+
+Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and spread
+his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly with his
+deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph. To his mind, that mill was the
+wonder of the world, and any argument based upon it, with or without
+coherence, was, like its circular saws, irresistible. And yet he thought
+that women can not reason! However, I did not say another word just
+then, but gave way to him, as behooved a child. And not only that, but I
+always found him too good to be argued with--too kind, I mean, and large
+of heart, and wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about
+him that one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he
+always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him that
+they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite to tell
+them so. And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of looking down into
+one's little thoughts when he put on his spectacles, that to say any
+more was to hazard the risk of ungrateful inexperience.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BRITISHER
+
+
+The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the mountains,
+full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six miles from its
+source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that space and time it
+had gathered strong and copious volume. The lovely blue of the water
+(like the inner tint of a glacier) was partly due to its origin,
+perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft tone of the granite sand spread
+under it. Whatever the cause may have been, the river well deserved its
+title.
+
+It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it even
+seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and the myriad
+sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain. Plodding through
+the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-foot, through the
+stifling vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare, the traveler suddenly
+came upon this cool and calm delight. It was not to be descried afar,
+for it lay below the level, and the oaks and other trees of shelter
+scarcely topped the narrow comb. There was no canyon, such as are--and
+some of them known over all the world--both to the north and south of
+it. The Blue River did not owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but
+sparkled on its cheerful way without impending horrors. Standing here
+as a child, and thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men
+never wept nor owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's
+contempt for the gushing transport of brave men. For instance, I have
+seen a miner, or a tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or (perhaps
+the bravest of all) a man of science and topography, jaded, worn, and
+nearly dead with drought and dearth and choking, suddenly, and beyond
+all hope, strike on this buried Eden. And then he dropped on his knees
+and spread his starved hands upward, if he could, and thanked the God
+who made him, till his head went round, and who knows what remembrance
+of loved ones came to him? And then, if he had any moisture left, he
+fell to a passion of weeping.
+
+In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded himself,
+and should have been born a woman. But since that time I have truly
+learned that the bravest of men are those who feel their Maker's Land
+most softly, and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of their weakness to
+Him.
+
+Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track along
+the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento southward,
+there was scarcely a week which did not bring us some traveler needing
+comfort. Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he would set up a rough
+hotel, or house of call for cattle-drovers, miners, loafers, and so
+on, he might turn twice the money he could ever make by his thriving
+saw-mill. But he only used to laugh, and say that nature had made him
+too honest for that; and he never thought of charging any thing for his
+hospitality, though if a rich man left a gold piece, or even a nugget,
+upon a shelf, as happened very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain
+to set it aside for a rainy day. And one of his richest or most lavish
+guests arrived on my account, perhaps.
+
+It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of the
+earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had crept
+already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their summer in our
+band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food get short, and to
+prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having never felt bitter cold,
+was trembling at what I heard of it. For now it was clear that I had no
+choice but to stay where I was for the present, and be truly thankful to
+God and man for having the chance of doing so. For the little relics
+of my affairs--so far as I had any--had taken much time in arrangement,
+perhaps because it was so hard to find them. I knew nothing, except
+about my own little common wardrobe, and could give no information about
+the contents of my father's packages. But these, by dint of perseverance
+on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all rights), had mainly
+been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the best that could be done
+concerning them. Whatever seemed of a private nature, or likely to prove
+important, had been brought home to Blue River Mills; the rest had been
+sold, and had fetched large prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.
+
+He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long
+afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar upon
+his bounty. I had never been accustomed to think of money, and felt
+some little contempt for it--not, indeed, a lofty hatred, but a careless
+wonder why it seemed to be always thought of. It was one of the last
+things I ever thought of; and those who were waiting for it were--until
+I got used to them--obliged in self-duty to remind me.
+
+This, however, was not my fault. I never dreamed of wronging them. But
+I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any where, much
+though I had wandered about, according to vague recollections. The duty
+of paying had never been mine; that important part had been done for me.
+And my father had such a horror always of any growth of avarice that he
+never gave me sixpence.
+
+And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from Suan
+Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be different
+from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the neighborhood must have
+made them full of it; and once or twice I asked Uncle Sam; but he only
+nodded his head, and said that it was the practice every where. And
+before very long I began to perceive that he did not exaggerate.
+
+Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance above
+referred to--the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of bribing even
+Uncle Sam himself. This happened in the month of November, when the
+passes were beginning to be blocked with snow, and those of the higher
+mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed with it. On this particular
+day the air was laden with gray, oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy
+downfall, and instead of faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I
+was kept in-doors, and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache. This
+is a crushing weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are
+obliged to endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when
+the first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
+overhead. But I was more lucky than most people are; for after about
+twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which the sweetest
+sound was odious, and the idea of food quite loathsome, the agony left
+me, and a great desire for something to eat succeeded. Suan Isco, the
+kindest of the kind, was gone down stairs at last, for which I felt
+ungrateful gratitude--because she had been doing her best to charm
+away my pain by low, monotonous Indian ditties, which made it ten times
+worse; and yet I could not find heart to tell her so.
+
+Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the November
+day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to lift it. The
+light of the west had been faint, and was dead; though often it used
+to prolong our day by the backward glance of the ocean. With pangs of
+youthful hunger, but a head still weak and dazy, I groped my way in the
+dark through the passage and down the stairs of redwood.
+
+At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into the
+house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual cheerful
+company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were only two
+people present. The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of state, delaying
+even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his face set sternly, as I
+had never before beheld it. In the visitor's corner, as we called it,
+where people sat to dry themselves, there was a man, and only one.
+
+Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them. The
+room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality. Some kind of
+meal had been made at the table, as always must be in these parts;
+but not of the genial, reckless sort which random travelers carried
+on without any check from the Sawyer. For he of all men ever born in
+a civilized age was the finest host, and a guest beneath his roof
+was sacred as a lady to a knight. Hence it happened that I was much
+surprised. Proper conduct almost compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity
+made me take just one more little peep, perhaps. Looking back at these
+things now, I can not be sure of every thing; and indeed if I could, I
+must have an almost supernatural memory. But I remember many things; and
+the headache may have cleared my mind.
+
+The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff
+condition was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow made
+an eddy. He seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the tricks of
+the hearth flame, presenting as he did a most solid face for any light
+to play upon. To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten face of a bluff and
+resolute man, the like of which we attribute to John Bull. At any rate,
+he was like John Bull in one respect: he was sturdy and square, and fit
+to hold his own with any man.
+
+Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where), and
+been kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English blood,
+had a kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather have such at
+his board than even a true-born American; and infinitely more welcome
+were they than Frenchman, Spaniard, or German, or any man not to be
+distinguished, as was the case with some of them. Even now it was clear
+that the Sawyer had not grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall,
+square, brazen candlesticks, of Boston make, were on the table, and
+very little light they gave. The fire, however, was grandly roaring of
+stub-oak and pine antlers, and the black grill of the chimney bricks
+was fringed with lifting filaments. It was a rich, ripe light, affording
+breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of the two men glistened, and
+darkened in their creases.
+
+I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see them
+so clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way to the
+larder, or return to my room and starve a little longer; for I did not
+wish to interrupt, and had no idea of listening. But suddenly I was
+compelled to stop; and to listen became an honest thing, when I knew
+what was spoken of--or, at any rate, I did it.
+
+“Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man that I
+have come to ask about. And you will find it worth your while to tell me
+all you know of him.” Thus spoke the Englishman sitting in the corner;
+and he seemed to be certain of producing his effect.
+
+“Wal,” said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be the
+universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his sleeve,
+“Squire, I guess that you may be right. Considerations of that 'ere kind
+desarves to be considered of.”
+
+“Just so. I knew that you must see it,” the stranger continued, bravely.
+“A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well to begin with.
+But all you enlightened members of the great republic know what is what.
+It will bring you more than ten years' income of your saw-mill, and
+farm, and so on, to deal honestly with me for ten minutes. No more
+beating about the bush and fencing with me, as you have done. Now can
+you see your own interest?”
+
+“I never were reckoned a fool at that. Squire, make tracks, and be done
+with it.”
+
+“Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel--for I believe you are all colonels
+here--your task is very simple. We want clear proof, sworn properly and
+attested duly, of the death of a villain--George Castlewood, otherwise
+the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise Lord Castlewood: a man who
+murdered his own father ten years ago this November: a man committed
+for trial for the crime, but who bribed his jailers and escaped, and
+wandered all over the Continent. What is that noise? Have you got rats?”
+
+“Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other
+varmint. Wal, Squire, go on with it.”
+
+The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury, as
+I, who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart with
+patience.
+
+“The story is well known,” continued the stranger: “we need make no
+bones of it. George Castlewood went about under a curse--”
+
+“Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please. My household is not
+altogether seasoned.”
+
+“And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere. I heard a report to
+that effect. But here you think nothing of a dozen murders. Now, Gundry,
+let us have no squeamishness. We only want justice, and we can pay for
+it. Ten thousand dollars I am authorized to offer for a mere act of duty
+on your part. We have an extradition treaty. If the man had been alive,
+we must have had him. But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can
+only see his grave and have evidence. And all well-disposed people must
+rejoice to have such a quiet end of it. For the family is so well known,
+you see.”
+
+“I see,” Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips.
+“Guess you want something more than that, though, Squire. Is there
+nothing more than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?”
+
+“Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well. We know that she was with him
+in that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call it.
+We know that you have made oath of his death, produced his child, and
+obtained his trunks, and drawn his share in the insurance job. Your laws
+must be queer to let you do such things. In England it would have taken
+at least three years, and cost a deal more than the things were worth,
+even without a Chancery suit. However, of his papers I shall take
+possession; they can be of no earthly use to you.”
+
+“To be sure. And possession of his darter too, without so much as a
+Chancery suit. But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin' wrong in
+this little transaction?”
+
+“I can very soon satisfy you,” said the stranger, “as to their identity.
+Here is their full, particular, and correct description--names, weights,
+and colors of the parties.”
+
+With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew forth his
+pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to smooth on his knee
+quite leisurely. Meanwhile, in my hiding-place, I was trembling with
+terror and indignation. The sense of eavesdropping was wholly lost, in
+that of my own jeopardy. I must know what was arranged about me; for
+I felt such a hatred and fear of that stranger that sooner than be
+surrendered to him I would rush back to my room and jump out of the
+window, and trust myself to the trackless forest and the snowy night.
+I was very nearly doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear
+what would be said of me. So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails,
+while the stranger read slowly and pompously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DISCOMFITURE
+
+
+The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet waistcoat,
+and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get the full light of
+the candles. I saw him as clearly as I could wish, and, indeed, a great
+deal too clearly; for the more I saw of the man, the more I shrank from
+the thought of being in his power. Not that he seemed to be brutal or
+fierce, but selfish, and resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of
+lofty feelings. Short dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed
+his large, thick-featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the
+clumsy sneer of a wide, coarse mouth. I watched him with all my eyes,
+because of his tone of authority about myself. He might even be my
+guardian or my father's nearest relation--though he seemed to be too
+ill-bred for that.
+
+“Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel,” he went on, in a patronizing tone,
+such as he had assumed throughout. “Here it is. Now prick your ears up,
+and see if these candid remarks apply. I am reading from a printed form,
+you see:
+
+“'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten
+years older. His height is over six feet two, and he does not stoop or
+slouch at all. His hair is long and abundant, but white; his eyes are
+dark, piercing, and gloomy. His features are fine, and of Italian cast,
+but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he never uses razor. On the back
+of his left hand, near the wrist, there is a broad scar. He dresses in
+half-mourning always, and never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns
+all society, and prefers uncivilized regions. He never stays long in
+any town, and follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are
+military, as he has been a cavalry officer. From time to time he has
+been heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in
+America.
+
+“'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen with
+him. She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks French better
+than English. Her hair is very nearly black, and her eyes of unusual
+size and lustre. She is shy, and appears to have been kept under, and
+she has a timid smile. Whether she knows of her father's crime or not is
+quite uncertain; but she follows him like a dog almost.'
+
+“There now, Colonel,” cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper
+triumphantly; “most of that came from my information, though I never set
+eyes upon the child. Does the cap fit or not, Brother Jonathan?”
+
+Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite pipe,
+carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat. And being thus appealed
+to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been dozing, though
+he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew his attitudes, could
+tell. And my eyes filled with tears of love and shame, for I knew by the
+mere turn of his chin that he never would surrender me.
+
+“Stranger,” he said, in a most provoking drawl, “a hard day's work
+tells its tale on me, you bet. You do read so bootiful, you read me hard
+asleep. And the gutturals of that furrin English is always a little hard
+to catch. Mought I trouble you just to go through it again? You likes
+the sound of your own voice; and no blame to you, being such a swate
+un.”
+
+The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of
+being chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend of
+his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was asked.
+But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between the
+candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle Sam, the
+most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of that glance. The
+man should have no more under that roof.
+
+With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a
+wreath of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying, “Now
+I beg you to attend this time,” read the whole of his description, with
+much emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned away and beat time
+upon the hearth, with his white hair, broad shoulders, and red ears
+prominent. The Englishman looked very seriously vexed, but went through
+his business doggedly. “Are you satisfied now?” he asked when he had
+finished.
+
+“Wal, now, Squire,” replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his provoking
+drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very steadfastly,
+“some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they seems a'most as
+good as well-slung flapjacks. A natteral honest stomick can't nohow have
+enough of them. Mought I be so bold, in a silly, mountaneous sort of a
+way, as to ax for another heerin' of it?”
+
+“Do you mean to insult me, Sir?” shouted the visitor, leaping up with a
+flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of attack.
+
+“Stranger, I mought,” answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before him,
+and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back--“I mought so do,
+barrin' one little point. The cutest commissioner in all the West would
+have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to diskiver somethin'
+capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your natur'.”
+
+With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his mouth,
+signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase of
+discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted. His visitor stared at him
+for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and then fell back into
+self-command, without attempting bluster.
+
+“Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the herring
+pond. What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you elegantly express it
+here?”
+
+“Britisher, nothing. You know no better. It takes more than that to put
+my back up. But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a heaved you out
+o' window.”
+
+“Why, Colonel, why? Now be reasonable. Not a word have I said reflecting
+either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than I have made can
+not come to many of you, even in this land of gold. Ten thousand dollars
+I offer, and I will exceed my instructions and say fifteen, all paid on
+the nail by an order on Frisco, about which you may assure yourself. And
+what do I ask in return? Legal proof of the death of a man whom we know
+to be dead, and the custody of his child, for her own good.”
+
+“Squire, I have no other answer to make. If you offered me all the gold
+dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could only say what
+I have said before. You came from Sylvester's ranch--there is time for
+you to get back ere the snow begins.”
+
+“What a hospitable man you are! Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve to
+have a medal from our Humane Society. You propose to turn me out of
+doors to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?”
+
+“Sir, the fault is entirely your own. What hospitality can you expect
+after coming to buy my guest? If you are afraid of the ten-mile ride,
+my man at the mill will bed you. But here you must not sleep, because
+I might harm you in the morning. I am apt to lose my temper sometimes,
+when I go on to think of things.”
+
+“Colonel, I think I had better ride back. I fear no man, nor his temper,
+nor crotchets. But if I were snowed up at your mill, I never might
+cross the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I can always get to
+Minto. You refuse, then, to help me in any way?”
+
+“More than that. I will do every thing in my power to confound you. If
+any one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be shot.”
+
+“That is most discouraging. However, you may think better of it. Write
+to this address if you do. You have the girl here, of course?”
+
+“That is her concern and mine. Does your guide know the way right well!
+The snow is beginning. You do not know our snows, any more than you know
+us.”
+
+“Never mind, Mr. Gundry. I shall do very well. You are rough in your
+ways, but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is virtuous.
+But mark my words upon one little point. If George Castlewood had been
+living, I have such credentials that I would have dragged him back with
+me in spite of all your bluster. But over his corpse I have no control,
+in the present condition of treaties. Neither can I meddle with his
+daughter, if it were worth while to do so. Keep her and make the best of
+her, my man. You have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that
+is what you are up for. A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad
+lot, as her father was. If you wish the name of Gundry to have its due
+respect hereafter, let the heir of the sawmills have nothing to do with
+the Honorable Miss Castlewood.”
+
+“Let alone, let alone,” Uncle Sam said, angrily. “It is well for you
+that the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence. Firm is
+a steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with. No fear
+of losing the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind you. But,
+meddlesome as you be, and a bitter weed to my experience, it shall not
+be said that Sampson Gundry sent forth a fellow to be frozen. Drink a
+glass of hot whiskey before you get to saddle. Not in friendship, mind
+you, Sir, but in common human nature.”
+
+That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the driving
+snow, now huddling against the window-frames. And so he went out; and
+when he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light, and threw my arms
+round the Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he was ashamed of me.
+
+“Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on so?”
+
+“Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough to
+doubt you.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A DOUBTFUL LOSS
+
+
+When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
+astonished at the state of things. To look out fairly was impossible;
+for not only was all the lower part of the frame hillocked up like a
+sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky plaits, but even in the
+middle, where some outlook was, it led to very little. All the air
+seemed choked with snow, and the ground coming up in piles to meet it;
+all sounds were deadened in the thick gray hush, and nothing had its own
+proportion. Never having seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and
+longed to know more of it.
+
+Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined, when
+I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open through the
+winter.
+
+“It can be done--I am sure it can,” I exclaimed, with vigorous
+ignorance. “May I do it if I can? It only requires perseverance. If you
+keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it. Don't you
+see, Uncle Sam?”
+
+“To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff. Suan, fetch a
+double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget while you
+be up there to give special orders--no snow is to fall at night or when
+missy is at dinner.”
+
+“You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to try it.
+I must try to keep my path to--somewhere.”
+
+“What a fool I am, to be sure!” said Mr. Gundry, softly. “There, now, I
+beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it. Firm and I
+will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it. Why, the snow is
+two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places. I wonder whether that
+rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch last night? No fault of
+mine if he never did, for go he would in spite of me.”
+
+I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his
+name until it was told in this way. My mind was dwelling on my father's
+grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could not bear the
+idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody coming to care for him.
+Kind hands had borne him down the mountains (while I lay between life
+and death) and buried him in the soft peach orchard, in the soothing
+sound of the mill-wheel. Here had been planted above his head a cross
+of white un-painted wood, bearing only his initials, and a small “Amen”
+ below them.
+
+With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished no
+better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of pomp.
+There was no “consecrated ground” within miles and miles of traveling;
+but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears to hallow it.
+For often and often, even now, I could not help giving way and sobbing,
+when I thought how sad it was that a strong, commanding, mighty man, of
+great will and large experience, should drop in a corner of the world
+and die, and finally be thought lucky--when he could think for himself
+no longer--to obtain a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his
+initials, and have a water-wheel to sing to him. Many a time it set
+me crying, and made me long to lie down with him, until I thought of
+earth-worms.
+
+All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let me
+have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it. But even with a
+steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way unstopped, such solid
+masses of the mountain clouds now descended over us. And never had I
+been so humored in my foolish wishes: I was quite ashamed to see the
+trouble great men took to please me.
+
+“Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm,” said the Sawyer, coming in one day,
+with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. “Not that I care a cent for the
+fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe. Still, he might
+have had time to mend, if his time had been as good as the room for it.
+However, no blame rests on us. I told him to bed down to saw-mill. They
+Englishmen never know when they are well off. But the horse got home,
+they tell me?”
+
+“The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other horse
+and man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must have died out
+in the snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall never know the rights.”
+
+“How many times did I tell him,” the Sawyer replied, without much
+discontent, “that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a night
+as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars than he
+could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone, time upon
+time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of things. They
+take every body else for a liar.”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?” I cried. “Is it that dreadful--that poor man
+who wanted to carry me away from you?”
+
+“Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth,” Mr. Gundry answered,
+more roughly than usual. “Leave you all such points to the Lord. They
+are not for young ladies to talk about.”
+
+“Grandfather, don't you be too hard,” said Firm, as he saw me hurrying
+away. “Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only concerning her
+own affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others will.”
+
+“Very well, then, so be it,” the Sawyer replied; for he yielded more to
+his grandson than to the rest of the world put together. “Turn the log
+up, Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on without victuals all
+day, but an old man must feed regular. And, bad as he was, I thank God
+for sending him on his way home with his belly full. If ever he turneth
+up in the snow, that much can be proved to my account.”
+
+Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I could
+not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not at the
+death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so in going
+from a hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any body said
+concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the thought of a
+whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.
+
+“Find him, Firm, find him,” he said, in his deep sad voice, as he sat
+down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily. “And when
+he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we gave him his
+bellyful.”
+
+Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of the
+neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot, that he
+might hurry out again. Then he took his dinner standing, and without a
+word went forth to seek.
+
+“Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler,” the old man shouted after him,
+and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to show that
+he heard him. The snow was again falling heavily, and the afternoon was
+waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush of the mighty tail of
+the great dog Jowler.
+
+“Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!” I cried, in dismay at the great
+white waste. “And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead. Do call him
+back, or let me run.”
+
+Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where
+he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the
+butter-beans.
+
+“Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way from
+the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground, and he was
+hard at work with the loppings?”
+
+“Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody else
+could have noticed such a thing at such a distance.”
+
+“Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this
+house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down, although
+it was a burning hot May morn?”
+
+“Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do! It
+was weeks before I could thank him, even. But you must have seen him do
+it all.”
+
+The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal of
+rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an argument went
+to his liking. He said nothing more for the present, but had his dinner,
+and enjoyed it.
+
+“Supposing now that he did all that,” he resumed, about an hour
+afterward, “is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his own
+self in a snow-drift? He has three men with him, and he is worth all
+three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out forty feet of snow
+ere now. If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad, has had the luck to cheat
+the hangman, and the honor to die in a Californy snow-drift, you may
+take my experience for it, missy, Firm and Jowler will find him, and
+clear Uncle Sam's reputation.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WATER-SPOUT
+
+
+If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the other.
+Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with snow and
+most hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out all the night,
+because he had failed of his errand. Jowler also was full of discontent
+and trouble of conscience. He knew, when he kicked up his heels in the
+snow, that his duty was to find somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree,
+and trained to act up to his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with
+failure.
+
+“It comes to the same thing,” said Sawyer Gundry; “it is foolish to
+be so particular. A thousand better men have sunk through being so
+pig-headed. We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in
+April, if the season suits. Firm, eat your supper and shake yourself.”
+
+This was exactly the Sawyer's way--to take things quietly when convinced
+that there was no chance to better them. He would always do his best
+about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the matter small or great,
+he had a smiling face for the end of it.
+
+The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went at
+last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its gradual way
+to us. Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and more easy changes,
+I lost myself in admiration of this my first Californian spring. The
+flowers, the leagues and leagues of flowers, that burst into color and
+harmony--purple, yellow, and delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson
+threads, and fringed with emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the
+course of rivers, while deepened here and there by wooded shelter and
+cool places, with the silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far
+distance, and silken vapor drawing toward the carding forks of the
+mountain range; and over all the never-wearying azure of the limpid sky:
+child as I was, and full of little worldly troubles on my own account,
+these grand and noble sights enlarged me without any thinking.
+
+The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full
+blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost as
+large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness, ere the
+yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some gully sent
+a strong flood down our Blue River. The saw-mill happened to be hard at
+work; and before the gear could be lifted, some damage was done to the
+floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of the torrent. Uncle Sam was away,
+and so was Firm; from which, perhaps, the mischief grew. However, the
+blame was all put on the river, and little more was said of it.
+
+The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-doors,
+under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things. The stream
+was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its gravel-path of fine
+granite just as usual, except that it had more volume and a stronger
+sense of freshness. Only the bent of the grasses and the swath of the
+pendulous twigs down stream remained to show that there must have been
+some violence quite lately.
+
+All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as need
+be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they were no
+constraint to it. And none but a practiced eye could see that the great
+wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted now above the power
+of the current, according to the fine old plan of locking the door when
+the horse is gone.
+
+When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief, Martin,
+the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth full of
+breakfast.
+
+“Show me,” I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance,
+“where and what the damage is. Is there any strain to the iron-work?”
+
+“Lor' a mercy, young missus!” he answered, gruffly, being by no means a
+polished man, “where did you ever hear of ironwork? Needles and pins is
+enough for you. Now don't you go and make no mischief.”
+
+“I have no idea what you mean,” I answered. “If you have been careless,
+that is no concern of mine.”
+
+“Careless, indeed! And the way I works, when others is a-snorin' in
+their beds! I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get more thanks
+and better wages. That's the way of the world all over. Come Saturday
+week, I shall better myself.”
+
+“But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better
+yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!” I put this
+question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young, meaning no
+kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went by without his
+threatening to “better himself.” And they said that he had done so for
+seven years or more.
+
+“Don't you be too sharp,” he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
+himself, perhaps. “If half as I heard about you is true, you'll want
+all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy. And the Britishers are worse
+than we be.”
+
+“Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me,” I said, “if you saw any
+person injuring me. But what is it I am not to tell your master?”
+
+“My master, indeed! Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing about
+what you have seen. It might lead to hard words; and hard words are not
+the style of thing I put up with. If any man tries hard words with me, I
+knocks him down, up sticks, and makes tracks.”
+
+I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk. Sawyer Gundry could
+have taken him with one hand and tossed him over the undershot wheel.
+
+“You forget that I have not seen any thing,” I said, “and understand
+nothing but 'needles and pins.' But, for fear of doing any harm, I will
+not even say that I have been down here, unless I am asked about it.”
+
+“Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some day.
+Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-doin' of?
+The finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn old chap takes to
+quartz-crushing.”
+
+All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good friends,
+while he shook his long head and went home to feed many pappooses.
+For the strangest thing of all things was, though I never at that time
+thought of it, that there was not any one about this place whom any one
+could help liking. Martin took as long as any body to be liked, until
+one understood him; but after that he was one of the best, in many ways
+that can not be described. Also there was a pair of negroes, simply and
+sweetly delightful. They worked all day and they sang all night, though
+I had not the pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised
+them--because they were black, and she was only brown--the more they
+made up to her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals.
+It was childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never get
+rid of them. The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that a large,
+free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every thing. Martin
+was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had established a long right
+to do so by never himself being grumbled at.
+
+“I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way,” Mr. Gundry said at
+breakfast-time. “He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear that he
+won't eat a bit for the day. Martin is a most conscientious man. He will
+offer to give up his berth, although it would be his simple ruin.”
+
+I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me keenly. He
+knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me to say something.
+
+“We all must have our little mistakes,” continued Sawyer Gundry; “but I
+never like to push a man when he feels it. I shall not say a syllable to
+Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like. When a fellow sticks well to
+his work like Martin, never blame him for a mere accident.”
+
+Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite
+agree. In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he did not
+argue with his grandfather.
+
+“I shall just go down and put it right myself. Martin is a poor hand at
+repairing. Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh has hurt the
+hurdles. Missy, you may come with me, if you please, and sketch me at
+work in the mill-wheel. You have drawn that wheel such a sight of times,
+you must know every feather of it better than the man who made it.”
+
+“Uncle Sam, you are too bad,” I said. “I have never got it right, and I
+never shall.”
+
+I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the
+end--that I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was
+incorrect. In spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and ingenuity,
+the wheel was no true circle. The error began in the hub itself, and
+increased, of course, with the distance; but still it worked very well,
+like many other things that are not perfect.
+
+Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own
+perception of “perspective,” I sat down once more in my favorite spot,
+and waited for the master to appear as an active figure in the midst
+of it. The air was particularly bright and clear, even for that pure
+climate, and I could even see the blue-winged flies darting in and out
+of the oozy floats. But half-way up the mountains a white cloud was
+hanging, a cloud that kept on changing shape. I only observed it as a
+thing to put in for my background, because I was fond of trying to tone
+and touch up my sketches with French chalks.
+
+Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery. The
+bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put on, to
+keep the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight. Martin, the
+foreman, was grumbling and growling, according to his habit, and peering
+through the slot, or channel of stone, in which the axle worked, and the
+cheery voice of Mr. Gundry was putting down his objections. Being much
+too large to pass through the slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner
+of the building, with a heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his
+neck, and his canvas breeches girt above his knees. But the foreman
+staid inside to hand him the needful material into the wheel.
+
+The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was always
+like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little skull-cap to me,
+and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were nearer seventeen than
+seventy. And presently I could only see his legs and arms as he fell to
+work. Therefore I also fell to work, with my best attempts at penciling,
+having been carefully taught enough of drawing to know that I could not
+draw. And perhaps I caught from the old man's presence and the sound of
+his activity that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart
+to every one.
+
+At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the changing
+light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to my distance,
+till suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and upon my hat, and
+a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then
+again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung
+heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept
+grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But
+there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and
+air.
+
+This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to
+run away. But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never heard it
+sound. He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to sky or stream,
+and the fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as if the place
+resented them.
+
+“Come away, come away,” I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite bank
+to him; “there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am sure. I
+entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam. Every thing is so strange
+and odd.”
+
+“Why, what's to do now?” asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the
+wheel and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his apron
+wedged in a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in the
+impossibility of hurry. “Missy, don't you make a noise out there. You
+can't have your own way always.”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that. I am in such a fright about you.
+Do come out and look at the mountains.”
+
+“I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick of
+them. There may be a corn or two of rain; no more. My sea-weed was like
+tinder. There can't be no heavy storm when it is like that. Don't you
+make pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you.”
+
+Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a right
+to be so. And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up for the
+sharpness of his words, and then back he went to his work again. So I
+hoped that I was altogether wrong, till a bolt of lightning, like a blue
+dagger, fell at my very feet, and a crash of thunder shook the earth and
+stunned me. These opened the sluice of the heavens, and before I could
+call out I was drenched with rain. Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley
+lashed with cloudy blasts, and a whirling mass of spiral darkness
+rushing like a giant toward me. And the hissing and tossing and roaring
+mixed whatever was in sight together.
+
+Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could
+scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a singed
+moth drops and shivers. And a storm of wind struck me from my hold, so
+that I fell upon the wet earth. Every moment I expected to be killed,
+for I never could be brave in a thunder-storm, and had not been told
+much in France of God's protection around me. And the darts of lightning
+hissed and crossed like a blue and red web over me. So I laid hold of a
+little bent of weed, and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to
+pray to the Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.
+
+Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely changed
+me. A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as the mill
+itself, rushed down with a crest of foam from the mountains. It seemed
+to fill up all the valley and to swallow up all the trees; a whole host
+of animals fled before it, and birds, like a volley of bullets, flew by.
+I lost not a moment in running away, and climbing a rock and hiding.
+It was base, ungrateful, and a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost
+without thinking. And if I had staid to cry out, what good could I have
+done--only to be swept away?
+
+Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I must
+have peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the deluge
+struck the mill. But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it by any more
+summary process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is more than I dare
+presume to say. Whichever way I learned it, it was thus:
+
+A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on it,
+dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great wheel
+anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling. I heard no scream or
+shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been a mere whisper
+in the wild roar of the elements. Only, where the mill had been, there
+was nothing except a black streak and a boil in the deluge. Then scores
+of torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-harrow jumps on the clods of the
+field; and the unrelenting flood cast its wrath, and shone quietly in
+the lightning.
+
+“Oh, Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!” I cried. But there was not a sign to be seen
+of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways, and my heart
+was almost broken. “What a brute--what a wretch I am!” I kept saying, as
+if I could have helped it; and my fear of the lightning was gone, and I
+stood and raved with scorn and amazement.
+
+In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and instinct
+alone could have driven my despair to a desperate venture. With my
+soaked clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as they would go,
+by a short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where the very last bluff
+or headland jutted into the river. This was a good mile below the mill
+according to the bends of channel, but only a furlong or so from the
+rock upon which I had taken refuge. However, the flood was there before
+me, and the wall of water dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb
+behind it.
+
+Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage, and
+bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive, but the
+most part dead. A grand black bull tossed back his horns, and looked at
+me beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet days, but now I was
+truly grieved for him. And then on a wattle of brush-wood I saw the form
+of a man--the Sawyer.
+
+His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of
+his arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless.
+Senseless he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves went
+over him. His face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a heavy
+weight hung round his neck. I had no time to think, and deserve no
+praise, for I knew not what I did. But just as an eddy swept him near
+me, I made a desperate leap at him, and clutched at something that tore
+my hands, and then I went under the water. My senses, however, were
+not yet gone, and my weight on the wattle stopped it, and I came up
+gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat, woolly sheep going by me. The
+sheep was water-logged, and could scarcely keep his own poor head from
+drowning, and he turned his mild eyes and looked at me, but I could not
+spare him. He struck for the shore in forlorn hope, and he towed us in
+some little.
+
+It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for us,
+for of course I could do nothing. But the sheep must have piloted us to
+a tree, whose branches swept the torrent. Here I let him go, and caught
+fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck there also, for what
+could my weak arm have done? I remember only to have felt the ground at
+last, as the flood was exhausted; and good people came and found him and
+me, stretched side by side, upon rubbish and mud.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A NUGGET
+
+
+In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing) we
+hung up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more toward
+saving the life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served as a kind
+of kedge, or drag, upon his little craft, retarding it from the great
+roll of billows, in which he must have been drowned outright. And even
+as it was, he took some days before he was like himself again.
+
+Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken
+hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the
+mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole of its
+power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had made, at
+about five furlongs above the mill. Ephraim, being further up the gulch,
+and high above the roaring flood, did his utmost with the keen edge of
+his eyes to pierce into the mischief; but it rained so hard, and at the
+same time blew so violently around him, that he could see nothing of
+what went on, but hoped for the best, with uneasiness.
+
+Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of
+things, and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and
+himself, at this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the world
+again, it was natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a good deal
+of grumbling. Many people came to comfort him, and to offer him deep
+condolence and the truest of true sympathy, and every thing that could
+be thought of, unless it were a loan of money. Of that they never
+thought, because it was such a trifling matter; and they all had
+confidence in his power to do any thing but pay them. They told him that
+he was a young man still, and Providence watched over him; in a year or
+two he would be all the better for this sad visitation. And he said yes
+to their excellent advice, and was very much obliged to them. At the
+same time it was clear to me, who watched him like a daughter, that he
+became heavy in his mind, and sighed, as these kind friends, one after
+the other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but rode away out of
+his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings. Not that he would
+have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of them, only that
+he would have liked the offer, to understand their meaning. And several
+of them were men--as Firm, in his young indignation, told me--who had
+been altogether set up in life by the kindness of Sampson Gundry.
+
+Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed by
+this. But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it preyed upon
+his mind, though he was too proud to speak of it. He knew that he was
+not ruined, although these friends assumed that he must be; and some of
+them were quite angry with him because they had vainly warned him. He
+could not remember these warnings, yet he contradicted none of them; and
+fully believing in the goodness of the world, he became convinced that
+he must have been hard in the days of his prosperity.
+
+No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San Francisco
+to raise money on his house and property for the rebuilding of the mill.
+Firm rode with him to escort him back, and so did Martin, the foreman;
+for although the times were not so bad as they used to be some ten years
+back, in the height of the gold fever, it still was a highly undesirable
+thing for a man who was known to have money about him to ride forth
+alone from San Francisco, or even Sacramento town. And having mentioned
+the foreman Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his
+entire loss from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat of
+the value of about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling could only
+be equaled by his lofty persistence. By his great activity in running
+away and leaving his employer to meet the brunt, he had saved not only
+himself, but his wife and children and goods and chattels. This failed,
+however, to remove or even assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he
+moaned and threatened to such good purpose that a speedy subscription
+was raised, which must have found him in clothes for the rest of his
+life, as well as a silver tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.
+
+When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry, and
+his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond calling
+distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I found the
+place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to do. I had no fear
+of robbers, though there were plenty in the neighborhood; for we still
+had three or four men about, who could be thoroughly trusted, and
+who staid with us on half wages rather than abandon the Sawyer in his
+trouble. Suan Isco, also, was as brave as any man, and could shoot well
+with a rifle. Moreover, the great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by
+all his enemies. He could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or
+three Mexicans, in about a second; and now he always went about with me,
+having formed a sacred friendship.
+
+Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said “good-by,” and Firm had
+shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as I liked and
+admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was unbecoming, and now
+in my lonely little walks I began to think about it. My father's
+resting-place had not been invaded by the imperious flood, although a
+line of driftage, in a zigzag swath, lay near the mound. This was my
+favorite spot for thinking, when I felt perplexed and downcast in my
+young unaided mind. For although I have not spoken of my musings very
+copiously, any one would do me wrong who fancied that I was indifferent.
+Through the great kindness of Mr. Gundry and other good friends around
+me, I had no bitter sense as yet of my own dependence and poverty. But
+the vile thing I had heard about my father, the horrible slander
+and wicked falsehood--for such I was certain it must be--this was
+continually in my thoughts, and quite destroyed my cheerfulness. And
+the worst of it was that I never could get my host to enter into it.
+Whenever I began, his face would change and his manner grow constrained,
+and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to some other subject.
+
+One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches began
+to blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray with a
+globule of sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins already had
+curved their fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust of the plains
+was beginning to fly, and the bright spring flowers were dead more
+swiftly even than they first were born, I sat with Suan Isco at my
+father's cross, and told her to make me cry with some of all the many
+sad things she knew. She knew a wondrous number of things insatiably sad
+and wild; and the quiet way in which she told them (not only without any
+horror, but as if they were rightly to be expected), also the deep and
+rather guttural tone of voice, and the stillness of the form, made it
+impossible to help believing verily every word she said.
+
+That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and
+full of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the noblest
+philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good unpretentious
+women, who had partly retired from the world, but not to such a depth as
+to drown all thought of what was left behind them. These were ready at
+any time to return upon good opportunity; and some of them had done so,
+with many tears, when they came into property.
+
+“Please to tell me no more now,” I said at last to Suan; “my eyes are
+so sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come home
+to-night. I am afraid he has found some trouble with the money, or he
+ought to have been at home before. Don't you think so, Suan?”
+
+“Yes, yes; trouble with the money. Always with the white mans that.”
+
+“Very well. I shall go and look for some money. I had a most wonderful
+dream last night. Only I must go quite alone. You had better go and look
+to the larder, Suan. If they come, they are sure to be hungry.”
+
+“Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty.”
+
+The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the white
+race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-colored shawl
+around her, and set off with her peculiar walk. Her walk was not
+ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it differed almost as
+much as the step of a quadruped from what we are taught. I, with heavy
+thoughts but careless steps, set off on my wanderings. I wanted to try
+to have no set purpose, course, or consideration, but to go wherever
+chance should lead me, without choice, as in my dream. And after many
+vague turns, and even closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself,
+perhaps by the force of habit, at the ruins of the mill.
+
+I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can
+expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me. But sleeping
+I had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet stream. The little
+river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all thoughts of wrath, showed
+nothing in its pure gaze now but a gladness to refresh and cool. In many
+nicely sheltered corners it was full of soft reflection as to the good
+it had to do; and then, in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do
+it. And the happy voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told
+that it knew of the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by
+itself.
+
+But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I was
+angry with it for the sake of Uncle Sam. Only the foundations and the
+big heavy stones of the mill were left, and the clear bright water
+purled around, or made little eddies among them. All were touched
+with silvery sound, and soft caressing dimples. But I looked at the
+passionate mountains first, to be sure of no more violence; for if a
+burned child dreads the fire, one half drowned may be excused for little
+faith in water. The mountains in the sunshine looked as if nothing could
+move their grandeur, and so I stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of
+the placid brightness.
+
+Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles, driven
+in by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his walls, had
+been swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but had not been
+swept away. The square tarred post of mountain pine reclined down
+stream, and gently nodded to the current's impact. But overthrown as it
+was, it could not make its exit and float away, as all its brethren
+had done. At this I had wondered before, and now I went to see what the
+reason was. By throwing a short piece of plank from one of the shattered
+foundations into a nick in the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed
+to get there and sit upon it, and search for its obstruction.
+
+The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal, being
+scarcely more than a foot in depth. And there, on the upper verge of the
+hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the granite sand of the
+river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow light. I was so much
+amazed that I cried out at once, “Oh! what a beautiful great yellow
+fish!” And I shouted to Jowler, who had found where I was, and followed
+me, as usual. The great dog was famous for his love of fishing, and had
+often brought a fine salmon forth.
+
+Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my call
+by dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance of my
+hand. But when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly disappointed,
+and gave me to understand as much by looking at me foolishly. “Now don't
+be a stupid dog,” I said; “do what I tell you immediately. Whatever it
+is, bring it out, Sir.”
+
+Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him “Sir;” so he
+ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth at the
+object. His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with the intensity
+of his labor, but the task was quite beyond him. He could not even
+stir the mighty mass at which he struggled, but he bit off a little
+projecting corner, and came to me with it in his mouth. Then he laid his
+dripping jaws on my lap, and his ears fell back, and his tail hung down
+with utter sense of failure.
+
+I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes with
+his ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me. Then I saw
+that his grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to a dentist
+regardless of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump of solid
+glittering virgin ore. He had not the smallest idea of having done any
+thing worthy of human applause; and he put out his long red tongue and
+licked his teeth to get rid of uneatable dross, and gave me a quiet
+nudge to ask what more I wanted of him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ROVERS
+
+
+From Jowler I wanted nothing more. Such matters were too grand for
+him. He had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the purple
+dye--a thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it value. But
+gold does well without all these, and better in their absence. From
+handling many little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan Isco's tales of
+treachery, theft, and murder done by white men for the sake of this, I
+knew that here I had found enough to cost the lives of fifty men.
+
+At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I was
+with joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in my hands.
+For I was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy. Here I had a
+knowledge which the wisest of mankind might envy, much as they despise
+it when they have no chance of getting it. I looked at my father's
+grave, in the shadow of the quiet peach-trees, and I could not help
+crying as I thought that this was come too late for him. Then I called
+off Jowler, who wished (like a man) to have another tug at it; and home
+I ran to tell my news, but failing of breath, had time to think.
+
+It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the
+greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had seen
+so much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be careful. But
+surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco. However, I looked
+at her several times, and was not quite so sure about it. She was
+wonderfully true and faithful, and scarcely seemed to concede to gold
+its paramount rank and influence. But that might only have been because
+she had never known the want of it, or had never seen a lump worth
+stealing, which I was sure that this must be; and the unregenerate
+state of all who have never been baptized had been impressed on me
+continually. How could I mistrust a Christian, and place confidence in
+an Indian? Therefore I tried to sleep without telling any one, but was
+unable.
+
+But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long
+awake, for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from
+San Francisco. Of course I have done very foolish things once and again
+throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more absurd than
+during the whole of that day. To begin with, I was up before the
+sun, and down at the mill, and along the plank, which I had removed
+overnight, but now replaced as my bridge to the pine-wood pile. Then
+I gazed with eager desire and fear--which was the stronger I scarcely
+knew--for the yellow under-gleam, to show the safety of my treasure.
+There it lay, as safe as could be, massive, grand, and beautiful, with
+tones of varying richness as the ripples varied over it. The pale light
+of the morning breathed a dewy lustre down the banks; the sun (although
+unrisen yet) drew furrows through the mountain gaps; the birds from
+every hanging tree addressed the day with melody; the crystal water,
+purer than religion's brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay,
+unmoved, unthought of, and inanimate, the thing which to a human being
+is worth all the rest put together.
+
+This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I resolved
+to spend my time, for fear of any robbery. I was afraid to gaze more
+than could be helped at this grand sight, lest other eyes should spy
+what was going on, and long to share it. And after hurrying home to
+breakfast and returning in like haste, I got a scare, such as I well
+deserved, for being so extremely foolish.
+
+The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and steadfast
+that even in that raging deluge the whole had held together. It had been
+bodily torn from its hold and swept away down the valley; but somewhere
+it grounded, as the flood ebbed out, and a strong team had tugged it
+back again. And the Sawyer had vowed that, come what would, his mill
+should work with the self-same wheel which he with younger hands had
+wrought. Now this wheel (to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber
+from the sun) was laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under
+it. And here I had taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.
+
+I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the runnel,
+sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the water. Little
+fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played about, and I was
+almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold. In self-defense it is
+right to say that for the gold, on my own account, I cared as much as I
+might have done for a fig worm-eaten. It was for Uncle Sam, and all
+his dear love, that I watched the gold, hoping in his sad disaster to
+restore his fortunes. But suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid
+flat in the tributary brook) I descried across the main river a moving
+company of horsemen.
+
+These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party, for
+they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return by the
+track across the plains. And they were already so near that I could see
+their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican rovers, mixed
+with loose Americans. There are few worse men on the face of the earth
+than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they seem almost always
+to be in that humor. Therefore, when I saw their battered sun-hats and
+baggy slouching boots, I feared that little ruth, or truth, or mercy
+dwelt between them.
+
+On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and held
+my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my wind-tossed
+hair into small compass. For my blood ran cold at the many dreadful
+things that came into my mind. I was sure that they had not spied me
+yet, and my overwhelming desire was to decline all introduction.
+
+I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves, and
+would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion. Fourteen of them
+rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the other side; and there
+they let their horses drink, and some dismounted and filled canteens,
+and some of longer reach stooped from the saddle and did likewise. But
+one, who seemed to be the captain, wanted no water for his rum.
+
+“Cut it short, boys,” I heard him say, with a fine South Californian
+twang (which, as well as his free swearing, I will freely omit). “If we
+mean to have fair play with the gal, now or never's the time for it: old
+Sam may come home almost any time.”
+
+What miserable cowards! Though there were so many of them, they really
+had no heart to face an old man known for courage. Frightened as I was,
+perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter no more, and not faint
+away, but watch those miscreants steadily.
+
+The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink,
+scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker
+before my eyes. The dribbling of the water from their mouths prepared
+them to begin again, till the riders struck the savage unroweled spur
+into their refreshment. At this they jerked their noses up, and looked
+at one another to say that they expected it, and then they lifted their
+weary legs and began to plash through the river.
+
+It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream,
+probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his
+feet, and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he is
+right. In my agony of observation all these things I heeded, but only
+knew that I had done so when I thought long afterward. At the moment I
+was in such a fright that my eyes worked better than my mind. However,
+even so, I thought of my golden millstone, and was aware that they
+crossed below, and could not see it.
+
+They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I
+crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which kept
+me crouching. I counted them again as they leaped the bank and seemed to
+look at me. I could see the dark array of eyes, and could scarcely
+keep from shrieking. But my throat was dry and made no sound, and a
+frightened bird set up a scream, which drew off their attention.
+
+In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost felt
+that the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to help my
+helplessness.
+
+For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the evil
+one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked laughter of
+the men. One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest rejoicing in it;
+and the bright sun, glowing on their withered skin, discovered perhaps
+no viler thing in all the world to shine upon. One of them even pointed
+at my mill-wheel with a witty gibe--at least, perhaps, it was wit to
+him--about the Sawyer's misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes,
+and my dress was just of the color of the timber. So on they rode, and
+the pleasant turf (having lately received some rain) softly answered to
+the kneading of their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.
+
+I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark of
+the valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me. Fourteen men and
+fourteen horses I had counted on the other side; on this side I could
+not make any more than thirteen of them. I might have made a mistake;
+but still I thought I would stop just a minute to see. And in that
+minute I saw the other man walking slowly on the opposite bank. He had
+tethered his horse, and was left as outpost to watch and give warning of
+poor Uncle Sam's return.
+
+At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary
+way, came back. I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost any
+girl might have done. But now I resolved that, whatever might happen,
+my dear friend and guardian should not be entrapped and lose his life
+through my cowardice. We had been expecting him all the day; and if he
+should come and fall into an ambush, I only might survive to tell
+the tale. I ought to have hurried and warned the house, as my bitter
+conscience told me; but now it was much too late for that. The only
+amends that I could make was to try and warn our travelers.
+
+Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more open
+places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up the winding
+of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy thicket which
+concealed its origin. Hence I could see for miles over the plain--broad
+reaches of corn land already turning pale, mazy river fringed with reed,
+hamlets scattered among clustering trees, and that which I chiefly cared
+to see, the dusty track from Sacramento.
+
+Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the
+sentinel had been posted badly. His beat commanded well enough the
+course from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally
+clear before him. For a jut of pine forest ran down from the mountains
+and cut off a part of his view of it. I had not the sense or the
+presence of mind to perceive this great advantage, but having a plain,
+quick path before me, forth I set upon it. Of course if the watchman had
+seen me, he would have leaped on his horse and soon caught me; but of
+that I scarcely even thought, I was in such confusion.
+
+When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and
+of active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off, rising
+through the bright blue haze. It was rich yellow dust of the fertile
+soil, which never seems to cake or clot. Sometimes you may walk for
+miles without the smallest fear of sinking, the earth is so elastic. And
+yet with a slight exertion you may push a walking-stick down through it
+until the handle stops it. My heart gave a jump: that cloud of dust was
+a sign of men on horseback. And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm
+and the foreman Martin?
+
+As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very three,
+carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with heat and dust
+and thirst. But when they saw me there all alone under the fury of the
+sun, they knew that something must have gone amiss, and were all wide
+awake in a moment.
+
+“Well, now,” said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as short
+breath allowed, “put this thing over your head, my dear, or you may gain
+a sun-stroke. I call it too bad of them skunks to drive you in Californy
+noon, like this.”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your goods
+and Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!”
+
+“The old house ain't afire yet,” he answered, looking calmly under his
+hand in that direction. “And as for Suan, no fear at all. She knows
+how to deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to cook their
+dinner. Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them. They wouldn't 'a made
+much bones of shooting us down if we hadn't known of it, and if they had
+got miss afore the saddle. But if they don't give bail, as soon as they
+see me ride up to my door, my name's not Sampson Gundry. Only you keep
+out of the way, Miss Remy. You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the
+graywitch spinny yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn. And
+then come you in to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you.”
+
+I hastened to the place which he pointed out--a beautiful covert of
+birch-trees--but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though I
+was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror. In a soft mossy
+nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the in and out ways
+of the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial insects now was beginning
+to drowse upon the air, and the heat of the sun could almost be seen
+thrilling through the alleys like a cicale's drum--here, in the middle
+of the languid peace, I waited for the terror of the rifle-crack.
+
+For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the peril
+he would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep wrath and
+strong indignation which had kept all his household and premises safe.
+And it seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had never said a word, but
+grasped his gun, and slowly got in front of his grandfather.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GOLD AND GRIEF
+
+
+It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of the
+horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place. I had
+heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of conflict; and
+certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must have seen the smoke.
+For being still in great alarm, I had kept a very sharp lookout.
+
+Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him. He carried
+his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if needful.
+But I was already running toward the house, having made up my mind to
+be resolute. Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to have his company, and
+hear what had been done.
+
+“Please to let me help you,” he said, with a smile. “Why, miss, you are
+trembling dreadfully. I assure you there is no cause for that.”
+
+“But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and every
+body. Oh, those men did look so horrible!”
+
+“Yes, they always do till you come to know them. But bigger cowards were
+never born. If they can take people by surprise, and shoot them
+without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them. But if any one like
+grandfather meets them face to face in the daylight, their respect
+for law and life returns. It is not the first visit they have paid us.
+Grandfather kept his temper well. It was lucky for them that he did.”
+
+Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one, even
+if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves that
+there had been no outbreak. But Firm seemed rather sorry that they had
+departed so easily. And knowing that he never bragged, I began to share
+his confidence.
+
+“They must be shot, sooner or later,” he said, “unless, indeed, they
+should be hanged. Their manner of going on is out of date in these days
+of settlement. It was all very well ten years ago. But now we are a
+civilized State, and the hand of law is over us. I think we were wrong
+to let them go. But of course I yield to the governor. And I think he
+was afraid for your sake. And to tell the truth, I may have been the
+same.”
+
+Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite out of
+place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could catch me I
+entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly with his own long
+pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
+
+“They rogues have had all the best of our victuals,” he said, as soon
+as he had kissed me. “Respectable visitors is my delight, and welcome
+to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin the grain
+to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are burning the fat
+again.”
+
+Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper), never
+paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on. Mr. Gundry
+knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling, although it is well
+to keep them up to their work by a little grumbling. But when I came to
+see what broken bits were left for Suan to deal with, I only wondered
+that he was not cross.
+
+“Thank God for a better meal than I deserve,” he said, when they all had
+finished. “Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every day a'most. Now
+if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have it up. We be all in
+the dumps. But that will never do, my lad.”
+
+He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of the
+two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar; while I,
+who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way, perceived that
+something was gone amiss, something more serious and lasting than the
+mischief made by the robber troop. Was it that his long ride had failed,
+and not a friend could be found to help him?
+
+When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine, and
+Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer leaned
+back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I filled his pipe
+and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak, well knowing his simple
+and outspoken heart. But he looked at me and thanked me kindly, and
+seemed to be turning some grief in his mind.
+
+“It ain't for the money,” he said at last, talking more to himself than
+to me; “the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a sort of
+way. But the feelin'--the feelin' is the thing I look at, and it ought
+to have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can
+run away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them?
+'Tis enough a'most to make a rogue of me.”
+
+“Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam,” I exclaimed, as I came and sat
+close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to smile.
+
+“Why, what was little missy thinking of?” he asked. “How solid she
+looks! Why, I never see the like!”
+
+“Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen it
+fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help loving you,
+Uncle Sam?”
+
+“Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on the
+cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I took
+agin a man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown down, is a
+cowardly thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of the beadin' I
+threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and the turpsy knots,
+and the clogging of the teeth--'tis a bad bit to swallow, when the mill
+is strown.”
+
+“But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam. The mill shall be built
+again. And I will find the money.”
+
+Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head. He could not bear to tell
+me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of money. “Five
+thousand dollars you have got put by for me,” I continued, with great
+importance. “Five thousand dollars from the sale and the insurance fund.
+And five thousand dollars must be five-and-twenty thousand francs. Uncle
+Sam, you shall have every farthing of it. And if that won't build the
+mill again, I have got my mother's diamonds.”
+
+“Five thousand dollars!” cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening his
+great gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which he had
+told, to make me seem independent. “Oh yes, to be sure, my dear; now I
+recollect. To be sure--to be sure--your own five thousand dollars. But
+never will I touch one cent of your nice little fortune; no, not to save
+my life. After all, I am not so gone in years but what I can build the
+mill again myself. The Lord hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me
+still with machinery. And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a
+job pretty fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has
+not pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But
+that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of brains,
+he might have contradicted me. And that I could never abide, God knows,
+from any green young jackanapes.”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something--something very important!”
+
+“No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a
+little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and
+ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was
+all I could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if
+they camp any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after
+them. The grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old
+heads upon young shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the
+law.”
+
+The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild
+of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of
+Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And
+now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must
+be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she
+had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to,
+that in these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly.
+
+It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the
+duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way
+good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good
+carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of
+course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true
+Sawyer.
+
+When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and
+the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr.
+Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles.
+He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and
+having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose
+Firm. He had taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made
+him temperate; and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on
+them now from a high point of view.
+
+“I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of
+mankind,” he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his breast;
+“all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to have made
+more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish state, when a
+old man is put about with them. Never you pay no heed whatever to any
+harsh words I may have used. All that is a very bad thing for young
+folk.”
+
+“But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that they
+treated you well?”
+
+He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
+thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
+
+“Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in
+disguise to the present time of sight. It will send up the price of
+scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them. By the time we
+have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than we know
+how to do with. When I come to reckon of it, to me it appears to be the
+reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the old mill, and then to
+set to and build a stronger one. Yes, that must be about the right thing
+to do. And we'll have all the neighbors in when we lay foundations.”
+
+“But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may at
+any time be washed away again?”
+
+“Never, at any time,” he answered, very firmly, gazing through the door
+as if he saw the vain endeavor. “That little game can easily be stopped,
+for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank toward the old track
+of the river. The biggest waterspout that ever came down from the
+mountains could never come anigh the mill, but go right down the valley.
+It hath been in my mind to do it often, and now that I see the need, I
+will. Firm and I will begin tomorrow.”
+
+“But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam? You said that all
+your friends had refused to help you.”
+
+“Never mind, my dear. I will help myself. It won't be the first time,
+perhaps, in my life.”
+
+“But supposing that I could help you, just some little? Supposing that I
+had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all California?”
+
+Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he
+did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had
+just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted my
+knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.
+
+“It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold--here is a piece of it;
+just look--and as large, I am sure, as this table. And it may be as
+deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the contrary. Why, it
+stopped the big pile from coming to the top, when even you went down the
+river.”
+
+“Well, now, that explains a thing or two,” said the Sawyer, smiling
+peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation meant
+any thing. “Two things have puzzled me about that stump, and, indeed,
+I might say three things. Why did he take such a time to drive? and why
+would he never stand up like a man? and why wouldn't he go away when he
+ought to?”
+
+“Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam. He was anchored
+on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good right to be
+crooked about it, and no power could get him away from it.”
+
+“Hush, my dear, hush! It is not at all good for young people to let
+their minds run on so. But this gold looks very good indeed. Are you
+sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more of it?”
+
+“How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you that
+I saw it with my own eyes? And there must be at least half a ton of it.”
+
+“Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me. And you shall have
+all the rest, my dear--that is, if you will spare me a bit, Miss Remy.
+It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the diggers' law. And
+your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the whole of your heart
+must be running upon it.”
+
+“Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world! How I wish that I
+had never seen it! It was only for you that I cared about it--for you,
+for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it.”
+
+Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it in
+that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he should
+misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief. Uncle Sam rose up
+to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say that perhaps he was harsh
+because of the treatment he had received from his friends. He took me in
+his arms and kissed me; but before I could leave off sobbing, the crack
+of a rifle rang through the house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed
+out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SAWYER'S PRAYER
+
+
+The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree and
+stream. Every thing looked of a different form and color from those of
+an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with color, and cast
+by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple adieu of the sun, was
+filling the air with delicious calm. The Sawyer ran out with his shirt
+sleeves shining, so that any sneaking foe might shoot him; but, with
+the instinct of a settler, he had caught up his rifle. I stood beneath
+a carob-tree, which had been planted near the porch, and flung fantastic
+tassels down, like the ear-rings of a negress. And not having sense
+enough to do good, I was only able to be frightened.
+
+Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the other
+side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread, even thus
+far off, was plainly Suan Isco's. And then in the stillness a weary and
+heavy foot went toiling after it. Before I could follow, which I longed
+to do, to learn at once the worst of it, I saw the figure of a man much
+nearer, and even within twenty yards of me, gliding along without any
+sound. Faint as the light was, I felt sure that it was not one of our
+own men, and the barrel of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black
+line among silver leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my
+courage was not prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind
+the trunk of the carob-tree. Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted
+villain, he went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape
+with skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he
+leaped up and fell flat without a groan. The crack of a rifle came later
+than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a black rock,
+and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, “Well, now!” as he generally did
+when satisfied.
+
+So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady me;
+and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see whether it was
+possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond earthly help; he was too
+dead to palpitate. His life must have left him in the air, and he could
+not even have felt his fall.
+
+In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head, and
+strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what, without
+thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
+
+“Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?” said a stern
+voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr.
+Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him,
+but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all his
+kind desires were gone.
+
+“Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this earth,
+till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood. Captain Pedro,
+there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the back. I wish you were
+alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men and filthy ravisher of women,
+miscreant of God, how can I keep from trampling on you?”
+
+It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely forget
+himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else, and not our
+Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men do when their
+spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed that his chin was
+triple.
+
+Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get away.
+The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing, compared with the
+face of the old man living. He may not have meant it, and I hope he
+never did, but beyond all controversy he looked barbarous for the
+moment.
+
+As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing still,
+longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the great awe of
+death. If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even moaned, the living
+man would have lost all reverence in his fury. But the power of the
+other world was greater than even revenge could trample on. He let it
+lie there, and he stooped his head, and went away quite softly.
+
+My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this. The
+Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the largest
+human nature that I had ever met with. And though it was impossible as
+yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of some great ideal,
+came over me.
+
+Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men bringing
+the body of poor Firm. His head and both his arms hung down, and they
+wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do, although they called
+out to me not to meddle. The body was carried in, and laid upon three
+chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then a light was struck, and a
+candle brought by somebody or other. And Suan Isco sat upon the floor,
+and set up a miserable Indian dirge.
+
+“Stow away that,” cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those two
+men; “wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your liking. I felt
+him try to kick while we carried him along. He come forth on a arrand of
+that sort, and he seem to 'a been disappointed. A very fine young chap
+I call him, for to try to do it still, howsomever his mind might be
+wandering. Missy, keep his head up.”
+
+I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung upon
+any sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I think that
+fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable girl almost into
+a real woman. But I had no sense of such things then.
+
+“I tell you he ain't dead,” cried Martin; “no more dead than I be. He
+feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn up his
+eyes. He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble about his
+breathing. I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot through the heart;
+but he came all round in about six months, and protected his head with a
+document. Firm, now, don't you be a fool. I have had worse things in my
+family.”
+
+Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him. At
+any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe, and a
+little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes. And on my
+sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came trickling.
+
+“Keep him to that,” said Martin, with some carpenter sort of surgery;
+“less fear of the life when the blood begins to run. Don't move him,
+missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving of him.”
+
+I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me; and
+they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must have been
+so. But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm to his straw
+mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the room, and that,
+perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and listened,
+and then stole up to the landing, and heard Suan Isco, who had taken the
+command, speaking cheerfully in her worst English. Then I hoped for the
+best, and, without any knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
+
+Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven to do
+when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the gleaming river,
+and saw the water just in time to stop from stepping into it. Careless
+about this and every other thing for the moment, I threw myself on
+the sod, and listened to the mournful melody of night. Sundry unknown
+creatures, which by day keep timid silence, were sending timid sounds
+into the darkness, holding quiet converse with themselves, or it, or one
+another. And the silvery murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling
+sleep of leaves.
+
+I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved with
+washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well content to
+throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all things flow past me.
+But before any thing had found time to flow far, or the lullaby of night
+had lulled me, there came to me a sadder sound than plaintive Nature can
+produce without her Master's aid, the saddest sound in all creation--a
+strong man's wail.
+
+Child as I was--and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as knowing
+so little of mankind--I might have been more frightened, but I could not
+have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a lion. For I knew in
+a moment whose voice it was, and that made it pierce me tenfold. It was
+Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to his God alone, the loss of his
+last hope on earth. He could not dream that any other than his Maker
+(and his Maker's works, if ever they have any sympathy) listened to
+the wild outpourings of an aged but still very natural heart, which had
+always been proud of controlling itself. I could see his great frame
+through a willow-tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around,
+and the faint gleam of fugitive water beyond. He was kneeling toward his
+shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and his
+white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several times, he
+managed to pray a little. First (perhaps partly from habit), he said the
+prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he went on to his own special
+case, with a doubting whether he should mention it. But as he went on he
+gathered courage, or received it from above, and was able to say what he
+wanted.
+
+“Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and
+shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble. But I never
+had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I ever shall get
+over it. I have sinned every day of my life, and not thought of Thee,
+but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and nobody knows, but myself and
+Thou, all the little bad things inside of me. I cared a deal more to be
+respectable and get on with my business than to be prepared for kingdom
+come. And I have just been proud about the shooting of a villain, who
+might 'a gone free and repented. There is nobody left to me in my old
+age. Thou hast taken all of them. Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson,
+and my brother who robbed me--the whole of it may have been for my good,
+but I have got no good out of it. Show me the way for a little time, O
+Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like a man, and
+not break down at this time of life. Thou knowest what is right. Please
+to do it. Amen.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+NOT FAR TO SEEK
+
+
+In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious, the
+Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to pronounce)
+for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's prayer. But if
+sound doctrine can be established by success (as it always is), Uncle
+Sam's theology must have been unusually sound; for it pleased a gracious
+Power to know what he wanted, and to grant it.
+
+Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter
+years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with
+abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him.
+Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but proved
+against every one's voice, except his own, his special blessedness. But
+this must have been a trial to him, and happily he was spared from it.
+
+For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks in
+anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-nourished
+frame got over it. A truly good and learned doctor came from Sacramento,
+and we hung upon his words, and found that there he left us hanging. And
+this was the wisest thing perhaps that he could do, because in America
+medical men are not absurdly expected, as they are in England, to do any
+good, but are valued chiefly upon their power of predicting what they
+can not help. And this man of science perceived that he might do harm to
+himself and his family by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good
+to his patient by predicting rightly. And so he foretold both good and
+evil, to meet the intentions of Providence.
+
+He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due, he
+saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet, which,
+if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it was made
+of pure silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver bullet as a token,
+but the doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law;
+and so it came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn
+man, according to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased
+their unreason. But the doctor won--as indeed he deserved, for the
+extraction had been delicate--because, when reason had been exhausted,
+he just said this:
+
+“Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words. The true owner is your
+grandson. I will put it back where I took it from.”
+
+Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad
+moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet heartily.
+And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it upon his watch
+chain. And he told the story so often (saying that another man perhaps
+might have got it out, but no other man could have kept it), that among
+a great race who judge by facts it doubled his practice immediately.
+
+The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as “Captain Pedro,” was
+buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's reputation
+that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad characters were
+forced by circumstances to come near him, they never asked for any thing
+stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade, and departed very promptly. For
+as soon as Ephraim Gundry could give account of his disaster, it was
+clear that Don Pedro owed his fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey.
+Firm had only intended to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired
+by his grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle. This idea
+had justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at
+once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip. Coming thus to the Rovers'
+camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to digest his
+dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way to feelings of
+severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and being lifted up for
+the moment above his ordinary view, perceived that he might have done
+better, and shaped the pattern of his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this,
+had good hopes of him; yet knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove
+to form a well-marked track for it. And when the captain ceased to
+receive cowhide, he must have had it long enough to miss it.
+
+Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned, if
+the captain had known when he was well off. Unluckily he had purloined
+a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork now to rub his
+stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it inside. And before very
+long his ideas of honor, which he had sense enough to drop when sober,
+began to come into his eyes again, and to stir him up to mischief. Hence
+it was that he followed Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and
+appeased his honor by shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot
+anyhow.
+
+It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle Sam's
+proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost careless
+whenever he was looked at. And then he was ashamed of himself
+perpetually, if any one went on with it. Nobody tried to observe him, of
+course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for this he would become
+so grateful that he would long to tell all his thoughts, and then stop.
+This must have been a great worry to him, seeing how open his manner
+was; and whenever he wanted to hide any thing, he informed us of that
+intention. So that we exhorted Firm every day to come round and restore
+us to our usual state. This was the poor fellow's special desire;
+and often he was angry with himself, and made himself worse again by
+declaring that he must be a milksop to lie there so long. Whereas, it
+was much more near the truth that few other men, even in the Western
+States, would ever have got over such a wound. I am not learned enough
+to say exactly where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think,
+the sternum, and pronounced that “a building-up process” was required,
+and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.
+
+It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left him
+by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs. But he,
+without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me--a mere ignorant
+child. Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and perhaps I was proud of
+that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify it, instead of laboring
+to remove it, as would have been the more proper course. And Firm most
+ungratefully said that my hand was lighter than poor Suan's, and every
+thing I did was better done, according to him, which was shameful on his
+part, and as untrue as any thing could be. However, we yielded to him
+in all things while he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak
+things cry to be the masters of a tall strong man.
+
+Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the
+twelvemonth was completed from my father's death. The brightness of
+summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them, and while
+his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling up, as the
+learned man had called it. There had been some difficulties in this
+process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too lavish supply of the raw
+material; and before Firm's gap in his “sternum” was stopped, the
+mountains were coming down upon us, as we always used to say when the
+snow-line stooped. In some seasons this is a sharp time of hurry, broken
+with storms, and capricious, while men have to slur in the driving
+weather tasks that should have been matured long since. But in other
+years the long descent into the depth of winter is taken not with a
+jump like that, but gently and softly and windingly, with a great many
+glimpses back at the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of
+the sun.
+
+And so it was this time. The autumn and the winter for a fortnight stood
+looking quietly at each other. They had quite agreed to share the hours,
+to suit the arrangements of the sun. The nights were starry and fresh
+and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and the days were sunny
+and soft and gentle, without any sense of languor. It was a lovely
+scene--blue shadows gliding among golden light.
+
+The Sawyer came forth, and cried, “What a shame! This makes me feel
+quite young again. And yet I have done not a stroke of work. No excuse;
+make no excuse. I can do that pretty well for myself. Praise God for all
+His mercies. I might do worse, perhaps, than have a pipe.”
+
+Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the sight
+of himself. He steadied his steps with one great white hand upon his
+grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were trembling with
+a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears. And I stepped behind a red
+strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for him almost made me sob.
+
+Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and convince
+us that he was not a dead dog yet. He had known tribulation, as his
+master had, and had found it a difficult thing to keep from the shadowy
+hunting ground of dogs who have lived a conscientious life. I had
+wondered at first what his reason could have been for not coming
+forward, according to his custom, to meet that troop of robbers. But
+his reason, alas! was too cogent to himself, though nobody else in that
+dreadful time could pay any attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing
+poor Jowler's repute, and declining the fair mode of testing it, had
+sent in advance a very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as
+much about dogs as they could ever hope to know about themselves. This
+rogue approached faithful Jowler--so we were told long afterward--not in
+an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped. And he took
+advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to accost him
+with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison. According to
+all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear fellow's earthly
+tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply went away to nurse
+himself up in retirement. Neither man nor dog can tell what agonies he
+suffered; and doubtless his tortures of mind about duty unperformed were
+the worst of all. These things are out of human knowledge in its present
+unsympathetic state. Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his
+ribs all up and his tail very low.
+
+Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of
+death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The
+trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere frippery
+of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a surety of having
+quite enough next spring. Much of the fruity wealth of autumn still
+was clustering in our sight, heavily fetching the arched bough down to
+lessen the fall, when fall they must. And against the golden leaves of
+maple behind the unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a
+climbing Ipomaea. But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing
+more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a quiet
+roasting job.
+
+This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much could
+never tell how clear our spirits were. Nobody made any “demonstration,”
+ or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any thing exuberant. The
+steadfast brooding breed of England, which despises antics, was present
+in us all, and strengthened by a soil whose native growth is peril,
+chance, and marvel. And so we nodded at one another, and I ran over and
+courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he took me to him.
+
+“You have been a dear good child,” he said, as he rose, and looked over
+my head at Firm. “My own granddarter, if such there had been, could not
+have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught I know. There
+is no picking and choosing among the females, as God gives them. But he
+has given you for a blessing and saving to my old age, my dearie.”
+
+“Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!” I cried, desiring like a child to
+escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm. “You have
+promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show Firm the
+nugget.”
+
+“And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an hour
+older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is.”
+
+Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream of
+mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could not
+exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared his
+anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm, faster,
+perhaps, than he ought to have walked.
+
+In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to point
+it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing except the
+white bed of the river! The blue water flowed very softly on its way,
+without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.
+
+“Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!” I exclaimed, in the saddest
+of sad dismay. “I dreamed about it first, but it never can have been
+a dream throughout. You know that I told you about it, Uncle Sam, even
+when you were very busy, and that shows that it never could have been a
+dream.”
+
+“You told me about it, I remember now,” Mr. Gundry answered, dryly; “but
+it does not follow that there was such a thing. My dear, you may have
+imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to come, when my good
+friends had no money to lend. Your heart was so good that it got into
+your brain, and you must not be vexed, my dear child; it has done you
+good to dream of it.”
+
+“I said so all along,” Firm observed. “Miss Rema felt that it ought to
+be, and so she believed that it must be, there. She is always so warm
+and trustful.”
+
+“Is that all you are good for?” I cried, with no gratitude for his
+compliment. “As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of gold, and
+so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought up. Did you take
+them all in a dream, Uncle Sam? Come, can you get over that?”
+
+I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my feet
+or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the Sawyer's ample
+countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for he gazed at me with
+compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as if he were balancing our
+abilities.
+
+“Send your dog in, missy,” at last he said. “He is more your dog than
+mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian. Let him go and find
+it if he can.”
+
+At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all four
+feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty barkings;
+and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as yellow and as
+big as ever.
+
+“Ha! ha! I never saw a finer thing,” shouted Uncle Sam, like a
+school-boy. “I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog
+wollops the whole of us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on your
+nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and if the boy
+had never come round, there the gold might have waited the will of the
+Almighty. It is a big spot, anyhow.”
+
+It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make so
+light of it--which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as proud as
+if I had made it. Not by any means that the Sawyer was half as careless
+as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my sake, having very
+lofty principles, especially concerning the duty of the young. Young
+people were never to have small ideas, so far as he could help it,
+particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or the world, or fashion; and
+not so very seldom he was obliged to catch himself up in his talking,
+when he chanced to be going on and forgetting that I, who required a
+higher vein of thought for my youth, was taking his words downright; and
+I think that all this had a great deal to do with his treating all that
+gold in such an exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing,
+what made him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel
+over it?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BROUGHT TO BANK
+
+
+The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and kindred by
+the amount of consideration which he has consistently given to cash.
+If money has been the chief object of his life, and he for its sake has
+spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be successful than admiration
+overpowers all the ill-will he has caused. He is shrewd, sagacious,
+long-headed, and great; he has earned his success, and few men grudge,
+while many seek to get a slice of it; but he, as a general rule,
+declines any premature distribution, and for this custody of his wealth
+he is admired all the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
+
+As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his banker's
+a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least a
+hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all in
+hot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased with
+their kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the merits
+of the case. And he was more particular than usual with his words;
+for, according to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has
+children, and, being too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all
+its little ones at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seek
+for the frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners
+called them, with a love of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundry
+allowed no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his
+patriarchal nugget. And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds
+of avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in avoiding
+that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the bed of his great
+treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced the whole of it in,
+and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it; and then he established
+Jowler where he could neither be shot nor poisoned, and kept a man with
+a double-barreled rifle in the ruin of the mill, handy to shoot, but not
+easy to be shot; and this was a resolute man, being Martin himself, who
+had now no business. Of course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper
+was, the better for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many
+men; and if any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never
+would he have gone away again.
+
+It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body ought
+to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those who knew
+so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have done no
+harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed of saying so,
+because the great gold had been found by me, and although I cared for it
+scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-lace, nobody seemed to me able
+to enter into it quite as I did; and as soon as Firm's danger and pain
+grew less, I began to get rather impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be
+hurried.
+
+Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind for me
+to be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not come
+one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being my
+father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged my
+pardon for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off later
+than the following night, because the moonlight would be failing, and
+we durst not have any kind of lamp, and before the next moon the hard
+weather might begin. All this was before the liberal offers of his
+friends, of which I have spoken first, although they happened to come
+after it.
+
+While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the issue
+of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to watch it and
+to form some opinion of its shape and size; for, knowing the pile which
+I had described, he could not help finding it easily enough; and indeed
+the great fear was that others might find it, and come in great force to
+rob him; but nothing of that sort had happened, partly because he
+held his tongue rigidly, and partly, perhaps, because of the simple
+precaution which he had taken.
+
+Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at least;
+for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might have killed
+him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at all; and strong
+as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone could
+never bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration,
+he resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty man
+about the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell him
+until every thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to the
+place.
+
+Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco,
+who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch,
+or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. The
+night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of the
+moon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still face
+of shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height,
+submerging every thing.
+
+While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attracting
+any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising from
+a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and we
+soon saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from under
+some drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a small
+movable crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up in
+the river-bed.
+
+“Palefaces eat gold,” Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfy
+herself. “Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other's
+ears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now.”
+
+“Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan,” I answered; “as if it were possible to
+have enough!”
+
+“For my part,” said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening,
+“I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here,
+mischief will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it will
+turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do,
+ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along.”
+
+“Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose,” I answered, rather pettishly,
+for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget.
+“Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith
+in it.”
+
+“Can't say, can't say,” was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the
+silent vein again.
+
+“Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!” cried the Sawyer, who
+was splashing for his life in the water. “I've tackled 'un now. Just
+tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift
+'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, I
+guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such a
+doggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?”
+
+For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught hold
+of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swung
+himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showed
+us exactly where to throw our weight, and he used his own to such good
+effect that, after some creaking and groaning, the long horn of the
+crane rose steadily, and a mass of dripping sparkles shone in the
+moonlight over the water.
+
+“Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!” cried Uncle Sam,
+panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. “Martin, lay
+your chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw a
+sight like this, I reckon.”
+
+There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and
+admire it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with his
+shoulders up and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head and the
+haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz shone here and
+there on the glistening and bossy surface. Some of us began to feel and
+handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with his heavy boots, made a
+vicious kick at it, and a few bright scales, like sparks, flew off.
+
+“Why, what ails the lad?” cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; “what harm
+hath the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump is a proof
+of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived long enough
+to gainsay? Here this lump hath lain, without changing color, since
+creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when the Lord laid hand
+to it. What good to argue agin such facts? Supposin' the world come out
+o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it, or to say a word of orders, how
+ever could it 'a managed to get a lump of gold like this in it? They
+clever fellers is too clever. Let 'em put all their heads together, and
+turn out a nugget, and I'll believe them.”
+
+Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow. He was
+not long in perceiving this, though we were content to admire his words
+without asking him to explain them; so he only said, “Well, well,” and
+began to try with both hands if he could heft this lump. He stirred it,
+and moved it, and raised it a little, as the glisten of the light upon
+its roundings showed; but lift it fairly from the ground he could not,
+however he might bow his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it;
+and, strange to say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own
+discomfiture.
+
+“Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-cap
+easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years, and
+strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad is a
+clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a pound here,
+there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay a thousand
+dollars. Miss Rema, give a name to him. All the thundering nuggets has
+thundering names.”
+
+“Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'” I answered, “because he is the
+largest and the best of all.”
+
+“It shall stand, miss,” cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and
+seemed to have bettered himself forever. “You could not have given it a
+finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle Sam is the
+name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our natur'. Every body's
+uncle we are now, in vartue of superior knowledge, and freedom, and
+giving of general advice, and stickin' to all the world, or all the good
+of it. Darned if old Sam aren't the front of creation!”
+
+“Well, well,” said the Sawyer, “let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the dear
+young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name; but, for
+all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our glorious race will
+come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes.”
+
+“Pooh!” cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words were
+common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled gun, and
+Jowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told us that he had
+spent the night in such a frame of mind from continual thought that when
+our pet cow came to drink at daybreak, it was but the blowing of her
+breath that saved her from taking a bullet between her soft tame eyes.
+
+Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things should
+continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the nugget,
+perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the neighborhood
+to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its road at the bottom
+of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and Jowler to sit up, and
+Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed robbers came riding across,
+with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy mules--enough to drag off every
+thing. They had clearly heard of the golden toad, and desired to know
+more of him; but Uncle Sam, with his usual blandness, met these men at
+the gate of his yard, and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested
+a rifle of heavy metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers found
+out that they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they
+had, and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it
+would be for them. They thought that he had all his men inside, and they
+were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help us, and Suan
+Isco, with a great gun cocked. But their curiosity was such that they
+could not help asking about the gold; and, sooner than shoot them, Uncle
+Sam replied that, upon his honor, the nugget was gone. And the fame of
+his word was so well known that these fellows (none of whom could tell
+the truth, even at confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his
+pardon for trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not say
+a word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for losing
+his road; and he told them that if they made off at once, nobody should
+pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FIRM AND INFIRM
+
+
+Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet disturbed by
+that great discovery of gold. The Sawyer went up to the summit of esteem
+in public opinion; but to himself and to us he was the same as ever. He
+worked with his own hard hands and busy head just as he used to do; for
+although the mill was still in ruins, there was plenty of the finer work
+to do, which always required hand-labor. And at night he would sit at
+the end of the table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles
+on, and his red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which
+was to be built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard,
+thought, or dreamed of.
+
+We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer
+in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and frosty
+appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the comfort at least
+of two of us. Ephraim Gundry found out, or fancied, that he was entirely
+filled with love of a very young maid, who never dreamed of such things,
+and hated even to hear of them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.
+
+During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually, being
+only too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away from it.
+I partly suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound for my sake;
+though I never imputed his zeal to more than a young man's natural wrath
+at an outrage. But now he left me no longer in doubt, and made me
+most uncomfortable. Perhaps I was hard upon him, and afterward I often
+thought so, for he was very kind and gentle; but I was an orphan child,
+and had no one to advise me in such matters. I believe that he should
+have considered this, and allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps
+he himself was too young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage
+things. It was the very evening after his return from Sacramento, and
+the beauty of the weather still abode in the soft warm depth around
+us. In every tint of rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet
+clearness seemed to lie, and a rich content of color. The grandeur of
+the world was such that one could only rest among it, seeking neither
+voice nor thought.
+
+Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring loudly
+through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes shaken, and an
+eager form leap out. I did not answer a word, but sat with a wreath of
+white bouvardia and small adiantum round my head, which I had plaited
+anyhow.
+
+“What a lovely dear you are!” cried Firm, and then he seemed frightened
+at his own words.
+
+“I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as this,
+Mr. Firm.”
+
+“And you did not want me. You are vexed to see me. Tell the truth, Miss
+Rema.”
+
+“I always tell the truth,” I answered; “and I did not want to be
+disturbed just now. I have so many things to think of.”
+
+“And not me among them. Oh no, of course you never think of me, Erema.”
+
+“It is very unkind of you to say that,” I answered, looking clearly at
+him, as a child looks at a man. “And it is not true, I assure you, Firm.
+Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often go on to think
+of you, because he is so fond of you.”
+
+“But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own sake.”
+
+“But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly. There is scarcely
+a day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I think of you.”
+
+“Tush!” replied Firm, with a lofty gaze. “Even for a moment that does
+not in any way express my meaning. My mind is very much above all eating
+when it dwells upon you, Erema. I have always been fond of you, Erema.”
+
+“You have always been good to me, Firm,” I said, as I managed to get
+a great branch between us. “After your grandfather, and Suan Isco, and
+Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body left to me. And
+you know that I never forget your slippers.”
+
+“Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me. Now will you
+just listen to a little common-sense? You know that I am not romantic.”
+
+“Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any way.”
+
+“You would like me better if I did. What an extraordinary thing it is!
+Oh, Erema, I beg your pardon.”
+
+He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the much
+quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me--that I
+had applied them to my father, of whom I was always thinking, though I
+scarcely ever spoke of him. But I knew that Firm had meant no harm, and
+I gave him my hand, though I could not speak.
+
+“My darling,” he said, “you are very dear to me--dearer than all the
+world besides. I will not worry you any more. Only say that you do not
+hate me.”
+
+“How could I? How could any body? Now let us go in and attend to Uncle
+Sam. He thinks of every body before himself.”
+
+“And I think of every body after myself. Is that what you mean, Erema?”
+
+“To be sure! if you like. You may put any meaning on my words that
+you think proper. I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I pay no
+attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am right.”
+
+“I see,” replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose in
+deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most. “I see
+how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is right, and
+the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong. Well, after all, there
+is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of one's self.”
+
+“You are not what I thought of you,” I cried, being vexed beyond
+bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice. “If you wish
+to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover your temper.
+I am not quite accustomed to rudeness.”
+
+With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and
+partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked
+back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on his
+hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.
+
+However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful. I
+could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very often.
+But I took good care not to look at him again unless he said something
+that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help it. He was sharp
+enough very soon to find out this; and then he did a thing which was
+most unfair, as I found out long afterward. He bought an American
+jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me, and these he committed to
+heart, and brought them out as his own productions. If I had only known
+it, I must have been exceedingly sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to
+laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when
+Uncle Sam laughed, there was nobody near who could help laughing with
+him. And so I began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men,
+though I tried to look away.
+
+But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how Uncle
+Sam went on. I could not understand him at all just then, and thought
+him quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward, when I came
+to know, his behavior was as clear and shallow as the water of his own
+river. He had very strange ideas about what he generally called “the
+female kind.” According to his ideas (and perhaps they were not so
+unusual among mankind, especially settlers), all “females” were of a
+good but weak and consistently inconsistent sort. The surest way to make
+them do whatever their betters wanted, was to make them think that it
+was not wanted, but was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to
+overcome, and so to provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon
+doing it. In accordance with this idea (than which there can be none
+more mistaken), he took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word
+to say to Firm; and even went so far as to hint, with winks and nods
+of pleasantry, that his grandson's heart was set upon the pretty Miss
+Sylvester, the daughter of a man who owned a herd of pigs, much too near
+our saw-mills, and herself a young woman of outrageous dress, and in
+a larger light contemptible. But when Mr. Gundry, without any words,
+conveyed this piece of news to me, I immediately felt quite a liking for
+gaudy but harmless Pennsylvania--for so her parents had named her when
+she was too young to help it; and I heartily hoped that she might suit
+Firm, which she seemed all the more likely to do as his conduct could
+not be called noble. Upon that point, however, I said not a word,
+leaving him purely to judge for himself, and feeling it a great relief
+that now he could not say any thing more to me. I was glad that his
+taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how glad I was.
+
+This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great explosion,
+and drove me away from the place altogether before the new mill was
+finished, and before I should otherwise have gone from friends who were
+so good to me; not that I could have staid there much longer, even if
+this had never come to pass; for week by week and month by month I was
+growing more uneasy: uneasy not at my obligations or dependence upon
+mere friends (for they managed that so kindly that I seemed to confer
+the favor), but from my own sense of lagging far behind my duty.
+
+For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of
+goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or notice,
+into a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young woman. I was
+exceedingly shy about this, and blushed if any one spoke of it; but yet
+in my heart I felt it was so; and how could I help it? And when people
+said, as rough people will, and even Uncle Sam sometimes, “Handsome is
+as handsome does,” or “Beauty is only skin-deep,” and so on, I made it
+my duty not to be put out, but to bear it in mind and be thankful. And
+though I had no idea of any such influence at the moment, I hope that
+the grandeur of nature around and the lofty style of every thing
+may have saved me from dwelling too much on myself, as Pennsylvania
+Sylvester did.
+
+Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor, the
+surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with them;
+not to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery way (as
+many young people set out to do, and never get any further), but to
+right the wrong of my own house, and bring home justice to my own heart.
+This may be thought a partial and paltry object to set out with; and
+it is not for me to say otherwise. At the time, it occurred to me in no
+other light except as my due business, and I never took any large view
+at all. But even now I do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom)
+that if every body, in its own little space and among its own little
+movements, will only do and take nothing without pure taste of the salt
+of justice, no reeking atrocity of national crimes could ever taint the
+heaven.
+
+Such questions, however, become me not. I have only to deal with very
+little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy to be
+woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat of, I can
+only say that they seemed very big at the time when I had to encounter
+them.
+
+For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of life,
+than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill of me?
+Yet this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those theories of the
+other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in. Scarcely any thing
+could be more ridiculous from first to last, when calmly and truly
+considered, than the firm belief which no power of reason could for the
+time root out of him.
+
+Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest, was
+positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the female race,
+that my young head was turned because of the wealth to which I had no
+claim, except through his own justice. He had insisted at first that the
+whole of that great nugget belonged to me by right of sole discovery.
+I asked him whether, if any stranger had found it, it would have been
+considered his, and whether he would have allowed a “greaser,” upon
+finding, to make off with it. At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave
+a little grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it.
+But he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser,
+but a settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a settler's
+rights; that the bed of the river would have been his grave but for the
+risk of my life, and therefore whatever I found in the bed of the river
+belonged to me, and me only.
+
+In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be
+that I gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it
+could never make any difference. He did not argue forever, but only
+grew obstinate and unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to own the half
+share of the bullion.
+
+Very well. Every body would have thought, who has not studied the nature
+of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there could be no
+more trouble between two people entirely trusting each other, and only
+anxious that the other should have the best of it. Yet, instead of that
+being the case, the mischief, the myriad mischief, of money set in,
+until I heartily wished sometimes that my miserable self was down in the
+hole which the pelf had left behind it.
+
+For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of generosity
+and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew between them,
+especially about womankind)--what else did he really seem to think, with
+the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts, but that I, his poor
+debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent, was so set up and elated
+by this sudden access of fortune that henceforth none of the sawing race
+was high enough for me to think of? It took me a long time to believe
+that so fair and just a man ever could set such interpretation upon me.
+And when it became too plain that he did so, truly I know not whether
+grief or anger was uppermost in my troubled heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HARD AND SOFT
+
+
+Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down upon
+Miss Sylvester with a large contempt. But while this raised my opinion
+of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great relief--the relief of
+supposing that he wished his grandson to marry this Pennsylvania.
+For although her father, with his pigs and cattle, and a low sort of
+hostelry which he kept, could settle “a good pile of dollars” upon
+her, and had kept her at the “learnedest ladies' college” even in
+San Francisco till he himself trembled at her erudition, still it was
+scarcely to be believed that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense
+and disregard of finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made
+of affectation, vulgarity, and conceit. And one day, quite in the early
+spring, he was so much vexed with the fine lady's airs that he left no
+doubt about his meaning.
+
+Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback; and
+having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs and so
+on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a graceful style
+of horsemanship. And now she dashed through thick and thin in a most
+commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-drift than ladies do for a
+scraping of the road. No one with the least observation could doubt that
+this young woman was extremely anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice;
+and therefore, on the day above spoken of, once more she rode over, with
+her poor father in waiting upon her as usual.
+
+Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has never
+been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth, that no
+smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of large or fine
+sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in the house. I
+simply refused, after seeing her once, to have any thing more to say to
+her; by no means because of my birth and breeding (which are things that
+can be most easily waived when the difference is acknowledged), nor yet
+on account of my being brought up in the company of ladies, nor even by
+reason of any dislike which her bold brown eyes put into me. My cause
+was sufficient and just and wise. I felt myself here as a very
+young girl, in safe and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own
+discretion, without any feminine guidance whatever. And I had learned
+enough from the wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss
+Sylvester was not a young woman who would do me good.
+
+Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me, so
+far as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness went,
+in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal welcome,
+though he said not a word (as on such a point he was quite right in
+doing)--even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite content with my
+decision. But Firm, being young and in many ways stupid, made a little
+grievance of it. And, of course, Miss Sylvester made a great one.
+
+“Oh, I do declare, I am going away,” through my open window I heard her
+exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long visit,
+“without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your young
+visitor. Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs. Such a
+distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted with mauvaise
+honte. Why does she not rush to embrace me? All the French people do;
+and she is so French! Let me see her, for the sake of my accent.”
+
+“We don't want no French here, ma'am,” replied Uncle Sam, as Sylvester
+rode off, “and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt. Her health is as
+good as your own, and you never catch no French actions from her. If she
+wanted to see you, she would 'a come down.”
+
+“Oh, now, this is too barbarous! Colonel Gundry, you are the most
+tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat. Every body says
+so, but I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with that
+impression. And you do look so good-natured!”
+
+“And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight.”
+
+The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and
+rustiest saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea what
+to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show her figure
+as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed her tan gauntlet
+with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam to revolve his
+rudeness, with the dash of the wet road scattered in the air.
+
+“I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course,” he said to Firm, who now
+returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, “if she
+wasn't herself so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my mouldings
+fine. How my mother would 'a stared at the sight of such a gal! Keep
+free of her, my lad, keep free of her. But no harm to put her on, to
+keep our missy alive and awake, my boy.”
+
+Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I can
+tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for his answer.
+I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such delicate subjects;
+and it set me more against all thoughts of Firm than a month's
+reflection could have done. When I came to know more of the world, I saw
+that I had been very foolish. At the time, however, I was firmly set
+in a strong resolve to do that which alone seemed right, or even
+possible--to quit with all speed a place which could no longer be suited
+for me.
+
+For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while equally
+I condemned myself for having so little courage. But it was not as if
+there were any body to help me, or tell me what to do; sometimes I was
+bold with a surety of right, and then again I shook with the fear of
+being wrong. Because, through the whole of it, I felt how wonderfully
+well I had been treated, and what a great debt I owed of kindness; and
+it seemed to be only a nasty little pride which made me so particular.
+And being so unable to settle for myself, I waited for something to
+settle it.
+
+Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected. I had
+told Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking steadily
+upon Miss Sylvester. If any woman on earth could be trusted not to say
+a thing again, that one was this good Indian. Not only because of her
+provident habits, but also in right of the difficulty which encompassed
+her in our language. But she managed to get over both of these, and to
+let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly as if she had lived in drawing-rooms,
+whatever I had said about him. She did it for the best; but it put him
+in a rage, which he came at once to have out with me.
+
+“And so, Miss Erema,” he said, throwing down his hat upon the table of
+the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman ballads, “I
+have your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy marriage with Miss
+Sylvester?”
+
+I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush on his
+cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy tread, showed
+plainly that his mind was a little out of balance. He deserved it,
+however, and I could not grieve.
+
+“You have my best wishes,” I replied, demurely, “for any state of life
+to which you may be called. You could scarcely expect any less of me
+than that.”
+
+“How kind you are! But do you really wish that I should marry old
+Sylvester's girl?”
+
+Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as if
+he were saying, “Do you wish to see me hanged?”), while his eyes took a
+form which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle, that it was
+impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to do.
+
+“No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart is
+set on it--”
+
+“Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?” he asked me, in a deep
+voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my hands. “Why
+will you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one I can ever think
+of twice? Above me, I know, in every possible way--birth and education
+and mind and appearance, and now far above me in money as well. But what
+are all these things? Try to think if only you could like me. Liking
+gets over every thing, and without it nothing is any thing. Why do
+I like you so, Erema? Is it because of your birth, and teaching,
+and manners, and sweet looks, and all that, or even because of your
+troubles?”
+
+“How can I tell, Firm--how can I tell? Perhaps it is just because of
+myself. And why do you do it at all, Firm?”
+
+“Ah, why do I do it? How I wish I knew! Perhaps then I might cure it. To
+begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful about you?”
+
+“Oh, nothing, I should hope. Most surely nothing. It would grieve me to
+be at all wonderful. That I leave for American ladies.”
+
+“Now you don't understand me. I mean, of course, that you are
+wonderfully good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and your
+lips and smile, and all your other features--there is nothing about them
+that can be called any thing else but wonderful.”
+
+“Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are! I did hope that you knew
+better.”
+
+“Erema, I never shall know better. I never can swerve or change, if I
+live to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no doubt,
+from what you are brought up to. And you are so young that to seek to
+bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly thing. But now you
+are old enough, and you know your own mind surely well enough, just to
+say whether you feel as if you could ever love me as I love you.”
+
+He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so, and
+blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for doing that
+than for any thing he had done before. Yet I knew that I ought to speak
+clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I tried.
+
+“Dear Firm,” I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him
+steadily, “I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by--by-and-by, I
+might, that is, if you did not hurry me. Of all the obstacles you have
+mentioned, none is worth considering. I am nothing but a poor castaway,
+owing my life to Uncle Sam and you. But one thing there is which could
+never be got over, even if I felt as you feel toward me. Never can
+I think of little matters, or of turning my thoughts to--to any such
+things as you speak of, as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation
+lies on me. And before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave
+his life for me. Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting
+my time in trifles. I ought to have been in Europe long ago. If I am old
+enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty. If I am old
+enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for hate. I have more
+to do with hate than love, I think.”
+
+“Erema,” cried Firm, “what a puzzle you are! I never even dreamed that
+you could be so fierce. You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam himself.”
+
+“If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough. You see now how vain it
+is to say another word.”
+
+“I do not see any thing of the sort. Come back, and look at me quite
+calmly.”
+
+Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having passed the
+prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up gently and let him
+look at me to his liking. For little as I thought of such things
+till now, I seemed already to know more about them, or at least to
+wonder--which is the stir of the curtain of knowledge. I did not say
+any thing, but labored to think nothing and to look up with unconscious
+eyes. But Firm put me out altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter
+like a stupid little bird.
+
+“My darling,” he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such as I
+could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes, “you are not
+fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is devoting you. You
+have not the hardness and bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession
+and contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will--in
+a word, the fundamental nastiness, without which you never could get
+through such a job. Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!”
+
+“I should hope not. I should earn your contempt, if I could.”
+
+“There, you are ready to cry at the thought. Erema, do not mistake
+yourself. Remember that your father would never have wished it--would
+have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it. Why did he
+bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world except to save
+you from further thought of evil? He knew that we listen to no rumors
+here, no social scandals, or malignant lies; but we value people as we
+find them. He meant this to be a haven for you; and so it shall be
+if you will only rest; and you shall be the queen of it. Instead of
+redressing his memory now, you would only distress his spirit. What does
+he care for the world's gossip now? But he does care for your happiness.
+I am not old enough to tell you things as I should like to tell them.
+I wish I could--how I wish I could! It would make all the difference to
+me.”
+
+“It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it was
+selfishness. Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never could be
+selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as starved my
+father. You can not see things as I see them, or else you would not
+talk so. When you know that a thing is right, you do it. Can you tell me
+otherwise? If you did, I should despise you.”
+
+“If you put it so, I can say no more. You will leave us forever, Erema?”
+
+“No, not forever. If the good God wills it, I will come back when my
+work is done. Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me.”
+
+“There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can hope
+to forgot.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE
+
+
+Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among great
+ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I passed the
+Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called from one of the
+Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long wished to know--why Firm
+had a crooked nose. At least, it could hardly be called crooked if any
+body looked aright at it; but still it departed from the bold straight
+line which nature must have meant for it, every thing else about him
+being as straight as could be required. This subject had troubled me
+more than once, though of course it had nothing whatever to do with the
+point of view whence I regarded him.
+
+Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I
+certainly could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do when
+once I put the question, in despair, to him. But now, as we stood on the
+wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears of anguish were
+in my eyes, and my heart was both full and empty, ample and unexpected
+light was thrown on the curvature of Firm's nose.
+
+For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed,
+came up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then, with
+a blush, took his grandson's hand. Firm took off his hat to her very
+politely, but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner that he was
+particularly engaged just now; and the young lady, with a quick glance
+at me, walked off to rejoin her party. But a garrulous old negro
+servant, who seemed to be in attendance upon her, ran up and caught Firm
+by his coat, and peered up curiously at his face.
+
+“How young massa's poor nose dis long time? How him feel, spose now
+again?” he inquired, with a deferential grin. “Young massa ebber able
+take a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy den? Missy no
+learn to dance de nose polka den?”
+
+“What on earth does he mean?” I could not help asking, in spite of our
+sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other jokes and
+cackles at his own facetiousness. And then Uncle Sam, to divert my
+thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told me how Firm got
+a slight twist to his nose.
+
+Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man
+should learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished
+itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college. And when
+he was leaving to begin home life, with as much put into him as he could
+manage--for his nature was not bookish--when he was just seventeen years
+old, and tall and straight and upright, but not set into great bodily
+strength, which could not yet be expected, a terrible fire broke out in
+a great block of houses newly occupied, over against the school-house
+front. Without waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the
+Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help. And they
+found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the top of
+the house. At the top of the house, according to a stupid and therefore
+general practice, was the nursery, made of more nurses than children, as
+often happens with rich people. The nurses had run away for their lives,
+taking two of the children with them; but the third, a fine little girl
+of ten, had been left behind, and now ran to the window with red
+hot flames behind her. The window was open, and barbs of fire, like
+serpents' tongues, played over it.
+
+“Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!” cried half a hundred people,
+while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and shrank from
+the frightful depth below. At last, stung by a scorching volley, she
+gathered her night-gown tight, and leaped, trusting to the many faces
+and many arms raised toward her. But though many gallant men were there,
+only one stood fast just where she fell, and that one was the youth,
+Firm Gundry. Upon him she fell, like a stone from heaven, and though
+he held up his arms in the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at
+least, for him, but, as her father said, providentially; for one of
+her soles, or heels, alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose. He
+caught her on his chest, and forgetful of himself, he bore her to her
+friends triumphantly, unharmed, and almost smiling. But the symmetry of
+an important part of his face was spoiled forever.
+
+When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own pusillanimous
+rendering--for verily I had been low enough, from rumors of Firm's
+pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of line to some fisticuffs
+with some miner--I looked at Firm's nose through the tears in my eyes,
+and had a great mind not to go away at all. For what is the noblest of
+all things in man--as I bitterly learned thereafter, and already had
+some guesses? Not the power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by
+orders; not the elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others,
+nor even the imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them:
+there may be glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them.
+It remains with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses broken.
+
+However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I
+thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could not
+help asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the heroism.
+The Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however ancient
+quality, gave a great wink at Firm (which I failed to understand), and
+asked him how much the young lady was worth. He expected that Firm
+would say, “Five hundred thousand dollars”--which was about her value, I
+believe--and Uncle Sam wanted me to hear it; not that he cared a single
+cent himself, but to let me know what Firm could do.
+
+Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort. He knew me
+better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me to jealousy,
+and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.
+
+“I have never asked what she is worth,” he said, with a glance
+of contempt at money; “but she scarcely seems worth looking at,
+compared--compared with certain others.”
+
+In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no attraction,
+but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative negro after her.
+It would have been below me to pursue the subject, and I waited for
+others to re-open it; but I heard no more about her until I had been
+for more than a week at sea, and was able again to feel interest. Then I
+heard that her name was Annie Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and
+Co., who owned the ship I sailed in.
+
+But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
+wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored him
+not to forget me. Over and over again he promised to be full of thoughts
+of me, even when the new mill was started, which would be a most trying
+time. He bowed his tall white head into my sheveled hair, and blessed
+and kissed me, although I never deserved it, and a number of people were
+looking on. Then I laid my hand in Firm's, and he did not lift it to his
+lips, or sigh, but pressed it long and softly, and looked into my eyes
+without a word. And I knew that there would be none to love like them,
+wherever I might go.
+
+But the last of all to say “good-by” was my beloved Jowler. He jumped
+into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat, the ship
+having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my shoulders,
+and whined and drooped his under-jaw. And when he looked at me as he
+used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest, with more expression in
+his bright brown eyes than any human being has, I fell back under his
+weight and sobbed, and could not look at any one.
+
+We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed the
+Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital of the
+world, perhaps. For, as our captain said, all power and human energy and
+strength are always going westward, and when they come here they must
+stop, or else they would be going eastward again, which they never yet
+have done. His argument may have been right or wrong--and, indeed, it
+must have been one or the other--but who could think of such things now,
+with a grander thing than human power--human love fading away behind? I
+could not even bear to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below
+and cried for hours, until all was dark and calm.
+
+The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed, rather
+suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who
+had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the
+Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now
+on half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him;
+for their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now
+in San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker,
+Banks, and Co., had obtained for his father and mother passage upon
+favorable terms, which was, as we say, “an object to them.”
+
+For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to Colonel
+Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the twists of the
+world were set aside), also having served his country, and received
+a furrow on the top of his head, which made him brush his hair up,
+nevertheless, or all the more for that, was as poor as a British officer
+must be without official sesame. How he managed to feed and teach a
+large and not clever family, and train them all to fight their way in a
+battle worse than any of his own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them,
+whatever they did or wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful
+wife, and the Lord who helps brave poverty. Of such things he never
+spoke, unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and
+laziness.
+
+But now he was a little better off, through having his children off his
+hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant relative.
+He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man never returned
+to England, after always standing up for her.
+
+Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large people,
+I could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him no more than
+a little man with many peculiarities. For he was not so tall as myself,
+until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he made such a stir about
+trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only grunted, that I took him to
+be nothing more than a fidgety old campaigner. He wore a black-rimmed
+double eyeglass with blue side-lights at his temples, and his hat, from
+the shape of his forehead, hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers,
+and a Roman nose, and most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with
+gingery brows, which contracted, like sharp little gables over
+them, whenever any thing displeased him. Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn,
+close-shaven, and gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor
+to the general expression of his face, which was firm and quick and
+straightforward. The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand,
+Major Hockin was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and
+beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which, though
+he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready for a game of
+leap-frog.
+
+We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the coast
+ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower Nevada could
+only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every body lay about in our
+ship where it seemed to afford the least smell and heat, and nobody
+for a moment dreamed--for we really all were dreaming--of any body with
+energy enough to be disturbed about any thing, when Major Hockin burst
+in upon us all (who were trying not to be red-hot in the feeble shade
+of poop awnings), leading by the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed
+with decency, and howling in a tone very sad to hear.
+
+“This lady has been robbed!” cried the Major; “robbed, not fifteen feet
+below us. Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished treasures
+of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of a life of
+honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a fine cut of
+Colorado cheese.”
+
+“Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!” cried the poor woman, wringing
+her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
+
+“Go to the captain,” muttered one sleepy gentleman. “Go to the devil,”
+ said another sleepy man: “what have we to do with it?”
+
+“I will neither go to the captain,” replied the Major, very distinctly,
+“nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has dared to suggest
+to me--”
+
+“All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!” the poor old woman began to
+scream; “the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un. Only two have
+I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of 'em. Oh dear!
+oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of my things!”
+
+“Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
+Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like to
+be treated so? Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you lie like
+a parcel of Mexicans. If any body picked your pockets, would you have
+life enough to roll over?”
+
+“I don't think I should,” said a fat young Briton, with a very
+good-natured face; “but for a poor woman I can stand upright. Major
+Hockin, here is a guinea for her. Perhaps more of us will give a
+trifle.”
+
+“Well done!” cried the Major; “but not so much as that. Let us first
+ascertain all the rights of the case. Perhaps half a crown apiece would
+reach it.”
+
+Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered
+afterward, for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost under
+some more of her property; and the tide of sleepy charity taking this
+direction under such vehement impulse, several other steerage passengers
+lost their goods, but found themselves too late in doing so. But the
+Major was satisfied, and the rude man who had told him to go amiss,
+begged his pardon, and thus we sailed on slowly and peaceably.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+INSIDE THE CHANNEL
+
+
+That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's character. It
+was not for himself alone that he was so particular, or, as many would
+call it, fidgety, to have every thing done properly; for if any thing
+came to his knowledge which he thought unfair to any one, it concerned
+him almost as much as if the wrong had been done to his own home self.
+Through this he had fallen into many troubles, for his impressions were
+not always accurate; but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife
+said, “the Major could not help it.” The leading journals of the various
+places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of
+grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had
+suffered in purse by doing so. But the Major always said, “Ventilate it,
+ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public opinion to bear on it.”
+ And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was her husband to whom belonged
+the whole credit of this new and spirited use of the fine word
+“ventilation.”
+
+As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to say
+that the Major was the master. His sense of justice dictated that, as
+well as his general briskness. Though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry
+in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience and more frequent
+intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us; and it was
+pleasant to hear him often defer to the judgment of ladies. But this
+he did more, perhaps, in theory than in practice; yet it made all the
+ladies declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman. And so
+he was, though he had his faults; but his faults were such as we approve
+of.
+
+But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of. And whatever
+she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to keep up with him.
+She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year, and a great deal prettier
+because she never tried to look younger. Silver hair, and gentle eyes,
+and a forehead in which all the cares of eight children had scarcely
+imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind expression of interest in whatever was
+spoken of, with a quiet voice and smile, and a power of not saying too
+much at a time, combined to make this lady pleasant.
+
+Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her care;
+and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society of Suan Isco
+and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to amend, which
+she did by example and without reproof. She shielded me also in the
+cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon, which at first was
+very trying. For the Bridal Veil being a well-known ship both for swift
+passages and for equipment, almost every berth was taken, and when
+the weather was calm, quite a large assembly sat down to dinner. Among
+these, of course, were some ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve
+and self-consciousness, and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for
+many a long and searching gaze. My own wish had been not to dine thus in
+public; but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for
+curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the former
+having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to her
+management. His temper was tried more than once to its utmost--which was
+not a very great distance--but he kept his word, and did not interfere;
+and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed all perception
+of glances. And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met them with an obtuse
+obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was settled that nothing
+could be done about “Miss Wood.”
+
+It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled shed
+of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and called
+“Miss Wood,” like almost anybody else. I refused to entertain such a
+very poor idea, and clung to the name which had always been mine--for
+my father would never depart from it--and I even burst into tears, which
+would, I suppose, be called “sentimental;” but still the stern fact
+stared me in the face--I must go as “Miss Wood,” or not go at all. Upon
+this Major Hockin had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move
+him from his resolution.
+
+Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from
+wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon it, and
+even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's chief duty, his
+own stern sense of right came in and sided with my prayers to him.
+And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my youth and sex, but a
+knowledge that I was in good hands, and an inborn, perhaps “Puritanical”
+ faith, that the Lord of all right would see to me.
+
+The Major, on the other hand, had none of this. He differed from Uncle
+Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree differs from a
+great spreading king of the woods. He was not without a strict sense of
+religion, especially when he had to march men to church; and he never
+even used a bad word, except when wicked facts compelled him. When
+properly let alone, and allowed to nurse his own opinions, he had a
+respectable idea that all things were certain to be ordered for the
+best; but nothing enraged him so much as to tell him that when things
+went against him, or even against his predictions.
+
+It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most adverse
+view of my case. He formed his opinions with the greatest haste, and
+with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was the most
+generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of his genus. And
+in my little case he had made up his mind that the whole of the facts
+were against me. “Fact” was his favorite word, and one which he always
+used with great effect, for nobody knows very well what it means, as it
+does not belong to our language. And so when he said that the facts were
+against me, who was there to answer that facts are not truth?
+
+This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through himself,
+but through his wife. For I could not yet bring myself to speak of the
+things that lay close at my heart to him, though I knew that he must be
+aware of them. And he, like a gentleman, left me to begin. I could often
+see that he was ready and quite eager to give me the benefit of his
+opinion, which would only have turned me against him, and irritated him,
+perhaps, with me. And having no home in England, or, indeed, I might
+say, any where, I was to live with the Major and his wife, supposing
+that they could arrange it so, until I should discover relatives.
+
+We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly; and I
+thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of the furious
+northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have no idea in what
+latitude, though the passengers now talked quite like seamen, at least
+till the sea got up again. However, at last we made the English Channel,
+in the dreary days of November, and after more peril there than any
+where else, we were safely docked at Southampton. Here the Major was met
+by two dutiful daughters, bringing their husbands and children, and I
+saw more of family life (at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to
+observe before; and although there were many little jars and brawls and
+cuts at one another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some
+brothers and sisters to quarrel with.
+
+But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
+Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched time
+in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in the very
+worst of weather. The ooze of the shore and the reek of the water, and
+the dreary flatness of the land around (after the glorious heaven-clad
+heights, which made me ashamed of littleness), also the rough, stupid
+stare of the men, when I went about as an American lady may freely do in
+America, and the sharpness of every body's voice (instead of the genial
+tones which those who can not produce them call “nasal,” but which from
+a higher view are cordial)--taken one after other, or all together,
+these things made me think, in the first flush of thought, that England
+was not a nice country. After a little while I found that I had been a
+great deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
+comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid woman
+put over me, as if I could not mind myself--a cook, or a nurse, or
+housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin family, but to me a
+mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath sometimes) a spy.
+What was I likely to do, or what was any one likely to do to me, in
+a thoroughly civilized country, that I could not even stay in private
+lodgings, where I had a great deal to think of, without this dull
+creature being forced upon me? But the Major so ordered it, and I gave
+in.
+
+There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed without
+slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to “form my
+mind,” as I was told to do. Major Hockin came down once or twice to see
+me, and though I did not like him, yet it was almost enough to make me
+do so to see a little liveliness. But I could not and would not put
+up with a frightful German baron of music, with a polished card like a
+toast-rack, whom the Major tried to impress on me. As if I could stop to
+take music lessons!
+
+“Miss Wood,” said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last time
+he came to see me, “I stand to you in loco parentis. That means, with
+the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what not, of the
+unfortunate--I should say rather of the beloved--parent deceased. I wish
+to be more careful of you than of a daughter of my own--a great deal
+more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say a thousand times more
+careful, because you have not had the discipline which a daughter of
+mine would have enjoyed. And you are so impulsive when you take an
+idea! You judge every body by your likings. That leads to error, error,
+error.”
+
+“My name is not Miss Wood,” I answered; “my name is 'Erema Castlewood.'
+Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody knowing who I am,
+surely I may have my own name now.”
+
+When any body says “surely,” at once up springs a question; nothing
+being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative. The Major
+knew all those little things which manage women so manfully. So he took
+me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
+
+I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair, nor
+even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or figure
+was I conscious of false presentment. The Major was welcome to lead me
+to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze with all his
+eyes. My only vexation was with myself, because I could not keep the
+weakness--which a stranger should not see--out of my eyes, upon sudden
+remembrance who it was that used to have the right to do such things to
+me. This it was, and nothing else, that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
+
+“There, there, my dear!” said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than
+usual. “Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the world,
+and brave the world, and abolish the world--or at least the world's
+opinion! 'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no 'bo' to a gander.
+No, no; do quietly what I advise--by-the-bye, you have never asked my
+advice.”
+
+I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that most;
+but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's relaxation of
+his eyes,
+
+“Oh, why have you never offered it to me? You knew that I never could
+ask for it.”
+
+For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone crosswise;
+and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith in his opinions;
+which was now growing inevitable, with his wife and daughters, and many
+grandchildren--all certain that he was a Solomon.
+
+“Erema,” he said, “you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
+romantic. I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk with
+you, Erema, when we both have leisure.”
+
+“I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin,” I replied, “and only too happy to
+listen to you.”
+
+“Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as you
+please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a woodcock
+waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am five minutes
+late already. I will come and have a talk with you afterward.”
+
+“Thank you,” I said; “we had better leave it. It seems of no importance,
+compared--compared with--”
+
+“My dinner!” said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a little,
+though neither of us meant to vex the other.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BRUNTSEA
+
+
+It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant man or
+a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had ordered, and his
+eagerness to sit down to it. Through all the best years of his life he
+had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-denying, grudging every penny
+of his own expense, but sparing none for his family. And now, when he
+found himself so much better off, with more income and less outlay, he
+could not be blamed for enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of
+abstinence.
+
+For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major had
+discovered that the “little property” left to him, and which he was come
+to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who knew how to
+manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence. And of these two
+qualities he had such abundance that, without any outlet, they might
+have turned him sour.
+
+The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin, had
+long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet. Sir Rufus
+hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with the only
+alternative--extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin Nick (except
+that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to be lazier even
+than himself had been, longing also to inflict even posthumous justice
+upon the land agent, with the glad consent of his heir he left this
+distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to his beloved cousin Major
+Nicholas Hockin.
+
+The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings
+while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to
+speculate and his dread of speculation. At once he consulted our Colonel
+Gundry, who met him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle Sam having
+a vast idea of the value of land in England, which the Major naturally
+made the most of, now being an English land-owner, they spent a most
+pleasant evening, and agreed upon the line marked out by Providence.
+
+Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me, who
+was much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first disposed to be
+cold and curt. And thus it was that I was left so long in that wretched
+Southampton, under the care of a very kind person who never could
+understand me. And all this while (as I ought to have known, without
+any one to tell me) Major Hockin was testing the value and beating the
+bounds of his new estate, and prolonging his dinner from one to two
+courses, or three if he had been travelling. His property was large
+enough to afford him many dinners, and rich enough (when rightly
+treated) to insure their quality.
+
+Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of England, in
+Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a constitution of its
+own, and says that it belongs to neither. It used to be a place of size
+and valor, furnishing ships, and finding money for patriotic purposes.
+And great people both embarked and landed, one doing this and the other
+that, though nobody seems to have ever done both, if history is to be
+relied upon. The glory of the place is still preserved in a seal and
+an immemorial stick, each of which is blessed with marks as
+incomprehensible as could be wished, though both are to be seen for
+sixpence. The name of the place is written in more than forty different
+ways, they say; and the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the
+youngest how to spell it.
+
+This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the
+mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which a
+sluggish river wins its muddy consummation. This river once went far
+along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is afraid to
+bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other rivers do. And
+in those days the mouth and harbor were under the cliff at Bruntsea,
+whence its seal and corporation, stick, and other blessings. But three
+or four centuries ago the river was drawn by a violent storm, like a
+badger from his barrel, and forced to come straight out and face the
+sea, without any three miles of dalliance. The time-serving water
+made the best of this, forsook its ancient bed (as classic nymphs and
+fountains used to do), and left poor Bruntsea with a dry bank, and
+no haven for a cockle-shell. A new port, such as it is, incrusted the
+fickle jaw of the river; piles were driven and earth-works formed, lest
+the water should return to its old love; and Bruntsea, as concerned
+her traffic, became but a mark of memory. Her noble corporation never
+demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as the will of
+the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except their
+time-honored ceremonies.
+
+In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value
+there. The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights, having
+no means of getting at them, sold them for an “old song,” which they
+were; and the buyer was one of the Hockin race, a shipwrecked mariner
+from Cornwall, who had been kindly treated there, and took a fancy
+accordingly. He sold his share in some mine to pay for it, settled here,
+and died here; and his son, getting on in the world, built a house, and
+took to serious smuggling. In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes
+of honest value to him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish
+holes were not), and much more accessible from France. Becoming a
+magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of
+inquiring into his own deeds, which enabled him to check those few who
+otherwise might have competed with him. He flourished, and bought more
+secure estates; and his son, for activity against smugglers, was made a
+gentle baronet.
+
+These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the Hockin
+family became a mere load and incumbrance. Sir George and Sir Robert and
+Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints about contraband
+dealings which met them whenever they deigned to come down there, till
+at last the estate (being left to an agent) cost a great deal more than
+he ever paid in. And thus--as should have been more briefly told--the
+owner was our Major Hockin.
+
+No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had no
+time at first to send for me. And no wonder that when he came down to
+see me, he was obliged to have good dinners. For the work done by him in
+those three months surprised every body except himself, and made in old
+Bruntsea a stir unknown since the time of the Spanish Armada. For
+he owned the house under the eastern cliff, and the warren, and the
+dairy-farm inland, and the slope of the ground where the sea used to
+come, and fields where the people grew potatoes gratis, and all the
+eastern village, where the tenants paid their rents whenever they found
+it rational.
+
+A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal of
+mischief. Either he would have accepted large views, and applauded this
+fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no wife), or else he
+would have rushed at every body headlong, and batted them back to their
+abutments. Neither course would have created half the excitement which
+the Major's did. At least, there might have been more talk at first, but
+not a quarter so much in sum total. Of those things, however, there is
+time enough to speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.
+
+The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made plain
+to another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the shadow we
+call human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside it and upon
+it, as if it were all creation; but the infinitely nobler things of
+ever-changing but perpetual beauty, and no selfishness. These, without
+deigning to us even sense to be aware of them, shape our little minds
+and bodies and our large self-importance, and fail to know when the lord
+or king who owns is buried under them. To have perception of such mighty
+truths is good for all of us: and I never had keener perception of them
+than when I sat down on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land
+around me, and even the sea--where all the fish were his, as soon as he
+could catch them--and largely reflected that not a square foot of the
+whole world would ever belong to me.
+
+“Bruntlands,” as the house was called, perhaps from standing well above
+the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff, which looked
+down over Bruntsea. The cliff was of chalk, very steep toward the sea,
+and showing a prominent headland toward the south, but prettily rising
+in grassy curves from the inland and from the westward. And then, where
+it suddenly chined away from land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of
+shingle began at right angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went
+to the river's mouth, a league or so now to the westward. And beyond
+that another line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came
+to their headland. Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might
+be traced the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough at
+the hither end stood, or lay, the calm old village.
+
+Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient site
+and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and cast off
+needless members. Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the oldest of its
+churches, while the four others fell to rack and ruin, and settled into
+cow-yards and barns, and places where old men might sit and sigh. But
+Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly kept the old town's division into
+east and west.
+
+East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special
+charter; and most of the houses belonged to him. This ownership hitherto
+had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-down repairs
+(when the agent reported that they must be done), but never must enter
+the door for his rent. The borough had been disfranchised, though the
+snuggest of the snug for generations; and the freemen, thus being
+robbed of their rights, had no power to discharge their duties. And to
+complicate matters yet further, for the few who wished to simplify them,
+the custom of “borough-English” prevailed, and governed the descent of
+dilapidations, making nice niceties for clever men of law.
+
+“You see a fine property here, Miss Wood,” Major Hockin said to me,
+as we sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the fresh
+breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air, and looking
+abroad very generally: “a very fine property, but neglected--shamefully,
+horribly, atrociously neglected--but capable of noble things, of grand
+things, of magnificent, with a trifle of judicious outlay.”
+
+“Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear,” said good Mrs. Hockin,
+gently; “it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to come
+from?”
+
+“Leave that to me. When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-book
+was, 'Where there's a will there's a way.' Miss Wood, what is your
+opinion? But wait, you must have time to understand the subject. First
+we bring a railway--always the first step; why, the line is already made
+for it by the course of the old river, and the distance from Newport
+three miles and a half. It ought not to cost quite 200 pounds a
+mile--the mere outlay for rails and sleepers. The land is all mine,
+and--and of course other landed proprietors'. Very well: these would all
+unite, of course; so that not a farthing need be paid for land, which is
+the best half of the battle. We have the station here--not too near my
+house; that would never do; I could not bear the noise--but in a fine
+central place where nobody on earth could object to it--lively, and
+close at hand for all of them. Unluckily I was just too late. We have
+lost a Parliamentary year through that execrable calm--you remember all
+about it. Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at Bruntsea
+by the first of May. But never mind; we shall do it all the better and
+cheaper by taking our time about it. Very well: we have the railway
+opened and the trade of the place developed. We build a fine terrace of
+elegant villas, a crescent also, and a large hotel replete with every
+luxury; and we form the finest sea-parade in England by simply assisting
+nature. Half London comes down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to
+flirt, and to do the rest of it. We become a select, salubrious,
+influential, and yet economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs.
+Hockin?”
+
+“My dear, how can I tell? But I hope that we should rest and be
+thankful.”
+
+“Not a bit of it. I should hope not, indeed. Erema, what do we do then?”
+
+“It is useless to ask me. Well, then, perhaps you set up a handsome
+saw-mill!”
+
+“A saw-mill! What a notion of Paradise! No; this is what we do--but
+remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest antagonism
+might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon--Mrs. Hockin and Miss
+Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!--the return of our river
+to its ancient course.”
+
+“I see,” said his wife; “oh, how grand that would be! and how beautiful
+from our windows! That really, now, is a noble thought!”
+
+“A just one--simply a just one. Justice ought not to be noble, my
+dear, however rare it may be. Generosity, magnanimity, heroism, and so
+on--those are the things we call noble, my dear.”
+
+“And the founding of cities. Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was at
+school, it was always said, in what we called our histories, that
+the founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built, and
+divinities done, and holidays held in their honor.”
+
+“To that I object,” cried the Major, sternly. “If I founded fifty
+cities, I would never allow one holiday. The Sabbath is enough; one day
+in seven--fifteen per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty per cent, of
+your Sunday goes in church. Very right, of course, and loyal, and truly
+edifying--Mrs. Hockin's father was a clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last
+thing I would ever allow on my manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but
+still I will have no new churches here, and a man who might go against
+me. They all want to pick their own religious views, instead of
+reflecting who supports them! It never used to be so; and such things
+shall never occur on my manor. A good hotel, attendance included, and a
+sound and moderate table d'hote; but no church, with a popish bag sent
+round, and money to pay, 'without anything to eat.'”
+
+“My dear! my dear!” cried Mrs. Hockin, “I never like you to talk like
+that. You quite forget who my father was, and your own second son such a
+very sound priest!”
+
+“A priest! Don't let him come here,” cried the Major, “or I'll let him
+know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec. A priest!
+After going round the world three times, to come home and be hailed as
+the father of a priest! Don't let him come near me, or I'll sacrifice
+him.”
+
+“Now, Major, you are very proud of him,” his good wife answered, as
+he shook his stick. “How could he help taking orders when he was under
+orders to do so? And his views are sound to the last degree, most
+strictly correct and practical--at least except as to celibacy.”
+
+“He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born! Miss Wood,
+do you call that practical?”
+
+“I have no acquaintance with such things,” I replied; “we had none of
+them in California. But is it practical, Major Hockin--of course you
+know best in your engineering--I mean, would it not require something
+like a tunnel for the river and the railway to run on the same ground?”
+
+“Why, bless me! That seems to have escaped my notice. You have not been
+with old Uncle Sam for nothing. We shall have to appoint you our chief
+engineer.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LISTLESS
+
+
+It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my purpose,
+that my host, and even my hostess too, should be so engrossed with their
+new estate, its beauties and capabilities. Mrs. Hockin devoted herself
+at once to fowls and pigs and the like extravagant economies, having
+bought, at some ill-starred moment, a book which proved that hens ought
+to lay eggs in a manner to support themselves, their families, and the
+family they belonged to, at the price of one penny a dozen. Eggs being
+two shillings a dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit--no less
+than two thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents.
+The lady also found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's
+purely invaluable secret--how to work an acre of ground, pay house rent,
+supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of vegetables
+every day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig--if that pig were
+kept properly. And after that, pork and ham and bacon came of him, while
+another golden pig went on.
+
+Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could make
+bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got him it
+would be unwise to do so. However, the law was laid down in both books
+that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death before they
+begin to overeat production; and the Major said, “To be sure. Yes, yes.
+Let them come to good meat, and then off with their heads.” And his wife
+said that she was sure she could do it. When it comes to a question of
+tare and tret, false sentiment must be excluded.
+
+At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more
+impatient. Being older now, and beholding what happens with tolerance
+and complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends were so
+tolerant of me and so complacent. For I must have been a great annoyance
+to them, with my hurry and my one idea. Happily they made allowance for
+me, which I was not old enough to make for them.
+
+“Go to London, indeed! Go to London by yourself!” cried the Major, with
+a red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning that I could
+stop no longer without doing something. “Mary, my dear, when you have
+done out there, will you come in and reason--if you can--with Miss Wood.
+She vows that she is going to London, all alone.”
+
+“Oh, Major Hockin--oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!” Mrs.
+Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in through the
+window. “You know that they have only had three bushels, or, at any
+rate, not more than five, almost ever since they came. Erema, you know
+as well as I do.”
+
+“Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a
+bushel, Mary,” said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; “besides
+Indian corn, chopped meat, and potatoes.”
+
+“And fourteen pounds of paddy,” I said--which was a paltry thing of me;
+“not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers' grains, and
+then--I forget what next.”
+
+“You are too bad, all of you. Erema, I never thought you would turn
+against me so. And you made me get nearly all of it. But please to look
+here. What do you call this? Is this no reward? Is this not enough?
+Major, if you please, what do you call this? What a pity you have had
+your breakfast!”
+
+“A blessing--if this was to be my breakfast. I call that, my dear, the
+very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests. No wonder
+they sell them at twelve a penny. I congratulate you upon your first
+egg, my dear Mary.”
+
+“Well, I don't care,” replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest temper
+in the world. “Small beginnings make large endings; and an egg must be
+always small at one end. You scorn my first egg, and Erema should have
+had it if she had been good. But she was very wicked, and I know not
+what to do with it.”
+
+“Blow it!” cried the Major. “I mean no harm, ladies. I never use low
+language. What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a puff, and
+away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet specimen, which your
+egg is quite fitted by its cost to be. But now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood,
+if you please. It is useless for me to say any thing, and I have three
+appointments in the town”--he always called it “the town” now--“three
+appointments, if not four; yes, I may certainly say four. Talk to Miss
+Wood, my dear, if you please. She wants to go to London, which would be
+absurd. Ladies seem to enter into ladies' logic. They seem to be able to
+appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs, which
+no man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head or tail of.
+Good-by for the present; I had better be off.”
+
+“I should think you had,” exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband
+marched off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step, and
+well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and the beach,
+over which he had rights of plunder--or, at least, Uncle Sam would have
+called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.
+
+“Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear,” Mrs. Hockin began, most
+kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg. “I have noticed
+how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in any thing.
+'Listless' is the word. 'Listless' is exactly what I mean, Erema. When
+I was at your time of life, I could never have gone about caring for
+nothing. I wonder that you knew that I even had a fowl; much more how
+much they had eaten!”
+
+“I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it,” I said.
+“I am not quite so listless as you think. But those things do seem so
+little to me.”
+
+“My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after all
+the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them. It is a power to
+be thankful for, or, at least, I often think so. Look at my husband! He
+has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any one but myself could
+reckon up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as full of life, as ready
+to begin a new thing to-morrow--when, at our age, there may be no
+to-morrow, except in that better world, my dear, of which it is high
+time for him and me to think, as I truly hope we may spare the time to
+do.”
+
+“Oh, don't talk like that,” I cried. “Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk of
+your hens and chicks--at least there will be chicks by-and-by. I am
+almost sure there will, if you only persevere. It seems unfair to set
+our minds on any other world till justice has been done in this.”
+
+“You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case
+we never should think of it at all. But I don't want to preach you a
+sermon, Erema, even if I could do so. I only just want you to tell me
+what you think, what good you imagine that you can do.”
+
+“It is no imagination. I am sure that I can right my father's wrongs.
+And I never shall rest till I do so.”
+
+“Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?” she asked, in the
+warmth of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color changed, she
+looked at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.
+
+“Oh, if you had only once seen him,” I said; “without any exaggeration,
+you would have been satisfied at once. That he could ever have done any
+harm was impossible--utterly impossible. I am not as I was. I can listen
+to almost any thing now quite calmly. But never let me hear such a
+wicked thing again.”
+
+“You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all your
+friends. No one can help being sorry for you. Very few girls have been
+placed as you are. I am sure when I think of my own daughters I can
+never be too thankful. But the very first thing you have to learn, above
+all things, is to control yourself.”
+
+“I know it--I know it, of course,” I said; “and I keep on trying my very
+best. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you will try to
+forgive me.”
+
+“A very slight exertion is enough for that. But now, my dear, what I
+want to know is this--and you will excuse me if I ask too much--what
+good do you expect to get by going thus to London? Have you any friend
+there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what you are to do?”
+
+“Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind,” I answered, very bravely:
+“I have the address of a very good woman, found among my father's
+papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature, and always
+kept her faith in him. There must be a great many more who do the same,
+and she will be sure to know them and introduce me to them; and I shall
+be guided by their advice.”
+
+“But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found, or
+has changed her opinion?”
+
+“Her opinion she never could change. But if she is not to be found, I
+shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and besides that,
+I have a hundred things to do. I have the address of the agent through
+whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam let me know as little
+as he could. And I know who his bankers were (when he had a bank), and
+he may have left important papers there.”
+
+“Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may always
+be relied upon. And there may be some valuable plate, Erema. But why not
+let the Major go with you? His advice is so invaluable.”
+
+“I know that it is, in all ordinary things. But I can not have him
+now, for a very simple reason. He has made up his mind about my dear
+father--horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it. And he never changes
+his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him.”
+
+“Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show it.
+Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps--those who think as you
+wish and those who are led by their judgment to think otherwise? And are
+you to hate all who do not think as you wish?”
+
+“No, because I do not hate you,” I said; “I love you, though you do not
+think as I wish. But that is only because you think your husband must be
+right of course. But I can not like those who have made up their minds
+according to their own coldness.”
+
+“Major Hockin is not cold at all. On the contrary, he is a warm-hearted
+man--I might almost say hot-hearted.”
+
+“Yes, I know he is. And that makes it ten times worse. He takes up every
+body's case--but mine.”
+
+“Sad as it is, you almost make me smile,” my hostess answered, gravely;
+“and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just and kind
+my husband is. I am sure that you will give him credit for at least
+desiring to take your part. And doing so, at least you might let him go
+with you, if only as a good protection.”
+
+“I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that he
+would not like. In a good cause he would go any where, I know. But in my
+cause, of course he would be scrupulous. Your kindness I always can rely
+upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well.”
+
+“My dear, he has never been unkind to you. I am certain that you never
+can say that of him. Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like you!”
+
+“The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity,” I answered, less
+humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in my tone,
+perhaps. “If people choose to pity me, they are very good, and I am not
+at all offended, because--because they can not help it, perhaps, from
+not knowing any thing about me. I have nothing whatever to be pitied
+for, except that I have lost my father, and have nobody left to care for
+me, except Uncle Sam in America.”
+
+“Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man,
+Erema,” said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any craft
+in her; “I never saw him--a great loss on my part. But the Major went
+up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock of his best tie
+broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat. Does Uncle Sam make
+people laugh so much? or is it that he has some extraordinary gift of
+inducing people to taste whiskey? My husband is a very--most abstemious
+man, as you must be well aware, Miss Wood, or we never should have been
+as we are, I am sure. But, for the first time in all my life, I
+doubted his discretion on the following day, when he had--what shall I
+say?--when he had been exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam.”
+
+“Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way,” I replied to this new
+attack; “he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops. Do you think
+that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were too strong
+and large for the Major?”
+
+“Erema!” cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to
+think or express my thoughts on life so early; “if you can talk politics
+at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where. I have heard a great
+deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of them, as you know.
+But I thought that you called yourself an English girl, and insisted
+particularly upon it.”
+
+“Yes, that I do; and I have good reason. I am born of an old English
+family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it. But being brought up in a
+number of ways, as I have been without thinking of it, and being quite
+different from the fashionable girls Major Hockin likes to walk with--”
+
+“My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!”
+
+“Oh yes, I remember! I was thinking of the deck. There are no
+fashionable girls here yet. Till the terrace is built, and the
+esplanade--”
+
+“There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do such
+things upon them.”
+
+“I am sure that he never would,” I replied; “it was only their dresses
+that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind, extraordinary style,
+as well as unbecoming. You know what I mean, Mrs. Hockin, that
+wonderful--what shall I call it?--way of looping up.”
+
+“Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so
+dreadful. You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it, stuck
+up here, and going down there. Erema, what observation you have! Nothing
+ever seems to escape you. Did you ever see any thing so indecorous?”
+
+“It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them,” I answered,
+with perfect truth, for so it did; “I have never been accustomed to
+such things. But seeing how the Major approved of them, and liked to
+be walking up and down between them, I knew that they must be not only
+decorous, but attractive. There is no appeal from his judgment, is
+there?”
+
+“I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have always
+longed to say a few words about that. For I can not help thinking that
+he went too far.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+BETSY BOWEN
+
+
+So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to think
+with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the exception of
+Firm Gundry. And I feared that he tried to think with me because of his
+faithful and manly love, more than from balance of evidence. The Sawyer,
+of course, held my father guiltless, through his own fidelity and simple
+ways; but he could not enter into my set thought of a stern duty laid
+upon me, because to his mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing
+so long as a man did aright. For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I
+was a great deal too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost
+equal value with clear conscience. And therefore, wise or foolish, rich
+or poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things, and
+restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.
+
+However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly obstinate,
+and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though hateful
+opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I should not do
+any thing out of keeping with English ideas and habits. In a word, I
+accepted the Major's kind offer to see me quite safe in good hands in
+London, or else bring me straightway back again. And I took only just
+things enough for a day or two, meaning to come back by the end of the
+week. And I kissed Mrs. Hockin just enough for that.
+
+It would not be a new thing for me to say that “we never know what is
+going to happen;” but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old
+common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted) show
+themselves. At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for nothing,
+at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of my journey.
+The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and appeared to think
+nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other hand, did not want him
+there, preferring to keep him out of my money matters, and so he was
+obliged to let me have my way.
+
+I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve me
+right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered either at
+the place which we tried first, or that to which we were sent thence.
+Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as much as to hint
+that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all a wild-goose chase.
+And being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack,
+he actually called out to the cabman to drive without delay to Messrs.
+Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I begged him to allow me just one
+minute while I spoke to the servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a
+sovereign, at which she opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she
+told me that “though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about
+it, because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss
+that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond
+belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would
+promise faithfully not to tell.” This promise I gave with fidelity, and
+returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to Messrs. Shovelin,
+Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17 European Square, St.
+Katharine's.
+
+From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly
+as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last into
+European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong opening
+pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump. There were
+great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the place itself seemed
+unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into it, only murmurous with
+distant London din, as the spires of a shell hold the heavings of the
+sea. After driving three or four times round the pump, for the houses
+were numbered anyhow, we found No. 17, and I jumped out.
+
+“Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood,” cried the Major, who
+was now a little crusty; “English ladies allow themselves to be handed
+out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor.”
+
+“But I wanted to save you the honor,” I said. “I will come back
+immediately, if you will kindly wait.” And with this I ran up the old
+steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came and gazed
+through dingy windows.
+
+“Can I see Mrs. Strouss?” I asked, when a queer old man in faded brown
+livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the sun was
+shining.
+
+“I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good Meeses
+Strouss also.”
+
+“Thank you, but that will not do,” I replied; “my business is with Mrs.
+Strouss alone.”
+
+He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the
+chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the Major
+looked out of the cab and laughed.
+
+“You had better come back while you can,” he said, “though they seem in
+no hurry to swallow you.”
+
+This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to him. The
+house looked very respectable, and there were railings to the area.
+
+“The house is very respectable,” continued Major Hockin, who always
+seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner ran
+up the steps; “just look, the scraper is clean. You never see that, or
+at least not often, except with respectable people, Erema.”
+
+“Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?” cried a strong, clear
+voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout, tall woman
+with a flush in her cheeks confronted us. “I never knew more than one
+Erema--Good mercy!”
+
+My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back into
+a lobby chair. She knew me by my likeness to my father, falling on
+the memories started by my name; and strong as she was, the surprise
+overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the small Herr Strouss.
+
+“Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised with my
+frau? Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I should say de
+peelers.”
+
+“Stop!” cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word, which
+would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it then, but
+because he had received a sign which assured him that here was a brother
+Mason. In a moment the infuriated husband vanished into the rational and
+docile brother.
+
+“Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please,” he said, to my great
+astonishment; “Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome to our poor
+house. Vilhelmina, arise and say so.”
+
+“Go to the back kitchen, Hans,” replied Wilhelmina, whose name was
+“Betsy,” “and don't come out until I tell you. You will find work to do
+there, and remember to pump up. I wish to hear things that you are not
+to hear, mind you. Shut yourself in, and if you soap the door to deceive
+me, I shall know it.”
+
+“Vere goot, vere goot,” said the philosophical German; “I never meddle
+with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de money and de
+house.”
+
+Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that. With no more ceremony she
+locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not make things out.
+
+“My husband is the bravest of the brave,” she told us, while she put
+down his key on the table; “and a nobler man never lived; I am sure
+of that. But every one of them foreigners--excuse me, Sir, you are an
+Englishman?”
+
+“I am,” replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; “I am so,
+madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my feelings. I am
+above nationalities.”
+
+“Just so, Sir. Then you will feel with me when I say that they
+foreigners is dreadful. Oh, the day that I ever married one of 'em--but
+there, I ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's daughter facing
+me.”
+
+“Do you know me?” I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes, I
+dare say, glistening. “Are you sure that you know me? And then please to
+tell me how.”
+
+As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn for
+travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me, and
+before I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the great arms
+of Betsy Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little baby, and when my
+father was in his own land, with a home and wife and seven little ones.
+And to think of this made me keep her company in crying, and it was some
+time before we did any thing else.
+
+“Well, well,” replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when he had
+made them; “I shall be off. You are in good hands; and the cabman pulled
+out his watch when we stopped. So did I. But he is sure to beat me. They
+draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am told, while the watch hangs
+on their badge, and they can swear they never opened it. Wonderful age,
+very wonderful age, since the time when you and I were young, ma'am.”
+
+“Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!” Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her eyes
+to speak of things; “but the most wonderfulest of all things, don't you
+think, is the going of the time, Sir? No cabby can make it go faster
+while he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than the minds inside
+of us manage it. Why, Sir, it wore only like yesterday that this here
+tall, elegant, royal young lady was a-lying on my breast, and what a
+hand she was to kick! And I said that her hair was sure to grow like
+this. If I was to tell you only half what comes across me--”
+
+“If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should lose
+mine, which is more than I can afford. Erema, after dinner I shall look
+you up. I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs. Strouss, which does not
+happen every day. I can trust Miss Castlewood with you. Good-by, good-by
+for the present.”
+
+It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and that
+made me all the more pleased with it.
+
+“You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in,” cried the “good
+woman,” following to the door, to clear every blur from her virtues;
+“for his own sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming, and to see
+me cry--Lord bless you, the effect upon him is to call out for a
+walking-stick and a pint of beer.”
+
+“All right, ma'am, all right!” the Major answered, in a tone which
+appeared to me unfeeling. “Cabman, are you asleep there? Bring the
+lady's bag this moment.”
+
+As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that good
+protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not help letting
+a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my outburst. I had heard
+so much in America of the dark, subtle places of London, and the wicked
+things that happen all along the Thames, discovered or invented by great
+writers of their own, that the neighborhood of the docks and the thought
+of rats (to which I could never grow accustomed) made me look with a
+flash perhaps of doubt at my new old friend.
+
+“You are not sure of me, Miss Erema,” said Mrs. Strouss, without taking
+offense. “After all that has happened, who can blame it on you? But your
+father was not so suspicious, miss. It might have been better for him if
+he had--according, leastways, to my belief, which a team of wild horses
+will never drag out.”
+
+“Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!” I exclaimed, forgetting all
+other things. “You know more about it than any body I have ever met
+with, except my own father, who would never tell a word.”
+
+“And quite right he was, miss, according to his views. But come to my
+little room, unless you are afraid. I can tell you some things that your
+father never knew.”
+
+“Afraid! do you think I am a baby still? But I can not bear that Mr.
+Strouss should be locked up on my account.”
+
+“Then he shall come out,” said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very
+pleasantly. “That was just like your father, Miss Erema. But I fall
+into the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners.” Whether
+she thought it the custom among “foreigners” for wives to lock their
+husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took the trouble to
+explain. But she walked away, in her stout, firm manner, and presently
+returned with Mr. Strouss, who seemed to be quite contented, and made me
+a bow with a very placid smile.
+
+“He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good,” his wife explained
+to me, with a nod at him. “But I could not have you in with the
+gentleman, Hans. He always makes mistakes with the gentlemen, miss, but
+with the ladies he behaves quite well.”
+
+“Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot,” Herr Strouss
+replied, with diffidence. “The ladies comprehend me right, all right,
+because I am so habitual with my wife. But the gentlemans in London have
+no comprehension of me.”
+
+“Then the loss is on their side,” I answered, with a smile; and he said,
+“Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BETSY'S TALE
+
+
+Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into narrative
+what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or to let her
+tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself told it then
+to me. The story was so dark and sad--or at least to myself it so
+appeared--that even the little breaks and turns of lighter thought or
+livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to vary now and then
+the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and jar upon its sombre
+monotone. On the other hand, by omitting these, and departing from
+her homely style, I might do more of harm than good through failing to
+convey impressions, or even facts, so accurately. Whereas the gist and
+core and pivot of my father's life and fate are so involved (though
+not evolved) that I would not miss a single point for want of time or
+diligence. Therefore let me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right
+to put her words in her own way. And before she began to do this she
+took the trouble to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought
+down, that her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be
+driven to their pipes.
+
+“If you please, Miss Castlewood,” Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, “do you or
+do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls himself?--an
+improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is their nature. He
+can hold his tongue as well as any man, though none of them are very
+sure at that. And he knows pretty nigh as much as I do, so far as his
+English can put things together, being better accustomed in German. For
+when we were courting I was fain to tell him all, not to join him under
+any false pretenses, miss, which might give him grounds against me.”
+
+“Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true--so goot and true as can be.”
+
+“And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any kind of
+messages. He can do that very well, I assure you, miss--better than any
+Englishman.”
+
+Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged him
+to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear the tale
+alone.
+
+“Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught,” said his
+Wilhelmina, kindly. “He is not very tall, miss, but he has good
+shoulders; I scarcely know what I should do without him. Well, now, to
+begin at the very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may have heard.
+My father was a farmer near Abergavenny, holding land under Sir Watkin
+Williams, an old friend of your family. My father had too many girls,
+and my mother scarcely knew what to do with the lot of us. So some of us
+went out to service, while the boys staid at home to work the land. One
+of my sisters was lady's-maid to Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at
+the time when your father came visiting there for the shooting of the
+moor-fowl, soon after his marriage with your mother. What a sweet good
+lady your mother was! I never saw the like before or since. No sooner
+did I set eyes upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone
+round the world with her. We Welsh are a very hot people, they say--not
+cold-blooded, as the English are. So, wise or foolish, right, wrong, or
+what might be, nothing would do for me but to take service, if I
+could, under Mrs. Castlewood. Your father was called Captain Castlewood
+then--as fine a young man as ever clinked a spur, but without any boast
+or conceit about him; and they said that your grandfather, the old lord,
+kept him very close and spare, although he was the only son. Now this
+must have been--let me see, how long ago?--about five-and-twenty years,
+I think. How old are you now, Miss Erema? I can keep the weeks better
+than the years, miss.”
+
+“I was eighteen on my last birthday. But never mind about the time--go
+on.”
+
+“But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time
+we may never think so. Well, then, it must have been better than
+six-and-twenty year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the
+Lord's will, there was eight years between you and the first-born babe,
+who was only just a-thinking of when I begin to tell. But to come back
+to myself, as was--mother had got too many of us still, and she was glad
+enough to let me go, however much she might cry over it, as soon as Lady
+Williams got me the place. My place was to wait upon the lady first,
+and make myself generally useful, as they say. But it was not very
+long before I was wanted in other more important ways, and having been
+brought up among so many children, they found me very handy with the
+little ones; and being in a poor way, as they were then--for people, I
+mean, of their birth and place--they were glad enough soon to make head
+nurse of me, although I was under-two-and-twenty.
+
+“We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills
+looking on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in
+Hampshire; for the Captain was still with his regiment, and only came to
+and fro to us. But a happier little place there could not be, with the
+flowers, and the cow, and the birds all day, and the children running
+gradually according to their age, and the pretty brook shining in the
+valley. And as to the paying of their way, it is true that neither of
+them was a great manager. The Captain could not bear to keep his pretty
+wife close; and she, poor thing, was trying always to surprise him with
+other presents besides all the beautiful babies. But they never were in
+debt all round, as the liars said when the trouble burst; and if they
+owed two or three hundred pounds, who could justly blame them?
+
+“For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening his
+purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always for
+offense or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them. The Captain
+had his pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady had a little money
+of her own; but still it was cruel for brought-up people to have nothing
+better to go on with. Not that the old lord was a miser neither; but it
+was said, and how far true I know not, that he never would forgive your
+father for marrying the daughter of a man he hated. And some went so far
+as to say that if he could have done it, he would have cut your father
+out of all the old family estates. But such a thing never could I
+believe of a nobleman having his own flesh and blood.
+
+“But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I assure
+you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long. For they loved one
+another and their children dearly, and they did not care for any
+mixing with the world. The Captain had enough of that when put away in
+quarters; likewise his wife could do without it better and better at
+every birth, though once she had been the very gayest of the gay, which
+you never will be, Miss Erema.
+
+“Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say, that
+if I can go on at all, I must have something ready. I am quite an old
+nurse now, remember. Hans, go across the square, and turn on the left
+hand round the corner, and then three more streets toward the right, and
+you see one going toward the left, and you go about seven doors down it,
+and then you see a corner with a lamp-post.”
+
+“Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner.”
+
+“That will teach you to look more bright, Hans. Then you find a shop
+window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the middle.”
+
+“How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?”
+
+“Then let it be two of them. How you contradict me! Take this little
+bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a tassel with a
+tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell him who you are.”
+
+“Yes, yes; I do now comprehend. You send me vhere I never find de vay,
+because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!”
+
+I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband (however
+good and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many shops of
+chemists, rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I listened to things
+that were almost sure to make me want my eyes my own. My nurse had seen,
+as any good nurse must, that, grown and formed as I might be, the nature
+of the little child that cries for its mother was in me still.
+
+“It is very sad now,” Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to my
+grateful glance; “Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had never begun
+with it. But I see by your eyes--so like your father's, but softer, my
+dear, and less troublesome--that you will have the whole of it out, as
+he would with me once when I told him a story for the sake of another
+servant. It was just about a month before you were born, when the
+trouble began to break on us. And when once it began, it never stopped
+until all that were left ran away from it. I have read in the newspapers
+many and many sad things coming over whole families, such as they
+call 'shocking tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more
+galling than what I had to see with my very own eyes.
+
+“It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
+Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at Shoxford.
+We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see to the truth of
+some rumors which had reached him about our style of living. It was the
+first time he had ever been there; for although he had very often been
+invited, he could not bear to be under the roof of the daughter, as he
+said, of his enemy. The Captain, just happening to come home on leave
+for his autumn holiday, met his father quite at his own door--the very
+last place to expect him. He afterward acknowledged that he was not
+pleased for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.' However,
+they took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings
+nicely, as high-bred people do.
+
+“What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except so
+far as now I tell you. A better dinner than usual for two was ready, to
+celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his holiday; and the
+old lord, having travelled far that day, was persuaded to sit down with
+them. The five eldest children (making all except the baby, for you was
+not born, miss, if you please) they were to have sat up at table, as
+pretty as could be--three with their high cushioned stools, and two in
+their arm-chairs screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with
+rods in front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding,
+which they did--it was a sight to see them! And how they would give to
+one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo, dat
+for oo.' Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it! What a
+blessing for you! All those six dear darlings laid in their little
+graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under them; and the
+only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her breast.
+
+“Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in and
+out while I am about it. It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do assure
+you, though not at the time of life to understand it. All they children
+was to have sat up for the sake of their dear father, as I said just
+now; but because of their grandfather all was ordered back. And back
+they come, as good as gold, with Master George at the head of them, and
+asked me what milk-teeth was. Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no
+dinner if milk-teeth were allowed at it.' The hard old man, with his own
+teeth false! He deserved to sit down to no other dinner--and he never
+did, miss.
+
+“You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little
+ones and answer all their questions; but never having seen a live lord
+before, and wanting to know if the children would be like him before
+so very long, I went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of my dears
+peeped after me. And then, by favor of the parlor-maid--for they kept
+neither butler nor footman now--I saw the Lord Castlewood, sitting at
+his ease, with a glass of port-wine before him, and my sweet mistress
+(the Captain's wife, and your mother, if you understand, miss) doing her
+very best, thinking of her children, to please him and make the polite
+to him. To me he seemed very much to be thawing to her--if you can
+understand, miss, what my meaning is--and the Captain was looking at
+them with a smile, as if it were just what he had hoped for. From my own
+eyesight I can contradict the lies put about by nobody knows who, that
+the father and the son were at hot words even then.
+
+“And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly
+persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him.
+And good enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing
+wonderful in him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain. But he
+would not have it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper, but only
+because he had ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where his coach and
+four were resting.
+
+“'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say, as
+clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on. 'I am glad I
+have seen you. There are worse than you. And when the times get better,
+I will see what I can do.'
+
+“With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a man
+of much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with his nose
+so stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the wrong way for
+smiling. I could not tell what the Captain answered, for the door banged
+on them, and it woke the baby, who was dreaming, perhaps, about his
+lordship's face, and his little teeth gave him the wind on his chest,
+and his lungs was like bellows--bless him!
+
+“Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my
+testimony. What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and
+rattling of the rings to please him--when they put me on the Testament,
+cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into me, and both my
+ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have gone too far, with my
+heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of contradiction, wishful as
+I was to tell the whole truth in a manner to hurt nobody. And without
+any single lie or glaze of mine, I do assure you, miss, that I did more
+harm than good; every body in the room--a court they called it, and no
+bigger than my best parlor--one and all they were convinced that I would
+swear black was white to save my master and mistress! And certainly I
+would have done so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for
+the sake of all they children, if I could have made it stick together,
+as they do with practice.”
+
+At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great
+mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop, and
+put her hand to her side, and sigh. And eager as I was for every word
+of this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny her need of
+refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks were white, and her
+full breast trembled. And now she was beginning to make snatches at my
+hand, as if she saw things she could only tell thus.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BETSY'S TALE--(Continued.)
+
+
+“I am only astonished, my dear,” said my nurse, as soon as she had had
+some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring, “that
+you can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the way you
+do. None of your family could have done it, to my knowledge of their
+dispositions, much less the baby that was next above you. But it often
+comes about to go in turns like that; 'one, three, five, and seven is
+sweet, while two, four, and six is a-squalling with their feet.' But
+the Lord forgive me for an ill word of them, with their precious little
+bodies washed, and laying in their patterns till the judgment-day.
+
+“But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they pleased
+to call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips could have
+a hold of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very things that
+happened, so that you may fairly judge of them. The Captain came back
+from going with his father, I am sure, in less than twenty minutes, and
+smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite happy and contented, for I saw
+him down the staircase. As for sign of any haste about him, or wiping of
+his forehead, or fumbling with his handkerchief, or being in a stew in
+any sort of way--as the stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason
+of her own having been at the beer-barrel--solemnly, miss, as I hope to
+go to heaven, there was nothing of the sort about him.
+
+“He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs to
+see about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them talking as
+pleasant and as natural as they always were together. Not one of them
+had the smallest sense of trouble hanging over them; and they put away
+both the decanters and cruets, and came up to bed in their proper order,
+the master stopping down just to finish his cigar and see to the doors
+and the bringing up the silver, because there was no man-servant now.
+And I heard him laughing at some little joke he made as he went into
+the bedroom. A happier household never went to bed, nor one with better
+hopes of a happy time to come. And the baby slept beside his parents in
+his little cot, as his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth
+wide open.
+
+“Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a
+good time of it whenever the master first came home and the mistress was
+taken up with him. We used to count half an hour more in bed, without
+any of that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to things according to
+their order, without any body to say any thing. Accordingly we were all
+snug in bed, and turning over for another tuck of sleep, when there came
+a most vicious ringing of the outer bell. 'You get up, Susan,' I heard
+the cook say, for there only was a door between us; and Susan said,
+'Blest if I will! Only Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker
+came.' Not a peg would either of them stir, no more than to call names
+on one another; so I slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter
+all the while, like the day of judgment. I felt it to be hard upon me,
+and I went down cross a little--just enough to give it well to a body I
+were not afraid of.
+
+“But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss! When I opened the door,
+I had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on their
+shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging down, and the
+front of it slouching, like a sack that has been stolen from; and behind
+it there was an authority with two buttons on his back, and he waited
+for me to say something; but to do so was beyond me. Not a bit of
+caution or of fear about my sham dress-up, as the bad folk put it
+afterward; the whole of such thoughts was beyond me outright, and no
+thought of any thing came inside me, only to wait and wonder.
+
+“'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who
+seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman,
+don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will
+be here, and the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he
+cried out to a boy who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now,
+young woman, we must come in if you please, and the least said the
+soonest mended.'
+
+“'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as nigh
+as may be, any day or night before new moon. 'Oh, Mr. Constable, Mr.
+Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you ever had a wife, Sir.'
+Now even this was turned against us as if I had expected it. They said
+that I must have known who it was, and to a certain length so I did,
+miss, but only by the dress and the manner of the corpse, and lying with
+an attitude there was no contradicting.
+
+“I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed. My
+mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it. However, I had
+thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other foolish
+girls, who would have set up bellowing. Having years to deal with little
+ones brings knowledge of the rest to us. I think that I must have gone
+to master's door, where Susan's orders were to put his shaving water
+in a tin, and fetched him out, with no disturbance, only in his
+dressing-gown. And when I told him what it was, his rosy color turned
+like sheets, and he just said, 'Hush!' and nothing more. And guessing
+what he meant, I ran and put my things on properly.
+
+“But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I was
+fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their tongues
+out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day with. And
+I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of your coming,
+though unknown whether male or female, but both most inconvenient then,
+with things in such a state of things. You have much to answer for,
+miss, about it; but how was you to help it, though?
+
+“The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body in,
+and finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use against the
+door, the two men (who were tired with the weight and fright, I dare
+say) set down their burden upon these, under a row of hollyhocks, at the
+end of the row of bee-hives. And here they wiped their foreheads with
+some rags they had for handkerchiefs, or one of them with his own
+sleeve, I should say, and, gaining their breath, they began to talk with
+the boldness of the sunrise over them. But Mr. Rural Polishman, as
+he was called in those parts, was walking up and down on guard, and
+despising of their foolish words.
+
+“My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window and
+down the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for I
+thought that I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was to be
+done inside. The constable stiffly touched his hat, and marched to the
+head of the hurdle, and said,
+
+“'Do you know this gentleman?'
+
+“Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff
+hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-looking.
+The Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no kinder gentleman
+could there be to those who gave his dues to him. But that man's voice
+had a low and dirty impertinent sort of a twang with it. Nothing could
+have been more unlucky. Every thing depended on that fellow in an
+ignorant neighborhood like that; and his lordship, for such he was now,
+of course, would not even deign to answer him. He stood over his head in
+his upright way by a good foot, and ordered him here and there, as the
+fellow had been expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship. And that
+made the bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts,
+and puffed up with authority. And the two miller's men could not help
+grinning, for he had waved them about like a pair of dogs.
+
+“But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally' (as
+that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a stuck-up
+dolt he was. For when my master had examined his father, and made his
+poor body be brought in and spread on the couch in the dining-room, and
+sent me hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the bottom of Shoxford,
+Susan peeped in through the crack of the door, with the cook to hold her
+hand behind, and there she saw the Captain on his knees at the side of
+his father's corpse, not saying a word, only with his head down. And
+when the doctor came back with me, with his night-gown positive
+under his coat, the first thing he said was, 'My dear Sir--my lord, I
+mean--don't take on so; such things will always happen in this world;'
+which shows that my master was no brute.
+
+“Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any pride
+and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart, and he said
+words fit to hang him:
+
+“'This is my doing! There is no one else to blame. If my father is dead,
+I have killed him!'
+
+“Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
+winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage was
+crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their faces.
+And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that the Captain had
+murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with his yoke and cans,
+and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and, not being able to hide
+himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and began to make his bill.
+
+“'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
+dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead with
+all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies at the
+depth of his voice and his stature. Then he bolted the door, with only
+our own people and the doctor and the constable inside. Your mother was
+sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear, having had a very tiring day the
+day before, and being well away from the noise of the passage, as well
+as at a time when they must sleep whenever sleep will come, miss. Bless
+her gentle heart, what a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!
+
+“All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
+happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead. All of us
+thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased
+the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
+heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having any
+flow of blood in it. But now, while your father was gone up stairs--for
+he knew that his father was dead enough--to be sure that your mother was
+quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for trouble, and while I was run
+away to stop the ranting of the children, old Dr. Diggory and that
+rural officer were handling poor Lord Castlewood. They set him to their
+liking, and they cut his clothes off--so Susan told me afterward--and
+then they found why they were forced to do so, which I need not try
+to tell you, miss. Only they found that he was not dead from any wise
+visitation, but because he had been shot with a bullet through his
+heart.
+
+“Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense
+to meet what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and
+he called out 'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my master
+leaped down the stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his strong hand on
+the old fool's mouth.
+
+“'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'
+
+“'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his staff
+importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'
+
+“The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan thought
+he would have done it. But, instead of that, he said, 'Very well; do
+your duty. But let me see what you mean by it.' Then he walked back
+again to the body of his father, and saw that he had been murdered.
+
+“But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale! Not a bit of food have you had
+for hours. I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to once. Let
+me undo all your things, my dear, and give you something cordial; and
+then lie down and sleep a bit.”
+
+“No, thank you, nurse,” I answered, calling all my little courage back.
+“No sleep for me until I know every word. And to think of all my father
+had to see and bear! I am not fit to be his daughter.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+BETSY'S TALE--(Concluded.)
+
+
+“Well, now,” continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade her
+to go on, “if I were to tell you every little thing that went on among
+them, miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or I might say
+this day fortnight, and then not half be done with it. And the worst of
+it is that those little things make all the odds in a case of that sort,
+showing what the great things were. But only a counselor at the Old
+Bailey could make head or tail of the goings on that followed.
+
+“For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but himself,
+whether it were pride (as I always said) or something deeper (as other
+people thought), he refused to have any one on earth to help him, when
+he ought to have had the deepest lawyer to be found. The constable
+cautioned him to say nothing, as it seems is laid down in their orders,
+for fear of crimination. And he smiled at this, with a high contempt,
+very fine to see, but not bodily wise. But even that jack-in-office
+could perceive that the poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs,
+and his little children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his
+own position. And yet I must tell you that he would have no denial, but
+to know what it was that had killed his parent. When old Dr. Diggory's
+hands were shaking so that his instrument would not bite on the thing
+lodged in his lordship's back, after passing through and through him,
+and he was calling for somebody to run for his assistant, who do you
+think did it for him, Miss Erema? As sure as I sit here, the Captain!
+His face was like a rock, and his hands no less; and he said, 'Allow
+me, doctor. I have been in action.' And he fetched out the bullet--which
+showed awful nerve, according to my way of thinking--as if he had been a
+man with three rows of teeth.
+
+“'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and he
+sat down hard with amazement. You may suppose how this went against him,
+when all he desired was to know and tell the truth; and people said that
+of course he got it out, after a bottleful of doctors failed, because he
+knew best how it was put in.'
+
+“'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you please
+or not,' my master said. 'Constable, you may come and point it out,
+unless you prefer going to your breakfast. My word is enough that I
+shall not run away. Otherwise, as you have acted on your own authority,
+I shall act on mine, and tie you until you have obtained a warrant. Take
+your choice, my man; and make it quickly, while I offer it.'
+
+“The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand to be
+made much of. But seeing how capable the Captain was of acting up to
+any thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as you please for the
+present,' weighting his voice on those last three words, as much as to
+say, 'Pretty soon you will be handcuffed.' 'Then,' said my master, 'I
+shall also insist on the presence of two persons, simply to use their
+eyes without any fear or favor. One is my gardener, a very honest man,
+but apt to be late in the morning. The other is a faithful servant, who
+has been with us for several years. Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy
+Bowen. You may also bring two witnesses, if you choose. And the miller's
+men, of course, will come. But order back all others.'
+
+“'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the constable
+answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders. 'I am sure that all
+of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum scrape. But my duty is
+my duty.'
+
+“With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no more; for
+the constable said that the miller's men, who had first found the late
+Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him. And Jacob Rigg, whose
+legs were far apart (as he said) from trenching celery, took us through
+the kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which saved every body knowing.
+
+“Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and then
+along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember. And along that we
+went to a stile on the right, without any house for a long way off. And
+from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of grass land to the little
+river, and over a hand-bridge, and up another meadow full of trees and
+bushes, to a gate which came out into the road again a little to this
+side of the Moonstock Inn, saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran
+straight up the valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to
+the same inn.
+
+“I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now as
+I saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about the
+distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would be
+beyond me. You must be on the place itself; and I never could carry
+distances--no, nor even clever men, I have heard my master say. But when
+he came to that stile he stopped and turned upon all of us clearly, and
+as straight as any man of men could be. 'Here I saw my father last, at
+a quarter past ten o'clock last night, or within a few minutes of that
+time.' I wished to see him to his inn, but he would not let me do so, and
+he never bore contradiction. He said that he knew the way well, having
+fished more than thirty years ago up and down this stream. He crossed
+this stile, and we shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I
+looked into his face, and he said, 'My boy, God bless you!' Knowing his
+short ways, I did not even look after him, but turned away, and went
+straight home along this road. Upon my word as an Englishman, and as an
+officer of her Majesty, that is all I know of it. Now let us go on to
+the--to the other place.
+
+“We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke
+the simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us. But the
+constable thought it his duty to ask,
+
+“'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord? For he fell within a hundred
+yards of this.'
+
+“'I heard no sound of any shot whatever. I heard an owl hooting as
+I went home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of
+horses. I have said enough. Let us go forward.'
+
+“We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and left, as
+if he had been wrong. He signed to the miller's man to lead the way,
+and my lord walked proudly after him. The path was only a little narrow
+track, with the grass, like a front of hair, falling over it on the
+upper side and on the under, dropping away like side curls; such a
+little path that I was wondering how a great lord could walk over it.
+Then we came down a steep place to a narrow bridge across a shallow
+river--abridge made of only two planks and a rail, with a prop or two to
+carry them. And one end of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and
+stubby old hawthorn-tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good
+way. And just above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry
+cut into the little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden
+bridge, a water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the water to
+run in, when the farmer pleases; but now there was no water in it, only
+gravel.
+
+“The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had much
+intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right beneath the
+old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass and the gravel
+made by his lordship where he fell and lay. And it seemed that he must
+have fallen off the bridge, yet not into the water, but so as to have
+room for his body, if you see, miss, partly on the bank, and partly in
+the hollow of the meadow trough.
+
+“'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked. 'Have you found
+any weapon or implement?'
+
+“'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable answered,
+in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business. 'My first duty
+was to save life, if I could. These men, upon finding the body, ran for
+me, and knowing who it was, I came with it to your house.'
+
+“'You acted for the best, my man. Now search the place carefully, while
+I stand here. I am on my parole, I shall not run away. Jacob, go down
+and help them.'
+
+“Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke in
+such a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without thinking
+to obey him. So the constable and the rest went down, while the Captain
+and I stood upon the plank, looking at the four of them.
+
+“For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes,
+without finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in which the
+poor lord fell, and of these the constable pulled out a book and made
+a pencil memorial. But presently Jacob, a spry sort of man, cried,
+'Hulloa! whatever have I got hold of here? Many a good craw-fish have I
+pulled out from this bank when the water comes down the gully, but never
+one exactly like this here afore.'
+
+“'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the hawthorn
+stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby! It's loaded, loaded one barrel,
+don't you see? Put it down, with the muzzle away from me.'
+
+“'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said. 'You understand a gun, and
+this goes off just the same.' Constable Jobbins have no fear. 'Yes, it
+is exactly as I thought. This pistol is one of the double-barreled pair
+which I bought to take to India. The barrels are rifled; it shoots
+as true as any rifle, and almost as hard up to fifty yards. The right
+barrel has been fired, the other is still loaded. The bullet I took from
+my father's body most certainly came from this pistol.'
+
+“'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a man
+very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at constable and
+miller's men, if only law was with him. 'Can 'e give a clear account,
+and let me chuck 'un in the river?'
+
+“'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered; while
+the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a fight half
+so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own mother having
+been blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet came down all
+right, miss, and had him three months afterward, according to his
+own confession; nevertheless, he came up now as if he had always been
+upright, in the world, and he said, 'My lord, can you explain all this?'
+
+“Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he were
+measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own mind.
+Proud as your father was, as proud as ever can be without cruelty, it
+is my firm belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's judgment, that if the
+man's eyes had come up to my master's sense of what was virtuous, my
+master would have up and told him the depth and contents of his mind and
+heart, although totally gone beyond him.
+
+“But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little eyes,
+hard to put up with. 'Have you nothing to say, my lord? Then I am
+afeared I must ask you just to come along of me.' And my master went
+with him, miss, as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said, and even Jacob
+fancied, was a conscience sign of guilt.
+
+“Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very nearly as
+much as I do. To tell how the grief was broken to your mother, and what
+her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the pillows and cried,
+while things went on from bad to worse, and a verdict of 'willful
+murder' was brought against your father by the crowner's men, and you
+come headlong, without so much as the birds in the ivy to chirp about
+you, right into the thick of the worst of it. I do assure you, Miss
+Erema, when I look at your bright eyes and clear figure, the Lord in
+heaven, who has made many cripples, must have looked down special to
+have brought you as you are. For trouble upon trouble fell in heaps,
+faster than I can wipe my eyes to think. To begin with, all the servants
+but myself and gardener Jacob ran away. They said that the old lord
+haunted the house, and walked with his hand in the middle of his heart,
+pulling out a bullet if he met any body, and sighing 'murder' three
+times, till every hair was crawling. I took it on myself to fetch the
+Vicar of the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they do in Wales. A nice
+kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a velvet skull-cap, and
+waited with his legs up. But whether he felt that the power was not
+in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of the Church, they
+never made any opportunity between them to meet and have it out, miss.
+
+“Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down
+pestilence upon that house. A horrible disease, the worst I ever met,
+broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my heart and of
+every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never came from heaven.
+They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and three days, and laid in
+the church-yard at one another's side, with little beds of mould to the
+measure of their stature, and their little carts and drums, as they made
+me promise, ready for the judgment-day. Oh, my heart was broken, miss,
+my heart was broken! I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.
+
+“But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we put all
+their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further end of the
+house), when she was a little better of grievous pain and misery (for
+being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up on the pillow,
+looking like a bride almost, except that she had what brides hasn't--a
+little red thing in white flannel at her side--then she says to me, 'I
+am ready, Betsy; it is high time for all of them to see their little
+sister. They always love the baby so, whenever there is a new one. And
+they are such men and women to it. They have been so good this time
+that I have never heard them once. And I am sure that I can trust them,
+Betsy, not to make the baby cry. I do so long to see the darlings. Now
+do not even whisper to them not to make a noise. They are too good to
+require it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'
+
+“I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord was,
+than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the mother so.
+She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the other round your
+little head, and her beautiful hair was come out of its loops, and the
+color in her cheeks was like a shell. Past the fringe of the curtain,
+and behind it too, her soft bright eyes were a-looking here and there
+for the first to come in of her children. The Lord only knows what lies
+I told her, so as to be satisfied without them. First I said they were
+all gone for a walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and
+then that they had got the measles. That last she believed, because it
+was worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see Dr.
+Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he had done
+his dinner. And then, with a little sigh, being very weak, she went down
+into her nest again, with only you to keep her company.
+
+“Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said;
+enough for one day at any rate. But there was almost worse to come. For
+when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my supper and half pint
+of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath to us when spared out of
+sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of
+all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come
+in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden
+door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young
+girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father
+in, and the candle-sight of him made my heart go low.
+
+“He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his clothes
+were still in decency, they had great holes in them, and the gloss all
+gone to a smell of mere hedges and ditches. The hat on his head was
+quite out of the fashion, even if it could be called a hat at all, and
+his beautiful beard had no sign of a comb, and he looked as old again as
+he had looked a month ago.
+
+“'I know all about it. You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took him
+to the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us. 'I know
+that my children are all dead and buried, except the one that was not
+born yet. Ill news flies quick. I know all about it. George, Henrietta,
+Jack, Alf, little Vi, and Tiny. I have seen their graves and counted
+them, while the fool of a policeman beat his gloves through the hedge
+within a rod of me. Oh yes, I have much to be thankful for. My life is
+in my own hand now.'
+
+“'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of God
+in heaven, don't talk like that. Think of your sweet wife, your dear
+lady.'
+
+“'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet frightful
+to look at, 'I am come to see my wife. Go and let her know it, according
+to your own discretion.'
+
+“My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on and
+write to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between them; but
+I give you my word that I had no discretion, but from pity and majesty
+obeyed him. I knew that he must have broken prison, and by good rights
+ought to be starving. But I could no more offer him the cold ham and
+pullet than take him by his beard and shake him.
+
+“'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits were
+wandering after her children. 'At last, at last! Then he will find them
+all.'
+
+“'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I thought
+of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a week--for the
+little ones went to their graves in pairs to save ceremony; likewise of
+the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like our Lord's way of talking
+at all, but arguing instead of comforting. And not to catch her up in
+that weak state, I said, 'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'
+
+“'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the rest
+put together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but putting
+her hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse on the
+stairs. 'Do bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and then let me go
+where my children are.'
+
+“I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have
+allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she could
+only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her except only
+me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words was impossible.
+All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into your mother's side;
+and as regular as the time-piece went, wide came your eyes and your
+mouth to be fed. If your nature had been cross or squally, 'baby's
+coffin No. 7' would have come after all the other six, which the thief
+of a carpenter put down on his bill as if it was so many shavings.
+
+“Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work to do
+to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming home, and a
+man about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the fender; and if
+I were to try to put before you the way that those two for the last time
+of their lives went on to one another--the one like a man and the other
+like a woman, full of sobs and choking--my eyes would be in such a state
+to-morrow that the whole of them would pity and cheat me. And I ought to
+think of you as well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when
+you was not born yet. And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when
+yourself was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done
+over your own little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for
+the night, and no appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it all
+over, if you please, and let him go out of the backdoor again.
+
+“This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might
+have been to say more words, because the fellows who call themselves
+officers, without any commission, were after him. False it was to say,
+as was said, that he got out of Winchester jail through money. That
+story was quite of a piece with the rest. His own strength and skill it
+was that brought him out triumphantly, as the scratches on his hands and
+cheeks might show. He did it for the sake of his wife, no doubt. When
+he heard that the children were all in their graves, and their mother
+in the way to follow them, madness was better than his state of mind, as
+the officers told me when they could not catch him--and sorry they would
+have been to do it, I believe.
+
+“To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my
+nature; and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing said
+on the landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks. They must have
+said 'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and the Captain, as firm
+a man as ever lived, had lines on his face that were waiting for tears,
+if nature should overcome bringing up. Then I heard the words, 'for my
+sake,' and the other said, 'for your sake,' a pledge that passed between
+them, making breath more long than life is. But when your poor father
+was by the back-door, going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned
+sharp round, and he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at
+your service, Sir.' 'You have been the best woman in the world,' he
+said--'the bravest, best, and kindest. I leave my wife and my last child
+to you. The Lord has been hard on me, but He will spare me those two. I
+do hope and believe He will.'
+
+“We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords--no
+doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the Moonstock
+Bridge to search our house for the runaway. And the Captain took my
+hand, and said, 'I trust them to you. Hide the clothes I took off, that
+they may not know I have been here. I trust my wife and little babe to
+you, and may God bless you, Betsy!'
+
+“He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a sadder
+face was never seen. As he slipped through the hollyhocks I said to
+myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a broken heart
+behind.' And your dear mother died on the Saturday night. Oh my! oh my!
+how sad it was!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE BANK
+
+
+In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had often
+proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can ever be
+exhausted. And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry for eager
+listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted each sad fact as
+it went by. At any rate, be it this way or that, a heavy and sore
+heart was left me, too distracted for asking questions, and almost too
+depressed to grieve.
+
+In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every where,
+and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear how she
+scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment believe that her
+heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of the west country
+is. Major Hockin had been to see me last night, for he never forgot a
+promise, and had left me in good hands, and now he came again in the
+morning. According to his usual way of taking up an opinion, he would
+not see how distracted I was, and full of what I had heard overnight,
+but insisted on dragging me off to the bank, that being in his opinion
+of more importance than old stories. I longed to ask Betsy some
+questions which had been crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while
+I lay awake at night; however, I was obliged to yield to the business of
+the morning, and the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world;
+and he really gave me no time to think.
+
+“Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of it,”
+ he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he came in, and
+had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. “You must never think
+twice of what old women say” (Mrs. Strouss was some twenty years younger
+than himself); “they always go prating and finding mares'-nests, and
+then they always cry. Now did she cry, Erema?”
+
+I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, “No, not one
+drop;” but the truth was against me, and I said, “How could she help
+it?”
+
+“Exactly!” the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought he was
+ordered to stop. “No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do it. My dear, I
+beg your pardon, but you are so very simple! You have not been among the
+eye-openers of the west. This comes of the obsolete Uncle Sam.”
+
+“I would rather be simple than 'cute!'” I replied; “and my own Uncle Sam
+will be never obsolete.”
+
+Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this far
+country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and with this,
+which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand and stood upon the
+footway of a narrow and crowded lane.
+
+“Move on! move on!” cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
+intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at him.
+But he only said, “Now move on, will you?” without any wrath, and as if
+he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing still. Nobody heeded
+him any more than if he had said, “I am starving,” but it seemed a rude
+thing among ladies. Before I had time to think more about this--for
+I always like to think of things--I was led through a pair of narrow
+swinging doors, and down a close alley between two counters full of
+people paying and receiving money. The Major, who always knew how to get
+on, found a white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered
+to him in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other
+before, and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if I
+were a bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he said, “Step
+this way, young lady. Major Hockin, step this way, Sir.”
+
+The young lady “stepped that way” in wonder as to what English English
+is, and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where the daylight
+had glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use them. But as it
+cared very little to do this, from angular disabilities, three bright
+gas-lights were burning in soft covers, and fed the little room with a
+rich, sweet glow. And here shone one of the partners of the bank, a very
+pleasant-looking gentleman, and very nicely dressed.
+
+“Major Hockin,” he said, after looking at the card, “will you kindly sit
+down, while I make one memorandum? I had the pleasure of knowing your
+uncle well--at least I believe that the late Sir Rufus was your uncle.”
+
+“Not so,” replied the Major, well pleased, however. “I fear that I am
+too old to have had any uncle lately. Sir Rufus Hockin was my first
+cousin.”
+
+“Oh, indeed! To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus being
+much your senior, the mistake was only natural. Now what can I do to
+serve you, or perhaps this young lady--Miss Hockin, I presume?”
+
+“No,” said his visitor, “not Miss Hockin. I ought to have introduced
+her, but for having to make my own introduction. Mr. Shovelin, this lady
+is Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving child of the late Captain
+George Castlewood, properly speaking, Lord Castlewood.”
+
+Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good
+manners and his own particular courtesy allowed. And I fancied that he
+felt that I could not be a Hockin.
+
+“Oh, dear, dear me!” was all he said, though he wanted to say, “God
+bless me!” or something more sudden and stronger. “Lord Castlewood's
+daughter--poor George Castlewood! My dear young lady, is it possible?”
+
+“Yes, I am my father's child,” I said; “and I am proud to hear that I am
+like him.”
+
+“That you well may be,” he answered, putting on his spectacles. “You are
+astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it, or at least,
+you will not be angry with me, when you know that your father was my
+dearest friend at Harrow; and that when his great trouble fell upon
+him--”
+
+Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun
+himself. He could not tell me that it was himself who had found all the
+money for my father's escape, which cost much cash as well as much good
+feeling. Neither did I, at the time, suspect it, being all in the dark
+upon such points. Not knowing what to say, I looked from the banker to
+the Major, and back again.
+
+“Can you tell me the exact time?” the latter asked. “I am due in the
+Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever happens.”
+
+“You will want a swift horse,” Mr. Shovelin answered, “or else this will
+be an exception to your rule. It is twenty-one minutes past twelve now.”
+
+“May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while? She will be very
+quiet; she is always so. Erema, will you wait for me?”
+
+I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between them.
+Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a talk with me
+about dearer matters than money, having children of his own, and being
+(as his eyes and forehead showed) a man of peculiar views, perhaps, but
+clearly of general good-will.
+
+“In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour”--the Major intensified
+his intentions always--“in three-quarters of an hour I shall be back.
+Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and not say a word, nor
+make any attempt to do any thing every body is not used to.”
+
+This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with a
+very gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major Hockin was
+one of those people, so often to be met with, whom any one likes or
+dislikes according to the changes of their behavior. But Mr. Shovelin
+was different from that.
+
+“Miss Castlewood, take this chair,” he said; “a hard one, but better
+than a stool, perhaps. Now how am I to talk to you--as an inquirer upon
+business matters, or as the daughter of my old friend? Your smile is
+enough. Well, and you must talk to me in the same unreasonable manner.
+That being clearly established between us, let us proceed to the
+next point. Your father, my old friend, wandered from the track, and
+unfortunately lost his life in a desolate part of America.”
+
+“No; oh no. It was nothing like that. He might have been alive, and here
+at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and drop of his.”
+
+“Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic--I mean, look at things
+more soberly. You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt; George
+Castlewood always would have that. He was a most commanding man. You do
+not quite resemble him in that respect, I think.”
+
+“Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?” I cried out. “You were at school
+with him, and knew his nature. Was it possible for him to do it, Sir?”
+
+“As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my dear
+old father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age there. Not
+that your grandfather, if I may say it without causing pain to you, was
+either green or agreeable. He was an uncommonly sharp old man; I might
+even say a hard one. As you never saw him, you will not think me rude in
+saying that much. Your love, of course, is for your father; and if your
+father had had a father of larger spirit about money, he might have
+been talking to me pleasantly now, instead of--instead of all these sad
+things.”
+
+“Please not to slip away from me,” I said, bluntly, having so often met
+with that. “You believe, as every good person does, that my father was
+wholly innocent. But do tell me who could have done it instead. Somebody
+must have done it; that seems clear.”
+
+“Yes,” replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration;
+“somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the
+whole affair. 'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say. Two persons only could
+have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go. The first and
+most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come into every thing
+(which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and the other, a very nice
+gentleman, whom it is wholly impossible to suspect.”
+
+“Are you sure of that? People have more than suspected--they have
+condemned--my father. After that, I can suspect any body. Who is it?
+Please to tell me.”
+
+“It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be called.
+He would not claim the title, or even put forward his right in any way,
+until he had proof of your dear father's death; and even then he behaved
+so well--”
+
+“He did it! he did it!” I cried, in hot triumph. “My father's name shall
+be clear of it. Can there be any doubt that he did it? How very simple
+the whole of it becomes! Nothing astonishes me, except the stupidity of
+people. He had every thing to gain, and nothing to lose--a bad man, no
+doubt--though I never heard of him. And putting it all on my father, of
+course, to come in himself, and abide his time, till the misery killed
+my father. How simple, how horribly simple, it becomes!”
+
+“You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden. Excuse me a minute”--as a
+silver bell struck--“I am wanted in the next room. But before I go, let
+me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to dismiss that new idea
+from your mind.”
+
+I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured out for
+me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased. His kind and handsome face grew
+hard. He had taken me for a nice young lady, never much above the
+freezing-point, and he had found me boil over in a moment. I was sorry
+to have grieved him; but if he had heard Betsy Bowen's story, and seen
+her tell it, perhaps he would have allowed for me. I sat down again,
+having risen in my warmth, and tried to quiet and command myself by
+thinking of the sad points only. Of these there were plenty to make
+pictures of, the like of which had kept me awake all night; and I knew
+by this time, from finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that
+men think a woman may well be all tears, but has no right to even the
+shadow of a frown. That is their own prerogative.
+
+And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which had
+also vexed him--to judge by the way in which he threw them down--I spoke
+very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my display of violence,
+but that if he knew all, he would pardon me; and he pardoned me in a
+moment.
+
+“I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood,” he continued,
+gently, “that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which I
+think will content you. In the first place, the present Lord Castlewood
+is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great piety and true
+gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who can not walk a mile
+with a crutch to help him, and so he has been for a great many years;
+and lastly, if you have no faith in the rest, he was in Italy at the
+time, and remained there for some years afterward. There he received and
+sheltered your poor father after his sad calamity, and was better than a
+brother to him, as your father, in a letter to me, declared. So you see
+that you must acquit him.”
+
+“That is not enough. I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he helped
+my father, for he must have thought him innocent. Now, Mr. Shovelin, you
+were my father's friend, and you are such a clever man--”
+
+“How do you know that, young lady? What a hurry you are always in!”
+
+“Oh, there can be no doubt about it. But you must not ask reasons, if
+I am so quick. Now please to tell me what your own conclusion is. I can
+talk of it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I never think of any
+thing else. Only tell me what you really believe, and I will keep it
+most strictly to myself.”
+
+“I am sure you will do that,” he answered, smiling, “not only from the
+power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to say. At
+first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my certainty of
+your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong) that the old lord
+had done it himself; for he always had been of a headstrong and violent
+nature, which I am sure will never re-appear in you. But the whole
+of the evidence went against this, and little as I think of evidence,
+especially at an inquest, your father's behavior confirmed what was
+sworn to. Your father knew that his father had not made away with
+himself in a moment of passion, otherwise he was not the man to break
+prison and fly trial. He would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there
+are many things that I can not explain; I can not help that; I will
+face it out. Condemn me, if you like, and I will suffer.' From your own
+remembrance of your father's nature, is not that certainly the course he
+would have taken?”
+
+“I have not an atom of doubt about it. His flight and persistent dread
+of trial puzzle me beyond imagination. Of his life he was perfectly
+reckless, except, at least, for my sake.”
+
+“I know that he was,” Mr. Shovelin replied; “as a boy he was wonderfully
+fearless. As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of children, he might
+have begun to be otherwise. But when all those were gone, and only a
+poor little baby left--”
+
+“Yes, I suppose I was all that.”
+
+“Forgive me. I am looking back at you. Who could dream that you would
+ever even live, without kith or kin to care for you? Your life was saved
+by some good woman who took you away to Wales. But when you were such a
+poor little relic, and your father could scarcely have seen you, to
+have such a mite left must have been almost a mockery of happiness. That
+motive could not have been strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor
+from doing what honor at once demanded. Your father would have returned
+and surrendered as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the
+balance there had been only you.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would. I was never very much as a
+counter-balance. Yet my father loved me.” I could have told him of the
+pledge exchanged--“For my sake,” and, “Yes, for your sake,” with love
+and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute--but I did not say a
+word about it.
+
+“He loved you afterward, of course. But a man who has had seven children
+is not enthusiastic about a baby. There must have been a larger motive.”
+
+“But when I was the only one left alive. Surely I became valuable then.
+I can not have been such a cipher.”
+
+“Yes, for a long time you would have been,” replied the Saturnian
+banker. “I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were a
+fortnight old. They may have begun already to be irresistible. Excuse
+me; you have led me into the light vein, when speaking of a most sad
+matter. You must blame your self-assertion for it. All I wish to convey
+to you is my belief that something wholly unknown to us, some dark
+mystery of which we have no inkling, lies at the bottom of this terrible
+affair. Some strange motive there must have been, strong enough even
+to overcome all ordinary sense of honor, and an Englishman's pride in
+submitting to the law, whatever may be the consequence. Consider that
+his 'flight from justice,' as it was called, of course, by every one,
+condemned his case and ruined his repute. Even for that he would not
+have cared so much as for his own sense of right. And though he was a
+very lively fellow, as I first remember him, full of tricks and jokes,
+and so on, which in this busy age are out of date, I am certain that he
+always had a stern sense of right. One never knows how love affairs and
+weakness about children may alter almost any man; but my firm conviction
+is that my dear old school-fellow, George Castlewood, even with a wife
+and lovely children hanging altogether upon his life, not only would
+not have broken jail, but would calmly have given up his body to be
+hanged--pardon me, my dear, for putting it so coarsely--if there had not
+been something paramount to override even apparent honor. What it can
+have been I have no idea, and I presume you have none.”
+
+“None whatever,” I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze. “I am
+quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a thing. It has
+always seemed to me so natural that my dear father, being shamefully
+condemned, because appearances were against him, and nobody could enter
+into him, should, for the sake of his wife and children, or even of one
+child like me, depart or banish himself, or emigrate, or, as they might
+call it, run away. Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was
+the only straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do.”
+
+“You can not see things as men see them. We must not expect it of you,”
+ Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior smile, which
+reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he listened to what, in his
+opinion, was only female reason; “but, dear me, here is Major Hockin
+come! Punctuality is the soul of business.”
+
+“So I always declare,” cried the Major, who was more than three-quarters
+of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him. “My watch keeps
+time to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second. Well, I hope you
+have settled all questions of finance, and endowed my young maid with a
+fortune.”
+
+“So far from that,” Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different from
+that he used to me, “we have not even said one word of business; all
+that has been left for your return. Am I to understand that you are by
+appointment or relationship the guardian of this young lady?”
+
+“God forbid!” cried Major Hockin, shortly. I thought it very rude of
+him, yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his glasses up and
+lifted his wiry crest of hair. “Not that she is bad, I mean, but good,
+very good; indeed, I may say the very best girl ever known outside of my
+own family. My cousin, Colonel Gundry, who owns an immense estate in
+the most auriferous district of all California, but will not spoil his
+splendid property by mining, he will--he will tell you the very same
+thing, Sir.”
+
+“I am very glad to hear it,” said the banker, smiling at me, while I
+wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises. “Now I really
+fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my oldest friend
+may well be preferred to business. But now we will turn at once to
+business, if you please.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+COUSIN MONTAGUE
+
+
+Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called his
+signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy frigate or
+accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps very promptly,
+one clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a small strong-box.
+
+“No plate,” Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest with
+sorrow; “but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema. One ounce of
+diamonds is worth a ton of plate.”
+
+“No,” said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, “I fear that
+you will find nothing of mercantile value. Thank you, Mr. Robinson;
+by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you. Strictly speaking, perhaps I
+should require the presence of your father's lawyer, or of some one
+producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss Castlewood. But having you
+here, and Major Hockin, and knowing what I do about the matter (which is
+one of personal confidence), I will dispense with formalities. We have
+given your father's solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested
+his attention, but he never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will
+dispense with him. You see that the seal is unbroken; you know your
+father's favorite seal, no doubt. The key is nothing; it was left to my
+charge. You wish that I should open this?”
+
+Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-handled
+paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box, whose weight
+was chiefly of itself. Some cotton-wool lay on the top to keep the
+all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue foolscap paper,
+partly covered with clear but crooked writing, and under that some
+little twists of silver paper, screwed as if there had been no time
+to tie them, and a packet of letters held together by a glittering
+bracelet.
+
+“Poor fellow!” Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath, and
+the Major had the courtesy to be silent. “This is his will; of no
+value, I fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to you his
+daughter. Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to his lawyers?”
+
+“Open it, and never think of them,” said I. “Like the rest, they have
+forsaken him. Please to read it to yourself, and then tell us.”
+
+“Oh, I wish I had known this before!” cried the banker, after a rapid
+glance or two. “Very kind, very flattering, I am sure! Yes, I will do my
+duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the case. He has left
+me sole executor, and trustee of all his property, for the benefit of
+his surviving child. Yet he never gave me the smallest idea of expecting
+me to do this for him. Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old
+box opened years ago.”
+
+“We must look at things as they are,” said Major Hockin, for I could say
+nothing. “The question is, what do you mean to do now?”
+
+“Nothing whatever,” said the banker, crisply, being displeased at the
+other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed himself to
+me: “Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon my old friend's
+confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.' A banker must never
+encroach upon the province of the lawyer. But so far as a layman may
+judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have to transfer to me the care of
+this young lady.”
+
+“I shall be only too happy, I assure you,” the Major answered,
+truthfully. “My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I--the very
+greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental feelings; as you know,
+Erema. But--but, I am not so young as I was; and I have to develop my
+property.”
+
+“Of which she no longer forms a part,” Mr. Shovelin answered, with a
+smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the other's
+calm abandonment. “You will find me prompt and proud to claim her, as
+soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and that I shall learn
+to-morrow.”
+
+In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of tears,
+and I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my father, as
+he said in so many words.
+
+“Oh, I hope it is valid! How I hope it is!” I exclaimed, turning round
+to the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so too.
+
+“But surely,” he continued, “as we are all here, we should not neglect
+the opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this box. To me
+it appears that we are bound to do so; that it is our plain duty to
+ascertain--Why, there might even be a later will. Erema, my dear, you
+must be most anxious to get to the bottom of it.”
+
+So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be foiled. “We
+must leave that to Mr. Shovelin,” I said.
+
+“Then for the present we will seal it down again,” the banker answered,
+quietly; “we can see that there is no other will, and a later one would
+scarcely be put under this. The other little packets, whatever they may
+be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps, rather than of importance. They
+will keep till we have more leisure.”
+
+“We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure,” said the
+Major, finding that he could take no more. “We ought to be, and we are,
+most grateful.”
+
+“Well,” the banker answered, as we began to move, “such things do not
+happen every day. But there is no friend like an old friend, Erema, as I
+mean to call you now. I was to have been your godfather; but I fear that
+you never have been baptized.”
+
+“What!” cried the Major, staring at us both. “Is such a thing possible
+in a Christian land? Oh, how I have neglected my duty to the Church!
+Come back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it. The church there
+is under my orders, I should hope; and we will have a dinner party
+afterward. What a horrible neglect of duty!”
+
+“But how could I help it?” I exclaimed, with some terror at Major
+Hockin's bristling hair. “I can not remember--I am sure I can not say.
+It may have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was no time in
+England. At any rate, my father is not to be blamed.”
+
+“Papistical baptism is worse than none,” the Major said, impressively.
+“Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right. You shall not be a
+savage always. We will take the opportunity to change your name. Erema
+is popish and outlandish; one scarcely knows how to pronounce it. You
+shall have a good English Christian name--Jemima, Jane, or Sophy. Trust
+me to know a good name. Trust me.”
+
+“Jemima!” I cried. “Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being called
+Jemima! Rather would I never be baptized at all.”
+
+“I am no judge of names,” he answered, smiling, as he shook hands with
+us; “but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be called just
+what you please.”
+
+“And I please to be called what my father called me. It may be unlucky,
+as a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce it. However,
+it will do very well for me. You wish to see me, then, to-morrow, Mr.
+Shovelin?”
+
+“If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure. I do
+not run away very early. Come at half past four to this door, and
+knock. I hear every sound at this door in my room; and the place will be
+growing quiet then.”
+
+He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed with
+iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the brawl and
+roar of a London street.
+
+“Now where shall we go?” the Major asked, as soon as he had found a cab
+again; for he was very polite in that way. “You kept early hours with
+your 'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-witted man, but
+most amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very often are. Now will
+you come and dine with me? I can generally dine, as you, with virtuous
+indignation, found out at Southampton. But we are better friends now,
+Miss Heathen.”
+
+“Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for,” I answered, very
+gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness still was
+uppermost. “I will go where you like. I am quite at your orders, because
+Betsy Bowen is busy now. She will not have done her work till six
+o'clock.”
+
+“Well done!” he cried. “Bravo, Young America! Frankness is the finest of
+all good manners. And what a lot of clumsy deception it saves! Then let
+us go and dine. I will imitate your truthfulness. It was two words for
+myself, and one for you. The air of London always makes me hungry after
+too much country air. It is wrong altogether, but I can not help it. And
+going along, I smell hungry smells coming out of deep holes with a
+plate at the top. Hungry I mean to a man who has known what absolute
+starvation is--when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had
+taken his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs
+pick this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d----d--my
+dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped
+Cockle,' at the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know.”
+
+This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute for
+something special, something esteemed by the very clever people, and
+only to be found in true virtue here. And he told me that luxury and
+self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the present age, and how he
+admired a man who came here to protest against Epicureans, by dining
+(liquors not included) for the sum of three and sixpence.
+
+All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to it
+properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all the
+talking to himself, according to his practice. And I might not even have
+been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles was like, except
+for a little thing which happened there. The room, at the head of
+a twisting staircase, was low and dark, and furnished almost like a
+farmhouse kitchen. It had no carpet, nor even a mat, but a floor of
+black timber, and a ceiling colored blue, with stars and comets, and a
+full moon near the fire-place. On either side of the room stood narrow
+tables endwise to the walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like
+settles, forming thus a double set of little stalls or boxes, with
+scarcely space enough between for waiters, more urgent than New York
+firemen, to push their steaming and breathless way.
+
+“Square or round, miss?” said one of them to me as soon as the Major had
+set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally toward criticism
+of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such ordeal; and he
+cleverly whipped a stand for something dirty, over something still
+dirtier, on the cloth.
+
+“I don't understand what you mean,” I replied to his highly zealous
+aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which vexed
+me. “I have never received such a question before. Major Hockin, will
+you kindly answer him?”
+
+“Square,” said the Major; “square for both.” And the waiter, with a
+glance of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.
+
+“Erema, your mind is all up in the sky,” my companion began to
+remonstrate. “You ought to know better after all your travels.”
+
+“Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so,” I said, pointing to
+the Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; “but do tell me what he
+meant, if you can. Is it about the formation of the soup?”
+
+“Hush, my dear. Soup is high treason here until night, when they make it
+of the leavings. His honest desire was to know whether you would have a
+grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you know, or of beef,
+which, by the same law of nature, seems always to be square, you know.”
+
+“Oh, I see,” I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology, but
+at the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon me. A
+gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low box, and
+stood calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself) gazing over the
+wooden back at me, who thus sat facing him. And Major Hockin, following
+my glance, stood up and turned round to see to it.
+
+“What! Cousin Montague! Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of
+lighting on you here? Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of
+room. Let me introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood. Miss
+Castlewood, this is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my lamented first
+cousin Sir Rufus, of whom you have heard so much. Well, to be sure! I
+have not seen you for an age. My dear fellow, now how are you?”
+
+“Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where. Major, I am most
+delighted to see you. Over and over again I have been at the point of
+starting for Bruntsea Island--it is an island now, isn't it? My father
+would never believe that it was till I proved it from the number of
+rabbits that came up. However, not a desolate island now, if it contains
+you and all your energies, and Miss Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin.”
+
+“It is not an island, and it never shall be,” the Major cried, knocking
+a blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously. “It never
+was an island, and it never shall be. My intention is to reclaim it
+altogether. Oh, here come the squares. Well done! well done! I quite
+forget the proper thing to have to drink. Are the cockles in the pan,
+Mr. Waiter? Quite right, then; ten minutes is the proper time; but they
+know that better than I do. I am very sorry, Montague, that you have
+dined.”
+
+“Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon
+afterward. But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be fed up
+at short intervals. You can understand that, perhaps, Miss Castlewood.
+It makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know. The ladies once came
+only twice to feed, but now they come three times, I am assured by a
+young man who knows all about it. And cherry brandy is the mildest form
+of tipple.”
+
+“Shocking scandal! abominable talk!” cried the Major, who took every
+thing at its word. “I have heard all that sort of stuff ever since I was
+as high as this table. Waiter, show me this gentleman's bill. Oh well,
+oh well! you have not done so very badly. Two squares and a round, with
+a jug of Steinberg, and a pint of British stout with your Stilton. If
+this is your ante-lunch, what will you do when you come to your real
+luncheon? But I must not talk now; you may have it as you please.”
+
+“The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood,” said the young man, while I
+looked with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover just
+whisked off, and drops of its juice (like the rays of a lustre) shaking
+with soft inner wealth--“the truth of it is just this, and no more:
+we fix our minds and our thoughts, and all the rest of our higher
+intelligence, a great deal too much upon our mere food.”
+
+“No doubt we do,” I was obliged to answer. “It is very sad to think of,
+as soon as one has dined. But does that reflection occur, as it should,
+at the proper time to be useful--I mean when we are hungry?”
+
+“I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical.”
+
+“No big words now, my dear fellow,” cried the Major. “You have had your
+turn; let us have ours. But, Erema, you are eating nothing. Take a knife
+and fork, Montague, and help her. The beauty of these things consists
+entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in their having the smoke
+rushing out of them. A gush of steam like this should follow every turn
+of the knife. But there! I am spoiling every bit by talking so.”
+
+“Is that any fault of mine?” asked Sir Montague, in a tone which made me
+look at him. The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor unpleasant, yet it
+gave me the idea that it could be all three, and worse than all three,
+upon occasion. So I looked at him, which I had refrained from doing, to
+see whether his face confirmed that idea. To the best of my perception,
+it did not. Sir Montague Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as
+form and color go, having regular features, and clear blue eyes, very
+beautiful teeth, and a golden beard. His appearance was grave, but
+not morose, as if he were always examining things and people without
+condemning them. It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand
+in general, to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to “be helped
+to all the stuffing of the pumpkin,” as dear Uncle Sam was fond of
+saying. Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely,
+without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front, he
+was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-sight.
+
+The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner
+genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic anger
+with those who had done less justice to themselves. And in this state
+of mind he begged us to take note of one thing--that his ward should
+be christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the bells were his,
+according to their inscriptions, no later than next Thursday week, that
+being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir Montague failed to come to
+see how they could manage things under proper administration, he might
+be sure of one thing, if no more--that Major Hockin would never speak to
+him again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of, that I
+scarcely knew which to begin with. I used to be told how much wiser it
+was not to interfere with any thing--to let by-gones be by-gones, and
+consider my own self only. But this advice never came home to my case,
+and it always seemed an unworthy thing even to be listening to it. And
+now I saw reason to be glad for thanking people who advised me, and
+letting them go on to advise themselves. For if I had listened to Major
+Hockin, or even Uncle Sam for that part, where must I have been
+now? Why, simply knowing no more than as a child I knew, and feeling
+miserable about it. Whereas I had now at least something to go upon,
+and enough for a long time to occupy my mind. The difficulty was to know
+what to do first, and what to resolve to leave undone, or at least to
+put off for the present. One of my special desires had been to discover
+that man, that Mr. Goad, who had frightened me so about two years back,
+and was said to be lost in the snow-drifts. But nobody like him had ever
+been found, to the sorrow of the neighborhood; and Sylvester himself had
+been disappointed, not even to know what to do with his clothes.
+
+His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of
+Uncle Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was printed,
+with a glazing and much flourish, “Vypan, Goad, and Terryer: Private
+Inquiry Office, Little England Polygon, W.C.” Uncle Sam, with a grunt
+and a rise of his foot, had sent this low card flying to the fire, after
+I had kissed him so for all his truth and loveliness; but I had caught
+it and made him give it to me, as was only natural. And having this now,
+I had been quite prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and
+ask what they wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do
+with me now, taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else
+a policeman well recommended.
+
+But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's opinion
+should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr. Shovelin what
+he thought about it, before doing any thing that might arouse a set of
+ideas quite opposite to mine, and so cause trouble afterward. And being
+unable to think any better for the time than to wait and be talked to,
+I got Major Hockin to take me back again to the right number in European
+Square.
+
+Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to hear a
+great deal more than I myself had heard that day. On the other hand, I
+had many questions, arising from things said to me, to which I required
+clear answers; and it never would do for her to suppose that because
+she had known me come into this world, she must govern the whole of my
+course therein. But it cost many words and a great deal of demeanor
+to teach her that, good and faithful as she was, I could not be always
+under her. Yet I promised to take her advice whenever it agreed with my
+own opinions.
+
+This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how well
+it would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they might ring
+and ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their bells; but if they
+wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it. Being Germans, who are the
+most docile of men in England, whatever they may be at home, they made
+no complaint, but retired to their pipes in a pleasant condition of
+surprise at London habits.
+
+Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and reputable
+turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to put by many
+things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept long enough.
+And I did hear--most careful as I am to pay no attention to petty
+rumors--that the first thing that moved the heart of Herr Strouss, and
+called forth his finest feelings, was a winding-up chair, which came out
+to make legs, with a pocket for tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.
+
+This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low things
+grieved me. And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself, having heard
+of none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse might not have done
+her best, yet might have done worse, when she married him. For he seemed
+to have taken a liking toward me, and an interest in my affairs, which
+redounded to his credit, if he would not be too inquisitive. And now
+I gladly allowed him to be present, and to rest in the chair which had
+captivated him, although last night I could scarcely have borne to have
+heard in his presence what I had to hear. To-night there was nothing
+distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale;
+whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which (while
+scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females might, with
+advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger sex.
+
+And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could what
+had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I had been),
+those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to the following
+purport--setting aside the main puzzle of all.
+
+Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father was
+dead, he himself had killed or murdered him? Betsy believed, when she
+came to think, that he had even used the worse word of these two.
+
+How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol--as
+clearly it had been--a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account, as
+Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near Chichester?
+
+What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor little
+brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and servants away?
+Betsy said it was called “Differeria,” as differing so much from all
+other complaints. I had never yet heard of this, but discovered, without
+asking further than of Mr. Strouss, that she meant that urgent mandate
+for a levy of small angels which is called on earth “diphtheria.”
+
+Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, to
+send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof of my
+dear father's death, and to bring me back, if possible? The present
+Lord Castlewood never would have done so, according to what Mr. Shovelin
+said; it was far more likely that (but for weak health) he would have
+come forth himself to seek me, upon any probable tidings. At once a
+religious and chivalrous man, he would never employ mean agency. And
+while thinking of that, another thought occurred--What had induced that
+low man Goad to give Uncle Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime
+which began all our misery? He had put it at ten, now twelve, years
+back, and dated it in November, whereas it had happened in September
+month, six years and two months before the date he gave. This question
+was out of all answer to me, and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr
+Strouss, being of a legal turn, believed that the law was to blame
+for it. He thought that proceedings might be bound to begin, under the
+Extradition Act, within ten years of the date of the crime; or there
+might be some other stipulation compelling Mr. Goad to add one to all
+his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about it, both of us thought
+it very likely.
+
+Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between my
+father and mother, when they said “good-by” to one another, and perhaps
+knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is concerned? Was
+it any thing about a poor little sleeping and whimpering creature like
+myself, who could not yet make any difference to any living being except
+the mother? Or was it concerning far more important things, justice,
+clear honor, good-will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come
+upward with high natures? And if so, was it not a promise from my
+mother, knowing every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering
+moment of lying beneath the point of death?
+
+This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very first
+that the pledge must be on my father's part--to wit, that he had vowed
+not to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the sake of his dear
+wife. And to my suggestion she could only say that she never had seen
+it in that light; but the landings were so narrow and the walls so soft
+that, with all her duty staring in her face, neither she, nor the best
+servant ever in an apron, could be held responsible to repeat their very
+words. And her husband said that this was good--very good--so good as
+ever could be; and what was to show now from the mouth of any one, after
+fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, the years?
+
+After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to
+contradict people duly married and of one accord. No other word, I mean,
+upon that point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more immediate,
+what was the next thing for me, perhaps, to do. And first of all it was
+settled among us that for me to present myself at the head-quarters of
+Vypau, Goad, and Terryer would be a very clumsy and stupid proceeding,
+and perhaps even dangerous. Of course they would not reveal to me the
+author of those kind inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the
+firm a very valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself. And while I
+should learn less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract
+from me, or at any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and
+what I was doing, and how I could most quietly be met and baffled, and
+perhaps even made away with, so as to save all further trouble.
+
+Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do nothing.
+Herr Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of true sagacity,
+and he warmly advised, in his very worst English, that none but my few
+trusty friends should be told of my visit to this country.
+
+“Why for make to know your enemies?” he asked, with one finger on his
+forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution. “Enemies find out
+vere soon, too soon, soon enough. Begin to plot--no, no, young lady
+begin first. Vilhelmina, your man say the right. Is it good, or is it
+bad?”
+
+It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for the
+present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from calling even on
+my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think it needful. In that
+and other matters I would act by his advice; and so with better spirits
+than I long had owned, at finding so much kindness, and with good hopes
+of the morrow, I went to the snug little bedroom which my good nurse had
+provided.
+
+Alas! What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep and
+abiding loss of many by a good man's death? When I went to the door at
+which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an answer. And
+even when somebody came at last, so far from being my guardian, it was
+only a poor old clerk, who said, “Hush, miss!” and then prayed that the
+will of the Lord might be done. “Couldn't you see the half-shutters
+up?” he continued, rather roughly. “'Tis a bad job for many a poor man
+to-day. And it seems no more than yesterday I was carrying him about!”
+
+“Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?” I asked. “Is he poorly? Has any thing
+happened? I can wait, or come again.”
+
+“The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his private
+address at Sydenham Hill. A burning and a shining light! May we like
+him be found watching in that day, with our lamps trimmed and our loins
+girded!”
+
+For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man led me
+into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was. He belonged, like
+his master, and a great part of their business, to a simple religious
+persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom heard of.
+
+“It was just in this way,” he said, as soon as tears had enabled me to
+speak--for even at the first sight I had felt affection toward my new
+guardian. “Our master is a very punctual man, for five-and-thirty years
+never late--never late once till this morning. Excuse me, miss, I ought
+to be ashamed. The Lord knoweth what is best for us. Well, you threw him
+out a good bit yesterday, and there was other troubles. And he had to
+work late last night, I hear; for through his work he would go, be it
+anyhow--diligent in business, husbanding the time--and when he came down
+to breakfast this morning, he prayed with his household as usual, but
+they noticed his voice rather weak and queer; and the mistress looked
+at him when he got up from his knees; but he drank his cup of tea and
+he ate his bit of toast, which was all he ever took for breakfast. But
+presently when his cob came up to the door--for he always rode in to
+business, miss, no matter what the weather was--he went to kiss his wife
+and his daughters all round, according to their ages; and he got through
+them all, when away he fell down, with the riding-whip in one hand, and
+expired on a piece of Indian matting.”
+
+“How terrible!” I exclaimed, with a sob. And the poor old man, in spite
+of all his piety, was sobbing.
+
+“No, miss; not a bit of terror about it, to a man prepared as he was.
+He had had some warning just a year ago; and the doctors all told him he
+must leave off work. He could no more do without his proper work than he
+could without air or victuals. What this old established concern will
+do without him, our Divine Master only knows. And a pinch coming on in
+Threadneedle Street, I hear--but I scarcely know what I am saying, miss;
+I was thinking of the camel and the needle.”
+
+“I will not repeat what you have not meant to tell,” I answered, seeing
+his confusion, and the clumsy turn he had made of it. “Only tell me what
+dear Mr. Shovelin died of.”
+
+“Heart-disease, miss. You might know in a moment. Nothing kills like
+that. His poor father died of it, thirty years agone. And the better
+people are, the more they get it.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+AT THE PUMP
+
+
+This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all power to
+go on. The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls upon stronger
+people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through long troubles,
+mysteriously fades away.
+
+Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a thing
+to be ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's family thus,
+without a moment's warning, robbed of love and hope and happiness. But
+Mrs. Strouss, who often brooded on predestination, imbittered all my
+thoughts by saying, or rather conveying without words, that my poor
+fathers taint of some Divine ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed
+his banker.
+
+Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter. She
+called herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me thus
+from ever having been baptized. I do not understand these things, and
+the battles fought about them; but knowing that my father was a member
+of the English Church, I resolved to be the same, and told Betsy that
+she ought not to set up against her master's doctrine. Then she herself
+became ashamed of trying to convert me, not only because of my ignorance
+(which made argument like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because
+she could mention no one of title with such theology.
+
+This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame) what
+opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very same
+predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm would have
+thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the Major and his dinner
+party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman, who examined me, and being
+satisfied with little, took me to an old City church of deep and damp
+retirement. And here, with a great din of traffic outside, and a mildewy
+depth of repose within, I was presented by certain sponsors (the clerk
+and his wife and his wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to
+keep the impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.
+
+I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old
+name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in two
+syllables only. But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and looked at
+me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old school, put never a
+question about it.
+
+Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs. Hockin,
+to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I scarcely knew
+how to be moving next, though move I must before very long. For it cost
+me a great deal of money to stay in European Square like this, albeit
+Herr Strouss was of all men the most generous, by his own avowal, and
+his wife (by the same test) noble-hearted among women. Yet each of them
+spoke of the other's pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the
+other was out of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all
+to say about cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met
+together, were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a
+thought of payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but
+run away between them.
+
+This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable to
+keep my secret about the great nugget. The Major had told me not to
+speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not the smallest
+intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way; but somehow or other
+it came out one night when I was being pitied for my desolation. And all
+the charges against me began to be doubled from that moment.
+
+If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
+content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me. But there
+was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and lodgings
+and all the rest of my expenses. And that was the iron pump in European
+Square. For this pump stood in the very centre of a huddled district
+of famine, filth, and fever. When once I had seen from the leads of
+our house the quag of reeking life around, the stubs and snags of
+chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled streets, and the broken
+blains called houses, I was quite ashamed of paying any thing to become
+a Christian.
+
+Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
+and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas, fiercely
+resented all interference, and were good to one another in their own
+rough way. It was more than three years since there had been a single
+murder among them, and even then the man who was killed confessed that
+he deserved it. She told me, also, that in some mining district of
+Wales, well known to her, things were a great deal worse than here,
+although the people were not half so poor. And finally, looking at a
+ruby ring which I had begged her to wear always, for the sake of her
+truth to me, she begged me to be wiser than to fret about things that I
+could not change. “All these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means
+of grace before them, and if they would not stretch forth their hands,
+it was only because they were vessels of wrath. Her pity was rather
+for our poor black brethren who had never enjoyed no opportunities, and
+therefore must be castaways.”
+
+Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my doctrine
+(since first I went to America), I dropped all intention of attempting
+any good in places where I might be murdered. But I could not help
+looking at the pump which was in front, and the poor things who came
+there for water, and, most of all, the children. With these it was
+almost the joy of the day, and perhaps the only joy, to come into this
+little open space and stand, and put their backs up stiffly, and stare
+about, ready for some good luck to turn up--such as a horse to hold, or
+a man coming out of the docks with a half-penny to spare--and then,
+in failure of such golden hope, to dash about, in and out, after one
+another, splashing, and kicking over their own cans, kettles, jars, or
+buckets, and stretching their dirty little naked legs, and showing very
+often fine white chests, and bright teeth wet with laughter. And then,
+when this chivy was done, and their quick little hearts beat aloud with
+glory, it was pretty to see them all rally round the pump, as crafty
+as their betters, and watching with sly humor each other's readiness to
+begin again.
+
+Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little body
+with a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl, whose mother,
+perhaps, lay sick at home, and a stern idea of responsibility began
+to make the buckets clank. Then might you see, if you cared to do so,
+orderly management have its turn--a demand for pins and a tucking up
+of skirts (which scarcely seemed worthy of the great young fuss), large
+children scolding little ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the
+while the very least child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and
+only come for company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down,
+and look up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.
+
+Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a little
+checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom, especially
+when the real work began, and the children, vying with one another,
+set to at the iron handle. This was too large for their little hands to
+grasp, and by means of some grievance inside, or perhaps through a cruel
+trick of the plumber, up went the long handle every time small fingers
+were too confiding, and there it stood up like the tail of a rampant
+cow, or a branch inaccessible, until an old shawl or the cord of a
+peg-top could be cast up on high to reduce it. But some engineering boy,
+“highly gifted,” like Uncle Sam's self, “with machinery,” had discovered
+an ingenious cure for this. With the help of the girls he used to fasten
+a fat little thing, about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle
+of the handle, and there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby
+and enjoyed seesaw, and laughed at its own utility.
+
+I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and bright
+revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and discretion,
+and rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own delicious Blue River.
+People used to look at me from the windows with pity and astonishment,
+supposing me to be crazed or frantic, especially the Germans. For to run
+out like this, without a pocket full of money, would have been insanity;
+and to run out with it, to their minds, was even clearer proof of that
+condition. For the money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on
+this side and on that it flew, each child in succession making deeper
+drain upon it, in virtue of still deeper woes. They were dreadful little
+story-tellers, I am very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as
+soon as I came out, in contrast with all the recent glee and frolic,
+suggested to even the youngest charity suspicions of some inconsistency.
+However, they were so ingenious and clever that they worked my pockets
+like the pump itself, only with this unhappy difference, that the former
+had no inexhaustible spring of silver, or even of copper.
+
+And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature), was
+I driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh supply
+should come. For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was, did not mean
+to let me melt all away at once my share of the great Blue River nugget,
+any more than to make ducks and drakes of his own. Indeed, that rock of
+gold was still untouched, and healthily reposing in a banker's cellar
+in the good town of Sacramento. People were allowed to go in and see
+it upon payment of a dollar, and they came out so thirsty from feasting
+upon it that a bar was set up, and a pile of money made--all the
+gentlemen, and ladies even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about
+small money after seeing that. But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of
+the profit of all this excitable work. It was wholly against his wish
+that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense of
+religion condemned it. He said, in his very first letter to me, that
+even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the grandest
+work of the Lord yet discovered in America--a country more full of all
+works of the Lord than the rest of the world put together. And to keep
+it in a cellar, without any air or sun, grated harshly upon his ideas of
+right.
+
+However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did, and
+if they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as having
+large families. And the balance might go to his credit against the
+interest on any cash advanced to him. Not that he meant to be very fast
+with this, never having run into debt in all his life.
+
+This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump any
+longer. I had come into England with money enough to last me (according
+to the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of every needful
+work; whereas, in less than half that time, I was arriving at my last
+penny. This reminded me of my dear father, who was nearly always in
+trouble about money (although so strictly upright); and at first I was
+proud to be like him about this, till I came to find the disadvantages.
+
+It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any difference
+in the behavior of any one toward me. Mrs. Strouss, Herr Strouss, the
+lady on the stairs, and a very clever woman who had got no rooms, but
+was kindly accommodated every where, as well as the baron on the first
+floor front, and the gentleman from a hotel at Hanover, who looked
+out the other way, and even the children at the pump--not one made any
+difference toward me (as an enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my
+last half crown was gone. It was admitted upon every side that I ought
+to be forgiven for my random cast of money, because I knew no better,
+and was sure to have more in a very little time. And the children of
+the pump came to see me go away, through streets of a mile and a half, I
+should think; and they carried my things, looking after one another, so
+that none could run away. And being forbidden at the platform gate, for
+want of respectability, they set up a cheer, and I waved my hat, and
+promised, amidst great applause, to come back with it full of sixpences.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+COCKS AND COXCOMBS
+
+
+Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea, to
+meet me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want of
+further encouragement.
+
+“Very soon you go,” he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, or
+whatever are the things that close the career of a land-engine.
+“Station-master, you are very wise in putting in your very best cabbage
+plants there. You understand your own company. Well done! If I were to
+offer you a shilling apiece for those young early Yorks, what would you
+say, now?”
+
+“Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir,” the Scotch station-master made
+answer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and put on a
+dissolute Glengary. “They are a veery fine young kail, that always pays
+for planting.”
+
+“The villain!” said the Major, as I jumped into the fly. “However, I
+suppose he does quite right. Set a thief to watch a thief. The company
+are big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger. We shall cut through his
+garden in about three months, just when his cabbages are getting firm,
+and their value will exceed that of pine-apples. The surveyor will
+come down and certify, and the 'damage to crops' will be at least five
+pounds, when they have no right to sow even mustard and cress, and a
+saucepan would hold all the victuals on the land.”
+
+From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative
+schemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly turn
+aside from the unfenced road and take the turf. “Coachman,” he cried,
+“just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance much longer.”
+
+There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver seemed to
+know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf where once had
+run the river. And the salt breath of the sea came over the pebble
+ridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so much London.
+
+“It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of,” Major Hockin began
+to say to me. “Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin! A man of large capital--the
+very thing we want. It might have been the making of this place. I have
+very little doubt that I must have brought him to see our great natural
+advantages--the beauty of the situation, the salubrity of the air, the
+absence of all clay, or marsh, or noxious deposit, the bright crisp
+turf, and the noble underlay of chalk, which (if you perceive my
+meaning) can not retain any damp, but transmits it into sweet natural
+wells. Why, driver, where the devil are you driving us?”
+
+“No fear, your honor. I know every trick of it. It won't come over
+the wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the world to his
+sand-cracks. Whoa-ho, my boy, then! And the young lady's feet might
+go up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin, Sir; and Mr. Rasper will
+excuse of it.”
+
+“What the”--something hot--“do you mean, Sir?” the Major roared over
+the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on. “Pull out this
+instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three months' hard
+labor. May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your pardon for speaking with
+such sincerity--I simply mean, may I go straightway to the devil, if I
+don't put this fellow on the tread-mill. Oh, you can pull out now, then,
+can you?”
+
+“If your honor pleases, I never did pull in,” the poor driver answered,
+being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the manor. “My orders
+was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now just to Bruntsea, and
+keep in the middle of that same I did, and this here little wet is a
+haxident--a haxident of the full moon, I do assure you, and the wind
+coming over the sea, as you might say. These pebbles is too round, miss,
+to stick to one another; you couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes
+the water here and there comes a-leaking like through the bottom. I have
+seed it so, ever since I can remember.”
+
+“I don't believe a word of it,” the Major said, as we waited a little
+for the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright sea
+flowers. “Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West Bruntseyans, and
+you have driven us into a vile bog to scare me. They have bribed you.
+I see the whole of it. Tell me the truth, and you shall have five
+shillings.”
+
+The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received such
+an offer before. Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed the
+proper thing, and have called for a balance of considerations, and made
+a demand upon his energies. But to earn five shillings by the truth had
+never fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me, because I smiled,
+and he said, “Will you taste the water, miss?”
+
+“Bless me!” cried the Major, “now I never thought of that. Common people
+have such ways about things they are used to! I might have stood
+here for a month, and never have thought of that way to settle it.
+Ridiculously simple. Give me a taste, Erema. Ah, that is the real beauty
+of our coast, my dear! The strongest proportion of the saline element--I
+should know the taste of it any where. No sea-weed, no fishy particles,
+no sludge, no beards of oysters. The pure, uncontaminated, perfect
+brine, that sets every male and female on his legs, varicose,
+orthopedic--I forget their scientifics, but I know the smack of it.”
+
+“Certainly,” I said, “it is beautifully salt. It will give you an
+appetite for dinner, Major Hockin. I could drink a pint of it, after all
+that smoke. But don't you think it is a serious thing for the sea itself
+to come pouring through the bottom of this pebble bank in this way?”
+
+“Not at all. No, I rather like it. It opens up many strictly practical
+ideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For instance, a
+'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it--and set up an infirmary for
+foot and mouth disease. And better still, the baths, the baths, my dear.
+No expense for piping, or pumping, or any thing. Only place your marble
+at the proper level, and twice a day you have the grand salubrious
+sparkling influx of ocean's self, self-filtered, and by its own
+operation permeated with a fine siliceous element. What foreign mud
+could compete with such a bath?”
+
+“But supposing there should come too much of it,” I said, “and wash both
+the baths and the bathers away?”
+
+“Such an idea is ridiculous. It can be adjusted to a nicety. I am very
+glad I happened to observe this thing, this--this noble phenomenon.
+I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I am half an hour
+older. My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite forgot to tell you;
+but never mind that for the present. Driver, here is half a crown for
+you. Your master will put down the fly to my account. He owes me a
+heriot. I shall claim his best beast, the moment he gets one without a
+broken wind.”
+
+As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted
+alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had done
+in London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw) that
+somebody else might come down for me. And this was Sir Montague Hockin,
+as I feared was only too likely from what had been said. If I had even
+suspected that this gentleman was at Bruntlands, I would have done my
+utmost to stay where I was, in spite of all absence of money. Betsy
+would gladly have allowed me to remain, without paying even a farthing,
+until it should become convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak of
+this; but I would have got over that pride much rather than meet this
+Sir Montague Hockin thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether;
+and having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,
+foolish importance to that.
+
+However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one through
+instinct; and I knew already that in England young women are not quite
+such masters of their own behavior as in the far West they are allowed
+to be. And so I did my best that, even in my eyes, he should not see
+how vexed I was at meeting him. And soon it appeared that this behavior,
+however painful to me, was no less wise than good, because both with my
+host and hostess this new visitor was already at the summit of all good
+graces. He had conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes
+and upshots, and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the
+distance; and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had
+opened a hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of
+an extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with
+every feather sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my life
+not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded, until the
+cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb and very sad
+inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife (who stood beneath
+him, even more turned inside out), capered with his twiggy legs, and
+gave a long, sad crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at him with intense delight.
+
+“Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never laughed,
+Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might choose a
+fitter opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his demonstration
+altogether--see, he does not understand such unkindness--and it is the
+very first he has uttered since he came. Oh, poor Fluffsky!”
+
+“I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on any
+account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive. Fluffsky,
+do please to begin again.”
+
+“These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you,” said Sir Montague,
+coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers for one more
+crow. “Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have a fowl that even
+Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have it in a week, or a
+fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can manage it. They are not
+to be had except through certain channels, and the fellows who write the
+poultry books have never even heard of them.”
+
+“Oh, how delighted I shall be! Lady Clara despises all her neighbors so.
+But do they lay eggs? Half the use of keeping poultry, when you never
+kill them, is to get an egg for breakfast; and Major Hockin looks round
+and says, 'Now is this our own?' and I can not say that it is; and I am
+vexed with the books, and he begins to laugh at me. People said it was
+for want of chalk, but they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you can
+see.”
+
+“And their food, Mrs. Hockin. They are walking upon that. Starve
+them for a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for stern
+discipline.”
+
+But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs.
+Hockin was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, and
+resolute talk about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps, was
+even less to be trusted to get his cash out of any poor and honest man.
+
+On the very day after my return from London I received a letter from
+“Colonel Gundry” (as we always called the Sawyer now, through his
+kinship to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into less
+compass, I may as well give his very words:
+
+
+“DEAR MISS REMA,--Your last favor to hand, with thanks. Every thing is
+going on all right with us. The mill is built up, and goes better than
+ever; more orders on hand than we can get through. We have not cracked
+the big nugget yet. Expect the government to take him at a trifle below
+value, for Washington Museum. Must have your consent; but, for my part,
+would rather let him go there than break him. Am ready to lose a few
+dollars upon him, particularly as he might crack up all quartzy in the
+middle. They offer to take him by weight at three dollars and a half per
+pound below standard. Please say if agreeable.
+
+“I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us here
+in this part. Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad will, and
+contention, and rebellion, perhaps. What we hear concerning it is not
+much here; but even here thoughts are very much divided. Ephraim takes
+a different view from mine; which is not a right thing for a grandson
+to do; and neighbor Sylvester goes with him. The Lord send agreement and
+concord among us; but, if He doeth so, He must change his mind first,
+for every man is borrowing his neighbor's gun.
+
+“If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his duty,
+my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it. If Firm was
+to run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of slavery, I never
+should care more for naught upon this side of Jordan; and the new mill
+might go to Jericho; though it does look uncommon handsome now, I can
+assure you, and tears through its work like a tiger.
+
+“Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England, and
+having carried over some to your account, inclosed please to find a bill
+for five hundred dollars, though not likely to be wanted yet. Save a
+care of your money, my dear; but pay your way handsome, as a Castlewood
+should do. Jowler goes his rounds twice a day looking for you; and
+somebody else never hangs his hat up without casting one eye at the
+corner you know. Sylvester's girl was over here last week, dashing about
+as usual. If Firm goes South, he may have her, for aught I care, and
+never see saw-mill again. But I hope that the Lord will spare my old
+days such disgrace and tribulation.
+
+“About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious. I have been young,
+and now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I see of the
+ways of men, the less I verily think of them. Their good esteem, their
+cap in hand, their fair fame, as they call it, goes by accident, and
+fortune, the whim of the moment, and the way the clever ones have of
+tickling them. A great man laughs at the flimsy of it, and a good one
+goes to his conscience. Your father saw these things at their value.
+I have often grieved that you can not see them so; but perhaps I have
+liked you none the worse, my dear.
+
+“Don't forget about going South. A word from you may stop him. It is
+almost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late. Suan Isco
+and Martin send messages. The flowers are on your father's grave. I have
+got a large order for pine cradles in great haste, but have time to be,
+
+“Truly yours,
+
+“SAMPSON GUNDRY.”
+
+
+That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of money,
+cost me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of anxiety. The
+Sawyer had written to me twice ere this--kind, simple letters, but of
+no importance, except for their goodness and affection. But now it was
+clear that when he wrote this letter he must have been sadly put out and
+upset. His advice to me was beyond all value; but he seemed to have kept
+none at home for himself. He was carried quite out of his large, staid
+ways when he wrote those bitter words about poor Firm--the very apple of
+his eye, as the holy Psalmist says. And, knowing the obstinacy of them
+both, I dreaded clash between them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ADRIFT
+
+
+Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to simplicity,
+and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with charity or furnished
+lodgings (what though kept by one's own nurse), I cast about now for
+good reason to be off from all the busy works at Bruntsea. So soon after
+such a tremendous blow, it was impossible for me to push my own little
+troubles and concerns upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed
+to know what was to become of my father's will, if any thing. But my
+desire to be doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time
+from Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange
+behavior toward me.
+
+That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my age,
+scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten years older
+than poor Firm--began more and more every day to come after me, just
+when I wanted to be quite alone. There was nothing more soothing to my
+thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet from the former, I suppose)
+than for the whole of me to rest a while in such a little scollop of
+the shingle as a new-moon tide, in little crescents, leaves just below
+high-water mark. And now it was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after
+the flooding of our fly by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling
+how I longed to understand these things--which seem to be denied to all
+who are of the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick,
+where no wind could make me look worse than nature willed. But of my own
+looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of such
+a subject.
+
+Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering by
+what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced, and not
+even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by side and purely
+tally with each other. Right and left, for miles and miles, millions
+multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any one in my palm and be
+sure that it never had been there before. And of the quiet wavelets
+even, taking their own time and manner, in default of will of wind,
+all to come and call attention to their doom by arching over, and
+endeavoring to make froth, were any two in sound and size, much more
+in shape and shade, alike? Every one had its own little business, of
+floating pop-weed or foam bubbles or of blistered light, to do; and
+every one, having done it, died and subsided into its successor.
+
+“A trifle sentimental, are we?” cried a lively voice behind me, and
+the waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood Sir
+Montague Hockin, with a hideous parasol.
+
+I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him; but
+he was one of those people who think that women are all whims and ways.
+
+“I grieve to intrude upon large ideas,” he said, as I rose and looked at
+him, “but I act under positive orders now. A lady knows what is best
+for a lady. Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the window, and she thinks
+that you ought not to be sitting in the sun like this. There has been
+a case of sun-stroke at Southbourne--a young lady meditating under the
+cliff--and she begs you to accept this palm leaf.”
+
+I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce Californian
+sun; but I would not speak to him of that. “Thank you,” I said; “it was
+very kind of her to think of it, and of you to do it. But will it be
+safe for you to go back without it?”
+
+“Oh, why should I do so?” he answered, with a tone of mock pathos which
+provoked me always, though I never could believe it to be meant in
+ridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing; and, besides,
+I never spoke so. “Could you bear to see me slain by the shafts of the
+sun? Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply large for both of us.”
+
+I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his vein
+at all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want every body to
+be like myself.
+
+“Thank you; I mean to stay here,” I said; “you may either leave the
+parasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome. At any rate, I
+shall not use it.”
+
+A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon his
+way; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff. He seemed to look
+upon me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh from little
+schools, would be. Nothing more annoyed me, after all my thoughts and
+dream of some power in myself, than this.
+
+“Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two,” he said, while I kept gazing
+at some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him to go--“a
+little thing or two of which you have no idea, even in your most lonely
+musings, which might have a very deep interest for you. Do you think
+that I came to this hole to see the sea? Or that fussy old muff of a
+Major's doings?”
+
+“Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his intellect and
+great plans,” I answered. “And after all his kindness to you!”
+
+“You never will do that,” he said; “because you are a lady, and will not
+repeat what is said in confidence. I could help you materially in your
+great object, if you would only make a friend of me.”
+
+“And what would your own object be? The pure anxiety to do right?”
+
+“Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your good
+opinion, which seems so inaccessible. But you will think me selfish if I
+even hint at any condition of any kind. Every body I have ever met with
+likes me, except Miss Castlewood.”
+
+As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining in the
+sun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason which Mrs.
+Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it hard that a man
+with such a beard should be valued lightly.
+
+“I do not see why we should talk,” I said, “about either likes or
+dislikes. Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very much
+obliged to you.”
+
+This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed in
+England. A general idea there prevails that the free and enlightened
+natives of the West are in front of those here in intelligence, and
+to some extent, therefore, in dishonesty. But there must be many cases
+where the two are not the same.
+
+“No,” I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had every
+British animal upon them; “I mean nothing more than the simple thing
+I say. If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it. I am accustomed to
+straightforward people. But they disappoint one by their never knowing
+any thing.”
+
+“But I know something,” he answered, with a nod of grave, mysterious
+import; “and perhaps I will tell you some day, when admitted, if ever I
+have such an honor, to some little degree of friendship.”
+
+“Oh, please not to think of yourself,” I exclaimed, in a manner which
+must have amused him. “In such a case, the last thing that you should do
+is that. Think only of what is right and honorable, and your duty toward
+a lady. Also your duty to the laws of your country. I am not at all sure
+that you ought not to be arrested. But perhaps it is nothing at all,
+after all; only something invented to provoke me.”
+
+“In that case, I can only drop the subject,” he answered, with that
+stern gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested. “I
+was also to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the usual time,
+that my cousin may go out in the boat for whiting. The sea will be as
+smooth as glass. Perhaps you will come with us.”
+
+With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a most
+uncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even tried to
+think. For I could not get the smallest idea what he meant; and, much as
+I tried to believe that he must be only pretending, for reasons of his
+own, to have something important to tell me, scarcely was it possible to
+be contented so. A thousand absurd imaginations began to torment me as
+to what he meant. He lived in London so much, for instance, that he had
+much quicker chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was
+a man of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate
+what I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with Shovelin,
+Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and I knew not that
+a banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit; moreover--which, to
+my mind, was almost stronger proof than any thing--Sir Montague Hockin
+was of smuggling pedigree, and likely to be skillful in illicit runs of
+knowledge.
+
+However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I say
+to him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it. But,
+though I waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person I
+scarcely could have done, he would not condescend to give me even
+another look about it.
+
+Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct and
+certainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good host and
+hostess. But here there was very little help or support to be obtained
+at present. Major Hockin was laying the foundations of “The Bruntsea
+Assembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual Improvement Association,
+Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;” while Mrs. Hockin had a hatch
+of “White Sultans,” or, rather, a prolonged sitting of eggs, fondly
+hoped to hatch at last, from having cost so much, like a chicken-hearted
+Conference. Much as I sorrowed at her disappointment--for the sitting
+cost twelve guineas--I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty and
+ignoble smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth day
+she placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, in
+which they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen. The
+poor lady tried to believe that they were spinning with vitality; but at
+last she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had been half boiled by the
+advertiser. “This is very sad,” cried Mrs. Hockin; and the patient old
+hen, who was come in a basket of hay to see the end of it, echoed with a
+cluck that sentiment.
+
+These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own guidance,
+which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever since my father
+died. For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my great joy and
+comfort, as a guide and guardian; but, alas! for one day only. And,
+except for his good advice and kind paternal conduct to me, it seemed
+at present an unlucky thing that I had ever discovered him. Not only
+through deep sense of loss and real sorrow for him, but also because
+Major Hockin, however good and great and generous, took it unreasonably
+into his head that I threw him over, and threw myself (as with want of
+fine taste he expressed it) into the arms of the banker. This hurt
+me very much, and I felt that Major Hockin could never have spoken so
+hastily unless his hair had been originally red; and so it might be
+detected, even now, where it survived itself, though blanched where he
+brushed it into that pretentious ridge. Sometimes I liked that man, when
+his thoughts were large and liberal; but no sooner had he said a fine
+brave thing than he seemed to have an after-thought not to go too
+far with it; just as he had done about the poor robbed woman from the
+steerage and the young man who pulled out his guinea. I paid him for
+my board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle Sam himself, at
+California prices; therefore I am under no obligation to conceal his
+foibles. But, take him altogether, he was good and brave and just,
+though unable, from absence of inner light, to be to me what Uncle Sam
+had been.
+
+When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in London,
+and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) “blew hot and cold” in
+half a minute--hot when I thought of any good things to be done, and
+cold as soon as he became the man to do them--also, when I remembered
+what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the shape of Sir Montague,
+who went to and fro, but could never be trusted to be far off, I
+resolved to do what I had long been thinking of, and believed that
+my guardian, if he had lived another day, would have recommended. I
+resolved to go and see Lord Castlewood, my father's first cousin and
+friend in need.
+
+When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they both
+declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of advising,
+which, however, they had forborne from doing because I never took
+advice. At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I could not help
+smiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage opinion that,
+before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and ask his leave to
+do so. For that would have made it quite a rude thing to call, as I
+must still have done, if he should decline beforehand to receive me.
+Moreover, it would look as if I sought an invitation, while only wanting
+an interview. Therefore, being now full of money again, I hired the
+flyman who had made us taste the water, and taking train at Newport, and
+changing at two or three places as ordered, crossed many little streams,
+and came to a fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a few
+miles above Reading.
+
+In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and
+tribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small feelings, as
+for the first time I drew near to the home of my forefathers. I should
+have been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or lying in a hole, or even
+modern or insignificant; and when none of these charges could be brought
+against it, I was filled with highly discreditable pain that Providence
+had not seen fit to issue me into this world in the masculine form; in
+which case this fine property would, according to the rules of mankind,
+have been mine. However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat
+down on a bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.
+
+The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to shape
+it, so as not to spoil the site. It stood near the brow of a bosoming
+hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from the rigor
+and fury of the north and east; while in front the sloping foreground
+widened its soft lap of green. In bays and waves of rolling grass,
+promontoried, here and there, by jutting copse or massive tree, and
+jotted now and then with cattle as calm as boats at anchor, the range
+of sunny upland fell to the reedy fringe and clustered silence of deep
+river meadows. Here the Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and
+courtesy, yet with will of its own ways, being now a plenteous river,
+spreads low music, and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields,
+casting afar a broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulous
+infinitude of flash.
+
+Now these things touched me all the more because none of them belonged
+to me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got up with much
+better heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever it might be.
+A girl brought up in the real English way would have spent her last
+shilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the station--a most sad
+machine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in a more becoming manner.
+
+One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as
+quietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's. If any body had
+been rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that sort, my
+spirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually happens then,
+good reason to go down afterward. But happily there was nothing of the
+kind. An elderly man, without any gaudy badges, opened the door very
+quietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke, for asking me to speak
+softly. It was one of his lordship's very worst days, and when he was
+so, every sound seemed to reach him. I took the hint, and did not speak
+at all, but followed him over deep matting into a little room to which
+he showed me. And then I gave him a little note, written before I left
+Bruntsea, and asked him whether he thought that his master was well
+enough to attend to it.
+
+He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father well,
+having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked whether my
+message was important. I answered that it was, but that I would wait for
+another time rather than do any harm. But he said that, however ill his
+master was, nothing provoked him more than to find that any thing was
+neglected through it. And before I could speak again he was gone with my
+letter to Lord Castlewood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+AT HOME
+
+
+Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had
+befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force their
+remembrance upon me. Such dark figures always seem to make the most of
+a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to fluttering fear and small
+misgivings. There any body seems to lie, as a stranded sailor lies, at
+the foot of perpendicular cliffs of most inhuman humanity, with all the
+world frowning down over the crest, and no one to throw a rope down.
+Often and often had I felt this want of any one to help me, but the only
+way out of it seemed to be to do my best to help myself.
+
+Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and knowing
+that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's strength. He
+might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me with kind feeling;
+but if he wanted to do more, surely he might have tried ere now. But my
+thoughts about this were cut short by a message that he would be glad to
+see me, and I followed the servant to the library.
+
+Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair, uncushioned
+and uncomfortable. When he saw me near him he got up and took my hand,
+and looked at me, and I was pleased to find his face well-meaning,
+brave, and generous. But even to rise from his chair was plainly no
+small effort to him, and he leaned upon a staff or crutch as he offered
+me a small white hand.
+
+“Miss Castlewood,” he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery
+voice, “for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to hear
+of you. I have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense of want of
+energy; yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do my best to think
+so.”
+
+“I am sure you have,” I replied, without thinking, knowing his kindness
+to my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to Mr. Shovelin
+about him. “I owe you more gratitude than I can tell, for your goodness
+to my dear father. I am not come now to trouble you, but because it was
+my duty.”
+
+While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could
+walk, to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have had
+few chances. And in every step and word and gesture I recognized that
+foreign grace which true-born Britons are proud to despise on both sides
+of the Atlantic. And, being in the light, I watched him well, because I
+am not a foreigner.
+
+In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for
+accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm face,
+which might in good health have been powerful--a face which might be
+called the moonlight image of my father's. I could not help turning away
+to cry, and suspicion fled forever.
+
+“My dear young cousin,” he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to, “your
+father trusted me, and so must you. You may think that I have forgotten
+you, or done very little to find you out. It was no indifference, no
+forgetfulness: I have not been able to work myself, and I have had very
+deep trouble of my own.”
+
+He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down when
+thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were those of a
+learned and intellectual man. How I knew this it is impossible to say,
+for I never had met with such a character as this, unless it were the
+Abbe of Flechon, when I was only fourteen years old, and valued his
+great skill in spinning a top tenfold more than all his deep learning.
+Lord Castlewood had long, silky hair, falling in curls of silver gray
+upon either side of his beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft
+dark eyes was sad, gentle, yet penetrating. Weak health and almost
+constant pain had chastened his delicate features to an expression
+almost feminine, though firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine
+will and fortitude. And when he spoke of his own trouble (which,
+perhaps, he would not have done except for consolation's sake), I knew
+that he meant something even more grievous than bodily anguish.
+
+“It is hard,” he said, “that you, so young and healthy and full of high
+spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin the best
+years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in such a cloud
+of gloom and shame.”
+
+“There is no shame at all,” I answered; “and if there is gloom, I am
+used to that; and so was my father for years and years. What is my
+trouble compared with his?”
+
+“Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards the
+mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load; you are a
+young and a sensitive woman. The burden may even be worse for you. Now
+tell me all about yourself, and what has brought you to me.”
+
+His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath it. He
+had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor plied me at all
+with those pious allusions, which even to the reverent mind are like
+illusions when so urged. Lord Castlewood had too deep a sense of the
+will of God to know what it is; and he looked at me wistfully as at one
+who might have worse experience of it.
+
+Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met mine,
+I told him every thing I could think of about my father and myself, and
+all I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were set upon
+getting to the bottom of every thing. And while I spoke with spirit, or
+softness, or, I fear, sometimes with hate, I could not help seeing that
+he was surprised, but not wholly displeased, with my energy. And then,
+when all was exhausted, came the old question I had heard so often, and
+found so hard to answer--
+
+“And what do you propose to do next, Erema?”
+
+“To go to the very place itself,” I said, speaking strongly under
+challenge, though quite unresolved about such a thing before; “to live
+in the house where my father lived, and my mother and all of the family
+died; and from day to day to search every corner and fish up every bit
+of evidence, until I get hold of the true man at last, of the villain
+who did it--who did it, and left my father and all the rest of us to be
+condemned and die for it.”
+
+“Erema,” replied my cousin, as he had told me now to call him, “you are
+too impetuous for such work, and it is wholly unfit for you. For such a
+task, persons of trained sagacity and keen observation are needed. And
+after all these eighteen years, or nearly nineteen now it must be, there
+can not be any thing to discover there.”
+
+“But if I like, may I go there, cousin, if only to satisfy my own mind?
+I am miserable now at Bruntsea, and Sir Montague Hockin wears me out.”
+
+“Sir Montague Hockin!” Lord Castlewood exclaimed; “why, you did not tell
+me that he was there. Wherever he is, you should not be.”
+
+“I forgot to speak of him. He does not live there, but is continually
+to and fro for bathing, or fishing, or rabbit-shooting, or any other
+pretext. And he makes the place very unpleasant to me, kind as the Major
+and Mrs. Hockin are, because I can never make him out at all.”
+
+“Do not try to do so,” my cousin answered, looking at me earnestly; “be
+content to know nothing of him, my dear. If you can put up with a very
+dull house, and a host who is even duller, come here and live with me,
+as your father would have wished, and as I, your nearest relative, now
+ask and beg of you.”
+
+This was wonderfully kind, and for a moment I felt tempted. Lord
+Castlewood being an elderly man, and, as the head of our family, my
+natural protector, there could be nothing wrong, and there might be much
+that was good, in such an easy arrangement. But, on the other hand, it
+seemed to me that after this my work would languish. Living in comfort
+and prosperity under the roof of my forefathers, beyond any doubt I
+should begin to fall into habits of luxury, to take to the love of
+literature, which I knew to be latent within me, to lose the clear,
+strong, practical sense of the duty for which I, the last of seven, was
+spared, and in some measure, perhaps, by wanderings and by hardships,
+fitted. And then I thought of my host's weak health, continual pain (the
+signs of which were hardly repressed even while he was speaking), and
+probably also his secluded life. Was it fair to force him, by virtue of
+his inborn kindness and courtesy, to come out of his privileges and deal
+with me, who could not altogether be in any place a mere nobody? And so
+I refused his offer.
+
+“I am very much obliged to you indeed,” I said, “but I think you might
+be sorry for it. I will come and stop with you every now and then, when
+your health is better, and you ask me. But to live here altogether would
+not do; I should like it too well, and do nothing else.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right,” he replied, with the air of one who cares
+little for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and
+worse than any distress almost; “you are very young, my dear, and years
+should be allowed to pass before you know what full-grown sorrow is. You
+have had enough, for your age, of it. You had better not live in this
+house; it is not a house for cheerfulness.”
+
+“Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea,” I asked, with sudden
+remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of me or to
+worry me, “to what place in all the world am I to go, unless it is back
+to America? I will go at once to Shoxford, and take lodgings of my own.”
+
+“Perhaps you had better wait a little while,” Lord Castlewood answered,
+gently, “although I would much rather have you at Shoxford than where
+you are at present. But please to remember, my good Erema, that you can
+not go to Shoxford all alone. I have a most faithful and trusty man--the
+one who opened the door to you. He has been here before his remembrance.
+He disdains me still as compared with your father. Will you have him to
+superintend you? I scarcely see how you can do any good, but if you do
+go, you must go openly, and as your father's daughter.”
+
+“I have no intention whatever of going in any other way, Lord
+Castlewood; but perhaps,” I continued, “it would be as well to make as
+little stir as possible. Of an English village I know nothing but the
+little I have seen at Bruntsea, but there they make a very great fuss
+about any one who comes down with a man-servant.”
+
+“To be sure,” replied my cousin, with a smile; “they would not be true
+Britons otherwise. Perhaps you would do better without Stixon; but of
+course you must not go alone. Could you by any means persuade your old
+nurse Betsy to go with you?”
+
+“How good of you to think of it!--how wise you are!” I really could not
+help saying, as I gazed at his delicate and noble face. “I am sure that
+if Betsy can come, she will; though of course she must be compensated
+well for the waste all her lodgers will make of it. They are very
+wicked, and eat most dreadfully if she even takes one day's holiday.
+What do you think they even do? She has told me with tears in her eyes
+of it. They are all allowed a pat of butter, a penny roll, and two
+sardines for breakfast. No sooner do they know that her back is
+turned--”
+
+“Erema!” cried my cousin, with some surprise; and being so recalled,
+I was ashamed. But I never could help taking interest in very little
+things indeed, until my own common-sense, or somebody else, came to tell
+me what a child I was. However, I do believe that Uncle Sam liked me all
+the better for this fault.
+
+“My dear, I did not mean to blame you,” Lord Castlewood said, most
+kindly; “it must be a great relief for you to look on at other people.
+But tell me--or rather, since you have told me almost every thing you
+know--let me, if only in one way I can help you, help you at least in
+that way.”
+
+Knowing that he must mean money, I declined, from no false pride, but a
+set resolve to work out my work, if possible, through my own resources.
+But I promised to apply to him at once if scarcity should again befall
+me, as had happened lately. And then I longed to ask him why he seemed
+to have so low an opinion of Sir Montague Hockin. That question,
+however, I feared to put, because it might not be a proper one, and
+also because my cousin had spoken in a very strange tone, as if of some
+private dislike or reserve on that subject. Moreover, it was too evident
+that I had tried his courtesy long enough. From time to time pale shades
+of bodily pain, and then hot flushes, had flitted across his face, like
+clouds on a windy summer evening. And more than once he had glanced at
+the time-piece, not to hurry me, but as if he dreaded its announcements.
+It was a beautiful clock, and struck with a silvery sound every quarter
+of an hour. And now, as I rose to say good-by, to catch my evening
+train, it struck a quarter to five, and my cousin stood up, with his
+weight upon his staff, and looked at me with an inexpressible depth of
+weary misery.
+
+“I have only a few minutes left,” he said, “during which I can say any
+thing. My time is divided into two sad parts: the time when I am capable
+of very little, and the time when I am capable of nothing; and the
+latter part is twice the length of the other. For sixteen hours of every
+day, far better had I be dead than living, so far as our own little
+insolence may judge. But I speak of it only to excuse bad manners, and
+perhaps I show worse by doing so. I shall not be able to see you again
+until to-morrow morning. Do not go; they will arrange all that. Send a
+note to Major Hockin by Stixon's boy. Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to
+your comfort, if those who are free from pain require any other comfort.
+Forgive me; I did not mean to be rude. Sometimes I can not help giving
+way.”
+
+Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his hard
+stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his knees, and
+set his thin lips in straight blue lines. Each hand was as rigid as the
+ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, and his lips were like
+clamped wire. This was his regular way of preparing for the onset of
+the night, so that no grimace, no cry, no moan, or other token of fierce
+agony should be wrung from him.
+
+“My lord will catch it stiff to-night,” said Mr. Stixon, who came as I
+rang, and then led me away to the drawing-room; “he always have it ten
+times worse after any talking or any thing to upset him like. And so,
+then, miss--excuse a humble servant--did I understand from him that you
+was the Captain's own daughter?”
+
+“Yes; but surely your master wants you--he is in such dreadful pain. Do
+please to go to him, and do something.”
+
+“There is nothing to be done, miss,” Stixon answered, with calm
+resignation; “he is bound to stay so for sixteen hours, and then
+he eases off again. But bless my heart, miss--excuse me in your
+presence--his lordship is thoroughly used to it. It is my certain
+knowledge that for seven years now he has never had seven minutes free
+from pain--seven minutes all of a heap, I mean. Some do say, miss, as
+the Lord doeth every thing according to His righteousness, that the
+reason is not very far to seek.”
+
+I asked him what he meant, though I ought, perhaps, to have put a stop
+to his loquacity; and he pretended not to hear, which made me ask him
+all the more.
+
+“A better man never lived than my lord,” he answered, with a little
+shock at my misprision; “but it has been said among censoorous persons
+that nobody ever had no luck as came in suddenly to a property and a
+high state of life on the top of the heads of a family of seven.”
+
+“What a poor superstition!” I cried, though I was not quite sure of its
+being a wicked one. “But what is your master's malady, Stixon? Surely
+there might be something done to relieve his violent pain, even if there
+is no real cure for it?”
+
+“No, miss, nothing can be done. The doctors have exorced themselves.
+They tried this, that, and the other, but nature only flew worse against
+them. 'Tis a thing as was never heard of till the Constitooshon was
+knocked on the head and to pieces by the Reform Bill. And though they
+couldn't cure it, they done what they could do, miss. They discovered a
+very good name for it--they christened it the 'New-rager!'”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+LORD CASTLEWOOD
+
+
+In the morning, when I was called again to see my afflicted
+cousin--Stixon junior having gladly gone to explain things for me at
+Bruntsea--little as I knew of any bodily pain (except hunger, or thirst,
+or weariness, and once in my life a headache), I stood before Lord
+Castlewood with a deference and humility such as I had never felt before
+toward any human being. Not only because he bore perpetual pain in
+the two degrees of night and day--the day being dark and the night
+jet-black--without a murmur or an evil word; not only because through
+the whole of this he had kept his mind clear and his love of knowledge
+bright; not even because he had managed, like Job, to love God through
+the whole of it. All these were good reasons for very great and very
+high respect of any man; and when there was no claim whatever on his
+part to any such feeling, it needs must come. But when I learned another
+thing, high respect at once became what might be called deep reverence.
+And this came to pass in a simple and, as any one must confess, quite
+inevitable way.
+
+It was not to be supposed that I could sit the whole of my first evening
+in that house without a soul to speak to. So far as my dignity and sense
+of right permitted, I wore out Mr. Stixon, so far as he would go,
+not asking him any thing that the very worst-minded person could call
+“inquisitive,” but allowing him to talk, as he seemed to like to do,
+while he waited upon me, and alternately lamented my hapless history and
+my hopeless want of taste.
+
+“Ah, your father, the Captain, now, he would have knowed what this is!
+You've no right to his eyes, Miss Erma, without his tongue and palate.
+No more of this, miss! and done for you a-purpose! Well, cook will be
+put out, and no mistake! I better not let her see it go down, anyhow.”
+ And the worthy man tearfully put some dainty by, perhaps without any
+view to his own supper.
+
+“Lord Castlewood spoke to me about a Mrs. Price--the housekeeper, is
+she not?” I asked at last, being so accustomed to like what I could get,
+that the number of dishes wearied me.
+
+“Oh yes, miss,” said Stixon, very shortly, as if that description
+exhausted Mrs. Price.
+
+“If she is not too busy, I should like to see her as soon as these
+things are all taken away. I mean if she is not a stranger, and if she
+would like to see me.”
+
+“No new-comers here,” Mr. Stixon replied; “we all works our way up
+regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled ways is
+not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing of the steps
+till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a bean. The old lord
+was the man for discipline--your grandfather, if you please, miss. He
+catched me when I were about that high--”
+
+“Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as you
+so very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?”
+
+I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was angry
+with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only smiled and
+touched his forehead.
+
+“Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss. I could
+have heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh and
+distant. And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty years agone
+next Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was; you may see the
+very tree if you please to stand here, miss, though the pears is quite
+altered now, and scarcely fit to eat. Well, I was running off with my
+cap chock-full, miss--”
+
+“Please to keep that story for another time,” I said; “I shall be most
+happy to hear it then. But I have a particular wish, if you please, to
+see Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good reason why I should
+not.”
+
+“Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all. Only please to bear in mind,
+miss, that she is a coorous woman. She is that jealous, and I might say
+forward--”
+
+“Then she is capable of speaking for herself.”
+
+“You are right, miss, there, and no mistake. She can speak for herself
+and for fifty others--words enough, I mean, for all of them. But I would
+not have her know for all the world that I said it.”
+
+“Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall do
+will be to tell her.”
+
+“Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has been
+done anonymous.”
+
+I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure impatience.
+And having no motive but downright jealousy for keeping Mrs. Price from
+me, he made up his mind at last to let her come. But he told me to be
+careful what I said; I must not expect it to be at all like talking to
+himself, for instance.
+
+The housekeeper came up at last, by dint of my persistence, and she
+stopped in the doorway and made me a courtesy, which put me out of
+countenance, for nobody ever does that in America, and scarcely any one
+in England now, except in country-dancing. Instead of being as described
+by Stixon, Mrs. Price was of a very quiet, sensible, and respectful
+kind. She was rather short, but looked rather tall, from her even
+walk and way of carrying her head. Her figure was neat, and her face
+clear-spoken, with straight pretty eyebrows, and calm bright eyes. I
+felt that I could tell her almost any thing, and she would think
+before she talked of it. And in my strong want of some woman to advise
+with--Betsy Bowen being very good but very narrow, and Mrs. Hockin a
+mere echo of the Major until he contradicted her, and Suan Isco, with
+her fine, large views, five thousand miles out of sight just now--this
+was a state of things to enhance the value of any good countenance
+feminine.
+
+At any rate, I was so glad to see her that, being still ungraduated in
+the steps of rank (though beginning to like a good footing there), I ran
+up and took her by both hands, and fetched her out of her grand courtesy
+and into a low chair. At this she was surprised, as one quick glance
+showed; and she thought me, perhaps, what is called in England “an
+impulsive creature.” This put me again upon my dignity, for I never have
+been in any way like that, and I clearly perceived that she ought to
+understand a little more distinctly my character.
+
+It is easy to begin with this intention, but very hard indeed to keep
+it up when any body of nice ways and looks is sitting with a proper
+deferential power of listening, and liking one's young ideas, which
+multiply and magnify themselves at each demand. So after some general
+talk about the weather, the country, the house, and so on, we came to
+the people of the house, or at any rate the chief person. And I asked
+her a few quiet questions about Lord Castlewood's health and habits, and
+any thing else she might like to tell me. For many things had seemed
+to me a little strange and out of the usual course, and on that account
+worthy to be spoken of without common curiosity. Mrs. Price told me that
+there were many things generally divulged and credited, which therefore
+lay in her power to communicate without any derogation from her office.
+Being pleased with these larger words (which I always have trouble in
+pronouncing), I asked her whether there was any thing else. And she
+answered yes, but unhappily of a nature to which it was scarcely
+desirable to allude in my presence. I told her that this was not
+satisfactory, and I might say quite the opposite; that having “alluded”
+ to whatever it might be, she was bound to tell me all about it. That
+I had lived in very many countries, in all of which wrong things
+continually went on, of which I continually heard just in that sort of
+way and no more. Enough to make one uncomfortable, but not enough to
+keep one instructed and vigilant as to things that ought to be avoided.
+Upon this she yielded either to my arguments or to her own dislike
+of unreasonable silence, and gave me the following account of the
+misfortunes of Lord Castlewood:
+
+Herbert William Castlewood was the third son of Dean Castlewood, a
+younger brother of my grandfather, and was born in the year 1806. He
+was older, therefore, than my father, but still (even before my father's
+birth, which provided a direct heir) there were many lives betwixt him
+and the family estates. And his father, having as yet no promotion in
+the Church, found it hard to bring up his children. The eldest son got
+a commission in the army, and the second entered the navy, while Herbert
+was placed in a bank at Bristol--not at all the sort of life which he
+would have chosen. But being of a gentle, unselfish nature, as well as a
+weak constitution, he put up with his state in life, and did his best to
+give satisfaction.
+
+This calm courage generally has its reward, and in the year 1842, not
+very long before the death of my grandfather at Shoxford, Mr. Herbert
+Castlewood, being well-connected, well-behaved, diligent, and pleasing,
+obtained a partnership in the firm, which was, perhaps, the foremost in
+the west of England. His two elder brothers happened then to be at home,
+Major and Commander Castlewood, each of whom had seen very hard service,
+and found it still harder slavery to make both ends meet, although
+bachelors. But, returning full of glory, they found one thing harder
+still, and that was to extract any cash from their father, the highly
+venerated Dean, who in that respect, if in no other, very closely
+resembled the head of the family. Therefore these brave men resolved to
+go and see their Bristol brother, to whom they were tenderly attached,
+and who now must have money enough and to spare. So they wrote to their
+brother to meet them on the platform, scarcely believing that they could
+be there in so short a time from London; for they never had travelled by
+rail before; and they set forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at
+the strange, giddy rush of the travelling, and made bets with each other
+about punctual time (for trains kept much better time while new), and,
+as long as they could time it, they kept time to a second. But, sad to
+relate, they wanted no chronometers when they arrived at Bristol, both
+being killed at a blow, with their watches still going, and a smile
+on their faces. For the train had run into a wall of Bath stone, and
+several of the passengers were killed.
+
+The sight of his two brothers carried out like this, after so many years
+of not seeing them, was too much for Mr. Herbert Castlewood's nerves,
+which always had been delicate. And he shivered all the more from
+reproach of conscience, having made up his mind not to lend them any
+money, as a practical banker was compelled to do. And from that very
+moment he began to feel great pain.
+
+Mrs. Price assured me that the doctors all agreed that nothing but
+change of climate could restore Mr. Castlewood's tone and system, and
+being full of art (though so simple, as she said, which she could not
+entirely reconcile), he set off for Italy, and there he stopped, with
+the good leave of his partners, being now valued highly as heir to the
+Dean, who was known to have put a good trifle together. And in Italy
+my father must have found him, as related by Mr. Shovelin, and there
+received kindness and comfort in his trouble, if trouble so deep could
+be comforted.
+
+Now I wondered and eagerly yearned to know whether my father, at such
+a time, and in such a state of loneliness, might not have been led to
+impart to his cousin and host and protector the dark mystery which lay
+at the bottom of his own conduct. Knowing how resolute and stern he was,
+and doubtless then imbittered by the wreck of love and life, I thought
+it more probable that he had kept silence even toward so near a
+relative, especially as he had seen very little of his cousin Herbert
+till he had found him thus. Moreover, my grandfather and the Dean had
+spent little brotherly love on each other, having had a life-long feud
+about a copy-hold furze brake of nearly three-quarters of an acre, as
+Betsy remembered to have heard her master say.
+
+To go on, however, with what Mrs. Price was saying. She knew scarcely
+any thing about my father, because she was too young at that time to
+be called into the counsels of the servants' hall, for she scarcely was
+thirty-five yet, as she declared, and she certainly did not look forty.
+But all about the present Lord Castlewood she knew better than any body
+else, perhaps, because she had been in the service of his wife, and,
+indeed, her chief attendant. Then, having spoken of her master's wife,
+Mrs. Price caught herself up, and thenceforth called her only his
+“lady.”
+
+Mr. Herbert Castlewood, who had minded his business for so many years,
+and kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure in good
+literature, at this time of life and in this state of health (for the
+shock he had received struck inward), fell into an accident tenfold
+worse--the fatal accident of love. And this malady raged the more
+powerfully with him on account of breaking out so late in life. In one
+of the picture-galleries at Florence, or some such place, Mrs. Price
+declared, he met with a lady who made all the pictures look cold and
+dull and dead to him. A lovely young creature she must have been (as
+even Mrs. Price, who detested her, acknowledged), and to the eyes of a
+learned but not keen man as good as lovely. My father was gone to look
+after me, and fetch me out of England, but even if he had been there,
+perhaps he scarcely could have stopped it; for this Mr. Castlewood,
+although so quiet, had the family fault of tenacity.
+
+Mrs. Price, being a very steady person, with a limited income, and
+enough to do, was inclined to look down upon the state of mind in which
+Mr. Castlewood became involved. She was not there at the moment, of
+course, but suddenly sent for when all was settled; nevertheless, she
+found out afterward how it began from her master's man, through what he
+had for dinner. And in the kitchen-garden at Castlewood no rampion
+would she allow while she lived. I asked her whether she had no pity, no
+sympathy, no fine feeling, and how she could have become Mrs. Price if
+she never had known such sentiments. But she said that they only called
+her “Mistress” on account of her authority, and she never had been drawn
+to the opposite sex, though many times asked in marriage. And what she
+had seen of matrimony led her far away from it. I was sorry to hear her
+say this, and felt damped, till I thought that the world was not all
+alike.
+
+Then she told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a pound
+of tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and persistent,
+was kept off and on for at least two years by the mother of his sweet
+idol. How the old lady held a balance in her mind as to the likelihood
+of his succession, trying, through English friends, to find the value
+and the course of property. Of what nation she was, Mrs. Price could
+not say, and only knew that it must be a bad one. She called herself the
+Countess of Ixorism, as truly pronounced in English; and she really was
+of good family too, so far as any foreigner can be. And her daughter's
+name was Flittamore, not according to the right spelling, perhaps, but
+pronounced with the proper accent.
+
+Flittamore herself did not seem to care, according to what Mrs. Price
+had been told, but left herself wholly in her mother's hands, being sure
+of her beauty still growing upon her, and desiring to have it admired
+and praised. And the number of foreigners she always had about her
+sometimes made her real lover nearly give her up. But, alas! he was not
+quite wise enough for this, with all that he had read and learned and
+seen. Therefore, when it was reported from Spain that my father had
+been killed by bandits--the truth being that he was then in Greece--the
+Countess at last consented to the marriage of her daughter with Herbert
+Castlewood, and even seemed to press it forward for some reasons of her
+own. And the happy couple set forth upon their travels, and Mrs. Price
+was sent abroad to wait upon the lady.
+
+For a few months they seemed to get on very well, Flittamore showing
+much affection for her husband, whose age was a trifle more than her own
+doubled, while he was entirely wrapped up in her, and labored that the
+graces of her mind might be worthy to compare with those more visible.
+But her spiritual face and most sweet poetic eyes were vivid with bodily
+brilliance alone. She had neither mind enough to learn, nor heart enough
+to pretend to learn.
+
+It is out of my power to describe such things, even if it were my duty
+to do so, which, happily, it has never been; moreover, Mrs. Price, in
+what she told me, exercised a just and strict reserve. Enough that Mr.
+Castlewood's wedded life was done with in six months and three days.
+Lady Castlewood, as she would be called, though my father still was
+living and his cousin disclaimed the title--away she ran from some dull
+German place, after a very stiff lesson in poetry, and with her ran off
+a young Englishman, the present Sir Montague Hockin. He was Mr. Hockin
+then, and had not a half-penny of his own; but Flittamore met that
+difficulty by robbing her husband to his last farthing.
+
+This had happened about twelve years back, soon after I was placed at
+the school in Languedoc, to which I was taken so early in life that
+I almost forget all about it. But it might have been better for poor
+Flittamore if she had been brought up at a steady place like that, with
+sisters and ladies of retreat, to teach her the proper description of
+her duties to mankind. I seemed now in my own mind to condemn her quite
+enough, feeling how superior her husband must have been; but Mrs. Price
+went even further, and became quite indignant that any one should pity
+her.
+
+“A hussy! a hussy! a poppet of a hussy!” she exclaimed, with greater
+power than her quiet face could indicate; “never would I look at her.
+Speak never so, Miss Castlewood. My lord is the very best of all men,
+and she has made him what he is. The pity she deserves is to be trodden
+under foot, as I saw them do in Naples.”
+
+After all the passion I had seen among rough people, I scarcely could
+help trembling at the depth of wrath dissembled and firmly controlled
+in calm clear eyes under very steadfast eyebrows. It was plain that Lord
+Castlewood had, at any rate, the gift of being loved by his dependents.
+
+“I hope that he took it aright!” I cried, catching some of her
+indignation; “I hope that he cast her to the winds, without even a sigh
+for such a cruel creature!”
+
+“He was not strong enough,” she answered, sadly; “his bodily health was
+not equal to it. From childhood he had been partly crippled and spoiled
+in his nerves by an accident. And the shock of that sight at Bristol
+flew to his weakness, and was too much for him. And now this third and
+worst disaster, coming upon him where his best hope lay, and at such a
+time of life, took him altogether off his legs. And off his head too,
+I might almost say, miss; for, instead of blaming her, he put the fault
+entirely upon himself. At his time of life, and in such poor health, he
+should not have married a bright young girl: how could he ever hope to
+make her happy? That was how he looked at it, when he should have sent
+constables after her.”
+
+“And what became of her--the mindless animal, to forsake so good and
+great a man! I do hope she was punished, and that vile man too.”
+
+“She was, Miss Castlewood; but he was not; at least he has not received
+justice yet. But he will, he will, he will, miss. The treacherous thief!
+And my lord received him as a young fellow-countryman under a cloud, and
+lent him money, and saved him from starving; for he had broken with his
+father and was running from his creditors.”
+
+“Tell me no more,” I said; “not another word. It is my fate to meet
+that--well, that gentleman--almost every day. And he, and he--oh, how
+thankful I am to have found out all this about him!”
+
+The above will show why, when I met my father's cousin on the following
+morning--with his grand, calm face, as benevolent as if he had passed a
+night of luxurious rest instead of sleepless agony--I knew myself to be
+of a lower order in mind and soul and heart than his; a small, narrow,
+passionate girl, in the presence of a large, broad-sighted, and
+compassionate man.
+
+I threw myself altogether on his will; for, when I trust, I trust
+wholly. And, under his advice, I did not return with any rash haste to
+Bruntsea, but wrote in discharge of all duty there; while Mrs. Price, a
+clear and steadfast woman, was sent to London to see Wilhelmina Strouss.
+These two must have had very great talks together, and, both being
+zealous and faithful, they came to many misunderstandings. However, on
+the whole, they became very honest friends, and sworn allies at last,
+discovering more, the more they talked, people against whom they felt a
+common and just enmity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+SHOXFORD
+
+
+Are there people who have never, in the course of anxious life, felt
+desire to be away, to fly away, from every thing, however good and dear
+to them, and rest a little, and think new thought, or let new thought
+flow into them, from the gentle air of some new place, where nobody has
+heard of them--a place whose cares, being felt by proxy, almost seem
+romantic, and where the eyes spare brain and heart with a critic's
+self-complacence? If any such place yet remains, the happy soul may seek
+it in an inland English village.
+
+A village where no billows are to stun or to confound it, no crag or
+precipice to trouble it with giddiness, and where no hurry of restless
+tide makes time, its own father, uneasy. But in the quiet, at the bottom
+of the valley, a beautiful rivulet, belonging to the place, hastens or
+lingers, according to its mood; hankering here and there, not to be away
+yet; and then, by the doing of its own work, led to a swift perplexity
+of ripples. Here along its side, and there softly leaning over it, fresh
+green meadows lie reposing in the settled meaning of the summer day. For
+this is a safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, when
+the impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleak
+east wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their bright
+lips browned with cold. Then, moreover, must the meads have felt the
+worry of scarcely knowing yet what would be demanded of them; whether to
+carry an exacting load of hay, or only to feed a few sauntering cows.
+
+But now every trouble has been settled for the best; the long grass
+is mown, and the short grass browsed, and capers of the fairies and
+caprices of the cows have dappled worn texture with a deeper green.
+Therefore let eyes that are satisfied here--as any but a very bad eye
+must be, with so many changes of softness--follow the sweet lead of the
+valley; and there, in a bend of the gently brawling river, stands the
+never-brawling church.
+
+A church less troubled with the gift of tongues is not to be found in
+England: a church of gray stone that crumbles just enough to entice
+frail mortal sympathy, and confesses to the storms it has undergone in
+a tone that conciliates the human sigh. The tower is large, and high
+enough to tell what the way of the wind is without any potato-bury on
+the top, and the simple roof is not cruciated with tiles of misguided
+fancy. But gray rest, and peace of ages, and content of lying calmly
+six feet deeper than the bustle of the quick; memory also, and oblivion,
+following each other slowly, like the shadows of the church-yard
+trees--for all of these no better place can be, nor softer comfort.
+
+For the village of Shoxford runs up on the rise, and straggles away from
+its burial-place, as a child from his school goes mitching. There are
+some few little ups and downs in the manner of its building, as well as
+in other particulars about it; but still it keeps as parallel with the
+crooked river as the far more crooked ways of men permit. But the whole
+of the little road of houses runs down the valley from the church-yard
+gate; and above the church, looking up the pretty valley, stands nothing
+but the mill and the plank bridge below it; and a furlong above that
+again the stone bridge, where the main road crosses the stream, and is
+consoled by leading to a big house--the Moonstock Inn.
+
+The house in which my father lived so long--or rather, I should say, my
+mother, while he was away with his regiment--and where we unfortunate
+seven saw the light, stands about half-way down the little village,
+being on the right-hand side of the road as you come down the valley
+from the Moonstock bridge. Therefore it is on the further and upper side
+of the street--if it can be called a street--from the valley and the
+river and the meads below the mill, inasmuch as every bit of Shoxford,
+and every particle of the parish also, has existence--of no mean sort,
+as compared with other parishes, in its own esteem--on the right side of
+the river Moon.
+
+My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the street,
+was higher at one end than at the other. That is to say, the ground came
+sloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said, from one end to the
+other of it, so that it looked like a Noah's ark tilted by Behemoth
+under the stern-post. And a little lane, from a finely wooded hill, here
+fell steeply into the “High Street” (as the grocer and the butcher loved
+to call it), and made my father's house most distinct, by obeying a
+good deal of its outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply of
+water under the weather-board of our front-door. This front-door opened
+on the little steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road,
+while the back-door led into a long but narrow garden running along the
+road, but raised some feet above it; the bank was kept up by a rough
+stone wall crested with stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian, and
+faced with rosettes and disks and dills of houseleek, pennywort, and
+hart's-tongue.
+
+Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used to
+be; for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his grandson,
+having proved his will, was resolved to make short work with it. The
+poor house was blamed for the sorrows it had sheltered, and had the
+repute of two spectres, as well as the pale shadow of misfortune. For my
+dear father was now believed by the superstitious villagers to haunt the
+old home of his happiness and love, and roam from room to room in search
+of his wife and all his children. But his phantom was most careful not
+to face that of his father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooved
+a lord, and pointed forever to a red wound in its breast. No wonder,
+therefore, that the house would never let; and it would have been
+pulled down long ago if the owner had not felt a liking for it, through
+memories tender and peculiar to himself. His grandson, having none of
+these to contend with, resolved to make a mere stable of it, and build
+a public-house at the bottom of the garden, and turn the space between
+them into skittle-ground, and so forth.
+
+To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a
+sacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would have
+offered hundreds to prevent it. But I found myself now in a delicate
+state of mind concerning money, having little of my own, and doubting
+how much other people might intend for me. So that I durst not offer to
+buy land and a house without any means to pay.
+
+And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves
+quiet. We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such as my
+name might at once set going--would once for all destroy all hope
+of doing good by coming. Betsy knew more of such matters than I did,
+besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great superiority
+of age; therefore I left to her all little management, as was in every
+way fair and wise. For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a large and good
+company of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look after them--and
+who was he among them? If she trod on one side of her foot, or felt a
+tingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear, she knew in a moment what
+it was--of pounds and pounds was she being cheated, a hundred miles off,
+by foreigners!
+
+For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her
+faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my good
+nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so she never
+would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs. Price, then visiting
+Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady was too busy to be
+spared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord Castlewood to spare me
+his housekeeper. Upon this Mrs. Strouss at once declared that Mrs.
+Price would ruin every thing; and rather than that--no matter what she
+lost--she herself would go with me. And so she did, and she managed very
+well, keeping my name out of sight (for, happen what might, I would have
+no false one); and she got quiet lodgings in her present name, which
+sounded nicely foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my
+father's material house, and the work they were promised in pulling it
+down, than about his shattered household, we had a very favorable time
+for coming in, and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not be
+allowed to run up bills.
+
+This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed it
+unwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American dollar at
+the shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we were looked upon
+with some pity, and yet a kind desire for our custom. Thus, without any
+attempt of ours at either delusion or mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailed
+throughout the place as “Madam Straw,” while I, through the sagacity
+of a deeply read shoe-maker, obtained a foreign name, as will by-and-by
+appear.
+
+We lodged at the post-office, not through any wisdom or even any thought
+on our part, but simply because we happened there to find the cleanest
+and prettiest rooms in the place. For the sun being now in the height
+of August, and having much harvest to ripen, at middle day came ramping
+down the little street of Shoxford like the chairman of the guild of
+bakers. Every house having lately brightened up its whitewash--which
+they always do there when the frosts are over, soon after the feast of
+St. Barnabas--and the weeds of the way having fared amiss in the absence
+of any water-cart, it was not in the strong, sharp character of the sun
+to miss such an opportunity. After the red Californian glare, I had no
+fear of any English sun; but Betsy was frightened, and both of us were
+glad to get into a little place sheltered by green blinds. This chanced
+to be the post-office, and there we found nice lodgings.
+
+By an equal chance this proved to be the wisest thing we could possibly
+have done, if we had set about it carefully. For why, that nobody ever
+would impute any desire of secrecy to people who straightway unpacked
+their boxes at the very head-quarters of all the village news. And the
+mistress of the post was a sharp-tongued woman, pleased to speak freely
+of her neighbors' doings, and prompt with good advice that they should
+heed their own business, if any of them durst say a word about her own.
+She kept a tidy little shop, showing something of almost every thing;
+but we had a side door, quite of our own, where Betsy met the baker's
+wife and the veritable milkman; and neither of them knew her, which was
+just what she had hoped; and yet it made her speak amiss of them.
+
+But if all things must be brought to the harsh test of dry reason, I
+myself might be hard pushed to say what good I hoped to do by coming
+thus to Shoxford. I knew of a great many things, for certain, that never
+had been thoroughly examined here; also I naturally wished to see, being
+a native, what the natives were; and, much more than that, it was always
+on my mind that here lay my mother and the other six of us.
+
+Therefore it was an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out the
+afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating now
+as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would allow
+even to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had dared
+so much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expected
+gratis, she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that the
+lodgings for such people must be looked for down the alley. However,
+Mrs. Busk, our new landlady, although she had a temper of her own (as
+any one keeping a post-office must have) was forced by the rarity
+of lodgers here to yield many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her own
+boards, would not even have allowed to be debated. All this was entirely
+against my wish; for when I have money, I spend it, finding really no
+other good in it; but Betsy told me that the purest principle of all
+was--not to be cheated.
+
+So I left her to have these little matters out, and took that occasion
+for stealing away (as the hours grew on toward evening) to a place where
+I wished to be quite alone. And the shadow of the western hills shed
+peace upon the valley, when I crossed a little stile leading into
+Shoxford church-yard.
+
+For a minute or two I was quite afraid, seeing nobody any where about,
+nor even hearing any sound in the distance to keep me company. For the
+church lay apart from the village, and was thickly planted out from it,
+the living folk being full of superstition, and deeply believing in the
+dead people's ghosts. And even if this were a wife to a husband, or even
+a husband reappearing to his wife, there was not a man or a woman in the
+village that would not run away from it.
+
+This I did not know at present, not having been there long enough;
+neither had I any terror of that sort, not being quite such a coward, I
+should hope. But still, as the mantles of the cold trees darkened, and
+the stony remembrance of the dead grew pale, and of the living there was
+not even the whistle of a grave-digger--my heart got the better of
+my mind for a moment, and made me long to be across that stile again.
+Because (as I said to myself) if there had been a hill to go up, that
+would be so different and so easy; but going down into a place like
+this, whence the only escape must be by steps, and where any flight must
+be along channels that run in and out of graves and tombstones, I tried
+not to be afraid, yet could not altogether help it.
+
+But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely thinking
+what to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place which made me
+stop and wonder. Here were six little grassy tuffets, according to the
+length of children, all laid east and west, without any stint of room,
+harmoniously.
+
+From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at which
+their lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.
+
+And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage them, as
+a hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to shelter. Without
+a name to any of them, all these seven graves lay together, as in a
+fairy ring of rest, and kind compassion had prevented any stranger from
+coming to be buried there.
+
+I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the pretty
+grass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its foot, and
+bent my head, and counted all the little ones. Then I thought of my
+father in the grove of peaches, more than six thousand miles away, on
+the banks of the soft Blue River. And a sense of desolate sorrow and of
+the blessing of death overwhelmed me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE SEXTON
+
+
+With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my work
+again. It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these proofs of
+God's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, “I will do this,”
+ or even to think, “I will try to do that.” My own poor helplessness, and
+loss of living love to guide me, laid upon my heart a weight from which
+it scarcely cared to move. All was buried, all was done with, all had
+passed from out the world, and left no mark but graves behind. What good
+to stir anew such sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move
+its mystery?
+
+Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener, brought
+me back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right courage
+within me. But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror and interest
+vividly. It may be remembered that this good man had been my father's
+gardener at the time of our great calamity, and almost alone of the
+Shoxford people had shown himself true and faithful. Not that the
+natives had turned against us, or been at all unfriendly; so far from
+this was the case, that every one felt for our troubles, and pitied us,
+my father being of a cheerful and affable turn, until misery hardened
+him; but what I mean is that only one or two had the courage to go
+against the popular conclusion and the convictions of authority.
+
+But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for his
+master, who many and many a time--as he told me--had taken a spade and
+dug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born, instead
+of a fine young nobleman; “and nobody gifted with that turn of mind,
+likewise very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever be relied
+upon to go and shoot his father.” Thus reasoned old Jacob, and he always
+had done so, and meant evermore to abide by it; and the graves which
+he had tended now for nigh a score of years, and meant to tend till
+he called for his own, were--as sure as he stood there in Shoxford
+church-yard a-talking to me, who was the very image of my father, God
+bless me, though not of course so big like--the graves of slaughtered
+innocents, and a mother who was always an angel. And the parson might
+preach forever to him about the resurrection, and the right coming
+uppermost when you got to heaven, but to his mind that was scarcely any
+count at all; and if you came to that, we ought to hang Jack Ketch, as
+might come to pass in the Revelations. But while a man had got his own
+bread to earn, till his honor would let him go to the work-house, and
+his duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that vexed him more than
+to be told any texts of Holy Scripture. Whatever God Almighty had put
+down there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being long the most
+ancient people, though none the more for that did he like them; and
+so it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a day's work worth
+eighteenpence, that could enter into Bible promises. Not that he was at
+all behindhand about interpretation; but as long as he could fetch and
+earn, at planting box and doing borders, two shillings and ninepence a
+day and his beer, he was not going to be on for kingdom come.
+
+I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here would
+be approved by wise men who had found time to study the subject. But he
+answered that whatever their words might be, their doings showed that
+they knew what was the first thing to attend to. And if it ever happened
+him to come across a parson who was as full of heaven outside as he
+was inside his surplice, he would keep his garden in order for nothing
+better than his blessing.
+
+I knew of no answer to be made to this. And indeed he seemed to be aware
+that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon his spade,
+and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the church tower, holding
+as he did the position of sexton, and preparing even now to dig a grave.
+
+“I keeps them well away from you,” he said, as he began to chop out a
+new oblong in the turf; “many a shilling have I been offered by mothers
+about their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy ring,' as we
+calls this little cluster; but not for five golden guineas would I do
+it, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive, about it. We heard that
+he was dead, because it was put in all the papers; and a pleasant place
+I keeps for him, to come home alongside of his family. A nicer gravelly
+bit of ground there couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of
+him occupying it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss.”
+
+“Thank you,” I answered; “you are certainly most kind; but, Mr. Rigg, I
+would rather wait a little. I have had a very troublesome life thus far,
+and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would rather not have my
+peg driven down just--just at present.”
+
+“Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their
+coffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet. Lord bless you
+for not knowing what He hath in hand! Now this one you see me a-raising
+of the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a fortnight back, and as
+good about the chest and shoulders, and three times the color in her
+cheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright as yourn be. Not aristocratic,
+you must understand me, miss, being only the miller's daughter, nor
+instructed to throw her voice the same as you do, which is better than
+gallery music; but setting these haxidents to one side, a farmer would
+have said she was more preferable, because more come-at-able, though not
+in my opinion to be compared--excuse me for making so free, miss, but
+when it comes to death we has a kind of right to do it--and many a young
+farmer, coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and
+far and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the Moonshine,
+from the name of our little river. She used to call me 'Jacob Diggs,'
+because of my porochial office, with a meaning of a joke on my parenshal
+name. Ah, what a merry one she were! And now this is what I has to do
+for her! And sooner would I 'a doed it a'most for my own old ooman!”
+
+“Oh, Jacob!” I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore up the
+ground, as if his wife was waiting, “the things you say are quite wrong,
+I am sure, for a man in your position. You are connected with this
+church almost as much as the clerk is.”
+
+“More, miss, ten times more! He don't do nothing but lounge on the front
+of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time of
+life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stick
+that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with their
+pocket full of nuts. When I was a boy there was no nuts, except at the
+proper time of year, a month or two on from this time of speaking; and
+we used to crack they in the husk, and make no noise to disturb the
+congregation; but now it is nuts, nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with
+three corners to them--all the year round nuts to crack, and me to find
+out who did it!”
+
+“But, Mr. Rigg,” I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind than
+in body, “is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all the nuts on
+a Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?”
+
+“My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few. But not of a
+Saturday more than any other day.”
+
+“Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any sale
+of nuts except to good boys of high principles. And has it not happened
+sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on their nuts, and bought
+them again at your shop on a Monday? I mean, of course, when your duty
+has compelled you to empty the pockets of a boy in church.”
+
+Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up naturally
+by my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as I had spoken
+I became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought to my mind that I
+had promised not even to whisper it; and now I had told it to the man of
+all men! But Jacob appeared to have been quite deaf, and diligently went
+on digging. And I said “good-evening,” for the grave was for the morrow;
+and he let me go nearly to the stile before he stuck his spade into the
+ground and followed.
+
+“Excoose of my making use,” he said, “of a kind of a personal reference,
+miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh me believe you
+must be sharp inside--more than your father, the poor Captain, were, as
+all them little grass buttons argueth. Now, miss, if I thought you had
+head-piece enough to keep good counsel and ensue it, maybe I could tell
+you a thing as would make your hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups,
+and your heart a'most bust them there braids of fallallies.”
+
+“Why, what in the world do you mean?” I asked, being startled by the old
+man's voice and face.
+
+“Nothing, miss, nothing. I was only a-joking. If you bain't come to no
+more discretion than that--to turn as white as the clerk's smock-frock
+of a Easter-Sunday--why, the more of a joke one has, the better, to
+bring your purty color back to you. Ah! Polly of the mill was the maid
+for color--as good for the eyesight as a chaney-rose in April. Well,
+well, I must get on with her grave; they're a-coming to speak the good
+word over un on sundown.”
+
+He might have known how this would vex and perplex me. I could not bear
+to hinder him in his work--as important as any to be done by man for
+man--and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave him there,
+and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to tell. So I quietly
+said, “Then I will wish you a very good evening again, Mr. Rigg, as you
+are too busy to be spoken with.” And I walked off a little way, having
+met with men who, having begun a thing, needs must have it out, and
+fully expecting him to call me back. But Jacob only touched his hat, and
+said, “A pleasant evening to you, ma'am.”
+
+Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did. I did not
+hesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and demanding
+of Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any thing or
+nothing; for I was not to be played with about important matters, like
+the boys in the church who were cracking nuts.
+
+“Lord! Lord, now!” he said, with his treddled heel scraping the shoulder
+of his shining spade; “the longer I live in this world, the fitter I
+grow to get into the ways of the Lord. His ways are past finding out,
+saith King David: but a man of war, from his youth upward, hath no
+chance such as a gardening man hath. What a many of them have I found
+out!”
+
+“What has that got to do with it!” I cried. “Just tell me what it was
+you were speaking of just now.”
+
+“I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss,” he answered, in the
+prime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only, not because
+he wanted it, “how little us knows of the times and seasons and the
+generations of the sons of men. There you stand, miss, and here stand I,
+as haven't seen your father for a score of years a'most; and yet there
+comes out of your eyes into mine the very same look as the Captain used
+to send, when snakes in the grass had been telling lies about me coming
+late, or having my half pint or so on. Not that the Captain was a hard
+man, miss--far otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the
+women be. But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made
+you come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyes
+like--Selah!”
+
+“You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not,” I answered, quite
+gently, being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried to
+hurry him; “but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg, to
+me, your master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking. Is this the
+place to joke with me?”
+
+I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a foot
+without stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man, callous
+as he might be, could not help feeling for--a pinch of snuff. This
+he found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, and took it very
+carefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and thus, being fully
+self-assured again, he stood, with his feet far apart and his head on
+one side, regarding me warily. And I took good care not to say another
+word.
+
+“You be young,” he said at last; “and in these latter days no wisdom is
+ordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always in the mouths
+of them as is themselves ordained. But you have a way of keeping your
+chin up, miss, as if you was gifted with a stiff tongue likewise. And
+whatever may hap, I has as good mind to tell 'e.”
+
+“That you are absolutely bound to do,” I answered, as forcibly as I
+could. “Duty to your former master and to me, his only child--and to
+yourself, and your Maker too--compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me every
+thing you know.”
+
+“Then, miss,” he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a low,
+hoarse voice, “as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by all this
+murdered family, I knows the man who done it!”
+
+He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips, and the
+spade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I became as firm
+as the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of fluttering, grew as
+steadfast as a glacier. Then, for the first time, I knew that God had
+not kept me living, when all the others died, without fitting me also
+for the work there was to do.
+
+“Come here to the corner of the tower, miss,” old Jacob went on, in his
+excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket. “Where
+we stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of them big
+tombstones. And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may be a-watching
+of us while here we stand.”
+
+I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if only
+I could see him once. But the place was as silent as its graves; and
+I followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress. Here he went into
+a deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip from the roof; and
+being, both in his clothes and self, pretty much of that same color,
+he was not very easy to discern from stone when the light of day was
+declining.
+
+“This is where I catches all the boys,” he whispered; “and this is where
+I caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to nurse my knees
+a bit. Let me see--why, let me see! Don't you speak till I do, miss.
+Were it the last but one I dug? Or could un 'a been the last but two?
+Never mind; I can't call to mind quite justly. We puts down about one a
+month in this parish, without any distemper or haxident. Well, it must
+'a been the one afore last--to be sure, no call to scratch my head
+about un. Old Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here--done handsome by
+the rate-payers. Over there, miss, if you please to look--about two
+land-yard and a half away. Can you see un with the grass peeking up
+a'ready?”
+
+“Never mind that, Jacob. Do please to go on.”
+
+“So I be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well,
+I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to say
+as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it--a spiteful old ooman,
+and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay for
+it; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just
+making ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease
+my legs, like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and
+over again that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along--movin'
+along, without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You may
+see the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here
+finger.”
+
+“Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?”
+
+“I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard, such
+as a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away from. But they
+no right, after the service of the Church, to come up for more than one
+change of the moon, unless they been great malefactors. And then they be
+ashamed of it; and I reminds them of it. 'Amen,' I say, in the very same
+voice as I used at the tail of their funerals; and then they knows well
+that I covered them up, and the most uneasy goes back again. Lor' bless
+you, miss, I no fear of the dead. At both ends of life us be harmless.
+It is in the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all the
+death for one another.”
+
+This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to interject any
+new ideas from which he might go rambling.
+
+“Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you,” the old man continued,
+as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with another pinch of
+snuff, “being tall and grim, and white in the face, and very onpleasant
+for to look at, and its eyes seemed a'most to burn holes in the air. No
+sooner did I see that it were not a ghostie, but a living man the
+same as I be, than my knees begins to shake and my stumps of teeth to
+chatter. And what do you think it was stopped me, miss, from slipping
+round this corner, and away by belfry? Nort but the hoddest idea you
+ever heared on. For all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that the
+Lord had been pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome as
+he used to be, but in the living flesh, however, in spite of they
+newspapers. And I were just at the pint of coming forrard, out of this
+here dark cornder, knowing as I had done my duty by them graves that his
+honor, to my mind, must 'a come looking after, when, lucky for me, I
+see summat in his walk, and then in his countenance, and then in all
+his features, unnateral on the Captain's part, whatever his time of life
+might be. And sure enough, miss, it were no Captain more nor I myself
+be.”
+
+“Of course not. How could it be? But who was it, Jacob?”
+
+“You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole. Well, by that time
+'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge up into
+the elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as nigh as might
+be, and keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a face more full
+of malice and uncharity. However, he come on as straight as a arrow,
+holding his long chin out, like this, as if he gotten crutches under
+it, as the folk does with bad water. A tall man, as tall as the Captain
+a'most, but not gifted with any kind aspect. He trampsed over the
+general graves, like the devil come to fetch their souls out; but when
+he come here to the 'holy ring,' he stopped short, and stood with his
+back to me. I could hear him count the seven graves, as pat as the
+shells of oysters to pay for, and then he said all their names, as true,
+from the biggest to the leastest one, as Betsy Bowen could 'a done it,
+though none of 'em got no mark to 'em. Oh, the poor little hearts, it
+was cruel hard upon them! And then my lady in the middle, making
+seven. So far as I could catch over his shoulder, he seemed to be quite
+a-talking with her--not as you and I be, miss, but a sort of a manner of
+a way, like.”
+
+“And what did he seem to say? Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over it!”
+
+“Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain. And glad I was
+to have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to such a
+condition--ay, and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had caught
+sight of me--as the parish might 'a had to fight over the appintment of
+another sexton. And so at last a' went away. And I were that stiff with
+scrooging in this cornder--”
+
+“Is that all? Oh, that comes to nothing. Surely you must have more to
+tell me? It may have been some one who knew our names. It may have been
+some old friend of the family.”
+
+“No, miss, no! No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like King
+David's. He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of asps
+were under his lips. In this here hattitude he stood, with his back
+toward me, and his reins more upright than I be capable of putting it.
+And this was how he held up his elbow and his head. Look 'e see, miss,
+and then 'e know as much as I do.”
+
+Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step--a most difficult strain for
+his short bowed legs--as far as the place he had been pointing out; and
+there he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what the tall man
+had done, so far as the difference of size allowed.
+
+It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness; and yet
+Jacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching himself in
+such a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger, that--low as it
+was--I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally offending him.
+
+“That warn't quite right, miss. Now you look again,” he exclaimed, with
+a little readjustment. “Only he had a thing over one shoulder, the like
+of what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was beyond me, because of
+the back of his head, like. For God's sake keep out of his way, miss.”
+
+The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude, with
+the right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand resting
+half-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown back, as if
+ready for a blow.
+
+“What a very odd way to stand!” I said.
+
+“Yes, miss. And what he said was odder. 'Six, and the mother!' I heared
+un say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.' But stop, miss. Not a
+breath to any one! Here comes the poor father and mother to speak the
+blessing across their daughter's grave--and the grave not two foot down
+yet!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A SIMPLE QUESTION
+
+
+Now this account of what Jacob Rigg had seen and heard threw me into a
+state of mind extremely unsatisfactory. To be in eager search of some
+unknown person who had injured me inexpressibly, without any longing for
+revenge on my part, but simply with a view to justice--this was a very
+different thing from feeling that an unknown person was in quest of
+me, with the horrible purpose of destroying me to insure his own wicked
+safety.
+
+At first I almost thought that he was welcome to do this; that such a
+life as mine (if looked at from an outer point of view) was better to be
+died than lived out. Also that there was nobody left to get any good out
+of all that I could do; and even if I ever should succeed, truth would
+come out of her tomb too late. And this began to make me cry, which I
+had long given over doing, with no one to feel for the heart of it.
+
+But a thing of this kind could not long endure; and as soon as the sun
+of the morrow arose (or at least as soon as I was fit to see him), my
+view of the world was quite different. Here was the merry brook, playing
+with the morning, spread around with ample depth and rich retreat of
+meadows, and often, after maze of leisure, hastening with a tinkle into
+shadowy delight of trees. Here, as well, were happy lanes, and footpaths
+of a soft content, unworn with any pressure of the price of time or
+business. None of them knew (in spite, at flurried spots, of their own
+direction posts) whence they were coming or whither going--only that
+here they lay, between the fields or through them, like idle veins
+of earth, with sometimes company of a man or boy, whistling to his
+footfall, or a singing maid with a milking pail. And how ungrateful it
+would be to forget the pleasant copses, in waves of deep green leafage
+flowing down and up the channeled hills, waving at the wind to tints and
+tones of new refreshment, and tempting idle folk to come and hear the
+hush, and see the twinkled texture of pellucid gloom.
+
+Much, however, as I loved to sit in places of this kind alone, for some
+little time I feared to do so, after hearing the sexton's tale; for
+Jacob's terror was so unfeigned (though his own life had not been
+threatened) that, knowing as I did from Betsy's account, as well as his
+own appearance, that he was not at all a nervous man, I could not help
+sharing his vague alarm. It seemed so terrible that any one should come
+to the graves of my sweet mother and her six harmless children, and,
+instead of showing pity, as even a monster might have tried to do,
+should stand, if not with threatening gestures, yet with a most hostile
+mien, and thirst for the life of the only survivor--my poor self.
+
+But terrible or not, the truth was so; and neither Betsy nor myself
+could shake Mr. Rigg's conclusion. Indeed, he became more and more
+emphatic, in reply to our doubts and mild suggestions, perhaps that his
+eyes had deceived him, or perhaps that, taking a nap in the corner of
+the buttress, he had dreamed at least a part of it. And Betsy, on the
+score of ancient friendship and kind remembrance of his likings, put
+it to him in a gentle way whether his knowledge of what Sally Mock had
+been, and the calumnies she might have spoken of his beer (when herself,
+in the work-house, deprived of it), might not have induced him to take
+a little more than usual in going down so deep for her. But he answered,
+“No; it was nothing of the sort. Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his
+fling; not from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because
+the parish paid, and the parish would have measurement. And when that
+was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the public;
+and never had none down afterward. Otherwise the ground was so ticklish,
+that a man, working too free, might stay down there. No, no! That
+idea was like one of Sally's own. He just had his quart of Persfield
+ale--short measure, of course, with a woman at the bar--and if that were
+enough to make a man dream dreams, the sooner he dug his own grave, the
+better for all connected with him.”
+
+We saw that we had gone too far in thinking of such a possibility; and
+if Mr. Rigg had not been large-minded, as well as notoriously sober,
+Betsy might have lost me all the benefit of his evidence by her
+London-bred clumsiness with him. For it takes quite a different
+handling, and a different mode of outset, to get on with the London
+working class and the laboring kind of the country; or at least it
+seemed to me so.
+
+Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to Betsy
+Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing ever since
+I brought her down from London. And now I was glad that, in one point
+at least, her judgment had overruled mine--to wit, that my name and
+parentage were as yet not generally known in the village. Indeed, only
+Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful old washer-woman, with no roof to
+her mouth, were aware of me as Miss Castlewood. Not that I had taken any
+other name--to that I would not stoop--but because the public, of its
+own accord, paying attention to Betsy's style of addressing me, followed
+her lead (with some little improvement), and was pleased to entitle me
+“Miss Raumur.”
+
+Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man of
+advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several pairs of
+spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop), that no other
+way could be right except that. For there it was in print, as any one
+able might see, on the side of an instrument whose name and qualities
+were even more mysterious than those in debate. Therefore I became “Miss
+Raumur;” and a protest would have gone for nothing unless printed also.
+But it did not behoove me to go to that expense, while it suited me very
+well to be considered and pitied as a harmless foreigner--a being who
+on English land may find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own
+country, a prophet could be less thought of. And this large pity for me,
+as an outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me
+with tenfold the privilege of the proudest native. For the natives of
+this valley are declared to be of a different stock from those around
+them, not of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or Danish
+origin. How that may be I do not know; at any rate, they think well of
+themselves, and no doubt they have cause to do so.
+
+Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways amused
+me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner, equally beyond
+and below inquiry. They told me that I was kindly welcome to stay there
+as long as it pleased me; and knowing how fond I was of making pictures,
+after beholding my drawing-book, every farmer among them gave me leave
+to come into his fields, though he never had heard there was any thing
+there worth painting.
+
+When once there has been a deposit of idea in the calm deep eocene of
+British rural mind, the impression will outlast any shallow deluge of
+the noblest education. Shoxford had settled two points forever, without
+troubling reason to come out of her way--first, that I was a foreign
+young lady of good birth, manners, and money; second, and far more
+important, I was here to write and paint a book about Shoxford. Not
+for the money, of that I had no need (according to the congress at the
+“Silver-edged Holly”), but for the praise and the knowledge of it,
+like, and to make a talk among high people. But the elders shook their
+heads--as I heard from Mr. Rigg, who hugged his knowledge proudly, and
+uttered dim sayings of wisdom let forth at large usury: he did not mind
+telling me that the old men shook their heads, for fear of my being a
+deal too young, and a long sight too well favored (as any man might tell
+without his specs on), for to write any book upon any subject yet, leave
+alone an old, ancient town like theirs. However, there might be no harm
+in my trying, and perhaps the school-master would cross out the bad
+language.
+
+Thus for once fortune now was giving me good help, enabling me to go
+about freely, and preventing (so far as I could see, at least) all
+danger of discovery by my unknown foe. So here I resolved to keep my
+head-quarters, dispensing, if it must be so, with Betsy's presence,
+and not even having Mrs. Price to succeed her, unless my cousin should
+insist upon it. And partly to dissuade him from that, and partly to
+hear his opinion of the sexton's tale, I paid a flying visit to Lord
+Castlewood; while “Madam Straw,” as Betsy now was called throughout the
+village, remained behind at Shoxford. For I long had desired to know a
+thing which I had not ventured to ask my cousin--though I did ask Mr.
+Shovelin--whether my father had intrusted him with the key of his own
+mysterious acts. I scarcely knew whether it was proper even now to put
+this question to Lord Castlewood; but even without doing so, I might get
+at the answer by watching him closely while I told my tale. Not a letter
+had reached me since I came to Shoxford, neither had I written any,
+except one to Uncle Sam; and keeping to this excellent rule, I arrived
+at Castlewood without notice.
+
+In doing this I took no liberty, because full permission had been given
+me about it; and indeed I had been expected there, as Stixon told me,
+some days before. He added that his master was about as usual, but had
+shown some uneasiness on my account, though the butler was all in the
+dark about it, and felt it very hard after all these years, “particular,
+when he could hardly help thinking that Mrs. Price--a new hand compared
+to himself, not to speak of being a female--knowed all about it, and
+were very aggravating. But there, he would say no more; he knew his
+place, and he always had been valued in it, long afore Mrs. Price come
+up to the bottom of his waistcoat.”
+
+My cousin received me with kindly warmth, and kissed me gently on the
+forehead. “My dear, how very well you look!” he said. “Your native air
+has agreed with you. I was getting, in my quiet way, rather sedulous
+and self-reproachful about you. But you would have your own way, like a
+young American; and it seems that you were right.”
+
+“It was quite right,” I answered, with a hearty kiss, for I never could
+be cold-natured; and this was my only one of near kin, so far, at least,
+as my knowledge went. “I was quite right in going; and I have done good.
+At any rate, I have found out something--something that may not be of
+any kind of use; but still it makes me hope things.”
+
+With that, in as few words as ever I could use, I told Lord Castlewood
+the whole of Jacob's tale, particularly looking at him all the while I
+spoke, to settle in my own mind whether the idea of such a thing was new
+to him. Concerning that, however, I could make out nothing. My cousin,
+at his time of life, and after so much travelling, had much too large a
+share of mind and long skill of experience for me to make any thing out
+of his face beyond his own intention. And whether he had suspicion or
+not of any thing at all like what I was describing, or any body having
+to do with it, was more than I ever might have known, if I had not
+gathered up my courage and put the question outright to him. I told
+him that if I was wrong in asking, he was not to answer; but, right or
+wrong, ask him I must.
+
+“The question is natural, and not at all improper,” replied Lord
+Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his
+relief. “Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before. But, Erema, I
+have also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any right to answer
+you. And I have decided not to do so, unless you will pledge yourself to
+one thing.”
+
+“I will pledge myself to any thing,” I answered, rashly; “I do not care
+what it is, if only to get at the bottom of this mystery.”
+
+“I scarcely think you will hold good to your words when you hear what
+you have to promise. The condition upon which I tell you what I believe
+to be the cause of all is, that you let things remain as they are, and
+keep silence forever about them.”
+
+“Oh, you can not be so cruel, so atrocious!” I cried, in my bitter
+disappointment. “What good would it be for me to know things thus, and
+let the vile wrong continue? Surely you are not bound to lay on me a
+condition so impossible?”
+
+“After much consideration and strong wish to have it otherwise, I have
+concluded that I am so bound.”
+
+“In duty to my father, or the family, or what? Forgive me for asking,
+but it does seem so hard.”
+
+“It seems hard, my dear, and it is hard as well,” he answered, very
+gently, yet showing in his eyes and lips no chance of any yielding. “But
+remember that I do not know, I only guess, the secret; and if you give
+the pledge I speak of, you merely follow in your father's steps.”
+
+“Never,” I replied, with as firm a face as his. “It may have been my
+father's duty, or no doubt he thought it so; but it can not be mine,
+unless I make it so by laying it on my honor. And I will not do that.”
+
+“Perhaps you are right; but, at any rate, remember that I have not tried
+to persuade you. I wish to do what is for your happiness, Erema. And
+I think that, on the whole, with your vigor and high spirit, you are
+better as you are than if you had a knowledge which you could only brood
+over and not use.”
+
+“I will find out the whole of it myself,” I cried, for I could not
+repress all excitement; “and then I need not brood over it, but may have
+it out and get justice. In the wildest parts of America justice comes
+with perseverance: am I to abjure it in the heart of England? Lord
+Castlewood, which is first--justice or honor?”
+
+“My cousin, you are fond of asking questions difficult to answer.
+Justice and honor nearly always go together. When they do otherwise,
+honor stands foremost, with people of good birth, at least.”
+
+“Then I will be a person of very bad birth. If they come into conflict
+in my life, as almost every thing seems to do, my first thought shall be
+of justice; and honor shall come in as its ornament afterward.”
+
+“Erema,” said my cousin, “your meaning is good, and at your time of life
+you can scarcely be expected to take a dispassionate view of things.”
+
+At first I felt almost as if I could hate a “dispassionate view of
+things.” Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as meanness and
+villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance of the world,
+can contemplate them all “dispassionately,” more clearly than any thing
+else, to my mind, that proves the beauty of being young. I am sure that
+I never was hot or violent--qualities which I especially dislike--but
+still I would rather almost have those than be too philosophical. And
+now, while I revered my father's cousin for his gentleness, wisdom, and
+long-suffering, I almost longed to fly back to the Major, prejudiced,
+peppery, and red-hot for justice, at any rate in all things that
+concerned himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+SOME ANSWER TO IT
+
+
+Hasty indignation did not drive me to hot action. A quiet talk with
+Mrs. Price, as soon as my cousin's bad hour arrived, was quite enough to
+bring me back to a sense of my own misgovernment. Moreover, the evening
+clouds were darkening for a night of thunder, while the silver Thames
+looked nothing more than a leaden pipe down the valleys. Calm words fall
+at such times on quick temper like the drip of trees on people who
+have been dancing. I shivered, as my spirit fell, to think of my weak
+excitement, and poor petulance to a kind, wise friend, a man of many
+sorrows and perpetual affliction. And then I recalled what I had
+observed, but in my haste forgotten--Lord Castlewood was greatly changed
+even in the short time since I had left his house for Shoxford. Pale he
+had always been, and his features (calm as they were, and finely cut)
+seemed almost bleached by in-door life and continual endurance. But
+now they showed worse sign than this--a delicate transparence of faint
+color, and a waxen surface, such as I had seen at a time I can not bear
+to think of. Also he had tottered forward, while he tried for steadfast
+footing, quite as if his worried members were almost worn out at last.
+
+Mrs. Price took me up quite sharply--at least for one of her
+well-trained style--when I ventured to ask if she had noticed this,
+which made me feel uneasy. “Oh dear, no!” she said, looking up from
+the lace-frilled pockets of her silk apron, which appeared to my mind
+perhaps a little too smart, and almost of a vulgar tincture; and I think
+that she saw in my eyes that much, and was vexed with herself for not
+changing it--“oh dear, no, Miss Castlewood! We who know and watch
+him should detect any difference of that nature at the moment of its
+occurrence. His lordship's health goes vacillating; a little up now,
+and then a little down, like a needle that is mounted to show the dip
+of compass; and it varies according to the electricity, as well as the
+magnetic influence.”
+
+“What doctor told you that?” I asked, seeing in a moment that this
+housekeeper was dealing in quotation.
+
+“You are very”--she was going to say “rude,” but knew better when she
+saw me waiting for it--“well, you are rather brusque, as we used to call
+it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of observing for myself?”
+
+“I never implied that,” was my answer. “I believe that you are most
+intelligent, and fit to nurse my cousin, as you are to keep his
+house. And what you have said shows the clearness of your memory and
+expression.”
+
+“You are very good to speak so,” she answered, recovering her temper
+beautifully, but, like a true woman, resolved not to let me know any
+thing more about it. “Oh, what a clap of thunder! Are you timid? This
+house has been struck three times, they say. It stands so prominently.
+It is this that has made my lord look so.”
+
+“Let us hope, then to see him much better to-morrow,” I said, very
+bravely, though frightened at heart, being always a coward of thunder.
+“What are these storms you get in England compared to the tropical
+outbursts? Let us open the window, if you please, and watch it.”
+
+“I hear myself called,” Mrs. Price exclaimed. “I am sorry to leave you,
+miss. You know best. But please not to sit by an open window; nothing is
+more dangerous.”
+
+“Except a great bunch of steel keys,” I replied; and gazing at her nice
+retreating figure, saw it quickened, as a flash of lightning passed,
+with the effort of both hands to be quit of something.
+
+The storm was dreadful; and I kept the window shut, but could not help
+watching, with a fearful joy, the many-fingered hazy pale vibrations,
+the reflections of the levin in the hollow of the land. And sadly I
+began to think of Uncle Sam and all his goodness; and how in a storm,
+a thousandfold of this, he went down his valley in the torrent of the
+waves, and must have been drowned, and perhaps never found again, if he
+had not been wearing his leathern apron.
+
+This made me humble, as all great thoughts do, and the sidelong drizzle
+in among the heavy rain (from the big drops jostling each other in the
+air, and dashing out splashes of difference) gave me an idea of the sort
+of thing I was--and how very little more. And feeling rather lonely in
+the turn that things had taken, I rang the bell for somebody; and up
+came Stixon.
+
+“Lor', miss! Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!--'Prick' we call her,
+in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic language;
+and all abroad about her husband. My very first saying to you was, not
+to be too much okkipied with her. Look at the pinafore on her! Lord be
+with me! If his lordship, as caught me, that day of this very same month
+fifty years, in the gooseberry bush--”
+
+“To be sure!” I said, knowing that story by heart, together with all its
+embellishments; “but things are altered since that day. Nothing can be
+more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to tell such a tale in
+the very place where it happened.”
+
+“But, Miss--Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it.”
+
+“Because you remember that I am acquainted with it. A thing so
+remarkable is not to be forgotten. Now let me ask you a question of
+importance; and I beg you, as an old servant of this family, to
+answer it carefully and truly. Do you remember any one, either here or
+elsewhere, so like my father, Captain Castlewood, as to be taken for
+him at first sight, until a difference of expression and of walk was
+noticed?”
+
+Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think
+profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.
+
+“Let me see--like the Captain?” He reflected slowly: “Did I ever see a
+gentleman like poor Master George, as was? A gentleman, of course, it
+must have been--and a very tall, handsome, straight gentleman, to be
+taken anyhow for young Master George. And he must have been very like
+him, too, to be taken for him by resemblance. Well then, miss, to the
+best of my judgment, I never did see such a gentleman.”
+
+“I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not,” I answered, with
+some impatience at his tantalizing slowness; “but he carried his chin
+stretched forth--like this.”
+
+For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in Jacob
+Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.
+
+“Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!” resumed the butler, with
+an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous. “Why, let me see,
+now, let me see. Something do come across my mind when you puts out your
+purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a score of years agone,
+or more--perhaps five-and-twenty. What a daft old codger I be getting,
+surely! No wonder them new lights puts a bushel over me.”
+
+“No,” I replied; “you are simply showing great power of memory, Stixon.
+And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was--a tall man,
+remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps, or at any rate
+dark eyes--who resembled (perhaps not very closely, but still enough to
+mislead at a distance) my dear father--Master George, as you call him,
+for whose sake you are bound to tell me every thing you know. Now try to
+think--do please try your very best, for my sake.”
+
+“That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my mind,
+with all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have to say
+with my hands behind my back, afore education were invented. Only please
+you to stand with your chin put out, miss, and your profield towards me.
+That is what brings it up, and nothing else at all, miss. Only, not to
+say a word of any sort to hurry me. A tracherous and a deep thing is the
+memory and the remembrance.”
+
+Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom to it,
+or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get at. And I
+waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of his researches.
+
+“I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!” the old man
+cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, “Please to leave
+off; I am sure it is too much for you.” “Not a pictur' in all of our
+gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see that there man,
+dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing. What you call them things,
+miss, if you please, as comes with the sun, like a face upon the water?
+Wicked things done again the will of the Lord, and He makes them fade
+out afterwards.”
+
+“Perhaps you mean photographs. Is that the word?”
+
+“The very word, and no mistake. A sinful trespass on the works of God,
+to tickle the vanity of gals. But he never spread himself abroad like
+them. They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks, and smiles. But
+he never would have shown his nose, if he could help it, that stormy
+night when I come to do my duty. He come into this house without so much
+as a 'by your leave' to nobody, and vexed me terrible accordingly. It
+was in the old lord's time, you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as
+would have things respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look.
+And it put me quite upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all
+the footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my opinion,
+having my own son worth a dozen of him. This made me look at the nature
+of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be after every body.”
+
+“Yes, Stixon, yes! Now do go on. You must always have been, not only
+after, but a very long way after, every body.”
+
+“Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous. In a
+heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word. Now, did
+I see him come along the big passage?--a 'currydoor' they call it now,
+though no more curry in it than there is door. No, I never seed him come
+along the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of
+a green-baize door--the very place I can point out to you, and the
+selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows
+it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons
+lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come
+through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed,
+was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's
+private room was there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful.”
+
+“Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly.”
+
+“No, miss, no. I were lissome in those days, though not so very stiff
+at this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the guidance of the
+tongue. And now, miss, I think if you please to hear the rest to-morrow,
+I could tell it better.”
+
+A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me. Even if I
+could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have made up his
+mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he would speak, there
+might be nothing left to say. His memory was nursed up now, and my only
+chance was to keep it so. Therefore I begged him to please to go on, and
+no more would I interrupt him. And I longed to be ten years older, so as
+not to speak when needless.
+
+“So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on,” resumed the well-coaxed Stixon,
+“if my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing subjeck, no words
+can more justly tell what come to pass than my language to my wife. She
+were alive then, the poor dear hangel, and the mother of seven children,
+which made me, by your leave comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a
+little stiff to him up stairs, as come in on the top of seven. For I
+said to my wife when I went home--sleeping out of the house, you see,
+miss, till the Lord was pleased to dissolve matrimony--'Polly,' I
+said, when I took home my supper, 'you may take my word for it there is
+something queer.' Not another word did I mean to tell her, as behooved
+my dooty. Howsoever, no peace was my lot till I made a clean bosom of
+it, only putting her first on the Testament, and even that not safe with
+most of them. And from that night not a soul has heard a word till it
+comes to you, miss. He come striding along, with his face muffled up,
+for all the world like a bugglar, and no more heed did he pay to me than
+if I was one of the pedestals. But I were in front of him at the door,
+and to slip out so was against all orders. So in front of him I stands,
+with my hand upon the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to
+know who he was, and such like, and how he comes there, and what he had
+been seeking, with the spoons and the forks and the gravies on my mind.
+And right I would have been in a court of law (if the lawyers was put
+out of it) for my hefforts in that situation. And then, what do you
+think he done, miss? So far from entering into any conversation with me,
+or hitting at me, like a man--which would have done good to think of--he
+send out one hand to the bottom of my vest--as they call it now in all
+the best livery tailors--and afore I could reason on it, there I was
+a-lying on a star in six colors of marble. When I come to think on it,
+it was but a push directed to a part of my system, and not a hit
+under the belt, the like of which no Briton would think of delivering.
+Nevertheless, there was no differ in what came to me, miss, and my
+spirit was roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of the prizemen.
+No time to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs as a' was
+slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over that he
+let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same moment a
+strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me. For a
+bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the kick
+I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit of the mind, a proud and
+'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said to my poor wife, reminded me
+a little of our Master George; not in his ordinary aspect, to be sure,
+but as Master George might look if he was going to the devil. Pray
+excoose me, miss, for bad words, but no good ones will do justice.
+And so off he goes, after one look at me on the ground, not worth
+considering, with his chin stuck up, as if the air was not good enough
+to be breathed perpendiklar like.”
+
+“And of course you followed him,” I exclaimed, perceiving that Stixon
+would allow me now to speak. “Without any delay you went after him.”
+
+“Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was. My dooty was to stay by the
+door and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion. No little
+coorosity, or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in doing so. As
+an outraged man I was up for rushing out, but as a trusted official, and
+responsible head footman, miss--for I were not butler till nine months
+after that--my dooty was to put the big bolt in.”
+
+“And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set the
+house on fire! Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened.”
+
+“Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to obleege
+you, to put a bad construction upon me. You hurts me, miss, in my
+tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's darter would 'a
+doed. But there, they be none of them as they used to be! Master George
+would 'a said, if he ever had heard it. 'Stixon, my man, you have acted
+for the best, and showed a sound discretion. Stixon,' he would have
+said, 'here's a George and Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.'
+Ah, that sort of manliness is died out now.”
+
+This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted with
+selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own recollections
+of my father. But still Mr. Stixon must have suffered severely in that
+conflict, and to blame him for not showing rashness was to misunderstand
+his position. And so, before putting any other questions to him, I felt
+in my pocket for a new half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.
+
+Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still in the
+struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful. Yet I
+saw that he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly philosophic
+proverb--“the half is more than the whole.” Nevertheless, he stowed away
+his half, in harmony with a good old English saying.
+
+“Now, when you were able to get up at last,” I inquired, with tender
+interest, “what did you see, and what did you do, and what conclusion
+did you come to?”
+
+“I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable.
+Coorosity on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub myself.
+But a man is a man, and the last thing to complain of is the exercise of
+his functions. And when I come round I went off to his lordship, as if
+I had heared his bell ring. All of us knew better than to speak till him
+beginning, for he were not what they now call 'halfable,' but very much
+to the contrary. So he says, 'You door-skulker, what do you want there?'
+And I see that he got his hot leg up, certain to fly to bad language.
+According, I asked, with my breath in my hand, if he pleased to see any
+young man there just now, by reason that such likes had been observated
+going out in some direction. But his lordship roared to me to go in
+another direction, not fit for young ladies. My old lord was up to every
+word of English; but his present lordship is the hopposite extreme.”
+
+“Is that all you have to tell me, Stixon? Did you never see that fearful
+man again? Did you never even hear of him?”
+
+“Never, miss, never! And to nobody but you have I ever told all as I
+told now. But you seems to be born to hear it all.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+A WITCH
+
+
+It was true enough that Stixon now had nothing more to tell, but what he
+had told already seemed of very great importance, confirming strongly,
+as it did, the description given me by Jacob Rigg. And even the butler's
+concluding words--that I seemed born to hear it all--comforted me like
+some good omen, and cheered me forward to make them true. Not that I
+could, in my sad and dangerous enterprise, always be confident.
+Some little spirit I must have had, and some resolve to be faithful,
+according to the power of a very common mind, admiring but never
+claiming courage. For I never did feel in any kind of way any gift of
+inspiration, or even the fitness of a quick, strong mind for working out
+deeds of justice. There were many good ladies in America then, and now
+there are some in England, perceiving so clearly their own superiority
+as to run about largely proclaiming it. How often I longed to be a
+little more like these, equal to men in achievements of the body, and
+very far beyond them in questions of the mind!
+
+However, it was useless to regret my lacks, and foolish, perhaps, to
+think of them. To do my very best with what little gifts I had was more
+to the purpose and more sensible. Taking in lonely perplexity now this
+dim yet exciting view of things, I resolved, right or wrong, to abide
+at the place where the only chance was of pursuing my search. I was
+pledged, as perhaps has been said before, to keep from every one
+excepting faithful Betsy, and above all from Lord Castlewood, the
+unexpected little tale wrung out of Mr. Stixon. That promise had been
+given without any thought, in my eagerness to hear every thing, and
+probably some people would have thought of it no more. But the trusty
+butler was so scared when I asked him to release me from it, so penitent
+also at his own indiscretion, which never would have overcome him (as he
+said in the morning) only for the thunder-storm, that instead of getting
+off, I was quite obliged to renew and confirm my assurances.
+
+Therefore, in truth, I had no chance left but to go back to Shoxford and
+do my best, meeting all dark perils with the shield of right spread over
+me. And a great thing now in my favor was to feel some confidence again
+in the guidance of kind Wisdom. The sense of this never had abandoned me
+so much as to make me miserable about it; but still I had never tried to
+shelter under it, and stay there faithfully, as the best of people
+do. And even now I was not brought to such a happy attitude, although
+delivered by these little gleams of light from the dark void of
+fatalism, into which so many bitter blows had once been driving me.
+
+However, before setting off again, I made one more attempt upon Lord
+Castlewood, longing to know whether his suspicions would help me at
+all to identify the figure which had frightened both the sexton and the
+butler. That the person was one and the same, I did not for a moment
+call in question, any more than I doubted that he was the man upon
+whose head rested the blood of us. But why he should be allowed to go
+scot-free while another bore his brand, and many others died for him,
+and why all my most just and righteous efforts to discover him should
+receive, if not discouragement, at any rate most lukewarm aid--these and
+several other questions were as dark as ever.
+
+“You must not return to Shoxford, my cousin,” Lord Castlewood said to
+me that day, after a plain though courteous refusal to enlighten me even
+with a mere surmise, except upon the condition before rejected. “I can
+not allow you to be there without strict supervision and protection. You
+will not, perhaps, be aware of it, as perhaps you have not been before;
+but a careful watch will be kept on you. I merely tell you this that you
+may not make mistakes, and confound friendly vigilance with the spying
+of an enemy. Erema, you will be looked after.”
+
+I could not help being grateful for his kindness, and really, try as I
+might to be fearless, it would be a great comfort to have some one to
+protect me. On the other hand, how would this bear upon my own freedom
+of looking about, my desire to make my own occasions, and the need of
+going every where? Could these be kept to my liking at all while an
+unknown power lay in kind regard of me? Considering these things, I
+begged my cousin to leave me to my own devices, for that I was afraid
+of nobody on earth, while only seeking justice, and that England must
+be worse than the worst parts of America if any harm to me could be
+apprehended at quiet times and in such a quiet place.
+
+My cousin said no more upon that point, though I felt that he was not in
+any way convinced; but he told me that he thought I should pay a little
+visit, if only for a day, such as I treated him with, to my good friends
+at Bruntsea, before I returned to Shoxford. There was no one now
+at Bruntsea whom I might not wish to meet, as he knew by a trifling
+accident; and after all the kind services rendered by Major and Mrs.
+Hockin, it was hardly right to let them begin to feel themselves
+neglected. Now the very same thing had occurred to me, and I was going
+to propose it; and many things which I found it hard to do without were
+left in my little chest of locked-up drawers there. But of that, to my
+knowledge, I scarcely thought twice; whereas I longed to see and have
+a talk with dear “Aunt Mary.” Now, since my affairs had been growing so
+strange, and Lord Castlewood had come forward--not strongly, but still
+quite enough to speak of--there had been a kind-hearted and genuine wish
+at Bruntsea to recover me. And this desire had unreasonably grown while
+starved with disappointment. The less they heard of me, the more they
+imagined in their rich good-will, and the surer they became that, after
+all, there was something in my ideas.
+
+But how could I know this, without any letters from them, since letters
+were a luxury forbidden me at Shoxford? I knew it through one of the
+simplest and commonest of all nature's arrangements. Stixon's boy,
+as every body called him (though he must have been close upon
+five-and-twenty, and carried a cane out of sight of the windows), being
+so considered, and treated boyishly by the maids of Castlewood, asserted
+his dignity, and rose above his value as much as he had lain below it,
+by showing that he owned a tender heart, and them that did not despise
+it. For he chanced to be walking with his cane upon the beach (the very
+morning after he first went to Bruntsea, too late for any train back
+again), and casting glances of interior wonder over the unaccustomed
+sea--when from the sea itself out-leaped a wondrous rosy deity.
+
+“You there, Mr. Stixon! Oh my! How long?” exclaimed Mrs. Hockin's new
+parlormaid, ready to drop, though in full print now, on the landward
+steps of the bathing-machine set up by the reckless Major.
+
+“Come this very hinstant, miss, honor bright!” replied the junior
+Stixon, who had moved in good society; “and just in the hackmy of time,
+miss, if I may offer you my 'umble hand.”
+
+The fair nymph fixed him with a penetrating gaze through tresses full
+of salt curliness, while her cheeks were conscious of an unclad dip. But
+William Stixon's eyes were firm with pure truth, gently toning into shy
+reproach and tenderness. He had met her at supper last night, and done
+his best; but (as he said to the Castlewood maids) it was only feeling
+then, whereas now it was emoshun.
+
+“Then you are a gentleman!” Polly Hopkins cried; “and indeed, Mr.
+Stixon, these are slippery things.” She was speaking of the steps, as
+she came down them, and they had no hand-rails; and the young man felt
+himself to be no more Stixon's boy, but a gentleman under sweet refining
+pressure.
+
+From that hour forth it was pronounced, and they left the world to its
+own opinion, that they were keeping company; and although they were
+sixty miles apart by air, and eighty-two by railway, at every post
+their hearts were one, with considerable benefit to the United Kingdom's
+revenue. Also they met by the sad sea waves, when the bathing-machines
+had been hauled up--for the Major now had three of them--as often as
+Stixon senior smiled--which he did whenever he was not put out--on the
+bygone ways of these children. For Polly Hopkins had a hundred pounds,
+as well as being the only child of the man who kept the only shop for
+pickled pork in Bruntsea. And my Mr. Stixon could always contrive to get
+orders from his lordship to send the boy away, with his carriage paid,
+when his health demanded bathing. Hence it is manifest that the deeds
+and thoughts of Bruntsea House, otherwise called “Bruntlands,”
+ were known quite as well, and discussed even better--because
+dispassionately--at Castlewood than and as they were at home.
+
+Now I won forever the heart of Stixon's boy, and that of Polly
+Hopkins, by recoiling with horror from the thought of going to Bruntsea
+unattended. After all my solitary journeys, this might have been called
+hypocrisy, if it had been inconvenient; but coming as it did, it was
+pronounced, by all who desired either news or love, to be another proof
+of the goodness of my heart.
+
+Escorted thus by William Stixon (armed with a brilliant cane bought for
+this occasion), and knowing that Sir Montague Hockin was not there, I
+arrived at Bruntlands in the afternoon, and received a kindly welcome
+from my dear friend Mrs. Hockin. Her husband was from home, and she
+grieved to say that now he was generally doing this; but nobody else
+could have any idea what his avocations were! Then she paid me some
+compliments on my appearance--a thing that I never thought of, except
+when I came to a question of likeness, or chanced to be thinking of
+things, coming up as they will, at a looking-glass.
+
+That the Major was out was a truth established in my mind some time
+ago; because I had seen him, as our fly crawled by, expressly and
+emphatically at work on a rampart of his own designing. The work was
+quite new to me, but not so his figure. Though I could not see people
+three miles off, as Firm Gundry was said to do, I had pretty clear
+sight, and could not mistake the Major within a furlong. And there he
+was, going about in a row of square notches against the sea-line, with
+his coat off, and brandishing some tool, vehemently carrying on to
+spirits less active than his own. I burned with desire to go and join
+him, for I love to see activity; but Mrs. Hockin thought that I had
+better stay away, because it was impossible to get on there without
+language too strong for young ladies.
+
+This closed the question, and I stopped with her, and found the best
+comfort that I ever could have dreamed of. “Aunt Mary” was so steadfast,
+and so built up with, or rather built of, the very faith itself, that to
+talk with her was as good as reading the noblest chapter of the Bible.
+She put by all possibility of doubt as to the modern interference of the
+Lord, with such a sweet pity and the seasoned smile of age, and so much
+feeling (which would have been contempt if she had not been softened
+by her own escapes), that really I, who had come expecting to set her
+beautiful white hair on end, became like a little child put into the
+corner, but too young yet for any other punishment at school, except to
+be looked at. Nevertheless, though I did look small, it made me all the
+happier. I seemed to become less an individual, and more a member of
+a large kind race under paternal management. From a practical point of
+view this may have been amiss, but it helped to support me afterward.
+And before I began to get weary or rebel against her gentle teaching, in
+came her husband; and she stopped at once, because he had never any time
+for it.
+
+“My geological hammer!” cried the Major, being in a rush as usual.
+“Oh, Miss Castlewood! I did not see you. Pardon me! It is the want of
+practice only; so wholly have you deserted us. Fallen into better hands,
+of course. Well, how are you? But I need not ask. If ever there was a
+young lady who looked well--don't tell me of troubles, or worries, or
+nerves--I put up my glasses, and simply say, 'Pretty young ladies
+are above all pity!' My hammer, dear Mary; my hammer I must have. The
+geological one, you know; we have come on a bit of old Roman work; the
+bricklayer's hammers go flat, like lead. I have just one minute and a
+half to spare. What fine fellows those Romans were! I will build like
+a Roman. See to every bit of it myself, Erema. No contractor's jobs for
+me. Mary, you know where to find it.”
+
+“Well, dear, I think that you had it last, to get the bung out of the
+beer barrel, when the stool broke down in the corner, you know, because
+you would--”
+
+“Never mind about that. The drayman made a fool of himself. I proceeded
+upon true principles. That fellow knew nothing of leverage.”
+
+“Well, dear, of course you understand it best. But he told cook that it
+was quite a mercy that you got off without a broken leg; and compared
+with that, two gallons of spilled ale--” Mrs. Hockin made off, without
+finishing her sentence.
+
+“What a woman she is!” cried the Major; “she takes such a lofty view
+of things, and she can always find my tools. Erema, after dinner I
+must have a talk with you. There is something going on here--on my
+manor--which I can not at all get a clew to, except by connecting you
+with it, the Lord knows how. Of course you have nothing to do with it;
+but still my life has been so free from mystery that, that--you know
+what I mean--”
+
+“That you naturally think I must be at the bottom of every thing
+mysterious. Now is there any thing dark about me? Do I not labor to get
+at the light? Have I kept from your knowledge any single thing? But you
+never cared to go into them.”
+
+“It is hardly fair of you to say that. The fact is that you, of your own
+accord, have chosen other counselors. Have you heard any more of your
+late guardian, Mr. Shovelin? I suppose that his executor, or some one
+appointed by him, is now your legal guardian.”
+
+“I have not even asked what the law is,” I replied. “Lord Castlewood is
+my proper guardian, according to all common-sense, and I mean to have
+him so. He has inquired through his solicitors as to Mr. Shovelin, and
+I am quite free there. My father's will is quite good, they say; but it
+never has been proved, and none of them care to do it. My cousin thinks
+that I could compel them to prove it, or to renounce in proper form; but
+Mr. Shovelin's sons are not nice people--as different from him as night
+from day, careless and wild and dashing.”
+
+“Then do you mean to do nothing about it? What a time she is finding
+that hammer!”
+
+“I leave it entirely to my cousin, and he is waiting for legal advice.
+I wish to have the will, of course, for the sake of my dear father; but
+with or without any will, my mother's little property comes to me. And
+if my dear father had nothing to leave, why should we run up a great
+lawyer's bill?”
+
+“To be sure not! I see. That makes all the difference. I admire your
+common-sense,” said the Major--“but there! Come and look, and just
+exercise it here. There is that very strange woman again, just at the
+end of my new road. She stands quite still, and then stares about,
+sometimes for an hour together. Nobody knows who she is, or why she
+came. She has taken a tumble-down house on my manor, from a wretch of a
+fellow who denies my title; and what she lives on is more than any one
+can tell, for she never spends sixpence in Bruntsea. Some think that she
+walks in the dark to Newport, and gets all her food at some ship stores
+there. And one of our fishermen vows that he met her walking on the sea,
+as he rowed home one night, and she had a long red bag on her shoulder.
+She is a witch, that is certain; for she won't answer me, however
+politely I accost her. But the oddest thing of all is the name she gave
+to the fellow she took the house from. What do you think she called
+herself? Of all things in the world--'Mrs. Castlewood!' I congratulate
+you on your relative.”
+
+“How very strange!” I answered. “Oh, now I see why you connect me with
+it; and I beg your pardon for having been vexed. But let me go and see
+her. Oh, may I go at once, if you please, and speak to her?”
+
+“The very thing I wish--if you are not afraid. I will come with you,
+when I get my hammer. Oh, here it is! Mary, how clever you are! Now look
+out of the window, and you shall see Erema make up to her grandmamma.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+NOT AT HOME
+
+
+Mrs. Hockin, however, had not the pleasure promised her by the facetious
+Major of seeing me “make up to my grandmamma.” For although we set off
+at once to catch the strange woman who had roused so much curiosity,
+and though, as we passed the door of Bruntlands, we saw her still at her
+post in the valley, like Major Hockin's new letter-box, for some reason
+best known to herself we could not see any more of her. For, hurry as he
+might upon other occasions, nothing would make the Major cut a corner of
+his winding “drive” when descending it with a visitor. He enjoyed every
+yard of its length, because it was his own at every step, and he counted
+his paces in an under-tone, to be sure of the length, for perhaps the
+thousandth time. It was long enough in a straight line, one would have
+thought, but he was not the one who thought so; and therefore he had
+doubled it by judicious windings, as if for the purpose of breaking the
+descent.
+
+“Three hundred and twenty-one,” he said, as he came to a post, where he
+meant to have a lodge as soon as his wife would let him; “now the old
+woman stands fifty-five yards on, at a spot where I mean to have an
+ornamental bridge, because our fine saline element runs up there when
+the new moon is perigee. My dear, I am a little out of breath, which
+affects my sight for the moment. Doubtless that is why I do not see
+her.”
+
+“If I may offer an opinion,” I said, “in my ignorance of all the changes
+you have made, the reason why we do not see her may be that she is gone
+out of sight.”
+
+“Impossible!” Major Hockin cried--“simply impossible, Erema! She never
+moves for an hour and a half. And she was not come, was she, when you
+came by?”
+
+“I will not be certain,” I answered; “but I think that I must have seen
+her if she had been there, because I was looking about particularly at
+all your works as we came by.”
+
+“Then she must be there still; let us tackle her.”
+
+This was easier said than done, for we found no sign of any body at the
+place where she certainly had been standing less than five minutes ago.
+We stood at the very end and last corner of the ancient river trough,
+where a little seam went inland from it, as if some trifle of a brook
+had stolen down while it found a good river to welcome it. But now there
+was only a little oozy gloss from the gleam of the sun upon some lees of
+marshy brine left among the rushes by the last high tide.
+
+“You see my new road and the key to my intentions?” said the Major,
+forgetting all about his witch, and flourishing his geological hammer,
+while standing thus at his “nucleus.” “To understand all, you have only
+to stand here. You see those leveling posts, adjusted with scientific
+accuracy. You see all those angles, calculated with micrometric
+precision. You see how the curves are radiated--”
+
+“It is very beautiful, I have no doubt; but you can not have Uncle Sam's
+gift of machinery. And do you understand every bit of it yourself?”
+
+“Erema, not a jot of it. I like to talk about it freely when I can,
+because I see all its beauties. But as to understanding it, my dear, you
+might set to, if you were an educated female, and deliver me a lecture
+upon my own plan. Intellect is, in such matters, a bubble. I know good
+bricks, good mortar, and good foundations.”
+
+“With your great ability, you must do that,” I answered, very gently,
+being touched with his humility and allowance of my opinion; “you will
+make a noble town of it. But when is the railway coming?”
+
+“Not yet. We have first to get our Act; and a miserable-minded wretch,
+who owns nothing but a rabbit-warren, means to oppose it. Don't let us
+talk of him. It puts one out of patience when a man can not see his
+own interest. But come and see our assembly-rooms, literary institute,
+baths, etc., etc.--that is what we are urging forward now.”
+
+“But may I not go first and look for my strange namesake? Would it be
+wrong of me to call upon her?”
+
+“No harm whatever,” replied my companion; “likewise no good. Call fifty
+times, but you will get no answer. However, it is not a very great
+round, and you will understand my plans more clearly. Step out, my dear,
+as if you had got a troop of Mexicans after you. Ah, what a fine turn
+for that lot now!” He was thinking of the war which had broken out, and
+the battle of Bull's Run.
+
+Without any such headlong speed, we soon came to the dwelling-place of
+the stranger, and really for once the good Major had not much overdone
+his description. Truly it was almost tumbling down, though massively
+built, and a good house long ago; and it looked the more miserable now
+from being placed in a hollow of the ground, whose slopes were tufted
+with rushes and thistles and ragwort. The lower windows were blocked up
+from within, the upper were shattered and crumbling and dangerous,
+with blocks of cracked stone jutting over them; and the last surviving
+chimney gave less smoke than a workman's homeward whiff of his pipe to
+comfort and relieve the air.
+
+The only door that we could see was of heavy black oak, without any
+knocker; but I clinched my hand, having thick gloves on, and made what
+I thought a very creditable knock, while the Major stood by, with his
+blue-lights up, and keenly gazed and gently smiled.
+
+“Knock again, my dear,” he said; “you don't knock half hard enough.”
+
+I knocked again with all my might, and got a bruised hand for a
+fortnight, but there was not even the momentary content produced by an
+active echo. The door was as dead as every thing else.
+
+“Now for my hammer,” my companion cried. “This house, in all sound law,
+is my own. I will have a 'John Doe and Richard Roe'--a fine action of
+ejectment. Shall I be barred out upon my own manor?”
+
+With hot indignation he swung his hammer, but nothing came of it except
+more noise. Then the Major grew warm and angry.
+
+“My charter contains the right of burning witches or drowning them,
+according to their color. The execution is specially imposed upon the
+bailiff of this ancient town, and he is my own pickled-pork man. His
+name is Hopkins, and I will have him out with his seal and stick and all
+the rest. Am I to be laughed at in this way?”
+
+For we thought we heard a little screech of laughter from the loneliness
+of the deep dark place, but no other answer came, and perhaps it was
+only our own imagining.
+
+“Is there no other door--perhaps one at the back?” I asked, as the lord
+of the manor stamped.
+
+“No, that has been walled up long ago. The villain has defied me from
+the very first. Well, we shall see. This is all very fine. You witness
+that they deny the owner entrance?”
+
+“Undoubtedly I can depose to that. But we must not waste your valuable
+time.”
+
+“After all, the poor ruin is worthless,” he went on, calming down as we
+retired. “It must be leveled, and that hole filled up. It is quite an
+eye-sore to our new parade. And no doubt it belongs to me--no doubt it
+does. The fellow who claims it was turned out of the law. Fancy any man
+turned out of the law! Erema, in all your far West experience, did you
+ever see a man bad enough to be turned out of the law?”
+
+“Major Hockin, how can I tell? But I fear that their practice was very,
+very sad--they very nearly always used to hang them.”
+
+“The best use--the best use a rogue can be put to. Some big thief has
+put it the opposite way, because he was afraid of his own turn. The
+constitution must be upheld, and, by the Lord! it shall be--at any rate,
+in East Bruntsea. West Bruntsea is all a small-pox warren out of my
+control, and a skewer in my flesh. And some of my tenants have gone
+across the line to snap their dirty hands at me.”
+
+Being once in this cue, Major Hockin went on, not talking to me much,
+but rather to himself, though expecting me now and then to say “yes;”
+ and this I did when necessary, for his principles of action were beyond
+all challenge, and the only question was how he carried them out.
+
+He took me to his rampart, which was sure to stop the sea, and at the
+same time to afford the finest place in all Great Britain for a view of
+it. Even an invalid might sit here in perfect shelter from the heaviest
+gale, and watch such billows as were not to be seen except upon the
+Major's property.
+
+“The reason of that is quite simple,” he said, “and a child may see the
+force of it. In no other part of the kingdom can you find so steep a
+beach fronting the southwest winds, which are ten to one of all other
+winds, without any break of sand or rock outside. Hence we have what you
+can not have on a shallow shore--grand rollers: straight from the very
+Atlantic, Erema; you and I have seen them. You may see by the map that
+they all end here, with the wind in the proper quarter.”
+
+“Oh, please not to talk of such horrors,” I said. “Why, your ramparts
+would go like pie crust.”
+
+The Major smiled a superior smile, and after more talk we went home to
+dinner.
+
+From something more than mere curiosity, I waited at Bruntsea for a day
+or two, hoping to see that strange namesake of mine who had shown so
+much inhospitality. For she must have been at home when we made that
+pressing call, inasmuch as there was no other place to hide her within
+the needful distance of the spot where she had stood. But the longer
+I waited, the less would she come out--to borrow the good Irishman's
+expression--and the Major's pillar-box, her favorite resort, was left in
+conspicuous solitude. And when a letter came from Sir Montague Hockin,
+asking leave to be at Bruntlands on the following evening, I packed
+up my goods with all haste, and set off, not an hour too soon, for
+Shoxford.
+
+But before taking leave of these kind friends, I begged them to do for
+me one little thing, without asking me to explain my reason, which,
+indeed, was more than I could do. I begged them, not of course to watch
+Sir Montague, for that they could not well do to a guest, but simply to
+keep their eyes open and prepared for any sign of intercourse, if such
+there were, between this gentleman and that strange interloper. Major
+Hockin stared, and his wife looked at me as if my poor mind must
+have gone astray, and even to myself my own thought appeared absurd.
+Remembering, however, what Sir Montague had said, and other little
+things as well, I did not laugh as they did. But perhaps one part of my
+conduct was not right, though the wrong (if any) had been done before
+that--to wit, I had faithfully promised Mrs. Price not to say a word
+at Bruntlands about their visitor's low and sinful treachery toward my
+cousin. To give such a promise had perhaps been wrong, but still without
+it I should have heard nothing of matters that concerned me nearly. And
+now it seemed almost worse to keep than to break such a pledge, when I
+thought of a pious, pure-minded, and holy-hearted woman, like my dear
+“Aunt Mary,” unwittingly brought into friendly contact with a man of the
+lowest nature. And as for the Major, instead of sitting down with such
+a man to dinner, what would he have done but drive him straightway from
+the door, and chase him to the utmost verge of his manor with the peak
+end of his “geological hammer?”
+
+However, away I went without a word against that contemptible and base
+man, toward whom--though he never had injured me--I cherished, for my
+poor cousin's sake, the implacable hatred of virtuous youth. And a wild
+idea had occurred to me (as many wild ideas did now in the crowd of
+things gathering round me) that this strange woman, concealed from the
+world, yet keenly watching some members of it, might be that fallen and
+miserable creature who had fled from a good man with a bad one, because
+he was more like herself--Flittamore, Lady Castlewood. Not that she
+could be an “old woman” yet, but she might look old, either by disguise,
+or through her own wickedness; and every body knows how suddenly those
+southern beauties fall off, alike in face and figure. Mrs. Price had not
+told me what became of her, or even whether she was dead or alive, but
+merely said, with a meaning look, that she was “punished” for her sin,
+and I had not ventured to inquire how, the subject being so distasteful.
+
+To my great surprise, and uneasiness as well, I had found at Bruntlands
+no letter whatever, either to the Major or myself, from Uncle Sam or any
+other person at the saw-mills. There had not been time for any answer
+to my letter of some two months back, yet being alarmed by the Sawyer's
+last tidings, I longed, with some terror, for later news. And all the
+United Kingdom was now watching with tender interest the dismemberment,
+as it almost appeared, of the other mighty Union. Not with malice, or
+snug satisfaction, as the men of the North in their agony said, but
+certainly without any proper anguish yet, and rather as a genial
+and sprightly spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his
+applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. “'Tis a good
+fight--let them fight it out!” seemed to be the general sentiment; but
+in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been
+galling) every true Englishman deeply would have mourned the humiliation
+of his kindred.
+
+In this anxiety for news I begged that my letters might be forwarded
+under cover to the postmistress at Shoxford, and bearing my initials.
+For now I had made up my mind to let Mrs. Busk know whatever I could
+tell her. I had found her a cross and well-educated woman, far above her
+neighbors, and determined to remain so. Gossip, that universal leveler,
+theoretically she despised; and she had that magnificent esteem for
+rank which works so beautifully in England. And now when my good nurse
+reasonably said that, much as she loved to be with me, her business
+would allow that delight no longer, and it also came home to my own mind
+that money would be running short again, and small hope left in this
+dreadful civil war of our nugget escaping pillage (which made me shudder
+horribly at internal discord), I just did this--I dismissed Betsy, or
+rather I let her dismiss herself, which she might not have altogether
+meant to do, although she threatened it so often. For here she had
+nothing to do but live well, and protest against tricks of her own
+profession which she practiced as necessary laws at home; and so, with
+much affection, for the time we parted.
+
+Mrs. Busk was delighted at her departure, for she never had liked to be
+criticised so keenly while she was doing her very best. And as soon as
+the wheels of Betsy's fly had shown their last spoke at the corner, she
+told me, with a smile, that her mind had been made up to give us notice
+that very evening to seek for better lodgings. But she could not wish
+for a quieter, pleasanter, or more easily pleased young lady than I was
+without any mischief-maker; and so, on the spur of the moment, I took
+her into my own room, while her little girl minded the shop, and there
+and then I told her who I was, and what I wanted.
+
+And now she behaved most admirably. Instead of expressing surprise, she
+assured me that all along she had felt there was something, and that
+I must be somebody. Lovely as my paintings were (which I never heard,
+before or since, from any impartial censor), she had known that it could
+not be that alone which had kept me so long in their happy valley. And
+now she did hope I would do her the honor to stay beneath her humble
+roof, though entitled to one so different. And was the fairy ring in the
+church-yard made of all my family?
+
+I replied that too surely this was so, and that nothing would please me
+better than to find, according to my stature, room to sleep inside it
+as soon as ever I should have solved the mystery of its origin. At the
+moment this was no exaggeration, so depressing was the sense of fighting
+against the unknown so long, with scarcely any one to stand by me, or
+avenge me if I fell. And Betsy's departure, though I tried to take it
+mildly, had left me with a readiness to catch my breath.
+
+But to dwell upon sadness no more than need be (a need as sure as
+hunger), it was manifest now to my wondering mind that once more I had
+chanced upon a good, and warm, and steadfast heart. Every body is said
+to be born, whether that happens by night or day, with a certain little
+widowed star, which has lost its previous mortal, concentrating from a
+billion billion of miles, or leagues, or larger measure, intense, but
+generally invisible, radiance upon him or her; and to take for the
+moment this old fable as of serious meaning, my star was to find bad
+facts at a glance, but no bad folk without long gaze.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+THE MAN AT LAST
+
+
+This new alliance with Mrs. Busk not only refreshed my courage, but
+helped me forward most importantly. In truth, if it had not been for
+this I never could have borne what I had to bear, and met the perils
+which I had to meet. For I had the confidence of feeling now that here
+was some one close at hand, an intelligent person, and well acquainted
+with the place and neighborhood, upon whom I could rely for warning,
+succor, and, if the worst should come to the very worst, revenge. It is
+true that already I had Jacob Rigg, and perhaps the protector promised
+by my cousin; but the former was as ignorant as he was honest, and of
+the latter, as he made no sign, how could I tell any thing?
+
+Above all things, Mrs. Busk's position, as mistress of the letters, gave
+me very great advantage both for offense and defense. For without the
+smallest breach of duty or of loyal honor she could see that my letters
+passed direct to me or from me, as the case might be, at the same time
+that she was bound to observe all epistles addressed to strangers or
+new-comers in her district, which extended throughout the valley. And
+by putting my letters in the Portsmouth bag, instead of that for
+Winchester, I could freely correspond with any of my friends without any
+one seeing name or postmark in the neighboring villages.
+
+It is needless to say that I had long since explored and examined with
+great diligence that lonely spot where my grandfather met his terrible
+and mysterious fate. Not that there seemed to be any hope now, after
+almost nineteen years, of finding even any token of the crime committed
+there. Only that it was natural for me, feeling great horror of this
+place, to seek to know it thoroughly.
+
+For this I had good opportunity, because the timid people of the valley,
+toward the close of day, would rather trudge another half mile of the
+homeward road than save brave legs at the thumping cost of hearts not
+so courageous. For the planks were now called “Murder-bridge;” and
+every body knew that the red spots on it, which could never be seen by
+daylight, began to gleam toward the hour of the deed, and glowed (as if
+they would burn the wood) when the church clock struck eleven.
+
+This phenomenon was beyond my gifts of observation; and knowing that
+my poor grandfather had scarcely set foot on the bridge, if ever he set
+foot there at all--which at present was very doubtful--also that he
+had fallen backward, and only bled internally, I could not reconcile
+tradition (however recent) with proven truth. And sure of no disturbance
+from the step of any native, here I often sat in a little bowered
+shelter of my own, well established up the rise, down which the path
+made zigzag, and screened from that and the bridge as well by sheaf of
+twigs and lop of leaves. It was a little forward thicket, quite detached
+from the upland copse, to which perhaps it had once belonged, and
+crusted up from the meadow slope with sod and mould in alternate steps.
+And being quite the elbow of a foreland of the meadow-reach, it yielded
+almost a “bird's-eye view” of the beautiful glade and the wandering
+brook.
+
+One evening when I was sitting here, neither drawing, nor working, nor
+even thinking with any set purpose, but idly allowing my mind to rove,
+like the rivulet, without any heed, I became aware of a moving figure
+in the valley. At first it did not appear to me as a thing at all worth
+notice; it might be a very straightforward cow, or a horse, coming on
+like a stalking-horse, keeping hind-legs strictly behind, in direct
+desire of water. I had often seen those sweet things that enjoy four
+legs walking in the line of distance as if they were no better off than
+we are, kindly desiring, perhaps, to make the biped spectator content
+with himself. And I was content to admire this cow or horse, or whatever
+it might be, without any more than could be helped of that invidious
+feeling which has driven the human race now to establish its right to a
+tail, and its hope of four legs. So little, indeed, did I think of what
+I saw, that when among the hazel twigs, parted carelessly by my hand,
+a cluster of nuts hung manifest, I gathered it, and began to crack and
+eat, although they were scarcely ripe yet.
+
+But while employed in this pleasant way, I happened to glance again
+through my leafy screen, and then I distinguished the figure in the
+distance as that of a man walking rapidly. He was coming down the
+mill-stream meadow toward the wooden bridge, carrying a fishing rod, but
+clearly not intent on angling. For instead of following the course
+of the stream, he was keeping quite away from it, avoiding also the
+footpath, or, at any rate, seeming to prefer the long shadows of the
+trees and the tufted places. This made me look at him, and very soon I
+shrank into my nest and watched him.
+
+As he came nearer any one could tell that he was no village workman,
+bolder than the rest, and venturesome to cross the “Murder-bridge” in
+his haste to be at home. The fishing rod alone was enough to show this
+when it came into clearer view; for our good people, though they fished
+sometimes, only used rough rods of their own making, without any varnish
+or brass thing for the line. And the man was of different height and
+walk and dress from any of our natives.
+
+“Who can he be?” I whispered to myself, as my heart began to beat
+heavily, and then seemed almost to stop, as it answered, “This is the
+man who was in the churchyard.” Ignoble as it was, and contemptible,
+and vile, and traitorous to all duty, my first thought was about my own
+escape; for I felt that if this man saw me there he would rush up
+the hill and murder me. Within pistol-shot of the very place where my
+grandfather had been murdered--a lonely place, an unholy spot, and I was
+looking at the hand that did it.
+
+The thought of this made me tremble so, though well aware that my death
+might ensue from a twig on the rustle, or a leaf upon the flutter, that
+my chance of making off unseen was gone ere I could seize it. For now
+the man was taking long strides over the worn-out planks of the bridge,
+disdaining the hand-rail, and looking upward, as if to shun sight of the
+footing. Advancing thus, he must have had his gaze point-blank upon my
+lair of leafage; but, luckily for me, there was gorse upon the ridge,
+and bracken and rag-thistles, so that none could spy up and through the
+footing of my lurking-place. But if any person could have spied me,
+this man was the one to do it. So carefully did he scan the distance
+and inspect the foreground, as if he were resolved that no eye should be
+upon him while he was doing what he came to do. And he even drew forth
+a little double telescope, such as are called “binoculars,” and fixed
+it on the thicket which hid me from him, and then on some other dark
+places.
+
+No effort would compose or hush the heavy beating of my heart; my lips
+were stiffened with dread of loud breath, and all power of motion left
+me. For even a puff of wind might betray me, the ruffle of a spray, or
+the lifting of a leaf, or the random bounce of a beetle. Great peril
+had encompassed me ere now, but never had it grasped me as this did, and
+paralyzed all the powers of my body. Rather would I have stood in the
+midst of a score of Mexican rovers than thus in the presence of that one
+man. And yet was not this the very thing for which I had waited, longed,
+and labored? I scorned myself for this craven loss of nerve, but that
+did not enable me to help it. In this benumbed horror I durst not even
+peep at the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that he had
+moved from the end of the planks (where he stood for some time as calmly
+as if he had done nothing there), and had passed round the back of the
+hawthorn-tree, and gone down to the place where the body was found, and
+was making most narrow and minute search there. And now I could watch
+him without much danger, standing as I did well above him, while his
+eyes were steadfastly bent downward. And, not content with eyesight
+only, he seemed to be feeling every blade of grass or weed, every single
+stick or stone, craning into each cranny of the ground, and probing
+every clod with his hands. Then, after vainly searching with the very
+utmost care all the space from the hawthorn trunk to the meadow-leet
+(which was dry as usual), he ran, in a fury of impatience, to his rod,
+which he had stuck into the bank, as now I saw, and drew off the butt
+end, and removed the wheel, or whatever it is that holds the fishing
+line; and this butt had a long spike to it, shining like a halberd in a
+picture.
+
+This made me shudder; but my spirit was returning, and therewith my
+power of reasoning, and a deep stir of curiosity. After so many years
+and such a quantity of searching, what could there still be left to seek
+for in this haunted and horrible place? And who was the man that was
+looking for it?
+
+The latter question partly solved itself. It must be the murderer, and
+no other, whoever he might be among the many black spots of humanity.
+But as to the other point, no light could be thrown upon it, unless the
+search should be successful, and perhaps not even then. But now this
+anxiety, and shame of terror, made me so bold--for I can not call it
+brave--that I could not rest satisfied where I was, and instead of
+blessing every leaf and twig that hid me from the enemy, nothing would
+do for me but to creep nearer, in spite of that truculent long bright
+spike.
+
+I thought of my father, and each fibre of my frame seemed to harden with
+vigor and fleetness. Every muscle of my body could be trusted now. I had
+always been remarkably light of foot. Could a man of that age catch me?
+It was almost as much as Firm Gundry could do, as in childish days I had
+proved to him. And this man, although his hair was not gray, must be on
+the slow side of fifty now, and perhaps getting short of his very wicked
+breath. Then I thought of poor Firm, and of good Uncle Sam, and how they
+scorned poltroonery; and, better still, I thought of that great Power
+which always had protected me: in a word, I resolved to risk it.
+
+But I had not reckoned upon fire-arms, which such a scoundrel was pretty
+sure to have; and that idea struck cold upon my valor. Nevertheless, I
+would not turn back. With no more sound than a field-mouse makes in the
+building of its silken nest, and feet as light as the step of the wind
+upon the scarcely ruffled grass, I quitted my screen, and went gliding
+down a hedge, or rather the residue of some old hedge, which would
+shelter me a little toward the hollow of the banks. I passed low places,
+where the man must have seen me if he had happened to look up; but he
+was stooping with his back to me, and working in the hollow of the dry
+water trough. He was digging with the long spike of his rod, and I heard
+the rattle of each pebble that he struck.
+
+Before he stood up again, to ease his back and to look at the
+ground which he still had to turn, I was kneeling behind a short,
+close-branched holly, the very last bush of the hedge-row, scarcely
+fifteen yards from the hawthorn-tree. It was quite impossible to get
+nearer without coming face to face with him. And now I began again to
+tremble, but with a great effort conquered it.
+
+The man was panting with his labor, and seemed to be in a vile temper
+too. He did not swear, but made low noises full of disappointment. And
+then he caught up his tool, with a savage self-control, and fell to
+again.
+
+Now was my time to see what he was like, and engrave him on my memory.
+But, lo! in a moment I need not do that. The face was the bad image
+of my father's. A lowered, and vicious, and ill-bred image of a noble
+countenance--such as it was just possible to dream that my dear father's
+might have fallen to, if his mind and soul had plunged away from the
+good inborn and implanted in them. The figure was that of a tall strong
+man, with shoulders rather slouching, and a habit of keeping his head
+thrown back, which made a long chin look longer. Altogether he seemed a
+perilous foe, and perhaps a friend still more perilous.
+
+Be he what he might, he was working very hard. Not one of all Uncle
+Sam's men, to my knowledge, least of all Martin, would have worked so
+hard. With his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived to turn over, in
+less than twenty minutes, the entire bed of the meadow-leet, or trough,
+for a length of about ten yards. Then he came to the mouth, where the
+water of the main stream lapped back into it, and he turned up the
+bottom as far as he could reach, and waited for the mud he had raised to
+clear away. When this had flowed down with the stream, he walked in for
+some little distance till the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his
+labor, there was nothing.
+
+Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze crept up
+the tranquil valley. Shadows waned and faded into dimness more diffuse,
+and light grew soft and vague and vaporous. The gleam of water, and the
+gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees, began to lose their several
+phase and mingle into one large twilight blend. And cattle, from
+their milking sheds, came lowing for more pasture; and the bark of a
+shepherd's dog rang quick, as if his sheep were drowsy.
+
+In the midst of innocent sights and sounds that murderer's heart misgave
+him. He left his vain quest off, and gazed, with fear and hate of
+nature's beauty, at the change from day to night which had not waited
+for him. Some touch of his childhood moved him perhaps, some thought of
+times when he played “I spy,” or listened to twilight ghost tales; at
+any rate, as he rose and faced the evening, he sighed heavily.
+
+Then he strode away; and although he passed me almost within length of
+his rod, there was little fear of his discovering me, because his mind
+was elsewhere.
+
+It will, perhaps, be confessed by all who are not as brave as lions
+that so far I had acquitted myself pretty well in this trying matter.
+Horribly scared as I was at first, I had not allowed this to conquer
+me, but had even rushed into new jeopardy. But now the best part of my
+courage was spent; and when the tall stranger refixed his rod and calmly
+recrossed those ominous planks, I durst not set forth on the perilous
+errand of spying out his ways and tracking him. A glance was enough to
+show the impossibility in those long meadows of following without being
+seen in this stage of the twilight. Moreover, my nerves had been tried
+too long, and presence of mind could not last forever. All I could do,
+therefore, was to creep as far as the trunk of the hawthorn-tree, and
+thence observe that my enemy did not return by the way he had come, but
+hastened down the dusky valley.
+
+One part of his labors has not been described, though doubtless a highly
+needful one. To erase the traces of his work, or at least obscure them
+to a careless eye, when he had turned as much ground as he thought it
+worth his while to meddle with, he trod it back again to its level as
+nearly as might be, and then (with a can out of his fishing basket)
+sluiced the place well with the water of the stream. This made it look
+to any heedless person, who would not descend to examine it, as if there
+had been nothing more than a little reflux from the river, caused by a
+flush from the mill-pond. This little stratagem increased my fear of a
+cunning and active villain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+A STRONG TEMPTATION
+
+
+Now it will be said, and I also knew, that there was nothing as yet,
+except most frail and feeble evidence, to connect that nameless stranger
+with the crime charged upon my father. Indeed, it might be argued well
+that there was no evidence at all, only inference and suspicion. That,
+however, was no fault of mine; and I felt as sure about it as if I had
+seen him in the very act. And this conclusion was not mine alone; for
+Mrs. Busk, a most clever woman, and the one who kept the post-office,
+entirely agreed with me that there could be no doubt on earth about it.
+
+But when she went on to ask me what it was my intention to do next, for
+the moment I could do nothing more than inquire what her opinion was.
+And she told me that she must have a good night's rest before advising
+any thing. For the thought of having such a heinous character in her own
+delivery district was enough to unhinge her from her postal duties, some
+of which might be useful to me.
+
+With a significant glance she left me to my own thoughts, which were sad
+enough, and too sad to be worth recording. For Mrs. Busk had not the
+art of rousing people and cheering them, such as Betsy Strouss, my
+old nurse, had, perhaps from her knowledge of the nursery. My present
+landlady might be the more sagacious and sensible woman of the two, and
+therefore the better adviser; but for keeping one up to the mark she was
+not in any way equal to Betsy.
+
+There is no ingratitude in saying this, because she herself admitted it.
+A clever woman, with a well-balanced mind, knows what she can do, and
+wherein she fails, better than a man of her own proportion does. And
+Mrs. Busk often lamented, without much real mortification, that she had
+not been “born sympathetic.”
+
+All the more perhaps for that, she was born sagacious, which is a less
+pleasing, but, in a bitter pinch, a more really useful, quality. And
+before I had time to think much of her defects, in the crowd of more
+important thought, in she came again, with a letter in her hand, and a
+sparkle of triumph in her small black eyes. After looking back along the
+passage, and closing my door, she saw that my little bay-window had its
+old-fashioned shutters fastened, and then, in a very low whisper, she
+said, “What you want to know is here, miss.”
+
+“Indeed!” I answered, in my usual voice. “How can you know that? The
+letter is sealed.”
+
+“Hush! Would you have me ruined for your sake? This was at the bottom of
+the Nepheton bag. It fell on the floor. That was God's will, to place it
+in your power.”
+
+“It is not in my power,” I answered, whispering in my turn, and staring
+at it, in the strong temptation. “I have no right even to look at it. It
+is meant for some one else, and sealed.”
+
+“The seal is nothing. I can manage that. Another drop of wax--and I
+strike our stamp by accident over the breakage. I refuse to know any
+thing about it. I am too busy with the other letters. Five minutes--lock
+the door--and I will come again.”
+
+This was a desperate conflict for me, worse even than bodily danger. My
+first impulse was to have nothing to do with it--even to let the letter
+lie untouched, and, if possible, unglanced at. But already it was too
+late for the eyes to turn away. The address had flashed upon me before I
+thought of any thing, and while Mrs. Busk held it up to me. And now
+that address was staring at me, like a contemptuous challenge, while the
+seal, the symbol of private rights and deterrent honor, lay undermost.
+The letter was directed to “H. W. C., Post-office, Newport, Sussex.” The
+writing was in round hand, and clear, so as not to demand any scrutiny,
+and to seem like that of a lawyer's clerk, and the envelope was of thin
+repellent blue.
+
+My second impulse was to break the letter open and read it without
+shrinking. Public duty must conquer private scruples. Nothing but the
+hand of Providence itself could have placed this deadly secret in my
+power so amazingly. Away with all squeamishness, and perhaps prevent
+more murder.
+
+But that “perhaps” gave me sudden pause. I had caught up the letter, and
+stood near the candle to soften the wax and lift the cover with a small
+sharp paper-knife, when it flashed on my mind that my cousin would
+condemn and scorn what I was doing. Unconsciously I must have made him
+now my standard of human judgment, or what made me think of him at that
+moment? I threw down the letter, and then I knew. The image of Lord
+Castlewood had crossed my mind, because the initials were his own--those
+of Herbert William Castlewood. This strange coincidence--if it were,
+indeed, an accident--once more set me thinking. Might not this letter be
+from his agent, of whom he had spoken as my protector here, but to whom
+as all unseen I scarcely ever gave a thought? Might not young Stixon,
+who so often was at Bruntsea, be employed to call at Newport for such
+letters, and return with them to his master? It was not very likely, for
+my cousin had the strongest contempt of anonymous doings. Still it was
+possible, and the bare possibility doubled my reluctance to break the
+seal.
+
+For one minute longer I stood in doubt, and then honor and candor and
+truth prevailed. If any other life had been in peril but my own, duty to
+another might have overridden all. But duty to one's self, if overpushed
+in such a case, would hold some taint of cowardice. So I threw the
+letter, with a sense of loathing, on a chair. Whatever it might contain,
+it should pass, at least for me, inviolate.
+
+Now when Mrs. Busk came to see what I had done, or rather left undone,
+she flew into a towering passion, until she had no time to go on with
+it. The rattle of the rickety old mail-cart, on its way to Winchester
+that night, was heard, and the horn of the driver as he passed the
+church.
+
+“Give it me. 'A mercy! A young natural, that you are!” the good woman
+cried, as she flung out of the room to dash her office stamp upon that
+hateful missive, and to seal the leathern bag. “Seal, indeed! Inviolate!
+How many seals have I got to make every day of my life?”
+
+I heard a great thump from the corner of the shop where the business of
+the mails was conducted; and she told me afterward that she was so put
+out, that broken that seal should be--one way or another. Accordingly
+she smashed it with the office stamp, which was rather like a
+woman's act, methought; and then, having broken it, she never looked
+inside--which, perhaps, was even more so.
+
+When she recovered her leisure and serenity, and came in, to forgive
+me and be forgiven, we resolved to dismiss the moral aspect of the
+question, as we never should agree about it, although Mrs. Busk was not
+so certain as she had been, when she found that the initials were the
+initials of a lord. And then I asked her how she came to fix upon that
+letter among so many others, and to feel so sure that it came from my
+treacherous enemy.
+
+“In the first place, I know every letter from Nepheton,” she answered,
+very sensibly. “There are only fourteen people that write letters in the
+place, and twelve of those fourteen buy their paper in my shop--there is
+no shop at all at Nepheton. In the next place, none of them could write
+a hand like that, except the parson and the doctor, who are far above
+disguise. And two other things made me certain as could be. That letter
+was written at the 'Green Man' ale-house; not on their paper, nor yet
+with their ink; but being in great hurry, it was dusted with their
+sand--a sand that turns red upon ink, miss. And the time of dispatch
+there is just what he would catch, by walking fast after his dig where
+you saw him, going in that direction too, and then having his materials
+ready to save time. And if all that is not enough to convince you,
+miss--you remember that you told me our old sexton's tale?”
+
+“To be sure I do. The first evening I was left alone here. And you have
+been so kind, there is nothing I would hide from you.”
+
+“Well, miss, the time of old Jacob's tale is fixed by the death of poor
+old Sally Mock; and the stranger came again after you were here, just
+before the death of the miller's eldest daughter, and you might almost
+have seen him. Poor thing! we all called her the 'flower of the Moon,'
+meaning our little river. What a fine young woman she was, to be sure!
+Whenever we heard of any strangers about, we thought they were prowling
+after her. I was invited to her funeral, and I went, and nothing could
+be done nicer. But they never will be punctual with burials here; they
+like to dwell on them, and keep the bell going, for the sake of the
+body, and the souls that must come after it. And so, when it was done, I
+was twenty minutes late for the up mail and the cross-country post,
+and had to move my hands pretty sharp, I can assure you. That doesn't
+matter; I got through it, with the driver of the cart obliging, by means
+of some beer and cold bacon. But what I feared most was the Nepheton
+bag, having seen the old man at the funeral, and knowing what they do
+afterward. I could not return him 'too late' again, or he would lose his
+place for certain, and a shilling a day made all the difference to
+him, between wife and no wife. The old pair without it must go to the
+workhouse, and never see one another. However, when I was despairing
+quite of him, up he comes with his bag quite correct, but only one
+letter to sort in it, and that letter was, miss, the very identical of
+the one you held in your hands just now. And a letter as like it as two
+peas had come when we buried old Sally. It puzzled me then, but I had
+no clew to it; only now, you see, putting this and that together, the
+things we behold must have some meaning for us; and to let them go
+without it is against the will of God; especially when at the bottom of
+the bag.”
+
+“If you hear so soon of any stranger in the valley,” I asked, to escape
+the re-opening of the opening question, “how can that man come and go--a
+man of remarkable stature and appearance--without any body asking who he
+is?”
+
+“You scarcely could have put it better, miss, for me to give the answer.
+They do ask who he is, and they want to know it, and would like any
+body to tell them. But being of a different breed, as they are, from all
+outside the long valley, speaking also with a different voice, they fear
+to talk so freely out of their own ways and places. Any thing they can
+learn in and out among themselves, they will learn; but any thing out of
+that they let go, in the sense of outlandish matter. Bless you, miss,
+if your poor grandfather had been shot any where else in England, how
+different it would have been for him!”
+
+“For us, you mean, Mrs. Busk. Do you think the man who did it had that
+in his mind?”
+
+“Not unless he knew the place, as few know it. No, that was an accident
+of his luck, as many other things have been. But the best luck stops at
+last, Miss Erema; and unless I am very much mistaken, you will be the
+stop of his. I shall find out, in a few days, where he came from, where
+he staid, and when he went away. I suppose you mean to let him go away?”
+
+“What else am I to do?” I asked. “I have no evidence at all against him;
+only my own ideas. The police would scarcely take it up, even if--”
+
+“Oh, don't talk of them. They spoil every thing. And none of our people
+would say a word, or care to help us, if it came to that. The police are
+all strangers, and our people hate them. And, indeed, I believe that
+the worst thing ever done was the meddling of that old Jobbins. The old
+stupe is still alive at Petersfield, and as pompous-headed as ever. My
+father would have been the man for your sad affair, miss, if the
+police had only been invented in his time. Ah, yes, he was sharp! Not a
+Moonstock man--you may take your oath of that, miss--but a good honest
+native from Essex. But he married my mother, a Moonstock woman; or they
+would not put up with me here at all. You quality people have your ideas
+to hold by, and despise all others, and reasonable in your opinions; but
+you know nothing--nothing--nothing--of the stiffness of the people under
+you.”
+
+“How should I know any thing of that?” I answered; “all these things are
+new to me. I have not been brought up in this country, as you know. I
+come from a larger land, where your stiffness may have burst out into
+roughness, from having so much room suddenly. But tell me what you think
+now your father would have done in such a case as mine is.”
+
+“Miss Erema, he was that long-headed that nobody could play leap-frog
+with him. None of them ever cleared over his barrel. He walked into this
+village fifty-five years back, this very month, with his spade upon his
+shoulder and the knowledge of every body in his eye. They all put up
+against him, but they never put him down; and in less than three months
+he went to church, I do assure you, with the only daughter of the only
+baker. After that he went into the baking line himself; he turned his
+spade into a shovel, as he said, and he introduced new practices.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?”
+
+“No, miss, no! The very last thing he would think of. Only the good use
+of potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and painful dear.
+What is the best meal of the day? he used to reason. Dinner. And why?
+Why, because of the potatoes. If I can make people take potato for their
+breakfast, and potato for their supper too, I am giving them three meals
+a day instead of one. And the health of the village corresponded to it.”
+
+“Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion, or at
+least with their own knowledge--”
+
+“No, miss, no! The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of it,
+is never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion. If St. Paul was to
+come and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in the shop would
+go rotten. They hate any meddling with their likings, and they suspect
+doctor's rubbish in all of it.”
+
+“I am quite of their opinion,” I replied; “and I am glad to hear of
+their independence. I always used to hear that in England none of the
+poor people dared have a will of their own.”
+
+Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance,
+and said that she “must run away and put the shutters up, or else the
+policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer, which he had
+no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin; and this one was
+only tapped last Sunday week. Don't you ever think of the police, miss.”
+
+Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the opinions
+of others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant lethargy of “the
+force,” as they called themselves, in my father's case. Mrs. Busk had
+more activity and intelligence in her little head than all the fat
+sergeants and inspectors of the county, helmet, belt, and staff, and
+all.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+MASTER WITHYPOOL
+
+
+At first I was much inclined to run for help, or at least for counsel,
+either to Lord Castlewood or to Major Hockin; but further consideration
+kept me from doing any thing of the kind. In the first place, neither
+of them would do much good; for my cousin's ill health would prevent him
+from helping me, even if his strange view of the case did not, while
+the excellent Major was much too hot and hasty for a delicate task like
+this. And, again, I might lose the most valuable and important of all
+chances by being away from the spot just now. And so I remained at
+Shoxford for a while, keeping strict watch upon the stranger's haunt,
+and asking about him by means of Mrs. Busk.
+
+“I have heard more about him, miss,” she said one day, when the down
+letters had been dispatched, which happened about middle-day. “He has
+been here only those three times this summer, upon excuse of fishing
+always. He stays at old Wellham, about five miles down the river, where
+the people are not true Moonites. And one thing that puzzles them is,
+that although he puts up there simply for the angling, he always chooses
+times when the water is so low that to catch fish is next to impossible.
+He left his fishing quarters upon the very day after you saw him
+searching so; and he spoke as if he did not mean to come again this
+season. And they say that they don't want him neither, he is such a
+morose, close-fisted man; and drinking nothing but water, there is very
+little profit with him.”
+
+“And did you find out what his name is? How cleverly you have managed!”
+
+“He passes by the name of 'Captain Brown;' but the landlord of his inn,
+who has been an old soldier, is sure he was never in the army, nor
+any other branch of the service. He thinks that he lives by inventing
+things, for he is always at some experiments, and one of his great
+points is to make a lamp that will burn and move about under water. To
+be sure you see the object of that, miss?”
+
+“No, really, Mrs. Busk, I can not. I have not your penetration.”
+
+“Why, of course, to find what he can not find upon land. There is
+something of great importance there, either for its value or its
+meaning. Have you ever been told that your poor grandfather wore any
+diamonds or precious jewels?”
+
+“No. I have asked about that most especially. He had nothing about him
+to tempt a robber. He was a very strong-willed man, and he hated outward
+trumpery.”
+
+“Then it must be something that this man himself has dropped, unless it
+were a document, or any other token, missing from his lordship. And few
+things of that sort would last for twenty years almost.”
+
+“Nineteen years the day after to-morrow,” I answered, with a glance at
+my pocket-book. “I determined to be here on that very day. No doubt I
+am very superstitious. But one thing I can not understand is this--what
+reason can there have been for his letting so many years pass, and then
+hunting like this?”
+
+“No one can answer that question, miss, without knowing more than we
+know. But many reasons might be supposed. He might have been roving
+abroad, for instance, just as you and your father have been. Or he might
+not have known that the thing was there; or it might not have been of
+importance till lately; or he might have been afraid, until something
+else happened. Does he know that you are now in England?”
+
+“How can I possibly tell, Mrs. Busk? He seems to know a great deal
+too much. He found me out when I was at Colonel Gundry's. At least I
+conclude so, from what I know now; but I hope he does not know”--and at
+such a dreadful idea I shuddered.
+
+“I am almost sure that he can not know it,” the good postmistress
+answered, “or he would have found means to put an end to you. That would
+have been his first object.”
+
+“But, Mrs. Busk,” I said, being much disturbed by her calmness, “surely,
+surely he is not to be allowed to make an end of every one! I came to
+this country with the full intention of going into every thing. But
+I did not mean at all, except in my very best moments, to sacrifice
+myself. It seems too bad--too bad to think of.”
+
+“So it is, Miss Erema,” Mrs. Busk replied, without any congenial
+excitement. “It does seem hard for them that have the liability on them.
+But still, miss, you have always shown such a high sense of duty, and of
+what you were about--”
+
+“I can't--I can not. There are times, I do assure you, when I am fit for
+nothing, Mrs. Busk, and wish myself back in America. And if this man is
+to have it all his own way--”
+
+“Not he, miss--not he. Be you in no hurry. Could he even have his way
+with our old miller? No; Master Withypool was too many for him.”
+
+“That is a new thing. You never told me that. What did he try to do with
+the miller?”
+
+“I don't justly know what it was, Miss Erema. I never spoke to miller
+about it, and, indeed, I have had no time since I heard of it. But those
+that told me said that the tall strange gentleman was terribly put out,
+and left the gate with a black cloud upon his face, and the very next
+day the miller's daughter died, quite sudden and mysterious.”
+
+“How very strange! But now I have got a new idea. Has the miller a
+strong high dam to his pond, and a good stout sluice-gate at the end!”
+
+“Yes, miss, to be sure he has,” said Mrs. Busk; “otherwise how could he
+grind at all, when the river is so low as it is sometimes?”
+
+“Then I know what he wanted, and I will take a leaf out of his own
+book--the miscreant! He wanted the miller to stop back the water and
+leave the pool dry at the 'Murder-bridge.' Would it be possible for him
+to do that?”
+
+“I can not tell you, miss; but your thought is very clever. It is likely
+enough that he did want that, though he never would dare to ask without
+some pretense--some other cause I mean, to show for it. He may have been
+thinking that whatever he was wanting was likely to be under water. And
+that shows another thing, if it is so.”
+
+“Mrs. Busk, my head goes round with such a host of complications. I do
+my best to think them out--and then there comes another!”
+
+“No, miss; this only clears things up a little. If the man can not be
+sure whether what he is looking for is on land or under water, it seems
+to me almost to show that it was lost at the murder time in the dark
+and flurry. A man would know if he dropped any thing in the water by
+daylight, from the splash and the ripple, and so on, for the stream is
+quite slow at that corner. He dropped it, miss, when he did the deed, or
+else it came away from his lordship.”
+
+“Nothing was lost, as I said before, from the body of my grandfather,
+so far at least as our knowledge goes. Whatever was lost was the
+murderer's. Now please to tell me all about the miller, and how I may
+get round him.”
+
+“You make me laugh in the middle of black things, miss, by the way
+you have of putting them. But as to the miller--Master Withypool is a
+wonder, as concerns the ladies. He is one of those men that stand up for
+every thing when a man tries upper side of them. But let a woman come,
+and get up under, and there he is--a pie crust lifted. Why, I, at my
+age, could get round him, as you call it. But you, miss--and more than
+that, you are something like his daughter; and the old man frets after
+her terrible. Go you into his yard, and just smile upon him, miss, and
+if the Moon River can be stopped, he'll stop it for you.”
+
+This seemed a very easy way to do it. But I told Mrs. Busk that I would
+pay well also, for the loss of a day's work at the mill was more than
+fifty smiles could make up.
+
+But she told me, above all things, not to do that. For old Master
+Withypool was of that sort that he would stand for an hour with his
+hands in his pocket for a half-penny, if not justly owing from him. But
+nothing more angered him than a bribe to step outside of his duty. He
+had plenty of money, and was proud of it. But sooner would he lose a
+day's work to do a kindness, when he was sure of having right behind it,
+than take a week's profit without earning it. And very likely that was
+where the dark man failed, from presuming that money would do every
+thing. However, there was nothing like judging for one's self; and if
+I would like to be introduced, she could do it for me with the best
+effect; taking as she did a good hundred-weight of best “households”
+ from him every week, although not herself in the baking line, but always
+keeping quartern bags, because the new baker did adulterate so.
+
+I thought of her father, and how things work round; but that they would
+do without remarks of mine. So I said nothing on that point, but asked
+whether Master Withypool would require any introduction. And to this
+Mrs. Busk said, “Oh dear, no!” And her throat had been a little rough
+since Sunday, and the dog was chained tight, even if any dog would bite
+a sweet young lady; and to her mind the miller would be more taken up
+and less fit to vapor into obstacles, if I were to hit upon him all
+alone, just when he came out to the bank of his cabbage garden, not
+so very long after his dinner, to smoke his pipe and to see his things
+a-growing.
+
+It was time to get ready if I meant to catch him then, for he always
+dined at one o'clock, and the mill was some three or four meadows up the
+stream; therefore as soon as Mrs. Busk had re-assured me that she was
+quite certain of my enemy's departure, I took my drawing things and set
+forth to call upon Master Withypool.
+
+Passing through the church-yard, which was my nearest way, and glancing
+sadly at the “fairy ring,” I began to have some uneasiness about the
+possible issue of my new scheme. Such a thing required more thinking
+out than I had given to it. For instance, what reason could I give the
+miller for asking so strange a thing of him? And how could the whole of
+the valley be hindered from making the greatest talk about the stoppage
+of their own beloved Moon, even if the Moon could be stopped without
+every one of them rushing down to see it? And if it was so talked of,
+would it not be certain to come to the ears of that awful man? And if
+so, how long before he found me out, and sent me to rejoin my family?
+
+These thoughts compelled me to be more discreet; and having lately
+done a most honorable thing, in refusing to read that letter, I felt a
+certain right to play a little trick now of a purely harmless character.
+I ran back therefore to my writing-desk, and took from its secret drawer
+a beautiful golden American eagle, a large coin, larger and handsomer
+than any in the English coinage. Uncle Sam gave it to me on my birthday,
+and I would not have taken 50 pounds for it. With this I hurried to that
+bridge of fear, which I had not yet brought myself to go across; and
+then, not to tell any story about it, I snipped a little hole in the
+corner of my pocket, while my hand was still steady ere I had to mount
+the bridge. Then pinching that hole up with a squeeze, I ran and got
+upon that wicked bridge, and then let go. The heavy gold coin fell upon
+the rotten plank, and happily rolled into the water, as if it were glad
+not to tempt its makers to any more sin for the sake of it.
+
+Shutting up thought, for fear of despising myself for the coinage of
+such a little trick, I hurried across the long meadow to the mill, and
+went through the cow-gate into the yard, and the dog began to bark at
+me. Seeing that he had a strong chain on, I regarded him with lofty
+indignation. “Do you know what Jowler would do to you?” I said; “Jowler,
+a dog worth ten of you. He would take you by the neck and drop you into
+that pond for daring to insult his mistress!” The dog appeared to feel
+the force of my remarks, for he lay down again, and with one eye watched
+me in a manner amusing, but insidious. Then, taking good care to keep
+out of his reach, I went to the mill-pond and examined it.
+
+It looked like a very nice pond indeed, long, and large, and well banked
+up, not made into any particular shape, but producing little rushy
+elbows. The water was now rather low, and very bright (though the Moon
+itself is not a crystal stream), and a school of young minnows, just
+watching a water-spider with desirous awe, at sight of me broke away,
+and reunited, with a speed and precision that might shame the whole of
+our very best modern fighting. Then many other things made a dart away,
+and furrowed the shadow of the willows, till distance quieted the fear
+of man--that most mysterious thing in nature--and the shallow pool was
+at peace again, and bright with unruffled reflections.
+
+“What ails the dog?” said a deep gruff voice; and the poor dog received
+a contemptuous push, not enough to hurt him, but to wound his feelings
+for doing his primary duty. “Servant, miss. What can I do for you?
+Foot-path is t'other side of that there hedge.”
+
+“Yes, but I left the foot-path on purpose. I came to have a talk with
+you, if you will allow me.”
+
+“Sartain! sartain,” the miller replied, lifting a broad floury hat and
+showing a large gray head. “Will you come into house, miss, or into
+gearden?”
+
+I chose the garden, and he led the way, and set me down upon an old oak
+bench, where the tinkle of the water through the flood-gates could be
+heard.
+
+“So you be come to paint the mill at last,” he said. “Many a time I've
+looked out for you. The young leddy down to Mother Busk's, of course.
+Many's the time we've longed for you to come, you reminds us so of
+somebody. Why, my old missus can't set eyes on you in church, miss,
+without being forced to sit down a'most. But we thought it very pretty
+of you not to come, miss, while the trouble was so new upon us.”
+
+Something in my look or voice made the old man often turn away, while
+I told him that I would make the very best drawing of his mill that I
+could manage, and would beg him to accept it.
+
+“Her ought to 'a been on the plank,” he said, with trouble in getting
+his words out. “But there! what good? Her never will stand on that plank
+no more. No, nor any other plank.”
+
+I told him that I would put her on the plank, if he had any portrait of
+her showing her dress and her attitude. Without saying what he had, he
+led me to the house, and stood behind me, while I went inside. And then
+he could not keep his voice as I went from one picture of his darling to
+another, not thinking (as I should have done) of what his feelings might
+be, but trying, as no two were at all alike, to extract a general idea
+of her.
+
+“Nobody knows what her were to me,” the old man said, with a quiet
+little noise and a sniff behind my shoulder. “And with one day's illness
+her died--her died.”
+
+“But you have others left. She was not the only one. Please, Mr.
+Withypool, to try to think of that. And your dear wife still alive
+to share your trouble. Just think for a moment of what happened to my
+father. His wife and six children all swept off in a month--and I just
+born, to be brought up with a bottle!”
+
+I never meant, of course, to have said a word of this, but was carried
+away by that common old idea of consoling great sorrow with a greater
+one. And the sense of my imprudence broke vexatiously upon me when the
+old man came and stood between me and his daughter's portraits.
+
+“Well, I never!” he exclaimed, with his bright eyes steadfast with
+amazement. “I know you now, miss. Now I knows you. To think what a set
+of blind newts us must be! And you the very moral of your poor father,
+in a female kind of way! To be sure, how well I knew the Captain! A
+nicer man never walked the earth, neither a more unlucky one.”
+
+“I beg you--let me beg you,” I began to say; “since you have found me
+out like this--”
+
+“Hush, miss, hush! Not my own wife shall know, unless your own tongue
+telleth her. A proud man I shall be, Miss Raumur,” he continued, with
+emphasis on my local name, “if aught can be found in my power to serve
+you. Why, Lord bless you, miss,” he whispered, looking round, “your
+father and I has spent hours together! He were that pleasant in his ways
+and words, he would drop in from his fishing, when the water was too
+low, and sit on that very same bench where you sat, and smoke his pipe
+with me, and tell me about battles, and ask me about bread. And many a
+time I have slipped up the gate, to give him more water for his flies
+to play, and the fish not to see him so plainly. Ah, we have had many
+pleasant spells together; and his eldest boy and girl, Master George and
+Miss Henrietta, used to come and fetch our eggs. My Polly there was in
+love with him, we said; she sat upon his lap so, when she were two years
+old, and played with his beautiful hair, and blubbered--oh, she did
+blubber, when the Captain went away!”
+
+This invested Polly with new interest for me, and made me determine to
+spare no pains in putting her pretty figure well upon the plank. Then
+I said to the miller, “How kind of you to draw up your sluice-gates to
+oblige my father! Now will you put them down and keep them down, to do a
+great service both to him and me?”
+
+Without a moment's hesitation, he promised that any thing he could do
+should be done, if I would only tell him what I wanted. But perhaps it
+would be better to have our talk outside. Taking this hint, I followed
+him back to the bench in the open garden, and there explained what I
+wished to have done, and no longer concealed the true reason. The good
+miller answered that with all his heart he would do that much to oblige
+me, and a hundred times more than that; but some little thought and care
+were needful. With the river so low as it was now, he could easily stop
+the back-water, and receive the whole of the current in his dam, and
+keep it from flowing down his wheel trough, and thus dry the lower
+channel for perhaps half an hour, which would be ample for my purpose.
+Engineering difficulties there were none; but two or three other things
+must be heeded. Miller Sims, a mile or so down river, must be settled
+with, to fill his dam well, and begin to discharge, when the upper water
+failed, so as not to dry the Moon all down the valley, which would
+have caused a commotion. Miller Sims being own brother-in-law to Master
+Withypool, that could be arranged easily enough, after one day's notice.
+But a harder thing to manage would be to do the business without rousing
+curiosity, and setting abroad a rumor which would be sure to reach my
+enemy. And the hardest thing of all, said Master Withypool, smiling as
+he thought of what himself had once been, would be to keep those blessed
+boys away, who find out every thing, and go every where. Not a boy
+of Shoxford but would be in the river, or dancing upon its empty bed,
+screeching and scolloping up into his cap any poor bewildered trout
+chased into the puddles, if it were allowed to leak out, however feebly,
+that the Moon water was to stop running. And then how was I to seek for
+any thing?
+
+This was a puzzle. But, with counsel, we did solve it. And we quietly
+stopped the Moon, without man or boy being much the wiser.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+GOING TO THE BOTTOM
+
+
+It is not needful to explain every thing, any more than it was for me to
+tell the miller about my golden eagle, and how I had managed to lose it
+in the Moon--a trick of which now I was heartily ashamed, in the face
+of honest kindness. So I need not tell how Master Withypool managed to
+settle with his men, and to keep the boys unwitting of what was about
+to come to pass. Enough that I got a note from him to tell me that the
+little river would be run out, just when all Shoxford was intent upon
+its dinner, on the second day after I had seen him. And he could not say
+for certain, but thought it pretty safe, that nobody would come near me,
+if I managed to be there at a quarter before one, when the stream would
+begin to run dry, and I could watch it. I sent back a line by the pretty
+little girl, a sister of poor Polly, to say how much I thanked him,
+and how much I hoped that he himself would meet me there, if his time
+allowed. For he had been too delicate to say a word of that; but I felt
+that he had a good right to be there, and, knowing him now, I was not
+afraid.
+
+Nearly every thing came about as well as could be wished almost. Master
+Withypool took the precaution, early in the morning, to set his great
+fierce bull at large, who always stopped the foot-path. This bull knew
+well the powers of a valley in conducting sound; and he loved to stand,
+as if at the mouth of a funnel, and roar down it to another bull a mile
+below him, belonging to his master's brother-in-law. And when he did
+this, there was scarcely a boy, much less a man or woman, with
+any desire to assert against him the public right of thoroughfare.
+Throughout that forenoon, then, this bull bellowed nobly, still finding
+many very wicked flies about, so that two mitching boys, who meant to
+fish for minnows with a pin, were obliged to run away again.
+
+However, I was in the dark about him, and as much afraid of him as any
+body, when he broke into sight of me round a corner, without any tokens
+of amity. I had seen a great many great bulls before, including Uncle
+Sam's good black one, who might not have meant any mischief at all, and
+atoned for it--if he did--by being washed away so.
+
+And therefore my courage soon returned, when it became quite clear that
+this animal now had been fastened with a rope, and could come no nearer.
+For some little time, then, I waited all alone, as near that bridge as I
+could bring myself to stand, for Mrs. Busk, my landlady, could not leave
+the house yet, on account of the mid-day letters. Moreover, she thought
+that she had better stay away, as our object was to do things as quietly
+as could be.
+
+Much as I had watched this bridge from a distance, or from my
+sheltering-place, I had never been able to bring myself to make any kind
+of sketch of it, or even to insert it in a landscape, although it
+was very well suited and expressive, from its crooked and antique
+simplicity. The overhanging, also, of the hawthorn-tree (not ruddy yet,
+but russety with its coloring crop of coral), and the shaggy freaks of
+ivy above the twisted trunk, and the curve of the meadows and bold elbow
+of the brook, were such as an artist would have pitched his tent for,
+and tantalized poor London people with a dream of cool repose.
+
+As yet the little river showed no signs of doing what the rustic--or
+surely it should have been the cockney--was supposed to stand still and
+wait for. There was no great rush of headlong water, for that is not
+the manner of the stream in the very worst of weather; but there was the
+usual style of coming on, with lips and steps at the sides, and cords of
+running toward the middle. Quite enough, at any rate, to make the trout
+jump, without any omen of impending drought, and to keep all the play
+and the sway of movement going on serenely.
+
+I began to be afraid that the miller must have failed in his stratagem
+against the water-god, and that, as I had read in Pope's Homer, the
+liquid deity would beat the hero, when all of a sudden there were signs
+that man was the master of this little rustic. Broadswords of flag and
+rapiers of water-grass, which had been quivering merrily, began to hang
+down and to dip themselves in loops, and the stones of the brink showed
+dark green stripes on their sides as they stood naked. Then fine little
+cakes of conglomerated stuff, which only a great man of nature could
+describe, came floating about, and curdling into corners, and holding
+on to one another in long-tailed strings. But they might do what they
+liked, and make their very best of it, as they fell away to nothing upon
+stones and mud. For now more important things began to open, the like
+of which never had been yielded up before--plots of slimy gravel, varied
+with long streaks of yellow mud, dotted with large double shells, and
+parted into little oozy runs by wriggling water-weeds. And here was
+great commotion and sad panic of the fish, large fellows splashing and
+quite jumping out of water, as their favorite hovers and shelves ran
+dry, and darting away, with their poor backs in the air, to the deepest
+hole they could think of. Hundreds must have come to flour, lard, and
+butter if boys had been there to take advantage. But luckily things had
+been done so well that boys were now in their least injurious moment,
+destroying nothing worse than their own dinners.
+
+A very little way below the old wooden bridge the little river ran into
+a deepish pool, as generally happens at or near a corner, especially
+where there is a confluence sometimes. And seeing nothing, as I began to
+search intently, stirring with a long-handled spud which I had brought,
+I concluded that even my golden eagle had been carried into that deep
+place. However, water or no water, I resolved to have it out with that
+dark pool as soon as the rest of the channel should be drained, which
+took a tormenting time to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my
+skirts, and jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion
+which reminded me of childish days passed pleasantly in the Blue River.
+
+Too busy thus to give a thought to any other thing, I did not even see
+the miller, until he said,
+
+“Good-day, miss,” lifting his hat, with a nice kind smile. “Very busy,
+miss, I see, and right you are to be so. The water will be upon us again
+in less than half an hour. Now let me clear away they black weeds for
+you. I brought this little shivel a-purpose. If I may make so bold,
+miss, what do 'e look to find here?”
+
+“I have not the very smallest notion,” I could only answer; “but if
+there is any thing, it must be in that hole. I have searched all the
+shallow part so closely that I doubt whether even a sixpence could
+escape me, unless it were buried in the mud or pebbles. Oh, how can I
+manage to search that hole? There must be a yard of water there.”
+
+“One thing I ought to have told 'e for to do,” Master Withypool
+whispered, as he went on shoveling--“to do what the boys do when they
+lose a farden--to send another after un. If so be now, afore the water
+was run out, you had stood on that there bridge, and dropped a bright
+coin into it, a new half crown or a two-shilling piece, why, the chances
+would be that the run of the current would 'a taken it nigh to the
+likeliest spot for holding any other little matter as might 'a dropped,
+permiskous, you might say, into this same water.”
+
+“I have done so,” I answered; “I have done that very thing, though not
+at all with that object. The day before yesterday a beautiful coin, a
+golden eagle of America, fell from my pocket on that upper plank, and
+rolled into the water. I would not lose it for a great deal, because it
+was given to me by my dearest friend, the greatest of all millers.”
+
+“And ha'n't you found it yet, miss? Well, that is queer. Perhaps we
+shall find it now, with something to the back of it. I thought yon hole
+was too far below the bridge. But there your gold must be, and something
+else, most likely. Plaise to wait a little bit, and us 'll have the wet
+out of un. I never should 'a thought of that but for your gold guinea,
+though.”
+
+With these words Master Withypool pulled his coat off and rolled up his
+shirt sleeves, displaying arms fit to hold their own even with Uncle
+Sam's almost; and then he fell to with his shovel and dug, while I ran
+with my little spud to help.
+
+“Plaise keep out of way, miss; I be afeard of knocking you. Not but what
+you works very brave indeed, miss.”
+
+Knowing what men are concerning “female efforts,” I got out of the
+strong man's way, although there was plenty of room for me. What he
+wanted to do was plain enough--to dig a trench down the empty bed of the
+Moon River, deep enough to drain that pit before the stream came down
+again.
+
+“Never thought to run a race against my own old dam,” he said, as he
+stopped for a moment to recover breath. “Us never knows what us may have
+to do. Old dam must be a'most busting now. But her's sound enough, till
+her beginneth to run over.”
+
+I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but I
+could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of the water
+coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do. Master Withypool had
+been working, not as I myself would have done, from the lips of the dark
+pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty yards below, where there
+was almost a little cascade when the river was full flowing; from this
+he had made his channel upward, cutting deeper as he came along, till
+now, at the brink of the obstinate pool, his trench was two feet deep
+almost. I had no idea that any man could work so with a shovel, which
+seems such a clumsy tool compared with a spade: but a gentleman who
+knows the country and the people told me that, with their native weapon,
+Moonites will do as much digging in an hour as other folk get through in
+an hour and a half with a spade. But this may be only, perhaps, because
+they are working harder.
+
+“Now,” said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red face,
+and desiring to keep all that unheeded--“now, miss, to you it belongeth
+to tap this here little cornder, if desirable. Plaise to excoose of me
+going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down again.”
+
+“Please to do nothing of the sort,” I answered, knowing that he offered
+to stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion. “Please to tap
+the pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of what we find in it.”
+
+“As you plaise, miss, as you plaise. Not a moment for to lose in
+arguing. Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam. Her will be here
+in five minutes.”
+
+With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost
+as fast as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the plug of earth
+severing his channel from the deep, reluctant hole. And then I saw the
+wisdom of his way of working: for if he had dug downward from the pool
+itself, the water would have followed him all the way, and even drowned
+his tool out of its own strokes; whereas now, with a swirl and a curl of
+ropy mud, away rushed the thick, sluggish, obstinate fluid, and in less
+than two minutes the hole was almost dry.
+
+The first thing I saw was my golden eagle, lodged about half-way down
+the slope on a crust of black sludge, from which I caught it up and
+presented it to Master Withypool, as a small token and record of his
+kindness; and to this day he carries it upon his Sunday watch chain.
+
+“I always am lucky in finding things,” I exclaimed, while he watched
+me, and the up stream too, whence a babble of water was approaching. “As
+sure as I live I have found it!”
+
+“No doubt about your living, miss. And the Captain were always lively.
+But what have your bright eyes hit upon? I see nort for the life of me.”
+
+“Look there,” I cried, “at the very bottom of it--almost under the
+water. Here, where I put my spud--a bright blue line! Oh, can I go down,
+or is it quicksand?”
+
+“No quicksand in our little river, miss. But your father's daughter
+shannot go into the muck, while John Withypool stands by. I see un now,
+sure enough; now I see un! But her needeth care, or her may all goo away
+in mullock. Well, I thought my eyes was sharp enough; but I'm blest if I
+should have spied that, though. A bit of flint, mebbe, or of blue glass
+bottle. Anyhow, us will see the bottom of un.”
+
+He was wasting no time while he spoke, but working steadfastly for his
+purpose, fixing the blade of his shovel below the little blue line I
+was peering at, so that no slip of the soft yellow slush should bury
+it down, and plunge over it. If that had once happened, good-by to all
+chance of ever beholding this thing again, for the river was coming,
+with fury and foam, to assert its ancient right of way.
+
+With a short laugh the miller jumped down into the pit. “Me to be served
+so, by my own mill-stream! Lor', if I don't pay you out for this!”
+
+His righteous wrath failed to stop the water from pouring into the pit
+behind him; and, strong as he was, he nearly lost his footing, having
+only mud to stand upon. It seemed to me that he was going to be drowned,
+and I offered him the handle of my spud to help him; but he stopped
+where he was, and was not going to be hurried.
+
+“I got un now,” he said; “now I don't mind coming out. You see if I
+don't pay you out for this! Why, I always took you for a reasonable
+hanimal.”
+
+He shook his fist strongly at the river, which had him well up to the
+middle by this time; and then he disdainfully waded out, with wrath in
+all his countenance.
+
+“I've a great mind to stop there, and see what her would do,” he said to
+me, forgetting altogether what he went for. “And I would, if I had had
+my dinner. A scat of a thing as I can manage with my thumb! Ah, you have
+made a bad day of it.”
+
+“But what have you found, Mr. Withypool?” I asked, for I could not enter
+into his wrath against the water, wet as he was to the shoulders. “You
+have something in your hand. May I see it, if you please? And then do
+please to go home and change your clothes.”
+
+“A thing I never did in my life, miss, and should be ashamed to begin at
+this age. Clothes gets wet, and clothes dries on us, same as un did on
+the sheep afore us; else they gets stiff and creasy. What this little
+thing is ne'er a body may tell, in my line of life--but look'th
+aristocratic.”
+
+The “mullock,” as he called it, from his hands, and from the bed where
+it had lain so long, so crusted the little thing which he gave me, that
+I dipped it again in the swelling stream, and rubbed it with both hands,
+to make out what it was. And then I thought how long it had lain there;
+and suddenly to my memory it came, that in all likelihood the time of
+that was nineteen years this very day.
+
+“Will another year pass,” I cried, “before I make out all about it? What
+are you, and who, now looking at me with such sad, sad eyes?”
+
+For I held in my hand a most handsome locket, of blue enamel and
+diamonds, with a back of chased gold, and in front the miniature of a
+beautiful young woman, done as they never seem to do them now. The
+work was so good, and the fitting so close, that no drop of water had
+entered, and the face shone through the crystal glass as fresh as the
+day it was painted. A very lovely face it was, yet touched with a shade
+of sadness, as the loveliest faces generally are; and the first thought
+of any beholder would be, “That woman was born for sorrow.”
+
+The miller said as much when I showed it to him.
+
+“Lord bless my heart! I hope the poor craitur' hathn't lasted half so
+long as her pictur' hath.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+HERMETICALLY SEALED
+
+
+The discovery which I have described above (but not half so well as
+the miller tells it now) created in my young heart a feeling of really
+strong curiosity. To begin with, how could this valuable thing have got
+into the Moon-stream, and lain there so long, unsought for, or at best
+so unskillfully sought for? What connection could it have with the
+tragic death of my grandfather? Why was that man so tardily come to
+search for it, if he might do so without any body near him? Again,
+what woman was this whose beauty no water or mud could even manage to
+disguise? That last was a most disturbing question to one's bodily peace
+of mind. And then came another yet more urgent--what was in the inside
+of this tight case?
+
+That there was something inside of it seemed almost a certainty. The
+mere value of the trinket, or even the fear that it ever might turn
+up as evidence, would scarcely have brought that man so often to stir
+suspicion by seeking it; though, after so long a time, he well might
+hope that suspicion was dead and buried. And being unable to open this
+case--after breaking three good nails over it, and then the point of a
+penknife--I turned to Master Withypool, who was stamping on the grass to
+drain himself.
+
+“What sort of a man was that,” I asked, “who wanted you to do what
+now you have so kindly done for me? About a month or six weeks ago? Do
+please to tell me, as nearly as you can.”
+
+If Mrs. Withypool had been there, she might have lost all patience with
+me for putting long questions so selfishly to a man who had done so much
+for me, and whose clothes were now dripping in a wind which had arisen
+to test his theory of drying. He must have lost a large quantity of
+what scientific people call “caloric.” But never a shiver gave he in
+exchange.
+
+“Well, miss,” he said, “I was thinking a'most of speaking on that very
+matter. More particular since you found that little thing, with the
+pretty lady inside of it. It were borne in on my mind that thissom were
+the very thing he were arter.”
+
+“No doubt of it,” I answered, with far less patience, though being
+comparatively dry. “But what was he like? Was he like this portrait?”
+
+“This picture of the lady? No; I can't say that he were, so much. The
+face of a big man he hath, with short black fringes to it. Never showeth
+to my idea any likeliness of a woman. No, no, miss; think you not at all
+that you have got him in that blue thing. Though some of their pictures
+is like men, the way they dress up nowadays.”
+
+“I did not mean that it was meant for him; what I mean is, do you see
+any sign of family likeness? Any resemblance about the eyes, or mouth,
+or forehead?”
+
+“Well, now, I don't know but what I might,” replied Master Withypool,
+gazing very hard; “if I was to look at 'un long enough, a' might find
+some'at favoring of that tall fellow, I do believe. Indeed, I do believe
+the more I look, the more I diskivers the image of him.”
+
+The good and kind miller's perception of the likeness strengthened
+almost too fast, as if the wish were father to the thought, until I saw
+clearly how selfish I was in keeping him in that state so long; for I
+knew, from what Mrs. Busk had told me, that in spite of all his large
+and grand old English sentiments about his clothes, his wife would make
+him change them all ere ever she gave him a bit of dinner, and would
+force him then to take a glass of something hot. So I gave him a
+thousand thanks, though not a thousandth part of what he deserved, and
+saw him well on his homeward way before I went back to consider things.
+
+As soon as my landlady was at leisure to come in and talk with me,
+and as soon as I had told her how things happened, and shown her our
+discovery, we both of us did the very same thing, and said almost the
+very same words. Our act was, with finger and nail and eye, to rime into
+every jot of it; and our words were,
+
+“I am sure there is something inside. If not, it would open sensibly.”
+
+In the most senseless and obstinate manner it refused not only to open,
+but to disclose any thing at all about itself. Whether it ever had been
+meant to open, and if so, where, and by what means; whether, without
+any gift of opening, it might have a hidden thing inside; whether, when
+opened by force or skill, it might show something we had no business
+with, or (which would be far worse) nothing at all--good Mrs. Busk and
+myself tested, tapped, and felt, and blew, and listened, and tried every
+possible overture, and became at last quite put out with it.
+
+“It is all of a piece with the villains that owned it,” the postmistress
+exclaimed at last. “There is no penetrating either it or them. Most
+likely they have made away with this beautiful lady on the cover. Kill
+one, kill fifty, I have heard say. I hope Master Withypool will let out
+nothing, or evil it will be for you, miss. If I was you, I would carry a
+pistol.”
+
+“Now please not to frighten me, Mrs. Busk. I am not very brave at the
+best of times, and this has made me so nervous. If I carried a pistol, I
+should shoot myself the very first hour of wearing it. The mere thought
+of it makes me tremble. Oh, why was I ever born, to do man's work?”
+
+“Because, miss, a man would not have done it half so well. When you
+saw that villain digging, a man would have rushed out and spoiled
+all chance. And now what man could have ever found this? Would Master
+Withypool ever have emptied the Moon River for a man, do you think? Or
+could any man have been down among us all this time, in this jealous
+place, without his business being long ago sifted out and scattered over
+him? No, no, miss; you must not talk like that--and with me as well to
+help you. The rogues will have reason to wish, I do believe, that they
+had only got a man to deal with.”
+
+In this argument there were points which had occurred to me before; but
+certainly it is a comfort to have one's own ideas in a doubtful matter
+reproduced, and perhaps put better, by a mind to which one may have lent
+them, perhaps, with a loan all unacknowledged. However, trouble teaches
+care, and does it so well that the master and the lesson in usage of
+words are now the same; therefore I showed no sign of being suggested
+with my own suggestions, but only asked, quietly, “What am I to do?”
+
+“My dear young lady,” Mrs. Busk replied, after stopping some time to
+think of it, “my own opinion is, for my part, that you ought to consult
+somebody.”
+
+“But I am, Mrs. Busk. I am now consulting you.”
+
+“Then I think, miss, that this precious case should be taken at once to
+a jeweler, who can open it without doing any damage, which is more than
+we can do.”
+
+“To be sure; I have thought of that,” I replied. “But how can that
+be done without arousing curiosity?--without the jeweler seeing its
+contents, if indeed it has any? And in that case the matter would be no
+longer at our own disposal, as now it is. I have a great mind to split
+it with a hammer. What are the diamonds to me?”
+
+“It is not the diamonds, but the picture, miss, that may be most
+important. And more than that, you might ruin the contents, so as not
+to make head or tale of them. No, no; it is a risk that must be run; we
+must have a jeweler, but not one of this neighborhood.”
+
+“Then I shall have to go to London again, and perhaps lose something
+most important here. Can you think of no other way out of it?”
+
+“No, miss, at present I see nothing else. Unless you will place it all
+in the hands of the police.”
+
+“Constable Jobbins, to wit, or his son! No, thank you, Mrs. Busk, not
+yet. Surely we are not quite reduced to such a hopeless pass as that. My
+father knew what the police were worth, and so does Betsy, and so does
+Major Hockin. 'Pompous noodles,' the Major calls them, who lay hold of
+every thing by the wrong end.”
+
+“Then if he can lay hold of the right end, miss, what better could you
+do than consult him?”
+
+I had been thinking of this already, and pride alone debarred me. That
+gentleman's active nature drove him to interfere with other people's
+business, even though he had never heard of them; and yet through some
+strange reasoning of his own, or blind adoption of public unreason, he
+had made me dislike, or at any rate not like, him, until he began to
+show signs at last of changing his opinion. And now the question was,
+had he done that enough for me, without loss of self-respect, to open my
+heart to him, and seek counsel?
+
+In settling that point the necessity of the case overrode, perhaps, some
+scruples; in sooth, I had nobody else to go to. What could I do with
+Lord Castlewood? Nothing; all his desire was to do exactly what my
+father would have done: and my father had never done any thing more than
+rove and roam his life out. To my mind this was dreadful now, when every
+new thing rising round me more and more clearly to my mind established
+what I never had doubted--his innocence. Again, what good could I do by
+seeking Betsy's opinion about it, or that of Mrs. Price, or Stixon, or
+any other person I could think of? None whatever--and perhaps much harm.
+Taking all in all, as things turn up, I believed myself to be almost
+equal to the cleverest of those three in sense, and in courage not
+inferior. Moreover, a sort of pride--perhaps very small, but not
+contemptible--put me against throwing my affairs so much into the hands
+of servants.
+
+For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would perhaps
+condemn me. But still I was not of the grand New World, whose pedigrees
+are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle
+Sam was the last for that); neither could I come up to the largeness of
+universal brotherhood. That was not to be expected of a female; and few
+things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it. No such
+ideas had ever troubled me; I had more important things to think of,
+or, at any rate, something to be better carried out. And of all these
+desultory thoughts it came that I packed up that odious but very lovely
+locket, without further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very
+good and clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early. By so doing I
+could have three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet
+return for the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.
+
+Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and the
+equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before the tardy
+sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once when he finds
+the weights go against him. Mrs. Busk considered not the sun, neither
+any of his doings. The time of day was more momentous than any of the
+sun's proceedings. Railway time was what she had to keep (unless a good
+customer dropped in), and as for the sun--“clock slow, clock fast,” in
+the almanacs, showed how he managed things; and if that was not enough,
+who could trust him to keep time after what he had done upon the dial of
+Ahaz? Reasoning thus--if reason it was--she packed me off in a fly for
+the nearest railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on
+his ramparts.
+
+After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the
+rapid rise of things. Houses here and houses there, springing up like
+children's teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a long
+gap, and then some more. And down the slope a grand hotel, open for
+refreshment, though as yet it had no roof on; for the Major, in virtue
+of his charter, defied all the magistrates to stop him from selling
+whatever was salable on or off the premises. But noblest and grandest
+of all to look at was the “Bruntsea Athenaeum, Lyceum, Assembly-Rooms,
+Institution for Mutual Instruction, Christian Young Men's Congress, and
+Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic Hall, at nominal prices to be had gratis.”
+
+“How you do surprise me!” I said to Major Hockin, after reading all
+that, which he kindly requested me to do with care; “but where are the
+people to come from?”
+
+“Erema,” he replied, as if that question had been asked too often, “you
+have not had time to study the laws of political economy--the noblest
+of noble sciences. The first of incontrovertible facts is that supply
+creates demand. Now ask yourself whether there could even be a Yankee if
+ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?”
+
+This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the utmost
+not to do so. “You understand those things, and I do not,” said I, with
+a smile, which pleased him. “My dear aunt Mary always says that you are
+the cleverest man in the world; and she must know most about it.”
+
+“Partiality! partiality!” cried the Major, with a laugh, and pulling his
+front hair up. “Such things pass by me like the idle wind; or rather,
+perhaps, they sadden me, from my sense of my own deficiencies. But,
+bless me! dinner must be waiting. Look at that fellow's trowel--he
+knows: he turns up the point of it like a spoon. They say that he can
+smell his dinner two miles off. We all dine at one o'clock now, that I
+may rout up every man-Jack of them.”
+
+The Major sounded a steam-guard's whistle, and led me off in the rapidly
+vanishing wake of his hungry workmen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+CONVICTION
+
+
+Sir Montague Hockin, to my great delight, was still away from Bruntsea.
+If he had been there, it would have been a most awkward thing for me to
+meet him, or to refuse to do so. The latter course would probably have
+been the one forced upon me by self-respect and affection toward my
+cousin; and yet if so, I could scarcely have avoided an explanation with
+my host. From the nature of the subject, and several other reasons, this
+would have been most unpleasant; and even now I was haunted with doubts,
+as I had been from the first, whether I ought not to have told Mrs.
+Hockin long ago what had been said of him. At first sight that seemed
+the honest thing to do; but three things made against it. It might seem
+forward and meddlesome; it must be a grievous thing to my cousin to have
+his sad story discussed again; and lastly, I had promised Mrs. Price
+that her words should go no further. So that on the whole perhaps I
+acted aright in keeping that infamous tale to myself as long as ever it
+was possible.
+
+But now ere ever I spoke of him--which I was always loath to do--Mrs.
+Hockin told me that he very seldom came to see them now, and when he did
+come he seemed to be uneasy and rather strange in his manners. I thought
+to myself that the cause of this was clear. Sir Montague, knowing that I
+went to Castlewood, was pricked in his conscience, and afraid of having
+his vile behavior to my cousin disclosed. However, that idea of mine
+was wrong, and a faulty conception of simple youth. The wicked forgive
+themselves so quickly, if even they find any need of it, that every body
+else is supposed to do the same. With this I have no patience. A
+wrong unrepented of and unatoned gathers interest, instead of getting
+discount, from lost time. And so I hated that man tenfold.
+
+Good Mrs. Hockin lamented his absence not only for the sake of her
+darling fowls, but also because she considered him a check upon the
+Major's enterprise. Great as her faith was in her husband's ability and
+keenness, she was often visited with dark misgivings about such heavy
+outlay. Of economy (as she often said) she certainly ought to know
+something, having had to practice it as strictly as any body in the
+kingdom, from an age she could hardly remember. But as for what was now
+brought forward as a great discovery--economy in politics--Mrs. Hockin
+had tried to follow great opinions, but could only find, so far,
+downright extravagance. Supply (as she had observed fifty times with her
+own butcher and fishmonger), instead of creating demand, produced a
+lot of people hankering round the corner, till the price came down to
+nothing. And if it were so with their institutions--as her dear husband
+called his new public-house--who was to find all the interest due to
+the building and land societies? Truly she felt that Sir Rufus Hockin,
+instead of doing any good to them, had behaved very badly in leaving
+them land, and not even a shilling to work it with.
+
+It relieved her much to tell me this, once for all and in strict
+confidence; because her fine old-fashioned (and we now may say quite
+obsolete) idea of duty toward her husband forbade her ever to say to
+him, or about him, when it could be helped, any thing he might not like,
+any thing which to an evil mind might convey a desire on her part to
+meddle with--with--
+
+“Political economy,” I said; and she laughed, and said, Yes, that was
+just it. The Major of course knew best, and she ought with all her
+heart to trust him not to burden their old days with debt, after all the
+children they had brought up and fairly educated upon the professional
+income of a distinguished British officer, who is not intended by his
+superiors to provide successors.
+
+“Perhaps it is like the boiled eggs they send me,” the old lady said,
+with her soft sweet smile, “for my poor hens to sit upon. Their race is
+too good to be made common. So now they get tinkers' and tailors' boys,
+after much competition, and the crammed sons of cooks. And in peace-time
+they do just as well.”
+
+Of such things I knew nothing; but she seemed to speak with bitterness,
+the last thing to be found in all her nature, yet discoverable--as all
+bad things (except its own) are--by the British government. I do not
+speak from my own case, in which they discovered nothing.
+
+By the time these things had been discussed, my host (who was always
+particular about his dress) came down to dinner, and not until that was
+over could I speak of the subject which had brought me there. No sooner
+had I begun my tale than they both perceived that it must neither be
+flurried nor interrupted, least of all should it be overheard.
+
+“Come into my lock-up,” cried the Major; “or, better still, let us go
+out of doors. We can sit in my snuggery on the cliff, with only gulls
+and jackdaws to listen, and mount my telescope and hoist my flag, and
+the men know better than to skulk their work. I can see every son of a
+gun of them as clearly as if I had them on parade. You wish Mrs. Hockin
+to come, I suppose. Very well, let us be off at once. I shall count my
+fellows coming back from dinner.”
+
+With a short quick step the Major led the way to a beautifully situated
+outpost at a corner of the cliff, where land and sea for many a fair
+league rolled below. A niche of the chalk had been cleverly enlarged and
+scooped into a shell-shaped bower, not, indeed, gloriously overhung, as
+in the far West might have been, but broken of its white defiant glare
+by climbing and wandering verdure. Seats and slabs of oak were fixed to
+check excess of chalkiness, and a parapet of a pattern which the Major
+called Egyptian saved fear of falling down the cliff, and served to
+spread a paper on, or to rest a telescope.
+
+“From this point,” said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial legs,
+“the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a bird's-eye view.
+It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing, compared with the Earl
+of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount Gamberley; still, such as it
+is, it carries my ideas, and it has an extent of marine frontage such
+as they might envy. We are asked 5 pounds per foot for a thread of land
+fronting on a highway, open to every kind of annoyance, overlooked,
+without any thing to look at. How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if
+you please, by cable-lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent,
+uncontaminating, healthful sea? Whence can come no coster-mongers'
+cries, no agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no
+German band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only
+sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a boatman
+catching your breakfast lobster. Where, again, if you love the
+picturesque--”
+
+“My dear,” said Mrs. Hockin, gently, “you always were eloquent from the
+first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as you hope,
+and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you will create!
+But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that Erema is waiting to
+tell her tale.”
+
+“To be sure. I will not stop her. Eloquence is waste of time, and I
+never yet had half a second to spare. Fear no eloquence from me; facts
+and logic are my strong points. And now, Erema, show what yours are.”
+
+At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any
+strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the
+difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it
+when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had
+seen, heard, and found.
+
+The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through
+his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf
+of chalk--and dear “Aunt Mary's” soft pink cheeks, which her last
+grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so
+full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a most
+human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.
+
+“Seven!” she cried; “oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there
+were seven!”
+
+“There were not seven graves without the mother,” the Major answered,
+sternly. “And what odds whether seven or seventy? The criminality is the
+point, not the accumulation of results. Still, I never heard of so big a
+blackguard. And what did he do next, my dear?”
+
+The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me, because,
+although they were so good, they had never paid any attention to it
+until it became exciting. They listened with mere politeness until the
+scent of a very wicked man began to taint my narrative; but from that
+moment they drew nearer, and tightened their lips, and held their
+breath, and let no word escape them. It made me almost think that
+people even of pure excellence, weaned as they are from wicked things by
+teaching and long practice, must still retain a hankering for them done
+at other people's cost.
+
+“And now,” cried the Major, “let us see it”--even before I had time to
+pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his ways.
+“Show it, and you shall have my opinion. And Mary's is certain to agree
+with mine. My dear, that makes yours so priceless.”
+
+“Then, Nicholas, if I retain my own, yours is of no value. Never mind
+that. Now don't catch words, or neither opinion will be worth a thought.
+My dear, let us see it and then judge.”
+
+“My own idea, but not so well expressed,” Major Hockin answered, as he
+danced about, while I with stupid haste was tugging at my package of the
+hateful locket. For I had not allowed that deceitful thing any quarters
+in my pocket, where dear little relics of my father lay, but had
+fastened it under my dress in a manner intended in no way for gentlemen
+to think about. Such little things annoy one's comfort, and destroy
+one's power of being quite high-minded. However, I got it out at last,
+and a flash of the sun made the difference.
+
+“Brilliants, Mary!” the Major cried; “brilliants of first water; such
+as we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army except
+myself, I do believe, would have had them at once in his camlet
+pouch--my dear, you know all about it. Bless my heart, how slow you are!
+Is it possible you have forgotten it? There came out a fellow, and I cut
+him down, as my duty was, without ceremony. You know how I used to do
+it, out of regulation, with a slash like this--”
+
+“Oh, Nicholas, you will be over the cliff! You have shown me how you
+used to do it, a thousand times--but you had no cricks in your back
+then: and remember how brittle the chalk is.”
+
+“The chalk may be brittle, but I am tough. I insist upon doing every
+thing as well as I did it forty years ago. Mary, you ought not to speak
+to me like that. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty brilliants, worth twenty
+pounds apiece upon an average, I do believe. Four hundred pounds. That
+would finish our hotel.”
+
+“Nicholas!”
+
+“My dear, I was only in fun. Erema understands me. But who is this
+beautiful lady?”
+
+“The very point,” I exclaimed, while he held it so that the pensive
+beauty of the face gleamed in soft relief among bright blue enamel and
+sparkling gems. “The very thing that I must know--that I would give my
+life to know--that I have fifty thousand fancies--”
+
+“Now don't be excited, Erema, if you please. What will you give me to
+tell you who it is?”
+
+“All those diamonds, which I hate the sight of, and three-quarters of my
+half nugget; and if that is not enough--”
+
+“It is a thousand times too much; I will tell you for just one smile,
+and I know it, will be a smile of unbelief.”
+
+“No, no; I will believe it, whoever you say,” with excitement superior
+to grammar, I cried; “only tell me at once--don't be so long.”
+
+“But then you won't believe me when I do tell you,” the Major replied,
+in the most provoking way. “I shall tell you the last person you would
+ever think of, and then you will only laugh at me.”
+
+“I won't laugh; how can I laugh in such a matter? I will believe you if
+you say it is--Aunt Mary.”
+
+“My dear, you had better say at once that it is I, and have no more
+mystery about it.” Mrs. Hockin was almost as impatient as myself.
+
+“Mrs. Hockin, you must indeed entertain an exalted idea of your own
+charms. I knew that you were vain, but certainly did not--Well, then,
+if you will allow me no peace, this is the lady that lives down in the
+ruin, and stands like a pillar by my pillar-box.”
+
+“I never thought you would joke like that,” I cried, with vexation and
+anger. “Oh, is it a subject to be joked about?”
+
+“I never was graver in my life; and you promised implicitly to believe
+me. At any rate, believe that I speak in earnest.”
+
+“That I must believe, when you tell me so. But what makes you think such
+a wonderful thing? I should have thought nothing more impossible. I had
+made up my mind that it was Flittamore who lived down here; but this can
+not be she. Flittamore was unheard of at the time of my grandfather's
+death. Moreover, her character was not like this; she was giddy and
+light and heartless. This lady had a heart--good or bad, a deep one.
+Most certainly it is not Flittamore.”
+
+“Flittamore! I do not remember that name. You should either tell us all
+or tell us nothing.” The Major's tone was reproachful, and his eyes from
+their angular roofs looked fierce.
+
+“I have not told you,” I said, “because it can have nothing to do with
+it. The subject is a painful one, and belongs to my family only.”
+
+“Enough. I am not inquisitive--on the other hand, too forgetful. I have
+an appointment at 3.25. It takes me seven minutes and a quarter to get
+there. I must be two minutes and three-quarters late. Mrs. Hockin, mount
+the big telescope and point it at the ramparts; keep the flag up also.
+Those fellows will be certain that I am up here, while I enfilade
+them from the western end with this fine binocular. Surprises maintain
+discipline. Good-by, my dear, and, Miss Castlewood, good-by. Tea at
+6.30, and not too much water.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+VAIN ZEAL
+
+
+Leaving his telescope leveled at the men, the Major marched off with
+his opera-glass in a consciously provoking style, and Mrs. Hockin most
+heartily joined me in condemning such behavior. In a minute or two,
+however, she would not have one word said against him, and the tide of
+her mind (as befits a married woman) was beyond all science; so that the
+drift of all words came back to her husband's extraordinary merits. And
+certainly these, if at all like her description, deserved to be dwelt
+upon at very precious periods.
+
+However, I had heard enough of them before; for the Major himself was
+not mute upon this point, though comparatively modest, and oftentimes
+deprecating praise ere ever he received it. And so I brought Mrs. Hockin
+back at last to talk about the lady who was living in the ruin.
+
+“It is not quite a ruin,” she said. “My dear husband is fond of
+picturesque expressions. However, it is not in very good repair; and
+being unable to get possession of it, through some legal quibble,
+possibly he may look at it from a rather unfavorable point of view. And
+for the same reason--though he is so purely just--he may have formed a
+bad opinion of the strange individual who lives there. What right has
+she to be living without his leave upon his own manor? But there she is,
+and she does not care for us or any body. She fetches all she wants, she
+speaks to none, and if any body calls for rates or taxes, or any other
+public intrusion, they may knock and knock, but never get in, and at
+last they go away again.”
+
+“But surely that can not go on forever. Bruntsea is such an enlightened
+place.”
+
+“Our part of it is, but the rest quite benighted. As the man says--I
+forget his name, but the man that misunderstands us so--his contention
+is that 'Desolate Hole,' as the Major calls it, although in the middle
+of our land, is entirely distinct from it. My husband never will put up
+with that--his love of justice is far too strong--and he means to have a
+lawsuit. But still he has reasons for not beginning yet; and he puts up
+with a great deal, I am sure. It is too bad for them to tease him so.”
+
+“It does seem a very sad thing,” I replied; “and the poor soul living
+there all alone! Even in the summer it is bad enough; but whatever will
+she do when the winter comes? Why, the sea in bad weather must be almost
+in upon her. And the roar of the pebbles all night! Major Hockin will
+never allow her to stay there.”
+
+“What can he do, when he can not get in, and they even deny his title?
+I assure you, Erema, I have sent down cream, and even a dozen of my
+precious eggs, with the lady of the manor's compliments; but instead
+of being grateful, they were never taken in; and my Polly--'Miss Polly
+Hopkins,' you know--very wisely took it all to her grandmother.”
+
+“To her grandmother instead of mine, as the Major facetiously calls her.
+And now he says this is her portrait; and instead of giving his reasons,
+runs away! Really you must excuse me, Aunt Mary, for thinking that your
+good husband has a little too much upon his mind sometimes.”
+
+The old lady laughed, as I loved to see her do. “Well, my dear, after
+that, I think you had better have it out with him. He comes home to tea
+at 6.30, which used to be half past six in my days. He is very tired
+then, though he never will allow it, and it would not be fair to attack
+him. I give him a mutton-chop, or two poached eggs, or some other trifle
+of nourishment. And then I make him doze for an hour and a half, to
+soothe his agitated intellect. And when he wakes he has just one glass
+of hot water and sugar, with a little Lochnagar. And then he is equal to
+any thing--backgammon, bezique, or even conversation.”
+
+Impatient as I was, I saw nothing better; and by this time I was
+becoming used to what all of us must put up with--the long postponement
+of our heavy cares to the light convenience of others. Major Hockin
+might just as well have stopped, when he saw how anxious I was. Uncle
+Sam would have stopped the mill itself, with a dozen customers waiting;
+but no doubt he had spoiled me; and even that should not make me bitter.
+Aunt Mary and I understood one another. We gazed away over the breadth
+of the sea and the gleam of its texture, and we held our peace.
+
+Few things are more surprising than the calm way in which ripe age looks
+on at things which ought to amaze it. And yet any little one of its own
+concerns grows more important, perhaps, than ever as the shadow of the
+future dwindles. Major Hockin had found on the beach a pebble with a
+streak of agate in it. He took it as the harbinger of countless
+agates, and resolved to set up a lapidary, with a tent, or even a shop,
+perhaps--not to pay, but to be advertised, and catch distinguished
+visitors.
+
+“Erema, you are a mighty finder; you found the biggest nugget yet
+discovered. You know about stones from the Rocky Mountains, or at least
+the Sierra Nevada. You did not discover this beautiful agate, but you
+saw and greatly admired it. We might say that a 'young lady, eminent for
+great skill in lithology, famed as the discoverer,' etc. Hold it between
+your eyes and this candle, but wet it in the slop-basin first; now you
+see the magnificent veins of blue.”
+
+“I see nothing of the kind,” I said; for really it was too bad of him.
+“It seems to me a dirty bit of the commonest flint you could pick up.”
+
+This vexed him more than I wished to have done, and I could not help
+being sorry; for he went into a little fit of sulks, and Aunt Mary
+almost frowned at me. But he could not stay long in that condition, and
+after his doze and his glass he came forth as lively and meddlesome as
+ever. And the first thing he did was to ask me for the locket.
+
+“Open it?” he cried; “why, of course I can; there is never any
+difficulty about that. The finest workmanship in the world is that of
+the Indian jewelers. I have been among them often; I know all their
+devices and mechanism, of which the European are bad copies. I have only
+to look round this thing twice, and then pronounce my Sesame.”
+
+“My dear, then look round it as fast as you can,” said his wife, with
+a traitorous smile at me, “and we won't breathe a Sess till it flies
+asunder.”
+
+“Mary, Miss Castlewood makes you pert, although herself so well
+conducted. However, I do not hesitate to say that I will open this case
+in two minutes.”
+
+“Of course you will, dear,” Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking
+acquiescence. “The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so sure
+about; and this is a mere child's toy to him. Well, dear, have you done
+it? But I need not ask. Oh, let us see what is inside of it!”
+
+“I have not done it yet, Mrs. Hockin; and if you talk with such
+rapidity, of course you throw me out. How can I command my thoughts, or
+even recall my experience?”
+
+“Hush! now hush, Erema! And I myself will hush most reverently.”
+
+“You have no reverence in you, and no patience. Do you expect me to do
+such a job in one second? Do you take me for a common jeweler? I beg you
+to remember--”
+
+“Well, my dear, I remember only what you told us. You were to turn it
+round twice, you know, and then cry Sesame. Erema, was it not so?”
+
+“I never said any thing of the sort. What I said was simply
+this--However, to reason with ladies is rude; I shall just be off to my
+study.”
+
+“Where you keep your tools, my darling,” Mrs. Hockin said, softly, after
+him: “at least, I mean, when you know where they are.”
+
+I was astonished at Aunt Mary's power of being so highly provoking, and
+still more at her having the heart to employ it. But she knew best what
+her husband was; and to worship forever is not wise.
+
+“Go and knock at his door in about five minutes,” Mrs. Hockin said to
+me, with some mischief in her eyes. “If he continues to fail, he may
+possibly take a shorter way with it. And with his tools so close at
+hand--”
+
+“Oh,” I exclaimed, “his geological hammer--that dreadful crusher! May I
+go at once? I detest that thing, but I can not have it smashed.”
+
+“He will not break it up, my dear, without your leave. He never would
+think of such a thing, of course. However, you may as well go after
+him.”
+
+It was wrong of Mrs. Hockin to make me do this; and I felt quite
+ashamed of myself when I saw the kind old Major sitting by his lamp, and
+wrinkling his forehead into locks and keys of puzzle, but using violence
+to his own mind alone. And I was the more ashamed when, instead of
+resenting my intrusion, he came to meet me, and led me to his chair, and
+placed the jeweled trinket in my hand, and said, “My dear, I give it
+up. I was wrong in taking it away from you. You must consult some one
+wiser.”
+
+“That odious thing!” I answered, being touched by this unusual humility
+of his; “you shall not give it up; and I know no wiser person. A
+lapidary's tricks are below your knowledge. But if you are not tired of
+me and offended, may I leave it to you to get it opened?”
+
+“I would like nothing better,” he replied, recovering his natural
+briskness and importance; “but you ought to be there, my dear; you must
+be there. Are you sure that you ought not rather to take it to your good
+cousin Lord Castlewood? Now think before you answer.”
+
+“I need not think twice of that, Major Hockin. Good and learned as
+my father's cousin is, he has distinctly refused to help me, for some
+mysterious reason of his own, in searching into this question. Indeed,
+my great hope is to do it without him: for all that I know, he might
+even wish to thwart me.”
+
+“Enough, my dear; it shall be just as you wish. I brought you to
+England, and I will stand by you. My cousin, Colonel Gundry, has
+committed you to me. I have no patience with malefactors. I never took
+this matter up, for very many reasons; and among them not the least was
+that Sampson, your beloved 'Uncle Sam,' thought it better not to do so.
+But if you desire it, and now that I feel certain that an infamous wrong
+has been done to you--which I heartily beg your pardon for my doubt
+of--by the Lord of all justice, every thing else may go to the devil,
+till I see it out. Do you desire it, Erema?”
+
+“I certainly do not wish that any of your great works should be
+neglected. But if, without that, you can give me your strong help, my
+only difficulty will be to thank you.”
+
+“I like plain speaking, and you always speak plainly; sometimes too
+plainly,” he said, recollecting little times when he had the worst of
+it. “How far do you trust me now?”
+
+“Major Hockin, I trust you altogether. You may make mistakes, as all men
+do--”
+
+“Yes, yes, yes. About my own affairs; but I never do that for other
+people. I pay a bill for twopence, if it is my own. If I am trustee of
+it, I pay three half-pence.”
+
+His meaning was a little beyond me now; but it seemed better not to tell
+him so; for he loved to explain his own figures of speech, even when he
+had no time to spare for it. And he clearly expected me to ask him to
+begin; or at least it seemed so from his eyebrows. But that only came
+home to me afterward.
+
+“Please not to speak of my affairs like that,” I said, as if I were
+quite stupid; “I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence--both to
+friends and enemies.”
+
+“You are a queer girl; I have always said so. You turn things to your
+own ideas so. However, we must put up with that, though none of my
+daughters have ever done it; for which I am truly thankful. But now
+there is very little time to lose. The meaning of this thing must be
+cleared up at once. And there is another thing to be done as well, quite
+as important, in my opinion. I will go to London with you to-morrow, if
+you like. My clever little Cornishman will see to things here--the man
+that sets up all the angles.”
+
+“But why should I hurry you to London so?” I asked. “Surely any good
+country jeweler could manage it? Or let us break it open.”
+
+“On no account,” he answered; “we might spoil it all; besides the great
+risk to the diamonds, which are very brittle things. To London we must
+take it, for this reason--the closure of this case is no jeweler's work;
+of that I have quite convinced myself. It is the work of a first-rate
+lapidary, and the same sort of man must undo it.”
+
+To this I agreed quite readily, because of such things I knew nothing;
+whereas my host spoke just as if he had been brought up to both those
+walks of art. And then I put a question which had long been burning on
+my tongue.
+
+“What made you imagine, Major Hockin, that this very beautiful face
+could have ever been that of the old lady living in the ruin?”
+
+“In Desolate Hole? I will tell you at once; and then call it, if you
+like, an imagination. Of all the features of the human face there is
+none more distinctive than the eyebrow. 'Distinctive' is not exactly
+what I mean--I mean more permanently marked and clear. The eyes change,
+the nose changes, so does the mouth, and even the shape of the forehead
+sometimes; but the eyebrows change very little, except in color. This I
+have noticed, because my own may perhaps be a little peculiar; and they
+have always been so. At school I received a nickname about it, for boys
+are much sharper than men about such things; and that name after fifty
+years fits as well as ever. You may smile, if you like; I shall not tell
+you what it was, but leave you to re-invent it, if you can. Now look
+at this first-rate miniature. Do you see an unusual but not uncomely
+formation of the eyebrows?”
+
+“Certainly I do; though I did not observe it until you drew my
+attention. I had only regarded the face, as a whole.”
+
+“The face, as a whole, is undoubtedly fine. But the eyebrows have a
+peculiar arch, and the least little turn at the lower end, as if they
+designed to rise again. The lady of Desolate Hole has the same.”
+
+“But how can you tell? How very strange! I thought she let nobody see
+her face.”
+
+“You are perfectly right about that, Erema; so far at least as she has
+vouchsafed to exhibit her countenance to me. Other people may be more
+fortunate. But when I met her for the second time, being curious already
+about her, I ventured to offer my services, with my inborn chivalry, at
+a place where the tide was running up, and threatened to surround her.
+My politeness was not appreciated, as too often is the case; for she
+made me a very stiff bow, and turned away. Her face had been covered by
+the muffler of her cloak, as if the sea-breeze were too much for her;
+and she did not even raise her eyes. But before she turned away, I
+obtained a good glance at her eyebrows--and they were formed like
+these.”
+
+“But her age, Major Hockin! Her age--what is it?”
+
+“Upon that proverbially delicate point I can tell you but little,
+Erema. Perhaps, however, I may safely say that she can not be much under
+twenty.”
+
+“It is not right to provoke me so. You call her 'the old woman,'
+and compare her to your letter-box. You must have some idea--is she
+seventy?”
+
+“Certainly not, I should say; though she can not expect me to defend
+her, when she will not show her face to me; and what is far worse, at my
+time of life, she won't even pay me a half-penny of rent. Now let us go
+back to Aunt Mary, my dear; she always insists upon packing overnight.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+CADMEIAN VICTORY
+
+
+Before two o'clock of the following day Major Hockin and myself were
+in London, and ready to stay there for two or three days, if it should
+prove needful. Before leaving Bruntsea I had written briefly to Lord
+Castlewood, telling him that important matters had taken me away from
+Shoxford, and as soon as I could explain them, I would come and tell him
+all about it. This was done only through fear of his being annoyed at my
+independence.
+
+From London Bridge the Major took a cab direct to Clerkenwell; and again
+I observed that of all his joys one of the keenest was to match his wits
+against a cabman's. “A regular muff, this time,” he said, as he jerked
+up and down with his usual delight in displaying great knowledge of
+London; “no sport to be had out of him. Why, he stared at me when I said
+'Rosamond Street,' and made me stick on 'Clerkenwell.' Now here he is
+taking us down Snow Hill, when he should have been crossing Smithfield.
+Smithfield, cabby, Smithfield!”
+
+“Certain, Sir, Smiffle, if you gives the order;” and he turned the
+poor horse again, and took us up the hill, and among a great number of
+barriers. “No thoroughfare,” “No thoroughfare,” on all hands stretched
+across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till he came to the
+brink of a precipice. The horse seemed quite ready, like a Roman, to
+leap down it, seeing nothing less desirable than his present mode of
+life, till a man with a pickaxe stopped him.
+
+“What are you at?” cried the Major, with fury equalled by nothing except
+his fright. “Erema, untie my big rattan. Quick--quick--”
+
+“Captain,” said the cabman, coolly, “I must have another shilling for
+this job. A hextra mile and a quarter, to your orders. You knows Lunnon
+so much better. Smiffle stopped--new railway--new meat market--never
+heered of that now, did you?”
+
+“You scoundrel, drive straight to the nearest police office.”
+
+“Must jump this little ditch, then, Captain. Five pun' fine for you,
+when we gets there. Hold on inside, old gentleman. Kuck, kuck, Bob, you
+was a hunter once. It ain't more than fifty feet deep, my boy.”
+
+“Turn round! turn round, I tell you! turn round! If your neck is
+forfeit, you rogue, mine is not. I never was so taken in in my life!”
+ Major Hockin continued to rave, and amid many jeers we retreated humbly,
+and the driver looked in at us with a gentle grin. “And I thought he was
+so soft, you know! Erema, may I swear at him?”
+
+“On no account,” I said. “Why, after all, it is only a shilling, and the
+loss of time. And then, you can always reflect that you have discharged,
+as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a vile system.”
+
+“Protesting is very well, when it pays,” the Major answered, gloomily;
+“but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes.”
+
+This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote
+him for eight-pence more. “Four parcels on the roof, Captain,” he said,
+looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning his extra
+shilling. “Twopence each under new hact, you know. Scarcely thought a
+hofficer would 'a tried evasion.”
+
+“You consummate scoundrel--and you dress yourself like a countryman!
+I'll have your badge indorsed--I'll have your license marked. Erema, pay
+the thief; it is more than I can do.”
+
+“Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for scurrilous
+language, as the hact directs. Ah, you do right to be driven to a pawn
+shop.”
+
+Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, “Never tie up my
+rattan again. Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it? What a fool I was not to
+stop on my own manor!”
+
+“I pray you to disdain such low impudence,” I said, for I could not bear
+to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him into it.
+“You have beaten fifty of them--a hundred of them--I have heard you
+say.”
+
+“Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could not
+afford to pay the rogues. That makes me feel it so bitterly, so loftily,
+and so righteously. To be treated like this, when I think of all my
+labors for the benefit of the rascally human race! my Institute, my
+Lyceum, my Mutual Improvement Association, and Christian Young Men's
+something. There is no institution, after all, to be compared to the
+tread-mill.”
+
+Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a little
+sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an old black
+door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken his, while
+I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet, like a true
+peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the rattan cane. And
+thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to have that weapon nicely
+sheathed with silk.
+
+Major Hockin's breath was short, through too much talking without
+action, and he waited for a minute at this door, to come back to his
+equanimity. And I thought that our female breath falls short for the
+very opposite reason--when we do too much and talk too little; which
+happily seldom happens.
+
+He was not long in coming back to his usual sprightliness and decision.
+And it was no small relief to me, who was looking at him miserably,
+and longing that his wife was there, through that very sad
+one-and-eightpence, when he pulled out a key, which he always carried
+as signer and lord of Bruntsea, the key of the town-hall, which had
+survived lock, door, and walls by centuries, and therewith struck a door
+which must have reminded that key of its fine old youth.
+
+Before he had knocked so very many times, the door was opened by a young
+man wearing an apron and a brown paper cap, who knew Major Hockin at
+once, and showed us up stairs to a long low workshop. Here were many
+wheels and plates and cylinders revolving by energy of a strap which
+came through the floor and went through the ceiling. And the young man
+told us to be careful how we walked, for fear of getting entangled.
+Several men, wearing paper caps and aprons of leather or baize, were
+sitting doing dextrous work, no doubt, and doing it very easily, and the
+master of them all was hissing over some fine touch of jewel as a groom
+does at a horse. Then seeing us, he dropped his holders, and threw a
+leather upon his large lens, and came and took us to a little side room.
+
+“Are you not afraid to leave them?” asked the Major. “They may secrete
+some gems, Mr. Handkin.”
+
+“Never,” said the lapidary, with some pride. “I could trust these men
+with the Koh-i-noor; which we could have done better, I believe, than
+it was done by the Hollanders. But we don't get the chance to do much in
+diamonds, through the old superstition about Amsterdam, and so on. No,
+no; the only thing I can't trust my men about is to work as hard when
+I am away as when I am there. And now, Sir, what can I do for you? Any
+more Bruntsea pebbles? The last were not worth the cutting.”
+
+“So you said; but I did not think so. We have some agates as good as
+any from Aberystwith or Perthshire. But what I want now is to open this
+case. It must be done quite privately, for a most particular reason. It
+does open, doesn't it? I am sure it does.”
+
+“Certainly it opens,” Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with
+anxiety as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers engrained
+with corundum. “I could open it in one instant, but the enamel might
+fly. Will you risk it?”
+
+The Major looked at me, and I said, “Oh no; please not to risk any
+thing, if any slower process will do it without risk. We want it done
+without injury.”
+
+“Then it will cost a good bit,” he replied. “I can open it for five
+shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must charge
+five pounds.”
+
+“Say three,” cried the Major. “Well, then, say four guineas: I have a
+lot of work in store for you.”
+
+“I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures,” the lapidary
+answered. “There is only one other man in London who knows the secret of
+this enamel, and he is my brother. They never make such enamel now. The
+art is lost, like that of the French paste of a hundred years ago,
+which almost puzzles even me until I go behind it. I will give you
+my brother's address if you like; but instead of five pounds, he will
+charge you ten guineas--if it must be done in private. Without that
+condition, I can do it for two pounds. You wish to know why that should
+make such a difference. Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of
+the job, it must be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief
+work-room; if no one is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp
+eyes, I can tell you), all my hands must be sacked for the afternoon,
+but not without their wages. That alone would go far toward the
+difference, and then there is the dropping of the jobs in hand, and
+waste of power, and so on. I have asked you too little, Major Hockin, I
+assure you; but having said, I will stick to it, although I would much
+rather you would let me off.”
+
+“I have known you for many years,” the Major answered--“ever since you
+were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals. You would
+have done a lot of work for five pounds then. But I never knew you
+overcharge for any thing. We agree to your terms, and are obliged to
+you. But you guarantee no damage?”
+
+“I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may be,
+and reclose it so that the maker, if still alive--which is not very
+probable--should not know that it had been meddled with.”
+
+“Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about it
+which I may try to go on with afterward. And for that it is essential to
+have no symptom that it ever has been opened. What are these brilliants
+worth, Mr. Handkin?”
+
+“Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare say
+they cost three hundred. And the portrait is worth another hundred, if I
+find on the back the marks I expect.”
+
+“You do not mean to say that you know the artist?” I could not help
+exclaiming, though determined not to speak. “Oh, then, we shall find out
+every thing!”
+
+“Erema, you are a--well, you are a silly!” Major Hockin exclaimed, and
+then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my lapse
+pass. But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to be calling
+down to some one far below. “Now mind what you say,” the Major whispered
+to me, just as if he were the essence of discretion.
+
+“The work-room is clear now,” Mr. Handkin said; “the fellows were
+delighted to get their afternoon. Now you see that I have to take off
+this hoop, and there lies the difficulty. I could have taken out the
+gold back, as I said, with very little trouble, by simply cutting it.
+But the locket would never have been quite the same, though we put a
+new back; and, more than that, the pressure of the tool might flaw
+the enamel, or even crack the portrait, for the make of this thing is
+peculiar. Now first I submit the rim or verge, without touching the
+brilliants, mind you, to the action of a little preparation of my own--a
+gentle but penetrative solvent. You are welcome to watch me; you will be
+none the wiser; you are not in the trade, though the young lady looks as
+if she would make a good polisher. Very well: if this were an ordinary
+closure, with two flat surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed
+into the adhesion, expansion would take place, and there we have it. But
+this is what we call a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved surfaces,
+formed in a reflex curve which admits the solvent most reluctantly,
+or, indeed, not at all, without too long application. For that, then,
+another kind of process is needful, and we find it in frictional
+heat applied most gradually and judiciously. For that I must have a
+buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed to a nicety, and that
+wheel I only have in this room. Now you see why I sent the men away.”
+
+Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my power
+to describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful. Major Hockin,
+according to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient, and even
+went out for a walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed against
+cabmen. But I was content to wait and watch, having always heard and
+thought that good work will not do itself, but must have time and
+skill to second it. And Mr. Handkin, moving arms, palms, and fingers
+beautifully, put the same thought into words.
+
+“Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all the
+time knows well that it will take long to undo. Here it comes undone at
+last!”
+
+As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.
+
+“Done it, eh? Well, you are a clever fellow. Now don't look inside it;
+that is no part of your business, nor mine either, unless this young
+lady desires it. Hand it to her first, my friend.”
+
+“Wait half a minute,” said the lapidary; “it is so far opened that the
+hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools. The lady
+may lift it then with care. I have done this job as a piece of fine art;
+I have no wish to see any more of it.”
+
+“Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman. I thought that
+I was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me.”
+
+“Well, Major Hockin,” the lapidary answered, “I beg your pardon, if I
+said harm. But a man doing careful and skilled work--and skilled work
+it is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness, while you
+walked off--he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he would fight his
+own brother to maintain it.”
+
+“Very well, very well. Let us come away. I always enter into every
+body's feelings. I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you had laid
+them open on that blessed wheel. My insight has always been remarkable.
+Every one, without exception, says that of me. Now come away, come
+away--will you never see?”
+
+Intent as I was upon what lay in my left palm relaxing itself, I could
+not help being sorry for the way in which the man of art, after all his
+care, was ground down by his brother Cornishman. However, he had lived
+long enough in the world to feel no surprise at ingratitude.
+
+Now I went to one of the windows, as the light (which had been very
+good) began to pale from its long and labored sufferance of London,
+and then, with soft and steady touch, I lifted off the loosened hoop. A
+smell of mustiness--for smells go through what nothing else can--was
+the first thing to perceive, and then, having moved the disk of gold, I
+found a piece of vellum. This was doubled, and I opened it, and read, in
+small clear writing:
+
+
+“May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only child
+of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.
+
+“CASTLEWOOD.
+
+“(Witness) THOMAS HOYLE.”
+
+
+There was nothing more inside this locket, except two little wisps of
+hair tied with gold thread, and the miniature upon ivory, bearing on the
+back some anagram, probably that of the artist.
+
+Already had I passed through a great many troubles, changes, chances,
+and adventures which always seem strange (when I come to look back), but
+never surprised me at the moment. Indeed, I might almost make bold to
+pronounce that not many persons of my age and sex have been visited,
+wholly against their own will, by such a series of incidents, not to say
+marvelous, but at any rate fairly to be called unusual. And throughout
+them perhaps it will be acknowledged by all who have cared to consider
+them, that up to the present time I did not fail more than themselves
+might have done in patience. And in no description of what came to
+pass have I colored things at all in my own favor--at least so far as
+intention goes--neither laid myself out to get sympathy, though it often
+would have done me a world of good.
+
+But now I am free to confess that my patience broke down very sadly.
+Why, if what was written on that vellum was true, and Major Hockin
+correct as well, it came to no less than this, that my own dear father
+was a base-born son, and I had no right to the name I was so proud of!
+If, moreover, as I now began to dream, that terrible and mysterious
+man did not resemble my father so closely without some good reason,
+it seemed too likely that he might be his elder brother and the proper
+heir.
+
+This was bad enough to think of, but an idea a thousandfold worse
+assailed me in the small hours of the night, as I lay on Mrs. Strouss's
+best bed, which she kept for consuls, or foreign barons, or others whom
+she loved to call “international notorieties.” Having none of these now,
+she assigned me that bed after hearing all I had to say, and not making
+all that she might have done of it, because of the praise that would
+fall to Mrs. Busk.
+
+However, she acknowledged that she knew nothing of the history of “the
+poor old lord.” He might have carried on, for all she could tell, with
+many wives before his true one--a thing she heard too much of; but
+as for the Captain not being his true son and the proper heir to the
+peerage, let any one see him walk twice, and then have a shadow of a
+doubt about it! This logic pleased but convinced me not, and I had to go
+to bed in a very unhappy, restless, and comfortless state of mind.
+
+I hope that, rather than myself, that bed, full of international
+confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while I
+could not even try to sleep. One of them--and a loyal daughter could
+scarcely have a worse one--was that my own dear father, knowing Lord
+Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and
+through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and
+children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the
+truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first
+beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous
+loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a
+homeless world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might
+have received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment of the
+family disgrace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+A RETURN CALL
+
+
+In the morning I labored to dismiss these thoughts, these shameful
+suspicions, almost as injurious to my father's honor as it was to
+suspect him of the crime itself. And calling back my memories of him,
+and dwelling on what Mr. Shovelin said, and Uncle Sam and others, I
+became quite happy in the firm conviction that I ought to be put upon
+bread and water for having such vile visions. Then suddenly a thing came
+to my mind which shattered happy penitence.
+
+Major Hockin had spoken of another purpose which he had in store while
+bringing me thus to London--another object, that is to say, besides the
+opening of the trinket. And this his second intention was to “have it
+out,” as he expressed it, “with that league of curs and serpents, Vypan,
+Goad, and Terryer.” This was the partnership whose card of business had
+been delivered at the sawmills under circumstances which, to say the
+least, required explanation. And the Major, with strong words and tugs
+of his head-crest, had vowed to get that explanation, or else put the
+lot of them into a police dock.
+
+Moreover, when, at the opening of the locket, I did not think fit to
+show the lapidary what I had found inside it, except the painting
+on ivory (which proved to be as he expected), and when my companion
+suppressed curiosity at the risk of constitution, and while I could
+scarcely tell what I was about (through sudden shock and stupidity), I
+must have been hurried on to tell Major Hockin the whole of the private
+things I had discovered. For, in truth, there was scarcely any time
+to think; and I was afraid of giving way, which must have befallen me
+without relief of words; and being so much disturbed I may, in the cab,
+have rushed off for comfort to the Major, sitting so close to me. No
+doubt I did so, from what happened afterward; but in the morning, after
+such a night, I really could not be certain what I had said to Betsy,
+and what to him.
+
+A large mind would have been steady throughout, and regarded the
+question of birth as a thing to which we, who are not consulted about
+it, should bear ourselves indifferently. And gladly would I have done
+so, if I could, but the power was not in me. No doubt it served me right
+for having been proud about such a trifle; but though I could call it a
+trifle as long as it seemed to be in my favor, my strength of mind was
+not enough to look at it so when against me.
+
+Betsy told me not to be like that, for I had a great deal to go through
+yet, and must not be drawing on my spirit so, every atom of which would
+be needful. For the General--as she called the Major--was coming to
+fetch me at eleven o'clock to face some abominable rascals, and without
+any breakfast how could I do it? Then I remembered all about the
+appointment to go to Messrs. Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, and beginning to
+think about them, I saw sad confirmation of my bad ideas. My father's
+wicked elder brother by another mother had left his own rights pending,
+as long as my father lived, for good reason. For if the latter had
+turned against him, through a breach of compact, things might go ill in
+a criminal court; but having him silenced now by death, this man might
+come forward boldly and claim estates and title. His first point would
+be to make sure as sure could be of the death of my father, to get hold
+of his private papers, and of me, who might possess dangerous knowledge.
+And if this were so, one could understand at once Mr. Goad's attempt
+upon Uncle Sam.
+
+“Now none of this! none of this, I say, Erema!” Major Hockin exclaimed,
+as he ran in and saw me scarcely even caring to hold my own with the
+gentle Maximilian--to which name Mr. Strouss was promoted from the too
+vernacular “Hans.” “My dear, I never saw you look ill before. Why, bless
+my heart, you will have crows'-feet! Nurse, what are you doing with her?
+Look at her eyes, and be ashamed of yourself. Give her goulard, tisane,
+tiffany--I never know what the proper word is--something, any thing,
+volatile Sally, hartshorn, ammonia, aromatic vinegar, saline draught, or
+something strong. Why, I want her to look at her very, very best.”
+
+“As if she was a-going to a ball, poor dear!” Betsy Strouss replied,
+with some irony. “A young lady full of high spirits by nature, and have
+never had her first dance yet! The laws and institutions of this
+kingdom is too bad for me, General. I shall turn foreigner, like my poor
+husband.”
+
+“It is vere goot, vere goot always,” said the placid Maximilian;
+“foreigner dis way, foreigner dat way; according to de hills, or de sea,
+or de fighting, or being born, or someting else.”
+
+“Hold your tongue, Hans,” cried his Wilhelmina; “remember that you are
+in England now, and must behave constitutionally. None of your loose
+outlandish ideas will ever get your bread in England. Was I born
+according to fighting, or hills, or sea, or any thing less than the will
+of the Lord, that made the whole of them, and made you too? General,
+I beg you to excuse him, if you can. When he gets upon such things, he
+never can stop. His goodness is very great; but he must have a firm hand
+put upon his 'philosophy.' Maximilian, you may go and smoke your pipe
+for an hour and a quarter, and see where the cheapest greens and oil
+are, for his Excellence is coming in to-night; and mind you get plenty
+of stump in them. His Excellence loves them, and they fill the dish,
+besides coming cheaper. Now, Miss Erema, if you please, come here. Trust
+you in me, miss, and soon I will make you a credit to the General.”
+
+I allowed her to manage my dress and all that according to her own
+ideas; but when she entreated to finish me up with the “leastest
+little touch of red, scarcely up to the usual color, by reason of not
+sleeping,” I stopped her at once, and she was quite content with the
+color produced by the thought of it. Meanwhile Major Hockin, of course,
+was becoming beyond all description impatient. He had made the greatest
+point of my being adorned, and expected it done in two minutes! And he
+hurried me so, when I did come down, that I scarcely noticed either cab
+or horse, and put on my new gloves anyhow.
+
+“My dear, you look very nice,” he said at last, when thoroughly tired
+of grumbling. “That scoundrel of a Goad will be quite amazed at sight of
+the child he went to steal.”
+
+“Mr. Goad!” I replied, with a shudder, caused, perhaps, by dark
+remembrance; “if we go to the office, you surely will not expect me to
+see Mr. Goad himself?”
+
+“That depends, as the Frenchmen say. It is too late now to shrink back
+from any thing. If I can spare you, I will. If not, you must not be
+ashamed to show yourself.”
+
+“I am never ashamed to show myself. But I would rather not go to that
+place at all. If things should prove to be as I begin to think, I had
+better withdraw from the whole of it, and only lament that I ever began.
+My father was right; after all, my father was wise; and I ought to have
+known it. And perhaps Uncle Sam knew the truth, and would not tell me,
+for fear of my rushing to the Yosemite. Cabman, please to turn the horse
+and go in the opposite direction.” But the Major pulled me back, and the
+driver lifted his elbow and said, “All right.”
+
+“Erema,” the Major began, quite sternly, “things are gone a little
+too far for this. We are now embarked upon a most important
+investigation”--even in my misery I could scarce help smiling at his
+love of big official words--“an investigation of vast importance. A
+crime of the blackest dye has been committed, and calmly hushed up, for
+some petty family reason, for a period of almost twenty years. I am not
+blaming your father, my dear; you need not look so indignant. It is
+your own course of action, remember, which has led to the present--the
+present--well, let us say imbroglio. A man of honor and an officer of
+her Majesty's service stands now committed at your request--mind, at
+your own request--”
+
+“Yes, yes, I know; but I only meant you to--to go as far as I should
+wish.”
+
+“Confidential instructions, let us say; but there are times when duty
+to society overrides fine feeling. I have felt that already. The die
+is cast. No half-and-half measures, no beating about the bush, for me.
+After what I saw yesterday, and the light that burst upon me, I did not
+act hastily--I never do, though slow coaches may have said so. I put
+this and that together carefully, and had my dinner, and made up my
+mind. And you see the result in that man on the box.”
+
+“The cabman? Oh yes, you resolved to have a cab, and drive to those
+wicked informers.”
+
+“Where are your eyes? You are generally so quick. This morning you are
+quite unlike yourself--so weak, so tearful, and timorous. Have you not
+seen that by side of the cabman there sits another man altogether? One
+of the most remarkable men of the age, as your dear Yankees say.”
+
+“Not a policeman in disguise, I hope. I saw a very common, insignificant
+man. I thought he was the driver's groom, perhaps.”
+
+“Hush! he hears every thing, even on this granite. He is not a
+policeman; if he were, a few things that disgrace the force never would
+happen. If the policemen of England did their duty as our soldiers do,
+at once I would have gone to them; my duty would have been to do so. As
+it is, I go to our private police, who would not exist if the force were
+worth a rap. Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, in spite of Goad's clumsiness,
+rank second. I go to the first of all these firms, and I get their very
+cleverest rascal.”
+
+Major Hockin, speaking in this hoarse whisper--for he could not whisper
+gently--folded his arms, and then nodded his head, as much as to say,
+“I have settled it now. You have nothing to do but praise me.” But I was
+vexed and perplexed too much to trust my voice with an answer.
+
+“The beauty of this arrangement is,” he continued, with vast
+complacency, “that the two firms hate one another as the devil
+hates--no, that won't do; there is no holy water to be found among
+them--well, as a snake hates a slow-worm, let us say. 'Set a thief to
+catch a thief' is a fine old maxim; still better when the two thieves
+have robbed one another.”
+
+As he spoke, the noble stranger slipped off the driving seat without
+troubling the cabman to stop his jerking crawl, and he did it so well
+that I had no chance of observing his nimble face or form. “You are
+disappointed,” said the Major, which was the last thing I would have
+confessed. “You may see that man ten thousand times, and never be able
+to swear to him. Ha! ha! he is a oner!”
+
+“I disdain such mean tricks beyond all expression,” I exclaimed, as was
+only natural, “and every thing connected with them. It is so low to talk
+of such things. But what in the world made him do it? Where does he come
+from, and what is his name?”
+
+“Like all noble persons, he has got so many names that he does not know
+which is the right one; only his are short and theirs are long. He
+likes 'Jack' better than any thing else, because it is not distinctive.
+'Cosmopolitan Jack,' some call him, from his combining the manners and
+customs, features and figures, of nearly all mankind. He gets on with
+every one, for every one is gratified by seeing himself reflected in
+him. And he can jump from one frame to another as freely as Proteus
+or the populace. And yet, with all that, he is perfectly honest to any
+allegiance he undertakes. He would not betray us to Vypan, Goad, and
+Terryer for your great nugget and the Castlewood estates.”
+
+“I have heard that there are such people,” I said; “but what can he
+possibly know about me? And what is he coming to do for us now?”
+
+“He knows all about you, for a very simple reason. That you do not know
+him, is a proof of his ability. For you must have met him times out of
+number. This is the fellow employed by your good but incapable cousin,
+Lord Castlewood.”
+
+“He is not incapable; he is a man of great learning, and noble
+character--”
+
+“Well, never mind that; you must not be so hot. What I mean is that he
+has done nothing for you beyond providing for your safety. And that
+he certainly did right well, and at considerable expense, for this man
+can't be had for nothing. You need have been under no terror at all in
+any of the scenes you have been through. Your safety was watched for
+continually.”
+
+“Then why did he not come and help me? Why did he not find out that
+horrible man?”
+
+“Because it was not in his orders, and Jack is the last man to go beyond
+those. He is so clever that the stupid Moonites took him for a stupid
+Moonite. You should have employed him yourself, Erema; but you are so
+proud and independent.”
+
+“I should hope so, indeed. Should I put up with deceit? If the truth
+is not to be had without falsehood, it is not worth having. But what is
+this man to do here now?”
+
+“That depends upon circumstances. He has better orders than I could
+give, for I am no hand at scheming. Here we are; or here we stop.
+Say nothing till I tell you. Pray allow me the honor. You keep in the
+background, remember, with your veil, or whatever you call it, down.
+Nobody stops at the very door. Of course that is humbug--we conform to
+it.”
+
+With a stiff inclination, the gallant Major handed me out of the cab in
+a quiet corner of a narrow street, then paid the driver with less
+fuss than usual, and led me into a queer little place marked in almost
+illegible letters, “Little England Polygon.” “You have the card, my
+dear?” he whispered; “keep it till I call you in. But be ready to
+produce it in a moment. For the rest, I leave you to your own wit. Jack
+is on the watch, mind.”
+
+There were two doors near together, one a brave door with a plate,
+and swung on playing hinges, the other of too secluded a turn to even
+pronounce itself “private.” We passed through the public door, and found
+only a lobby, with a boy on guard. “Mr. Goad? Yes, Sir. This way, Sir,”
+ cried the boy. “Lady stay? Yes, Sir; waiting-room for ladies. Chair,
+miss; here, if you please--first right. Mr. Goad, second on the left.
+Knock twice. Paper, miss? Poker chained at this time of year. Bell A,
+glass of water. Bell B, cup of tea, if ladies grows impatient.”
+
+If I had been well, I might have reduced this boy to his proper
+magnitude, for I never could endure young flippancy; but my spirits
+were so low that the boy banged the door with a fine sense of having
+vanquished me. And before there was any temptation to ring Bell A, not
+to mention Bell B, the sound of a wrathful voice began coming.
+Nearer and nearer it came, till the Major strode into the “ladies'
+waiting-room,” and used language no ladies should wait for.
+
+“Oh, don't!” I said; “what would Mrs. Hockin say? And consider me too,
+Major Hockin, if you please.”
+
+“I have considered you, and that makes me do it. Every body knows what
+I am. Did I ever exaggerate in all my life? Did I ever say any thing
+without just grounds? Did I ever take any distorted views? Did I ever
+draw upon my imagination? Erema, answer me this instant!”
+
+“I do not remember a single instance of your drawing upon your
+imagination,” I answered, gravely, and did not add, “because there is
+none to draw upon.”
+
+“Very well. I was sure of your concurrence. Then just come with me. Take
+my arm, if you please, and have the thief's card ready. Now keep your
+temper and your self-command.”
+
+With this good advice, the Major, whose arm and whole body were jerking
+with wrath, led me rapidly down the long passage and through a door, and
+my eyes met the eyes of the very man who had tried to bribe Uncle Sam of
+me. He never saw me then, and he did not know me now; but his insolent
+eyes fell under mine. I looked at him quietly, and said nothing.
+
+“Now, Mr. Goad, you still assert that you never were in
+California--never even crossed the Atlantic. This young lady under
+my protection--don't you be afraid, my dear--is the Honorable Erema
+Castlewood, whom you, in the pay of a murderer, went to fetch,
+and perhaps to murder. Now, do you acknowledge it? You wrote her
+description, and ought to know her. You double-dyed villain, out with
+it!”
+
+“Major Hockin,” said Mr. Goad, trying to look altogether at his ease,
+but failing, and with his bull-dog forehead purple, “if indeed you are
+an officer--which I doubt for the credit of her Majesty's service--if
+the lady were not present, I should knock you down.” And the big man got
+up as if to do it.
+
+“Never mind her,” my companion answered, in a magnanimous manner; “she
+has seen worse than that, poor thing. Here I am--just come and do it.”
+
+The Major was scarcely more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere
+bodily bulk, and yet he defied him in this way. He carefully took his
+blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his wife's
+most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and
+doubled his fists, and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of
+his gables, clearly meaning, “Please to stop and see it out.” It was a
+distressing thing to see, and the Major's courage was so grand that I
+could not help smiling. Mr. Goad, however, did not advance, but assumed
+a superior manner.
+
+“Major,” he said, “we are not young men; we must not be so hasty. You
+carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt to do.
+Sir, I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and apologize. We
+move in different spheres of life, Sir, or I would offer you my hand.”
+
+“No, thank you!” the Major exclaimed, and then looked sorry for his
+arrogance. “When a man has threatened me, and that man sees the mistake
+of doing so, I am pacified, Sir, in a moment; but it takes me some time
+to get over it. I have served his Gracious Majesty, and now hers,
+in every quarter of the civilized globe, with distinction, Sir--with
+distinction, and thanks, and no profit to taint the transaction, Sir.
+In many battles I have been menaced with personal violence, and have
+received it, as in such positions is equitable. I am capable, Sir, of
+receiving it still, and repaying it, not without interest.”
+
+“Hang it, Major, if a man is sorry, a soldier forgives him frankly.
+You abused me, and I rashly threatened you. I beg your pardon, as a man
+should do, and that should be an end to it.”
+
+“Very well, very well; say no more about it. But am I to understand that
+you still deny in that barefaced manner, with my witness here, the fact
+of your having been at Colonel Gundry's--my cousin, Sir, and a man not
+to be denied, without an insult to myself--a man who possesses ingots
+of gold, ingots of gold, enough to break the Bank of England, and a
+man whose integrity doubles them all. Have you not heard of the monster
+nugget, transcending the whole of creation, discovered by this young
+lady looking at you, in the bed of the saw-mill river, and valued at
+more than half a million?”
+
+“You don't mean to say so? When was it? Sylvester never said a word
+about it--the papers, I mean, never mentioned it.”
+
+“Try no more--well, I won't say lies, though they are confounded
+lies--what I mean is, no further evasion, Mr. Goad. Sylvester's name
+is enough, Sir. Here is the card of your firm, with your own note of
+delivery on the back, handed by you to my cousin, the Colonel. And here
+stands the lady who saw you do it.”
+
+“Major, I will do my very best to remember. I am here, there, every
+where--China one day, Peru the next, Siberia the day after. And this
+young lady found the nugget, did she? How wonderfully lucky she must
+be!”
+
+“I am lucky; I find out every thing; and I shall find out you, Mr.
+Goad.” Thus I spoke on the spur of the moment, and I could not have
+spoken better after a month of consultation. Rogues are generally
+superstitious. Mr. Goad glanced at me with a shudder, as I had gazed
+at him some three years back; and then he dropped his bad, oily-looking
+eyes.
+
+“I make mistakes sometimes,” he said, “as to where I have been and where
+I have not. If this young lady saw me there, it stands to reason that I
+may have been there. I have a brother extremely similar. He goes about a
+good deal also. Probably you saw my brother.”
+
+“I saw no brother of yours, but yourself. Yourself--your mean and
+cowardly self--and I shall bring you to justice.”
+
+“Well, well,” he replied, with a poor attempt to turn the matter
+lightly; “I never contradict ladies; it is an honor to be so observed by
+them. Now, Major, can you give me any good reason for drawing upon a bad
+memory? My time is valuable. I can not refer to such by-gone matters for
+nothing.”
+
+“We will not bribe you, if that is what you mean,” Major Hockin made
+answer, scornfully. “This is a criminal case, and we have evidence you
+little dream of. Our only offer is--your own safety, if you make a clean
+breast of it. We are on the track of a murderer, and your connection
+with him will ruin you. Unless you wish to stand in the dock at his
+side, you will tell us every thing.”
+
+“Sir, this is violent language.”
+
+“And violent acts will follow it: if you do not give up your principal,
+and every word you know about him, you will leave this room in custody.
+I have Cosmopolitan Jack outside, and the police at a sign from him will
+come.”
+
+“Is this job already in the hands of the police, then?”
+
+“No, not yet. I resolved to try you first. If you refuse, it will be
+taken up at once; and away goes your last chance, Sir.”
+
+Mr. Goad's large face became like a field of conflicting passions and
+low calculations. Terror, fury, cupidity, and doggedness never had a
+larger battle-field.
+
+“Allow me at least to consult my partners,” he said, in a low voice and
+almost with a whine; “we may do things irregular sometimes, but we never
+betray a client.”
+
+“Either betray your client or yourself,” the Major answered, with a
+downright stamp. “You shall consult no one. You have by this watch
+forty-five seconds to consider it.”
+
+“You need not trouble yourself to time me,” the other answered, sulkily;
+“my duty to the firm overrides private feeling. Miss Castlewood, I call
+you to witness, since Major Hockin is so peppery--”
+
+“Peppery, Sir, is the very last word that ever could be applied to
+me. My wife, my friends, every one that knows me, even my furthest-off
+correspondents, agree that I am pure patience.”
+
+“It may be so, Major; but you have not shown it. Miss Castlewood, I have
+done you no harm. If you had been given up to me, you would have been
+safer than where you were. My honor would have been enlisted. I now
+learn things which I never dreamed of--or, at least--at least only
+lately. I always believed the criminality to be on the other side.
+We never ally ourselves with wrong. But lately things have come to my
+knowledge which made me doubtful as to facts. I may have been duped--I
+believe I have been: I am justified, therefore, in turning the tables.”
+
+“If you turn tables,” broke in the Major, who was grumbling to himself
+at the very idea of having any pepper in his nature--“Goad, if you turn
+tables, mind you, you must do it better than the mesmerists. Out of this
+room you do not stir; no darkness--no bamboozling! Show your papers,
+Sir, without sleight of hand. Surrender, or you get no quarter.”
+
+To me it was quite terrifying to see my comrade thus push his victory.
+Mr. Goad could have killed him at any moment, and but for me perhaps
+would have done so. But even in his fury he kept on casting glances of
+superstitious awe at me, while I stood quite still and gazed at him.
+Then he crossed the room to a great case of drawers, unlocked something
+above the Major's head, made a sullen bow, and handed him a packet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+WANTED, A SAWYER
+
+
+To judge Mr. Goad by his own scale of morality and honor, he certainly
+had behaved very well through a trying and unexpected scene. He fought
+for his honor a great deal harder than ever it could have deserved of
+him; and then he strove well to appease it with cash, the mere thought
+of which must have flattered it. However, it was none the worse for
+a little disaster of this kind. At the call of duty it coalesced with
+interest and fine sense of law, and the contact of these must have
+strengthened it to face any future production.
+
+For the moment he laid it aside in a drawer--and the smallest he
+possessed would hold it--and being compelled to explain his instructions
+(partly in short-hand and partly in cipher), he kindly, and for the main
+of it truly, interpreted them as follows:
+
+“July 31, 1858.--Received directions from M. H. to attend without
+fail, at whatever expense, to any matter laid before us by a tall, dark
+gentleman bearing his card. M. H. considerably in our debt; but his
+father can not last long. Understand what he means, having dealt with
+this matter before, and managed well with it.
+
+“August 2.--Said gentleman called, gave no name, and was very close.
+Had experienced some great wrong. Said that he was true heir to the C.
+estates now held by Lord C. Only required a little further evidence to
+claim them; and some of this was to be got through us. Important
+papers must be among the effects of the old lord's son, lately dead in
+California, the same for whom a reward had been offered, and we had been
+employed about it. Must get possession of those papers, and of the girl,
+if possible. Yankees to be bribed, at whatever figure, and always stand
+out for a high one. Asked where funds were to come from; gave good
+reference, and verified it. To be debited to the account of M. H.
+Said we would have nothing to do with it without more knowledge of our
+principal. Replied, with anger, that he himself was Lord C., ousted by
+usurpers. Had not the necessary proofs as yet, but would get them, and
+blast all his enemies. Had doubts about his sanity, and still greater
+about his solvency. Resolved to inquire into both points.
+
+“August 3.--M. H. himself, as cool as ever, but shammed to be indignant.
+Said we were fools if we did not take it up. Not a farthing would he pay
+of his old account, and fellows like us could not bring actions. Also a
+hatful of money was to be made of this job, managed snugly. Emigrants to
+California were the easiest of all things to square up. A whole train
+of them disappeared this very year, by Indians or Mormons, and no bones
+made. The best and most active of us must go--too ticklish for an agent.
+We must carry on all above-board out there, and as if sent by British
+government. In the far West no one any wiser. Resolved to go myself,
+upon having a certain sum in ready.
+
+“August 5.--The money raised. Start for Liverpool to-morrow. Require a
+change, or would not go. May hit upon a nugget, etc., etc.”
+
+Mr. Goad's memoranda of his adventures, and signal defeat by Uncle Sam,
+have no claim to be copied here, though differing much from my account.
+With their terse unfeeling strain, they might make people laugh who had
+not sadder things to think of. And it matters very little how that spy
+escaped, as such people almost always seem to do.
+
+“Two questions, Goad, if you please,” said Major Hockin, who had smiled
+sometimes, through some of his own remembrances; “what has happened
+since your return, and what is the name of the gentleman whom you have
+called 'M.H.?'”
+
+“Is it possible that you do not know, Sir? Why, he told us quite lately
+that you were at his back! You must know Sir Montague Hockin.”
+
+“Yes, yes; certainly I do,” the old man said, shortly, with a quick
+gleam in his eyes; “a highly respected gentleman now, though he may have
+sown his wild oats like the rest. To be sure; of course I know all about
+it. His meaning was good, but he was misled.”
+
+In all my little experience of life nothing yet astonished me more than
+this. I scarcely knew whom to believe, or what. That the Major, most
+upright of men, should take up his cousin's roguery--all new to him--and
+speak of him thus! But he gave me a nudge; and being all confusion, I
+said nothing, and tried to look at neither of them, because my eyes must
+always tell the truth.
+
+“As to the other point,” Mr. Goad went on; “since my embassy failed, we
+have not been trusted with the confidence we had the right to expect.
+Ours is a peculiar business, Sir: 'Trust me in all, or trust me not at
+all,' as one of our modern poets says, is the very essence of it. And
+possibly, Major, if that had been done, even your vigor and our sense
+of law might not have extorted from me what you have heard. Being
+cashiered, as we are, we act according to the strictest honor in
+divulging things no longer confided to us.”
+
+“Goad, you have done yourself the utmost credit, legally,
+intellectually, and--well, I will not quite say morally. If I ever have
+a nasty job to do--at least I mean a stealthy one--which God, who
+has ever kept me straight, forbid!--I will take care not to lose your
+address. I have a very queer thing occurring on my manor--I believe
+it is bound up with this affair--never mind; I must think--I hate all
+underhanded work.”
+
+“Major, our charges are strictly moderate. We do in a week what takes
+lawyers a twelvemonth. Allow me to hand you one of our new cards.”
+
+“No, no. My pockets are all full. And I don't want to have it found
+among my papers. No offense, Mr. Goad, no offense at all. Society is
+not as it was when I was young. I condemn no modern institutions, Sir,
+though the world gets worse every day of its life.”
+
+In terror of committing himself to any connection with such a firm, the
+Major put on his dark lights again, took up his cane, and let every body
+know, with a summary rap on the floor, that he might have relaxed, but
+would not allow any further liberty about it. And as he marched away,
+not proudly, yet with a very nice firmness, I was almost afraid to say
+any thing to him to disturb his high mental attitude. For Mrs. Hockin
+must have exclaimed that here was a noble spectacle.
+
+“But one thing,” I forced myself to suggest; “do ask one thing before
+we go. That strange man who called himself 'Lord Castlewood' here, and
+'Captain Brown' at Soberton--have they any idea where to find him now?
+And why does he not come forward?”
+
+My comrade turned back, and put these questions; and the private
+inquirer answered that they had no idea of his whereabouts, but could
+easily imagine many good reasons for his present reserve of claim. For
+instance, he might be waiting for discovery of further evidence;
+or (which was even more likely) for the death of the present Lord
+Castlewood, which could not be very far distant, and would remove the
+chief opponent. It grieved me deeply to find that my cousin's condition
+was so notorious, and treated of in such a cold-blooded way, like a mule
+fallen lame, or a Chinaman in Frisco.
+
+“My dear, you must grow used to such things,” Major Hockin declared,
+when he saw that I was vexed, after leaving those selfish premises. “If
+it were not for death, how could any body live? Right feeling is shown
+by considering such points, and making for the demise of others even
+more preparation than for our own. Otherwise there is a selfishness
+about it by no means Christian-minded. You look at things always from
+such an intense and even irreligious point of view. But such things are
+out of my line altogether. Your Aunt Mary understands them best.”
+
+“Would you be able,” I said, “to account to Aunt Mary conscientiously
+for that dreadful story which I heard you tell? I scarcely knew where I
+stood, Major Hockin.”
+
+“You mean about Montague? Family honor must be defended at any price.
+Child, I was greatly pained to go beyond the truth; but in such a case
+it is imperative. I was shocked and amazed at my cousin's conduct; but
+how could I let such a fellow know that? And think what I owe to his
+father, Sir Rufus? No, no; there are times when Bayard himself must
+stretch a point. Honor and religion alike demand it; and Mrs. Hockin
+need never hear of it.”
+
+“Certainly I shall not speak of it,” I answered, though a little
+surprised at his arguments; “but you mean, of course, to find out all
+about it. It seems to me such a suspicious thing. But I never could bear
+Sir Montague.”
+
+The Major smiled grimly, and, perceiving that he wished to drop the
+subject, I said no more. He had many engagements in London always, and I
+must not attempt to engross his time. However, he would not for a moment
+hear of leaving me any where but with Betsy, for perhaps he saw how
+strange I was. And, being alone at last with her, I could keep up my
+pride no longer.
+
+Through all that had happened, there never had been such a dreadful
+trial as I had borne this day without a word to any one. Danger and loss
+and sad dreariness of mind, from want of young companionship; mystery
+also, and obscurity of life, had always been my fortune. With all of
+these I had striven, to the best of my very small ability, having from
+nature no gift except the dull one of persistence. And throughout that
+struggle I had felt quite sure that a noble yearning for justice and a
+lofty power of devotion were my two impelling principles. But now,
+when I saw myself sprung of low birth, and the father of my worship
+base-born, down fell all my arduous castles, and I craved to go under
+the earth and die.
+
+For every word of Mr. Goad, and every crooked turn of little things in
+twist against me--even the Major's last grim smile--all began to work
+together, and make up a wretched tumult, sounding in my ears like drums.
+Where was the use of going on, of proving any body's guilt or any body's
+innocence, if the utmost issue of the whole would be to show my father
+an impostor? Then, and only then, I knew that love of abstract justice
+is to little minds impossible, that sense of honor is too prone to hang
+on chance of birth, and virtue's fountain, self-respect, springs but ill
+from parental taint.
+
+When I could no longer keep such bitter imaginings to myself, but poured
+them forth to Betsy, she merely laughed, and asked me how I could be
+such a simpleton. Only to think of my father in such a light was beyond
+her patience! Where was my pride, she would like to know, and my birth,
+and my family manners? However, she did believe there was something in
+my ideas, if you turned them inside out, and took hold of them by the
+other end. It was much more likely, to her mind, that the villain, the
+unknown villain at the bottom of all the misery, was really the son
+born out of wedlock, if any such there were at all, and therefore a wild
+harum-scarum fellow like Ishmael in the Book of Genesis. And it would
+be just of a piece, she thought, with the old lord's character to drive
+such a man to desperation by refusing to give him a farthing.
+
+“All that might very well be,” I answered; “but it would in no way serve
+to explain my father's conduct, which was the great mystery of all.”
+ Nevertheless, I was glad to accept almost any view of the case rather
+than that which had forced itself upon me since the opening of the
+locket. Any doubt of that most wretched conclusion was a great relief
+while it lasted; and, after so long a time of hope and self-reliance,
+should I cast away all courage through a mere suspicion?
+
+While I was thus re-assuring myself, and being re-assured by my faithful
+nurse, sad news arrived, and drove my thoughts into another crooked
+channel. Mrs. Hockin, to meet my anxiety for some tidings from
+California, had promised that if any letter came, she would not even
+wait for the post, but forward it by special messenger. And thus, that
+very same evening, I received a grimy epistle, in an unknown hand, with
+the postmark of Sacramento. Tearing it open, I read as follows:
+
+
+“MISS 'REMA,--No good luck ever came, since you, to this Blue River
+Station, only to be washed away, and robbed by greasers, and shot
+through the ribs, and got more work than can do, and find an almighty
+nugget sent by Satan. And now the very worst luck of all have come,
+wholly and out of all denial, by you and your faces and graces and
+French goings on. Not that I do not like you, mind; for you always was
+very polite to me, and done your best when you found me trying to put up
+with the trials put on me. But now this trial is the worst of all that
+ever come to my establishings; and to go away now as I used to think
+of doing when tyrannized upon is out of my way altogether, and only an
+action fit for a half-breed. Sawyer Gundry hath cut and run, without a
+word behind him--no instructions for orders in hand, and pouring in--no
+directions where to find him, not even 'God bless you' to any one of the
+many hands that looked up to him. Only a packet of dollars for me to pay
+the wages for two months to come, and a power of lawyer to receive all
+debts, and go on anyhow just the same. And to go on just the same is
+more than the worst of us has the heart for, without the sight of his
+old red face. He may have been pretty sharp, and too much the master now
+and then, perhaps; but to do without him is a darned sight worse, and
+the hands don't take to me like him. Many's the time I have seen his
+faults, of having his own way, and such likes, and paying a man beyond
+his time if his wife was out of order. And many's the time I have said
+myself I was fitter to be at the head of it.
+
+“About that I was right enough, perhaps, if I had started upon my own
+hook; but to stand in the tracks he has worn to his own foot is to
+go into crooked compasses. There is never a day without some hand
+threatening to strike and to better himself, as if they were hogs to
+come and go according to the acorns; and such low words I can never put
+up with, and packs them off immediate. No place can be carried on if
+the master is to shut up his lips to impudence. And now I have only
+got three hands left, with work enough for thirty, and them three only
+stopped on, I do believe, to grumble of me if the Sawyer do come home!
+
+“But what we all want to know--and old Suan took a black stick to make
+marks for you--is why the old man hath run away, and where. Young Firm,
+who was getting a sight too uppish for me to have long put up with him,
+he was going about here, there, and every where, from the very first
+time of your going away, opening his mouth a deal too much, and asking
+low questions how long I stopped to dinner. Old Suan said he was
+troubled in his mind, as the pale-faces do about young girls, instead
+of dragging them to their wigwams; and she would give him a spell to get
+over it. But nothing came of that; and when the war broke out, he had
+words with his grandfather, and went off, so they said, to join the
+rebels.
+
+“Sawyer let him go, as proud as could be, though he would sooner have
+cut his own head off; and the very same night he sat down by his fire
+and shammed to eat supper as usual. But I happened to go in to get some
+orders, and, my heart, I would never wish to see such things again!
+
+“The old man would never waste a bit of victuals, as you know, Miss
+'Rema; and, being acquaint with Suan's way of watching, he had
+slipped all his supper aside from his plate, and put it on a clean
+pocket-handkerchief to lock it in the press till his appetite should
+serve; and I caught him in the act, and it vexed him. 'Ha'n't you the
+manners to knock at the door?' he said; and I said, 'Certainly,' and
+went back and done it; and, troubled as he was, he grinned a bit. Then
+he bowed his great head, as he always did when he knew he had gone
+perhaps a trifle too far with a man in my position. I nodded to forgive
+him, and he stood across, and saw that he could do no less than liquor
+me, after such behavior. But he only brought out one glass; and I said,
+'Come, Colonel, square is square, you know.' 'Excuse of me, Martin,' he
+said; 'but no drop of strong drink passes the brim of my mouth till this
+gallivanting is done with. I might take too much, as the old men do,
+to sink what they don't want to think on.' 'You mean about bully-cock
+Firm,' says I; 'rebel Firm--nigger-driver Firm.' 'Hush!' he said; 'no
+bad words about it. He has gone by his conscience and his heart. What do
+we know of what come inside of him?'
+
+“This was true enough, for I never did make that boy out to my liking:
+and the old man now was as stiff as a rock, and pretty nigh as peculiar.
+He made me a cocktail of his own patent, to show how firm his hand was;
+but the lines of his face was like wainscot mouldings, and the cords of
+his arm stood out like cogs. Then he took his long pipe, as he may have
+done perhaps every blessed night for the last fifty years; but that
+length of time ought to have learned him better than to go for to fill
+it upside down. 'Ha, ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I
+was a man under heaven--countries and nations and kindreds and duties;
+and why not a old tobacco-pipe? That's the way babies blow bubbles with
+them. We shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is
+busted up. Fill yours, and try it, Martin.'
+
+“Instead of enjoying my cocktail, Miss 'Rema, I never was so down at
+mouth; for, to my mind, his old heart was broken while he carried on so.
+And let every body say what they will, one thing there is no denying of.
+Never was seen on this side of the big hills a man fit to walk in the
+tracks of Uncle Sam, so large and good-hearted according to his lights,
+hard as a grizzly bear for a man to milk him, but soft in the breastbone
+as a young prairie-hen for all folk down upon their nine-pins.
+
+“You may be surprised, miss, to find me write so long. Fact is, the
+things won't go out of my mind without it. And it gives me a comfort,
+after all I may have said, to put good opinions upon paper. If he never
+should turn up again, my language will be to his credit; whereas if
+he do come back, with the betting a horse to a duck against it, to
+his pride he will read this testimonial of yours, faithfully, MARTIN
+CLOGFAST.
+
+“P.S.--Can't carry on like this much longer. Enough to rip one's heart
+up. You never would know the old place, miss. The heads of the horses is
+as long as their tails with the way they carry them; the moss is as big
+as a Spaniard's beard upon the kitchen door-sill; and the old dog howls
+all day and night, like fifty thousand scalpers. Suan saith, if you was
+to come back, the lad might run home after you. 'Tisn't the lad I cares
+about so much, but poor old Sawyer, at his time of life, swallowed up in
+the wilderness.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+THE PANACEA
+
+
+As if my own trouble were not enough, so deeply was I grieved by this
+sad news that I had a great mind to turn back on my own and fly to
+far-off disasters. To do so appeared for the moment a noble thing, and
+almost a duty; but now, looking back, I perceive that my instinct was
+right when it told me to stay where I was, and see out my own sad story
+first. And Betsy grew hot at the mere idea of my hankering after a
+miller's affairs, as she very rudely expressed it. To hear about lords
+and ladies, and their crimes and adventures, was lovely; but to dwell
+upon people of common birth, and in trade, was most unbeseeming. A man
+who mended his own mill, and had hands like horn--well, even she was of
+better blood than that, she hoped.
+
+Before these large and liberal views had fairly been expounded, Major
+Hockin arrived, with his mind in such a state that he opened his watch
+every second.
+
+“Erema, I must speak to you alone,” he cried; “no, not even you, Mrs.
+Strouss, if you please. If my ward likes to tell you, why, of course she
+can; but nobody shall say that I did. There are things that belong to
+the family alone. The most loyal retainers--you know what I mean.”
+
+“General, I was not aware that you belonged to the family. But this way,
+Sir; this way, if you please. There is lath and plaster to that wall,
+and a crack in the panel of the door, Sir. But here is a room where I
+keep my jams, with double brick and patent locks, from sweet-toothed
+lodgers. The 'scutcheon goes over the key-hole, General. Perhaps you
+will see to that, while I roll up the carpet outside; and then, if any
+retainers come, you will hear their footsteps.”
+
+“Bless the woman, what a temper she has!” whispered the Major, in dread
+of her ears. “Is she gone, Erema? She wants discipline.”
+
+“Yes, she is gone,” I said, trying to be lightsome; “but you are enough
+to frighten any one.”
+
+“So far from that, she has quite frightened me. But never mind such
+trifles. Erema, since I saw you I have discovered, I may almost say,
+every thing.”
+
+Coming upon me so suddenly, even with all allowance made for the Major's
+sanguine opinion of his own deeds, this had such effect upon my flurried
+brain that practice alone enabled me to stand upright and gaze at him.
+
+“Perhaps you imagined when you placed the matter in my hands, Miss
+Castlewood,” he went on, with sharp twinkles from the gables of his
+eyes, but soft caresses to his whiskers, “that you would be left in the
+hands of a man who encouraged a crop of hay under his feet. Never did
+you or any body make a greater mistake. That is not my character, Miss
+Castlewood.”
+
+“Why do you call me 'Miss Castlewood' so? You quite make me doubt my own
+right to the name.”
+
+Major Hockin looked at me with surprise, which gladdened even more than
+it shamed me. Clearly his knowledge of all, as he described it, did not
+comprise the disgrace which I feared.
+
+“You are almost like Mrs. Strouss to-day,” he answered, with some
+compassion. “What way is the wind? I have often observed that when one
+female shows asperity, nearly all the others do the same. The weather
+affects them more than men, because they know nothing about it. But to
+come back--are you prepared to hear what I have got to tell you?”
+
+I bowed without saying another word. For he should be almost the last of
+mankind to give a lecture upon irritation.
+
+“Very well; you wish me to go on. Perceiving how sadly you were upset by
+the result of those interviews, first with Handkin, and then with Goad,
+after leaving you here I drove at once to the office, studio, place of
+business, or whatever you please to call it, of the famous fellow in
+the portrait line, whose anagram, private mark, or whatever it is, was
+burned into the back of the ivory. Handkin told me the fellow was dead,
+or, of course, his work would be worth nothing; but the name was carried
+on, and the register kept, at a little place somewhere in Soho, where,
+on the strength of his old repute, they keep up a small trade with
+inferior hands. I gave them a handsome order for a thing that will never
+be handsome, I fear--my old battered physiognomy. And then I produced
+the locket which in some queer state of mind you had given me, and made
+them hunt out their old books, and at last discovered the very entry.
+But to verify it I must go to Paris, where his son is living.”
+
+“Whose son? Lord Castlewood's?”
+
+“Erema, have you taken leave of your senses? What son has Lord
+Castlewood? The artist's son, to be sure; the son of the man who did the
+likeness. Is it the vellum and the stuff upon it that has so upset your
+mind? I am glad that you showed it to me, because it would have been
+mean to do otherwise. But show it to no one else, my dear, except your
+cousin, Lord Castlewood. He has the first right of all to know it,
+though he will laugh at it as I do. Trumpery of that sort! Let them
+produce a certified copy of a register. If they could do that, need they
+ever have shot that raffish old lord--I beg pardon, my dear--your highly
+respected grandfather? No, no; don't tell me. Nicholas Hockin was never
+in any way famous for want of brains, my dear, and he tells you to keep
+your pluck up.”
+
+“I never can thank you enough,” I replied, “for such inspiriting
+counsel. I have been rather miserable all this day. And I have had such
+a letter from America!”
+
+Without my intending any offer of the kind, or having such idea at the
+furthest tip of any radius of mind, I found myself under a weight about
+the waist, like the things the young girls put on now. And this was the
+arm of the Major, which had been knocked about in some actions, but was
+useful still to let other people know, both in this way and that, what
+he thought of them. And now it let me know that he pitied me.
+
+This kindness from so old a soldier made me partial to him. He had taken
+an age to understand me, because my father was out of the army almost
+before I was born, and therefore I had no traditions. Also, from want
+of drilling, I had been awkward to this officer, and sometimes mutinous,
+and sometimes a coward. All that, however, he forgave me when he saw
+me so downhearted; and while I was striving to repress all signs, the
+quivering of my lips perhaps suggested thoughts of kissing. Whereupon
+he kissed my forehead with nice dry lips, and told me not to be at all
+afraid.
+
+“How many times have you been brave?” he inquired, to set me counting,
+knowing from all his own children, perhaps, that nothing stops futile
+tears and the waste of sobs like prompt arithmetic. “Six, if not seven,
+times you have displayed considerable valor. Are you going to fall
+away through some wretched imagination of your own? Now don't stop to
+argue--time will not allow it. I have put Cosmopolitan Jack as well upon
+the track of Captain Brown. I have not told you half of what I could
+tell, and what I am doing; but never mind, never mind; it is better that
+you should not know too much, my dear. Young minds, from their want of
+knowledge of the world, are inclined to become uneasy. Now go to bed and
+sleep soundly, Erema, for we have lots to do to-morrow, and you have had
+a most worrying day to-day. To-morrow, of course, you must come with me
+to Paris. You can parleyvoo better than I can.”
+
+However, as it happened, I did nothing of the kind, for when he came
+back in the morning, and while he was fidgeting and hurrying me, and
+vowing that we should lose the tidal train, a letter from Bruntsea was
+put into my hand. I saw Mrs. Price's clear writing, followed by good
+Aunt Mary's crooked lines, and knew that the latter must have received
+it too late to be sent by her messenger. In few words it told me that
+if I wished to see my cousin alive, the only chance was to start
+immediately.
+
+Shock and self-reproach and wonder came (as usual) before grief, which
+always means to stay, and waits to get its mourning ready. I loved and
+respected my cousin more deeply than any one living, save Uncle Sam; and
+now to lose them both at once seemed much too dreadful to be true.
+There was no time to think. I took the Major's cab, and hurried off to
+Paddington, leaving him to catch his tidal train.
+
+Alas! when I got to Castlewood, there was but a house of mourning!
+Faithful Stixon's eyes were dim, and he pointed upward and said,
+“Hush!” I entered with great awe, and asked, “How long?” And he said,
+“Four-and-twenty hours now; and a more peacefuller end was never seen,
+and to lament was sinful; but he was blessed if he could help it.” I
+told him, through my tears, that this was greatly to his credit, and he
+must not crush fine feelings, which are an honor to our nature. And he
+said that I was mistress now, and must order him to my liking.
+
+I asked him to send Mrs. Price to me, if she was not too busy; and he
+answered that he believed her to be a very good soul, and handy. And if
+he ever had been thought to speak in a sense disparishing of her, such
+things should not be borne in mind, with great afflictions over us. Mrs.
+Price, hearing that I was come, already was on her way to me, and
+now glanced at the door for Mr. Stixon to depart, in a manner past
+misunderstanding.
+
+“He gives himself such airs!” she said; “sometimes one would think--but
+I will not trouble you now with that, Miss Castlewood, or Lady
+Castlewood--which do you please to be called, miss? They say that the
+barony goes on, when there is no more Viscount.”
+
+“I please to be called 'Miss Castlewood,' even if I have any right to be
+called that. But don't let us talk of such trifles now. I wish to hear
+only of my cousin.”
+
+“Well, you know, ma'am, what a sufferer he has been for years. If ever
+an angel had pains all over, and one leg compulsory of a walking-stick,
+that angel was his late lordship. He would stand up and look at one, and
+give orders in that beautiful silvery voice of his, just as if he was
+lying on a bed of down. And never a twitch, nor a hitch in his face, nor
+his words, nor any other part of him. I assure you, miss, that I have
+been quite amazed and overwhelmed with interest while looking at his
+poor legs, and thinking--”
+
+“I can quite enter into it. I have felt the same. But please to come to
+what has happened lately.”
+
+“The very thing I was at the point of doing. Then last Sunday, God alone
+knows why, the pain did not come on at all. For the first time for seven
+years or more the pain forgot the time-piece. His lordship thought that
+the clock was wrong; but waited with his usual patience, though missing
+it from the length of custom, instead of being happy. But when it
+was come to an hour too late for the proper attack of the enemy, his
+lordship sent orders for Stixon's boy to take a good horse and ride to
+Pangbourne for a highly respectable lawyer. There was no time to fetch
+Mr. Spines, you see, miss, the proper solicitor, who lives in London.
+The gentleman from Pangbourne was here by eight o'clock; and then and
+there his lordship made his will, to supersede all other wills. He put
+it more clearly, the lawyer said, than he himself could have put it, but
+not, of course, in such legal words, but doubtless far more beautiful.
+Nobody in the house was forgotten; and the rule of law being, it seems,
+that those with best cause to remember must not witness, two of the
+tenants were sent for, and wrote down their names legitimate. And then
+his lordship lay back and smiled, and said, 'I shall have no more pain.'
+
+“All that night and three days more he slept as sound as a little child,
+to make up for so many years. We called two doctors in; but they only
+whispered and looked dismal, and told us to have hot water ready at any
+hour of the day or night. Nobody loved him as I did, miss, from seeing
+so much of his troubles and miraculous way of bearing them; and I sat by
+the hour and hour, and watched him, trusting no paid nurses.
+
+“It must have been eight o'clock on Wednesday morning--what is to-day?
+Oh, Friday--then Thursday morning it must have been, when the clouds
+opened up in the east, and the light of the sun was on the window-sill,
+not glaring or staring, but playing about, with patterns of leaves
+between it; and I went to screen it from his poor white face; but he
+opened his eyes, as if he had been half awake, half dreaming, and he
+tried to lift one of his thin, thin hands to tell me not to do it. So I
+let the curtain stay as it was, and crept back, and asked, very softly,
+'Will your lordship have some breakfast?'
+
+“He did not seem to comprehend me, but only watched the window; and
+if ever a blessed face there was, looking toward heaven's glory, his
+lordship had it, so that I could scarcely keep from sobbing. For I never
+had seen any living body die, but knew that it must be so. He heard me
+catching my breath, perhaps, or at any rate he looked at me; and the
+poor angel knew that I was a woman; and being full of high respect, as
+he always was for females--in spite of the way they had served him--it
+became apparent to his mind that the pearl button of his neck was open,
+as ordered by the doctors. And he tried to lift his hand to do it; and
+then he tried to turn away, but could not manage either. Poor dear! the
+only movement he could make was to a better world.
+
+“Then I drew the sheet across his chest, and he gave me a little smile
+of thanks, and perhaps he knew whose hand it was. But the look of his
+kind soft eyes was flickering--not steady, I mean, miss--but glancing
+and stopping and going astray, as drops of rain do on the window-glass.
+But I could not endure to examine him much; at such a holy time I felt
+that to watch death was unholy.
+
+“Perhaps I ought to have rung the bell for others to be present. But his
+lordship was always shy, you know, miss; and with none of his kindred
+left, and no wife to say 'good-by' to him, right or wrong I resolved
+alone to see him depart to his everlasting rest. And people may talk
+about hirelings, but I think nobody loved him as I did.”
+
+Here Mrs. Price broke fairly down, and I could not help admiring her.
+To a faithful servant's humility and duty she had added a woman's pure
+attachment to one more gifted than herself, and ruined for life by her
+own sex. But she fell away frightened and ashamed beneath my look, as if
+I had caught her in sacrilege.
+
+“Well, miss, we all must come and go,” she began again, rather clumsily;
+“and, good and great as he was, his lordship has left few to mourn for
+him. Only the birds and beasts and animals that he was so good to; they
+will miss him, if men don't. There came one of his favorite pigeons,
+white as snow all over, and sat on the sill of the window, and cooed,
+and arched up its neck for his fingers. And he tried to put his fingers
+out, but they were ice already. Whether that or something else brought
+home his thoughts, who knows, miss? but he seemed to mix the pigeon up
+with some of his own experience.
+
+“'Say that I have forgiven her, if ever she did harm to me,' he
+whispered, without moving lips. 'Times and times, when I was young, I
+was not always steady;' and then he seemed to wander in his mind among
+old places; and he would have laughed at something if his voice had been
+sufficient.
+
+“'Bitter grief and pain shall never come again,' he seemed to breathe,
+with a calm, soft smile, like a child with its rhyme about the rain when
+the sun breaks out; and sure enough, the sun upon the quilt above
+his heart was shining, as if there could be no more clouds. Then he
+whispered a few short words to the Lord, more in the way of thanks than
+prayer, and his eyes seemed to close of their own accord, or with some
+good spirit soothing them. And when or how his sleep passed from this
+world into the other there was scarcely the flutter of a nerve to show.
+There he lies, like an image of happiness. Will you come and see him?”
+
+I followed her to the bedroom, and am very glad that I did so; for
+it showed me the bliss of a good man's rest, and took away my fear of
+death.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+LIFE SINISTER
+
+
+When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again, every
+one told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at first, but
+soon to increasing acquiescence) that I was now the mistress of the fair
+estates of Castlewood, and, the male line being extinct, might claim
+the barony, if so pleased me; for that, upon default of male heirs,
+descended by the spindle. And as to the property, with or without any
+will of the late Lord Castlewood, the greater part would descend to me
+under unbarred settlement, which he was not known to have meddled with.
+On the contrary, he confirmed by his last will the settlement--which
+they told me was quite needless--and left me all that he had to leave,
+except about a thousand pounds distributed in legacies. A private
+letter to me was sealed up with his will, which, of course, it would not
+behoove me to make public. But thus much--since our family history is,
+alas! so notorious--in duty to him I should declare. He begged me, if
+his poor lost wife--of whom he had never spoken to me--should re-appear
+and need it, to pay her a certain yearly sum, which I thought a great
+deal too much for her, but resolved to obey him exactly.
+
+Neither the will nor the letter contained any reference to my
+grandfather, or the possibility of an adverse claim. I could not,
+however, be quit of deep uneasiness and anxiety, but stanchly determined
+that every acre should vanish in folds of “the long robe” rather than
+pass to a crafty villain who had robbed me of all my kindred. My hatred
+of that man deepened vastly, as he became less abstract, while my terror
+decreased in proportion. I began to think that, instead of being
+the reckless fiend I had taken him for, he was only a low, plotting,
+cold-blooded rogue, without even courage to save him. By this time
+he must have heard all about me, my pursuit of him, and my presence
+here--then why not come and shoot me, just as he shot my grandfather?
+
+The idea of this was unwelcome; still, I felt no sort of gratitude, but
+rather a lofty contempt toward him for not having spirit to try it.
+In Shoxford church-yard he had expressed (if Sexton Rigg was not then
+deceived) an unholy wish to have me there, at the feet of my brothers
+and sisters. Also he had tried to get hold of me--doubtless with a
+view to my quietude--when I was too young to defend myself, and left at
+haphazard in a lawless land. What was the reason, if his mind was
+still the same, for ceasing to follow me now? Was I to be treated with
+contempt as one who had tried her best and could do nothing, as a feeble
+creature whose movements were not even worth inquiry? Anger at such an
+idea began to supersede fear, as my spirits returned.
+
+Meanwhile Major Hockin was making no sign as to what had befallen him
+in Paris, or what Cosmopolitan Jack was about. But, strangely enough,
+he had sent me a letter from Bruntsea instead of Paris, and addressed
+in grand style to no less a person than “The right honorable Baroness
+Castlewood”--a title which I had resolved, for the present, neither to
+claim nor acknowledge. In that letter the Major mingled a pennyweight
+of condolence with more congratulation than the post could carry for the
+largest stamp yet invented. His habit of mind was to magnify things; and
+he magnified my small grandeur, and seemed to think nothing else worthy
+of mention.
+
+Through love of the good kind cousin I had lost, even more than through
+common and comely respect toward the late head of the family, I felt it
+impossible to proceed, for the present, with any inquiries, but left
+the next move to the other side. And the other side made it, in a manner
+such as I never even dreamed of.
+
+About three weeks after I became, in that sad way, the mistress,
+escaping one day from lawyers and agents, who held me in dreary
+interview, with long computations of this and of that, and formalities
+almost endless, I went, for a breath of good earnest fresh air, beyond
+precinct of garden or shrubbery. To me these seemed in mild weather to
+temper and humanize the wind too strictly, and take the wild spirit out
+of it; and now, for the turn of the moment, no wind could be too rough
+to tumble in. After long months of hard trouble, and worry, and fear,
+and sad shame, and deep sorrow, the natural spring of clear youth into
+air and freedom set me upward. For the nonce there was nothing upon my
+selfish self to keep it downward; troubles were bubbles, and grief a
+low thief, and reason almost treason. I drank the fine fountain of air
+unsullied, and the golden light stamped with the royalty of sun.
+
+Hilarious moments are but short, and soon cold sense comes back again.
+Already I began to feel ashamed of young life's selfish outburst, and
+the vehement spring of mere bodily health. On this account I sat down
+sadly in a little cove of hill, whereto the soft breeze from the river
+came up, with a tone of wavelets, and a sprightly water-gleam. And here,
+in fern and yellow grass and tufted bights of bottom growth, the wind
+made entry for the sun, and they played with one another.
+
+Besting here, and thinking, with my face between my hands, I wondered
+what would be the end. Nothing seemed secure or certain, nothing even
+steady or amenable to foresight. Even guess-work or the wider cast of
+dreams was always wrong. To-day the hills and valleys, and the glorious
+woods of wreathen gold, bright garnet, and deep amethyst, even that
+blue river yet unvexed by autumn's turbulence, and bordered with green
+pasture of a thousand sheep and cattle--to-day they all were mine (so
+far as mortal can hold ownership)--to-morrow, not a stick, or twig, or
+blade of grass, or fallen leaf, but might call me a trespasser. To see
+them while they still were mine, and to regard them humbly, I rose and
+took my black hat off--a black hat trimmed with mourning gray. Then
+turning round, I met a gaze, the wildest, darkest, and most awful ever
+fixed on human face.
+
+“Who are you? What do you want here?” I faltered forth, while shrinking
+back for flight, yet dreading or unable to withdraw my gaze from his.
+The hollow ground barred all escape; my own land was a pit for me, and
+I must face this horror out. Here, afar from house or refuge, hand of
+help, or eye of witness, front to front I must encounter this atrocious
+murderer.
+
+For moments, which were ages to me, he stood there without a word; and
+daring not to take my eyes from his, lest he should leap at me, I had no
+power (except of instinct), and could form no thought of him, for mortal
+fear fell over me. If he would only speak, would only move his lips, or
+any thing!
+
+“The Baroness is not brave,” he said at last, as if reproachfully; “but
+she need have no fear now of me. Does her ladyship happen to know who I
+am?”
+
+“The man who murdered my grandfather.”
+
+“Yes, if you put a false color on events. The man who punished a
+miscreant, according to the truer light. But I am not here to argue
+points. I intend to propose a bargain. Once for all, I will not harm
+you. Try to listen calmly. Your father behaved like a man to me, and I
+will be no worse to you. The state of the law in this country is such
+that I am forced to carry fire-arms. Will it conduce to your peace of
+mind if I place myself at your mercy?”
+
+I tried to answer; but my heart was beating so that no voice came, only
+a flutter in my trembling throat. Wrath with myself for want of courage
+wrestled in vain with pale, abject fear. The hand which offered me
+the pistol seemed to my dazed eyes crimson still with the blood of my
+grandfather.
+
+“You will not take it? Very well; it lies here at your service. If your
+father's daughter likes to shoot me, from one point of view it will be
+just; and but for one reason, I care not. Don't look at me with pity,
+if you please. For what I have done I feel no remorse, no shadow of
+repentance. It was the best action of my life. But time will fail,
+unless you call upon your courage speedily. None of your family lack
+that; and I know that you possess it. Call your spirit up, my dear.”
+
+“Oh, please not to call me that! How dare you call me that?”
+
+“That is right. I did it on purpose. And yet I am your uncle. Not by the
+laws of men, but by the laws of God--if there are such things. Now, have
+you the strength to hear me?”
+
+“Yes; I am quite recovered now. I can follow every word you say.
+But--but I must sit down again.”
+
+“Certainly. Sit there, and I will stand. I will not touch or come nearer
+to you than a story such as mine requires. You know your own side of it;
+now hear mine.
+
+“More than fifty years ago there was a brave young nobleman, handsome,
+rich, accomplished, strong, not given to drink or gambling, or any
+fashionable vices. His faults were few, and chiefly three--he had
+a headstrong will, loved money, and possessed no heart at all. With
+chances in his favor, this man might have done as most men do who have
+such gifts from fortune. But he happened to meet with a maiden far
+beneath him in this noble world, and he set his affections--such as they
+were--upon that poor young damsel.
+
+“This was Winifred Hoyle, the daughter of Thomas Hoyle, a farmer, in a
+lonely part of Hampshire, and among the moors of Rambledon. The nobleman
+lost his way, while fishing, and being thirsty, went to ask for milk.
+What matter how it came about? He managed to win her heart before she
+heard of his rank and title. He persuaded her even to come and meet him
+in the valley far from her father's house, where he was wont to angle;
+and there, on a lonely wooden bridge across a little river, he knelt
+down (as men used to do) and pledged his solemn truth to her. His solemn
+lie--his solemn lie!
+
+“Such love as his could not overleap the bars of rank or the pale of
+wealth--are you listening to me carefully?--or, at any rate, not both
+of them. If the poor farmer could only have given his Winifred 50,000
+pounds, the peer would have dropped his pride, perhaps, so far as to be
+honest. But farmers in that land are poor, and Mr. Hoyle could give
+his only child his blessing only. And this he did in London, where his
+simple mind was all abroad, and he knew not church from chapel. He
+took his daughter for the wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor
+thing! when she was but his concubine. In 1809 such tricks were easily
+played by villains upon young girls so simple.
+
+“But he gave her attestation and certificate under his own hand; and
+her poor father signed it, and saw it secured in a costly case, and then
+went home as proud as need be for the father of a peer, but sworn to
+keep it three years secret, till the king should give consent. Such foul
+lies it was the pride of a lord to tell to a farmer.
+
+“You do not exclaim--of course you do not. The instincts of your race
+are in you, because you are legitimate. Those of the robbed side are in
+me, because I am of the robbed. I am your father's elder brother. Which
+is the worse, you proud young womam, the dastard or the bastard?”
+
+“You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs,” I answered, meeting fierce eyes
+mildly; “but you should remember that I am guiltless of those wrongs,
+and so was my father. And I think that if you talk of birth so, you must
+know that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies.”
+
+“What concern is that of mine? A gentleman is some one's son. I am the
+son of nobody. But to you I will speak quietly, for the sake of your
+poor father. And you must listen quietly. I am not famous for sweet
+temper. Well, this great lord took his toy to Paris, where he had her
+at his mercy. She could not speak a word of French; she did not know a
+single soul. In vain she prayed him to take her to his English home;
+or, if not that, to restore her to her father. Not to be too long about
+it--any more than he was--a few months were enough for him. He found
+fault with her manners, with her speech, her dress, her every thing--all
+which he had right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier. And
+she, although not born to the noble privilege of weariness, had been an
+old man's darling, and could not put up with harshness. From words they
+came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or rather
+his own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless, penniless, and
+brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.
+
+“There and thus I saw the light beneath most noble auspices. But I need
+not go on with all that. As long as human rules remain, this happy tale
+will always be repeated with immense applause. My mother's love was
+turned to bitter hatred of his lordship, and, when her father died from
+grief, to eager thirst for vengeance. And for this purpose I was born.
+
+“You see that--for a bastard--I have been fairly educated; but not a
+farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support his
+casual. My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his daughter
+Winifred; and upon that, and my mother's toil and mine, we have kept
+alive. Losing sight of my mother gladly--for she was full of pride, and
+hoped no more to trouble him, after getting her father's property--he
+married again, or rather he married for the first time without perjury,
+which enables the man to escape from it. She was of his own rank--as you
+know--the daughter of an earl, and not of a farmer. It would not have
+been safe to mock her, would it? And there was no temptation.
+
+“The history of my mother and myself does not concern you. Such people
+are of no account until they grow dangerous to the great. We lived in
+cheap places and wandered about, caring for no one, and cared for by
+the same. Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called ourselves when we wanted
+names; and I did not even know the story of our wrongs till the heat
+and fury of youth were past. Both for her own sake and mine my mother
+concealed it from me. Pride and habit, perhaps, had dulled her just
+desire for vengeance; and, knowing what I was, she feared--the thing
+which has befallen me. But when I was close upon thirty years old, and
+my mother eight-and-forty--for she was betrayed in her teens--a sudden
+illness seized her. Believing her death to be near, she told me, as
+calmly as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of
+the past, which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the
+wrong tenfold blacker. She did not die; if she had, it might have been
+better both for her and me, and many other people. Are you tired of my
+tale? Or do you want to hear the rest?”
+
+“You can not be asking me in earnest,” I replied, while I watched his
+wild eyes carefully. “Tell me the rest, if you are not afraid.”
+
+“Afraid, indeed! Then, for want of that proper tendance and comfort
+which a few pounds would have brought her, although she survived, she
+survived as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her poor unhappy self.
+I sank my pride for her sake, and even deigned to write to him, in rank
+and wealth so far above me, in every thing else such a clot below my
+heel. He did the most arrogant thing a snob can do--he never answered my
+letter.
+
+“I scraped together a little money, and made my way to England, and
+came to that house--which you now call yours--and bearded that noble
+nobleman--that father to be so proud of! He was getting on now in years,
+and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first appearance scared
+him. He got no obeisance from me, you may be certain, but still I did
+not revile him. I told him of my mother's state of mind, and the great
+care she required, and demanded that, in common justice, he, having
+brought her to this, should help her. But nothing would he promise, not
+a sixpence even, in the way of regular allowance. Any thing of that sort
+could only be arranged by means of his solicitors. He had so expensive a
+son, with a very large and growing family, that he could not be pledged
+to any yearly sum. But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign
+an acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving my
+identity.
+
+“What identity had I to prove? He had taken good care of that. I turned
+my back on him and left the house, without even asking for his curse,
+though as precious as a good man's blessing.
+
+“It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and going
+across this park--or whatever it is called--I met my brother. At a crest
+of the road we met face to face, with the moon across our foreheads. We
+had never met till now, nor even heard of one another; at least he had
+never heard of me. He started back as if at his own ghost; but I had
+nothing to be startled at, in this world or the other.
+
+“I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on
+very well together. At one time it seemed good luck for him to have
+illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled in the
+weeds of this river while bathing. You owe me no thanks. I thought twice
+about it, and if the name would have ended with him, I would never have
+used my basket-knife. By trade I am a basket-maker, like many another
+'love-child.'
+
+“However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some risk in
+doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and encouraged me to
+visit him. Not at his home--of course that would never do--but when
+he was with his regiment. Short of money as he always was, through
+his father's nature and his own, which in some points were the very
+opposite, he was even desirous to give me some of that; but I never took
+a farthing from him. If I had it at all, I would have it from the proper
+one. And from him I resolved to have it.
+
+“How terrified you look! I am coming to it now. Are you sure that you
+can bear it? It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young ladies--”
+
+“I feel a little faint,” I could not help saying; “but that is nothing.
+I must hear the whole of it. Please to go on without minding me.”
+
+“For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours. I can not have you
+fainting, and bringing people here. Go to the house and take food, and
+recover your strength, and then come here again. I promise to be here,
+and your father's daughter will not take advantage of my kindness.”
+
+Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of strange
+tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father's, and asserted
+power over me. Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man, and left him
+there, and went slowly to the house, walking as if in a troubled dream.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+FOR LIFE, DEATH
+
+
+Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of
+browning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze,
+and wisps of grass. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed while
+even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the rest
+of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time for
+self-congratulation a tall figure rose from the ground, and fear
+compelled me into courage. For throughout this long interview more and
+more I felt an extremely unpleasant conviction. That stranger might not
+be a downright madman, nor even what is called a lunatic; but still
+it was clear that upon certain points--the laws of this country, for
+instance, and the value of rank and station--his opinions were so
+outrageous that his reason must be affected. And, even without such
+proofs as these, his eyes and his manner were quite enough. Therefore I
+had need of no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures,
+but as to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these last
+as quickly as they flashed across me. I never had learned to conceal my
+thoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.
+
+“I hope you are better,” he said, as kindly as it was possible for him
+to speak. “Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you. I will not sham
+any admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind; but as for harming
+you--why, your father was almost the only kind heart I ever met!”
+
+“Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father was
+dead in the desert?”
+
+“I never did any thing of the sort. It was done in my name, but not by
+me; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a score to
+settle with the man who did it.”
+
+“But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the true
+Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America. I never saw truth
+more plainly stamped on a new situation--the face of a rogue--than I saw
+it then on the face of Mr. Goad.”
+
+“You are quite right; he spoke the truth--to the utmost of his
+knowledge. I never saw Goad, and he never saw me. I never even dreamed
+of pretending to the title. I was personated by a mean, low friend of
+Sir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never stoop to such a
+trick. You will find out the meaning of that by-and-by. I have taken
+the law into my own hands--it is the only way to work such laws--I
+have committed what is called a crime. But, compared with Sir Montague
+Hockin, I am whiter than yonder shearling on his way to the river for
+his evening drink.”
+
+I gazed at his face, and could well believe it. The setting sun shone
+upon his chin and forehead--good, resolute, well-marked features; his
+nose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt and pale (though
+they would have been better for being a trifle cleaner). There was
+nothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and but for the wildness
+of the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it might have been called a
+handsome face.
+
+“Very well,” he began again, with one of those jerks which had
+frightened me, “your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but he
+knew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf. On
+the other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps he
+thought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a woman! And partly
+for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my mother's, I made the short
+work which I made; for he was horribly straitened--and in his free,
+light way he told me so--by his hard curmudgeon of a father.
+
+“To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and
+plenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he
+thought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness
+longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for the
+Moonstock Inn.
+
+“That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so forsworn
+himself! I resolved that there he should pay justice, either with his
+life or death. And I went to your father's place to tell him to prepare
+for disturbances; but he was gone to see his wife, and I simply borrowed
+a pistol.
+
+“Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like that.
+I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets forth on
+circuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge affords to the
+guilty--the chance of leading a better life. I had brought my mother
+to England, and she was in a poor place in London; her mind was failing
+more and more, and reverting to her love-time, the one short happiness
+of her life. 'If I could but see him, if I could but see him, and show
+him his tall and clever son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking
+ever to be his wife. Oh, Thomas! I was too young to know it. If I could
+but see him once, just once!'
+
+“How all this drove me no tongue can tell. But I never let her know it;
+I only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever sees any body
+more!' And she trusted me and was satisfied. She only said, 'Take my
+picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy time, and his pledge to me
+inside of it.' And she gave me what she had kept for years in a bag of
+chamois leather, the case of which I spoke before, which even in our
+hardest times she would never send to the pawn-shop.
+
+“The rest is simple enough. I swore by the God, or the Devil, who made
+me, that this black-hearted man should yield either his arrogance or his
+life. I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate ordained that I should
+meet him where he forswore himself to my mother; on that very plank
+where he had breathed his deadly lies he breathed his last. Would you
+like to hear all about it?”
+
+For answer I only bowed my head. His calm, methodical way of telling
+his tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more shocking than any
+fury.
+
+“Then it was this. I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house in
+the village, where he dined with company; and I did not even know that
+it was the house of his son, your father--so great a gulf is fixed
+between the legitimate and the bastard! He had crossed the wooden bridge
+in going, and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could tread
+those planks without contrition and horror--but never mind. I resolved
+to bring him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in the valley.
+
+“The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood closed
+in; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the moon was on
+the uplands. Time and place alike were fit for our little explanation.
+The path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come.
+My firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but he
+never had the manners to do that.
+
+“Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I heard
+a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared in
+a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps his
+lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when he
+told pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think how
+well he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him have
+them out, and waited.
+
+“If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; but
+he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heard
+him say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-wine
+for!' He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking far
+more of his feet than heart.
+
+“Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself,
+I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him.
+The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon
+him, the last that ever fell upon his body to its knowledge.
+
+“'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice and
+air, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him began to
+rise.
+
+“'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this
+earth,' I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my orders.'
+
+“He saw his peril, but he had courage--perhaps his only virtue. 'Fool!
+whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him help; 'none
+of these moon-struck ways with me! If you want to rob me, try it!'
+
+“'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me back.
+'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice--to lick the dust, or be
+dust! Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for perjury. On this
+plank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you ruined and cast by; and
+now on this plank you shall kneel to her son and swear to obey him--or
+else you die!'
+
+“In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death himself,
+instead of his own dear eldest son.
+
+“'What do you want!' As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety rail
+and shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook. 'How much will
+satisfy you?'
+
+“'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your half
+crowns! We must have a little of what you have grudged--having none to
+spare--your honor. My demands are simple, and only two. My mother is
+fool enough to yearn for one more sight of your false face; you will
+come with me and see her.'
+
+“'And if I yield to that, what next?'
+
+“'The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you. Here I have, in
+this blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your solemn
+signature to a lie. At the foot of that you will have the truth to
+write, “I am a perjured liar!” and proudly sign it “Castlewood,” in the
+presence of two witnesses. This can not hurt your feelings much, and it
+need not be expensive.'
+
+“Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check its
+outbreak. The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was better, in
+such lordly fields, than the whole of the harvest we got. He knew that I
+had him all to myself, to indulge my filial affection.
+
+“'You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have only
+heard your mother's story. Allow me to go back and to sit in a dry
+place; I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear my tale as
+well. I passed a dry stump just now; I will go back: there is no fear of
+interruption.' My lord was talking against time.
+
+“'From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your knees
+and sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be no perjury.
+Here I hold your cursed pledge--'
+
+“He struck at me, or at the locket--no matter which--but it flew away.
+My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-handed, as a
+bastard should be. From my left hand he took his death, and I threw the
+pistol after him: such love had he earned from his love-child!”
+
+Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here broke
+off from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my presence, set
+his gloomy eyes on the ground. Lightly he might try to speak, but there
+was no lightness in his mind, and no spark of light in his poor dead
+soul. Being so young, and unacquainted with the turns of life-worn mind,
+I was afraid to say a word except to myself, and to myself I only said,
+“The man is mad, poor fellow; and no wonder!”
+
+The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights, but
+over the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame England; and,
+different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad and fearful sunset
+lay before me: the fall of night upon my dying father and his helpless
+child, the hour of anguish and despair! Here at last was the cause of
+all laid horribly before me; and the pity deeply moving me passed into
+cold abhorrence. But the man was lost in his own visions.
+
+“So in your savage wrath,” I said, “you killed your own father, and in
+your fright left mine to bear the brunt of it.”
+
+He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray from
+mine. He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I had spoken.
+The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment of his father had
+worked upon him so much that he could not freely shift attention.
+
+“I came for something, something that can be only had from you,” he
+said, “and only since your cousin's death, and something most important.
+But will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from mind and memory!”
+
+“I am not surprised at that,” I answered, looking at his large wan face,
+and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness. “Whatever
+it is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post.”
+
+“I see what you mean--not to come any more. You are right about that,
+for certain. But your father was good to me, and I loved him, though
+I had no right to love any one. My letter will show that I wronged him
+never. The weight of the world is off my mind since I have told you
+every thing; you can send me to the gallows, if you think fit, but leave
+it till my mother dies. Good-by, poor child. I have spoiled your life,
+but only by chance consequence, not in murder-birth--as I was born.”
+
+Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so,
+he was far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life, his
+shadow fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+BRUNTSEA DEFIANT
+
+
+Thus at last--by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after turn
+of things to which I blindly gave my little help--the mystery of my life
+was solved. Many things yet remained to be fetched up to focus and seen
+round; but the point of points was settled.
+
+Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic. What tears
+of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!--not doubting
+his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for taking it upon
+him. I had been mean enough to dream that my dear father outraged
+justice to conceal his own base birth!
+
+That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me
+charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at any
+rate, it ought to do so. And the man in question, my own father, who
+had starved himself to save me! Better had I been the most illegal child
+ever issued into this cold world, than dare to think so of my father,
+and then find him the model of every thing.
+
+To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to
+appease the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark suspicion
+on himself, until his wronged and half-sane brother (to whom, moreover,
+he owed his life) should have time to fly from England. No doubt he
+blamed himself as much as he condemned the wretched criminal, because
+he had left his father so long unwarned and so unguarded, and had
+thoughtlessly used light words about him, which fell not lightly on a
+stern, distempered mind. Hence, perhaps, the exclamation which had told
+against him so.
+
+And then when he broke jail--which also told against him terribly--to
+revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant after that
+to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man should do. But his
+wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could not endure the thought of
+it, knowing how often jury is injury, and seeing all the weight against
+him. She naturally pledged him to pursue his flight, “for her sake,”
+ until she should be better able to endure his trial, and until he should
+have more than his own pure word and character to show. And probably
+if he had then been tried, with so many things against him, and no
+production of that poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy
+invention, and “Guilty” would have been the verdict. And they could not
+know that, in such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we
+shall see that he meant to do.
+
+When my father heard of his dear wife's death, and believed, no doubt,
+that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and fated man,
+like polar night, settled down on him. What matter to him about public
+opinion or any thing else in the world just now? The sins of his father
+were on his head; let them rest there, rather than be trumpeted by him.
+He had nothing to care for; let him wander about. And so he did for
+several years, until I became a treasure to him--for parental is not
+intrinsic value--and then, for my sake, as now appeared, he betook us
+both to a large kind land.
+
+Revolving these things sadly, and a great many more which need not be
+told, I thought it my duty to go as soon as possible to Bruntsea, and
+tell my good and faithful friends what I was loath to write about.
+There, moreover, I could obtain what I wanted to confirm me--the opinion
+of an upright, law-abiding, honorable man about the course I proposed
+to take. And there I might hear something more as to a thing which
+had troubled me much in the deepest of my own troubles--the melancholy
+plight of dear Uncle Sam. Wild, and absurd as it may appear to people of
+no gratitude, my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble
+Sawyer, if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England.
+That such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too
+manifest; but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no mind
+to do a thing.
+
+Be that as it will, I made what my dear Yankees--to use the Major's
+impertinent phrase--call “straight tracks” for that ancient and obsolete
+town, rejuvenized now by its Signor. The cause of my good friend's
+silence--not to use that affected word “reticence”--was quite unknown to
+me, and disturbed my spirit with futile guesses.
+
+Resolute, therefore, to pierce the bottom of every surviving mystery,
+I made claim upon “Mr. Stixon, junior”--as “Stixon's boy” had now
+vindicated his right to be called, up to supper-time--and he with high
+chivalry responded. Not yet was he wedded to Miss Polly Hopkins, the
+daughter of the pickled-pork man; otherwise would he or could he have
+made telegraphic blush at the word “Bruntsea?” And would he have been
+quite so eager to come?
+
+Such things are trifling, compared to our own, which naturally fill the
+universe. I was bound to be a great lady now, and patronize and regulate
+and drill all the doings of nature. So I durst not even ask, though
+desiring much to do so, how young Mr. Stixon was getting on with his
+delightful Polly. And his father, as soon as he found me turned into
+the mistress, and “his lady” (as he would have me called thenceforth,
+whether or no on my part), not another word would he tell me of the
+household sentiments, politics, or romances. It would have been thought
+a thing beneath me to put any nice little questions now, and I was
+obliged to take up the tone which others used toward me. But all the
+while I longed for freedom, Uncle Sam, Suan Isco, and even Martin of the
+Mill.
+
+Law business, however, and other hinderances, kept me from starting at
+once for Bruntsea, impatient as I was to do so. Indeed, it was not until
+the morning of the last Saturday in November that I was able to get
+away. The weather had turned to much rain, I remember, with two or three
+tempestuous nights, and the woods were almost bare of leaves, and the
+Thames looked brown and violent.
+
+In the fly from Newport to Bruntsea I heard great rollers thundering
+heavily upon the steep bar of shingle, and such a lake of water shone in
+the old bed of the river that I quite believed at first that the Major
+had carried out his grand idea, and brought the river back again. But
+the flyman shook his head, and looked very serious, and told me that
+he feared bad times were coming. What I saw was the work of the Lord in
+heaven, and no man could prevail against it. He had always said, though
+no concern of his--for he belonged to Newport--that even a British
+officer could not fly in the face of the Almighty. He himself had a
+brother on the works, regular employed, and drawing good money, and
+proud enough about it; and the times he had told him across a pint of
+ale--howsomever, our place was to hope for the best; but the top of the
+springs was not come yet, and a pilot out of Newport told him the water
+was making uncommon strong; but he did hope the wind had nigh blowed
+itself out; if not, they would have to look blessed sharp tomorrow. He
+had heard say that in time of Queen Elizabeth sixscore of houses was
+washed clean away, and the river itself knocked right into the sea; and
+a thing as had been once might just come to pass again, though folk was
+all so clever now they thought they wor above it. But, for all that,
+their grandfathers' goggles might fit them. But here we was in Bruntsea
+town, and, bless his old eyes--yes! If I pleased to look along his whip,
+I might see ancient pilot come, he did believe, to warn of them!
+
+Following his guidance, I descried a stout old man, in a sailor's
+dress, weather-proof hat, and long boots, standing on a low seawall, and
+holding vehement converse with some Bruntsea boatmen and fishermen who
+were sprawling on the stones as usual.
+
+“Driver, you know him. Take the lower road,” I said, “and ask what his
+opinion is.”
+
+“No need to ask him,” the flyman answered; “old Banks would never
+be here, miss, if he was of two opinions. He hath come to fetch his
+daughter out of harm, I doubt, the wife of that there Bishop Jim, they
+call him--the chap with two nails to his thumb, you know. Would you like
+to hear how they all take it, miss?”
+
+With these words he turned to the right, and drove into Major Hockin's
+“Sea Parade.” There we stopped to hear what was going on, and it proved
+to be well worth our attention. The old pilot perhaps had exhausted
+reason, and now was beginning to give way to wrath. The afternoon was
+deepening fast, with heavy gray clouds lowering, showing no definite
+edge, but streaked with hazy lines, and spotted by some little murky
+blurs or blots, like tar pots, carried slowly.
+
+“Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?” the ancient pilot shouted, pointing
+with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the sea, whence came
+puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks backward. “Mackerel sky
+when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at noon, and now afore sunset
+Noah's Arks! Any of them breweth a gale of wind, and the three of them
+bodes a tempest. And the top of the springs of the year to-morrow.
+Are ye daft, or all gone upon the spree, my men? Your fathers would 'a
+knowed what the new moon meant. Is this all that cometh out of larning
+to read?”
+
+“Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man,” said one, “to help you off with that
+stiff reel. What consarn can he be of yourn?”
+
+“Don't you be put out, mate,” cried another. “Never came sea as could
+top that bar, and never will in our time. Go and calk your old leaky
+craft, Master Banks.”
+
+“We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from
+Newport--a place never heerd on when this old town was made.”
+
+“Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks. You must
+want it, after that long pipe.”
+
+“'Hockin Arms,' indeed!” the pilot answered, turning away in a rage from
+them. “What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow? Hockin legs
+wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings. And you poor grinning ninnies,
+as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that ye had them to-morrow.
+However, ye've had warning, and ye can't blame me. The power of the Lord
+is in the air and sea. Is this the sort of stuff ye trust in?”
+
+He set one foot against our Major's wall--an action scarcely honest
+while it was so green--and, coming from a hale and very thickset man,
+the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward. Rattle, rattle went
+the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated fellows down below.
+
+“You'll try the walls of a jail,” cried one. “You go to Noah's Ark,”
+ shouted another. The rest bade him go to a place much worse; but he
+buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without spoiling the
+effect by any more weak words.
+
+“Right you are,” cried my flyman--“right you are, Master Banks. Them
+lubbers will sing another song to-morrow. Gee up, old hoss, then!”
+
+All this, and the ominous scowl of the sky and menacing roar of the sea
+(already crowding with black rollers), disturbed me so that I could
+say nothing, until, at the corner of the grand new hotel, we met Major
+Hockin himself, attired in a workman's loose jacket, and carrying a
+shovel. He was covered with mud and dried flakes of froth, and even his
+short white whiskers were incrusted with sparkles of brine; but his face
+was ruddy and smiling, and his manner as hearty as ever.
+
+“You here, Erema! Oh, I beg pardon--Baroness Castlewood, if you please.
+My dear, again I congratulate you.”
+
+“You have as little cause to do that as I fear I can find in your case.
+You have no news for me from America? How sad! But what a poor plight
+you yourself are in!”
+
+“Not a bit of it. At first sight you might think so; and we certainly
+have had a very busy time. Send back the fly. Leave your bag at our
+hotel. Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's luggage. One piece of
+luck befalls me--to receive so often this beautiful hand. What a lot of
+young fellows now would die of envy--”
+
+“I am glad that you still can talk nonsense,” I said; “for I truly was
+frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even standing
+in the water.”
+
+“It will do them good. It will settle the foundations and crystallize
+the mortar. They will look twice as well when they come out again,
+and never have rats or black beetles. We were foolish enough to be
+frightened at first; and there may have been danger a fortnight ago. But
+since that tide we have worked day and night, and every thing is now so
+stable that fear is simply ridiculous. On the whole, it has been a most
+excellent thing--quite the making, in fact, of Bruntsea.”
+
+“Then Bruntsea must be made of water,” I replied, gazing sadly at the
+gulf which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and Baths, the
+Bastion Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the streaky turmoil and
+misty scud of the waves were seen.
+
+“Made of beer, more likely,” he retorted, with a laugh. “If my fellows
+worked like horses--which they did--they also drank like fishes. Their
+mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said. But the total abstainers
+were the worst, being out of practice with the can. However, let us
+make no complaints. We ought to be truly thankful; and I shall miss
+the exercise. That is why you have heard so little from me. You see the
+position at a glance. I have never been to Paris at all, Erema. I have
+not rubbed up my parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows. I was stopped
+by a telegram about this job--acrior illum. I had some Latin once, quite
+enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my elbows; and
+to ladies (by some superstition) it is rude--though they treat us to bad
+French enough. Never mind. What I want to say is this, that I have done
+nothing, but respected your sad trouble; for you took a wild fancy to
+that poor bedridden, who never did you a stroke of good except about
+Cosmopolitan Jack, and whose removal has come at the very nick of time.
+For what could you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each
+other's throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the
+very best, squared up in greenbacks?”
+
+“You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin. If all your plans were not
+under water, I should be quite put out with you. My cousin was not
+bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called him once
+or twice. He was an infinitely superior man to--to what one generally
+sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in his place
+you would have done just as he did. And as for money, and 'happy
+release'--as the people who never want it for themselves express
+it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so sordid.”
+
+“What is there in this world that is not sordid--to the young in one
+sense, and to the old in another?”
+
+Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so unable
+to make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part at my
+juvenile arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep impression from
+sudden stamp of philosophy. I had nothing to say in reply, and he went
+up in my opinion greatly.
+
+He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, “Erema, come and see
+your dear aunt Mary. She has had an attack of rheumatic gout in her
+thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her life, and
+by far the most brilliant of her cocks (worth 20 pounds they tell me)
+breathed his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or croup, or something.
+This is why you have not heard again from her. I have been in the
+trenches day and night, stoning out the sea with his own stones, by a
+new form of concrete discovered by myself. And unless I am very much
+mistaken--in fact, I do not hesitate to say--But such things are not
+in your line at all. Let us go up to the house. Our job is done, and I
+think Master Neptune may pound away in vain. I have got a new range in
+the kitchen now, partly of my own invention; you can roast, or bake, or
+steam, or stew, or frizzle kabobs--all by turning a screw. And not only
+that, but you can keep things hot, piping hot, and ripening, as it were,
+better than when they first were done. Instead of any burned iron taste,
+or scum on the gravy, or clottiness, they mellow by waiting, and make
+their own sauce. If I ever have time I shall patent this invention; why,
+you may burn brick-dust in it, Bath-brick, hearth-stone, or potsherds!
+At any hour of the day or night, while the sea is in this condition, I
+may want my dinner; and there we have it. We say grace immediately,
+and down we sit. Let us take it by surprise, if it can be taken so. Up
+through my chief drive, instanter! I think that I scarcely ever felt
+more hungry. The thought of that range always sets me off. And one of
+its countless beauties is the noble juicy fragrance.”
+
+Major Hockin certainly possessed the art--so meritorious in a host--of
+making people hungry; and we mounted the hill with alacrity, after
+passing his letter-box, which reminded me of the mysterious lady. He
+pointed to “Desolate Hole,” as he called it, and said that he believed
+she was there still, though she never came out now to watch their house.
+And a man of dark and repelling aspect had been seen once or twice by
+his workmen, during the time of their night relays, rapidly walking
+toward Desolate Hole. How any one could live in such a place, with the
+roar and the spray of the sea, as it had been, at the very door, and
+through the windows, some people might understand, but not the Major.
+
+Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness, and
+scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all people seem
+to do when conscious of having neglected that duty themselves. Then she
+showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly was a little swollen;
+and then she poured forth her gratitude for her many blessings, as she
+always did after any little piece of grumbling. And I told her that
+if at her age I were only a quarter as pleasant and sweet of temper, I
+should consider myself a blessing to any man.
+
+After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the
+purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he admired
+so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him. Then I told
+him that, through a thing wholly unexpected--the confession of the
+criminal himself--no journey to Paris was needful now. I repeated that
+strange and gloomy tale, to the loud accompaniment of a rising wind and
+roaring sea, while both my friends listened intently.
+
+“Now what can have led him so to come to you?” they asked; “and what do
+you mean to do about it?”
+
+“He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not be
+made in my cousin's lifetime. But the telling of his tale made him feel
+so strange that he really could not remember what it was. As to what
+I am to do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is beyond my
+decision.” Mrs. Hockin began to reply, but stopped, looking dutifully at
+her lord.
+
+“There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way,” the
+Major said. “You are a British subject, I suppose, and you must obey
+the laws of the country. A man has confessed to you a murder--no matter
+whether it was committed twenty years ago or two minutes; no matter
+whether it was a savage, cold-blooded, premeditated crime, or whether
+there were things to palliate it. Your course is the same; you must hand
+him over. In fact, you ought never to have let him go.”
+
+“How could I help it?” I pleaded, with surprise. “It was impossible for
+me to hold him.”
+
+“Then you should have shot him with his own pistol. He offered it to
+you. You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and told him
+that he was a dead man if he stirred.”
+
+“Aunt Mary, would you have done that?” I asked. “It is so easy to talk
+of fine things! But in the first place, I had no wish to stop him; and
+in the next, I could not if I had.”
+
+“My dear,” Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view of
+the subject, “I should have done exactly what you did. If the laws
+of this country ordain that women are to carry them out against great
+strong men, who, after all, have been sadly injured, why, it proves that
+women ought to make the laws, which to my mind is simply ridiculous.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+BRUNTSEA DEFEATED
+
+
+Little sleep had I that night. Such conflict was in my mind about the
+proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind outside, above
+and between the distant uproar of the long tumultuous sea. Of that sound
+much was intercepted by the dead bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung
+fiercely over this, and rattled through all shelter. In the morning the
+storm was furious; but the Major declared that his weather-glass had
+turned, which proved that the gale was breaking. The top of the tide
+would be at one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he
+was rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his
+patent concrete.
+
+“My dear, I scarcely like such talk,” Mrs. Hockin gently interposed.
+“To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the Lord. Remember what
+happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his name was Smeaton, or
+Stanley, was it? But I dare say you know best. He defied the strength
+of the Lord, like the people at the mouth of their tent, and he was
+swallowed up.”
+
+“Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book. Rasper's fly is waiting for us,
+and the parson has no manners. When he drops off, I present to the
+living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have it. He
+is fond of processions, and all that stuff. The only procession in the
+Church of England is that of the lord of the manor to his pew. I will be
+the master in my own church.”
+
+“Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be. It always was so in my
+father's parish. But you must not speak so of our poor George. He may be
+'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows what is due to his family,
+and he has a large one coming.”
+
+We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and buffets of
+wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the seaward window
+was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth, and the drift of
+sea-scud. I tried to look out, but the blur and the dash obscured the
+sight of every thing. And though in this lower road we were partly
+sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver was several times obliged to
+pull his poor horse up and face the wind, for fear of our being blown
+over.
+
+That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in the
+good old town, at the head of a street whose principal object now
+certainly is to lead to it. Three hundred years ago that street had
+business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps with fine men and
+maids at the time of the Spanish Armada. Its only bravery now was the
+good old church, and some queer gables, and a crypt (which was true
+to itself by being buried up to the spandrels), and one or two corners
+where saints used to stand, until they were pelted out of them, and
+where fisher-like men, in the lodging season, stand selling fish caught
+at Billingsgate. But to Bruntsea itself the great glory of that street
+was rather of hope than of memory. Bailiff Hopkins had taken out
+three latticed windows, and put in one grand one of plate-glass, with
+“finishing” blinds all varnished. And even on a Sunday morning Bruntsea
+wanted to know what ever the bailiff was at behind them. Some said that
+he did all his pickling on a Sunday; and by putting up “spectacle glass”
+ he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try his focus.
+
+Despite all the rattle and roar of the wind, we went on in church
+as usual. The vicar had a stout young curate from Durham, who could
+outshout any tempest, with a good stone wall between them; and the
+Bruntsea folk were of thicker constitution than to care an old hat for
+the weather. Whatever was “sent by the Lord” they took with a grumble,
+but no excitement. The clock in front of the gallery told the time
+of the day as five minutes to twelve, when the vicar, a pleasant
+old-fashioned man, pronounced his text, which he always did thrice over
+to make us sure of it. And then he hitched up his old black gown, and
+directed his gaze at the lord of the manor, to impress the whole church
+with authority. Major Hockin acknowledged in a proper manner this
+courtesy of the minister by rubbing up his crest, and looking even more
+wide-awake than usual; whereas Aunt Mary, whose kind heart longed to
+see her own son in that pulpit, calmly settled back her shoulders, and
+arranged her head and eyes so well as to seem at a distance in rapt
+attention, while having a nice little dream of her own. But suddenly all
+was broken up. The sexton (whose license as warden of the church, and
+even whose duty it was to hear the sermon only fitfully, from the tower
+arch, where he watched the boys, and sniffed the bakehouse of his own
+dinner)--to the consternation of every body, this faithful man ran up
+the nave, with his hands above his head, and shouted,
+
+“All Brownzee be awash, awash”--sounding it so as to rhyme with
+“lash”--“the zea, the zea be all over us!”
+
+The clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window behind
+him, while all the congregation rose.
+
+“It is too true,” the preacher cried; “the sea is in over the bank, my
+friends. Every man must rush to his own home. The blessing of the Lord
+be on you through His fearful visitation!”
+
+He had no time to say more; and we thought it very brave of him to say
+that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he had a
+wife and children sick. In half a minute the church was empty, and the
+street below it full of people, striving and struggling against the
+blast, and breasting it at an incline like swimmers, but beaten back
+ever and anon and hurled against one another, with tattered umbrellas,
+hats gone, and bonnets hanging. And among them, like gulls before the
+wind, blew dollops of spray and chunks of froth, with every now and then
+a slate or pantile.
+
+All this was so bad that scarcely any body found power to speak, or
+think, or see. The Major did his very best to lead us, but could by no
+means manage it. And I screamed into his soundest ear to pull Aunt Mary
+into some dry house--for she could not face such buffeting--and to let
+me fare for myself as I might. So we left Mrs. Hockin in the bailiff's
+house, though she wanted sadly to come with us, and on we went to behold
+the worst. And thus, by running the byes of the wind, and craftily
+hugging the corners, we got to the foot of the street at last, and then
+could go no further.
+
+For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting. Before
+us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn by the
+screeching squalls, and tossed in clashing tufts and pinnacles. And
+into these came, sweeping over the shattered chine of shingle, gigantic
+surges from the outer deep, towering as they crossed the bar, and
+combing against the sky-line, then rushing onward, and driving the
+huddle of the ponded waves before them.
+
+The tide was yet rising, and at every blow the wreck and the havoc grew
+worse and worse. That long sweep of brick-work, the “Grand Promenade,”
+ bowed and bulged, with wall and window knuckled in and out, like
+wattles; the “Sea Parade” was a parade of sea; and a bathing-machine
+wheels upward lay, like a wrecked Noah's Ark, on the top of the
+“Saline-Silico-Calcareous Baths.”
+
+The Major stood by me, while all his constructions “went by the board,”
+ as they say at sea; and verily every thing was at sea. I grieved for him
+so that it was not the spray alone that put salt drops on my cheeks. And
+I could not bear to turn and look at his good old weather-beaten face.
+But he was not the man to brood upon his woes in silence. He might have
+used nicer language, perhaps, but his inner sense was manful.
+
+“I don't care a damn,” he shouted, so that all the women heard him. “I
+can only say I am devilish glad that I never let one of those houses.”
+
+There was a little band of seamen, under the shelter of a garden wall,
+crouching, or sitting, or standing (or whatever may be the attitude,
+acquired by much voyaging and experience of bad weather, which can not
+be solved, as to centre of gravity, even by the man who does it), and
+these men were so taken with the Major's manifesto, clinched at once and
+clarified to them by strong, short language, that they gave him a loud
+“hurrah,” which flew on the wings of the wind over house-tops. So queer
+and sound is English feeling that now Major Hockin became in truth what
+hitherto he was in title only--the lord and master of Bruntsea.
+
+“A boat! a boat!” he called out again. “We know not who are drowning.
+The bank still breaks the waves; a stout boat surely could live inside
+it.”
+
+“Yes, a boat could live well enough in this cockle, though never among
+them breakers,” old Barnes, the fisherman, answered, who used to take us
+out for whiting; “but Lord bless your honor, all the boats are thumped
+to pieces, except yonner one, and who can get at her?”
+
+Before restoring his hands to their proper dwelling-place--his
+pockets--he jerked his thumb toward a long white boat, which we had not
+seen through the blinding scud. Bereft of its brethren, or sisters--for
+all fluctuating things are feminine--that boat survived, in virtue of
+standing a few feet higher than the rest. But even so, and mounted
+on the last hump of the pebble ridge, it was rolling and reeling with
+stress of the wind and the wash of wild water under it.
+
+“How nobly our Lyceum stands!” the Major shouted, for any thing less
+than a shout was dumb. “This is the time to try institutions. I am proud
+of my foundations.”
+
+In answer to his words appeared a huge brown surge, a mountain ridge,
+seething backward at the crest with the spread and weight of onset.
+This great wave smote all other waves away, or else embodied them, and
+gathered its height against the poor worn pebble bank, and descended.
+A roar distinct above the universal roar proclaimed it; a crash of
+conflict shook the earth, and the shattered bank was swallowed in a
+world of leaping whiteness. When this wild mass dashed onward into the
+swelling flood before us, there was no sign of Lyceum left, but stubs of
+foundation, and a mangled roof rolling over and over, like a hen-coop.
+
+“Well, that beats every thing I ever saw,” exclaimed the gallant Major.
+“What noble timber! What mortise-work! No London scamping there, my
+lads. But what comes here? Why, the very thing we wanted! Barnes, look
+alive, my man. Run to your house, and get a pair of oars and a bucket.”
+
+It was the boat, the last surviving boat of all that hailed from
+Bruntsea. That monstrous billow had tossed it up like a school-boy's
+kite, and dropped it whole, with an upright keel, in the inland sea,
+though nearly half full of water. Driven on by wind and wave, it labored
+heavily toward us; and more than once it seemed certain to sink as it
+broached to and shipped seas again. But half a dozen bold fishermen
+rushed with a rope into the short angry surf--to which the polled
+shingle bank still acted as a powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had
+collapsed--and they hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her
+up straight with, “Yo--heave--oh!” and turned her on her side to drain,
+and then launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail out the
+rest of the water, and a pair of heavy oars brought down by Barnes, and
+nobody knows what other things.
+
+“Naught to steer with. Rudder gone!” cried one of the men, as the
+furious gale drove the boat, athwart the street, back again.
+
+“Wants another oar,” said Barnes. “What a fool I were to bring only
+two!”
+
+“Here you are!” shouted Major Hockin. “One of you help me to pull up
+this pole.”
+
+Through a shattered gate they waded into a little garden, which had been
+the pride of the season at Bruntsea; and there from the ground they tore
+up a pole, with a board at the top nailed across it, and the following
+not rare legend: “Lodgings to let. Inquire within. First floor front,
+and back parlors.”
+
+“Fust-rate thing to steer with! Would never have believed you had the
+sense!” So shouted Barnes--a rough man, roughened by the stress of storm
+and fright. “Get into starn-sheets if so liketh. Ye know, ye may be
+useful.”
+
+“I defy you to push off without my sanction. Useful, indeed! I am the
+captain of this boat. All the ground under it is mine. Did you think,
+you set of salted radicals, that I meant to let you go without me? And
+all among my own houses!”
+
+“Look sharp, governor, if you has the pluck, then. Mind, we are more
+like to be swamped than not.”
+
+As the boat swung about, Major Hockin jumped in, and so, on the spur of
+the moment, did I. We staggered all about with the heave and roll,
+and both would have fallen on the planks, or out over, if we had not
+tumbled, with opposite impetus, into the arms of each other. Then a
+great wave burst and soaked us both, and we fell into sitting on a
+slippery seat.
+
+Meanwhile two men were tugging at each oar, and Barnes himself steering
+with the sign-board; and the head of the boat was kept against the
+wind and the billows from our breakwater. Some of these seemed resolved
+(though shorn of depth and height in crossing) to rush all over us and
+drown us in the washer-women's drying ground. By skill and presence
+of mind, our captain, Barnes, foiled all their violence, till we got a
+little shelter from the ruins of the “Young Men's Christian Institute.”
+
+“Hold all!” cried Barnes; “only keep her head up, while I look about
+what there is to do.”
+
+The sight was a thing to remember; and being on the better side now of
+the scud, because it was flying away from us, we could make out a great
+deal more of the trouble which had befallen Bruntsea. The stormy fiord
+which had usurped the ancient track of the river was about a furlong in
+width, and troughed with white waves vaulting over. And the sea rushed
+through at the bottom as well, through scores of yards of pebbles, as it
+did in quiet weather even, when the tide was brimming. We in the tossing
+boat, with her head to the inrush of the outer sea, were just like
+people sitting upon the floats or rafts of a furious weir; and if any
+such surge had topped the ridge as the one which flung our boat to us,
+there could be no doubt that we must go down as badly as the Major's
+houses. However, we hoped for the best, and gazed at the desolation
+inland.
+
+Not only the Major's great plan, but all the lower line of old Bruntsea,
+was knocked to pieces, and lost to knowledge in freaks of wind-lashed
+waters. Men and women were running about with favorite bits of
+furniture, or feather-beds, or babies' cradles, or whatever they had
+caught hold of. The butt ends of the three old streets that led down
+toward the sea-ground were dipped, as if playing seesaw in the surf, and
+the storm made gangways of them and lighthouses of the lamp-posts. The
+old public-house at the corner was down, and the waves leaping in at the
+post-office door, and wrecking the globes of the chemist.
+
+“Drift and dash, and roar and rush, and the devil let loose in the thick
+of it. My eyes are worn out with it. Take the glass, Erema, and tell
+us who is next to be washed away. A new set of clothes-props for Mrs.
+Mangles I paid for the very day I came back from town.”
+
+With these words, the lord of the submarine manor (whose strength of
+spirit amazed me) offered his pet binocular, which he never went without
+upon his own domain. And fisherman Barnes, as we rose and fell, once
+more saved us from being “swamped” by his clever way of paddling through
+a scallop in the stern, with the board about the first floor front to
+let.
+
+The seamen, just keeping way on the boat, sheltered their eyes with
+their left hands, and fixed them on the tumultuous scene.
+
+I also gazed through the double glass, which was a very clear one; but
+none of us saw any human being at present in any peril.
+
+“Old pilot was right, after all,” said one; “but what a good job as it
+come o' middle day, and best of all of a Sunday!”
+
+“I have heered say,” replied another, “that the like thing come to pass
+nigh upon three hunder years agone. How did you get your things out, Jem
+Bishop?”
+
+Jem, the only one of them whose house was in the havoc, regarded with a
+sailor's calmness the entry of the sea through his bedroom window, and
+was going to favor us with a narrative, when one of his mates exclaimed,
+
+“What do I see yonner, lads? Away beyond town altogether. Seemeth to me
+like a fellow swimming. Miss, will you lend me spy-glass? Never seed a
+double-barreled one before. Can use him with one eye shut, I s'pose?”
+
+“No good that way, Joe,” cried Barnes, with a wink of superior
+knowledge, for he often had used this binocular. “Shut one eye for one
+barrel--stands to reason, then, you shut both for two, my son.”
+
+“Stow that,” said the quick-eyed sailor, as he brought the glass to bear
+in a moment. “It is a man in the water, lads, and swimming to save the
+witch, I do believe.”
+
+“Bless me!” cried the Major; “how stupid of us! I never thought once of
+that poor woman. She must be washed out long ago. Pull for your lives,
+my friends. A guinea apiece if you save her.”
+
+“And another from me,” I cried. Whereupon the boat swept round, and the
+tough ash bent, and we rushed into no small danger. For nearly half a
+mile had we to pass of raging and boisterous water, almost as wild as
+the open sea itself at the breaches of the pebble ridge. And the risk of
+a heavy sea boarding us was fearfully multiplied by having thus to cross
+the storm instead of breasting it. Useless and helpless, and only in
+the way, and battered about by wind and sea, so that my Sunday dress was
+become a drag, what folly, what fatuity, what frenzy, I might call it,
+could ever have led me to jump into that boat? “I don't know. I only
+know that I always do it,” said my sensible self to its mad sister, as
+they both shut their eyes at a great white wave. “If I possibly survive,
+I will try to know better. But ever from my childhood I am getting into
+scrapes.”
+
+The boat labored on, with a good many grunts, but not a word from any
+one. More than once we were obliged to fetch up as a great billow topped
+the poor shingle bank; and we took so much water on board that the
+men said afterward that I saved them. I only remember sitting down and
+working at the bucket with both hands, till much of the skin was
+gone, and my arms and many other places ached. But what was that to be
+compared with drowning?
+
+At length we were opposite “Desolate Hole,” which was a hole no longer,
+but filled and flooded with the churning whirl and reckless dominance
+of water. Tufts and tussocks of shattered brush and rolling wreck played
+round it, and the old gray stone of mullioned windows split the wash
+like mooring-posts. We passed and gazed; but the only sound was the
+whistling of the tempest, and the only living sight a sea-gull, weary of
+his wings, and drowning.
+
+“No living creature can be there,” the Major broke our long silence.
+“Land, my friends, if land we may. We risk our own lives for nothing.”
+
+The men lay back on their oars to fetch the gallant boat to the wind
+again, when through a great gap in the ruins they saw a sight that
+startled manhood. At the back of that ruin, on the landward side, on a
+wall which, tottered under them, there were two figures standing. One a
+tall man, urging on, the other a woman shrinking. At a glance, or with
+a thought, I knew them both. One was Lord Castlewood's first love, the
+other his son and murderer.
+
+Our men shouted with the whole power of their hearts to tell that
+miserable pair to wait till succor should be brought to them. And the
+Major stood up and waved his hat, and in doing so tumbled back again.
+I can not tell--how could I tell in the thick of it?--but an idea or a
+flit of fancy touched me (and afterward became conviction) that while
+the man heard us not at all, and had no knowledge of us, his mother
+turned round and saw us all, and faced the storm in preference.
+
+Whatever the cause may have been, at least she suddenly changed her
+attitude. The man had been pointing to the roof, which threatened to
+fall in a mass upon them, while she had been shuddering back from the
+depth of eddying waves below her. But now she drew up her poor bent
+figure, and leaned on her son to obey him.
+
+Our boat, with strong arms laboring for life, swept round the old gable
+of the ruin; but we were compelled to “give it wide berth,” as Captain
+Barnes shouted; and then a black squall of terrific wind and hail burst
+forth. We bowed our heads and drew our bodies to their tightest compass,
+and every rib of our boat vibrated as a violin does; and the oars were
+beaten flat, and dashed their drip into fringes like a small-toothed
+comb.
+
+That great squall was either a whirlwind or the crowning blast of a
+hurricane. It beat the high waves hollow, as if it fell from the sky
+upon them; and it snapped off one of our oars at the hilt, so that two
+of our men rolled backward. And when we were able to look about again
+the whole roof of “Desolate Hole” was gone, and little of the walls left
+standing. And how we should guide our course, or even save our lives, we
+knew not.
+
+We were compelled to bring up--as best we might--with the boat's head
+to the sea, and so to keep it by using the steering gear against the
+surviving oar. As for the people we were come to save, there was no
+chance whatever of approaching them. Even without the mishap to the oar,
+we never could have reached them.
+
+And indeed when first we saw them again they seemed better off than
+ourselves were. For they were not far from dry land, and the man (a
+skillful and powerful swimmer) had a short piece of plank, which he knew
+how to use to support his weak companion.
+
+“Brave fellow! fine fellow!” the Major cried, little knowing whom he was
+admiring. “See how he keeps up his presence of mind! Such a man as that
+is worth any thing. And he cares more for her than he does for himself.
+He shall have the Society's medal. One more long and strong stroke, my
+noble friend. Oh, great God! what has befallen him?”
+
+In horror and pity we gazed. The man had been dashed against something
+headlong. He whirled round and round in white water, his legs were
+thrown up, and we saw no more of him. The woman cast off the plank, and
+tossed her helpless arms in search of him. A shriek, ringing far on
+the billowy shore, declared that she had lost him; and then, without a
+struggle, she clasped her hands, and the merciless water swallowed her.
+
+“It is all over,” cried Major Hockin, lifting his drenched hat solemnly.
+“The Lord knoweth best. He has taken them home.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+A DEAD LETTER
+
+
+With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of the
+compass than I can tell. Barnes, the fisherman, said how many; but I
+might be quite wrong in repeating it. One thing, at any rate, was within
+my compass--it had been blowing to the top of its capacity, direct from
+the sea, but now it began to blow quite as hard along the shore. This
+rough ingratitude of wind to waves, which had followed each breath of
+its orders, produced extraordinary passion, and raked them into pointed
+wind-cocks.
+
+“Captain, we can't live this out,” cried Barnes; “we must run her ashore
+at once; tide has turned; we might be blown out to sea, with one oar,
+and then the Lord Himself couldn't save us.”
+
+Crippled as we were, we contrived to get into a creek, or backwater,
+near the Major's gate. Here the men ran the boat up, and we all climbed
+out, stiff, battered, and terrified, but doing our best to be most truly
+thankful.
+
+“Go home, Captain, as fast as you can, and take the young lady along of
+you,” said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the weltering breadth of
+disaster. “We are born to the drip, but not you, Sir; and you are not so
+young as you was, you know.”
+
+“I am younger than ever I was,” the lord of the manor answered, sternly,
+yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his better
+half--who had not even heard of his danger. “None of that nonsense to
+me, Barnes. You know your position, and I know mine. On board of that
+boat you took the lead, and that may have misled you. I am very much
+obliged to you, I am sure, for all your skill and courage, which have
+saved the lives of all of us. But on land you will just obey me.”
+
+“Sartinly, Captain. What's your orders?”
+
+“Nothing at all. I give no orders. I only make suggestions. But if your
+experience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let us try it
+at once--at once, Barnes. Erema, run home. This is no scene for you. And
+tell Margaret to put on the double-bottomed boiler, with the stock she
+made on Friday, and a peck of patent pease. There is nothing to beat pea
+soup; and truly one never knows what may happen.”
+
+This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him.
+
+Running up his “drive” to deliver that message, at one of the many
+bends I saw people from Bruntsea hurrying along a footpath through the
+dairy-farm. While the flood continued this was their only way to meet
+the boat's crew. On the steps of “Smuggler's Castle” (as Bruntlands
+House was still called by the wicked) I turned again, and the new
+sea-line was fringed with active searchers. I knew what they were
+looking for, but, scared and drenched and shivering as I was, no more
+would I go near them. My duty was rather to go in and comfort dear Aunt
+Mary and myself. In that melancholy quest I could do no good, but a
+great deal of harm, perhaps, if any thing was found, by breaking forth
+about it.
+
+Mrs. Hockin had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered.
+Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Rasper's fly by an inland road, and
+she kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband, to distract his
+mind from disaster. That trouble had happened she could not look out
+of her window without knowing; but could it be right, at their time of
+life, to stand in the wet so, and challenge Providence, and spoil the
+first turkey-poult of the season?
+
+But when she heard of her husband's peril, in the midst of all his
+losses, his self-command, and noble impulse first of all to rescue life,
+she burst into tears, and hugged and kissed me, and said the same thing
+nearly fifty times.
+
+“Just like him. Just like my Nicholas. You thought him a speculative,
+selfish man. Now you see your mistake, Erema.”
+
+When her veteran husband came home at last (thoroughly jaded, and
+bringing his fishermen to gulp the pea soup and to gollop the turkey),
+a small share of mind, but a large one of heart, is required to imagine
+her doings. Enough that the Major kept saying, “Pooh-pooh!” and the more
+he said, the less he got of it.
+
+When feelings calmed down, and we returned to facts, our host and hero
+(who, in plain truth, had not so wholly eclipsed me in courage, though
+of course I expected no praise, and got none, for people hate courage in
+a lady), to put it more simply, the Major himself, making a considerable
+fuss, as usual--for to my mind he never could be Uncle Sam--produced
+from the case of his little “Church Service,” to which he had stuck like
+a Briton, a sealed and stamped letter, addressed to me at Castlewood, in
+Berkshire--“stamped,” not with any post-office tool, but merely with the
+red thing which pays the English post.
+
+Sodden and blurred as the writing was, I knew the clear, firm hand, the
+same which on the envelope at Shoxford had tempted me to meanness. This
+letter was from Thomas Hoyle; the Major had taken it from the pocket of
+his corpse; all doubt about his death was gone. When he felt his feet on
+the very shore, and turned to support his mother, a violent wave struck
+the back of his head upon Major Hockin's pillar-box.
+
+Such sadness came into my heart--though sternly it should have been
+gladness--that I begged their pardon, and went away, as if with a
+private message. And wicked as it may have been, to read was more than
+once to cry. The letter began abruptly:
+
+“You know nearly all my story now. I have only to tell you what brought
+me to you, and what my present offer is. But to make it clear, I must
+enlarge a little.
+
+“There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself. He
+forbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly, perhaps, to
+secure my escape, and partly for other reasons. If he had been brought
+to trial, his duty to his family and himself would have led him, no
+doubt, to explain things. And if that had failed, I would have returned
+and surrendered myself. As things happened, there was no need.
+
+“Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless the
+whole has been piled on my head, your father's home was destroyed, and
+he seems to have lost all care for every thing. Yet how much better off
+was he than I! Upon me the curse fell at birth; upon him, after thirty
+years of ease and happiness. However, for that very reason, perhaps, he
+bore it worse than I did. He grew imbittered against the world, which
+had in no way ill-treated him; whereas its very first principle is to
+scorn all such as I am. He seems to have become a misanthrope, and
+a fatalist like myself. Though it might almost make one believe the
+existence of such a thing as justice to see pride pay for its wickedness
+thus--the injury to the outcast son recoil upon the pampered one, and
+the family arrogance crown itself with the ignominy of the family.
+
+“In any case, there was no necessity for my interference; and being
+denied by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally driven to
+double my duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging upon mine.
+So we two for many years wandered about, shunning islands and insular
+prejudice. I also shunned your father, though (so far as I know) he
+neither sought me nor took any trouble to clear himself. If the one
+child now left him had been a son, heir to the family property and so
+on, he might have behaved quite otherwise, and he would have been bound
+to do so. But having only a female child, who might never grow up, and,
+if she did, was very unlikely to succeed, he must have resolved at least
+to wait. And perhaps he confirmed himself with the reflection that even
+if people believed his tale (so long after date and so unvouched), so
+far as family annals were concerned, the remedy would be as bad as the
+disease. Moreover, he owed his life to me, at great risk of my own; and
+to pay such a debt with the hangman's rope would scarcely appear quite
+honorable, even in the best society.
+
+“It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from my
+knowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps. We
+went our several ways in the world, neither of us very fortunate.
+
+“One summer, in the Black Forest, I fell in with an outcast Englishman,
+almost as great a vagabond as myself. He was under the ban of the law
+for writing his father's name without license. He did not tell me that,
+or perhaps even I might have despised him, for I never was dishonest.
+But one great bond there was between us--we both detested laws and men.
+My intimacy with him is the one thing in life which I am ashamed of. He
+passed by a false name then, of course. But his true name was Montague
+Hockin. My mother was in very weak health then, and her mind for the
+most part clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I
+had done for her sake. That man pretended to take the greatest interest
+in her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could cure her.
+
+“We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple villages,
+subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the little income left
+by my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle. But, compared with Hockin, we were well
+off; and he did his best to swindle us. Luckily all my faith in mankind
+was confined to the feminine gender, and not much even of that survived.
+In a very little time I saw that people may repudiate law as well from
+being below as from being above it.
+
+“Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt
+of every thing. We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all our
+kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two. Let me go into
+Freyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen. I asked him nothing as
+to what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of him, as of every body.
+However, I thought it just worth while, having some one who bought
+my wicker-work, to enter the outskirts of the town on the following
+evening, and wait to be told if any news was stirring. And the people
+were amazed at my not knowing that last night the wife of an English
+lord--for so they called him, though no lord yet--had run away with a
+golden-bearded man, believed to be also English.
+
+“About that you know more, perhaps, than I do. But I wish you to know
+what that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity. Of Herbert
+Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say (as
+Sir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all that wickedness, from
+spite toward all of the Castlewood name, is to tell as foul a lie as
+even he can well indulge in.
+
+“It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word of
+mine. To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. But
+he seems to have guessed at once that there was something strange in
+my history; and then, after spying and low prying at my mother, to have
+shaped his own conclusion. Then, having entirely under his power
+that young fool who left a kind husband for him, he conceived a most
+audacious scheme. This was no less than to rob your cousin, the last
+Lord Castlewood, not of his wife and jewels and ready money only, but
+also of all the disposable portion of the Castlewood estates. For the
+lady's mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all
+the lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal
+with them. And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not really
+deal at all with them--your father being still alive--it appears that
+his succession (when it afterward took place) was bound, at any rate, as
+against himself. A divorce might have canceled this--I can not say--but
+your late cousin was the last man in the world to incur the needful
+exposure. Upon this they naturally counted.
+
+“The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right as
+'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but even then
+found her master in a man of deeper wickedness. But if her poor husband
+desired revenge--which he does not seem to have done, perhaps--he could
+not have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, which
+devoured her beauty, like Herod and his glory. I believe that she
+still lives, but no one can go near her; least of all, the fastidious
+Montague.”
+
+At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed, “Thank
+God!” I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime of me to do
+it even once.
+
+“Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little
+accident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband's
+death, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now,
+little as he cares for opinion--what did he do but shift hands
+altogether? He made up his mind to confer the honor of his hand on you,
+having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became the very
+opposite of what they had been hitherto. Your father's innocence now
+must be maintained instead of his guiltiness.
+
+“With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police after
+me--me, who could snap all their noses off! For he saw how your heart
+was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his serf forever,
+by the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed, as they
+always do. He also failed in his overtures to you.
+
+“You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no ill-will,
+but rather admire your courage. You acted in a straightforward way, and
+employed no dirty agency. Of your simple devices I had no fear. However,
+I thought it as well to keep an eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy old
+fool, some relation of his, who had brought you back from America. To
+this end I kept my head-quarters near him, and established my mother
+comfortably. She was ordered sea air, and has had enough. To-morrow I
+shall remove her. By the time you receive this letter we shall both be
+far away, and come back no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin.
+Without personal violence this will be done.
+
+“Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just.
+My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and comfort. She
+has wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her 300 pounds a year,
+to be paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing.
+You will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which she
+sets great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back to
+England. I happen to know that you have it now.
+
+“In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the
+whole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as
+people will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you also,
+to hear no more of
+
+“THOMAS HOYLE.
+
+“P.S.--Of course I am trusting your honor in this. But your father's
+daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already proved.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+WITH HIS OWN SWORD
+
+
+“What a most wonderful letter!” cried the Major, when, after several
+careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him. “He calls me
+a 'worthy old fool,' does he? Well, I call him something a great deal
+worse--an unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a subverter of rank, and a Radical!
+And because he was a bastard, is the whole world base? And to come and
+live like that in a house of mine, and pay me no rent, and never even
+let me see him! Your grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him
+the cold shoulder. Of course you won't pay him a farthing.”
+
+“You forget that he is dead,” I answered, “and his poor mother with him.
+At least he behaved well to his mother. You called him a hero--when you
+knew not who he was. Poor fellow, he is dead! And, in spite of all, I
+can not help being very sorry for him.”
+
+“Yes, I dare say. Women always are. But you must show a little
+common-sense, Erema. Your grandfather seems to have had too much, and
+your father far too little. We must keep this matter quiet. Neither the
+man nor the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall have in all the
+county papers. There must be an inquest, of course, upon them both; but
+none of the fellows read this direction, for the admirable reason that
+they can not read. Our coming forward could do no good, and just now
+Bruntsea has other things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin,
+as they say.”
+
+“Please not to talk of that,” I exclaimed. “I can raise any quantity of
+money now, and you shall have it without paying interest. You wanted the
+course of the river restored, and now you have more--you have got the
+very sea. You could float the Bridal Veil itself, I do believe, at
+Bruntsea.”
+
+“You have suggested a fine idea,” the Major exclaimed, with emphasis.
+“You certainly should have been an engineer. It is a thousand times
+easier--as every body knows--to keep water in than to keep it out.
+Having burst my barricade, the sea shall stop inside and pay for it. Far
+less capital will be required. By Jove, what a fool I must have been
+not to see the hand of Providence in all this! Mary, can you spare me a
+minute, my dear? The noblest idea has occurred to me. Well, never mind,
+if you are busy; perhaps I had better not state it crudely, though it
+is not true that it happens every hour. I shall turn it over in my mind
+throughout the evening service. I mean to be there, just to let them
+see. They think that I am crushed, of course. They will see their
+mistake; and, Erema, you may come. The gale is over, and the evening
+bright. You sit by the fire, Mary, my dear; I shall not let you out
+again; keep the silver kettle boiling. In church I always think more
+clearly than where people talk so much. But when I come home I require
+something. I see, I see. Instead of an idle, fashionable lounging-place
+for nincompoops from London, instead of flirtation and novel-reading,
+vulgarity, show, and indecent attire, and positively immoral bathing,
+we will now have industry, commerce, wealth, triumph of mechanism, lofty
+enterprise, and international good-will. A harbor has been the great
+want of this coast; see what a thing it is at Newport! We will now have
+a harbor and floating docks, without any muddy, malarious river--all
+blue water from the sea; and our fine cliff range shall be studded with
+good houses. And the whole shall be called 'Erema-port.'”
+
+Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not at
+Bruntsea. Enough for this excellent man and that still more excellent
+woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the day is
+long--which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps, inasmuch as to
+the busy every day is short. But Mrs. Hockin, though as full of fowls as
+ever, gets no White Sultans nor any other rarity now from Sir Montague
+Hockin. That gentleman still is alive--so far, at least, as we have
+heard of; but no people owning any self-respect ever deal with him, to
+their knowledge. He gambled away all his father's estates, and the
+Major bought the last of them for his youngest son, a very noble Captain
+Hockin (according to his mother's judgment), whom I never had the honor
+of seeing. Sir Montague lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his cousin
+still hopes that he may turn honest.
+
+But as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a few words
+to be said. As soon as all necessary things were done at Bruntsea and at
+Castlewood, and my father's memory cleared from all stain, and by simple
+truth ennobled, in a manner strictly legal and consistent with
+heavy expenses, myself having made a long deposition and received
+congratulations--as soon as it was possible, I left them all, and set
+sail for America.
+
+The rashness of such a plan it is more easy for one to establish than
+two to deny. But what was there in it of peril or of enterprise compared
+with what I had been through already? I could not keep myself now from
+going, and reasoned but little about it.
+
+Meanwhile there had been no further tidings of Colonel Gundry or Firm,
+or even Martin of the Mill himself. But one thing I did which showed
+some little foresight. As soon as my mind was made up, and long before
+ever I could get away, I wrote to Martin Clogfast, telling him of my
+intention, and begging him, if he had any idea of the armies, or the
+Sawyer, or even Firm, or any thing whatever of interest, to write
+(without losing a day) to me, directing his letter to a house in New
+York whose address Major Hockin gave me.
+
+So many things had to be done, and I listened so foolishly to the Major
+(who did his very best to stop me), that it came to be May, 1862 (nearly
+four years after my father's death), before I could settle all my plans
+and start. For every body said that I was much too young to take such
+a journey all by myself, and “what every body says must be right,”
+ whenever there is no exception to prove the rule. “Aunt Marys” are not
+to be found every day, nor even Major Hockins; and this again helped
+to throw me back in getting away from England. And but for his vast
+engineering ideas, and another slight touch of rheumatic gout (brought
+upon herself by Mrs. Hockin through setting seven hens in one evening),
+the Major himself might have come with me, “to observe the new military
+tactics,” as well as to look for his cousin Sampson.
+
+In recounting this I seem to be as long as the thing itself was in
+accomplishing. But at last it was done, and most kindly was I offered
+the very thing to suit me--permission to join the party of a well-known
+British officer, Colonel Cheriton, of the Engineers. This gentleman,
+being of the highest repute as a writer upon military subjects,
+had leave from the Federal government to observe the course of this
+tremendous war. And perhaps he will publish some day what seems as
+yet to be wholly wanting--a calm and impartial narrative of that
+unparalleled conflict. At any rate, he meant to spare no trouble in a
+matter so instructive, and he took his wife and two daughters--very nice
+girls, who did me a world of good--to establish them in Washington, or
+wherever the case might require.
+
+Lucky as this was for me, I could not leave my dear and faithful friends
+without deep sorrow; but we all agreed that it should be only for a very
+little time. We landed first at New York, and there I found two letters
+from Martin of the Mill. In the first he grumbled much, and told me that
+nothing was yet known about Uncle Sam; in the second he grumbled (if
+possible) more, but gave me some important news. To wit, he had received
+a few lines from the Sawyer, who had failed as yet to find his grandson,
+and sadly lamented the misery he saw, and the shocking destruction of
+God's good works. He said that he could not bring himself to fight (even
+if he were young enough) against his own dear countrymen, one of whom
+was his own grandson; at the same time he felt that they must be put
+down for trying to have things too much their own way. About slavery, he
+had seen too much of niggers to take them at all for his equals, and no
+white man with any self-respect would desire to be their brother. The
+children of Ham were put down at the bottom, as their noses and their
+lips pronounced, according to Divine revelation; and for sons of Japheth
+to break up the noblest nation in the world, on their account, was
+like rushing in to inherit their curse. As sure as his name was Sampson
+Gundry, those who had done it would get the worst, though as yet they
+were doing wonders. And there could be no doubt about one thing--which
+party it was that began it. But come what would of it, here he was; and
+never would Saw-mills see him again unless he brought Firm Gundry. But
+he wanted news of poor Miss 'Rema; and if any came to the house, they
+must please to send it to the care of Colonel Baker, headquarters of the
+Army of the Potomac.
+
+This was the very thing I wished to know, and I saw now how stupid I
+must have been not to have thought of it long ago. For Colonel Baker
+was, to my knowledge, an ancient friend of Uncle Sam, and had joined the
+national army at the very outbreak of the war. Well known not only in
+California, but throughout the States, for gallantry and conduct, this
+officer had been a great accession to the Federal cause, when so many
+wavered, and so he was appointed to a good command. But, alas! when I
+told Colonel Cheriton my news, I learned from him (who had carefully
+watched all the incidents of the struggle) that Uncle Sam's noble friend
+had fallen in the battle of Ball's Bluff, while charging at the head of
+his regiment.
+
+Still, there was hope that some of the officers might know where to find
+Uncle Sam, who was not at all a man to be mislaid; and being allowed
+to accompany my English friends, I went on to Washington. We found
+that city in a highly nervous state, and from time to time ready to be
+captured. General Jackson was almost at the gates, and the President
+every day was calling out for men. The Army of Virginia had been beaten
+back to intrenchments before the capital, and General Lee was invading
+Maryland. Battle followed battle, thick as blows upon a threshing-floor,
+and though we were always said to be victorious, the enemy seemed
+none the more to run away. In this confusion, what chance had I of
+discovering even the Sawyer?
+
+Colonel Cheriton (who must have found me a dreadful thorn in the flank
+of his strategy) missed no opportunity of inquiry, as he went from one
+valley to another. For the war seemed to run along the course of rivers,
+though it also passed through the forests and lakes, and went up into
+the mountains. Our wonderfully clever and kind member of the British
+army was delighted with the movements of General Lee, who alone showed
+scientific elegance in slaying his fellow-countrymen; and the worst of
+it was that instead of going after my dear Uncle Sam, Colonel Cheriton
+was always rushing about with maps, plans, and telescopes, to follow the
+tracery of Lee's campaign. To treat of such matters is far beyond me,
+as I am most thankful to confess. Neither will I dare to be sorry for a
+great man doing what became his duty. My only complaint against him is
+that he kept us in a continual fright.
+
+However, this went by, and so did many other things, though heavily
+laden with grief and death; and the one thing we learned was to
+disbelieve ninety-nine out of every hundred. Letters for the Sawyer were
+dispatched by me to every likely place for him, and advertisements put
+into countless newspapers, but none of them seemed to go near him. Old
+as he was, he avoided feather-beds, and roamed like a true Californian.
+But at last I found him, in a sad, sad way.
+
+It was after the battle of Chancellorsville, and our army had been
+driven back across the Rappahannock. “Our army,” I call it, because
+(although we belonged to neither party) fortune had brought us into
+contact with these, and knowing more about them, we were bound to take
+their side. And not only that, but to me it appeared altogether beyond
+controversy that a man of large mind and long experience (such as Uncle
+Sam had) should know much better than his grandson which cause was the
+one to fight for. At the same time Firm was not at all to be condemned.
+And if it was true, as Martin Clogfast said, that trouble of mind at my
+absence had driven him into a prejudiced view, nothing could possibly be
+more ungracious than for me to make light of his judgment.
+
+Being twenty years old by this time, I was wiser than I used to be, and
+now made a practice of thinking twice before rushing into peril, as I
+used to do in California, and to some extent also in England. For though
+my adventures might not have been as strange as many I myself have heard
+of (especially from Suan Isco), nevertheless they had comprised enough
+of teaching and suffering also to make me careful about having any more.
+And so for a long time I kept at the furthest distance possible, in
+such a war, from the vexing of the air with cannons, till even Colonel
+Cheriton's daughters--perfectly soft and peaceful girls--began to
+despise me as a coward. Knowing what I had been through, I indulged
+their young opinions.
+
+Therefore they were the more startled when I set forth under a sudden
+impulse, or perhaps impatience, for a town very near the head-quarters
+of the defeated General Hooker. As they were so brave, I asked them
+whether they would come with me; but although their father was known to
+be there, they turned pale at the thought of it. This pleased me, and
+made me more resolute to go; and in three days' time I was at Falmouth,
+a town on our side of the Rappahannock.
+
+Here I saw most miserable sights that made me ashamed of all trifling
+fear. When hundreds and thousands of gallant men were dying in crippled
+agony, who or what was I to make any fuss about my paltry self? Clumsy
+as I was, some kind and noble ladies taught me how to give help among
+the sufferers.
+
+At first I cried so at every body's pain, while asking why ever they
+should have it, that I did some good by putting them up to bear it
+rather than distress me so. And when I began to command myself (as
+custom soon enabled me), I did some little good again by showing them
+how I cared for them. Their poor weak eyes, perhaps never expecting
+to see a nice thing in the world again, used to follow me about with a
+faint, slow roll, and a feeble spark of jealousy.
+
+That I should have had such a chance of doing good, onefold to others
+and a thousandfold to self, at this turn of life, when I was full of
+little me, is another of the many most clear indications of a kind hand
+over me. Every day there was better than a year of ordinary life in
+breaking the mind from its little selfish turns, and opening the heart
+to a larger power. And all this discipline was needed.
+
+For one afternoon, when we all were tired, with great heat upon us
+suddenly, and the flies beginning to be dreadful, our chief being rather
+unwell and fast asleep, the surgeons away, and our beds as full as they
+could be, I was called down to reason with an applicant who would take
+no denial. “A rough man, a very rough old man, and in a most terrible
+state of mind,” said the girl who brought the message; “and room he
+would have, or he would know the reason.”
+
+“The reason is not far to seek,” I answered, more to myself than her, as
+I ran down the stairs to discomfit that old man. At the open door, with
+the hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching shriveled cheeks, now
+wearily raising his battered hat, stood my dear Uncle Sam, the Sawyer.
+
+“Lor' a massy! young lady, be you altogether daft? In my best of days,
+never was I lips for kissing. And the bootifulest creatur--Come now, I
+ain't saved your life, have I now?”
+
+“Yes, fifty times over--fifty thousand times. Uncle Sam, don't you know
+Erema?”
+
+“My eyes be dashed! And dashed they be, to forget the look of yours,
+my dearie. Seven days have I marched without thanking the Lord; and hot
+coals of fire has He poured upon me now, for His mercy endureth forever.
+To think of you--to think of you--as like my own child as could be--only
+of more finer breed--here standing in front of me, like this here!
+There! I never dreamed to do that again, and would scorn a young man at
+the sight of it.”
+
+The Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping. He simply
+turned his tanned and weathered face toward the door-post, not to hide
+his tears, but reconcile his pride by feigning it. I felt that he must
+be at very low ebb, and all that I had seen of other people's sorrow had
+no power to assuage me. Inside the door, to keep the hot wind out and
+hide my eyes from the old man's face, I had some little quiet sobs,
+until we could both express ourselves.
+
+“It is poor Firm, the poor, poor lad!--oh, what hath happened him? That
+I should see the day!”
+
+Uncle Sam's deep voice broke into a moan, and he bowed his rough
+forehead on his arm, and shook. Then I took him by the sleeve and
+brought him in.
+
+“Not dead--poor Firm, your only one--not dead?” as soon as words would
+come, I asked, and trembled for the opening of his lips.
+
+“Not dead--not quite; but ten times worse. He hath flown into the face
+of the Lord, like Saul and his armor-bearer; he hath fallen on his
+own sword; and the worst of it is that the darned thing won't come out
+again.”
+
+“Firm--the last person in the world to do it! Oh, Uncle Sam, surely they
+have told you--”
+
+“No lies--no lie at all, my dear. And not only that, but he wanteth now
+to die--and won't be long first, I reckon. But no time to lose, my dear.
+The Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his leaving of the world.
+Can 'e raise a bed and a doctor here? If he would but groan, I could
+bear it a bit, instead of bleeding inward. And for sartin sure, a'
+would groan nicely, if only by force of habit, at first sight of a real
+doctor.”
+
+“There are half a dozen here,” I said; “or at least close by. He shall
+have my own bed. But where is he?”
+
+“We have laid 'un in the sand,” he answered, simply, “for to dry his
+perspiration. That weak the poor chap is that he streameth night and
+day, miss. Never would you know him for our Firm now, any more than me
+for Sampson Gundry. Ah me! but the Lord is hard on us!”
+
+Slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor Firm to the hospital;
+while, with light feet but a heavy heart, I returned to arouse our
+managers. Speedily and well were all things done; and in half an hour
+Finn lay upon my bed, with two of the cleverest surgeons of New York
+most carefully examining his wasted frame. These whispered and shook
+their heads, as in such a case was indispensable; and listening eagerly,
+I heard the senior surgeon say, “No, he could never bear it.” The
+younger man seemed to think otherwise, but to give way to the longer
+experience. Then dear Uncle Sam, having bought a new hat at the corner
+of the street, came forward. Knowing too well what excitement is, and
+how it changes every one, I lifted my hand for him to go back; but he
+only put his great hot web of fingers into mine, and drew me to him
+softly, and covered me up with his side. “He heareth nort, nort, nort,”
+ he whispered to me; and then spoke aloud:
+
+“Gentlemen and ladies--or ladies and gentlemen, is the more correct form
+nowadays--have I leave to say a word or two? Then if I have, as your
+manner to me showeth, and heartily thanking you for that same, my words
+shall go into an acorn-cup. This lad, laid out at your mercy here,
+was as fine a young fellow as the West hath ever raised--straight and
+nimble, and could tell no lie. Family reasons, as you will excoose of,
+drew him to the arms of rebellion. I may have done, and overdone it
+myself, in arguing cantrips and convictions, whereof to my knowledge
+good never came yet. At any rate, off he went anyhow, and the force
+of nature drew me after him. No matter that to you, I dare say; but it
+would be, if you was in it.
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, and no harm can you make out of him.
+Although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking, bravely
+hath he fought, and made his way to a colonelship, worth five thousand
+dollars, if ever they pay their wages. Never did I think that he would
+earn so much, having never owned gifts of machinery; and concerning the
+handling of the dollars, perhaps, will carry my opinion out. But where
+was I wandering of a little thing like that?
+
+“It hath pleased the Lord, who doeth all things well, when finally come
+to look back upon--the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this young
+man for going agin his grandfather. From Californy--a free State, mind
+you--he come away to fight for slavery. And how hath he magnified his
+office? By shooting the biggest man on that side, the almighty foe of
+the Union, the foremost captain of Midian--the general in whom they
+trusted. No bullets of ours could touch him; but by his own weapons he
+hath fallen. And soon as Ephraim Gundry heard it, he did what you see
+done to him.”
+
+Uncle Sam having said his say--which must have cost him dearly--withdrew
+from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax, and grimy. To
+be sure that it was Firm, I gave one glance--for Firm had always been
+straight, tall, and large--and then, in a miserable mood, I stole to the
+Sawyer's side to stand with him. “Am I to blame? Is this my fault? For
+even this am I to blame?” I whispered; but he did not heed me, and his
+hands were like hard stone.
+
+After a long, hot, heavy time, while I was laboring vainly, the Sawyer
+also (through exhaustion of excitement) weary, and afraid to begin again
+with new bad news, as beaten people expect to do, the younger surgeon
+came up to him, and said, “Will you authorize it?”
+
+“To cut 'un up? To show your museums what a Western lad is? Never. By
+the Blue River he shall have a good grave. So help me God, to my own, my
+man!”
+
+“You misunderstand me. We have more subjects now than we should want for
+fifty years. War knocks the whole of their value on the head. We have
+fifty bodies as good as this, and are simply obliged to bury them. What
+I mean is, shall we pull the blade out?”
+
+“Can he do any thing with that there blade in him? I have heard of a man
+in Kentucky once--”
+
+“Yes, yes; we know all those stories, Colonel--suit the newspapers, not
+the journals. This fellow has what must kill him inside; he is worn to
+a shadow already. If there it is left, die he must, and quick stick;
+inflammation is set up already. If we extract it, his chance of
+surviving is scarcely one in a hundred.”
+
+“Let him have the one, then, the one in the hundred, like the ninety and
+nine lost sheep. The Lord can multiply a hundredfold--some threescore,
+and some an hundredfold. I will speak to Him, gentlemen, while you try
+the job.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+FEMALE SUFFRAGE
+
+
+All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for Firm.
+Our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she could be spared,
+and all the other ladies vied in zeal for this young soldier, so that
+I could scarcely get near him. His grandfather's sad and extraordinary
+tale was confirmed by a wounded prisoner. Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare
+power of sight had been fatal perhaps to the cause he fought for, or
+at least to its greatest captain. Returning from desperate victory, the
+general, wrapped in the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his
+own stern thoughts, while it seemed quite impossible that he should be
+seen, encountered the fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was
+given by his favorite officer, Colonel Firm Gundry. When the young man
+learned that he had destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief idol of
+his heart, he called for a rifle, but all refused him, knowing too well
+what his purpose was. Then under the trees, without a word or sigh, he
+set the hilt of his sword upon the earth, and the point to his heart--as
+well as he could find it. The blade passed through him, and then snapped
+off--But I can not bear to speak of it.
+
+And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he was
+made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case but
+also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more frankly
+acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one. It was proved that,
+with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two wounds than one,
+even though they may not be at the same time taken. Firm had been
+shot by the captain of Mexican robbers, as long ago related. He was
+dreadfully pulled down at the time, and few people could have survived
+it. But now that stood him in the very best stead, not only as a lesson
+of patience, but also in the question of cartilage. But not being
+certain what cartilage is, I can only refer inquirers to the note-book
+of the hospital, which has been printed.
+
+For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be) this
+brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time successfully with
+that great enemy of the human race, to whom the human race so largely
+consign one another and themselves. But some did say, and emphatically
+Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry--for a colonel he was now, not by
+courtesy, but commission--would never have held up his head to do it,
+but must have gone on with his ravings for death, if somebody had not
+arrived in the nick of time, and cried over him--a female somebody from
+old England.
+
+And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be a
+man again, never would have calmed his conscience with the reflection,
+so commonplace and yet so high--that having done our best according to
+our lights, we must not dwell always on our darkness--if once again, and
+for the residue of life, there had not been some one to console him--a
+consolation that need not have, and is better without, pure reason,
+coming, as that would come, from a quarter whence it is never quite
+welcome. Enough for me that he never laid hand to a weapon of war again,
+and never shall unless our own home is invaded.
+
+For after many months--each equal to a year of teaching and of
+humbling--there seemed to be a good time for me to get away and attend
+to my duties in England. Of these I had been reminded often by letters,
+and once by a messenger; but all money matters seemed dust in the
+balance where life and death were swinging. But now Uncle Sam and his
+grandson, having their love knit afresh by disaster, were eager to start
+for the Saw-mill, and trust all except their own business to Providence.
+
+I had told them that, when they went westward, my time would be come for
+starting eastward; and being unlikely to see them again, I should hope
+for good news frequently. And then I got dear Uncle Sam by himself, and
+begged him, for the sake of Firm's happiness, to keep him as far as he
+could from Pennsylvania Sylvester. At the same time I thought that the
+very nice young lady who jumped upon his nose from the window, Miss
+Annie--I forgot her name, or at any rate I told him so--would make him
+a good straightforward wife, so far as one could tell from having seen
+her. And that seemed to have been settled in their infancy. And if he
+would let me know when it was to be, I had seen a thing in London I
+should like to give them.
+
+When I asked the Sawyer to see to this, instead of being sorry, he
+seemed quite pleased, and nodded sagaciously, and put his hat on, as he
+generally did, to calculate.
+
+“Both of them gals have married long ago,” he said, looking at me with a
+fine soft gaze; “and bad handfuls their mates have got of them. But
+what made you talk of them, missy--or 'my lady,' as now you are in old
+country, I hear--what made you think of them like that, my dearie?”
+
+“I can't tell what made me think of them. How can I tell why I think of
+every thing?”
+
+“Still, it was an odd thing for your ladyship to say.”
+
+“Uncle Sam, I am nobody's ladyship, least of all yours. What makes you
+speak so? I am your own little wandering child, whose life you saved,
+and whose father you loved, and who loses all who love her. Even from
+you I am forced to go away. Oh, why is it always my fate--my fate?”
+
+“Hush!” said the old man; and I stopped my outburst at his whisper. “To
+talk of fate, my dearie, shows either one thing or the other--that we
+have no will of our own, or else that we know not how to guide it. I
+never knew a good man talk of fate. The heathens and the pagans made it.
+The Lord in heaven is enough for me; and He always hath allowed me my
+own free-will, though I may not have handled 'un cleverly. And He giveth
+you your own will now, my missy--to go from us or to stop with us. And
+being as you are a very grand young woman now, owning English land and
+income paid in gold instead of greenbacks--the same as our nugget seems
+likely--to my ideas it would be wrong if we was so much as to ask you.”
+
+“Is that what you are full of, then, and what makes you so mysterious? I
+did think that you knew me better, and I had a right to hope so.”
+
+“Concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of. You might
+do this, or you might do that, according to what you was told, or, even
+more, according to what was denied you. For poor honest people, like
+Firm and me, to deal with such a case is out of knowledge. For us it
+is--go by the will of the Lord, and dead agin your own desires.”
+
+“But, dear Uncle Sam,” I cried, feeling that now I had him upon his
+own tenterhooks, “you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature for
+daring to talk about fate just now; but to what else comes your own
+conduct, if you are bound to go against your own desire? If you have
+such a lot of freewill, why must you do what you do not like to do?”
+
+“Well, well, perhaps I was talking rather large. The will of the world
+is upon us as well. And we must have respect for its settlements.”
+
+“Now let me,” I said, with a trembling wish to have every thing right
+and maidenly. “I have seen so much harm from misunderstandings, and they
+are so simple when it is too late--let me ask you one or two questions,
+Uncle Sam. You always answer every body. And to you a crooked answer is
+impossible.”
+
+“Business is business,” the Sawyer said. “My dear, I contract
+accordingly.”
+
+“Very well. Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have done with
+me? Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who have never even
+heard of me.”
+
+“Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so
+natural.”
+
+“In the next place, what does your grandson wish?”
+
+“To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till death do
+you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs.”
+
+“And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish? You say we all have so much
+free-will.”
+
+“It is natural that you should wish, my dear, to go and be a great
+lady, and marry a nobleman of your own rank, and have a lot of little
+noblemen.”
+
+“Then I fly against nature; and the fault is yours for filling me so
+with machinery.”
+
+The Sawyer was beaten, and he never said again that a woman can not
+argue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS
+
+
+From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred, and fury of that wicked war
+we set our little convoy forth, with passes procured from either side.
+According to all rules of war, Firm was no doubt a prisoner; but having
+saved his life, and taken his word to serve no more against them,
+remembering also that he had done them more service than ten regiments,
+the Federal authorities were not sorry to be quit of him.
+
+He, for his part, being of a deep, retentive nature, bore in his wounded
+breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime. To me he said not a
+single word about his bitter fortune, and he could not bring himself
+to ask me whether I would share it. Only from his eyes sometimes I knew
+what he was thinking; and having passed through so much grief, I
+was moved with deep compassion. Poor Firm had been trained by his
+grandfather to a strong, earnest faith in Providence, and now this
+compelled him almost to believe that he had been specially visited. For
+flying in the face of his good grandfather, and selfishly indulging his
+own stiff neck, his punishment had been hard, and almost heavier than he
+could bear. Whatever might happen to him now, the spring and the flower
+of his life were gone; he still might have some calm existence, but
+never win another day of cloudless joy. And if he had only said this, or
+thought about it, we might have looked at him with less sadness of our
+own.
+
+But he never said any thing about himself, nor gave any opening for
+our comfort to come to him. Only from day to day he behaved gently and
+lovingly to both of us, as if his own trouble must be fought out by
+himself, and should dim no other happiness. And this kept us thinking of
+his sorrow all the more, so that I could not even look at him without a
+flutter of the heart, which was afraid to be a sigh.
+
+At last, upon the great mountain range, through which we now were
+toiling, with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks, and a
+sparkling veil for sunrise, dear Uncle Sam, who had often shown signs of
+impatience, drew me apart from the rest. Straightforward and blunt as he
+generally was, he did not seem altogether ready to begin, but pulled off
+his hat, and then put it on again, the weather being now cold and hot
+by turns. And while he did this he was thinking at his utmost, as every
+full vein of his forehead declared. And being at home with his ways, I
+waited.
+
+“Think you got ahead of me? No, not you,” he exclaimed at last, in
+reply to some version of his own of my ideas, which I carefully made a
+nonentity under the scrutiny of his keen blue eyes. “No, no, missy;
+you wait a bit. Uncle Sam was not hatched yesterday, and it takes fifty
+young ladies to go round him.”
+
+“Is that from your size, Uncle Sam, or your depth?”
+
+“Well, a mixture of both, I do believe. Now the last thing you ever
+would think of, if you lived to be older than Washington's nurse, is the
+very thing I mean to put to you. Only you must please to take it well,
+according to my meaning. You see our Firm going to a shadow, don't you?
+Very well; the fault of that is all yourn. Why not up and speak to him?”
+
+“I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam, and I spare no efforts to fatten
+him. I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook. But soon he will
+have Suan Isco.”
+
+“Old Injun be darned! It's not the stomach, it's the heart as wants
+nourishment with yon poor lad. He looketh that pitiful at you sometimes,
+my faith, I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his newings or cry at
+the lean face that does it.”
+
+“You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam. And he never does any
+thing of the kind. I am sure there is nothing to laugh at.”
+
+“No, no; to be sure not. I made a mistake. Heroic is the word, of
+course--every thing is heroic.”
+
+“It is heroic,” I answered, with some vexation at his lightness. “If you
+can not see it, I am sorry for you. I like large things; and I know of
+nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on.”
+
+“You to stand up for him!” Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could
+scarcely look at me. “You to talk large of him, my Lady Castlewood,
+while you are doing of his heart into small wittles! Well, I did
+believe, if no one else, that you were a straightforward one.”
+
+“And what am I doing that is crooked now?”
+
+“Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no. Only onconsistent, when
+squared up.”
+
+“Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day. What is inconsistent? What is
+there to square up?”
+
+He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise. Then, as if his
+main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and said, “Soup's
+a-bilin now.”
+
+“Let it boil over, then. You must say what you mean. Oh, Uncle Sam, I
+only want to do the right!”
+
+“I dessay. I dessay. But have you got the pluck, miss? Our little missy
+would 'a done more than that. But come to be great lady--why, they take
+another tune. With much mind, of course it might be otherwise. But none
+of 'em have any much of that to spare.”
+
+“Your view is a narrow one,” I replied, knowing how that would astonish
+him. “You judge by your own experience only; and to do that shows a sad
+want of breadth, as the ladies in England express it.”
+
+The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all about
+for his spectacles. The idea of being regarded by a “female” from a
+larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in his system.
+
+“Yes,” I continued, with some enjoyment, “let us try to look largely
+at all things, Uncle Sam. And supposing me capable of that, what is the
+proper and the lofty course to take?”
+
+He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three words
+discomfited me--“Pop the question.”
+
+Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind
+with man, and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that her
+privilege could be driven to this extent. But I shook my head till all
+my hair came down; and so if our constitutional right of voting by color
+was exercised, on this occasion it claimed the timid benefit of ballot.
+
+With us a suggestion, for the time discarded, has often double effect
+by-and-by; and though it was out of my power to dream of acting up to
+such directions, there could be no possible harm in reviewing such a
+theory theoretically.
+
+Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts, nor even so much as that
+(safely may I say), when Firm and myself met face to face on the third
+day after Uncle Sam's ideas. Our little caravan, of which the Sawyer
+was the captain, being bound for Blue River and its neighborhood, had
+quitted the Sacramento track by a fork on the left not a league from
+the spot where my father had bidden adieu to mankind. And knowing every
+twist and turn of rock, our drivers brought us at the camping-time
+almost to the verge of chaparral.
+
+I knew not exactly how far we were come, but the dust-cloud of memory
+was stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they used to
+look, the things done among them seemed larger. And wandering forth from
+the camp to think, when the evening meal was over, lo! there I stood in
+that selfsame breach or portal of the desert in which I stood once by
+my father's side, with scared and weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's
+shattered landmark. The time of year was different, being the ripe end
+of October now; but though the view was changed in tint, it was even
+more impressive. Sombre memories, and deep sense of grandeur, which is
+always sad, and solemn lights, and stealing shadows, compassed me with
+thoughtfulness. In the mouth of the gorge was a gray block of granite,
+whereupon I sat down to think.
+
+Old thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts as common as the clouds that cross
+the distant plain, and as vague as the wind that moves them--they please
+and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence, but what are
+they? The life that lies before us is, in some way, too, below us, like
+yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be traversed foot by foot, and
+laboriously travailed, without the cloudy vaporing or the high-flown
+meditation. And all that must be done by me, alone, with none to love
+me, and (which for a woman is so much worse) nobody ever to have for my
+own, to cherish, love, and cling to.
+
+Tier upon tier, and peak over peak, the finest mountains of the world
+are soaring into the purple firmament. Like northern lights, they flash,
+or flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders of heaven, they
+bar themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven itself, they rank
+their white procession. Lonely, feeble, puny, I look up with awe and
+reverence; the mind pronounces all things small compared with this
+magnificence. Yet what will all such grandeur do--the self-defensive
+heart inquires--for puny, feeble, lonely me?
+
+Before another shadow deepened or another light grew pale, a slow,
+uncertain step drew near, and by the merest chance it happened to be
+Ephraim Gundry's. I was quite surprised, and told him so; and he said
+that he also was surprised at meeting me in this way. Remembering how
+long I had been here, I thought this most irrational, but checked myself
+from saying so, because he looked so poorly. And more than that, I asked
+him kindly how he was this evening, and smoothed my dress to please his
+eye, and offered him a chair of rock. But he took no notice of all these
+things.
+
+I thought of the time when he would have behaved so very differently
+from this, and nothing but downright pride enabled me to repress
+vexation. However, I resolved to behave as kindly as if he were his own
+grandfather.
+
+“How grand these mountains are!” I said. “It must do you good to see
+them again. Even to me it is such a delight. And what must it be to you,
+a native?”
+
+“Yes, I shall wander from them no more. How I wish that I had never done
+so?”
+
+“Have men less courage than women?” I asked, with one glance at his pale
+worn face. “I owe you the debt of life; and this is the place to think
+and speak of it. I used to talk freely of that, you know. You used to
+like to hear me speak; but now you are tired of that, and tired of all
+the world as well, I fear.”
+
+“No, I am tired of nothing, except my own vile degradation. I am tired
+of my want of spirit, that I can not cast my load. I am tired of my lack
+of reason, which should always guide a man. What is the use of mind or
+intellect, reasoning power, or whatever it is called, if the whole of
+them can not enable a man to hold out against a stupid heart?”
+
+“I think you should be proud,” I said, while trembling to approach the
+subject which never had been touched between us, “at having a nature
+so sensitive. Your evil chance might have been any body's, and must of
+course have been somebody's. But nobody else would have taken it so--so
+delightfully as you have done!”
+
+“Delightfully! Is that the word you use? May I ask who gets any delight
+from it?”
+
+“Why, all who hate the Southern cause,” I replied, with a sudden turn of
+thought, though I never had meant to use the word. “Surely that needs no
+explanation.”
+
+“They are delighted, are they? Yes, I can very well believe it.
+Narrow-minded bigots! Yes, they are sure to be delighted. They call it a
+just visitation, of course, a righteous retribution. And they hope I may
+never get over it.”
+
+“I pray you to take it more gently,” I said; “they are very good
+men, and wish you no harm. But they must have their own opinions; and
+naturally they think them just.”
+
+“Then all their opinions are just wrong. They hope to see me go down,
+to my grave. They shall not have that pleasure. I will outlive every
+old John Brown of them. I did not care two cents to live just now.
+Henceforth I will make a point of it. If I cannot fight for true freedom
+any more, having ruined it perhaps already, the least I can do is to
+give no more triumph to its bitter enemies. I will eat and drink, and
+begin this very night. I suppose you are one of them, as you put their
+arguments so neatly. I suppose you consider me a vile slave-driver?”
+
+“You are very ill,” I said, with my heart so full of pity that anger
+could not enter; “you are very ill, and very weak. How could you drive
+the very best slave now--even such a marvel as Uncle Tom?”
+
+Firm Gundry smiled; on his lean dry face there shone a little flicker,
+which made me think of the time when he bought a jest-book, published at
+Cincinnati, to make himself agreeable to my mind. And little as I meant
+it, I smiled also, thinking of the way he used to come out with his
+hard-fought jokes, and expect it.
+
+“I wish you were at all as you used to be,” he said, looking at me
+softly through the courage of his smile, “instead of being such a grand
+lady.”
+
+“And I wish you were a little more like yourself,” I answered, without
+thinking; “you used to think always there was nobody like me.”
+
+“Suppose that I am of the same opinion still? Tenfold, fiftyfold, a
+millionfold?”
+
+“To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd, when you have
+shown no sign of it.”
+
+“For your own dear sake I have shown no sign. The reason of that is too
+clear to explain.”
+
+“Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it!”
+
+“Why, who would have any thing to say to me--a broken-down man, a fellow
+marked out for curses, one who hates even the sight of himself? The
+lowest of the low would shun me.”
+
+He turned away from me, and gazed back toward the dismal, miserable,
+spectral desert; while I stood facing the fruitful, delicious, flowery
+Paradise of all the world. I thought of the difference in our lots,
+and my heart was in misery about him. Then I conquered my pride and my
+littleness and trumpery, and did what the gentle sweet Eve might have
+done. And never have I grieved for that action since.
+
+With tears on my cheeks quite undissembled, and a breast not ashamed of
+fluttering, I ran to Firm Gundry, and took his right hand, and allowed
+him no refuge from tender wet eyes. Then before he could come to see the
+meaning of this haste--because of his very high discipline--I was out
+of his distance, and sitting on a rock, and I lifted my eyes, full of
+eloquence, to his; then I dropped them, and pulled my hat forward, and
+said, as calmly as was possible, “I have done enough. The rest remains
+with you, Firm Gundry.”
+
+The rest remained with him. Enough that I was part of that rest; and if
+not the foundation or crown of it, something desirous to be both, and
+failing (if fail it ever does) from no want of trial. Uncle Sam says
+that I never fail at all, and never did fail in any thing, unless it was
+when I found that blamed nugget, for which we got three wagon-loads of
+greenbacks; which (when prosperity at last revives) will pay perhaps for
+greasing all twelve wheels.
+
+Jowler admits not that failure even. As soon as he recovered from canine
+dementia, approaching very closely to rabies, at seeing me in the flesh
+once more (so that the Sierra Nevada rang with avalanches of barking),
+he tugged me to the place where his teeth were set in gold, and proved
+that he had no hydrophobia. His teeth are scanty now, but he still can
+catch a salmon, and the bright zeal and loyalty of his soft brown
+eyes and the sprightly elevation of his tail are still among dogs as
+pre-eminent as they are to mankind inimitable.
+
+
+
+Now the war is past, and here we sit by the banks of the soft Blue
+River. The early storm and young conflict of a clouded life are over.
+Still out of sight there may be yet a sea of troubles to buffet with;
+but it is not merely a selfish thought that others will face it with me.
+Dark mysteries have been cleared away by being confronted bravely; and
+the lesson has been learned that life (like California flowers) is of
+infinite variety. This little river, ten steps wide, on one side has all
+lupins, on the other side all larkspurs. Can I tell why? Can any body?
+Can even itself, so full of voice and light, unroll the reason?
+
+Behind us tower the stormy crags, before us spread soft tapestry of
+earth and sweep of ocean. Below us lies my father's grave, whose sin was
+not his own, but fell on him, and found him loyal. To him was I loyal
+also, as a daughter should be; and in my lap lies my reward--for I am no
+more Erema.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
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diff --git a/7112-0.zip b/7112-0.zip
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+<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
+
+<!DOCTYPE html
+   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en">
+  <head>
+    <title>
+      Erema; Or, My Father's Sin, by R. D. Blackmore
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve">
+
+    body { margin:5%; background:#faebd0; text-align:justify}
+    P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; }
+    H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; }
+    hr  { width: 50%; text-align: center;}
+    .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; }
+    blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;}
+    .mynote    {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;}
+    .toc       { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;}
+    .toc2      { margin-left: 20%;}
+    div.fig    { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; }
+    div.middle { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; }
+    .figleft   {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;}
+    .figright  {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;}
+    .pagenum   {display:inline; font-size: 70%; font-style:normal;
+               margin: 0; padding: 0; position: absolute; right: 1%;
+               text-align: right;}
+    pre        { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;}
+
+</style>
+  </head>
+  <body>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Erema
+       My Father's Sin
+
+Author: R. D. Blackmore
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #7112]
+Last Updated: March 6, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREMA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson; David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      EREMA; <br /><br /> OR, MY FATHER'S SIN
+    </h1>
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      By R. D. Blackmore
+    </h2>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      1877
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br />
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I -- A LOST LANDMARK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II -- A PACIFIC SUNSET</a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III -- A STURDY COLONIST </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV -- THE &ldquo;KING OF THE MOUNTAINS</a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V -- UNCLE SAM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI -- A BRITISHER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII -- DISCOMFITURE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII -- A DOUBTFUL LOSS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX -- WATER-SPOUT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X -- A NUGGET </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI -- ROVERS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII -- GOLD AND GRIEF </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII -- THE SAWYER'S PRAYER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV -- NOT FAR TO SEEK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV -- BROUGHT TO BANK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI -- FIRM AND INFIRM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII -- HARD AND SOFT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII -- OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX -- INSIDE THE CHANNEL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX -- BRUNTSEA </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI -- LISTLESS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII -- BETSY BOWEN </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII -- BETSY'S TALE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV -- BETSY'S TALE&mdash;(Continued.) </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV -- BETSY'S TALE&mdash;(Concluded.) </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI -- AT THE BANK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII -- COUSIN MONTAGUE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII -- A CHECK </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX -- AT THE PUMP </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX -- COCKS AND COXCOMBS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI -- ADRIFT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII -- AT HOME </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII -- LORD CASTLEWOOD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV -- SHOXFORD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV -- THE SEXTON </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI -- A SIMPLE QUESTION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII -- SOME ANSWER TO IT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII -- A WITCH </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX -- NOT AT HOME </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL -- THE MAN AT LAST </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI -- A STRONG TEMPTATION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII -- MASTER WITHYPOOL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII -- GOING TO THE BOTTOM </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV -- HERMETICALLY SEALED </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER XLV -- CONVICTION </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER XLVI -- VAIN ZEAL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER XLVII -- CADMEIAN VICTORY </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER XLVIII -- A RETURN CALL </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0049"> CHAPTER XLIX -- WANTED, A SAWYER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0050"> CHAPTER L -- THE PANACEA </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0051"> CHAPTER LI -- LIFE SINISTER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0052"> CHAPTER LII -- FOR LIFE, DEATH </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0053"> CHAPTER LIII -- BRUNTSEA DEFIANT </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0054"> CHAPTER LIV -- BRUNTSEA DEFEATED </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0055"> CHAPTER LV -- A DEAD LETTER </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0056"> CHAPTER LVI -- WITH HIS OWN SWORD </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0057"> CHAPTER LVII -- FEMALE SUFFRAGE </a>
+      </p>
+      <p class="toc">
+        <a href="#link2HCH0058"> CHAPTER LVIII -- BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS </a>
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        <br /> <br /> <br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a> <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER I
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A LOST LANDMARK
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth
+      generation of them that hate me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the words that have followed me always. This is the curse which
+      has fallen on my life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not closed
+      his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the grave, even if I
+      could have buried and bewailed him duly, the common business of this world
+      and the universal carelessness might have led me down the general track
+      that leads to nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die. I knew
+      that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home, and then
+      himself to start again for still remoter solitudes. And when his mind was
+      thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father. And he
+      showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life. &ldquo;Captain,
+      here I leave you all,&rdquo; he shouted to the leader of our wagon train, at a
+      place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from the moilsome mountain
+      track. &ldquo;My reasons are my own; let no man trouble himself about them. All
+      my baggage I leave with you. I have paid my share of the venture, and
+      shall claim it at Sacramento. My little girl and I will take this
+      short-cut through the mountains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;General!&rdquo; answered the leader of our train, standing up on his board in
+      amazement. &ldquo;Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget. What is a hot
+      word spoken hotly? If not for your own sake, at least come back for the
+      sake of your young daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A fair haven to you!&rdquo; replied my father. He offered me his hand, and we
+      were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome, uncompanionable
+      company with whom, for eight long weeks at least, we had been dragging our
+      rough way. I had known in a moment that it must be so, for my father never
+      argued. Argument, to his mind, was a very nice amusement for the weak. My
+      spirits rose as he swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder, and the last
+      sound of the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and the fresh air
+      and the freedom of the mountains moved around us. It was the 29th of May&mdash;Oak-apple
+      Day in England&mdash;and to my silly youth this vast extent of snowy
+      mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so long as
+      we remained with people who could not allow for us. My father, by his calm
+      reserve and dignity and largeness, had always, among European people, kept
+      himself secluded; but now in this rough life, so pent in trackless tracts,
+      and pressed together by perpetual peril, every body's manners had been
+      growing free and easy. Every man had been compelled to tell, as truly as
+      he could, the story of his life thus far, to amuse his fellow-creatures&mdash;every
+      man, I mean, of course, except my own poor father. Some told their stories
+      every evening, until we were quite tired&mdash;although they were never
+      the same twice over; but my father could never be coaxed to say a syllable
+      more than, &ldquo;I was born, and I shall die.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women admired
+      it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear, the speaker
+      would have been insulted. But his manner and the power of his look were
+      such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw fit to be rude to him.
+      Nevertheless, there had always been the risk of some sad outrage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the caravan
+      was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the wilderness alone&mdash;&ldquo;do
+      you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father dear, how should I know? You have done it, and it must be right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for their paltry insults. Child, you know what I think all
+      that. It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way that he
+      lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a little child
+      instead of a maiden just fifteen. This he had never done before, and it
+      made me a little frightened. He saw it, and spoke on the spur of the
+      thought, though still with one arm round me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a stern, cold
+      father. So will you meet the world all the better; and, little one, you
+      have a rough world to meet.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's manner; but
+      now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things. At the time I must
+      have been surprised, and full of puzzled eagerness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion of
+      body and spirit afterward. It may have been three days of wandering, or it
+      may have been a week, or even more than that, for all that I can say for
+      certain. Whether the time were long or short, it seemed as if it would
+      never end. My father believed that he knew the way to the house of an old
+      settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated him kindly
+      some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until he had made
+      arrangements elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway thither,
+      night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought, in
+      sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it. Although his
+      will was so very strong, his temper was good about little things, and he
+      never began to abuse all the world because he had made a mistake himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;at this corner where we stand there ought to be a very
+      large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at least twice
+      as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa even. From the plains
+      it can be seen for a hundred miles or more. It stands higher up the
+      mountainside than any other tree of even half its size, and that makes it
+      so conspicuous. My eyes must be failing me, from all this glare; but it
+      must be in sight. Can you see it now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow tufts;
+      and oh, father, I am so thirsty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naturally. But now look again. It stands on a ridge, the last ridge that
+      bars the view of all the lowland. It is a very straight tree, and regular,
+      like a mighty column, except that on the northern side the wind from the
+      mountains has torn a gap in it. Are you sure that you can not see it&mdash;a
+      long way off, but conspicuous?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
+      broomstick. Far or near, I see no tree.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then my eyes are better than my memory. We must cast back for a mile or
+      two; but it can not make much difference.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Through the dust and the sand?&rdquo; I began to say; but a glance from him
+      stopped my murmuring. And the next thing I can call to mind must have
+      happened a long time afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for mine. I
+      did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of it, being so
+      young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct. It is a fearful thing
+      to think of&mdash;now that I can think of it&mdash;but to save my own
+      little worthless life I must have drained every drop of water from his
+      flat half-gallon jar. The water was hot and the cork-hole sandy, and I
+      grumbled even while drinking it; and what must my father (who was dying
+      all the while for a drop, but never took one)&mdash;what must he have
+      thought of me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it all the
+      worse for me. We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic district of the
+      mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite early; and of natural
+      springs there was none forth-coming. All we had to guide us was a little
+      traveler's compass (whose needle stuck fast on the pivot with sand) and
+      the glaring sun, when he came to sight behind the hot, dry, driving
+      clouds. The clouds were very low, and flying almost in our faces, like
+      vultures sweeping down on us. To me they seemed to shriek over our heads
+      at the others rushing after them. But my father said that they could make
+      no sound, and I never contradicted him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER II
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A PACIFIC SUNSET
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth was
+      visible. For a time&mdash;I can not tell how long&mdash;we had wholly lost
+      ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without getting
+      further. But my father said that we must come right, if we made up our
+      minds to go long enough. We had been in among all shapes, and want of
+      shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out of every thrup and thrum of
+      weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to find our way out and discover
+      memory of men for us, when all of a sudden we saw a grand sight. The day
+      had been dreadfully hot and baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust
+      arising, and driving the great drought into us. To walk had been worse
+      than to drag one's way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles. But now the
+      quick sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the balance
+      toward the flat places of the land and sea. And suddenly we looked forth
+      upon an immeasurable spread of these.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast brown
+      patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra. On either side, in purple
+      distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled glaciers,
+      spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal forest. Before us lay
+      the broad, luxuriant plains of California, checkered with more tints than
+      any other piece of earth can show, sleeping in alluvial ease, and veined
+      with soft blue waters. And through a gap in the brown coast range, at
+      twenty leagues of distance, a light (so faint as to seem a shadow) hovered
+      above the Pacific.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water gleam.
+      Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to urge him on
+      toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water. But, to my surprise,
+      he staggered back, and his face grew as white as the distant snow. I
+      managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with the help of his own endeavors,
+      and there let him rest and try to speak, while my frightened heart
+      throbbed over his.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My little child,&rdquo; he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten years,
+      &ldquo;put your hand where I can feel it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it was,
+      it moved. But cold fear stopped my talking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child, I have not been kind to you,&rdquo; my father slowly spoke again,
+      &ldquo;but it has not been from want of love. Some day you will see all this,
+      and some day you will pardon me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain, with the
+      last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing. To me, I know not
+      how, great awe was every where, and sadness. The conical point of the
+      furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us, was broadening into a hazy
+      disk, inefficient, but benevolent. Underneath him depth of night was
+      waiting to come upward (after letting him fall through) and stain his
+      track with redness. Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness to
+      receive him: his upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was flaked
+      with atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one bright
+      glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after that a
+      broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should never see the sun
+      again, and among them would be my father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and the dark
+      jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and all the beautiful
+      expanse of liberal earth before him&mdash;even so he seemed to me, of all
+      the things in sight, the one that first would draw attention. His face was
+      full of quiet grandeur and impressive calm, and the sad tranquillity which
+      comes to those who know what human life is through continual human death.
+      Although, in the matter of bodily strength, he was little past the prime
+      of life, his long and abundant hair was white, and his broad and upright
+      forehead marked with the meshes of the net of care. But drought and famine
+      and long fatigue had failed even now to change or weaken the fine
+      expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes alone would have made the
+      face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep with settled gloom they were,
+      and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes might fitly have told the grief of
+      Adrastus, son of Gordias, who, having slain his own brother unwitting,
+      unwitting slew the only son of his generous host and savior.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had made. My
+      father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form upright against the
+      deepening background. He gazed as if the course of life lay vanishing
+      below him, while level land and waters drew the breadth of shadow over
+      them. Then the last gleam flowed and fled upon the face of ocean, and my
+      father put his dry lips to my forehead, saying nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for three days;
+      but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and even tremulous. &ldquo;Let
+      us run, let us run, my dear father!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Delicious water! The dark
+      falls quickly; but we can get there before dark. It is all down hill. Oh,
+      do let us run at once!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; he answered, with a quiet smile, &ldquo;there is no cause now for
+      hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to do, my
+      child. For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky. We have escaped from
+      that starving desert at a spot&mdash;at a spot where we can see&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony seat, and
+      the hand with which he tried to point some distant landmark fell away. His
+      face, which had been so pale before, became of a deadly whiteness, and he
+      breathed with gasps of agony. I knelt before him and took his hands, and
+      tried to rub the palms, and did whatever I could think of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every thing to
+      me! What a brute I was to let you do it! But I did not know; I never knew!
+      Please God to take me also!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but he
+      firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What does it matter? Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as I am!
+      Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My child! my child!&rdquo; were his only words; and he kept on saying, &ldquo;My
+      child! my child!&rdquo; as if he liked the sound of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or afterward. It
+      may have been before the moon came over the snowy mountains, or it may not
+      have been till the worn-out stars in vain repelled the daybreak. All I
+      know is that I ever strove to keep more near to him through the night, to
+      cherish his failing warmth, and quicken the slow, laborious, harassed
+      breath. From time to time he tried to pray to God for me and for himself;
+      but every time his mind began to wander and to slip away, as if through
+      want of practice. For the chills of many wretched years had deadened and
+      benumbed his faith. He knew me, now and then, betwixt the conflict and the
+      stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and as if from out a dream,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Time for Erema to go on her way. Go on your way, and save your life; save
+      your life, Erema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him. I took his
+      hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing. I whispered into
+      his ear my name, that he might speak once more to me; and when he could
+      not speak, I tried to say what he would say to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid, wandering
+      mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to please and
+      serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in my weak arms
+      quite dead. And in the anguish of my sobbing, little things came home to
+      me, a thousand little things that showed how quietly he had prepared for
+      this, and provided for me only. Cold despair and self-reproach and strong
+      rebellion dazed me, until I lay at my father's side, and slept with his
+      dead hand in mine. There in the desert of desolation pious awe embraced
+      me, and small phantasms of individual fear could not come nigh me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the pallid
+      light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from me. How I
+      arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now. Such times are
+      not for talking of. How many hearts of anguish lie forlorn, with none to
+      comfort them, with all the joy of life died out, and all the fear of
+      having yet to live, in front arising!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay by my
+      father's body, wringing out my wretchedness. Thirst and famine now had
+      flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe the thought of water,
+      and the smell of food would have made me sick. I opened my father's
+      knapsack, and a pang of new misery seized me. There lay nearly all his
+      rations, which he had made pretense to eat as he gave me mine from time to
+      time. He had starved himself; since he failed of his mark, and learned our
+      risk of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me, as well as his
+      store of water. And I had done nothing but grumble and groan, even while
+      consuming every thing. Compared with me, the hovering vultures might be
+      considered angels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or sob.
+      Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on truly
+      hopeless misery. Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid wings came
+      close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I tried to save my
+      father's body by throwing my own over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER III
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A STURDY COLONIST
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which my dim
+      eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the Lord in
+      heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some very simple
+      members of humanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me
+      steadfastly. She had seen that, under tender care, I was just beginning to
+      revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she had learned to succor
+      all of them. This I knew not then, but felt that kindness was around me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Arauna, arauna, my shild,&rdquo; she said, in a strange but sweet and soothing
+      voice, &ldquo;you are with the good man in the safe, good house. Let old Suan
+      give you the good food, my shild.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where is my father? Oh, show me my father?&rdquo; I whispered faintly, as she
+      raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You shall&mdash;you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you when
+      have long Sunday time to think. My shild, take the good food from poor old
+      Suan.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had been
+      loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was now in the
+      quick-reviving agony of starvation. The Indian woman fed me with far
+      greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with some soothing process,
+      into another abyss of sleep.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life and
+      death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or any thing.
+      No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little bedroom except this
+      careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to sleep whenever I wanted to ask
+      questions. Suan Isco, as she was called, possessed a more than mesmeric
+      power of soothing a weary frame to rest; and this was seconded, where I
+      lay, by the soft, incessant cadence and abundant roar of water. Thus every
+      day I recovered strength and natural impatience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The master is coming to see you, shild,&rdquo; Suan said to me one day, when I
+      had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the water-fall; &ldquo;if,
+      if&mdash;too much Inglese&mdash;old Suan say no more can now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I am ready and able and willing! Oh, Suan, run and tell him not to
+      lose one moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No sure; Suan no sure at all,&rdquo; she answered, looking at me calmly, as if
+      there were centuries yet to spare. &ldquo;Suan no hurry; shild no hurry; master
+      no hurry: come last of all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you, Suan, I want to see him. And I am not accustomed to be kept
+      waiting. My dear father insisted always&mdash;But oh, Suan, Suan, he is
+      dead&mdash;I am almost sure of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for him. Very
+      good; more good than could be. Suan no more Inglese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow, helpless
+      pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread which might have
+      been but a hovering dream. I turned my face to the wall, and begged her
+      not to send the master in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly, and
+      turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at me. His
+      face was plain and square and solid, with short white curls on a rugged
+      forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple chin&mdash;fit base for
+      remarkably massive jaws. His frame was in keeping with his face, being
+      very large and powerful, though not of my father's commanding height. His
+      dress and appearance were those of a working&mdash;and a really
+      hard-working&mdash;man, sober, steadfast, and self-respecting; but what
+      engaged my attention most was the frank yet shrewd gaze of deep-set eyes.
+      I speak of things as I observed them later, for I could not pay much heed
+      just then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a poor little missy,&rdquo; he said, with a gentle tone. &ldquo;What things she
+      hath been through! Will you take an old man's hand, my dear? Your father
+      hath often taken it, though different from his rank of life. Sampson
+      Gundry is my name, missy. Have you ever heard your father tell of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Many and many a time,&rdquo; I said, as I placed my hot little hand in his. &ldquo;He
+      never found more than one man true on earth, and it was you, Sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, now,&rdquo; he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my warmth
+      of words; &ldquo;you must not have that in your young head, missy. It leads to a
+      miserable life. Your father hath always been unlucky&mdash;the most
+      unlucky that ever I did know. And luck cometh out in nothing clearer than
+      in the kind of folk we meet. But the Lord in heaven ordereth all. I speak
+      like a poor heathen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, never mind that!&rdquo; I cried: &ldquo;only tell me, were you in time to save&mdash;to
+      save&mdash;&rdquo; I could not bear to say what I wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you. You must have fought when you
+      could not fight: the real stuff, I call it. Your poor father lies where
+      none can harm him. Come, missy, missy, you must not take on so. It is the
+      best thing that could befall a man so bound up with calamity. It is what
+      he hath prayed for for many a year&mdash;if only it were not for you. And
+      now you are safe, and for sure he knows it, if the angels heed their
+      business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me, knowing
+      that her soothing ways would help me more than argument. To my mind all
+      things lay in deep confusion and abasement. Overcome with bodily weakness
+      and with bitter self-reproach, I even feared that to ask any questions
+      might show want of gratitude. But a thing of that sort could not always
+      last, and before very long I was quite at home with the history of Mr.
+      Gundry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England,
+      betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last century.
+      He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate fisherman;
+      and his family had made a rule&mdash;as most respectable families at that
+      time did&mdash;to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than twice
+      in one season. A highly querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who
+      had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept &ldquo;the rheumatics&rdquo; in
+      either stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the Cornish coast-guard;
+      and he never rested until he had caught all the best county families
+      smuggling. Through this he lost his situation, and had to go to the
+      workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused that (to satisfy
+      public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior people, and among
+      them this Solomon Gundry. Now the Gundries had long been a thickset race,
+      and had furnished some champion wrestlers; and Solomon kept to the family
+      stamp in the matter of obstinacy. He made a bold mark at the foot of a
+      bond for 150 pounds; and with no other sign than that, his partner in
+      their stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope, of Mevagissey) allowed him to
+      make sail across the Atlantic with all he cared for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he did,
+      together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a thrifty race at
+      Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and his eldest son was
+      Sampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at its headstrong period,
+      sought the far West, overland, through not much less of distance, and
+      through even more of danger, than his English father had gone through. His
+      name was known on the western side of the mighty chain of mountains before
+      Colonel Fremont was heard of there, and before there was any gleam of gold
+      on the lonely sunset frontage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
+      Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though he did
+      not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have a wife and
+      son, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears to me the more,
+      the more I think of every thing) no one must assume to be aside the reach
+      of Fortune because he has gathered himself so small that she should not
+      care to strike at him. At any rate, good or evil powers smote Sampson
+      Gundry heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      First he lost his wife, which was a &ldquo;great denial&rdquo; to him. She fell from a
+      cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the substance of her frame
+      prevented her from ever getting over it. And after that he lost his son,
+      his only son&mdash;for all the Gundries were particular as to quality; and
+      the way in which he lost his son made it still more sad for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
+      cattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the Indians
+      was to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few white men as yet
+      within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry vowed that, if the will
+      of the Lord went with him, that woman should come back to her family
+      without robbing them of sixpence. To this intent he started with a company
+      of some twenty men&mdash;white or black or middle-colored (according to
+      circumstances). He was their captain, and his son Elijah their lieutenant.
+      Elijah had only been married for a fortnight, but was full of spirit, and
+      eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have carried this too far;
+      for all that came back to his poor bride was a lock of his hair and his
+      blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on the western slope of Shasta,
+      and his wife died in her confinement, and was buried by the Blue River.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry&mdash;thus
+      cut short&mdash;was the finest and noblest young man to be found from the
+      mountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led a sad and
+      lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although of Cornish and
+      New England race) to seize the glorious chance of wealth which lay at his
+      feet beseeching him. By settlement he had possessed himself of a large and
+      fertile district, sloping from the mountain-foot along the banks of the
+      swift Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And this was not all;
+      for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, the whole of the
+      mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling water flows. And
+      when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men could have done
+      what he did without even thinking twice of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own river, and
+      defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations to pollute it. He
+      had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends to back him; but his fame
+      for stern courage was clear and strong, and his bodily presence most
+      manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor a cradle rocked in the bed of the
+      Blue River.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages, and
+      even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr. Gundry
+      gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For now his grandson
+      Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having lost his mother when he
+      first came into the world, was sure to need the more natural and maternal
+      nutriment of money.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought out a
+      plan which he had long thought of. Nature helped him with all her powers
+      of mountain, forest, and headlong stream. He set up a saw-mill, and built
+      it himself; and there was no other to be found for twelve degrees of
+      latitude and perhaps a score of longitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE &ldquo;KING OF THE MOUNTAINS.&rdquo;
+     </h3>
+    <p>
+      If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I can not
+      express to any other mind a thousandth part of the gratitude which was and
+      is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor mind toward those who were so
+      good to me. From time to time it is said (whenever any man with power of
+      speech or fancy gets some little grievances) that all mankind are simply
+      selfish, miserly, and miserable. To contradict that saying needs
+      experience even larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it; and
+      this I can not have, and therefore only know that I have not found men or
+      women behave at all according to that view of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of loyalty,
+      to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like every one else)
+      reserved and silent as to my father's history. But he always treated me as
+      if I belonged to a rank of life quite different from and much above his
+      own. For instance, it was long before he would allow me to have my meals
+      at the table of the household.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss, and
+      loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had seen so many
+      troubles. He had been here and there in the world so much, and dealt with
+      so many people, that the natural frankness of his mind was sharpened into
+      caution. But any weak and helpless person still could get the best of him;
+      and his shrewdness certainly did not spring from any form of bitterness.
+      He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could not bear to be contradicted
+      when he was sure that he was right, which generally happened to him. But
+      above all things he had one very great peculiarity, to my mind highly
+      vexatious, because it seemed so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very
+      low opinion of feminine intellect. He never showed this contempt in any
+      unpleasant way, and indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive
+      sayings. But as I grew older and began to argue, sure I was that it was
+      there; and it always provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no
+      assertion, but to stand as some great axiom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or &ldquo;Firm&rdquo;
+       Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps, of race or
+      nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged to a tribe of
+      respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife of a chief among
+      them, and the mother of several children. But Klamath Indians, enemies of
+      theirs (who carried off the lady of the cattle ranch, and afterward shot
+      Elijah), had Suan Isco in their possession, having murdered her husband
+      and children, and were using her as a mere beast of burden, when Sampson
+      Gundry fell on them. He, with his followers, being enraged at the
+      cold-blooded death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such purpose
+      that women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
+      propensities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
+      stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief. She was in such poor
+      condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest humanity would
+      have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble of her carriage. But
+      she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and Sawyer Gundry (as now he was
+      called) knew by this time all the value of uncultivated gratitude. And her
+      virtues were so many that it took a long time to find them out, for she
+      never put them forward, not knowing whether they were good or bad.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it was a
+      continual grief to me to be a burden upon them. But when I came to
+      understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing I was ashamed
+      of was my own mistrust of them. Not that I expected ever that any harm
+      would be done to me, only that I knew myself to have no claim on any one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble, Sampson
+      Gundry's grandson &ldquo;Firm&rdquo;&mdash;as he was called for Ephraim&mdash;ran up
+      the stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Rema, will you come with us?&rdquo; he said, in his deep, slow style of
+      speech. &ldquo;We are going up the mountain, to haul down the great tree to the
+      mill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure I will come,&rdquo; I answered, gladly. &ldquo;What great tree is it, Mr.
+      Ephraim?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The largest tree any where near here&mdash;the one we cut down last
+      winter. Ten days it took to cut it down. If I could have saved it, it
+      should have stood. But grandfather did it to prove his rights. We shall
+      have a rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if we can tackle it. I
+      thought you might like to see us try.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of the air
+      made cloak or shawl unbearable. But when I ran down to the yard of the
+      mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and gave me an order too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not go like this, my dear. We have three thousand feet to go
+      upward. The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we shall be home by
+      night-fall. Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's cloak, and a pair of
+      thicker boots for change.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suan Isco never ran. That manner of motion was foreign to her, at least as
+      we accomplish it. When speed was required, she attained it by increased
+      length of stride and great vigor of heel. In this way she conquered
+      distance steadily, and with very little noise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a sudden joy
+      to me. In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry, clearing all tangles with
+      a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep places as if twoscore were struck
+      off his threescore years and five. From time to time he turned round to
+      laugh, or see that his men and trained bullocks were right; and then, as
+      his bright eyes met my dark ones, he seemed to be sorry for the noise he
+      made. On the other hand, I was ashamed of damping any one's pleasure by
+      being there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I need not have felt any fear about this. Like all other children, I
+      wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and behaved as if my
+      state of mind was a thing to be considered. But the longer we rose through
+      the freedom and the height, the lighter grew the heart of every one, until
+      the thick forest of pines closed round us, and we walked in a silence that
+      might be felt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much trouble
+      with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a rugged cone, or
+      crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of a tree. The tree was
+      still there, but not its glory; for, alas! the mighty trunk lay prostrate&mdash;a
+      grander column than ever was or will be built by human hands. The tapering
+      shaft stretched out of sight for something like a furlong, and the bulk of
+      the butt rose over us so that we could not see the mountains. Having never
+      seen any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old
+      enough to comprehend it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every thing,
+      collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-floor or area of
+      the stump before he would say any thing. Here we all looked so sadly small
+      that several of the men began to laugh; the bullocks seemed nothing but
+      raccoons or beavers to run on the branches or the fibres of the tree; and
+      the chains and the shackles, and the blocks and cranes, and all the rest
+      of the things they meant to use, seemed nothing whatever, or at all to be
+      considered, except as a spider's web upon this tree.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to do,
+      looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and some
+      cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called upon to
+      work. The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the vast pillar,
+      and lit its dying hues&mdash;cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red, and soft
+      gray where the lichens grew.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little, having
+      had lately some trouble with his throat. Then in his sturdy manner he
+      spoke the truth, according to his nature. He set his great square
+      shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered himself:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here, and I own
+      to it. It serves me right for disbelieving what my grandson, Firm Gundry,
+      said. I knew that the tree was a big one, of course, as every body else
+      does; but till you see a tree laid upon earth you get no grip of his
+      girth, no more than you do of a man till he lieth a corpse. At the time of
+      felling I could not come anigh him, by reason of an accident; and I had
+      some words with this boy about it, which kept me away ever since that
+      time. Firm, you were right, and I was wrong. It was a real shame, now I
+      see it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.' But, for all that,
+      being down, we must use him. He shall be sawn into fifty-foot lengths. And
+      I invite you all to come again, for six or seven good turns at him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's manly
+      truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these visits to
+      the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good. But before the
+      descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim did what appeared to me
+      to be a gallant and straightforward thing. He stood on the chine of the
+      fallen monster, forty feet above us, having gained the post of vantage by
+      activity and strength, and he asked if he might say a word or two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say away, lad,&rdquo; cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
+      obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson was
+      going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of that tree&mdash;an
+      act which had roused indignation over a hundred leagues of lowland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Neighbors,&rdquo; said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at first with
+      diffidence, &ldquo;we all have to thank you, more than I can tell, for coming to
+      help us with this job. It was a job which required to be done for legal
+      reasons which I do not understand, but no doubt they were good ones. For
+      that we have my grandfather's word; and no one, I think, will gainsay it.
+      Now, having gone so far, we will not be beaten by it, or else we shall not
+      be Americans.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      These simple words were received with great applause; and an orator,
+      standing on the largest stump to be found even in America, delivered a
+      speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be repeated. And Mr.
+      Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his grandson's conduct.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Firm knoweth the right thing to do,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;and like a man he doeth
+      it. But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see in the
+      distance yonner? Never mind, my dear, then. Tell me by-and-by, when none
+      of these folk is 'longside of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under pain of
+      his displeasure. I had spied on the sky-line far above us, in the desert
+      track of mountain, the very gap in which my father stood and bade me seek
+      this landmark. His memory was true, and his eyesight also; but the great
+      tree had been felled. The death of the &ldquo;King of the Mountains&rdquo; had led to
+      the death of the king of mankind, so far as my little world contained one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER V
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      UNCLE SAM
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me. The
+      warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust were broken
+      by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft green of leaves. We had
+      fruit trees of almost every kind, from the peach to the amber cherry, and
+      countless oaks by the side of the river&mdash;not large, but most
+      fantastic. Here I used to sit and wonder, in a foolish, childish way,
+      whether on earth there was any other child so strangely placed as I was.
+      Of course there were thousands far worse off, more desolate and destitute,
+      but was there any more thickly wrapped in mystery and loneliness?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change of
+      place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of time.
+      Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed out of me by
+      any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky children huddled
+      together in large cities. My father had never allowed me much acquaintance
+      with other children; for six years he had left me with a community of lay
+      sisters, in a little town of Languedoc, where I was the only pupil, and
+      where I was to remain as I was born, a simple heretic. Those sisters were
+      very good to me, and taught me as much as I could take of secular
+      accomplishment. And it was a bitter day for me when I left them for
+      America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals, and had
+      almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with him. I used to be
+      the one little comfort of his perpetual wanderings, when I was a careless
+      child, and said things to amuse him. Not that he ever played with me any
+      more than he played with any thing; but I was the last of his seven
+      children, and he liked to watch me grow. I never knew it, I never guessed
+      it, until he gave his life for mine; but, poor little common thing as I
+      was, I became his only tie to earth. Even to me he was never loving, in
+      the way some fathers are. He never called me by pet names, nor dandled me
+      on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my hair and smiled. Such
+      things I never expected of him, and therefore never missed them; I did not
+      even know that happy children always have them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier children: I had
+      the pleasure of knowing my own name. My name was an English one&mdash;Castlewood&mdash;and
+      by birth I was an English girl, though of England I knew nothing, and at
+      one time spoke and thought most easily in French. But my longing had
+      always been for England, and for the sound of English voices and the
+      quietude of English ways. In the chatter and heat and drought of South
+      France some faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent
+      country seemed to touch me now and then. But where in England I had lived,
+      or when I had left that country, or whether I had relations there, and why
+      I was doomed to be a foreign girl&mdash;all these questions were but as
+      curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about them) I
+      never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way,
+      such as clever children have, get second-hand information. In the first
+      place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had underhand
+      skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any thing about me.
+      Like all other girls&mdash;and perhaps the very same tendency is to be
+      found in boys&mdash;I had strong though hazy ideas of caste. The noble
+      sense of equality, fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in life than
+      childhood, which is an age of ambition. I did not know who in the world I
+      was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with the aid
+      of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting tackle were
+      being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr. Gundry, being full of
+      the subject, declared that he would have his dinner in the mill yard. He
+      was anxious to watch, without loss of time, the settlement of some heavy
+      timbers newly sunk in the river's bed, to defend the outworks of the mill.
+      Having his good leave to bring him his pipe, I found him sitting upon a
+      bench with a level fixed before him, and his empty plate and cup laid by,
+      among a great litter of tools and things. He was looking along the level
+      with one eye shut, and the other most sternly intent; but when I came near
+      he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and made me think that I was not
+      interrupting him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam,&rdquo; I said; for, in spite of all his formal
+      ways, I would not be afraid of him. I had known him now quite long enough
+      to be sure he was good and kind. And I knew that the world around these
+      parts was divided into two hemispheres, the better half being of those who
+      loved, and the baser half made of those who hated, Sawyer Sampson Gundry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a queer world it is!&rdquo; said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to
+      consider that point. &ldquo;Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years agone, that
+      your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe to light for my
+      father's son?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Sam,&rdquo; I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs which seem
+      to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of blue smoke flitted
+      through his white eyebrows and among the snowy curls of hair&mdash;&ldquo;dear
+      Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor to a princess to light a
+      pipe for a man like you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense,&rdquo; he answered, very
+      shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I had offended him. Not
+      knowing how to assert myself and declare that I had spoken my honest
+      thoughts, I merely sat down on the bench and waited for him to speak again
+      to me. But he made believe to be very busy, and scarcely to know that I
+      was there. I had a great mind to cry, but resolved not to do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, how is this? What's the matter?&rdquo; he exclaimed at last, when I had
+      been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where it was going
+      to. &ldquo;Why, missy, you look as if you had never a friend in all the wide
+      world left.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I must look very ungrateful,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;for at any rate I have one,
+      and a good one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You and Suan Isco and Firm&mdash;those are all I have any knowledge of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Tis a plenty&mdash;to my mind, almost too many. My plan is to be a good
+      friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me. Rest you quite
+      satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have lived a good many years, and I
+      never had more than three friends worth a puff of my pipe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But one's own relations, Uncle Sam&mdash;people quite nearly related to
+      us: it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do I, my dear? Then I wish that I did. Except one's own father and
+      mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them. My own brother took
+      a twist against me because I tried to save him from ruin; and if any man
+      ever wished me ill, he did. And I think that your father had the same tale
+      to tell. But there! I know nothing whatever about that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to tell me,
+      or rather I demand it. I am old enough now, and I am certain my dear
+      father would have wished me to know every thing. Whatever it was, I am
+      sure that he was right; and until I know that, I shall always be the most
+      miserable of the miserable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning, and his
+      broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles of inquiry. He
+      quite forgot his level and his great post in the river, and tilted back
+      his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on his big brown arm. &ldquo;Lord bless
+      me!&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;what a young gal you are! Or, at least, what a young Miss
+      Rema. What good can you do, miss, by making of a rout? Here you be in as
+      quiet a place as you could find, and all of us likes and pities you. Your
+      father was a wise man to settle you here in this enlightened continent.
+      Let the doggoned old folk t'other side of the world think out their own
+      flustrations. A female young American you are now, and a very fine
+      specimen you will grow. 'Tis the finest thing to be on all God's earth.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an Englishwoman.
+      The Americans may be more kind and generous, and perhaps my father thought
+      so, and brought me here for that reason. And I may be glad to come back to
+      you again when I have done what I am bound to do. Remember that I am the
+      last of seven children, and do not even know where the rest are buried.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now look straight afore you, missy. What do you see yonner?&rdquo; The Sawyer
+      was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long interruption.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't even know
+      the names of. Also I see a bright, swift river.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But over here, missy, between them two oaks. What do you please to see
+      there, Miss Rema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been at all,
+      if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my family. Could
+      I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power and human ingenuity
+      together without laboring hard for whole months of a stretch, except upon
+      the Sabbath, and laying awake night after night, and bending all my
+      intellect over it? And could I have done that, think you now, if my heart
+      was a-mooning upon family wrongs, and this, that, and the other?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and spread
+      his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly with his deep
+      gray eyes, surveying me in triumph. To his mind, that mill was the wonder
+      of the world, and any argument based upon it, with or without coherence,
+      was, like its circular saws, irresistible. And yet he thought that women
+      can not reason! However, I did not say another word just then, but gave
+      way to him, as behooved a child. And not only that, but I always found him
+      too good to be argued with&mdash;too kind, I mean, and large of heart, and
+      wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about him that one
+      could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he always proceeded
+      with such pity for those who were opposed to him that they always knew
+      they must be wrong, though he was too polite to tell them so. And he had
+      such a pleasant, paternal way of looking down into one's little thoughts
+      when he put on his spectacles, that to say any more was to hazard the risk
+      of ungrateful inexperience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A BRITISHER
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the mountains,
+      full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six miles from its
+      source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that space and time it had
+      gathered strong and copious volume. The lovely blue of the water (like the
+      inner tint of a glacier) was partly due to its origin, perhaps, and partly
+      to the rich, soft tone of the granite sand spread under it. Whatever the
+      cause may have been, the river well deserved its title.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it even
+      seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and the myriad
+      sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain. Plodding through
+      the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-foot, through the stifling
+      vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare, the traveler suddenly came upon
+      this cool and calm delight. It was not to be descried afar, for it lay
+      below the level, and the oaks and other trees of shelter scarcely topped
+      the narrow comb. There was no canyon, such as are&mdash;and some of them
+      known over all the world&mdash;both to the north and south of it. The Blue
+      River did not owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but sparkled on its
+      cheerful way without impending horrors. Standing here as a child, and
+      thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men never wept nor
+      owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's contempt for the
+      gushing transport of brave men. For instance, I have seen a miner, or a
+      tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or (perhaps the bravest of all) a
+      man of science and topography, jaded, worn, and nearly dead with drought
+      and dearth and choking, suddenly, and beyond all hope, strike on this
+      buried Eden. And then he dropped on his knees and spread his starved hands
+      upward, if he could, and thanked the God who made him, till his head went
+      round, and who knows what remembrance of loved ones came to him? And then,
+      if he had any moisture left, he fell to a passion of weeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded himself, and
+      should have been born a woman. But since that time I have truly learned
+      that the bravest of men are those who feel their Maker's Land most softly,
+      and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of their weakness to Him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track along
+      the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento southward, there
+      was scarcely a week which did not bring us some traveler needing comfort.
+      Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he would set up a rough hotel, or house
+      of call for cattle-drovers, miners, loafers, and so on, he might turn
+      twice the money he could ever make by his thriving saw-mill. But he only
+      used to laugh, and say that nature had made him too honest for that; and
+      he never thought of charging any thing for his hospitality, though if a
+      rich man left a gold piece, or even a nugget, upon a shelf, as happened
+      very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain to set it aside for a rainy day.
+      And one of his richest or most lavish guests arrived on my account,
+      perhaps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of the
+      earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had crept
+      already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their summer in our
+      band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food get short, and to
+      prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having never felt bitter cold,
+      was trembling at what I heard of it. For now it was clear that I had no
+      choice but to stay where I was for the present, and be truly thankful to
+      God and man for having the chance of doing so. For the little relics of my
+      affairs&mdash;so far as I had any&mdash;had taken much time in
+      arrangement, perhaps because it was so hard to find them. I knew nothing,
+      except about my own little common wardrobe, and could give no information
+      about the contents of my father's packages. But these, by dint of
+      perseverance on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all rights),
+      had mainly been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the best that could be
+      done concerning them. Whatever seemed of a private nature, or likely to
+      prove important, had been brought home to Blue River Mills; the rest had
+      been sold, and had fetched large prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long afterward,
+      to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar upon his bounty. I
+      had never been accustomed to think of money, and felt some little contempt
+      for it&mdash;not, indeed, a lofty hatred, but a careless wonder why it
+      seemed to be always thought of. It was one of the last things I ever
+      thought of; and those who were waiting for it were&mdash;until I got used
+      to them&mdash;obliged in self-duty to remind me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, however, was not my fault. I never dreamed of wronging them. But I
+      had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any where, much
+      though I had wandered about, according to vague recollections. The duty of
+      paying had never been mine; that important part had been done for me. And
+      my father had such a horror always of any growth of avarice that he never
+      gave me sixpence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from Suan
+      Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be different from
+      the Old one, and that the gold mines in the neighborhood must have made
+      them full of it; and once or twice I asked Uncle Sam; but he only nodded
+      his head, and said that it was the practice every where. And before very
+      long I began to perceive that he did not exaggerate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance above
+      referred to&mdash;the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of bribing
+      even Uncle Sam himself. This happened in the month of November, when the
+      passes were beginning to be blocked with snow, and those of the higher
+      mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed with it. On this particular day
+      the air was laden with gray, oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy
+      downfall, and instead of faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I
+      was kept in-doors, and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache. This is
+      a crushing weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are
+      obliged to endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when
+      the first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
+      overhead. But I was more lucky than most people are; for after about
+      twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which the sweetest
+      sound was odious, and the idea of food quite loathsome, the agony left me,
+      and a great desire for something to eat succeeded. Suan Isco, the kindest
+      of the kind, was gone down stairs at last, for which I felt ungrateful
+      gratitude&mdash;because she had been doing her best to charm away my pain
+      by low, monotonous Indian ditties, which made it ten times worse; and yet
+      I could not find heart to tell her so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the November day
+      when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to lift it. The light
+      of the west had been faint, and was dead; though often it used to prolong
+      our day by the backward glance of the ocean. With pangs of youthful
+      hunger, but a head still weak and dazy, I groped my way in the dark
+      through the passage and down the stairs of redwood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into the
+      house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual cheerful
+      company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were only two people
+      present. The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of state, delaying even the
+      indulgence of his pipe, and having his face set sternly, as I had never
+      before beheld it. In the visitor's corner, as we called it, where people
+      sat to dry themselves, there was a man, and only one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them. The
+      room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality. Some kind of
+      meal had been made at the table, as always must be in these parts; but not
+      of the genial, reckless sort which random travelers carried on without any
+      check from the Sawyer. For he of all men ever born in a civilized age was
+      the finest host, and a guest beneath his roof was sacred as a lady to a
+      knight. Hence it happened that I was much surprised. Proper conduct almost
+      compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity made me take just one more little
+      peep, perhaps. Looking back at these things now, I can not be sure of
+      every thing; and indeed if I could, I must have an almost supernatural
+      memory. But I remember many things; and the headache may have cleared my
+      mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff condition
+      was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow made an eddy. He
+      seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the tricks of the hearth
+      flame, presenting as he did a most solid face for any light to play upon.
+      To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten face of a bluff and resolute man,
+      the like of which we attribute to John Bull. At any rate, he was like John
+      Bull in one respect: he was sturdy and square, and fit to hold his own
+      with any man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where), and been
+      kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English blood, had a
+      kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather have such at his board
+      than even a true-born American; and infinitely more welcome were they than
+      Frenchman, Spaniard, or German, or any man not to be distinguished, as was
+      the case with some of them. Even now it was clear that the Sawyer had not
+      grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall, square, brazen candlesticks, of
+      Boston make, were on the table, and very little light they gave. The fire,
+      however, was grandly roaring of stub-oak and pine antlers, and the black
+      grill of the chimney bricks was fringed with lifting filaments. It was a
+      rich, ripe light, affording breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of
+      the two men glistened, and darkened in their creases.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see them so
+      clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way to the larder,
+      or return to my room and starve a little longer; for I did not wish to
+      interrupt, and had no idea of listening. But suddenly I was compelled to
+      stop; and to listen became an honest thing, when I knew what was spoken of&mdash;or,
+      at any rate, I did it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man that I
+      have come to ask about. And you will find it worth your while to tell me
+      all you know of him.&rdquo; Thus spoke the Englishman sitting in the corner; and
+      he seemed to be certain of producing his effect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wal,&rdquo; said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be the
+      universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his sleeve,
+      &ldquo;Squire, I guess that you may be right. Considerations of that 'ere kind
+      desarves to be considered of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so. I knew that you must see it,&rdquo; the stranger continued, bravely.
+      &ldquo;A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well to begin with.
+      But all you enlightened members of the great republic know what is what.
+      It will bring you more than ten years' income of your saw-mill, and farm,
+      and so on, to deal honestly with me for ten minutes. No more beating about
+      the bush and fencing with me, as you have done. Now can you see your own
+      interest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never were reckoned a fool at that. Squire, make tracks, and be done
+      with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel&mdash;for I believe you are all
+      colonels here&mdash;your task is very simple. We want clear proof, sworn
+      properly and attested duly, of the death of a villain&mdash;George
+      Castlewood, otherwise the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise Lord
+      Castlewood: a man who murdered his own father ten years ago this November:
+      a man committed for trial for the crime, but who bribed his jailers and
+      escaped, and wandered all over the Continent. What is that noise? Have you
+      got rats?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other varmint.
+      Wal, Squire, go on with it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury, as I,
+      who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart with
+      patience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The story is well known,&rdquo; continued the stranger: &ldquo;we need make no bones
+      of it. George Castlewood went about under a curse&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please. My household is not altogether
+      seasoned.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere. I heard a report to
+      that effect. But here you think nothing of a dozen murders. Now, Gundry,
+      let us have no squeamishness. We only want justice, and we can pay for it.
+      Ten thousand dollars I am authorized to offer for a mere act of duty on
+      your part. We have an extradition treaty. If the man had been alive, we
+      must have had him. But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can only
+      see his grave and have evidence. And all well-disposed people must rejoice
+      to have such a quiet end of it. For the family is so well known, you see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips. &ldquo;Guess
+      you want something more than that, though, Squire. Is there nothing more
+      than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well. We know that she was with him in
+      that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call it. We know
+      that you have made oath of his death, produced his child, and obtained his
+      trunks, and drawn his share in the insurance job. Your laws must be queer
+      to let you do such things. In England it would have taken at least three
+      years, and cost a deal more than the things were worth, even without a
+      Chancery suit. However, of his papers I shall take possession; they can be
+      of no earthly use to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure. And possession of his darter too, without so much as a
+      Chancery suit. But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin' wrong in this
+      little transaction?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can very soon satisfy you,&rdquo; said the stranger, &ldquo;as to their identity.
+      Here is their full, particular, and correct description&mdash;names,
+      weights, and colors of the parties.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew forth his
+      pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to smooth on his knee
+      quite leisurely. Meanwhile, in my hiding-place, I was trembling with
+      terror and indignation. The sense of eavesdropping was wholly lost, in
+      that of my own jeopardy. I must know what was arranged about me; for I
+      felt such a hatred and fear of that stranger that sooner than be
+      surrendered to him I would rush back to my room and jump out of the
+      window, and trust myself to the trackless forest and the snowy night. I
+      was very nearly doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear what
+      would be said of me. So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails, while
+      the stranger read slowly and pompously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      DISCOMFITURE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet waistcoat,
+      and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get the full light of
+      the candles. I saw him as clearly as I could wish, and, indeed, a great
+      deal too clearly; for the more I saw of the man, the more I shrank from
+      the thought of being in his power. Not that he seemed to be brutal or
+      fierce, but selfish, and resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of lofty
+      feelings. Short dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed his large,
+      thick-featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the clumsy sneer
+      of a wide, coarse mouth. I watched him with all my eyes, because of his
+      tone of authority about myself. He might even be my guardian or my
+      father's nearest relation&mdash;though he seemed to be too ill-bred for
+      that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel,&rdquo; he went on, in a patronizing tone,
+      such as he had assumed throughout. &ldquo;Here it is. Now prick your ears up,
+      and see if these candid remarks apply. I am reading from a printed form,
+      you see:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten years
+      older. His height is over six feet two, and he does not stoop or slouch at
+      all. His hair is long and abundant, but white; his eyes are dark,
+      piercing, and gloomy. His features are fine, and of Italian cast, but
+      stern, morose, and forbidding, and he never uses razor. On the back of his
+      left hand, near the wrist, there is a broad scar. He dresses in
+      half-mourning always, and never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all
+      society, and prefers uncivilized regions. He never stays long in any town,
+      and follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are military, as
+      he has been a cavalry officer. From time to time he has been heard of in
+      Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen with
+      him. She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks French better
+      than English. Her hair is very nearly black, and her eyes of unusual size
+      and lustre. She is shy, and appears to have been kept under, and she has a
+      timid smile. Whether she knows of her father's crime or not is quite
+      uncertain; but she follows him like a dog almost.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There now, Colonel,&rdquo; cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper
+      triumphantly; &ldquo;most of that came from my information, though I never set
+      eyes upon the child. Does the cap fit or not, Brother Jonathan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite pipe,
+      carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat. And being thus appealed to,
+      he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been dozing, though he never
+      had been more wide awake, as I, who knew his attitudes, could tell. And my
+      eyes filled with tears of love and shame, for I knew by the mere turn of
+      his chin that he never would surrender me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stranger,&rdquo; he said, in a most provoking drawl, &ldquo;a hard day's work tells
+      its tale on me, you bet. You do read so bootiful, you read me hard asleep.
+      And the gutturals of that furrin English is always a little hard to catch.
+      Mought I trouble you just to go through it again? You likes the sound of
+      your own voice; and no blame to you, being such a swate un.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of being
+      chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend of his head
+      so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was asked. But he
+      glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between the candlesticks; and
+      I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle Sam, the most hospitable of
+      men, feigned pure incomprehension of that glance. The man should have no
+      more under that roof.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a wreath
+      of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying, &ldquo;Now I beg
+      you to attend this time,&rdquo; read the whole of his description, with much
+      emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned away and beat time upon the
+      hearth, with his white hair, broad shoulders, and red ears prominent. The
+      Englishman looked very seriously vexed, but went through his business
+      doggedly. &ldquo;Are you satisfied now?&rdquo; he asked when he had finished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wal, now, Squire,&rdquo; replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his provoking
+      drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very steadfastly,
+      &ldquo;some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they seems a'most as good
+      as well-slung flapjacks. A natteral honest stomick can't nohow have enough
+      of them. Mought I be so bold, in a silly, mountaneous sort of a way, as to
+      ax for another heerin' of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean to insult me, Sir?&rdquo; shouted the visitor, leaping up with a
+      flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of attack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stranger, I mought,&rdquo; answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before him,
+      and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back&mdash;&ldquo;I mought so
+      do, barrin' one little point. The cutest commissioner in all the West
+      would have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to diskiver somethin'
+      capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your natur'.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his mouth,
+      signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase of
+      discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted. His visitor stared at him
+      for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and then fell back into
+      self-command, without attempting bluster.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the herring pond.
+      What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you elegantly express it here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Britisher, nothing. You know no better. It takes more than that to put my
+      back up. But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a heaved you out o'
+      window.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Colonel, why? Now be reasonable. Not a word have I said reflecting
+      either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than I have made can
+      not come to many of you, even in this land of gold. Ten thousand dollars I
+      offer, and I will exceed my instructions and say fifteen, all paid on the
+      nail by an order on Frisco, about which you may assure yourself. And what
+      do I ask in return? Legal proof of the death of a man whom we know to be
+      dead, and the custody of his child, for her own good.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Squire, I have no other answer to make. If you offered me all the gold
+      dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could only say what I
+      have said before. You came from Sylvester's ranch&mdash;there is time for
+      you to get back ere the snow begins.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a hospitable man you are! Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve to have
+      a medal from our Humane Society. You propose to turn me out of doors
+      to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, the fault is entirely your own. What hospitality can you expect
+      after coming to buy my guest? If you are afraid of the ten-mile ride, my
+      man at the mill will bed you. But here you must not sleep, because I might
+      harm you in the morning. I am apt to lose my temper sometimes, when I go
+      on to think of things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Colonel, I think I had better ride back. I fear no man, nor his temper,
+      nor crotchets. But if I were snowed up at your mill, I never might cross
+      the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I can always get to Minto.
+      You refuse, then, to help me in any way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than that. I will do every thing in my power to confound you. If any
+      one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be shot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is most discouraging. However, you may think better of it. Write to
+      this address if you do. You have the girl here, of course?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is her concern and mine. Does your guide know the way right well!
+      The snow is beginning. You do not know our snows, any more than you know
+      us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, Mr. Gundry. I shall do very well. You are rough in your ways,
+      but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is virtuous. But mark
+      my words upon one little point. If George Castlewood had been living, I
+      have such credentials that I would have dragged him back with me in spite
+      of all your bluster. But over his corpse I have no control, in the present
+      condition of treaties. Neither can I meddle with his daughter, if it were
+      worth while to do so. Keep her and make the best of her, my man. You have
+      taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that is what you are up for.
+      A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad lot, as her father was. If you
+      wish the name of Gundry to have its due respect hereafter, let the heir of
+      the sawmills have nothing to do with the Honorable Miss Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let alone, let alone,&rdquo; Uncle Sam said, angrily. &ldquo;It is well for you that
+      the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence. Firm is a
+      steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with. No fear of losing
+      the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind you. But, meddlesome as you
+      be, and a bitter weed to my experience, it shall not be said that Sampson
+      Gundry sent forth a fellow to be frozen. Drink a glass of hot whiskey
+      before you get to saddle. Not in friendship, mind you, Sir, but in common
+      human nature.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the driving
+      snow, now huddling against the window-frames. And so he went out; and when
+      he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light, and threw my arms round the
+      Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he was ashamed of me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough to
+      doubt you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER VIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A DOUBTFUL LOSS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
+      astonished at the state of things. To look out fairly was impossible; for
+      not only was all the lower part of the frame hillocked up like a
+      sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky plaits, but even in the
+      middle, where some outlook was, it led to very little. All the air seemed
+      choked with snow, and the ground coming up in piles to meet it; all sounds
+      were deadened in the thick gray hush, and nothing had its own proportion.
+      Never having seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and longed to
+      know more of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined, when I
+      proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open through the winter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It can be done&mdash;I am sure it can,&rdquo; I exclaimed, with vigorous
+      ignorance. &ldquo;May I do it if I can? It only requires perseverance. If you
+      keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it. Don't you see,
+      Uncle Sam?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff. Suan, fetch a
+      double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget while you be
+      up there to give special orders&mdash;no snow is to fall at night or when
+      missy is at dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to try it. I
+      must try to keep my path to&mdash;somewhere.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a fool I am, to be sure!&rdquo; said Mr. Gundry, softly. &ldquo;There, now, I
+      beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it. Firm and I
+      will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it. Why, the snow is two
+      foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places. I wonder whether that rogue
+      of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch last night? No fault of mine if he
+      never did, for go he would in spite of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his name
+      until it was told in this way. My mind was dwelling on my father's grave,
+      where I used to love to sit and think; and I could not bear the idea of
+      the cold snow lying over it, with nobody coming to care for him. Kind
+      hands had borne him down the mountains (while I lay between life and
+      death) and buried him in the soft peach orchard, in the soothing sound of
+      the mill-wheel. Here had been planted above his head a cross of white
+      un-painted wood, bearing only his initials, and a small &ldquo;Amen&rdquo; below them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished no
+      better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of pomp.
+      There was no &ldquo;consecrated ground&rdquo; within miles and miles of traveling; but
+      I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears to hallow it. For
+      often and often, even now, I could not help giving way and sobbing, when I
+      thought how sad it was that a strong, commanding, mighty man, of great
+      will and large experience, should drop in a corner of the world and die,
+      and finally be thought lucky&mdash;when he could think for himself no
+      longer&mdash;to obtain a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his
+      initials, and have a water-wheel to sing to him. Many a time it set me
+      crying, and made me long to lie down with him, until I thought of
+      earth-worms.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let me have
+      my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it. But even with a steam
+      snow-shovel they could not have kept the way unstopped, such solid masses
+      of the mountain clouds now descended over us. And never had I been so
+      humored in my foolish wishes: I was quite ashamed to see the trouble great
+      men took to please me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm,&rdquo; said the Sawyer, coming in one day,
+      with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. &ldquo;Not that I care a cent for the
+      fellow&mdash;and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe. Still, he might
+      have had time to mend, if his time had been as good as the room for it.
+      However, no blame rests on us. I told him to bed down to saw-mill. They
+      Englishmen never know when they are well off. But the horse got home, they
+      tell me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other horse and
+      man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must have died out in the
+      snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall never know the rights.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many times did I tell him,&rdquo; the Sawyer replied, without much
+      discontent, &ldquo;that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a night
+      as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars than he could
+      ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone, time upon time, to the
+      land of truth by means of that same view of things. They take every body
+      else for a liar.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Is it that dreadful&mdash;that poor
+      man who wanted to carry me away from you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth,&rdquo; Mr. Gundry answered,
+      more roughly than usual. &ldquo;Leave you all such points to the Lord. They are
+      not for young ladies to talk about.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Grandfather, don't you be too hard,&rdquo; said Firm, as he saw me hurrying
+      away. &ldquo;Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only concerning her own
+      affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, then, so be it,&rdquo; the Sawyer replied; for he yielded more to
+      his grandson than to the rest of the world put together. &ldquo;Turn the log up,
+      Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on without victuals all day, but
+      an old man must feed regular. And, bad as he was, I thank God for sending
+      him on his way home with his belly full. If ever he turneth up in the
+      snow, that much can be proved to my account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I could not
+      help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out&mdash;not at the
+      death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so in going from a
+      hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any body said concerning
+      his honor, or courage, or such like; but the thought of a whisper against
+      his hospitality would rouse him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Find him, Firm, find him,&rdquo; he said, in his deep sad voice, as he sat down
+      on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily. &ldquo;And when he is
+      found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we gave him his bellyful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of the
+      neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot, that he
+      might hurry out again. Then he took his dinner standing, and without a
+      word went forth to seek.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler,&rdquo; the old man shouted after him,
+      and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to show that he
+      heard him. The snow was again falling heavily, and the afternoon was
+      waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush of the mighty tail of the
+      great dog Jowler.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!&rdquo; I cried, in dismay at the great
+      white waste. &ldquo;And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead. Do call him
+      back, or let me run.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where he
+      made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the butter-beans.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way from
+      the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground, and he was
+      hard at work with the loppings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody else
+      could have noticed such a thing at such a distance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this house,
+      without stopping, or even letting your head droop down, although it was a
+      burning hot May morn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do! It was
+      weeks before I could thank him, even. But you must have seen him do it
+      all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal of
+      rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an argument went to
+      his liking. He said nothing more for the present, but had his dinner, and
+      enjoyed it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Supposing now that he did all that,&rdquo; he resumed, about an hour afterward,
+      &ldquo;is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his own self in a
+      snow-drift? He has three men with him, and he is worth all three, let
+      alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out forty feet of snow ere now. If
+      that rogue of an Englishman, Goad, has had the luck to cheat the hangman,
+      and the honor to die in a Californy snow-drift, you may take my experience
+      for it, missy, Firm and Jowler will find him, and clear Uncle Sam's
+      reputation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER IX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      WATER-SPOUT
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the other.
+      Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with snow and most
+      hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out all the night,
+      because he had failed of his errand. Jowler also was full of discontent
+      and trouble of conscience. He knew, when he kicked up his heels in the
+      snow, that his duty was to find somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree,
+      and trained to act up to his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with
+      failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It comes to the same thing,&rdquo; said Sawyer Gundry; &ldquo;it is foolish to be so
+      particular. A thousand better men have sunk through being so pig-headed.
+      We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in April, if the
+      season suits. Firm, eat your supper and shake yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was exactly the Sawyer's way&mdash;to take things quietly when
+      convinced that there was no chance to better them. He would always do his
+      best about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the matter small or
+      great, he had a smiling face for the end of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went at
+      last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its gradual way to
+      us. Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and more easy changes, I lost
+      myself in admiration of this my first Californian spring. The flowers, the
+      leagues and leagues of flowers, that burst into color and harmony&mdash;purple,
+      yellow, and delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson threads, and fringed
+      with emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the course of rivers, while
+      deepened here and there by wooded shelter and cool places, with the
+      silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far distance, and silken vapor
+      drawing toward the carding forks of the mountain range; and over all the
+      never-wearying azure of the limpid sky: child as I was, and full of little
+      worldly troubles on my own account, these grand and noble sights enlarged
+      me without any thinking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full
+      blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost as
+      large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness, ere the
+      yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some gully sent a
+      strong flood down our Blue River. The saw-mill happened to be hard at
+      work; and before the gear could be lifted, some damage was done to the
+      floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of the torrent. Uncle Sam was away,
+      and so was Firm; from which, perhaps, the mischief grew. However, the
+      blame was all put on the river, and little more was said of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-doors, under
+      some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things. The stream was as
+      pure and bright as ever, hastening down its gravel-path of fine granite
+      just as usual, except that it had more volume and a stronger sense of
+      freshness. Only the bent of the grasses and the swath of the pendulous
+      twigs down stream remained to show that there must have been some violence
+      quite lately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as need be,
+      and the clear blue water played around them as if they were no constraint
+      to it. And none but a practiced eye could see that the great wheel had
+      been wounded, being undershot, and lifted now above the power of the
+      current, according to the fine old plan of locking the door when the horse
+      is gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief, Martin,
+      the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth full of
+      breakfast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Show me,&rdquo; I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance, &ldquo;where
+      and what the damage is. Is there any strain to the iron-work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lor' a mercy, young missus!&rdquo; he answered, gruffly, being by no means a
+      polished man, &ldquo;where did you ever hear of ironwork? Needles and pins is
+      enough for you. Now don't you go and make no mischief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no idea what you mean,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;If you have been careless,
+      that is no concern of mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Careless, indeed! And the way I works, when others is a-snorin' in their
+      beds! I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get more thanks and
+      better wages. That's the way of the world all over. Come Saturday week, I
+      shall better myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better yourself,
+      unless you go out of the world altogether!&rdquo; I put this question to Martin
+      with the earnest simplicity of the young, meaning no kind of sarcasm, but
+      knowing that scarcely a week went by without his threatening to &ldquo;better
+      himself.&rdquo; And they said that he had done so for seven years or more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you be too sharp,&rdquo; he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
+      himself, perhaps. &ldquo;If half as I heard about you is true, you'll want all
+      your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy. And the Britishers are worse than
+      we be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;if you saw any
+      person injuring me. But what is it I am not to tell your master?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master, indeed! Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing about
+      what you have seen. It might lead to hard words; and hard words are not
+      the style of thing I put up with. If any man tries hard words with me, I
+      knocks him down, up sticks, and makes tracks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk. Sawyer Gundry could have
+      taken him with one hand and tossed him over the undershot wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget that I have not seen any thing,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and understand
+      nothing but 'needles and pins.' But, for fear of doing any harm, I will
+      not even say that I have been down here, unless I am asked about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some day.
+      Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-doin' of? The
+      finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn old chap takes to
+      quartz-crushing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good friends,
+      while he shook his long head and went home to feed many pappooses. For the
+      strangest thing of all things was, though I never at that time thought of
+      it, that there was not any one about this place whom any one could help
+      liking. Martin took as long as any body to be liked, until one understood
+      him; but after that he was one of the best, in many ways that can not be
+      described. Also there was a pair of negroes, simply and sweetly
+      delightful. They worked all day and they sang all night, though I had not
+      the pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised them&mdash;because
+      they were black, and she was only brown&mdash;the more they made up to
+      her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals. It was
+      childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never get rid of
+      them. The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that a large,
+      free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every thing. Martin
+      was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had established a long right to
+      do so by never himself being grumbled at.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way,&rdquo; Mr. Gundry said at
+      breakfast-time. &ldquo;He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear that he
+      won't eat a bit for the day. Martin is a most conscientious man. He will
+      offer to give up his berth, although it would be his simple ruin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me keenly. He
+      knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me to say something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all must have our little mistakes,&rdquo; continued Sawyer Gundry; &ldquo;but I
+      never like to push a man when he feels it. I shall not say a syllable to
+      Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like. When a fellow sticks well to
+      his work like Martin, never blame him for a mere accident.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite agree.
+      In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he did not argue
+      with his grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall just go down and put it right myself. Martin is a poor hand at
+      repairing. Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh has hurt the
+      hurdles. Missy, you may come with me, if you please, and sketch me at work
+      in the mill-wheel. You have drawn that wheel such a sight of times, you
+      must know every feather of it better than the man who made it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Sam, you are too bad,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I have never got it right, and I
+      never shall.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the end&mdash;that
+      I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was incorrect. In
+      spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and ingenuity, the wheel was no
+      true circle. The error began in the hub itself, and increased, of course,
+      with the distance; but still it worked very well, like many other things
+      that are not perfect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own
+      perception of &ldquo;perspective,&rdquo; I sat down once more in my favorite spot, and
+      waited for the master to appear as an active figure in the midst of it.
+      The air was particularly bright and clear, even for that pure climate, and
+      I could even see the blue-winged flies darting in and out of the oozy
+      floats. But half-way up the mountains a white cloud was hanging, a cloud
+      that kept on changing shape. I only observed it as a thing to put in for
+      my background, because I was fond of trying to tone and touch up my
+      sketches with French chalks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery. The
+      bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put on, to keep
+      the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight. Martin, the foreman,
+      was grumbling and growling, according to his habit, and peering through
+      the slot, or channel of stone, in which the axle worked, and the cheery
+      voice of Mr. Gundry was putting down his objections. Being much too large
+      to pass through the slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner of the
+      building, with a heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his neck, and
+      his canvas breeches girt above his knees. But the foreman staid inside to
+      hand him the needful material into the wheel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was always
+      like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little skull-cap to me,
+      and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were nearer seventeen than
+      seventy. And presently I could only see his legs and arms as he fell to
+      work. Therefore I also fell to work, with my best attempts at penciling,
+      having been carefully taught enough of drawing to know that I could not
+      draw. And perhaps I caught from the old man's presence and the sound of
+      his activity that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart to
+      every one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the changing
+      light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to my distance, till
+      suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and upon my hat, and a rush
+      of dark wind almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then again all
+      was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung heavily on
+      their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned
+      back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But there seemed to be
+      a sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to run
+      away. But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never heard it sound.
+      He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to sky or stream, and the
+      fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as if the place resented them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come away, come away,&rdquo; I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite bank
+      to him; &ldquo;there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am sure. I
+      entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam. Every thing is so strange and
+      odd.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what's to do now?&rdquo; asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the wheel
+      and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his apron wedged in
+      a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in the impossibility of
+      hurry. &ldquo;Missy, don't you make a noise out there. You can't have your own
+      way always.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that. I am in such a fright about you. Do
+      come out and look at the mountains.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick of
+      them. There may be a corn or two of rain; no more. My sea-weed was like
+      tinder. There can't be no heavy storm when it is like that. Don't you make
+      pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a right to be
+      so. And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up for the sharpness of
+      his words, and then back he went to his work again. So I hoped that I was
+      altogether wrong, till a bolt of lightning, like a blue dagger, fell at my
+      very feet, and a crash of thunder shook the earth and stunned me. These
+      opened the sluice of the heavens, and before I could call out I was
+      drenched with rain. Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley lashed with
+      cloudy blasts, and a whirling mass of spiral darkness rushing like a giant
+      toward me. And the hissing and tossing and roaring mixed whatever was in
+      sight together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could
+      scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a singed
+      moth drops and shivers. And a storm of wind struck me from my hold, so
+      that I fell upon the wet earth. Every moment I expected to be killed, for
+      I never could be brave in a thunder-storm, and had not been told much in
+      France of God's protection around me. And the darts of lightning hissed
+      and crossed like a blue and red web over me. So I laid hold of a little
+      bent of weed, and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to pray to
+      the Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely changed me.
+      A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as the mill itself,
+      rushed down with a crest of foam from the mountains. It seemed to fill up
+      all the valley and to swallow up all the trees; a whole host of animals
+      fled before it, and birds, like a volley of bullets, flew by. I lost not a
+      moment in running away, and climbing a rock and hiding. It was base,
+      ungrateful, and a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost without thinking.
+      And if I had staid to cry out, what good could I have done&mdash;only to
+      be swept away?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I must have
+      peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the deluge struck the
+      mill. But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it by any more summary
+      process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is more than I dare presume
+      to say. Whichever way I learned it, it was thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on it,
+      dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great wheel
+      anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling. I heard no scream or
+      shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been a mere whisper
+      in the wild roar of the elements. Only, where the mill had been, there was
+      nothing except a black streak and a boil in the deluge. Then scores of
+      torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-harrow jumps on the clods of the
+      field; and the unrelenting flood cast its wrath, and shone quietly in the
+      lightning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!&rdquo; I cried. But there was not a sign to be seen
+      of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways, and my heart
+      was almost broken. &ldquo;What a brute&mdash;what a wretch I am!&rdquo; I kept saying,
+      as if I could have helped it; and my fear of the lightning was gone, and I
+      stood and raved with scorn and amazement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and instinct alone
+      could have driven my despair to a desperate venture. With my soaked
+      clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as they would go, by a
+      short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where the very last bluff or
+      headland jutted into the river. This was a good mile below the mill
+      according to the bends of channel, but only a furlong or so from the rock
+      upon which I had taken refuge. However, the flood was there before me, and
+      the wall of water dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb behind it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage, and
+      bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive, but the
+      most part dead. A grand black bull tossed back his horns, and looked at me
+      beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet days, but now I was
+      truly grieved for him. And then on a wattle of brush-wood I saw the form
+      of a man&mdash;the Sawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of his
+      arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless. Senseless
+      he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves went over him. His
+      face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a heavy weight hung round his
+      neck. I had no time to think, and deserve no praise, for I knew not what I
+      did. But just as an eddy swept him near me, I made a desperate leap at
+      him, and clutched at something that tore my hands, and then I went under
+      the water. My senses, however, were not yet gone, and my weight on the
+      wattle stopped it, and I came up gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat,
+      woolly sheep going by me. The sheep was water-logged, and could scarcely
+      keep his own poor head from drowning, and he turned his mild eyes and
+      looked at me, but I could not spare him. He struck for the shore in
+      forlorn hope, and he towed us in some little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for us, for
+      of course I could do nothing. But the sheep must have piloted us to a
+      tree, whose branches swept the torrent. Here I let him go, and caught fast
+      hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck there also, for what could my
+      weak arm have done? I remember only to have felt the ground at last, as
+      the flood was exhausted; and good people came and found him and me,
+      stretched side by side, upon rubbish and mud.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER X
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A NUGGET
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing) we hung
+      up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more toward saving the
+      life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served as a kind of kedge, or
+      drag, upon his little craft, retarding it from the great roll of billows,
+      in which he must have been drowned outright. And even as it was, he took
+      some days before he was like himself again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken
+      hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the
+      mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole of its
+      power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had made, at
+      about five furlongs above the mill. Ephraim, being further up the gulch,
+      and high above the roaring flood, did his utmost with the keen edge of his
+      eyes to pierce into the mischief; but it rained so hard, and at the same
+      time blew so violently around him, that he could see nothing of what went
+      on, but hoped for the best, with uneasiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of things,
+      and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and himself, at
+      this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the world again, it was
+      natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a good deal of grumbling.
+      Many people came to comfort him, and to offer him deep condolence and the
+      truest of true sympathy, and every thing that could be thought of, unless
+      it were a loan of money. Of that they never thought, because it was such a
+      trifling matter; and they all had confidence in his power to do any thing
+      but pay them. They told him that he was a young man still, and Providence
+      watched over him; in a year or two he would be all the better for this sad
+      visitation. And he said yes to their excellent advice, and was very much
+      obliged to them. At the same time it was clear to me, who watched him like
+      a daughter, that he became heavy in his mind, and sighed, as these kind
+      friends, one after the other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but
+      rode away out of his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings.
+      Not that he would have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of
+      them, only that he would have liked the offer, to understand their
+      meaning. And several of them were men&mdash;as Firm, in his young
+      indignation, told me&mdash;who had been altogether set up in life by the
+      kindness of Sampson Gundry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed by this.
+      But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it preyed upon his mind,
+      though he was too proud to speak of it. He knew that he was not ruined,
+      although these friends assumed that he must be; and some of them were
+      quite angry with him because they had vainly warned him. He could not
+      remember these warnings, yet he contradicted none of them; and fully
+      believing in the goodness of the world, he became convinced that he must
+      have been hard in the days of his prosperity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San Francisco to
+      raise money on his house and property for the rebuilding of the mill. Firm
+      rode with him to escort him back, and so did Martin, the foreman; for
+      although the times were not so bad as they used to be some ten years back,
+      in the height of the gold fever, it still was a highly undesirable thing
+      for a man who was known to have money about him to ride forth alone from
+      San Francisco, or even Sacramento town. And having mentioned the foreman
+      Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his entire loss
+      from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat of the value of
+      about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling could only be equaled by
+      his lofty persistence. By his great activity in running away and leaving
+      his employer to meet the brunt, he had saved not only himself, but his
+      wife and children and goods and chattels. This failed, however, to remove
+      or even assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he moaned and threatened
+      to such good purpose that a speedy subscription was raised, which must
+      have found him in clothes for the rest of his life, as well as a silver
+      tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry, and
+      his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond calling
+      distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I found the
+      place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to do. I had no fear
+      of robbers, though there were plenty in the neighborhood; for we still had
+      three or four men about, who could be thoroughly trusted, and who staid
+      with us on half wages rather than abandon the Sawyer in his trouble. Suan
+      Isco, also, was as brave as any man, and could shoot well with a rifle.
+      Moreover, the great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by all his enemies.
+      He could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or three Mexicans, in
+      about a second; and now he always went about with me, having formed a
+      sacred friendship.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said &ldquo;good-by,&rdquo; and Firm had
+      shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as I liked and
+      admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was unbecoming, and now in my
+      lonely little walks I began to think about it. My father's resting-place
+      had not been invaded by the imperious flood, although a line of driftage,
+      in a zigzag swath, lay near the mound. This was my favorite spot for
+      thinking, when I felt perplexed and downcast in my young unaided mind. For
+      although I have not spoken of my musings very copiously, any one would do
+      me wrong who fancied that I was indifferent. Through the great kindness of
+      Mr. Gundry and other good friends around me, I had no bitter sense as yet
+      of my own dependence and poverty. But the vile thing I had heard about my
+      father, the horrible slander and wicked falsehood&mdash;for such I was
+      certain it must be&mdash;this was continually in my thoughts, and quite
+      destroyed my cheerfulness. And the worst of it was that I never could get
+      my host to enter into it. Whenever I began, his face would change and his
+      manner grow constrained, and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to
+      some other subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches began to
+      blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray with a globule of
+      sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins already had curved their
+      fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust of the plains was beginning to
+      fly, and the bright spring flowers were dead more swiftly even than they
+      first were born, I sat with Suan Isco at my father's cross, and told her
+      to make me cry with some of all the many sad things she knew. She knew a
+      wondrous number of things insatiably sad and wild; and the quiet way in
+      which she told them (not only without any horror, but as if they were
+      rightly to be expected), also the deep and rather guttural tone of voice,
+      and the stillness of the form, made it impossible to help believing verily
+      every word she said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and full
+      of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the noblest
+      philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good unpretentious
+      women, who had partly retired from the world, but not to such a depth as
+      to drown all thought of what was left behind them. These were ready at any
+      time to return upon good opportunity; and some of them had done so, with
+      many tears, when they came into property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please to tell me no more now,&rdquo; I said at last to Suan; &ldquo;my eyes are so
+      sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come home
+      to-night. I am afraid he has found some trouble with the money, or he
+      ought to have been at home before. Don't you think so, Suan?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; trouble with the money. Always with the white mans that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I shall go and look for some money. I had a most wonderful
+      dream last night. Only I must go quite alone. You had better go and look
+      to the larder, Suan. If they come, they are sure to be hungry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the white
+      race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-colored shawl
+      around her, and set off with her peculiar walk. Her walk was not
+      ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it differed almost as
+      much as the step of a quadruped from what we are taught. I, with heavy
+      thoughts but careless steps, set off on my wanderings. I wanted to try to
+      have no set purpose, course, or consideration, but to go wherever chance
+      should lead me, without choice, as in my dream. And after many vague
+      turns, and even closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself, perhaps by
+      the force of habit, at the ruins of the mill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can
+      expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me. But sleeping I
+      had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet stream. The little
+      river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all thoughts of wrath, showed
+      nothing in its pure gaze now but a gladness to refresh and cool. In many
+      nicely sheltered corners it was full of soft reflection as to the good it
+      had to do; and then, in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do it.
+      And the happy voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told that it
+      knew of the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I was angry
+      with it for the sake of Uncle Sam. Only the foundations and the big heavy
+      stones of the mill were left, and the clear bright water purled around, or
+      made little eddies among them. All were touched with silvery sound, and
+      soft caressing dimples. But I looked at the passionate mountains first, to
+      be sure of no more violence; for if a burned child dreads the fire, one
+      half drowned may be excused for little faith in water. The mountains in
+      the sunshine looked as if nothing could move their grandeur, and so I
+      stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of the placid brightness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles, driven in
+      by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his walls, had been
+      swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but had not been swept away.
+      The square tarred post of mountain pine reclined down stream, and gently
+      nodded to the current's impact. But overthrown as it was, it could not
+      make its exit and float away, as all its brethren had done. At this I had
+      wondered before, and now I went to see what the reason was. By throwing a
+      short piece of plank from one of the shattered foundations into a nick in
+      the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed to get there and sit upon
+      it, and search for its obstruction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal, being
+      scarcely more than a foot in depth. And there, on the upper verge of the
+      hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the granite sand of the
+      river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow light. I was so much
+      amazed that I cried out at once, &ldquo;Oh! what a beautiful great yellow fish!&rdquo;
+       And I shouted to Jowler, who had found where I was, and followed me, as
+      usual. The great dog was famous for his love of fishing, and had often
+      brought a fine salmon forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my call by
+      dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance of my hand. But
+      when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly disappointed, and gave me
+      to understand as much by looking at me foolishly. &ldquo;Now don't be a stupid
+      dog,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;do what I tell you immediately. Whatever it is, bring it
+      out, Sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him &ldquo;Sir;&rdquo; so he
+      ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth at the
+      object. His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with the intensity of
+      his labor, but the task was quite beyond him. He could not even stir the
+      mighty mass at which he struggled, but he bit off a little projecting
+      corner, and came to me with it in his mouth. Then he laid his dripping
+      jaws on my lap, and his ears fell back, and his tail hung down with utter
+      sense of failure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes with his
+      ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me. Then I saw that his
+      grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to a dentist regardless
+      of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump of solid glittering virgin
+      ore. He had not the smallest idea of having done any thing worthy of human
+      applause; and he put out his long red tongue and licked his teeth to get
+      rid of uneatable dross, and gave me a quiet nudge to ask what more I
+      wanted of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      ROVERS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      From Jowler I wanted nothing more. Such matters were too grand for him. He
+      had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the purple dye&mdash;a
+      thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it value. But gold does
+      well without all these, and better in their absence. From handling many
+      little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan Isco's tales of treachery, theft,
+      and murder done by white men for the sake of this, I knew that here I had
+      found enough to cost the lives of fifty men.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I was with
+      joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in my hands. For I
+      was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy. Here I had a knowledge
+      which the wisest of mankind might envy, much as they despise it when they
+      have no chance of getting it. I looked at my father's grave, in the shadow
+      of the quiet peach-trees, and I could not help crying as I thought that
+      this was come too late for him. Then I called off Jowler, who wished (like
+      a man) to have another tug at it; and home I ran to tell my news, but
+      failing of breath, had time to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the
+      greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had seen so
+      much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be careful. But
+      surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco. However, I looked at
+      her several times, and was not quite so sure about it. She was wonderfully
+      true and faithful, and scarcely seemed to concede to gold its paramount
+      rank and influence. But that might only have been because she had never
+      known the want of it, or had never seen a lump worth stealing, which I was
+      sure that this must be; and the unregenerate state of all who have never
+      been baptized had been impressed on me continually. How could I mistrust a
+      Christian, and place confidence in an Indian? Therefore I tried to sleep
+      without telling any one, but was unable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long awake,
+      for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from San
+      Francisco. Of course I have done very foolish things once and again
+      throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more absurd than
+      during the whole of that day. To begin with, I was up before the sun, and
+      down at the mill, and along the plank, which I had removed overnight, but
+      now replaced as my bridge to the pine-wood pile. Then I gazed with eager
+      desire and fear&mdash;which was the stronger I scarcely knew&mdash;for the
+      yellow under-gleam, to show the safety of my treasure. There it lay, as
+      safe as could be, massive, grand, and beautiful, with tones of varying
+      richness as the ripples varied over it. The pale light of the morning
+      breathed a dewy lustre down the banks; the sun (although unrisen yet) drew
+      furrows through the mountain gaps; the birds from every hanging tree
+      addressed the day with melody; the crystal water, purer than religion's
+      brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay, unmoved, unthought of,
+      and inanimate, the thing which to a human being is worth all the rest put
+      together.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I resolved to
+      spend my time, for fear of any robbery. I was afraid to gaze more than
+      could be helped at this grand sight, lest other eyes should spy what was
+      going on, and long to share it. And after hurrying home to breakfast and
+      returning in like haste, I got a scare, such as I well deserved, for being
+      so extremely foolish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and steadfast
+      that even in that raging deluge the whole had held together. It had been
+      bodily torn from its hold and swept away down the valley; but somewhere it
+      grounded, as the flood ebbed out, and a strong team had tugged it back
+      again. And the Sawyer had vowed that, come what would, his mill should
+      work with the self-same wheel which he with younger hands had wrought. Now
+      this wheel (to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber from the sun) was
+      laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under it. And here I had
+      taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the runnel,
+      sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the water. Little
+      fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played about, and I was
+      almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold. In self-defense it is
+      right to say that for the gold, on my own account, I cared as much as I
+      might have done for a fig worm-eaten. It was for Uncle Sam, and all his
+      dear love, that I watched the gold, hoping in his sad disaster to restore
+      his fortunes. But suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid flat in the
+      tributary brook) I descried across the main river a moving company of
+      horsemen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party, for they
+      were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return by the track
+      across the plains. And they were already so near that I could see their
+      dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican rovers, mixed with loose
+      Americans. There are few worse men on the face of the earth than these,
+      when in the humor, and unluckily they seem almost always to be in that
+      humor. Therefore, when I saw their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching
+      boots, I feared that little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and held my
+      head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my wind-tossed hair
+      into small compass. For my blood ran cold at the many dreadful things that
+      came into my mind. I was sure that they had not spied me yet, and my
+      overwhelming desire was to decline all introduction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves, and
+      would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion. Fourteen of them
+      rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the other side; and there
+      they let their horses drink, and some dismounted and filled canteens, and
+      some of longer reach stooped from the saddle and did likewise. But one,
+      who seemed to be the captain, wanted no water for his rum.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Cut it short, boys,&rdquo; I heard him say, with a fine South Californian twang
+      (which, as well as his free swearing, I will freely omit). &ldquo;If we mean to
+      have fair play with the gal, now or never's the time for it: old Sam may
+      come home almost any time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      What miserable cowards! Though there were so many of them, they really had
+      no heart to face an old man known for courage. Frightened as I was,
+      perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter no more, and not faint away,
+      but watch those miscreants steadily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink,
+      scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker before
+      my eyes. The dribbling of the water from their mouths prepared them to
+      begin again, till the riders struck the savage unroweled spur into their
+      refreshment. At this they jerked their noses up, and looked at one another
+      to say that they expected it, and then they lifted their weary legs and
+      began to plash through the river.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream,
+      probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his feet,
+      and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he is right. In
+      my agony of observation all these things I heeded, but only knew that I
+      had done so when I thought long afterward. At the moment I was in such a
+      fright that my eyes worked better than my mind. However, even so, I
+      thought of my golden millstone, and was aware that they crossed below, and
+      could not see it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I crouched;
+      and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which kept me crouching.
+      I counted them again as they leaped the bank and seemed to look at me. I
+      could see the dark array of eyes, and could scarcely keep from shrieking.
+      But my throat was dry and made no sound, and a frightened bird set up a
+      scream, which drew off their attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost felt that
+      the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to help my
+      helplessness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the evil
+      one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked laughter of the
+      men. One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest rejoicing in it; and
+      the bright sun, glowing on their withered skin, discovered perhaps no
+      viler thing in all the world to shine upon. One of them even pointed at my
+      mill-wheel with a witty gibe&mdash;at least, perhaps, it was wit to him&mdash;about
+      the Sawyer's misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes, and my dress
+      was just of the color of the timber. So on they rode, and the pleasant
+      turf (having lately received some rain) softly answered to the kneading of
+      their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark of the
+      valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me. Fourteen men and fourteen
+      horses I had counted on the other side; on this side I could not make any
+      more than thirteen of them. I might have made a mistake; but still I
+      thought I would stop just a minute to see. And in that minute I saw the
+      other man walking slowly on the opposite bank. He had tethered his horse,
+      and was left as outpost to watch and give warning of poor Uncle Sam's
+      return.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary way,
+      came back. I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost any girl might
+      have done. But now I resolved that, whatever might happen, my dear friend
+      and guardian should not be entrapped and lose his life through my
+      cowardice. We had been expecting him all the day; and if he should come
+      and fall into an ambush, I only might survive to tell the tale. I ought to
+      have hurried and warned the house, as my bitter conscience told me; but
+      now it was much too late for that. The only amends that I could make was
+      to try and warn our travelers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more open
+      places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up the winding
+      of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy thicket which
+      concealed its origin. Hence I could see for miles over the plain&mdash;broad
+      reaches of corn land already turning pale, mazy river fringed with reed,
+      hamlets scattered among clustering trees, and that which I chiefly cared
+      to see, the dusty track from Sacramento.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the
+      sentinel had been posted badly. His beat commanded well enough the course
+      from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally clear before
+      him. For a jut of pine forest ran down from the mountains and cut off a
+      part of his view of it. I had not the sense or the presence of mind to
+      perceive this great advantage, but having a plain, quick path before me,
+      forth I set upon it. Of course if the watchman had seen me, he would have
+      leaped on his horse and soon caught me; but of that I scarcely even
+      thought, I was in such confusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and of
+      active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off, rising through
+      the bright blue haze. It was rich yellow dust of the fertile soil, which
+      never seems to cake or clot. Sometimes you may walk for miles without the
+      smallest fear of sinking, the earth is so elastic. And yet with a slight
+      exertion you may push a walking-stick down through it until the handle
+      stops it. My heart gave a jump: that cloud of dust was a sign of men on
+      horseback. And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm and the foreman
+      Martin?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very three,
+      carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with heat and dust
+      and thirst. But when they saw me there all alone under the fury of the
+      sun, they knew that something must have gone amiss, and were all wide
+      awake in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now,&rdquo; said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as short
+      breath allowed, &ldquo;put this thing over your head, my dear, or you may gain a
+      sun-stroke. I call it too bad of them skunks to drive you in Californy
+      noon, like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your goods and
+      Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old house ain't afire yet,&rdquo; he answered, looking calmly under his
+      hand in that direction. &ldquo;And as for Suan, no fear at all. She knows how to
+      deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to cook their dinner.
+      Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them. They wouldn't 'a made much bones
+      of shooting us down if we hadn't known of it, and if they had got miss
+      afore the saddle. But if they don't give bail, as soon as they see me ride
+      up to my door, my name's not Sampson Gundry. Only you keep out of the way,
+      Miss Remy. You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the graywitch spinny
+      yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn. And then come you in
+      to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I hastened to the place which he pointed out&mdash;a beautiful covert of
+      birch-trees&mdash;but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though I
+      was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror. In a soft mossy
+      nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the in and out ways of
+      the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial insects now was beginning to
+      drowse upon the air, and the heat of the sun could almost be seen
+      thrilling through the alleys like a cicale's drum&mdash;here, in the
+      middle of the languid peace, I waited for the terror of the rifle-crack.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the peril he
+      would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep wrath and strong
+      indignation which had kept all his household and premises safe. And it
+      seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had never said a word, but grasped
+      his gun, and slowly got in front of his grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      GOLD AND GRIEF
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of the horn,
+      in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place. I had heard no
+      report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of conflict; and certainly the
+      house was not on fire, or else I must have seen the smoke. For being still
+      in great alarm, I had kept a very sharp lookout.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him. He carried his
+      bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if needful. But I was
+      already running toward the house, having made up my mind to be resolute.
+      Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to have his company, and hear what had
+      been done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please to let me help you,&rdquo; he said, with a smile. &ldquo;Why, miss, you are
+      trembling dreadfully. I assure you there is no cause for that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and every
+      body. Oh, those men did look so horrible!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, they always do till you come to know them. But bigger cowards were
+      never born. If they can take people by surprise, and shoot them without
+      any danger, it is a splendid treat to them. But if any one like
+      grandfather meets them face to face in the daylight, their respect for law
+      and life returns. It is not the first visit they have paid us. Grandfather
+      kept his temper well. It was lucky for them that he did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one, even
+      if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves that there
+      had been no outbreak. But Firm seemed rather sorry that they had departed
+      so easily. And knowing that he never bragged, I began to share his
+      confidence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They must be shot, sooner or later,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;unless, indeed, they
+      should be hanged. Their manner of going on is out of date in these days of
+      settlement. It was all very well ten years ago. But now we are a civilized
+      State, and the hand of law is over us. I think we were wrong to let them
+      go. But of course I yield to the governor. And I think he was afraid for
+      your sake. And to tell the truth, I may have been the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite out of
+      place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could catch me I
+      entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly with his own long
+      pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They rogues have had all the best of our victuals,&rdquo; he said, as soon as
+      he had kissed me. &ldquo;Respectable visitors is my delight, and welcome to all
+      of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin the grain to lease out
+      my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are burning the fat again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper), never paid
+      heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on. Mr. Gundry knew that
+      it was wise to offer no further meddling, although it is well to keep them
+      up to their work by a little grumbling. But when I came to see what broken
+      bits were left for Suan to deal with, I only wondered that he was not
+      cross.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank God for a better meal than I deserve,&rdquo; he said, when they all had
+      finished. &ldquo;Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every day a'most. Now
+      if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have it up. We be all in the
+      dumps. But that will never do, my lad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of the two,
+      and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar; while I, who had
+      tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way, perceived that something
+      was gone amiss, something more serious and lasting than the mischief made
+      by the robber troop. Was it that his long ride had failed, and not a
+      friend could be found to help him?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine, and
+      Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer leaned back
+      in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I filled his pipe and
+      lit it for him, and waited for him to speak, well knowing his simple and
+      outspoken heart. But he looked at me and thanked me kindly, and seemed to
+      be turning some grief in his mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It ain't for the money,&rdquo; he said at last, talking more to himself than to
+      me; &ldquo;the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a sort of way.
+      But the feelin'&mdash;the feelin' is the thing I look at, and it ought to
+      have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can run
+      away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them? 'Tis
+      enough a'most to make a rogue of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam,&rdquo; I exclaimed, as I came and sat
+      close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what was little missy thinking of?&rdquo; he asked. &ldquo;How solid she looks!
+      Why, I never see the like!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen it
+      fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help loving you,
+      Uncle Sam?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on the
+      cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I took agin a
+      man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown down, is a cowardly
+      thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of the beadin' I threw in,
+      whenever it were a straightforrard job, and the turpsy knots, and the
+      clogging of the teeth&mdash;'tis a bad bit to swallow, when the mill is
+      strown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam. The mill shall be built
+      again. And I will find the money.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head. He could not bear to tell me
+      how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of money. &ldquo;Five
+      thousand dollars you have got put by for me,&rdquo; I continued, with great
+      importance. &ldquo;Five thousand dollars from the sale and the insurance fund.
+      And five thousand dollars must be five-and-twenty thousand francs. Uncle
+      Sam, you shall have every farthing of it. And if that won't build the mill
+      again, I have got my mother's diamonds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five thousand dollars!&rdquo; cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening his great
+      gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which he had told, to
+      make me seem independent. &ldquo;Oh yes, to be sure, my dear; now I recollect.
+      To be sure&mdash;to be sure&mdash;your own five thousand dollars. But
+      never will I touch one cent of your nice little fortune; no, not to save
+      my life. After all, I am not so gone in years but what I can build the
+      mill again myself. The Lord hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me
+      still with machinery. And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a
+      job pretty fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has
+      not pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But
+      that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of brains, he
+      might have contradicted me. And that I could never abide, God knows, from
+      any green young jackanapes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something&mdash;something very important!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a little
+      talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and ask
+      whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was all I
+      could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if they camp
+      any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after them. The
+      grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young
+      shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the law.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild of
+      speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of Suan
+      Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And now,
+      when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must be
+      quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she had
+      hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to, that in
+      these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the
+      duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way
+      good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good
+      carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of
+      course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true
+      Sawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and the
+      impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr. Gundry in
+      a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles. He always
+      had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and having lost
+      his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose Firm. He had
+      taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made him temperate;
+      and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a
+      high point of view.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of mankind,&rdquo;
+       he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his breast; &ldquo;all sayings
+      of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to have made more allowance for
+      the times, which gets into a ticklish state, when a old man is put about
+      with them. Never you pay no heed whatever to any harsh words I may have
+      used. All that is a very bad thing for young folk.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that they
+      treated you well?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
+      thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in disguise
+      to the present time of sight. It will send up the price of scantlings, and
+      we was getting on too fast with them. By the time we have built up the
+      mill again we shall have more orders than we know how to do with. When I
+      come to reckon of it, to me it appears to be the reasonable thing to feel
+      a lump of grief for the old mill, and then to set to and build a stronger
+      one. Yes, that must be about the right thing to do. And we'll have all the
+      neighbors in when we lay foundations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may at any
+      time be washed away again?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, at any time,&rdquo; he answered, very firmly, gazing through the door as
+      if he saw the vain endeavor. &ldquo;That little game can easily be stopped, for
+      about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank toward the old track of the
+      river. The biggest waterspout that ever came down from the mountains could
+      never come anigh the mill, but go right down the valley. It hath been in
+      my mind to do it often, and now that I see the need, I will. Firm and I
+      will begin tomorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam? You said that all
+      your friends had refused to help you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind, my dear. I will help myself. It won't be the first time,
+      perhaps, in my life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But supposing that I could help you, just some little? Supposing that I
+      had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all California?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he did
+      not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had just picked
+      up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted my knowledge, very
+      likely, even as to what gold was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold&mdash;here is a piece of it;
+      just look&mdash;and as large, I am sure, as this table. And it may be as
+      deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the contrary. Why, it
+      stopped the big pile from coming to the top, when even you went down the
+      river.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, that explains a thing or two,&rdquo; said the Sawyer, smiling
+      peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation meant
+      any thing. &ldquo;Two things have puzzled me about that stump, and, indeed, I
+      might say three things. Why did he take such a time to drive? and why
+      would he never stand up like a man? and why wouldn't he go away when he
+      ought to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam. He was anchored on his
+      gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good right to be crooked
+      about it, and no power could get him away from it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, my dear, hush! It is not at all good for young people to let their
+      minds run on so. But this gold looks very good indeed. Are you sure that
+      it is a fair sample, and that there is any more of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you that I
+      saw it with my own eyes? And there must be at least half a ton of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me. And you shall have all
+      the rest, my dear&mdash;that is, if you will spare me a bit, Miss Remy. It
+      all belongs to you by discovery, according to the diggers' law. And your
+      eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the whole of your heart must be
+      running upon it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world! How I wish that I had
+      never seen it! It was only for you that I cared about it&mdash;for you,
+      for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it in that
+      light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he should
+      misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief. Uncle Sam rose up
+      to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say that perhaps he was harsh
+      because of the treatment he had received from his friends. He took me in
+      his arms and kissed me; but before I could leave off sobbing, the crack of
+      a rifle rang through the house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE SAWYER'S PRAYER
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree and
+      stream. Every thing looked of a different form and color from those of an
+      hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with color, and cast by snowy
+      mountains, which have stored the purple adieu of the sun, was filling the
+      air with delicious calm. The Sawyer ran out with his shirt sleeves
+      shining, so that any sneaking foe might shoot him; but, with the instinct
+      of a settler, he had caught up his rifle. I stood beneath a carob-tree,
+      which had been planted near the porch, and flung fantastic tassels down,
+      like the ear-rings of a negress. And not having sense enough to do good, I
+      was only able to be frightened.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the other side
+      of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread, even thus far off,
+      was plainly Suan Isco's. And then in the stillness a weary and heavy foot
+      went toiling after it. Before I could follow, which I longed to do, to
+      learn at once the worst of it, I saw the figure of a man much nearer, and
+      even within twenty yards of me, gliding along without any sound. Faint as
+      the light was, I felt sure that it was not one of our own men, and the
+      barrel of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black line among silver
+      leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my courage was not prompt
+      enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind the trunk of the carob-tree.
+      Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted villain, he went along without
+      any breath of sound, stealing his escape with skill, till a white
+      bower-tent made a background for him, and he leaped up and fell flat
+      without a groan. The crack of a rifle came later than his leap, and a curl
+      of white smoke shone against a black rock, and the Sawyer, in the
+      distance, cried, &ldquo;Well, now!&rdquo; as he generally did when satisfied.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady me; and
+      then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see whether it was
+      possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond earthly help; he was too
+      dead to palpitate. His life must have left him in the air, and he could
+      not even have felt his fall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head, and
+      strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what, without
+      thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?&rdquo; said a stern voice
+      quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr. Gundry,
+      unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him, but was too
+      frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all his kind desires
+      were gone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this earth,
+      till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood. Captain Pedro,
+      there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the back. I wish you were
+      alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men and filthy ravisher of women,
+      miscreant of God, how can I keep from trampling on you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely forget
+      himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else, and not our
+      Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men do when their spirits
+      are full of death, and the wan light showed that his chin was triple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get away. The
+      face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing, compared with the face of
+      the old man living. He may not have meant it, and I hope he never did, but
+      beyond all controversy he looked barbarous for the moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing still,
+      longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the great awe of
+      death. If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even moaned, the living man
+      would have lost all reverence in his fury. But the power of the other
+      world was greater than even revenge could trample on. He let it lie there,
+      and he stooped his head, and went away quite softly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this. The
+      Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the largest human
+      nature that I had ever met with. And though it was impossible as yet to
+      think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of some great ideal, came over
+      me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men bringing
+      the body of poor Firm. His head and both his arms hung down, and they
+      wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do, although they called
+      out to me not to meddle. The body was carried in, and laid upon three
+      chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then a light was struck, and a
+      candle brought by somebody or other. And Suan Isco sat upon the floor, and
+      set up a miserable Indian dirge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stow away that,&rdquo; cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those two
+      men; &ldquo;wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your liking. I felt
+      him try to kick while we carried him along. He come forth on a arrand of
+      that sort, and he seem to 'a been disappointed. A very fine young chap I
+      call him, for to try to do it still, howsomever his mind might be
+      wandering. Missy, keep his head up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung upon any
+      sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I think that fright
+      and grief and pity must have turned an excitable girl almost into a real
+      woman. But I had no sense of such things then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I tell you he ain't dead,&rdquo; cried Martin; &ldquo;no more dead than I be. He
+      feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn up his
+      eyes. He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble about his
+      breathing. I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot through the heart; but
+      he came all round in about six months, and protected his head with a
+      document. Firm, now, don't you be a fool. I have had worse things in my
+      family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him. At any
+      rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe, and a little
+      shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes. And on my sleeve,
+      beneath his back, some hot bright blood came trickling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Keep him to that,&rdquo; said Martin, with some carpenter sort of surgery;
+      &ldquo;less fear of the life when the blood begins to run. Don't move him,
+      missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me; and they
+      told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must have been so.
+      But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm to his straw
+      mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the room, and that,
+      perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and listened, and
+      then stole up to the landing, and heard Suan Isco, who had taken the
+      command, speaking cheerfully in her worst English. Then I hoped for the
+      best, and, without any knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven to do
+      when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the gleaming river, and
+      saw the water just in time to stop from stepping into it. Careless about
+      this and every other thing for the moment, I threw myself on the sod, and
+      listened to the mournful melody of night. Sundry unknown creatures, which
+      by day keep timid silence, were sending timid sounds into the darkness,
+      holding quiet converse with themselves, or it, or one another. And the
+      silvery murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling sleep of leaves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved with
+      washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well content to
+      throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all things flow past me.
+      But before any thing had found time to flow far, or the lullaby of night
+      had lulled me, there came to me a sadder sound than plaintive Nature can
+      produce without her Master's aid, the saddest sound in all creation&mdash;a
+      strong man's wail.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Child as I was&mdash;and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as knowing
+      so little of mankind&mdash;I might have been more frightened, but I could
+      not have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a lion. For I knew in
+      a moment whose voice it was, and that made it pierce me tenfold. It was
+      Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to his God alone, the loss of his
+      last hope on earth. He could not dream that any other than his Maker (and
+      his Maker's works, if ever they have any sympathy) listened to the wild
+      outpourings of an aged but still very natural heart, which had always been
+      proud of controlling itself. I could see his great frame through a
+      willow-tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around, and the faint
+      gleam of fugitive water beyond. He was kneeling toward his shattered mill,
+      having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and his white locks shone in
+      the starlight; then, after trying several times, he managed to pray a
+      little. First (perhaps partly from habit), he said the prayer of Our Lord
+      pretty firmly, and then he went on to his own special case, with a
+      doubting whether he should mention it. But as he went on he gathered
+      courage, or received it from above, and was able to say what he wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and shall
+      soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble. But I never had such
+      trouble as this here before, and I don't think I ever shall get over it. I
+      have sinned every day of my life, and not thought of Thee, but of
+      victuals, and money, and stuff; and nobody knows, but myself and Thou, all
+      the little bad things inside of me. I cared a deal more to be respectable
+      and get on with my business than to be prepared for kingdom come. And I
+      have just been proud about the shooting of a villain, who might 'a gone
+      free and repented. There is nobody left to me in my old age. Thou hast
+      taken all of them. Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson, and my brother
+      who robbed me&mdash;the whole of it may have been for my good, but I have
+      got no good out of it. Show me the way for a little time, O Lord, to make
+      the best of it; and teach me to bear it like a man, and not break down at
+      this time of life. Thou knowest what is right. Please to do it. Amen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      NOT FAR TO SEEK
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious, the Lord
+      alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to pronounce) for or
+      against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's prayer. But if sound
+      doctrine can be established by success (as it always is), Uncle Sam's
+      theology must have been unusually sound; for it pleased a gracious Power
+      to know what he wanted, and to grant it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter years
+      of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with abstract
+      resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him. Being so
+      obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but proved against
+      every one's voice, except his own, his special blessedness. But this must
+      have been a trial to him, and happily he was spared from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks in
+      anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-nourished frame
+      got over it. A truly good and learned doctor came from Sacramento, and we
+      hung upon his words, and found that there he left us hanging. And this was
+      the wisest thing perhaps that he could do, because in America medical men
+      are not absurdly expected, as they are in England, to do any good, but are
+      valued chiefly upon their power of predicting what they can not help. And
+      this man of science perceived that he might do harm to himself and his
+      family by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good to his patient by
+      predicting rightly. And so he foretold both good and evil, to meet the
+      intentions of Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due, he
+      saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet, which, if
+      left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it was made of pure
+      silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver bullet as a token, but the
+      doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law; and so it
+      came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according
+      to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased their unreason. But
+      the doctor won&mdash;as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been
+      delicate&mdash;because, when reason had been exhausted, he just said this:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words. The true owner is your
+      grandson. I will put it back where I took it from.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad moments,
+      took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet heartily. And the
+      medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it upon his watch chain. And
+      he told the story so often (saying that another man perhaps might have got
+      it out, but no other man could have kept it), that among a great race who
+      judge by facts it doubled his practice immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as &ldquo;Captain Pedro,&rdquo; was
+      buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's reputation that
+      his house was never attacked again; and if any bad characters were forced
+      by circumstances to come near him, they never asked for any thing stronger
+      than ginger-beer or lemonade, and departed very promptly. For as soon as
+      Ephraim Gundry could give account of his disaster, it was clear that Don
+      Pedro owed his fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey. Firm had only
+      intended to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired by his
+      grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle. This idea had justly
+      appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at once set forth
+      with a valuable cowhide whip. Coming thus to the Rovers' camp, and finding
+      their captain sitting in the shade to digest his dinner, Firm laid hold of
+      him by the neck, and gave way to feelings of severity. Don Pedro regretted
+      his misconduct, and being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary
+      view, perceived that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of
+      his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet knowing
+      how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked track for it.
+      And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he must have had it long
+      enough to miss it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned, if the
+      captain had known when he was well off. Unluckily he had purloined a
+      bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork now to rub his
+      stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it inside. And before very
+      long his ideas of honor, which he had sense enough to drop when sober,
+      began to come into his eyes again, and to stir him up to mischief. Hence
+      it was that he followed Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and
+      appeased his honor by shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot
+      anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle Sam's
+      proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost careless whenever
+      he was looked at. And then he was ashamed of himself perpetually, if any
+      one went on with it. Nobody tried to observe him, of course, or remark
+      upon any of his doings, and for this he would become so grateful that he
+      would long to tell all his thoughts, and then stop. This must have been a
+      great worry to him, seeing how open his manner was; and whenever he wanted
+      to hide any thing, he informed us of that intention. So that we exhorted
+      Firm every day to come round and restore us to our usual state. This was
+      the poor fellow's special desire; and often he was angry with himself, and
+      made himself worse again by declaring that he must be a milksop to lie
+      there so long. Whereas, it was much more near the truth that few other
+      men, even in the Western States, would ever have got over such a wound. I
+      am not learned enough to say exactly where the damage was, but the doctor
+      called it, I think, the sternum, and pronounced that &ldquo;a building-up
+      process&rdquo; was required, and must take a long time, if it ever could be
+      done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left him by
+      day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs. But he,
+      without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me&mdash;a mere
+      ignorant child. Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and perhaps I was
+      proud of that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify it, instead of
+      laboring to remove it, as would have been the more proper course. And Firm
+      most ungratefully said that my hand was lighter than poor Suan's, and
+      every thing I did was better done, according to him, which was shameful on
+      his part, and as untrue as any thing could be. However, we yielded to him
+      in all things while he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak
+      things cry to be the masters of a tall strong man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the
+      twelvemonth was completed from my father's death. The brightness of summer
+      and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them, and while his
+      system was working hard to fortify itself by walling up, as the learned
+      man had called it. There had been some difficulties in this process,
+      caused partly, perhaps, by our too lavish supply of the raw material; and
+      before Firm's gap in his &ldquo;sternum&rdquo; was stopped, the mountains were coming
+      down upon us, as we always used to say when the snow-line stooped. In some
+      seasons this is a sharp time of hurry, broken with storms, and capricious,
+      while men have to slur in the driving weather tasks that should have been
+      matured long since. But in other years the long descent into the depth of
+      winter is taken not with a jump like that, but gently and softly and
+      windingly, with a great many glimpses back at the summer, and a good deal
+      of leaning on the arm of the sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so it was this time. The autumn and the winter for a fortnight stood
+      looking quietly at each other. They had quite agreed to share the hours,
+      to suit the arrangements of the sun. The nights were starry and fresh and
+      brisk, without any touch of tartness; and the days were sunny and soft and
+      gentle, without any sense of languor. It was a lovely scene&mdash;blue
+      shadows gliding among golden light.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer came forth, and cried, &ldquo;What a shame! This makes me feel quite
+      young again. And yet I have done not a stroke of work. No excuse; make no
+      excuse. I can do that pretty well for myself. Praise God for all His
+      mercies. I might do worse, perhaps, than have a pipe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the sight of
+      himself. He steadied his steps with one great white hand upon his
+      grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were trembling with a
+      sense of gratitude and a fear of tears. And I stepped behind a red
+      strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for him almost made me sob.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and convince us
+      that he was not a dead dog yet. He had known tribulation, as his master
+      had, and had found it a difficult thing to keep from the shadowy hunting
+      ground of dogs who have lived a conscientious life. I had wondered at
+      first what his reason could have been for not coming forward, according to
+      his custom, to meet that troop of robbers. But his reason, alas! was too
+      cogent to himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any
+      attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute, and
+      declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a very crafty
+      scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs as they could ever
+      hope to know about themselves. This rogue approached faithful Jowler&mdash;so
+      we were told long afterward&mdash;not in an upright way, but as if he had
+      been a brother quadruped. And he took advantage of the dog's unfeigned
+      surprise and interest to accost him with a piece of kidney containing a
+      powerful poison. According to all sound analogy, this should have stopped
+      the dear fellow's earthly tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply
+      went away to nurse himself up in retirement. Neither man nor dog can tell
+      what agonies he suffered; and doubtless his tortures of mind about duty
+      unperformed were the worst of all. These things are out of human knowledge
+      in its present unsympathetic state. Enough that poor Jowler came home at
+      last, with his ribs all up and his tail very low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of death,
+      we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The trees
+      above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere frippery of
+      leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a surety of having quite
+      enough next spring. Much of the fruity wealth of autumn still was
+      clustering in our sight, heavily fetching the arched bough down to lessen
+      the fall, when fall they must. And against the golden leaves of maple
+      behind the unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a
+      climbing Ipomaea. But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing
+      more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a quiet
+      roasting job.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much could never
+      tell how clear our spirits were. Nobody made any &ldquo;demonstration,&rdquo; or cut
+      any frolicsome capers, or even said any thing exuberant. The steadfast
+      brooding breed of England, which despises antics, was present in us all,
+      and strengthened by a soil whose native growth is peril, chance, and
+      marvel. And so we nodded at one another, and I ran over and courtesied to
+      Uncle Sam, and he took me to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have been a dear good child,&rdquo; he said, as he rose, and looked over my
+      head at Firm. &ldquo;My own granddarter, if such there had been, could not have
+      done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught I know. There is no
+      picking and choosing among the females, as God gives them. But he has
+      given you for a blessing and saving to my old age, my dearie.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!&rdquo; I cried, desiring like a child to escape
+      deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm. &ldquo;You have promised
+      me ever so long that I should be the first to show Firm the nugget.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an hour
+      older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream of mine,
+      and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could not exist in
+      earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared his anxiety to see
+      it; and I led him along by his better arm, faster, perhaps, than he ought
+      to have walked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to point it;
+      but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing except the white
+      bed of the river! The blue water flowed very softly on its way, without a
+      gleam of gold to corrupt it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!&rdquo; I exclaimed, in the saddest of
+      sad dismay. &ldquo;I dreamed about it first, but it never can have been a dream
+      throughout. You know that I told you about it, Uncle Sam, even when you
+      were very busy, and that shows that it never could have been a dream.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You told me about it, I remember now,&rdquo; Mr. Gundry answered, dryly; &ldquo;but
+      it does not follow that there was such a thing. My dear, you may have
+      imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to come, when my good
+      friends had no money to lend. Your heart was so good that it got into your
+      brain, and you must not be vexed, my dear child; it has done you good to
+      dream of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I said so all along,&rdquo; Firm observed. &ldquo;Miss Rema felt that it ought to be,
+      and so she believed that it must be, there. She is always so warm and
+      trustful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all you are good for?&rdquo; I cried, with no gratitude for his
+      compliment. &ldquo;As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of gold, and
+      so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought up. Did you take
+      them all in a dream, Uncle Sam? Come, can you get over that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my feet
+      or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the Sawyer's ample
+      countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for he gazed at me with
+      compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as if he were balancing our
+      abilities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Send your dog in, missy,&rdquo; at last he said. &ldquo;He is more your dog than
+      mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian. Let him go and find it
+      if he can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all four
+      feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty barkings;
+      and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as yellow and as big
+      as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ha! ha! I never saw a finer thing,&rdquo; shouted Uncle Sam, like a school-boy.
+      &ldquo;I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog wollops the whole of
+      us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on your nugget, to keep it all
+      snug till Firm should come round; and if the boy had never come round,
+      there the gold might have waited the will of the Almighty. It is a big
+      spot, anyhow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make so
+      light of it&mdash;which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as proud
+      as if I had made it. Not by any means that the Sawyer was half as careless
+      as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my sake, having very lofty
+      principles, especially concerning the duty of the young. Young people were
+      never to have small ideas, so far as he could help it, particularly upon
+      such matters as Mammon, or the world, or fashion; and not so very seldom
+      he was obliged to catch himself up in his talking, when he chanced to be
+      going on and forgetting that I, who required a higher vein of thought for
+      my youth, was taking his words downright; and I think that all this had a
+      great deal to do with his treating all that gold in such an exemplary
+      manner; for if it had really mattered nothing, what made him go in the
+      dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel over it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BROUGHT TO BANK
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and kindred by
+      the amount of consideration which he has consistently given to cash. If
+      money has been the chief object of his life, and he for its sake has
+      spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be successful than admiration
+      overpowers all the ill-will he has caused. He is shrewd, sagacious,
+      long-headed, and great; he has earned his success, and few men grudge,
+      while many seek to get a slice of it; but he, as a general rule, declines
+      any premature distribution, and for this custody of his wealth he is
+      admired all the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his banker's a
+      tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least a
+      hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all in hot
+      haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased with their
+      kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the merits of the
+      case. And he was more particular than usual with his words; for, according
+      to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and,
+      being too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all its little ones
+      at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seek for the frogs of
+      this great toad; for so in their slang the miners called them, with a love
+      of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundry allowed no search for the frogs,
+      or even the tadpoles, of his patriarchal nugget. And much as he hated the
+      idea of sowing the seeds of avarice in any one, he showed himself most
+      consistent now in avoiding that imputation; for not only did he refuse to
+      show the bed of his great treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced
+      the whole of it in, and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it; and
+      then he established Jowler where he could neither be shot nor poisoned,
+      and kept a man with a double-barreled rifle in the ruin of the mill, handy
+      to shoot, but not easy to be shot; and this was a resolute man, being
+      Martin himself, who had now no business. Of course Martin grumbled; but
+      the worse his temper was, the better for his duty, as seems to be the case
+      with a great many men; and if any one had come to console him in his
+      grumbling, never would he have gone away again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body ought to
+      do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those who knew so
+      much better; at the same time I felt that it might have done no harm if I
+      had been more consulted, though I never dreamed of saying so, because the
+      great gold had been found by me, and although I cared for it scarcely more
+      than for the tag of a boot-lace, nobody seemed to me able to enter into it
+      quite as I did; and as soon as Firm's danger and pain grew less, I began
+      to get rather impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be hurried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind for me
+      to be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not come
+      one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being my
+      father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged my pardon
+      for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off later than the
+      following night, because the moonlight would be failing, and we durst not
+      have any kind of lamp, and before the next moon the hard weather might
+      begin. All this was before the liberal offers of his friends, of which I
+      have spoken first, although they happened to come after it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the issue
+      of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to watch it and to
+      form some opinion of its shape and size; for, knowing the pile which I had
+      described, he could not help finding it easily enough; and indeed the
+      great fear was that others might find it, and come in great force to rob
+      him; but nothing of that sort had happened, partly because he held his
+      tongue rigidly, and partly, perhaps, because of the simple precaution
+      which he had taken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at least; for
+      Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might have killed him
+      to go into the water, or even to exert himself at all; and strong as Uncle
+      Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone could never
+      bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration, he
+      resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty man about
+      the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell him until every
+      thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to the place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco,
+      who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch,
+      or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. The
+      night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of the
+      moon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still face of
+      shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height,
+      submerging every thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attracting
+      any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising from a
+      hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and we soon
+      saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from under some
+      drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a small movable
+      crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up in the
+      river-bed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Palefaces eat gold,&rdquo; Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfy
+      herself. &ldquo;Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other's ears.
+      Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;as if it were possible to
+      have enough!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my part,&rdquo; said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening,
+      &ldquo;I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here, mischief
+      will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it will turn out a
+      lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out
+      of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose,&rdquo; I answered, rather pettishly,
+      for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget.
+      &ldquo;Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith in
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can't say, can't say,&rdquo; was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the silent
+      vein again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!&rdquo; cried the Sawyer, who was
+      splashing for his life in the water. &ldquo;I've tackled 'un now. Just tighten
+      up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift 'un! Lord
+      bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, I guess; and Firm
+      ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such a doggoned hurry. Hold
+      hard, can't you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught hold
+      of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swung
+      himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showed us
+      exactly where to throw our weight, and he used his own to such good effect
+      that, after some creaking and groaning, the long horn of the crane rose
+      steadily, and a mass of dripping sparkles shone in the moonlight over the
+      water.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!&rdquo; cried Uncle Sam, panting
+      like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. &ldquo;Martin, lay your chest
+      to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw a sight like
+      this, I reckon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and admire
+      it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with his shoulders up
+      and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head and the haunches might
+      be discovered, and a few spots of quartz shone here and there on the
+      glistening and bossy surface. Some of us began to feel and handle it with
+      vast admiration; but Firm, with his heavy boots, made a vicious kick at
+      it, and a few bright scales, like sparks, flew off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what ails the lad?&rdquo; cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; &ldquo;what harm hath
+      the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump is a proof of the
+      whole creation of the world, and who hath lived long enough to gainsay?
+      Here this lump hath lain, without changing color, since creation's day;
+      here it is, as big and heavy as when the Lord laid hand to it. What good
+      to argue agin such facts? Supposin' the world come out o' nothing, with
+      nobody to fetch it, or to say a word of orders, how ever could it 'a
+      managed to get a lump of gold like this in it? They clever fellers is too
+      clever. Let 'em put all their heads together, and turn out a nugget, and
+      I'll believe them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow. He was
+      not long in perceiving this, though we were content to admire his words
+      without asking him to explain them; so he only said, &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; and
+      began to try with both hands if he could heft this lump. He stirred it,
+      and moved it, and raised it a little, as the glisten of the light upon its
+      roundings showed; but lift it fairly from the ground he could not, however
+      he might bow his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it; and, strange
+      to say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own discomfiture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-cap
+      easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years, and strings
+      in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad is a clear
+      hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a pound here, there's
+      not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay a thousand dollars. Miss
+      Rema, give a name to him. All the thundering nuggets has thundering
+      names.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;because he is the
+      largest and the best of all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It shall stand, miss,&rdquo; cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and seemed
+      to have bettered himself forever. &ldquo;You could not have given it a finer
+      name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle Sam is the name of
+      our glorious race, from the kindness of our natur'. Every body's uncle we
+      are now, in vartue of superior knowledge, and freedom, and giving of
+      general advice, and stickin' to all the world, or all the good of it.
+      Darned if old Sam aren't the front of creation!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; said the Sawyer, &ldquo;let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the dear
+      young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name; but, for all
+      that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our glorious race will come
+      and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pooh!&rdquo; cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words were
+      common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled gun, and
+      Jowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told us that he had
+      spent the night in such a frame of mind from continual thought that when
+      our pet cow came to drink at daybreak, it was but the blowing of her
+      breath that saved her from taking a bullet between her soft tame eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things should
+      continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the nugget,
+      perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the neighborhood to
+      it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its road at the bottom of a
+      load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and Jowler to sit up, and Firm to
+      ride behind, when a troop of mixed robbers came riding across, with a
+      four-wheel cart and two sturdy mules&mdash;enough to drag off every thing.
+      They had clearly heard of the golden toad, and desired to know more of
+      him; but Uncle Sam, with his usual blandness, met these men at the gate of
+      his yard, and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested a rifle of
+      heavy metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers found out that
+      they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they had, and the
+      sooner they found it in another direction, the better it would be for
+      them. They thought that he had all his men inside, and they were mighty
+      civil, though we had only two negroes to help us, and Suan Isco, with a
+      great gun cocked. But their curiosity was such that they could not help
+      asking about the gold; and, sooner than shoot them, Uncle Sam replied
+      that, upon his honor, the nugget was gone. And the fame of his word was so
+      well known that these fellows (none of whom could tell the truth, even at
+      confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his pardon for
+      trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not say a word to
+      the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for losing his road; and
+      he told them that if they made off at once, nobody should pursue them; and
+      so they rode off very happily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      FIRM AND INFIRM
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet disturbed by
+      that great discovery of gold. The Sawyer went up to the summit of esteem
+      in public opinion; but to himself and to us he was the same as ever. He
+      worked with his own hard hands and busy head just as he used to do; for
+      although the mill was still in ruins, there was plenty of the finer work
+      to do, which always required hand-labor. And at night he would sit at the
+      end of the table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles on, and
+      his red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which was to be
+      built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard, thought, or
+      dreamed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer
+      in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and frosty
+      appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the comfort at least of
+      two of us. Ephraim Gundry found out, or fancied, that he was entirely
+      filled with love of a very young maid, who never dreamed of such things,
+      and hated even to hear of them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually, being only
+      too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away from it. I partly
+      suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound for my sake; though I
+      never imputed his zeal to more than a young man's natural wrath at an
+      outrage. But now he left me no longer in doubt, and made me most
+      uncomfortable. Perhaps I was hard upon him, and afterward I often thought
+      so, for he was very kind and gentle; but I was an orphan child, and had no
+      one to advise me in such matters. I believe that he should have considered
+      this, and allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps he himself was
+      too young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage things. It was the
+      very evening after his return from Sacramento, and the beauty of the
+      weather still abode in the soft warm depth around us. In every tint of
+      rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet clearness seemed to lie,
+      and a rich content of color. The grandeur of the world was such that one
+      could only rest among it, seeking neither voice nor thought.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring loudly
+      through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes shaken, and an
+      eager form leap out. I did not answer a word, but sat with a wreath of
+      white bouvardia and small adiantum round my head, which I had plaited
+      anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a lovely dear you are!&rdquo; cried Firm, and then he seemed frightened at
+      his own words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as this,
+      Mr. Firm.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you did not want me. You are vexed to see me. Tell the truth, Miss
+      Rema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always tell the truth,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;and I did not want to be disturbed
+      just now. I have so many things to think of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And not me among them. Oh no, of course you never think of me, Erema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very unkind of you to say that,&rdquo; I answered, looking clearly at
+      him, as a child looks at a man. &ldquo;And it is not true, I assure you, Firm.
+      Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often go on to think of
+      you, because he is so fond of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly. There is scarcely a
+      day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I think of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tush!&rdquo; replied Firm, with a lofty gaze. &ldquo;Even for a moment that does not
+      in any way express my meaning. My mind is very much above all eating when
+      it dwells upon you, Erema. I have always been fond of you, Erema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have always been good to me, Firm,&rdquo; I said, as I managed to get a
+      great branch between us. &ldquo;After your grandfather, and Suan Isco, and
+      Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body left to me. And
+      you know that I never forget your slippers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me. Now will you
+      just listen to a little common-sense? You know that I am not romantic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You would like me better if I did. What an extraordinary thing it is! Oh,
+      Erema, I beg your pardon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the much
+      quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me&mdash;that I
+      had applied them to my father, of whom I was always thinking, though I
+      scarcely ever spoke of him. But I knew that Firm had meant no harm, and I
+      gave him my hand, though I could not speak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are very dear to me&mdash;dearer than all the
+      world besides. I will not worry you any more. Only say that you do not
+      hate me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I? How could any body? Now let us go in and attend to Uncle
+      Sam. He thinks of every body before himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I think of every body after myself. Is that what you mean, Erema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure! if you like. You may put any meaning on my words that you
+      think proper. I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I pay no
+      attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose in deep
+      contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most. &ldquo;I see how it
+      is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is right, and the whole
+      of the rest of the world quite wrong. Well, after all, there is nothing
+      like holding a first-rate opinion of one's self.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not what I thought of you,&rdquo; I cried, being vexed beyond bearance
+      by such words, and feeling their gross injustice. &ldquo;If you wish to say any
+      thing more, please to leave it until you recover your temper. I am not
+      quite accustomed to rudeness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and partly
+      in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked back, being
+      well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on his hands, and my
+      heart had a little ache for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful. I could
+      not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very often. But I
+      took good care not to look at him again unless he said something that made
+      me laugh, and then I could scarcely help it. He was sharp enough very soon
+      to find out this; and then he did a thing which was most unfair, as I
+      found out long afterward. He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas
+      wholly new to me, and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as
+      his own productions. If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly
+      sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for
+      old acquaintance' sake; and when Uncle Sam laughed, there was nobody near
+      who could help laughing with him. And so I began to think Firm the most
+      witty and pleasant of men, though I tried to look away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how Uncle
+      Sam went on. I could not understand him at all just then, and thought him
+      quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward, when I came to know,
+      his behavior was as clear and shallow as the water of his own river. He
+      had very strange ideas about what he generally called &ldquo;the female kind.&rdquo;
+       According to his ideas (and perhaps they were not so unusual among
+      mankind, especially settlers), all &ldquo;females&rdquo; were of a good but weak and
+      consistently inconsistent sort. The surest way to make them do whatever
+      their betters wanted, was to make them think that it was not wanted, but
+      was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to overcome, and so to
+      provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon doing it. In
+      accordance with this idea (than which there can be none more mistaken), he
+      took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word to say to Firm; and
+      even went so far as to hint, with winks and nods of pleasantry, that his
+      grandson's heart was set upon the pretty Miss Sylvester, the daughter of a
+      man who owned a herd of pigs, much too near our saw-mills, and herself a
+      young woman of outrageous dress, and in a larger light contemptible. But
+      when Mr. Gundry, without any words, conveyed this piece of news to me, I
+      immediately felt quite a liking for gaudy but harmless Pennsylvania&mdash;for
+      so her parents had named her when she was too young to help it; and I
+      heartily hoped that she might suit Firm, which she seemed all the more
+      likely to do as his conduct could not be called noble. Upon that point,
+      however, I said not a word, leaving him purely to judge for himself, and
+      feeling it a great relief that now he could not say any thing more to me.
+      I was glad that his taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how
+      glad I was.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great explosion, and
+      drove me away from the place altogether before the new mill was finished,
+      and before I should otherwise have gone from friends who were so good to
+      me; not that I could have staid there much longer, even if this had never
+      come to pass; for week by week and month by month I was growing more
+      uneasy: uneasy not at my obligations or dependence upon mere friends (for
+      they managed that so kindly that I seemed to confer the favor), but from
+      my own sense of lagging far behind my duty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of
+      goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or notice, into
+      a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young woman. I was exceedingly
+      shy about this, and blushed if any one spoke of it; but yet in my heart I
+      felt it was so; and how could I help it? And when people said, as rough
+      people will, and even Uncle Sam sometimes, &ldquo;Handsome is as handsome does,&rdquo;
+       or &ldquo;Beauty is only skin-deep,&rdquo; and so on, I made it my duty not to be put
+      out, but to bear it in mind and be thankful. And though I had no idea of
+      any such influence at the moment, I hope that the grandeur of nature
+      around and the lofty style of every thing may have saved me from dwelling
+      too much on myself, as Pennsylvania Sylvester did.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor, the
+      surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with them; not
+      to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery way (as many
+      young people set out to do, and never get any further), but to right the
+      wrong of my own house, and bring home justice to my own heart. This may be
+      thought a partial and paltry object to set out with; and it is not for me
+      to say otherwise. At the time, it occurred to me in no other light except
+      as my due business, and I never took any large view at all. But even now I
+      do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom) that if every body, in its
+      own little space and among its own little movements, will only do and take
+      nothing without pure taste of the salt of justice, no reeking atrocity of
+      national crimes could ever taint the heaven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such questions, however, become me not. I have only to deal with very
+      little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy to be
+      woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat of, I can only
+      say that they seemed very big at the time when I had to encounter them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of life,
+      than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill of me? Yet
+      this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those theories of the other
+      sex which men are so pleased to indulge in. Scarcely any thing could be
+      more ridiculous from first to last, when calmly and truly considered, than
+      the firm belief which no power of reason could for the time root out of
+      him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest, was
+      positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the female race,
+      that my young head was turned because of the wealth to which I had no
+      claim, except through his own justice. He had insisted at first that the
+      whole of that great nugget belonged to me by right of sole discovery. I
+      asked him whether, if any stranger had found it, it would have been
+      considered his, and whether he would have allowed a &ldquo;greaser,&rdquo; upon
+      finding, to make off with it. At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave a
+      little grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it. But
+      he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser, but a
+      settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a settler's rights;
+      that the bed of the river would have been his grave but for the risk of my
+      life, and therefore whatever I found in the bed of the river belonged to
+      me, and me only.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be that I
+      gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it could never
+      make any difference. He did not argue forever, but only grew obstinate and
+      unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to own the half share of the
+      bullion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Very well. Every body would have thought, who has not studied the nature
+      of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there could be no more
+      trouble between two people entirely trusting each other, and only anxious
+      that the other should have the best of it. Yet, instead of that being the
+      case, the mischief, the myriad mischief, of money set in, until I heartily
+      wished sometimes that my miserable self was down in the hole which the
+      pelf had left behind it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of generosity
+      and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew between them,
+      especially about womankind)&mdash;what else did he really seem to think,
+      with the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts, but that I, his poor
+      debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent, was so set up and elated by
+      this sudden access of fortune that henceforth none of the sawing race was
+      high enough for me to think of? It took me a long time to believe that so
+      fair and just a man ever could set such interpretation upon me. And when
+      it became too plain that he did so, truly I know not whether grief or
+      anger was uppermost in my troubled heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      HARD AND SOFT
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down upon
+      Miss Sylvester with a large contempt. But while this raised my opinion of
+      his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great relief&mdash;the relief of
+      supposing that he wished his grandson to marry this Pennsylvania. For
+      although her father, with his pigs and cattle, and a low sort of hostelry
+      which he kept, could settle &ldquo;a good pile of dollars&rdquo; upon her, and had
+      kept her at the &ldquo;learnedest ladies' college&rdquo; even in San Francisco till he
+      himself trembled at her erudition, still it was scarcely to be believed
+      that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense and disregard of finery
+      would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made of affectation,
+      vulgarity, and conceit. And one day, quite in the early spring, he was so
+      much vexed with the fine lady's airs that he left no doubt about his
+      meaning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback; and
+      having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs and so on,
+      she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a graceful style of
+      horsemanship. And now she dashed through thick and thin in a most
+      commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-drift than ladies do for a
+      scraping of the road. No one with the least observation could doubt that
+      this young woman was extremely anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice;
+      and therefore, on the day above spoken of, once more she rode over, with
+      her poor father in waiting upon her as usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has never
+      been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth, that no
+      smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of large or fine
+      sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in the house. I simply
+      refused, after seeing her once, to have any thing more to say to her; by
+      no means because of my birth and breeding (which are things that can be
+      most easily waived when the difference is acknowledged), nor yet on
+      account of my being brought up in the company of ladies, nor even by
+      reason of any dislike which her bold brown eyes put into me. My cause was
+      sufficient and just and wise. I felt myself here as a very young girl, in
+      safe and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own discretion, without
+      any feminine guidance whatever. And I had learned enough from the wise
+      French sisters to know at a glance that Miss Sylvester was not a young
+      woman who would do me good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me, so far
+      as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness went, in
+      spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal welcome, though he
+      said not a word (as on such a point he was quite right in doing)&mdash;even
+      he, as I knew by his manner, was quite content with my decision. But Firm,
+      being young and in many ways stupid, made a little grievance of it. And,
+      of course, Miss Sylvester made a great one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I do declare, I am going away,&rdquo; through my open window I heard her
+      exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long visit,
+      &ldquo;without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your young
+      visitor. Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs. Such a
+      distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted with mauvaise
+      honte. Why does she not rush to embrace me? All the French people do; and
+      she is so French! Let me see her, for the sake of my accent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We don't want no French here, ma'am,&rdquo; replied Uncle Sam, as Sylvester
+      rode off, &ldquo;and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt. Her health is as good
+      as your own, and you never catch no French actions from her. If she wanted
+      to see you, she would 'a come down.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, now, this is too barbarous! Colonel Gundry, you are the most
+      tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat. Every body says so, but
+      I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with that impression.
+      And you do look so good-natured!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and rustiest
+      saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea what to make of
+      him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show her figure as she
+      reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed her tan gauntlet with
+      crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam to revolve his rudeness, with
+      the dash of the wet road scattered in the air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course,&rdquo; he said to Firm, who now returned
+      from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, &ldquo;if she wasn't herself
+      so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my mouldings fine. How my
+      mother would 'a stared at the sight of such a gal! Keep free of her, my
+      lad, keep free of her. But no harm to put her on, to keep our missy alive
+      and awake, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I can
+      tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for his answer. I
+      knew not then how lightly men will speak of such delicate subjects; and it
+      set me more against all thoughts of Firm than a month's reflection could
+      have done. When I came to know more of the world, I saw that I had been
+      very foolish. At the time, however, I was firmly set in a strong resolve
+      to do that which alone seemed right, or even possible&mdash;to quit with
+      all speed a place which could no longer be suited for me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while equally I
+      condemned myself for having so little courage. But it was not as if there
+      were any body to help me, or tell me what to do; sometimes I was bold with
+      a surety of right, and then again I shook with the fear of being wrong.
+      Because, through the whole of it, I felt how wonderfully well I had been
+      treated, and what a great debt I owed of kindness; and it seemed to be
+      only a nasty little pride which made me so particular. And being so unable
+      to settle for myself, I waited for something to settle it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected. I had told
+      Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking steadily upon Miss
+      Sylvester. If any woman on earth could be trusted not to say a thing
+      again, that one was this good Indian. Not only because of her provident
+      habits, but also in right of the difficulty which encompassed her in our
+      language. But she managed to get over both of these, and to let Mr.
+      Ephraim know, as cleverly as if she had lived in drawing-rooms, whatever I
+      had said about him. She did it for the best; but it put him in a rage,
+      which he came at once to have out with me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And so, Miss Erema,&rdquo; he said, throwing down his hat upon the table of the
+      little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman ballads, &ldquo;I have
+      your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy marriage with Miss Sylvester?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush on his
+      cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy tread, showed
+      plainly that his mind was a little out of balance. He deserved it,
+      however, and I could not grieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have my best wishes,&rdquo; I replied, demurely, &ldquo;for any state of life to
+      which you may be called. You could scarcely expect any less of me than
+      that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How kind you are! But do you really wish that I should marry old
+      Sylvester's girl?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as if he
+      were saying, &ldquo;Do you wish to see me hanged?&rdquo;), while his eyes took a form
+      which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle, that it was
+      impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart is set
+      on it&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?&rdquo; he asked me, in a deep
+      voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my hands. &ldquo;Why will
+      you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one I can ever think of
+      twice? Above me, I know, in every possible way&mdash;birth and education
+      and mind and appearance, and now far above me in money as well. But what
+      are all these things? Try to think if only you could like me. Liking gets
+      over every thing, and without it nothing is any thing. Why do I like you
+      so, Erema? Is it because of your birth, and teaching, and manners, and
+      sweet looks, and all that, or even because of your troubles?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I tell, Firm&mdash;how can I tell? Perhaps it is just because of
+      myself. And why do you do it at all, Firm?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, why do I do it? How I wish I knew! Perhaps then I might cure it. To
+      begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful about you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, nothing, I should hope. Most surely nothing. It would grieve me to be
+      at all wonderful. That I leave for American ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you don't understand me. I mean, of course, that you are wonderfully
+      good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and your lips and
+      smile, and all your other features&mdash;there is nothing about them that
+      can be called any thing else but wonderful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are! I did hope that you knew
+      better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, I never shall know better. I never can swerve or change, if I live
+      to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no doubt, from what
+      you are brought up to. And you are so young that to seek to bind you, even
+      if you loved me, would be an unmanly thing. But now you are old enough,
+      and you know your own mind surely well enough, just to say whether you
+      feel as if you could ever love me as I love you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so, and
+      blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for doing that than
+      for any thing he had done before. Yet I knew that I ought to speak
+      clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I tried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Dear Firm,&rdquo; I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him
+      steadily, &ldquo;I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by&mdash;by-and-by,
+      I might, that is, if you did not hurry me. Of all the obstacles you have
+      mentioned, none is worth considering. I am nothing but a poor castaway,
+      owing my life to Uncle Sam and you. But one thing there is which could
+      never be got over, even if I felt as you feel toward me. Never can I think
+      of little matters, or of turning my thoughts to&mdash;to any such things
+      as you speak of, as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation lies on
+      me. And before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave his life
+      for me. Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting my time in
+      trifles. I ought to have been in Europe long ago. If I am old enough for
+      what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty. If I am old enough for
+      love, as it is called, I am old enough for hate. I have more to do with
+      hate than love, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; cried Firm, &ldquo;what a puzzle you are! I never even dreamed that you
+      could be so fierce. You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam himself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough. You see now how vain it is
+      to say another word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not see any thing of the sort. Come back, and look at me quite
+      calmly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having passed the
+      prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up gently and let him look
+      at me to his liking. For little as I thought of such things till now, I
+      seemed already to know more about them, or at least to wonder&mdash;which
+      is the stir of the curtain of knowledge. I did not say any thing, but
+      labored to think nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes. But Firm
+      put me out altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter like a stupid
+      little bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My darling,&rdquo; he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such as I
+      could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes, &ldquo;you are not
+      fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is devoting you. You
+      have not the hardness and bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession and
+      contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will&mdash;in a
+      word, the fundamental nastiness, without which you never could get through
+      such a job. Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should hope not. I should earn your contempt, if I could.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, you are ready to cry at the thought. Erema, do not mistake
+      yourself. Remember that your father would never have wished it&mdash;would
+      have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it. Why did he
+      bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world except to save
+      you from further thought of evil? He knew that we listen to no rumors
+      here, no social scandals, or malignant lies; but we value people as we
+      find them. He meant this to be a haven for you; and so it shall be if you
+      will only rest; and you shall be the queen of it. Instead of redressing
+      his memory now, you would only distress his spirit. What does he care for
+      the world's gossip now? But he does care for your happiness. I am not old
+      enough to tell you things as I should like to tell them. I wish I could&mdash;how
+      I wish I could! It would make all the difference to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it was
+      selfishness. Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never could be
+      selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as starved my
+      father. You can not see things as I see them, or else you would not talk
+      so. When you know that a thing is right, you do it. Can you tell me
+      otherwise? If you did, I should despise you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you put it so, I can say no more. You will leave us forever, Erema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not forever. If the good God wills it, I will come back when my work
+      is done. Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can hope to
+      forgot.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among great
+      ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I passed the
+      Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called from one of the
+      Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long wished to know&mdash;why
+      Firm had a crooked nose. At least, it could hardly be called crooked if
+      any body looked aright at it; but still it departed from the bold straight
+      line which nature must have meant for it, every thing else about him being
+      as straight as could be required. This subject had troubled me more than
+      once, though of course it had nothing whatever to do with the point of
+      view whence I regarded him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I certainly
+      could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do when once I put
+      the question, in despair, to him. But now, as we stood on the wharf
+      exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears of anguish were in my
+      eyes, and my heart was both full and empty, ample and unexpected light was
+      thrown on the curvature of Firm's nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed, came
+      up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then, with a blush,
+      took his grandson's hand. Firm took off his hat to her very politely, but
+      allowed her to see perhaps by his manner that he was particularly engaged
+      just now; and the young lady, with a quick glance at me, walked off to
+      rejoin her party. But a garrulous old negro servant, who seemed to be in
+      attendance upon her, ran up and caught Firm by his coat, and peered up
+      curiously at his face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How young massa's poor nose dis long time? How him feel, spose now
+      again?&rdquo; he inquired, with a deferential grin. &ldquo;Young massa ebber able take
+      a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy den? Missy no learn to
+      dance de nose polka den?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What on earth does he mean?&rdquo; I could not help asking, in spite of our
+      sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other jokes and
+      cackles at his own facetiousness. And then Uncle Sam, to divert my
+      thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told me how Firm got a
+      slight twist to his nose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man should
+      learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished itself from
+      all other schools by not calling itself a college. And when he was leaving
+      to begin home life, with as much put into him as he could manage&mdash;for
+      his nature was not bookish&mdash;when he was just seventeen years old, and
+      tall and straight and upright, but not set into great bodily strength,
+      which could not yet be expected, a terrible fire broke out in a great
+      block of houses newly occupied, over against the school-house front.
+      Without waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the
+      Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help. And they
+      found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the top of the
+      house. At the top of the house, according to a stupid and therefore
+      general practice, was the nursery, made of more nurses than children, as
+      often happens with rich people. The nurses had run away for their lives,
+      taking two of the children with them; but the third, a fine little girl of
+      ten, had been left behind, and now ran to the window with red hot flames
+      behind her. The window was open, and barbs of fire, like serpents'
+      tongues, played over it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!&rdquo; cried half a hundred people,
+      while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and shrank from the
+      frightful depth below. At last, stung by a scorching volley, she gathered
+      her night-gown tight, and leaped, trusting to the many faces and many arms
+      raised toward her. But though many gallant men were there, only one stood
+      fast just where she fell, and that one was the youth, Firm Gundry. Upon
+      him she fell, like a stone from heaven, and though he held up his arms in
+      the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at least, for him, but, as
+      her father said, providentially; for one of her soles, or heels, alighted
+      on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose. He caught her on his chest, and
+      forgetful of himself, he bore her to her friends triumphantly, unharmed,
+      and almost smiling. But the symmetry of an important part of his face was
+      spoiled forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own pusillanimous
+      rendering&mdash;for verily I had been low enough, from rumors of Firm's
+      pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of line to some fisticuffs
+      with some miner&mdash;I looked at Firm's nose through the tears in my
+      eyes, and had a great mind not to go away at all. For what is the noblest
+      of all things in man&mdash;as I bitterly learned thereafter, and already
+      had some guesses? Not the power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by
+      orders; not the elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others, nor
+      even the imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them: there may
+      be glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them. It remains
+      with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses broken.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I
+      thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could not help
+      asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the heroism. The
+      Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however ancient quality, gave
+      a great wink at Firm (which I failed to understand), and asked him how
+      much the young lady was worth. He expected that Firm would say, &ldquo;Five
+      hundred thousand dollars&rdquo;&mdash;which was about her value, I believe&mdash;and
+      Uncle Sam wanted me to hear it; not that he cared a single cent himself,
+      but to let me know what Firm could do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort. He knew me
+      better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me to jealousy,
+      and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have never asked what she is worth,&rdquo; he said, with a glance of contempt
+      at money; &ldquo;but she scarcely seems worth looking at, compared&mdash;compared
+      with certain others.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no attraction, but
+      walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative negro after her. It
+      would have been below me to pursue the subject, and I waited for others to
+      re-open it; but I heard no more about her until I had been for more than a
+      week at sea, and was able again to feel interest. Then I heard that her
+      name was Annie Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., who owned
+      the ship I sailed in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
+      wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored him not
+      to forget me. Over and over again he promised to be full of thoughts of
+      me, even when the new mill was started, which would be a most trying time.
+      He bowed his tall white head into my sheveled hair, and blessed and kissed
+      me, although I never deserved it, and a number of people were looking on.
+      Then I laid my hand in Firm's, and he did not lift it to his lips, or
+      sigh, but pressed it long and softly, and looked into my eyes without a
+      word. And I knew that there would be none to love like them, wherever I
+      might go.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But the last of all to say &ldquo;good-by&rdquo; was my beloved Jowler. He jumped into
+      the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat, the ship having
+      laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my shoulders, and whined
+      and drooped his under-jaw. And when he looked at me as he used, to know
+      whether I was in fun or earnest, with more expression in his bright brown
+      eyes than any human being has, I fell back under his weight and sobbed,
+      and could not look at any one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed the
+      Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital of the
+      world, perhaps. For, as our captain said, all power and human energy and
+      strength are always going westward, and when they come here they must
+      stop, or else they would be going eastward again, which they never yet
+      have done. His argument may have been right or wrong&mdash;and, indeed, it
+      must have been one or the other&mdash;but who could think of such things
+      now, with a grander thing than human power&mdash;human love fading away
+      behind? I could not even bear to see the glorious mountains sinking, but
+      ran below and cried for hours, until all was dark and calm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed, rather
+      suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who had
+      spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the Bridal
+      Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now on
+      half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him; for
+      their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now in
+      San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker,
+      Banks, and Co., had obtained for his father and mother passage upon
+      favorable terms, which was, as we say, &ldquo;an object to them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to Colonel
+      Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the twists of the
+      world were set aside), also having served his country, and received a
+      furrow on the top of his head, which made him brush his hair up,
+      nevertheless, or all the more for that, was as poor as a British officer
+      must be without official sesame. How he managed to feed and teach a large
+      and not clever family, and train them all to fight their way in a battle
+      worse than any of his own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them, whatever
+      they did or wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful wife, and
+      the Lord who helps brave poverty. Of such things he never spoke, unless
+      his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and laziness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now he was a little better off, through having his children off his
+      hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant relative.
+      He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man never returned to
+      England, after always standing up for her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large people, I
+      could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him no more than a
+      little man with many peculiarities. For he was not so tall as myself,
+      until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he made such a stir about
+      trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only grunted, that I took him to be
+      nothing more than a fidgety old campaigner. He wore a black-rimmed double
+      eyeglass with blue side-lights at his temples, and his hat, from the shape
+      of his forehead, hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers, and a Roman
+      nose, and most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with gingery brows,
+      which contracted, like sharp little gables over them, whenever any thing
+      displeased him. Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn, close-shaven, and gleaming with
+      friction of yellow soap, added vigor to the general expression of his
+      face, which was firm and quick and straightforward. The weather being
+      warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin was dressed in a fine
+      suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and beautifully made, setting off his
+      spare and active figure, which, though he was sixty-two years of age,
+      seemed always to be ready for a game of leap-frog.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the coast
+      ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower Nevada could only
+      be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every body lay about in our ship
+      where it seemed to afford the least smell and heat, and nobody for a
+      moment dreamed&mdash;for we really all were dreaming&mdash;of any body
+      with energy enough to be disturbed about any thing, when Major Hockin
+      burst in upon us all (who were trying not to be red-hot in the feeble
+      shade of poop awnings), leading by the hand an ancient woman, scarcely
+      dressed with decency, and howling in a tone very sad to hear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This lady has been robbed!&rdquo; cried the Major; &ldquo;robbed, not fifteen feet
+      below us. Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished treasures of
+      her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of a life of honest
+      toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a fine cut of Colorado
+      cheese.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!&rdquo; cried the poor woman, wringing
+      her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to the captain,&rdquo; muttered one sleepy gentleman. &ldquo;Go to the devil,&rdquo;
+       said another sleepy man: &ldquo;what have we to do with it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will neither go to the captain,&rdquo; replied the Major, very distinctly,
+      &ldquo;nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has dared to suggest
+      to me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!&rdquo; the poor old woman began to
+      scream; &ldquo;the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un. Only two have I
+      ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of 'em. Oh dear! oh
+      dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of my things!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
+      Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like to be
+      treated so? Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you lie like a
+      parcel of Mexicans. If any body picked your pockets, would you have life
+      enough to roll over?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't think I should,&rdquo; said a fat young Briton, with a very
+      good-natured face; &ldquo;but for a poor woman I can stand upright. Major
+      Hockin, here is a guinea for her. Perhaps more of us will give a trifle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well done!&rdquo; cried the Major; &ldquo;but not so much as that. Let us first
+      ascertain all the rights of the case. Perhaps half a crown apiece would
+      reach it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered afterward,
+      for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost under some more of
+      her property; and the tide of sleepy charity taking this direction under
+      such vehement impulse, several other steerage passengers lost their goods,
+      but found themselves too late in doing so. But the Major was satisfied,
+      and the rude man who had told him to go amiss, begged his pardon, and thus
+      we sailed on slowly and peaceably.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      INSIDE THE CHANNEL
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's character. It
+      was not for himself alone that he was so particular, or, as many would
+      call it, fidgety, to have every thing done properly; for if any thing came
+      to his knowledge which he thought unfair to any one, it concerned him
+      almost as much as if the wrong had been done to his own home self. Through
+      this he had fallen into many troubles, for his impressions were not always
+      accurate; but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife said, &ldquo;the
+      Major could not help it.&rdquo; The leading journals of the various places in
+      which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of grievances
+      sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had suffered in purse
+      by doing so. But the Major always said, &ldquo;Ventilate it, ventilate the
+      subject, my dear Sir; bring public opinion to bear on it.&rdquo; And Mrs. Hockin
+      always said that it was her husband to whom belonged the whole credit of
+      this new and spirited use of the fine word &ldquo;ventilation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to say that
+      the Major was the master. His sense of justice dictated that, as well as
+      his general briskness. Though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry in
+      undervaluing female mind, his larger experience and more frequent
+      intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us; and it was
+      pleasant to hear him often defer to the judgment of ladies. But this he
+      did more, perhaps, in theory than in practice; yet it made all the ladies
+      declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman. And so he was,
+      though he had his faults; but his faults were such as we approve of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of. And whatever
+      she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to keep up with him.
+      She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year, and a great deal prettier
+      because she never tried to look younger. Silver hair, and gentle eyes, and
+      a forehead in which all the cares of eight children had scarcely imprinted
+      a wrinkle, also a kind expression of interest in whatever was spoken of,
+      with a quiet voice and smile, and a power of not saying too much at a
+      time, combined to make this lady pleasant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her care;
+      and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society of Suan Isco
+      and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to amend, which she did
+      by example and without reproof. She shielded me also in the cleverest way
+      from the curiosity of the saloon, which at first was very trying. For the
+      Bridal Veil being a well-known ship both for swift passages and for
+      equipment, almost every berth was taken, and when the weather was calm,
+      quite a large assembly sat down to dinner. Among these, of course, were
+      some ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve and self-consciousness, and
+      so on, made my reluctant face the mark for many a long and searching gaze.
+      My own wish had been not to dine thus in public; but hearing that my
+      absence would only afford fresh grounds for curiosity, I took my seat
+      between the Major and his wife, the former having pledged himself to the
+      latter to leave every thing to her management. His temper was tried more
+      than once to its utmost&mdash;which was not a very great distance&mdash;but
+      he kept his word, and did not interfere; and I having had some experience
+      with Firm, eschewed all perception of glances. And as for all words, Mrs.
+      Hockin met them with an obtuse obliqueness; so that after a day or two it
+      was settled that nothing could be done about &ldquo;Miss Wood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled shed of
+      pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and called &ldquo;Miss
+      Wood,&rdquo; like almost anybody else. I refused to entertain such a very poor
+      idea, and clung to the name which had always been mine&mdash;for my father
+      would never depart from it&mdash;and I even burst into tears, which would,
+      I suppose, be called &ldquo;sentimental;&rdquo; but still the stern fact stared me in
+      the face&mdash;I must go as &ldquo;Miss Wood,&rdquo; or not go at all. Upon this Major
+      Hockin had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move him from his
+      resolution.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from wishing
+      to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon it, and even my
+      soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's chief duty, his own stern
+      sense of right came in and sided with my prayers to him. And so it was
+      that he let me go, with pity for my youth and sex, but a knowledge that I
+      was in good hands, and an inborn, perhaps &ldquo;Puritanical&rdquo; faith, that the
+      Lord of all right would see to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major, on the other hand, had none of this. He differed from Uncle Sam
+      as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree differs from a great
+      spreading king of the woods. He was not without a strict sense of
+      religion, especially when he had to march men to church; and he never even
+      used a bad word, except when wicked facts compelled him. When properly let
+      alone, and allowed to nurse his own opinions, he had a respectable idea
+      that all things were certain to be ordered for the best; but nothing
+      enraged him so much as to tell him that when things went against him, or
+      even against his predictions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most adverse view
+      of my case. He formed his opinions with the greatest haste, and with the
+      greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was the most generous of
+      mankind, if generous means one quite full of his genus. And in my little
+      case he had made up his mind that the whole of the facts were against me.
+      &ldquo;Fact&rdquo; was his favorite word, and one which he always used with great
+      effect, for nobody knows very well what it means, as it does not belong to
+      our language. And so when he said that the facts were against me, who was
+      there to answer that facts are not truth?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through himself, but
+      through his wife. For I could not yet bring myself to speak of the things
+      that lay close at my heart to him, though I knew that he must be aware of
+      them. And he, like a gentleman, left me to begin. I could often see that
+      he was ready and quite eager to give me the benefit of his opinion, which
+      would only have turned me against him, and irritated him, perhaps, with
+      me. And having no home in England, or, indeed, I might say, any where, I
+      was to live with the Major and his wife, supposing that they could arrange
+      it so, until I should discover relatives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly; and I
+      thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of the furious
+      northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have no idea in what
+      latitude, though the passengers now talked quite like seamen, at least
+      till the sea got up again. However, at last we made the English Channel,
+      in the dreary days of November, and after more peril there than any where
+      else, we were safely docked at Southampton. Here the Major was met by two
+      dutiful daughters, bringing their husbands and children, and I saw more of
+      family life (at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to observe before;
+      and although there were many little jars and brawls and cuts at one
+      another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some brothers and
+      sisters to quarrel with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
+      Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched time
+      in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in the very worst
+      of weather. The ooze of the shore and the reek of the water, and the
+      dreary flatness of the land around (after the glorious heaven-clad
+      heights, which made me ashamed of littleness), also the rough, stupid
+      stare of the men, when I went about as an American lady may freely do in
+      America, and the sharpness of every body's voice (instead of the genial
+      tones which those who can not produce them call &ldquo;nasal,&rdquo; but which from a
+      higher view are cordial)&mdash;taken one after other, or all together,
+      these things made me think, in the first flush of thought, that England
+      was not a nice country. After a little while I found that I had been a
+      great deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
+      comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid woman put
+      over me, as if I could not mind myself&mdash;a cook, or a nurse, or
+      housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin family, but to me a
+      mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath sometimes) a spy. What was
+      I likely to do, or what was any one likely to do to me, in a thoroughly
+      civilized country, that I could not even stay in private lodgings, where I
+      had a great deal to think of, without this dull creature being forced upon
+      me? But the Major so ordered it, and I gave in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed without
+      slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to &ldquo;form my
+      mind,&rdquo; as I was told to do. Major Hockin came down once or twice to see
+      me, and though I did not like him, yet it was almost enough to make me do
+      so to see a little liveliness. But I could not and would not put up with a
+      frightful German baron of music, with a polished card like a toast-rack,
+      whom the Major tried to impress on me. As if I could stop to take music
+      lessons!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Wood,&rdquo; said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last time he
+      came to see me, &ldquo;I stand to you in loco parentis. That means, with the
+      duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what not, of the unfortunate&mdash;I
+      should say rather of the beloved&mdash;parent deceased. I wish to be more
+      careful of you than of a daughter of my own&mdash;a great deal more
+      careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say a thousand times more careful,
+      because you have not had the discipline which a daughter of mine would
+      have enjoyed. And you are so impulsive when you take an idea! You judge
+      every body by your likings. That leads to error, error, error.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My name is not Miss Wood,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;my name is 'Erema Castlewood.'
+      Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody knowing who I am,
+      surely I may have my own name now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When any body says &ldquo;surely,&rdquo; at once up springs a question; nothing being
+      sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative. The Major knew all
+      those little things which manage women so manfully. So he took me by the
+      hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair, nor
+      even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or figure was
+      I conscious of false presentment. The Major was welcome to lead me to the
+      light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze with all his eyes. My
+      only vexation was with myself, because I could not keep the weakness&mdash;which
+      a stranger should not see&mdash;out of my eyes, upon sudden remembrance
+      who it was that used to have the right to do such things to me. This it
+      was, and nothing else, that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There, there, my dear!&rdquo; said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than usual.
+      &ldquo;Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the world, and
+      brave the world, and abolish the world&mdash;or at least the world's
+      opinion! 'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no 'bo' to a gander.
+      No, no; do quietly what I advise&mdash;by-the-bye, you have never asked my
+      advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that most;
+      but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's relaxation of his
+      eyes,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, why have you never offered it to me? You knew that I never could ask
+      for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone crosswise;
+      and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith in his opinions;
+      which was now growing inevitable, with his wife and daughters, and many
+      grandchildren&mdash;all certain that he was a Solomon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly romantic.
+      I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk with you, Erema,
+      when we both have leisure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;and only too happy to
+      listen to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as you
+      please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a woodcock
+      waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am five minutes late
+      already. I will come and have a talk with you afterward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;we had better leave it. It seems of no importance,
+      compared&mdash;compared with&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dinner!&rdquo; said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a little,
+      though neither of us meant to vex the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BRUNTSEA
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant man or a
+      self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had ordered, and his
+      eagerness to sit down to it. Through all the best years of his life he had
+      been most frugal, abstemious, and self-denying, grudging every penny of
+      his own expense, but sparing none for his family. And now, when he found
+      himself so much better off, with more income and less outlay, he could not
+      be blamed for enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of abstinence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major had
+      discovered that the &ldquo;little property&rdquo; left to him, and which he was come
+      to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who knew how to
+      manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence. And of these two
+      qualities he had such abundance that, without any outlet, they might have
+      turned him sour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin, had
+      long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet. Sir Rufus
+      hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with the only
+      alternative&mdash;extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin Nick
+      (except that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to be lazier
+      even than himself had been, longing also to inflict even posthumous
+      justice upon the land agent, with the glad consent of his heir he left
+      this distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to his beloved cousin Major
+      Nicholas Hockin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings while
+      he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to speculate and
+      his dread of speculation. At once he consulted our Colonel Gundry, who met
+      him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle Sam having a vast idea of the
+      value of land in England, which the Major naturally made the most of, now
+      being an English land-owner, they spent a most pleasant evening, and
+      agreed upon the line marked out by Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me, who was
+      much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first disposed to be cold
+      and curt. And thus it was that I was left so long in that wretched
+      Southampton, under the care of a very kind person who never could
+      understand me. And all this while (as I ought to have known, without any
+      one to tell me) Major Hockin was testing the value and beating the bounds
+      of his new estate, and prolonging his dinner from one to two courses, or
+      three if he had been travelling. His property was large enough to afford
+      him many dinners, and rich enough (when rightly treated) to insure their
+      quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of England, in
+      Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a constitution of its
+      own, and says that it belongs to neither. It used to be a place of size
+      and valor, furnishing ships, and finding money for patriotic purposes. And
+      great people both embarked and landed, one doing this and the other that,
+      though nobody seems to have ever done both, if history is to be relied
+      upon. The glory of the place is still preserved in a seal and an
+      immemorial stick, each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible
+      as could be wished, though both are to be seen for sixpence. The name of
+      the place is written in more than forty different ways, they say; and the
+      oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest how to spell it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the mouth,
+      of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which a sluggish
+      river wins its muddy consummation. This river once went far along the
+      sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is afraid to bathe), as the
+      Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other rivers do. And in those days the
+      mouth and harbor were under the cliff at Bruntsea, whence its seal and
+      corporation, stick, and other blessings. But three or four centuries ago
+      the river was drawn by a violent storm, like a badger from his barrel, and
+      forced to come straight out and face the sea, without any three miles of
+      dalliance. The time-serving water made the best of this, forsook its
+      ancient bed (as classic nymphs and fountains used to do), and left poor
+      Bruntsea with a dry bank, and no haven for a cockle-shell. A new port,
+      such as it is, incrusted the fickle jaw of the river; piles were driven
+      and earth-works formed, lest the water should return to its old love; and
+      Bruntsea, as concerned her traffic, became but a mark of memory. Her noble
+      corporation never demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as
+      the will of the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except
+      their time-honored ceremonies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value there.
+      The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights, having no means
+      of getting at them, sold them for an &ldquo;old song,&rdquo; which they were; and the
+      buyer was one of the Hockin race, a shipwrecked mariner from Cornwall, who
+      had been kindly treated there, and took a fancy accordingly. He sold his
+      share in some mine to pay for it, settled here, and died here; and his
+      son, getting on in the world, built a house, and took to serious
+      smuggling. In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes of honest value to
+      him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish holes were not), and
+      much more accessible from France. Becoming a magistrate and
+      deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of inquiring into his own
+      deeds, which enabled him to check those few who otherwise might have
+      competed with him. He flourished, and bought more secure estates; and his
+      son, for activity against smugglers, was made a gentle baronet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the Hockin
+      family became a mere load and incumbrance. Sir George and Sir Robert and
+      Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints about contraband
+      dealings which met them whenever they deigned to come down there, till at
+      last the estate (being left to an agent) cost a great deal more than he
+      ever paid in. And thus&mdash;as should have been more briefly told&mdash;the
+      owner was our Major Hockin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had no
+      time at first to send for me. And no wonder that when he came down to see
+      me, he was obliged to have good dinners. For the work done by him in those
+      three months surprised every body except himself, and made in old Bruntsea
+      a stir unknown since the time of the Spanish Armada. For he owned the
+      house under the eastern cliff, and the warren, and the dairy-farm inland,
+      and the slope of the ground where the sea used to come, and fields where
+      the people grew potatoes gratis, and all the eastern village, where the
+      tenants paid their rents whenever they found it rational.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal of
+      mischief. Either he would have accepted large views, and applauded this
+      fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no wife), or else he would
+      have rushed at every body headlong, and batted them back to their
+      abutments. Neither course would have created half the excitement which the
+      Major's did. At least, there might have been more talk at first, but not a
+      quarter so much in sum total. Of those things, however, there is time
+      enough to speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made plain to
+      another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the shadow we call
+      human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside it and upon it, as if
+      it were all creation; but the infinitely nobler things of ever-changing
+      but perpetual beauty, and no selfishness. These, without deigning to us
+      even sense to be aware of them, shape our little minds and bodies and our
+      large self-importance, and fail to know when the lord or king who owns is
+      buried under them. To have perception of such mighty truths is good for
+      all of us: and I never had keener perception of them than when I sat down
+      on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land around me, and even the
+      sea&mdash;where all the fish were his, as soon as he could catch them&mdash;and
+      largely reflected that not a square foot of the whole world would ever
+      belong to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bruntlands,&rdquo; as the house was called, perhaps from standing well above
+      the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff, which looked
+      down over Bruntsea. The cliff was of chalk, very steep toward the sea, and
+      showing a prominent headland toward the south, but prettily rising in
+      grassy curves from the inland and from the westward. And then, where it
+      suddenly chined away from land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of shingle
+      began at right angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went to the
+      river's mouth, a league or so now to the westward. And beyond that another
+      line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came to their
+      headland. Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might be traced
+      the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough at the hither
+      end stood, or lay, the calm old village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient site
+      and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and cast off
+      needless members. Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the oldest of its
+      churches, while the four others fell to rack and ruin, and settled into
+      cow-yards and barns, and places where old men might sit and sigh. But
+      Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly kept the old town's division into east
+      and west.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special
+      charter; and most of the houses belonged to him. This ownership hitherto
+      had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-down repairs
+      (when the agent reported that they must be done), but never must enter the
+      door for his rent. The borough had been disfranchised, though the snuggest
+      of the snug for generations; and the freemen, thus being robbed of their
+      rights, had no power to discharge their duties. And to complicate matters
+      yet further, for the few who wished to simplify them, the custom of
+      &ldquo;borough-English&rdquo; prevailed, and governed the descent of dilapidations,
+      making nice niceties for clever men of law.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see a fine property here, Miss Wood,&rdquo; Major Hockin said to me, as we
+      sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the fresh breeze
+      from the sea and the newness of the February air, and looking abroad very
+      generally: &ldquo;a very fine property, but neglected&mdash;shamefully,
+      horribly, atrociously neglected&mdash;but capable of noble things, of
+      grand things, of magnificent, with a trifle of judicious outlay.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear,&rdquo; said good Mrs. Hockin,
+      gently; &ldquo;it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to come
+      from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Leave that to me. When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-book was,
+      'Where there's a will there's a way.' Miss Wood, what is your opinion? But
+      wait, you must have time to understand the subject. First we bring a
+      railway&mdash;always the first step; why, the line is already made for it
+      by the course of the old river, and the distance from Newport three miles
+      and a half. It ought not to cost quite 200 pounds a mile&mdash;the mere
+      outlay for rails and sleepers. The land is all mine, and&mdash;and of
+      course other landed proprietors'. Very well: these would all unite, of
+      course; so that not a farthing need be paid for land, which is the best
+      half of the battle. We have the station here&mdash;not too near my house;
+      that would never do; I could not bear the noise&mdash;but in a fine
+      central place where nobody on earth could object to it&mdash;lively, and
+      close at hand for all of them. Unluckily I was just too late. We have lost
+      a Parliamentary year through that execrable calm&mdash;you remember all
+      about it. Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at Bruntsea by
+      the first of May. But never mind; we shall do it all the better and
+      cheaper by taking our time about it. Very well: we have the railway opened
+      and the trade of the place developed. We build a fine terrace of elegant
+      villas, a crescent also, and a large hotel replete with every luxury; and
+      we form the finest sea-parade in England by simply assisting nature. Half
+      London comes down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to flirt, and to do the
+      rest of it. We become a select, salubrious, influential, and yet
+      economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs. Hockin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, how can I tell? But I hope that we should rest and be thankful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit of it. I should hope not, indeed. Erema, what do we do then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is useless to ask me. Well, then, perhaps you set up a handsome
+      saw-mill!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A saw-mill! What a notion of Paradise! No; this is what we do&mdash;but
+      remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest antagonism
+      might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon&mdash;Mrs. Hockin and
+      Miss Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!&mdash;the return of our
+      river to its ancient course.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see,&rdquo; said his wife; &ldquo;oh, how grand that would be! and how beautiful
+      from our windows! That really, now, is a noble thought!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A just one&mdash;simply a just one. Justice ought not to be noble, my
+      dear, however rare it may be. Generosity, magnanimity, heroism, and so on&mdash;those
+      are the things we call noble, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And the founding of cities. Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was at
+      school, it was always said, in what we called our histories, that the
+      founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built, and divinities
+      done, and holidays held in their honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To that I object,&rdquo; cried the Major, sternly. &ldquo;If I founded fifty cities,
+      I would never allow one holiday. The Sabbath is enough; one day in seven&mdash;fifteen
+      per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty per cent, of your Sunday goes in
+      church. Very right, of course, and loyal, and truly edifying&mdash;Mrs.
+      Hockin's father was a clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last thing I would
+      ever allow on my manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but still I will have
+      no new churches here, and a man who might go against me. They all want to
+      pick their own religious views, instead of reflecting who supports them!
+      It never used to be so; and such things shall never occur on my manor. A
+      good hotel, attendance included, and a sound and moderate table d'hote;
+      but no church, with a popish bag sent round, and money to pay, 'without
+      anything to eat.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear! my dear!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Hockin, &ldquo;I never like you to talk like
+      that. You quite forget who my father was, and your own second son such a
+      very sound priest!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A priest! Don't let him come here,&rdquo; cried the Major, &ldquo;or I'll let him
+      know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec. A priest!
+      After going round the world three times, to come home and be hailed as the
+      father of a priest! Don't let him come near me, or I'll sacrifice him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Major, you are very proud of him,&rdquo; his good wife answered, as he
+      shook his stick. &ldquo;How could he help taking orders when he was under orders
+      to do so? And his views are sound to the last degree, most strictly
+      correct and practical&mdash;at least except as to celibacy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born! Miss Wood, do
+      you call that practical?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no acquaintance with such things,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;we had none of them
+      in California. But is it practical, Major Hockin&mdash;of course you know
+      best in your engineering&mdash;I mean, would it not require something like
+      a tunnel for the river and the railway to run on the same ground?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, bless me! That seems to have escaped my notice. You have not been
+      with old Uncle Sam for nothing. We shall have to appoint you our chief
+      engineer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      LISTLESS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my purpose, that
+      my host, and even my hostess too, should be so engrossed with their new
+      estate, its beauties and capabilities. Mrs. Hockin devoted herself at once
+      to fowls and pigs and the like extravagant economies, having bought, at
+      some ill-starred moment, a book which proved that hens ought to lay eggs
+      in a manner to support themselves, their families, and the family they
+      belonged to, at the price of one penny a dozen. Eggs being two shillings a
+      dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit&mdash;no less than two
+      thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents. The lady also
+      found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's purely
+      invaluable secret&mdash;how to work an acre of ground, pay house rent,
+      supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of vegetables every
+      day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig&mdash;if that pig were
+      kept properly. And after that, pork and ham and bacon came of him, while
+      another golden pig went on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could make
+      bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got him it would
+      be unwise to do so. However, the law was laid down in both books that
+      golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death before they begin to
+      overeat production; and the Major said, &ldquo;To be sure. Yes, yes. Let them
+      come to good meat, and then off with their heads.&rdquo; And his wife said that
+      she was sure she could do it. When it comes to a question of tare and
+      tret, false sentiment must be excluded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more
+      impatient. Being older now, and beholding what happens with tolerance and
+      complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends were so tolerant of
+      me and so complacent. For I must have been a great annoyance to them, with
+      my hurry and my one idea. Happily they made allowance for me, which I was
+      not old enough to make for them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to London, indeed! Go to London by yourself!&rdquo; cried the Major, with a
+      red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning that I could
+      stop no longer without doing something. &ldquo;Mary, my dear, when you have done
+      out there, will you come in and reason&mdash;if you can&mdash;with Miss
+      Wood. She vows that she is going to London, all alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Major Hockin&mdash;oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!&rdquo;
+       Mrs. Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in through the
+      window. &ldquo;You know that they have only had three bushels, or, at any rate,
+      not more than five, almost ever since they came. Erema, you know as well
+      as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a
+      bushel, Mary,&rdquo; said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; &ldquo;besides Indian
+      corn, chopped meat, and potatoes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And fourteen pounds of paddy,&rdquo; I said&mdash;which was a paltry thing of
+      me; &ldquo;not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers' grains, and
+      then&mdash;I forget what next.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are too bad, all of you. Erema, I never thought you would turn
+      against me so. And you made me get nearly all of it. But please to look
+      here. What do you call this? Is this no reward? Is this not enough? Major,
+      if you please, what do you call this? What a pity you have had your
+      breakfast!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A blessing&mdash;if this was to be my breakfast. I call that, my dear,
+      the very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests. No wonder
+      they sell them at twelve a penny. I congratulate you upon your first egg,
+      my dear Mary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I don't care,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest temper in
+      the world. &ldquo;Small beginnings make large endings; and an egg must be always
+      small at one end. You scorn my first egg, and Erema should have had it if
+      she had been good. But she was very wicked, and I know not what to do with
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Blow it!&rdquo; cried the Major. &ldquo;I mean no harm, ladies. I never use low
+      language. What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a puff, and
+      away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet specimen, which your egg
+      is quite fitted by its cost to be. But now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood, if
+      you please. It is useless for me to say any thing, and I have three
+      appointments in the town&rdquo;&mdash;he always called it &ldquo;the town&rdquo; now&mdash;&ldquo;three
+      appointments, if not four; yes, I may certainly say four. Talk to Miss
+      Wood, my dear, if you please. She wants to go to London, which would be
+      absurd. Ladies seem to enter into ladies' logic. They seem to be able to
+      appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs, which no
+      man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head or tail of.
+      Good-by for the present; I had better be off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should think you had,&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband marched
+      off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step, and
+      well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and the beach,
+      over which he had rights of plunder&mdash;or, at least, Uncle Sam would
+      have called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear,&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin began, most
+      kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg. &ldquo;I have noticed
+      how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in any thing.
+      'Listless' is the word. 'Listless' is exactly what I mean, Erema. When I
+      was at your time of life, I could never have gone about caring for
+      nothing. I wonder that you knew that I even had a fowl; much more how much
+      they had eaten!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I
+      am not quite so listless as you think. But those things do seem so little
+      to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after all
+      the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them. It is a power to be
+      thankful for, or, at least, I often think so. Look at my husband! He has
+      outlived and outlasted more trouble than any one but myself could reckon
+      up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as full of life, as ready to begin a
+      new thing to-morrow&mdash;when, at our age, there may be no to-morrow,
+      except in that better world, my dear, of which it is high time for him and
+      me to think, as I truly hope we may spare the time to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't talk like that,&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk of your
+      hens and chicks&mdash;at least there will be chicks by-and-by. I am almost
+      sure there will, if you only persevere. It seems unfair to set our minds
+      on any other world till justice has been done in this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case we
+      never should think of it at all. But I don't want to preach you a sermon,
+      Erema, even if I could do so. I only just want you to tell me what you
+      think, what good you imagine that you can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is no imagination. I am sure that I can right my father's wrongs. And
+      I never shall rest till I do so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?&rdquo; she asked, in the warmth
+      of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color changed, she looked
+      at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, if you had only once seen him,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;without any exaggeration,
+      you would have been satisfied at once. That he could ever have done any
+      harm was impossible&mdash;utterly impossible. I am not as I was. I can
+      listen to almost any thing now quite calmly. But never let me hear such a
+      wicked thing again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all your
+      friends. No one can help being sorry for you. Very few girls have been
+      placed as you are. I am sure when I think of my own daughters I can never
+      be too thankful. But the very first thing you have to learn, above all
+      things, is to control yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know it&mdash;I know it, of course,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;and I keep on trying my
+      very best. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you will try
+      to forgive me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A very slight exertion is enough for that. But now, my dear, what I want
+      to know is this&mdash;and you will excuse me if I ask too much&mdash;what
+      good do you expect to get by going thus to London? Have you any friend
+      there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what you are to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind,&rdquo; I answered, very bravely: &ldquo;I
+      have the address of a very good woman, found among my father's papers, who
+      nursed his children and understood his nature, and always kept her faith
+      in him. There must be a great many more who do the same, and she will be
+      sure to know them and introduce me to them; and I shall be guided by their
+      advice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found, or has
+      changed her opinion?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her opinion she never could change. But if she is not to be found, I
+      shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and besides that, I
+      have a hundred things to do. I have the address of the agent through whom
+      my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam let me know as little as he
+      could. And I know who his bankers were (when he had a bank), and he may
+      have left important papers there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may always be
+      relied upon. And there may be some valuable plate, Erema. But why not let
+      the Major go with you? His advice is so invaluable.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that it is, in all ordinary things. But I can not have him now,
+      for a very simple reason. He has made up his mind about my dear father&mdash;horribly,
+      horribly; I can't speak of it. And he never changes his mind; and
+      sometimes when I look at him I hate him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show it. Is
+      the whole world divided, then, into two camps&mdash;those who think as you
+      wish and those who are led by their judgment to think otherwise? And are
+      you to hate all who do not think as you wish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, because I do not hate you,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;I love you, though you do not
+      think as I wish. But that is only because you think your husband must be
+      right of course. But I can not like those who have made up their minds
+      according to their own coldness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Hockin is not cold at all. On the contrary, he is a warm-hearted
+      man&mdash;I might almost say hot-hearted.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I know he is. And that makes it ten times worse. He takes up every
+      body's case&mdash;but mine.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sad as it is, you almost make me smile,&rdquo; my hostess answered, gravely;
+      &ldquo;and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just and kind my
+      husband is. I am sure that you will give him credit for at least desiring
+      to take your part. And doing so, at least you might let him go with you,
+      if only as a good protection.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that he
+      would not like. In a good cause he would go any where, I know. But in my
+      cause, of course he would be scrupulous. Your kindness I always can rely
+      upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, he has never been unkind to you. I am certain that you never can
+      say that of him. Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity,&rdquo; I answered, less
+      humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in my tone,
+      perhaps. &ldquo;If people choose to pity me, they are very good, and I am not at
+      all offended, because&mdash;because they can not help it, perhaps, from
+      not knowing any thing about me. I have nothing whatever to be pitied for,
+      except that I have lost my father, and have nobody left to care for me,
+      except Uncle Sam in America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man,
+      Erema,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any craft in
+      her; &ldquo;I never saw him&mdash;a great loss on my part. But the Major went up
+      to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock of his best tie
+      broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat. Does Uncle Sam make
+      people laugh so much? or is it that he has some extraordinary gift of
+      inducing people to taste whiskey? My husband is a very&mdash;most
+      abstemious man, as you must be well aware, Miss Wood, or we never should
+      have been as we are, I am sure. But, for the first time in all my life, I
+      doubted his discretion on the following day, when he had&mdash;what shall
+      I say?&mdash;when he had been exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way,&rdquo; I replied to this new attack;
+      &ldquo;he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops. Do you think that it
+      may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were too strong and large
+      for the Major?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema!&rdquo; cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to think
+      or express my thoughts on life so early; &ldquo;if you can talk politics at
+      eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where. I have heard a great deal of
+      American ladies, and seen not a little of them, as you know. But I thought
+      that you called yourself an English girl, and insisted particularly upon
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, that I do; and I have good reason. I am born of an old English
+      family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it. But being brought up in a
+      number of ways, as I have been without thinking of it, and being quite
+      different from the fashionable girls Major Hockin likes to walk with&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, I remember! I was thinking of the deck. There are no fashionable
+      girls here yet. Till the terrace is built, and the esplanade&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do such
+      things upon them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure that he never would,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;it was only their dresses
+      that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind, extraordinary style, as
+      well as unbecoming. You know what I mean, Mrs. Hockin, that wonderful&mdash;what
+      shall I call it?&mdash;way of looping up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so dreadful.
+      You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it, stuck up here,
+      and going down there. Erema, what observation you have! Nothing ever seems
+      to escape you. Did you ever see any thing so indecorous?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them,&rdquo; I answered, with
+      perfect truth, for so it did; &ldquo;I have never been accustomed to such
+      things. But seeing how the Major approved of them, and liked to be walking
+      up and down between them, I knew that they must be not only decorous, but
+      attractive. There is no appeal from his judgment, is there?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have always
+      longed to say a few words about that. For I can not help thinking that he
+      went too far.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BETSY BOWEN
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to think with
+      me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the exception of Firm
+      Gundry. And I feared that he tried to think with me because of his
+      faithful and manly love, more than from balance of evidence. The Sawyer,
+      of course, held my father guiltless, through his own fidelity and simple
+      ways; but he could not enter into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon
+      me, because to his mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long
+      as a man did aright. For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I was a great
+      deal too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost equal value
+      with clear conscience. And therefore, wise or foolish, rich or poor,
+      beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things, and restless in
+      all, until I should establish truth and justice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly obstinate,
+      and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though hateful opinions,
+      I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I should not do any thing out of
+      keeping with English ideas and habits. In a word, I accepted the Major's
+      kind offer to see me quite safe in good hands in London, or else bring me
+      straightway back again. And I took only just things enough for a day or
+      two, meaning to come back by the end of the week. And I kissed Mrs. Hockin
+      just enough for that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would not be a new thing for me to say that &ldquo;we never know what is
+      going to happen;&rdquo; but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old common
+      sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted) show themselves.
+      At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for nothing, at least as
+      concerned what I thought the chief business of my journey. The Major had
+      wished to go first to the bank, and appeared to think nothing of any thing
+      else; but I, on the other hand, did not want him there, preferring to keep
+      him out of my money matters, and so he was obliged to let me have my way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve me
+      right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered either at
+      the place which we tried first, or that to which we were sent thence.
+      Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as much as to hint that
+      the whole of my story was all of a piece, all a wild-goose chase. And
+      being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack, he
+      actually called out to the cabman to drive without delay to Messrs.
+      Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I begged him to allow me just one
+      minute while I spoke to the servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a
+      sovereign, at which she opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she
+      told me that &ldquo;though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it,
+      because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss that
+      was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond belief, she
+      could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would promise faithfully not
+      to tell.&rdquo; This promise I gave with fidelity, and returning to the cabman,
+      directed him to drive not to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin just
+      yet, but to No. 17 European Square, St. Katharine's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly as
+      crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last into European
+      Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong opening pitched with
+      rough granite, and distinguished with a pump. There were great
+      thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the place itself seemed
+      unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into it, only murmurous with
+      distant London din, as the spires of a shell hold the heavings of the sea.
+      After driving three or four times round the pump, for the houses were
+      numbered anyhow, we found No. 17, and I jumped out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood,&rdquo; cried the Major, who was
+      now a little crusty; &ldquo;English ladies allow themselves to be handed out,
+      without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I wanted to save you the honor,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;I will come back
+      immediately, if you will kindly wait.&rdquo; And with this I ran up the old
+      steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came and gazed
+      through dingy windows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can I see Mrs. Strouss?&rdquo; I asked, when a queer old man in faded brown
+      livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the sun was
+      shining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good Meeses
+      Strouss also.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you, but that will not do,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;my business is with Mrs.
+      Strouss alone.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the
+      chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the Major
+      looked out of the cab and laughed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You had better come back while you can,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;though they seem in no
+      hurry to swallow you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to him. The
+      house looked very respectable, and there were railings to the area.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The house is very respectable,&rdquo; continued Major Hockin, who always seemed
+      to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner ran up the
+      steps; &ldquo;just look, the scraper is clean. You never see that, or at least
+      not often, except with respectable people, Erema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?&rdquo; cried a strong, clear
+      voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout, tall woman with
+      a flush in her cheeks confronted us. &ldquo;I never knew more than one Erema&mdash;Good
+      mercy!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back into a
+      lobby chair. She knew me by my likeness to my father, falling on the
+      memories started by my name; and strong as she was, the surprise overcame
+      her, at the sound of which up rushed the small Herr Strouss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised with my
+      frau? Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I should say de
+      peelers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stop!&rdquo; cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word, which
+      would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it then, but
+      because he had received a sign which assured him that here was a brother
+      Mason. In a moment the infuriated husband vanished into the rational and
+      docile brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please,&rdquo; he said, to my great
+      astonishment; &ldquo;Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome to our poor
+      house. Vilhelmina, arise and say so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go to the back kitchen, Hans,&rdquo; replied Wilhelmina, whose name was
+      &ldquo;Betsy,&rdquo; &ldquo;and don't come out until I tell you. You will find work to do
+      there, and remember to pump up. I wish to hear things that you are not to
+      hear, mind you. Shut yourself in, and if you soap the door to deceive me,
+      I shall know it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vere goot, vere goot,&rdquo; said the philosophical German; &ldquo;I never meddle
+      with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de money and de
+      house.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that. With no more ceremony she
+      locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not make things out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My husband is the bravest of the brave,&rdquo; she told us, while she put down
+      his key on the table; &ldquo;and a nobler man never lived; I am sure of that.
+      But every one of them foreigners&mdash;excuse me, Sir, you are an
+      Englishman?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; &ldquo;I am so,
+      madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my feelings. I am
+      above nationalities.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just so, Sir. Then you will feel with me when I say that they foreigners
+      is dreadful. Oh, the day that I ever married one of 'em&mdash;but there, I
+      ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's daughter facing me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you know me?&rdquo; I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes, I dare
+      say, glistening. &ldquo;Are you sure that you know me? And then please to tell
+      me how.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn for
+      travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me, and before
+      I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the great arms of Betsy
+      Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little baby, and when my father was
+      in his own land, with a home and wife and seven little ones. And to think
+      of this made me keep her company in crying, and it was some time before we
+      did any thing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when he had
+      made them; &ldquo;I shall be off. You are in good hands; and the cabman pulled
+      out his watch when we stopped. So did I. But he is sure to beat me. They
+      draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am told, while the watch hangs on
+      their badge, and they can swear they never opened it. Wonderful age, very
+      wonderful age, since the time when you and I were young, ma'am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!&rdquo; Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her eyes
+      to speak of things; &ldquo;but the most wonderfulest of all things, don't you
+      think, is the going of the time, Sir? No cabby can make it go faster while
+      he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than the minds inside of us
+      manage it. Why, Sir, it wore only like yesterday that this here tall,
+      elegant, royal young lady was a-lying on my breast, and what a hand she
+      was to kick! And I said that her hair was sure to grow like this. If I was
+      to tell you only half what comes across me&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should lose
+      mine, which is more than I can afford. Erema, after dinner I shall look
+      you up. I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs. Strouss, which does not
+      happen every day. I can trust Miss Castlewood with you. Good-by, good-by
+      for the present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and that
+      made me all the more pleased with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in,&rdquo; cried the &ldquo;good woman,&rdquo;
+       following to the door, to clear every blur from her virtues; &ldquo;for his own
+      sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming, and to see me cry&mdash;Lord
+      bless you, the effect upon him is to call out for a walking-stick and a
+      pint of beer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All right, ma'am, all right!&rdquo; the Major answered, in a tone which
+      appeared to me unfeeling. &ldquo;Cabman, are you asleep there? Bring the lady's
+      bag this moment.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that good
+      protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not help letting a
+      little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my outburst. I had heard so
+      much in America of the dark, subtle places of London, and the wicked
+      things that happen all along the Thames, discovered or invented by great
+      writers of their own, that the neighborhood of the docks and the thought
+      of rats (to which I could never grow accustomed) made me look with a flash
+      perhaps of doubt at my new old friend.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not sure of me, Miss Erema,&rdquo; said Mrs. Strouss, without taking
+      offense. &ldquo;After all that has happened, who can blame it on you? But your
+      father was not so suspicious, miss. It might have been better for him if
+      he had&mdash;according, leastways, to my belief, which a team of wild
+      horses will never drag out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!&rdquo; I exclaimed, forgetting all other
+      things. &ldquo;You know more about it than any body I have ever met with, except
+      my own father, who would never tell a word.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And quite right he was, miss, according to his views. But come to my
+      little room, unless you are afraid. I can tell you some things that your
+      father never knew.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid! do you think I am a baby still? But I can not bear that Mr.
+      Strouss should be locked up on my account.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he shall come out,&rdquo; said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very
+      pleasantly. &ldquo;That was just like your father, Miss Erema. But I fall into
+      the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners.&rdquo; Whether she thought
+      it the custom among &ldquo;foreigners&rdquo; for wives to lock their husbands in back
+      kitchens was more than she ever took the trouble to explain. But she
+      walked away, in her stout, firm manner, and presently returned with Mr.
+      Strouss, who seemed to be quite contented, and made me a bow with a very
+      placid smile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good,&rdquo; his wife explained to
+      me, with a nod at him. &ldquo;But I could not have you in with the gentleman,
+      Hans. He always makes mistakes with the gentlemen, miss, but with the
+      ladies he behaves quite well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot,&rdquo; Herr Strouss replied,
+      with diffidence. &ldquo;The ladies comprehend me right, all right, because I am
+      so habitual with my wife. But the gentlemans in London have no
+      comprehension of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the loss is on their side,&rdquo; I answered, with a smile; and he said,
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BETSY'S TALE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into narrative
+      what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or to let her tell
+      the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself told it then to me. The
+      story was so dark and sad&mdash;or at least to myself it so appeared&mdash;that
+      even the little breaks and turns of lighter thought or livelier manner,
+      which could scarcely fail to vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed
+      almost to grate and jar upon its sombre monotone. On the other hand, by
+      omitting these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of
+      harm than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so
+      accurately. Whereas the gist and core and pivot of my father's life and
+      fate are so involved (though not evolved) that I would not miss a single
+      point for want of time or diligence. Therefore let me not deny Mrs.
+      Strouss, my nurse, the right to put her words in her own way. And before
+      she began to do this she took the trouble to have every thing cleared away
+      and the trays brought down, that her boarders (chiefly German) might leave
+      their plates and be driven to their pipes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please, Miss Castlewood,&rdquo; Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, &ldquo;do you or
+      do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls himself?&mdash;an
+      improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is their nature. He can
+      hold his tongue as well as any man, though none of them are very sure at
+      that. And he knows pretty nigh as much as I do, so far as his English can
+      put things together, being better accustomed in German. For when we were
+      courting I was fain to tell him all, not to join him under any false
+      pretenses, miss, which might give him grounds against me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true&mdash;so goot and true as can be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any kind of
+      messages. He can do that very well, I assure you, miss&mdash;better than
+      any Englishman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged him to
+      stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear the tale alone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught,&rdquo; said his
+      Wilhelmina, kindly. &ldquo;He is not very tall, miss, but he has good shoulders;
+      I scarcely know what I should do without him. Well, now, to begin at the
+      very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may have heard. My father was a
+      farmer near Abergavenny, holding land under Sir Watkin Williams, an old
+      friend of your family. My father had too many girls, and my mother
+      scarcely knew what to do with the lot of us. So some of us went out to
+      service, while the boys staid at home to work the land. One of my sisters
+      was lady's-maid to Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at the time when your
+      father came visiting there for the shooting of the moor-fowl, soon after
+      his marriage with your mother. What a sweet good lady your mother was! I
+      never saw the like before or since. No sooner did I set eyes upon her but
+      she so took my fancy that I would have gone round the world with her. We
+      Welsh are a very hot people, they say&mdash;not cold-blooded, as the
+      English are. So, wise or foolish, right, wrong, or what might be, nothing
+      would do for me but to take service, if I could, under Mrs. Castlewood.
+      Your father was called Captain Castlewood then&mdash;as fine a young man
+      as ever clinked a spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and
+      they said that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and
+      spare, although he was the only son. Now this must have been&mdash;let me
+      see, how long ago?&mdash;about five-and-twenty years, I think. How old are
+      you now, Miss Erema? I can keep the weeks better than the years, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was eighteen on my last birthday. But never mind about the time&mdash;go
+      on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time we may
+      never think so. Well, then, it must have been better than six-and-twenty
+      year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the Lord's will, there was
+      eight years between you and the first-born babe, who was only just
+      a-thinking of when I begin to tell. But to come back to myself, as was&mdash;mother
+      had got too many of us still, and she was glad enough to let me go,
+      however much she might cry over it, as soon as Lady Williams got me the
+      place. My place was to wait upon the lady first, and make myself generally
+      useful, as they say. But it was not very long before I was wanted in other
+      more important ways, and having been brought up among so many children,
+      they found me very handy with the little ones; and being in a poor way, as
+      they were then&mdash;for people, I mean, of their birth and place&mdash;they
+      were glad enough soon to make head nurse of me, although I was
+      under-two-and-twenty.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills looking
+      on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in Hampshire; for the
+      Captain was still with his regiment, and only came to and fro to us. But a
+      happier little place there could not be, with the flowers, and the cow,
+      and the birds all day, and the children running gradually according to
+      their age, and the pretty brook shining in the valley. And as to the
+      paying of their way, it is true that neither of them was a great manager.
+      The Captain could not bear to keep his pretty wife close; and she, poor
+      thing, was trying always to surprise him with other presents besides all
+      the beautiful babies. But they never were in debt all round, as the liars
+      said when the trouble burst; and if they owed two or three hundred pounds,
+      who could justly blame them?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening his
+      purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always for offense
+      or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them. The Captain had his
+      pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady had a little money of her
+      own; but still it was cruel for brought-up people to have nothing better
+      to go on with. Not that the old lord was a miser neither; but it was said,
+      and how far true I know not, that he never would forgive your father for
+      marrying the daughter of a man he hated. And some went so far as to say
+      that if he could have done it, he would have cut your father out of all
+      the old family estates. But such a thing never could I believe of a
+      nobleman having his own flesh and blood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I assure
+      you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long. For they loved one
+      another and their children dearly, and they did not care for any mixing
+      with the world. The Captain had enough of that when put away in quarters;
+      likewise his wife could do without it better and better at every birth,
+      though once she had been the very gayest of the gay, which you never will
+      be, Miss Erema.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say, that if
+      I can go on at all, I must have something ready. I am quite an old nurse
+      now, remember. Hans, go across the square, and turn on the left hand round
+      the corner, and then three more streets toward the right, and you see one
+      going toward the left, and you go about seven doors down it, and then you
+      see a corner with a lamp-post.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That will teach you to look more bright, Hans. Then you find a shop
+      window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the middle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then let it be two of them. How you contradict me! Take this little
+      bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a tassel with a
+      tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell him who you are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; I do now comprehend. You send me vhere I never find de vay,
+      because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband (however good
+      and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many shops of chemists,
+      rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I listened to things that were
+      almost sure to make me want my eyes my own. My nurse had seen, as any good
+      nurse must, that, grown and formed as I might be, the nature of the little
+      child that cries for its mother was in me still.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very sad now,&rdquo; Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to my
+      grateful glance; &ldquo;Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had never begun
+      with it. But I see by your eyes&mdash;so like your father's, but softer,
+      my dear, and less troublesome&mdash;that you will have the whole of it
+      out, as he would with me once when I told him a story for the sake of
+      another servant. It was just about a month before you were born, when the
+      trouble began to break on us. And when once it began, it never stopped
+      until all that were left ran away from it. I have read in the newspapers
+      many and many sad things coming over whole families, such as they call
+      'shocking tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more galling
+      than what I had to see with my very own eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
+      Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at Shoxford. We
+      heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see to the truth of some
+      rumors which had reached him about our style of living. It was the first
+      time he had ever been there; for although he had very often been invited,
+      he could not bear to be under the roof of the daughter, as he said, of his
+      enemy. The Captain, just happening to come home on leave for his autumn
+      holiday, met his father quite at his own door&mdash;the very last place to
+      expect him. He afterward acknowledged that he was not pleased for his
+      father to come 'like a thief in the night.' However, they took him in and
+      made him welcome, and covered up their feelings nicely, as high-bred
+      people do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except so far
+      as now I tell you. A better dinner than usual for two was ready, to
+      celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his holiday; and the
+      old lord, having travelled far that day, was persuaded to sit down with
+      them. The five eldest children (making all except the baby, for you was
+      not born, miss, if you please) they were to have sat up at table, as
+      pretty as could be&mdash;three with their high cushioned stools, and two
+      in their arm-chairs screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with
+      rods in front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding,
+      which they did&mdash;it was a sight to see them! And how they would give
+      to one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo, dat
+      for oo.' Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it! What a
+      blessing for you! All those six dear darlings laid in their little graves
+      within six weeks, with their mother planted under them; and the only
+      wonder is that you yourself was not upon her breast.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in and
+      out while I am about it. It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do assure you,
+      though not at the time of life to understand it. All they children was to
+      have sat up for the sake of their dear father, as I said just now; but
+      because of their grandfather all was ordered back. And back they come, as
+      good as gold, with Master George at the head of them, and asked me what
+      milk-teeth was. Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no dinner if
+      milk-teeth were allowed at it.' The hard old man, with his own teeth
+      false! He deserved to sit down to no other dinner&mdash;and he never did,
+      miss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little ones and
+      answer all their questions; but never having seen a live lord before, and
+      wanting to know if the children would be like him before so very long, I
+      went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of my dears peeped after me. And
+      then, by favor of the parlor-maid&mdash;for they kept neither butler nor
+      footman now&mdash;I saw the Lord Castlewood, sitting at his ease, with a
+      glass of port-wine before him, and my sweet mistress (the Captain's wife,
+      and your mother, if you understand, miss) doing her very best, thinking of
+      her children, to please him and make the polite to him. To me he seemed
+      very much to be thawing to her&mdash;if you can understand, miss, what my
+      meaning is&mdash;and the Captain was looking at them with a smile, as if
+      it were just what he had hoped for. From my own eyesight I can contradict
+      the lies put about by nobody knows who, that the father and the son were
+      at hot words even then.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly
+      persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him. And good
+      enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing wonderful in
+      him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain. But he would not have
+      it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper, but only because he had
+      ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where his coach and four were
+      resting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say, as
+      clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on. 'I am glad I
+      have seen you. There are worse than you. And when the times get better, I
+      will see what I can do.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a man of
+      much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with his nose so
+      stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the wrong way for
+      smiling. I could not tell what the Captain answered, for the door banged
+      on them, and it woke the baby, who was dreaming, perhaps, about his
+      lordship's face, and his little teeth gave him the wind on his chest, and
+      his lungs was like bellows&mdash;bless him!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my
+      testimony. What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and
+      rattling of the rings to please him&mdash;when they put me on the
+      Testament, cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into me, and
+      both my ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have gone too far, with
+      my heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of contradiction, wishful as
+      I was to tell the whole truth in a manner to hurt nobody. And without any
+      single lie or glaze of mine, I do assure you, miss, that I did more harm
+      than good; every body in the room&mdash;a court they called it, and no
+      bigger than my best parlor&mdash;one and all they were convinced that I
+      would swear black was white to save my master and mistress! And certainly
+      I would have done so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for
+      the sake of all they children, if I could have made it stick together, as
+      they do with practice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great
+      mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop, and
+      put her hand to her side, and sigh. And eager as I was for every word of
+      this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny her need of
+      refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks were white, and her
+      full breast trembled. And now she was beginning to make snatches at my
+      hand, as if she saw things she could only tell thus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BETSY'S TALE&mdash;(Continued.)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am only astonished, my dear,&rdquo; said my nurse, as soon as she had had
+      some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring, &ldquo;that you
+      can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the way you do. None of
+      your family could have done it, to my knowledge of their dispositions,
+      much less the baby that was next above you. But it often comes about to go
+      in turns like that; 'one, three, five, and seven is sweet, while two,
+      four, and six is a-squalling with their feet.' But the Lord forgive me for
+      an ill word of them, with their precious little bodies washed, and laying
+      in their patterns till the judgment-day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they pleased to
+      call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips could have a hold
+      of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very things that happened, so
+      that you may fairly judge of them. The Captain came back from going with
+      his father, I am sure, in less than twenty minutes, and smoking a cigar in
+      his elegant way, quite happy and contented, for I saw him down the
+      staircase. As for sign of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead,
+      or fumbling with his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way&mdash;as
+      the stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having been
+      at the beer-barrel&mdash;solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven, there
+      was nothing of the sort about him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs to see
+      about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them talking as
+      pleasant and as natural as they always were together. Not one of them had
+      the smallest sense of trouble hanging over them; and they put away both
+      the decanters and cruets, and came up to bed in their proper order, the
+      master stopping down just to finish his cigar and see to the doors and the
+      bringing up the silver, because there was no man-servant now. And I heard
+      him laughing at some little joke he made as he went into the bedroom. A
+      happier household never went to bed, nor one with better hopes of a happy
+      time to come. And the baby slept beside his parents in his little cot, as
+      his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth wide open.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a good
+      time of it whenever the master first came home and the mistress was taken
+      up with him. We used to count half an hour more in bed, without any of
+      that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to things according to their order,
+      without any body to say any thing. Accordingly we were all snug in bed,
+      and turning over for another tuck of sleep, when there came a most vicious
+      ringing of the outer bell. 'You get up, Susan,' I heard the cook say, for
+      there only was a door between us; and Susan said, 'Blest if I will! Only
+      Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker came.' Not a peg would
+      either of them stir, no more than to call names on one another; so I
+      slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter all the while, like the
+      day of judgment. I felt it to be hard upon me, and I went down cross a
+      little&mdash;just enough to give it well to a body I were not afraid of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss! When I opened the door, I
+      had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on their shoulders,
+      and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging down, and the front of it
+      slouching, like a sack that has been stolen from; and behind it there was
+      an authority with two buttons on his back, and he waited for me to say
+      something; but to do so was beyond me. Not a bit of caution or of fear
+      about my sham dress-up, as the bad folk put it afterward; the whole of
+      such thoughts was beyond me outright, and no thought of any thing came
+      inside me, only to wait and wonder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who seemed
+      to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman, don't you
+      please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will be here, and
+      the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he cried out to a boy
+      who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now, young woman, we must
+      come in if you please, and the least said the soonest mended.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as nigh as
+      may be, any day or night before new moon. 'Oh, Mr. Constable, Mr. Rural
+      Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you ever had a wife, Sir.' Now
+      even this was turned against us as if I had expected it. They said that I
+      must have known who it was, and to a certain length so I did, miss, but
+      only by the dress and the manner of the corpse, and lying with an attitude
+      there was no contradicting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed. My mind was
+      gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it. However, I had thought
+      enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other foolish girls, who
+      would have set up bellowing. Having years to deal with little ones brings
+      knowledge of the rest to us. I think that I must have gone to master's
+      door, where Susan's orders were to put his shaving water in a tin, and
+      fetched him out, with no disturbance, only in his dressing-gown. And when
+      I told him what it was, his rosy color turned like sheets, and he just
+      said, 'Hush!' and nothing more. And guessing what he meant, I ran and put
+      my things on properly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I was fit
+      for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their tongues out for
+      their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day with. And I do assure
+      you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of your coming, though unknown
+      whether male or female, but both most inconvenient then, with things in
+      such a state of things. You have much to answer for, miss, about it; but
+      how was you to help it, though?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body in, and
+      finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use against the door, the
+      two men (who were tired with the weight and fright, I dare say) set down
+      their burden upon these, under a row of hollyhocks, at the end of the row
+      of bee-hives. And here they wiped their foreheads with some rags they had
+      for handkerchiefs, or one of them with his own sleeve, I should say, and,
+      gaining their breath, they began to talk with the boldness of the sunrise
+      over them. But Mr. Rural Polishman, as he was called in those parts, was
+      walking up and down on guard, and despising of their foolish words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window and down
+      the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for I thought that
+      I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was to be done inside. The
+      constable stiffly touched his hat, and marched to the head of the hurdle,
+      and said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Do you know this gentleman?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff
+      hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-looking. The
+      Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no kinder gentleman could
+      there be to those who gave his dues to him. But that man's voice had a low
+      and dirty impertinent sort of a twang with it. Nothing could have been
+      more unlucky. Every thing depended on that fellow in an ignorant
+      neighborhood like that; and his lordship, for such he was now, of course,
+      would not even deign to answer him. He stood over his head in his upright
+      way by a good foot, and ordered him here and there, as the fellow had been
+      expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship. And that made the
+      bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts, and puffed up
+      with authority. And the two miller's men could not help grinning, for he
+      had waved them about like a pair of dogs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally' (as
+      that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a stuck-up dolt
+      he was. For when my master had examined his father, and made his poor body
+      be brought in and spread on the couch in the dining-room, and sent me
+      hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the bottom of Shoxford, Susan peeped
+      in through the crack of the door, with the cook to hold her hand behind,
+      and there she saw the Captain on his knees at the side of his father's
+      corpse, not saying a word, only with his head down. And when the doctor
+      came back with me, with his night-gown positive under his coat, the first
+      thing he said was, 'My dear Sir&mdash;my lord, I mean&mdash;don't take on
+      so; such things will always happen in this world;' which shows that my
+      master was no brute.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any pride
+      and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart, and he said
+      words fit to hang him:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'This is my doing! There is no one else to blame. If my father is dead, I
+      have killed him!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
+      winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage was
+      crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their faces. And
+      of course a good score of them ran away to tell that the Captain had
+      murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with his yoke and cans, and
+      his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and, not being able to hide himself
+      plainly, he pulled out his slate and began to make his bill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
+      dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead with
+      all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies at the
+      depth of his voice and his stature. Then he bolted the door, with only our
+      own people and the doctor and the constable inside. Your mother was
+      sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear, having had a very tiring day the
+      day before, and being well away from the noise of the passage, as well as
+      at a time when they must sleep whenever sleep will come, miss. Bless her
+      gentle heart, what a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
+      happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead. All of us
+      thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased the
+      Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
+      heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having any flow
+      of blood in it. But now, while your father was gone up stairs&mdash;for he
+      knew that his father was dead enough&mdash;to be sure that your mother was
+      quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for trouble, and while I was run
+      away to stop the ranting of the children, old Dr. Diggory and that rural
+      officer were handling poor Lord Castlewood. They set him to their liking,
+      and they cut his clothes off&mdash;so Susan told me afterward&mdash;and
+      then they found why they were forced to do so, which I need not try to
+      tell you, miss. Only they found that he was not dead from any wise
+      visitation, but because he had been shot with a bullet through his heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense to meet
+      what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and he called out
+      'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my master leaped down the
+      stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his strong hand on the old fool's
+      mouth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his staff
+      importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan thought he
+      would have done it. But, instead of that, he said, 'Very well; do your
+      duty. But let me see what you mean by it.' Then he walked back again to
+      the body of his father, and saw that he had been murdered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale! Not a bit of food have you had for
+      hours. I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to once. Let me undo
+      all your things, my dear, and give you something cordial; and then lie
+      down and sleep a bit.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you, nurse,&rdquo; I answered, calling all my little courage back.
+      &ldquo;No sleep for me until I know every word. And to think of all my father
+      had to see and bear! I am not fit to be his daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BETSY'S TALE&mdash;(Concluded.)
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now,&rdquo; continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade her to go
+      on, &ldquo;if I were to tell you every little thing that went on among them,
+      miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or I might say this day
+      fortnight, and then not half be done with it. And the worst of it is that
+      those little things make all the odds in a case of that sort, showing what
+      the great things were. But only a counselor at the Old Bailey could make
+      head or tail of the goings on that followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but himself,
+      whether it were pride (as I always said) or something deeper (as other
+      people thought), he refused to have any one on earth to help him, when he
+      ought to have had the deepest lawyer to be found. The constable cautioned
+      him to say nothing, as it seems is laid down in their orders, for fear of
+      crimination. And he smiled at this, with a high contempt, very fine to
+      see, but not bodily wise. But even that jack-in-office could perceive that
+      the poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs, and his little
+      children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his own position. And
+      yet I must tell you that he would have no denial, but to know what it was
+      that had killed his parent. When old Dr. Diggory's hands were shaking so
+      that his instrument would not bite on the thing lodged in his lordship's
+      back, after passing through and through him, and he was calling for
+      somebody to run for his assistant, who do you think did it for him, Miss
+      Erema? As sure as I sit here, the Captain! His face was like a rock, and
+      his hands no less; and he said, 'Allow me, doctor. I have been in action.'
+      And he fetched out the bullet&mdash;which showed awful nerve, according to
+      my way of thinking&mdash;as if he had been a man with three rows of teeth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and he sat
+      down hard with amazement. You may suppose how this went against him, when
+      all he desired was to know and tell the truth; and people said that of
+      course he got it out, after a bottleful of doctors failed, because he knew
+      best how it was put in.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you please
+      or not,' my master said. 'Constable, you may come and point it out, unless
+      you prefer going to your breakfast. My word is enough that I shall not run
+      away. Otherwise, as you have acted on your own authority, I shall act on
+      mine, and tie you until you have obtained a warrant. Take your choice, my
+      man; and make it quickly, while I offer it.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand to be
+      made much of. But seeing how capable the Captain was of acting up to any
+      thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as you please for the
+      present,' weighting his voice on those last three words, as much as to
+      say, 'Pretty soon you will be handcuffed.' 'Then,' said my master, 'I
+      shall also insist on the presence of two persons, simply to use their eyes
+      without any fear or favor. One is my gardener, a very honest man, but apt
+      to be late in the morning. The other is a faithful servant, who has been
+      with us for several years. Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy Bowen. You
+      may also bring two witnesses, if you choose. And the miller's men, of
+      course, will come. But order back all others.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the constable
+      answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders. 'I am sure that all
+      of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum scrape. But my duty is
+      my duty.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no more; for
+      the constable said that the miller's men, who had first found the late
+      Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him. And Jacob Rigg, whose legs
+      were far apart (as he said) from trenching celery, took us through the
+      kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which saved every body knowing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and then
+      along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember. And along that we
+      went to a stile on the right, without any house for a long way off. And
+      from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of grass land to the little
+      river, and over a hand-bridge, and up another meadow full of trees and
+      bushes, to a gate which came out into the road again a little to this side
+      of the Moonstock Inn, saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran
+      straight up the valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to the
+      same inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now as I
+      saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about the
+      distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would be beyond
+      me. You must be on the place itself; and I never could carry distances&mdash;no,
+      nor even clever men, I have heard my master say. But when he came to that
+      stile he stopped and turned upon all of us clearly, and as straight as any
+      man of men could be. 'Here I saw my father last, at a quarter past ten
+      o'clock last night, or within a few minutes of that time.' I wished to see
+      him to his inn, but he would not let me do so, and he never bore
+      contradiction. He said that he knew the way well, having fished more than
+      thirty years ago up and down this stream. He crossed this stile, and we
+      shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I looked into his face,
+      and he said, 'My boy, God bless you!' Knowing his short ways, I did not
+      even look after him, but turned away, and went straight home along this
+      road. Upon my word as an Englishman, and as an officer of her Majesty,
+      that is all I know of it. Now let us go on to the&mdash;to the other
+      place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke the
+      simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us. But the constable
+      thought it his duty to ask,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord? For he fell within a hundred
+      yards of this.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I heard no sound of any shot whatever. I heard an owl hooting as I went
+      home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of horses. I
+      have said enough. Let us go forward.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and left, as
+      if he had been wrong. He signed to the miller's man to lead the way, and
+      my lord walked proudly after him. The path was only a little narrow track,
+      with the grass, like a front of hair, falling over it on the upper side
+      and on the under, dropping away like side curls; such a little path that I
+      was wondering how a great lord could walk over it. Then we came down a
+      steep place to a narrow bridge across a shallow river&mdash;abridge made
+      of only two planks and a rail, with a prop or two to carry them. And one
+      end of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and stubby old
+      hawthorn-tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good way. And just
+      above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry cut into the
+      little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden bridge, a
+      water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the water to run in, when
+      the farmer pleases; but now there was no water in it, only gravel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had much
+      intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right beneath the
+      old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass and the gravel made
+      by his lordship where he fell and lay. And it seemed that he must have
+      fallen off the bridge, yet not into the water, but so as to have room for
+      his body, if you see, miss, partly on the bank, and partly in the hollow
+      of the meadow trough.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked. 'Have you found
+      any weapon or implement?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable answered,
+      in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business. 'My first duty was
+      to save life, if I could. These men, upon finding the body, ran for me,
+      and knowing who it was, I came with it to your house.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'You acted for the best, my man. Now search the place carefully, while I
+      stand here. I am on my parole, I shall not run away. Jacob, go down and
+      help them.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke in such
+      a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without thinking to obey
+      him. So the constable and the rest went down, while the Captain and I
+      stood upon the plank, looking at the four of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes, without
+      finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in which the poor lord
+      fell, and of these the constable pulled out a book and made a pencil
+      memorial. But presently Jacob, a spry sort of man, cried, 'Hulloa!
+      whatever have I got hold of here? Many a good craw-fish have I pulled out
+      from this bank when the water comes down the gully, but never one exactly
+      like this here afore.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the hawthorn
+      stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby! It's loaded, loaded one barrel,
+      don't you see? Put it down, with the muzzle away from me.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said. 'You understand a gun, and this
+      goes off just the same.' Constable Jobbins have no fear. 'Yes, it is
+      exactly as I thought. This pistol is one of the double-barreled pair which
+      I bought to take to India. The barrels are rifled; it shoots as true as
+      any rifle, and almost as hard up to fifty yards. The right barrel has been
+      fired, the other is still loaded. The bullet I took from my father's body
+      most certainly came from this pistol.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a man
+      very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at constable and
+      miller's men, if only law was with him. 'Can 'e give a clear account, and
+      let me chuck 'un in the river?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered; while
+      the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a fight half
+      so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own mother having been
+      blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet came down all right, miss,
+      and had him three months afterward, according to his own confession;
+      nevertheless, he came up now as if he had always been upright, in the
+      world, and he said, 'My lord, can you explain all this?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he were
+      measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own mind. Proud
+      as your father was, as proud as ever can be without cruelty, it is my firm
+      belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's judgment, that if the man's eyes
+      had come up to my master's sense of what was virtuous, my master would
+      have up and told him the depth and contents of his mind and heart,
+      although totally gone beyond him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little eyes, hard
+      to put up with. 'Have you nothing to say, my lord? Then I am afeared I
+      must ask you just to come along of me.' And my master went with him, miss,
+      as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said, and even Jacob fancied, was a
+      conscience sign of guilt.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very nearly as
+      much as I do. To tell how the grief was broken to your mother, and what
+      her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the pillows and cried, while
+      things went on from bad to worse, and a verdict of 'willful murder' was
+      brought against your father by the crowner's men, and you come headlong,
+      without so much as the birds in the ivy to chirp about you, right into the
+      thick of the worst of it. I do assure you, Miss Erema, when I look at your
+      bright eyes and clear figure, the Lord in heaven, who has made many
+      cripples, must have looked down special to have brought you as you are.
+      For trouble upon trouble fell in heaps, faster than I can wipe my eyes to
+      think. To begin with, all the servants but myself and gardener Jacob ran
+      away. They said that the old lord haunted the house, and walked with his
+      hand in the middle of his heart, pulling out a bullet if he met any body,
+      and sighing 'murder' three times, till every hair was crawling. I took it
+      on myself to fetch the Vicar of the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they
+      do in Wales. A nice kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a
+      velvet skull-cap, and waited with his legs up. But whether he felt that
+      the power was not in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of
+      the Church, they never made any opportunity between them to meet and have
+      it out, miss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down
+      pestilence upon that house. A horrible disease, the worst I ever met,
+      broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my heart and of
+      every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never came from heaven.
+      They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and three days, and laid in the
+      church-yard at one another's side, with little beds of mould to the
+      measure of their stature, and their little carts and drums, as they made
+      me promise, ready for the judgment-day. Oh, my heart was broken, miss, my
+      heart was broken! I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we put all
+      their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further end of the
+      house), when she was a little better of grievous pain and misery (for
+      being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up on the pillow, looking
+      like a bride almost, except that she had what brides hasn't&mdash;a little
+      red thing in white flannel at her side&mdash;then she says to me, 'I am
+      ready, Betsy; it is high time for all of them to see their little sister.
+      They always love the baby so, whenever there is a new one. And they are
+      such men and women to it. They have been so good this time that I have
+      never heard them once. And I am sure that I can trust them, Betsy, not to
+      make the baby cry. I do so long to see the darlings. Now do not even
+      whisper to them not to make a noise. They are too good to require it; and
+      it would hurt their little feelings.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord was, than
+      have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the mother so. She
+      sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the other round your little
+      head, and her beautiful hair was come out of its loops, and the color in
+      her cheeks was like a shell. Past the fringe of the curtain, and behind it
+      too, her soft bright eyes were a-looking here and there for the first to
+      come in of her children. The Lord only knows what lies I told her, so as
+      to be satisfied without them. First I said they were all gone for a walk;
+      and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and then that they had got
+      the measles. That last she believed, because it was worse than what I had
+      said before of them; and she begged to see Dr. Diggory about it, and I
+      promised that she should as soon as he had done his dinner. And then, with
+      a little sigh, being very weak, she went down into her nest again, with
+      only you to keep her company.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said; enough
+      for one day at any rate. But there was almost worse to come. For when I
+      was having a little sit down stairs, with my supper and half pint of ale
+      (that comes like drawing a long breath to us when spared out of sickrooms,
+      miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad
+      business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up
+      the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it
+      for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young girl up, by knowing what
+      their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the candle-sight of
+      him made my heart go low.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his clothes were
+      still in decency, they had great holes in them, and the gloss all gone to
+      a smell of mere hedges and ditches. The hat on his head was quite out of
+      the fashion, even if it could be called a hat at all, and his beautiful
+      beard had no sign of a comb, and he looked as old again as he had looked a
+      month ago.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'I know all about it. You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took him to
+      the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us. 'I know that my
+      children are all dead and buried, except the one that was not born yet.
+      Ill news flies quick. I know all about it. George, Henrietta, Jack, Alf,
+      little Vi, and Tiny. I have seen their graves and counted them, while the
+      fool of a policeman beat his gloves through the hedge within a rod of me.
+      Oh yes, I have much to be thankful for. My life is in my own hand now.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of God in
+      heaven, don't talk like that. Think of your sweet wife, your dear lady.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet frightful to
+      look at, 'I am come to see my wife. Go and let her know it, according to
+      your own discretion.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on and write
+      to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between them; but I give
+      you my word that I had no discretion, but from pity and majesty obeyed
+      him. I knew that he must have broken prison, and by good rights ought to
+      be starving. But I could no more offer him the cold ham and pullet than
+      take him by his beard and shake him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits were
+      wandering after her children. 'At last, at last! Then he will find them
+      all.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I thought
+      of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a week&mdash;for
+      the little ones went to their graves in pairs to save ceremony; likewise
+      of the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like our Lord's way of talking
+      at all, but arguing instead of comforting. And not to catch her up in that
+      weak state, I said, 'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the rest put
+      together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but putting her
+      hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse on the stairs. 'Do
+      bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and then let me go where my
+      children are.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have allowed
+      to her, but more than all about her children, which she could only have
+      been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her except only me, miss, and
+      you, miss, and for you to breathe words was impossible. All you did was to
+      lie very quiet, tucked up into your mother's side; and as regular as the
+      time-piece went, wide came your eyes and your mouth to be fed. If your
+      nature had been cross or squally, 'baby's coffin No. 7' would have come
+      after all the other six, which the thief of a carpenter put down on his
+      bill as if it was so many shavings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work to do
+      to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming home, and a man
+      about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the fender; and if I were
+      to try to put before you the way that those two for the last time of their
+      lives went on to one another&mdash;the one like a man and the other like a
+      woman, full of sobs and choking&mdash;my eyes would be in such a state
+      to-morrow that the whole of them would pity and cheat me. And I ought to
+      think of you as well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when you
+      was not born yet. And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when yourself
+      was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done over your own
+      little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for the night, and no
+      appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it all over, if you please,
+      and let him go out of the backdoor again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might have
+      been to say more words, because the fellows who call themselves officers,
+      without any commission, were after him. False it was to say, as was said,
+      that he got out of Winchester jail through money. That story was quite of
+      a piece with the rest. His own strength and skill it was that brought him
+      out triumphantly, as the scratches on his hands and cheeks might show. He
+      did it for the sake of his wife, no doubt. When he heard that the children
+      were all in their graves, and their mother in the way to follow them,
+      madness was better than his state of mind, as the officers told me when
+      they could not catch him&mdash;and sorry they would have been to do it, I
+      believe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my nature;
+      and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing said on the
+      landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks. They must have said
+      'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and the Captain, as firm a man
+      as ever lived, had lines on his face that were waiting for tears, if
+      nature should overcome bringing up. Then I heard the words, 'for my sake,'
+      and the other said, 'for your sake,' a pledge that passed between them,
+      making breath more long than life is. But when your poor father was by the
+      back-door, going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned sharp round,
+      and he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at your service, Sir.'
+      'You have been the best woman in the world,' he said&mdash;'the bravest,
+      best, and kindest. I leave my wife and my last child to you. The Lord has
+      been hard on me, but He will spare me those two. I do hope and believe He
+      will.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords&mdash;no
+      doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the Moonstock
+      Bridge to search our house for the runaway. And the Captain took my hand,
+      and said, 'I trust them to you. Hide the clothes I took off, that they may
+      not know I have been here. I trust my wife and little babe to you, and may
+      God bless you, Betsy!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a sadder
+      face was never seen. As he slipped through the hollyhocks I said to
+      myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a broken heart
+      behind.' And your dear mother died on the Saturday night. Oh my! oh my!
+      how sad it was!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AT THE BANK
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had often
+      proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can ever be
+      exhausted. And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry for eager
+      listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted each sad fact as it
+      went by. At any rate, be it this way or that, a heavy and sore heart was
+      left me, too distracted for asking questions, and almost too depressed to
+      grieve.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every where,
+      and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear how she
+      scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment believe that her
+      heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of the west country is.
+      Major Hockin had been to see me last night, for he never forgot a promise,
+      and had left me in good hands, and now he came again in the morning.
+      According to his usual way of taking up an opinion, he would not see how
+      distracted I was, and full of what I had heard overnight, but insisted on
+      dragging me off to the bank, that being in his opinion of more importance
+      than old stories. I longed to ask Betsy some questions which had been
+      crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while I lay awake at night;
+      however, I was obliged to yield to the business of the morning, and the
+      good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world; and he really gave me
+      no time to think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of it,&rdquo;
+       he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he came in, and
+      had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. &ldquo;You must never think
+      twice of what old women say&rdquo; (Mrs. Strouss was some twenty years younger
+      than himself); &ldquo;they always go prating and finding mares'-nests, and then
+      they always cry. Now did she cry, Erema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, &ldquo;No, not one
+      drop;&rdquo; but the truth was against me, and I said, &ldquo;How could she help it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Exactly!&rdquo; the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought he was
+      ordered to stop. &ldquo;No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do it. My dear, I
+      beg your pardon, but you are so very simple! You have not been among the
+      eye-openers of the west. This comes of the obsolete Uncle Sam.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would rather be simple than 'cute!'&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;and my own Uncle Sam
+      will be never obsolete.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this far
+      country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and with this,
+      which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand and stood upon the
+      footway of a narrow and crowded lane.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Move on! move on!&rdquo; cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
+      intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at him. But
+      he only said, &ldquo;Now move on, will you?&rdquo; without any wrath, and as if he
+      were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing still. Nobody heeded him
+      any more than if he had said, &ldquo;I am starving,&rdquo; but it seemed a rude thing
+      among ladies. Before I had time to think more about this&mdash;for I
+      always like to think of things&mdash;I was led through a pair of narrow
+      swinging doors, and down a close alley between two counters full of people
+      paying and receiving money. The Major, who always knew how to get on,
+      found a white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered to
+      him in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other before,
+      and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if I were a
+      bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he said, &ldquo;Step this
+      way, young lady. Major Hockin, step this way, Sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The young lady &ldquo;stepped that way&rdquo; in wonder as to what English English is,
+      and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where the daylight had
+      glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use them. But as it cared very
+      little to do this, from angular disabilities, three bright gas-lights were
+      burning in soft covers, and fed the little room with a rich, sweet glow.
+      And here shone one of the partners of the bank, a very pleasant-looking
+      gentleman, and very nicely dressed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Hockin,&rdquo; he said, after looking at the card, &ldquo;will you kindly sit
+      down, while I make one memorandum? I had the pleasure of knowing your
+      uncle well&mdash;at least I believe that the late Sir Rufus was your
+      uncle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not so,&rdquo; replied the Major, well pleased, however. &ldquo;I fear that I am too
+      old to have had any uncle lately. Sir Rufus Hockin was my first cousin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, indeed! To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus being much
+      your senior, the mistake was only natural. Now what can I do to serve you,
+      or perhaps this young lady&mdash;Miss Hockin, I presume?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said his visitor, &ldquo;not Miss Hockin. I ought to have introduced her,
+      but for having to make my own introduction. Mr. Shovelin, this lady is
+      Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving child of the late Captain George
+      Castlewood, properly speaking, Lord Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good manners
+      and his own particular courtesy allowed. And I fancied that he felt that I
+      could not be a Hockin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, dear, dear me!&rdquo; was all he said, though he wanted to say, &ldquo;God bless
+      me!&rdquo; or something more sudden and stronger. &ldquo;Lord Castlewood's daughter&mdash;poor
+      George Castlewood! My dear young lady, is it possible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I am my father's child,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;and I am proud to hear that I am
+      like him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you well may be,&rdquo; he answered, putting on his spectacles. &ldquo;You are
+      astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it, or at least, you
+      will not be angry with me, when you know that your father was my dearest
+      friend at Harrow; and that when his great trouble fell upon him&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun himself.
+      He could not tell me that it was himself who had found all the money for
+      my father's escape, which cost much cash as well as much good feeling.
+      Neither did I, at the time, suspect it, being all in the dark upon such
+      points. Not knowing what to say, I looked from the banker to the Major,
+      and back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can you tell me the exact time?&rdquo; the latter asked. &ldquo;I am due in the
+      Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever happens.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will want a swift horse,&rdquo; Mr. Shovelin answered, &ldquo;or else this will
+      be an exception to your rule. It is twenty-one minutes past twelve now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while? She will be very quiet;
+      she is always so. Erema, will you wait for me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between them.
+      Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a talk with me
+      about dearer matters than money, having children of his own, and being (as
+      his eyes and forehead showed) a man of peculiar views, perhaps, but
+      clearly of general good-will.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour&rdquo;&mdash;the Major intensified
+      his intentions always&mdash;&ldquo;in three-quarters of an hour I shall be back.
+      Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and not say a word, nor
+      make any attempt to do any thing every body is not used to.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with a very
+      gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major Hockin was one of
+      those people, so often to be met with, whom any one likes or dislikes
+      according to the changes of their behavior. But Mr. Shovelin was different
+      from that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Castlewood, take this chair,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;a hard one, but better than
+      a stool, perhaps. Now how am I to talk to you&mdash;as an inquirer upon
+      business matters, or as the daughter of my old friend? Your smile is
+      enough. Well, and you must talk to me in the same unreasonable manner.
+      That being clearly established between us, let us proceed to the next
+      point. Your father, my old friend, wandered from the track, and
+      unfortunately lost his life in a desolate part of America.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No; oh no. It was nothing like that. He might have been alive, and here
+      at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and drop of his.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic&mdash;I mean, look at
+      things more soberly. You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt; George
+      Castlewood always would have that. He was a most commanding man. You do
+      not quite resemble him in that respect, I think.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?&rdquo; I cried out. &ldquo;You were at school
+      with him, and knew his nature. Was it possible for him to do it, Sir?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my dear old
+      father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age there. Not that your
+      grandfather, if I may say it without causing pain to you, was either green
+      or agreeable. He was an uncommonly sharp old man; I might even say a hard
+      one. As you never saw him, you will not think me rude in saying that much.
+      Your love, of course, is for your father; and if your father had had a
+      father of larger spirit about money, he might have been talking to me
+      pleasantly now, instead of&mdash;instead of all these sad things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please not to slip away from me,&rdquo; I said, bluntly, having so often met
+      with that. &ldquo;You believe, as every good person does, that my father was
+      wholly innocent. But do tell me who could have done it instead. Somebody
+      must have done it; that seems clear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration; &ldquo;somebody
+      did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the whole affair.
+      'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say. Two persons only could have had any
+      motive, so far as wealth and fortune go. The first and most prominent,
+      your father, who, of course, would come into every thing (which made the
+      suspicion so hot and strong); and the other, a very nice gentleman, whom
+      it is wholly impossible to suspect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you sure of that? People have more than suspected&mdash;they have
+      condemned&mdash;my father. After that, I can suspect any body. Who is it?
+      Please to tell me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be called. He
+      would not claim the title, or even put forward his right in any way, until
+      he had proof of your dear father's death; and even then he behaved so well&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did it! he did it!&rdquo; I cried, in hot triumph. &ldquo;My father's name shall
+      be clear of it. Can there be any doubt that he did it? How very simple the
+      whole of it becomes! Nothing astonishes me, except the stupidity of
+      people. He had every thing to gain, and nothing to lose&mdash;a bad man,
+      no doubt&mdash;though I never heard of him. And putting it all on my
+      father, of course, to come in himself, and abide his time, till the misery
+      killed my father. How simple, how horribly simple, it becomes!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden. Excuse me a minute&rdquo;&mdash;as
+      a silver bell struck&mdash;&ldquo;I am wanted in the next room. But before I go,
+      let me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to dismiss that new
+      idea from your mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured out for
+      me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased. His kind and handsome face grew
+      hard. He had taken me for a nice young lady, never much above the
+      freezing-point, and he had found me boil over in a moment. I was sorry to
+      have grieved him; but if he had heard Betsy Bowen's story, and seen her
+      tell it, perhaps he would have allowed for me. I sat down again, having
+      risen in my warmth, and tried to quiet and command myself by thinking of
+      the sad points only. Of these there were plenty to make pictures of, the
+      like of which had kept me awake all night; and I knew by this time, from
+      finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that men think a woman
+      may well be all tears, but has no right to even the shadow of a frown.
+      That is their own prerogative.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which had also
+      vexed him&mdash;to judge by the way in which he threw them down&mdash;I
+      spoke very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my display of
+      violence, but that if he knew all, he would pardon me; and he pardoned me
+      in a moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood,&rdquo; he continued, gently,
+      &ldquo;that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which I think will
+      content you. In the first place, the present Lord Castlewood is, and
+      always has been, an exemplary man, of great piety and true gentleness; in
+      the next place, he is an invalid, who can not walk a mile with a crutch to
+      help him, and so he has been for a great many years; and lastly, if you
+      have no faith in the rest, he was in Italy at the time, and remained there
+      for some years afterward. There he received and sheltered your poor father
+      after his sad calamity, and was better than a brother to him, as your
+      father, in a letter to me, declared. So you see that you must acquit him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is not enough. I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he helped
+      my father, for he must have thought him innocent. Now, Mr. Shovelin, you
+      were my father's friend, and you are such a clever man&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How do you know that, young lady? What a hurry you are always in!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, there can be no doubt about it. But you must not ask reasons, if I am
+      so quick. Now please to tell me what your own conclusion is. I can talk of
+      it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I never think of any thing else.
+      Only tell me what you really believe, and I will keep it most strictly to
+      myself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure you will do that,&rdquo; he answered, smiling, &ldquo;not only from the
+      power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to say. At
+      first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my certainty of
+      your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong) that the old lord
+      had done it himself; for he always had been of a headstrong and violent
+      nature, which I am sure will never re-appear in you. But the whole of the
+      evidence went against this, and little as I think of evidence, especially
+      at an inquest, your father's behavior confirmed what was sworn to. Your
+      father knew that his father had not made away with himself in a moment of
+      passion, otherwise he was not the man to break prison and fly trial. He
+      would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there are many things that I can
+      not explain; I can not help that; I will face it out. Condemn me, if you
+      like, and I will suffer.' From your own remembrance of your father's
+      nature, is not that certainly the course he would have taken?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not an atom of doubt about it. His flight and persistent dread of
+      trial puzzle me beyond imagination. Of his life he was perfectly reckless,
+      except, at least, for my sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I know that he was,&rdquo; Mr. Shovelin replied; &ldquo;as a boy he was wonderfully
+      fearless. As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of children, he might have
+      begun to be otherwise. But when all those were gone, and only a poor
+      little baby left&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I suppose I was all that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Forgive me. I am looking back at you. Who could dream that you would ever
+      even live, without kith or kin to care for you? Your life was saved by
+      some good woman who took you away to Wales. But when you were such a poor
+      little relic, and your father could scarcely have seen you, to have such a
+      mite left must have been almost a mockery of happiness. That motive could
+      not have been strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor from doing
+      what honor at once demanded. Your father would have returned and
+      surrendered as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the
+      balance there had been only you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would. I was never very much as a
+      counter-balance. Yet my father loved me.&rdquo; I could have told him of the
+      pledge exchanged&mdash;&ldquo;For my sake,&rdquo; and, &ldquo;Yes, for your sake,&rdquo; with love
+      and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute&mdash;but I did not say
+      a word about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He loved you afterward, of course. But a man who has had seven children
+      is not enthusiastic about a baby. There must have been a larger motive.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But when I was the only one left alive. Surely I became valuable then. I
+      can not have been such a cipher.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, for a long time you would have been,&rdquo; replied the Saturnian banker.
+      &ldquo;I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were a fortnight
+      old. They may have begun already to be irresistible. Excuse me; you have
+      led me into the light vein, when speaking of a most sad matter. You must
+      blame your self-assertion for it. All I wish to convey to you is my belief
+      that something wholly unknown to us, some dark mystery of which we have no
+      inkling, lies at the bottom of this terrible affair. Some strange motive
+      there must have been, strong enough even to overcome all ordinary sense of
+      honor, and an Englishman's pride in submitting to the law, whatever may be
+      the consequence. Consider that his 'flight from justice,' as it was
+      called, of course, by every one, condemned his case and ruined his repute.
+      Even for that he would not have cared so much as for his own sense of
+      right. And though he was a very lively fellow, as I first remember him,
+      full of tricks and jokes, and so on, which in this busy age are out of
+      date, I am certain that he always had a stern sense of right. One never
+      knows how love affairs and weakness about children may alter almost any
+      man; but my firm conviction is that my dear old school-fellow, George
+      Castlewood, even with a wife and lovely children hanging altogether upon
+      his life, not only would not have broken jail, but would calmly have given
+      up his body to be hanged&mdash;pardon me, my dear, for putting it so
+      coarsely&mdash;if there had not been something paramount to override even
+      apparent honor. What it can have been I have no idea, and I presume you
+      have none.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;None whatever,&rdquo; I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze. &ldquo;I am
+      quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a thing. It has
+      always seemed to me so natural that my dear father, being shamefully
+      condemned, because appearances were against him, and nobody could enter
+      into him, should, for the sake of his wife and children, or even of one
+      child like me, depart or banish himself, or emigrate, or, as they might
+      call it, run away. Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was
+      the only straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can not see things as men see them. We must not expect it of you,&rdquo;
+       Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior smile, which
+      reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he listened to what, in his
+      opinion, was only female reason; &ldquo;but, dear me, here is Major Hockin come!
+      Punctuality is the soul of business.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I always declare,&rdquo; cried the Major, who was more than three-quarters
+      of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him. &ldquo;My watch keeps time
+      to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second. Well, I hope you have
+      settled all questions of finance, and endowed my young maid with a
+      fortune.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far from that,&rdquo; Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different from
+      that he used to me, &ldquo;we have not even said one word of business; all that
+      has been left for your return. Am I to understand that you are by
+      appointment or relationship the guardian of this young lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;God forbid!&rdquo; cried Major Hockin, shortly. I thought it very rude of him,
+      yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his glasses up and lifted
+      his wiry crest of hair. &ldquo;Not that she is bad, I mean, but good, very good;
+      indeed, I may say the very best girl ever known outside of my own family.
+      My cousin, Colonel Gundry, who owns an immense estate in the most
+      auriferous district of all California, but will not spoil his splendid
+      property by mining, he will&mdash;he will tell you the very same thing,
+      Sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very glad to hear it,&rdquo; said the banker, smiling at me, while I
+      wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises. &ldquo;Now I really
+      fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my oldest friend
+      may well be preferred to business. But now we will turn at once to
+      business, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      COUSIN MONTAGUE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called his
+      signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy frigate or
+      accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps very promptly, one
+      clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a small strong-box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No plate,&rdquo; Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest with
+      sorrow; &ldquo;but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema. One ounce of diamonds
+      is worth a ton of plate.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, &ldquo;I fear that you will
+      find nothing of mercantile value. Thank you, Mr. Robinson; by-and-by
+      perhaps we shall trouble you. Strictly speaking, perhaps I should require
+      the presence of your father's lawyer, or of some one producing probate,
+      ere I open this box, Miss Castlewood. But having you here, and Major
+      Hockin, and knowing what I do about the matter (which is one of personal
+      confidence), I will dispense with formalities. We have given your father's
+      solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested his attention, but he
+      never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will dispense with him. You
+      see that the seal is unbroken; you know your father's favorite seal, no
+      doubt. The key is nothing; it was left to my charge. You wish that I
+      should open this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-handled
+      paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box, whose weight was
+      chiefly of itself. Some cotton-wool lay on the top to keep the
+      all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue foolscap paper, partly
+      covered with clear but crooked writing, and under that some little twists
+      of silver paper, screwed as if there had been no time to tie them, and a
+      packet of letters held together by a glittering bracelet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Poor fellow!&rdquo; Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath, and the
+      Major had the courtesy to be silent. &ldquo;This is his will; of no value, I
+      fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to you his daughter.
+      Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to his lawyers?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Open it, and never think of them,&rdquo; said I. &ldquo;Like the rest, they have
+      forsaken him. Please to read it to yourself, and then tell us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I wish I had known this before!&rdquo; cried the banker, after a rapid
+      glance or two. &ldquo;Very kind, very flattering, I am sure! Yes, I will do my
+      duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the case. He has left me
+      sole executor, and trustee of all his property, for the benefit of his
+      surviving child. Yet he never gave me the smallest idea of expecting me to
+      do this for him. Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old box
+      opened years ago.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We must look at things as they are,&rdquo; said Major Hockin, for I could say
+      nothing. &ldquo;The question is, what do you mean to do now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing whatever,&rdquo; said the banker, crisply, being displeased at the
+      other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed himself to me:
+      &ldquo;Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon my old friend's
+      confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.' A banker must never
+      encroach upon the province of the lawyer. But so far as a layman may
+      judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have to transfer to me the care of
+      this young lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I shall be only too happy, I assure you,&rdquo; the Major answered, truthfully.
+      &ldquo;My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I&mdash;the very
+      greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental feelings; as you know,
+      Erema. But&mdash;but, I am not so young as I was; and I have to develop my
+      property.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of which she no longer forms a part,&rdquo; Mr. Shovelin answered, with a smile
+      at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the other's calm
+      abandonment. &ldquo;You will find me prompt and proud to claim her, as soon as I
+      am advised that this will is valid; and that I shall learn to-morrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of tears, and
+      I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my father, as he said
+      in so many words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I hope it is valid! How I hope it is!&rdquo; I exclaimed, turning round to
+      the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely,&rdquo; he continued, &ldquo;as we are all here, we should not neglect the
+      opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this box. To me it appears
+      that we are bound to do so; that it is our plain duty to ascertain&mdash;Why,
+      there might even be a later will. Erema, my dear, you must be most anxious
+      to get to the bottom of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be foiled. &ldquo;We
+      must leave that to Mr. Shovelin,&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then for the present we will seal it down again,&rdquo; the banker answered,
+      quietly; &ldquo;we can see that there is no other will, and a later one would
+      scarcely be put under this. The other little packets, whatever they may
+      be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps, rather than of importance. They
+      will keep till we have more leisure.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure,&rdquo; said the
+      Major, finding that he could take no more. &ldquo;We ought to be, and we are,
+      most grateful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well,&rdquo; the banker answered, as we began to move, &ldquo;such things do not
+      happen every day. But there is no friend like an old friend, Erema, as I
+      mean to call you now. I was to have been your godfather; but I fear that
+      you never have been baptized.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What!&rdquo; cried the Major, staring at us both. &ldquo;Is such a thing possible in
+      a Christian land? Oh, how I have neglected my duty to the Church! Come
+      back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it. The church there is
+      under my orders, I should hope; and we will have a dinner party afterward.
+      What a horrible neglect of duty!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how could I help it?&rdquo; I exclaimed, with some terror at Major Hockin's
+      bristling hair. &ldquo;I can not remember&mdash;I am sure I can not say. It may
+      have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was no time in England.
+      At any rate, my father is not to be blamed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Papistical baptism is worse than none,&rdquo; the Major said, impressively.
+      &ldquo;Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right. You shall not be a
+      savage always. We will take the opportunity to change your name. Erema is
+      popish and outlandish; one scarcely knows how to pronounce it. You shall
+      have a good English Christian name&mdash;Jemima, Jane, or Sophy. Trust me
+      to know a good name. Trust me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Jemima!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being called
+      Jemima! Rather would I never be baptized at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am no judge of names,&rdquo; he answered, smiling, as he shook hands with us;
+      &ldquo;but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be called just what
+      you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I please to be called what my father called me. It may be unlucky, as
+      a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce it. However, it
+      will do very well for me. You wish to see me, then, to-morrow, Mr.
+      Shovelin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure. I do not
+      run away very early. Come at half past four to this door, and knock. I
+      hear every sound at this door in my room; and the place will be growing
+      quiet then.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed with
+      iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the brawl and roar
+      of a London street.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now where shall we go?&rdquo; the Major asked, as soon as he had found a cab
+      again; for he was very polite in that way. &ldquo;You kept early hours with your
+      'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-witted man, but most
+      amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very often are. Now will you
+      come and dine with me? I can generally dine, as you, with virtuous
+      indignation, found out at Southampton. But we are better friends now, Miss
+      Heathen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for,&rdquo; I answered, very
+      gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness still was
+      uppermost. &ldquo;I will go where you like. I am quite at your orders, because
+      Betsy Bowen is busy now. She will not have done her work till six
+      o'clock.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well done!&rdquo; he cried. &ldquo;Bravo, Young America! Frankness is the finest of
+      all good manners. And what a lot of clumsy deception it saves! Then let us
+      go and dine. I will imitate your truthfulness. It was two words for
+      myself, and one for you. The air of London always makes me hungry after
+      too much country air. It is wrong altogether, but I can not help it. And
+      going along, I smell hungry smells coming out of deep holes with a plate
+      at the top. Hungry I mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation
+      is&mdash;when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken
+      his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick
+      this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d&mdash;&mdash;d&mdash;my
+      dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped
+      Cockle,' at the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute for
+      something special, something esteemed by the very clever people, and only
+      to be found in true virtue here. And he told me that luxury and
+      self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the present age, and how he
+      admired a man who came here to protest against Epicureans, by dining
+      (liquors not included) for the sum of three and sixpence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to it
+      properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all the
+      talking to himself, according to his practice. And I might not even have
+      been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles was like, except
+      for a little thing which happened there. The room, at the head of a
+      twisting staircase, was low and dark, and furnished almost like a
+      farmhouse kitchen. It had no carpet, nor even a mat, but a floor of black
+      timber, and a ceiling colored blue, with stars and comets, and a full moon
+      near the fire-place. On either side of the room stood narrow tables
+      endwise to the walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like settles,
+      forming thus a double set of little stalls or boxes, with scarcely space
+      enough between for waiters, more urgent than New York firemen, to push
+      their steaming and breathless way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Square or round, miss?&rdquo; said one of them to me as soon as the Major had
+      set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally toward criticism
+      of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such ordeal; and he cleverly
+      whipped a stand for something dirty, over something still dirtier, on the
+      cloth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't understand what you mean,&rdquo; I replied to his highly zealous
+      aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which vexed me.
+      &ldquo;I have never received such a question before. Major Hockin, will you
+      kindly answer him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Square,&rdquo; said the Major; &ldquo;square for both.&rdquo; And the waiter, with a glance
+      of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, your mind is all up in the sky,&rdquo; my companion began to
+      remonstrate. &ldquo;You ought to know better after all your travels.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so,&rdquo; I said, pointing to the
+      Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; &ldquo;but do tell me what he meant,
+      if you can. Is it about the formation of the soup?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, my dear. Soup is high treason here until night, when they make it
+      of the leavings. His honest desire was to know whether you would have a
+      grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you know, or of beef,
+      which, by the same law of nature, seems always to be square, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, I see,&rdquo; I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology, but at
+      the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon me. A
+      gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low box, and stood
+      calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself) gazing over the wooden
+      back at me, who thus sat facing him. And Major Hockin, following my
+      glance, stood up and turned round to see to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What! Cousin Montague! Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of lighting
+      on you here? Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of room. Let me
+      introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood. Miss Castlewood, this
+      is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my lamented first cousin Sir Rufus, of
+      whom you have heard so much. Well, to be sure! I have not seen you for an
+      age. My dear fellow, now how are you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where. Major, I am most
+      delighted to see you. Over and over again I have been at the point of
+      starting for Bruntsea Island&mdash;it is an island now, isn't it? My
+      father would never believe that it was till I proved it from the number of
+      rabbits that came up. However, not a desolate island now, if it contains
+      you and all your energies, and Miss Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not an island, and it never shall be,&rdquo; the Major cried, knocking a
+      blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously. &ldquo;It never was an
+      island, and it never shall be. My intention is to reclaim it altogether.
+      Oh, here come the squares. Well done! well done! I quite forget the proper
+      thing to have to drink. Are the cockles in the pan, Mr. Waiter? Quite
+      right, then; ten minutes is the proper time; but they know that better
+      than I do. I am very sorry, Montague, that you have dined.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon
+      afterward. But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be fed up
+      at short intervals. You can understand that, perhaps, Miss Castlewood. It
+      makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know. The ladies once came only
+      twice to feed, but now they come three times, I am assured by a young man
+      who knows all about it. And cherry brandy is the mildest form of tipple.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Shocking scandal! abominable talk!&rdquo; cried the Major, who took every thing
+      at its word. &ldquo;I have heard all that sort of stuff ever since I was as high
+      as this table. Waiter, show me this gentleman's bill. Oh well, oh well!
+      you have not done so very badly. Two squares and a round, with a jug of
+      Steinberg, and a pint of British stout with your Stilton. If this is your
+      ante-lunch, what will you do when you come to your real luncheon? But I
+      must not talk now; you may have it as you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood,&rdquo; said the young man, while I looked
+      with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover just whisked off,
+      and drops of its juice (like the rays of a lustre) shaking with soft inner
+      wealth&mdash;&ldquo;the truth of it is just this, and no more: we fix our minds
+      and our thoughts, and all the rest of our higher intelligence, a great
+      deal too much upon our mere food.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt we do,&rdquo; I was obliged to answer. &ldquo;It is very sad to think of, as
+      soon as one has dined. But does that reflection occur, as it should, at
+      the proper time to be useful&mdash;I mean when we are hungry?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No big words now, my dear fellow,&rdquo; cried the Major. &ldquo;You have had your
+      turn; let us have ours. But, Erema, you are eating nothing. Take a knife
+      and fork, Montague, and help her. The beauty of these things consists
+      entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in their having the smoke
+      rushing out of them. A gush of steam like this should follow every turn of
+      the knife. But there! I am spoiling every bit by talking so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that any fault of mine?&rdquo; asked Sir Montague, in a tone which made me
+      look at him. The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor unpleasant, yet it
+      gave me the idea that it could be all three, and worse than all three,
+      upon occasion. So I looked at him, which I had refrained from doing, to
+      see whether his face confirmed that idea. To the best of my perception, it
+      did not. Sir Montague Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as form and
+      color go, having regular features, and clear blue eyes, very beautiful
+      teeth, and a golden beard. His appearance was grave, but not morose, as if
+      he were always examining things and people without condemning them. It was
+      evident that he expected to take the upper hand in general, to play the
+      first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to &ldquo;be helped to all the stuffing of
+      the pumpkin,&rdquo; as dear Uncle Sam was fond of saying. Of moderate stature,
+      almost of middle age, and dressed nicely, without any gewgaws, which look
+      so common upon a gentleman's front, he was likely to please more people
+      than he displeased at first on-sight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner
+      genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic anger
+      with those who had done less justice to themselves. And in this state of
+      mind he begged us to take note of one thing&mdash;that his ward should be
+      christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the bells were his,
+      according to their inscriptions, no later than next Thursday week, that
+      being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir Montague failed to come to
+      see how they could manage things under proper administration, he might be
+      sure of one thing, if no more&mdash;that Major Hockin would never speak to
+      him again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A CHECK
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of, that I
+      scarcely knew which to begin with. I used to be told how much wiser it was
+      not to interfere with any thing&mdash;to let by-gones be by-gones, and
+      consider my own self only. But this advice never came home to my case, and
+      it always seemed an unworthy thing even to be listening to it. And now I
+      saw reason to be glad for thanking people who advised me, and letting them
+      go on to advise themselves. For if I had listened to Major Hockin, or even
+      Uncle Sam for that part, where must I have been now? Why, simply knowing
+      no more than as a child I knew, and feeling miserable about it. Whereas I
+      had now at least something to go upon, and enough for a long time to
+      occupy my mind. The difficulty was to know what to do first, and what to
+      resolve to leave undone, or at least to put off for the present. One of my
+      special desires had been to discover that man, that Mr. Goad, who had
+      frightened me so about two years back, and was said to be lost in the
+      snow-drifts. But nobody like him had ever been found, to the sorrow of the
+      neighborhood; and Sylvester himself had been disappointed, not even to
+      know what to do with his clothes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of Uncle
+      Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was printed, with a
+      glazing and much flourish, &ldquo;Vypan, Goad, and Terryer: Private Inquiry
+      Office, Little England Polygon, W.C.&rdquo; Uncle Sam, with a grunt and a rise
+      of his foot, had sent this low card flying to the fire, after I had kissed
+      him so for all his truth and loveliness; but I had caught it and made him
+      give it to me, as was only natural. And having this now, I had been quite
+      prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and ask what they
+      wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do with me now,
+      taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else a policeman
+      well recommended.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's opinion
+      should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr. Shovelin what he
+      thought about it, before doing any thing that might arouse a set of ideas
+      quite opposite to mine, and so cause trouble afterward. And being unable
+      to think any better for the time than to wait and be talked to, I got
+      Major Hockin to take me back again to the right number in European Square.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to hear a
+      great deal more than I myself had heard that day. On the other hand, I had
+      many questions, arising from things said to me, to which I required clear
+      answers; and it never would do for her to suppose that because she had
+      known me come into this world, she must govern the whole of my course
+      therein. But it cost many words and a great deal of demeanor to teach her
+      that, good and faithful as she was, I could not be always under her. Yet I
+      promised to take her advice whenever it agreed with my own opinions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how well it
+      would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they might ring and
+      ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their bells; but if they
+      wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it. Being Germans, who are the
+      most docile of men in England, whatever they may be at home, they made no
+      complaint, but retired to their pipes in a pleasant condition of surprise
+      at London habits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and reputable
+      turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to put by many
+      things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept long enough. And I
+      did hear&mdash;most careful as I am to pay no attention to petty rumors&mdash;that
+      the first thing that moved the heart of Herr Strouss, and called forth his
+      finest feelings, was a winding-up chair, which came out to make legs, with
+      a pocket for tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low things
+      grieved me. And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself, having heard of
+      none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse might not have done her
+      best, yet might have done worse, when she married him. For he seemed to
+      have taken a liking toward me, and an interest in my affairs, which
+      redounded to his credit, if he would not be too inquisitive. And now I
+      gladly allowed him to be present, and to rest in the chair which had
+      captivated him, although last night I could scarcely have borne to have
+      heard in his presence what I had to hear. To-night there was nothing
+      distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale;
+      whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which (while
+      scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females might, with
+      advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger sex.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could what had
+      happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I had been), those
+      questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to the following purport&mdash;setting
+      aside the main puzzle of all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father was
+      dead, he himself had killed or murdered him? Betsy believed, when she came
+      to think, that he had even used the worse word of these two.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol&mdash;as
+      clearly it had been&mdash;a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account,
+      as Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near Chichester?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor little
+      brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and servants away?
+      Betsy said it was called &ldquo;Differeria,&rdquo; as differing so much from all other
+      complaints. I had never yet heard of this, but discovered, without asking
+      further than of Mr. Strouss, that she meant that urgent mandate for a levy
+      of small angels which is called on earth &ldquo;diphtheria.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, to
+      send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof of my dear
+      father's death, and to bring me back, if possible? The present Lord
+      Castlewood never would have done so, according to what Mr. Shovelin said;
+      it was far more likely that (but for weak health) he would have come forth
+      himself to seek me, upon any probable tidings. At once a religious and
+      chivalrous man, he would never employ mean agency. And while thinking of
+      that, another thought occurred&mdash;What had induced that low man Goad to
+      give Uncle Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime which began all our
+      misery? He had put it at ten, now twelve, years back, and dated it in
+      November, whereas it had happened in September month, six years and two
+      months before the date he gave. This question was out of all answer to me,
+      and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr Strouss, being of a legal turn,
+      believed that the law was to blame for it. He thought that proceedings
+      might be bound to begin, under the Extradition Act, within ten years of
+      the date of the crime; or there might be some other stipulation compelling
+      Mr. Goad to add one to all his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about
+      it, both of us thought it very likely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between my
+      father and mother, when they said &ldquo;good-by&rdquo; to one another, and perhaps
+      knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is concerned? Was it
+      any thing about a poor little sleeping and whimpering creature like
+      myself, who could not yet make any difference to any living being except
+      the mother? Or was it concerning far more important things, justice, clear
+      honor, good-will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come upward with
+      high natures? And if so, was it not a promise from my mother, knowing
+      every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering moment of lying beneath
+      the point of death?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very first that
+      the pledge must be on my father's part&mdash;to wit, that he had vowed not
+      to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the sake of his dear wife.
+      And to my suggestion she could only say that she never had seen it in that
+      light; but the landings were so narrow and the walls so soft that, with
+      all her duty staring in her face, neither she, nor the best servant ever
+      in an apron, could be held responsible to repeat their very words. And her
+      husband said that this was good&mdash;very good&mdash;so good as ever
+      could be; and what was to show now from the mouth of any one, after
+      fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, the years?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to contradict
+      people duly married and of one accord. No other word, I mean, upon that
+      point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more immediate, what was
+      the next thing for me, perhaps, to do. And first of all it was settled
+      among us that for me to present myself at the head-quarters of Vypau,
+      Goad, and Terryer would be a very clumsy and stupid proceeding, and
+      perhaps even dangerous. Of course they would not reveal to me the author
+      of those kind inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the firm a
+      very valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself. And while I should learn
+      less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract from me, or at
+      any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and what I was doing, and
+      how I could most quietly be met and baffled, and perhaps even made away
+      with, so as to save all further trouble.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do nothing. Herr
+      Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of true sagacity, and he
+      warmly advised, in his very worst English, that none but my few trusty
+      friends should be told of my visit to this country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why for make to know your enemies?&rdquo; he asked, with one finger on his
+      forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution. &ldquo;Enemies find out vere
+      soon, too soon, soon enough. Begin to plot&mdash;no, no, young lady begin
+      first. Vilhelmina, your man say the right. Is it good, or is it bad?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for the
+      present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from calling even on
+      my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think it needful. In that
+      and other matters I would act by his advice; and so with better spirits
+      than I long had owned, at finding so much kindness, and with good hopes of
+      the morrow, I went to the snug little bedroom which my good nurse had
+      provided.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep and
+      abiding loss of many by a good man's death? When I went to the door at
+      which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an answer. And
+      even when somebody came at last, so far from being my guardian, it was
+      only a poor old clerk, who said, &ldquo;Hush, miss!&rdquo; and then prayed that the
+      will of the Lord might be done. &ldquo;Couldn't you see the half-shutters up?&rdquo;
+       he continued, rather roughly. &ldquo;'Tis a bad job for many a poor man to-day.
+      And it seems no more than yesterday I was carrying him about!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Is he poorly? Has any thing
+      happened? I can wait, or come again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his private
+      address at Sydenham Hill. A burning and a shining light! May we like him
+      be found watching in that day, with our lamps trimmed and our loins
+      girded!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man led me
+      into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was. He belonged, like his
+      master, and a great part of their business, to a simple religious
+      persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom heard of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was just in this way,&rdquo; he said, as soon as tears had enabled me to
+      speak&mdash;for even at the first sight I had felt affection toward my new
+      guardian. &ldquo;Our master is a very punctual man, for five-and-thirty years
+      never late&mdash;never late once till this morning. Excuse me, miss, I
+      ought to be ashamed. The Lord knoweth what is best for us. Well, you threw
+      him out a good bit yesterday, and there was other troubles. And he had to
+      work late last night, I hear; for through his work he would go, be it
+      anyhow&mdash;diligent in business, husbanding the time&mdash;and when he
+      came down to breakfast this morning, he prayed with his household as
+      usual, but they noticed his voice rather weak and queer; and the mistress
+      looked at him when he got up from his knees; but he drank his cup of tea
+      and he ate his bit of toast, which was all he ever took for breakfast. But
+      presently when his cob came up to the door&mdash;for he always rode in to
+      business, miss, no matter what the weather was&mdash;he went to kiss his
+      wife and his daughters all round, according to their ages; and he got
+      through them all, when away he fell down, with the riding-whip in one
+      hand, and expired on a piece of Indian matting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How terrible!&rdquo; I exclaimed, with a sob. And the poor old man, in spite of
+      all his piety, was sobbing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss; not a bit of terror about it, to a man prepared as he was. He
+      had had some warning just a year ago; and the doctors all told him he must
+      leave off work. He could no more do without his proper work than he could
+      without air or victuals. What this old established concern will do without
+      him, our Divine Master only knows. And a pinch coming on in Threadneedle
+      Street, I hear&mdash;but I scarcely know what I am saying, miss; I was
+      thinking of the camel and the needle.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not repeat what you have not meant to tell,&rdquo; I answered, seeing
+      his confusion, and the clumsy turn he had made of it. &ldquo;Only tell me what
+      dear Mr. Shovelin died of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Heart-disease, miss. You might know in a moment. Nothing kills like that.
+      His poor father died of it, thirty years agone. And the better people are,
+      the more they get it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AT THE PUMP
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all power to
+      go on. The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls upon stronger
+      people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through long troubles,
+      mysteriously fades away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a thing to be
+      ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's family thus, without a
+      moment's warning, robbed of love and hope and happiness. But Mrs. Strouss,
+      who often brooded on predestination, imbittered all my thoughts by saying,
+      or rather conveying without words, that my poor fathers taint of some
+      Divine ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed his banker.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter. She called
+      herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me thus from ever
+      having been baptized. I do not understand these things, and the battles
+      fought about them; but knowing that my father was a member of the English
+      Church, I resolved to be the same, and told Betsy that she ought not to
+      set up against her master's doctrine. Then she herself became ashamed of
+      trying to convert me, not only because of my ignorance (which made
+      argument like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because she could
+      mention no one of title with such theology.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame) what
+      opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very same
+      predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm would have
+      thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the Major and his dinner
+      party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman, who examined me, and being
+      satisfied with little, took me to an old City church of deep and damp
+      retirement. And here, with a great din of traffic outside, and a mildewy
+      depth of repose within, I was presented by certain sponsors (the clerk and
+      his wife and his wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to keep
+      the impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old name;
+      though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in two syllables
+      only. But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and looked at me with
+      curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old school, put never a question
+      about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs. Hockin, to
+      save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I scarcely knew how
+      to be moving next, though move I must before very long. For it cost me a
+      great deal of money to stay in European Square like this, albeit Herr
+      Strouss was of all men the most generous, by his own avowal, and his wife
+      (by the same test) noble-hearted among women. Yet each of them spoke of
+      the other's pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the other was
+      out of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all to say about
+      cash&mdash;by compulsion of the other&mdash;also both, when met together,
+      were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a thought of
+      payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but run away
+      between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable to keep
+      my secret about the great nugget. The Major had told me not to speak of
+      this, according to wise experience; and I had not the smallest intention
+      of doing an atom of mischief in that way; but somehow or other it came out
+      one night when I was being pitied for my desolation. And all the charges
+      against me began to be doubled from that moment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite content
+      that my money should go as fast as it came in to me. But there was another
+      thing here which cost me as much as my board and lodgings and all the rest
+      of my expenses. And that was the iron pump in European Square. For this
+      pump stood in the very centre of a huddled district of famine, filth, and
+      fever. When once I had seen from the leads of our house the quag of
+      reeking life around, the stubs and snags of chimney-pots, the gashes among
+      them entitled streets, and the broken blains called houses, I was quite
+      ashamed of paying any thing to become a Christian.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be, and
+      that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas, fiercely
+      resented all interference, and were good to one another in their own rough
+      way. It was more than three years since there had been a single murder
+      among them, and even then the man who was killed confessed that he
+      deserved it. She told me, also, that in some mining district of Wales,
+      well known to her, things were a great deal worse than here, although the
+      people were not half so poor. And finally, looking at a ruby ring which I
+      had begged her to wear always, for the sake of her truth to me, she begged
+      me to be wiser than to fret about things that I could not change. &ldquo;All
+      these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means of grace before them, and
+      if they would not stretch forth their hands, it was only because they were
+      vessels of wrath. Her pity was rather for our poor black brethren who had
+      never enjoyed no opportunities, and therefore must be castaways.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my doctrine
+      (since first I went to America), I dropped all intention of attempting any
+      good in places where I might be murdered. But I could not help looking at
+      the pump which was in front, and the poor things who came there for water,
+      and, most of all, the children. With these it was almost the joy of the
+      day, and perhaps the only joy, to come into this little open space and
+      stand, and put their backs up stiffly, and stare about, ready for some
+      good luck to turn up&mdash;such as a horse to hold, or a man coming out of
+      the docks with a half-penny to spare&mdash;and then, in failure of such
+      golden hope, to dash about, in and out, after one another, splashing, and
+      kicking over their own cans, kettles, jars, or buckets, and stretching
+      their dirty little naked legs, and showing very often fine white chests,
+      and bright teeth wet with laughter. And then, when this chivy was done,
+      and their quick little hearts beat aloud with glory, it was pretty to see
+      them all rally round the pump, as crafty as their betters, and watching
+      with sly humor each other's readiness to begin again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little body with
+      a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl, whose mother, perhaps,
+      lay sick at home, and a stern idea of responsibility began to make the
+      buckets clank. Then might you see, if you cared to do so, orderly
+      management have its turn&mdash;a demand for pins and a tucking up of
+      skirts (which scarcely seemed worthy of the great young fuss), large
+      children scolding little ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the
+      while the very least child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and only
+      come for company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down, and
+      look up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a little
+      checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom, especially
+      when the real work began, and the children, vying with one another, set to
+      at the iron handle. This was too large for their little hands to grasp,
+      and by means of some grievance inside, or perhaps through a cruel trick of
+      the plumber, up went the long handle every time small fingers were too
+      confiding, and there it stood up like the tail of a rampant cow, or a
+      branch inaccessible, until an old shawl or the cord of a peg-top could be
+      cast up on high to reduce it. But some engineering boy, &ldquo;highly gifted,&rdquo;
+       like Uncle Sam's self, &ldquo;with machinery,&rdquo; had discovered an ingenious cure
+      for this. With the help of the girls he used to fasten a fat little thing,
+      about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle of the handle, and
+      there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby and enjoyed seesaw, and
+      laughed at its own utility.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and bright
+      revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and discretion, and
+      rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own delicious Blue River. People
+      used to look at me from the windows with pity and astonishment, supposing
+      me to be crazed or frantic, especially the Germans. For to run out like
+      this, without a pocket full of money, would have been insanity; and to run
+      out with it, to their minds, was even clearer proof of that condition. For
+      the money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on this side and on
+      that it flew, each child in succession making deeper drain upon it, in
+      virtue of still deeper woes. They were dreadful little story-tellers, I am
+      very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as soon as I came out, in
+      contrast with all the recent glee and frolic, suggested to even the
+      youngest charity suspicions of some inconsistency. However, they were so
+      ingenious and clever that they worked my pockets like the pump itself,
+      only with this unhappy difference, that the former had no inexhaustible
+      spring of silver, or even of copper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature), was I
+      driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh supply should
+      come. For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was, did not mean to let me
+      melt all away at once my share of the great Blue River nugget, any more
+      than to make ducks and drakes of his own. Indeed, that rock of gold was
+      still untouched, and healthily reposing in a banker's cellar in the good
+      town of Sacramento. People were allowed to go in and see it upon payment
+      of a dollar, and they came out so thirsty from feasting upon it that a bar
+      was set up, and a pile of money made&mdash;all the gentlemen, and ladies
+      even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about small money after
+      seeing that. But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of the profit of all
+      this excitable work. It was wholly against his wish that any thing so
+      artificial should be done at all, and his sense of religion condemned it.
+      He said, in his very first letter to me, that even a heathen must
+      acknowledge this champion nugget as the grandest work of the Lord yet
+      discovered in America&mdash;a country more full of all works of the Lord
+      than the rest of the world put together. And to keep it in a cellar,
+      without any air or sun, grated harshly upon his ideas of right.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did, and if
+      they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as having large
+      families. And the balance might go to his credit against the interest on
+      any cash advanced to him. Not that he meant to be very fast with this,
+      never having run into debt in all his life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump any
+      longer. I had come into England with money enough to last me (according to
+      the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of every needful work;
+      whereas, in less than half that time, I was arriving at my last penny.
+      This reminded me of my dear father, who was nearly always in trouble about
+      money (although so strictly upright); and at first I was proud to be like
+      him about this, till I came to find the disadvantages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any difference in
+      the behavior of any one toward me. Mrs. Strouss, Herr Strouss, the lady on
+      the stairs, and a very clever woman who had got no rooms, but was kindly
+      accommodated every where, as well as the baron on the first floor front,
+      and the gentleman from a hotel at Hanover, who looked out the other way,
+      and even the children at the pump&mdash;not one made any difference toward
+      me (as an enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my last half crown was
+      gone. It was admitted upon every side that I ought to be forgiven for my
+      random cast of money, because I knew no better, and was sure to have more
+      in a very little time. And the children of the pump came to see me go
+      away, through streets of a mile and a half, I should think; and they
+      carried my things, looking after one another, so that none could run away.
+      And being forbidden at the platform gate, for want of respectability, they
+      set up a cheer, and I waved my hat, and promised, amidst great applause,
+      to come back with it full of sixpences.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      COCKS AND COXCOMBS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea, to meet
+      me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want of further
+      encouragement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very soon you go,&rdquo; he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, or whatever
+      are the things that close the career of a land-engine. &ldquo;Station-master,
+      you are very wise in putting in your very best cabbage plants there. You
+      understand your own company. Well done! If I were to offer you a shilling
+      apiece for those young early Yorks, what would you say, now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir,&rdquo; the Scotch station-master made
+      answer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and put on a
+      dissolute Glengary. &ldquo;They are a veery fine young kail, that always pays
+      for planting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The villain!&rdquo; said the Major, as I jumped into the fly. &ldquo;However, I
+      suppose he does quite right. Set a thief to watch a thief. The company are
+      big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger. We shall cut through his garden
+      in about three months, just when his cabbages are getting firm, and their
+      value will exceed that of pine-apples. The surveyor will come down and
+      certify, and the 'damage to crops' will be at least five pounds, when they
+      have no right to sow even mustard and cress, and a saucepan would hold all
+      the victuals on the land.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative schemes
+      as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly turn aside from
+      the unfenced road and take the turf. &ldquo;Coachman,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;just drive
+      along the railway; you won't have the chance much longer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver seemed to
+      know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf where once had run
+      the river. And the salt breath of the sea came over the pebble ridge, full
+      of appetite and briskness, after so much London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of,&rdquo; Major Hockin began to
+      say to me. &ldquo;Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin! A man of large capital&mdash;the
+      very thing we want. It might have been the making of this place. I have
+      very little doubt that I must have brought him to see our great natural
+      advantages&mdash;the beauty of the situation, the salubrity of the air,
+      the absence of all clay, or marsh, or noxious deposit, the bright crisp
+      turf, and the noble underlay of chalk, which (if you perceive my meaning)
+      can not retain any damp, but transmits it into sweet natural wells. Why,
+      driver, where the devil are you driving us?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No fear, your honor. I know every trick of it. It won't come over the
+      wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the world to his
+      sand-cracks. Whoa-ho, my boy, then! And the young lady's feet might go up
+      upon the cushion, if her boots is thin, Sir; and Mr. Rasper will excuse of
+      it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What the&rdquo;&mdash;something hot&mdash;&ldquo;do you mean, Sir?&rdquo; the Major roared
+      over the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on. &ldquo;Pull out this
+      instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three months' hard labor.
+      May I be d&mdash;&mdash;d now&mdash;my dear, I beg your pardon for
+      speaking with such sincerity&mdash;I simply mean, may I go straightway to
+      the devil, if I don't put this fellow on the tread-mill. Oh, you can pull
+      out now, then, can you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If your honor pleases, I never did pull in,&rdquo; the poor driver answered,
+      being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the manor. &ldquo;My orders
+      was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now just to Bruntsea, and
+      keep in the middle of that same I did, and this here little wet is a
+      haxident&mdash;a haxident of the full moon, I do assure you, and the wind
+      coming over the sea, as you might say. These pebbles is too round, miss,
+      to stick to one another; you couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes the
+      water here and there comes a-leaking like through the bottom. I have seed
+      it so, ever since I can remember.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't believe a word of it,&rdquo; the Major said, as we waited a little for
+      the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright sea flowers.
+      &ldquo;Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West Bruntseyans, and you have
+      driven us into a vile bog to scare me. They have bribed you. I see the
+      whole of it. Tell me the truth, and you shall have five shillings.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received such an
+      offer before. Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed the proper
+      thing, and have called for a balance of considerations, and made a demand
+      upon his energies. But to earn five shillings by the truth had never
+      fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me, because I smiled, and he
+      said, &ldquo;Will you taste the water, miss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me!&rdquo; cried the Major, &ldquo;now I never thought of that. Common people
+      have such ways about things they are used to! I might have stood here for
+      a month, and never have thought of that way to settle it. Ridiculously
+      simple. Give me a taste, Erema. Ah, that is the real beauty of our coast,
+      my dear! The strongest proportion of the saline element&mdash;I should
+      know the taste of it any where. No sea-weed, no fishy particles, no
+      sludge, no beards of oysters. The pure, uncontaminated, perfect brine,
+      that sets every male and female on his legs, varicose, orthopedic&mdash;I
+      forget their scientifics, but I know the smack of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;it is beautifully salt. It will give you an appetite
+      for dinner, Major Hockin. I could drink a pint of it, after all that
+      smoke. But don't you think it is a serious thing for the sea itself to
+      come pouring through the bottom of this pebble bank in this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not at all. No, I rather like it. It opens up many strictly practical
+      ideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For instance, a
+      'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it&mdash;and set up an infirmary
+      for foot and mouth disease. And better still, the baths, the baths, my
+      dear. No expense for piping, or pumping, or any thing. Only place your
+      marble at the proper level, and twice a day you have the grand salubrious
+      sparkling influx of ocean's self, self-filtered, and by its own operation
+      permeated with a fine siliceous element. What foreign mud could compete
+      with such a bath?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But supposing there should come too much of it,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and wash both
+      the baths and the bathers away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such an idea is ridiculous. It can be adjusted to a nicety. I am very
+      glad I happened to observe this thing, this&mdash;this noble phenomenon. I
+      shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I am half an hour older.
+      My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite forgot to tell you; but never
+      mind that for the present. Driver, here is half a crown for you. Your
+      master will put down the fly to my account. He owes me a heriot. I shall
+      claim his best beast, the moment he gets one without a broken wind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted
+      alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had done in
+      London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw) that somebody
+      else might come down for me. And this was Sir Montague Hockin, as I feared
+      was only too likely from what had been said. If I had even suspected that
+      this gentleman was at Bruntlands, I would have done my utmost to stay
+      where I was, in spite of all absence of money. Betsy would gladly have
+      allowed me to remain, without paying even a farthing, until it should
+      become convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak of this; but I would
+      have got over that pride much rather than meet this Sir Montague Hockin
+      thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether; and having so little
+      now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps, foolish importance to
+      that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one through
+      instinct; and I knew already that in England young women are not quite
+      such masters of their own behavior as in the far West they are allowed to
+      be. And so I did my best that, even in my eyes, he should not see how
+      vexed I was at meeting him. And soon it appeared that this behavior,
+      however painful to me, was no less wise than good, because both with my
+      host and hostess this new visitor was already at the summit of all good
+      graces. He had conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes and
+      upshots, and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the distance;
+      and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had opened a hamper
+      and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of an extraordinary
+      aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with every feather
+      sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my life not to laugh,
+      and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded, until the cock opened up a
+      pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb and very sad inversions, and
+      glancing with complacency at his wife (who stood beneath him, even more
+      turned inside out), capered with his twiggy legs, and gave a long, sad
+      crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at him with intense delight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never laughed,
+      Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might choose a fitter
+      opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his demonstration altogether&mdash;see,
+      he does not understand such unkindness&mdash;and it is the very first he
+      has uttered since he came. Oh, poor Fluffsky!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on any
+      account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive. Fluffsky, do
+      please to begin again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you,&rdquo; said Sir Montague,
+      coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers for one more crow.
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have a fowl that even Lady Clara
+      Crowcombe has not got, you shall have it in a week, or a fortnight, or, at
+      any rate, a month, if I can manage it. They are not to be had except
+      through certain channels, and the fellows who write the poultry books have
+      never even heard of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, how delighted I shall be! Lady Clara despises all her neighbors so.
+      But do they lay eggs? Half the use of keeping poultry, when you never kill
+      them, is to get an egg for breakfast; and Major Hockin looks round and
+      says, 'Now is this our own?' and I can not say that it is; and I am vexed
+      with the books, and he begins to laugh at me. People said it was for want
+      of chalk, but they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you can see.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And their food, Mrs. Hockin. They are walking upon that. Starve them for
+      a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for stern discipline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs. Hockin
+      was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, and resolute talk
+      about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps, was even less to be
+      trusted to get his cash out of any poor and honest man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the very day after my return from London I received a letter from
+      &ldquo;Colonel Gundry&rdquo; (as we always called the Sawyer now, through his kinship
+      to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into less compass, I may
+      as well give his very words:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;DEAR MISS REMA,&mdash;Your last favor to hand, with thanks. Every thing
+      is going on all right with us. The mill is built up, and goes better than
+      ever; more orders on hand than we can get through. We have not cracked the
+      big nugget yet. Expect the government to take him at a trifle below value,
+      for Washington Museum. Must have your consent; but, for my part, would
+      rather let him go there than break him. Am ready to lose a few dollars
+      upon him, particularly as he might crack up all quartzy in the middle.
+      They offer to take him by weight at three dollars and a half per pound
+      below standard. Please say if agreeable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us here in
+      this part. Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad will, and
+      contention, and rebellion, perhaps. What we hear concerning it is not much
+      here; but even here thoughts are very much divided. Ephraim takes a
+      different view from mine; which is not a right thing for a grandson to do;
+      and neighbor Sylvester goes with him. The Lord send agreement and concord
+      among us; but, if He doeth so, He must change his mind first, for every
+      man is borrowing his neighbor's gun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his duty,
+      my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it. If Firm was to
+      run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of slavery, I never should
+      care more for naught upon this side of Jordan; and the new mill might go
+      to Jericho; though it does look uncommon handsome now, I can assure you,
+      and tears through its work like a tiger.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England, and
+      having carried over some to your account, inclosed please to find a bill
+      for five hundred dollars, though not likely to be wanted yet. Save a care
+      of your money, my dear; but pay your way handsome, as a Castlewood should
+      do. Jowler goes his rounds twice a day looking for you; and somebody else
+      never hangs his hat up without casting one eye at the corner you know.
+      Sylvester's girl was over here last week, dashing about as usual. If Firm
+      goes South, he may have her, for aught I care, and never see saw-mill
+      again. But I hope that the Lord will spare my old days such disgrace and
+      tribulation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious. I have been young, and
+      now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I see of the ways of
+      men, the less I verily think of them. Their good esteem, their cap in
+      hand, their fair fame, as they call it, goes by accident, and fortune, the
+      whim of the moment, and the way the clever ones have of tickling them. A
+      great man laughs at the flimsy of it, and a good one goes to his
+      conscience. Your father saw these things at their value. I have often
+      grieved that you can not see them so; but perhaps I have liked you none
+      the worse, my dear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't forget about going South. A word from you may stop him. It is
+      almost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late. Suan Isco and
+      Martin send messages. The flowers are on your father's grave. I have got a
+      large order for pine cradles in great haste, but have time to be,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Truly yours,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;SAMPSON GUNDRY.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of money, cost
+      me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of anxiety. The Sawyer
+      had written to me twice ere this&mdash;kind, simple letters, but of no
+      importance, except for their goodness and affection. But now it was clear
+      that when he wrote this letter he must have been sadly put out and upset.
+      His advice to me was beyond all value; but he seemed to have kept none at
+      home for himself. He was carried quite out of his large, staid ways when
+      he wrote those bitter words about poor Firm&mdash;the very apple of his
+      eye, as the holy Psalmist says. And, knowing the obstinacy of them both, I
+      dreaded clash between them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      ADRIFT
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to simplicity,
+      and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with charity or furnished
+      lodgings (what though kept by one's own nurse), I cast about now for good
+      reason to be off from all the busy works at Bruntsea. So soon after such a
+      tremendous blow, it was impossible for me to push my own little troubles
+      and concerns upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed to know
+      what was to become of my father's will, if any thing. But my desire to be
+      doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time from Bruntsea, was
+      largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange behavior toward me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That young man, if still he could be called young&mdash;which, at my age,
+      scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten years older
+      than poor Firm&mdash;began more and more every day to come after me, just
+      when I wanted to be quite alone. There was nothing more soothing to my
+      thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet from the former, I suppose)
+      than for the whole of me to rest a while in such a little scollop of the
+      shingle as a new-moon tide, in little crescents, leaves just below
+      high-water mark. And now it was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after the
+      flooding of our fly by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling how I
+      longed to understand these things&mdash;which seem to be denied to all who
+      are of the same sex as the moon herself&mdash;I sat in a very nice nick,
+      where no wind could make me look worse than nature willed. But of my own
+      looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of such a
+      subject.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering by
+      what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced, and not
+      even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by side and purely
+      tally with each other. Right and left, for miles and miles, millions
+      multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any one in my palm and be sure
+      that it never had been there before. And of the quiet wavelets even,
+      taking their own time and manner, in default of will of wind, all to come
+      and call attention to their doom by arching over, and endeavoring to make
+      froth, were any two in sound and size, much more in shape and shade,
+      alike? Every one had its own little business, of floating pop-weed or foam
+      bubbles or of blistered light, to do; and every one, having done it, died
+      and subsided into its successor.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A trifle sentimental, are we?&rdquo; cried a lively voice behind me, and the
+      waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood Sir Montague
+      Hockin, with a hideous parasol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him; but he
+      was one of those people who think that women are all whims and ways.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I grieve to intrude upon large ideas,&rdquo; he said, as I rose and looked at
+      him, &ldquo;but I act under positive orders now. A lady knows what is best for a
+      lady. Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the window, and she thinks that
+      you ought not to be sitting in the sun like this. There has been a case of
+      sun-stroke at Southbourne&mdash;a young lady meditating under the cliff&mdash;and
+      she begs you to accept this palm leaf.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce Californian
+      sun; but I would not speak to him of that. &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;it was
+      very kind of her to think of it, and of you to do it. But will it be safe
+      for you to go back without it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, why should I do so?&rdquo; he answered, with a tone of mock pathos which
+      provoked me always, though I never could believe it to be meant in
+      ridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing; and, besides, I
+      never spoke so. &ldquo;Could you bear to see me slain by the shafts of the sun?
+      Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply large for both of us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his vein at
+      all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want every body to be
+      like myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you; I mean to stay here,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;you may either leave the
+      parasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome. At any rate, I
+      shall not use it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon his
+      way; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff. He seemed to look upon
+      me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh from little schools,
+      would be. Nothing more annoyed me, after all my thoughts and dream of some
+      power in myself, than this.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two,&rdquo; he said, while I kept gazing at
+      some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him to go&mdash;&ldquo;a
+      little thing or two of which you have no idea, even in your most lonely
+      musings, which might have a very deep interest for you. Do you think that
+      I came to this hole to see the sea? Or that fussy old muff of a Major's
+      doings?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his intellect and
+      great plans,&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;And after all his kindness to you!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You never will do that,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;because you are a lady, and will not
+      repeat what is said in confidence. I could help you materially in your
+      great object, if you would only make a friend of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what would your own object be? The pure anxiety to do right?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your good
+      opinion, which seems so inaccessible. But you will think me selfish if I
+      even hint at any condition of any kind. Every body I have ever met with
+      likes me, except Miss Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining in the
+      sun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason which Mrs.
+      Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it hard that a man with
+      such a beard should be valued lightly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not see why we should talk,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;about either likes or
+      dislikes. Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very much
+      obliged to you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed in
+      England. A general idea there prevails that the free and enlightened
+      natives of the West are in front of those here in intelligence, and to
+      some extent, therefore, in dishonesty. But there must be many cases where
+      the two are not the same.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had every
+      British animal upon them; &ldquo;I mean nothing more than the simple thing I
+      say. If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it. I am accustomed to
+      straightforward people. But they disappoint one by their never knowing any
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I know something,&rdquo; he answered, with a nod of grave, mysterious
+      import; &ldquo;and perhaps I will tell you some day, when admitted, if ever I
+      have such an honor, to some little degree of friendship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please not to think of yourself,&rdquo; I exclaimed, in a manner which must
+      have amused him. &ldquo;In such a case, the last thing that you should do is
+      that. Think only of what is right and honorable, and your duty toward a
+      lady. Also your duty to the laws of your country. I am not at all sure
+      that you ought not to be arrested. But perhaps it is nothing at all, after
+      all; only something invented to provoke me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In that case, I can only drop the subject,&rdquo; he answered, with that stern
+      gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested. &ldquo;I was also
+      to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the usual time, that my
+      cousin may go out in the boat for whiting. The sea will be as smooth as
+      glass. Perhaps you will come with us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a most
+      uncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even tried to think.
+      For I could not get the smallest idea what he meant; and, much as I tried
+      to believe that he must be only pretending, for reasons of his own, to
+      have something important to tell me, scarcely was it possible to be
+      contented so. A thousand absurd imaginations began to torment me as to
+      what he meant. He lived in London so much, for instance, that he had much
+      quicker chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was a man
+      of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate what I
+      could not; then, again, he kept a large account with Shovelin, Wayte, and
+      Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and I knew not that a banker's
+      reserve is much deeper than his deposit; moreover&mdash;which, to my mind,
+      was almost stronger proof than any thing&mdash;Sir Montague Hockin was of
+      smuggling pedigree, and likely to be skillful in illicit runs of
+      knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I say to
+      him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it. But, though I
+      waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person I scarcely could
+      have done, he would not condescend to give me even another look about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct and
+      certainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good host and
+      hostess. But here there was very little help or support to be obtained at
+      present. Major Hockin was laying the foundations of &ldquo;The Bruntsea
+      Assembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual Improvement Association,
+      Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;&rdquo; while Mrs. Hockin had a hatch of
+      &ldquo;White Sultans,&rdquo; or, rather, a prolonged sitting of eggs, fondly hoped to
+      hatch at last, from having cost so much, like a chicken-hearted
+      Conference. Much as I sorrowed at her disappointment&mdash;for the sitting
+      cost twelve guineas&mdash;I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty and
+      ignoble smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth day she
+      placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, in which
+      they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen. The poor
+      lady tried to believe that they were spinning with vitality; but at last
+      she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had been half boiled by the
+      advertiser. &ldquo;This is very sad,&rdquo; cried Mrs. Hockin; and the patient old
+      hen, who was come in a basket of hay to see the end of it, echoed with a
+      cluck that sentiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own guidance,
+      which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever since my father died.
+      For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my great joy and comfort, as a
+      guide and guardian; but, alas! for one day only. And, except for his good
+      advice and kind paternal conduct to me, it seemed at present an unlucky
+      thing that I had ever discovered him. Not only through deep sense of loss
+      and real sorrow for him, but also because Major Hockin, however good and
+      great and generous, took it unreasonably into his head that I threw him
+      over, and threw myself (as with want of fine taste he expressed it) into
+      the arms of the banker. This hurt me very much, and I felt that Major
+      Hockin could never have spoken so hastily unless his hair had been
+      originally red; and so it might be detected, even now, where it survived
+      itself, though blanched where he brushed it into that pretentious ridge.
+      Sometimes I liked that man, when his thoughts were large and liberal; but
+      no sooner had he said a fine brave thing than he seemed to have an
+      after-thought not to go too far with it; just as he had done about the
+      poor robbed woman from the steerage and the young man who pulled out his
+      guinea. I paid him for my board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle
+      Sam himself, at California prices; therefore I am under no obligation to
+      conceal his foibles. But, take him altogether, he was good and brave and
+      just, though unable, from absence of inner light, to be to me what Uncle
+      Sam had been.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in London,
+      and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) &ldquo;blew hot and cold&rdquo; in
+      half a minute&mdash;hot when I thought of any good things to be done, and
+      cold as soon as he became the man to do them&mdash;also, when I remembered
+      what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the shape of Sir Montague,
+      who went to and fro, but could never be trusted to be far off, I resolved
+      to do what I had long been thinking of, and believed that my guardian, if
+      he had lived another day, would have recommended. I resolved to go and see
+      Lord Castlewood, my father's first cousin and friend in need.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they both
+      declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of advising,
+      which, however, they had forborne from doing because I never took advice.
+      At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I could not help smiling
+      seriously; but I could not accept their sage opinion that, before I went
+      to see my kinsman, I ought to write and ask his leave to do so. For that
+      would have made it quite a rude thing to call, as I must still have done,
+      if he should decline beforehand to receive me. Moreover, it would look as
+      if I sought an invitation, while only wanting an interview. Therefore,
+      being now full of money again, I hired the flyman who had made us taste
+      the water, and taking train at Newport, and changing at two or three
+      places as ordered, crossed many little streams, and came to a fair river,
+      which proved to be the Thames itself, a few miles above Reading.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and tribulation,
+      my heart was throbbing with some rather small feelings, as for the first
+      time I drew near to the home of my forefathers. I should have been sorry
+      to find it ugly or mean, or lying in a hole, or even modern or
+      insignificant; and when none of these charges could be brought against it,
+      I was filled with highly discreditable pain that Providence had not seen
+      fit to issue me into this world in the masculine form; in which case this
+      fine property would, according to the rules of mankind, have been mine.
+      However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat down on a bank to
+      dispel them with the free and fair view around me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to shape
+      it, so as not to spoil the site. It stood near the brow of a bosoming
+      hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from the rigor and
+      fury of the north and east; while in front the sloping foreground widened
+      its soft lap of green. In bays and waves of rolling grass, promontoried,
+      here and there, by jutting copse or massive tree, and jotted now and then
+      with cattle as calm as boats at anchor, the range of sunny upland fell to
+      the reedy fringe and clustered silence of deep river meadows. Here the
+      Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and courtesy, yet with will of its
+      own ways, being now a plenteous river, spreads low music, and holds mirror
+      to the woods and hills and fields, casting afar a broad still gleam, and
+      on the banks presenting tremulous infinitude of flash.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now these things touched me all the more because none of them belonged to
+      me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got up with much better
+      heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever it might be. A girl
+      brought up in the real English way would have spent her last shilling to
+      drive up to the door in the fly at the station&mdash;a most sad machine&mdash;but
+      I thought it no disgrace to go in a more becoming manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as quietly
+      into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's. If any body had been rude to
+      me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that sort, my spirit might
+      have been up at once, and found, as usually happens then, good reason to
+      go down afterward. But happily there was nothing of the kind. An elderly
+      man, without any gaudy badges, opened the door very quietly, and begged my
+      pardon, before I spoke, for asking me to speak softly. It was one of his
+      lordship's very worst days, and when he was so, every sound seemed to
+      reach him. I took the hint, and did not speak at all, but followed him
+      over deep matting into a little room to which he showed me. And then I
+      gave him a little note, written before I left Bruntsea, and asked him
+      whether he thought that his master was well enough to attend to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father well,
+      having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked whether my
+      message was important. I answered that it was, but that I would wait for
+      another time rather than do any harm. But he said that, however ill his
+      master was, nothing provoked him more than to find that any thing was
+      neglected through it. And before I could speak again he was gone with my
+      letter to Lord Castlewood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      AT HOME
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had befallen
+      me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force their remembrance
+      upon me. Such dark figures always seem to make the most of a nervous
+      moment, when solid reason yields to fluttering fear and small misgivings.
+      There any body seems to lie, as a stranded sailor lies, at the foot of
+      perpendicular cliffs of most inhuman humanity, with all the world frowning
+      down over the crest, and no one to throw a rope down. Often and often had
+      I felt this want of any one to help me, but the only way out of it seemed
+      to be to do my best to help myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and knowing that
+      my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's strength. He might,
+      at the utmost, give good advice, and help me with kind feeling; but if he
+      wanted to do more, surely he might have tried ere now. But my thoughts
+      about this were cut short by a message that he would be glad to see me,
+      and I followed the servant to the library.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair, uncushioned
+      and uncomfortable. When he saw me near him he got up and took my hand, and
+      looked at me, and I was pleased to find his face well-meaning, brave, and
+      generous. But even to rise from his chair was plainly no small effort to
+      him, and he leaned upon a staff or crutch as he offered me a small white
+      hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Castlewood,&rdquo; he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery voice,
+      &ldquo;for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to hear of you. I
+      have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense of want of energy;
+      yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do my best to think so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure you have,&rdquo; I replied, without thinking, knowing his kindness to
+      my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to Mr. Shovelin about
+      him. &ldquo;I owe you more gratitude than I can tell, for your goodness to my
+      dear father. I am not come now to trouble you, but because it was my
+      duty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could walk,
+      to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have had few
+      chances. And in every step and word and gesture I recognized that foreign
+      grace which true-born Britons are proud to despise on both sides of the
+      Atlantic. And, being in the light, I watched him well, because I am not a
+      foreigner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for
+      accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm face,
+      which might in good health have been powerful&mdash;a face which might be
+      called the moonlight image of my father's. I could not help turning away
+      to cry, and suspicion fled forever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young cousin,&rdquo; he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to, &ldquo;your
+      father trusted me, and so must you. You may think that I have forgotten
+      you, or done very little to find you out. It was no indifference, no
+      forgetfulness: I have not been able to work myself, and I have had very
+      deep trouble of my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down when
+      thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were those of a
+      learned and intellectual man. How I knew this it is impossible to say, for
+      I never had met with such a character as this, unless it were the Abbe of
+      Flechon, when I was only fourteen years old, and valued his great skill in
+      spinning a top tenfold more than all his deep learning. Lord Castlewood
+      had long, silky hair, falling in curls of silver gray upon either side of
+      his beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft dark eyes was sad,
+      gentle, yet penetrating. Weak health and almost constant pain had
+      chastened his delicate features to an expression almost feminine, though
+      firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine will and fortitude. And
+      when he spoke of his own trouble (which, perhaps, he would not have done
+      except for consolation's sake), I knew that he meant something even more
+      grievous than bodily anguish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hard,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;that you, so young and healthy and full of high
+      spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin the best
+      years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in such a cloud of
+      gloom and shame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no shame at all,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;and if there is gloom, I am used
+      to that; and so was my father for years and years. What is my trouble
+      compared with his?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards the
+      mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load; you are a
+      young and a sensitive woman. The burden may even be worse for you. Now
+      tell me all about yourself, and what has brought you to me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath it. He
+      had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor plied me at all
+      with those pious allusions, which even to the reverent mind are like
+      illusions when so urged. Lord Castlewood had too deep a sense of the will
+      of God to know what it is; and he looked at me wistfully as at one who
+      might have worse experience of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met mine, I
+      told him every thing I could think of about my father and myself, and all
+      I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were set upon getting to
+      the bottom of every thing. And while I spoke with spirit, or softness, or,
+      I fear, sometimes with hate, I could not help seeing that he was
+      surprised, but not wholly displeased, with my energy. And then, when all
+      was exhausted, came the old question I had heard so often, and found so
+      hard to answer&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what do you propose to do next, Erema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To go to the very place itself,&rdquo; I said, speaking strongly under
+      challenge, though quite unresolved about such a thing before; &ldquo;to live in
+      the house where my father lived, and my mother and all of the family died;
+      and from day to day to search every corner and fish up every bit of
+      evidence, until I get hold of the true man at last, of the villain who did
+      it&mdash;who did it, and left my father and all the rest of us to be
+      condemned and die for it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; replied my cousin, as he had told me now to call him, &ldquo;you are
+      too impetuous for such work, and it is wholly unfit for you. For such a
+      task, persons of trained sagacity and keen observation are needed. And
+      after all these eighteen years, or nearly nineteen now it must be, there
+      can not be any thing to discover there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But if I like, may I go there, cousin, if only to satisfy my own mind? I
+      am miserable now at Bruntsea, and Sir Montague Hockin wears me out.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir Montague Hockin!&rdquo; Lord Castlewood exclaimed; &ldquo;why, you did not tell
+      me that he was there. Wherever he is, you should not be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I forgot to speak of him. He does not live there, but is continually to
+      and fro for bathing, or fishing, or rabbit-shooting, or any other pretext.
+      And he makes the place very unpleasant to me, kind as the Major and Mrs.
+      Hockin are, because I can never make him out at all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Do not try to do so,&rdquo; my cousin answered, looking at me earnestly; &ldquo;be
+      content to know nothing of him, my dear. If you can put up with a very
+      dull house, and a host who is even duller, come here and live with me, as
+      your father would have wished, and as I, your nearest relative, now ask
+      and beg of you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was wonderfully kind, and for a moment I felt tempted. Lord
+      Castlewood being an elderly man, and, as the head of our family, my
+      natural protector, there could be nothing wrong, and there might be much
+      that was good, in such an easy arrangement. But, on the other hand, it
+      seemed to me that after this my work would languish. Living in comfort and
+      prosperity under the roof of my forefathers, beyond any doubt I should
+      begin to fall into habits of luxury, to take to the love of literature,
+      which I knew to be latent within me, to lose the clear, strong, practical
+      sense of the duty for which I, the last of seven, was spared, and in some
+      measure, perhaps, by wanderings and by hardships, fitted. And then I
+      thought of my host's weak health, continual pain (the signs of which were
+      hardly repressed even while he was speaking), and probably also his
+      secluded life. Was it fair to force him, by virtue of his inborn kindness
+      and courtesy, to come out of his privileges and deal with me, who could
+      not altogether be in any place a mere nobody? And so I refused his offer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am very much obliged to you indeed,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;but I think you might be
+      sorry for it. I will come and stop with you every now and then, when your
+      health is better, and you ask me. But to live here altogether would not
+      do; I should like it too well, and do nothing else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are right,&rdquo; he replied, with the air of one who cares little
+      for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and worse than
+      any distress almost; &ldquo;you are very young, my dear, and years should be
+      allowed to pass before you know what full-grown sorrow is. You have had
+      enough, for your age, of it. You had better not live in this house; it is
+      not a house for cheerfulness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea,&rdquo; I asked, with sudden
+      remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of me or to
+      worry me, &ldquo;to what place in all the world am I to go, unless it is back to
+      America? I will go at once to Shoxford, and take lodgings of my own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you had better wait a little while,&rdquo; Lord Castlewood answered,
+      gently, &ldquo;although I would much rather have you at Shoxford than where you
+      are at present. But please to remember, my good Erema, that you can not go
+      to Shoxford all alone. I have a most faithful and trusty man&mdash;the one
+      who opened the door to you. He has been here before his remembrance. He
+      disdains me still as compared with your father. Will you have him to
+      superintend you? I scarcely see how you can do any good, but if you do go,
+      you must go openly, and as your father's daughter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have no intention whatever of going in any other way, Lord Castlewood;
+      but perhaps,&rdquo; I continued, &ldquo;it would be as well to make as little stir as
+      possible. Of an English village I know nothing but the little I have seen
+      at Bruntsea, but there they make a very great fuss about any one who comes
+      down with a man-servant.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure,&rdquo; replied my cousin, with a smile; &ldquo;they would not be true
+      Britons otherwise. Perhaps you would do better without Stixon; but of
+      course you must not go alone. Could you by any means persuade your old
+      nurse Betsy to go with you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How good of you to think of it!&mdash;how wise you are!&rdquo; I really could
+      not help saying, as I gazed at his delicate and noble face. &ldquo;I am sure
+      that if Betsy can come, she will; though of course she must be compensated
+      well for the waste all her lodgers will make of it. They are very wicked,
+      and eat most dreadfully if she even takes one day's holiday. What do you
+      think they even do? She has told me with tears in her eyes of it. They are
+      all allowed a pat of butter, a penny roll, and two sardines for breakfast.
+      No sooner do they know that her back is turned&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema!&rdquo; cried my cousin, with some surprise; and being so recalled, I was
+      ashamed. But I never could help taking interest in very little things
+      indeed, until my own common-sense, or somebody else, came to tell me what
+      a child I was. However, I do believe that Uncle Sam liked me all the
+      better for this fault.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, I did not mean to blame you,&rdquo; Lord Castlewood said, most kindly;
+      &ldquo;it must be a great relief for you to look on at other people. But tell me&mdash;or
+      rather, since you have told me almost every thing you know&mdash;let me,
+      if only in one way I can help you, help you at least in that way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowing that he must mean money, I declined, from no false pride, but a
+      set resolve to work out my work, if possible, through my own resources.
+      But I promised to apply to him at once if scarcity should again befall me,
+      as had happened lately. And then I longed to ask him why he seemed to have
+      so low an opinion of Sir Montague Hockin. That question, however, I feared
+      to put, because it might not be a proper one, and also because my cousin
+      had spoken in a very strange tone, as if of some private dislike or
+      reserve on that subject. Moreover, it was too evident that I had tried his
+      courtesy long enough. From time to time pale shades of bodily pain, and
+      then hot flushes, had flitted across his face, like clouds on a windy
+      summer evening. And more than once he had glanced at the time-piece, not
+      to hurry me, but as if he dreaded its announcements. It was a beautiful
+      clock, and struck with a silvery sound every quarter of an hour. And now,
+      as I rose to say good-by, to catch my evening train, it struck a quarter
+      to five, and my cousin stood up, with his weight upon his staff, and
+      looked at me with an inexpressible depth of weary misery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have only a few minutes left,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;during which I can say any
+      thing. My time is divided into two sad parts: the time when I am capable
+      of very little, and the time when I am capable of nothing; and the latter
+      part is twice the length of the other. For sixteen hours of every day, far
+      better had I be dead than living, so far as our own little insolence may
+      judge. But I speak of it only to excuse bad manners, and perhaps I show
+      worse by doing so. I shall not be able to see you again until to-morrow
+      morning. Do not go; they will arrange all that. Send a note to Major
+      Hockin by Stixon's boy. Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to your comfort, if
+      those who are free from pain require any other comfort. Forgive me; I did
+      not mean to be rude. Sometimes I can not help giving way.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his hard
+      stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his knees, and
+      set his thin lips in straight blue lines. Each hand was as rigid as the
+      ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, and his lips were like
+      clamped wire. This was his regular way of preparing for the onset of the
+      night, so that no grimace, no cry, no moan, or other token of fierce agony
+      should be wrung from him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My lord will catch it stiff to-night,&rdquo; said Mr. Stixon, who came as I
+      rang, and then led me away to the drawing-room; &ldquo;he always have it ten
+      times worse after any talking or any thing to upset him like. And so,
+      then, miss&mdash;excuse a humble servant&mdash;did I understand from him
+      that you was the Captain's own daughter?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; but surely your master wants you&mdash;he is in such dreadful pain.
+      Do please to go to him, and do something.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is nothing to be done, miss,&rdquo; Stixon answered, with calm
+      resignation; &ldquo;he is bound to stay so for sixteen hours, and then he eases
+      off again. But bless my heart, miss&mdash;excuse me in your presence&mdash;his
+      lordship is thoroughly used to it. It is my certain knowledge that for
+      seven years now he has never had seven minutes free from pain&mdash;seven
+      minutes all of a heap, I mean. Some do say, miss, as the Lord doeth every
+      thing according to His righteousness, that the reason is not very far to
+      seek.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him what he meant, though I ought, perhaps, to have put a stop to
+      his loquacity; and he pretended not to hear, which made me ask him all the
+      more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A better man never lived than my lord,&rdquo; he answered, with a little shock
+      at my misprision; &ldquo;but it has been said among censoorous persons that
+      nobody ever had no luck as came in suddenly to a property and a high state
+      of life on the top of the heads of a family of seven.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a poor superstition!&rdquo; I cried, though I was not quite sure of its
+      being a wicked one. &ldquo;But what is your master's malady, Stixon? Surely
+      there might be something done to relieve his violent pain, even if there
+      is no real cure for it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss, nothing can be done. The doctors have exorced themselves. They
+      tried this, that, and the other, but nature only flew worse against them.
+      'Tis a thing as was never heard of till the Constitooshon was knocked on
+      the head and to pieces by the Reform Bill. And though they couldn't cure
+      it, they done what they could do, miss. They discovered a very good name
+      for it&mdash;they christened it the 'New-rager!'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      LORD CASTLEWOOD
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the morning, when I was called again to see my afflicted cousin&mdash;Stixon
+      junior having gladly gone to explain things for me at Bruntsea&mdash;little
+      as I knew of any bodily pain (except hunger, or thirst, or weariness, and
+      once in my life a headache), I stood before Lord Castlewood with a
+      deference and humility such as I had never felt before toward any human
+      being. Not only because he bore perpetual pain in the two degrees of night
+      and day&mdash;the day being dark and the night jet-black&mdash;without a
+      murmur or an evil word; not only because through the whole of this he had
+      kept his mind clear and his love of knowledge bright; not even because he
+      had managed, like Job, to love God through the whole of it. All these were
+      good reasons for very great and very high respect of any man; and when
+      there was no claim whatever on his part to any such feeling, it needs must
+      come. But when I learned another thing, high respect at once became what
+      might be called deep reverence. And this came to pass in a simple and, as
+      any one must confess, quite inevitable way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not to be supposed that I could sit the whole of my first evening
+      in that house without a soul to speak to. So far as my dignity and sense
+      of right permitted, I wore out Mr. Stixon, so far as he would go, not
+      asking him any thing that the very worst-minded person could call
+      &ldquo;inquisitive,&rdquo; but allowing him to talk, as he seemed to like to do, while
+      he waited upon me, and alternately lamented my hapless history and my
+      hopeless want of taste.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, your father, the Captain, now, he would have knowed what this is!
+      You've no right to his eyes, Miss Erma, without his tongue and palate. No
+      more of this, miss! and done for you a-purpose! Well, cook will be put
+      out, and no mistake! I better not let her see it go down, anyhow.&rdquo; And the
+      worthy man tearfully put some dainty by, perhaps without any view to his
+      own supper.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord Castlewood spoke to me about a Mrs. Price&mdash;the housekeeper, is
+      she not?&rdquo; I asked at last, being so accustomed to like what I could get,
+      that the number of dishes wearied me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh yes, miss,&rdquo; said Stixon, very shortly, as if that description
+      exhausted Mrs. Price.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If she is not too busy, I should like to see her as soon as these things
+      are all taken away. I mean if she is not a stranger, and if she would like
+      to see me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No new-comers here,&rdquo; Mr. Stixon replied; &ldquo;we all works our way up
+      regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled ways is
+      not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing of the steps
+      till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a bean. The old lord
+      was the man for discipline&mdash;your grandfather, if you please, miss. He
+      catched me when I were about that high&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as you so
+      very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was angry
+      with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only smiled and
+      touched his forehead.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss. I could have
+      heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh and distant.
+      And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty years agone next
+      Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was; you may see the very
+      tree if you please to stand here, miss, though the pears is quite altered
+      now, and scarcely fit to eat. Well, I was running off with my cap
+      chock-full, miss&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please to keep that story for another time,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;I shall be most
+      happy to hear it then. But I have a particular wish, if you please, to see
+      Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good reason why I should not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all. Only please to bear in mind, miss,
+      that she is a coorous woman. She is that jealous, and I might say forward&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she is capable of speaking for herself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are right, miss, there, and no mistake. She can speak for herself and
+      for fifty others&mdash;words enough, I mean, for all of them. But I would
+      not have her know for all the world that I said it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall do
+      will be to tell her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has been done
+      anonymous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure impatience.
+      And having no motive but downright jealousy for keeping Mrs. Price from
+      me, he made up his mind at last to let her come. But he told me to be
+      careful what I said; I must not expect it to be at all like talking to
+      himself, for instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The housekeeper came up at last, by dint of my persistence, and she
+      stopped in the doorway and made me a courtesy, which put me out of
+      countenance, for nobody ever does that in America, and scarcely any one in
+      England now, except in country-dancing. Instead of being as described by
+      Stixon, Mrs. Price was of a very quiet, sensible, and respectful kind. She
+      was rather short, but looked rather tall, from her even walk and way of
+      carrying her head. Her figure was neat, and her face clear-spoken, with
+      straight pretty eyebrows, and calm bright eyes. I felt that I could tell
+      her almost any thing, and she would think before she talked of it. And in
+      my strong want of some woman to advise with&mdash;Betsy Bowen being very
+      good but very narrow, and Mrs. Hockin a mere echo of the Major until he
+      contradicted her, and Suan Isco, with her fine, large views, five thousand
+      miles out of sight just now&mdash;this was a state of things to enhance
+      the value of any good countenance feminine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At any rate, I was so glad to see her that, being still ungraduated in the
+      steps of rank (though beginning to like a good footing there), I ran up
+      and took her by both hands, and fetched her out of her grand courtesy and
+      into a low chair. At this she was surprised, as one quick glance showed;
+      and she thought me, perhaps, what is called in England &ldquo;an impulsive
+      creature.&rdquo; This put me again upon my dignity, for I never have been in any
+      way like that, and I clearly perceived that she ought to understand a
+      little more distinctly my character.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is easy to begin with this intention, but very hard indeed to keep it
+      up when any body of nice ways and looks is sitting with a proper
+      deferential power of listening, and liking one's young ideas, which
+      multiply and magnify themselves at each demand. So after some general talk
+      about the weather, the country, the house, and so on, we came to the
+      people of the house, or at any rate the chief person. And I asked her a
+      few quiet questions about Lord Castlewood's health and habits, and any
+      thing else she might like to tell me. For many things had seemed to me a
+      little strange and out of the usual course, and on that account worthy to
+      be spoken of without common curiosity. Mrs. Price told me that there were
+      many things generally divulged and credited, which therefore lay in her
+      power to communicate without any derogation from her office. Being pleased
+      with these larger words (which I always have trouble in pronouncing), I
+      asked her whether there was any thing else. And she answered yes, but
+      unhappily of a nature to which it was scarcely desirable to allude in my
+      presence. I told her that this was not satisfactory, and I might say quite
+      the opposite; that having &ldquo;alluded&rdquo; to whatever it might be, she was bound
+      to tell me all about it. That I had lived in very many countries, in all
+      of which wrong things continually went on, of which I continually heard
+      just in that sort of way and no more. Enough to make one uncomfortable,
+      but not enough to keep one instructed and vigilant as to things that ought
+      to be avoided. Upon this she yielded either to my arguments or to her own
+      dislike of unreasonable silence, and gave me the following account of the
+      misfortunes of Lord Castlewood:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Herbert William Castlewood was the third son of Dean Castlewood, a younger
+      brother of my grandfather, and was born in the year 1806. He was older,
+      therefore, than my father, but still (even before my father's birth, which
+      provided a direct heir) there were many lives betwixt him and the family
+      estates. And his father, having as yet no promotion in the Church, found
+      it hard to bring up his children. The eldest son got a commission in the
+      army, and the second entered the navy, while Herbert was placed in a bank
+      at Bristol&mdash;not at all the sort of life which he would have chosen.
+      But being of a gentle, unselfish nature, as well as a weak constitution,
+      he put up with his state in life, and did his best to give satisfaction.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This calm courage generally has its reward, and in the year 1842, not very
+      long before the death of my grandfather at Shoxford, Mr. Herbert
+      Castlewood, being well-connected, well-behaved, diligent, and pleasing,
+      obtained a partnership in the firm, which was, perhaps, the foremost in
+      the west of England. His two elder brothers happened then to be at home,
+      Major and Commander Castlewood, each of whom had seen very hard service,
+      and found it still harder slavery to make both ends meet, although
+      bachelors. But, returning full of glory, they found one thing harder
+      still, and that was to extract any cash from their father, the highly
+      venerated Dean, who in that respect, if in no other, very closely
+      resembled the head of the family. Therefore these brave men resolved to go
+      and see their Bristol brother, to whom they were tenderly attached, and
+      who now must have money enough and to spare. So they wrote to their
+      brother to meet them on the platform, scarcely believing that they could
+      be there in so short a time from London; for they never had travelled by
+      rail before; and they set forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at the
+      strange, giddy rush of the travelling, and made bets with each other about
+      punctual time (for trains kept much better time while new), and, as long
+      as they could time it, they kept time to a second. But, sad to relate,
+      they wanted no chronometers when they arrived at Bristol, both being
+      killed at a blow, with their watches still going, and a smile on their
+      faces. For the train had run into a wall of Bath stone, and several of the
+      passengers were killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight of his two brothers carried out like this, after so many years
+      of not seeing them, was too much for Mr. Herbert Castlewood's nerves,
+      which always had been delicate. And he shivered all the more from reproach
+      of conscience, having made up his mind not to lend them any money, as a
+      practical banker was compelled to do. And from that very moment he began
+      to feel great pain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Price assured me that the doctors all agreed that nothing but change
+      of climate could restore Mr. Castlewood's tone and system, and being full
+      of art (though so simple, as she said, which she could not entirely
+      reconcile), he set off for Italy, and there he stopped, with the good
+      leave of his partners, being now valued highly as heir to the Dean, who
+      was known to have put a good trifle together. And in Italy my father must
+      have found him, as related by Mr. Shovelin, and there received kindness
+      and comfort in his trouble, if trouble so deep could be comforted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I wondered and eagerly yearned to know whether my father, at such a
+      time, and in such a state of loneliness, might not have been led to impart
+      to his cousin and host and protector the dark mystery which lay at the
+      bottom of his own conduct. Knowing how resolute and stern he was, and
+      doubtless then imbittered by the wreck of love and life, I thought it more
+      probable that he had kept silence even toward so near a relative,
+      especially as he had seen very little of his cousin Herbert till he had
+      found him thus. Moreover, my grandfather and the Dean had spent little
+      brotherly love on each other, having had a life-long feud about a
+      copy-hold furze brake of nearly three-quarters of an acre, as Betsy
+      remembered to have heard her master say.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To go on, however, with what Mrs. Price was saying. She knew scarcely any
+      thing about my father, because she was too young at that time to be called
+      into the counsels of the servants' hall, for she scarcely was thirty-five
+      yet, as she declared, and she certainly did not look forty. But all about
+      the present Lord Castlewood she knew better than any body else, perhaps,
+      because she had been in the service of his wife, and, indeed, her chief
+      attendant. Then, having spoken of her master's wife, Mrs. Price caught
+      herself up, and thenceforth called her only his &ldquo;lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Herbert Castlewood, who had minded his business for so many years, and
+      kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure in good
+      literature, at this time of life and in this state of health (for the
+      shock he had received struck inward), fell into an accident tenfold worse&mdash;the
+      fatal accident of love. And this malady raged the more powerfully with him
+      on account of breaking out so late in life. In one of the
+      picture-galleries at Florence, or some such place, Mrs. Price declared, he
+      met with a lady who made all the pictures look cold and dull and dead to
+      him. A lovely young creature she must have been (as even Mrs. Price, who
+      detested her, acknowledged), and to the eyes of a learned but not keen man
+      as good as lovely. My father was gone to look after me, and fetch me out
+      of England, but even if he had been there, perhaps he scarcely could have
+      stopped it; for this Mr. Castlewood, although so quiet, had the family
+      fault of tenacity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Price, being a very steady person, with a limited income, and enough
+      to do, was inclined to look down upon the state of mind in which Mr.
+      Castlewood became involved. She was not there at the moment, of course,
+      but suddenly sent for when all was settled; nevertheless, she found out
+      afterward how it began from her master's man, through what he had for
+      dinner. And in the kitchen-garden at Castlewood no rampion would she allow
+      while she lived. I asked her whether she had no pity, no sympathy, no fine
+      feeling, and how she could have become Mrs. Price if she never had known
+      such sentiments. But she said that they only called her &ldquo;Mistress&rdquo; on
+      account of her authority, and she never had been drawn to the opposite
+      sex, though many times asked in marriage. And what she had seen of
+      matrimony led her far away from it. I was sorry to hear her say this, and
+      felt damped, till I thought that the world was not all alike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then she told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a pound of
+      tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and persistent, was
+      kept off and on for at least two years by the mother of his sweet idol.
+      How the old lady held a balance in her mind as to the likelihood of his
+      succession, trying, through English friends, to find the value and the
+      course of property. Of what nation she was, Mrs. Price could not say, and
+      only knew that it must be a bad one. She called herself the Countess of
+      Ixorism, as truly pronounced in English; and she really was of good family
+      too, so far as any foreigner can be. And her daughter's name was
+      Flittamore, not according to the right spelling, perhaps, but pronounced
+      with the proper accent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Flittamore herself did not seem to care, according to what Mrs. Price had
+      been told, but left herself wholly in her mother's hands, being sure of
+      her beauty still growing upon her, and desiring to have it admired and
+      praised. And the number of foreigners she always had about her sometimes
+      made her real lover nearly give her up. But, alas! he was not quite wise
+      enough for this, with all that he had read and learned and seen.
+      Therefore, when it was reported from Spain that my father had been killed
+      by bandits&mdash;the truth being that he was then in Greece&mdash;the
+      Countess at last consented to the marriage of her daughter with Herbert
+      Castlewood, and even seemed to press it forward for some reasons of her
+      own. And the happy couple set forth upon their travels, and Mrs. Price was
+      sent abroad to wait upon the lady.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a few months they seemed to get on very well, Flittamore showing much
+      affection for her husband, whose age was a trifle more than her own
+      doubled, while he was entirely wrapped up in her, and labored that the
+      graces of her mind might be worthy to compare with those more visible. But
+      her spiritual face and most sweet poetic eyes were vivid with bodily
+      brilliance alone. She had neither mind enough to learn, nor heart enough
+      to pretend to learn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is out of my power to describe such things, even if it were my duty to
+      do so, which, happily, it has never been; moreover, Mrs. Price, in what
+      she told me, exercised a just and strict reserve. Enough that Mr.
+      Castlewood's wedded life was done with in six months and three days. Lady
+      Castlewood, as she would be called, though my father still was living and
+      his cousin disclaimed the title&mdash;away she ran from some dull German
+      place, after a very stiff lesson in poetry, and with her ran off a young
+      Englishman, the present Sir Montague Hockin. He was Mr. Hockin then, and
+      had not a half-penny of his own; but Flittamore met that difficulty by
+      robbing her husband to his last farthing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This had happened about twelve years back, soon after I was placed at the
+      school in Languedoc, to which I was taken so early in life that I almost
+      forget all about it. But it might have been better for poor Flittamore if
+      she had been brought up at a steady place like that, with sisters and
+      ladies of retreat, to teach her the proper description of her duties to
+      mankind. I seemed now in my own mind to condemn her quite enough, feeling
+      how superior her husband must have been; but Mrs. Price went even further,
+      and became quite indignant that any one should pity her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A hussy! a hussy! a poppet of a hussy!&rdquo; she exclaimed, with greater power
+      than her quiet face could indicate; &ldquo;never would I look at her. Speak
+      never so, Miss Castlewood. My lord is the very best of all men, and she
+      has made him what he is. The pity she deserves is to be trodden under
+      foot, as I saw them do in Naples.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      After all the passion I had seen among rough people, I scarcely could help
+      trembling at the depth of wrath dissembled and firmly controlled in calm
+      clear eyes under very steadfast eyebrows. It was plain that Lord
+      Castlewood had, at any rate, the gift of being loved by his dependents.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope that he took it aright!&rdquo; I cried, catching some of her
+      indignation; &ldquo;I hope that he cast her to the winds, without even a sigh
+      for such a cruel creature!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He was not strong enough,&rdquo; she answered, sadly; &ldquo;his bodily health was
+      not equal to it. From childhood he had been partly crippled and spoiled in
+      his nerves by an accident. And the shock of that sight at Bristol flew to
+      his weakness, and was too much for him. And now this third and worst
+      disaster, coming upon him where his best hope lay, and at such a time of
+      life, took him altogether off his legs. And off his head too, I might
+      almost say, miss; for, instead of blaming her, he put the fault entirely
+      upon himself. At his time of life, and in such poor health, he should not
+      have married a bright young girl: how could he ever hope to make her
+      happy? That was how he looked at it, when he should have sent constables
+      after her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what became of her&mdash;the mindless animal, to forsake so good and
+      great a man! I do hope she was punished, and that vile man too.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;She was, Miss Castlewood; but he was not; at least he has not received
+      justice yet. But he will, he will, he will, miss. The treacherous thief!
+      And my lord received him as a young fellow-countryman under a cloud, and
+      lent him money, and saved him from starving; for he had broken with his
+      father and was running from his creditors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Tell me no more,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;not another word. It is my fate to meet that&mdash;well,
+      that gentleman&mdash;almost every day. And he, and he&mdash;oh, how
+      thankful I am to have found out all this about him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The above will show why, when I met my father's cousin on the following
+      morning&mdash;with his grand, calm face, as benevolent as if he had passed
+      a night of luxurious rest instead of sleepless agony&mdash;I knew myself
+      to be of a lower order in mind and soul and heart than his; a small,
+      narrow, passionate girl, in the presence of a large, broad-sighted, and
+      compassionate man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I threw myself altogether on his will; for, when I trust, I trust wholly.
+      And, under his advice, I did not return with any rash haste to Bruntsea,
+      but wrote in discharge of all duty there; while Mrs. Price, a clear and
+      steadfast woman, was sent to London to see Wilhelmina Strouss. These two
+      must have had very great talks together, and, both being zealous and
+      faithful, they came to many misunderstandings. However, on the whole, they
+      became very honest friends, and sworn allies at last, discovering more,
+      the more they talked, people against whom they felt a common and just
+      enmity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      SHOXFORD
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Are there people who have never, in the course of anxious life, felt
+      desire to be away, to fly away, from every thing, however good and dear to
+      them, and rest a little, and think new thought, or let new thought flow
+      into them, from the gentle air of some new place, where nobody has heard
+      of them&mdash;a place whose cares, being felt by proxy, almost seem
+      romantic, and where the eyes spare brain and heart with a critic's
+      self-complacence? If any such place yet remains, the happy soul may seek
+      it in an inland English village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A village where no billows are to stun or to confound it, no crag or
+      precipice to trouble it with giddiness, and where no hurry of restless
+      tide makes time, its own father, uneasy. But in the quiet, at the bottom
+      of the valley, a beautiful rivulet, belonging to the place, hastens or
+      lingers, according to its mood; hankering here and there, not to be away
+      yet; and then, by the doing of its own work, led to a swift perplexity of
+      ripples. Here along its side, and there softly leaning over it, fresh
+      green meadows lie reposing in the settled meaning of the summer day. For
+      this is a safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, when
+      the impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleak east
+      wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their bright lips
+      browned with cold. Then, moreover, must the meads have felt the worry of
+      scarcely knowing yet what would be demanded of them; whether to carry an
+      exacting load of hay, or only to feed a few sauntering cows.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now every trouble has been settled for the best; the long grass is
+      mown, and the short grass browsed, and capers of the fairies and caprices
+      of the cows have dappled worn texture with a deeper green. Therefore let
+      eyes that are satisfied here&mdash;as any but a very bad eye must be, with
+      so many changes of softness&mdash;follow the sweet lead of the valley; and
+      there, in a bend of the gently brawling river, stands the never-brawling
+      church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A church less troubled with the gift of tongues is not to be found in
+      England: a church of gray stone that crumbles just enough to entice frail
+      mortal sympathy, and confesses to the storms it has undergone in a tone
+      that conciliates the human sigh. The tower is large, and high enough to
+      tell what the way of the wind is without any potato-bury on the top, and
+      the simple roof is not cruciated with tiles of misguided fancy. But gray
+      rest, and peace of ages, and content of lying calmly six feet deeper than
+      the bustle of the quick; memory also, and oblivion, following each other
+      slowly, like the shadows of the church-yard trees&mdash;for all of these
+      no better place can be, nor softer comfort.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the village of Shoxford runs up on the rise, and straggles away from
+      its burial-place, as a child from his school goes mitching. There are some
+      few little ups and downs in the manner of its building, as well as in
+      other particulars about it; but still it keeps as parallel with the
+      crooked river as the far more crooked ways of men permit. But the whole of
+      the little road of houses runs down the valley from the church-yard gate;
+      and above the church, looking up the pretty valley, stands nothing but the
+      mill and the plank bridge below it; and a furlong above that again the
+      stone bridge, where the main road crosses the stream, and is consoled by
+      leading to a big house&mdash;the Moonstock Inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The house in which my father lived so long&mdash;or rather, I should say,
+      my mother, while he was away with his regiment&mdash;and where we
+      unfortunate seven saw the light, stands about half-way down the little
+      village, being on the right-hand side of the road as you come down the
+      valley from the Moonstock bridge. Therefore it is on the further and upper
+      side of the street&mdash;if it can be called a street&mdash;from the
+      valley and the river and the meads below the mill, inasmuch as every bit
+      of Shoxford, and every particle of the parish also, has existence&mdash;of
+      no mean sort, as compared with other parishes, in its own esteem&mdash;on
+      the right side of the river Moon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the street,
+      was higher at one end than at the other. That is to say, the ground came
+      sloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said, from one end to the
+      other of it, so that it looked like a Noah's ark tilted by Behemoth under
+      the stern-post. And a little lane, from a finely wooded hill, here fell
+      steeply into the &ldquo;High Street&rdquo; (as the grocer and the butcher loved to
+      call it), and made my father's house most distinct, by obeying a good deal
+      of its outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply of water under
+      the weather-board of our front-door. This front-door opened on the little
+      steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road, while the back-door
+      led into a long but narrow garden running along the road, but raised some
+      feet above it; the bank was kept up by a rough stone wall crested with
+      stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian, and faced with rosettes and disks and
+      dills of houseleek, pennywort, and hart's-tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used to be;
+      for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his grandson, having
+      proved his will, was resolved to make short work with it. The poor house
+      was blamed for the sorrows it had sheltered, and had the repute of two
+      spectres, as well as the pale shadow of misfortune. For my dear father was
+      now believed by the superstitious villagers to haunt the old home of his
+      happiness and love, and roam from room to room in search of his wife and
+      all his children. But his phantom was most careful not to face that of his
+      father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooved a lord, and pointed
+      forever to a red wound in its breast. No wonder, therefore, that the house
+      would never let; and it would have been pulled down long ago if the owner
+      had not felt a liking for it, through memories tender and peculiar to
+      himself. His grandson, having none of these to contend with, resolved to
+      make a mere stable of it, and build a public-house at the bottom of the
+      garden, and turn the space between them into skittle-ground, and so forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a sacred
+      spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would have offered
+      hundreds to prevent it. But I found myself now in a delicate state of mind
+      concerning money, having little of my own, and doubting how much other
+      people might intend for me. So that I durst not offer to buy land and a
+      house without any means to pay.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves quiet.
+      We knew that any stir in this little place about us&mdash;such as my name
+      might at once set going&mdash;would once for all destroy all hope of doing
+      good by coming. Betsy knew more of such matters than I did, besides all
+      her knowledge of the place itself, and her great superiority of age;
+      therefore I left to her all little management, as was in every way fair
+      and wise. For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a large and good company of
+      lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look after them&mdash;and who was he
+      among them? If she trod on one side of her foot, or felt a tingling in her
+      hand, or a buzzing in her ear, she knew in a moment what it was&mdash;of
+      pounds and pounds was she being cheated, a hundred miles off, by
+      foreigners!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her
+      faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my good
+      nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so she never
+      would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs. Price, then visiting
+      Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady was too busy to be spared
+      by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord Castlewood to spare me his
+      housekeeper. Upon this Mrs. Strouss at once declared that Mrs. Price would
+      ruin every thing; and rather than that&mdash;no matter what she lost&mdash;she
+      herself would go with me. And so she did, and she managed very well,
+      keeping my name out of sight (for, happen what might, I would have no
+      false one); and she got quiet lodgings in her present name, which sounded
+      nicely foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my father's
+      material house, and the work they were promised in pulling it down, than
+      about his shattered household, we had a very favorable time for coming in,
+      and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not be allowed to run up
+      bills.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed it
+      unwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American dollar at
+      the shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we were looked upon
+      with some pity, and yet a kind desire for our custom. Thus, without any
+      attempt of ours at either delusion or mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailed
+      throughout the place as &ldquo;Madam Straw,&rdquo; while I, through the sagacity of a
+      deeply read shoe-maker, obtained a foreign name, as will by-and-by appear.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We lodged at the post-office, not through any wisdom or even any thought
+      on our part, but simply because we happened there to find the cleanest and
+      prettiest rooms in the place. For the sun being now in the height of
+      August, and having much harvest to ripen, at middle day came ramping down
+      the little street of Shoxford like the chairman of the guild of bakers.
+      Every house having lately brightened up its whitewash&mdash;which they
+      always do there when the frosts are over, soon after the feast of St.
+      Barnabas&mdash;and the weeds of the way having fared amiss in the absence
+      of any water-cart, it was not in the strong, sharp character of the sun to
+      miss such an opportunity. After the red Californian glare, I had no fear
+      of any English sun; but Betsy was frightened, and both of us were glad to
+      get into a little place sheltered by green blinds. This chanced to be the
+      post-office, and there we found nice lodgings.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By an equal chance this proved to be the wisest thing we could possibly
+      have done, if we had set about it carefully. For why, that nobody ever
+      would impute any desire of secrecy to people who straightway unpacked
+      their boxes at the very head-quarters of all the village news. And the
+      mistress of the post was a sharp-tongued woman, pleased to speak freely of
+      her neighbors' doings, and prompt with good advice that they should heed
+      their own business, if any of them durst say a word about her own. She
+      kept a tidy little shop, showing something of almost every thing; but we
+      had a side door, quite of our own, where Betsy met the baker's wife and
+      the veritable milkman; and neither of them knew her, which was just what
+      she had hoped; and yet it made her speak amiss of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But if all things must be brought to the harsh test of dry reason, I
+      myself might be hard pushed to say what good I hoped to do by coming thus
+      to Shoxford. I knew of a great many things, for certain, that never had
+      been thoroughly examined here; also I naturally wished to see, being a
+      native, what the natives were; and, much more than that, it was always on
+      my mind that here lay my mother and the other six of us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore it was an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out the
+      afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating now as
+      a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would allow even
+      to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had dared so
+      much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expected gratis,
+      she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that the lodgings for
+      such people must be looked for down the alley. However, Mrs. Busk, our new
+      landlady, although she had a temper of her own (as any one keeping a
+      post-office must have) was forced by the rarity of lodgers here to yield
+      many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her own boards, would not even have
+      allowed to be debated. All this was entirely against my wish; for when I
+      have money, I spend it, finding really no other good in it; but Betsy told
+      me that the purest principle of all was&mdash;not to be cheated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So I left her to have these little matters out, and took that occasion for
+      stealing away (as the hours grew on toward evening) to a place where I
+      wished to be quite alone. And the shadow of the western hills shed peace
+      upon the valley, when I crossed a little stile leading into Shoxford
+      church-yard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a minute or two I was quite afraid, seeing nobody any where about, nor
+      even hearing any sound in the distance to keep me company. For the church
+      lay apart from the village, and was thickly planted out from it, the
+      living folk being full of superstition, and deeply believing in the dead
+      people's ghosts. And even if this were a wife to a husband, or even a
+      husband reappearing to his wife, there was not a man or a woman in the
+      village that would not run away from it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This I did not know at present, not having been there long enough; neither
+      had I any terror of that sort, not being quite such a coward, I should
+      hope. But still, as the mantles of the cold trees darkened, and the stony
+      remembrance of the dead grew pale, and of the living there was not even
+      the whistle of a grave-digger&mdash;my heart got the better of my mind for
+      a moment, and made me long to be across that stile again. Because (as I
+      said to myself) if there had been a hill to go up, that would be so
+      different and so easy; but going down into a place like this, whence the
+      only escape must be by steps, and where any flight must be along channels
+      that run in and out of graves and tombstones, I tried not to be afraid,
+      yet could not altogether help it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely thinking what
+      to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place which made me stop
+      and wonder. Here were six little grassy tuffets, according to the length
+      of children, all laid east and west, without any stint of room,
+      harmoniously.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at which
+      their lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage them, as a
+      hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to shelter. Without a
+      name to any of them, all these seven graves lay together, as in a fairy
+      ring of rest, and kind compassion had prevented any stranger from coming
+      to be buried there.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the pretty
+      grass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its foot, and bent
+      my head, and counted all the little ones. Then I thought of my father in
+      the grove of peaches, more than six thousand miles away, on the banks of
+      the soft Blue River. And a sense of desolate sorrow and of the blessing of
+      death overwhelmed me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE SEXTON
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my work
+      again. It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these proofs of God's
+      great visitation over us, to walk about and say, &ldquo;I will do this,&rdquo; or even
+      to think, &ldquo;I will try to do that.&rdquo; My own poor helplessness, and loss of
+      living love to guide me, laid upon my heart a weight from which it
+      scarcely cared to move. All was buried, all was done with, all had passed
+      from out the world, and left no mark but graves behind. What good to stir
+      anew such sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move its
+      mystery?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener, brought me
+      back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right courage within me.
+      But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror and interest vividly. It
+      may be remembered that this good man had been my father's gardener at the
+      time of our great calamity, and almost alone of the Shoxford people had
+      shown himself true and faithful. Not that the natives had turned against
+      us, or been at all unfriendly; so far from this was the case, that every
+      one felt for our troubles, and pitied us, my father being of a cheerful
+      and affable turn, until misery hardened him; but what I mean is that only
+      one or two had the courage to go against the popular conclusion and the
+      convictions of authority.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for his master,
+      who many and many a time&mdash;as he told me&mdash;had taken a spade and
+      dug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born, instead of
+      a fine young nobleman; &ldquo;and nobody gifted with that turn of mind, likewise
+      very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever be relied upon to go and
+      shoot his father.&rdquo; Thus reasoned old Jacob, and he always had done so, and
+      meant evermore to abide by it; and the graves which he had tended now for
+      nigh a score of years, and meant to tend till he called for his own, were&mdash;as
+      sure as he stood there in Shoxford church-yard a-talking to me, who was
+      the very image of my father, God bless me, though not of course so big
+      like&mdash;the graves of slaughtered innocents, and a mother who was
+      always an angel. And the parson might preach forever to him about the
+      resurrection, and the right coming uppermost when you got to heaven, but
+      to his mind that was scarcely any count at all; and if you came to that,
+      we ought to hang Jack Ketch, as might come to pass in the Revelations. But
+      while a man had got his own bread to earn, till his honor would let him go
+      to the work-house, and his duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that
+      vexed him more than to be told any texts of Holy Scripture. Whatever God
+      Almighty had put down there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being
+      long the most ancient people, though none the more for that did he like
+      them; and so it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a day's work
+      worth eighteenpence, that could enter into Bible promises. Not that he was
+      at all behindhand about interpretation; but as long as he could fetch and
+      earn, at planting box and doing borders, two shillings and ninepence a day
+      and his beer, he was not going to be on for kingdom come.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here would be
+      approved by wise men who had found time to study the subject. But he
+      answered that whatever their words might be, their doings showed that they
+      knew what was the first thing to attend to. And if it ever happened him to
+      come across a parson who was as full of heaven outside as he was inside
+      his surplice, he would keep his garden in order for nothing better than
+      his blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew of no answer to be made to this. And indeed he seemed to be aware
+      that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon his spade,
+      and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the church tower, holding
+      as he did the position of sexton, and preparing even now to dig a grave.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I keeps them well away from you,&rdquo; he said, as he began to chop out a new
+      oblong in the turf; &ldquo;many a shilling have I been offered by mothers about
+      their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy ring,' as we calls this
+      little cluster; but not for five golden guineas would I do it, and have to
+      face the Captain, dead or alive, about it. We heard that he was dead,
+      because it was put in all the papers; and a pleasant place I keeps for
+      him, to come home alongside of his family. A nicer gravelly bit of ground
+      there couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of him occupying it,
+      I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Thank you,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;you are certainly most kind; but, Mr. Rigg, I
+      would rather wait a little. I have had a very troublesome life thus far,
+      and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would rather not have my
+      peg driven down just&mdash;just at present.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their coffins
+      ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet. Lord bless you for not
+      knowing what He hath in hand! Now this one you see me a-raising of the
+      turf for, stood as upright as you do, a fortnight back, and as good about
+      the chest and shoulders, and three times the color in her cheeks, and her
+      eyes a'most as bright as yourn be. Not aristocratic, you must understand
+      me, miss, being only the miller's daughter, nor instructed to throw her
+      voice the same as you do, which is better than gallery music; but setting
+      these haxidents to one side, a farmer would have said she was more
+      preferable, because more come-at-able, though not in my opinion to be
+      compared&mdash;excuse me for making so free, miss, but when it comes to
+      death we has a kind of right to do it&mdash;and many a young farmer,
+      coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and far and wide
+      she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the Moonshine, from the name
+      of our little river. She used to call me 'Jacob Diggs,' because of my
+      porochial office, with a meaning of a joke on my parenshal name. Ah, what
+      a merry one she were! And now this is what I has to do for her! And sooner
+      would I 'a doed it a'most for my own old ooman!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Jacob!&rdquo; I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore up the
+      ground, as if his wife was waiting, &ldquo;the things you say are quite wrong, I
+      am sure, for a man in your position. You are connected with this church
+      almost as much as the clerk is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More, miss, ten times more! He don't do nothing but lounge on the front
+      of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time of life
+      go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stick that
+      makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with their pocket full
+      of nuts. When I was a boy there was no nuts, except at the proper time of
+      year, a month or two on from this time of speaking; and we used to crack
+      they in the husk, and make no noise to disturb the congregation; but now
+      it is nuts, nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with three corners to them&mdash;all
+      the year round nuts to crack, and me to find out who did it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Mr. Rigg,&rdquo; I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind than in
+      body, &ldquo;is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all the nuts on a
+      Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few. But not of a
+      Saturday more than any other day.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any sale of
+      nuts except to good boys of high principles. And has it not happened
+      sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on their nuts, and bought
+      them again at your shop on a Monday? I mean, of course, when your duty has
+      compelled you to empty the pockets of a boy in church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up naturally by
+      my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as I had spoken I
+      became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought to my mind that I had
+      promised not even to whisper it; and now I had told it to the man of all
+      men! But Jacob appeared to have been quite deaf, and diligently went on
+      digging. And I said &ldquo;good-evening,&rdquo; for the grave was for the morrow; and
+      he let me go nearly to the stile before he stuck his spade into the ground
+      and followed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Excoose of my making use,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;of a kind of a personal reference,
+      miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh me believe you must
+      be sharp inside&mdash;more than your father, the poor Captain, were, as
+      all them little grass buttons argueth. Now, miss, if I thought you had
+      head-piece enough to keep good counsel and ensue it, maybe I could tell
+      you a thing as would make your hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups,
+      and your heart a'most bust them there braids of fallallies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, what in the world do you mean?&rdquo; I asked, being startled by the old
+      man's voice and face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing, miss, nothing. I was only a-joking. If you bain't come to no
+      more discretion than that&mdash;to turn as white as the clerk's
+      smock-frock of a Easter-Sunday&mdash;why, the more of a joke one has, the
+      better, to bring your purty color back to you. Ah! Polly of the mill was
+      the maid for color&mdash;as good for the eyesight as a chaney-rose in
+      April. Well, well, I must get on with her grave; they're a-coming to speak
+      the good word over un on sundown.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He might have known how this would vex and perplex me. I could not bear to
+      hinder him in his work&mdash;as important as any to be done by man for man&mdash;and
+      yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave him there, and wonder what
+      it was that he had been so afraid to tell. So I quietly said, &ldquo;Then I will
+      wish you a very good evening again, Mr. Rigg, as you are too busy to be
+      spoken with.&rdquo; And I walked off a little way, having met with men who,
+      having begun a thing, needs must have it out, and fully expecting him to
+      call me back. But Jacob only touched his hat, and said, &ldquo;A pleasant
+      evening to you, ma'am.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did. I did not
+      hesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and demanding of
+      Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any thing or nothing;
+      for I was not to be played with about important matters, like the boys in
+      the church who were cracking nuts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord! Lord, now!&rdquo; he said, with his treddled heel scraping the shoulder
+      of his shining spade; &ldquo;the longer I live in this world, the fitter I grow
+      to get into the ways of the Lord. His ways are past finding out, saith
+      King David: but a man of war, from his youth upward, hath no chance such
+      as a gardening man hath. What a many of them have I found out!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What has that got to do with it!&rdquo; I cried. &ldquo;Just tell me what it was you
+      were speaking of just now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss,&rdquo; he answered, in the
+      prime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only, not because he
+      wanted it, &ldquo;how little us knows of the times and seasons and the
+      generations of the sons of men. There you stand, miss, and here stand I,
+      as haven't seen your father for a score of years a'most; and yet there
+      comes out of your eyes into mine the very same look as the Captain used to
+      send, when snakes in the grass had been telling lies about me coming late,
+      or having my half pint or so on. Not that the Captain was a hard man, miss&mdash;far
+      otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the women be. But
+      only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made you come, with a
+      score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyes like&mdash;Selah!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not,&rdquo; I answered, quite gently,
+      being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried to hurry him;
+      &ldquo;but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg, to me, your
+      master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking. Is this the place to
+      joke with me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a foot
+      without stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man, callous as
+      he might be, could not help feeling for&mdash;a pinch of snuff. This he
+      found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, and took it very
+      carefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and thus, being fully
+      self-assured again, he stood, with his feet far apart and his head on one
+      side, regarding me warily. And I took good care not to say another word.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You be young,&rdquo; he said at last; &ldquo;and in these latter days no wisdom is
+      ordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always in the mouths of
+      them as is themselves ordained. But you have a way of keeping your chin
+      up, miss, as if you was gifted with a stiff tongue likewise. And whatever
+      may hap, I has as good mind to tell 'e.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you are absolutely bound to do,&rdquo; I answered, as forcibly as I could.
+      &ldquo;Duty to your former master and to me, his only child&mdash;and to
+      yourself, and your Maker too&mdash;compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me
+      every thing you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, miss,&rdquo; he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a low,
+      hoarse voice, &ldquo;as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by all this
+      murdered family, I knows the man who done it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips, and the
+      spade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I became as firm as
+      the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of fluttering, grew as
+      steadfast as a glacier. Then, for the first time, I knew that God had not
+      kept me living, when all the others died, without fitting me also for the
+      work there was to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come here to the corner of the tower, miss,&rdquo; old Jacob went on, in his
+      excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket. &ldquo;Where we
+      stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of them big
+      tombstones. And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may be a-watching of
+      us while here we stand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if only I
+      could see him once. But the place was as silent as its graves; and I
+      followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress. Here he went into a deep
+      gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip from the roof; and being, both
+      in his clothes and self, pretty much of that same color, he was not very
+      easy to discern from stone when the light of day was declining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This is where I catches all the boys,&rdquo; he whispered; &ldquo;and this is where I
+      caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to nurse my knees a
+      bit. Let me see&mdash;why, let me see! Don't you speak till I do, miss.
+      Were it the last but one I dug? Or could un 'a been the last but two?
+      Never mind; I can't call to mind quite justly. We puts down about one a
+      month in this parish, without any distemper or haxident. Well, it must 'a
+      been the one afore last&mdash;to be sure, no call to scratch my head about
+      un. Old Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here&mdash;done handsome by the
+      rate-payers. Over there, miss, if you please to look&mdash;about two
+      land-yard and a half away. Can you see un with the grass peeking up
+      a'ready?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind that, Jacob. Do please to go on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So I be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well, I
+      were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to say as I
+      went to sleep, and charged the parish for it&mdash;a spiteful old ooman,
+      and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay for it;
+      and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just making
+      ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease my legs,
+      like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and over again
+      that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along&mdash;movin' along,
+      without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You may see the
+      track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here finger.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard, such
+      as a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away from. But they
+      no right, after the service of the Church, to come up for more than one
+      change of the moon, unless they been great malefactors. And then they be
+      ashamed of it; and I reminds them of it. 'Amen,' I say, in the very same
+      voice as I used at the tail of their funerals; and then they knows well
+      that I covered them up, and the most uneasy goes back again. Lor' bless
+      you, miss, I no fear of the dead. At both ends of life us be harmless. It
+      is in the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all the death
+      for one another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to interject any
+      new ideas from which he might go rambling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you,&rdquo; the old man continued,
+      as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with another pinch of
+      snuff, &ldquo;being tall and grim, and white in the face, and very onpleasant
+      for to look at, and its eyes seemed a'most to burn holes in the air. No
+      sooner did I see that it were not a ghostie, but a living man the same as
+      I be, than my knees begins to shake and my stumps of teeth to chatter. And
+      what do you think it was stopped me, miss, from slipping round this
+      corner, and away by belfry? Nort but the hoddest idea you ever heared on.
+      For all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that the Lord had been
+      pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome as he used to be, but
+      in the living flesh, however, in spite of they newspapers. And I were just
+      at the pint of coming forrard, out of this here dark cornder, knowing as I
+      had done my duty by them graves that his honor, to my mind, must 'a come
+      looking after, when, lucky for me, I see summat in his walk, and then in
+      his countenance, and then in all his features, unnateral on the Captain's
+      part, whatever his time of life might be. And sure enough, miss, it were
+      no Captain more nor I myself be.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course not. How could it be? But who was it, Jacob?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole. Well, by that time
+      'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge up into the
+      elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as nigh as might be, and
+      keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a face more full of malice and
+      uncharity. However, he come on as straight as a arrow, holding his long
+      chin out, like this, as if he gotten crutches under it, as the folk does
+      with bad water. A tall man, as tall as the Captain a'most, but not gifted
+      with any kind aspect. He trampsed over the general graves, like the devil
+      come to fetch their souls out; but when he come here to the 'holy ring,'
+      he stopped short, and stood with his back to me. I could hear him count
+      the seven graves, as pat as the shells of oysters to pay for, and then he
+      said all their names, as true, from the biggest to the leastest one, as
+      Betsy Bowen could 'a done it, though none of 'em got no mark to 'em. Oh,
+      the poor little hearts, it was cruel hard upon them! And then my lady in
+      the middle, making seven. So far as I could catch over his shoulder, he
+      seemed to be quite a-talking with her&mdash;not as you and I be, miss, but
+      a sort of a manner of a way, like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what did he seem to say? Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain. And glad I was to
+      have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to such a condition&mdash;ay,
+      and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had caught sight of me&mdash;as
+      the parish might 'a had to fight over the appintment of another sexton.
+      And so at last a' went away. And I were that stiff with scrooging in this
+      cornder&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all? Oh, that comes to nothing. Surely you must have more to tell
+      me? It may have been some one who knew our names. It may have been some
+      old friend of the family.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss, no! No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like King
+      David's. He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of asps were
+      under his lips. In this here hattitude he stood, with his back toward me,
+      and his reins more upright than I be capable of putting it. And this was
+      how he held up his elbow and his head. Look 'e see, miss, and then 'e know
+      as much as I do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step&mdash;a most difficult strain for
+      his short bowed legs&mdash;as far as the place he had been pointing out;
+      and there he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what the tall man
+      had done, so far as the difference of size allowed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness; and yet
+      Jacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching himself in such
+      a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger, that&mdash;low as it
+      was&mdash;I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally offending him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That warn't quite right, miss. Now you look again,&rdquo; he exclaimed, with a
+      little readjustment. &ldquo;Only he had a thing over one shoulder, the like of
+      what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was beyond me, because of the
+      back of his head, like. For God's sake keep out of his way, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude, with
+      the right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand resting
+      half-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown back, as if
+      ready for a blow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a very odd way to stand!&rdquo; I said.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss. And what he said was odder. 'Six, and the mother!' I heared un
+      say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.' But stop, miss. Not a breath
+      to any one! Here comes the poor father and mother to speak the blessing
+      across their daughter's grave&mdash;and the grave not two foot down yet!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A SIMPLE QUESTION
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Now this account of what Jacob Rigg had seen and heard threw me into a
+      state of mind extremely unsatisfactory. To be in eager search of some
+      unknown person who had injured me inexpressibly, without any longing for
+      revenge on my part, but simply with a view to justice&mdash;this was a
+      very different thing from feeling that an unknown person was in quest of
+      me, with the horrible purpose of destroying me to insure his own wicked
+      safety.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first I almost thought that he was welcome to do this; that such a life
+      as mine (if looked at from an outer point of view) was better to be died
+      than lived out. Also that there was nobody left to get any good out of all
+      that I could do; and even if I ever should succeed, truth would come out
+      of her tomb too late. And this began to make me cry, which I had long
+      given over doing, with no one to feel for the heart of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But a thing of this kind could not long endure; and as soon as the sun of
+      the morrow arose (or at least as soon as I was fit to see him), my view of
+      the world was quite different. Here was the merry brook, playing with the
+      morning, spread around with ample depth and rich retreat of meadows, and
+      often, after maze of leisure, hastening with a tinkle into shadowy delight
+      of trees. Here, as well, were happy lanes, and footpaths of a soft
+      content, unworn with any pressure of the price of time or business. None
+      of them knew (in spite, at flurried spots, of their own direction posts)
+      whence they were coming or whither going&mdash;only that here they lay,
+      between the fields or through them, like idle veins of earth, with
+      sometimes company of a man or boy, whistling to his footfall, or a singing
+      maid with a milking pail. And how ungrateful it would be to forget the
+      pleasant copses, in waves of deep green leafage flowing down and up the
+      channeled hills, waving at the wind to tints and tones of new refreshment,
+      and tempting idle folk to come and hear the hush, and see the twinkled
+      texture of pellucid gloom.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much, however, as I loved to sit in places of this kind alone, for some
+      little time I feared to do so, after hearing the sexton's tale; for
+      Jacob's terror was so unfeigned (though his own life had not been
+      threatened) that, knowing as I did from Betsy's account, as well as his
+      own appearance, that he was not at all a nervous man, I could not help
+      sharing his vague alarm. It seemed so terrible that any one should come to
+      the graves of my sweet mother and her six harmless children, and, instead
+      of showing pity, as even a monster might have tried to do, should stand,
+      if not with threatening gestures, yet with a most hostile mien, and thirst
+      for the life of the only survivor&mdash;my poor self.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But terrible or not, the truth was so; and neither Betsy nor myself could
+      shake Mr. Rigg's conclusion. Indeed, he became more and more emphatic, in
+      reply to our doubts and mild suggestions, perhaps that his eyes had
+      deceived him, or perhaps that, taking a nap in the corner of the buttress,
+      he had dreamed at least a part of it. And Betsy, on the score of ancient
+      friendship and kind remembrance of his likings, put it to him in a gentle
+      way whether his knowledge of what Sally Mock had been, and the calumnies
+      she might have spoken of his beer (when herself, in the work-house,
+      deprived of it), might not have induced him to take a little more than
+      usual in going down so deep for her. But he answered, &ldquo;No; it was nothing
+      of the sort. Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not from any
+      feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the parish paid, and
+      the parish would have measurement. And when that was on, he never brought
+      down more than the quart tin from the public; and never had none down
+      afterward. Otherwise the ground was so ticklish, that a man, working too
+      free, might stay down there. No, no! That idea was like one of Sally's
+      own. He just had his quart of Persfield ale&mdash;short measure, of
+      course, with a woman at the bar&mdash;and if that were enough to make a
+      man dream dreams, the sooner he dug his own grave, the better for all
+      connected with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We saw that we had gone too far in thinking of such a possibility; and if
+      Mr. Rigg had not been large-minded, as well as notoriously sober, Betsy
+      might have lost me all the benefit of his evidence by her London-bred
+      clumsiness with him. For it takes quite a different handling, and a
+      different mode of outset, to get on with the London working class and the
+      laboring kind of the country; or at least it seemed to me so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to Betsy
+      Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing ever since I
+      brought her down from London. And now I was glad that, in one point at
+      least, her judgment had overruled mine&mdash;to wit, that my name and
+      parentage were as yet not generally known in the village. Indeed, only
+      Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful old washer-woman, with no roof to
+      her mouth, were aware of me as Miss Castlewood. Not that I had taken any
+      other name&mdash;to that I would not stoop&mdash;but because the public,
+      of its own accord, paying attention to Betsy's style of addressing me,
+      followed her lead (with some little improvement), and was pleased to
+      entitle me &ldquo;Miss Raumur.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man of
+      advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several pairs of
+      spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop), that no other
+      way could be right except that. For there it was in print, as any one able
+      might see, on the side of an instrument whose name and qualities were even
+      more mysterious than those in debate. Therefore I became &ldquo;Miss Raumur;&rdquo;
+       and a protest would have gone for nothing unless printed also. But it did
+      not behoove me to go to that expense, while it suited me very well to be
+      considered and pitied as a harmless foreigner&mdash;a being who on English
+      land may find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own country, a
+      prophet could be less thought of. And this large pity for me, as an
+      outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me with
+      tenfold the privilege of the proudest native. For the natives of this
+      valley are declared to be of a different stock from those around them, not
+      of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or Danish origin. How that may
+      be I do not know; at any rate, they think well of themselves, and no doubt
+      they have cause to do so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways amused
+      me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner, equally beyond and
+      below inquiry. They told me that I was kindly welcome to stay there as
+      long as it pleased me; and knowing how fond I was of making pictures,
+      after beholding my drawing-book, every farmer among them gave me leave to
+      come into his fields, though he never had heard there was any thing there
+      worth painting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When once there has been a deposit of idea in the calm deep eocene of
+      British rural mind, the impression will outlast any shallow deluge of the
+      noblest education. Shoxford had settled two points forever, without
+      troubling reason to come out of her way&mdash;first, that I was a foreign
+      young lady of good birth, manners, and money; second, and far more
+      important, I was here to write and paint a book about Shoxford. Not for
+      the money, of that I had no need (according to the congress at the
+      &ldquo;Silver-edged Holly&rdquo;), but for the praise and the knowledge of it, like,
+      and to make a talk among high people. But the elders shook their heads&mdash;as
+      I heard from Mr. Rigg, who hugged his knowledge proudly, and uttered dim
+      sayings of wisdom let forth at large usury: he did not mind telling me
+      that the old men shook their heads, for fear of my being a deal too young,
+      and a long sight too well favored (as any man might tell without his specs
+      on), for to write any book upon any subject yet, leave alone an old,
+      ancient town like theirs. However, there might be no harm in my trying,
+      and perhaps the school-master would cross out the bad language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Thus for once fortune now was giving me good help, enabling me to go about
+      freely, and preventing (so far as I could see, at least) all danger of
+      discovery by my unknown foe. So here I resolved to keep my head-quarters,
+      dispensing, if it must be so, with Betsy's presence, and not even having
+      Mrs. Price to succeed her, unless my cousin should insist upon it. And
+      partly to dissuade him from that, and partly to hear his opinion of the
+      sexton's tale, I paid a flying visit to Lord Castlewood; while &ldquo;Madam
+      Straw,&rdquo; as Betsy now was called throughout the village, remained behind at
+      Shoxford. For I long had desired to know a thing which I had not ventured
+      to ask my cousin&mdash;though I did ask Mr. Shovelin&mdash;whether my
+      father had intrusted him with the key of his own mysterious acts. I
+      scarcely knew whether it was proper even now to put this question to Lord
+      Castlewood; but even without doing so, I might get at the answer by
+      watching him closely while I told my tale. Not a letter had reached me
+      since I came to Shoxford, neither had I written any, except one to Uncle
+      Sam; and keeping to this excellent rule, I arrived at Castlewood without
+      notice.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In doing this I took no liberty, because full permission had been given me
+      about it; and indeed I had been expected there, as Stixon told me, some
+      days before. He added that his master was about as usual, but had shown
+      some uneasiness on my account, though the butler was all in the dark about
+      it, and felt it very hard after all these years, &ldquo;particular, when he
+      could hardly help thinking that Mrs. Price&mdash;a new hand compared to
+      himself, not to speak of being a female&mdash;knowed all about it, and
+      were very aggravating. But there, he would say no more; he knew his place,
+      and he always had been valued in it, long afore Mrs. Price come up to the
+      bottom of his waistcoat.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My cousin received me with kindly warmth, and kissed me gently on the
+      forehead. &ldquo;My dear, how very well you look!&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Your native air has
+      agreed with you. I was getting, in my quiet way, rather sedulous and
+      self-reproachful about you. But you would have your own way, like a young
+      American; and it seems that you were right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was quite right,&rdquo; I answered, with a hearty kiss, for I never could be
+      cold-natured; and this was my only one of near kin, so far, at least, as
+      my knowledge went. &ldquo;I was quite right in going; and I have done good. At
+      any rate, I have found out something&mdash;something that may not be of
+      any kind of use; but still it makes me hope things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With that, in as few words as ever I could use, I told Lord Castlewood the
+      whole of Jacob's tale, particularly looking at him all the while I spoke,
+      to settle in my own mind whether the idea of such a thing was new to him.
+      Concerning that, however, I could make out nothing. My cousin, at his time
+      of life, and after so much travelling, had much too large a share of mind
+      and long skill of experience for me to make any thing out of his face
+      beyond his own intention. And whether he had suspicion or not of any thing
+      at all like what I was describing, or any body having to do with it, was
+      more than I ever might have known, if I had not gathered up my courage and
+      put the question outright to him. I told him that if I was wrong in
+      asking, he was not to answer; but, right or wrong, ask him I must.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The question is natural, and not at all improper,&rdquo; replied Lord
+      Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his
+      relief. &ldquo;Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before. But, Erema, I have
+      also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any right to answer you.
+      And I have decided not to do so, unless you will pledge yourself to one
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will pledge myself to any thing,&rdquo; I answered, rashly; &ldquo;I do not care
+      what it is, if only to get at the bottom of this mystery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I scarcely think you will hold good to your words when you hear what you
+      have to promise. The condition upon which I tell you what I believe to be
+      the cause of all is, that you let things remain as they are, and keep
+      silence forever about them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, you can not be so cruel, so atrocious!&rdquo; I cried, in my bitter
+      disappointment. &ldquo;What good would it be for me to know things thus, and let
+      the vile wrong continue? Surely you are not bound to lay on me a condition
+      so impossible?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After much consideration and strong wish to have it otherwise, I have
+      concluded that I am so bound.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In duty to my father, or the family, or what? Forgive me for asking, but
+      it does seem so hard.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It seems hard, my dear, and it is hard as well,&rdquo; he answered, very
+      gently, yet showing in his eyes and lips no chance of any yielding. &ldquo;But
+      remember that I do not know, I only guess, the secret; and if you give the
+      pledge I speak of, you merely follow in your father's steps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; I replied, with as firm a face as his. &ldquo;It may have been my
+      father's duty, or no doubt he thought it so; but it can not be mine,
+      unless I make it so by laying it on my honor. And I will not do that.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you are right; but, at any rate, remember that I have not tried
+      to persuade you. I wish to do what is for your happiness, Erema. And I
+      think that, on the whole, with your vigor and high spirit, you are better
+      as you are than if you had a knowledge which you could only brood over and
+      not use.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will find out the whole of it myself,&rdquo; I cried, for I could not repress
+      all excitement; &ldquo;and then I need not brood over it, but may have it out
+      and get justice. In the wildest parts of America justice comes with
+      perseverance: am I to abjure it in the heart of England? Lord Castlewood,
+      which is first&mdash;justice or honor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My cousin, you are fond of asking questions difficult to answer. Justice
+      and honor nearly always go together. When they do otherwise, honor stands
+      foremost, with people of good birth, at least.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I will be a person of very bad birth. If they come into conflict in
+      my life, as almost every thing seems to do, my first thought shall be of
+      justice; and honor shall come in as its ornament afterward.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; said my cousin, &ldquo;your meaning is good, and at your time of life
+      you can scarcely be expected to take a dispassionate view of things.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first I felt almost as if I could hate a &ldquo;dispassionate view of
+      things.&rdquo; Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as meanness and
+      villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance of the world, can
+      contemplate them all &ldquo;dispassionately,&rdquo; more clearly than any thing else,
+      to my mind, that proves the beauty of being young. I am sure that I never
+      was hot or violent&mdash;qualities which I especially dislike&mdash;but
+      still I would rather almost have those than be too philosophical. And now,
+      while I revered my father's cousin for his gentleness, wisdom, and
+      long-suffering, I almost longed to fly back to the Major, prejudiced,
+      peppery, and red-hot for justice, at any rate in all things that concerned
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      SOME ANSWER TO IT
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Hasty indignation did not drive me to hot action. A quiet talk with Mrs.
+      Price, as soon as my cousin's bad hour arrived, was quite enough to bring
+      me back to a sense of my own misgovernment. Moreover, the evening clouds
+      were darkening for a night of thunder, while the silver Thames looked
+      nothing more than a leaden pipe down the valleys. Calm words fall at such
+      times on quick temper like the drip of trees on people who have been
+      dancing. I shivered, as my spirit fell, to think of my weak excitement,
+      and poor petulance to a kind, wise friend, a man of many sorrows and
+      perpetual affliction. And then I recalled what I had observed, but in my
+      haste forgotten&mdash;Lord Castlewood was greatly changed even in the
+      short time since I had left his house for Shoxford. Pale he had always
+      been, and his features (calm as they were, and finely cut) seemed almost
+      bleached by in-door life and continual endurance. But now they showed
+      worse sign than this&mdash;a delicate transparence of faint color, and a
+      waxen surface, such as I had seen at a time I can not bear to think of.
+      Also he had tottered forward, while he tried for steadfast footing, quite
+      as if his worried members were almost worn out at last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Price took me up quite sharply&mdash;at least for one of her
+      well-trained style&mdash;when I ventured to ask if she had noticed this,
+      which made me feel uneasy. &ldquo;Oh dear, no!&rdquo; she said, looking up from the
+      lace-frilled pockets of her silk apron, which appeared to my mind perhaps
+      a little too smart, and almost of a vulgar tincture; and I think that she
+      saw in my eyes that much, and was vexed with herself for not changing it&mdash;&ldquo;oh
+      dear, no, Miss Castlewood! We who know and watch him should detect any
+      difference of that nature at the moment of its occurrence. His lordship's
+      health goes vacillating; a little up now, and then a little down, like a
+      needle that is mounted to show the dip of compass; and it varies according
+      to the electricity, as well as the magnetic influence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What doctor told you that?&rdquo; I asked, seeing in a moment that this
+      housekeeper was dealing in quotation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very&rdquo;&mdash;she was going to say &ldquo;rude,&rdquo; but knew better when she
+      saw me waiting for it&mdash;&ldquo;well, you are rather brusque, as we used to
+      call it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of observing for
+      myself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never implied that,&rdquo; was my answer. &ldquo;I believe that you are most
+      intelligent, and fit to nurse my cousin, as you are to keep his house. And
+      what you have said shows the clearness of your memory and expression.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very good to speak so,&rdquo; she answered, recovering her temper
+      beautifully, but, like a true woman, resolved not to let me know any thing
+      more about it. &ldquo;Oh, what a clap of thunder! Are you timid? This house has
+      been struck three times, they say. It stands so prominently. It is this
+      that has made my lord look so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let us hope, then to see him much better to-morrow,&rdquo; I said, very
+      bravely, though frightened at heart, being always a coward of thunder.
+      &ldquo;What are these storms you get in England compared to the tropical
+      outbursts? Let us open the window, if you please, and watch it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hear myself called,&rdquo; Mrs. Price exclaimed. &ldquo;I am sorry to leave you,
+      miss. You know best. But please not to sit by an open window; nothing is
+      more dangerous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Except a great bunch of steel keys,&rdquo; I replied; and gazing at her nice
+      retreating figure, saw it quickened, as a flash of lightning passed, with
+      the effort of both hands to be quit of something.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The storm was dreadful; and I kept the window shut, but could not help
+      watching, with a fearful joy, the many-fingered hazy pale vibrations, the
+      reflections of the levin in the hollow of the land. And sadly I began to
+      think of Uncle Sam and all his goodness; and how in a storm, a
+      thousandfold of this, he went down his valley in the torrent of the waves,
+      and must have been drowned, and perhaps never found again, if he had not
+      been wearing his leathern apron.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made me humble, as all great thoughts do, and the sidelong drizzle in
+      among the heavy rain (from the big drops jostling each other in the air,
+      and dashing out splashes of difference) gave me an idea of the sort of
+      thing I was&mdash;and how very little more. And feeling rather lonely in
+      the turn that things had taken, I rang the bell for somebody; and up came
+      Stixon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lor', miss! Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!&mdash;'Prick' we call
+      her, in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic language;
+      and all abroad about her husband. My very first saying to you was, not to
+      be too much okkipied with her. Look at the pinafore on her! Lord be with
+      me! If his lordship, as caught me, that day of this very same month fifty
+      years, in the gooseberry bush&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure!&rdquo; I said, knowing that story by heart, together with all its
+      embellishments; &ldquo;but things are altered since that day. Nothing can be
+      more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to tell such a tale in the
+      very place where it happened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Miss&mdash;Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because you remember that I am acquainted with it. A thing so remarkable
+      is not to be forgotten. Now let me ask you a question of importance; and I
+      beg you, as an old servant of this family, to answer it carefully and
+      truly. Do you remember any one, either here or elsewhere, so like my
+      father, Captain Castlewood, as to be taken for him at first sight, until a
+      difference of expression and of walk was noticed?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think
+      profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let me see&mdash;like the Captain?&rdquo; He reflected slowly: &ldquo;Did I ever see
+      a gentleman like poor Master George, as was? A gentleman, of course, it
+      must have been&mdash;and a very tall, handsome, straight gentleman, to be
+      taken anyhow for young Master George. And he must have been very like him,
+      too, to be taken for him by resemblance. Well then, miss, to the best of
+      my judgment, I never did see such a gentleman.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not,&rdquo; I answered, with some
+      impatience at his tantalizing slowness; &ldquo;but he carried his chin stretched
+      forth&mdash;like this.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in Jacob
+      Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!&rdquo; resumed the butler, with
+      an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous. &ldquo;Why, let me see,
+      now, let me see. Something do come across my mind when you puts out your
+      purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a score of years agone, or
+      more&mdash;perhaps five-and-twenty. What a daft old codger I be getting,
+      surely! No wonder them new lights puts a bushel over me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;you are simply showing great power of memory, Stixon.
+      And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was&mdash;a tall
+      man, remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps, or at any rate
+      dark eyes&mdash;who resembled (perhaps not very closely, but still enough
+      to mislead at a distance) my dear father&mdash;Master George, as you call
+      him, for whose sake you are bound to tell me every thing you know. Now try
+      to think&mdash;do please try your very best, for my sake.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my mind, with
+      all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have to say with my
+      hands behind my back, afore education were invented. Only please you to
+      stand with your chin put out, miss, and your profield towards me. That is
+      what brings it up, and nothing else at all, miss. Only, not to say a word
+      of any sort to hurry me. A tracherous and a deep thing is the memory and
+      the remembrance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom to it,
+      or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get at. And I
+      waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of his researches.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!&rdquo; the old man
+      cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, &ldquo;Please to leave
+      off; I am sure it is too much for you.&rdquo; &ldquo;Not a pictur' in all of our
+      gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see that there man,
+      dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing. What you call them things,
+      miss, if you please, as comes with the sun, like a face upon the water?
+      Wicked things done again the will of the Lord, and He makes them fade out
+      afterwards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you mean photographs. Is that the word?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The very word, and no mistake. A sinful trespass on the works of God, to
+      tickle the vanity of gals. But he never spread himself abroad like them.
+      They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks, and smiles. But he never
+      would have shown his nose, if he could help it, that stormy night when I
+      come to do my duty. He come into this house without so much as a 'by your
+      leave' to nobody, and vexed me terrible accordingly. It was in the old
+      lord's time, you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as would have things
+      respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look. And it put me quite
+      upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all the footman's works, and
+      a young boy promoted in the face of my opinion, having my own son worth a
+      dozen of him. This made me look at the nature of things, miss, and find it
+      on my conscience to be after every body.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, Stixon, yes! Now do go on. You must always have been, not only
+      after, but a very long way after, every body.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous. In a heffort
+      of the mind like this it is every word, or no word. Now, did I see him
+      come along the big passage?&mdash;a 'currydoor' they call it now, though
+      no more curry in it than there is door. No, I never seed him come along
+      the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of a
+      green-baize door&mdash;the very place I can point out to you, and the
+      selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows
+      it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons
+      lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come
+      through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed,
+      was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's
+      private room was there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss, no. I were lissome in those days, though not so very stiff at
+      this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the guidance of the
+      tongue. And now, miss, I think if you please to hear the rest to-morrow, I
+      could tell it better.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me. Even if I
+      could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have made up his
+      mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he would speak, there
+      might be nothing left to say. His memory was nursed up now, and my only
+      chance was to keep it so. Therefore I begged him to please to go on, and
+      no more would I interrupt him. And I longed to be ten years older, so as
+      not to speak when needless.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on,&rdquo; resumed the well-coaxed Stixon, &ldquo;if
+      my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing subjeck, no words can
+      more justly tell what come to pass than my language to my wife. She were
+      alive then, the poor dear hangel, and the mother of seven children, which
+      made me, by your leave comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a little
+      stiff to him up stairs, as come in on the top of seven. For I said to my
+      wife when I went home&mdash;sleeping out of the house, you see, miss, till
+      the Lord was pleased to dissolve matrimony&mdash;'Polly,' I said, when I
+      took home my supper, 'you may take my word for it there is something
+      queer.' Not another word did I mean to tell her, as behooved my dooty.
+      Howsoever, no peace was my lot till I made a clean bosom of it, only
+      putting her first on the Testament, and even that not safe with most of
+      them. And from that night not a soul has heard a word till it comes to
+      you, miss. He come striding along, with his face muffled up, for all the
+      world like a bugglar, and no more heed did he pay to me than if I was one
+      of the pedestals. But I were in front of him at the door, and to slip out
+      so was against all orders. So in front of him I stands, with my hand upon
+      the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to know who he was, and
+      such like, and how he comes there, and what he had been seeking, with the
+      spoons and the forks and the gravies on my mind. And right I would have
+      been in a court of law (if the lawyers was put out of it) for my hefforts
+      in that situation. And then, what do you think he done, miss? So far from
+      entering into any conversation with me, or hitting at me, like a man&mdash;which
+      would have done good to think of&mdash;he send out one hand to the bottom
+      of my vest&mdash;as they call it now in all the best livery tailors&mdash;and
+      afore I could reason on it, there I was a-lying on a star in six colors of
+      marble. When I come to think on it, it was but a push directed to a part
+      of my system, and not a hit under the belt, the like of which no Briton
+      would think of delivering. Nevertheless, there was no differ in what came
+      to me, miss, and my spirit was roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of
+      the prizemen. No time to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs
+      as a' was slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over
+      that he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same
+      moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me.
+      For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the
+      kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit of the mind, a proud
+      and 'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said to my poor wife, reminded
+      me a little of our Master George; not in his ordinary aspect, to be sure,
+      but as Master George might look if he was going to the devil. Pray excoose
+      me, miss, for bad words, but no good ones will do justice. And so off he
+      goes, after one look at me on the ground, not worth considering, with his
+      chin stuck up, as if the air was not good enough to be breathed
+      perpendiklar like.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And of course you followed him,&rdquo; I exclaimed, perceiving that Stixon
+      would allow me now to speak. &ldquo;Without any delay you went after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was. My dooty was to stay by the door
+      and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion. No little coorosity,
+      or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in doing so. As an outraged
+      man I was up for rushing out, but as a trusted official, and responsible
+      head footman, miss&mdash;for I were not butler till nine months after that&mdash;my
+      dooty was to put the big bolt in.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set the
+      house on fire! Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to obleege
+      you, to put a bad construction upon me. You hurts me, miss, in my
+      tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's darter would 'a doed.
+      But there, they be none of them as they used to be! Master George would 'a
+      said, if he ever had heard it. 'Stixon, my man, you have acted for the
+      best, and showed a sound discretion. Stixon,' he would have said, 'here's
+      a George and Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.' Ah, that sort of
+      manliness is died out now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted with
+      selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own recollections of my
+      father. But still Mr. Stixon must have suffered severely in that conflict,
+      and to blame him for not showing rashness was to misunderstand his
+      position. And so, before putting any other questions to him, I felt in my
+      pocket for a new half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still in the
+      struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful. Yet I saw that
+      he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly philosophic proverb&mdash;&ldquo;the
+      half is more than the whole.&rdquo; Nevertheless, he stowed away his half, in
+      harmony with a good old English saying.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, when you were able to get up at last,&rdquo; I inquired, with tender
+      interest, &ldquo;what did you see, and what did you do, and what conclusion did
+      you come to?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable. Coorosity
+      on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub myself. But a man is a
+      man, and the last thing to complain of is the exercise of his functions.
+      And when I come round I went off to his lordship, as if I had heared his
+      bell ring. All of us knew better than to speak till him beginning, for he
+      were not what they now call 'halfable,' but very much to the contrary. So
+      he says, 'You door-skulker, what do you want there?' And I see that he got
+      his hot leg up, certain to fly to bad language. According, I asked, with
+      my breath in my hand, if he pleased to see any young man there just now,
+      by reason that such likes had been observated going out in some direction.
+      But his lordship roared to me to go in another direction, not fit for
+      young ladies. My old lord was up to every word of English; but his present
+      lordship is the hopposite extreme.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that all you have to tell me, Stixon? Did you never see that fearful
+      man again? Did you never even hear of him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never, miss, never! And to nobody but you have I ever told all as I told
+      now. But you seems to be born to hear it all.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A WITCH
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It was true enough that Stixon now had nothing more to tell, but what he
+      had told already seemed of very great importance, confirming strongly, as
+      it did, the description given me by Jacob Rigg. And even the butler's
+      concluding words&mdash;that I seemed born to hear it all&mdash;comforted
+      me like some good omen, and cheered me forward to make them true. Not that
+      I could, in my sad and dangerous enterprise, always be confident. Some
+      little spirit I must have had, and some resolve to be faithful, according
+      to the power of a very common mind, admiring but never claiming courage.
+      For I never did feel in any kind of way any gift of inspiration, or even
+      the fitness of a quick, strong mind for working out deeds of justice.
+      There were many good ladies in America then, and now there are some in
+      England, perceiving so clearly their own superiority as to run about
+      largely proclaiming it. How often I longed to be a little more like these,
+      equal to men in achievements of the body, and very far beyond them in
+      questions of the mind!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, it was useless to regret my lacks, and foolish, perhaps, to think
+      of them. To do my very best with what little gifts I had was more to the
+      purpose and more sensible. Taking in lonely perplexity now this dim yet
+      exciting view of things, I resolved, right or wrong, to abide at the place
+      where the only chance was of pursuing my search. I was pledged, as perhaps
+      has been said before, to keep from every one excepting faithful Betsy, and
+      above all from Lord Castlewood, the unexpected little tale wrung out of
+      Mr. Stixon. That promise had been given without any thought, in my
+      eagerness to hear every thing, and probably some people would have thought
+      of it no more. But the trusty butler was so scared when I asked him to
+      release me from it, so penitent also at his own indiscretion, which never
+      would have overcome him (as he said in the morning) only for the
+      thunder-storm, that instead of getting off, I was quite obliged to renew
+      and confirm my assurances.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore, in truth, I had no chance left but to go back to Shoxford and
+      do my best, meeting all dark perils with the shield of right spread over
+      me. And a great thing now in my favor was to feel some confidence again in
+      the guidance of kind Wisdom. The sense of this never had abandoned me so
+      much as to make me miserable about it; but still I had never tried to
+      shelter under it, and stay there faithfully, as the best of people do. And
+      even now I was not brought to such a happy attitude, although delivered by
+      these little gleams of light from the dark void of fatalism, into which so
+      many bitter blows had once been driving me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, before setting off again, I made one more attempt upon Lord
+      Castlewood, longing to know whether his suspicions would help me at all to
+      identify the figure which had frightened both the sexton and the butler.
+      That the person was one and the same, I did not for a moment call in
+      question, any more than I doubted that he was the man upon whose head
+      rested the blood of us. But why he should be allowed to go scot-free while
+      another bore his brand, and many others died for him, and why all my most
+      just and righteous efforts to discover him should receive, if not
+      discouragement, at any rate most lukewarm aid&mdash;these and several
+      other questions were as dark as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You must not return to Shoxford, my cousin,&rdquo; Lord Castlewood said to me
+      that day, after a plain though courteous refusal to enlighten me even with
+      a mere surmise, except upon the condition before rejected. &ldquo;I can not
+      allow you to be there without strict supervision and protection. You will
+      not, perhaps, be aware of it, as perhaps you have not been before; but a
+      careful watch will be kept on you. I merely tell you this that you may not
+      make mistakes, and confound friendly vigilance with the spying of an
+      enemy. Erema, you will be looked after.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I could not help being grateful for his kindness, and really, try as I
+      might to be fearless, it would be a great comfort to have some one to
+      protect me. On the other hand, how would this bear upon my own freedom of
+      looking about, my desire to make my own occasions, and the need of going
+      every where? Could these be kept to my liking at all while an unknown
+      power lay in kind regard of me? Considering these things, I begged my
+      cousin to leave me to my own devices, for that I was afraid of nobody on
+      earth, while only seeking justice, and that England must be worse than the
+      worst parts of America if any harm to me could be apprehended at quiet
+      times and in such a quiet place.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My cousin said no more upon that point, though I felt that he was not in
+      any way convinced; but he told me that he thought I should pay a little
+      visit, if only for a day, such as I treated him with, to my good friends
+      at Bruntsea, before I returned to Shoxford. There was no one now at
+      Bruntsea whom I might not wish to meet, as he knew by a trifling accident;
+      and after all the kind services rendered by Major and Mrs. Hockin, it was
+      hardly right to let them begin to feel themselves neglected. Now the very
+      same thing had occurred to me, and I was going to propose it; and many
+      things which I found it hard to do without were left in my little chest of
+      locked-up drawers there. But of that, to my knowledge, I scarcely thought
+      twice; whereas I longed to see and have a talk with dear &ldquo;Aunt Mary.&rdquo; Now,
+      since my affairs had been growing so strange, and Lord Castlewood had come
+      forward&mdash;not strongly, but still quite enough to speak of&mdash;there
+      had been a kind-hearted and genuine wish at Bruntsea to recover me. And
+      this desire had unreasonably grown while starved with disappointment. The
+      less they heard of me, the more they imagined in their rich good-will, and
+      the surer they became that, after all, there was something in my ideas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how could I know this, without any letters from them, since letters
+      were a luxury forbidden me at Shoxford? I knew it through one of the
+      simplest and commonest of all nature's arrangements. Stixon's boy, as
+      every body called him (though he must have been close upon
+      five-and-twenty, and carried a cane out of sight of the windows), being so
+      considered, and treated boyishly by the maids of Castlewood, asserted his
+      dignity, and rose above his value as much as he had lain below it, by
+      showing that he owned a tender heart, and them that did not despise it.
+      For he chanced to be walking with his cane upon the beach (the very
+      morning after he first went to Bruntsea, too late for any train back
+      again), and casting glances of interior wonder over the unaccustomed sea&mdash;when
+      from the sea itself out-leaped a wondrous rosy deity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You there, Mr. Stixon! Oh my! How long?&rdquo; exclaimed Mrs. Hockin's new
+      parlormaid, ready to drop, though in full print now, on the landward steps
+      of the bathing-machine set up by the reckless Major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come this very hinstant, miss, honor bright!&rdquo; replied the junior Stixon,
+      who had moved in good society; &ldquo;and just in the hackmy of time, miss, if I
+      may offer you my 'umble hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The fair nymph fixed him with a penetrating gaze through tresses full of
+      salt curliness, while her cheeks were conscious of an unclad dip. But
+      William Stixon's eyes were firm with pure truth, gently toning into shy
+      reproach and tenderness. He had met her at supper last night, and done his
+      best; but (as he said to the Castlewood maids) it was only feeling then,
+      whereas now it was emoshun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you are a gentleman!&rdquo; Polly Hopkins cried; &ldquo;and indeed, Mr. Stixon,
+      these are slippery things.&rdquo; She was speaking of the steps, as she came
+      down them, and they had no hand-rails; and the young man felt himself to
+      be no more Stixon's boy, but a gentleman under sweet refining pressure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From that hour forth it was pronounced, and they left the world to its own
+      opinion, that they were keeping company; and although they were sixty
+      miles apart by air, and eighty-two by railway, at every post their hearts
+      were one, with considerable benefit to the United Kingdom's revenue. Also
+      they met by the sad sea waves, when the bathing-machines had been hauled
+      up&mdash;for the Major now had three of them&mdash;as often as Stixon
+      senior smiled&mdash;which he did whenever he was not put out&mdash;on the
+      bygone ways of these children. For Polly Hopkins had a hundred pounds, as
+      well as being the only child of the man who kept the only shop for pickled
+      pork in Bruntsea. And my Mr. Stixon could always contrive to get orders
+      from his lordship to send the boy away, with his carriage paid, when his
+      health demanded bathing. Hence it is manifest that the deeds and thoughts
+      of Bruntsea House, otherwise called &ldquo;Bruntlands,&rdquo; were known quite as
+      well, and discussed even better&mdash;because dispassionately&mdash;at
+      Castlewood than and as they were at home.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I won forever the heart of Stixon's boy, and that of Polly Hopkins, by
+      recoiling with horror from the thought of going to Bruntsea unattended.
+      After all my solitary journeys, this might have been called hypocrisy, if
+      it had been inconvenient; but coming as it did, it was pronounced, by all
+      who desired either news or love, to be another proof of the goodness of my
+      heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Escorted thus by William Stixon (armed with a brilliant cane bought for
+      this occasion), and knowing that Sir Montague Hockin was not there, I
+      arrived at Bruntlands in the afternoon, and received a kindly welcome from
+      my dear friend Mrs. Hockin. Her husband was from home, and she grieved to
+      say that now he was generally doing this; but nobody else could have any
+      idea what his avocations were! Then she paid me some compliments on my
+      appearance&mdash;a thing that I never thought of, except when I came to a
+      question of likeness, or chanced to be thinking of things, coming up as
+      they will, at a looking-glass.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That the Major was out was a truth established in my mind some time ago;
+      because I had seen him, as our fly crawled by, expressly and emphatically
+      at work on a rampart of his own designing. The work was quite new to me,
+      but not so his figure. Though I could not see people three miles off, as
+      Firm Gundry was said to do, I had pretty clear sight, and could not
+      mistake the Major within a furlong. And there he was, going about in a row
+      of square notches against the sea-line, with his coat off, and brandishing
+      some tool, vehemently carrying on to spirits less active than his own. I
+      burned with desire to go and join him, for I love to see activity; but
+      Mrs. Hockin thought that I had better stay away, because it was impossible
+      to get on there without language too strong for young ladies.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This closed the question, and I stopped with her, and found the best
+      comfort that I ever could have dreamed of. &ldquo;Aunt Mary&rdquo; was so steadfast,
+      and so built up with, or rather built of, the very faith itself, that to
+      talk with her was as good as reading the noblest chapter of the Bible. She
+      put by all possibility of doubt as to the modern interference of the Lord,
+      with such a sweet pity and the seasoned smile of age, and so much feeling
+      (which would have been contempt if she had not been softened by her own
+      escapes), that really I, who had come expecting to set her beautiful white
+      hair on end, became like a little child put into the corner, but too young
+      yet for any other punishment at school, except to be looked at.
+      Nevertheless, though I did look small, it made me all the happier. I
+      seemed to become less an individual, and more a member of a large kind
+      race under paternal management. From a practical point of view this may
+      have been amiss, but it helped to support me afterward. And before I began
+      to get weary or rebel against her gentle teaching, in came her husband;
+      and she stopped at once, because he had never any time for it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My geological hammer!&rdquo; cried the Major, being in a rush as usual. &ldquo;Oh,
+      Miss Castlewood! I did not see you. Pardon me! It is the want of practice
+      only; so wholly have you deserted us. Fallen into better hands, of course.
+      Well, how are you? But I need not ask. If ever there was a young lady who
+      looked well&mdash;don't tell me of troubles, or worries, or nerves&mdash;I
+      put up my glasses, and simply say, 'Pretty young ladies are above all
+      pity!' My hammer, dear Mary; my hammer I must have. The geological one,
+      you know; we have come on a bit of old Roman work; the bricklayer's
+      hammers go flat, like lead. I have just one minute and a half to spare.
+      What fine fellows those Romans were! I will build like a Roman. See to
+      every bit of it myself, Erema. No contractor's jobs for me. Mary, you know
+      where to find it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, dear, I think that you had it last, to get the bung out of the beer
+      barrel, when the stool broke down in the corner, you know, because you
+      would&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind about that. The drayman made a fool of himself. I proceeded
+      upon true principles. That fellow knew nothing of leverage.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, dear, of course you understand it best. But he told cook that it
+      was quite a mercy that you got off without a broken leg; and compared with
+      that, two gallons of spilled ale&mdash;&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin made off, without
+      finishing her sentence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a woman she is!&rdquo; cried the Major; &ldquo;she takes such a lofty view of
+      things, and she can always find my tools. Erema, after dinner I must have
+      a talk with you. There is something going on here&mdash;on my manor&mdash;which
+      I can not at all get a clew to, except by connecting you with it, the Lord
+      knows how. Of course you have nothing to do with it; but still my life has
+      been so free from mystery that, that&mdash;you know what I mean&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That you naturally think I must be at the bottom of every thing
+      mysterious. Now is there any thing dark about me? Do I not labor to get at
+      the light? Have I kept from your knowledge any single thing? But you never
+      cared to go into them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is hardly fair of you to say that. The fact is that you, of your own
+      accord, have chosen other counselors. Have you heard any more of your late
+      guardian, Mr. Shovelin? I suppose that his executor, or some one appointed
+      by him, is now your legal guardian.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not even asked what the law is,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;Lord Castlewood is my
+      proper guardian, according to all common-sense, and I mean to have him so.
+      He has inquired through his solicitors as to Mr. Shovelin, and I am quite
+      free there. My father's will is quite good, they say; but it never has
+      been proved, and none of them care to do it. My cousin thinks that I could
+      compel them to prove it, or to renounce in proper form; but Mr. Shovelin's
+      sons are not nice people&mdash;as different from him as night from day,
+      careless and wild and dashing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then do you mean to do nothing about it? What a time she is finding that
+      hammer!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I leave it entirely to my cousin, and he is waiting for legal advice. I
+      wish to have the will, of course, for the sake of my dear father; but with
+      or without any will, my mother's little property comes to me. And if my
+      dear father had nothing to leave, why should we run up a great lawyer's
+      bill?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure not! I see. That makes all the difference. I admire your
+      common-sense,&rdquo; said the Major&mdash;&ldquo;but there! Come and look, and just
+      exercise it here. There is that very strange woman again, just at the end
+      of my new road. She stands quite still, and then stares about, sometimes
+      for an hour together. Nobody knows who she is, or why she came. She has
+      taken a tumble-down house on my manor, from a wretch of a fellow who
+      denies my title; and what she lives on is more than any one can tell, for
+      she never spends sixpence in Bruntsea. Some think that she walks in the
+      dark to Newport, and gets all her food at some ship stores there. And one
+      of our fishermen vows that he met her walking on the sea, as he rowed home
+      one night, and she had a long red bag on her shoulder. She is a witch,
+      that is certain; for she won't answer me, however politely I accost her.
+      But the oddest thing of all is the name she gave to the fellow she took
+      the house from. What do you think she called herself? Of all things in the
+      world&mdash;'Mrs. Castlewood!' I congratulate you on your relative.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very strange!&rdquo; I answered. &ldquo;Oh, now I see why you connect me with it;
+      and I beg your pardon for having been vexed. But let me go and see her.
+      Oh, may I go at once, if you please, and speak to her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The very thing I wish&mdash;if you are not afraid. I will come with you,
+      when I get my hammer. Oh, here it is! Mary, how clever you are! Now look
+      out of the window, and you shall see Erema make up to her grandmamma.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XXXIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      NOT AT HOME
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Hockin, however, had not the pleasure promised her by the facetious
+      Major of seeing me &ldquo;make up to my grandmamma.&rdquo; For although we set off at
+      once to catch the strange woman who had roused so much curiosity, and
+      though, as we passed the door of Bruntlands, we saw her still at her post
+      in the valley, like Major Hockin's new letter-box, for some reason best
+      known to herself we could not see any more of her. For, hurry as he might
+      upon other occasions, nothing would make the Major cut a corner of his
+      winding &ldquo;drive&rdquo; when descending it with a visitor. He enjoyed every yard
+      of its length, because it was his own at every step, and he counted his
+      paces in an under-tone, to be sure of the length, for perhaps the
+      thousandth time. It was long enough in a straight line, one would have
+      thought, but he was not the one who thought so; and therefore he had
+      doubled it by judicious windings, as if for the purpose of breaking the
+      descent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Three hundred and twenty-one,&rdquo; he said, as he came to a post, where he
+      meant to have a lodge as soon as his wife would let him; &ldquo;now the old
+      woman stands fifty-five yards on, at a spot where I mean to have an
+      ornamental bridge, because our fine saline element runs up there when the
+      new moon is perigee. My dear, I am a little out of breath, which affects
+      my sight for the moment. Doubtless that is why I do not see her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If I may offer an opinion,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;in my ignorance of all the changes
+      you have made, the reason why we do not see her may be that she is gone
+      out of sight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Impossible!&rdquo; Major Hockin cried&mdash;&ldquo;simply impossible, Erema! She
+      never moves for an hour and a half. And she was not come, was she, when
+      you came by?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will not be certain,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;but I think that I must have seen
+      her if she had been there, because I was looking about particularly at all
+      your works as we came by.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then she must be there still; let us tackle her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was easier said than done, for we found no sign of any body at the
+      place where she certainly had been standing less than five minutes ago. We
+      stood at the very end and last corner of the ancient river trough, where a
+      little seam went inland from it, as if some trifle of a brook had stolen
+      down while it found a good river to welcome it. But now there was only a
+      little oozy gloss from the gleam of the sun upon some lees of marshy brine
+      left among the rushes by the last high tide.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see my new road and the key to my intentions?&rdquo; said the Major,
+      forgetting all about his witch, and flourishing his geological hammer,
+      while standing thus at his &ldquo;nucleus.&rdquo; &ldquo;To understand all, you have only to
+      stand here. You see those leveling posts, adjusted with scientific
+      accuracy. You see all those angles, calculated with micrometric precision.
+      You see how the curves are radiated&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is very beautiful, I have no doubt; but you can not have Uncle Sam's
+      gift of machinery. And do you understand every bit of it yourself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, not a jot of it. I like to talk about it freely when I can,
+      because I see all its beauties. But as to understanding it, my dear, you
+      might set to, if you were an educated female, and deliver me a lecture
+      upon my own plan. Intellect is, in such matters, a bubble. I know good
+      bricks, good mortar, and good foundations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With your great ability, you must do that,&rdquo; I answered, very gently,
+      being touched with his humility and allowance of my opinion; &ldquo;you will
+      make a noble town of it. But when is the railway coming?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not yet. We have first to get our Act; and a miserable-minded wretch, who
+      owns nothing but a rabbit-warren, means to oppose it. Don't let us talk of
+      him. It puts one out of patience when a man can not see his own interest.
+      But come and see our assembly-rooms, literary institute, baths, etc., etc.&mdash;that
+      is what we are urging forward now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But may I not go first and look for my strange namesake? Would it be
+      wrong of me to call upon her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No harm whatever,&rdquo; replied my companion; &ldquo;likewise no good. Call fifty
+      times, but you will get no answer. However, it is not a very great round,
+      and you will understand my plans more clearly. Step out, my dear, as if
+      you had got a troop of Mexicans after you. Ah, what a fine turn for that
+      lot now!&rdquo; He was thinking of the war which had broken out, and the battle
+      of Bull's Run.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Without any such headlong speed, we soon came to the dwelling-place of the
+      stranger, and really for once the good Major had not much overdone his
+      description. Truly it was almost tumbling down, though massively built,
+      and a good house long ago; and it looked the more miserable now from being
+      placed in a hollow of the ground, whose slopes were tufted with rushes and
+      thistles and ragwort. The lower windows were blocked up from within, the
+      upper were shattered and crumbling and dangerous, with blocks of cracked
+      stone jutting over them; and the last surviving chimney gave less smoke
+      than a workman's homeward whiff of his pipe to comfort and relieve the
+      air.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The only door that we could see was of heavy black oak, without any
+      knocker; but I clinched my hand, having thick gloves on, and made what I
+      thought a very creditable knock, while the Major stood by, with his
+      blue-lights up, and keenly gazed and gently smiled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Knock again, my dear,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;you don't knock half hard enough.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I knocked again with all my might, and got a bruised hand for a fortnight,
+      but there was not even the momentary content produced by an active echo.
+      The door was as dead as every thing else.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now for my hammer,&rdquo; my companion cried. &ldquo;This house, in all sound law, is
+      my own. I will have a 'John Doe and Richard Roe'&mdash;a fine action of
+      ejectment. Shall I be barred out upon my own manor?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With hot indignation he swung his hammer, but nothing came of it except
+      more noise. Then the Major grew warm and angry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My charter contains the right of burning witches or drowning them,
+      according to their color. The execution is specially imposed upon the
+      bailiff of this ancient town, and he is my own pickled-pork man. His name
+      is Hopkins, and I will have him out with his seal and stick and all the
+      rest. Am I to be laughed at in this way?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For we thought we heard a little screech of laughter from the loneliness
+      of the deep dark place, but no other answer came, and perhaps it was only
+      our own imagining.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is there no other door&mdash;perhaps one at the back?&rdquo; I asked, as the
+      lord of the manor stamped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, that has been walled up long ago. The villain has defied me from the
+      very first. Well, we shall see. This is all very fine. You witness that
+      they deny the owner entrance?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Undoubtedly I can depose to that. But we must not waste your valuable
+      time.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;After all, the poor ruin is worthless,&rdquo; he went on, calming down as we
+      retired. &ldquo;It must be leveled, and that hole filled up. It is quite an
+      eye-sore to our new parade. And no doubt it belongs to me&mdash;no doubt
+      it does. The fellow who claims it was turned out of the law. Fancy any man
+      turned out of the law! Erema, in all your far West experience, did you
+      ever see a man bad enough to be turned out of the law?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Hockin, how can I tell? But I fear that their practice was very,
+      very sad&mdash;they very nearly always used to hang them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The best use&mdash;the best use a rogue can be put to. Some big thief has
+      put it the opposite way, because he was afraid of his own turn. The
+      constitution must be upheld, and, by the Lord! it shall be&mdash;at any
+      rate, in East Bruntsea. West Bruntsea is all a small-pox warren out of my
+      control, and a skewer in my flesh. And some of my tenants have gone across
+      the line to snap their dirty hands at me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Being once in this cue, Major Hockin went on, not talking to me much, but
+      rather to himself, though expecting me now and then to say &ldquo;yes;&rdquo; and this
+      I did when necessary, for his principles of action were beyond all
+      challenge, and the only question was how he carried them out.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took me to his rampart, which was sure to stop the sea, and at the same
+      time to afford the finest place in all Great Britain for a view of it.
+      Even an invalid might sit here in perfect shelter from the heaviest gale,
+      and watch such billows as were not to be seen except upon the Major's
+      property.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The reason of that is quite simple,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;and a child may see the
+      force of it. In no other part of the kingdom can you find so steep a beach
+      fronting the southwest winds, which are ten to one of all other winds,
+      without any break of sand or rock outside. Hence we have what you can not
+      have on a shallow shore&mdash;grand rollers: straight from the very
+      Atlantic, Erema; you and I have seen them. You may see by the map that
+      they all end here, with the wind in the proper quarter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please not to talk of such horrors,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Why, your ramparts
+      would go like pie crust.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major smiled a superior smile, and after more talk we went home to
+      dinner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From something more than mere curiosity, I waited at Bruntsea for a day or
+      two, hoping to see that strange namesake of mine who had shown so much
+      inhospitality. For she must have been at home when we made that pressing
+      call, inasmuch as there was no other place to hide her within the needful
+      distance of the spot where she had stood. But the longer I waited, the
+      less would she come out&mdash;to borrow the good Irishman's expression&mdash;and
+      the Major's pillar-box, her favorite resort, was left in conspicuous
+      solitude. And when a letter came from Sir Montague Hockin, asking leave to
+      be at Bruntlands on the following evening, I packed up my goods with all
+      haste, and set off, not an hour too soon, for Shoxford.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But before taking leave of these kind friends, I begged them to do for me
+      one little thing, without asking me to explain my reason, which, indeed,
+      was more than I could do. I begged them, not of course to watch Sir
+      Montague, for that they could not well do to a guest, but simply to keep
+      their eyes open and prepared for any sign of intercourse, if such there
+      were, between this gentleman and that strange interloper. Major Hockin
+      stared, and his wife looked at me as if my poor mind must have gone
+      astray, and even to myself my own thought appeared absurd. Remembering,
+      however, what Sir Montague had said, and other little things as well, I
+      did not laugh as they did. But perhaps one part of my conduct was not
+      right, though the wrong (if any) had been done before that&mdash;to wit, I
+      had faithfully promised Mrs. Price not to say a word at Bruntlands about
+      their visitor's low and sinful treachery toward my cousin. To give such a
+      promise had perhaps been wrong, but still without it I should have heard
+      nothing of matters that concerned me nearly. And now it seemed almost
+      worse to keep than to break such a pledge, when I thought of a pious,
+      pure-minded, and holy-hearted woman, like my dear &ldquo;Aunt Mary,&rdquo; unwittingly
+      brought into friendly contact with a man of the lowest nature. And as for
+      the Major, instead of sitting down with such a man to dinner, what would
+      he have done but drive him straightway from the door, and chase him to the
+      utmost verge of his manor with the peak end of his &ldquo;geological hammer?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, away I went without a word against that contemptible and base
+      man, toward whom&mdash;though he never had injured me&mdash;I cherished,
+      for my poor cousin's sake, the implacable hatred of virtuous youth. And a
+      wild idea had occurred to me (as many wild ideas did now in the crowd of
+      things gathering round me) that this strange woman, concealed from the
+      world, yet keenly watching some members of it, might be that fallen and
+      miserable creature who had fled from a good man with a bad one, because he
+      was more like herself&mdash;Flittamore, Lady Castlewood. Not that she
+      could be an &ldquo;old woman&rdquo; yet, but she might look old, either by disguise,
+      or through her own wickedness; and every body knows how suddenly those
+      southern beauties fall off, alike in face and figure. Mrs. Price had not
+      told me what became of her, or even whether she was dead or alive, but
+      merely said, with a meaning look, that she was &ldquo;punished&rdquo; for her sin, and
+      I had not ventured to inquire how, the subject being so distasteful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To my great surprise, and uneasiness as well, I had found at Bruntlands no
+      letter whatever, either to the Major or myself, from Uncle Sam or any
+      other person at the saw-mills. There had not been time for any answer to
+      my letter of some two months back, yet being alarmed by the Sawyer's last
+      tidings, I longed, with some terror, for later news. And all the United
+      Kingdom was now watching with tender interest the dismemberment, as it
+      almost appeared, of the other mighty Union. Not with malice, or snug
+      satisfaction, as the men of the North in their agony said, but certainly
+      without any proper anguish yet, and rather as a genial and sprightly
+      spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the
+      spirit and skill of the weaker side. &ldquo;'Tis a good fight&mdash;let them
+      fight it out!&rdquo; seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some
+      American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling) every
+      true Englishman deeply would have mourned the humiliation of his kindred.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In this anxiety for news I begged that my letters might be forwarded under
+      cover to the postmistress at Shoxford, and bearing my initials. For now I
+      had made up my mind to let Mrs. Busk know whatever I could tell her. I had
+      found her a cross and well-educated woman, far above her neighbors, and
+      determined to remain so. Gossip, that universal leveler, theoretically she
+      despised; and she had that magnificent esteem for rank which works so
+      beautifully in England. And now when my good nurse reasonably said that,
+      much as she loved to be with me, her business would allow that delight no
+      longer, and it also came home to my own mind that money would be running
+      short again, and small hope left in this dreadful civil war of our nugget
+      escaping pillage (which made me shudder horribly at internal discord), I
+      just did this&mdash;I dismissed Betsy, or rather I let her dismiss
+      herself, which she might not have altogether meant to do, although she
+      threatened it so often. For here she had nothing to do but live well, and
+      protest against tricks of her own profession which she practiced as
+      necessary laws at home; and so, with much affection, for the time we
+      parted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Busk was delighted at her departure, for she never had liked to be
+      criticised so keenly while she was doing her very best. And as soon as the
+      wheels of Betsy's fly had shown their last spoke at the corner, she told
+      me, with a smile, that her mind had been made up to give us notice that
+      very evening to seek for better lodgings. But she could not wish for a
+      quieter, pleasanter, or more easily pleased young lady than I was without
+      any mischief-maker; and so, on the spur of the moment, I took her into my
+      own room, while her little girl minded the shop, and there and then I told
+      her who I was, and what I wanted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now she behaved most admirably. Instead of expressing surprise, she
+      assured me that all along she had felt there was something, and that I
+      must be somebody. Lovely as my paintings were (which I never heard, before
+      or since, from any impartial censor), she had known that it could not be
+      that alone which had kept me so long in their happy valley. And now she
+      did hope I would do her the honor to stay beneath her humble roof, though
+      entitled to one so different. And was the fairy ring in the church-yard
+      made of all my family?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I replied that too surely this was so, and that nothing would please me
+      better than to find, according to my stature, room to sleep inside it as
+      soon as ever I should have solved the mystery of its origin. At the moment
+      this was no exaggeration, so depressing was the sense of fighting against
+      the unknown so long, with scarcely any one to stand by me, or avenge me if
+      I fell. And Betsy's departure, though I tried to take it mildly, had left
+      me with a readiness to catch my breath.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But to dwell upon sadness no more than need be (a need as sure as hunger),
+      it was manifest now to my wondering mind that once more I had chanced upon
+      a good, and warm, and steadfast heart. Every body is said to be born,
+      whether that happens by night or day, with a certain little widowed star,
+      which has lost its previous mortal, concentrating from a billion billion
+      of miles, or leagues, or larger measure, intense, but generally invisible,
+      radiance upon him or her; and to take for the moment this old fable as of
+      serious meaning, my star was to find bad facts at a glance, but no bad
+      folk without long gaze.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XL
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE MAN AT LAST
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      This new alliance with Mrs. Busk not only refreshed my courage, but helped
+      me forward most importantly. In truth, if it had not been for this I never
+      could have borne what I had to bear, and met the perils which I had to
+      meet. For I had the confidence of feeling now that here was some one close
+      at hand, an intelligent person, and well acquainted with the place and
+      neighborhood, upon whom I could rely for warning, succor, and, if the
+      worst should come to the very worst, revenge. It is true that already I
+      had Jacob Rigg, and perhaps the protector promised by my cousin; but the
+      former was as ignorant as he was honest, and of the latter, as he made no
+      sign, how could I tell any thing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Above all things, Mrs. Busk's position, as mistress of the letters, gave
+      me very great advantage both for offense and defense. For without the
+      smallest breach of duty or of loyal honor she could see that my letters
+      passed direct to me or from me, as the case might be, at the same time
+      that she was bound to observe all epistles addressed to strangers or
+      new-comers in her district, which extended throughout the valley. And by
+      putting my letters in the Portsmouth bag, instead of that for Winchester,
+      I could freely correspond with any of my friends without any one seeing
+      name or postmark in the neighboring villages.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is needless to say that I had long since explored and examined with
+      great diligence that lonely spot where my grandfather met his terrible and
+      mysterious fate. Not that there seemed to be any hope now, after almost
+      nineteen years, of finding even any token of the crime committed there.
+      Only that it was natural for me, feeling great horror of this place, to
+      seek to know it thoroughly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this I had good opportunity, because the timid people of the valley,
+      toward the close of day, would rather trudge another half mile of the
+      homeward road than save brave legs at the thumping cost of hearts not so
+      courageous. For the planks were now called &ldquo;Murder-bridge;&rdquo; and every body
+      knew that the red spots on it, which could never be seen by daylight,
+      began to gleam toward the hour of the deed, and glowed (as if they would
+      burn the wood) when the church clock struck eleven.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This phenomenon was beyond my gifts of observation; and knowing that my
+      poor grandfather had scarcely set foot on the bridge, if ever he set foot
+      there at all&mdash;which at present was very doubtful&mdash;also that he
+      had fallen backward, and only bled internally, I could not reconcile
+      tradition (however recent) with proven truth. And sure of no disturbance
+      from the step of any native, here I often sat in a little bowered shelter
+      of my own, well established up the rise, down which the path made zigzag,
+      and screened from that and the bridge as well by sheaf of twigs and lop of
+      leaves. It was a little forward thicket, quite detached from the upland
+      copse, to which perhaps it had once belonged, and crusted up from the
+      meadow slope with sod and mould in alternate steps. And being quite the
+      elbow of a foreland of the meadow-reach, it yielded almost a &ldquo;bird's-eye
+      view&rdquo; of the beautiful glade and the wandering brook.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One evening when I was sitting here, neither drawing, nor working, nor
+      even thinking with any set purpose, but idly allowing my mind to rove,
+      like the rivulet, without any heed, I became aware of a moving figure in
+      the valley. At first it did not appear to me as a thing at all worth
+      notice; it might be a very straightforward cow, or a horse, coming on like
+      a stalking-horse, keeping hind-legs strictly behind, in direct desire of
+      water. I had often seen those sweet things that enjoy four legs walking in
+      the line of distance as if they were no better off than we are, kindly
+      desiring, perhaps, to make the biped spectator content with himself. And I
+      was content to admire this cow or horse, or whatever it might be, without
+      any more than could be helped of that invidious feeling which has driven
+      the human race now to establish its right to a tail, and its hope of four
+      legs. So little, indeed, did I think of what I saw, that when among the
+      hazel twigs, parted carelessly by my hand, a cluster of nuts hung
+      manifest, I gathered it, and began to crack and eat, although they were
+      scarcely ripe yet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But while employed in this pleasant way, I happened to glance again
+      through my leafy screen, and then I distinguished the figure in the
+      distance as that of a man walking rapidly. He was coming down the
+      mill-stream meadow toward the wooden bridge, carrying a fishing rod, but
+      clearly not intent on angling. For instead of following the course of the
+      stream, he was keeping quite away from it, avoiding also the footpath, or,
+      at any rate, seeming to prefer the long shadows of the trees and the
+      tufted places. This made me look at him, and very soon I shrank into my
+      nest and watched him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As he came nearer any one could tell that he was no village workman,
+      bolder than the rest, and venturesome to cross the &ldquo;Murder-bridge&rdquo; in his
+      haste to be at home. The fishing rod alone was enough to show this when it
+      came into clearer view; for our good people, though they fished sometimes,
+      only used rough rods of their own making, without any varnish or brass
+      thing for the line. And the man was of different height and walk and dress
+      from any of our natives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who can he be?&rdquo; I whispered to myself, as my heart began to beat heavily,
+      and then seemed almost to stop, as it answered, &ldquo;This is the man who was
+      in the churchyard.&rdquo; Ignoble as it was, and contemptible, and vile, and
+      traitorous to all duty, my first thought was about my own escape; for I
+      felt that if this man saw me there he would rush up the hill and murder
+      me. Within pistol-shot of the very place where my grandfather had been
+      murdered&mdash;a lonely place, an unholy spot, and I was looking at the
+      hand that did it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The thought of this made me tremble so, though well aware that my death
+      might ensue from a twig on the rustle, or a leaf upon the flutter, that my
+      chance of making off unseen was gone ere I could seize it. For now the man
+      was taking long strides over the worn-out planks of the bridge, disdaining
+      the hand-rail, and looking upward, as if to shun sight of the footing.
+      Advancing thus, he must have had his gaze point-blank upon my lair of
+      leafage; but, luckily for me, there was gorse upon the ridge, and bracken
+      and rag-thistles, so that none could spy up and through the footing of my
+      lurking-place. But if any person could have spied me, this man was the one
+      to do it. So carefully did he scan the distance and inspect the
+      foreground, as if he were resolved that no eye should be upon him while he
+      was doing what he came to do. And he even drew forth a little double
+      telescope, such as are called &ldquo;binoculars,&rdquo; and fixed it on the thicket
+      which hid me from him, and then on some other dark places.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No effort would compose or hush the heavy beating of my heart; my lips
+      were stiffened with dread of loud breath, and all power of motion left me.
+      For even a puff of wind might betray me, the ruffle of a spray, or the
+      lifting of a leaf, or the random bounce of a beetle. Great peril had
+      encompassed me ere now, but never had it grasped me as this did, and
+      paralyzed all the powers of my body. Rather would I have stood in the
+      midst of a score of Mexican rovers than thus in the presence of that one
+      man. And yet was not this the very thing for which I had waited, longed,
+      and labored? I scorned myself for this craven loss of nerve, but that did
+      not enable me to help it. In this benumbed horror I durst not even peep at
+      the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that he had moved
+      from the end of the planks (where he stood for some time as calmly as if
+      he had done nothing there), and had passed round the back of the
+      hawthorn-tree, and gone down to the place where the body was found, and
+      was making most narrow and minute search there. And now I could watch him
+      without much danger, standing as I did well above him, while his eyes were
+      steadfastly bent downward. And, not content with eyesight only, he seemed
+      to be feeling every blade of grass or weed, every single stick or stone,
+      craning into each cranny of the ground, and probing every clod with his
+      hands. Then, after vainly searching with the very utmost care all the
+      space from the hawthorn trunk to the meadow-leet (which was dry as usual),
+      he ran, in a fury of impatience, to his rod, which he had stuck into the
+      bank, as now I saw, and drew off the butt end, and removed the wheel, or
+      whatever it is that holds the fishing line; and this butt had a long spike
+      to it, shining like a halberd in a picture.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This made me shudder; but my spirit was returning, and therewith my power
+      of reasoning, and a deep stir of curiosity. After so many years and such a
+      quantity of searching, what could there still be left to seek for in this
+      haunted and horrible place? And who was the man that was looking for it?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The latter question partly solved itself. It must be the murderer, and no
+      other, whoever he might be among the many black spots of humanity. But as
+      to the other point, no light could be thrown upon it, unless the search
+      should be successful, and perhaps not even then. But now this anxiety, and
+      shame of terror, made me so bold&mdash;for I can not call it brave&mdash;that
+      I could not rest satisfied where I was, and instead of blessing every leaf
+      and twig that hid me from the enemy, nothing would do for me but to creep
+      nearer, in spite of that truculent long bright spike.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of my father, and each fibre of my frame seemed to harden with
+      vigor and fleetness. Every muscle of my body could be trusted now. I had
+      always been remarkably light of foot. Could a man of that age catch me? It
+      was almost as much as Firm Gundry could do, as in childish days I had
+      proved to him. And this man, although his hair was not gray, must be on
+      the slow side of fifty now, and perhaps getting short of his very wicked
+      breath. Then I thought of poor Firm, and of good Uncle Sam, and how they
+      scorned poltroonery; and, better still, I thought of that great Power
+      which always had protected me: in a word, I resolved to risk it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But I had not reckoned upon fire-arms, which such a scoundrel was pretty
+      sure to have; and that idea struck cold upon my valor. Nevertheless, I
+      would not turn back. With no more sound than a field-mouse makes in the
+      building of its silken nest, and feet as light as the step of the wind
+      upon the scarcely ruffled grass, I quitted my screen, and went gliding
+      down a hedge, or rather the residue of some old hedge, which would shelter
+      me a little toward the hollow of the banks. I passed low places, where the
+      man must have seen me if he had happened to look up; but he was stooping
+      with his back to me, and working in the hollow of the dry water trough. He
+      was digging with the long spike of his rod, and I heard the rattle of each
+      pebble that he struck.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he stood up again, to ease his back and to look at the ground which
+      he still had to turn, I was kneeling behind a short, close-branched holly,
+      the very last bush of the hedge-row, scarcely fifteen yards from the
+      hawthorn-tree. It was quite impossible to get nearer without coming face
+      to face with him. And now I began again to tremble, but with a great
+      effort conquered it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The man was panting with his labor, and seemed to be in a vile temper too.
+      He did not swear, but made low noises full of disappointment. And then he
+      caught up his tool, with a savage self-control, and fell to again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now was my time to see what he was like, and engrave him on my memory.
+      But, lo! in a moment I need not do that. The face was the bad image of my
+      father's. A lowered, and vicious, and ill-bred image of a noble
+      countenance&mdash;such as it was just possible to dream that my dear
+      father's might have fallen to, if his mind and soul had plunged away from
+      the good inborn and implanted in them. The figure was that of a tall
+      strong man, with shoulders rather slouching, and a habit of keeping his
+      head thrown back, which made a long chin look longer. Altogether he seemed
+      a perilous foe, and perhaps a friend still more perilous.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be he what he might, he was working very hard. Not one of all Uncle Sam's
+      men, to my knowledge, least of all Martin, would have worked so hard. With
+      his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived to turn over, in less than
+      twenty minutes, the entire bed of the meadow-leet, or trough, for a length
+      of about ten yards. Then he came to the mouth, where the water of the main
+      stream lapped back into it, and he turned up the bottom as far as he could
+      reach, and waited for the mud he had raised to clear away. When this had
+      flowed down with the stream, he walked in for some little distance till
+      the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his labor, there was nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze crept up
+      the tranquil valley. Shadows waned and faded into dimness more diffuse,
+      and light grew soft and vague and vaporous. The gleam of water, and the
+      gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees, began to lose their several
+      phase and mingle into one large twilight blend. And cattle, from their
+      milking sheds, came lowing for more pasture; and the bark of a shepherd's
+      dog rang quick, as if his sheep were drowsy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the midst of innocent sights and sounds that murderer's heart misgave
+      him. He left his vain quest off, and gazed, with fear and hate of nature's
+      beauty, at the change from day to night which had not waited for him. Some
+      touch of his childhood moved him perhaps, some thought of times when he
+      played &ldquo;I spy,&rdquo; or listened to twilight ghost tales; at any rate, as he
+      rose and faced the evening, he sighed heavily.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then he strode away; and although he passed me almost within length of his
+      rod, there was little fear of his discovering me, because his mind was
+      elsewhere.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It will, perhaps, be confessed by all who are not as brave as lions that
+      so far I had acquitted myself pretty well in this trying matter. Horribly
+      scared as I was at first, I had not allowed this to conquer me, but had
+      even rushed into new jeopardy. But now the best part of my courage was
+      spent; and when the tall stranger refixed his rod and calmly recrossed
+      those ominous planks, I durst not set forth on the perilous errand of
+      spying out his ways and tracking him. A glance was enough to show the
+      impossibility in those long meadows of following without being seen in
+      this stage of the twilight. Moreover, my nerves had been tried too long,
+      and presence of mind could not last forever. All I could do, therefore,
+      was to creep as far as the trunk of the hawthorn-tree, and thence observe
+      that my enemy did not return by the way he had come, but hastened down the
+      dusky valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One part of his labors has not been described, though doubtless a highly
+      needful one. To erase the traces of his work, or at least obscure them to
+      a careless eye, when he had turned as much ground as he thought it worth
+      his while to meddle with, he trod it back again to its level as nearly as
+      might be, and then (with a can out of his fishing basket) sluiced the
+      place well with the water of the stream. This made it look to any heedless
+      person, who would not descend to examine it, as if there had been nothing
+      more than a little reflux from the river, caused by a flush from the
+      mill-pond. This little stratagem increased my fear of a cunning and active
+      villain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A STRONG TEMPTATION
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Now it will be said, and I also knew, that there was nothing as yet,
+      except most frail and feeble evidence, to connect that nameless stranger
+      with the crime charged upon my father. Indeed, it might be argued well
+      that there was no evidence at all, only inference and suspicion. That,
+      however, was no fault of mine; and I felt as sure about it as if I had
+      seen him in the very act. And this conclusion was not mine alone; for Mrs.
+      Busk, a most clever woman, and the one who kept the post-office, entirely
+      agreed with me that there could be no doubt on earth about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she went on to ask me what it was my intention to do next, for
+      the moment I could do nothing more than inquire what her opinion was. And
+      she told me that she must have a good night's rest before advising any
+      thing. For the thought of having such a heinous character in her own
+      delivery district was enough to unhinge her from her postal duties, some
+      of which might be useful to me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a significant glance she left me to my own thoughts, which were sad
+      enough, and too sad to be worth recording. For Mrs. Busk had not the art
+      of rousing people and cheering them, such as Betsy Strouss, my old nurse,
+      had, perhaps from her knowledge of the nursery. My present landlady might
+      be the more sagacious and sensible woman of the two, and therefore the
+      better adviser; but for keeping one up to the mark she was not in any way
+      equal to Betsy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is no ingratitude in saying this, because she herself admitted it. A
+      clever woman, with a well-balanced mind, knows what she can do, and
+      wherein she fails, better than a man of her own proportion does. And Mrs.
+      Busk often lamented, without much real mortification, that she had not
+      been &ldquo;born sympathetic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All the more perhaps for that, she was born sagacious, which is a less
+      pleasing, but, in a bitter pinch, a more really useful, quality. And
+      before I had time to think much of her defects, in the crowd of more
+      important thought, in she came again, with a letter in her hand, and a
+      sparkle of triumph in her small black eyes. After looking back along the
+      passage, and closing my door, she saw that my little bay-window had its
+      old-fashioned shutters fastened, and then, in a very low whisper, she
+      said, &ldquo;What you want to know is here, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Indeed!&rdquo; I answered, in my usual voice. &ldquo;How can you know that? The
+      letter is sealed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! Would you have me ruined for your sake? This was at the bottom of
+      the Nepheton bag. It fell on the floor. That was God's will, to place it
+      in your power.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not in my power,&rdquo; I answered, whispering in my turn, and staring at
+      it, in the strong temptation. &ldquo;I have no right even to look at it. It is
+      meant for some one else, and sealed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The seal is nothing. I can manage that. Another drop of wax&mdash;and I
+      strike our stamp by accident over the breakage. I refuse to know any thing
+      about it. I am too busy with the other letters. Five minutes&mdash;lock
+      the door&mdash;and I will come again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a desperate conflict for me, worse even than bodily danger. My
+      first impulse was to have nothing to do with it&mdash;even to let the
+      letter lie untouched, and, if possible, unglanced at. But already it was
+      too late for the eyes to turn away. The address had flashed upon me before
+      I thought of any thing, and while Mrs. Busk held it up to me. And now that
+      address was staring at me, like a contemptuous challenge, while the seal,
+      the symbol of private rights and deterrent honor, lay undermost. The
+      letter was directed to &ldquo;H. W. C., Post-office, Newport, Sussex.&rdquo; The
+      writing was in round hand, and clear, so as not to demand any scrutiny,
+      and to seem like that of a lawyer's clerk, and the envelope was of thin
+      repellent blue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My second impulse was to break the letter open and read it without
+      shrinking. Public duty must conquer private scruples. Nothing but the hand
+      of Providence itself could have placed this deadly secret in my power so
+      amazingly. Away with all squeamishness, and perhaps prevent more murder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But that &ldquo;perhaps&rdquo; gave me sudden pause. I had caught up the letter, and
+      stood near the candle to soften the wax and lift the cover with a small
+      sharp paper-knife, when it flashed on my mind that my cousin would condemn
+      and scorn what I was doing. Unconsciously I must have made him now my
+      standard of human judgment, or what made me think of him at that moment? I
+      threw down the letter, and then I knew. The image of Lord Castlewood had
+      crossed my mind, because the initials were his own&mdash;those of Herbert
+      William Castlewood. This strange coincidence&mdash;if it were, indeed, an
+      accident&mdash;once more set me thinking. Might not this letter be from
+      his agent, of whom he had spoken as my protector here, but to whom as all
+      unseen I scarcely ever gave a thought? Might not young Stixon, who so
+      often was at Bruntsea, be employed to call at Newport for such letters,
+      and return with them to his master? It was not very likely, for my cousin
+      had the strongest contempt of anonymous doings. Still it was possible, and
+      the bare possibility doubled my reluctance to break the seal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For one minute longer I stood in doubt, and then honor and candor and
+      truth prevailed. If any other life had been in peril but my own, duty to
+      another might have overridden all. But duty to one's self, if overpushed
+      in such a case, would hold some taint of cowardice. So I threw the letter,
+      with a sense of loathing, on a chair. Whatever it might contain, it should
+      pass, at least for me, inviolate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now when Mrs. Busk came to see what I had done, or rather left undone, she
+      flew into a towering passion, until she had no time to go on with it. The
+      rattle of the rickety old mail-cart, on its way to Winchester that night,
+      was heard, and the horn of the driver as he passed the church.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Give it me. 'A mercy! A young natural, that you are!&rdquo; the good woman
+      cried, as she flung out of the room to dash her office stamp upon that
+      hateful missive, and to seal the leathern bag. &ldquo;Seal, indeed! Inviolate!
+      How many seals have I got to make every day of my life?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I heard a great thump from the corner of the shop where the business of
+      the mails was conducted; and she told me afterward that she was so put
+      out, that broken that seal should be&mdash;one way or another. Accordingly
+      she smashed it with the office stamp, which was rather like a woman's act,
+      methought; and then, having broken it, she never looked inside&mdash;which,
+      perhaps, was even more so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When she recovered her leisure and serenity, and came in, to forgive me
+      and be forgiven, we resolved to dismiss the moral aspect of the question,
+      as we never should agree about it, although Mrs. Busk was not so certain
+      as she had been, when she found that the initials were the initials of a
+      lord. And then I asked her how she came to fix upon that letter among so
+      many others, and to feel so sure that it came from my treacherous enemy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the first place, I know every letter from Nepheton,&rdquo; she answered,
+      very sensibly. &ldquo;There are only fourteen people that write letters in the
+      place, and twelve of those fourteen buy their paper in my shop&mdash;there
+      is no shop at all at Nepheton. In the next place, none of them could write
+      a hand like that, except the parson and the doctor, who are far above
+      disguise. And two other things made me certain as could be. That letter
+      was written at the 'Green Man' ale-house; not on their paper, nor yet with
+      their ink; but being in great hurry, it was dusted with their sand&mdash;a
+      sand that turns red upon ink, miss. And the time of dispatch there is just
+      what he would catch, by walking fast after his dig where you saw him,
+      going in that direction too, and then having his materials ready to save
+      time. And if all that is not enough to convince you, miss&mdash;you
+      remember that you told me our old sexton's tale?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure I do. The first evening I was left alone here. And you have
+      been so kind, there is nothing I would hide from you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, miss, the time of old Jacob's tale is fixed by the death of poor
+      old Sally Mock; and the stranger came again after you were here, just
+      before the death of the miller's eldest daughter, and you might almost
+      have seen him. Poor thing! we all called her the 'flower of the Moon,'
+      meaning our little river. What a fine young woman she was, to be sure!
+      Whenever we heard of any strangers about, we thought they were prowling
+      after her. I was invited to her funeral, and I went, and nothing could be
+      done nicer. But they never will be punctual with burials here; they like
+      to dwell on them, and keep the bell going, for the sake of the body, and
+      the souls that must come after it. And so, when it was done, I was twenty
+      minutes late for the up mail and the cross-country post, and had to move
+      my hands pretty sharp, I can assure you. That doesn't matter; I got
+      through it, with the driver of the cart obliging, by means of some beer
+      and cold bacon. But what I feared most was the Nepheton bag, having seen
+      the old man at the funeral, and knowing what they do afterward. I could
+      not return him 'too late' again, or he would lose his place for certain,
+      and a shilling a day made all the difference to him, between wife and no
+      wife. The old pair without it must go to the workhouse, and never see one
+      another. However, when I was despairing quite of him, up he comes with his
+      bag quite correct, but only one letter to sort in it, and that letter was,
+      miss, the very identical of the one you held in your hands just now. And a
+      letter as like it as two peas had come when we buried old Sally. It
+      puzzled me then, but I had no clew to it; only now, you see, putting this
+      and that together, the things we behold must have some meaning for us; and
+      to let them go without it is against the will of God; especially when at
+      the bottom of the bag.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you hear so soon of any stranger in the valley,&rdquo; I asked, to escape
+      the re-opening of the opening question, &ldquo;how can that man come and go&mdash;a
+      man of remarkable stature and appearance&mdash;without any body asking who
+      he is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You scarcely could have put it better, miss, for me to give the answer.
+      They do ask who he is, and they want to know it, and would like any body
+      to tell them. But being of a different breed, as they are, from all
+      outside the long valley, speaking also with a different voice, they fear
+      to talk so freely out of their own ways and places. Any thing they can
+      learn in and out among themselves, they will learn; but any thing out of
+      that they let go, in the sense of outlandish matter. Bless you, miss, if
+      your poor grandfather had been shot any where else in England, how
+      different it would have been for him!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For us, you mean, Mrs. Busk. Do you think the man who did it had that in
+      his mind?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not unless he knew the place, as few know it. No, that was an accident of
+      his luck, as many other things have been. But the best luck stops at last,
+      Miss Erema; and unless I am very much mistaken, you will be the stop of
+      his. I shall find out, in a few days, where he came from, where he staid,
+      and when he went away. I suppose you mean to let him go away?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What else am I to do?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;I have no evidence at all against him;
+      only my own ideas. The police would scarcely take it up, even if&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't talk of them. They spoil every thing. And none of our people
+      would say a word, or care to help us, if it came to that. The police are
+      all strangers, and our people hate them. And, indeed, I believe that the
+      worst thing ever done was the meddling of that old Jobbins. The old stupe
+      is still alive at Petersfield, and as pompous-headed as ever. My father
+      would have been the man for your sad affair, miss, if the police had only
+      been invented in his time. Ah, yes, he was sharp! Not a Moonstock man&mdash;you
+      may take your oath of that, miss&mdash;but a good honest native from
+      Essex. But he married my mother, a Moonstock woman; or they would not put
+      up with me here at all. You quality people have your ideas to hold by, and
+      despise all others, and reasonable in your opinions; but you know nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;nothing&mdash;of
+      the stiffness of the people under you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How should I know any thing of that?&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;all these things are
+      new to me. I have not been brought up in this country, as you know. I come
+      from a larger land, where your stiffness may have burst out into
+      roughness, from having so much room suddenly. But tell me what you think
+      now your father would have done in such a case as mine is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Miss Erema, he was that long-headed that nobody could play leap-frog with
+      him. None of them ever cleared over his barrel. He walked into this
+      village fifty-five years back, this very month, with his spade upon his
+      shoulder and the knowledge of every body in his eye. They all put up
+      against him, but they never put him down; and in less than three months he
+      went to church, I do assure you, with the only daughter of the only baker.
+      After that he went into the baking line himself; he turned his spade into
+      a shovel, as he said, and he introduced new practices.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss, no! The very last thing he would think of. Only the good use of
+      potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and painful dear. What
+      is the best meal of the day? he used to reason. Dinner. And why? Why,
+      because of the potatoes. If I can make people take potato for their
+      breakfast, and potato for their supper too, I am giving them three meals a
+      day instead of one. And the health of the village corresponded to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion, or at
+      least with their own knowledge&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss, no! The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of it, is
+      never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion. If St. Paul was to come
+      and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in the shop would go
+      rotten. They hate any meddling with their likings, and they suspect
+      doctor's rubbish in all of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am quite of their opinion,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;and I am glad to hear of their
+      independence. I always used to hear that in England none of the poor
+      people dared have a will of their own.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance, and
+      said that she &ldquo;must run away and put the shutters up, or else the
+      policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer, which he had
+      no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin; and this one was
+      only tapped last Sunday week. Don't you ever think of the police, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the opinions of
+      others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant lethargy of &ldquo;the force,&rdquo;
+       as they called themselves, in my father's case. Mrs. Busk had more
+      activity and intelligence in her little head than all the fat sergeants
+      and inspectors of the county, helmet, belt, and staff, and all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      MASTER WITHYPOOL
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      At first I was much inclined to run for help, or at least for counsel,
+      either to Lord Castlewood or to Major Hockin; but further consideration
+      kept me from doing any thing of the kind. In the first place, neither of
+      them would do much good; for my cousin's ill health would prevent him from
+      helping me, even if his strange view of the case did not, while the
+      excellent Major was much too hot and hasty for a delicate task like this.
+      And, again, I might lose the most valuable and important of all chances by
+      being away from the spot just now. And so I remained at Shoxford for a
+      while, keeping strict watch upon the stranger's haunt, and asking about
+      him by means of Mrs. Busk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard more about him, miss,&rdquo; she said one day, when the down
+      letters had been dispatched, which happened about middle-day. &ldquo;He has been
+      here only those three times this summer, upon excuse of fishing always. He
+      stays at old Wellham, about five miles down the river, where the people
+      are not true Moonites. And one thing that puzzles them is, that although
+      he puts up there simply for the angling, he always chooses times when the
+      water is so low that to catch fish is next to impossible. He left his
+      fishing quarters upon the very day after you saw him searching so; and he
+      spoke as if he did not mean to come again this season. And they say that
+      they don't want him neither, he is such a morose, close-fisted man; and
+      drinking nothing but water, there is very little profit with him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And did you find out what his name is? How cleverly you have managed!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He passes by the name of 'Captain Brown;' but the landlord of his inn,
+      who has been an old soldier, is sure he was never in the army, nor any
+      other branch of the service. He thinks that he lives by inventing things,
+      for he is always at some experiments, and one of his great points is to
+      make a lamp that will burn and move about under water. To be sure you see
+      the object of that, miss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, really, Mrs. Busk, I can not. I have not your penetration.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, of course, to find what he can not find upon land. There is
+      something of great importance there, either for its value or its meaning.
+      Have you ever been told that your poor grandfather wore any diamonds or
+      precious jewels?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No. I have asked about that most especially. He had nothing about him to
+      tempt a robber. He was a very strong-willed man, and he hated outward
+      trumpery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it must be something that this man himself has dropped, unless it
+      were a document, or any other token, missing from his lordship. And few
+      things of that sort would last for twenty years almost.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nineteen years the day after to-morrow,&rdquo; I answered, with a glance at my
+      pocket-book. &ldquo;I determined to be here on that very day. No doubt I am very
+      superstitious. But one thing I can not understand is this&mdash;what
+      reason can there have been for his letting so many years pass, and then
+      hunting like this?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No one can answer that question, miss, without knowing more than we know.
+      But many reasons might be supposed. He might have been roving abroad, for
+      instance, just as you and your father have been. Or he might not have
+      known that the thing was there; or it might not have been of importance
+      till lately; or he might have been afraid, until something else happened.
+      Does he know that you are now in England?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How can I possibly tell, Mrs. Busk? He seems to know a great deal too
+      much. He found me out when I was at Colonel Gundry's. At least I conclude
+      so, from what I know now; but I hope he does not know&rdquo;&mdash;and at such a
+      dreadful idea I shuddered.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am almost sure that he can not know it,&rdquo; the good postmistress
+      answered, &ldquo;or he would have found means to put an end to you. That would
+      have been his first object.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, Mrs. Busk,&rdquo; I said, being much disturbed by her calmness, &ldquo;surely,
+      surely he is not to be allowed to make an end of every one! I came to this
+      country with the full intention of going into every thing. But I did not
+      mean at all, except in my very best moments, to sacrifice myself. It seems
+      too bad&mdash;too bad to think of.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So it is, Miss Erema,&rdquo; Mrs. Busk replied, without any congenial
+      excitement. &ldquo;It does seem hard for them that have the liability on them.
+      But still, miss, you have always shown such a high sense of duty, and of
+      what you were about&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't&mdash;I can not. There are times, I do assure you, when I am fit
+      for nothing, Mrs. Busk, and wish myself back in America. And if this man
+      is to have it all his own way&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not he, miss&mdash;not he. Be you in no hurry. Could he even have his way
+      with our old miller? No; Master Withypool was too many for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is a new thing. You never told me that. What did he try to do with
+      the miller?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't justly know what it was, Miss Erema. I never spoke to miller
+      about it, and, indeed, I have had no time since I heard of it. But those
+      that told me said that the tall strange gentleman was terribly put out,
+      and left the gate with a black cloud upon his face, and the very next day
+      the miller's daughter died, quite sudden and mysterious.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How very strange! But now I have got a new idea. Has the miller a strong
+      high dam to his pond, and a good stout sluice-gate at the end!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, miss, to be sure he has,&rdquo; said Mrs. Busk; &ldquo;otherwise how could he
+      grind at all, when the river is so low as it is sometimes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I know what he wanted, and I will take a leaf out of his own book&mdash;the
+      miscreant! He wanted the miller to stop back the water and leave the pool
+      dry at the 'Murder-bridge.' Would it be possible for him to do that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can not tell you, miss; but your thought is very clever. It is likely
+      enough that he did want that, though he never would dare to ask without
+      some pretense&mdash;some other cause I mean, to show for it. He may have
+      been thinking that whatever he was wanting was likely to be under water.
+      And that shows another thing, if it is so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Busk, my head goes round with such a host of complications. I do my
+      best to think them out&mdash;and then there comes another!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss; this only clears things up a little. If the man can not be sure
+      whether what he is looking for is on land or under water, it seems to me
+      almost to show that it was lost at the murder time in the dark and flurry.
+      A man would know if he dropped any thing in the water by daylight, from
+      the splash and the ripple, and so on, for the stream is quite slow at that
+      corner. He dropped it, miss, when he did the deed, or else it came away
+      from his lordship.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing was lost, as I said before, from the body of my grandfather, so
+      far at least as our knowledge goes. Whatever was lost was the murderer's.
+      Now please to tell me all about the miller, and how I may get round him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You make me laugh in the middle of black things, miss, by the way you
+      have of putting them. But as to the miller&mdash;Master Withypool is a
+      wonder, as concerns the ladies. He is one of those men that stand up for
+      every thing when a man tries upper side of them. But let a woman come, and
+      get up under, and there he is&mdash;a pie crust lifted. Why, I, at my age,
+      could get round him, as you call it. But you, miss&mdash;and more than
+      that, you are something like his daughter; and the old man frets after her
+      terrible. Go you into his yard, and just smile upon him, miss, and if the
+      Moon River can be stopped, he'll stop it for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This seemed a very easy way to do it. But I told Mrs. Busk that I would
+      pay well also, for the loss of a day's work at the mill was more than
+      fifty smiles could make up.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But she told me, above all things, not to do that. For old Master
+      Withypool was of that sort that he would stand for an hour with his hands
+      in his pocket for a half-penny, if not justly owing from him. But nothing
+      more angered him than a bribe to step outside of his duty. He had plenty
+      of money, and was proud of it. But sooner would he lose a day's work to do
+      a kindness, when he was sure of having right behind it, than take a week's
+      profit without earning it. And very likely that was where the dark man
+      failed, from presuming that money would do every thing. However, there was
+      nothing like judging for one's self; and if I would like to be introduced,
+      she could do it for me with the best effect; taking as she did a good
+      hundred-weight of best &ldquo;households&rdquo; from him every week, although not
+      herself in the baking line, but always keeping quartern bags, because the
+      new baker did adulterate so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of her father, and how things work round; but that they would do
+      without remarks of mine. So I said nothing on that point, but asked
+      whether Master Withypool would require any introduction. And to this Mrs.
+      Busk said, &ldquo;Oh dear, no!&rdquo; And her throat had been a little rough since
+      Sunday, and the dog was chained tight, even if any dog would bite a sweet
+      young lady; and to her mind the miller would be more taken up and less fit
+      to vapor into obstacles, if I were to hit upon him all alone, just when he
+      came out to the bank of his cabbage garden, not so very long after his
+      dinner, to smoke his pipe and to see his things a-growing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was time to get ready if I meant to catch him then, for he always dined
+      at one o'clock, and the mill was some three or four meadows up the stream;
+      therefore as soon as Mrs. Busk had re-assured me that she was quite
+      certain of my enemy's departure, I took my drawing things and set forth to
+      call upon Master Withypool.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Passing through the church-yard, which was my nearest way, and glancing
+      sadly at the &ldquo;fairy ring,&rdquo; I began to have some uneasiness about the
+      possible issue of my new scheme. Such a thing required more thinking out
+      than I had given to it. For instance, what reason could I give the miller
+      for asking so strange a thing of him? And how could the whole of the
+      valley be hindered from making the greatest talk about the stoppage of
+      their own beloved Moon, even if the Moon could be stopped without every
+      one of them rushing down to see it? And if it was so talked of, would it
+      not be certain to come to the ears of that awful man? And if so, how long
+      before he found me out, and sent me to rejoin my family?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These thoughts compelled me to be more discreet; and having lately done a
+      most honorable thing, in refusing to read that letter, I felt a certain
+      right to play a little trick now of a purely harmless character. I ran
+      back therefore to my writing-desk, and took from its secret drawer a
+      beautiful golden American eagle, a large coin, larger and handsomer than
+      any in the English coinage. Uncle Sam gave it to me on my birthday, and I
+      would not have taken 50 pounds for it. With this I hurried to that bridge
+      of fear, which I had not yet brought myself to go across; and then, not to
+      tell any story about it, I snipped a little hole in the corner of my
+      pocket, while my hand was still steady ere I had to mount the bridge. Then
+      pinching that hole up with a squeeze, I ran and got upon that wicked
+      bridge, and then let go. The heavy gold coin fell upon the rotten plank,
+      and happily rolled into the water, as if it were glad not to tempt its
+      makers to any more sin for the sake of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shutting up thought, for fear of despising myself for the coinage of such
+      a little trick, I hurried across the long meadow to the mill, and went
+      through the cow-gate into the yard, and the dog began to bark at me.
+      Seeing that he had a strong chain on, I regarded him with lofty
+      indignation. &ldquo;Do you know what Jowler would do to you?&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;Jowler, a
+      dog worth ten of you. He would take you by the neck and drop you into that
+      pond for daring to insult his mistress!&rdquo; The dog appeared to feel the
+      force of my remarks, for he lay down again, and with one eye watched me in
+      a manner amusing, but insidious. Then, taking good care to keep out of his
+      reach, I went to the mill-pond and examined it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It looked like a very nice pond indeed, long, and large, and well banked
+      up, not made into any particular shape, but producing little rushy elbows.
+      The water was now rather low, and very bright (though the Moon itself is
+      not a crystal stream), and a school of young minnows, just watching a
+      water-spider with desirous awe, at sight of me broke away, and reunited,
+      with a speed and precision that might shame the whole of our very best
+      modern fighting. Then many other things made a dart away, and furrowed the
+      shadow of the willows, till distance quieted the fear of man&mdash;that
+      most mysterious thing in nature&mdash;and the shallow pool was at peace
+      again, and bright with unruffled reflections.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What ails the dog?&rdquo; said a deep gruff voice; and the poor dog received a
+      contemptuous push, not enough to hurt him, but to wound his feelings for
+      doing his primary duty. &ldquo;Servant, miss. What can I do for you? Foot-path
+      is t'other side of that there hedge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, but I left the foot-path on purpose. I came to have a talk with you,
+      if you will allow me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sartain! sartain,&rdquo; the miller replied, lifting a broad floury hat and
+      showing a large gray head. &ldquo;Will you come into house, miss, or into
+      gearden?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I chose the garden, and he led the way, and set me down upon an old oak
+      bench, where the tinkle of the water through the flood-gates could be
+      heard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you be come to paint the mill at last,&rdquo; he said. &ldquo;Many a time I've
+      looked out for you. The young leddy down to Mother Busk's, of course.
+      Many's the time we've longed for you to come, you reminds us so of
+      somebody. Why, my old missus can't set eyes on you in church, miss,
+      without being forced to sit down a'most. But we thought it very pretty of
+      you not to come, miss, while the trouble was so new upon us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Something in my look or voice made the old man often turn away, while I
+      told him that I would make the very best drawing of his mill that I could
+      manage, and would beg him to accept it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Her ought to 'a been on the plank,&rdquo; he said, with trouble in getting his
+      words out. &ldquo;But there! what good? Her never will stand on that plank no
+      more. No, nor any other plank.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I told him that I would put her on the plank, if he had any portrait of
+      her showing her dress and her attitude. Without saying what he had, he led
+      me to the house, and stood behind me, while I went inside. And then he
+      could not keep his voice as I went from one picture of his darling to
+      another, not thinking (as I should have done) of what his feelings might
+      be, but trying, as no two were at all alike, to extract a general idea of
+      her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nobody knows what her were to me,&rdquo; the old man said, with a quiet little
+      noise and a sniff behind my shoulder. &ldquo;And with one day's illness her died&mdash;her
+      died.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But you have others left. She was not the only one. Please, Mr.
+      Withypool, to try to think of that. And your dear wife still alive to
+      share your trouble. Just think for a moment of what happened to my father.
+      His wife and six children all swept off in a month&mdash;and I just born,
+      to be brought up with a bottle!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I never meant, of course, to have said a word of this, but was carried
+      away by that common old idea of consoling great sorrow with a greater one.
+      And the sense of my imprudence broke vexatiously upon me when the old man
+      came and stood between me and his daughter's portraits.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, I never!&rdquo; he exclaimed, with his bright eyes steadfast with
+      amazement. &ldquo;I know you now, miss. Now I knows you. To think what a set of
+      blind newts us must be! And you the very moral of your poor father, in a
+      female kind of way! To be sure, how well I knew the Captain! A nicer man
+      never walked the earth, neither a more unlucky one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I beg you&mdash;let me beg you,&rdquo; I began to say; &ldquo;since you have found me
+      out like this&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush, miss, hush! Not my own wife shall know, unless your own tongue
+      telleth her. A proud man I shall be, Miss Raumur,&rdquo; he continued, with
+      emphasis on my local name, &ldquo;if aught can be found in my power to serve
+      you. Why, Lord bless you, miss,&rdquo; he whispered, looking round, &ldquo;your father
+      and I has spent hours together! He were that pleasant in his ways and
+      words, he would drop in from his fishing, when the water was too low, and
+      sit on that very same bench where you sat, and smoke his pipe with me, and
+      tell me about battles, and ask me about bread. And many a time I have
+      slipped up the gate, to give him more water for his flies to play, and the
+      fish not to see him so plainly. Ah, we have had many pleasant spells
+      together; and his eldest boy and girl, Master George and Miss Henrietta,
+      used to come and fetch our eggs. My Polly there was in love with him, we
+      said; she sat upon his lap so, when she were two years old, and played
+      with his beautiful hair, and blubbered&mdash;oh, she did blubber, when the
+      Captain went away!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This invested Polly with new interest for me, and made me determine to
+      spare no pains in putting her pretty figure well upon the plank. Then I
+      said to the miller, &ldquo;How kind of you to draw up your sluice-gates to
+      oblige my father! Now will you put them down and keep them down, to do a
+      great service both to him and me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without a moment's hesitation, he promised that any thing he could do
+      should be done, if I would only tell him what I wanted. But perhaps it
+      would be better to have our talk outside. Taking this hint, I followed him
+      back to the bench in the open garden, and there explained what I wished to
+      have done, and no longer concealed the true reason. The good miller
+      answered that with all his heart he would do that much to oblige me, and a
+      hundred times more than that; but some little thought and care were
+      needful. With the river so low as it was now, he could easily stop the
+      back-water, and receive the whole of the current in his dam, and keep it
+      from flowing down his wheel trough, and thus dry the lower channel for
+      perhaps half an hour, which would be ample for my purpose. Engineering
+      difficulties there were none; but two or three other things must be
+      heeded. Miller Sims, a mile or so down river, must be settled with, to
+      fill his dam well, and begin to discharge, when the upper water failed, so
+      as not to dry the Moon all down the valley, which would have caused a
+      commotion. Miller Sims being own brother-in-law to Master Withypool, that
+      could be arranged easily enough, after one day's notice. But a harder
+      thing to manage would be to do the business without rousing curiosity, and
+      setting abroad a rumor which would be sure to reach my enemy. And the
+      hardest thing of all, said Master Withypool, smiling as he thought of what
+      himself had once been, would be to keep those blessed boys away, who find
+      out every thing, and go every where. Not a boy of Shoxford but would be in
+      the river, or dancing upon its empty bed, screeching and scolloping up
+      into his cap any poor bewildered trout chased into the puddles, if it were
+      allowed to leak out, however feebly, that the Moon water was to stop
+      running. And then how was I to seek for any thing?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was a puzzle. But, with counsel, we did solve it. And we quietly
+      stopped the Moon, without man or boy being much the wiser.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      GOING TO THE BOTTOM
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      It is not needful to explain every thing, any more than it was for me to
+      tell the miller about my golden eagle, and how I had managed to lose it in
+      the Moon&mdash;a trick of which now I was heartily ashamed, in the face of
+      honest kindness. So I need not tell how Master Withypool managed to settle
+      with his men, and to keep the boys unwitting of what was about to come to
+      pass. Enough that I got a note from him to tell me that the little river
+      would be run out, just when all Shoxford was intent upon its dinner, on
+      the second day after I had seen him. And he could not say for certain, but
+      thought it pretty safe, that nobody would come near me, if I managed to be
+      there at a quarter before one, when the stream would begin to run dry, and
+      I could watch it. I sent back a line by the pretty little girl, a sister
+      of poor Polly, to say how much I thanked him, and how much I hoped that he
+      himself would meet me there, if his time allowed. For he had been too
+      delicate to say a word of that; but I felt that he had a good right to be
+      there, and, knowing him now, I was not afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly every thing came about as well as could be wished almost. Master
+      Withypool took the precaution, early in the morning, to set his great
+      fierce bull at large, who always stopped the foot-path. This bull knew
+      well the powers of a valley in conducting sound; and he loved to stand, as
+      if at the mouth of a funnel, and roar down it to another bull a mile below
+      him, belonging to his master's brother-in-law. And when he did this, there
+      was scarcely a boy, much less a man or woman, with any desire to assert
+      against him the public right of thoroughfare. Throughout that forenoon,
+      then, this bull bellowed nobly, still finding many very wicked flies
+      about, so that two mitching boys, who meant to fish for minnows with a
+      pin, were obliged to run away again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I was in the dark about him, and as much afraid of him as any
+      body, when he broke into sight of me round a corner, without any tokens of
+      amity. I had seen a great many great bulls before, including Uncle Sam's
+      good black one, who might not have meant any mischief at all, and atoned
+      for it&mdash;if he did&mdash;by being washed away so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And therefore my courage soon returned, when it became quite clear that
+      this animal now had been fastened with a rope, and could come no nearer.
+      For some little time, then, I waited all alone, as near that bridge as I
+      could bring myself to stand, for Mrs. Busk, my landlady, could not leave
+      the house yet, on account of the mid-day letters. Moreover, she thought
+      that she had better stay away, as our object was to do things as quietly
+      as could be.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Much as I had watched this bridge from a distance, or from my
+      sheltering-place, I had never been able to bring myself to make any kind
+      of sketch of it, or even to insert it in a landscape, although it was very
+      well suited and expressive, from its crooked and antique simplicity. The
+      overhanging, also, of the hawthorn-tree (not ruddy yet, but russety with
+      its coloring crop of coral), and the shaggy freaks of ivy above the
+      twisted trunk, and the curve of the meadows and bold elbow of the brook,
+      were such as an artist would have pitched his tent for, and tantalized
+      poor London people with a dream of cool repose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As yet the little river showed no signs of doing what the rustic&mdash;or
+      surely it should have been the cockney&mdash;was supposed to stand still
+      and wait for. There was no great rush of headlong water, for that is not
+      the manner of the stream in the very worst of weather; but there was the
+      usual style of coming on, with lips and steps at the sides, and cords of
+      running toward the middle. Quite enough, at any rate, to make the trout
+      jump, without any omen of impending drought, and to keep all the play and
+      the sway of movement going on serenely.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began to be afraid that the miller must have failed in his stratagem
+      against the water-god, and that, as I had read in Pope's Homer, the liquid
+      deity would beat the hero, when all of a sudden there were signs that man
+      was the master of this little rustic. Broadswords of flag and rapiers of
+      water-grass, which had been quivering merrily, began to hang down and to
+      dip themselves in loops, and the stones of the brink showed dark green
+      stripes on their sides as they stood naked. Then fine little cakes of
+      conglomerated stuff, which only a great man of nature could describe, came
+      floating about, and curdling into corners, and holding on to one another
+      in long-tailed strings. But they might do what they liked, and make their
+      very best of it, as they fell away to nothing upon stones and mud. For now
+      more important things began to open, the like of which never had been
+      yielded up before&mdash;plots of slimy gravel, varied with long streaks of
+      yellow mud, dotted with large double shells, and parted into little oozy
+      runs by wriggling water-weeds. And here was great commotion and sad panic
+      of the fish, large fellows splashing and quite jumping out of water, as
+      their favorite hovers and shelves ran dry, and darting away, with their
+      poor backs in the air, to the deepest hole they could think of. Hundreds
+      must have come to flour, lard, and butter if boys had been there to take
+      advantage. But luckily things had been done so well that boys were now in
+      their least injurious moment, destroying nothing worse than their own
+      dinners.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A very little way below the old wooden bridge the little river ran into a
+      deepish pool, as generally happens at or near a corner, especially where
+      there is a confluence sometimes. And seeing nothing, as I began to search
+      intently, stirring with a long-handled spud which I had brought, I
+      concluded that even my golden eagle had been carried into that deep place.
+      However, water or no water, I resolved to have it out with that dark pool
+      as soon as the rest of the channel should be drained, which took a
+      tormenting time to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my skirts,
+      and jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion which
+      reminded me of childish days passed pleasantly in the Blue River.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Too busy thus to give a thought to any other thing, I did not even see the
+      miller, until he said,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good-day, miss,&rdquo; lifting his hat, with a nice kind smile. &ldquo;Very busy,
+      miss, I see, and right you are to be so. The water will be upon us again
+      in less than half an hour. Now let me clear away they black weeds for you.
+      I brought this little shivel a-purpose. If I may make so bold, miss, what
+      do 'e look to find here?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not the very smallest notion,&rdquo; I could only answer; &ldquo;but if there
+      is any thing, it must be in that hole. I have searched all the shallow
+      part so closely that I doubt whether even a sixpence could escape me,
+      unless it were buried in the mud or pebbles. Oh, how can I manage to
+      search that hole? There must be a yard of water there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One thing I ought to have told 'e for to do,&rdquo; Master Withypool whispered,
+      as he went on shoveling&mdash;&ldquo;to do what the boys do when they lose a
+      farden&mdash;to send another after un. If so be now, afore the water was
+      run out, you had stood on that there bridge, and dropped a bright coin
+      into it, a new half crown or a two-shilling piece, why, the chances would
+      be that the run of the current would 'a taken it nigh to the likeliest
+      spot for holding any other little matter as might 'a dropped, permiskous,
+      you might say, into this same water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have done so,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;I have done that very thing, though not at
+      all with that object. The day before yesterday a beautiful coin, a golden
+      eagle of America, fell from my pocket on that upper plank, and rolled into
+      the water. I would not lose it for a great deal, because it was given to
+      me by my dearest friend, the greatest of all millers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And ha'n't you found it yet, miss? Well, that is queer. Perhaps we shall
+      find it now, with something to the back of it. I thought yon hole was too
+      far below the bridge. But there your gold must be, and something else,
+      most likely. Plaise to wait a little bit, and us 'll have the wet out of
+      un. I never should 'a thought of that but for your gold guinea, though.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words Master Withypool pulled his coat off and rolled up his
+      shirt sleeves, displaying arms fit to hold their own even with Uncle Sam's
+      almost; and then he fell to with his shovel and dug, while I ran with my
+      little spud to help.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Plaise keep out of way, miss; I be afeard of knocking you. Not but what
+      you works very brave indeed, miss.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Knowing what men are concerning &ldquo;female efforts,&rdquo; I got out of the strong
+      man's way, although there was plenty of room for me. What he wanted to do
+      was plain enough&mdash;to dig a trench down the empty bed of the Moon
+      River, deep enough to drain that pit before the stream came down again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never thought to run a race against my own old dam,&rdquo; he said, as he
+      stopped for a moment to recover breath. &ldquo;Us never knows what us may have
+      to do. Old dam must be a'most busting now. But her's sound enough, till
+      her beginneth to run over.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but I
+      could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of the water
+      coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do. Master Withypool had
+      been working, not as I myself would have done, from the lips of the dark
+      pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty yards below, where there
+      was almost a little cascade when the river was full flowing; from this he
+      had made his channel upward, cutting deeper as he came along, till now, at
+      the brink of the obstinate pool, his trench was two feet deep almost. I
+      had no idea that any man could work so with a shovel, which seems such a
+      clumsy tool compared with a spade: but a gentleman who knows the country
+      and the people told me that, with their native weapon, Moonites will do as
+      much digging in an hour as other folk get through in an hour and a half
+      with a spade. But this may be only, perhaps, because they are working
+      harder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now,&rdquo; said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red face,
+      and desiring to keep all that unheeded&mdash;&ldquo;now, miss, to you it
+      belongeth to tap this here little cornder, if desirable. Plaise to excoose
+      of me going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please to do nothing of the sort,&rdquo; I answered, knowing that he offered to
+      stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion. &ldquo;Please to tap the
+      pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of what we find in it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As you plaise, miss, as you plaise. Not a moment for to lose in arguing.
+      Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam. Her will be here in five
+      minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost as fast
+      as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the plug of earth severing his
+      channel from the deep, reluctant hole. And then I saw the wisdom of his
+      way of working: for if he had dug downward from the pool itself, the water
+      would have followed him all the way, and even drowned his tool out of its
+      own strokes; whereas now, with a swirl and a curl of ropy mud, away rushed
+      the thick, sluggish, obstinate fluid, and in less than two minutes the
+      hole was almost dry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first thing I saw was my golden eagle, lodged about half-way down the
+      slope on a crust of black sludge, from which I caught it up and presented
+      it to Master Withypool, as a small token and record of his kindness; and
+      to this day he carries it upon his Sunday watch chain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I always am lucky in finding things,&rdquo; I exclaimed, while he watched me,
+      and the up stream too, whence a babble of water was approaching. &ldquo;As sure
+      as I live I have found it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt about your living, miss. And the Captain were always lively. But
+      what have your bright eyes hit upon? I see nort for the life of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look there,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;at the very bottom of it&mdash;almost under the
+      water. Here, where I put my spud&mdash;a bright blue line! Oh, can I go
+      down, or is it quicksand?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No quicksand in our little river, miss. But your father's daughter
+      shannot go into the muck, while John Withypool stands by. I see un now,
+      sure enough; now I see un! But her needeth care, or her may all goo away
+      in mullock. Well, I thought my eyes was sharp enough; but I'm blest if I
+      should have spied that, though. A bit of flint, mebbe, or of blue glass
+      bottle. Anyhow, us will see the bottom of un.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He was wasting no time while he spoke, but working steadfastly for his
+      purpose, fixing the blade of his shovel below the little blue line I was
+      peering at, so that no slip of the soft yellow slush should bury it down,
+      and plunge over it. If that had once happened, good-by to all chance of
+      ever beholding this thing again, for the river was coming, with fury and
+      foam, to assert its ancient right of way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With a short laugh the miller jumped down into the pit. &ldquo;Me to be served
+      so, by my own mill-stream! Lor', if I don't pay you out for this!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His righteous wrath failed to stop the water from pouring into the pit
+      behind him; and, strong as he was, he nearly lost his footing, having only
+      mud to stand upon. It seemed to me that he was going to be drowned, and I
+      offered him the handle of my spud to help him; but he stopped where he
+      was, and was not going to be hurried.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I got un now,&rdquo; he said; &ldquo;now I don't mind coming out. You see if I don't
+      pay you out for this! Why, I always took you for a reasonable hanimal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He shook his fist strongly at the river, which had him well up to the
+      middle by this time; and then he disdainfully waded out, with wrath in all
+      his countenance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I've a great mind to stop there, and see what her would do,&rdquo; he said to
+      me, forgetting altogether what he went for. &ldquo;And I would, if I had had my
+      dinner. A scat of a thing as I can manage with my thumb! Ah, you have made
+      a bad day of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what have you found, Mr. Withypool?&rdquo; I asked, for I could not enter
+      into his wrath against the water, wet as he was to the shoulders. &ldquo;You
+      have something in your hand. May I see it, if you please? And then do
+      please to go home and change your clothes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A thing I never did in my life, miss, and should be ashamed to begin at
+      this age. Clothes gets wet, and clothes dries on us, same as un did on the
+      sheep afore us; else they gets stiff and creasy. What this little thing is
+      ne'er a body may tell, in my line of life&mdash;but look'th aristocratic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The &ldquo;mullock,&rdquo; as he called it, from his hands, and from the bed where it
+      had lain so long, so crusted the little thing which he gave me, that I
+      dipped it again in the swelling stream, and rubbed it with both hands, to
+      make out what it was. And then I thought how long it had lain there; and
+      suddenly to my memory it came, that in all likelihood the time of that was
+      nineteen years this very day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Will another year pass,&rdquo; I cried, &ldquo;before I make out all about it? What
+      are you, and who, now looking at me with such sad, sad eyes?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For I held in my hand a most handsome locket, of blue enamel and diamonds,
+      with a back of chased gold, and in front the miniature of a beautiful
+      young woman, done as they never seem to do them now. The work was so good,
+      and the fitting so close, that no drop of water had entered, and the face
+      shone through the crystal glass as fresh as the day it was painted. A very
+      lovely face it was, yet touched with a shade of sadness, as the loveliest
+      faces generally are; and the first thought of any beholder would be, &ldquo;That
+      woman was born for sorrow.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The miller said as much when I showed it to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lord bless my heart! I hope the poor craitur' hathn't lasted half so long
+      as her pictur' hath.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      HERMETICALLY SEALED
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      The discovery which I have described above (but not half so well as the
+      miller tells it now) created in my young heart a feeling of really strong
+      curiosity. To begin with, how could this valuable thing have got into the
+      Moon-stream, and lain there so long, unsought for, or at best so
+      unskillfully sought for? What connection could it have with the tragic
+      death of my grandfather? Why was that man so tardily come to search for
+      it, if he might do so without any body near him? Again, what woman was
+      this whose beauty no water or mud could even manage to disguise? That last
+      was a most disturbing question to one's bodily peace of mind. And then
+      came another yet more urgent&mdash;what was in the inside of this tight
+      case?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That there was something inside of it seemed almost a certainty. The mere
+      value of the trinket, or even the fear that it ever might turn up as
+      evidence, would scarcely have brought that man so often to stir suspicion
+      by seeking it; though, after so long a time, he well might hope that
+      suspicion was dead and buried. And being unable to open this case&mdash;after
+      breaking three good nails over it, and then the point of a penknife&mdash;I
+      turned to Master Withypool, who was stamping on the grass to drain
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What sort of a man was that,&rdquo; I asked, &ldquo;who wanted you to do what now you
+      have so kindly done for me? About a month or six weeks ago? Do please to
+      tell me, as nearly as you can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If Mrs. Withypool had been there, she might have lost all patience with me
+      for putting long questions so selfishly to a man who had done so much for
+      me, and whose clothes were now dripping in a wind which had arisen to test
+      his theory of drying. He must have lost a large quantity of what
+      scientific people call &ldquo;caloric.&rdquo; But never a shiver gave he in exchange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, miss,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;I was thinking a'most of speaking on that very
+      matter. More particular since you found that little thing, with the pretty
+      lady inside of it. It were borne in on my mind that thissom were the very
+      thing he were arter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No doubt of it,&rdquo; I answered, with far less patience, though being
+      comparatively dry. &ldquo;But what was he like? Was he like this portrait?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This picture of the lady? No; I can't say that he were, so much. The face
+      of a big man he hath, with short black fringes to it. Never showeth to my
+      idea any likeliness of a woman. No, no, miss; think you not at all that
+      you have got him in that blue thing. Though some of their pictures is like
+      men, the way they dress up nowadays.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I did not mean that it was meant for him; what I mean is, do you see any
+      sign of family likeness? Any resemblance about the eyes, or mouth, or
+      forehead?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, now, I don't know but what I might,&rdquo; replied Master Withypool,
+      gazing very hard; &ldquo;if I was to look at 'un long enough, a' might find
+      some'at favoring of that tall fellow, I do believe. Indeed, I do believe
+      the more I look, the more I diskivers the image of him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The good and kind miller's perception of the likeness strengthened almost
+      too fast, as if the wish were father to the thought, until I saw clearly
+      how selfish I was in keeping him in that state so long; for I knew, from
+      what Mrs. Busk had told me, that in spite of all his large and grand old
+      English sentiments about his clothes, his wife would make him change them
+      all ere ever she gave him a bit of dinner, and would force him then to
+      take a glass of something hot. So I gave him a thousand thanks, though not
+      a thousandth part of what he deserved, and saw him well on his homeward
+      way before I went back to consider things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As soon as my landlady was at leisure to come in and talk with me, and as
+      soon as I had told her how things happened, and shown her our discovery,
+      we both of us did the very same thing, and said almost the very same
+      words. Our act was, with finger and nail and eye, to rime into every jot
+      of it; and our words were,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am sure there is something inside. If not, it would open sensibly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In the most senseless and obstinate manner it refused not only to open,
+      but to disclose any thing at all about itself. Whether it ever had been
+      meant to open, and if so, where, and by what means; whether, without any
+      gift of opening, it might have a hidden thing inside; whether, when opened
+      by force or skill, it might show something we had no business with, or
+      (which would be far worse) nothing at all&mdash;good Mrs. Busk and myself
+      tested, tapped, and felt, and blew, and listened, and tried every possible
+      overture, and became at last quite put out with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all of a piece with the villains that owned it,&rdquo; the postmistress
+      exclaimed at last. &ldquo;There is no penetrating either it or them. Most likely
+      they have made away with this beautiful lady on the cover. Kill one, kill
+      fifty, I have heard say. I hope Master Withypool will let out nothing, or
+      evil it will be for you, miss. If I was you, I would carry a pistol.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now please not to frighten me, Mrs. Busk. I am not very brave at the best
+      of times, and this has made me so nervous. If I carried a pistol, I should
+      shoot myself the very first hour of wearing it. The mere thought of it
+      makes me tremble. Oh, why was I ever born, to do man's work?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because, miss, a man would not have done it half so well. When you saw
+      that villain digging, a man would have rushed out and spoiled all chance.
+      And now what man could have ever found this? Would Master Withypool ever
+      have emptied the Moon River for a man, do you think? Or could any man have
+      been down among us all this time, in this jealous place, without his
+      business being long ago sifted out and scattered over him? No, no, miss;
+      you must not talk like that&mdash;and with me as well to help you. The
+      rogues will have reason to wish, I do believe, that they had only got a
+      man to deal with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In this argument there were points which had occurred to me before; but
+      certainly it is a comfort to have one's own ideas in a doubtful matter
+      reproduced, and perhaps put better, by a mind to which one may have lent
+      them, perhaps, with a loan all unacknowledged. However, trouble teaches
+      care, and does it so well that the master and the lesson in usage of words
+      are now the same; therefore I showed no sign of being suggested with my
+      own suggestions, but only asked, quietly, &ldquo;What am I to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear young lady,&rdquo; Mrs. Busk replied, after stopping some time to think
+      of it, &ldquo;my own opinion is, for my part, that you ought to consult
+      somebody.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But I am, Mrs. Busk. I am now consulting you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I think, miss, that this precious case should be taken at once to a
+      jeweler, who can open it without doing any damage, which is more than we
+      can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure; I have thought of that,&rdquo; I replied. &ldquo;But how can that be done
+      without arousing curiosity?&mdash;without the jeweler seeing its contents,
+      if indeed it has any? And in that case the matter would be no longer at
+      our own disposal, as now it is. I have a great mind to split it with a
+      hammer. What are the diamonds to me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not the diamonds, but the picture, miss, that may be most
+      important. And more than that, you might ruin the contents, so as not to
+      make head or tale of them. No, no; it is a risk that must be run; we must
+      have a jeweler, but not one of this neighborhood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I shall have to go to London again, and perhaps lose something most
+      important here. Can you think of no other way out of it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, miss, at present I see nothing else. Unless you will place it all in
+      the hands of the police.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Constable Jobbins, to wit, or his son! No, thank you, Mrs. Busk, not yet.
+      Surely we are not quite reduced to such a hopeless pass as that. My father
+      knew what the police were worth, and so does Betsy, and so does Major
+      Hockin. 'Pompous noodles,' the Major calls them, who lay hold of every
+      thing by the wrong end.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then if he can lay hold of the right end, miss, what better could you do
+      than consult him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I had been thinking of this already, and pride alone debarred me. That
+      gentleman's active nature drove him to interfere with other people's
+      business, even though he had never heard of them; and yet through some
+      strange reasoning of his own, or blind adoption of public unreason, he had
+      made me dislike, or at any rate not like, him, until he began to show
+      signs at last of changing his opinion. And now the question was, had he
+      done that enough for me, without loss of self-respect, to open my heart to
+      him, and seek counsel?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In settling that point the necessity of the case overrode, perhaps, some
+      scruples; in sooth, I had nobody else to go to. What could I do with Lord
+      Castlewood? Nothing; all his desire was to do exactly what my father would
+      have done: and my father had never done any thing more than rove and roam
+      his life out. To my mind this was dreadful now, when every new thing
+      rising round me more and more clearly to my mind established what I never
+      had doubted&mdash;his innocence. Again, what good could I do by seeking
+      Betsy's opinion about it, or that of Mrs. Price, or Stixon, or any other
+      person I could think of? None whatever&mdash;and perhaps much harm. Taking
+      all in all, as things turn up, I believed myself to be almost equal to the
+      cleverest of those three in sense, and in courage not inferior. Moreover,
+      a sort of pride&mdash;perhaps very small, but not contemptible&mdash;put
+      me against throwing my affairs so much into the hands of servants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would perhaps
+      condemn me. But still I was not of the grand New World, whose pedigrees
+      are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle Sam
+      was the last for that); neither could I come up to the largeness of
+      universal brotherhood. That was not to be expected of a female; and few
+      things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it. No such
+      ideas had ever troubled me; I had more important things to think of, or,
+      at any rate, something to be better carried out. And of all these
+      desultory thoughts it came that I packed up that odious but very lovely
+      locket, without further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very good
+      and clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early. By so doing I could have
+      three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet return for
+      the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and the
+      equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before the tardy
+      sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once when he finds the
+      weights go against him. Mrs. Busk considered not the sun, neither any of
+      his doings. The time of day was more momentous than any of the sun's
+      proceedings. Railway time was what she had to keep (unless a good customer
+      dropped in), and as for the sun&mdash;&ldquo;clock slow, clock fast,&rdquo; in the
+      almanacs, showed how he managed things; and if that was not enough, who
+      could trust him to keep time after what he had done upon the dial of Ahaz?
+      Reasoning thus&mdash;if reason it was&mdash;she packed me off in a fly for
+      the nearest railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on
+      his ramparts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the rapid
+      rise of things. Houses here and houses there, springing up like children's
+      teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a long gap, and then some
+      more. And down the slope a grand hotel, open for refreshment, though as
+      yet it had no roof on; for the Major, in virtue of his charter, defied all
+      the magistrates to stop him from selling whatever was salable on or off
+      the premises. But noblest and grandest of all to look at was the &ldquo;Bruntsea
+      Athenaeum, Lyceum, Assembly-Rooms, Institution for Mutual Instruction,
+      Christian Young Men's Congress, and Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic Hall, at
+      nominal prices to be had gratis.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How you do surprise me!&rdquo; I said to Major Hockin, after reading all that,
+      which he kindly requested me to do with care; &ldquo;but where are the people to
+      come from?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; he replied, as if that question had been asked too often, &ldquo;you
+      have not had time to study the laws of political economy&mdash;the noblest
+      of noble sciences. The first of incontrovertible facts is that supply
+      creates demand. Now ask yourself whether there could even be a Yankee if
+      ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the utmost not
+      to do so. &ldquo;You understand those things, and I do not,&rdquo; said I, with a
+      smile, which pleased him. &ldquo;My dear aunt Mary always says that you are the
+      cleverest man in the world; and she must know most about it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Partiality! partiality!&rdquo; cried the Major, with a laugh, and pulling his
+      front hair up. &ldquo;Such things pass by me like the idle wind; or rather,
+      perhaps, they sadden me, from my sense of my own deficiencies. But, bless
+      me! dinner must be waiting. Look at that fellow's trowel&mdash;he knows:
+      he turns up the point of it like a spoon. They say that he can smell his
+      dinner two miles off. We all dine at one o'clock now, that I may rout up
+      every man-Jack of them.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major sounded a steam-guard's whistle, and led me off in the rapidly
+      vanishing wake of his hungry workmen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      CONVICTION
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Sir Montague Hockin, to my great delight, was still away from Bruntsea. If
+      he had been there, it would have been a most awkward thing for me to meet
+      him, or to refuse to do so. The latter course would probably have been the
+      one forced upon me by self-respect and affection toward my cousin; and yet
+      if so, I could scarcely have avoided an explanation with my host. From the
+      nature of the subject, and several other reasons, this would have been
+      most unpleasant; and even now I was haunted with doubts, as I had been
+      from the first, whether I ought not to have told Mrs. Hockin long ago what
+      had been said of him. At first sight that seemed the honest thing to do;
+      but three things made against it. It might seem forward and meddlesome; it
+      must be a grievous thing to my cousin to have his sad story discussed
+      again; and lastly, I had promised Mrs. Price that her words should go no
+      further. So that on the whole perhaps I acted aright in keeping that
+      infamous tale to myself as long as ever it was possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now ere ever I spoke of him&mdash;which I was always loath to do&mdash;Mrs.
+      Hockin told me that he very seldom came to see them now, and when he did
+      come he seemed to be uneasy and rather strange in his manners. I thought
+      to myself that the cause of this was clear. Sir Montague, knowing that I
+      went to Castlewood, was pricked in his conscience, and afraid of having
+      his vile behavior to my cousin disclosed. However, that idea of mine was
+      wrong, and a faulty conception of simple youth. The wicked forgive
+      themselves so quickly, if even they find any need of it, that every body
+      else is supposed to do the same. With this I have no patience. A wrong
+      unrepented of and unatoned gathers interest, instead of getting discount,
+      from lost time. And so I hated that man tenfold.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good Mrs. Hockin lamented his absence not only for the sake of her darling
+      fowls, but also because she considered him a check upon the Major's
+      enterprise. Great as her faith was in her husband's ability and keenness,
+      she was often visited with dark misgivings about such heavy outlay. Of
+      economy (as she often said) she certainly ought to know something, having
+      had to practice it as strictly as any body in the kingdom, from an age she
+      could hardly remember. But as for what was now brought forward as a great
+      discovery&mdash;economy in politics&mdash;Mrs. Hockin had tried to follow
+      great opinions, but could only find, so far, downright extravagance.
+      Supply (as she had observed fifty times with her own butcher and
+      fishmonger), instead of creating demand, produced a lot of people
+      hankering round the corner, till the price came down to nothing. And if it
+      were so with their institutions&mdash;as her dear husband called his new
+      public-house&mdash;who was to find all the interest due to the building
+      and land societies? Truly she felt that Sir Rufus Hockin, instead of doing
+      any good to them, had behaved very badly in leaving them land, and not
+      even a shilling to work it with.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It relieved her much to tell me this, once for all and in strict
+      confidence; because her fine old-fashioned (and we now may say quite
+      obsolete) idea of duty toward her husband forbade her ever to say to him,
+      or about him, when it could be helped, any thing he might not like, any
+      thing which to an evil mind might convey a desire on her part to meddle
+      with&mdash;with&mdash;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Political economy,&rdquo; I said; and she laughed, and said, Yes, that was just
+      it. The Major of course knew best, and she ought with all her heart to
+      trust him not to burden their old days with debt, after all the children
+      they had brought up and fairly educated upon the professional income of a
+      distinguished British officer, who is not intended by his superiors to
+      provide successors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps it is like the boiled eggs they send me,&rdquo; the old lady said, with
+      her soft sweet smile, &ldquo;for my poor hens to sit upon. Their race is too
+      good to be made common. So now they get tinkers' and tailors' boys, after
+      much competition, and the crammed sons of cooks. And in peace-time they do
+      just as well.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Of such things I knew nothing; but she seemed to speak with bitterness,
+      the last thing to be found in all her nature, yet discoverable&mdash;as
+      all bad things (except its own) are&mdash;by the British government. I do
+      not speak from my own case, in which they discovered nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By the time these things had been discussed, my host (who was always
+      particular about his dress) came down to dinner, and not until that was
+      over could I speak of the subject which had brought me there. No sooner
+      had I begun my tale than they both perceived that it must neither be
+      flurried nor interrupted, least of all should it be overheard.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come into my lock-up,&rdquo; cried the Major; &ldquo;or, better still, let us go out
+      of doors. We can sit in my snuggery on the cliff, with only gulls and
+      jackdaws to listen, and mount my telescope and hoist my flag, and the men
+      know better than to skulk their work. I can see every son of a gun of them
+      as clearly as if I had them on parade. You wish Mrs. Hockin to come, I
+      suppose. Very well, let us be off at once. I shall count my fellows coming
+      back from dinner.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a short quick step the Major led the way to a beautifully situated
+      outpost at a corner of the cliff, where land and sea for many a fair
+      league rolled below. A niche of the chalk had been cleverly enlarged and
+      scooped into a shell-shaped bower, not, indeed, gloriously overhung, as in
+      the far West might have been, but broken of its white defiant glare by
+      climbing and wandering verdure. Seats and slabs of oak were fixed to check
+      excess of chalkiness, and a parapet of a pattern which the Major called
+      Egyptian saved fear of falling down the cliff, and served to spread a
+      paper on, or to rest a telescope.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;From this point,&rdquo; said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial legs,
+      &ldquo;the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a bird's-eye view.
+      It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing, compared with the Earl
+      of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount Gamberley; still, such as it is,
+      it carries my ideas, and it has an extent of marine frontage such as they
+      might envy. We are asked 5 pounds per foot for a thread of land fronting
+      on a highway, open to every kind of annoyance, overlooked, without any
+      thing to look at. How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if you please,
+      by cable-lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent,
+      uncontaminating, healthful sea? Whence can come no coster-mongers' cries,
+      no agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no German band
+      expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only sweet murmur of
+      the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a boatman catching your
+      breakfast lobster. Where, again, if you love the picturesque&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; said Mrs. Hockin, gently, &ldquo;you always were eloquent from the
+      first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as you hope, and
+      enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you will create! But I
+      wished to draw your attention to the fact that Erema is waiting to tell
+      her tale.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To be sure. I will not stop her. Eloquence is waste of time, and I never
+      yet had half a second to spare. Fear no eloquence from me; facts and logic
+      are my strong points. And now, Erema, show what yours are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any
+      strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the
+      difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it when
+      told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had seen,
+      heard, and found.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through his&mdash;something
+      I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf of chalk&mdash;and
+      dear &ldquo;Aunt Mary's&rdquo; soft pink cheeks, which her last grandchild might envy,
+      deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so full of heavenly faith when
+      she got upon lofty subjects, took a most human flash and sparkle of hatred
+      not theological.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Seven!&rdquo; she cried; &ldquo;oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there were
+      seven!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There were not seven graves without the mother,&rdquo; the Major answered,
+      sternly. &ldquo;And what odds whether seven or seventy? The criminality is the
+      point, not the accumulation of results. Still, I never heard of so big a
+      blackguard. And what did he do next, my dear?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me, because,
+      although they were so good, they had never paid any attention to it until
+      it became exciting. They listened with mere politeness until the scent of
+      a very wicked man began to taint my narrative; but from that moment they
+      drew nearer, and tightened their lips, and held their breath, and let no
+      word escape them. It made me almost think that people even of pure
+      excellence, weaned as they are from wicked things by teaching and long
+      practice, must still retain a hankering for them done at other people's
+      cost.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now,&rdquo; cried the Major, &ldquo;let us see it&rdquo;&mdash;even before I had time
+      to pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his ways.
+      &ldquo;Show it, and you shall have my opinion. And Mary's is certain to agree
+      with mine. My dear, that makes yours so priceless.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, Nicholas, if I retain my own, yours is of no value. Never mind
+      that. Now don't catch words, or neither opinion will be worth a thought.
+      My dear, let us see it and then judge.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My own idea, but not so well expressed,&rdquo; Major Hockin answered, as he
+      danced about, while I with stupid haste was tugging at my package of the
+      hateful locket. For I had not allowed that deceitful thing any quarters in
+      my pocket, where dear little relics of my father lay, but had fastened it
+      under my dress in a manner intended in no way for gentlemen to think
+      about. Such little things annoy one's comfort, and destroy one's power of
+      being quite high-minded. However, I got it out at last, and a flash of the
+      sun made the difference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brilliants, Mary!&rdquo; the Major cried; &ldquo;brilliants of first water; such as
+      we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army except myself,
+      I do believe, would have had them at once in his camlet pouch&mdash;my
+      dear, you know all about it. Bless my heart, how slow you are! Is it
+      possible you have forgotten it? There came out a fellow, and I cut him
+      down, as my duty was, without ceremony. You know how I used to do it, out
+      of regulation, with a slash like this&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, Nicholas, you will be over the cliff! You have shown me how you used
+      to do it, a thousand times&mdash;but you had no cricks in your back then:
+      and remember how brittle the chalk is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The chalk may be brittle, but I am tough. I insist upon doing every thing
+      as well as I did it forty years ago. Mary, you ought not to speak to me
+      like that. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty brilliants, worth twenty pounds
+      apiece upon an average, I do believe. Four hundred pounds. That would
+      finish our hotel.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nicholas!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, I was only in fun. Erema understands me. But who is this
+      beautiful lady?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The very point,&rdquo; I exclaimed, while he held it so that the pensive beauty
+      of the face gleamed in soft relief among bright blue enamel and sparkling
+      gems. &ldquo;The very thing that I must know&mdash;that I would give my life to
+      know&mdash;that I have fifty thousand fancies&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now don't be excited, Erema, if you please. What will you give me to tell
+      you who it is?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All those diamonds, which I hate the sight of, and three-quarters of my
+      half nugget; and if that is not enough&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is a thousand times too much; I will tell you for just one smile, and
+      I know it, will be a smile of unbelief.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; I will believe it, whoever you say,&rdquo; with excitement superior to
+      grammar, I cried; &ldquo;only tell me at once&mdash;don't be so long.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But then you won't believe me when I do tell you,&rdquo; the Major replied, in
+      the most provoking way. &ldquo;I shall tell you the last person you would ever
+      think of, and then you will only laugh at me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I won't laugh; how can I laugh in such a matter? I will believe you if
+      you say it is&mdash;Aunt Mary.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, you had better say at once that it is I, and have no more
+      mystery about it.&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin was almost as impatient as myself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mrs. Hockin, you must indeed entertain an exalted idea of your own
+      charms. I knew that you were vain, but certainly did not&mdash;Well, then,
+      if you will allow me no peace, this is the lady that lives down in the
+      ruin, and stands like a pillar by my pillar-box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never thought you would joke like that,&rdquo; I cried, with vexation and
+      anger. &ldquo;Oh, is it a subject to be joked about?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never was graver in my life; and you promised implicitly to believe me.
+      At any rate, believe that I speak in earnest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That I must believe, when you tell me so. But what makes you think such a
+      wonderful thing? I should have thought nothing more impossible. I had made
+      up my mind that it was Flittamore who lived down here; but this can not be
+      she. Flittamore was unheard of at the time of my grandfather's death.
+      Moreover, her character was not like this; she was giddy and light and
+      heartless. This lady had a heart&mdash;good or bad, a deep one. Most
+      certainly it is not Flittamore.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Flittamore! I do not remember that name. You should either tell us all or
+      tell us nothing.&rdquo; The Major's tone was reproachful, and his eyes from
+      their angular roofs looked fierce.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not told you,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;because it can have nothing to do with it.
+      The subject is a painful one, and belongs to my family only.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough. I am not inquisitive&mdash;on the other hand, too forgetful. I
+      have an appointment at 3.25. It takes me seven minutes and a quarter to
+      get there. I must be two minutes and three-quarters late. Mrs. Hockin,
+      mount the big telescope and point it at the ramparts; keep the flag up
+      also. Those fellows will be certain that I am up here, while I enfilade
+      them from the western end with this fine binocular. Surprises maintain
+      discipline. Good-by, my dear, and, Miss Castlewood, good-by. Tea at 6.30,
+      and not too much water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      VAIN ZEAL
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Leaving his telescope leveled at the men, the Major marched off with his
+      opera-glass in a consciously provoking style, and Mrs. Hockin most
+      heartily joined me in condemning such behavior. In a minute or two,
+      however, she would not have one word said against him, and the tide of her
+      mind (as befits a married woman) was beyond all science; so that the drift
+      of all words came back to her husband's extraordinary merits. And
+      certainly these, if at all like her description, deserved to be dwelt upon
+      at very precious periods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, I had heard enough of them before; for the Major himself was not
+      mute upon this point, though comparatively modest, and oftentimes
+      deprecating praise ere ever he received it. And so I brought Mrs. Hockin
+      back at last to talk about the lady who was living in the ruin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not quite a ruin,&rdquo; she said. &ldquo;My dear husband is fond of
+      picturesque expressions. However, it is not in very good repair; and being
+      unable to get possession of it, through some legal quibble, possibly he
+      may look at it from a rather unfavorable point of view. And for the same
+      reason&mdash;though he is so purely just&mdash;he may have formed a bad
+      opinion of the strange individual who lives there. What right has she to
+      be living without his leave upon his own manor? But there she is, and she
+      does not care for us or any body. She fetches all she wants, she speaks to
+      none, and if any body calls for rates or taxes, or any other public
+      intrusion, they may knock and knock, but never get in, and at last they go
+      away again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But surely that can not go on forever. Bruntsea is such an enlightened
+      place.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Our part of it is, but the rest quite benighted. As the man says&mdash;I
+      forget his name, but the man that misunderstands us so&mdash;his
+      contention is that 'Desolate Hole,' as the Major calls it, although in the
+      middle of our land, is entirely distinct from it. My husband never will
+      put up with that&mdash;his love of justice is far too strong&mdash;and he
+      means to have a lawsuit. But still he has reasons for not beginning yet;
+      and he puts up with a great deal, I am sure. It is too bad for them to
+      tease him so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It does seem a very sad thing,&rdquo; I replied; &ldquo;and the poor soul living
+      there all alone! Even in the summer it is bad enough; but whatever will
+      she do when the winter comes? Why, the sea in bad weather must be almost
+      in upon her. And the roar of the pebbles all night! Major Hockin will
+      never allow her to stay there.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What can he do, when he can not get in, and they even deny his title? I
+      assure you, Erema, I have sent down cream, and even a dozen of my precious
+      eggs, with the lady of the manor's compliments; but instead of being
+      grateful, they were never taken in; and my Polly&mdash;'Miss Polly
+      Hopkins,' you know&mdash;very wisely took it all to her grandmother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To her grandmother instead of mine, as the Major facetiously calls her.
+      And now he says this is her portrait; and instead of giving his reasons,
+      runs away! Really you must excuse me, Aunt Mary, for thinking that your
+      good husband has a little too much upon his mind sometimes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The old lady laughed, as I loved to see her do. &ldquo;Well, my dear, after
+      that, I think you had better have it out with him. He comes home to tea at
+      6.30, which used to be half past six in my days. He is very tired then,
+      though he never will allow it, and it would not be fair to attack him. I
+      give him a mutton-chop, or two poached eggs, or some other trifle of
+      nourishment. And then I make him doze for an hour and a half, to soothe
+      his agitated intellect. And when he wakes he has just one glass of hot
+      water and sugar, with a little Lochnagar. And then he is equal to any
+      thing&mdash;backgammon, bezique, or even conversation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Impatient as I was, I saw nothing better; and by this time I was becoming
+      used to what all of us must put up with&mdash;the long postponement of our
+      heavy cares to the light convenience of others. Major Hockin might just as
+      well have stopped, when he saw how anxious I was. Uncle Sam would have
+      stopped the mill itself, with a dozen customers waiting; but no doubt he
+      had spoiled me; and even that should not make me bitter. Aunt Mary and I
+      understood one another. We gazed away over the breadth of the sea and the
+      gleam of its texture, and we held our peace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Few things are more surprising than the calm way in which ripe age looks
+      on at things which ought to amaze it. And yet any little one of its own
+      concerns grows more important, perhaps, than ever as the shadow of the
+      future dwindles. Major Hockin had found on the beach a pebble with a
+      streak of agate in it. He took it as the harbinger of countless agates,
+      and resolved to set up a lapidary, with a tent, or even a shop, perhaps&mdash;not
+      to pay, but to be advertised, and catch distinguished visitors.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, you are a mighty finder; you found the biggest nugget yet
+      discovered. You know about stones from the Rocky Mountains, or at least
+      the Sierra Nevada. You did not discover this beautiful agate, but you saw
+      and greatly admired it. We might say that a 'young lady, eminent for great
+      skill in lithology, famed as the discoverer,' etc. Hold it between your
+      eyes and this candle, but wet it in the slop-basin first; now you see the
+      magnificent veins of blue.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see nothing of the kind,&rdquo; I said; for really it was too bad of him. &ldquo;It
+      seems to me a dirty bit of the commonest flint you could pick up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This vexed him more than I wished to have done, and I could not help being
+      sorry; for he went into a little fit of sulks, and Aunt Mary almost
+      frowned at me. But he could not stay long in that condition, and after his
+      doze and his glass he came forth as lively and meddlesome as ever. And the
+      first thing he did was to ask me for the locket.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Open it?&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;why, of course I can; there is never any difficulty
+      about that. The finest workmanship in the world is that of the Indian
+      jewelers. I have been among them often; I know all their devices and
+      mechanism, of which the European are bad copies. I have only to look round
+      this thing twice, and then pronounce my Sesame.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, then look round it as fast as you can,&rdquo; said his wife, with a
+      traitorous smile at me, &ldquo;and we won't breathe a Sess till it flies
+      asunder.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mary, Miss Castlewood makes you pert, although herself so well conducted.
+      However, I do not hesitate to say that I will open this case in two
+      minutes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course you will, dear,&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking
+      acquiescence. &ldquo;The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so sure
+      about; and this is a mere child's toy to him. Well, dear, have you done
+      it? But I need not ask. Oh, let us see what is inside of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have not done it yet, Mrs. Hockin; and if you talk with such rapidity,
+      of course you throw me out. How can I command my thoughts, or even recall
+      my experience?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! now hush, Erema! And I myself will hush most reverently.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have no reverence in you, and no patience. Do you expect me to do
+      such a job in one second? Do you take me for a common jeweler? I beg you
+      to remember&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, my dear, I remember only what you told us. You were to turn it
+      round twice, you know, and then cry Sesame. Erema, was it not so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never said any thing of the sort. What I said was simply this&mdash;However,
+      to reason with ladies is rude; I shall just be off to my study.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where you keep your tools, my darling,&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin said, softly, after
+      him: &ldquo;at least, I mean, when you know where they are.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I was astonished at Aunt Mary's power of being so highly provoking, and
+      still more at her having the heart to employ it. But she knew best what
+      her husband was; and to worship forever is not wise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go and knock at his door in about five minutes,&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin said to me,
+      with some mischief in her eyes. &ldquo;If he continues to fail, he may possibly
+      take a shorter way with it. And with his tools so close at hand&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo; I exclaimed, &ldquo;his geological hammer&mdash;that dreadful crusher! May
+      I go at once? I detest that thing, but I can not have it smashed.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He will not break it up, my dear, without your leave. He never would
+      think of such a thing, of course. However, you may as well go after him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was wrong of Mrs. Hockin to make me do this; and I felt quite ashamed
+      of myself when I saw the kind old Major sitting by his lamp, and wrinkling
+      his forehead into locks and keys of puzzle, but using violence to his own
+      mind alone. And I was the more ashamed when, instead of resenting my
+      intrusion, he came to meet me, and led me to his chair, and placed the
+      jeweled trinket in my hand, and said, &ldquo;My dear, I give it up. I was wrong
+      in taking it away from you. You must consult some one wiser.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That odious thing!&rdquo; I answered, being touched by this unusual humility of
+      his; &ldquo;you shall not give it up; and I know no wiser person. A lapidary's
+      tricks are below your knowledge. But if you are not tired of me and
+      offended, may I leave it to you to get it opened?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I would like nothing better,&rdquo; he replied, recovering his natural
+      briskness and importance; &ldquo;but you ought to be there, my dear; you must be
+      there. Are you sure that you ought not rather to take it to your good
+      cousin Lord Castlewood? Now think before you answer.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I need not think twice of that, Major Hockin. Good and learned as my
+      father's cousin is, he has distinctly refused to help me, for some
+      mysterious reason of his own, in searching into this question. Indeed, my
+      great hope is to do it without him: for all that I know, he might even
+      wish to thwart me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Enough, my dear; it shall be just as you wish. I brought you to England,
+      and I will stand by you. My cousin, Colonel Gundry, has committed you to
+      me. I have no patience with malefactors. I never took this matter up, for
+      very many reasons; and among them not the least was that Sampson, your
+      beloved 'Uncle Sam,' thought it better not to do so. But if you desire it,
+      and now that I feel certain that an infamous wrong has been done to you&mdash;which
+      I heartily beg your pardon for my doubt of&mdash;by the Lord of all
+      justice, every thing else may go to the devil, till I see it out. Do you
+      desire it, Erema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I certainly do not wish that any of your great works should be neglected.
+      But if, without that, you can give me your strong help, my only difficulty
+      will be to thank you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I like plain speaking, and you always speak plainly; sometimes too
+      plainly,&rdquo; he said, recollecting little times when he had the worst of it.
+      &ldquo;How far do you trust me now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Hockin, I trust you altogether. You may make mistakes, as all men
+      do&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, yes. About my own affairs; but I never do that for other
+      people. I pay a bill for twopence, if it is my own. If I am trustee of it,
+      I pay three half-pence.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      His meaning was a little beyond me now; but it seemed better not to tell
+      him so; for he loved to explain his own figures of speech, even when he
+      had no time to spare for it. And he clearly expected me to ask him to
+      begin; or at least it seemed so from his eyebrows. But that only came home
+      to me afterward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please not to speak of my affairs like that,&rdquo; I said, as if I were quite
+      stupid; &ldquo;I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence&mdash;both to friends
+      and enemies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are a queer girl; I have always said so. You turn things to your own
+      ideas so. However, we must put up with that, though none of my daughters
+      have ever done it; for which I am truly thankful. But now there is very
+      little time to lose. The meaning of this thing must be cleared up at once.
+      And there is another thing to be done as well, quite as important, in my
+      opinion. I will go to London with you to-morrow, if you like. My clever
+      little Cornishman will see to things here&mdash;the man that sets up all
+      the angles.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But why should I hurry you to London so?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;Surely any good
+      country jeweler could manage it? Or let us break it open.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On no account,&rdquo; he answered; &ldquo;we might spoil it all; besides the great
+      risk to the diamonds, which are very brittle things. To London we must
+      take it, for this reason&mdash;the closure of this case is no jeweler's
+      work; of that I have quite convinced myself. It is the work of a
+      first-rate lapidary, and the same sort of man must undo it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To this I agreed quite readily, because of such things I knew nothing;
+      whereas my host spoke just as if he had been brought up to both those
+      walks of art. And then I put a question which had long been burning on my
+      tongue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What made you imagine, Major Hockin, that this very beautiful face could
+      have ever been that of the old lady living in the ruin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In Desolate Hole? I will tell you at once; and then call it, if you like,
+      an imagination. Of all the features of the human face there is none more
+      distinctive than the eyebrow. 'Distinctive' is not exactly what I mean&mdash;I
+      mean more permanently marked and clear. The eyes change, the nose changes,
+      so does the mouth, and even the shape of the forehead sometimes; but the
+      eyebrows change very little, except in color. This I have noticed, because
+      my own may perhaps be a little peculiar; and they have always been so. At
+      school I received a nickname about it, for boys are much sharper than men
+      about such things; and that name after fifty years fits as well as ever.
+      You may smile, if you like; I shall not tell you what it was, but leave
+      you to re-invent it, if you can. Now look at this first-rate miniature. Do
+      you see an unusual but not uncomely formation of the eyebrows?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I do; though I did not observe it until you drew my attention.
+      I had only regarded the face, as a whole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The face, as a whole, is undoubtedly fine. But the eyebrows have a
+      peculiar arch, and the least little turn at the lower end, as if they
+      designed to rise again. The lady of Desolate Hole has the same.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But how can you tell? How very strange! I thought she let nobody see her
+      face.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are perfectly right about that, Erema; so far at least as she has
+      vouchsafed to exhibit her countenance to me. Other people may be more
+      fortunate. But when I met her for the second time, being curious already
+      about her, I ventured to offer my services, with my inborn chivalry, at a
+      place where the tide was running up, and threatened to surround her. My
+      politeness was not appreciated, as too often is the case; for she made me
+      a very stiff bow, and turned away. Her face had been covered by the
+      muffler of her cloak, as if the sea-breeze were too much for her; and she
+      did not even raise her eyes. But before she turned away, I obtained a good
+      glance at her eyebrows&mdash;and they were formed like these.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But her age, Major Hockin! Her age&mdash;what is it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Upon that proverbially delicate point I can tell you but little, Erema.
+      Perhaps, however, I may safely say that she can not be much under twenty.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not right to provoke me so. You call her 'the old woman,' and
+      compare her to your letter-box. You must have some idea&mdash;is she
+      seventy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly not, I should say; though she can not expect me to defend her,
+      when she will not show her face to me; and what is far worse, at my time
+      of life, she won't even pay me a half-penny of rent. Now let us go back to
+      Aunt Mary, my dear; she always insists upon packing overnight.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      CADMEIAN VICTORY
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Before two o'clock of the following day Major Hockin and myself were in
+      London, and ready to stay there for two or three days, if it should prove
+      needful. Before leaving Bruntsea I had written briefly to Lord Castlewood,
+      telling him that important matters had taken me away from Shoxford, and as
+      soon as I could explain them, I would come and tell him all about it. This
+      was done only through fear of his being annoyed at my independence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From London Bridge the Major took a cab direct to Clerkenwell; and again I
+      observed that of all his joys one of the keenest was to match his wits
+      against a cabman's. &ldquo;A regular muff, this time,&rdquo; he said, as he jerked up
+      and down with his usual delight in displaying great knowledge of London;
+      &ldquo;no sport to be had out of him. Why, he stared at me when I said 'Rosamond
+      Street,' and made me stick on 'Clerkenwell.' Now here he is taking us down
+      Snow Hill, when he should have been crossing Smithfield. Smithfield,
+      cabby, Smithfield!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certain, Sir, Smiffle, if you gives the order;&rdquo; and he turned the poor
+      horse again, and took us up the hill, and among a great number of
+      barriers. &ldquo;No thoroughfare,&rdquo; &ldquo;No thoroughfare,&rdquo; on all hands stretched
+      across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till he came to the
+      brink of a precipice. The horse seemed quite ready, like a Roman, to leap
+      down it, seeing nothing less desirable than his present mode of life, till
+      a man with a pickaxe stopped him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What are you at?&rdquo; cried the Major, with fury equalled by nothing except
+      his fright. &ldquo;Erema, untie my big rattan. Quick&mdash;quick&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain,&rdquo; said the cabman, coolly, &ldquo;I must have another shilling for this
+      job. A hextra mile and a quarter, to your orders. You knows Lunnon so much
+      better. Smiffle stopped&mdash;new railway&mdash;new meat market&mdash;never
+      heered of that now, did you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You scoundrel, drive straight to the nearest police office.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Must jump this little ditch, then, Captain. Five pun' fine for you, when
+      we gets there. Hold on inside, old gentleman. Kuck, kuck, Bob, you was a
+      hunter once. It ain't more than fifty feet deep, my boy.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Turn round! turn round, I tell you! turn round! If your neck is forfeit,
+      you rogue, mine is not. I never was so taken in in my life!&rdquo; Major Hockin
+      continued to rave, and amid many jeers we retreated humbly, and the driver
+      looked in at us with a gentle grin. &ldquo;And I thought he was so soft, you
+      know! Erema, may I swear at him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;On no account,&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;Why, after all, it is only a shilling, and the
+      loss of time. And then, you can always reflect that you have discharged,
+      as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a vile system.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Protesting is very well, when it pays,&rdquo; the Major answered, gloomily;
+      &ldquo;but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote him
+      for eight-pence more. &ldquo;Four parcels on the roof, Captain,&rdquo; he said,
+      looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning his extra
+      shilling. &ldquo;Twopence each under new hact, you know. Scarcely thought a
+      hofficer would 'a tried evasion.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You consummate scoundrel&mdash;and you dress yourself like a countryman!
+      I'll have your badge indorsed&mdash;I'll have your license marked. Erema,
+      pay the thief; it is more than I can do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for scurrilous
+      language, as the hact directs. Ah, you do right to be driven to a pawn
+      shop.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, &ldquo;Never tie up my rattan
+      again. Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it? What a fool I was not to stop on my
+      own manor!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray you to disdain such low impudence,&rdquo; I said, for I could not bear
+      to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him into it. &ldquo;You
+      have beaten fifty of them&mdash;a hundred of them&mdash;I have heard you
+      say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could not
+      afford to pay the rogues. That makes me feel it so bitterly, so loftily,
+      and so righteously. To be treated like this, when I think of all my labors
+      for the benefit of the rascally human race! my Institute, my Lyceum, my
+      Mutual Improvement Association, and Christian Young Men's something. There
+      is no institution, after all, to be compared to the tread-mill.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a little
+      sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an old black
+      door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken his, while I carried
+      mine, and not knowing what might happen yet, like a true peace-maker I
+      stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the rattan cane. And thankful I was,
+      and so might be the cabman, to have that weapon nicely sheathed with silk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin's breath was short, through too much talking without action,
+      and he waited for a minute at this door, to come back to his equanimity.
+      And I thought that our female breath falls short for the very opposite
+      reason&mdash;when we do too much and talk too little; which happily seldom
+      happens.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He was not long in coming back to his usual sprightliness and decision.
+      And it was no small relief to me, who was looking at him miserably, and
+      longing that his wife was there, through that very sad one-and-eightpence,
+      when he pulled out a key, which he always carried as signer and lord of
+      Bruntsea, the key of the town-hall, which had survived lock, door, and
+      walls by centuries, and therewith struck a door which must have reminded
+      that key of its fine old youth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before he had knocked so very many times, the door was opened by a young
+      man wearing an apron and a brown paper cap, who knew Major Hockin at once,
+      and showed us up stairs to a long low workshop. Here were many wheels and
+      plates and cylinders revolving by energy of a strap which came through the
+      floor and went through the ceiling. And the young man told us to be
+      careful how we walked, for fear of getting entangled. Several men, wearing
+      paper caps and aprons of leather or baize, were sitting doing dextrous
+      work, no doubt, and doing it very easily, and the master of them all was
+      hissing over some fine touch of jewel as a groom does at a horse. Then
+      seeing us, he dropped his holders, and threw a leather upon his large
+      lens, and came and took us to a little side room.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Are you not afraid to leave them?&rdquo; asked the Major. &ldquo;They may secrete
+      some gems, Mr. Handkin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never,&rdquo; said the lapidary, with some pride. &ldquo;I could trust these men with
+      the Koh-i-noor; which we could have done better, I believe, than it was
+      done by the Hollanders. But we don't get the chance to do much in
+      diamonds, through the old superstition about Amsterdam, and so on. No, no;
+      the only thing I can't trust my men about is to work as hard when I am
+      away as when I am there. And now, Sir, what can I do for you? Any more
+      Bruntsea pebbles? The last were not worth the cutting.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So you said; but I did not think so. We have some agates as good as any
+      from Aberystwith or Perthshire. But what I want now is to open this case.
+      It must be done quite privately, for a most particular reason. It does
+      open, doesn't it? I am sure it does.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly it opens,&rdquo; Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with anxiety
+      as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers engrained with
+      corundum. &ldquo;I could open it in one instant, but the enamel might fly. Will
+      you risk it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major looked at me, and I said, &ldquo;Oh no; please not to risk any thing,
+      if any slower process will do it without risk. We want it done without
+      injury.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it will cost a good bit,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;I can open it for five
+      shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must charge five
+      pounds.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Say three,&rdquo; cried the Major. &ldquo;Well, then, say four guineas: I have a lot
+      of work in store for you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures,&rdquo; the lapidary
+      answered. &ldquo;There is only one other man in London who knows the secret of
+      this enamel, and he is my brother. They never make such enamel now. The
+      art is lost, like that of the French paste of a hundred years ago, which
+      almost puzzles even me until I go behind it. I will give you my brother's
+      address if you like; but instead of five pounds, he will charge you ten
+      guineas&mdash;if it must be done in private. Without that condition, I can
+      do it for two pounds. You wish to know why that should make such a
+      difference. Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of the job, it must
+      be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief work-room; if no one
+      is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp eyes, I can tell you),
+      all my hands must be sacked for the afternoon, but not without their
+      wages. That alone would go far toward the difference, and then there is
+      the dropping of the jobs in hand, and waste of power, and so on. I have
+      asked you too little, Major Hockin, I assure you; but having said, I will
+      stick to it, although I would much rather you would let me off.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have known you for many years,&rdquo; the Major answered&mdash;&ldquo;ever since
+      you were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals. You would
+      have done a lot of work for five pounds then. But I never knew you
+      overcharge for any thing. We agree to your terms, and are obliged to you.
+      But you guarantee no damage?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may be, and
+      reclose it so that the maker, if still alive&mdash;which is not very
+      probable&mdash;should not know that it had been meddled with.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about it
+      which I may try to go on with afterward. And for that it is essential to
+      have no symptom that it ever has been opened. What are these brilliants
+      worth, Mr. Handkin?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare say
+      they cost three hundred. And the portrait is worth another hundred, if I
+      find on the back the marks I expect.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not mean to say that you know the artist?&rdquo; I could not help
+      exclaiming, though determined not to speak. &ldquo;Oh, then, we shall find out
+      every thing!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, you are a&mdash;well, you are a silly!&rdquo; Major Hockin exclaimed,
+      and then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my lapse
+      pass. But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to be calling down
+      to some one far below. &ldquo;Now mind what you say,&rdquo; the Major whispered to me,
+      just as if he were the essence of discretion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The work-room is clear now,&rdquo; Mr. Handkin said; &ldquo;the fellows were
+      delighted to get their afternoon. Now you see that I have to take off this
+      hoop, and there lies the difficulty. I could have taken out the gold back,
+      as I said, with very little trouble, by simply cutting it. But the locket
+      would never have been quite the same, though we put a new back; and, more
+      than that, the pressure of the tool might flaw the enamel, or even crack
+      the portrait, for the make of this thing is peculiar. Now first I submit
+      the rim or verge, without touching the brilliants, mind you, to the action
+      of a little preparation of my own&mdash;a gentle but penetrative solvent.
+      You are welcome to watch me; you will be none the wiser; you are not in
+      the trade, though the young lady looks as if she would make a good
+      polisher. Very well: if this were an ordinary closure, with two flat
+      surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed into the adhesion,
+      expansion would take place, and there we have it. But this is what we call
+      a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved surfaces, formed in a reflex curve
+      which admits the solvent most reluctantly, or, indeed, not at all, without
+      too long application. For that, then, another kind of process is needful,
+      and we find it in frictional heat applied most gradually and judiciously.
+      For that I must have a buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed to
+      a nicety, and that wheel I only have in this room. Now you see why I sent
+      the men away.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my power to
+      describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful. Major Hockin, according
+      to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient, and even went out for a
+      walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed against cabmen. But I was
+      content to wait and watch, having always heard and thought that good work
+      will not do itself, but must have time and skill to second it. And Mr.
+      Handkin, moving arms, palms, and fingers beautifully, put the same thought
+      into words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all the
+      time knows well that it will take long to undo. Here it comes undone at
+      last!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Done it, eh? Well, you are a clever fellow. Now don't look inside it;
+      that is no part of your business, nor mine either, unless this young lady
+      desires it. Hand it to her first, my friend.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wait half a minute,&rdquo; said the lapidary; &ldquo;it is so far opened that the
+      hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools. The lady
+      may lift it then with care. I have done this job as a piece of fine art; I
+      have no wish to see any more of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman. I thought that I
+      was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, Major Hockin,&rdquo; the lapidary answered, &ldquo;I beg your pardon, if I said
+      harm. But a man doing careful and skilled work&mdash;and skilled work it
+      is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness, while you walked
+      off&mdash;he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he would fight his own
+      brother to maintain it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, very well. Let us come away. I always enter into every body's
+      feelings. I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you had laid them open on
+      that blessed wheel. My insight has always been remarkable. Every one,
+      without exception, says that of me. Now come away, come away&mdash;will
+      you never see?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Intent as I was upon what lay in my left palm relaxing itself, I could not
+      help being sorry for the way in which the man of art, after all his care,
+      was ground down by his brother Cornishman. However, he had lived long
+      enough in the world to feel no surprise at ingratitude.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now I went to one of the windows, as the light (which had been very good)
+      began to pale from its long and labored sufferance of London, and then,
+      with soft and steady touch, I lifted off the loosened hoop. A smell of
+      mustiness&mdash;for smells go through what nothing else can&mdash;was the
+      first thing to perceive, and then, having moved the disk of gold, I found
+      a piece of vellum. This was doubled, and I opened it, and read, in small
+      clear writing:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only child
+      of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;CASTLEWOOD.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;(Witness) THOMAS HOYLE.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was nothing more inside this locket, except two little wisps of hair
+      tied with gold thread, and the miniature upon ivory, bearing on the back
+      some anagram, probably that of the artist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Already had I passed through a great many troubles, changes, chances, and
+      adventures which always seem strange (when I come to look back), but never
+      surprised me at the moment. Indeed, I might almost make bold to pronounce
+      that not many persons of my age and sex have been visited, wholly against
+      their own will, by such a series of incidents, not to say marvelous, but
+      at any rate fairly to be called unusual. And throughout them perhaps it
+      will be acknowledged by all who have cared to consider them, that up to
+      the present time I did not fail more than themselves might have done in
+      patience. And in no description of what came to pass have I colored things
+      at all in my own favor&mdash;at least so far as intention goes&mdash;neither
+      laid myself out to get sympathy, though it often would have done me a
+      world of good.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But now I am free to confess that my patience broke down very sadly. Why,
+      if what was written on that vellum was true, and Major Hockin correct as
+      well, it came to no less than this, that my own dear father was a
+      base-born son, and I had no right to the name I was so proud of! If,
+      moreover, as I now began to dream, that terrible and mysterious man did
+      not resemble my father so closely without some good reason, it seemed too
+      likely that he might be his elder brother and the proper heir.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was bad enough to think of, but an idea a thousandfold worse assailed
+      me in the small hours of the night, as I lay on Mrs. Strouss's best bed,
+      which she kept for consuls, or foreign barons, or others whom she loved to
+      call &ldquo;international notorieties.&rdquo; Having none of these now, she assigned
+      me that bed after hearing all I had to say, and not making all that she
+      might have done of it, because of the praise that would fall to Mrs. Busk.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, she acknowledged that she knew nothing of the history of &ldquo;the
+      poor old lord.&rdquo; He might have carried on, for all she could tell, with
+      many wives before his true one&mdash;a thing she heard too much of; but as
+      for the Captain not being his true son and the proper heir to the peerage,
+      let any one see him walk twice, and then have a shadow of a doubt about
+      it! This logic pleased but convinced me not, and I had to go to bed in a
+      very unhappy, restless, and comfortless state of mind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I hope that, rather than myself, that bed, full of international
+      confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while I
+      could not even try to sleep. One of them&mdash;and a loyal daughter could
+      scarcely have a worse one&mdash;was that my own dear father, knowing Lord
+      Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and
+      through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and
+      children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the truth
+      and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first beginning
+      with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous loss, and
+      bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless
+      world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might have
+      received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment of the family
+      disgrace.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A RETURN CALL
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      In the morning I labored to dismiss these thoughts, these shameful
+      suspicions, almost as injurious to my father's honor as it was to suspect
+      him of the crime itself. And calling back my memories of him, and dwelling
+      on what Mr. Shovelin said, and Uncle Sam and others, I became quite happy
+      in the firm conviction that I ought to be put upon bread and water for
+      having such vile visions. Then suddenly a thing came to my mind which
+      shattered happy penitence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin had spoken of another purpose which he had in store while
+      bringing me thus to London&mdash;another object, that is to say, besides
+      the opening of the trinket. And this his second intention was to &ldquo;have it
+      out,&rdquo; as he expressed it, &ldquo;with that league of curs and serpents, Vypan,
+      Goad, and Terryer.&rdquo; This was the partnership whose card of business had
+      been delivered at the sawmills under circumstances which, to say the
+      least, required explanation. And the Major, with strong words and tugs of
+      his head-crest, had vowed to get that explanation, or else put the lot of
+      them into a police dock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Moreover, when, at the opening of the locket, I did not think fit to show
+      the lapidary what I had found inside it, except the painting on ivory
+      (which proved to be as he expected), and when my companion suppressed
+      curiosity at the risk of constitution, and while I could scarcely tell
+      what I was about (through sudden shock and stupidity), I must have been
+      hurried on to tell Major Hockin the whole of the private things I had
+      discovered. For, in truth, there was scarcely any time to think; and I was
+      afraid of giving way, which must have befallen me without relief of words;
+      and being so much disturbed I may, in the cab, have rushed off for comfort
+      to the Major, sitting so close to me. No doubt I did so, from what
+      happened afterward; but in the morning, after such a night, I really could
+      not be certain what I had said to Betsy, and what to him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A large mind would have been steady throughout, and regarded the question
+      of birth as a thing to which we, who are not consulted about it, should
+      bear ourselves indifferently. And gladly would I have done so, if I could,
+      but the power was not in me. No doubt it served me right for having been
+      proud about such a trifle; but though I could call it a trifle as long as
+      it seemed to be in my favor, my strength of mind was not enough to look at
+      it so when against me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Betsy told me not to be like that, for I had a great deal to go through
+      yet, and must not be drawing on my spirit so, every atom of which would be
+      needful. For the General&mdash;as she called the Major&mdash;was coming to
+      fetch me at eleven o'clock to face some abominable rascals, and without
+      any breakfast how could I do it? Then I remembered all about the
+      appointment to go to Messrs. Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, and beginning to
+      think about them, I saw sad confirmation of my bad ideas. My father's
+      wicked elder brother by another mother had left his own rights pending, as
+      long as my father lived, for good reason. For if the latter had turned
+      against him, through a breach of compact, things might go ill in a
+      criminal court; but having him silenced now by death, this man might come
+      forward boldly and claim estates and title. His first point would be to
+      make sure as sure could be of the death of my father, to get hold of his
+      private papers, and of me, who might possess dangerous knowledge. And if
+      this were so, one could understand at once Mr. Goad's attempt upon Uncle
+      Sam.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now none of this! none of this, I say, Erema!&rdquo; Major Hockin exclaimed, as
+      he ran in and saw me scarcely even caring to hold my own with the gentle
+      Maximilian&mdash;to which name Mr. Strouss was promoted from the too
+      vernacular &ldquo;Hans.&rdquo; &ldquo;My dear, I never saw you look ill before. Why, bless
+      my heart, you will have crows'-feet! Nurse, what are you doing with her?
+      Look at her eyes, and be ashamed of yourself. Give her goulard, tisane,
+      tiffany&mdash;I never know what the proper word is&mdash;something, any
+      thing, volatile Sally, hartshorn, ammonia, aromatic vinegar, saline
+      draught, or something strong. Why, I want her to look at her very, very
+      best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As if she was a-going to a ball, poor dear!&rdquo; Betsy Strouss replied, with
+      some irony. &ldquo;A young lady full of high spirits by nature, and have never
+      had her first dance yet! The laws and institutions of this kingdom is too
+      bad for me, General. I shall turn foreigner, like my poor husband.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is vere goot, vere goot always,&rdquo; said the placid Maximilian;
+      &ldquo;foreigner dis way, foreigner dat way; according to de hills, or de sea,
+      or de fighting, or being born, or someting else.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold your tongue, Hans,&rdquo; cried his Wilhelmina; &ldquo;remember that you are in
+      England now, and must behave constitutionally. None of your loose
+      outlandish ideas will ever get your bread in England. Was I born according
+      to fighting, or hills, or sea, or any thing less than the will of the
+      Lord, that made the whole of them, and made you too? General, I beg you to
+      excuse him, if you can. When he gets upon such things, he never can stop.
+      His goodness is very great; but he must have a firm hand put upon his
+      'philosophy.' Maximilian, you may go and smoke your pipe for an hour and a
+      quarter, and see where the cheapest greens and oil are, for his Excellence
+      is coming in to-night; and mind you get plenty of stump in them. His
+      Excellence loves them, and they fill the dish, besides coming cheaper.
+      Now, Miss Erema, if you please, come here. Trust you in me, miss, and soon
+      I will make you a credit to the General.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I allowed her to manage my dress and all that according to her own ideas;
+      but when she entreated to finish me up with the &ldquo;leastest little touch of
+      red, scarcely up to the usual color, by reason of not sleeping,&rdquo; I stopped
+      her at once, and she was quite content with the color produced by the
+      thought of it. Meanwhile Major Hockin, of course, was becoming beyond all
+      description impatient. He had made the greatest point of my being adorned,
+      and expected it done in two minutes! And he hurried me so, when I did come
+      down, that I scarcely noticed either cab or horse, and put on my new
+      gloves anyhow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, you look very nice,&rdquo; he said at last, when thoroughly tired of
+      grumbling. &ldquo;That scoundrel of a Goad will be quite amazed at sight of the
+      child he went to steal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mr. Goad!&rdquo; I replied, with a shudder, caused, perhaps, by dark
+      remembrance; &ldquo;if we go to the office, you surely will not expect me to see
+      Mr. Goad himself?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That depends, as the Frenchmen say. It is too late now to shrink back
+      from any thing. If I can spare you, I will. If not, you must not be
+      ashamed to show yourself.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am never ashamed to show myself. But I would rather not go to that
+      place at all. If things should prove to be as I begin to think, I had
+      better withdraw from the whole of it, and only lament that I ever began.
+      My father was right; after all, my father was wise; and I ought to have
+      known it. And perhaps Uncle Sam knew the truth, and would not tell me, for
+      fear of my rushing to the Yosemite. Cabman, please to turn the horse and
+      go in the opposite direction.&rdquo; But the Major pulled me back, and the
+      driver lifted his elbow and said, &ldquo;All right.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema,&rdquo; the Major began, quite sternly, &ldquo;things are gone a little too far
+      for this. We are now embarked upon a most important investigation&rdquo;&mdash;even
+      in my misery I could scarce help smiling at his love of big official words&mdash;&ldquo;an
+      investigation of vast importance. A crime of the blackest dye has been
+      committed, and calmly hushed up, for some petty family reason, for a
+      period of almost twenty years. I am not blaming your father, my dear; you
+      need not look so indignant. It is your own course of action, remember,
+      which has led to the present&mdash;the present&mdash;well, let us say
+      imbroglio. A man of honor and an officer of her Majesty's service stands
+      now committed at your request&mdash;mind, at your own request&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes, I know; but I only meant you to&mdash;to go as far as I should
+      wish.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Confidential instructions, let us say; but there are times when duty to
+      society overrides fine feeling. I have felt that already. The die is cast.
+      No half-and-half measures, no beating about the bush, for me. After what I
+      saw yesterday, and the light that burst upon me, I did not act hastily&mdash;I
+      never do, though slow coaches may have said so. I put this and that
+      together carefully, and had my dinner, and made up my mind. And you see
+      the result in that man on the box.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The cabman? Oh yes, you resolved to have a cab, and drive to those wicked
+      informers.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Where are your eyes? You are generally so quick. This morning you are
+      quite unlike yourself&mdash;so weak, so tearful, and timorous. Have you
+      not seen that by side of the cabman there sits another man altogether? One
+      of the most remarkable men of the age, as your dear Yankees say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a policeman in disguise, I hope. I saw a very common, insignificant
+      man. I thought he was the driver's groom, perhaps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush! he hears every thing, even on this granite. He is not a policeman;
+      if he were, a few things that disgrace the force never would happen. If
+      the policemen of England did their duty as our soldiers do, at once I
+      would have gone to them; my duty would have been to do so. As it is, I go
+      to our private police, who would not exist if the force were worth a rap.
+      Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, in spite of Goad's clumsiness, rank second. I go
+      to the first of all these firms, and I get their very cleverest rascal.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin, speaking in this hoarse whisper&mdash;for he could not
+      whisper gently&mdash;folded his arms, and then nodded his head, as much as
+      to say, &ldquo;I have settled it now. You have nothing to do but praise me.&rdquo; But
+      I was vexed and perplexed too much to trust my voice with an answer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The beauty of this arrangement is,&rdquo; he continued, with vast complacency,
+      &ldquo;that the two firms hate one another as the devil hates&mdash;no, that
+      won't do; there is no holy water to be found among them&mdash;well, as a
+      snake hates a slow-worm, let us say. 'Set a thief to catch a thief' is a
+      fine old maxim; still better when the two thieves have robbed one
+      another.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As he spoke, the noble stranger slipped off the driving seat without
+      troubling the cabman to stop his jerking crawl, and he did it so well that
+      I had no chance of observing his nimble face or form. &ldquo;You are
+      disappointed,&rdquo; said the Major, which was the last thing I would have
+      confessed. &ldquo;You may see that man ten thousand times, and never be able to
+      swear to him. Ha! ha! he is a oner!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I disdain such mean tricks beyond all expression,&rdquo; I exclaimed, as was
+      only natural, &ldquo;and every thing connected with them. It is so low to talk
+      of such things. But what in the world made him do it? Where does he come
+      from, and what is his name?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Like all noble persons, he has got so many names that he does not know
+      which is the right one; only his are short and theirs are long. He likes
+      'Jack' better than any thing else, because it is not distinctive.
+      'Cosmopolitan Jack,' some call him, from his combining the manners and
+      customs, features and figures, of nearly all mankind. He gets on with
+      every one, for every one is gratified by seeing himself reflected in him.
+      And he can jump from one frame to another as freely as Proteus or the
+      populace. And yet, with all that, he is perfectly honest to any allegiance
+      he undertakes. He would not betray us to Vypan, Goad, and Terryer for your
+      great nugget and the Castlewood estates.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heard that there are such people,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;but what can he
+      possibly know about me? And what is he coming to do for us now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He knows all about you, for a very simple reason. That you do not know
+      him, is a proof of his ability. For you must have met him times out of
+      number. This is the fellow employed by your good but incapable cousin,
+      Lord Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He is not incapable; he is a man of great learning, and noble character&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, never mind that; you must not be so hot. What I mean is that he has
+      done nothing for you beyond providing for your safety. And that he
+      certainly did right well, and at considerable expense, for this man can't
+      be had for nothing. You need have been under no terror at all in any of
+      the scenes you have been through. Your safety was watched for
+      continually.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did he not come and help me? Why did he not find out that
+      horrible man?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Because it was not in his orders, and Jack is the last man to go beyond
+      those. He is so clever that the stupid Moonites took him for a stupid
+      Moonite. You should have employed him yourself, Erema; but you are so
+      proud and independent.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I should hope so, indeed. Should I put up with deceit? If the truth is
+      not to be had without falsehood, it is not worth having. But what is this
+      man to do here now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That depends upon circumstances. He has better orders than I could give,
+      for I am no hand at scheming. Here we are; or here we stop. Say nothing
+      till I tell you. Pray allow me the honor. You keep in the background,
+      remember, with your veil, or whatever you call it, down. Nobody stops at
+      the very door. Of course that is humbug&mdash;we conform to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With a stiff inclination, the gallant Major handed me out of the cab in a
+      quiet corner of a narrow street, then paid the driver with less fuss than
+      usual, and led me into a queer little place marked in almost illegible
+      letters, &ldquo;Little England Polygon.&rdquo; &ldquo;You have the card, my dear?&rdquo; he
+      whispered; &ldquo;keep it till I call you in. But be ready to produce it in a
+      moment. For the rest, I leave you to your own wit. Jack is on the watch,
+      mind.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There were two doors near together, one a brave door with a plate, and
+      swung on playing hinges, the other of too secluded a turn to even
+      pronounce itself &ldquo;private.&rdquo; We passed through the public door, and found
+      only a lobby, with a boy on guard. &ldquo;Mr. Goad? Yes, Sir. This way, Sir,&rdquo;
+       cried the boy. &ldquo;Lady stay? Yes, Sir; waiting-room for ladies. Chair, miss;
+      here, if you please&mdash;first right. Mr. Goad, second on the left. Knock
+      twice. Paper, miss? Poker chained at this time of year. Bell A, glass of
+      water. Bell B, cup of tea, if ladies grows impatient.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      If I had been well, I might have reduced this boy to his proper magnitude,
+      for I never could endure young flippancy; but my spirits were so low that
+      the boy banged the door with a fine sense of having vanquished me. And
+      before there was any temptation to ring Bell A, not to mention Bell B, the
+      sound of a wrathful voice began coming. Nearer and nearer it came, till
+      the Major strode into the &ldquo;ladies' waiting-room,&rdquo; and used language no
+      ladies should wait for.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, don't!&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;what would Mrs. Hockin say? And consider me too,
+      Major Hockin, if you please.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have considered you, and that makes me do it. Every body knows what I
+      am. Did I ever exaggerate in all my life? Did I ever say any thing without
+      just grounds? Did I ever take any distorted views? Did I ever draw upon my
+      imagination? Erema, answer me this instant!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I do not remember a single instance of your drawing upon your
+      imagination,&rdquo; I answered, gravely, and did not add, &ldquo;because there is none
+      to draw upon.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. I was sure of your concurrence. Then just come with me. Take
+      my arm, if you please, and have the thief's card ready. Now keep your
+      temper and your self-command.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With this good advice, the Major, whose arm and whole body were jerking
+      with wrath, led me rapidly down the long passage and through a door, and
+      my eyes met the eyes of the very man who had tried to bribe Uncle Sam of
+      me. He never saw me then, and he did not know me now; but his insolent
+      eyes fell under mine. I looked at him quietly, and said nothing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now, Mr. Goad, you still assert that you never were in California&mdash;never
+      even crossed the Atlantic. This young lady under my protection&mdash;don't
+      you be afraid, my dear&mdash;is the Honorable Erema Castlewood, whom you,
+      in the pay of a murderer, went to fetch, and perhaps to murder. Now, do
+      you acknowledge it? You wrote her description, and ought to know her. You
+      double-dyed villain, out with it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major Hockin,&rdquo; said Mr. Goad, trying to look altogether at his ease, but
+      failing, and with his bull-dog forehead purple, &ldquo;if indeed you are an
+      officer&mdash;which I doubt for the credit of her Majesty's service&mdash;if
+      the lady were not present, I should knock you down.&rdquo; And the big man got
+      up as if to do it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Never mind her,&rdquo; my companion answered, in a magnanimous manner; &ldquo;she has
+      seen worse than that, poor thing. Here I am&mdash;just come and do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major was scarcely more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere bodily
+      bulk, and yet he defied him in this way. He carefully took his blue lights
+      off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his wife's most warlike cock
+      a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and doubled his fists,
+      and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of his gables, clearly
+      meaning, &ldquo;Please to stop and see it out.&rdquo; It was a distressing thing to
+      see, and the Major's courage was so grand that I could not help smiling.
+      Mr. Goad, however, did not advance, but assumed a superior manner.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;we are not young men; we must not be so hasty. You
+      carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt to do. Sir,
+      I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and apologize. We move in
+      different spheres of life, Sir, or I would offer you my hand.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, thank you!&rdquo; the Major exclaimed, and then looked sorry for his
+      arrogance. &ldquo;When a man has threatened me, and that man sees the mistake of
+      doing so, I am pacified, Sir, in a moment; but it takes me some time to
+      get over it. I have served his Gracious Majesty, and now hers, in every
+      quarter of the civilized globe, with distinction, Sir&mdash;with
+      distinction, and thanks, and no profit to taint the transaction, Sir. In
+      many battles I have been menaced with personal violence, and have received
+      it, as in such positions is equitable. I am capable, Sir, of receiving it
+      still, and repaying it, not without interest.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hang it, Major, if a man is sorry, a soldier forgives him frankly. You
+      abused me, and I rashly threatened you. I beg your pardon, as a man should
+      do, and that should be an end to it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well, very well; say no more about it. But am I to understand that
+      you still deny in that barefaced manner, with my witness here, the fact of
+      your having been at Colonel Gundry's&mdash;my cousin, Sir, and a man not
+      to be denied, without an insult to myself&mdash;a man who possesses ingots
+      of gold, ingots of gold, enough to break the Bank of England, and a man
+      whose integrity doubles them all. Have you not heard of the monster
+      nugget, transcending the whole of creation, discovered by this young lady
+      looking at you, in the bed of the saw-mill river, and valued at more than
+      half a million?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You don't mean to say so? When was it? Sylvester never said a word about
+      it&mdash;the papers, I mean, never mentioned it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Try no more&mdash;well, I won't say lies, though they are confounded lies&mdash;what
+      I mean is, no further evasion, Mr. Goad. Sylvester's name is enough, Sir.
+      Here is the card of your firm, with your own note of delivery on the back,
+      handed by you to my cousin, the Colonel. And here stands the lady who saw
+      you do it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major, I will do my very best to remember. I am here, there, every where&mdash;China
+      one day, Peru the next, Siberia the day after. And this young lady found
+      the nugget, did she? How wonderfully lucky she must be!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am lucky; I find out every thing; and I shall find out you, Mr. Goad.&rdquo;
+       Thus I spoke on the spur of the moment, and I could not have spoken better
+      after a month of consultation. Rogues are generally superstitious. Mr.
+      Goad glanced at me with a shudder, as I had gazed at him some three years
+      back; and then he dropped his bad, oily-looking eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I make mistakes sometimes,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;as to where I have been and where I
+      have not. If this young lady saw me there, it stands to reason that I may
+      have been there. I have a brother extremely similar. He goes about a good
+      deal also. Probably you saw my brother.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I saw no brother of yours, but yourself. Yourself&mdash;your mean and
+      cowardly self&mdash;and I shall bring you to justice.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well,&rdquo; he replied, with a poor attempt to turn the matter lightly;
+      &ldquo;I never contradict ladies; it is an honor to be so observed by them. Now,
+      Major, can you give me any good reason for drawing upon a bad memory? My
+      time is valuable. I can not refer to such by-gone matters for nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We will not bribe you, if that is what you mean,&rdquo; Major Hockin made
+      answer, scornfully. &ldquo;This is a criminal case, and we have evidence you
+      little dream of. Our only offer is&mdash;your own safety, if you make a
+      clean breast of it. We are on the track of a murderer, and your connection
+      with him will ruin you. Unless you wish to stand in the dock at his side,
+      you will tell us every thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sir, this is violent language.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And violent acts will follow it: if you do not give up your principal,
+      and every word you know about him, you will leave this room in custody. I
+      have Cosmopolitan Jack outside, and the police at a sign from him will
+      come.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is this job already in the hands of the police, then?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, not yet. I resolved to try you first. If you refuse, it will be taken
+      up at once; and away goes your last chance, Sir.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Goad's large face became like a field of conflicting passions and low
+      calculations. Terror, fury, cupidity, and doggedness never had a larger
+      battle-field.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Allow me at least to consult my partners,&rdquo; he said, in a low voice and
+      almost with a whine; &ldquo;we may do things irregular sometimes, but we never
+      betray a client.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Either betray your client or yourself,&rdquo; the Major answered, with a
+      downright stamp. &ldquo;You shall consult no one. You have by this watch
+      forty-five seconds to consider it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You need not trouble yourself to time me,&rdquo; the other answered, sulkily;
+      &ldquo;my duty to the firm overrides private feeling. Miss Castlewood, I call
+      you to witness, since Major Hockin is so peppery&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Peppery, Sir, is the very last word that ever could be applied to me. My
+      wife, my friends, every one that knows me, even my furthest-off
+      correspondents, agree that I am pure patience.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It may be so, Major; but you have not shown it. Miss Castlewood, I have
+      done you no harm. If you had been given up to me, you would have been
+      safer than where you were. My honor would have been enlisted. I now learn
+      things which I never dreamed of&mdash;or, at least&mdash;at least only
+      lately. I always believed the criminality to be on the other side. We
+      never ally ourselves with wrong. But lately things have come to my
+      knowledge which made me doubtful as to facts. I may have been duped&mdash;I
+      believe I have been: I am justified, therefore, in turning the tables.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If you turn tables,&rdquo; broke in the Major, who was grumbling to himself at
+      the very idea of having any pepper in his nature&mdash;&ldquo;Goad, if you turn
+      tables, mind you, you must do it better than the mesmerists. Out of this
+      room you do not stir; no darkness&mdash;no bamboozling! Show your papers,
+      Sir, without sleight of hand. Surrender, or you get no quarter.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      To me it was quite terrifying to see my comrade thus push his victory. Mr.
+      Goad could have killed him at any moment, and but for me perhaps would
+      have done so. But even in his fury he kept on casting glances of
+      superstitious awe at me, while I stood quite still and gazed at him. Then
+      he crossed the room to a great case of drawers, unlocked something above
+      the Major's head, made a sullen bow, and handed him a packet.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER XLIX
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      WANTED, A SAWYER
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      To judge Mr. Goad by his own scale of morality and honor, he certainly had
+      behaved very well through a trying and unexpected scene. He fought for his
+      honor a great deal harder than ever it could have deserved of him; and
+      then he strove well to appease it with cash, the mere thought of which
+      must have flattered it. However, it was none the worse for a little
+      disaster of this kind. At the call of duty it coalesced with interest and
+      fine sense of law, and the contact of these must have strengthened it to
+      face any future production.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the moment he laid it aside in a drawer&mdash;and the smallest he
+      possessed would hold it&mdash;and being compelled to explain his
+      instructions (partly in short-hand and partly in cipher), he kindly, and
+      for the main of it truly, interpreted them as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;July 31, 1858.&mdash;Received directions from M. H. to attend without
+      fail, at whatever expense, to any matter laid before us by a tall, dark
+      gentleman bearing his card. M. H. considerably in our debt; but his father
+      can not last long. Understand what he means, having dealt with this matter
+      before, and managed well with it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;August 2.&mdash;Said gentleman called, gave no name, and was very close.
+      Had experienced some great wrong. Said that he was true heir to the C.
+      estates now held by Lord C. Only required a little further evidence to
+      claim them; and some of this was to be got through us. Important papers
+      must be among the effects of the old lord's son, lately dead in
+      California, the same for whom a reward had been offered, and we had been
+      employed about it. Must get possession of those papers, and of the girl,
+      if possible. Yankees to be bribed, at whatever figure, and always stand
+      out for a high one. Asked where funds were to come from; gave good
+      reference, and verified it. To be debited to the account of M. H. Said we
+      would have nothing to do with it without more knowledge of our principal.
+      Replied, with anger, that he himself was Lord C., ousted by usurpers. Had
+      not the necessary proofs as yet, but would get them, and blast all his
+      enemies. Had doubts about his sanity, and still greater about his
+      solvency. Resolved to inquire into both points.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;August 3.&mdash;M. H. himself, as cool as ever, but shammed to be
+      indignant. Said we were fools if we did not take it up. Not a farthing
+      would he pay of his old account, and fellows like us could not bring
+      actions. Also a hatful of money was to be made of this job, managed
+      snugly. Emigrants to California were the easiest of all things to square
+      up. A whole train of them disappeared this very year, by Indians or
+      Mormons, and no bones made. The best and most active of us must go&mdash;too
+      ticklish for an agent. We must carry on all above-board out there, and as
+      if sent by British government. In the far West no one any wiser. Resolved
+      to go myself, upon having a certain sum in ready.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;August 5.&mdash;The money raised. Start for Liverpool to-morrow. Require
+      a change, or would not go. May hit upon a nugget, etc., etc.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Mr. Goad's memoranda of his adventures, and signal defeat by Uncle Sam,
+      have no claim to be copied here, though differing much from my account.
+      With their terse unfeeling strain, they might make people laugh who had
+      not sadder things to think of. And it matters very little how that spy
+      escaped, as such people almost always seem to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Two questions, Goad, if you please,&rdquo; said Major Hockin, who had smiled
+      sometimes, through some of his own remembrances; &ldquo;what has happened since
+      your return, and what is the name of the gentleman whom you have called
+      'M.H.?'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is it possible that you do not know, Sir? Why, he told us quite lately
+      that you were at his back! You must know Sir Montague Hockin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; certainly I do,&rdquo; the old man said, shortly, with a quick gleam
+      in his eyes; &ldquo;a highly respected gentleman now, though he may have sown
+      his wild oats like the rest. To be sure; of course I know all about it.
+      His meaning was good, but he was misled.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In all my little experience of life nothing yet astonished me more than
+      this. I scarcely knew whom to believe, or what. That the Major, most
+      upright of men, should take up his cousin's roguery&mdash;all new to him&mdash;and
+      speak of him thus! But he gave me a nudge; and being all confusion, I said
+      nothing, and tried to look at neither of them, because my eyes must always
+      tell the truth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;As to the other point,&rdquo; Mr. Goad went on; &ldquo;since my embassy failed, we
+      have not been trusted with the confidence we had the right to expect. Ours
+      is a peculiar business, Sir: 'Trust me in all, or trust me not at all,' as
+      one of our modern poets says, is the very essence of it. And possibly,
+      Major, if that had been done, even your vigor and our sense of law might
+      not have extorted from me what you have heard. Being cashiered, as we are,
+      we act according to the strictest honor in divulging things no longer
+      confided to us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Goad, you have done yourself the utmost credit, legally, intellectually,
+      and&mdash;well, I will not quite say morally. If I ever have a nasty job
+      to do&mdash;at least I mean a stealthy one&mdash;which God, who has ever
+      kept me straight, forbid!&mdash;I will take care not to lose your address.
+      I have a very queer thing occurring on my manor&mdash;I believe it is
+      bound up with this affair&mdash;never mind; I must think&mdash;I hate all
+      underhanded work.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Major, our charges are strictly moderate. We do in a week what takes
+      lawyers a twelvemonth. Allow me to hand you one of our new cards.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no. My pockets are all full. And I don't want to have it found among
+      my papers. No offense, Mr. Goad, no offense at all. Society is not as it
+      was when I was young. I condemn no modern institutions, Sir, though the
+      world gets worse every day of its life.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In terror of committing himself to any connection with such a firm, the
+      Major put on his dark lights again, took up his cane, and let every body
+      know, with a summary rap on the floor, that he might have relaxed, but
+      would not allow any further liberty about it. And as he marched away, not
+      proudly, yet with a very nice firmness, I was almost afraid to say any
+      thing to him to disturb his high mental attitude. For Mrs. Hockin must
+      have exclaimed that here was a noble spectacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But one thing,&rdquo; I forced myself to suggest; &ldquo;do ask one thing before we
+      go. That strange man who called himself 'Lord Castlewood' here, and
+      'Captain Brown' at Soberton&mdash;have they any idea where to find him
+      now? And why does he not come forward?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      My comrade turned back, and put these questions; and the private inquirer
+      answered that they had no idea of his whereabouts, but could easily
+      imagine many good reasons for his present reserve of claim. For instance,
+      he might be waiting for discovery of further evidence; or (which was even
+      more likely) for the death of the present Lord Castlewood, which could not
+      be very far distant, and would remove the chief opponent. It grieved me
+      deeply to find that my cousin's condition was so notorious, and treated of
+      in such a cold-blooded way, like a mule fallen lame, or a Chinaman in
+      Frisco.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, you must grow used to such things,&rdquo; Major Hockin declared, when
+      he saw that I was vexed, after leaving those selfish premises. &ldquo;If it were
+      not for death, how could any body live? Right feeling is shown by
+      considering such points, and making for the demise of others even more
+      preparation than for our own. Otherwise there is a selfishness about it by
+      no means Christian-minded. You look at things always from such an intense
+      and even irreligious point of view. But such things are out of my line
+      altogether. Your Aunt Mary understands them best.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Would you be able,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;to account to Aunt Mary conscientiously for
+      that dreadful story which I heard you tell? I scarcely knew where I stood,
+      Major Hockin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You mean about Montague? Family honor must be defended at any price.
+      Child, I was greatly pained to go beyond the truth; but in such a case it
+      is imperative. I was shocked and amazed at my cousin's conduct; but how
+      could I let such a fellow know that? And think what I owe to his father,
+      Sir Rufus? No, no; there are times when Bayard himself must stretch a
+      point. Honor and religion alike demand it; and Mrs. Hockin need never hear
+      of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly I shall not speak of it,&rdquo; I answered, though a little surprised
+      at his arguments; &ldquo;but you mean, of course, to find out all about it. It
+      seems to me such a suspicious thing. But I never could bear Sir Montague.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major smiled grimly, and, perceiving that he wished to drop the
+      subject, I said no more. He had many engagements in London always, and I
+      must not attempt to engross his time. However, he would not for a moment
+      hear of leaving me any where but with Betsy, for perhaps he saw how
+      strange I was. And, being alone at last with her, I could keep up my pride
+      no longer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through all that had happened, there never had been such a dreadful trial
+      as I had borne this day without a word to any one. Danger and loss and sad
+      dreariness of mind, from want of young companionship; mystery also, and
+      obscurity of life, had always been my fortune. With all of these I had
+      striven, to the best of my very small ability, having from nature no gift
+      except the dull one of persistence. And throughout that struggle I had
+      felt quite sure that a noble yearning for justice and a lofty power of
+      devotion were my two impelling principles. But now, when I saw myself
+      sprung of low birth, and the father of my worship base-born, down fell all
+      my arduous castles, and I craved to go under the earth and die.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For every word of Mr. Goad, and every crooked turn of little things in
+      twist against me&mdash;even the Major's last grim smile&mdash;all began to
+      work together, and make up a wretched tumult, sounding in my ears like
+      drums. Where was the use of going on, of proving any body's guilt or any
+      body's innocence, if the utmost issue of the whole would be to show my
+      father an impostor? Then, and only then, I knew that love of abstract
+      justice is to little minds impossible, that sense of honor is too prone to
+      hang on chance of birth, and virtue's fountain, self-respect, springs but
+      ill from parental taint.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I could no longer keep such bitter imaginings to myself, but poured
+      them forth to Betsy, she merely laughed, and asked me how I could be such
+      a simpleton. Only to think of my father in such a light was beyond her
+      patience! Where was my pride, she would like to know, and my birth, and my
+      family manners? However, she did believe there was something in my ideas,
+      if you turned them inside out, and took hold of them by the other end. It
+      was much more likely, to her mind, that the villain, the unknown villain
+      at the bottom of all the misery, was really the son born out of wedlock,
+      if any such there were at all, and therefore a wild harum-scarum fellow
+      like Ishmael in the Book of Genesis. And it would be just of a piece, she
+      thought, with the old lord's character to drive such a man to desperation
+      by refusing to give him a farthing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that might very well be,&rdquo; I answered; &ldquo;but it would in no way serve
+      to explain my father's conduct, which was the great mystery of all.&rdquo;
+       Nevertheless, I was glad to accept almost any view of the case rather than
+      that which had forced itself upon me since the opening of the locket. Any
+      doubt of that most wretched conclusion was a great relief while it lasted;
+      and, after so long a time of hope and self-reliance, should I cast away
+      all courage through a mere suspicion?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While I was thus re-assuring myself, and being re-assured by my faithful
+      nurse, sad news arrived, and drove my thoughts into another crooked
+      channel. Mrs. Hockin, to meet my anxiety for some tidings from California,
+      had promised that if any letter came, she would not even wait for the
+      post, but forward it by special messenger. And thus, that very same
+      evening, I received a grimy epistle, in an unknown hand, with the postmark
+      of Sacramento. Tearing it open, I read as follows:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;MISS 'REMA,&mdash;No good luck ever came, since you, to this Blue River
+      Station, only to be washed away, and robbed by greasers, and shot through
+      the ribs, and got more work than can do, and find an almighty nugget sent
+      by Satan. And now the very worst luck of all have come, wholly and out of
+      all denial, by you and your faces and graces and French goings on. Not
+      that I do not like you, mind; for you always was very polite to me, and
+      done your best when you found me trying to put up with the trials put on
+      me. But now this trial is the worst of all that ever come to my
+      establishings; and to go away now as I used to think of doing when
+      tyrannized upon is out of my way altogether, and only an action fit for a
+      half-breed. Sawyer Gundry hath cut and run, without a word behind him&mdash;no
+      instructions for orders in hand, and pouring in&mdash;no directions where
+      to find him, not even 'God bless you' to any one of the many hands that
+      looked up to him. Only a packet of dollars for me to pay the wages for two
+      months to come, and a power of lawyer to receive all debts, and go on
+      anyhow just the same. And to go on just the same is more than the worst of
+      us has the heart for, without the sight of his old red face. He may have
+      been pretty sharp, and too much the master now and then, perhaps; but to
+      do without him is a darned sight worse, and the hands don't take to me
+      like him. Many's the time I have seen his faults, of having his own way,
+      and such likes, and paying a man beyond his time if his wife was out of
+      order. And many's the time I have said myself I was fitter to be at the
+      head of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About that I was right enough, perhaps, if I had started upon my own
+      hook; but to stand in the tracks he has worn to his own foot is to go into
+      crooked compasses. There is never a day without some hand threatening to
+      strike and to better himself, as if they were hogs to come and go
+      according to the acorns; and such low words I can never put up with, and
+      packs them off immediate. No place can be carried on if the master is to
+      shut up his lips to impudence. And now I have only got three hands left,
+      with work enough for thirty, and them three only stopped on, I do believe,
+      to grumble of me if the Sawyer do come home!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But what we all want to know&mdash;and old Suan took a black stick to
+      make marks for you&mdash;is why the old man hath run away, and where.
+      Young Firm, who was getting a sight too uppish for me to have long put up
+      with him, he was going about here, there, and every where, from the very
+      first time of your going away, opening his mouth a deal too much, and
+      asking low questions how long I stopped to dinner. Old Suan said he was
+      troubled in his mind, as the pale-faces do about young girls, instead of
+      dragging them to their wigwams; and she would give him a spell to get over
+      it. But nothing came of that; and when the war broke out, he had words
+      with his grandfather, and went off, so they said, to join the rebels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sawyer let him go, as proud as could be, though he would sooner have cut
+      his own head off; and the very same night he sat down by his fire and
+      shammed to eat supper as usual. But I happened to go in to get some
+      orders, and, my heart, I would never wish to see such things again!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The old man would never waste a bit of victuals, as you know, Miss 'Rema;
+      and, being acquaint with Suan's way of watching, he had slipped all his
+      supper aside from his plate, and put it on a clean pocket-handkerchief to
+      lock it in the press till his appetite should serve; and I caught him in
+      the act, and it vexed him. 'Ha'n't you the manners to knock at the door?'
+      he said; and I said, 'Certainly,' and went back and done it; and, troubled
+      as he was, he grinned a bit. Then he bowed his great head, as he always
+      did when he knew he had gone perhaps a trifle too far with a man in my
+      position. I nodded to forgive him, and he stood across, and saw that he
+      could do no less than liquor me, after such behavior. But he only brought
+      out one glass; and I said, 'Come, Colonel, square is square, you know.'
+      'Excuse of me, Martin,' he said; 'but no drop of strong drink passes the
+      brim of my mouth till this gallivanting is done with. I might take too
+      much, as the old men do, to sink what they don't want to think on.' 'You
+      mean about bully-cock Firm,' says I; 'rebel Firm&mdash;nigger-driver
+      Firm.' 'Hush!' he said; 'no bad words about it. He has gone by his
+      conscience and his heart. What do we know of what come inside of him?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This was true enough, for I never did make that boy out to my liking: and
+      the old man now was as stiff as a rock, and pretty nigh as peculiar. He
+      made me a cocktail of his own patent, to show how firm his hand was; but
+      the lines of his face was like wainscot mouldings, and the cords of his
+      arm stood out like cogs. Then he took his long pipe, as he may have done
+      perhaps every blessed night for the last fifty years; but that length of
+      time ought to have learned him better than to go for to fill it upside
+      down. 'Ha, ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I was a man
+      under heaven&mdash;countries and nations and kindreds and duties; and why
+      not a old tobacco-pipe? That's the way babies blow bubbles with them. We
+      shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is busted up.
+      Fill yours, and try it, Martin.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Instead of enjoying my cocktail, Miss 'Rema, I never was so down at
+      mouth; for, to my mind, his old heart was broken while he carried on so.
+      And let every body say what they will, one thing there is no denying of.
+      Never was seen on this side of the big hills a man fit to walk in the
+      tracks of Uncle Sam, so large and good-hearted according to his lights,
+      hard as a grizzly bear for a man to milk him, but soft in the breastbone
+      as a young prairie-hen for all folk down upon their nine-pins.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You may be surprised, miss, to find me write so long. Fact is, the things
+      won't go out of my mind without it. And it gives me a comfort, after all I
+      may have said, to put good opinions upon paper. If he never should turn up
+      again, my language will be to his credit; whereas if he do come back, with
+      the betting a horse to a duck against it, to his pride he will read this
+      testimonial of yours, faithfully, MARTIN CLOGFAST.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;Can't carry on like this much longer. Enough to rip one's
+      heart up. You never would know the old place, miss. The heads of the
+      horses is as long as their tails with the way they carry them; the moss is
+      as big as a Spaniard's beard upon the kitchen door-sill; and the old dog
+      howls all day and night, like fifty thousand scalpers. Suan saith, if you
+      was to come back, the lad might run home after you. 'Tisn't the lad I
+      cares about so much, but poor old Sawyer, at his time of life, swallowed
+      up in the wilderness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER L
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      THE PANACEA
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      As if my own trouble were not enough, so deeply was I grieved by this sad
+      news that I had a great mind to turn back on my own and fly to far-off
+      disasters. To do so appeared for the moment a noble thing, and almost a
+      duty; but now, looking back, I perceive that my instinct was right when it
+      told me to stay where I was, and see out my own sad story first. And Betsy
+      grew hot at the mere idea of my hankering after a miller's affairs, as she
+      very rudely expressed it. To hear about lords and ladies, and their crimes
+      and adventures, was lovely; but to dwell upon people of common birth, and
+      in trade, was most unbeseeming. A man who mended his own mill, and had
+      hands like horn&mdash;well, even she was of better blood than that, she
+      hoped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before these large and liberal views had fairly been expounded, Major
+      Hockin arrived, with his mind in such a state that he opened his watch
+      every second.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, I must speak to you alone,&rdquo; he cried; &ldquo;no, not even you, Mrs.
+      Strouss, if you please. If my ward likes to tell you, why, of course she
+      can; but nobody shall say that I did. There are things that belong to the
+      family alone. The most loyal retainers&mdash;you know what I mean.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;General, I was not aware that you belonged to the family. But this way,
+      Sir; this way, if you please. There is lath and plaster to that wall, and
+      a crack in the panel of the door, Sir. But here is a room where I keep my
+      jams, with double brick and patent locks, from sweet-toothed lodgers. The
+      'scutcheon goes over the key-hole, General. Perhaps you will see to that,
+      while I roll up the carpet outside; and then, if any retainers come, you
+      will hear their footsteps.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless the woman, what a temper she has!&rdquo; whispered the Major, in dread of
+      her ears. &ldquo;Is she gone, Erema? She wants discipline.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, she is gone,&rdquo; I said, trying to be lightsome; &ldquo;but you are enough to
+      frighten any one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So far from that, she has quite frightened me. But never mind such
+      trifles. Erema, since I saw you I have discovered, I may almost say, every
+      thing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Coming upon me so suddenly, even with all allowance made for the Major's
+      sanguine opinion of his own deeds, this had such effect upon my flurried
+      brain that practice alone enabled me to stand upright and gaze at him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps you imagined when you placed the matter in my hands, Miss
+      Castlewood,&rdquo; he went on, with sharp twinkles from the gables of his eyes,
+      but soft caresses to his whiskers, &ldquo;that you would be left in the hands of
+      a man who encouraged a crop of hay under his feet. Never did you or any
+      body make a greater mistake. That is not my character, Miss Castlewood.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why do you call me 'Miss Castlewood' so? You quite make me doubt my own
+      right to the name.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin looked at me with surprise, which gladdened even more than it
+      shamed me. Clearly his knowledge of all, as he described it, did not
+      comprise the disgrace which I feared.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are almost like Mrs. Strouss to-day,&rdquo; he answered, with some
+      compassion. &ldquo;What way is the wind? I have often observed that when one
+      female shows asperity, nearly all the others do the same. The weather
+      affects them more than men, because they know nothing about it. But to
+      come back&mdash;are you prepared to hear what I have got to tell you?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I bowed without saying another word. For he should be almost the last of
+      mankind to give a lecture upon irritation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well; you wish me to go on. Perceiving how sadly you were upset by
+      the result of those interviews, first with Handkin, and then with Goad,
+      after leaving you here I drove at once to the office, studio, place of
+      business, or whatever you please to call it, of the famous fellow in the
+      portrait line, whose anagram, private mark, or whatever it is, was burned
+      into the back of the ivory. Handkin told me the fellow was dead, or, of
+      course, his work would be worth nothing; but the name was carried on, and
+      the register kept, at a little place somewhere in Soho, where, on the
+      strength of his old repute, they keep up a small trade with inferior
+      hands. I gave them a handsome order for a thing that will never be
+      handsome, I fear&mdash;my old battered physiognomy. And then I produced
+      the locket which in some queer state of mind you had given me, and made
+      them hunt out their old books, and at last discovered the very entry. But
+      to verify it I must go to Paris, where his son is living.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Whose son? Lord Castlewood's?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Erema, have you taken leave of your senses? What son has Lord Castlewood?
+      The artist's son, to be sure; the son of the man who did the likeness. Is
+      it the vellum and the stuff upon it that has so upset your mind? I am glad
+      that you showed it to me, because it would have been mean to do otherwise.
+      But show it to no one else, my dear, except your cousin, Lord Castlewood.
+      He has the first right of all to know it, though he will laugh at it as I
+      do. Trumpery of that sort! Let them produce a certified copy of a
+      register. If they could do that, need they ever have shot that raffish old
+      lord&mdash;I beg pardon, my dear&mdash;your highly respected grandfather?
+      No, no; don't tell me. Nicholas Hockin was never in any way famous for
+      want of brains, my dear, and he tells you to keep your pluck up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never can thank you enough,&rdquo; I replied, &ldquo;for such inspiriting counsel.
+      I have been rather miserable all this day. And I have had such a letter
+      from America!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Without my intending any offer of the kind, or having such idea at the
+      furthest tip of any radius of mind, I found myself under a weight about
+      the waist, like the things the young girls put on now. And this was the
+      arm of the Major, which had been knocked about in some actions, but was
+      useful still to let other people know, both in this way and that, what he
+      thought of them. And now it let me know that he pitied me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This kindness from so old a soldier made me partial to him. He had taken
+      an age to understand me, because my father was out of the army almost
+      before I was born, and therefore I had no traditions. Also, from want of
+      drilling, I had been awkward to this officer, and sometimes mutinous, and
+      sometimes a coward. All that, however, he forgave me when he saw me so
+      downhearted; and while I was striving to repress all signs, the quivering
+      of my lips perhaps suggested thoughts of kissing. Whereupon he kissed my
+      forehead with nice dry lips, and told me not to be at all afraid.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How many times have you been brave?&rdquo; he inquired, to set me counting,
+      knowing from all his own children, perhaps, that nothing stops futile
+      tears and the waste of sobs like prompt arithmetic. &ldquo;Six, if not seven,
+      times you have displayed considerable valor. Are you going to fall away
+      through some wretched imagination of your own? Now don't stop to argue&mdash;time
+      will not allow it. I have put Cosmopolitan Jack as well upon the track of
+      Captain Brown. I have not told you half of what I could tell, and what I
+      am doing; but never mind, never mind; it is better that you should not
+      know too much, my dear. Young minds, from their want of knowledge of the
+      world, are inclined to become uneasy. Now go to bed and sleep soundly,
+      Erema, for we have lots to do to-morrow, and you have had a most worrying
+      day to-day. To-morrow, of course, you must come with me to Paris. You can
+      parleyvoo better than I can.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      However, as it happened, I did nothing of the kind, for when he came back
+      in the morning, and while he was fidgeting and hurrying me, and vowing
+      that we should lose the tidal train, a letter from Bruntsea was put into
+      my hand. I saw Mrs. Price's clear writing, followed by good Aunt Mary's
+      crooked lines, and knew that the latter must have received it too late to
+      be sent by her messenger. In few words it told me that if I wished to see
+      my cousin alive, the only chance was to start immediately.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Shock and self-reproach and wonder came (as usual) before grief, which
+      always means to stay, and waits to get its mourning ready. I loved and
+      respected my cousin more deeply than any one living, save Uncle Sam; and
+      now to lose them both at once seemed much too dreadful to be true. There
+      was no time to think. I took the Major's cab, and hurried off to
+      Paddington, leaving him to catch his tidal train.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Alas! when I got to Castlewood, there was but a house of mourning!
+      Faithful Stixon's eyes were dim, and he pointed upward and said, &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; I
+      entered with great awe, and asked, &ldquo;How long?&rdquo; And he said,
+      &ldquo;Four-and-twenty hours now; and a more peacefuller end was never seen, and
+      to lament was sinful; but he was blessed if he could help it.&rdquo; I told him,
+      through my tears, that this was greatly to his credit, and he must not
+      crush fine feelings, which are an honor to our nature. And he said that I
+      was mistress now, and must order him to my liking.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I asked him to send Mrs. Price to me, if she was not too busy; and he
+      answered that he believed her to be a very good soul, and handy. And if he
+      ever had been thought to speak in a sense disparishing of her, such things
+      should not be borne in mind, with great afflictions over us. Mrs. Price,
+      hearing that I was come, already was on her way to me, and now glanced at
+      the door for Mr. Stixon to depart, in a manner past misunderstanding.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He gives himself such airs!&rdquo; she said; &ldquo;sometimes one would think&mdash;but
+      I will not trouble you now with that, Miss Castlewood, or Lady Castlewood&mdash;which
+      do you please to be called, miss? They say that the barony goes on, when
+      there is no more Viscount.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I please to be called 'Miss Castlewood,' even if I have any right to be
+      called that. But don't let us talk of such trifles now. I wish to hear
+      only of my cousin.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, you know, ma'am, what a sufferer he has been for years. If ever an
+      angel had pains all over, and one leg compulsory of a walking-stick, that
+      angel was his late lordship. He would stand up and look at one, and give
+      orders in that beautiful silvery voice of his, just as if he was lying on
+      a bed of down. And never a twitch, nor a hitch in his face, nor his words,
+      nor any other part of him. I assure you, miss, that I have been quite
+      amazed and overwhelmed with interest while looking at his poor legs, and
+      thinking&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can quite enter into it. I have felt the same. But please to come to
+      what has happened lately.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The very thing I was at the point of doing. Then last Sunday, God alone
+      knows why, the pain did not come on at all. For the first time for seven
+      years or more the pain forgot the time-piece. His lordship thought that
+      the clock was wrong; but waited with his usual patience, though missing it
+      from the length of custom, instead of being happy. But when it was come to
+      an hour too late for the proper attack of the enemy, his lordship sent
+      orders for Stixon's boy to take a good horse and ride to Pangbourne for a
+      highly respectable lawyer. There was no time to fetch Mr. Spines, you see,
+      miss, the proper solicitor, who lives in London. The gentleman from
+      Pangbourne was here by eight o'clock; and then and there his lordship made
+      his will, to supersede all other wills. He put it more clearly, the lawyer
+      said, than he himself could have put it, but not, of course, in such legal
+      words, but doubtless far more beautiful. Nobody in the house was
+      forgotten; and the rule of law being, it seems, that those with best cause
+      to remember must not witness, two of the tenants were sent for, and wrote
+      down their names legitimate. And then his lordship lay back and smiled,
+      and said, 'I shall have no more pain.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All that night and three days more he slept as sound as a little child,
+      to make up for so many years. We called two doctors in; but they only
+      whispered and looked dismal, and told us to have hot water ready at any
+      hour of the day or night. Nobody loved him as I did, miss, from seeing so
+      much of his troubles and miraculous way of bearing them; and I sat by the
+      hour and hour, and watched him, trusting no paid nurses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It must have been eight o'clock on Wednesday morning&mdash;what is
+      to-day? Oh, Friday&mdash;then Thursday morning it must have been, when the
+      clouds opened up in the east, and the light of the sun was on the
+      window-sill, not glaring or staring, but playing about, with patterns of
+      leaves between it; and I went to screen it from his poor white face; but
+      he opened his eyes, as if he had been half awake, half dreaming, and he
+      tried to lift one of his thin, thin hands to tell me not to do it. So I
+      let the curtain stay as it was, and crept back, and asked, very softly,
+      'Will your lordship have some breakfast?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He did not seem to comprehend me, but only watched the window; and if
+      ever a blessed face there was, looking toward heaven's glory, his lordship
+      had it, so that I could scarcely keep from sobbing. For I never had seen
+      any living body die, but knew that it must be so. He heard me catching my
+      breath, perhaps, or at any rate he looked at me; and the poor angel knew
+      that I was a woman; and being full of high respect, as he always was for
+      females&mdash;in spite of the way they had served him&mdash;it became
+      apparent to his mind that the pearl button of his neck was open, as
+      ordered by the doctors. And he tried to lift his hand to do it; and then
+      he tried to turn away, but could not manage either. Poor dear! the only
+      movement he could make was to a better world.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I drew the sheet across his chest, and he gave me a little smile of
+      thanks, and perhaps he knew whose hand it was. But the look of his kind
+      soft eyes was flickering&mdash;not steady, I mean, miss&mdash;but glancing
+      and stopping and going astray, as drops of rain do on the window-glass.
+      But I could not endure to examine him much; at such a holy time I felt
+      that to watch death was unholy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Perhaps I ought to have rung the bell for others to be present. But his
+      lordship was always shy, you know, miss; and with none of his kindred
+      left, and no wife to say 'good-by' to him, right or wrong I resolved alone
+      to see him depart to his everlasting rest. And people may talk about
+      hirelings, but I think nobody loved him as I did.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Mrs. Price broke fairly down, and I could not help admiring her. To a
+      faithful servant's humility and duty she had added a woman's pure
+      attachment to one more gifted than herself, and ruined for life by her own
+      sex. But she fell away frightened and ashamed beneath my look, as if I had
+      caught her in sacrilege.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, miss, we all must come and go,&rdquo; she began again, rather clumsily;
+      &ldquo;and, good and great as he was, his lordship has left few to mourn for
+      him. Only the birds and beasts and animals that he was so good to; they
+      will miss him, if men don't. There came one of his favorite pigeons, white
+      as snow all over, and sat on the sill of the window, and cooed, and arched
+      up its neck for his fingers. And he tried to put his fingers out, but they
+      were ice already. Whether that or something else brought home his
+      thoughts, who knows, miss? but he seemed to mix the pigeon up with some of
+      his own experience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Say that I have forgiven her, if ever she did harm to me,' he whispered,
+      without moving lips. 'Times and times, when I was young, I was not always
+      steady;' and then he seemed to wander in his mind among old places; and he
+      would have laughed at something if his voice had been sufficient.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Bitter grief and pain shall never come again,' he seemed to breathe,
+      with a calm, soft smile, like a child with its rhyme about the rain when
+      the sun breaks out; and sure enough, the sun upon the quilt above his
+      heart was shining, as if there could be no more clouds. Then he whispered
+      a few short words to the Lord, more in the way of thanks than prayer, and
+      his eyes seemed to close of their own accord, or with some good spirit
+      soothing them. And when or how his sleep passed from this world into the
+      other there was scarcely the flutter of a nerve to show. There he lies,
+      like an image of happiness. Will you come and see him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I followed her to the bedroom, and am very glad that I did so; for it
+      showed me the bliss of a good man's rest, and took away my fear of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      LIFE SINISTER
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again, every one
+      told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at first, but soon to
+      increasing acquiescence) that I was now the mistress of the fair estates
+      of Castlewood, and, the male line being extinct, might claim the barony,
+      if so pleased me; for that, upon default of male heirs, descended by the
+      spindle. And as to the property, with or without any will of the late Lord
+      Castlewood, the greater part would descend to me under unbarred
+      settlement, which he was not known to have meddled with. On the contrary,
+      he confirmed by his last will the settlement&mdash;which they told me was
+      quite needless&mdash;and left me all that he had to leave, except about a
+      thousand pounds distributed in legacies. A private letter to me was sealed
+      up with his will, which, of course, it would not behoove me to make
+      public. But thus much&mdash;since our family history is, alas! so
+      notorious&mdash;in duty to him I should declare. He begged me, if his poor
+      lost wife&mdash;of whom he had never spoken to me&mdash;should re-appear
+      and need it, to pay her a certain yearly sum, which I thought a great deal
+      too much for her, but resolved to obey him exactly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Neither the will nor the letter contained any reference to my grandfather,
+      or the possibility of an adverse claim. I could not, however, be quit of
+      deep uneasiness and anxiety, but stanchly determined that every acre
+      should vanish in folds of &ldquo;the long robe&rdquo; rather than pass to a crafty
+      villain who had robbed me of all my kindred. My hatred of that man
+      deepened vastly, as he became less abstract, while my terror decreased in
+      proportion. I began to think that, instead of being the reckless fiend I
+      had taken him for, he was only a low, plotting, cold-blooded rogue,
+      without even courage to save him. By this time he must have heard all
+      about me, my pursuit of him, and my presence here&mdash;then why not come
+      and shoot me, just as he shot my grandfather?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The idea of this was unwelcome; still, I felt no sort of gratitude, but
+      rather a lofty contempt toward him for not having spirit to try it. In
+      Shoxford church-yard he had expressed (if Sexton Rigg was not then
+      deceived) an unholy wish to have me there, at the feet of my brothers and
+      sisters. Also he had tried to get hold of me&mdash;doubtless with a view
+      to my quietude&mdash;when I was too young to defend myself, and left at
+      haphazard in a lawless land. What was the reason, if his mind was still
+      the same, for ceasing to follow me now? Was I to be treated with contempt
+      as one who had tried her best and could do nothing, as a feeble creature
+      whose movements were not even worth inquiry? Anger at such an idea began
+      to supersede fear, as my spirits returned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile Major Hockin was making no sign as to what had befallen him in
+      Paris, or what Cosmopolitan Jack was about. But, strangely enough, he had
+      sent me a letter from Bruntsea instead of Paris, and addressed in grand
+      style to no less a person than &ldquo;The right honorable Baroness Castlewood&rdquo;&mdash;a
+      title which I had resolved, for the present, neither to claim nor
+      acknowledge. In that letter the Major mingled a pennyweight of condolence
+      with more congratulation than the post could carry for the largest stamp
+      yet invented. His habit of mind was to magnify things; and he magnified my
+      small grandeur, and seemed to think nothing else worthy of mention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Through love of the good kind cousin I had lost, even more than through
+      common and comely respect toward the late head of the family, I felt it
+      impossible to proceed, for the present, with any inquiries, but left the
+      next move to the other side. And the other side made it, in a manner such
+      as I never even dreamed of.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      About three weeks after I became, in that sad way, the mistress, escaping
+      one day from lawyers and agents, who held me in dreary interview, with
+      long computations of this and of that, and formalities almost endless, I
+      went, for a breath of good earnest fresh air, beyond precinct of garden or
+      shrubbery. To me these seemed in mild weather to temper and humanize the
+      wind too strictly, and take the wild spirit out of it; and now, for the
+      turn of the moment, no wind could be too rough to tumble in. After long
+      months of hard trouble, and worry, and fear, and sad shame, and deep
+      sorrow, the natural spring of clear youth into air and freedom set me
+      upward. For the nonce there was nothing upon my selfish self to keep it
+      downward; troubles were bubbles, and grief a low thief, and reason almost
+      treason. I drank the fine fountain of air unsullied, and the golden light
+      stamped with the royalty of sun.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hilarious moments are but short, and soon cold sense comes back again.
+      Already I began to feel ashamed of young life's selfish outburst, and the
+      vehement spring of mere bodily health. On this account I sat down sadly in
+      a little cove of hill, whereto the soft breeze from the river came up,
+      with a tone of wavelets, and a sprightly water-gleam. And here, in fern
+      and yellow grass and tufted bights of bottom growth, the wind made entry
+      for the sun, and they played with one another.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Besting here, and thinking, with my face between my hands, I wondered what
+      would be the end. Nothing seemed secure or certain, nothing even steady or
+      amenable to foresight. Even guess-work or the wider cast of dreams was
+      always wrong. To-day the hills and valleys, and the glorious woods of
+      wreathen gold, bright garnet, and deep amethyst, even that blue river yet
+      unvexed by autumn's turbulence, and bordered with green pasture of a
+      thousand sheep and cattle&mdash;to-day they all were mine (so far as
+      mortal can hold ownership)&mdash;to-morrow, not a stick, or twig, or blade
+      of grass, or fallen leaf, but might call me a trespasser. To see them
+      while they still were mine, and to regard them humbly, I rose and took my
+      black hat off&mdash;a black hat trimmed with mourning gray. Then turning
+      round, I met a gaze, the wildest, darkest, and most awful ever fixed on
+      human face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Who are you? What do you want here?&rdquo; I faltered forth, while shrinking
+      back for flight, yet dreading or unable to withdraw my gaze from his. The
+      hollow ground barred all escape; my own land was a pit for me, and I must
+      face this horror out. Here, afar from house or refuge, hand of help, or
+      eye of witness, front to front I must encounter this atrocious murderer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For moments, which were ages to me, he stood there without a word; and
+      daring not to take my eyes from his, lest he should leap at me, I had no
+      power (except of instinct), and could form no thought of him, for mortal
+      fear fell over me. If he would only speak, would only move his lips, or
+      any thing!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The Baroness is not brave,&rdquo; he said at last, as if reproachfully; &ldquo;but
+      she need have no fear now of me. Does her ladyship happen to know who I
+      am?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The man who murdered my grandfather.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, if you put a false color on events. The man who punished a
+      miscreant, according to the truer light. But I am not here to argue
+      points. I intend to propose a bargain. Once for all, I will not harm you.
+      Try to listen calmly. Your father behaved like a man to me, and I will be
+      no worse to you. The state of the law in this country is such that I am
+      forced to carry fire-arms. Will it conduce to your peace of mind if I
+      place myself at your mercy?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I tried to answer; but my heart was beating so that no voice came, only a
+      flutter in my trembling throat. Wrath with myself for want of courage
+      wrestled in vain with pale, abject fear. The hand which offered me the
+      pistol seemed to my dazed eyes crimson still with the blood of my
+      grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You will not take it? Very well; it lies here at your service. If your
+      father's daughter likes to shoot me, from one point of view it will be
+      just; and but for one reason, I care not. Don't look at me with pity, if
+      you please. For what I have done I feel no remorse, no shadow of
+      repentance. It was the best action of my life. But time will fail, unless
+      you call upon your courage speedily. None of your family lack that; and I
+      know that you possess it. Call your spirit up, my dear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Oh, please not to call me that! How dare you call me that?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That is right. I did it on purpose. And yet I am your uncle. Not by the
+      laws of men, but by the laws of God&mdash;if there are such things. Now,
+      have you the strength to hear me?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes; I am quite recovered now. I can follow every word you say. But&mdash;but
+      I must sit down again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Certainly. Sit there, and I will stand. I will not touch or come nearer
+      to you than a story such as mine requires. You know your own side of it;
+      now hear mine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;More than fifty years ago there was a brave young nobleman, handsome,
+      rich, accomplished, strong, not given to drink or gambling, or any
+      fashionable vices. His faults were few, and chiefly three&mdash;he had a
+      headstrong will, loved money, and possessed no heart at all. With chances
+      in his favor, this man might have done as most men do who have such gifts
+      from fortune. But he happened to meet with a maiden far beneath him in
+      this noble world, and he set his affections&mdash;such as they were&mdash;upon
+      that poor young damsel.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;This was Winifred Hoyle, the daughter of Thomas Hoyle, a farmer, in a
+      lonely part of Hampshire, and among the moors of Rambledon. The nobleman
+      lost his way, while fishing, and being thirsty, went to ask for milk. What
+      matter how it came about? He managed to win her heart before she heard of
+      his rank and title. He persuaded her even to come and meet him in the
+      valley far from her father's house, where he was wont to angle; and there,
+      on a lonely wooden bridge across a little river, he knelt down (as men
+      used to do) and pledged his solemn truth to her. His solemn lie&mdash;his
+      solemn lie!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Such love as his could not overleap the bars of rank or the pale of
+      wealth&mdash;are you listening to me carefully?&mdash;or, at any rate, not
+      both of them. If the poor farmer could only have given his Winifred 50,000
+      pounds, the peer would have dropped his pride, perhaps, so far as to be
+      honest. But farmers in that land are poor, and Mr. Hoyle could give his
+      only child his blessing only. And this he did in London, where his simple
+      mind was all abroad, and he knew not church from chapel. He took his
+      daughter for the wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor thing! when
+      she was but his concubine. In 1809 such tricks were easily played by
+      villains upon young girls so simple.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But he gave her attestation and certificate under his own hand; and her
+      poor father signed it, and saw it secured in a costly case, and then went
+      home as proud as need be for the father of a peer, but sworn to keep it
+      three years secret, till the king should give consent. Such foul lies it
+      was the pride of a lord to tell to a farmer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You do not exclaim&mdash;of course you do not. The instincts of your race
+      are in you, because you are legitimate. Those of the robbed side are in
+      me, because I am of the robbed. I am your father's elder brother. Which is
+      the worse, you proud young womam, the dastard or the bastard?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs,&rdquo; I answered, meeting fierce eyes
+      mildly; &ldquo;but you should remember that I am guiltless of those wrongs, and
+      so was my father. And I think that if you talk of birth so, you must know
+      that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What concern is that of mine? A gentleman is some one's son. I am the son
+      of nobody. But to you I will speak quietly, for the sake of your poor
+      father. And you must listen quietly. I am not famous for sweet temper.
+      Well, this great lord took his toy to Paris, where he had her at his
+      mercy. She could not speak a word of French; she did not know a single
+      soul. In vain she prayed him to take her to his English home; or, if not
+      that, to restore her to her father. Not to be too long about it&mdash;any
+      more than he was&mdash;a few months were enough for him. He found fault
+      with her manners, with her speech, her dress, her every thing&mdash;all
+      which he had right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier. And
+      she, although not born to the noble privilege of weariness, had been an
+      old man's darling, and could not put up with harshness. From words they
+      came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or rather his
+      own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless, penniless, and
+      brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There and thus I saw the light beneath most noble auspices. But I need
+      not go on with all that. As long as human rules remain, this happy tale
+      will always be repeated with immense applause. My mother's love was turned
+      to bitter hatred of his lordship, and, when her father died from grief, to
+      eager thirst for vengeance. And for this purpose I was born.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You see that&mdash;for a bastard&mdash;I have been fairly educated; but
+      not a farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support his
+      casual. My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his daughter Winifred;
+      and upon that, and my mother's toil and mine, we have kept alive. Losing
+      sight of my mother gladly&mdash;for she was full of pride, and hoped no
+      more to trouble him, after getting her father's property&mdash;he married
+      again, or rather he married for the first time without perjury, which
+      enables the man to escape from it. She was of his own rank&mdash;as you
+      know&mdash;the daughter of an earl, and not of a farmer. It would not have
+      been safe to mock her, would it? And there was no temptation.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The history of my mother and myself does not concern you. Such people are
+      of no account until they grow dangerous to the great. We lived in cheap
+      places and wandered about, caring for no one, and cared for by the same.
+      Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called ourselves when we wanted names; and
+      I did not even know the story of our wrongs till the heat and fury of
+      youth were past. Both for her own sake and mine my mother concealed it
+      from me. Pride and habit, perhaps, had dulled her just desire for
+      vengeance; and, knowing what I was, she feared&mdash;the thing which has
+      befallen me. But when I was close upon thirty years old, and my mother
+      eight-and-forty&mdash;for she was betrayed in her teens&mdash;a sudden
+      illness seized her. Believing her death to be near, she told me, as calmly
+      as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of the past,
+      which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the wrong tenfold
+      blacker. She did not die; if she had, it might have been better both for
+      her and me, and many other people. Are you tired of my tale? Or do you
+      want to hear the rest?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You can not be asking me in earnest,&rdquo; I replied, while I watched his wild
+      eyes carefully. &ldquo;Tell me the rest, if you are not afraid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Afraid, indeed! Then, for want of that proper tendance and comfort which
+      a few pounds would have brought her, although she survived, she survived
+      as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her poor unhappy self. I sank my
+      pride for her sake, and even deigned to write to him, in rank and wealth
+      so far above me, in every thing else such a clot below my heel. He did the
+      most arrogant thing a snob can do&mdash;he never answered my letter.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I scraped together a little money, and made my way to England, and came
+      to that house&mdash;which you now call yours&mdash;and bearded that noble
+      nobleman&mdash;that father to be so proud of! He was getting on now in
+      years, and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first appearance
+      scared him. He got no obeisance from me, you may be certain, but still I
+      did not revile him. I told him of my mother's state of mind, and the great
+      care she required, and demanded that, in common justice, he, having
+      brought her to this, should help her. But nothing would he promise, not a
+      sixpence even, in the way of regular allowance. Any thing of that sort
+      could only be arranged by means of his solicitors. He had so expensive a
+      son, with a very large and growing family, that he could not be pledged to
+      any yearly sum. But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign an
+      acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving my
+      identity.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What identity had I to prove? He had taken good care of that. I turned my
+      back on him and left the house, without even asking for his curse, though
+      as precious as a good man's blessing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and going
+      across this park&mdash;or whatever it is called&mdash;I met my brother. At
+      a crest of the road we met face to face, with the moon across our
+      foreheads. We had never met till now, nor even heard of one another; at
+      least he had never heard of me. He started back as if at his own ghost;
+      but I had nothing to be startled at, in this world or the other.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on very
+      well together. At one time it seemed good luck for him to have
+      illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled in the
+      weeds of this river while bathing. You owe me no thanks. I thought twice
+      about it, and if the name would have ended with him, I would never have
+      used my basket-knife. By trade I am a basket-maker, like many another
+      'love-child.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some risk in
+      doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and encouraged me to
+      visit him. Not at his home&mdash;of course that would never do&mdash;but
+      when he was with his regiment. Short of money as he always was, through
+      his father's nature and his own, which in some points were the very
+      opposite, he was even desirous to give me some of that; but I never took a
+      farthing from him. If I had it at all, I would have it from the proper
+      one. And from him I resolved to have it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How terrified you look! I am coming to it now. Are you sure that you can
+      bear it? It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young ladies&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I feel a little faint,&rdquo; I could not help saying; &ldquo;but that is nothing. I
+      must hear the whole of it. Please to go on without minding me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours. I can not have you
+      fainting, and bringing people here. Go to the house and take food, and
+      recover your strength, and then come here again. I promise to be here, and
+      your father's daughter will not take advantage of my kindness.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of strange
+      tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father's, and asserted
+      power over me. Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man, and left him there,
+      and went slowly to the house, walking as if in a troubled dream.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      FOR LIFE, DEATH
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of browning
+      fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze, and wisps
+      of grass. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed while even breathing
+      it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the rest of his story, and
+      had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time for self-congratulation a
+      tall figure rose from the ground, and fear compelled me into courage. For
+      throughout this long interview more and more I felt an extremely
+      unpleasant conviction. That stranger might not be a downright madman, nor
+      even what is called a lunatic; but still it was clear that upon certain
+      points&mdash;the laws of this country, for instance, and the value of rank
+      and station&mdash;his opinions were so outrageous that his reason must be
+      affected. And, even without such proofs as these, his eyes and his manner
+      were quite enough. Therefore I had need of no small caution, not only
+      concerning my words and gestures, but as to my looks and even thoughts,
+      for he seemed to divine these last as quickly as they flashed across me. I
+      never had learned to conceal my thoughts, and this first lesson was an
+      awkward one.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I hope you are better,&rdquo; he said, as kindly as it was possible for him to
+      speak. &ldquo;Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you. I will not sham any
+      admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind; but as for harming you&mdash;why,
+      your father was almost the only kind heart I ever met!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father was
+      dead in the desert?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I never did any thing of the sort. It was done in my name, but not by me;
+      I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a score to settle
+      with the man who did it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the true
+      Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America. I never saw truth
+      more plainly stamped on a new situation&mdash;the face of a rogue&mdash;than
+      I saw it then on the face of Mr. Goad.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are quite right; he spoke the truth&mdash;to the utmost of his
+      knowledge. I never saw Goad, and he never saw me. I never even dreamed of
+      pretending to the title. I was personated by a mean, low friend of Sir
+      Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never stoop to such a trick.
+      You will find out the meaning of that by-and-by. I have taken the law into
+      my own hands&mdash;it is the only way to work such laws&mdash;I have
+      committed what is called a crime. But, compared with Sir Montague Hockin,
+      I am whiter than yonder shearling on his way to the river for his evening
+      drink.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      I gazed at his face, and could well believe it. The setting sun shone upon
+      his chin and forehead&mdash;good, resolute, well-marked features; his nose
+      and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt and pale (though they would
+      have been better for being a trifle cleaner). There was nothing suggestive
+      of falsehood or fraud, and but for the wildness of the eyes and flashes of
+      cold ferocity, it might have been called a handsome face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well,&rdquo; he began again, with one of those jerks which had frightened
+      me, &ldquo;your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but he knew the old
+      lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf. On the other hand, he
+      gave no warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps he thought it a woman's
+      threat, and me no better than a woman! And partly for his sake, no doubt,
+      though mainly for my mother's, I made the short work which I made; for he
+      was horribly straitened&mdash;and in his free, light way he told me so&mdash;by
+      his hard curmudgeon of a father.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and plenty
+      of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he thought
+      scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness longer, if
+      I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for the Moonstock Inn.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so forsworn
+      himself! I resolved that there he should pay justice, either with his life
+      or death. And I went to your father's place to tell him to prepare for
+      disturbances; but he was gone to see his wife, and I simply borrowed a
+      pistol.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like that. I
+      was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets forth on circuit;
+      and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge affords to the guilty&mdash;the
+      chance of leading a better life. I had brought my mother to England, and
+      she was in a poor place in London; her mind was failing more and more, and
+      reverting to her love-time, the one short happiness of her life. 'If I
+      could but see him, if I could but see him, and show him his tall and
+      clever son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking ever to be his
+      wife. Oh, Thomas! I was too young to know it. If I could but see him once,
+      just once!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How all this drove me no tongue can tell. But I never let her know it; I
+      only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever sees any body
+      more!' And she trusted me and was satisfied. She only said, 'Take my
+      picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy time, and his pledge to me
+      inside of it.' And she gave me what she had kept for years in a bag of
+      chamois leather, the case of which I spoke before, which even in our
+      hardest times she would never send to the pawn-shop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The rest is simple enough. I swore by the God, or the Devil, who made me,
+      that this black-hearted man should yield either his arrogance or his life.
+      I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate ordained that I should meet
+      him where he forswore himself to my mother; on that very plank where he
+      had breathed his deadly lies he breathed his last. Would you like to hear
+      all about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      For answer I only bowed my head. His calm, methodical way of telling his
+      tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more shocking than any fury.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then it was this. I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house in the
+      village, where he dined with company; and I did not even know that it was
+      the house of his son, your father&mdash;so great a gulf is fixed between
+      the legitimate and the bastard! He had crossed the wooden bridge in going,
+      and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could tread those planks
+      without contrition and horror&mdash;but never mind. I resolved to bring
+      him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in the valley.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood closed in;
+      and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the moon was on the
+      uplands. Time and place alike were fit for our little explanation. The
+      path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come. My
+      firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but he
+      never had the manners to do that.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I heard a
+      firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared in a
+      stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps his
+      lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when he
+      told pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think how
+      well he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him have
+      them out, and waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; but he
+      only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heard him
+      say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-wine for!'
+      He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking far more of
+      his feet than heart.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself, I
+      leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him. The
+      moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon him, the
+      last that ever fell upon his body to its knowledge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice and air,
+      though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him began to rise.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this earth,'
+      I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my orders.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He saw his peril, but he had courage&mdash;perhaps his only virtue.
+      'Fool! whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him help;
+      'none of these moon-struck ways with me! If you want to rob me, try it!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me back.
+      'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice&mdash;to lick the dust, or be
+      dust! Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for perjury. On this plank
+      you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you ruined and cast by; and now on
+      this plank you shall kneel to her son and swear to obey him&mdash;or else
+      you die!'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death himself,
+      instead of his own dear eldest son.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'What do you want!' As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety rail and
+      shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook. 'How much will satisfy
+      you?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your half crowns!
+      We must have a little of what you have grudged&mdash;having none to spare&mdash;your
+      honor. My demands are simple, and only two. My mother is fool enough to
+      yearn for one more sight of your false face; you will come with me and see
+      her.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'And if I yield to that, what next?'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you. Here I have, in this
+      blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your solemn signature
+      to a lie. At the foot of that you will have the truth to write, &ldquo;I am a
+      perjured liar!&rdquo; and proudly sign it &ldquo;Castlewood,&rdquo; in the presence of two
+      witnesses. This can not hurt your feelings much, and it need not be
+      expensive.'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check its outbreak.
+      The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was better, in such lordly
+      fields, than the whole of the harvest we got. He knew that I had him all
+      to myself, to indulge my filial affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have only
+      heard your mother's story. Allow me to go back and to sit in a dry place;
+      I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear my tale as well. I
+      passed a dry stump just now; I will go back: there is no fear of
+      interruption.' My lord was talking against time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your knees and
+      sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be no perjury. Here
+      I hold your cursed pledge&mdash;'
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He struck at me, or at the locket&mdash;no matter which&mdash;but it flew
+      away. My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-handed,
+      as a bastard should be. From my left hand he took his death, and I threw
+      the pistol after him: such love had he earned from his love-child!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here broke off
+      from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my presence, set his
+      gloomy eyes on the ground. Lightly he might try to speak, but there was no
+      lightness in his mind, and no spark of light in his poor dead soul. Being
+      so young, and unacquainted with the turns of life-worn mind, I was afraid
+      to say a word except to myself, and to myself I only said, &ldquo;The man is
+      mad, poor fellow; and no wonder!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights, but
+      over the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame England; and,
+      different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad and fearful sunset
+      lay before me: the fall of night upon my dying father and his helpless
+      child, the hour of anguish and despair! Here at last was the cause of all
+      laid horribly before me; and the pity deeply moving me passed into cold
+      abhorrence. But the man was lost in his own visions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;So in your savage wrath,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;you killed your own father, and in
+      your fright left mine to bear the brunt of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray from
+      mine. He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I had spoken.
+      The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment of his father had
+      worked upon him so much that he could not freely shift attention.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I came for something, something that can be only had from you,&rdquo; he said,
+      &ldquo;and only since your cousin's death, and something most important. But
+      will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from mind and memory!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am not surprised at that,&rdquo; I answered, looking at his large wan face,
+      and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness. &ldquo;Whatever it
+      is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I see what you mean&mdash;not to come any more. You are right about that,
+      for certain. But your father was good to me, and I loved him, though I had
+      no right to love any one. My letter will show that I wronged him never.
+      The weight of the world is off my mind since I have told you every thing;
+      you can send me to the gallows, if you think fit, but leave it till my
+      mother dies. Good-by, poor child. I have spoiled your life, but only by
+      chance consequence, not in murder-birth&mdash;as I was born.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so, he was
+      far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life, his shadow
+      fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BRUNTSEA DEFIANT
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Thus at last&mdash;by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after turn
+      of things to which I blindly gave my little help&mdash;the mystery of my
+      life was solved. Many things yet remained to be fetched up to focus and
+      seen round; but the point of points was settled.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic. What tears
+      of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!&mdash;not doubting
+      his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for taking it upon him.
+      I had been mean enough to dream that my dear father outraged justice to
+      conceal his own base birth!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me
+      charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at any rate,
+      it ought to do so. And the man in question, my own father, who had starved
+      himself to save me! Better had I been the most illegal child ever issued
+      into this cold world, than dare to think so of my father, and then find
+      him the model of every thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to appease
+      the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark suspicion on himself,
+      until his wronged and half-sane brother (to whom, moreover, he owed his
+      life) should have time to fly from England. No doubt he blamed himself as
+      much as he condemned the wretched criminal, because he had left his father
+      so long unwarned and so unguarded, and had thoughtlessly used light words
+      about him, which fell not lightly on a stern, distempered mind. Hence,
+      perhaps, the exclamation which had told against him so.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And then when he broke jail&mdash;which also told against him terribly&mdash;to
+      revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant after that
+      to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man should do. But his
+      wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could not endure the thought of it,
+      knowing how often jury is injury, and seeing all the weight against him.
+      She naturally pledged him to pursue his flight, &ldquo;for her sake,&rdquo; until she
+      should be better able to endure his trial, and until he should have more
+      than his own pure word and character to show. And probably if he had then
+      been tried, with so many things against him, and no production of that
+      poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy invention, and
+      &ldquo;Guilty&rdquo; would have been the verdict. And they could not know that, in
+      such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we shall see that he
+      meant to do.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When my father heard of his dear wife's death, and believed, no doubt,
+      that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and fated man, like
+      polar night, settled down on him. What matter to him about public opinion
+      or any thing else in the world just now? The sins of his father were on
+      his head; let them rest there, rather than be trumpeted by him. He had
+      nothing to care for; let him wander about. And so he did for several
+      years, until I became a treasure to him&mdash;for parental is not
+      intrinsic value&mdash;and then, for my sake, as now appeared, he betook us
+      both to a large kind land.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Revolving these things sadly, and a great many more which need not be
+      told, I thought it my duty to go as soon as possible to Bruntsea, and tell
+      my good and faithful friends what I was loath to write about. There,
+      moreover, I could obtain what I wanted to confirm me&mdash;the opinion of
+      an upright, law-abiding, honorable man about the course I proposed to
+      take. And there I might hear something more as to a thing which had
+      troubled me much in the deepest of my own troubles&mdash;the melancholy
+      plight of dear Uncle Sam. Wild, and absurd as it may appear to people of
+      no gratitude, my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble
+      Sawyer, if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England. That
+      such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too manifest;
+      but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no mind to do a
+      thing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Be that as it will, I made what my dear Yankees&mdash;to use the Major's
+      impertinent phrase&mdash;call &ldquo;straight tracks&rdquo; for that ancient and
+      obsolete town, rejuvenized now by its Signor. The cause of my good
+      friend's silence&mdash;not to use that affected word &ldquo;reticence&rdquo;&mdash;was
+      quite unknown to me, and disturbed my spirit with futile guesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Resolute, therefore, to pierce the bottom of every surviving mystery, I
+      made claim upon &ldquo;Mr. Stixon, junior&rdquo;&mdash;as &ldquo;Stixon's boy&rdquo; had now
+      vindicated his right to be called, up to supper-time&mdash;and he with
+      high chivalry responded. Not yet was he wedded to Miss Polly Hopkins, the
+      daughter of the pickled-pork man; otherwise would he or could he have made
+      telegraphic blush at the word &ldquo;Bruntsea?&rdquo; And would he have been quite so
+      eager to come?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such things are trifling, compared to our own, which naturally fill the
+      universe. I was bound to be a great lady now, and patronize and regulate
+      and drill all the doings of nature. So I durst not even ask, though
+      desiring much to do so, how young Mr. Stixon was getting on with his
+      delightful Polly. And his father, as soon as he found me turned into the
+      mistress, and &ldquo;his lady&rdquo; (as he would have me called thenceforth, whether
+      or no on my part), not another word would he tell me of the household
+      sentiments, politics, or romances. It would have been thought a thing
+      beneath me to put any nice little questions now, and I was obliged to take
+      up the tone which others used toward me. But all the while I longed for
+      freedom, Uncle Sam, Suan Isco, and even Martin of the Mill.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Law business, however, and other hinderances, kept me from starting at
+      once for Bruntsea, impatient as I was to do so. Indeed, it was not until
+      the morning of the last Saturday in November that I was able to get away.
+      The weather had turned to much rain, I remember, with two or three
+      tempestuous nights, and the woods were almost bare of leaves, and the
+      Thames looked brown and violent.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the fly from Newport to Bruntsea I heard great rollers thundering
+      heavily upon the steep bar of shingle, and such a lake of water shone in
+      the old bed of the river that I quite believed at first that the Major had
+      carried out his grand idea, and brought the river back again. But the
+      flyman shook his head, and looked very serious, and told me that he feared
+      bad times were coming. What I saw was the work of the Lord in heaven, and
+      no man could prevail against it. He had always said, though no concern of
+      his&mdash;for he belonged to Newport&mdash;that even a British officer
+      could not fly in the face of the Almighty. He himself had a brother on the
+      works, regular employed, and drawing good money, and proud enough about
+      it; and the times he had told him across a pint of ale&mdash;howsomever,
+      our place was to hope for the best; but the top of the springs was not
+      come yet, and a pilot out of Newport told him the water was making
+      uncommon strong; but he did hope the wind had nigh blowed itself out; if
+      not, they would have to look blessed sharp tomorrow. He had heard say that
+      in time of Queen Elizabeth sixscore of houses was washed clean away, and
+      the river itself knocked right into the sea; and a thing as had been once
+      might just come to pass again, though folk was all so clever now they
+      thought they wor above it. But, for all that, their grandfathers' goggles
+      might fit them. But here we was in Bruntsea town, and, bless his old eyes&mdash;yes!
+      If I pleased to look along his whip, I might see ancient pilot come, he
+      did believe, to warn of them!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Following his guidance, I descried a stout old man, in a sailor's dress,
+      weather-proof hat, and long boots, standing on a low seawall, and holding
+      vehement converse with some Bruntsea boatmen and fishermen who were
+      sprawling on the stones as usual.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Driver, you know him. Take the lower road,&rdquo; I said, &ldquo;and ask what his
+      opinion is.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No need to ask him,&rdquo; the flyman answered; &ldquo;old Banks would never be here,
+      miss, if he was of two opinions. He hath come to fetch his daughter out of
+      harm, I doubt, the wife of that there Bishop Jim, they call him&mdash;the
+      chap with two nails to his thumb, you know. Would you like to hear how
+      they all take it, miss?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words he turned to the right, and drove into Major Hockin's
+      &ldquo;Sea Parade.&rdquo; There we stopped to hear what was going on, and it proved to
+      be well worth our attention. The old pilot perhaps had exhausted reason,
+      and now was beginning to give way to wrath. The afternoon was deepening
+      fast, with heavy gray clouds lowering, showing no definite edge, but
+      streaked with hazy lines, and spotted by some little murky blurs or blots,
+      like tar pots, carried slowly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?&rdquo; the ancient pilot shouted, pointing
+      with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the sea, whence came
+      puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks backward. &ldquo;Mackerel sky
+      when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at noon, and now afore sunset Noah's
+      Arks! Any of them breweth a gale of wind, and the three of them bodes a
+      tempest. And the top of the springs of the year to-morrow. Are ye daft, or
+      all gone upon the spree, my men? Your fathers would 'a knowed what the new
+      moon meant. Is this all that cometh out of larning to read?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man,&rdquo; said one, &ldquo;to help you off with that
+      stiff reel. What consarn can he be of yourn?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Don't you be put out, mate,&rdquo; cried another. &ldquo;Never came sea as could top
+      that bar, and never will in our time. Go and calk your old leaky craft,
+      Master Banks.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from Newport&mdash;a
+      place never heerd on when this old town was made.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks. You must want
+      it, after that long pipe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;'Hockin Arms,' indeed!&rdquo; the pilot answered, turning away in a rage from
+      them. &ldquo;What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow? Hockin legs
+      wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings. And you poor grinning ninnies, as
+      ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that ye had them to-morrow.
+      However, ye've had warning, and ye can't blame me. The power of the Lord
+      is in the air and sea. Is this the sort of stuff ye trust in?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He set one foot against our Major's wall&mdash;an action scarcely honest
+      while it was so green&mdash;and, coming from a hale and very thickset man,
+      the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward. Rattle, rattle went the
+      new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated fellows down below.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You'll try the walls of a jail,&rdquo; cried one. &ldquo;You go to Noah's Ark,&rdquo;
+       shouted another. The rest bade him go to a place much worse; but he
+      buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without spoiling the
+      effect by any more weak words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Right you are,&rdquo; cried my flyman&mdash;&ldquo;right you are, Master Banks. Them
+      lubbers will sing another song to-morrow. Gee up, old hoss, then!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      All this, and the ominous scowl of the sky and menacing roar of the sea
+      (already crowding with black rollers), disturbed me so that I could say
+      nothing, until, at the corner of the grand new hotel, we met Major Hockin
+      himself, attired in a workman's loose jacket, and carrying a shovel. He
+      was covered with mud and dried flakes of froth, and even his short white
+      whiskers were incrusted with sparkles of brine; but his face was ruddy and
+      smiling, and his manner as hearty as ever.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You here, Erema! Oh, I beg pardon&mdash;Baroness Castlewood, if you
+      please. My dear, again I congratulate you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have as little cause to do that as I fear I can find in your case.
+      You have no news for me from America? How sad! But what a poor plight you
+      yourself are in!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not a bit of it. At first sight you might think so; and we certainly have
+      had a very busy time. Send back the fly. Leave your bag at our hotel.
+      Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's luggage. One piece of luck befalls
+      me&mdash;to receive so often this beautiful hand. What a lot of young
+      fellows now would die of envy&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am glad that you still can talk nonsense,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;for I truly was
+      frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even standing in
+      the water.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It will do them good. It will settle the foundations and crystallize the
+      mortar. They will look twice as well when they come out again, and never
+      have rats or black beetles. We were foolish enough to be frightened at
+      first; and there may have been danger a fortnight ago. But since that tide
+      we have worked day and night, and every thing is now so stable that fear
+      is simply ridiculous. On the whole, it has been a most excellent thing&mdash;quite
+      the making, in fact, of Bruntsea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then Bruntsea must be made of water,&rdquo; I replied, gazing sadly at the gulf
+      which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and Baths, the Bastion
+      Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the streaky turmoil and misty scud
+      of the waves were seen.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Made of beer, more likely,&rdquo; he retorted, with a laugh. &ldquo;If my fellows
+      worked like horses&mdash;which they did&mdash;they also drank like fishes.
+      Their mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said. But the total
+      abstainers were the worst, being out of practice with the can. However,
+      let us make no complaints. We ought to be truly thankful; and I shall miss
+      the exercise. That is why you have heard so little from me. You see the
+      position at a glance. I have never been to Paris at all, Erema. I have not
+      rubbed up my parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows. I was stopped by a
+      telegram about this job&mdash;acrior illum. I had some Latin once, quite
+      enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my elbows; and to
+      ladies (by some superstition) it is rude&mdash;though they treat us to bad
+      French enough. Never mind. What I want to say is this, that I have done
+      nothing, but respected your sad trouble; for you took a wild fancy to that
+      poor bedridden, who never did you a stroke of good except about
+      Cosmopolitan Jack, and whose removal has come at the very nick of time.
+      For what could you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each
+      other's throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the very
+      best, squared up in greenbacks?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin. If all your plans were not under
+      water, I should be quite put out with you. My cousin was not bedridden;
+      neither was he at all incapable, as you have called him once or twice. He
+      was an infinitely superior man to&mdash;to what one generally sees; and
+      when you have heard what I have to tell, in his place you would have done
+      just as he did. And as for money, and 'happy release'&mdash;as the people
+      who never want it for themselves express it&mdash;such words simply sicken
+      me; at great times they are so sordid.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What is there in this world that is not sordid&mdash;to the young in one
+      sense, and to the old in another?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so unable to
+      make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part at my juvenile
+      arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep impression from sudden stamp
+      of philosophy. I had nothing to say in reply, and he went up in my opinion
+      greatly.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, &ldquo;Erema, come and see your
+      dear aunt Mary. She has had an attack of rheumatic gout in her
+      thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her life, and by far
+      the most brilliant of her cocks (worth 20 pounds they tell me) breathed
+      his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or croup, or something. This is why
+      you have not heard again from her. I have been in the trenches day and
+      night, stoning out the sea with his own stones, by a new form of concrete
+      discovered by myself. And unless I am very much mistaken&mdash;in fact, I
+      do not hesitate to say&mdash;But such things are not in your line at all.
+      Let us go up to the house. Our job is done, and I think Master Neptune may
+      pound away in vain. I have got a new range in the kitchen now, partly of
+      my own invention; you can roast, or bake, or steam, or stew, or frizzle
+      kabobs&mdash;all by turning a screw. And not only that, but you can keep
+      things hot, piping hot, and ripening, as it were, better than when they
+      first were done. Instead of any burned iron taste, or scum on the gravy,
+      or clottiness, they mellow by waiting, and make their own sauce. If I ever
+      have time I shall patent this invention; why, you may burn brick-dust in
+      it, Bath-brick, hearth-stone, or potsherds! At any hour of the day or
+      night, while the sea is in this condition, I may want my dinner; and there
+      we have it. We say grace immediately, and down we sit. Let us take it by
+      surprise, if it can be taken so. Up through my chief drive, instanter! I
+      think that I scarcely ever felt more hungry. The thought of that range
+      always sets me off. And one of its countless beauties is the noble juicy
+      fragrance.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Major Hockin certainly possessed the art&mdash;so meritorious in a host&mdash;of
+      making people hungry; and we mounted the hill with alacrity, after passing
+      his letter-box, which reminded me of the mysterious lady. He pointed to
+      &ldquo;Desolate Hole,&rdquo; as he called it, and said that he believed she was there
+      still, though she never came out now to watch their house. And a man of
+      dark and repelling aspect had been seen once or twice by his workmen,
+      during the time of their night relays, rapidly walking toward Desolate
+      Hole. How any one could live in such a place, with the roar and the spray
+      of the sea, as it had been, at the very door, and through the windows,
+      some people might understand, but not the Major.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness, and
+      scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all people seem to
+      do when conscious of having neglected that duty themselves. Then she
+      showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly was a little swollen; and
+      then she poured forth her gratitude for her many blessings, as she always
+      did after any little piece of grumbling. And I told her that if at her age
+      I were only a quarter as pleasant and sweet of temper, I should consider
+      myself a blessing to any man.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the
+      purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he admired
+      so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him. Then I told him
+      that, through a thing wholly unexpected&mdash;the confession of the
+      criminal himself&mdash;no journey to Paris was needful now. I repeated
+      that strange and gloomy tale, to the loud accompaniment of a rising wind
+      and roaring sea, while both my friends listened intently.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now what can have led him so to come to you?&rdquo; they asked; &ldquo;and what do
+      you mean to do about it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not be made
+      in my cousin's lifetime. But the telling of his tale made him feel so
+      strange that he really could not remember what it was. As to what I am to
+      do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is beyond my decision.&rdquo; Mrs.
+      Hockin began to reply, but stopped, looking dutifully at her lord.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way,&rdquo; the
+      Major said. &ldquo;You are a British subject, I suppose, and you must obey the
+      laws of the country. A man has confessed to you a murder&mdash;no matter
+      whether it was committed twenty years ago or two minutes; no matter
+      whether it was a savage, cold-blooded, premeditated crime, or whether
+      there were things to palliate it. Your course is the same; you must hand
+      him over. In fact, you ought never to have let him go.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How could I help it?&rdquo; I pleaded, with surprise. &ldquo;It was impossible for me
+      to hold him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then you should have shot him with his own pistol. He offered it to you.
+      You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and told him that he
+      was a dead man if he stirred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Aunt Mary, would you have done that?&rdquo; I asked. &ldquo;It is so easy to talk of
+      fine things! But in the first place, I had no wish to stop him; and in the
+      next, I could not if I had.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear,&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view of the
+      subject, &ldquo;I should have done exactly what you did. If the laws of this
+      country ordain that women are to carry them out against great strong men,
+      who, after all, have been sadly injured, why, it proves that women ought
+      to make the laws, which to my mind is simply ridiculous.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0054" id="link2HCH0054">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LIV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BRUNTSEA DEFEATED
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      Little sleep had I that night. Such conflict was in my mind about the
+      proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind outside, above
+      and between the distant uproar of the long tumultuous sea. Of that sound
+      much was intercepted by the dead bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung
+      fiercely over this, and rattled through all shelter. In the morning the
+      storm was furious; but the Major declared that his weather-glass had
+      turned, which proved that the gale was breaking. The top of the tide would
+      be at one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he was rather
+      proud of&mdash;the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his patent
+      concrete.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My dear, I scarcely like such talk,&rdquo; Mrs. Hockin gently interposed. &ldquo;To
+      me it seems almost defiant of the power of the Lord. Remember what
+      happened to poor Smeaton&mdash;at least I think his name was Smeaton, or
+      Stanley, was it? But I dare say you know best. He defied the strength of
+      the Lord, like the people at the mouth of their tent, and he was swallowed
+      up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book. Rasper's fly is waiting for us, and
+      the parson has no manners. When he drops off, I present to the living; and
+      I am not at all sure that I shall let George have it. He is fond of
+      processions, and all that stuff. The only procession in the Church of
+      England is that of the lord of the manor to his pew. I will be the master
+      in my own church.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be. It always was so in my
+      father's parish. But you must not speak so of our poor George. He may be
+      'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows what is due to his family,
+      and he has a large one coming.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and buffets of
+      wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the seaward window was
+      white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth, and the drift of
+      sea-scud. I tried to look out, but the blur and the dash obscured the
+      sight of every thing. And though in this lower road we were partly
+      sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver was several times obliged to
+      pull his poor horse up and face the wind, for fear of our being blown
+      over.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in the good
+      old town, at the head of a street whose principal object now certainly is
+      to lead to it. Three hundred years ago that street had business of its own
+      to think of, and was brave perhaps with fine men and maids at the time of
+      the Spanish Armada. Its only bravery now was the good old church, and some
+      queer gables, and a crypt (which was true to itself by being buried up to
+      the spandrels), and one or two corners where saints used to stand, until
+      they were pelted out of them, and where fisher-like men, in the lodging
+      season, stand selling fish caught at Billingsgate. But to Bruntsea itself
+      the great glory of that street was rather of hope than of memory. Bailiff
+      Hopkins had taken out three latticed windows, and put in one grand one of
+      plate-glass, with &ldquo;finishing&rdquo; blinds all varnished. And even on a Sunday
+      morning Bruntsea wanted to know what ever the bailiff was at behind them.
+      Some said that he did all his pickling on a Sunday; and by putting up
+      &ldquo;spectacle glass&rdquo; he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try
+      his focus.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Despite all the rattle and roar of the wind, we went on in church as
+      usual. The vicar had a stout young curate from Durham, who could outshout
+      any tempest, with a good stone wall between them; and the Bruntsea folk
+      were of thicker constitution than to care an old hat for the weather.
+      Whatever was &ldquo;sent by the Lord&rdquo; they took with a grumble, but no
+      excitement. The clock in front of the gallery told the time of the day as
+      five minutes to twelve, when the vicar, a pleasant old-fashioned man,
+      pronounced his text, which he always did thrice over to make us sure of
+      it. And then he hitched up his old black gown, and directed his gaze at
+      the lord of the manor, to impress the whole church with authority. Major
+      Hockin acknowledged in a proper manner this courtesy of the minister by
+      rubbing up his crest, and looking even more wide-awake than usual; whereas
+      Aunt Mary, whose kind heart longed to see her own son in that pulpit,
+      calmly settled back her shoulders, and arranged her head and eyes so well
+      as to seem at a distance in rapt attention, while having a nice little
+      dream of her own. But suddenly all was broken up. The sexton (whose
+      license as warden of the church, and even whose duty it was to hear the
+      sermon only fitfully, from the tower arch, where he watched the boys, and
+      sniffed the bakehouse of his own dinner)&mdash;to the consternation of
+      every body, this faithful man ran up the nave, with his hands above his
+      head, and shouted,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;All Brownzee be awash, awash&rdquo;&mdash;sounding it so as to rhyme with
+      &ldquo;lash&rdquo;&mdash;&ldquo;the zea, the zea be all over us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window behind him,
+      while all the congregation rose.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is too true,&rdquo; the preacher cried; &ldquo;the sea is in over the bank, my
+      friends. Every man must rush to his own home. The blessing of the Lord be
+      on you through His fearful visitation!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He had no time to say more; and we thought it very brave of him to say
+      that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he had a wife
+      and children sick. In half a minute the church was empty, and the street
+      below it full of people, striving and struggling against the blast, and
+      breasting it at an incline like swimmers, but beaten back ever and anon
+      and hurled against one another, with tattered umbrellas, hats gone, and
+      bonnets hanging. And among them, like gulls before the wind, blew dollops
+      of spray and chunks of froth, with every now and then a slate or pantile.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this was so bad that scarcely any body found power to speak, or think,
+      or see. The Major did his very best to lead us, but could by no means
+      manage it. And I screamed into his soundest ear to pull Aunt Mary into
+      some dry house&mdash;for she could not face such buffeting&mdash;and to
+      let me fare for myself as I might. So we left Mrs. Hockin in the bailiff's
+      house, though she wanted sadly to come with us, and on we went to behold
+      the worst. And thus, by running the byes of the wind, and craftily hugging
+      the corners, we got to the foot of the street at last, and then could go
+      no further.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting. Before us
+      rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn by the screeching
+      squalls, and tossed in clashing tufts and pinnacles. And into these came,
+      sweeping over the shattered chine of shingle, gigantic surges from the
+      outer deep, towering as they crossed the bar, and combing against the
+      sky-line, then rushing onward, and driving the huddle of the ponded waves
+      before them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tide was yet rising, and at every blow the wreck and the havoc grew
+      worse and worse. That long sweep of brick-work, the &ldquo;Grand Promenade,&rdquo;
+       bowed and bulged, with wall and window knuckled in and out, like wattles;
+      the &ldquo;Sea Parade&rdquo; was a parade of sea; and a bathing-machine wheels upward
+      lay, like a wrecked Noah's Ark, on the top of the
+      &ldquo;Saline-Silico-Calcareous Baths.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Major stood by me, while all his constructions &ldquo;went by the board,&rdquo; as
+      they say at sea; and verily every thing was at sea. I grieved for him so
+      that it was not the spray alone that put salt drops on my cheeks. And I
+      could not bear to turn and look at his good old weather-beaten face. But
+      he was not the man to brood upon his woes in silence. He might have used
+      nicer language, perhaps, but his inner sense was manful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I don't care a damn,&rdquo; he shouted, so that all the women heard him. &ldquo;I can
+      only say I am devilish glad that I never let one of those houses.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      There was a little band of seamen, under the shelter of a garden wall,
+      crouching, or sitting, or standing (or whatever may be the attitude,
+      acquired by much voyaging and experience of bad weather, which can not be
+      solved, as to centre of gravity, even by the man who does it), and these
+      men were so taken with the Major's manifesto, clinched at once and
+      clarified to them by strong, short language, that they gave him a loud
+      &ldquo;hurrah,&rdquo; which flew on the wings of the wind over house-tops. So queer
+      and sound is English feeling that now Major Hockin became in truth what
+      hitherto he was in title only&mdash;the lord and master of Bruntsea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;A boat! a boat!&rdquo; he called out again. &ldquo;We know not who are drowning. The
+      bank still breaks the waves; a stout boat surely could live inside it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, a boat could live well enough in this cockle, though never among
+      them breakers,&rdquo; old Barnes, the fisherman, answered, who used to take us
+      out for whiting; &ldquo;but Lord bless your honor, all the boats are thumped to
+      pieces, except yonner one, and who can get at her?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Before restoring his hands to their proper dwelling-place&mdash;his
+      pockets&mdash;he jerked his thumb toward a long white boat, which we had
+      not seen through the blinding scud. Bereft of its brethren, or sisters&mdash;for
+      all fluctuating things are feminine&mdash;that boat survived, in virtue of
+      standing a few feet higher than the rest. But even so, and mounted on the
+      last hump of the pebble ridge, it was rolling and reeling with stress of
+      the wind and the wash of wild water under it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How nobly our Lyceum stands!&rdquo; the Major shouted, for any thing less than
+      a shout was dumb. &ldquo;This is the time to try institutions. I am proud of my
+      foundations.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In answer to his words appeared a huge brown surge, a mountain ridge,
+      seething backward at the crest with the spread and weight of onset. This
+      great wave smote all other waves away, or else embodied them, and gathered
+      its height against the poor worn pebble bank, and descended. A roar
+      distinct above the universal roar proclaimed it; a crash of conflict shook
+      the earth, and the shattered bank was swallowed in a world of leaping
+      whiteness. When this wild mass dashed onward into the swelling flood
+      before us, there was no sign of Lyceum left, but stubs of foundation, and
+      a mangled roof rolling over and over, like a hen-coop.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, that beats every thing I ever saw,&rdquo; exclaimed the gallant Major.
+      &ldquo;What noble timber! What mortise-work! No London scamping there, my lads.
+      But what comes here? Why, the very thing we wanted! Barnes, look alive, my
+      man. Run to your house, and get a pair of oars and a bucket.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the boat, the last surviving boat of all that hailed from Bruntsea.
+      That monstrous billow had tossed it up like a school-boy's kite, and
+      dropped it whole, with an upright keel, in the inland sea, though nearly
+      half full of water. Driven on by wind and wave, it labored heavily toward
+      us; and more than once it seemed certain to sink as it broached to and
+      shipped seas again. But half a dozen bold fishermen rushed with a rope
+      into the short angry surf&mdash;to which the polled shingle bank still
+      acted as a powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had collapsed&mdash;and
+      they hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her up straight with,
+      &ldquo;Yo&mdash;heave&mdash;oh!&rdquo; and turned her on her side to drain, and then
+      launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail out the rest of the
+      water, and a pair of heavy oars brought down by Barnes, and nobody knows
+      what other things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Naught to steer with. Rudder gone!&rdquo; cried one of the men, as the furious
+      gale drove the boat, athwart the street, back again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Wants another oar,&rdquo; said Barnes. &ldquo;What a fool I were to bring only two!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Here you are!&rdquo; shouted Major Hockin. &ldquo;One of you help me to pull up this
+      pole.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Through a shattered gate they waded into a little garden, which had been
+      the pride of the season at Bruntsea; and there from the ground they tore
+      up a pole, with a board at the top nailed across it, and the following not
+      rare legend: &ldquo;Lodgings to let. Inquire within. First floor front, and back
+      parlors.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Fust-rate thing to steer with! Would never have believed you had the
+      sense!&rdquo; So shouted Barnes&mdash;a rough man, roughened by the stress of
+      storm and fright. &ldquo;Get into starn-sheets if so liketh. Ye know, ye may be
+      useful.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I defy you to push off without my sanction. Useful, indeed! I am the
+      captain of this boat. All the ground under it is mine. Did you think, you
+      set of salted radicals, that I meant to let you go without me? And all
+      among my own houses!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Look sharp, governor, if you has the pluck, then. Mind, we are more like
+      to be swamped than not.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      As the boat swung about, Major Hockin jumped in, and so, on the spur of
+      the moment, did I. We staggered all about with the heave and roll, and
+      both would have fallen on the planks, or out over, if we had not tumbled,
+      with opposite impetus, into the arms of each other. Then a great wave
+      burst and soaked us both, and we fell into sitting on a slippery seat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile two men were tugging at each oar, and Barnes himself steering
+      with the sign-board; and the head of the boat was kept against the wind
+      and the billows from our breakwater. Some of these seemed resolved (though
+      shorn of depth and height in crossing) to rush all over us and drown us in
+      the washer-women's drying ground. By skill and presence of mind, our
+      captain, Barnes, foiled all their violence, till we got a little shelter
+      from the ruins of the &ldquo;Young Men's Christian Institute.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hold all!&rdquo; cried Barnes; &ldquo;only keep her head up, while I look about what
+      there is to do.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The sight was a thing to remember; and being on the better side now of the
+      scud, because it was flying away from us, we could make out a great deal
+      more of the trouble which had befallen Bruntsea. The stormy fiord which
+      had usurped the ancient track of the river was about a furlong in width,
+      and troughed with white waves vaulting over. And the sea rushed through at
+      the bottom as well, through scores of yards of pebbles, as it did in quiet
+      weather even, when the tide was brimming. We in the tossing boat, with her
+      head to the inrush of the outer sea, were just like people sitting upon
+      the floats or rafts of a furious weir; and if any such surge had topped
+      the ridge as the one which flung our boat to us, there could be no doubt
+      that we must go down as badly as the Major's houses. However, we hoped for
+      the best, and gazed at the desolation inland.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not only the Major's great plan, but all the lower line of old Bruntsea,
+      was knocked to pieces, and lost to knowledge in freaks of wind-lashed
+      waters. Men and women were running about with favorite bits of furniture,
+      or feather-beds, or babies' cradles, or whatever they had caught hold of.
+      The butt ends of the three old streets that led down toward the sea-ground
+      were dipped, as if playing seesaw in the surf, and the storm made gangways
+      of them and lighthouses of the lamp-posts. The old public-house at the
+      corner was down, and the waves leaping in at the post-office door, and
+      wrecking the globes of the chemist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Drift and dash, and roar and rush, and the devil let loose in the thick
+      of it. My eyes are worn out with it. Take the glass, Erema, and tell us
+      who is next to be washed away. A new set of clothes-props for Mrs. Mangles
+      I paid for the very day I came back from town.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      With these words, the lord of the submarine manor (whose strength of
+      spirit amazed me) offered his pet binocular, which he never went without
+      upon his own domain. And fisherman Barnes, as we rose and fell, once more
+      saved us from being &ldquo;swamped&rdquo; by his clever way of paddling through a
+      scallop in the stern, with the board about the first floor front to let.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The seamen, just keeping way on the boat, sheltered their eyes with their
+      left hands, and fixed them on the tumultuous scene.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I also gazed through the double glass, which was a very clear one; but
+      none of us saw any human being at present in any peril.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old pilot was right, after all,&rdquo; said one; &ldquo;but what a good job as it
+      come o' middle day, and best of all of a Sunday!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I have heered say,&rdquo; replied another, &ldquo;that the like thing come to pass
+      nigh upon three hunder years agone. How did you get your things out, Jem
+      Bishop?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Jem, the only one of them whose house was in the havoc, regarded with a
+      sailor's calmness the entry of the sea through his bedroom window, and was
+      going to favor us with a narrative, when one of his mates exclaimed,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What do I see yonner, lads? Away beyond town altogether. Seemeth to me
+      like a fellow swimming. Miss, will you lend me spy-glass? Never seed a
+      double-barreled one before. Can use him with one eye shut, I s'pose?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No good that way, Joe,&rdquo; cried Barnes, with a wink of superior knowledge,
+      for he often had used this binocular. &ldquo;Shut one eye for one barrel&mdash;stands
+      to reason, then, you shut both for two, my son.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Stow that,&rdquo; said the quick-eyed sailor, as he brought the glass to bear
+      in a moment. &ldquo;It is a man in the water, lads, and swimming to save the
+      witch, I do believe.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Bless me!&rdquo; cried the Major; &ldquo;how stupid of us! I never thought once of
+      that poor woman. She must be washed out long ago. Pull for your lives, my
+      friends. A guinea apiece if you save her.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And another from me,&rdquo; I cried. Whereupon the boat swept round, and the
+      tough ash bent, and we rushed into no small danger. For nearly half a mile
+      had we to pass of raging and boisterous water, almost as wild as the open
+      sea itself at the breaches of the pebble ridge. And the risk of a heavy
+      sea boarding us was fearfully multiplied by having thus to cross the storm
+      instead of breasting it. Useless and helpless, and only in the way, and
+      battered about by wind and sea, so that my Sunday dress was become a drag,
+      what folly, what fatuity, what frenzy, I might call it, could ever have
+      led me to jump into that boat? &ldquo;I don't know. I only know that I always do
+      it,&rdquo; said my sensible self to its mad sister, as they both shut their eyes
+      at a great white wave. &ldquo;If I possibly survive, I will try to know better.
+      But ever from my childhood I am getting into scrapes.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The boat labored on, with a good many grunts, but not a word from any one.
+      More than once we were obliged to fetch up as a great billow topped the
+      poor shingle bank; and we took so much water on board that the men said
+      afterward that I saved them. I only remember sitting down and working at
+      the bucket with both hands, till much of the skin was gone, and my arms
+      and many other places ached. But what was that to be compared with
+      drowning?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length we were opposite &ldquo;Desolate Hole,&rdquo; which was a hole no longer,
+      but filled and flooded with the churning whirl and reckless dominance of
+      water. Tufts and tussocks of shattered brush and rolling wreck played
+      round it, and the old gray stone of mullioned windows split the wash like
+      mooring-posts. We passed and gazed; but the only sound was the whistling
+      of the tempest, and the only living sight a sea-gull, weary of his wings,
+      and drowning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No living creature can be there,&rdquo; the Major broke our long silence.
+      &ldquo;Land, my friends, if land we may. We risk our own lives for nothing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The men lay back on their oars to fetch the gallant boat to the wind
+      again, when through a great gap in the ruins they saw a sight that
+      startled manhood. At the back of that ruin, on the landward side, on a
+      wall which, tottered under them, there were two figures standing. One a
+      tall man, urging on, the other a woman shrinking. At a glance, or with a
+      thought, I knew them both. One was Lord Castlewood's first love, the other
+      his son and murderer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our men shouted with the whole power of their hearts to tell that
+      miserable pair to wait till succor should be brought to them. And the
+      Major stood up and waved his hat, and in doing so tumbled back again. I
+      can not tell&mdash;how could I tell in the thick of it?&mdash;but an idea
+      or a flit of fancy touched me (and afterward became conviction) that while
+      the man heard us not at all, and had no knowledge of us, his mother turned
+      round and saw us all, and faced the storm in preference.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whatever the cause may have been, at least she suddenly changed her
+      attitude. The man had been pointing to the roof, which threatened to fall
+      in a mass upon them, while she had been shuddering back from the depth of
+      eddying waves below her. But now she drew up her poor bent figure, and
+      leaned on her son to obey him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Our boat, with strong arms laboring for life, swept round the old gable of
+      the ruin; but we were compelled to &ldquo;give it wide berth,&rdquo; as Captain Barnes
+      shouted; and then a black squall of terrific wind and hail burst forth. We
+      bowed our heads and drew our bodies to their tightest compass, and every
+      rib of our boat vibrated as a violin does; and the oars were beaten flat,
+      and dashed their drip into fringes like a small-toothed comb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That great squall was either a whirlwind or the crowning blast of a
+      hurricane. It beat the high waves hollow, as if it fell from the sky upon
+      them; and it snapped off one of our oars at the hilt, so that two of our
+      men rolled backward. And when we were able to look about again the whole
+      roof of &ldquo;Desolate Hole&rdquo; was gone, and little of the walls left standing.
+      And how we should guide our course, or even save our lives, we knew not.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      We were compelled to bring up&mdash;as best we might&mdash;with the boat's
+      head to the sea, and so to keep it by using the steering gear against the
+      surviving oar. As for the people we were come to save, there was no chance
+      whatever of approaching them. Even without the mishap to the oar, we never
+      could have reached them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And indeed when first we saw them again they seemed better off than
+      ourselves were. For they were not far from dry land, and the man (a
+      skillful and powerful swimmer) had a short piece of plank, which he knew
+      how to use to support his weak companion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Brave fellow! fine fellow!&rdquo; the Major cried, little knowing whom he was
+      admiring. &ldquo;See how he keeps up his presence of mind! Such a man as that is
+      worth any thing. And he cares more for her than he does for himself. He
+      shall have the Society's medal. One more long and strong stroke, my noble
+      friend. Oh, great God! what has befallen him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      In horror and pity we gazed. The man had been dashed against something
+      headlong. He whirled round and round in white water, his legs were thrown
+      up, and we saw no more of him. The woman cast off the plank, and tossed
+      her helpless arms in search of him. A shriek, ringing far on the billowy
+      shore, declared that she had lost him; and then, without a struggle, she
+      clasped her hands, and the merciless water swallowed her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is all over,&rdquo; cried Major Hockin, lifting his drenched hat solemnly.
+      &ldquo;The Lord knoweth best. He has taken them home.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0055" id="link2HCH0055">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LV
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      A DEAD LETTER
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of the
+      compass than I can tell. Barnes, the fisherman, said how many; but I might
+      be quite wrong in repeating it. One thing, at any rate, was within my
+      compass&mdash;it had been blowing to the top of its capacity, direct from
+      the sea, but now it began to blow quite as hard along the shore. This
+      rough ingratitude of wind to waves, which had followed each breath of its
+      orders, produced extraordinary passion, and raked them into pointed
+      wind-cocks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Captain, we can't live this out,&rdquo; cried Barnes; &ldquo;we must run her ashore
+      at once; tide has turned; we might be blown out to sea, with one oar, and
+      then the Lord Himself couldn't save us.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Crippled as we were, we contrived to get into a creek, or backwater, near
+      the Major's gate. Here the men ran the boat up, and we all climbed out,
+      stiff, battered, and terrified, but doing our best to be most truly
+      thankful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Go home, Captain, as fast as you can, and take the young lady along of
+      you,&rdquo; said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the weltering breadth of
+      disaster. &ldquo;We are born to the drip, but not you, Sir; and you are not so
+      young as you was, you know.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I am younger than ever I was,&rdquo; the lord of the manor answered, sternly,
+      yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his better half&mdash;who
+      had not even heard of his danger. &ldquo;None of that nonsense to me, Barnes.
+      You know your position, and I know mine. On board of that boat you took
+      the lead, and that may have misled you. I am very much obliged to you, I
+      am sure, for all your skill and courage, which have saved the lives of all
+      of us. But on land you will just obey me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Sartinly, Captain. What's your orders?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Nothing at all. I give no orders. I only make suggestions. But if your
+      experience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let us try it at
+      once&mdash;at once, Barnes. Erema, run home. This is no scene for you. And
+      tell Margaret to put on the double-bottomed boiler, with the stock she
+      made on Friday, and a peck of patent pease. There is nothing to beat pea
+      soup; and truly one never knows what may happen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Running up his &ldquo;drive&rdquo; to deliver that message, at one of the many bends I
+      saw people from Bruntsea hurrying along a footpath through the dairy-farm.
+      While the flood continued this was their only way to meet the boat's crew.
+      On the steps of &ldquo;Smuggler's Castle&rdquo; (as Bruntlands House was still called
+      by the wicked) I turned again, and the new sea-line was fringed with
+      active searchers. I knew what they were looking for, but, scared and
+      drenched and shivering as I was, no more would I go near them. My duty was
+      rather to go in and comfort dear Aunt Mary and myself. In that melancholy
+      quest I could do no good, but a great deal of harm, perhaps, if any thing
+      was found, by breaking forth about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mrs. Hockin had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered.
+      Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Rasper's fly by an inland road, and
+      she kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband, to distract his mind
+      from disaster. That trouble had happened she could not look out of her
+      window without knowing; but could it be right, at their time of life, to
+      stand in the wet so, and challenge Providence, and spoil the first
+      turkey-poult of the season?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But when she heard of her husband's peril, in the midst of all his losses,
+      his self-command, and noble impulse first of all to rescue life, she burst
+      into tears, and hugged and kissed me, and said the same thing nearly fifty
+      times.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Just like him. Just like my Nicholas. You thought him a speculative,
+      selfish man. Now you see your mistake, Erema.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      When her veteran husband came home at last (thoroughly jaded, and bringing
+      his fishermen to gulp the pea soup and to gollop the turkey), a small
+      share of mind, but a large one of heart, is required to imagine her
+      doings. Enough that the Major kept saying, &ldquo;Pooh-pooh!&rdquo; and the more he
+      said, the less he got of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When feelings calmed down, and we returned to facts, our host and hero
+      (who, in plain truth, had not so wholly eclipsed me in courage, though of
+      course I expected no praise, and got none, for people hate courage in a
+      lady), to put it more simply, the Major himself, making a considerable
+      fuss, as usual&mdash;for to my mind he never could be Uncle Sam&mdash;produced
+      from the case of his little &ldquo;Church Service,&rdquo; to which he had stuck like a
+      Briton, a sealed and stamped letter, addressed to me at Castlewood, in
+      Berkshire&mdash;&ldquo;stamped,&rdquo; not with any post-office tool, but merely with
+      the red thing which pays the English post.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sodden and blurred as the writing was, I knew the clear, firm hand, the
+      same which on the envelope at Shoxford had tempted me to meanness. This
+      letter was from Thomas Hoyle; the Major had taken it from the pocket of
+      his corpse; all doubt about his death was gone. When he felt his feet on
+      the very shore, and turned to support his mother, a violent wave struck
+      the back of his head upon Major Hockin's pillar-box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such sadness came into my heart&mdash;though sternly it should have been
+      gladness&mdash;that I begged their pardon, and went away, as if with a
+      private message. And wicked as it may have been, to read was more than
+      once to cry. The letter began abruptly:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You know nearly all my story now. I have only to tell you what brought me
+      to you, and what my present offer is. But to make it clear, I must enlarge
+      a little.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself. He
+      forbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly, perhaps, to
+      secure my escape, and partly for other reasons. If he had been brought to
+      trial, his duty to his family and himself would have led him, no doubt, to
+      explain things. And if that had failed, I would have returned and
+      surrendered myself. As things happened, there was no need.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless the
+      whole has been piled on my head, your father's home was destroyed, and he
+      seems to have lost all care for every thing. Yet how much better off was
+      he than I! Upon me the curse fell at birth; upon him, after thirty years
+      of ease and happiness. However, for that very reason, perhaps, he bore it
+      worse than I did. He grew imbittered against the world, which had in no
+      way ill-treated him; whereas its very first principle is to scorn all such
+      as I am. He seems to have become a misanthrope, and a fatalist like
+      myself. Though it might almost make one believe the existence of such a
+      thing as justice to see pride pay for its wickedness thus&mdash;the injury
+      to the outcast son recoil upon the pampered one, and the family arrogance
+      crown itself with the ignominy of the family.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In any case, there was no necessity for my interference; and being denied
+      by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally driven to double my
+      duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging upon mine. So we two for
+      many years wandered about, shunning islands and insular prejudice. I also
+      shunned your father, though (so far as I know) he neither sought me nor
+      took any trouble to clear himself. If the one child now left him had been
+      a son, heir to the family property and so on, he might have behaved quite
+      otherwise, and he would have been bound to do so. But having only a female
+      child, who might never grow up, and, if she did, was very unlikely to
+      succeed, he must have resolved at least to wait. And perhaps he confirmed
+      himself with the reflection that even if people believed his tale (so long
+      after date and so unvouched), so far as family annals were concerned, the
+      remedy would be as bad as the disease. Moreover, he owed his life to me,
+      at great risk of my own; and to pay such a debt with the hangman's rope
+      would scarcely appear quite honorable, even in the best society.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from my
+      knowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps. We went
+      our several ways in the world, neither of us very fortunate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;One summer, in the Black Forest, I fell in with an outcast Englishman,
+      almost as great a vagabond as myself. He was under the ban of the law for
+      writing his father's name without license. He did not tell me that, or
+      perhaps even I might have despised him, for I never was dishonest. But one
+      great bond there was between us&mdash;we both detested laws and men. My
+      intimacy with him is the one thing in life which I am ashamed of. He
+      passed by a false name then, of course. But his true name was Montague
+      Hockin. My mother was in very weak health then, and her mind for the most
+      part clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I had done
+      for her sake. That man pretended to take the greatest interest in her
+      condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could cure her.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple villages,
+      subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the little income left by
+      my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle. But, compared with Hockin, we were well off;
+      and he did his best to swindle us. Luckily all my faith in mankind was
+      confined to the feminine gender, and not much even of that survived. In a
+      very little time I saw that people may repudiate law as well from being
+      below as from being above it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt of
+      every thing. We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all our
+      kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two. Let me go into
+      Freyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen. I asked him nothing as to
+      what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of him, as of every body.
+      However, I thought it just worth while, having some one who bought my
+      wicker-work, to enter the outskirts of the town on the following evening,
+      and wait to be told if any news was stirring. And the people were amazed
+      at my not knowing that last night the wife of an English lord&mdash;for so
+      they called him, though no lord yet&mdash;had run away with a
+      golden-bearded man, believed to be also English.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;About that you know more, perhaps, than I do. But I wish you to know what
+      that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity. Of Herbert Castlewood
+      I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say (as Sir Montague
+      Hockin has said) that I plotted all that wickedness, from spite toward all
+      of the Castlewood name, is to tell as foul a lie as even he can well
+      indulge in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word of mine.
+      To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. But he seems
+      to have guessed at once that there was something strange in my history;
+      and then, after spying and low prying at my mother, to have shaped his own
+      conclusion. Then, having entirely under his power that young fool who left
+      a kind husband for him, he conceived a most audacious scheme. This was no
+      less than to rob your cousin, the last Lord Castlewood, not of his wife
+      and jewels and ready money only, but also of all the disposable portion of
+      the Castlewood estates. For the lady's mother had taken good care, like a
+      true Hungarian, to have all the lands settled upon her daughter, so far as
+      the husband could deal with them. And though, at the date of the marriage,
+      he could not really deal at all with them&mdash;your father being still
+      alive&mdash;it appears that his succession (when it afterward took place)
+      was bound, at any rate, as against himself. A divorce might have canceled
+      this&mdash;I can not say&mdash;but your late cousin was the last man in
+      the world to incur the needful exposure. Upon this they naturally counted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right as 'Lady
+      Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but even then found
+      her master in a man of deeper wickedness. But if her poor husband desired
+      revenge&mdash;which he does not seem to have done, perhaps&mdash;he could
+      not have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, which
+      devoured her beauty, like Herod and his glory. I believe that she still
+      lives, but no one can go near her; least of all, the fastidious Montague.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed, &ldquo;Thank
+      God!&rdquo; I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime of me to do it
+      even once.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little accident&mdash;for
+      he meant to have married the lady after her husband's death, and set you
+      at defiance; but even he could not do that now, little as he cares for
+      opinion&mdash;what did he do but shift hands altogether? He made up his
+      mind to confer the honor of his hand on you, having seen you somewhere in
+      London, and his tactics became the very opposite of what they had been
+      hitherto. Your father's innocence now must be maintained instead of his
+      guiltiness.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police after
+      me&mdash;me, who could snap all their noses off! For he saw how your heart
+      was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his serf forever, by
+      the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed, as they always
+      do. He also failed in his overtures to you.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no ill-will,
+      but rather admire your courage. You acted in a straightforward way, and
+      employed no dirty agency. Of your simple devices I had no fear. However, I
+      thought it as well to keep an eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy old fool,
+      some relation of his, who had brought you back from America. To this end I
+      kept my head-quarters near him, and established my mother comfortably. She
+      was ordered sea air, and has had enough. To-morrow I shall remove her. By
+      the time you receive this letter we shall both be far away, and come back
+      no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin. Without personal violence
+      this will be done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just. My
+      mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and comfort. She has
+      wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her 300 pounds a year, to be
+      paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing. You
+      will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which she sets
+      great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back to England. I
+      happen to know that you have it now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the whole
+      truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as people will
+      say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you also, to hear no
+      more of
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;THOMAS HOYLE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;P.S.&mdash;Of course I am trusting your honor in this. But your father's
+      daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already proved.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0056" id="link2HCH0056">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LVI
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      WITH HIS OWN SWORD
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;What a most wonderful letter!&rdquo; cried the Major, when, after several
+      careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him. &ldquo;He calls me a
+      'worthy old fool,' does he? Well, I call him something a great deal worse&mdash;an
+      unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a subverter of rank, and a Radical! And because
+      he was a bastard, is the whole world base? And to come and live like that
+      in a house of mine, and pay me no rent, and never even let me see him!
+      Your grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him the cold
+      shoulder. Of course you won't pay him a farthing.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You forget that he is dead,&rdquo; I answered, &ldquo;and his poor mother with him.
+      At least he behaved well to his mother. You called him a hero&mdash;when
+      you knew not who he was. Poor fellow, he is dead! And, in spite of all, I
+      can not help being very sorry for him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I dare say. Women always are. But you must show a little
+      common-sense, Erema. Your grandfather seems to have had too much, and your
+      father far too little. We must keep this matter quiet. Neither the man nor
+      the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall have in all the county
+      papers. There must be an inquest, of course, upon them both; but none of
+      the fellows read this direction, for the admirable reason that they can
+      not read. Our coming forward could do no good, and just now Bruntsea has
+      other things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin, as they say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Please not to talk of that,&rdquo; I exclaimed. &ldquo;I can raise any quantity of
+      money now, and you shall have it without paying interest. You wanted the
+      course of the river restored, and now you have more&mdash;you have got the
+      very sea. You could float the Bridal Veil itself, I do believe, at
+      Bruntsea.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You have suggested a fine idea,&rdquo; the Major exclaimed, with emphasis. &ldquo;You
+      certainly should have been an engineer. It is a thousand times easier&mdash;as
+      every body knows&mdash;to keep water in than to keep it out. Having burst
+      my barricade, the sea shall stop inside and pay for it. Far less capital
+      will be required. By Jove, what a fool I must have been not to see the
+      hand of Providence in all this! Mary, can you spare me a minute, my dear?
+      The noblest idea has occurred to me. Well, never mind, if you are busy;
+      perhaps I had better not state it crudely, though it is not true that it
+      happens every hour. I shall turn it over in my mind throughout the evening
+      service. I mean to be there, just to let them see. They think that I am
+      crushed, of course. They will see their mistake; and, Erema, you may come.
+      The gale is over, and the evening bright. You sit by the fire, Mary, my
+      dear; I shall not let you out again; keep the silver kettle boiling. In
+      church I always think more clearly than where people talk so much. But
+      when I come home I require something. I see, I see. Instead of an idle,
+      fashionable lounging-place for nincompoops from London, instead of
+      flirtation and novel-reading, vulgarity, show, and indecent attire, and
+      positively immoral bathing, we will now have industry, commerce, wealth,
+      triumph of mechanism, lofty enterprise, and international good-will. A
+      harbor has been the great want of this coast; see what a thing it is at
+      Newport! We will now have a harbor and floating docks, without any muddy,
+      malarious river&mdash;all blue water from the sea; and our fine cliff
+      range shall be studded with good houses. And the whole shall be called
+      'Erema-port.'&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not at
+      Bruntsea. Enough for this excellent man and that still more excellent
+      woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the day is long&mdash;which
+      imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps, inasmuch as to the busy every
+      day is short. But Mrs. Hockin, though as full of fowls as ever, gets no
+      White Sultans nor any other rarity now from Sir Montague Hockin. That
+      gentleman still is alive&mdash;so far, at least, as we have heard of; but
+      no people owning any self-respect ever deal with him, to their knowledge.
+      He gambled away all his father's estates, and the Major bought the last of
+      them for his youngest son, a very noble Captain Hockin (according to his
+      mother's judgment), whom I never had the honor of seeing. Sir Montague
+      lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his cousin still hopes that he may
+      turn honest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a few words to
+      be said. As soon as all necessary things were done at Bruntsea and at
+      Castlewood, and my father's memory cleared from all stain, and by simple
+      truth ennobled, in a manner strictly legal and consistent with heavy
+      expenses, myself having made a long deposition and received
+      congratulations&mdash;as soon as it was possible, I left them all, and set
+      sail for America.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The rashness of such a plan it is more easy for one to establish than two
+      to deny. But what was there in it of peril or of enterprise compared with
+      what I had been through already? I could not keep myself now from going,
+      and reasoned but little about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Meanwhile there had been no further tidings of Colonel Gundry or Firm, or
+      even Martin of the Mill himself. But one thing I did which showed some
+      little foresight. As soon as my mind was made up, and long before ever I
+      could get away, I wrote to Martin Clogfast, telling him of my intention,
+      and begging him, if he had any idea of the armies, or the Sawyer, or even
+      Firm, or any thing whatever of interest, to write (without losing a day)
+      to me, directing his letter to a house in New York whose address Major
+      Hockin gave me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So many things had to be done, and I listened so foolishly to the Major
+      (who did his very best to stop me), that it came to be May, 1862 (nearly
+      four years after my father's death), before I could settle all my plans
+      and start. For every body said that I was much too young to take such a
+      journey all by myself, and &ldquo;what every body says must be right,&rdquo; whenever
+      there is no exception to prove the rule. &ldquo;Aunt Marys&rdquo; are not to be found
+      every day, nor even Major Hockins; and this again helped to throw me back
+      in getting away from England. And but for his vast engineering ideas, and
+      another slight touch of rheumatic gout (brought upon herself by Mrs.
+      Hockin through setting seven hens in one evening), the Major himself might
+      have come with me, &ldquo;to observe the new military tactics,&rdquo; as well as to
+      look for his cousin Sampson.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In recounting this I seem to be as long as the thing itself was in
+      accomplishing. But at last it was done, and most kindly was I offered the
+      very thing to suit me&mdash;permission to join the party of a well-known
+      British officer, Colonel Cheriton, of the Engineers. This gentleman, being
+      of the highest repute as a writer upon military subjects, had leave from
+      the Federal government to observe the course of this tremendous war. And
+      perhaps he will publish some day what seems as yet to be wholly wanting&mdash;a
+      calm and impartial narrative of that unparalleled conflict. At any rate,
+      he meant to spare no trouble in a matter so instructive, and he took his
+      wife and two daughters&mdash;very nice girls, who did me a world of good&mdash;to
+      establish them in Washington, or wherever the case might require.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lucky as this was for me, I could not leave my dear and faithful friends
+      without deep sorrow; but we all agreed that it should be only for a very
+      little time. We landed first at New York, and there I found two letters
+      from Martin of the Mill. In the first he grumbled much, and told me that
+      nothing was yet known about Uncle Sam; in the second he grumbled (if
+      possible) more, but gave me some important news. To wit, he had received a
+      few lines from the Sawyer, who had failed as yet to find his grandson, and
+      sadly lamented the misery he saw, and the shocking destruction of God's
+      good works. He said that he could not bring himself to fight (even if he
+      were young enough) against his own dear countrymen, one of whom was his
+      own grandson; at the same time he felt that they must be put down for
+      trying to have things too much their own way. About slavery, he had seen
+      too much of niggers to take them at all for his equals, and no white man
+      with any self-respect would desire to be their brother. The children of
+      Ham were put down at the bottom, as their noses and their lips pronounced,
+      according to Divine revelation; and for sons of Japheth to break up the
+      noblest nation in the world, on their account, was like rushing in to
+      inherit their curse. As sure as his name was Sampson Gundry, those who had
+      done it would get the worst, though as yet they were doing wonders. And
+      there could be no doubt about one thing&mdash;which party it was that
+      began it. But come what would of it, here he was; and never would
+      Saw-mills see him again unless he brought Firm Gundry. But he wanted news
+      of poor Miss 'Rema; and if any came to the house, they must please to send
+      it to the care of Colonel Baker, headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This was the very thing I wished to know, and I saw now how stupid I must
+      have been not to have thought of it long ago. For Colonel Baker was, to my
+      knowledge, an ancient friend of Uncle Sam, and had joined the national
+      army at the very outbreak of the war. Well known not only in California,
+      but throughout the States, for gallantry and conduct, this officer had
+      been a great accession to the Federal cause, when so many wavered, and so
+      he was appointed to a good command. But, alas! when I told Colonel
+      Cheriton my news, I learned from him (who had carefully watched all the
+      incidents of the struggle) that Uncle Sam's noble friend had fallen in the
+      battle of Ball's Bluff, while charging at the head of his regiment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Still, there was hope that some of the officers might know where to find
+      Uncle Sam, who was not at all a man to be mislaid; and being allowed to
+      accompany my English friends, I went on to Washington. We found that city
+      in a highly nervous state, and from time to time ready to be captured.
+      General Jackson was almost at the gates, and the President every day was
+      calling out for men. The Army of Virginia had been beaten back to
+      intrenchments before the capital, and General Lee was invading Maryland.
+      Battle followed battle, thick as blows upon a threshing-floor, and though
+      we were always said to be victorious, the enemy seemed none the more to
+      run away. In this confusion, what chance had I of discovering even the
+      Sawyer?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Colonel Cheriton (who must have found me a dreadful thorn in the flank of
+      his strategy) missed no opportunity of inquiry, as he went from one valley
+      to another. For the war seemed to run along the course of rivers, though
+      it also passed through the forests and lakes, and went up into the
+      mountains. Our wonderfully clever and kind member of the British army was
+      delighted with the movements of General Lee, who alone showed scientific
+      elegance in slaying his fellow-countrymen; and the worst of it was that
+      instead of going after my dear Uncle Sam, Colonel Cheriton was always
+      rushing about with maps, plans, and telescopes, to follow the tracery of
+      Lee's campaign. To treat of such matters is far beyond me, as I am most
+      thankful to confess. Neither will I dare to be sorry for a great man doing
+      what became his duty. My only complaint against him is that he kept us in
+      a continual fright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      However, this went by, and so did many other things, though heavily laden
+      with grief and death; and the one thing we learned was to disbelieve
+      ninety-nine out of every hundred. Letters for the Sawyer were dispatched
+      by me to every likely place for him, and advertisements put into countless
+      newspapers, but none of them seemed to go near him. Old as he was, he
+      avoided feather-beds, and roamed like a true Californian. But at last I
+      found him, in a sad, sad way.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was after the battle of Chancellorsville, and our army had been driven
+      back across the Rappahannock. &ldquo;Our army,&rdquo; I call it, because (although we
+      belonged to neither party) fortune had brought us into contact with these,
+      and knowing more about them, we were bound to take their side. And not
+      only that, but to me it appeared altogether beyond controversy that a man
+      of large mind and long experience (such as Uncle Sam had) should know much
+      better than his grandson which cause was the one to fight for. At the same
+      time Firm was not at all to be condemned. And if it was true, as Martin
+      Clogfast said, that trouble of mind at my absence had driven him into a
+      prejudiced view, nothing could possibly be more ungracious than for me to
+      make light of his judgment.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Being twenty years old by this time, I was wiser than I used to be, and
+      now made a practice of thinking twice before rushing into peril, as I used
+      to do in California, and to some extent also in England. For though my
+      adventures might not have been as strange as many I myself have heard of
+      (especially from Suan Isco), nevertheless they had comprised enough of
+      teaching and suffering also to make me careful about having any more. And
+      so for a long time I kept at the furthest distance possible, in such a
+      war, from the vexing of the air with cannons, till even Colonel Cheriton's
+      daughters&mdash;perfectly soft and peaceful girls&mdash;began to despise
+      me as a coward. Knowing what I had been through, I indulged their young
+      opinions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Therefore they were the more startled when I set forth under a sudden
+      impulse, or perhaps impatience, for a town very near the head-quarters of
+      the defeated General Hooker. As they were so brave, I asked them whether
+      they would come with me; but although their father was known to be there,
+      they turned pale at the thought of it. This pleased me, and made me more
+      resolute to go; and in three days' time I was at Falmouth, a town on our
+      side of the Rappahannock.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here I saw most miserable sights that made me ashamed of all trifling
+      fear. When hundreds and thousands of gallant men were dying in crippled
+      agony, who or what was I to make any fuss about my paltry self? Clumsy as
+      I was, some kind and noble ladies taught me how to give help among the
+      sufferers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At first I cried so at every body's pain, while asking why ever they
+      should have it, that I did some good by putting them up to bear it rather
+      than distress me so. And when I began to command myself (as custom soon
+      enabled me), I did some little good again by showing them how I cared for
+      them. Their poor weak eyes, perhaps never expecting to see a nice thing in
+      the world again, used to follow me about with a faint, slow roll, and a
+      feeble spark of jealousy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That I should have had such a chance of doing good, onefold to others and
+      a thousandfold to self, at this turn of life, when I was full of little
+      me, is another of the many most clear indications of a kind hand over me.
+      Every day there was better than a year of ordinary life in breaking the
+      mind from its little selfish turns, and opening the heart to a larger
+      power. And all this discipline was needed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For one afternoon, when we all were tired, with great heat upon us
+      suddenly, and the flies beginning to be dreadful, our chief being rather
+      unwell and fast asleep, the surgeons away, and our beds as full as they
+      could be, I was called down to reason with an applicant who would take no
+      denial. &ldquo;A rough man, a very rough old man, and in a most terrible state
+      of mind,&rdquo; said the girl who brought the message; &ldquo;and room he would have,
+      or he would know the reason.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;The reason is not far to seek,&rdquo; I answered, more to myself than her, as I
+      ran down the stairs to discomfit that old man. At the open door, with the
+      hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching shriveled cheeks, now
+      wearily raising his battered hat, stood my dear Uncle Sam, the Sawyer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Lor' a massy! young lady, be you altogether daft? In my best of days,
+      never was I lips for kissing. And the bootifulest creatur&mdash;Come now,
+      I ain't saved your life, have I now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, fifty times over&mdash;fifty thousand times. Uncle Sam, don't you
+      know Erema?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;My eyes be dashed! And dashed they be, to forget the look of yours, my
+      dearie. Seven days have I marched without thanking the Lord; and hot coals
+      of fire has He poured upon me now, for His mercy endureth forever. To
+      think of you&mdash;to think of you&mdash;as like my own child as could be&mdash;only
+      of more finer breed&mdash;here standing in front of me, like this here!
+      There! I never dreamed to do that again, and would scorn a young man at
+      the sight of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping. He simply turned
+      his tanned and weathered face toward the door-post, not to hide his tears,
+      but reconcile his pride by feigning it. I felt that he must be at very low
+      ebb, and all that I had seen of other people's sorrow had no power to
+      assuage me. Inside the door, to keep the hot wind out and hide my eyes
+      from the old man's face, I had some little quiet sobs, until we could both
+      express ourselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is poor Firm, the poor, poor lad!&mdash;oh, what hath happened him?
+      That I should see the day!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam's deep voice broke into a moan, and he bowed his rough forehead
+      on his arm, and shook. Then I took him by the sleeve and brought him in.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not dead&mdash;poor Firm, your only one&mdash;not dead?&rdquo; as soon as words
+      would come, I asked, and trembled for the opening of his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Not dead&mdash;not quite; but ten times worse. He hath flown into the
+      face of the Lord, like Saul and his armor-bearer; he hath fallen on his
+      own sword; and the worst of it is that the darned thing won't come out
+      again.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Firm&mdash;the last person in the world to do it! Oh, Uncle Sam, surely
+      they have told you&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No lies&mdash;no lie at all, my dear. And not only that, but he wanteth
+      now to die&mdash;and won't be long first, I reckon. But no time to lose,
+      my dear. The Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his leaving of the
+      world. Can 'e raise a bed and a doctor here? If he would but groan, I
+      could bear it a bit, instead of bleeding inward. And for sartin sure, a'
+      would groan nicely, if only by force of habit, at first sight of a real
+      doctor.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;There are half a dozen here,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;or at least close by. He shall
+      have my own bed. But where is he?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;We have laid 'un in the sand,&rdquo; he answered, simply, &ldquo;for to dry his
+      perspiration. That weak the poor chap is that he streameth night and day,
+      miss. Never would you know him for our Firm now, any more than me for
+      Sampson Gundry. Ah me! but the Lord is hard on us!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor Firm to the hospital;
+      while, with light feet but a heavy heart, I returned to arouse our
+      managers. Speedily and well were all things done; and in half an hour Finn
+      lay upon my bed, with two of the cleverest surgeons of New York most
+      carefully examining his wasted frame. These whispered and shook their
+      heads, as in such a case was indispensable; and listening eagerly, I heard
+      the senior surgeon say, &ldquo;No, he could never bear it.&rdquo; The younger man
+      seemed to think otherwise, but to give way to the longer experience. Then
+      dear Uncle Sam, having bought a new hat at the corner of the street, came
+      forward. Knowing too well what excitement is, and how it changes every
+      one, I lifted my hand for him to go back; but he only put his great hot
+      web of fingers into mine, and drew me to him softly, and covered me up
+      with his side. &ldquo;He heareth nort, nort, nort,&rdquo; he whispered to me; and then
+      spoke aloud:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Gentlemen and ladies&mdash;or ladies and gentlemen, is the more correct
+      form nowadays&mdash;have I leave to say a word or two? Then if I have, as
+      your manner to me showeth, and heartily thanking you for that same, my
+      words shall go into an acorn-cup. This lad, laid out at your mercy here,
+      was as fine a young fellow as the West hath ever raised&mdash;straight and
+      nimble, and could tell no lie. Family reasons, as you will excoose of,
+      drew him to the arms of rebellion. I may have done, and overdone it
+      myself, in arguing cantrips and convictions, whereof to my knowledge good
+      never came yet. At any rate, off he went anyhow, and the force of nature
+      drew me after him. No matter that to you, I dare say; but it would be, if
+      you was in it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, and no harm can you make out of him.
+      Although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking, bravely hath
+      he fought, and made his way to a colonelship, worth five thousand dollars,
+      if ever they pay their wages. Never did I think that he would earn so
+      much, having never owned gifts of machinery; and concerning the handling
+      of the dollars, perhaps, will carry my opinion out. But where was I
+      wandering of a little thing like that?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It hath pleased the Lord, who doeth all things well, when finally come to
+      look back upon&mdash;the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this young man
+      for going agin his grandfather. From Californy&mdash;a free State, mind
+      you&mdash;he come away to fight for slavery. And how hath he magnified his
+      office? By shooting the biggest man on that side, the almighty foe of the
+      Union, the foremost captain of Midian&mdash;the general in whom they
+      trusted. No bullets of ours could touch him; but by his own weapons he
+      hath fallen. And soon as Ephraim Gundry heard it, he did what you see done
+      to him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Uncle Sam having said his say&mdash;which must have cost him dearly&mdash;withdrew
+      from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax, and grimy. To be
+      sure that it was Firm, I gave one glance&mdash;for Firm had always been
+      straight, tall, and large&mdash;and then, in a miserable mood, I stole to
+      the Sawyer's side to stand with him. &ldquo;Am I to blame? Is this my fault? For
+      even this am I to blame?&rdquo; I whispered; but he did not heed me, and his
+      hands were like hard stone.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a long, hot, heavy time, while I was laboring vainly, the Sawyer
+      also (through exhaustion of excitement) weary, and afraid to begin again
+      with new bad news, as beaten people expect to do, the younger surgeon came
+      up to him, and said, &ldquo;Will you authorize it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To cut 'un up? To show your museums what a Western lad is? Never. By the
+      Blue River he shall have a good grave. So help me God, to my own, my man!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You misunderstand me. We have more subjects now than we should want for
+      fifty years. War knocks the whole of their value on the head. We have
+      fifty bodies as good as this, and are simply obliged to bury them. What I
+      mean is, shall we pull the blade out?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Can he do any thing with that there blade in him? I have heard of a man
+      in Kentucky once&mdash;&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, yes; we know all those stories, Colonel&mdash;suit the newspapers,
+      not the journals. This fellow has what must kill him inside; he is worn to
+      a shadow already. If there it is left, die he must, and quick stick;
+      inflammation is set up already. If we extract it, his chance of surviving
+      is scarcely one in a hundred.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let him have the one, then, the one in the hundred, like the ninety and
+      nine lost sheep. The Lord can multiply a hundredfold&mdash;some
+      threescore, and some an hundredfold. I will speak to Him, gentlemen, while
+      you try the job.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0057" id="link2HCH0057">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LVII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      FEMALE SUFFRAGE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for Firm. Our
+      lady manager and head nurse never left him when she could be spared, and
+      all the other ladies vied in zeal for this young soldier, so that I could
+      scarcely get near him. His grandfather's sad and extraordinary tale was
+      confirmed by a wounded prisoner. Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare power of sight
+      had been fatal perhaps to the cause he fought for, or at least to its
+      greatest captain. Returning from desperate victory, the general, wrapped
+      in the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his own stern thoughts,
+      while it seemed quite impossible that he should be seen, encountered the
+      fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was given by his favorite
+      officer, Colonel Firm Gundry. When the young man learned that he had
+      destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief idol of his heart, he called
+      for a rifle, but all refused him, knowing too well what his purpose was.
+      Then under the trees, without a word or sigh, he set the hilt of his sword
+      upon the earth, and the point to his heart&mdash;as well as he could find
+      it. The blade passed through him, and then snapped off&mdash;But I can not
+      bear to speak of it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he was
+      made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case but also
+      the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more frankly
+      acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one. It was proved that,
+      with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two wounds than one, even
+      though they may not be at the same time taken. Firm had been shot by the
+      captain of Mexican robbers, as long ago related. He was dreadfully pulled
+      down at the time, and few people could have survived it. But now that
+      stood him in the very best stead, not only as a lesson of patience, but
+      also in the question of cartilage. But not being certain what cartilage
+      is, I can only refer inquirers to the note-book of the hospital, which has
+      been printed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be) this
+      brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time successfully with
+      that great enemy of the human race, to whom the human race so largely
+      consign one another and themselves. But some did say, and emphatically
+      Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry&mdash;for a colonel he was now, not by
+      courtesy, but commission&mdash;would never have held up his head to do it,
+      but must have gone on with his ravings for death, if somebody had not
+      arrived in the nick of time, and cried over him&mdash;a female somebody
+      from old England.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be a man
+      again, never would have calmed his conscience with the reflection, so
+      commonplace and yet so high&mdash;that having done our best according to
+      our lights, we must not dwell always on our darkness&mdash;if once again,
+      and for the residue of life, there had not been some one to console him&mdash;a
+      consolation that need not have, and is better without, pure reason,
+      coming, as that would come, from a quarter whence it is never quite
+      welcome. Enough for me that he never laid hand to a weapon of war again,
+      and never shall unless our own home is invaded.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For after many months&mdash;each equal to a year of teaching and of
+      humbling&mdash;there seemed to be a good time for me to get away and
+      attend to my duties in England. Of these I had been reminded often by
+      letters, and once by a messenger; but all money matters seemed dust in the
+      balance where life and death were swinging. But now Uncle Sam and his
+      grandson, having their love knit afresh by disaster, were eager to start
+      for the Saw-mill, and trust all except their own business to Providence.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had told them that, when they went westward, my time would be come for
+      starting eastward; and being unlikely to see them again, I should hope for
+      good news frequently. And then I got dear Uncle Sam by himself, and begged
+      him, for the sake of Firm's happiness, to keep him as far as he could from
+      Pennsylvania Sylvester. At the same time I thought that the very nice
+      young lady who jumped upon his nose from the window, Miss Annie&mdash;I
+      forgot her name, or at any rate I told him so&mdash;would make him a good
+      straightforward wife, so far as one could tell from having seen her. And
+      that seemed to have been settled in their infancy. And if he would let me
+      know when it was to be, I had seen a thing in London I should like to give
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When I asked the Sawyer to see to this, instead of being sorry, he seemed
+      quite pleased, and nodded sagaciously, and put his hat on, as he generally
+      did, to calculate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Both of them gals have married long ago,&rdquo; he said, looking at me with a
+      fine soft gaze; &ldquo;and bad handfuls their mates have got of them. But what
+      made you talk of them, missy&mdash;or 'my lady,' as now you are in old
+      country, I hear&mdash;what made you think of them like that, my dearie?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I can't tell what made me think of them. How can I tell why I think of
+      every thing?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Still, it was an odd thing for your ladyship to say.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Sam, I am nobody's ladyship, least of all yours. What makes you
+      speak so? I am your own little wandering child, whose life you saved, and
+      whose father you loved, and who loses all who love her. Even from you I am
+      forced to go away. Oh, why is it always my fate&mdash;my fate?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Hush!&rdquo; said the old man; and I stopped my outburst at his whisper. &ldquo;To
+      talk of fate, my dearie, shows either one thing or the other&mdash;that we
+      have no will of our own, or else that we know not how to guide it. I never
+      knew a good man talk of fate. The heathens and the pagans made it. The
+      Lord in heaven is enough for me; and He always hath allowed me my own
+      free-will, though I may not have handled 'un cleverly. And He giveth you
+      your own will now, my missy&mdash;to go from us or to stop with us. And
+      being as you are a very grand young woman now, owning English land and
+      income paid in gold instead of greenbacks&mdash;the same as our nugget
+      seems likely&mdash;to my ideas it would be wrong if we was so much as to
+      ask you.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that what you are full of, then, and what makes you so mysterious? I
+      did think that you knew me better, and I had a right to hope so.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of. You might do
+      this, or you might do that, according to what you was told, or, even more,
+      according to what was denied you. For poor honest people, like Firm and
+      me, to deal with such a case is out of knowledge. For us it is&mdash;go by
+      the will of the Lord, and dead agin your own desires.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;But, dear Uncle Sam,&rdquo; I cried, feeling that now I had him upon his own
+      tenterhooks, &ldquo;you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature for daring
+      to talk about fate just now; but to what else comes your own conduct, if
+      you are bound to go against your own desire? If you have such a lot of
+      freewill, why must you do what you do not like to do?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, well, perhaps I was talking rather large. The will of the world is
+      upon us as well. And we must have respect for its settlements.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Now let me,&rdquo; I said, with a trembling wish to have every thing right and
+      maidenly. &ldquo;I have seen so much harm from misunderstandings, and they are
+      so simple when it is too late&mdash;let me ask you one or two questions,
+      Uncle Sam. You always answer every body. And to you a crooked answer is
+      impossible.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Business is business,&rdquo; the Sawyer said. &ldquo;My dear, I contract
+      accordingly.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Very well. Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have done with
+      me? Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who have never even
+      heard of me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so
+      natural.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;In the next place, what does your grandson wish?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till death do
+      you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish? You say we all have so much
+      free-will.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is natural that you should wish, my dear, to go and be a great lady,
+      and marry a nobleman of your own rank, and have a lot of little noblemen.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then I fly against nature; and the fault is yours for filling me so with
+      machinery.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer was beaten, and he never said again that a woman can not argue.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link2HCH0058" id="link2HCH0058">
+      <!--  H2 anchor --> </a>
+    </p>
+    <div style="height: 4em;">
+      <br /><br /><br /><br />
+    </div>
+    <h2>
+      CHAPTER LVIII
+    </h2>
+    <h3>
+      BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred, and fury of that wicked war we
+      set our little convoy forth, with passes procured from either side.
+      According to all rules of war, Firm was no doubt a prisoner; but having
+      saved his life, and taken his word to serve no more against them,
+      remembering also that he had done them more service than ten regiments,
+      the Federal authorities were not sorry to be quit of him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He, for his part, being of a deep, retentive nature, bore in his wounded
+      breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime. To me he said not a single
+      word about his bitter fortune, and he could not bring himself to ask me
+      whether I would share it. Only from his eyes sometimes I knew what he was
+      thinking; and having passed through so much grief, I was moved with deep
+      compassion. Poor Firm had been trained by his grandfather to a strong,
+      earnest faith in Providence, and now this compelled him almost to believe
+      that he had been specially visited. For flying in the face of his good
+      grandfather, and selfishly indulging his own stiff neck, his punishment
+      had been hard, and almost heavier than he could bear. Whatever might
+      happen to him now, the spring and the flower of his life were gone; he
+      still might have some calm existence, but never win another day of
+      cloudless joy. And if he had only said this, or thought about it, we might
+      have looked at him with less sadness of our own.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But he never said any thing about himself, nor gave any opening for our
+      comfort to come to him. Only from day to day he behaved gently and
+      lovingly to both of us, as if his own trouble must be fought out by
+      himself, and should dim no other happiness. And this kept us thinking of
+      his sorrow all the more, so that I could not even look at him without a
+      flutter of the heart, which was afraid to be a sigh.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last, upon the great mountain range, through which we now were toiling,
+      with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks, and a sparkling
+      veil for sunrise, dear Uncle Sam, who had often shown signs of impatience,
+      drew me apart from the rest. Straightforward and blunt as he generally
+      was, he did not seem altogether ready to begin, but pulled off his hat,
+      and then put it on again, the weather being now cold and hot by turns. And
+      while he did this he was thinking at his utmost, as every full vein of his
+      forehead declared. And being at home with his ways, I waited.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Think you got ahead of me? No, not you,&rdquo; he exclaimed at last, in reply
+      to some version of his own of my ideas, which I carefully made a nonentity
+      under the scrutiny of his keen blue eyes. &ldquo;No, no, missy; you wait a bit.
+      Uncle Sam was not hatched yesterday, and it takes fifty young ladies to go
+      round him.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Is that from your size, Uncle Sam, or your depth?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, a mixture of both, I do believe. Now the last thing you ever would
+      think of, if you lived to be older than Washington's nurse, is the very
+      thing I mean to put to you. Only you must please to take it well,
+      according to my meaning. You see our Firm going to a shadow, don't you?
+      Very well; the fault of that is all yourn. Why not up and speak to him?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam, and I spare no efforts to fatten
+      him. I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook. But soon he will
+      have Suan Isco.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Old Injun be darned! It's not the stomach, it's the heart as wants
+      nourishment with yon poor lad. He looketh that pitiful at you sometimes,
+      my faith, I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his newings or cry at the
+      lean face that does it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam. And he never does any thing
+      of the kind. I am sure there is nothing to laugh at.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, no; to be sure not. I made a mistake. Heroic is the word, of course&mdash;every
+      thing is heroic.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;It is heroic,&rdquo; I answered, with some vexation at his lightness. &ldquo;If you
+      can not see it, I am sorry for you. I like large things; and I know of
+      nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You to stand up for him!&rdquo; Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could
+      scarcely look at me. &ldquo;You to talk large of him, my Lady Castlewood, while
+      you are doing of his heart into small wittles! Well, I did believe, if no
+      one else, that you were a straightforward one.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And what am I doing that is crooked now?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no. Only onconsistent, when
+      squared up.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day. What is inconsistent? What is
+      there to square up?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise. Then, as if his main
+      object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and said, &ldquo;Soup's
+      a-bilin now.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Let it boil over, then. You must say what you mean. Oh, Uncle Sam, I only
+      want to do the right!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I dessay. I dessay. But have you got the pluck, miss? Our little missy
+      would 'a done more than that. But come to be great lady&mdash;why, they
+      take another tune. With much mind, of course it might be otherwise. But
+      none of 'em have any much of that to spare.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Your view is a narrow one,&rdquo; I replied, knowing how that would astonish
+      him. &ldquo;You judge by your own experience only; and to do that shows a sad
+      want of breadth, as the ladies in England express it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all about for
+      his spectacles. The idea of being regarded by a &ldquo;female&rdquo; from a larger and
+      loftier point of view, made a new sensation in his system.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; I continued, with some enjoyment, &ldquo;let us try to look largely at
+      all things, Uncle Sam. And supposing me capable of that, what is the
+      proper and the lofty course to take?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three words
+      discomfited me&mdash;&ldquo;Pop the question.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind with man,
+      and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that her privilege
+      could be driven to this extent. But I shook my head till all my hair came
+      down; and so if our constitutional right of voting by color was exercised,
+      on this occasion it claimed the timid benefit of ballot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With us a suggestion, for the time discarded, has often double effect
+      by-and-by; and though it was out of my power to dream of acting up to such
+      directions, there could be no possible harm in reviewing such a theory
+      theoretically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts, nor even so much as that
+      (safely may I say), when Firm and myself met face to face on the third day
+      after Uncle Sam's ideas. Our little caravan, of which the Sawyer was the
+      captain, being bound for Blue River and its neighborhood, had quitted the
+      Sacramento track by a fork on the left not a league from the spot where my
+      father had bidden adieu to mankind. And knowing every twist and turn of
+      rock, our drivers brought us at the camping-time almost to the verge of
+      chaparral.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I knew not exactly how far we were come, but the dust-cloud of memory was
+      stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they used to look, the
+      things done among them seemed larger. And wandering forth from the camp to
+      think, when the evening meal was over, lo! there I stood in that selfsame
+      breach or portal of the desert in which I stood once by my father's side,
+      with scared and weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's shattered landmark.
+      The time of year was different, being the ripe end of October now; but
+      though the view was changed in tint, it was even more impressive. Sombre
+      memories, and deep sense of grandeur, which is always sad, and solemn
+      lights, and stealing shadows, compassed me with thoughtfulness. In the
+      mouth of the gorge was a gray block of granite, whereupon I sat down to
+      think.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Old thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts as common as the clouds that cross
+      the distant plain, and as vague as the wind that moves them&mdash;they
+      please and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence, but what
+      are they? The life that lies before us is, in some way, too, below us,
+      like yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be traversed foot by foot,
+      and laboriously travailed, without the cloudy vaporing or the high-flown
+      meditation. And all that must be done by me, alone, with none to love me,
+      and (which for a woman is so much worse) nobody ever to have for my own,
+      to cherish, love, and cling to.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Tier upon tier, and peak over peak, the finest mountains of the world are
+      soaring into the purple firmament. Like northern lights, they flash, or
+      flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders of heaven, they bar
+      themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven itself, they rank their white
+      procession. Lonely, feeble, puny, I look up with awe and reverence; the
+      mind pronounces all things small compared with this magnificence. Yet what
+      will all such grandeur do&mdash;the self-defensive heart inquires&mdash;for
+      puny, feeble, lonely me?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Before another shadow deepened or another light grew pale, a slow,
+      uncertain step drew near, and by the merest chance it happened to be
+      Ephraim Gundry's. I was quite surprised, and told him so; and he said that
+      he also was surprised at meeting me in this way. Remembering how long I
+      had been here, I thought this most irrational, but checked myself from
+      saying so, because he looked so poorly. And more than that, I asked him
+      kindly how he was this evening, and smoothed my dress to please his eye,
+      and offered him a chair of rock. But he took no notice of all these
+      things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I thought of the time when he would have behaved so very differently from
+      this, and nothing but downright pride enabled me to repress vexation.
+      However, I resolved to behave as kindly as if he were his own grandfather.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;How grand these mountains are!&rdquo; I said. &ldquo;It must do you good to see them
+      again. Even to me it is such a delight. And what must it be to you, a
+      native?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Yes, I shall wander from them no more. How I wish that I had never done
+      so?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Have men less courage than women?&rdquo; I asked, with one glance at his pale
+      worn face. &ldquo;I owe you the debt of life; and this is the place to think and
+      speak of it. I used to talk freely of that, you know. You used to like to
+      hear me speak; but now you are tired of that, and tired of all the world
+      as well, I fear.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;No, I am tired of nothing, except my own vile degradation. I am tired of
+      my want of spirit, that I can not cast my load. I am tired of my lack of
+      reason, which should always guide a man. What is the use of mind or
+      intellect, reasoning power, or whatever it is called, if the whole of them
+      can not enable a man to hold out against a stupid heart?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I think you should be proud,&rdquo; I said, while trembling to approach the
+      subject which never had been touched between us, &ldquo;at having a nature so
+      sensitive. Your evil chance might have been any body's, and must of course
+      have been somebody's. But nobody else would have taken it so&mdash;so
+      delightfully as you have done!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Delightfully! Is that the word you use? May I ask who gets any delight
+      from it?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, all who hate the Southern cause,&rdquo; I replied, with a sudden turn of
+      thought, though I never had meant to use the word. &ldquo;Surely that needs no
+      explanation.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;They are delighted, are they? Yes, I can very well believe it.
+      Narrow-minded bigots! Yes, they are sure to be delighted. They call it a
+      just visitation, of course, a righteous retribution. And they hope I may
+      never get over it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I pray you to take it more gently,&rdquo; I said; &ldquo;they are very good men, and
+      wish you no harm. But they must have their own opinions; and naturally
+      they think them just.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then all their opinions are just wrong. They hope to see me go down, to
+      my grave. They shall not have that pleasure. I will outlive every old John
+      Brown of them. I did not care two cents to live just now. Henceforth I
+      will make a point of it. If I cannot fight for true freedom any more,
+      having ruined it perhaps already, the least I can do is to give no more
+      triumph to its bitter enemies. I will eat and drink, and begin this very
+      night. I suppose you are one of them, as you put their arguments so
+      neatly. I suppose you consider me a vile slave-driver?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;You are very ill,&rdquo; I said, with my heart so full of pity that anger could
+      not enter; &ldquo;you are very ill, and very weak. How could you drive the very
+      best slave now&mdash;even such a marvel as Uncle Tom?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      Firm Gundry smiled; on his lean dry face there shone a little flicker,
+      which made me think of the time when he bought a jest-book, published at
+      Cincinnati, to make himself agreeable to my mind. And little as I meant
+      it, I smiled also, thinking of the way he used to come out with his
+      hard-fought jokes, and expect it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;I wish you were at all as you used to be,&rdquo; he said, looking at me softly
+      through the courage of his smile, &ldquo;instead of being such a grand lady.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;And I wish you were a little more like yourself,&rdquo; I answered, without
+      thinking; &ldquo;you used to think always there was nobody like me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Suppose that I am of the same opinion still? Tenfold, fiftyfold, a
+      millionfold?&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd, when you have
+      shown no sign of it.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;For your own dear sake I have shown no sign. The reason of that is too
+      clear to explain.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it!&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      &ldquo;Why, who would have any thing to say to me&mdash;a broken-down man, a
+      fellow marked out for curses, one who hates even the sight of himself? The
+      lowest of the low would shun me.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      He turned away from me, and gazed back toward the dismal, miserable,
+      spectral desert; while I stood facing the fruitful, delicious, flowery
+      Paradise of all the world. I thought of the difference in our lots, and my
+      heart was in misery about him. Then I conquered my pride and my littleness
+      and trumpery, and did what the gentle sweet Eve might have done. And never
+      have I grieved for that action since.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      With tears on my cheeks quite undissembled, and a breast not ashamed of
+      fluttering, I ran to Firm Gundry, and took his right hand, and allowed him
+      no refuge from tender wet eyes. Then before he could come to see the
+      meaning of this haste&mdash;because of his very high discipline&mdash;I
+      was out of his distance, and sitting on a rock, and I lifted my eyes, full
+      of eloquence, to his; then I dropped them, and pulled my hat forward, and
+      said, as calmly as was possible, &ldquo;I have done enough. The rest remains
+      with you, Firm Gundry.&rdquo;
+     </p>
+    <p>
+      The rest remained with him. Enough that I was part of that rest; and if
+      not the foundation or crown of it, something desirous to be both, and
+      failing (if fail it ever does) from no want of trial. Uncle Sam says that
+      I never fail at all, and never did fail in any thing, unless it was when I
+      found that blamed nugget, for which we got three wagon-loads of
+      greenbacks; which (when prosperity at last revives) will pay perhaps for
+      greasing all twelve wheels.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Jowler admits not that failure even. As soon as he recovered from canine
+      dementia, approaching very closely to rabies, at seeing me in the flesh
+      once more (so that the Sierra Nevada rang with avalanches of barking), he
+      tugged me to the place where his teeth were set in gold, and proved that
+      he had no hydrophobia. His teeth are scanty now, but he still can catch a
+      salmon, and the bright zeal and loyalty of his soft brown eyes and the
+      sprightly elevation of his tail are still among dogs as pre-eminent as
+      they are to mankind inimitable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now the war is past, and here we sit by the banks of the soft Blue River.
+      The early storm and young conflict of a clouded life are over. Still out
+      of sight there may be yet a sea of troubles to buffet with; but it is not
+      merely a selfish thought that others will face it with me. Dark mysteries
+      have been cleared away by being confronted bravely; and the lesson has
+      been learned that life (like California flowers) is of infinite variety.
+      This little river, ten steps wide, on one side has all lupins, on the
+      other side all larkspurs. Can I tell why? Can any body? Can even itself,
+      so full of voice and light, unroll the reason?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Behind us tower the stormy crags, before us spread soft tapestry of earth
+      and sweep of ocean. Below us lies my father's grave, whose sin was not his
+      own, but fell on him, and found him loyal. To him was I loyal also, as a
+      daughter should be; and in my lap lies my reward&mdash;for I am no more
+      Erema.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <br /> <br />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
+
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+</pre>
+  </body>
+</html>
diff --git a/7112.txt b/7112.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Erema
+       My Father's Sin
+
+Author: R. D. Blackmore
+
+Release Date: June 6, 2006 [EBook #7112]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREMA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+EREMA; OR, MY FATHER'S SIN
+
+
+By R. D. Blackmore
+
+
+
+1877
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A LOST LANDMARK
+
+
+"The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth
+generation of them that hate me."
+
+
+These are the words that have followed me always. This is the curse
+which has fallen on my life.
+
+If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not
+closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the grave,
+even if I could have buried and bewailed him duly, the common business
+of this world and the universal carelessness might have led me down the
+general track that leads to nothing.
+
+Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die. I knew
+that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home, and then
+himself to start again for still remoter solitudes. And when his mind
+was thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?
+
+If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father. And
+he showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life.
+"Captain, here I leave you all," he shouted to the leader of our wagon
+train, at a place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from the moilsome
+mountain track. "My reasons are my own; let no man trouble himself
+about them. All my baggage I leave with you. I have paid my share of
+the venture, and shall claim it at Sacramento. My little girl and I will
+take this short-cut through the mountains."
+
+"General!" answered the leader of our train, standing up on his board in
+amazement. "Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget. What is a hot
+word spoken hotly? If not for your own sake, at least come back for the
+sake of your young daughter."
+
+"A fair haven to you!" replied my father. He offered me his hand, and
+we were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome, uncompanionable
+company with whom, for eight long weeks at least, we had been dragging
+our rough way. I had known in a moment that it must be so, for my father
+never argued. Argument, to his mind, was a very nice amusement for the
+weak. My spirits rose as he swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder,
+and the last sound of the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and
+the fresh air and the freedom of the mountains moved around us. It was
+the 29th of May--Oak-apple Day in England--and to my silly youth this
+vast extent of snowy mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.
+
+Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so long
+as we remained with people who could not allow for us. My father, by
+his calm reserve and dignity and largeness, had always, among European
+people, kept himself secluded; but now in this rough life, so pent in
+trackless tracts, and pressed together by perpetual peril, every body's
+manners had been growing free and easy. Every man had been compelled to
+tell, as truly as he could, the story of his life thus far, to amuse
+his fellow-creatures--every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor
+father. Some told their stories every evening, until we were quite
+tired--although they were never the same twice over; but my father could
+never be coaxed to say a syllable more than, "I was born, and I shall
+die."
+
+This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women admired
+it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear, the speaker
+would have been insulted. But his manner and the power of his look were
+such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw fit to be rude to him.
+Nevertheless, there had always been the risk of some sad outrage.
+
+"Erema," my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the
+caravan was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the
+wilderness alone--"do you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from
+them?"
+
+"Father dear, how should I know? You have done it, and it must be
+right."
+
+"It is not for their paltry insults. Child, you know what I think all
+that. It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I do."
+
+I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way that
+he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a little child
+instead of a maiden just fifteen. This he had never done before, and
+it made me a little frightened. He saw it, and spoke on the spur of the
+thought, though still with one arm round me.
+
+"Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a stern,
+cold father. So will you meet the world all the better; and, little one,
+you have a rough world to meet."
+
+For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's manner;
+but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things. At the time
+I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled eagerness.
+
+Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion of
+body and spirit afterward. It may have been three days of wandering, or
+it may have been a week, or even more than that, for all that I can say
+for certain. Whether the time were long or short, it seemed as if it
+would never end. My father believed that he knew the way to the house
+of an old settler, at the western foot of the mountains, who had treated
+him kindly some years before, and with whom he meant to leave me until
+he had made arrangements elsewhere. If we had only gone straightway
+thither, night-fall would have found us safe beneath that hospitable
+roof.
+
+My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought, in
+sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it. Although
+his will was so very strong, his temper was good about little things,
+and he never began to abuse all the world because he had made a mistake
+himself.
+
+"Erema," he said, "at this corner where we stand there ought to be a
+very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at least
+twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa even. From the
+plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more. It stands higher up
+the mountainside than any other tree of even half its size, and that
+makes it so conspicuous. My eyes must be failing me, from all this
+glare; but it must be in sight. Can you see it now?"
+
+"I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow
+tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!"
+
+"Naturally. But now look again. It stands on a ridge, the last ridge
+that bars the view of all the lowland. It is a very straight tree, and
+regular, like a mighty column, except that on the northern side the wind
+from the mountains has torn a gap in it. Are you sure that you can not
+see it--a long way off, but conspicuous?"
+
+"Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
+broomstick. Far or near, I see no tree."
+
+"Then my eyes are better than my memory. We must cast back for a mile or
+two; but it can not make much difference."
+
+"Through the dust and the sand?" I began to say; but a glance from him
+stopped my murmuring. And the next thing I can call to mind must have
+happened a long time afterward.
+
+Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for mine.
+I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of it, being
+so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct. It is a fearful
+thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to save my own little
+worthless life I must have drained every drop of water from his flat
+half-gallon jar. The water was hot and the cork-hole sandy, and I
+grumbled even while drinking it; and what must my father (who was dying
+all the while for a drop, but never took one)--what must he have thought
+of me?
+
+But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it all
+the worse for me. We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic district of
+the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite early; and of
+natural springs there was none forth-coming. All we had to guide us was
+a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck fast on the pivot with
+sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to sight behind the hot, dry,
+driving clouds. The clouds were very low, and flying almost in our
+faces, like vultures sweeping down on us. To me they seemed to shriek
+over our heads at the others rushing after them. But my father said that
+they could make no sound, and I never contradicted him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A PACIFIC SUNSET
+
+
+At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth
+was visible. For a time--I can not tell how long--we had wholly lost
+ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without getting
+further. But my father said that we must come right, if we made up our
+minds to go long enough. We had been in among all shapes, and want of
+shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out of every thrup and thrum
+of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to find our way out and discover
+memory of men for us, when all of a sudden we saw a grand sight. The
+day had been dreadfully hot and baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust
+arising, and driving the great drought into us. To walk had been worse
+than to drag one's way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles. But now
+the quick sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the
+balance toward the flat places of the land and sea. And suddenly we
+looked forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.
+
+We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast brown
+patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra. On either side, in purple
+distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled glaciers,
+spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal forest. Before us
+lay the broad, luxuriant plains of California, checkered with more tints
+than any other piece of earth can show, sleeping in alluvial ease,
+and veined with soft blue waters. And through a gap in the brown coast
+range, at twenty leagues of distance, a light (so faint as to seem a
+shadow) hovered above the Pacific.
+
+But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water gleam.
+Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to urge him
+on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water. But, to my
+surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white as the distant
+snow. I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with the help of his own
+endeavors, and there let him rest and try to speak, while my frightened
+heart throbbed over his.
+
+"My little child," he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten years,
+"put your hand where I can feel it."
+
+My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it was,
+it moved. But cold fear stopped my talking.
+
+"My child, I have not been kind to you," my father slowly spoke again,
+"but it has not been from want of love. Some day you will see all this,
+and some day you will pardon me."
+
+He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain, with
+the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing. To me, I know
+not how, great awe was every where, and sadness. The conical point of
+the furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us, was broadening into
+a hazy disk, inefficient, but benevolent. Underneath him depth of night
+was waiting to come upward (after letting him fall through) and stain
+his track with redness. Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness
+to receive him: his upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was
+flaked with atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one
+bright glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after
+that a broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should never see
+the sun again, and among them would be my father.
+
+He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and the
+dark jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and all the
+beautiful expanse of liberal earth before him--even so he seemed to me,
+of all the things in sight, the one that first would draw attention.
+His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive calm, and the sad
+tranquillity which comes to those who know what human life is through
+continual human death. Although, in the matter of bodily strength, he
+was little past the prime of life, his long and abundant hair was white,
+and his broad and upright forehead marked with the meshes of the net
+of care. But drought and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to
+change or weaken the fine expression of his large, sad eyes. Those eyes
+alone would have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep
+with settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow. Such eyes
+might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who, having
+slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son of his
+generous host and savior.
+
+The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had made.
+My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form upright
+against the deepening background. He gazed as if the course of life lay
+vanishing below him, while level land and waters drew the breadth of
+shadow over them. Then the last gleam flowed and fled upon the face of
+ocean, and my father put his dry lips to my forehead, saying nothing.
+
+His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for three
+days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and even
+tremulous. "Let us run, let us run, my dear father!" I cried. "Delicious
+water! The dark falls quickly; but we can get there before dark. It is
+all down hill. Oh, do let us run at once!"
+
+"Erema," he answered, with a quiet smile, "there is no cause now for
+hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to do, my
+child. For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky. We have escaped from
+that starving desert at a spot--at a spot where we can see--"
+
+For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony seat,
+and the hand with which he tried to point some distant landmark fell
+away. His face, which had been so pale before, became of a deadly
+whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony. I knelt before him and
+took his hands, and tried to rub the palms, and did whatever I could
+think of.
+
+"Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every thing
+to me! What a brute I was to let you do it! But I did not know; I never
+knew! Please God to take me also!"
+
+He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but he
+firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.
+
+"What does it matter? Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as I am!
+Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you."
+
+"My child! my child!" were his only words; and he kept on saying, "My
+child! my child!" as if he liked the sound of it.
+
+At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or afterward.
+It may have been before the moon came over the snowy mountains, or it
+may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain repelled the daybreak.
+All I know is that I ever strove to keep more near to him through the
+night, to cherish his failing warmth, and quicken the slow, laborious,
+harassed breath. From time to time he tried to pray to God for me and
+for himself; but every time his mind began to wander and to slip away,
+as if through want of practice. For the chills of many wretched years
+had deadened and benumbed his faith. He knew me, now and then, betwixt
+the conflict and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and
+as if from out a dream,
+
+"Time for Erema to go on her way. Go on your way, and save your life;
+save your life, Erema."
+
+There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him. I took
+his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing. I whispered
+into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to me; and when he
+could not speak, I tried to say what he would say to me.
+
+At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid,
+wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to
+please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in my
+weak arms quite dead. And in the anguish of my sobbing, little things
+came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how quietly he
+had prepared for this, and provided for me only. Cold despair and
+self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I lay at my father's
+side, and slept with his dead hand in mine. There in the desert of
+desolation pious awe embraced me, and small phantasms of individual fear
+could not come nigh me.
+
+By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the
+pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from me.
+How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now. Such
+times are not for talking of. How many hearts of anguish lie forlorn,
+with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died out, and all
+the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!
+
+Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay by
+my father's body, wringing out my wretchedness. Thirst and famine now
+had flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe the thought
+of water, and the smell of food would have made me sick. I opened my
+father's knapsack, and a pang of new misery seized me. There lay nearly
+all his rations, which he had made pretense to eat as he gave me mine
+from time to time. He had starved himself; since he failed of his mark,
+and learned our risk of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me,
+as well as his store of water. And I had done nothing but grumble and
+groan, even while consuming every thing. Compared with me, the hovering
+vultures might be considered angels.
+
+When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or sob.
+Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on truly
+hopeless misery. Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid wings came
+close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I tried to save my
+father's body by throwing my own over it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A STURDY COLONIST
+
+
+For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which my
+dim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the Lord in
+heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some very simple
+members of humanity.
+
+A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me
+steadfastly. She had seen that, under tender care, I was just beginning
+to revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she had learned to
+succor all of them. This I knew not then, but felt that kindness was
+around me.
+
+"Arauna, arauna, my shild," she said, in a strange but sweet and
+soothing voice, "you are with the good man in the safe, good house. Let
+old Suan give you the good food, my shild."
+
+"Where is my father? Oh, show me my father?" I whispered faintly, as she
+raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
+
+"You shall--you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you when
+have long Sunday time to think. My shild, take the good food from poor
+old Suan."
+
+She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had been
+loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was now in
+the quick-reviving agony of starvation. The Indian woman fed me with
+far greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with some soothing
+process, into another abyss of sleep.
+
+More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life and
+death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or any
+thing. No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little bedroom except
+this careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to sleep whenever I wanted
+to ask questions. Suan Isco, as she was called, possessed a more than
+mesmeric power of soothing a weary frame to rest; and this was seconded,
+where I lay, by the soft, incessant cadence and abundant roar of water.
+Thus every day I recovered strength and natural impatience.
+
+"The master is coming to see you, shild," Suan said to me one day, when
+I had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the water-fall;
+"if, if--too much Inglese--old Suan say no more can now."
+
+"If I am ready and able and willing! Oh, Suan, run and tell him not to
+lose one moment."
+
+"No sure; Suan no sure at all," she answered, looking at me calmly, as
+if there were centuries yet to spare. "Suan no hurry; shild no hurry;
+master no hurry: come last of all."
+
+"I tell you, Suan, I want to see him. And I am not accustomed to be
+kept waiting. My dear father insisted always--But oh, Suan, Suan, he is
+dead--I am almost sure of it."
+
+"Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for him.
+Very good; more good than could be. Suan no more Inglese."
+
+Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow,
+helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread which
+might have been but a hovering dream. I turned my face to the wall, and
+begged her not to send the master in.
+
+But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly, and
+turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at me. His
+face was plain and square and solid, with short white curls on a
+rugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple chin--fit base for
+remarkably massive jaws. His frame was in keeping with his face, being
+very large and powerful, though not of my father's commanding height.
+His dress and appearance were those of a working--and a really
+hard-working--man, sober, steadfast, and self-respecting; but what
+engaged my attention most was the frank yet shrewd gaze of deep-set
+eyes. I speak of things as I observed them later, for I could not pay
+much heed just then.
+
+"'Tis a poor little missy," he said, with a gentle tone. "What things
+she hath been through! Will you take an old man's hand, my dear? Your
+father hath often taken it, though different from his rank of life.
+Sampson Gundry is my name, missy. Have you ever heard your father tell
+of it?"
+
+"Many and many a time," I said, as I placed my hot little hand in his.
+"He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was you, Sir."
+
+"Come, now," he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my
+warmth of words; "you must not have that in your young head, missy. It
+leads to a miserable life. Your father hath always been unlucky--the
+most unlucky that ever I did know. And luck cometh out in nothing
+clearer than in the kind of folk we meet. But the Lord in heaven
+ordereth all. I speak like a poor heathen."
+
+"Oh, never mind that!" I cried: "only tell me, were you in time to
+save--to save--" I could not bear to say what I wanted.
+
+"In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you. You must have fought when
+you could not fight: the real stuff, I call it. Your poor father lies
+where none can harm him. Come, missy, missy, you must not take on so. It
+is the best thing that could befall a man so bound up with calamity. It
+is what he hath prayed for for many a year--if only it were not for you.
+And now you are safe, and for sure he knows it, if the angels heed their
+business."
+
+With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me, knowing
+that her soothing ways would help me more than argument. To my mind
+all things lay in deep confusion and abasement. Overcome with bodily
+weakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even feared that to ask any
+questions might show want of gratitude. But a thing of that sort could
+not always last, and before very long I was quite at home with the
+history of Mr. Gundry.
+
+Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in England,
+betook himself to the United States in the last year of the last
+century. He had always been a most upright man, as well as a first-rate
+fisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most respectable families
+at that time did--to run a nice cargo of contraband goods not more than
+twice in one season. A highly querulous old lieutenant of the British
+navy (who had served under Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "the
+rheumatics" in either stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the
+Cornish coast-guard; and he never rested until he had caught all the
+best county families smuggling. Through this he lost his situation, and
+had to go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused
+that (to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior
+people, and among them this Solomon Gundry. Now the Gundries had long
+been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion wrestlers; and
+Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of obstinacy. He made a
+bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150 pounds; and with no other sign
+than that, his partner in their stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope,
+of Mevagissey) allowed him to make sail across the Atlantic with all he
+cared for.
+
+This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he did,
+together with good interest. Solomon Gundry throve among a thrifty race
+at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and his eldest son was
+Sampson. Sampson, in the prime of life, and at its headstrong period,
+sought the far West, overland, through not much less of distance, and
+through even more of danger, than his English father had gone through.
+His name was known on the western side of the mighty chain of mountains
+before Colonel Fremont was heard of there, and before there was any
+gleam of gold on the lonely sunset frontage.
+
+Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
+Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of. And though he did
+not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have a wife and
+son, and keep them free from danger. But (as it appears to me the more,
+the more I think of every thing) no one must assume to be aside the
+reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so small that she
+should not care to strike at him. At any rate, good or evil powers smote
+Sampson Gundry heavily.
+
+First he lost his wife, which was a "great denial" to him. She fell from
+a cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the substance of her
+frame prevented her from ever getting over it. And after that he lost
+his son, his only son--for all the Gundries were particular as to
+quality; and the way in which he lost his son made it still more sad for
+him.
+
+A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
+cattle-place down the same side of the hills. The desire of the Indians
+was to enlarge her value and get it. There were very few white men as
+yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry vowed that, if
+the will of the Lord went with him, that woman should come back to her
+family without robbing them of sixpence. To this intent he started
+with a company of some twenty men--white or black or middle-colored
+(according to circumstances). He was their captain, and his son Elijah
+their lieutenant. Elijah had only been married for a fortnight, but was
+full of spirit, and eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have
+carried this too far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a
+lock of his hair and his blessing. He was buried in a bed of lava on the
+western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and was
+buried by the Blue River.
+
+It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thus
+cut short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from the
+mountains to the ocean. His father, in whose arms he died, led a sad and
+lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although of Cornish and
+New England race) to seize the glorious chance of wealth which lay at
+his feet beseeching him. By settlement he had possessed himself of a
+large and fertile district, sloping from the mountain-foot along the
+banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary of the San Joaquin. And this
+was not all; for he also claimed the ownership of the upper valley, the
+whole of the mountain gorge and spring head, whence that sparkling water
+flows. And when that fury of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men
+could have done what he did without even thinking twice of it.
+
+For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own river,
+and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations to pollute
+it. He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends to back him; but
+his fame for stern courage was clear and strong, and his bodily presence
+most manifest. Not a shovel was thrust nor a cradle rocked in the bed of
+the Blue River.
+
+But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages, and
+even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr. Gundry
+gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some. For now his
+grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having lost his
+mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need the more
+natural and maternal nutriment of money.
+
+Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought
+out a plan which he had long thought of. Nature helped him with all her
+powers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream. He set up a saw-mill,
+and built it himself; and there was no other to be found for twelve
+degrees of latitude and perhaps a score of longitude.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE "KING OF THE MOUNTAINS."
+
+
+If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I can not
+express to any other mind a thousandth part of the gratitude which was
+and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor mind toward those who
+were so good to me. From time to time it is said (whenever any man with
+power of speech or fancy gets some little grievances) that all mankind
+are simply selfish, miserly, and miserable. To contradict that saying
+needs experience even larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it;
+and this I can not have, and therefore only know that I have not found
+men or women behave at all according to that view of them.
+
+Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of loyalty,
+to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like every one else)
+reserved and silent as to my father's history. But he always treated me
+as if I belonged to a rank of life quite different from and much above
+his own. For instance, it was long before he would allow me to have my
+meals at the table of the household.
+
+But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss, and
+loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had seen so
+many troubles. He had been here and there in the world so much, and
+dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of his mind was
+sharpened into caution. But any weak and helpless person still could get
+the best of him; and his shrewdness certainly did not spring from any
+form of bitterness. He was rough in his ways sometimes, and could
+not bear to be contradicted when he was sure that he was right, which
+generally happened to him. But above all things he had one very
+great peculiarity, to my mind highly vexatious, because it seemed
+so unaccountable. Sampson Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine
+intellect. He never showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and
+indeed he never, perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings. But as
+I grew older and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it
+always provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but
+to stand as some great axiom.
+
+The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or "Firm"
+Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps, of race or
+nation almost unknown to themselves. Suan Isco belonged to a tribe of
+respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife of a chief among
+them, and the mother of several children. But Klamath Indians, enemies
+of theirs (who carried off the lady of the cattle ranch, and afterward
+shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their possession, having murdered her
+husband and children, and were using her as a mere beast of burden, when
+Sampson Gundry fell on them. He, with his followers, being enraged
+at the cold-blooded death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such
+purpose that women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
+propensities.
+
+But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
+stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief. She was in such
+poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest humanity
+would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble of her
+carriage. But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and Sawyer
+Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the value of
+uncultivated gratitude. And her virtues were so many that it took a
+long time to find them out, for she never put them forward, not knowing
+whether they were good or bad.
+
+Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it was
+a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them. But when I came to
+understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing I was ashamed
+of was my own mistrust of them. Not that I expected ever that any harm
+would be done to me, only that I knew myself to have no claim on any
+one.
+
+One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble, Sampson
+Gundry's grandson "Firm"--as he was called for Ephraim--ran up the
+stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
+
+"Miss Rema, will you come with us?" he said, in his deep, slow style of
+speech. "We are going up the mountain, to haul down the great tree to
+the mill."
+
+"To be sure I will come," I answered, gladly. "What great tree is it,
+Mr. Ephraim?"
+
+"The largest tree any where near here--the one we cut down last winter.
+Ten days it took to cut it down. If I could have saved it, it should
+have stood. But grandfather did it to prove his rights. We shall have a
+rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if we can tackle it. I thought you
+might like to see us try."
+
+In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of the
+air made cloak or shawl unbearable. But when I ran down to the yard
+of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and gave me an
+order too.
+
+"You must not go like this, my dear. We have three thousand feet to go
+upward. The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we shall be home
+by night-fall. Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's cloak, and a pair
+of thicker boots for change."
+
+Suan Isco never ran. That manner of motion was foreign to her, at
+least as we accomplish it. When speed was required, she attained it
+by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel. In this way she
+conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.
+
+The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a sudden
+joy to me. In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry, clearing all
+tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep places as if
+twoscore were struck off his threescore years and five. From time to
+time he turned round to laugh, or see that his men and trained bullocks
+were right; and then, as his bright eyes met my dark ones, he seemed
+to be sorry for the noise he made. On the other hand, I was ashamed of
+damping any one's pleasure by being there.
+
+But I need not have felt any fear about this. Like all other children,
+I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and behaved as if
+my state of mind was a thing to be considered. But the longer we rose
+through the freedom and the height, the lighter grew the heart of every
+one, until the thick forest of pines closed round us, and we walked in a
+silence that might be felt.
+
+Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much trouble
+with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a rugged cone, or
+crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of a tree. The tree
+was still there, but not its glory; for, alas! the mighty trunk lay
+prostrate--a grander column than ever was or will be built by human
+hands. The tapering shaft stretched out of sight for something like a
+furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose over us so that we could not see
+the mountains. Having never seen any such tree before, I must have been
+amazed if I had been old enough to comprehend it.
+
+Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every thing,
+collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-floor or area
+of the stump before he would say any thing. Here we all looked so
+sadly small that several of the men began to laugh; the bullocks seemed
+nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the branches or the fibres of
+the tree; and the chains and the shackles, and the blocks and cranes,
+and all the rest of the things they meant to use, seemed nothing
+whatever, or at all to be considered, except as a spider's web upon this
+tree.
+
+The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected to
+do, looked blank. Some rubbed their horns into one another's sadly, and
+some cocked their tails because they felt that they could not be called
+upon to work. The light of the afternoon sun came glancing along the
+vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red,
+and soft gray where the lichens grew.
+
+Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little, having
+had lately some trouble with his throat. Then in his sturdy manner
+he spoke the truth, according to his nature. He set his great square
+shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered himself:
+
+"Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here, and I
+own to it. It serves me right for disbelieving what my grandson, Firm
+Gundry, said. I knew that the tree was a big one, of course, as every
+body else does; but till you see a tree laid upon earth you get no grip
+of his girth, no more than you do of a man till he lieth a corpse.
+At the time of felling I could not come anigh him, by reason of an
+accident; and I had some words with this boy about it, which kept me
+away ever since that time. Firm, you were right, and I was wrong. It was
+a real shame, now I see it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.'
+But, for all that, being down, we must use him. He shall be sawn into
+fifty-foot lengths. And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven
+good turns at him."
+
+At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's manly
+truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these visits to
+the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good. But before the
+descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim did what appeared to
+me to be a gallant and straightforward thing. He stood on the chine
+of the fallen monster, forty feet above us, having gained the post of
+vantage by activity and strength, and he asked if he might say a word or
+two.
+
+"Say away, lad," cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
+obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson
+was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of that
+tree--an act which had roused indignation over a hundred leagues of
+lowland.
+
+"Neighbors," said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at first
+with diffidence, "we all have to thank you, more than I can tell, for
+coming to help us with this job. It was a job which required to be done
+for legal reasons which I do not understand, but no doubt they were good
+ones. For that we have my grandfather's word; and no one, I think, will
+gainsay it. Now, having gone so far, we will not be beaten by it, or
+else we shall not be Americans."
+
+These simple words were received with great applause; and an orator,
+standing on the largest stump to be found even in America, delivered a
+speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be repeated. And
+Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his grandson's conduct.
+
+"Firm knoweth the right thing to do," he said; "and like a man he doeth
+it. But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see in the
+distance yonner? Never mind, my dear, then. Tell me by-and-by, when none
+of these folk is 'longside of us."
+
+But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under pain
+of his displeasure. I had spied on the sky-line far above us, in the
+desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father stood and bade
+me seek this landmark. His memory was true, and his eyesight also; but
+the great tree had been felled. The death of the "King of the Mountains"
+had led to the death of the king of mankind, so far as my little world
+contained one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+UNCLE SAM
+
+
+The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me. The
+warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust were
+broken by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft green of
+leaves. We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the peach to the
+amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the river--not large,
+but most fantastic. Here I used to sit and wonder, in a foolish,
+childish way, whether on earth there was any other child so strangely
+placed as I was. Of course there were thousands far worse off, more
+desolate and destitute, but was there any more thickly wrapped in
+mystery and loneliness?
+
+A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change of
+place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of time.
+Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed out of me by
+any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky children
+huddled together in large cities. My father had never allowed me much
+acquaintance with other children; for six years he had left me with a
+community of lay sisters, in a little town of Languedoc, where I was the
+only pupil, and where I was to remain as I was born, a simple heretic.
+Those sisters were very good to me, and taught me as much as I could
+take of secular accomplishment. And it was a bitter day for me when I
+left them for America.
+
+For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals, and
+had almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with him. I used
+to be the one little comfort of his perpetual wanderings, when I was a
+careless child, and said things to amuse him. Not that he ever played
+with me any more than he played with any thing; but I was the last of
+his seven children, and he liked to watch me grow. I never knew it,
+I never guessed it, until he gave his life for mine; but, poor little
+common thing as I was, I became his only tie to earth. Even to me he
+was never loving, in the way some fathers are. He never called me by pet
+names, nor dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my
+hair and smiled. Such things I never expected of him, and therefore
+never missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have
+them.
+
+But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier children:
+I had the pleasure of knowing my own name. My name was an English
+one--Castlewood--and by birth I was an English girl, though of England
+I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought most easily in French.
+But my longing had always been for England, and for the sound of English
+voices and the quietude of English ways. In the chatter and heat and
+drought of South France some faint remembrance of a greener, cooler,
+and more silent country seemed to touch me now and then. But where in
+England I had lived, or when I had left that country, or whether I had
+relations there, and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl--all these
+questions were but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
+
+Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about them) I
+never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a roundabout way,
+such as clever children have, get second-hand information. In the
+first place, I was not a clever child; for the next point, I never had
+underhand skill; and finally, there was no one near me who knew any
+thing about me. Like all other girls--and perhaps the very same tendency
+is to be found in boys--I had strong though hazy ideas of caste. The
+noble sense of equality, fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in
+life than childhood, which is an age of ambition. I did not know who in
+the world I was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
+
+One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with the
+aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting tackle
+were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr. Gundry, being
+full of the subject, declared that he would have his dinner in the mill
+yard. He was anxious to watch, without loss of time, the settlement of
+some heavy timbers newly sunk in the river's bed, to defend the outworks
+of the mill. Having his good leave to bring him his pipe, I found him
+sitting upon a bench with a level fixed before him, and his empty
+plate and cup laid by, among a great litter of tools and things. He was
+looking along the level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly
+intent; but when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and
+made me think that I was not interrupting him.
+
+"Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam," I said; for, in spite of all his formal
+ways, I would not be afraid of him. I had known him now quite long
+enough to be sure he was good and kind. And I knew that the world around
+these parts was divided into two hemispheres, the better half being
+of those who loved, and the baser half made of those who hated, Sawyer
+Sampson Gundry.
+
+"What a queer world it is!" said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to
+consider that point. "Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years agone,
+that your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe to light
+for my father's son?"
+
+"Uncle Sam," I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs which
+seem to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of blue
+smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy curls of
+hair--"dear Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor to a princess
+to light a pipe for a man like you."
+
+"Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense," he answered,
+very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I had offended
+him. Not knowing how to assert myself and declare that I had spoken my
+honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the bench and waited for him to
+speak again to me. But he made believe to be very busy, and scarcely to
+know that I was there. I had a great mind to cry, but resolved not to do
+it.
+
+"Why, how is this? What's the matter?" he exclaimed at last, when I had
+been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where it was going
+to. "Why, missy, you look as if you had never a friend in all the wide
+world left."
+
+"Then I must look very ungrateful," I said; "for at any rate I have one,
+and a good one."
+
+"And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?"
+
+"You and Suan Isco and Firm--those are all I have any knowledge of."
+
+"'Tis a plenty--to my mind, almost too many. My plan is to be a good
+friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me. Rest you quite
+satisfied with three, Miss Rema. I have lived a good many years, and I
+never had more than three friends worth a puff of my pipe."
+
+"But one's own relations, Uncle Sam--people quite nearly related to us:
+it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know."
+
+"Do I, my dear? Then I wish that I did. Except one's own father and
+mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them. My own brother
+took a twist against me because I tried to save him from ruin; and if
+any man ever wished me ill, he did. And I think that your father had the
+same tale to tell. But there! I know nothing whatever about that."
+
+"Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to tell
+me, or rather I demand it. I am old enough now, and I am certain my dear
+father would have wished me to know every thing. Whatever it was, I am
+sure that he was right; and until I know that, I shall always be the
+most miserable of the miserable."
+
+The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning,
+and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles of
+inquiry. He quite forgot his level and his great post in the river, and
+tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on his big brown arm.
+"Lord bless me!" he said, "what a young gal you are! Or, at least, what
+a young Miss Rema. What good can you do, miss, by making of a rout? Here
+you be in as quiet a place as you could find, and all of us likes
+and pities you. Your father was a wise man to settle you here in this
+enlightened continent. Let the doggoned old folk t'other side of the
+world think out their own flustrations. A female young American you are
+now, and a very fine specimen you will grow. 'Tis the finest thing to be
+on all God's earth."
+
+"No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an Englishwoman.
+The Americans may be more kind and generous, and perhaps my father
+thought so, and brought me here for that reason. And I may be glad to
+come back to you again when I have done what I am bound to do. Remember
+that I am the last of seven children, and do not even know where the
+rest are buried."
+
+"Now look straight afore you, missy. What do you see yonner?" The Sawyer
+was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long interruption.
+
+"I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't even
+know the names of. Also I see a bright, swift river."
+
+"But over here, missy, between them two oaks. What do you please to see
+there, Miss Rema?"
+
+"What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill."
+
+"But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been at
+all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my family.
+Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power and human
+ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months of a stretch,
+except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after night, and bending
+all my intellect over it? And could I have done that, think you now,
+if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs, and this, that, and the
+other?"
+
+Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and spread
+his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly with his
+deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph. To his mind, that mill was the
+wonder of the world, and any argument based upon it, with or without
+coherence, was, like its circular saws, irresistible. And yet he thought
+that women can not reason! However, I did not say another word just
+then, but gave way to him, as behooved a child. And not only that, but I
+always found him too good to be argued with--too kind, I mean, and large
+of heart, and wedded to his own peculiar turns. There was nothing about
+him that one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he
+always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him that
+they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite to tell
+them so. And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of looking down into
+one's little thoughts when he put on his spectacles, that to say any
+more was to hazard the risk of ungrateful inexperience.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BRITISHER
+
+
+The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the mountains,
+full of light and liveliness. It had scarcely run six miles from its
+source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that space and time it
+had gathered strong and copious volume. The lovely blue of the water
+(like the inner tint of a glacier) was partly due to its origin,
+perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft tone of the granite sand spread
+under it. Whatever the cause may have been, the river well deserved its
+title.
+
+It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it even
+seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and the myriad
+sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain. Plodding through
+the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-foot, through the
+stifling vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare, the traveler suddenly
+came upon this cool and calm delight. It was not to be descried afar,
+for it lay below the level, and the oaks and other trees of shelter
+scarcely topped the narrow comb. There was no canyon, such as are--and
+some of them known over all the world--both to the north and south of
+it. The Blue River did not owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but
+sparkled on its cheerful way without impending horrors. Standing here
+as a child, and thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men
+never wept nor owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's
+contempt for the gushing transport of brave men. For instance, I have
+seen a miner, or a tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or (perhaps
+the bravest of all) a man of science and topography, jaded, worn, and
+nearly dead with drought and dearth and choking, suddenly, and beyond
+all hope, strike on this buried Eden. And then he dropped on his knees
+and spread his starved hands upward, if he could, and thanked the God
+who made him, till his head went round, and who knows what remembrance
+of loved ones came to him? And then, if he had any moisture left, he
+fell to a passion of weeping.
+
+In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded himself,
+and should have been born a woman. But since that time I have truly
+learned that the bravest of men are those who feel their Maker's Land
+most softly, and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of their weakness to
+Him.
+
+Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track along
+the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento southward,
+there was scarcely a week which did not bring us some traveler needing
+comfort. Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he would set up a rough
+hotel, or house of call for cattle-drovers, miners, loafers, and so
+on, he might turn twice the money he could ever make by his thriving
+saw-mill. But he only used to laugh, and say that nature had made him
+too honest for that; and he never thought of charging any thing for his
+hospitality, though if a rich man left a gold piece, or even a nugget,
+upon a shelf, as happened very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain
+to set it aside for a rainy day. And one of his richest or most lavish
+guests arrived on my account, perhaps.
+
+It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of the
+earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had crept
+already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their summer in our
+band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food get short, and to
+prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having never felt bitter cold,
+was trembling at what I heard of it. For now it was clear that I had no
+choice but to stay where I was for the present, and be truly thankful to
+God and man for having the chance of doing so. For the little relics
+of my affairs--so far as I had any--had taken much time in arrangement,
+perhaps because it was so hard to find them. I knew nothing, except
+about my own little common wardrobe, and could give no information about
+the contents of my father's packages. But these, by dint of perseverance
+on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all rights), had mainly
+been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the best that could be done
+concerning them. Whatever seemed of a private nature, or likely to prove
+important, had been brought home to Blue River Mills; the rest had been
+sold, and had fetched large prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.
+
+He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long
+afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar upon
+his bounty. I had never been accustomed to think of money, and felt
+some little contempt for it--not, indeed, a lofty hatred, but a careless
+wonder why it seemed to be always thought of. It was one of the last
+things I ever thought of; and those who were waiting for it were--until
+I got used to them--obliged in self-duty to remind me.
+
+This, however, was not my fault. I never dreamed of wronging them. But
+I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any where, much
+though I had wandered about, according to vague recollections. The duty
+of paying had never been mine; that important part had been done for me.
+And my father had such a horror always of any growth of avarice that he
+never gave me sixpence.
+
+And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from Suan
+Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be different
+from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the neighborhood must have
+made them full of it; and once or twice I asked Uncle Sam; but he only
+nodded his head, and said that it was the practice every where. And
+before very long I began to perceive that he did not exaggerate.
+
+Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance above
+referred to--the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of bribing even
+Uncle Sam himself. This happened in the month of November, when the
+passes were beginning to be blocked with snow, and those of the higher
+mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed with it. On this particular
+day the air was laden with gray, oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy
+downfall, and instead of faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I
+was kept in-doors, and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache. This
+is a crushing weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are
+obliged to endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when
+the first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
+overhead. But I was more lucky than most people are; for after about
+twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which the sweetest
+sound was odious, and the idea of food quite loathsome, the agony left
+me, and a great desire for something to eat succeeded. Suan Isco, the
+kindest of the kind, was gone down stairs at last, for which I felt
+ungrateful gratitude--because she had been doing her best to charm
+away my pain by low, monotonous Indian ditties, which made it ten times
+worse; and yet I could not find heart to tell her so.
+
+Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the November
+day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to lift it. The
+light of the west had been faint, and was dead; though often it used
+to prolong our day by the backward glance of the ocean. With pangs of
+youthful hunger, but a head still weak and dazy, I groped my way in the
+dark through the passage and down the stairs of redwood.
+
+At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into the
+house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual cheerful
+company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were only two
+people present. The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of state, delaying
+even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his face set sternly, as I
+had never before beheld it. In the visitor's corner, as we called it,
+where people sat to dry themselves, there was a man, and only one.
+
+Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them. The
+room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality. Some kind of
+meal had been made at the table, as always must be in these parts;
+but not of the genial, reckless sort which random travelers carried
+on without any check from the Sawyer. For he of all men ever born in
+a civilized age was the finest host, and a guest beneath his roof
+was sacred as a lady to a knight. Hence it happened that I was much
+surprised. Proper conduct almost compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity
+made me take just one more little peep, perhaps. Looking back at these
+things now, I can not be sure of every thing; and indeed if I could, I
+must have an almost supernatural memory. But I remember many things; and
+the headache may have cleared my mind.
+
+The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff
+condition was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow made
+an eddy. He seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the tricks of
+the hearth flame, presenting as he did a most solid face for any light
+to play upon. To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten face of a bluff and
+resolute man, the like of which we attribute to John Bull. At any rate,
+he was like John Bull in one respect: he was sturdy and square, and fit
+to hold his own with any man.
+
+Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where), and
+been kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English blood,
+had a kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather have such at
+his board than even a true-born American; and infinitely more welcome
+were they than Frenchman, Spaniard, or German, or any man not to be
+distinguished, as was the case with some of them. Even now it was clear
+that the Sawyer had not grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall,
+square, brazen candlesticks, of Boston make, were on the table, and
+very little light they gave. The fire, however, was grandly roaring of
+stub-oak and pine antlers, and the black grill of the chimney bricks
+was fringed with lifting filaments. It was a rich, ripe light, affording
+breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of the two men glistened, and
+darkened in their creases.
+
+I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see them
+so clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way to the
+larder, or return to my room and starve a little longer; for I did not
+wish to interrupt, and had no idea of listening. But suddenly I was
+compelled to stop; and to listen became an honest thing, when I knew
+what was spoken of--or, at any rate, I did it.
+
+"Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man that I
+have come to ask about. And you will find it worth your while to tell me
+all you know of him." Thus spoke the Englishman sitting in the corner;
+and he seemed to be certain of producing his effect.
+
+"Wal," said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be the
+universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his sleeve,
+"Squire, I guess that you may be right. Considerations of that 'ere kind
+desarves to be considered of."
+
+"Just so. I knew that you must see it," the stranger continued, bravely.
+"A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well to begin with.
+But all you enlightened members of the great republic know what is what.
+It will bring you more than ten years' income of your saw-mill, and
+farm, and so on, to deal honestly with me for ten minutes. No more
+beating about the bush and fencing with me, as you have done. Now can
+you see your own interest?"
+
+"I never were reckoned a fool at that. Squire, make tracks, and be done
+with it."
+
+"Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel--for I believe you are all colonels
+here--your task is very simple. We want clear proof, sworn properly and
+attested duly, of the death of a villain--George Castlewood, otherwise
+the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise Lord Castlewood: a man who
+murdered his own father ten years ago this November: a man committed
+for trial for the crime, but who bribed his jailers and escaped, and
+wandered all over the Continent. What is that noise? Have you got rats?"
+
+"Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other
+varmint. Wal, Squire, go on with it."
+
+The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury, as
+I, who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart with
+patience.
+
+"The story is well known," continued the stranger: "we need make no
+bones of it. George Castlewood went about under a curse--"
+
+"Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please. My household is not
+altogether seasoned."
+
+"And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere. I heard a report to
+that effect. But here you think nothing of a dozen murders. Now, Gundry,
+let us have no squeamishness. We only want justice, and we can pay for
+it. Ten thousand dollars I am authorized to offer for a mere act of duty
+on your part. We have an extradition treaty. If the man had been alive,
+we must have had him. But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can
+only see his grave and have evidence. And all well-disposed people must
+rejoice to have such a quiet end of it. For the family is so well known,
+you see."
+
+"I see," Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips.
+"Guess you want something more than that, though, Squire. Is there
+nothing more than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well. We know that she was with him
+in that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call it.
+We know that you have made oath of his death, produced his child, and
+obtained his trunks, and drawn his share in the insurance job. Your laws
+must be queer to let you do such things. In England it would have taken
+at least three years, and cost a deal more than the things were worth,
+even without a Chancery suit. However, of his papers I shall take
+possession; they can be of no earthly use to you."
+
+"To be sure. And possession of his darter too, without so much as a
+Chancery suit. But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin' wrong in
+this little transaction?"
+
+"I can very soon satisfy you," said the stranger, "as to their identity.
+Here is their full, particular, and correct description--names, weights,
+and colors of the parties."
+
+With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew forth his
+pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to smooth on his knee
+quite leisurely. Meanwhile, in my hiding-place, I was trembling with
+terror and indignation. The sense of eavesdropping was wholly lost, in
+that of my own jeopardy. I must know what was arranged about me; for
+I felt such a hatred and fear of that stranger that sooner than be
+surrendered to him I would rush back to my room and jump out of the
+window, and trust myself to the trackless forest and the snowy night.
+I was very nearly doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear
+what would be said of me. So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails,
+while the stranger read slowly and pompously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DISCOMFITURE
+
+
+The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet waistcoat,
+and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get the full light of
+the candles. I saw him as clearly as I could wish, and, indeed, a great
+deal too clearly; for the more I saw of the man, the more I shrank from
+the thought of being in his power. Not that he seemed to be brutal or
+fierce, but selfish, and resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of
+lofty feelings. Short dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed
+his large, thick-featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the
+clumsy sneer of a wide, coarse mouth. I watched him with all my eyes,
+because of his tone of authority about myself. He might even be my
+guardian or my father's nearest relation--though he seemed to be too
+ill-bred for that.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel," he went on, in a patronizing tone,
+such as he had assumed throughout. "Here it is. Now prick your ears up,
+and see if these candid remarks apply. I am reading from a printed form,
+you see:
+
+"'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten
+years older. His height is over six feet two, and he does not stoop or
+slouch at all. His hair is long and abundant, but white; his eyes are
+dark, piercing, and gloomy. His features are fine, and of Italian cast,
+but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he never uses razor. On the back
+of his left hand, near the wrist, there is a broad scar. He dresses in
+half-mourning always, and never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns
+all society, and prefers uncivilized regions. He never stays long in
+any town, and follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are
+military, as he has been a cavalry officer. From time to time he has
+been heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in
+America.
+
+"'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen with
+him. She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks French better
+than English. Her hair is very nearly black, and her eyes of unusual
+size and lustre. She is shy, and appears to have been kept under, and
+she has a timid smile. Whether she knows of her father's crime or not is
+quite uncertain; but she follows him like a dog almost.'
+
+"There now, Colonel," cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper
+triumphantly; "most of that came from my information, though I never set
+eyes upon the child. Does the cap fit or not, Brother Jonathan?"
+
+Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite pipe,
+carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat. And being thus appealed
+to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been dozing, though
+he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew his attitudes, could
+tell. And my eyes filled with tears of love and shame, for I knew by the
+mere turn of his chin that he never would surrender me.
+
+"Stranger," he said, in a most provoking drawl, "a hard day's work
+tells its tale on me, you bet. You do read so bootiful, you read me hard
+asleep. And the gutturals of that furrin English is always a little hard
+to catch. Mought I trouble you just to go through it again? You likes
+the sound of your own voice; and no blame to you, being such a swate
+un."
+
+The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of
+being chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend of
+his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was asked.
+But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between the
+candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle Sam, the
+most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of that glance. The
+man should have no more under that roof.
+
+With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a
+wreath of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying, "Now
+I beg you to attend this time," read the whole of his description, with
+much emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned away and beat time
+upon the hearth, with his white hair, broad shoulders, and red ears
+prominent. The Englishman looked very seriously vexed, but went through
+his business doggedly. "Are you satisfied now?" he asked when he had
+finished.
+
+"Wal, now, Squire," replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his provoking
+drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very steadfastly,
+"some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they seems a'most as
+good as well-slung flapjacks. A natteral honest stomick can't nohow have
+enough of them. Mought I be so bold, in a silly, mountaneous sort of a
+way, as to ax for another heerin' of it?"
+
+"Do you mean to insult me, Sir?" shouted the visitor, leaping up with a
+flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of attack.
+
+"Stranger, I mought," answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before him,
+and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back--"I mought so do,
+barrin' one little point. The cutest commissioner in all the West would
+have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to diskiver somethin'
+capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your natur'."
+
+With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his mouth,
+signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase of
+discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted. His visitor stared at him
+for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and then fell back into
+self-command, without attempting bluster.
+
+"Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the herring
+pond. What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you elegantly express it
+here?"
+
+"Britisher, nothing. You know no better. It takes more than that to put
+my back up. But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a heaved you out
+o' window."
+
+"Why, Colonel, why? Now be reasonable. Not a word have I said reflecting
+either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than I have made can
+not come to many of you, even in this land of gold. Ten thousand dollars
+I offer, and I will exceed my instructions and say fifteen, all paid on
+the nail by an order on Frisco, about which you may assure yourself. And
+what do I ask in return? Legal proof of the death of a man whom we know
+to be dead, and the custody of his child, for her own good."
+
+"Squire, I have no other answer to make. If you offered me all the gold
+dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could only say what
+I have said before. You came from Sylvester's ranch--there is time for
+you to get back ere the snow begins."
+
+"What a hospitable man you are! Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve to
+have a medal from our Humane Society. You propose to turn me out of
+doors to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?"
+
+"Sir, the fault is entirely your own. What hospitality can you expect
+after coming to buy my guest? If you are afraid of the ten-mile ride,
+my man at the mill will bed you. But here you must not sleep, because
+I might harm you in the morning. I am apt to lose my temper sometimes,
+when I go on to think of things."
+
+"Colonel, I think I had better ride back. I fear no man, nor his temper,
+nor crotchets. But if I were snowed up at your mill, I never might
+cross the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I can always get to
+Minto. You refuse, then, to help me in any way?"
+
+"More than that. I will do every thing in my power to confound you. If
+any one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be shot."
+
+"That is most discouraging. However, you may think better of it. Write
+to this address if you do. You have the girl here, of course?"
+
+"That is her concern and mine. Does your guide know the way right well!
+The snow is beginning. You do not know our snows, any more than you know
+us."
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Gundry. I shall do very well. You are rough in your
+ways, but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is virtuous.
+But mark my words upon one little point. If George Castlewood had been
+living, I have such credentials that I would have dragged him back with
+me in spite of all your bluster. But over his corpse I have no control,
+in the present condition of treaties. Neither can I meddle with his
+daughter, if it were worth while to do so. Keep her and make the best of
+her, my man. You have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that
+is what you are up for. A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad
+lot, as her father was. If you wish the name of Gundry to have its due
+respect hereafter, let the heir of the sawmills have nothing to do with
+the Honorable Miss Castlewood."
+
+"Let alone, let alone," Uncle Sam said, angrily. "It is well for you
+that the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence. Firm is
+a steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with. No fear
+of losing the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind you. But,
+meddlesome as you be, and a bitter weed to my experience, it shall not
+be said that Sampson Gundry sent forth a fellow to be frozen. Drink a
+glass of hot whiskey before you get to saddle. Not in friendship, mind
+you, Sir, but in common human nature."
+
+That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the driving
+snow, now huddling against the window-frames. And so he went out; and
+when he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light, and threw my arms
+round the Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he was ashamed of me.
+
+"Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on so?"
+
+"Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough to
+doubt you."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A DOUBTFUL LOSS
+
+
+When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
+astonished at the state of things. To look out fairly was impossible;
+for not only was all the lower part of the frame hillocked up like a
+sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky plaits, but even in the
+middle, where some outlook was, it led to very little. All the air
+seemed choked with snow, and the ground coming up in piles to meet it;
+all sounds were deadened in the thick gray hush, and nothing had its own
+proportion. Never having seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and
+longed to know more of it.
+
+Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined, when
+I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open through the
+winter.
+
+"It can be done--I am sure it can," I exclaimed, with vigorous
+ignorance. "May I do it if I can? It only requires perseverance. If you
+keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it. Don't you
+see, Uncle Sam?"
+
+"To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff. Suan, fetch a
+double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget while you
+be up there to give special orders--no snow is to fall at night or when
+missy is at dinner."
+
+"You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to try it.
+I must try to keep my path to--somewhere."
+
+"What a fool I am, to be sure!" said Mr. Gundry, softly. "There, now, I
+beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it. Firm and I
+will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it. Why, the snow is
+two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places. I wonder whether that
+rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch last night? No fault of
+mine if he never did, for go he would in spite of me."
+
+I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his
+name until it was told in this way. My mind was dwelling on my father's
+grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could not bear the
+idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody coming to care for him.
+Kind hands had borne him down the mountains (while I lay between life
+and death) and buried him in the soft peach orchard, in the soothing
+sound of the mill-wheel. Here had been planted above his head a cross
+of white un-painted wood, bearing only his initials, and a small "Amen"
+below them.
+
+With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished no
+better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of pomp.
+There was no "consecrated ground" within miles and miles of traveling;
+but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears to hallow it.
+For often and often, even now, I could not help giving way and sobbing,
+when I thought how sad it was that a strong, commanding, mighty man, of
+great will and large experience, should drop in a corner of the world
+and die, and finally be thought lucky--when he could think for himself
+no longer--to obtain a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his
+initials, and have a water-wheel to sing to him. Many a time it set
+me crying, and made me long to lie down with him, until I thought of
+earth-worms.
+
+All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let me
+have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it. But even with a
+steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way unstopped, such solid
+masses of the mountain clouds now descended over us. And never had I
+been so humored in my foolish wishes: I was quite ashamed to see the
+trouble great men took to please me.
+
+"Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm," said the Sawyer, coming in one day,
+with clouts of snow in his snowy curls. "Not that I care a cent for the
+fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe. Still, he might
+have had time to mend, if his time had been as good as the room for it.
+However, no blame rests on us. I told him to bed down to saw-mill. They
+Englishmen never know when they are well off. But the horse got home,
+they tell me?"
+
+"The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other horse
+and man. But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must have died out
+in the snow-drift. It is a queer story. We shall never know the rights."
+
+"How many times did I tell him," the Sawyer replied, without much
+discontent, "that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a night
+as that? His own way he would have, however; and finer liars than he
+could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone, time upon
+time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of things. They
+take every body else for a liar."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?" I cried. "Is it that dreadful--that poor man
+who wanted to carry me away from you?"
+
+"Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth," Mr. Gundry answered,
+more roughly than usual. "Leave you all such points to the Lord. They
+are not for young ladies to talk about."
+
+"Grandfather, don't you be too hard," said Firm, as he saw me hurrying
+away. "Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only concerning her
+own affairs. If we refuse to tell her, others will."
+
+"Very well, then, so be it," the Sawyer replied; for he yielded more to
+his grandson than to the rest of the world put together. "Turn the log
+up, Firm, and put the pan on. You boys can go on without victuals all
+day, but an old man must feed regular. And, bad as he was, I thank God
+for sending him on his way home with his belly full. If ever he turneth
+up in the snow, that much can be proved to my account."
+
+Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I could
+not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not at the
+death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so in going
+from a hospitable house. Mr. Gundry cared little what any body said
+concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the thought of a
+whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.
+
+"Find him, Firm, find him," he said, in his deep sad voice, as he sat
+down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily. "And when
+he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we gave him his
+bellyful."
+
+Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of the
+neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot, that he
+might hurry out again. Then he took his dinner standing, and without a
+word went forth to seek.
+
+"Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler," the old man shouted after him,
+and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to show that
+he heard him. The snow was again falling heavily, and the afternoon was
+waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush of the mighty tail of
+the great dog Jowler.
+
+"Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!" I cried, in dismay at the great
+white waste. "And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead. Do call him
+back, or let me run."
+
+Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where
+he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the
+butter-beans.
+
+"Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way from
+the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground, and he was
+hard at work with the loppings?"
+
+"Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody else
+could have noticed such a thing at such a distance."
+
+"Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this
+house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down, although
+it was a burning hot May morn?"
+
+"Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do! It
+was weeks before I could thank him, even. But you must have seen him do
+it all."
+
+The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal of
+rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an argument went
+to his liking. He said nothing more for the present, but had his dinner,
+and enjoyed it.
+
+"Supposing now that he did all that," he resumed, about an hour
+afterward, "is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his own
+self in a snow-drift? He has three men with him, and he is worth all
+three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out forty feet of snow
+ere now. If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad, has had the luck to cheat
+the hangman, and the honor to die in a Californy snow-drift, you may
+take my experience for it, missy, Firm and Jowler will find him, and
+clear Uncle Sam's reputation."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WATER-SPOUT
+
+
+If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the other.
+Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with snow and
+most hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out all the night,
+because he had failed of his errand. Jowler also was full of discontent
+and trouble of conscience. He knew, when he kicked up his heels in the
+snow, that his duty was to find somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree,
+and trained to act up to his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with
+failure.
+
+"It comes to the same thing," said Sawyer Gundry; "it is foolish to
+be so particular. A thousand better men have sunk through being so
+pig-headed. We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in
+April, if the season suits. Firm, eat your supper and shake yourself."
+
+This was exactly the Sawyer's way--to take things quietly when convinced
+that there was no chance to better them. He would always do his best
+about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the matter small or great,
+he had a smiling face for the end of it.
+
+The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went at
+last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its gradual way
+to us. Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and more easy changes,
+I lost myself in admiration of this my first Californian spring. The
+flowers, the leagues and leagues of flowers, that burst into color and
+harmony--purple, yellow, and delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson
+threads, and fringed with emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the
+course of rivers, while deepened here and there by wooded shelter and
+cool places, with the silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far
+distance, and silken vapor drawing toward the carding forks of the
+mountain range; and over all the never-wearying azure of the limpid sky:
+child as I was, and full of little worldly troubles on my own account,
+these grand and noble sights enlarged me without any thinking.
+
+The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full
+blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost as
+large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness, ere the
+yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some gully sent
+a strong flood down our Blue River. The saw-mill happened to be hard at
+work; and before the gear could be lifted, some damage was done to the
+floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of the torrent. Uncle Sam was away,
+and so was Firm; from which, perhaps, the mischief grew. However, the
+blame was all put on the river, and little more was said of it.
+
+The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-doors,
+under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things. The stream
+was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its gravel-path of fine
+granite just as usual, except that it had more volume and a stronger
+sense of freshness. Only the bent of the grasses and the swath of the
+pendulous twigs down stream remained to show that there must have been
+some violence quite lately.
+
+All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as need
+be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they were no
+constraint to it. And none but a practiced eye could see that the great
+wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted now above the power
+of the current, according to the fine old plan of locking the door when
+the horse is gone.
+
+When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief, Martin,
+the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth full of
+breakfast.
+
+"Show me," I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance,
+"where and what the damage is. Is there any strain to the iron-work?"
+
+"Lor' a mercy, young missus!" he answered, gruffly, being by no means a
+polished man, "where did you ever hear of ironwork? Needles and pins is
+enough for you. Now don't you go and make no mischief."
+
+"I have no idea what you mean," I answered. "If you have been careless,
+that is no concern of mine."
+
+"Careless, indeed! And the way I works, when others is a-snorin' in
+their beds! I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get more thanks
+and better wages. That's the way of the world all over. Come Saturday
+week, I shall better myself."
+
+"But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better
+yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!" I put this
+question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young, meaning no
+kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went by without his
+threatening to "better himself." And they said that he had done so for
+seven years or more.
+
+"Don't you be too sharp," he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
+himself, perhaps. "If half as I heard about you is true, you'll want
+all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy. And the Britishers are worse
+than we be."
+
+"Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me," I said, "if you saw any
+person injuring me. But what is it I am not to tell your master?"
+
+"My master, indeed! Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing about
+what you have seen. It might lead to hard words; and hard words are not
+the style of thing I put up with. If any man tries hard words with me, I
+knocks him down, up sticks, and makes tracks."
+
+I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk. Sawyer Gundry could
+have taken him with one hand and tossed him over the undershot wheel.
+
+"You forget that I have not seen any thing," I said, "and understand
+nothing but 'needles and pins.' But, for fear of doing any harm, I will
+not even say that I have been down here, unless I am asked about it."
+
+"Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some day.
+Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-doin' of?
+The finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn old chap takes to
+quartz-crushing."
+
+All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good friends,
+while he shook his long head and went home to feed many pappooses.
+For the strangest thing of all things was, though I never at that time
+thought of it, that there was not any one about this place whom any one
+could help liking. Martin took as long as any body to be liked, until
+one understood him; but after that he was one of the best, in many ways
+that can not be described. Also there was a pair of negroes, simply and
+sweetly delightful. They worked all day and they sang all night, though
+I had not the pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised
+them--because they were black, and she was only brown--the more they
+made up to her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals.
+It was childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never get
+rid of them. The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that a large,
+free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every thing. Martin
+was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had established a long right
+to do so by never himself being grumbled at.
+
+"I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way," Mr. Gundry said at
+breakfast-time. "He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear that he
+won't eat a bit for the day. Martin is a most conscientious man. He will
+offer to give up his berth, although it would be his simple ruin."
+
+I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me keenly. He
+knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me to say something.
+
+"We all must have our little mistakes," continued Sawyer Gundry; "but I
+never like to push a man when he feels it. I shall not say a syllable to
+Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like. When a fellow sticks well to
+his work like Martin, never blame him for a mere accident."
+
+Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite
+agree. In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he did not
+argue with his grandfather.
+
+"I shall just go down and put it right myself. Martin is a poor hand at
+repairing. Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh has hurt the
+hurdles. Missy, you may come with me, if you please, and sketch me at
+work in the mill-wheel. You have drawn that wheel such a sight of times,
+you must know every feather of it better than the man who made it."
+
+"Uncle Sam, you are too bad," I said. "I have never got it right, and I
+never shall."
+
+I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the
+end--that I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was
+incorrect. In spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and ingenuity,
+the wheel was no true circle. The error began in the hub itself, and
+increased, of course, with the distance; but still it worked very well,
+like many other things that are not perfect.
+
+Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own
+perception of "perspective," I sat down once more in my favorite spot,
+and waited for the master to appear as an active figure in the midst
+of it. The air was particularly bright and clear, even for that pure
+climate, and I could even see the blue-winged flies darting in and out
+of the oozy floats. But half-way up the mountains a white cloud was
+hanging, a cloud that kept on changing shape. I only observed it as a
+thing to put in for my background, because I was fond of trying to tone
+and touch up my sketches with French chalks.
+
+Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery. The
+bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put on, to
+keep the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight. Martin, the
+foreman, was grumbling and growling, according to his habit, and peering
+through the slot, or channel of stone, in which the axle worked, and the
+cheery voice of Mr. Gundry was putting down his objections. Being much
+too large to pass through the slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner
+of the building, with a heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his
+neck, and his canvas breeches girt above his knees. But the foreman
+staid inside to hand him the needful material into the wheel.
+
+The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was always
+like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little skull-cap to me,
+and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were nearer seventeen than
+seventy. And presently I could only see his legs and arms as he fell to
+work. Therefore I also fell to work, with my best attempts at penciling,
+having been carefully taught enough of drawing to know that I could not
+draw. And perhaps I caught from the old man's presence and the sound of
+his activity that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart
+to every one.
+
+At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the changing
+light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to my distance,
+till suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and upon my hat, and
+a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log upon which I sat. Then
+again all was a perfect calm, and the young leaves over the stream hung
+heavily on their tender foot-stalks, and the points of the breeze-swept
+grass turned back, and the ruffle of all things smoothed itself. But
+there seemed to be a sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and
+air.
+
+This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to
+run away. But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never heard it
+sound. He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to sky or stream,
+and the fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as if the place
+resented them.
+
+"Come away, come away," I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite bank
+to him; "there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am sure. I
+entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam. Every thing is so strange
+and odd."
+
+"Why, what's to do now?" asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the
+wheel and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his apron
+wedged in a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in the
+impossibility of hurry. "Missy, don't you make a noise out there. You
+can't have your own way always."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that. I am in such a fright about you.
+Do come out and look at the mountains."
+
+"I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick of
+them. There may be a corn or two of rain; no more. My sea-weed was like
+tinder. There can't be no heavy storm when it is like that. Don't you
+make pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you."
+
+Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a right
+to be so. And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up for the
+sharpness of his words, and then back he went to his work again. So I
+hoped that I was altogether wrong, till a bolt of lightning, like a blue
+dagger, fell at my very feet, and a crash of thunder shook the earth and
+stunned me. These opened the sluice of the heavens, and before I could
+call out I was drenched with rain. Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley
+lashed with cloudy blasts, and a whirling mass of spiral darkness
+rushing like a giant toward me. And the hissing and tossing and roaring
+mixed whatever was in sight together.
+
+Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could
+scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a singed
+moth drops and shivers. And a storm of wind struck me from my hold, so
+that I fell upon the wet earth. Every moment I expected to be killed,
+for I never could be brave in a thunder-storm, and had not been told
+much in France of God's protection around me. And the darts of lightning
+hissed and crossed like a blue and red web over me. So I laid hold of a
+little bent of weed, and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to
+pray to the Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.
+
+Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely changed
+me. A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as the mill
+itself, rushed down with a crest of foam from the mountains. It seemed
+to fill up all the valley and to swallow up all the trees; a whole host
+of animals fled before it, and birds, like a volley of bullets, flew by.
+I lost not a moment in running away, and climbing a rock and hiding.
+It was base, ungrateful, and a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost
+without thinking. And if I had staid to cry out, what good could I have
+done--only to be swept away?
+
+Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I must
+have peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the deluge
+struck the mill. But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it by any more
+summary process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is more than I dare
+presume to say. Whichever way I learned it, it was thus:
+
+A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on it,
+dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great wheel
+anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling. I heard no scream or
+shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been a mere whisper
+in the wild roar of the elements. Only, where the mill had been, there
+was nothing except a black streak and a boil in the deluge. Then scores
+of torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-harrow jumps on the clods of the
+field; and the unrelenting flood cast its wrath, and shone quietly in
+the lightning.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam! Uncle Sam!" I cried. But there was not a sign to be seen
+of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways, and my heart
+was almost broken. "What a brute--what a wretch I am!" I kept saying, as
+if I could have helped it; and my fear of the lightning was gone, and I
+stood and raved with scorn and amazement.
+
+In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and instinct
+alone could have driven my despair to a desperate venture. With my
+soaked clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as they would go,
+by a short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where the very last bluff
+or headland jutted into the river. This was a good mile below the mill
+according to the bends of channel, but only a furlong or so from the
+rock upon which I had taken refuge. However, the flood was there before
+me, and the wall of water dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb
+behind it.
+
+Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage, and
+bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive, but the
+most part dead. A grand black bull tossed back his horns, and looked at
+me beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet days, but now I was
+truly grieved for him. And then on a wattle of brush-wood I saw the form
+of a man--the Sawyer.
+
+His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of
+his arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless.
+Senseless he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves went
+over him. His face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a heavy
+weight hung round his neck. I had no time to think, and deserve no
+praise, for I knew not what I did. But just as an eddy swept him near
+me, I made a desperate leap at him, and clutched at something that tore
+my hands, and then I went under the water. My senses, however, were
+not yet gone, and my weight on the wattle stopped it, and I came up
+gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat, woolly sheep going by me. The
+sheep was water-logged, and could scarcely keep his own poor head from
+drowning, and he turned his mild eyes and looked at me, but I could not
+spare him. He struck for the shore in forlorn hope, and he towed us in
+some little.
+
+It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for us,
+for of course I could do nothing. But the sheep must have piloted us to
+a tree, whose branches swept the torrent. Here I let him go, and caught
+fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck there also, for what
+could my weak arm have done? I remember only to have felt the ground at
+last, as the flood was exhausted; and good people came and found him and
+me, stretched side by side, upon rubbish and mud.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A NUGGET
+
+
+In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing) we
+hung up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more toward
+saving the life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served as a kind
+of kedge, or drag, upon his little craft, retarding it from the great
+roll of billows, in which he must have been drowned outright. And even
+as it was, he took some days before he was like himself again.
+
+Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken
+hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the
+mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole of its
+power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had made, at
+about five furlongs above the mill. Ephraim, being further up the gulch,
+and high above the roaring flood, did his utmost with the keen edge of
+his eyes to pierce into the mischief; but it rained so hard, and at the
+same time blew so violently around him, that he could see nothing of
+what went on, but hoped for the best, with uneasiness.
+
+Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of
+things, and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and
+himself, at this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the world
+again, it was natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a good deal
+of grumbling. Many people came to comfort him, and to offer him deep
+condolence and the truest of true sympathy, and every thing that could
+be thought of, unless it were a loan of money. Of that they never
+thought, because it was such a trifling matter; and they all had
+confidence in his power to do any thing but pay them. They told him that
+he was a young man still, and Providence watched over him; in a year or
+two he would be all the better for this sad visitation. And he said yes
+to their excellent advice, and was very much obliged to them. At the
+same time it was clear to me, who watched him like a daughter, that he
+became heavy in his mind, and sighed, as these kind friends, one after
+the other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but rode away out of
+his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings. Not that he would
+have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of them, only that
+he would have liked the offer, to understand their meaning. And several
+of them were men--as Firm, in his young indignation, told me--who had
+been altogether set up in life by the kindness of Sampson Gundry.
+
+Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed by
+this. But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it preyed upon
+his mind, though he was too proud to speak of it. He knew that he was
+not ruined, although these friends assumed that he must be; and some of
+them were quite angry with him because they had vainly warned him. He
+could not remember these warnings, yet he contradicted none of them; and
+fully believing in the goodness of the world, he became convinced that
+he must have been hard in the days of his prosperity.
+
+No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San Francisco
+to raise money on his house and property for the rebuilding of the mill.
+Firm rode with him to escort him back, and so did Martin, the foreman;
+for although the times were not so bad as they used to be some ten years
+back, in the height of the gold fever, it still was a highly undesirable
+thing for a man who was known to have money about him to ride forth
+alone from San Francisco, or even Sacramento town. And having mentioned
+the foreman Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his
+entire loss from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat of
+the value of about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling could only
+be equaled by his lofty persistence. By his great activity in running
+away and leaving his employer to meet the brunt, he had saved not only
+himself, but his wife and children and goods and chattels. This failed,
+however, to remove or even assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he
+moaned and threatened to such good purpose that a speedy subscription
+was raised, which must have found him in clothes for the rest of his
+life, as well as a silver tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.
+
+When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry, and
+his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond calling
+distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I found the
+place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to do. I had no fear
+of robbers, though there were plenty in the neighborhood; for we still
+had three or four men about, who could be thoroughly trusted, and
+who staid with us on half wages rather than abandon the Sawyer in his
+trouble. Suan Isco, also, was as brave as any man, and could shoot well
+with a rifle. Moreover, the great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by
+all his enemies. He could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or
+three Mexicans, in about a second; and now he always went about with me,
+having formed a sacred friendship.
+
+Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said "good-by," and Firm had
+shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as I liked and
+admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was unbecoming, and now
+in my lonely little walks I began to think about it. My father's
+resting-place had not been invaded by the imperious flood, although a
+line of driftage, in a zigzag swath, lay near the mound. This was my
+favorite spot for thinking, when I felt perplexed and downcast in my
+young unaided mind. For although I have not spoken of my musings very
+copiously, any one would do me wrong who fancied that I was indifferent.
+Through the great kindness of Mr. Gundry and other good friends around
+me, I had no bitter sense as yet of my own dependence and poverty. But
+the vile thing I had heard about my father, the horrible slander
+and wicked falsehood--for such I was certain it must be--this was
+continually in my thoughts, and quite destroyed my cheerfulness. And
+the worst of it was that I never could get my host to enter into it.
+Whenever I began, his face would change and his manner grow constrained,
+and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to some other subject.
+
+One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches began
+to blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray with a
+globule of sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins already had
+curved their fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust of the plains
+was beginning to fly, and the bright spring flowers were dead more
+swiftly even than they first were born, I sat with Suan Isco at my
+father's cross, and told her to make me cry with some of all the many
+sad things she knew. She knew a wondrous number of things insatiably sad
+and wild; and the quiet way in which she told them (not only without any
+horror, but as if they were rightly to be expected), also the deep and
+rather guttural tone of voice, and the stillness of the form, made it
+impossible to help believing verily every word she said.
+
+That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and
+full of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the noblest
+philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good unpretentious
+women, who had partly retired from the world, but not to such a depth as
+to drown all thought of what was left behind them. These were ready at
+any time to return upon good opportunity; and some of them had done so,
+with many tears, when they came into property.
+
+"Please to tell me no more now," I said at last to Suan; "my eyes are
+so sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come home
+to-night. I am afraid he has found some trouble with the money, or he
+ought to have been at home before. Don't you think so, Suan?"
+
+"Yes, yes; trouble with the money. Always with the white mans that."
+
+"Very well. I shall go and look for some money. I had a most wonderful
+dream last night. Only I must go quite alone. You had better go and look
+to the larder, Suan. If they come, they are sure to be hungry."
+
+"Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty."
+
+The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the white
+race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-colored shawl
+around her, and set off with her peculiar walk. Her walk was not
+ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it differed almost as
+much as the step of a quadruped from what we are taught. I, with heavy
+thoughts but careless steps, set off on my wanderings. I wanted to try
+to have no set purpose, course, or consideration, but to go wherever
+chance should lead me, without choice, as in my dream. And after many
+vague turns, and even closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself,
+perhaps by the force of habit, at the ruins of the mill.
+
+I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can
+expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me. But sleeping
+I had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet stream. The little
+river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all thoughts of wrath, showed
+nothing in its pure gaze now but a gladness to refresh and cool. In many
+nicely sheltered corners it was full of soft reflection as to the good
+it had to do; and then, in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do
+it. And the happy voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told
+that it knew of the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by
+itself.
+
+But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I was
+angry with it for the sake of Uncle Sam. Only the foundations and the
+big heavy stones of the mill were left, and the clear bright water
+purled around, or made little eddies among them. All were touched
+with silvery sound, and soft caressing dimples. But I looked at the
+passionate mountains first, to be sure of no more violence; for if a
+burned child dreads the fire, one half drowned may be excused for little
+faith in water. The mountains in the sunshine looked as if nothing could
+move their grandeur, and so I stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of
+the placid brightness.
+
+Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles, driven
+in by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his walls, had
+been swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but had not been
+swept away. The square tarred post of mountain pine reclined down
+stream, and gently nodded to the current's impact. But overthrown as it
+was, it could not make its exit and float away, as all its brethren
+had done. At this I had wondered before, and now I went to see what the
+reason was. By throwing a short piece of plank from one of the shattered
+foundations into a nick in the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed
+to get there and sit upon it, and search for its obstruction.
+
+The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal, being
+scarcely more than a foot in depth. And there, on the upper verge of the
+hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the granite sand of the
+river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow light. I was so much
+amazed that I cried out at once, "Oh! what a beautiful great yellow
+fish!" And I shouted to Jowler, who had found where I was, and followed
+me, as usual. The great dog was famous for his love of fishing, and had
+often brought a fine salmon forth.
+
+Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my call
+by dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance of my
+hand. But when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly disappointed,
+and gave me to understand as much by looking at me foolishly. "Now don't
+be a stupid dog," I said; "do what I tell you immediately. Whatever it
+is, bring it out, Sir."
+
+Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him "Sir;" so he
+ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth at the
+object. His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with the intensity
+of his labor, but the task was quite beyond him. He could not even
+stir the mighty mass at which he struggled, but he bit off a little
+projecting corner, and came to me with it in his mouth. Then he laid his
+dripping jaws on my lap, and his ears fell back, and his tail hung down
+with utter sense of failure.
+
+I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes with
+his ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me. Then I saw
+that his grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to a dentist
+regardless of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump of solid
+glittering virgin ore. He had not the smallest idea of having done any
+thing worthy of human applause; and he put out his long red tongue and
+licked his teeth to get rid of uneatable dross, and gave me a quiet
+nudge to ask what more I wanted of him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ROVERS
+
+
+From Jowler I wanted nothing more. Such matters were too grand for
+him. He had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the purple
+dye--a thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it value. But
+gold does well without all these, and better in their absence. From
+handling many little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan Isco's tales of
+treachery, theft, and murder done by white men for the sake of this, I
+knew that here I had found enough to cost the lives of fifty men.
+
+At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I was
+with joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in my hands.
+For I was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy. Here I had a
+knowledge which the wisest of mankind might envy, much as they despise
+it when they have no chance of getting it. I looked at my father's
+grave, in the shadow of the quiet peach-trees, and I could not help
+crying as I thought that this was come too late for him. Then I called
+off Jowler, who wished (like a man) to have another tug at it; and home
+I ran to tell my news, but failing of breath, had time to think.
+
+It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the
+greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had seen
+so much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be careful. But
+surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco. However, I looked
+at her several times, and was not quite so sure about it. She was
+wonderfully true and faithful, and scarcely seemed to concede to gold
+its paramount rank and influence. But that might only have been because
+she had never known the want of it, or had never seen a lump worth
+stealing, which I was sure that this must be; and the unregenerate
+state of all who have never been baptized had been impressed on me
+continually. How could I mistrust a Christian, and place confidence in
+an Indian? Therefore I tried to sleep without telling any one, but was
+unable.
+
+But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long
+awake, for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from
+San Francisco. Of course I have done very foolish things once and again
+throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more absurd than
+during the whole of that day. To begin with, I was up before the
+sun, and down at the mill, and along the plank, which I had removed
+overnight, but now replaced as my bridge to the pine-wood pile. Then
+I gazed with eager desire and fear--which was the stronger I scarcely
+knew--for the yellow under-gleam, to show the safety of my treasure.
+There it lay, as safe as could be, massive, grand, and beautiful, with
+tones of varying richness as the ripples varied over it. The pale light
+of the morning breathed a dewy lustre down the banks; the sun (although
+unrisen yet) drew furrows through the mountain gaps; the birds from
+every hanging tree addressed the day with melody; the crystal water,
+purer than religion's brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay,
+unmoved, unthought of, and inanimate, the thing which to a human being
+is worth all the rest put together.
+
+This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I resolved
+to spend my time, for fear of any robbery. I was afraid to gaze more
+than could be helped at this grand sight, lest other eyes should spy
+what was going on, and long to share it. And after hurrying home to
+breakfast and returning in like haste, I got a scare, such as I well
+deserved, for being so extremely foolish.
+
+The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and steadfast
+that even in that raging deluge the whole had held together. It had been
+bodily torn from its hold and swept away down the valley; but somewhere
+it grounded, as the flood ebbed out, and a strong team had tugged it
+back again. And the Sawyer had vowed that, come what would, his mill
+should work with the self-same wheel which he with younger hands had
+wrought. Now this wheel (to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber
+from the sun) was laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under
+it. And here I had taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.
+
+I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the runnel,
+sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the water. Little
+fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played about, and I was
+almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold. In self-defense it is
+right to say that for the gold, on my own account, I cared as much as I
+might have done for a fig worm-eaten. It was for Uncle Sam, and all
+his dear love, that I watched the gold, hoping in his sad disaster to
+restore his fortunes. But suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid
+flat in the tributary brook) I descried across the main river a moving
+company of horsemen.
+
+These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party, for
+they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return by the
+track across the plains. And they were already so near that I could see
+their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican rovers, mixed
+with loose Americans. There are few worse men on the face of the earth
+than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they seem almost always
+to be in that humor. Therefore, when I saw their battered sun-hats and
+baggy slouching boots, I feared that little ruth, or truth, or mercy
+dwelt between them.
+
+On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and held
+my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my wind-tossed
+hair into small compass. For my blood ran cold at the many dreadful
+things that came into my mind. I was sure that they had not spied me
+yet, and my overwhelming desire was to decline all introduction.
+
+I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves, and
+would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion. Fourteen of them
+rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the other side; and there
+they let their horses drink, and some dismounted and filled canteens,
+and some of longer reach stooped from the saddle and did likewise. But
+one, who seemed to be the captain, wanted no water for his rum.
+
+"Cut it short, boys," I heard him say, with a fine South Californian
+twang (which, as well as his free swearing, I will freely omit). "If we
+mean to have fair play with the gal, now or never's the time for it: old
+Sam may come home almost any time."
+
+What miserable cowards! Though there were so many of them, they really
+had no heart to face an old man known for courage. Frightened as I was,
+perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter no more, and not faint
+away, but watch those miscreants steadily.
+
+The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink,
+scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker
+before my eyes. The dribbling of the water from their mouths prepared
+them to begin again, till the riders struck the savage unroweled spur
+into their refreshment. At this they jerked their noses up, and looked
+at one another to say that they expected it, and then they lifted their
+weary legs and began to plash through the river.
+
+It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream,
+probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his
+feet, and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he is
+right. In my agony of observation all these things I heeded, but only
+knew that I had done so when I thought long afterward. At the moment I
+was in such a fright that my eyes worked better than my mind. However,
+even so, I thought of my golden millstone, and was aware that they
+crossed below, and could not see it.
+
+They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I
+crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which kept
+me crouching. I counted them again as they leaped the bank and seemed to
+look at me. I could see the dark array of eyes, and could scarcely
+keep from shrieking. But my throat was dry and made no sound, and a
+frightened bird set up a scream, which drew off their attention.
+
+In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost felt
+that the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to help my
+helplessness.
+
+For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the evil
+one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked laughter of
+the men. One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest rejoicing in it;
+and the bright sun, glowing on their withered skin, discovered perhaps
+no viler thing in all the world to shine upon. One of them even pointed
+at my mill-wheel with a witty gibe--at least, perhaps, it was wit to
+him--about the Sawyer's misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes,
+and my dress was just of the color of the timber. So on they rode, and
+the pleasant turf (having lately received some rain) softly answered to
+the kneading of their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.
+
+I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark of
+the valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me. Fourteen men and
+fourteen horses I had counted on the other side; on this side I could
+not make any more than thirteen of them. I might have made a mistake;
+but still I thought I would stop just a minute to see. And in that
+minute I saw the other man walking slowly on the opposite bank. He had
+tethered his horse, and was left as outpost to watch and give warning of
+poor Uncle Sam's return.
+
+At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary
+way, came back. I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost any
+girl might have done. But now I resolved that, whatever might happen,
+my dear friend and guardian should not be entrapped and lose his life
+through my cowardice. We had been expecting him all the day; and if he
+should come and fall into an ambush, I only might survive to tell
+the tale. I ought to have hurried and warned the house, as my bitter
+conscience told me; but now it was much too late for that. The only
+amends that I could make was to try and warn our travelers.
+
+Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more open
+places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up the winding
+of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy thicket which
+concealed its origin. Hence I could see for miles over the plain--broad
+reaches of corn land already turning pale, mazy river fringed with reed,
+hamlets scattered among clustering trees, and that which I chiefly cared
+to see, the dusty track from Sacramento.
+
+Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the
+sentinel had been posted badly. His beat commanded well enough the
+course from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally
+clear before him. For a jut of pine forest ran down from the mountains
+and cut off a part of his view of it. I had not the sense or the
+presence of mind to perceive this great advantage, but having a plain,
+quick path before me, forth I set upon it. Of course if the watchman had
+seen me, he would have leaped on his horse and soon caught me; but of
+that I scarcely even thought, I was in such confusion.
+
+When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and
+of active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off, rising
+through the bright blue haze. It was rich yellow dust of the fertile
+soil, which never seems to cake or clot. Sometimes you may walk for
+miles without the smallest fear of sinking, the earth is so elastic. And
+yet with a slight exertion you may push a walking-stick down through it
+until the handle stops it. My heart gave a jump: that cloud of dust was
+a sign of men on horseback. And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm
+and the foreman Martin?
+
+As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very three,
+carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with heat and dust
+and thirst. But when they saw me there all alone under the fury of the
+sun, they knew that something must have gone amiss, and were all wide
+awake in a moment.
+
+"Well, now," said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as short
+breath allowed, "put this thing over your head, my dear, or you may gain
+a sun-stroke. I call it too bad of them skunks to drive you in Californy
+noon, like this."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your goods
+and Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!"
+
+"The old house ain't afire yet," he answered, looking calmly under his
+hand in that direction. "And as for Suan, no fear at all. She knows
+how to deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to cook their
+dinner. Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them. They wouldn't 'a made
+much bones of shooting us down if we hadn't known of it, and if they had
+got miss afore the saddle. But if they don't give bail, as soon as they
+see me ride up to my door, my name's not Sampson Gundry. Only you keep
+out of the way, Miss Remy. You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the
+graywitch spinny yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn. And
+then come you in to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you."
+
+I hastened to the place which he pointed out--a beautiful covert of
+birch-trees--but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though I
+was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror. In a soft mossy
+nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the in and out ways
+of the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial insects now was beginning
+to drowse upon the air, and the heat of the sun could almost be seen
+thrilling through the alleys like a cicale's drum--here, in the middle
+of the languid peace, I waited for the terror of the rifle-crack.
+
+For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the peril
+he would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep wrath and
+strong indignation which had kept all his household and premises safe.
+And it seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had never said a word, but
+grasped his gun, and slowly got in front of his grandfather.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GOLD AND GRIEF
+
+
+It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of the
+horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place. I had
+heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of conflict; and
+certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must have seen the smoke.
+For being still in great alarm, I had kept a very sharp lookout.
+
+Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him. He carried
+his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if needful.
+But I was already running toward the house, having made up my mind to
+be resolute. Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to have his company, and
+hear what had been done.
+
+"Please to let me help you," he said, with a smile. "Why, miss, you are
+trembling dreadfully. I assure you there is no cause for that."
+
+"But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and every
+body. Oh, those men did look so horrible!"
+
+"Yes, they always do till you come to know them. But bigger cowards were
+never born. If they can take people by surprise, and shoot them
+without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them. But if any one like
+grandfather meets them face to face in the daylight, their respect
+for law and life returns. It is not the first visit they have paid us.
+Grandfather kept his temper well. It was lucky for them that he did."
+
+Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one, even
+if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves that
+there had been no outbreak. But Firm seemed rather sorry that they had
+departed so easily. And knowing that he never bragged, I began to share
+his confidence.
+
+"They must be shot, sooner or later," he said, "unless, indeed, they
+should be hanged. Their manner of going on is out of date in these days
+of settlement. It was all very well ten years ago. But now we are a
+civilized State, and the hand of law is over us. I think we were wrong
+to let them go. But of course I yield to the governor. And I think he
+was afraid for your sake. And to tell the truth, I may have been the
+same."
+
+Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite out of
+place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on. Before he could catch me I
+entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly with his own long
+pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
+
+"They rogues have had all the best of our victuals," he said, as soon
+as he had kissed me. "Respectable visitors is my delight, and welcome
+to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin the grain
+to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers. Suan, you are burning the fat
+again."
+
+Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper), never
+paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on. Mr. Gundry
+knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling, although it is well
+to keep them up to their work by a little grumbling. But when I came to
+see what broken bits were left for Suan to deal with, I only wondered
+that he was not cross.
+
+"Thank God for a better meal than I deserve," he said, when they all had
+finished. "Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every day a'most. Now
+if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have it up. We be all in
+the dumps. But that will never do, my lad."
+
+He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of the
+two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar; while I,
+who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way, perceived that
+something was gone amiss, something more serious and lasting than the
+mischief made by the robber troop. Was it that his long ride had failed,
+and not a friend could be found to help him?
+
+When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine, and
+Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer leaned
+back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled. I filled his pipe
+and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak, well knowing his simple
+and outspoken heart. But he looked at me and thanked me kindly, and
+seemed to be turning some grief in his mind.
+
+"It ain't for the money," he said at last, talking more to himself than
+to me; "the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a sort of
+way. But the feelin'--the feelin' is the thing I look at, and it ought
+to have been more hearty. Security! Charge on my land, indeed! And I can
+run away, but my land must stop behind! What security did I ask of them?
+'Tis enough a'most to make a rogue of me."
+
+"Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam," I exclaimed, as I came and sat
+close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to smile.
+
+"Why, what was little missy thinking of?" he asked. "How solid she
+looks! Why, I never see the like!"
+
+"Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam. You ought to have seen it
+fifty times, with every body who loves you. And who can help loving you,
+Uncle Sam?"
+
+"Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on the
+cross, and the backstroke work. And it may 'a been so, when I took
+agin a man. But to bring up all that, with the mill strown down, is a
+cowardly thing, to my thinking. And to make no count of the beadin' I
+threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and the turpsy knots,
+and the clogging of the teeth--'tis a bad bit to swallow, when the mill
+is strown."
+
+"But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam. The mill shall be built
+again. And I will find the money."
+
+Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head. He could not bear to tell
+me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of money. "Five
+thousand dollars you have got put by for me," I continued, with great
+importance. "Five thousand dollars from the sale and the insurance fund.
+And five thousand dollars must be five-and-twenty thousand francs. Uncle
+Sam, you shall have every farthing of it. And if that won't build the
+mill again, I have got my mother's diamonds."
+
+"Five thousand dollars!" cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening his
+great gray eyes at me. And then he remembered the tale which he had
+told, to make me seem independent. "Oh yes, to be sure, my dear; now I
+recollect. To be sure--to be sure--your own five thousand dollars. But
+never will I touch one cent of your nice little fortune; no, not to save
+my life. After all, I am not so gone in years but what I can build the
+mill again myself. The Lord hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me
+still with machinery. And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a
+job pretty fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has
+not pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me. But
+that is all for the best, no doubt. If Ephraim had too much of brains,
+he might have contradicted me. And that I could never abide, God knows,
+from any green young jackanapes."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something--something very important!"
+
+"No, my dear, nothing more just now. It has done me good to have a
+little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me. But just go and
+ask whatever is become of Firm. He was riled with them greasers. It was
+all I could do to keep the boy out of a difficulty with them. And if
+they camp any where nigh, it is like enough he may go hankerin' after
+them. The grand march of intellect hathn't managed yet to march old
+heads upon young shoulders. And Firm might happen to go outside the
+law."
+
+The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though mild
+of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from tales of
+Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol of him. And
+now, when she could not say where he was, but only was sure that he must
+be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great medicine man which she
+had hung about him), it seemed to me, according to what I was used to,
+that in these regions human life was held a great deal too lightly.
+
+It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is the
+duty of a fellow-creature. He was a very good young man, and in his way
+good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite, and a very good
+carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly always listened. But of
+course he was not to be compared as yet to his grandfather, the true
+Sawyer.
+
+When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm, and
+the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found Mr.
+Gundry in a genial mood. He never made himself uneasy about any trifles.
+He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways of Providence, and
+having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure that he never could lose
+Firm. He had taken his glass of hot whiskey and water, which always made
+him temperate; and if he felt any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on
+them now from a high point of view.
+
+"I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of
+mankind," he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his breast;
+"all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far. I ought to have made
+more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish state, when a
+old man is put about with them. Never you pay no heed whatever to any
+harsh words I may have used. All that is a very bad thing for young
+folk."
+
+"But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that they
+treated you well?"
+
+He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
+thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
+
+"Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in
+disguise to the present time of sight. It will send up the price of
+scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them. By the time we
+have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than we know
+how to do with. When I come to reckon of it, to me it appears to be the
+reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the old mill, and then to
+set to and build a stronger one. Yes, that must be about the right thing
+to do. And we'll have all the neighbors in when we lay foundations."
+
+"But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may at
+any time be washed away again?"
+
+"Never, at any time," he answered, very firmly, gazing through the door
+as if he saw the vain endeavor. "That little game can easily be stopped,
+for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank toward the old track
+of the river. The biggest waterspout that ever came down from the
+mountains could never come anigh the mill, but go right down the valley.
+It hath been in my mind to do it often, and now that I see the need, I
+will. Firm and I will begin tomorrow."
+
+"But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam? You said that all
+your friends had refused to help you."
+
+"Never mind, my dear. I will help myself. It won't be the first time,
+perhaps, in my life."
+
+"But supposing that I could help you, just some little? Supposing that I
+had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all California?"
+
+Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he
+did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had
+just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted my
+knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.
+
+"It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold--here is a piece of it;
+just look--and as large, I am sure, as this table. And it may be as
+deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the contrary. Why, it
+stopped the big pile from coming to the top, when even you went down the
+river."
+
+"Well, now, that explains a thing or two," said the Sawyer, smiling
+peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation meant
+any thing. "Two things have puzzled me about that stump, and, indeed,
+I might say three things. Why did he take such a time to drive? and why
+would he never stand up like a man? and why wouldn't he go away when he
+ought to?"
+
+"Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam. He was anchored
+on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good right to be
+crooked about it, and no power could get him away from it."
+
+"Hush, my dear, hush! It is not at all good for young people to let
+their minds run on so. But this gold looks very good indeed. Are you
+sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more of it?"
+
+"How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you that
+I saw it with my own eyes? And there must be at least half a ton of it."
+
+"Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me. And you shall have
+all the rest, my dear--that is, if you will spare me a bit, Miss Remy.
+It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the diggers' law. And
+your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the whole of your heart
+must be running upon it."
+
+"Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world! How I wish that I
+had never seen it! It was only for you that I cared about it--for you,
+for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it."
+
+Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps. But I did not see it in
+that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he should
+misunderstand me so. Gold had its usual end, in grief. Uncle Sam rose up
+to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say that perhaps he was harsh
+because of the treatment he had received from his friends. He took me in
+his arms and kissed me; but before I could leave off sobbing, the crack
+of a rifle rang through the house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed
+out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SAWYER'S PRAYER
+
+
+The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree and
+stream. Every thing looked of a different form and color from those of
+an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with color, and cast
+by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple adieu of the sun, was
+filling the air with delicious calm. The Sawyer ran out with his shirt
+sleeves shining, so that any sneaking foe might shoot him; but, with
+the instinct of a settler, he had caught up his rifle. I stood beneath
+a carob-tree, which had been planted near the porch, and flung fantastic
+tassels down, like the ear-rings of a negress. And not having sense
+enough to do good, I was only able to be frightened.
+
+Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the other
+side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread, even thus
+far off, was plainly Suan Isco's. And then in the stillness a weary and
+heavy foot went toiling after it. Before I could follow, which I longed
+to do, to learn at once the worst of it, I saw the figure of a man much
+nearer, and even within twenty yards of me, gliding along without any
+sound. Faint as the light was, I felt sure that it was not one of our
+own men, and the barrel of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black
+line among silver leaves. I longed to run forth and stop him, but my
+courage was not prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind
+the trunk of the carob-tree. Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted
+villain, he went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape
+with skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he
+leaped up and fell flat without a groan. The crack of a rifle came later
+than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a black rock,
+and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, "Well, now!" as he generally did
+when satisfied.
+
+So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady me;
+and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see whether it was
+possible to help. But the poor man lay beyond earthly help; he was too
+dead to palpitate. His life must have left him in the air, and he could
+not even have felt his fall.
+
+In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head, and
+strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what, without
+thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
+
+"Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern
+voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr.
+Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam. I tried to speak to him,
+but was too frightened. The wrath of blood was in his face, and all his
+kind desires were gone.
+
+"Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this earth,
+till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood. Captain Pedro,
+there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the back. I wish you were
+alive to taste my boots. Murderer of men and filthy ravisher of women,
+miscreant of God, how can I keep from trampling on you?"
+
+It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely forget
+himself. I wanted to think that it must be somebody else, and not our
+Uncle Sam. But he looked toward the west, as all men do when their
+spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed that his chin was
+triple.
+
+Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get away.
+The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing, compared with the
+face of the old man living. He may not have meant it, and I hope he
+never did, but beyond all controversy he looked barbarous for the
+moment.
+
+As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing still,
+longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the great awe of
+death. If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even moaned, the living
+man would have lost all reverence in his fury. But the power of the
+other world was greater than even revenge could trample on. He let it
+lie there, and he stooped his head, and went away quite softly.
+
+My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this. The
+Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the largest
+human nature that I had ever met with. And though it was impossible as
+yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of some great ideal,
+came over me.
+
+Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men bringing
+the body of poor Firm. His head and both his arms hung down, and they
+wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do, although they called
+out to me not to meddle. The body was carried in, and laid upon three
+chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then a light was struck, and a
+candle brought by somebody or other. And Suan Isco sat upon the floor,
+and set up a miserable Indian dirge.
+
+"Stow away that," cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those two
+men; "wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your liking. I felt
+him try to kick while we carried him along. He come forth on a arrand of
+that sort, and he seem to 'a been disappointed. A very fine young chap
+I call him, for to try to do it still, howsomever his mind might be
+wandering. Missy, keep his head up."
+
+I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung upon
+any sign of life in him. When I look back at these things, I think that
+fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable girl almost into
+a real woman. But I had no sense of such things then.
+
+"I tell you he ain't dead," cried Martin; "no more dead than I be. He
+feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn up his
+eyes. He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble about his
+breathing. I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot through the heart;
+but he came all round in about six months, and protected his head with a
+document. Firm, now, don't you be a fool. I have had worse things in my
+family."
+
+Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him. At
+any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe, and a
+little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes. And on my
+sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came trickling.
+
+"Keep him to that," said Martin, with some carpenter sort of surgery;
+"less fear of the life when the blood begins to run. Don't move him,
+missy; never mind your arm. It will be the saving of him."
+
+I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me; and
+they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must have been
+so. But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm to his straw
+mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the room, and that,
+perhaps, revived me. I went to the bottom of the stairs and listened,
+and then stole up to the landing, and heard Suan Isco, who had taken the
+command, speaking cheerfully in her worst English. Then I hoped for the
+best, and, without any knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
+
+Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven to do
+when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the gleaming river,
+and saw the water just in time to stop from stepping into it. Careless
+about this and every other thing for the moment, I threw myself on
+the sod, and listened to the mournful melody of night. Sundry unknown
+creatures, which by day keep timid silence, were sending timid sounds
+into the darkness, holding quiet converse with themselves, or it, or one
+another. And the silvery murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling
+sleep of leaves.
+
+I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved with
+washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well content to
+throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all things flow past me.
+But before any thing had found time to flow far, or the lullaby of night
+had lulled me, there came to me a sadder sound than plaintive Nature can
+produce without her Master's aid, the saddest sound in all creation--a
+strong man's wail.
+
+Child as I was--and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as knowing
+so little of mankind--I might have been more frightened, but I could not
+have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a lion. For I knew in
+a moment whose voice it was, and that made it pierce me tenfold. It was
+Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to his God alone, the loss of his
+last hope on earth. He could not dream that any other than his Maker
+(and his Maker's works, if ever they have any sympathy) listened to
+the wild outpourings of an aged but still very natural heart, which had
+always been proud of controlling itself. I could see his great frame
+through a willow-tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around,
+and the faint gleam of fugitive water beyond. He was kneeling toward his
+shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and his
+white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several times, he
+managed to pray a little. First (perhaps partly from habit), he said the
+prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he went on to his own special
+case, with a doubting whether he should mention it. But as he went on he
+gathered courage, or received it from above, and was able to say what he
+wanted.
+
+"Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and
+shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble. But I never
+had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I ever shall get
+over it. I have sinned every day of my life, and not thought of Thee,
+but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and nobody knows, but myself and
+Thou, all the little bad things inside of me. I cared a deal more to be
+respectable and get on with my business than to be prepared for kingdom
+come. And I have just been proud about the shooting of a villain, who
+might 'a gone free and repented. There is nobody left to me in my old
+age. Thou hast taken all of them. Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson,
+and my brother who robbed me--the whole of it may have been for my good,
+but I have got no good out of it. Show me the way for a little time, O
+Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like a man, and
+not break down at this time of life. Thou knowest what is right. Please
+to do it. Amen."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+NOT FAR TO SEEK
+
+
+In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious, the
+Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to pronounce)
+for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's prayer. But if
+sound doctrine can be established by success (as it always is), Uncle
+Sam's theology must have been unusually sound; for it pleased a gracious
+Power to know what he wanted, and to grant it.
+
+Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter
+years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with
+abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him.
+Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but proved
+against every one's voice, except his own, his special blessedness. But
+this must have been a trial to him, and happily he was spared from it.
+
+For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks in
+anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-nourished
+frame got over it. A truly good and learned doctor came from Sacramento,
+and we hung upon his words, and found that there he left us hanging. And
+this was the wisest thing perhaps that he could do, because in America
+medical men are not absurdly expected, as they are in England, to do any
+good, but are valued chiefly upon their power of predicting what they
+can not help. And this man of science perceived that he might do harm to
+himself and his family by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good
+to his patient by predicting rightly. And so he foretold both good and
+evil, to meet the intentions of Providence.
+
+He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due, he
+saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet, which,
+if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it was made
+of pure silver. The Sawyer wished to keep this silver bullet as a token,
+but the doctor said that it belonged to him according to miners' law;
+and so it came to a moderate argument. Each was a thoroughly stubborn
+man, according to the bent of all good men, and reasoning increased
+their unreason. But the doctor won--as indeed he deserved, for the
+extraction had been delicate--because, when reason had been exhausted,
+he just said this:
+
+"Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words. The true owner is your
+grandson. I will put it back where I took it from."
+
+Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad
+moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet heartily.
+And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it upon his watch
+chain. And he told the story so often (saying that another man perhaps
+might have got it out, but no other man could have kept it), that among
+a great race who judge by facts it doubled his practice immediately.
+
+The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as "Captain Pedro," was
+buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's reputation
+that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad characters were
+forced by circumstances to come near him, they never asked for any thing
+stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade, and departed very promptly. For
+as soon as Ephraim Gundry could give account of his disaster, it was
+clear that Don Pedro owed his fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey.
+Firm had only intended to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired
+by his grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle. This idea
+had justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at
+once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip. Coming thus to the Rovers'
+camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to digest his
+dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way to feelings of
+severity. Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and being lifted up for
+the moment above his ordinary view, perceived that he might have done
+better, and shaped the pattern of his tongue to it. Firm, hearing this,
+had good hopes of him; yet knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove
+to form a well-marked track for it. And when the captain ceased to
+receive cowhide, he must have had it long enough to miss it.
+
+Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned, if
+the captain had known when he was well off. Unluckily he had purloined
+a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork now to rub his
+stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it inside. And before very
+long his ideas of honor, which he had sense enough to drop when sober,
+began to come into his eyes again, and to stir him up to mischief. Hence
+it was that he followed Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and
+appeased his honor by shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot
+anyhow.
+
+It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle Sam's
+proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost careless
+whenever he was looked at. And then he was ashamed of himself
+perpetually, if any one went on with it. Nobody tried to observe him, of
+course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for this he would become
+so grateful that he would long to tell all his thoughts, and then stop.
+This must have been a great worry to him, seeing how open his manner
+was; and whenever he wanted to hide any thing, he informed us of that
+intention. So that we exhorted Firm every day to come round and restore
+us to our usual state. This was the poor fellow's special desire;
+and often he was angry with himself, and made himself worse again by
+declaring that he must be a milksop to lie there so long. Whereas, it
+was much more near the truth that few other men, even in the Western
+States, would ever have got over such a wound. I am not learned enough
+to say exactly where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think,
+the sternum, and pronounced that "a building-up process" was required,
+and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.
+
+It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left him
+by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs. But he,
+without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me--a mere ignorant
+child. Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and perhaps I was proud of
+that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify it, instead of laboring
+to remove it, as would have been the more proper course. And Firm most
+ungratefully said that my hand was lighter than poor Suan's, and every
+thing I did was better done, according to him, which was shameful on his
+part, and as untrue as any thing could be. However, we yielded to him
+in all things while he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak
+things cry to be the masters of a tall strong man.
+
+Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the
+twelvemonth was completed from my father's death. The brightness of
+summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them, and while
+his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling up, as the
+learned man had called it. There had been some difficulties in this
+process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too lavish supply of the raw
+material; and before Firm's gap in his "sternum" was stopped, the
+mountains were coming down upon us, as we always used to say when the
+snow-line stooped. In some seasons this is a sharp time of hurry, broken
+with storms, and capricious, while men have to slur in the driving
+weather tasks that should have been matured long since. But in other
+years the long descent into the depth of winter is taken not with a
+jump like that, but gently and softly and windingly, with a great many
+glimpses back at the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of
+the sun.
+
+And so it was this time. The autumn and the winter for a fortnight stood
+looking quietly at each other. They had quite agreed to share the hours,
+to suit the arrangements of the sun. The nights were starry and fresh
+and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and the days were sunny
+and soft and gentle, without any sense of languor. It was a lovely
+scene--blue shadows gliding among golden light.
+
+The Sawyer came forth, and cried, "What a shame! This makes me feel
+quite young again. And yet I have done not a stroke of work. No excuse;
+make no excuse. I can do that pretty well for myself. Praise God for all
+His mercies. I might do worse, perhaps, than have a pipe."
+
+Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the sight
+of himself. He steadied his steps with one great white hand upon his
+grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were trembling with
+a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears. And I stepped behind a red
+strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for him almost made me sob.
+
+Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and convince
+us that he was not a dead dog yet. He had known tribulation, as his
+master had, and had found it a difficult thing to keep from the shadowy
+hunting ground of dogs who have lived a conscientious life. I had
+wondered at first what his reason could have been for not coming
+forward, according to his custom, to meet that troop of robbers. But
+his reason, alas! was too cogent to himself, though nobody else in that
+dreadful time could pay any attention to him. The Rovers, well knowing
+poor Jowler's repute, and declining the fair mode of testing it, had
+sent in advance a very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as
+much about dogs as they could ever hope to know about themselves. This
+rogue approached faithful Jowler--so we were told long afterward--not in
+an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped. And he took
+advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to accost him
+with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison. According to
+all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear fellow's earthly
+tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply went away to nurse
+himself up in retirement. Neither man nor dog can tell what agonies he
+suffered; and doubtless his tortures of mind about duty unperformed were
+the worst of all. These things are out of human knowledge in its present
+unsympathetic state. Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his
+ribs all up and his tail very low.
+
+Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of
+death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. The
+trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere frippery
+of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a surety of having
+quite enough next spring. Much of the fruity wealth of autumn still
+was clustering in our sight, heavily fetching the arched bough down to
+lessen the fall, when fall they must. And against the golden leaves of
+maple behind the unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a
+climbing Ipomaea. But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing
+more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a quiet
+roasting job.
+
+This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much could
+never tell how clear our spirits were. Nobody made any "demonstration,"
+or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any thing exuberant. The
+steadfast brooding breed of England, which despises antics, was present
+in us all, and strengthened by a soil whose native growth is peril,
+chance, and marvel. And so we nodded at one another, and I ran over and
+courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he took me to him.
+
+"You have been a dear good child," he said, as he rose, and looked over
+my head at Firm. "My own granddarter, if such there had been, could not
+have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught I know. There
+is no picking and choosing among the females, as God gives them. But he
+has given you for a blessing and saving to my old age, my dearie."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!" I cried, desiring like a child to
+escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm. "You have
+promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show Firm the
+nugget."
+
+"And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an hour
+older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is."
+
+Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream of
+mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could not
+exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared his
+anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm, faster,
+perhaps, than he ought to have walked.
+
+In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to point
+it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing except the
+white bed of the river! The blue water flowed very softly on its way,
+without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.
+
+"Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!" I exclaimed, in the saddest
+of sad dismay. "I dreamed about it first, but it never can have been
+a dream throughout. You know that I told you about it, Uncle Sam, even
+when you were very busy, and that shows that it never could have been a
+dream."
+
+"You told me about it, I remember now," Mr. Gundry answered, dryly; "but
+it does not follow that there was such a thing. My dear, you may have
+imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to come, when my good
+friends had no money to lend. Your heart was so good that it got into
+your brain, and you must not be vexed, my dear child; it has done you
+good to dream of it."
+
+"I said so all along," Firm observed. "Miss Rema felt that it ought to
+be, and so she believed that it must be, there. She is always so warm
+and trustful."
+
+"Is that all you are good for?" I cried, with no gratitude for his
+compliment. "As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of gold, and
+so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought up. Did you take
+them all in a dream, Uncle Sam? Come, can you get over that?"
+
+I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my feet
+or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the Sawyer's ample
+countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for he gazed at me with
+compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as if he were balancing our
+abilities.
+
+"Send your dog in, missy," at last he said. "He is more your dog than
+mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian. Let him go and find
+it if he can."
+
+At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all four
+feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty barkings;
+and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as yellow and as
+big as ever.
+
+"Ha! ha! I never saw a finer thing," shouted Uncle Sam, like a
+school-boy. "I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog
+wollops the whole of us. I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on your
+nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and if the boy
+had never come round, there the gold might have waited the will of the
+Almighty. It is a big spot, anyhow."
+
+It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make so
+light of it--which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as proud as
+if I had made it. Not by any means that the Sawyer was half as careless
+as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my sake, having very
+lofty principles, especially concerning the duty of the young. Young
+people were never to have small ideas, so far as he could help it,
+particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or the world, or fashion; and
+not so very seldom he was obliged to catch himself up in his talking,
+when he chanced to be going on and forgetting that I, who required a
+higher vein of thought for my youth, was taking his words downright; and
+I think that all this had a great deal to do with his treating all that
+gold in such an exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing,
+what made him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel
+over it?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BROUGHT TO BANK
+
+
+The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and kindred by
+the amount of consideration which he has consistently given to cash.
+If money has been the chief object of his life, and he for its sake has
+spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be successful than admiration
+overpowers all the ill-will he has caused. He is shrewd, sagacious,
+long-headed, and great; he has earned his success, and few men grudge,
+while many seek to get a slice of it; but he, as a general rule,
+declines any premature distribution, and for this custody of his wealth
+he is admired all the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
+
+As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his banker's
+a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be worth at least a
+hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side poured in, all in
+hot haste, to lend him their last farthing. The Sawyer was pleased with
+their kindness, but thought that his second-best whiskey met the merits
+of the case. And he was more particular than usual with his words;
+for, according to an old saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has
+children, and, being too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all
+its little ones at home. Many people, therefore, were longing to seek
+for the frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners
+called them, with a love of preternatural history. But Mr. Gundry
+allowed no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his
+patriarchal nugget. And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds
+of avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in avoiding
+that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the bed of his great
+treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced the whole of it in,
+and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it; and then he established
+Jowler where he could neither be shot nor poisoned, and kept a man with
+a double-barreled rifle in the ruin of the mill, handy to shoot, but not
+easy to be shot; and this was a resolute man, being Martin himself, who
+had now no business. Of course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper
+was, the better for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many
+men; and if any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never
+would he have gone away again.
+
+It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body ought
+to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those who knew
+so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have done no
+harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed of saying so,
+because the great gold had been found by me, and although I cared for it
+scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-lace, nobody seemed to me able
+to enter into it quite as I did; and as soon as Firm's danger and pain
+grew less, I began to get rather impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be
+hurried.
+
+Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind for me
+to be there, and he even put the business off, because I would not come
+one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account of its being my
+father's birthday. Uncle Sam had forgotten the date, and begged my
+pardon for proposing it; but he said that we must not put it off later
+than the following night, because the moonlight would be failing, and
+we durst not have any kind of lamp, and before the next moon the hard
+weather might begin. All this was before the liberal offers of his
+friends, of which I have spoken first, although they happened to come
+after it.
+
+While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the issue
+of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to watch it and
+to form some opinion of its shape and size; for, knowing the pile which
+I had described, he could not help finding it easily enough; and indeed
+the great fear was that others might find it, and come in great force to
+rob him; but nothing of that sort had happened, partly because he
+held his tongue rigidly, and partly, perhaps, because of the simple
+precaution which he had taken.
+
+Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at least;
+for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might have killed
+him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at all; and strong
+as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-tackle, he alone could
+never bring that piece of bullion to bank; so, after much consideration,
+he resolved to tell Martin of the mill, as being the most trusty man
+about the place, as well as the most surly; but he did not tell him
+until every thing was ready, and then he took him straightway to the
+place.
+
+Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco,
+who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch,
+or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. The
+night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of the
+moon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still face
+of shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height,
+submerging every thing.
+
+While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attracting
+any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising from
+a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and we
+soon saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from under
+some drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a small
+movable crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up in
+the river-bed.
+
+"Palefaces eat gold," Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfy
+herself. "Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other's
+ears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now."
+
+"Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan," I answered; "as if it were possible to
+have enough!"
+
+"For my part," said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening,
+"I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here,
+mischief will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it will
+turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do,
+ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along."
+
+"Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather pettishly,
+for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget.
+"Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith
+in it."
+
+"Can't say, can't say," was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the
+silent vein again.
+
+"Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!" cried the Sawyer, who
+was splashing for his life in the water. "I've tackled 'un now. Just
+tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift
+'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, I
+guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such a
+doggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?"
+
+For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught hold
+of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swung
+himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showed
+us exactly where to throw our weight, and he used his own to such good
+effect that, after some creaking and groaning, the long horn of the
+crane rose steadily, and a mass of dripping sparkles shone in the
+moonlight over the water.
+
+"Hurrah! what a whale! How the tough ash bends!" cried Uncle Sam,
+panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself. "Martin, lay
+your chest to it. We'll grass him in two seconds. Californy never saw a
+sight like this, I reckon."
+
+There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and
+admire it. In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with his
+shoulders up and panting. Even a rough resemblance to the head and the
+haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz shone here and
+there on the glistening and bossy surface. Some of us began to feel and
+handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with his heavy boots, made a
+vicious kick at it, and a few bright scales, like sparks, flew off.
+
+"Why, what ails the lad?" cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; "what harm
+hath the stone ever done to him? To my mind, this here lump is a proof
+of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived long enough
+to gainsay? Here this lump hath lain, without changing color, since
+creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when the Lord laid hand
+to it. What good to argue agin such facts? Supposin' the world come out
+o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it, or to say a word of orders, how
+ever could it 'a managed to get a lump of gold like this in it? They
+clever fellers is too clever. Let 'em put all their heads together, and
+turn out a nugget, and I'll believe them."
+
+Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow. He was
+not long in perceiving this, though we were content to admire his words
+without asking him to explain them; so he only said, "Well, well," and
+began to try with both hands if he could heft this lump. He stirred it,
+and moved it, and raised it a little, as the glisten of the light upon
+its roundings showed; but lift it fairly from the ground he could not,
+however he might bow his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it;
+and, strange to say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own
+discomfiture.
+
+"Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-cap
+easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years, and
+strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad is a
+clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage. If there's a pound here,
+there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay a thousand
+dollars. Miss Rema, give a name to him. All the thundering nuggets has
+thundering names."
+
+"Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'" I answered, "because he is the
+largest and the best of all."
+
+"It shall stand, miss," cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and
+seemed to have bettered himself forever. "You could not have given it a
+finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century. Uncle Sam is the
+name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our natur'. Every body's
+uncle we are now, in vartue of superior knowledge, and freedom, and
+giving of general advice, and stickin' to all the world, or all the good
+of it. Darned if old Sam aren't the front of creation!"
+
+"Well, well," said the Sawyer, "let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the dear
+young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name; but, for
+all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our glorious race will
+come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes."
+
+"Pooh!" cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words were
+common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled gun, and
+Jowler to keep watch with him. And the next day he told us that he had
+spent the night in such a frame of mind from continual thought that when
+our pet cow came to drink at daybreak, it was but the blowing of her
+breath that saved her from taking a bullet between her soft tame eyes.
+
+Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things should
+continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the nugget,
+perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the neighborhood
+to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its road at the bottom
+of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and Jowler to sit up, and
+Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed robbers came riding across,
+with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy mules--enough to drag off every
+thing. They had clearly heard of the golden toad, and desired to know
+more of him; but Uncle Sam, with his usual blandness, met these men at
+the gate of his yard, and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested
+a rifle of heavy metal, with seven revolving chambers. The robbers found
+out that they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they
+had, and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it
+would be for them. They thought that he had all his men inside, and they
+were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help us, and Suan
+Isco, with a great gun cocked. But their curiosity was such that they
+could not help asking about the gold; and, sooner than shoot them, Uncle
+Sam replied that, upon his honor, the nugget was gone. And the fame of
+his word was so well known that these fellows (none of whom could tell
+the truth, even at confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his
+pardon for trespassing on his premises. They hoped that he would not say
+a word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for losing
+his road; and he told them that if they made off at once, nobody should
+pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FIRM AND INFIRM
+
+
+Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet disturbed by
+that great discovery of gold. The Sawyer went up to the summit of esteem
+in public opinion; but to himself and to us he was the same as ever. He
+worked with his own hard hands and busy head just as he used to do; for
+although the mill was still in ruins, there was plenty of the finer work
+to do, which always required hand-labor. And at night he would sit at
+the end of the table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles
+on, and his red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which
+was to be built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard,
+thought, or dreamed of.
+
+We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer
+in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and frosty
+appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the comfort at least
+of two of us. Ephraim Gundry found out, or fancied, that he was entirely
+filled with love of a very young maid, who never dreamed of such things,
+and hated even to hear of them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.
+
+During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually, being
+only too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away from it.
+I partly suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound for my sake;
+though I never imputed his zeal to more than a young man's natural wrath
+at an outrage. But now he left me no longer in doubt, and made me
+most uncomfortable. Perhaps I was hard upon him, and afterward I often
+thought so, for he was very kind and gentle; but I was an orphan child,
+and had no one to advise me in such matters. I believe that he should
+have considered this, and allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps
+he himself was too young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage
+things. It was the very evening after his return from Sacramento, and
+the beauty of the weather still abode in the soft warm depth around
+us. In every tint of rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet
+clearness seemed to lie, and a rich content of color. The grandeur of
+the world was such that one could only rest among it, seeking neither
+voice nor thought.
+
+Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring loudly
+through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes shaken, and an
+eager form leap out. I did not answer a word, but sat with a wreath of
+white bouvardia and small adiantum round my head, which I had plaited
+anyhow.
+
+"What a lovely dear you are!" cried Firm, and then he seemed frightened
+at his own words.
+
+"I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as this,
+Mr. Firm."
+
+"And you did not want me. You are vexed to see me. Tell the truth, Miss
+Rema."
+
+"I always tell the truth," I answered; "and I did not want to be
+disturbed just now. I have so many things to think of."
+
+"And not me among them. Oh no, of course you never think of me, Erema."
+
+"It is very unkind of you to say that," I answered, looking clearly at
+him, as a child looks at a man. "And it is not true, I assure you, Firm.
+Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often go on to think
+of you, because he is so fond of you."
+
+"But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own sake."
+
+"But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly. There is scarcely
+a day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I think of you."
+
+"Tush!" replied Firm, with a lofty gaze. "Even for a moment that does
+not in any way express my meaning. My mind is very much above all eating
+when it dwells upon you, Erema. I have always been fond of you, Erema."
+
+"You have always been good to me, Firm," I said, as I managed to get
+a great branch between us. "After your grandfather, and Suan Isco, and
+Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body left to me. And
+you know that I never forget your slippers."
+
+"Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me. Now will you
+just listen to a little common-sense? You know that I am not romantic."
+
+"Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any way."
+
+"You would like me better if I did. What an extraordinary thing it is!
+Oh, Erema, I beg your pardon."
+
+He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the much
+quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me--that I
+had applied them to my father, of whom I was always thinking, though I
+scarcely ever spoke of him. But I knew that Firm had meant no harm, and
+I gave him my hand, though I could not speak.
+
+"My darling," he said, "you are very dear to me--dearer than all the
+world besides. I will not worry you any more. Only say that you do not
+hate me."
+
+"How could I? How could any body? Now let us go in and attend to Uncle
+Sam. He thinks of every body before himself."
+
+"And I think of every body after myself. Is that what you mean, Erema?"
+
+"To be sure! if you like. You may put any meaning on my words that
+you think proper. I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I pay no
+attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am right."
+
+"I see," replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose in
+deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most. "I see
+how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is right, and
+the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong. Well, after all, there
+is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of one's self."
+
+"You are not what I thought of you," I cried, being vexed beyond
+bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice. "If you wish
+to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover your temper.
+I am not quite accustomed to rudeness."
+
+With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and
+partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked
+back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on his
+hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.
+
+However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful. I
+could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very often.
+But I took good care not to look at him again unless he said something
+that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help it. He was sharp
+enough very soon to find out this; and then he did a thing which was
+most unfair, as I found out long afterward. He bought an American
+jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me, and these he committed to
+heart, and brought them out as his own productions. If I had only known
+it, I must have been exceedingly sorry for him. But Uncle Sam used to
+laugh and rub his hands, perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when
+Uncle Sam laughed, there was nobody near who could help laughing with
+him. And so I began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men,
+though I tried to look away.
+
+But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how Uncle
+Sam went on. I could not understand him at all just then, and thought
+him quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward, when I came
+to know, his behavior was as clear and shallow as the water of his own
+river. He had very strange ideas about what he generally called "the
+female kind." According to his ideas (and perhaps they were not so
+unusual among mankind, especially settlers), all "females" were of a
+good but weak and consistently inconsistent sort. The surest way to make
+them do whatever their betters wanted, was to make them think that it
+was not wanted, but was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to
+overcome, and so to provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon
+doing it. In accordance with this idea (than which there can be none
+more mistaken), he took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word
+to say to Firm; and even went so far as to hint, with winks and nods
+of pleasantry, that his grandson's heart was set upon the pretty Miss
+Sylvester, the daughter of a man who owned a herd of pigs, much too near
+our saw-mills, and herself a young woman of outrageous dress, and in
+a larger light contemptible. But when Mr. Gundry, without any words,
+conveyed this piece of news to me, I immediately felt quite a liking for
+gaudy but harmless Pennsylvania--for so her parents had named her when
+she was too young to help it; and I heartily hoped that she might suit
+Firm, which she seemed all the more likely to do as his conduct could
+not be called noble. Upon that point, however, I said not a word,
+leaving him purely to judge for himself, and feeling it a great relief
+that now he could not say any thing more to me. I was glad that his
+taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how glad I was.
+
+This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great explosion,
+and drove me away from the place altogether before the new mill was
+finished, and before I should otherwise have gone from friends who were
+so good to me; not that I could have staid there much longer, even if
+this had never come to pass; for week by week and month by month I was
+growing more uneasy: uneasy not at my obligations or dependence upon
+mere friends (for they managed that so kindly that I seemed to confer
+the favor), but from my own sense of lagging far behind my duty.
+
+For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of
+goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or notice,
+into a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young woman. I was
+exceedingly shy about this, and blushed if any one spoke of it; but yet
+in my heart I felt it was so; and how could I help it? And when people
+said, as rough people will, and even Uncle Sam sometimes, "Handsome is
+as handsome does," or "Beauty is only skin-deep," and so on, I made it
+my duty not to be put out, but to bear it in mind and be thankful. And
+though I had no idea of any such influence at the moment, I hope that
+the grandeur of nature around and the lofty style of every thing
+may have saved me from dwelling too much on myself, as Pennsylvania
+Sylvester did.
+
+Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor, the
+surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with them;
+not to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery way (as
+many young people set out to do, and never get any further), but to
+right the wrong of my own house, and bring home justice to my own heart.
+This may be thought a partial and paltry object to set out with; and
+it is not for me to say otherwise. At the time, it occurred to me in no
+other light except as my due business, and I never took any large view
+at all. But even now I do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom)
+that if every body, in its own little space and among its own little
+movements, will only do and take nothing without pure taste of the salt
+of justice, no reeking atrocity of national crimes could ever taint the
+heaven.
+
+Such questions, however, become me not. I have only to deal with very
+little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy to be
+woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat of, I can
+only say that they seemed very big at the time when I had to encounter
+them.
+
+For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of life,
+than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill of me?
+Yet this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those theories of the
+other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in. Scarcely any thing
+could be more ridiculous from first to last, when calmly and truly
+considered, than the firm belief which no power of reason could for the
+time root out of him.
+
+Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest, was
+positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the female race,
+that my young head was turned because of the wealth to which I had no
+claim, except through his own justice. He had insisted at first that the
+whole of that great nugget belonged to me by right of sole discovery.
+I asked him whether, if any stranger had found it, it would have been
+considered his, and whether he would have allowed a "greaser," upon
+finding, to make off with it. At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave
+a little grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it.
+But he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser,
+but a settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a settler's
+rights; that the bed of the river would have been his grave but for the
+risk of my life, and therefore whatever I found in the bed of the river
+belonged to me, and me only.
+
+In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be
+that I gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it
+could never make any difference. He did not argue forever, but only
+grew obstinate and unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to own the half
+share of the bullion.
+
+Very well. Every body would have thought, who has not studied the nature
+of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there could be no
+more trouble between two people entirely trusting each other, and only
+anxious that the other should have the best of it. Yet, instead of that
+being the case, the mischief, the myriad mischief, of money set in,
+until I heartily wished sometimes that my miserable self was down in the
+hole which the pelf had left behind it.
+
+For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of generosity
+and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew between them,
+especially about womankind)--what else did he really seem to think, with
+the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts, but that I, his poor
+debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent, was so set up and elated
+by this sudden access of fortune that henceforth none of the sawing race
+was high enough for me to think of? It took me a long time to believe
+that so fair and just a man ever could set such interpretation upon me.
+And when it became too plain that he did so, truly I know not whether
+grief or anger was uppermost in my troubled heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HARD AND SOFT
+
+
+Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down upon
+Miss Sylvester with a large contempt. But while this raised my opinion
+of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great relief--the relief of
+supposing that he wished his grandson to marry this Pennsylvania.
+For although her father, with his pigs and cattle, and a low sort of
+hostelry which he kept, could settle "a good pile of dollars" upon
+her, and had kept her at the "learnedest ladies' college" even in
+San Francisco till he himself trembled at her erudition, still it was
+scarcely to be believed that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense
+and disregard of finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made
+of affectation, vulgarity, and conceit. And one day, quite in the early
+spring, he was so much vexed with the fine lady's airs that he left no
+doubt about his meaning.
+
+Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback; and
+having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs and so
+on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a graceful style
+of horsemanship. And now she dashed through thick and thin in a most
+commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-drift than ladies do for a
+scraping of the road. No one with the least observation could doubt that
+this young woman was extremely anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice;
+and therefore, on the day above spoken of, once more she rode over, with
+her poor father in waiting upon her as usual.
+
+Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has never
+been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth, that no
+smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of large or fine
+sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in the house. I
+simply refused, after seeing her once, to have any thing more to say to
+her; by no means because of my birth and breeding (which are things that
+can be most easily waived when the difference is acknowledged), nor yet
+on account of my being brought up in the company of ladies, nor even by
+reason of any dislike which her bold brown eyes put into me. My cause
+was sufficient and just and wise. I felt myself here as a very
+young girl, in safe and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own
+discretion, without any feminine guidance whatever. And I had learned
+enough from the wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss
+Sylvester was not a young woman who would do me good.
+
+Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me, so
+far as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness went,
+in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal welcome,
+though he said not a word (as on such a point he was quite right in
+doing)--even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite content with my
+decision. But Firm, being young and in many ways stupid, made a little
+grievance of it. And, of course, Miss Sylvester made a great one.
+
+"Oh, I do declare, I am going away," through my open window I heard her
+exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long visit,
+"without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your young
+visitor. Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs. Such a
+distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted with mauvaise
+honte. Why does she not rush to embrace me? All the French people do;
+and she is so French! Let me see her, for the sake of my accent."
+
+"We don't want no French here, ma'am," replied Uncle Sam, as Sylvester
+rode off, "and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt. Her health is as
+good as your own, and you never catch no French actions from her. If she
+wanted to see you, she would 'a come down."
+
+"Oh, now, this is too barbarous! Colonel Gundry, you are the most
+tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat. Every body says
+so, but I never would believe it. Oh, don't let me go away with that
+impression. And you do look so good-natured!"
+
+"And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight."
+
+The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and
+rustiest saw. The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea what
+to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show her figure
+as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed her tan gauntlet
+with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam to revolve his
+rudeness, with the dash of the wet road scattered in the air.
+
+"I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course," he said to Firm, who now
+returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, "if she
+wasn't herself so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my mouldings
+fine. How my mother would 'a stared at the sight of such a gal! Keep
+free of her, my lad, keep free of her. But no harm to put her on, to
+keep our missy alive and awake, my boy."
+
+Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I can
+tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for his answer.
+I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such delicate subjects;
+and it set me more against all thoughts of Firm than a month's
+reflection could have done. When I came to know more of the world, I saw
+that I had been very foolish. At the time, however, I was firmly set
+in a strong resolve to do that which alone seemed right, or even
+possible--to quit with all speed a place which could no longer be suited
+for me.
+
+For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while equally
+I condemned myself for having so little courage. But it was not as if
+there were any body to help me, or tell me what to do; sometimes I was
+bold with a surety of right, and then again I shook with the fear of
+being wrong. Because, through the whole of it, I felt how wonderfully
+well I had been treated, and what a great debt I owed of kindness; and
+it seemed to be only a nasty little pride which made me so particular.
+And being so unable to settle for myself, I waited for something to
+settle it.
+
+Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected. I had
+told Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking steadily
+upon Miss Sylvester. If any woman on earth could be trusted not to say
+a thing again, that one was this good Indian. Not only because of her
+provident habits, but also in right of the difficulty which encompassed
+her in our language. But she managed to get over both of these, and to
+let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly as if she had lived in drawing-rooms,
+whatever I had said about him. She did it for the best; but it put him
+in a rage, which he came at once to have out with me.
+
+"And so, Miss Erema," he said, throwing down his hat upon the table of
+the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman ballads, "I
+have your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy marriage with Miss
+Sylvester?"
+
+I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush on his
+cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy tread, showed
+plainly that his mind was a little out of balance. He deserved it,
+however, and I could not grieve.
+
+"You have my best wishes," I replied, demurely, "for any state of life
+to which you may be called. You could scarcely expect any less of me
+than that."
+
+"How kind you are! But do you really wish that I should marry old
+Sylvester's girl?"
+
+Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as if
+he were saying, "Do you wish to see me hanged?"), while his eyes took a
+form which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle, that it was
+impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to do.
+
+"No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart is
+set on it--"
+
+"Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?" he asked me, in a deep
+voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my hands. "Why
+will you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one I can ever think
+of twice? Above me, I know, in every possible way--birth and education
+and mind and appearance, and now far above me in money as well. But what
+are all these things? Try to think if only you could like me. Liking
+gets over every thing, and without it nothing is any thing. Why do
+I like you so, Erema? Is it because of your birth, and teaching,
+and manners, and sweet looks, and all that, or even because of your
+troubles?"
+
+"How can I tell, Firm--how can I tell? Perhaps it is just because of
+myself. And why do you do it at all, Firm?"
+
+"Ah, why do I do it? How I wish I knew! Perhaps then I might cure it. To
+begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful about you?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, I should hope. Most surely nothing. It would grieve me to
+be at all wonderful. That I leave for American ladies."
+
+"Now you don't understand me. I mean, of course, that you are
+wonderfully good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and your
+lips and smile, and all your other features--there is nothing about them
+that can be called any thing else but wonderful."
+
+"Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are! I did hope that you knew
+better."
+
+"Erema, I never shall know better. I never can swerve or change, if I
+live to be a hundred and fifty. You think me presumptuous, no doubt,
+from what you are brought up to. And you are so young that to seek to
+bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly thing. But now you
+are old enough, and you know your own mind surely well enough, just to
+say whether you feel as if you could ever love me as I love you."
+
+He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so, and
+blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for doing that
+than for any thing he had done before. Yet I knew that I ought to speak
+clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I tried.
+
+"Dear Firm," I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him
+steadily, "I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by--by-and-by, I
+might, that is, if you did not hurry me. Of all the obstacles you have
+mentioned, none is worth considering. I am nothing but a poor castaway,
+owing my life to Uncle Sam and you. But one thing there is which could
+never be got over, even if I felt as you feel toward me. Never can
+I think of little matters, or of turning my thoughts to--to any such
+things as you speak of, as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation
+lies on me. And before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave
+his life for me. Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting
+my time in trifles. I ought to have been in Europe long ago. If I am old
+enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty. If I am old
+enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for hate. I have more
+to do with hate than love, I think."
+
+"Erema," cried Firm, "what a puzzle you are! I never even dreamed that
+you could be so fierce. You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam himself."
+
+"If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough. You see now how vain it
+is to say another word."
+
+"I do not see any thing of the sort. Come back, and look at me quite
+calmly."
+
+Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having passed the
+prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up gently and let him
+look at me to his liking. For little as I thought of such things
+till now, I seemed already to know more about them, or at least to
+wonder--which is the stir of the curtain of knowledge. I did not say
+any thing, but labored to think nothing and to look up with unconscious
+eyes. But Firm put me out altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter
+like a stupid little bird.
+
+"My darling," he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such as I
+could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes, "you are not
+fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is devoting you. You
+have not the hardness and bitterness of mind, the cold self-possession
+and contempt of others, the power of dissembling and the iron will--in
+a word, the fundamental nastiness, without which you never could get
+through such a job. Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!"
+
+"I should hope not. I should earn your contempt, if I could."
+
+"There, you are ready to cry at the thought. Erema, do not mistake
+yourself. Remember that your father would never have wished it--would
+have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it. Why did he
+bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world except to save
+you from further thought of evil? He knew that we listen to no rumors
+here, no social scandals, or malignant lies; but we value people as we
+find them. He meant this to be a haven for you; and so it shall be
+if you will only rest; and you shall be the queen of it. Instead of
+redressing his memory now, you would only distress his spirit. What does
+he care for the world's gossip now? But he does care for your happiness.
+I am not old enough to tell you things as I should like to tell them.
+I wish I could--how I wish I could! It would make all the difference to
+me."
+
+"It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it was
+selfishness. Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never could be
+selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as starved my
+father. You can not see things as I see them, or else you would not
+talk so. When you know that a thing is right, you do it. Can you tell me
+otherwise? If you did, I should despise you."
+
+"If you put it so, I can say no more. You will leave us forever, Erema?"
+
+"No, not forever. If the good God wills it, I will come back when my
+work is done. Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can hope
+to forgot."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE
+
+
+Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among great
+ones, or at least among those which we call great. Before I passed the
+Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called from one of the
+Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long wished to know--why Firm
+had a crooked nose. At least, it could hardly be called crooked if any
+body looked aright at it; but still it departed from the bold straight
+line which nature must have meant for it, every thing else about him
+being as straight as could be required. This subject had troubled me
+more than once, though of course it had nothing whatever to do with the
+point of view whence I regarded him.
+
+Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I
+certainly could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do when
+once I put the question, in despair, to him. But now, as we stood on the
+wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears of anguish were
+in my eyes, and my heart was both full and empty, ample and unexpected
+light was thrown on the curvature of Firm's nose.
+
+For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed,
+came up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then, with
+a blush, took his grandson's hand. Firm took off his hat to her very
+politely, but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner that he was
+particularly engaged just now; and the young lady, with a quick glance
+at me, walked off to rejoin her party. But a garrulous old negro
+servant, who seemed to be in attendance upon her, ran up and caught Firm
+by his coat, and peered up curiously at his face.
+
+"How young massa's poor nose dis long time? How him feel, spose now
+again?" he inquired, with a deferential grin. "Young massa ebber able
+take a pinch of good snuff? He! he! missy berry heavy den? Missy no
+learn to dance de nose polka den?"
+
+"What on earth does he mean?" I could not help asking, in spite of our
+sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other jokes and
+cackles at his own facetiousness. And then Uncle Sam, to divert my
+thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told me how Firm got
+a slight twist to his nose.
+
+Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man
+should learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished
+itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college. And when
+he was leaving to begin home life, with as much put into him as he could
+manage--for his nature was not bookish--when he was just seventeen years
+old, and tall and straight and upright, but not set into great bodily
+strength, which could not yet be expected, a terrible fire broke out in
+a great block of houses newly occupied, over against the school-house
+front. Without waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the
+Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help. And they
+found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the top of
+the house. At the top of the house, according to a stupid and therefore
+general practice, was the nursery, made of more nurses than children, as
+often happens with rich people. The nurses had run away for their lives,
+taking two of the children with them; but the third, a fine little girl
+of ten, had been left behind, and now ran to the window with red
+hot flames behind her. The window was open, and barbs of fire, like
+serpents' tongues, played over it.
+
+"Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!" cried half a hundred people,
+while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and shrank from
+the frightful depth below. At last, stung by a scorching volley, she
+gathered her night-gown tight, and leaped, trusting to the many faces
+and many arms raised toward her. But though many gallant men were there,
+only one stood fast just where she fell, and that one was the youth,
+Firm Gundry. Upon him she fell, like a stone from heaven, and though
+he held up his arms in the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at
+least, for him, but, as her father said, providentially; for one of
+her soles, or heels, alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose. He
+caught her on his chest, and forgetful of himself, he bore her to her
+friends triumphantly, unharmed, and almost smiling. But the symmetry of
+an important part of his face was spoiled forever.
+
+When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own pusillanimous
+rendering--for verily I had been low enough, from rumors of Firm's
+pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of line to some fisticuffs
+with some miner--I looked at Firm's nose through the tears in my eyes,
+and had a great mind not to go away at all. For what is the noblest of
+all things in man--as I bitterly learned thereafter, and already had
+some guesses? Not the power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by
+orders; not the elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others,
+nor even the imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them:
+there may be glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them.
+It remains with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses broken.
+
+However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I
+thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could not
+help asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the heroism.
+The Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however ancient
+quality, gave a great wink at Firm (which I failed to understand), and
+asked him how much the young lady was worth. He expected that Firm
+would say, "Five hundred thousand dollars"--which was about her value, I
+believe--and Uncle Sam wanted me to hear it; not that he cared a single
+cent himself, but to let me know what Firm could do.
+
+Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort. He knew me
+better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me to jealousy,
+and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.
+
+"I have never asked what she is worth," he said, with a glance
+of contempt at money; "but she scarcely seems worth looking at,
+compared--compared with certain others."
+
+In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no attraction,
+but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative negro after her.
+It would have been below me to pursue the subject, and I waited for
+others to re-open it; but I heard no more about her until I had been
+for more than a week at sea, and was able again to feel interest. Then I
+heard that her name was Annie Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and
+Co., who owned the ship I sailed in.
+
+But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
+wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored him
+not to forget me. Over and over again he promised to be full of thoughts
+of me, even when the new mill was started, which would be a most trying
+time. He bowed his tall white head into my sheveled hair, and blessed
+and kissed me, although I never deserved it, and a number of people were
+looking on. Then I laid my hand in Firm's, and he did not lift it to his
+lips, or sigh, but pressed it long and softly, and looked into my eyes
+without a word. And I knew that there would be none to love like them,
+wherever I might go.
+
+But the last of all to say "good-by" was my beloved Jowler. He jumped
+into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat, the ship
+having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my shoulders,
+and whined and drooped his under-jaw. And when he looked at me as he
+used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest, with more expression in
+his bright brown eyes than any human being has, I fell back under his
+weight and sobbed, and could not look at any one.
+
+We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed the
+Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital of the
+world, perhaps. For, as our captain said, all power and human energy and
+strength are always going westward, and when they come here they must
+stop, or else they would be going eastward again, which they never yet
+have done. His argument may have been right or wrong--and, indeed, it
+must have been one or the other--but who could think of such things now,
+with a grander thing than human power--human love fading away behind? I
+could not even bear to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below
+and cried for hours, until all was dark and calm.
+
+The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed, rather
+suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr. Gundry, who
+had spent some years in California, was now returning to England by the
+Bridal Veil. This was Major Hockin, an officer of the British army, now
+on half-pay, and getting on in years. His wife was going home with him;
+for their children were married and settled in England, all but one, now
+in San Francisco. And that one being well placed in the firm of Heniker,
+Banks, and Co., had obtained for his father and mother passage upon
+favorable terms, which was, as we say, "an object to them."
+
+For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to Colonel
+Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the twists of the
+world were set aside), also having served his country, and received
+a furrow on the top of his head, which made him brush his hair up,
+nevertheless, or all the more for that, was as poor as a British officer
+must be without official sesame. How he managed to feed and teach a
+large and not clever family, and train them all to fight their way in a
+battle worse than any of his own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them,
+whatever they did or wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful
+wife, and the Lord who helps brave poverty. Of such things he never
+spoke, unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and
+laziness.
+
+But now he was a little better off, through having his children off his
+hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant relative.
+He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man never returned
+to England, after always standing up for her.
+
+Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large people,
+I could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him no more than
+a little man with many peculiarities. For he was not so tall as myself,
+until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he made such a stir about
+trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only grunted, that I took him to
+be nothing more than a fidgety old campaigner. He wore a black-rimmed
+double eyeglass with blue side-lights at his temples, and his hat, from
+the shape of his forehead, hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers,
+and a Roman nose, and most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with
+gingery brows, which contracted, like sharp little gables over
+them, whenever any thing displeased him. Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn,
+close-shaven, and gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor
+to the general expression of his face, which was firm and quick and
+straightforward. The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand,
+Major Hockin was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and
+beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which, though
+he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready for a game of
+leap-frog.
+
+We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the coast
+ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower Nevada could
+only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every body lay about in our
+ship where it seemed to afford the least smell and heat, and nobody
+for a moment dreamed--for we really all were dreaming--of any body with
+energy enough to be disturbed about any thing, when Major Hockin burst
+in upon us all (who were trying not to be red-hot in the feeble shade
+of poop awnings), leading by the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed
+with decency, and howling in a tone very sad to hear.
+
+"This lady has been robbed!" cried the Major; "robbed, not fifteen feet
+below us. Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished treasures
+of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of a life of
+honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a fine cut of
+Colorado cheese."
+
+"Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!" cried the poor woman, wringing
+her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
+
+"Go to the captain," muttered one sleepy gentleman. "Go to the devil,"
+said another sleepy man: "what have we to do with it?"
+
+"I will neither go to the captain," replied the Major, very distinctly,
+"nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has dared to suggest
+to me--"
+
+"All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!" the poor old woman began to
+scream; "the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un. Only two have
+I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of 'em. Oh dear!
+oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of my things!"
+
+"Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
+Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like to
+be treated so? Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you lie like
+a parcel of Mexicans. If any body picked your pockets, would you have
+life enough to roll over?"
+
+"I don't think I should," said a fat young Briton, with a very
+good-natured face; "but for a poor woman I can stand upright. Major
+Hockin, here is a guinea for her. Perhaps more of us will give a
+trifle."
+
+"Well done!" cried the Major; "but not so much as that. Let us first
+ascertain all the rights of the case. Perhaps half a crown apiece would
+reach it."
+
+Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered
+afterward, for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost under
+some more of her property; and the tide of sleepy charity taking this
+direction under such vehement impulse, several other steerage passengers
+lost their goods, but found themselves too late in doing so. But the
+Major was satisfied, and the rude man who had told him to go amiss,
+begged his pardon, and thus we sailed on slowly and peaceably.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+INSIDE THE CHANNEL
+
+
+That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's character. It
+was not for himself alone that he was so particular, or, as many would
+call it, fidgety, to have every thing done properly; for if any thing
+came to his knowledge which he thought unfair to any one, it concerned
+him almost as much as if the wrong had been done to his own home self.
+Through this he had fallen into many troubles, for his impressions were
+not always accurate; but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife
+said, "the Major could not help it." The leading journals of the various
+places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of
+grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had
+suffered in purse by doing so. But the Major always said, "Ventilate it,
+ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public opinion to bear on it."
+And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was her husband to whom belonged
+the whole credit of this new and spirited use of the fine word
+"ventilation."
+
+As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to say
+that the Major was the master. His sense of justice dictated that, as
+well as his general briskness. Though he was not at all like Mr. Gundry
+in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience and more frequent
+intercourse with our sex had taught him to do justice to us; and it was
+pleasant to hear him often defer to the judgment of ladies. But this
+he did more, perhaps, in theory than in practice; yet it made all the
+ladies declare to one another that he was a perfect gentleman. And so
+he was, though he had his faults; but his faults were such as we approve
+of.
+
+But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of. And whatever
+she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to keep up with him.
+She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year, and a great deal prettier
+because she never tried to look younger. Silver hair, and gentle eyes,
+and a forehead in which all the cares of eight children had scarcely
+imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind expression of interest in whatever was
+spoken of, with a quiet voice and smile, and a power of not saying too
+much at a time, combined to make this lady pleasant.
+
+Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her care;
+and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society of Suan Isco
+and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to amend, which
+she did by example and without reproof. She shielded me also in the
+cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon, which at first was
+very trying. For the Bridal Veil being a well-known ship both for swift
+passages and for equipment, almost every berth was taken, and when
+the weather was calm, quite a large assembly sat down to dinner. Among
+these, of course, were some ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve
+and self-consciousness, and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for
+many a long and searching gaze. My own wish had been not to dine thus in
+public; but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for
+curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the former
+having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to her
+management. His temper was tried more than once to its utmost--which was
+not a very great distance--but he kept his word, and did not interfere;
+and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed all perception
+of glances. And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met them with an obtuse
+obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was settled that nothing
+could be done about "Miss Wood."
+
+It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled shed
+of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and called
+"Miss Wood," like almost anybody else. I refused to entertain such a
+very poor idea, and clung to the name which had always been mine--for
+my father would never depart from it--and I even burst into tears, which
+would, I suppose, be called "sentimental;" but still the stern fact
+stared me in the face--I must go as "Miss Wood," or not go at all. Upon
+this Major Hockin had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move
+him from his resolution.
+
+Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from
+wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon it, and
+even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's chief duty, his
+own stern sense of right came in and sided with my prayers to him.
+And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my youth and sex, but a
+knowledge that I was in good hands, and an inborn, perhaps "Puritanical"
+faith, that the Lord of all right would see to me.
+
+The Major, on the other hand, had none of this. He differed from Uncle
+Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree differs from a
+great spreading king of the woods. He was not without a strict sense of
+religion, especially when he had to march men to church; and he never
+even used a bad word, except when wicked facts compelled him. When
+properly let alone, and allowed to nurse his own opinions, he had a
+respectable idea that all things were certain to be ordered for the
+best; but nothing enraged him so much as to tell him that when things
+went against him, or even against his predictions.
+
+It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most adverse
+view of my case. He formed his opinions with the greatest haste, and
+with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was the most
+generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of his genus. And
+in my little case he had made up his mind that the whole of the facts
+were against me. "Fact" was his favorite word, and one which he always
+used with great effect, for nobody knows very well what it means, as it
+does not belong to our language. And so when he said that the facts were
+against me, who was there to answer that facts are not truth?
+
+This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through himself,
+but through his wife. For I could not yet bring myself to speak of the
+things that lay close at my heart to him, though I knew that he must be
+aware of them. And he, like a gentleman, left me to begin. I could often
+see that he was ready and quite eager to give me the benefit of his
+opinion, which would only have turned me against him, and irritated him,
+perhaps, with me. And having no home in England, or, indeed, I might
+say, any where, I was to live with the Major and his wife, supposing
+that they could arrange it so, until I should discover relatives.
+
+We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly; and I
+thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of the furious
+northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have no idea in what
+latitude, though the passengers now talked quite like seamen, at least
+till the sea got up again. However, at last we made the English Channel,
+in the dreary days of November, and after more peril there than any
+where else, we were safely docked at Southampton. Here the Major was met
+by two dutiful daughters, bringing their husbands and children, and I
+saw more of family life (at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to
+observe before; and although there were many little jars and brawls and
+cuts at one another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some
+brothers and sisters to quarrel with.
+
+But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
+Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched time
+in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in the very
+worst of weather. The ooze of the shore and the reek of the water, and
+the dreary flatness of the land around (after the glorious heaven-clad
+heights, which made me ashamed of littleness), also the rough, stupid
+stare of the men, when I went about as an American lady may freely do in
+America, and the sharpness of every body's voice (instead of the genial
+tones which those who can not produce them call "nasal," but which from
+a higher view are cordial)--taken one after other, or all together,
+these things made me think, in the first flush of thought, that England
+was not a nice country. After a little while I found that I had been a
+great deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
+comprehension. For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid woman
+put over me, as if I could not mind myself--a cook, or a nurse, or
+housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin family, but to me a
+mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath sometimes) a spy.
+What was I likely to do, or what was any one likely to do to me, in
+a thoroughly civilized country, that I could not even stay in private
+lodgings, where I had a great deal to think of, without this dull
+creature being forced upon me? But the Major so ordered it, and I gave
+in.
+
+There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed without
+slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to "form my
+mind," as I was told to do. Major Hockin came down once or twice to see
+me, and though I did not like him, yet it was almost enough to make me
+do so to see a little liveliness. But I could not and would not put
+up with a frightful German baron of music, with a polished card like a
+toast-rack, whom the Major tried to impress on me. As if I could stop to
+take music lessons!
+
+"Miss Wood," said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last time
+he came to see me, "I stand to you in loco parentis. That means, with
+the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what not, of the
+unfortunate--I should say rather of the beloved--parent deceased. I wish
+to be more careful of you than of a daughter of my own--a great deal
+more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say a thousand times more
+careful, because you have not had the discipline which a daughter of
+mine would have enjoyed. And you are so impulsive when you take an
+idea! You judge every body by your likings. That leads to error, error,
+error."
+
+"My name is not Miss Wood," I answered; "my name is 'Erema Castlewood.'
+Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody knowing who I am,
+surely I may have my own name now."
+
+When any body says "surely," at once up springs a question; nothing
+being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative. The Major
+knew all those little things which manage women so manfully. So he took
+me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
+
+I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair, nor
+even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or figure
+was I conscious of false presentment. The Major was welcome to lead me
+to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze with all his
+eyes. My only vexation was with myself, because I could not keep the
+weakness--which a stranger should not see--out of my eyes, upon sudden
+remembrance who it was that used to have the right to do such things to
+me. This it was, and nothing else, that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
+
+"There, there, my dear!" said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than
+usual. "Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the world,
+and brave the world, and abolish the world--or at least the world's
+opinion! 'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no 'bo' to a gander.
+No, no; do quietly what I advise--by-the-bye, you have never asked my
+advice."
+
+I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that most;
+but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's relaxation of
+his eyes,
+
+"Oh, why have you never offered it to me? You knew that I never could
+ask for it."
+
+For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone crosswise;
+and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith in his opinions;
+which was now growing inevitable, with his wife and daughters, and many
+grandchildren--all certain that he was a Solomon.
+
+"Erema," he said, "you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
+romantic. I had no idea that you had so much sense. I will talk with
+you, Erema, when we both have leisure."
+
+"I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin," I replied, "and only too happy to
+listen to you."
+
+"Yes, yes, I dare say. You are in lodgings. You can do exactly as you
+please. But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a woodcock
+waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel. Bless me! I am five minutes
+late already. I will come and have a talk with you afterward."
+
+"Thank you," I said; "we had better leave it. It seems of no importance,
+compared--compared with--"
+
+"My dinner!" said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a little,
+though neither of us meant to vex the other.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BRUNTSEA
+
+
+It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant man or
+a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had ordered, and his
+eagerness to sit down to it. Through all the best years of his life he
+had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-denying, grudging every penny
+of his own expense, but sparing none for his family. And now, when he
+found himself so much better off, with more income and less outlay, he
+could not be blamed for enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of
+abstinence.
+
+For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major had
+discovered that the "little property" left to him, and which he was come
+to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who knew how to
+manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence. And of these two
+qualities he had such abundance that, without any outlet, they might
+have turned him sour.
+
+The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin, had
+long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet. Sir Rufus
+hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with the only
+alternative--extortion. Having no knowledge of his cousin Nick (except
+that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to be lazier even
+than himself had been, longing also to inflict even posthumous justice
+upon the land agent, with the glad consent of his heir he left this
+distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to his beloved cousin Major
+Nicholas Hockin.
+
+The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings
+while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to
+speculate and his dread of speculation. At once he consulted our Colonel
+Gundry, who met him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle Sam having
+a vast idea of the value of land in England, which the Major naturally
+made the most of, now being an English land-owner, they spent a most
+pleasant evening, and agreed upon the line marked out by Providence.
+
+Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me, who
+was much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first disposed to be
+cold and curt. And thus it was that I was left so long in that wretched
+Southampton, under the care of a very kind person who never could
+understand me. And all this while (as I ought to have known, without
+any one to tell me) Major Hockin was testing the value and beating the
+bounds of his new estate, and prolonging his dinner from one to two
+courses, or three if he had been travelling. His property was large
+enough to afford him many dinners, and rich enough (when rightly
+treated) to insure their quality.
+
+Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of England, in
+Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a constitution of its
+own, and says that it belongs to neither. It used to be a place of size
+and valor, furnishing ships, and finding money for patriotic purposes.
+And great people both embarked and landed, one doing this and the other
+that, though nobody seems to have ever done both, if history is to be
+relied upon. The glory of the place is still preserved in a seal and
+an immemorial stick, each of which is blessed with marks as
+incomprehensible as could be wished, though both are to be seen for
+sixpence. The name of the place is written in more than forty different
+ways, they say; and the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the
+youngest how to spell it.
+
+This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the
+mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which a
+sluggish river wins its muddy consummation. This river once went far
+along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is afraid to
+bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other rivers do. And
+in those days the mouth and harbor were under the cliff at Bruntsea,
+whence its seal and corporation, stick, and other blessings. But three
+or four centuries ago the river was drawn by a violent storm, like a
+badger from his barrel, and forced to come straight out and face the
+sea, without any three miles of dalliance. The time-serving water
+made the best of this, forsook its ancient bed (as classic nymphs and
+fountains used to do), and left poor Bruntsea with a dry bank, and
+no haven for a cockle-shell. A new port, such as it is, incrusted the
+fickle jaw of the river; piles were driven and earth-works formed, lest
+the water should return to its old love; and Bruntsea, as concerned
+her traffic, became but a mark of memory. Her noble corporation never
+demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as the will of
+the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except their
+time-honored ceremonies.
+
+In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value
+there. The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights, having
+no means of getting at them, sold them for an "old song," which they
+were; and the buyer was one of the Hockin race, a shipwrecked mariner
+from Cornwall, who had been kindly treated there, and took a fancy
+accordingly. He sold his share in some mine to pay for it, settled here,
+and died here; and his son, getting on in the world, built a house, and
+took to serious smuggling. In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes
+of honest value to him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish
+holes were not), and much more accessible from France. Becoming a
+magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of
+inquiring into his own deeds, which enabled him to check those few who
+otherwise might have competed with him. He flourished, and bought more
+secure estates; and his son, for activity against smugglers, was made a
+gentle baronet.
+
+These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the Hockin
+family became a mere load and incumbrance. Sir George and Sir Robert and
+Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints about contraband
+dealings which met them whenever they deigned to come down there, till
+at last the estate (being left to an agent) cost a great deal more than
+he ever paid in. And thus--as should have been more briefly told--the
+owner was our Major Hockin.
+
+No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had no
+time at first to send for me. And no wonder that when he came down to
+see me, he was obliged to have good dinners. For the work done by him in
+those three months surprised every body except himself, and made in old
+Bruntsea a stir unknown since the time of the Spanish Armada. For
+he owned the house under the eastern cliff, and the warren, and the
+dairy-farm inland, and the slope of the ground where the sea used to
+come, and fields where the people grew potatoes gratis, and all the
+eastern village, where the tenants paid their rents whenever they found
+it rational.
+
+A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal of
+mischief. Either he would have accepted large views, and applauded this
+fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no wife), or else he
+would have rushed at every body headlong, and batted them back to their
+abutments. Neither course would have created half the excitement which
+the Major's did. At least, there might have been more talk at first, but
+not a quarter so much in sum total. Of those things, however, there is
+time enough to speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.
+
+The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made plain
+to another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the shadow we
+call human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside it and upon
+it, as if it were all creation; but the infinitely nobler things of
+ever-changing but perpetual beauty, and no selfishness. These, without
+deigning to us even sense to be aware of them, shape our little minds
+and bodies and our large self-importance, and fail to know when the lord
+or king who owns is buried under them. To have perception of such mighty
+truths is good for all of us: and I never had keener perception of them
+than when I sat down on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land
+around me, and even the sea--where all the fish were his, as soon as he
+could catch them--and largely reflected that not a square foot of the
+whole world would ever belong to me.
+
+"Bruntlands," as the house was called, perhaps from standing well above
+the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff, which looked
+down over Bruntsea. The cliff was of chalk, very steep toward the sea,
+and showing a prominent headland toward the south, but prettily rising
+in grassy curves from the inland and from the westward. And then, where
+it suddenly chined away from land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of
+shingle began at right angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went
+to the river's mouth, a league or so now to the westward. And beyond
+that another line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came
+to their headland. Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might
+be traced the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough at
+the hither end stood, or lay, the calm old village.
+
+Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient site
+and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and cast off
+needless members. Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the oldest of its
+churches, while the four others fell to rack and ruin, and settled into
+cow-yards and barns, and places where old men might sit and sigh. But
+Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly kept the old town's division into
+east and west.
+
+East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special
+charter; and most of the houses belonged to him. This ownership hitherto
+had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-down repairs
+(when the agent reported that they must be done), but never must enter
+the door for his rent. The borough had been disfranchised, though the
+snuggest of the snug for generations; and the freemen, thus being
+robbed of their rights, had no power to discharge their duties. And to
+complicate matters yet further, for the few who wished to simplify them,
+the custom of "borough-English" prevailed, and governed the descent of
+dilapidations, making nice niceties for clever men of law.
+
+"You see a fine property here, Miss Wood," Major Hockin said to me,
+as we sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the fresh
+breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air, and looking
+abroad very generally: "a very fine property, but neglected--shamefully,
+horribly, atrociously neglected--but capable of noble things, of grand
+things, of magnificent, with a trifle of judicious outlay."
+
+"Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear," said good Mrs. Hockin,
+gently; "it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to come
+from?"
+
+"Leave that to me. When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-book
+was, 'Where there's a will there's a way.' Miss Wood, what is your
+opinion? But wait, you must have time to understand the subject. First
+we bring a railway--always the first step; why, the line is already made
+for it by the course of the old river, and the distance from Newport
+three miles and a half. It ought not to cost quite 200 pounds a
+mile--the mere outlay for rails and sleepers. The land is all mine,
+and--and of course other landed proprietors'. Very well: these would all
+unite, of course; so that not a farthing need be paid for land, which is
+the best half of the battle. We have the station here--not too near my
+house; that would never do; I could not bear the noise--but in a fine
+central place where nobody on earth could object to it--lively, and
+close at hand for all of them. Unluckily I was just too late. We have
+lost a Parliamentary year through that execrable calm--you remember all
+about it. Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at Bruntsea
+by the first of May. But never mind; we shall do it all the better and
+cheaper by taking our time about it. Very well: we have the railway
+opened and the trade of the place developed. We build a fine terrace of
+elegant villas, a crescent also, and a large hotel replete with every
+luxury; and we form the finest sea-parade in England by simply assisting
+nature. Half London comes down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to
+flirt, and to do the rest of it. We become a select, salubrious,
+influential, and yet economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs.
+Hockin?"
+
+"My dear, how can I tell? But I hope that we should rest and be
+thankful."
+
+"Not a bit of it. I should hope not, indeed. Erema, what do we do then?"
+
+"It is useless to ask me. Well, then, perhaps you set up a handsome
+saw-mill!"
+
+"A saw-mill! What a notion of Paradise! No; this is what we do--but
+remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest antagonism
+might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon--Mrs. Hockin and Miss
+Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!--the return of our river
+to its ancient course."
+
+"I see," said his wife; "oh, how grand that would be! and how beautiful
+from our windows! That really, now, is a noble thought!"
+
+"A just one--simply a just one. Justice ought not to be noble, my
+dear, however rare it may be. Generosity, magnanimity, heroism, and so
+on--those are the things we call noble, my dear."
+
+"And the founding of cities. Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was at
+school, it was always said, in what we called our histories, that
+the founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built, and
+divinities done, and holidays held in their honor."
+
+"To that I object," cried the Major, sternly. "If I founded fifty
+cities, I would never allow one holiday. The Sabbath is enough; one day
+in seven--fifteen per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty per cent, of
+your Sunday goes in church. Very right, of course, and loyal, and truly
+edifying--Mrs. Hockin's father was a clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last
+thing I would ever allow on my manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but
+still I will have no new churches here, and a man who might go against
+me. They all want to pick their own religious views, instead of
+reflecting who supports them! It never used to be so; and such things
+shall never occur on my manor. A good hotel, attendance included, and a
+sound and moderate table d'hote; but no church, with a popish bag sent
+round, and money to pay, 'without anything to eat.'"
+
+"My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Hockin, "I never like you to talk like
+that. You quite forget who my father was, and your own second son such a
+very sound priest!"
+
+"A priest! Don't let him come here," cried the Major, "or I'll let him
+know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec. A priest!
+After going round the world three times, to come home and be hailed as
+the father of a priest! Don't let him come near me, or I'll sacrifice
+him."
+
+"Now, Major, you are very proud of him," his good wife answered, as
+he shook his stick. "How could he help taking orders when he was under
+orders to do so? And his views are sound to the last degree, most
+strictly correct and practical--at least except as to celibacy."
+
+"He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born! Miss Wood,
+do you call that practical?"
+
+"I have no acquaintance with such things," I replied; "we had none of
+them in California. But is it practical, Major Hockin--of course you
+know best in your engineering--I mean, would it not require something
+like a tunnel for the river and the railway to run on the same ground?"
+
+"Why, bless me! That seems to have escaped my notice. You have not been
+with old Uncle Sam for nothing. We shall have to appoint you our chief
+engineer."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LISTLESS
+
+
+It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my purpose,
+that my host, and even my hostess too, should be so engrossed with their
+new estate, its beauties and capabilities. Mrs. Hockin devoted herself
+at once to fowls and pigs and the like extravagant economies, having
+bought, at some ill-starred moment, a book which proved that hens ought
+to lay eggs in a manner to support themselves, their families, and the
+family they belonged to, at the price of one penny a dozen. Eggs being
+two shillings a dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit--no less
+than two thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents.
+The lady also found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's
+purely invaluable secret--how to work an acre of ground, pay house rent,
+supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of vegetables
+every day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig--if that pig were
+kept properly. And after that, pork and ham and bacon came of him, while
+another golden pig went on.
+
+Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could make
+bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got him it
+would be unwise to do so. However, the law was laid down in both books
+that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death before they
+begin to overeat production; and the Major said, "To be sure. Yes, yes.
+Let them come to good meat, and then off with their heads." And his wife
+said that she was sure she could do it. When it comes to a question of
+tare and tret, false sentiment must be excluded.
+
+At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more
+impatient. Being older now, and beholding what happens with tolerance
+and complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends were so
+tolerant of me and so complacent. For I must have been a great annoyance
+to them, with my hurry and my one idea. Happily they made allowance for
+me, which I was not old enough to make for them.
+
+"Go to London, indeed! Go to London by yourself!" cried the Major, with
+a red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning that I could
+stop no longer without doing something. "Mary, my dear, when you have
+done out there, will you come in and reason--if you can--with Miss Wood.
+She vows that she is going to London, all alone."
+
+"Oh, Major Hockin--oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!" Mrs.
+Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in through the
+window. "You know that they have only had three bushels, or, at any
+rate, not more than five, almost ever since they came. Erema, you know
+as well as I do."
+
+"Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a
+bushel, Mary," said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; "besides
+Indian corn, chopped meat, and potatoes."
+
+"And fourteen pounds of paddy," I said--which was a paltry thing of me;
+"not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers' grains, and
+then--I forget what next."
+
+"You are too bad, all of you. Erema, I never thought you would turn
+against me so. And you made me get nearly all of it. But please to look
+here. What do you call this? Is this no reward? Is this not enough?
+Major, if you please, what do you call this? What a pity you have had
+your breakfast!"
+
+"A blessing--if this was to be my breakfast. I call that, my dear, the
+very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests. No wonder
+they sell them at twelve a penny. I congratulate you upon your first
+egg, my dear Mary."
+
+"Well, I don't care," replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest temper
+in the world. "Small beginnings make large endings; and an egg must be
+always small at one end. You scorn my first egg, and Erema should have
+had it if she had been good. But she was very wicked, and I know not
+what to do with it."
+
+"Blow it!" cried the Major. "I mean no harm, ladies. I never use low
+language. What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a puff, and
+away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet specimen, which your
+egg is quite fitted by its cost to be. But now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood,
+if you please. It is useless for me to say any thing, and I have three
+appointments in the town"--he always called it "the town" now--"three
+appointments, if not four; yes, I may certainly say four. Talk to Miss
+Wood, my dear, if you please. She wants to go to London, which would be
+absurd. Ladies seem to enter into ladies' logic. They seem to be able to
+appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs, which
+no man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head or tail of.
+Good-by for the present; I had better be off."
+
+"I should think you had," exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband
+marched off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step, and
+well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and the beach,
+over which he had rights of plunder--or, at least, Uncle Sam would have
+called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.
+
+"Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear," Mrs. Hockin began, most
+kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg. "I have noticed
+how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in any thing.
+'Listless' is the word. 'Listless' is exactly what I mean, Erema. When
+I was at your time of life, I could never have gone about caring for
+nothing. I wonder that you knew that I even had a fowl; much more how
+much they had eaten!"
+
+"I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it," I said.
+"I am not quite so listless as you think. But those things do seem so
+little to me."
+
+"My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after all
+the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them. It is a power to
+be thankful for, or, at least, I often think so. Look at my husband! He
+has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any one but myself could
+reckon up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as full of life, as ready
+to begin a new thing to-morrow--when, at our age, there may be no
+to-morrow, except in that better world, my dear, of which it is high
+time for him and me to think, as I truly hope we may spare the time to
+do."
+
+"Oh, don't talk like that," I cried. "Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk of
+your hens and chicks--at least there will be chicks by-and-by. I am
+almost sure there will, if you only persevere. It seems unfair to set
+our minds on any other world till justice has been done in this."
+
+"You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case
+we never should think of it at all. But I don't want to preach you a
+sermon, Erema, even if I could do so. I only just want you to tell me
+what you think, what good you imagine that you can do."
+
+"It is no imagination. I am sure that I can right my father's wrongs.
+And I never shall rest till I do so."
+
+"Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?" she asked, in the
+warmth of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color changed, she
+looked at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.
+
+"Oh, if you had only once seen him," I said; "without any exaggeration,
+you would have been satisfied at once. That he could ever have done any
+harm was impossible--utterly impossible. I am not as I was. I can listen
+to almost any thing now quite calmly. But never let me hear such a
+wicked thing again."
+
+"You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all your
+friends. No one can help being sorry for you. Very few girls have been
+placed as you are. I am sure when I think of my own daughters I can
+never be too thankful. But the very first thing you have to learn, above
+all things, is to control yourself."
+
+"I know it--I know it, of course," I said; "and I keep on trying my very
+best. I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you will try to
+forgive me."
+
+"A very slight exertion is enough for that. But now, my dear, what I
+want to know is this--and you will excuse me if I ask too much--what
+good do you expect to get by going thus to London? Have you any friend
+there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what you are to do?"
+
+"Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind," I answered, very bravely:
+"I have the address of a very good woman, found among my father's
+papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature, and always
+kept her faith in him. There must be a great many more who do the same,
+and she will be sure to know them and introduce me to them; and I shall
+be guided by their advice."
+
+"But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found, or
+has changed her opinion?"
+
+"Her opinion she never could change. But if she is not to be found, I
+shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and besides that,
+I have a hundred things to do. I have the address of the agent through
+whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam let me know as little
+as he could. And I know who his bankers were (when he had a bank), and
+he may have left important papers there."
+
+"Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may always
+be relied upon. And there may be some valuable plate, Erema. But why not
+let the Major go with you? His advice is so invaluable."
+
+"I know that it is, in all ordinary things. But I can not have him
+now, for a very simple reason. He has made up his mind about my dear
+father--horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it. And he never changes
+his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him."
+
+"Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show it.
+Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps--those who think as you
+wish and those who are led by their judgment to think otherwise? And are
+you to hate all who do not think as you wish?"
+
+"No, because I do not hate you," I said; "I love you, though you do not
+think as I wish. But that is only because you think your husband must be
+right of course. But I can not like those who have made up their minds
+according to their own coldness."
+
+"Major Hockin is not cold at all. On the contrary, he is a warm-hearted
+man--I might almost say hot-hearted."
+
+"Yes, I know he is. And that makes it ten times worse. He takes up every
+body's case--but mine."
+
+"Sad as it is, you almost make me smile," my hostess answered, gravely;
+"and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just and kind
+my husband is. I am sure that you will give him credit for at least
+desiring to take your part. And doing so, at least you might let him go
+with you, if only as a good protection."
+
+"I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that he
+would not like. In a good cause he would go any where, I know. But in my
+cause, of course he would be scrupulous. Your kindness I always can rely
+upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well."
+
+"My dear, he has never been unkind to you. I am certain that you never
+can say that of him. Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like you!"
+
+"The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity," I answered, less
+humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in my tone,
+perhaps. "If people choose to pity me, they are very good, and I am not
+at all offended, because--because they can not help it, perhaps, from
+not knowing any thing about me. I have nothing whatever to be pitied
+for, except that I have lost my father, and have nobody left to care for
+me, except Uncle Sam in America."
+
+"Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man,
+Erema," said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any craft
+in her; "I never saw him--a great loss on my part. But the Major went
+up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock of his best tie
+broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat. Does Uncle Sam make
+people laugh so much? or is it that he has some extraordinary gift of
+inducing people to taste whiskey? My husband is a very--most abstemious
+man, as you must be well aware, Miss Wood, or we never should have been
+as we are, I am sure. But, for the first time in all my life, I
+doubted his discretion on the following day, when he had--what shall I
+say?--when he had been exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam."
+
+"Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way," I replied to this new
+attack; "he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops. Do you think
+that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were too strong
+and large for the Major?"
+
+"Erema!" cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to
+think or express my thoughts on life so early; "if you can talk politics
+at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where. I have heard a great
+deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of them, as you know.
+But I thought that you called yourself an English girl, and insisted
+particularly upon it."
+
+"Yes, that I do; and I have good reason. I am born of an old English
+family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it. But being brought up in a
+number of ways, as I have been without thinking of it, and being quite
+different from the fashionable girls Major Hockin likes to walk with--"
+
+"My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!"
+
+"Oh yes, I remember! I was thinking of the deck. There are no
+fashionable girls here yet. Till the terrace is built, and the
+esplanade--"
+
+"There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do such
+things upon them."
+
+"I am sure that he never would," I replied; "it was only their dresses
+that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind, extraordinary style,
+as well as unbecoming. You know what I mean, Mrs. Hockin, that
+wonderful--what shall I call it?--way of looping up."
+
+"Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so
+dreadful. You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it, stuck
+up here, and going down there. Erema, what observation you have! Nothing
+ever seems to escape you. Did you ever see any thing so indecorous?"
+
+"It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them," I answered,
+with perfect truth, for so it did; "I have never been accustomed to
+such things. But seeing how the Major approved of them, and liked to
+be walking up and down between them, I knew that they must be not only
+decorous, but attractive. There is no appeal from his judgment, is
+there?"
+
+"I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have always
+longed to say a few words about that. For I can not help thinking that
+he went too far."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+BETSY BOWEN
+
+
+So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to think
+with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the exception of
+Firm Gundry. And I feared that he tried to think with me because of his
+faithful and manly love, more than from balance of evidence. The Sawyer,
+of course, held my father guiltless, through his own fidelity and simple
+ways; but he could not enter into my set thought of a stern duty laid
+upon me, because to his mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing
+so long as a man did aright. For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I
+was a great deal too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost
+equal value with clear conscience. And therefore, wise or foolish, rich
+or poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things, and
+restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.
+
+However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly obstinate,
+and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though hateful
+opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I should not do
+any thing out of keeping with English ideas and habits. In a word, I
+accepted the Major's kind offer to see me quite safe in good hands in
+London, or else bring me straightway back again. And I took only just
+things enough for a day or two, meaning to come back by the end of the
+week. And I kissed Mrs. Hockin just enough for that.
+
+It would not be a new thing for me to say that "we never know what is
+going to happen;" but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old
+common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted) show
+themselves. At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for nothing,
+at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of my journey.
+The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and appeared to think
+nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other hand, did not want him
+there, preferring to keep him out of my money matters, and so he was
+obliged to let me have my way.
+
+I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve me
+right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered either at
+the place which we tried first, or that to which we were sent thence.
+Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as much as to hint
+that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all a wild-goose chase.
+And being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack,
+he actually called out to the cabman to drive without delay to Messrs.
+Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I begged him to allow me just one
+minute while I spoke to the servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a
+sovereign, at which she opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she
+told me that "though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about
+it, because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss
+that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond
+belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would
+promise faithfully not to tell." This promise I gave with fidelity, and
+returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to Messrs. Shovelin,
+Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17 European Square, St.
+Katharine's.
+
+From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly
+as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last into
+European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong opening
+pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump. There were
+great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the place itself seemed
+unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into it, only murmurous with
+distant London din, as the spires of a shell hold the heavings of the
+sea. After driving three or four times round the pump, for the houses
+were numbered anyhow, we found No. 17, and I jumped out.
+
+"Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood," cried the Major, who
+was now a little crusty; "English ladies allow themselves to be handed
+out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor."
+
+"But I wanted to save you the honor," I said. "I will come back
+immediately, if you will kindly wait." And with this I ran up the old
+steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came and gazed
+through dingy windows.
+
+"Can I see Mrs. Strouss?" I asked, when a queer old man in faded brown
+livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the sun was
+shining.
+
+"I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good Meeses
+Strouss also."
+
+"Thank you, but that will not do," I replied; "my business is with Mrs.
+Strouss alone."
+
+He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the
+chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the Major
+looked out of the cab and laughed.
+
+"You had better come back while you can," he said, "though they seem in
+no hurry to swallow you."
+
+This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to him. The
+house looked very respectable, and there were railings to the area.
+
+"The house is very respectable," continued Major Hockin, who always
+seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner ran
+up the steps; "just look, the scraper is clean. You never see that, or
+at least not often, except with respectable people, Erema."
+
+"Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?" cried a strong, clear
+voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout, tall woman
+with a flush in her cheeks confronted us. "I never knew more than one
+Erema--Good mercy!"
+
+My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back into
+a lobby chair. She knew me by my likeness to my father, falling on
+the memories started by my name; and strong as she was, the surprise
+overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the small Herr Strouss.
+
+"Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised with my
+frau? Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I should say de
+peelers."
+
+"Stop!" cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word, which
+would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it then, but
+because he had received a sign which assured him that here was a brother
+Mason. In a moment the infuriated husband vanished into the rational and
+docile brother.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please," he said, to my great
+astonishment; "Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome to our poor
+house. Vilhelmina, arise and say so."
+
+"Go to the back kitchen, Hans," replied Wilhelmina, whose name was
+"Betsy," "and don't come out until I tell you. You will find work to do
+there, and remember to pump up. I wish to hear things that you are not
+to hear, mind you. Shut yourself in, and if you soap the door to deceive
+me, I shall know it."
+
+"Vere goot, vere goot," said the philosophical German; "I never meddle
+with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de money and de
+house."
+
+Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that. With no more ceremony she
+locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not make things out.
+
+"My husband is the bravest of the brave," she told us, while she put
+down his key on the table; "and a nobler man never lived; I am sure
+of that. But every one of them foreigners--excuse me, Sir, you are an
+Englishman?"
+
+"I am," replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; "I am so,
+madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my feelings. I am
+above nationalities."
+
+"Just so, Sir. Then you will feel with me when I say that they
+foreigners is dreadful. Oh, the day that I ever married one of 'em--but
+there, I ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's daughter facing
+me."
+
+"Do you know me?" I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes, I
+dare say, glistening. "Are you sure that you know me? And then please to
+tell me how."
+
+As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn for
+travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me, and
+before I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the great arms
+of Betsy Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little baby, and when my
+father was in his own land, with a home and wife and seven little ones.
+And to think of this made me keep her company in crying, and it was some
+time before we did any thing else.
+
+"Well, well," replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when he had
+made them; "I shall be off. You are in good hands; and the cabman pulled
+out his watch when we stopped. So did I. But he is sure to beat me. They
+draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am told, while the watch hangs
+on their badge, and they can swear they never opened it. Wonderful age,
+very wonderful age, since the time when you and I were young, ma'am."
+
+"Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!" Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her eyes
+to speak of things; "but the most wonderfulest of all things, don't you
+think, is the going of the time, Sir? No cabby can make it go faster
+while he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than the minds inside
+of us manage it. Why, Sir, it wore only like yesterday that this here
+tall, elegant, royal young lady was a-lying on my breast, and what a
+hand she was to kick! And I said that her hair was sure to grow like
+this. If I was to tell you only half what comes across me--"
+
+"If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should lose
+mine, which is more than I can afford. Erema, after dinner I shall look
+you up. I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs. Strouss, which does not
+happen every day. I can trust Miss Castlewood with you. Good-by, good-by
+for the present."
+
+It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and that
+made me all the more pleased with it.
+
+"You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in," cried the "good
+woman," following to the door, to clear every blur from her virtues;
+"for his own sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming, and to see
+me cry--Lord bless you, the effect upon him is to call out for a
+walking-stick and a pint of beer."
+
+"All right, ma'am, all right!" the Major answered, in a tone which
+appeared to me unfeeling. "Cabman, are you asleep there? Bring the
+lady's bag this moment."
+
+As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that good
+protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not help letting
+a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my outburst. I had heard
+so much in America of the dark, subtle places of London, and the wicked
+things that happen all along the Thames, discovered or invented by great
+writers of their own, that the neighborhood of the docks and the thought
+of rats (to which I could never grow accustomed) made me look with a
+flash perhaps of doubt at my new old friend.
+
+"You are not sure of me, Miss Erema," said Mrs. Strouss, without taking
+offense. "After all that has happened, who can blame it on you? But your
+father was not so suspicious, miss. It might have been better for him if
+he had--according, leastways, to my belief, which a team of wild horses
+will never drag out."
+
+"Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!" I exclaimed, forgetting all
+other things. "You know more about it than any body I have ever met
+with, except my own father, who would never tell a word."
+
+"And quite right he was, miss, according to his views. But come to my
+little room, unless you are afraid. I can tell you some things that your
+father never knew."
+
+"Afraid! do you think I am a baby still? But I can not bear that Mr.
+Strouss should be locked up on my account."
+
+"Then he shall come out," said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very
+pleasantly. "That was just like your father, Miss Erema. But I fall
+into the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners." Whether
+she thought it the custom among "foreigners" for wives to lock their
+husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took the trouble to
+explain. But she walked away, in her stout, firm manner, and presently
+returned with Mr. Strouss, who seemed to be quite contented, and made me
+a bow with a very placid smile.
+
+"He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good," his wife explained
+to me, with a nod at him. "But I could not have you in with the
+gentleman, Hans. He always makes mistakes with the gentlemen, miss, but
+with the ladies he behaves quite well."
+
+"Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot," Herr Strouss
+replied, with diffidence. "The ladies comprehend me right, all right,
+because I am so habitual with my wife. But the gentlemans in London have
+no comprehension of me."
+
+"Then the loss is on their side," I answered, with a smile; and he said,
+"Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BETSY'S TALE
+
+
+Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into narrative
+what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or to let her
+tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself told it then
+to me. The story was so dark and sad--or at least to myself it so
+appeared--that even the little breaks and turns of lighter thought or
+livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to vary now and then
+the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and jar upon its sombre
+monotone. On the other hand, by omitting these, and departing from
+her homely style, I might do more of harm than good through failing to
+convey impressions, or even facts, so accurately. Whereas the gist and
+core and pivot of my father's life and fate are so involved (though
+not evolved) that I would not miss a single point for want of time or
+diligence. Therefore let me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right
+to put her words in her own way. And before she began to do this she
+took the trouble to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought
+down, that her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be
+driven to their pipes.
+
+"If you please, Miss Castlewood," Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, "do you or
+do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls himself?--an
+improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is their nature. He
+can hold his tongue as well as any man, though none of them are very
+sure at that. And he knows pretty nigh as much as I do, so far as his
+English can put things together, being better accustomed in German. For
+when we were courting I was fain to tell him all, not to join him under
+any false pretenses, miss, which might give him grounds against me."
+
+"Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true--so goot and true as can be."
+
+"And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any kind of
+messages. He can do that very well, I assure you, miss--better than any
+Englishman."
+
+Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged him
+to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear the tale
+alone.
+
+"Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught," said his
+Wilhelmina, kindly. "He is not very tall, miss, but he has good
+shoulders; I scarcely know what I should do without him. Well, now, to
+begin at the very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may have heard.
+My father was a farmer near Abergavenny, holding land under Sir Watkin
+Williams, an old friend of your family. My father had too many girls,
+and my mother scarcely knew what to do with the lot of us. So some of us
+went out to service, while the boys staid at home to work the land. One
+of my sisters was lady's-maid to Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at
+the time when your father came visiting there for the shooting of the
+moor-fowl, soon after his marriage with your mother. What a sweet good
+lady your mother was! I never saw the like before or since. No sooner
+did I set eyes upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone
+round the world with her. We Welsh are a very hot people, they say--not
+cold-blooded, as the English are. So, wise or foolish, right, wrong, or
+what might be, nothing would do for me but to take service, if I
+could, under Mrs. Castlewood. Your father was called Captain Castlewood
+then--as fine a young man as ever clinked a spur, but without any boast
+or conceit about him; and they said that your grandfather, the old lord,
+kept him very close and spare, although he was the only son. Now this
+must have been--let me see, how long ago?--about five-and-twenty years,
+I think. How old are you now, Miss Erema? I can keep the weeks better
+than the years, miss."
+
+"I was eighteen on my last birthday. But never mind about the time--go
+on."
+
+"But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time
+we may never think so. Well, then, it must have been better than
+six-and-twenty year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the
+Lord's will, there was eight years between you and the first-born babe,
+who was only just a-thinking of when I begin to tell. But to come back
+to myself, as was--mother had got too many of us still, and she was glad
+enough to let me go, however much she might cry over it, as soon as Lady
+Williams got me the place. My place was to wait upon the lady first,
+and make myself generally useful, as they say. But it was not very
+long before I was wanted in other more important ways, and having been
+brought up among so many children, they found me very handy with the
+little ones; and being in a poor way, as they were then--for people, I
+mean, of their birth and place--they were glad enough soon to make head
+nurse of me, although I was under-two-and-twenty.
+
+"We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills
+looking on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in
+Hampshire; for the Captain was still with his regiment, and only came to
+and fro to us. But a happier little place there could not be, with the
+flowers, and the cow, and the birds all day, and the children running
+gradually according to their age, and the pretty brook shining in the
+valley. And as to the paying of their way, it is true that neither of
+them was a great manager. The Captain could not bear to keep his pretty
+wife close; and she, poor thing, was trying always to surprise him with
+other presents besides all the beautiful babies. But they never were in
+debt all round, as the liars said when the trouble burst; and if they
+owed two or three hundred pounds, who could justly blame them?
+
+"For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening his
+purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always for
+offense or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them. The Captain
+had his pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady had a little money
+of her own; but still it was cruel for brought-up people to have nothing
+better to go on with. Not that the old lord was a miser neither; but it
+was said, and how far true I know not, that he never would forgive your
+father for marrying the daughter of a man he hated. And some went so far
+as to say that if he could have done it, he would have cut your father
+out of all the old family estates. But such a thing never could I
+believe of a nobleman having his own flesh and blood.
+
+"But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I assure
+you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long. For they loved one
+another and their children dearly, and they did not care for any
+mixing with the world. The Captain had enough of that when put away in
+quarters; likewise his wife could do without it better and better at
+every birth, though once she had been the very gayest of the gay, which
+you never will be, Miss Erema.
+
+"Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say, that
+if I can go on at all, I must have something ready. I am quite an old
+nurse now, remember. Hans, go across the square, and turn on the left
+hand round the corner, and then three more streets toward the right, and
+you see one going toward the left, and you go about seven doors down it,
+and then you see a corner with a lamp-post."
+
+"Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner."
+
+"That will teach you to look more bright, Hans. Then you find a shop
+window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the middle."
+
+"How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?"
+
+"Then let it be two of them. How you contradict me! Take this little
+bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a tassel with a
+tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell him who you are."
+
+"Yes, yes; I do now comprehend. You send me vhere I never find de vay,
+because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!"
+
+I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband (however
+good and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many shops of
+chemists, rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I listened to things
+that were almost sure to make me want my eyes my own. My nurse had seen,
+as any good nurse must, that, grown and formed as I might be, the nature
+of the little child that cries for its mother was in me still.
+
+"It is very sad now," Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to my
+grateful glance; "Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had never begun
+with it. But I see by your eyes--so like your father's, but softer, my
+dear, and less troublesome--that you will have the whole of it out, as
+he would with me once when I told him a story for the sake of another
+servant. It was just about a month before you were born, when the
+trouble began to break on us. And when once it began, it never stopped
+until all that were left ran away from it. I have read in the newspapers
+many and many sad things coming over whole families, such as they
+call 'shocking tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more
+galling than what I had to see with my very own eyes.
+
+"It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
+Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at Shoxford.
+We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see to the truth of
+some rumors which had reached him about our style of living. It was the
+first time he had ever been there; for although he had very often been
+invited, he could not bear to be under the roof of the daughter, as he
+said, of his enemy. The Captain, just happening to come home on leave
+for his autumn holiday, met his father quite at his own door--the very
+last place to expect him. He afterward acknowledged that he was not
+pleased for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.' However,
+they took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings
+nicely, as high-bred people do.
+
+"What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except so
+far as now I tell you. A better dinner than usual for two was ready, to
+celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his holiday; and the
+old lord, having travelled far that day, was persuaded to sit down with
+them. The five eldest children (making all except the baby, for you was
+not born, miss, if you please) they were to have sat up at table, as
+pretty as could be--three with their high cushioned stools, and two in
+their arm-chairs screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with
+rods in front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding,
+which they did--it was a sight to see them! And how they would give to
+one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo, dat
+for oo.' Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it! What a
+blessing for you! All those six dear darlings laid in their little
+graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under them; and the
+only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her breast.
+
+"Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in and
+out while I am about it. It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do assure
+you, though not at the time of life to understand it. All they children
+was to have sat up for the sake of their dear father, as I said just
+now; but because of their grandfather all was ordered back. And back
+they come, as good as gold, with Master George at the head of them, and
+asked me what milk-teeth was. Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no
+dinner if milk-teeth were allowed at it.' The hard old man, with his own
+teeth false! He deserved to sit down to no other dinner--and he never
+did, miss.
+
+"You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little
+ones and answer all their questions; but never having seen a live lord
+before, and wanting to know if the children would be like him before
+so very long, I went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of my dears
+peeped after me. And then, by favor of the parlor-maid--for they kept
+neither butler nor footman now--I saw the Lord Castlewood, sitting at
+his ease, with a glass of port-wine before him, and my sweet mistress
+(the Captain's wife, and your mother, if you understand, miss) doing her
+very best, thinking of her children, to please him and make the polite
+to him. To me he seemed very much to be thawing to her--if you can
+understand, miss, what my meaning is--and the Captain was looking at
+them with a smile, as if it were just what he had hoped for. From my own
+eyesight I can contradict the lies put about by nobody knows who, that
+the father and the son were at hot words even then.
+
+"And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly
+persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him.
+And good enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing
+wonderful in him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain. But he
+would not have it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper, but only
+because he had ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where his coach and
+four were resting.
+
+"'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say, as
+clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on. 'I am glad I
+have seen you. There are worse than you. And when the times get better,
+I will see what I can do.'
+
+"With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a man
+of much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with his nose
+so stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the wrong way for
+smiling. I could not tell what the Captain answered, for the door banged
+on them, and it woke the baby, who was dreaming, perhaps, about his
+lordship's face, and his little teeth gave him the wind on his chest,
+and his lungs was like bellows--bless him!
+
+"Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my
+testimony. What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and
+rattling of the rings to please him--when they put me on the Testament,
+cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into me, and both my
+ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have gone too far, with my
+heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of contradiction, wishful as
+I was to tell the whole truth in a manner to hurt nobody. And without
+any single lie or glaze of mine, I do assure you, miss, that I did more
+harm than good; every body in the room--a court they called it, and no
+bigger than my best parlor--one and all they were convinced that I would
+swear black was white to save my master and mistress! And certainly I
+would have done so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for
+the sake of all they children, if I could have made it stick together,
+as they do with practice."
+
+At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great
+mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop, and
+put her hand to her side, and sigh. And eager as I was for every word
+of this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny her need of
+refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks were white, and her
+full breast trembled. And now she was beginning to make snatches at my
+hand, as if she saw things she could only tell thus.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BETSY'S TALE--(Continued.)
+
+
+"I am only astonished, my dear," said my nurse, as soon as she had had
+some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring, "that
+you can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the way you
+do. None of your family could have done it, to my knowledge of their
+dispositions, much less the baby that was next above you. But it often
+comes about to go in turns like that; 'one, three, five, and seven is
+sweet, while two, four, and six is a-squalling with their feet.' But
+the Lord forgive me for an ill word of them, with their precious little
+bodies washed, and laying in their patterns till the judgment-day.
+
+"But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they pleased
+to call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips could have
+a hold of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very things that
+happened, so that you may fairly judge of them. The Captain came back
+from going with his father, I am sure, in less than twenty minutes, and
+smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite happy and contented, for I saw
+him down the staircase. As for sign of any haste about him, or wiping of
+his forehead, or fumbling with his handkerchief, or being in a stew in
+any sort of way--as the stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason
+of her own having been at the beer-barrel--solemnly, miss, as I hope to
+go to heaven, there was nothing of the sort about him.
+
+"He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs to
+see about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them talking as
+pleasant and as natural as they always were together. Not one of them
+had the smallest sense of trouble hanging over them; and they put away
+both the decanters and cruets, and came up to bed in their proper order,
+the master stopping down just to finish his cigar and see to the doors
+and the bringing up the silver, because there was no man-servant now.
+And I heard him laughing at some little joke he made as he went into
+the bedroom. A happier household never went to bed, nor one with better
+hopes of a happy time to come. And the baby slept beside his parents in
+his little cot, as his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth
+wide open.
+
+"Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a
+good time of it whenever the master first came home and the mistress was
+taken up with him. We used to count half an hour more in bed, without
+any of that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to things according to
+their order, without any body to say any thing. Accordingly we were all
+snug in bed, and turning over for another tuck of sleep, when there came
+a most vicious ringing of the outer bell. 'You get up, Susan,' I heard
+the cook say, for there only was a door between us; and Susan said,
+'Blest if I will! Only Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker
+came.' Not a peg would either of them stir, no more than to call names
+on one another; so I slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter
+all the while, like the day of judgment. I felt it to be hard upon me,
+and I went down cross a little--just enough to give it well to a body I
+were not afraid of.
+
+"But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss! When I opened the door,
+I had no blood left. There stood two men, with a hurdle on their
+shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging down, and the
+front of it slouching, like a sack that has been stolen from; and behind
+it there was an authority with two buttons on his back, and he waited
+for me to say something; but to do so was beyond me. Not a bit of
+caution or of fear about my sham dress-up, as the bad folk put it
+afterward; the whole of such thoughts was beyond me outright, and no
+thought of any thing came inside me, only to wait and wonder.
+
+"'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who
+seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so. 'Young woman,
+don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the parish will
+be here, and the boys that come hankering after it. You be off!' he
+cried out to a boy who was calling some more round the corner. 'Now,
+young woman, we must come in if you please, and the least said the
+soonest mended.'
+
+"'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as nigh
+as may be, any day or night before new moon. 'Oh, Mr. Constable, Mr.
+Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you ever had a wife, Sir.'
+Now even this was turned against us as if I had expected it. They said
+that I must have known who it was, and to a certain length so I did,
+miss, but only by the dress and the manner of the corpse, and lying with
+an attitude there was no contradicting.
+
+"I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed. My
+mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it. However, I had
+thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other foolish
+girls, who would have set up bellowing. Having years to deal with little
+ones brings knowledge of the rest to us. I think that I must have gone
+to master's door, where Susan's orders were to put his shaving water
+in a tin, and fetched him out, with no disturbance, only in his
+dressing-gown. And when I told him what it was, his rosy color turned
+like sheets, and he just said, 'Hush!' and nothing more. And guessing
+what he meant, I ran and put my things on properly.
+
+"But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I was
+fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their tongues
+out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day with. And
+I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of your coming,
+though unknown whether male or female, but both most inconvenient then,
+with things in such a state of things. You have much to answer for,
+miss, about it; but how was you to help it, though?
+
+"The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body in,
+and finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use against the
+door, the two men (who were tired with the weight and fright, I dare
+say) set down their burden upon these, under a row of hollyhocks, at the
+end of the row of bee-hives. And here they wiped their foreheads with
+some rags they had for handkerchiefs, or one of them with his own
+sleeve, I should say, and, gaining their breath, they began to talk with
+the boldness of the sunrise over them. But Mr. Rural Polishman, as
+he was called in those parts, was walking up and down on guard, and
+despising of their foolish words.
+
+"My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window and
+down the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for I
+thought that I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was to be
+done inside. The constable stiffly touched his hat, and marched to the
+head of the hurdle, and said,
+
+"'Do you know this gentleman?'
+
+"Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff
+hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-looking.
+The Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no kinder gentleman
+could there be to those who gave his dues to him. But that man's voice
+had a low and dirty impertinent sort of a twang with it. Nothing could
+have been more unlucky. Every thing depended on that fellow in an
+ignorant neighborhood like that; and his lordship, for such he was now,
+of course, would not even deign to answer him. He stood over his head in
+his upright way by a good foot, and ordered him here and there, as the
+fellow had been expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship. And that
+made the bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts,
+and puffed up with authority. And the two miller's men could not help
+grinning, for he had waved them about like a pair of dogs.
+
+"But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally' (as
+that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a stuck-up
+dolt he was. For when my master had examined his father, and made his
+poor body be brought in and spread on the couch in the dining-room, and
+sent me hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the bottom of Shoxford,
+Susan peeped in through the crack of the door, with the cook to hold her
+hand behind, and there she saw the Captain on his knees at the side of
+his father's corpse, not saying a word, only with his head down. And
+when the doctor came back with me, with his night-gown positive
+under his coat, the first thing he said was, 'My dear Sir--my lord, I
+mean--don't take on so; such things will always happen in this world;'
+which shows that my master was no brute.
+
+"Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any pride
+and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart, and he said
+words fit to hang him:
+
+"'This is my doing! There is no one else to blame. If my father is dead,
+I have killed him!'
+
+"Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
+winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage was
+crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their faces.
+And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that the Captain had
+murdered his father. The milk-man stood there with his yoke and cans,
+and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and, not being able to hide
+himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and began to make his bill.
+
+"'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
+dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead with
+all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies at the
+depth of his voice and his stature. Then he bolted the door, with only
+our own people and the doctor and the constable inside. Your mother was
+sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear, having had a very tiring day the
+day before, and being well away from the noise of the passage, as well
+as at a time when they must sleep whenever sleep will come, miss. Bless
+her gentle heart, what a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!
+
+"All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
+happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead. All of us
+thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased
+the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
+heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having any
+flow of blood in it. But now, while your father was gone up stairs--for
+he knew that his father was dead enough--to be sure that your mother was
+quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for trouble, and while I was run
+away to stop the ranting of the children, old Dr. Diggory and that
+rural officer were handling poor Lord Castlewood. They set him to their
+liking, and they cut his clothes off--so Susan told me afterward--and
+then they found why they were forced to do so, which I need not try
+to tell you, miss. Only they found that he was not dead from any wise
+visitation, but because he had been shot with a bullet through his
+heart.
+
+"Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense
+to meet what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and
+he called out 'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my master
+leaped down the stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his strong hand on
+the old fool's mouth.
+
+"'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'
+
+"'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his staff
+importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'
+
+"The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan thought
+he would have done it. But, instead of that, he said, 'Very well; do
+your duty. But let me see what you mean by it.' Then he walked back
+again to the body of his father, and saw that he had been murdered.
+
+"But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale! Not a bit of food have you had
+for hours. I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to once. Let
+me undo all your things, my dear, and give you something cordial; and
+then lie down and sleep a bit."
+
+"No, thank you, nurse," I answered, calling all my little courage back.
+"No sleep for me until I know every word. And to think of all my father
+had to see and bear! I am not fit to be his daughter."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+BETSY'S TALE--(Concluded.)
+
+
+"Well, now," continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade her
+to go on, "if I were to tell you every little thing that went on among
+them, miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or I might say
+this day fortnight, and then not half be done with it. And the worst of
+it is that those little things make all the odds in a case of that sort,
+showing what the great things were. But only a counselor at the Old
+Bailey could make head or tail of the goings on that followed.
+
+"For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but himself,
+whether it were pride (as I always said) or something deeper (as other
+people thought), he refused to have any one on earth to help him, when
+he ought to have had the deepest lawyer to be found. The constable
+cautioned him to say nothing, as it seems is laid down in their orders,
+for fear of crimination. And he smiled at this, with a high contempt,
+very fine to see, but not bodily wise. But even that jack-in-office
+could perceive that the poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs,
+and his little children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his
+own position. And yet I must tell you that he would have no denial, but
+to know what it was that had killed his parent. When old Dr. Diggory's
+hands were shaking so that his instrument would not bite on the thing
+lodged in his lordship's back, after passing through and through him,
+and he was calling for somebody to run for his assistant, who do you
+think did it for him, Miss Erema? As sure as I sit here, the Captain!
+His face was like a rock, and his hands no less; and he said, 'Allow
+me, doctor. I have been in action.' And he fetched out the bullet--which
+showed awful nerve, according to my way of thinking--as if he had been a
+man with three rows of teeth.
+
+"'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and he
+sat down hard with amazement. You may suppose how this went against him,
+when all he desired was to know and tell the truth; and people said that
+of course he got it out, after a bottleful of doctors failed, because he
+knew best how it was put in.'
+
+"'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you please
+or not,' my master said. 'Constable, you may come and point it out,
+unless you prefer going to your breakfast. My word is enough that I
+shall not run away. Otherwise, as you have acted on your own authority,
+I shall act on mine, and tie you until you have obtained a warrant. Take
+your choice, my man; and make it quickly, while I offer it.'
+
+"The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand to be
+made much of. But seeing how capable the Captain was of acting up to
+any thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as you please for the
+present,' weighting his voice on those last three words, as much as to
+say, 'Pretty soon you will be handcuffed.' 'Then,' said my master, 'I
+shall also insist on the presence of two persons, simply to use their
+eyes without any fear or favor. One is my gardener, a very honest man,
+but apt to be late in the morning. The other is a faithful servant, who
+has been with us for several years. Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy
+Bowen. You may also bring two witnesses, if you choose. And the miller's
+men, of course, will come. But order back all others.'
+
+"'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the constable
+answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders. 'I am sure that all
+of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum scrape. But my duty is
+my duty.'
+
+"With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no more; for
+the constable said that the miller's men, who had first found the late
+Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him. And Jacob Rigg, whose
+legs were far apart (as he said) from trenching celery, took us through
+the kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which saved every body knowing.
+
+"Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and then
+along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember. And along that we
+went to a stile on the right, without any house for a long way off. And
+from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of grass land to the little
+river, and over a hand-bridge, and up another meadow full of trees and
+bushes, to a gate which came out into the road again a little to this
+side of the Moonstock Inn, saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran
+straight up the valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to
+the same inn.
+
+"I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now as
+I saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about the
+distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would be
+beyond me. You must be on the place itself; and I never could carry
+distances--no, nor even clever men, I have heard my master say. But when
+he came to that stile he stopped and turned upon all of us clearly, and
+as straight as any man of men could be. 'Here I saw my father last, at
+a quarter past ten o'clock last night, or within a few minutes of that
+time.' I wished to see him to his inn, but he would not let me do so, and
+he never bore contradiction. He said that he knew the way well, having
+fished more than thirty years ago up and down this stream. He crossed
+this stile, and we shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I
+looked into his face, and he said, 'My boy, God bless you!' Knowing his
+short ways, I did not even look after him, but turned away, and went
+straight home along this road. Upon my word as an Englishman, and as an
+officer of her Majesty, that is all I know of it. Now let us go on to
+the--to the other place.
+
+"We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke
+the simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us. But the
+constable thought it his duty to ask,
+
+"'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord? For he fell within a hundred
+yards of this.'
+
+"'I heard no sound of any shot whatever. I heard an owl hooting as
+I went home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of
+horses. I have said enough. Let us go forward.'
+
+"We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and left, as
+if he had been wrong. He signed to the miller's man to lead the way,
+and my lord walked proudly after him. The path was only a little narrow
+track, with the grass, like a front of hair, falling over it on the
+upper side and on the under, dropping away like side curls; such a
+little path that I was wondering how a great lord could walk over it.
+Then we came down a steep place to a narrow bridge across a shallow
+river--abridge made of only two planks and a rail, with a prop or two to
+carry them. And one end of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and
+stubby old hawthorn-tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good
+way. And just above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry
+cut into the little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden
+bridge, a water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the water to
+run in, when the farmer pleases; but now there was no water in it, only
+gravel.
+
+"The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had much
+intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right beneath the
+old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass and the gravel
+made by his lordship where he fell and lay. And it seemed that he must
+have fallen off the bridge, yet not into the water, but so as to have
+room for his body, if you see, miss, partly on the bank, and partly in
+the hollow of the meadow trough.
+
+"'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked. 'Have you found
+any weapon or implement?'
+
+"'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable answered,
+in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business. 'My first duty
+was to save life, if I could. These men, upon finding the body, ran for
+me, and knowing who it was, I came with it to your house.'
+
+"'You acted for the best, my man. Now search the place carefully, while
+I stand here. I am on my parole, I shall not run away. Jacob, go down
+and help them.'
+
+"Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke in
+such a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without thinking
+to obey him. So the constable and the rest went down, while the Captain
+and I stood upon the plank, looking at the four of them.
+
+"For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes,
+without finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in which the
+poor lord fell, and of these the constable pulled out a book and made
+a pencil memorial. But presently Jacob, a spry sort of man, cried,
+'Hulloa! whatever have I got hold of here? Many a good craw-fish have I
+pulled out from this bank when the water comes down the gully, but never
+one exactly like this here afore.'
+
+"'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the hawthorn
+stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby! It's loaded, loaded one barrel,
+don't you see? Put it down, with the muzzle away from me.'
+
+"'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said. 'You understand a gun, and
+this goes off just the same.' Constable Jobbins have no fear. 'Yes, it
+is exactly as I thought. This pistol is one of the double-barreled pair
+which I bought to take to India. The barrels are rifled; it shoots
+as true as any rifle, and almost as hard up to fifty yards. The right
+barrel has been fired, the other is still loaded. The bullet I took from
+my father's body most certainly came from this pistol.'
+
+"'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a man
+very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at constable and
+miller's men, if only law was with him. 'Can 'e give a clear account,
+and let me chuck 'un in the river?'
+
+"'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered; while
+the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a fight half
+so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own mother having
+been blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet came down all
+right, miss, and had him three months afterward, according to his
+own confession; nevertheless, he came up now as if he had always been
+upright, in the world, and he said, 'My lord, can you explain all this?'
+
+"Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he were
+measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own mind.
+Proud as your father was, as proud as ever can be without cruelty, it
+is my firm belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's judgment, that if the
+man's eyes had come up to my master's sense of what was virtuous, my
+master would have up and told him the depth and contents of his mind and
+heart, although totally gone beyond him.
+
+"But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little eyes,
+hard to put up with. 'Have you nothing to say, my lord? Then I am
+afeared I must ask you just to come along of me.' And my master went
+with him, miss, as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said, and even Jacob
+fancied, was a conscience sign of guilt.
+
+"Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very nearly as
+much as I do. To tell how the grief was broken to your mother, and what
+her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the pillows and cried,
+while things went on from bad to worse, and a verdict of 'willful
+murder' was brought against your father by the crowner's men, and you
+come headlong, without so much as the birds in the ivy to chirp about
+you, right into the thick of the worst of it. I do assure you, Miss
+Erema, when I look at your bright eyes and clear figure, the Lord in
+heaven, who has made many cripples, must have looked down special to
+have brought you as you are. For trouble upon trouble fell in heaps,
+faster than I can wipe my eyes to think. To begin with, all the servants
+but myself and gardener Jacob ran away. They said that the old lord
+haunted the house, and walked with his hand in the middle of his heart,
+pulling out a bullet if he met any body, and sighing 'murder' three
+times, till every hair was crawling. I took it on myself to fetch the
+Vicar of the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they do in Wales. A nice
+kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a velvet skull-cap, and
+waited with his legs up. But whether he felt that the power was not
+in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of the Church, they
+never made any opportunity between them to meet and have it out, miss.
+
+"Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down
+pestilence upon that house. A horrible disease, the worst I ever met,
+broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my heart and of
+every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never came from heaven.
+They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and three days, and laid in
+the church-yard at one another's side, with little beds of mould to the
+measure of their stature, and their little carts and drums, as they made
+me promise, ready for the judgment-day. Oh, my heart was broken, miss,
+my heart was broken! I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.
+
+"But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we put all
+their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further end of the
+house), when she was a little better of grievous pain and misery (for
+being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up on the pillow,
+looking like a bride almost, except that she had what brides hasn't--a
+little red thing in white flannel at her side--then she says to me, 'I
+am ready, Betsy; it is high time for all of them to see their little
+sister. They always love the baby so, whenever there is a new one. And
+they are such men and women to it. They have been so good this time
+that I have never heard them once. And I am sure that I can trust them,
+Betsy, not to make the baby cry. I do so long to see the darlings. Now
+do not even whisper to them not to make a noise. They are too good to
+require it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'
+
+"I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord was,
+than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the mother so.
+She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the other round your
+little head, and her beautiful hair was come out of its loops, and the
+color in her cheeks was like a shell. Past the fringe of the curtain,
+and behind it too, her soft bright eyes were a-looking here and there
+for the first to come in of her children. The Lord only knows what lies
+I told her, so as to be satisfied without them. First I said they were
+all gone for a walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and
+then that they had got the measles. That last she believed, because it
+was worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see Dr.
+Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he had done
+his dinner. And then, with a little sigh, being very weak, she went down
+into her nest again, with only you to keep her company.
+
+"Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said;
+enough for one day at any rate. But there was almost worse to come. For
+when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my supper and half pint
+of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath to us when spared out of
+sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery now on my mind, was thinking of
+all the sad business, with only a little girl in the back kitchen come
+in to muck up the dishes, there appeared a good knock at the garden
+door, and I knew it for the thumb of the Captain. I locked the young
+girl up, by knowing what their tongues are, and then I let your father
+in, and the candle-sight of him made my heart go low.
+
+"He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his clothes
+were still in decency, they had great holes in them, and the gloss all
+gone to a smell of mere hedges and ditches. The hat on his head was
+quite out of the fashion, even if it could be called a hat at all, and
+his beautiful beard had no sign of a comb, and he looked as old again as
+he had looked a month ago.
+
+"'I know all about it. You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took him
+to the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us. 'I know
+that my children are all dead and buried, except the one that was not
+born yet. Ill news flies quick. I know all about it. George, Henrietta,
+Jack, Alf, little Vi, and Tiny. I have seen their graves and counted
+them, while the fool of a policeman beat his gloves through the hedge
+within a rod of me. Oh yes, I have much to be thankful for. My life is
+in my own hand now.'
+
+"'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of God
+in heaven, don't talk like that. Think of your sweet wife, your dear
+lady.'
+
+"'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet frightful
+to look at, 'I am come to see my wife. Go and let her know it, according
+to your own discretion.'
+
+"My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on and
+write to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between them; but
+I give you my word that I had no discretion, but from pity and majesty
+obeyed him. I knew that he must have broken prison, and by good rights
+ought to be starving. But I could no more offer him the cold ham and
+pullet than take him by his beard and shake him.
+
+"'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits were
+wandering after her children. 'At last, at last! Then he will find them
+all.'
+
+"'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I thought
+of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a week--for the
+little ones went to their graves in pairs to save ceremony; likewise of
+the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like our Lord's way of talking
+at all, but arguing instead of comforting. And not to catch her up in
+that weak state, I said, 'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'
+
+"'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the rest
+put together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but putting
+her hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse on the
+stairs. 'Do bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and then let me go
+where my children are.'
+
+"I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have
+allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she could
+only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her except only
+me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words was impossible.
+All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into your mother's side;
+and as regular as the time-piece went, wide came your eyes and your
+mouth to be fed. If your nature had been cross or squally, 'baby's
+coffin No. 7' would have come after all the other six, which the thief
+of a carpenter put down on his bill as if it was so many shavings.
+
+"Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work to do
+to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming home, and a
+man about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the fender; and if
+I were to try to put before you the way that those two for the last time
+of their lives went on to one another--the one like a man and the other
+like a woman, full of sobs and choking--my eyes would be in such a state
+to-morrow that the whole of them would pity and cheat me. And I ought to
+think of you as well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when
+you was not born yet. And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when
+yourself was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done
+over your own little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for
+the night, and no appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it all
+over, if you please, and let him go out of the backdoor again.
+
+"This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might
+have been to say more words, because the fellows who call themselves
+officers, without any commission, were after him. False it was to say,
+as was said, that he got out of Winchester jail through money. That
+story was quite of a piece with the rest. His own strength and skill it
+was that brought him out triumphantly, as the scratches on his hands and
+cheeks might show. He did it for the sake of his wife, no doubt. When
+he heard that the children were all in their graves, and their mother
+in the way to follow them, madness was better than his state of mind, as
+the officers told me when they could not catch him--and sorry they would
+have been to do it, I believe.
+
+"To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my
+nature; and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing said
+on the landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks. They must have
+said 'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and the Captain, as firm
+a man as ever lived, had lines on his face that were waiting for tears,
+if nature should overcome bringing up. Then I heard the words, 'for my
+sake,' and the other said, 'for your sake,' a pledge that passed between
+them, making breath more long than life is. But when your poor father
+was by the back-door, going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned
+sharp round, and he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at
+your service, Sir.' 'You have been the best woman in the world,' he
+said--'the bravest, best, and kindest. I leave my wife and my last child
+to you. The Lord has been hard on me, but He will spare me those two. I
+do hope and believe He will.'
+
+"We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords--no
+doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the Moonstock
+Bridge to search our house for the runaway. And the Captain took my
+hand, and said, 'I trust them to you. Hide the clothes I took off, that
+they may not know I have been here. I trust my wife and little babe to
+you, and may God bless you, Betsy!'
+
+"He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a sadder
+face was never seen. As he slipped through the hollyhocks I said to
+myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a broken heart
+behind.' And your dear mother died on the Saturday night. Oh my! oh my!
+how sad it was!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE BANK
+
+
+In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had often
+proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can ever be
+exhausted. And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry for eager
+listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted each sad fact as
+it went by. At any rate, be it this way or that, a heavy and sore
+heart was left me, too distracted for asking questions, and almost too
+depressed to grieve.
+
+In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every where,
+and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear how she
+scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment believe that her
+heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of the west country
+is. Major Hockin had been to see me last night, for he never forgot a
+promise, and had left me in good hands, and now he came again in the
+morning. According to his usual way of taking up an opinion, he would
+not see how distracted I was, and full of what I had heard overnight,
+but insisted on dragging me off to the bank, that being in his opinion
+of more importance than old stories. I longed to ask Betsy some
+questions which had been crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while
+I lay awake at night; however, I was obliged to yield to the business of
+the morning, and the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world;
+and he really gave me no time to think.
+
+"Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of it,"
+he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he came in, and
+had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us. "You must never think
+twice of what old women say" (Mrs. Strouss was some twenty years younger
+than himself); "they always go prating and finding mares'-nests, and
+then they always cry. Now did she cry, Erema?"
+
+I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, "No, not one
+drop;" but the truth was against me, and I said, "How could she help
+it?"
+
+"Exactly!" the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought he was
+ordered to stop. "No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do it. My dear, I
+beg your pardon, but you are so very simple! You have not been among the
+eye-openers of the west. This comes of the obsolete Uncle Sam."
+
+"I would rather be simple than 'cute!'" I replied; "and my own Uncle Sam
+will be never obsolete."
+
+Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this far
+country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and with this,
+which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand and stood upon the
+footway of a narrow and crowded lane.
+
+"Move on! move on!" cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
+intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at him.
+But he only said, "Now move on, will you?" without any wrath, and as if
+he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing still. Nobody heeded
+him any more than if he had said, "I am starving," but it seemed a rude
+thing among ladies. Before I had time to think more about this--for
+I always like to think of things--I was led through a pair of narrow
+swinging doors, and down a close alley between two counters full of
+people paying and receiving money. The Major, who always knew how to get
+on, found a white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered
+to him in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other
+before, and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if I
+were a bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he said, "Step
+this way, young lady. Major Hockin, step this way, Sir."
+
+The young lady "stepped that way" in wonder as to what English English
+is, and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where the daylight
+had glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use them. But as it
+cared very little to do this, from angular disabilities, three bright
+gas-lights were burning in soft covers, and fed the little room with a
+rich, sweet glow. And here shone one of the partners of the bank, a very
+pleasant-looking gentleman, and very nicely dressed.
+
+"Major Hockin," he said, after looking at the card, "will you kindly sit
+down, while I make one memorandum? I had the pleasure of knowing your
+uncle well--at least I believe that the late Sir Rufus was your uncle."
+
+"Not so," replied the Major, well pleased, however. "I fear that I am
+too old to have had any uncle lately. Sir Rufus Hockin was my first
+cousin."
+
+"Oh, indeed! To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus being
+much your senior, the mistake was only natural. Now what can I do to
+serve you, or perhaps this young lady--Miss Hockin, I presume?"
+
+"No," said his visitor, "not Miss Hockin. I ought to have introduced
+her, but for having to make my own introduction. Mr. Shovelin, this lady
+is Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving child of the late Captain
+George Castlewood, properly speaking, Lord Castlewood."
+
+Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good
+manners and his own particular courtesy allowed. And I fancied that he
+felt that I could not be a Hockin.
+
+"Oh, dear, dear me!" was all he said, though he wanted to say, "God
+bless me!" or something more sudden and stronger. "Lord Castlewood's
+daughter--poor George Castlewood! My dear young lady, is it possible?"
+
+"Yes, I am my father's child," I said; "and I am proud to hear that I am
+like him."
+
+"That you well may be," he answered, putting on his spectacles. "You are
+astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it, or at least,
+you will not be angry with me, when you know that your father was my
+dearest friend at Harrow; and that when his great trouble fell upon
+him--"
+
+Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun
+himself. He could not tell me that it was himself who had found all the
+money for my father's escape, which cost much cash as well as much good
+feeling. Neither did I, at the time, suspect it, being all in the dark
+upon such points. Not knowing what to say, I looked from the banker to
+the Major, and back again.
+
+"Can you tell me the exact time?" the latter asked. "I am due in the
+Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever happens."
+
+"You will want a swift horse," Mr. Shovelin answered, "or else this will
+be an exception to your rule. It is twenty-one minutes past twelve now."
+
+"May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while? She will be very
+quiet; she is always so. Erema, will you wait for me?"
+
+I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between them.
+Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a talk with me
+about dearer matters than money, having children of his own, and being
+(as his eyes and forehead showed) a man of peculiar views, perhaps, but
+clearly of general good-will.
+
+"In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour"--the Major intensified
+his intentions always--"in three-quarters of an hour I shall be back.
+Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and not say a word, nor
+make any attempt to do any thing every body is not used to."
+
+This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with a
+very gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major Hockin was
+one of those people, so often to be met with, whom any one likes or
+dislikes according to the changes of their behavior. But Mr. Shovelin
+was different from that.
+
+"Miss Castlewood, take this chair," he said; "a hard one, but better
+than a stool, perhaps. Now how am I to talk to you--as an inquirer upon
+business matters, or as the daughter of my old friend? Your smile is
+enough. Well, and you must talk to me in the same unreasonable manner.
+That being clearly established between us, let us proceed to the
+next point. Your father, my old friend, wandered from the track, and
+unfortunately lost his life in a desolate part of America."
+
+"No; oh no. It was nothing like that. He might have been alive, and here
+at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and drop of his."
+
+"Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic--I mean, look at things
+more soberly. You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt; George
+Castlewood always would have that. He was a most commanding man. You do
+not quite resemble him in that respect, I think."
+
+"Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?" I cried out. "You were at school
+with him, and knew his nature. Was it possible for him to do it, Sir?"
+
+"As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my dear
+old father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age there. Not
+that your grandfather, if I may say it without causing pain to you, was
+either green or agreeable. He was an uncommonly sharp old man; I might
+even say a hard one. As you never saw him, you will not think me rude in
+saying that much. Your love, of course, is for your father; and if your
+father had had a father of larger spirit about money, he might have
+been talking to me pleasantly now, instead of--instead of all these sad
+things."
+
+"Please not to slip away from me," I said, bluntly, having so often met
+with that. "You believe, as every good person does, that my father was
+wholly innocent. But do tell me who could have done it instead. Somebody
+must have done it; that seems clear."
+
+"Yes," replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration;
+"somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the
+whole affair. 'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say. Two persons only could
+have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go. The first and
+most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come into every thing
+(which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and the other, a very nice
+gentleman, whom it is wholly impossible to suspect."
+
+"Are you sure of that? People have more than suspected--they have
+condemned--my father. After that, I can suspect any body. Who is it?
+Please to tell me."
+
+"It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be called.
+He would not claim the title, or even put forward his right in any way,
+until he had proof of your dear father's death; and even then he behaved
+so well--"
+
+"He did it! he did it!" I cried, in hot triumph. "My father's name shall
+be clear of it. Can there be any doubt that he did it? How very simple
+the whole of it becomes! Nothing astonishes me, except the stupidity of
+people. He had every thing to gain, and nothing to lose--a bad man, no
+doubt--though I never heard of him. And putting it all on my father, of
+course, to come in himself, and abide his time, till the misery killed
+my father. How simple, how horribly simple, it becomes!"
+
+"You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden. Excuse me a minute"--as a
+silver bell struck--"I am wanted in the next room. But before I go, let
+me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to dismiss that new idea
+from your mind."
+
+I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured out for
+me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased. His kind and handsome face grew
+hard. He had taken me for a nice young lady, never much above the
+freezing-point, and he had found me boil over in a moment. I was sorry
+to have grieved him; but if he had heard Betsy Bowen's story, and seen
+her tell it, perhaps he would have allowed for me. I sat down again,
+having risen in my warmth, and tried to quiet and command myself by
+thinking of the sad points only. Of these there were plenty to make
+pictures of, the like of which had kept me awake all night; and I knew
+by this time, from finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that
+men think a woman may well be all tears, but has no right to even the
+shadow of a frown. That is their own prerogative.
+
+And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which had
+also vexed him--to judge by the way in which he threw them down--I spoke
+very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my display of violence,
+but that if he knew all, he would pardon me; and he pardoned me in a
+moment.
+
+"I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood," he continued,
+gently, "that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which I
+think will content you. In the first place, the present Lord Castlewood
+is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great piety and true
+gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who can not walk a mile
+with a crutch to help him, and so he has been for a great many years;
+and lastly, if you have no faith in the rest, he was in Italy at the
+time, and remained there for some years afterward. There he received and
+sheltered your poor father after his sad calamity, and was better than a
+brother to him, as your father, in a letter to me, declared. So you see
+that you must acquit him."
+
+"That is not enough. I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he helped
+my father, for he must have thought him innocent. Now, Mr. Shovelin, you
+were my father's friend, and you are such a clever man--"
+
+"How do you know that, young lady? What a hurry you are always in!"
+
+"Oh, there can be no doubt about it. But you must not ask reasons, if
+I am so quick. Now please to tell me what your own conclusion is. I can
+talk of it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I never think of any
+thing else. Only tell me what you really believe, and I will keep it
+most strictly to myself."
+
+"I am sure you will do that," he answered, smiling, "not only from the
+power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to say. At
+first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my certainty of
+your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong) that the old lord
+had done it himself; for he always had been of a headstrong and violent
+nature, which I am sure will never re-appear in you. But the whole
+of the evidence went against this, and little as I think of evidence,
+especially at an inquest, your father's behavior confirmed what was
+sworn to. Your father knew that his father had not made away with
+himself in a moment of passion, otherwise he was not the man to break
+prison and fly trial. He would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there
+are many things that I can not explain; I can not help that; I will
+face it out. Condemn me, if you like, and I will suffer.' From your own
+remembrance of your father's nature, is not that certainly the course he
+would have taken?"
+
+"I have not an atom of doubt about it. His flight and persistent dread
+of trial puzzle me beyond imagination. Of his life he was perfectly
+reckless, except, at least, for my sake."
+
+"I know that he was," Mr. Shovelin replied; "as a boy he was wonderfully
+fearless. As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of children, he might
+have begun to be otherwise. But when all those were gone, and only a
+poor little baby left--"
+
+"Yes, I suppose I was all that."
+
+"Forgive me. I am looking back at you. Who could dream that you would
+ever even live, without kith or kin to care for you? Your life was saved
+by some good woman who took you away to Wales. But when you were such a
+poor little relic, and your father could scarcely have seen you, to
+have such a mite left must have been almost a mockery of happiness. That
+motive could not have been strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor
+from doing what honor at once demanded. Your father would have returned
+and surrendered as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the
+balance there had been only you."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would. I was never very much as a
+counter-balance. Yet my father loved me." I could have told him of the
+pledge exchanged--"For my sake," and, "Yes, for your sake," with love
+and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute--but I did not say a
+word about it.
+
+"He loved you afterward, of course. But a man who has had seven children
+is not enthusiastic about a baby. There must have been a larger motive."
+
+"But when I was the only one left alive. Surely I became valuable then.
+I can not have been such a cipher."
+
+"Yes, for a long time you would have been," replied the Saturnian
+banker. "I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were a
+fortnight old. They may have begun already to be irresistible. Excuse
+me; you have led me into the light vein, when speaking of a most sad
+matter. You must blame your self-assertion for it. All I wish to convey
+to you is my belief that something wholly unknown to us, some dark
+mystery of which we have no inkling, lies at the bottom of this terrible
+affair. Some strange motive there must have been, strong enough even
+to overcome all ordinary sense of honor, and an Englishman's pride in
+submitting to the law, whatever may be the consequence. Consider that
+his 'flight from justice,' as it was called, of course, by every one,
+condemned his case and ruined his repute. Even for that he would not
+have cared so much as for his own sense of right. And though he was a
+very lively fellow, as I first remember him, full of tricks and jokes,
+and so on, which in this busy age are out of date, I am certain that he
+always had a stern sense of right. One never knows how love affairs and
+weakness about children may alter almost any man; but my firm conviction
+is that my dear old school-fellow, George Castlewood, even with a wife
+and lovely children hanging altogether upon his life, not only would
+not have broken jail, but would calmly have given up his body to be
+hanged--pardon me, my dear, for putting it so coarsely--if there had not
+been something paramount to override even apparent honor. What it can
+have been I have no idea, and I presume you have none."
+
+"None whatever," I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze. "I am
+quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a thing. It has
+always seemed to me so natural that my dear father, being shamefully
+condemned, because appearances were against him, and nobody could enter
+into him, should, for the sake of his wife and children, or even of one
+child like me, depart or banish himself, or emigrate, or, as they might
+call it, run away. Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was
+the only straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do."
+
+"You can not see things as men see them. We must not expect it of you,"
+Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior smile, which
+reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he listened to what, in his
+opinion, was only female reason; "but, dear me, here is Major Hockin
+come! Punctuality is the soul of business."
+
+"So I always declare," cried the Major, who was more than three-quarters
+of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him. "My watch keeps
+time to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second. Well, I hope you
+have settled all questions of finance, and endowed my young maid with a
+fortune."
+
+"So far from that," Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different from
+that he used to me, "we have not even said one word of business; all
+that has been left for your return. Am I to understand that you are by
+appointment or relationship the guardian of this young lady?"
+
+"God forbid!" cried Major Hockin, shortly. I thought it very rude of
+him, yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his glasses up and
+lifted his wiry crest of hair. "Not that she is bad, I mean, but good,
+very good; indeed, I may say the very best girl ever known outside of my
+own family. My cousin, Colonel Gundry, who owns an immense estate in
+the most auriferous district of all California, but will not spoil his
+splendid property by mining, he will--he will tell you the very same
+thing, Sir."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it," said the banker, smiling at me, while I
+wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises. "Now I really
+fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my oldest friend
+may well be preferred to business. But now we will turn at once to
+business, if you please."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+COUSIN MONTAGUE
+
+
+Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called his
+signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy frigate or
+accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps very promptly,
+one clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a small strong-box.
+
+"No plate," Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest with
+sorrow; "but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema. One ounce of
+diamonds is worth a ton of plate."
+
+"No," said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, "I fear that
+you will find nothing of mercantile value. Thank you, Mr. Robinson;
+by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you. Strictly speaking, perhaps I
+should require the presence of your father's lawyer, or of some one
+producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss Castlewood. But having you
+here, and Major Hockin, and knowing what I do about the matter (which is
+one of personal confidence), I will dispense with formalities. We have
+given your father's solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested
+his attention, but he never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will
+dispense with him. You see that the seal is unbroken; you know your
+father's favorite seal, no doubt. The key is nothing; it was left to my
+charge. You wish that I should open this?"
+
+Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-handled
+paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box, whose weight
+was chiefly of itself. Some cotton-wool lay on the top to keep the
+all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue foolscap paper,
+partly covered with clear but crooked writing, and under that some
+little twists of silver paper, screwed as if there had been no time
+to tie them, and a packet of letters held together by a glittering
+bracelet.
+
+"Poor fellow!" Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath, and
+the Major had the courtesy to be silent. "This is his will; of no
+value, I fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to you his
+daughter. Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to his lawyers?"
+
+"Open it, and never think of them," said I. "Like the rest, they have
+forsaken him. Please to read it to yourself, and then tell us."
+
+"Oh, I wish I had known this before!" cried the banker, after a rapid
+glance or two. "Very kind, very flattering, I am sure! Yes, I will do my
+duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the case. He has left
+me sole executor, and trustee of all his property, for the benefit of
+his surviving child. Yet he never gave me the smallest idea of expecting
+me to do this for him. Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old
+box opened years ago."
+
+"We must look at things as they are," said Major Hockin, for I could say
+nothing. "The question is, what do you mean to do now?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," said the banker, crisply, being displeased at the
+other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed himself to
+me: "Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon my old friend's
+confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.' A banker must never
+encroach upon the province of the lawyer. But so far as a layman may
+judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have to transfer to me the care of
+this young lady."
+
+"I shall be only too happy, I assure you," the Major answered,
+truthfully. "My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I--the very
+greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental feelings; as you know,
+Erema. But--but, I am not so young as I was; and I have to develop my
+property."
+
+"Of which she no longer forms a part," Mr. Shovelin answered, with a
+smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the other's
+calm abandonment. "You will find me prompt and proud to claim her, as
+soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and that I shall learn
+to-morrow."
+
+In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of tears,
+and I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my father, as
+he said in so many words.
+
+"Oh, I hope it is valid! How I hope it is!" I exclaimed, turning round
+to the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so too.
+
+"But surely," he continued, "as we are all here, we should not neglect
+the opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this box. To me
+it appears that we are bound to do so; that it is our plain duty to
+ascertain--Why, there might even be a later will. Erema, my dear, you
+must be most anxious to get to the bottom of it."
+
+So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be foiled. "We
+must leave that to Mr. Shovelin," I said.
+
+"Then for the present we will seal it down again," the banker answered,
+quietly; "we can see that there is no other will, and a later one would
+scarcely be put under this. The other little packets, whatever they may
+be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps, rather than of importance. They
+will keep till we have more leisure."
+
+"We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure," said the
+Major, finding that he could take no more. "We ought to be, and we are,
+most grateful."
+
+"Well," the banker answered, as we began to move, "such things do not
+happen every day. But there is no friend like an old friend, Erema, as I
+mean to call you now. I was to have been your godfather; but I fear that
+you never have been baptized."
+
+"What!" cried the Major, staring at us both. "Is such a thing possible
+in a Christian land? Oh, how I have neglected my duty to the Church!
+Come back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it. The church there
+is under my orders, I should hope; and we will have a dinner party
+afterward. What a horrible neglect of duty!"
+
+"But how could I help it?" I exclaimed, with some terror at Major
+Hockin's bristling hair. "I can not remember--I am sure I can not say.
+It may have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was no time in
+England. At any rate, my father is not to be blamed."
+
+"Papistical baptism is worse than none," the Major said, impressively.
+"Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right. You shall not be a
+savage always. We will take the opportunity to change your name. Erema
+is popish and outlandish; one scarcely knows how to pronounce it. You
+shall have a good English Christian name--Jemima, Jane, or Sophy. Trust
+me to know a good name. Trust me."
+
+"Jemima!" I cried. "Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being called
+Jemima! Rather would I never be baptized at all."
+
+"I am no judge of names," he answered, smiling, as he shook hands with
+us; "but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be called just
+what you please."
+
+"And I please to be called what my father called me. It may be unlucky,
+as a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce it. However,
+it will do very well for me. You wish to see me, then, to-morrow, Mr.
+Shovelin?"
+
+"If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure. I do
+not run away very early. Come at half past four to this door, and
+knock. I hear every sound at this door in my room; and the place will be
+growing quiet then."
+
+He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed with
+iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the brawl and
+roar of a London street.
+
+"Now where shall we go?" the Major asked, as soon as he had found a cab
+again; for he was very polite in that way. "You kept early hours with
+your 'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-witted man, but
+most amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very often are. Now will
+you come and dine with me? I can generally dine, as you, with virtuous
+indignation, found out at Southampton. But we are better friends now,
+Miss Heathen."
+
+"Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for," I answered, very
+gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness still was
+uppermost. "I will go where you like. I am quite at your orders, because
+Betsy Bowen is busy now. She will not have done her work till six
+o'clock."
+
+"Well done!" he cried. "Bravo, Young America! Frankness is the finest of
+all good manners. And what a lot of clumsy deception it saves! Then let
+us go and dine. I will imitate your truthfulness. It was two words for
+myself, and one for you. The air of London always makes me hungry after
+too much country air. It is wrong altogether, but I can not help it. And
+going along, I smell hungry smells coming out of deep holes with a
+plate at the top. Hungry I mean to a man who has known what absolute
+starvation is--when a man would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had
+taken his own nip any where. When I see the young fellows at the clubs
+pick this, and poke that, and push away the other, may I be d----d--my
+dear, I beg your pardon. Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped
+Cockle,' at the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know."
+
+This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute for
+something special, something esteemed by the very clever people, and
+only to be found in true virtue here. And he told me that luxury and
+self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the present age, and how he
+admired a man who came here to protest against Epicureans, by dining
+(liquors not included) for the sum of three and sixpence.
+
+All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to it
+properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all the
+talking to himself, according to his practice. And I might not even have
+been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles was like, except
+for a little thing which happened there. The room, at the head of
+a twisting staircase, was low and dark, and furnished almost like a
+farmhouse kitchen. It had no carpet, nor even a mat, but a floor of
+black timber, and a ceiling colored blue, with stars and comets, and a
+full moon near the fire-place. On either side of the room stood narrow
+tables endwise to the walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like
+settles, forming thus a double set of little stalls or boxes, with
+scarcely space enough between for waiters, more urgent than New York
+firemen, to push their steaming and breathless way.
+
+"Square or round, miss?" said one of them to me as soon as the Major had
+set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally toward criticism
+of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such ordeal; and he
+cleverly whipped a stand for something dirty, over something still
+dirtier, on the cloth.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," I replied to his highly zealous
+aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which vexed
+me. "I have never received such a question before. Major Hockin, will
+you kindly answer him?"
+
+"Square," said the Major; "square for both." And the waiter, with a
+glance of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.
+
+"Erema, your mind is all up in the sky," my companion began to
+remonstrate. "You ought to know better after all your travels."
+
+"Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so," I said, pointing to
+the Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; "but do tell me what he
+meant, if you can. Is it about the formation of the soup?"
+
+"Hush, my dear. Soup is high treason here until night, when they make it
+of the leavings. His honest desire was to know whether you would have a
+grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you know, or of beef,
+which, by the same law of nature, seems always to be square, you know."
+
+"Oh, I see," I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology, but
+at the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon me. A
+gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low box, and
+stood calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself) gazing over the
+wooden back at me, who thus sat facing him. And Major Hockin, following
+my glance, stood up and turned round to see to it.
+
+"What! Cousin Montague! Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of
+lighting on you here? Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of
+room. Let me introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood. Miss
+Castlewood, this is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my lamented first
+cousin Sir Rufus, of whom you have heard so much. Well, to be sure! I
+have not seen you for an age. My dear fellow, now how are you?"
+
+"Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where. Major, I am most
+delighted to see you. Over and over again I have been at the point of
+starting for Bruntsea Island--it is an island now, isn't it? My father
+would never believe that it was till I proved it from the number of
+rabbits that came up. However, not a desolate island now, if it contains
+you and all your energies, and Miss Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin."
+
+"It is not an island, and it never shall be," the Major cried, knocking
+a blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously. "It never
+was an island, and it never shall be. My intention is to reclaim it
+altogether. Oh, here come the squares. Well done! well done! I quite
+forget the proper thing to have to drink. Are the cockles in the pan,
+Mr. Waiter? Quite right, then; ten minutes is the proper time; but they
+know that better than I do. I am very sorry, Montague, that you have
+dined."
+
+"Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon
+afterward. But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be fed up
+at short intervals. You can understand that, perhaps, Miss Castlewood.
+It makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know. The ladies once came
+only twice to feed, but now they come three times, I am assured by a
+young man who knows all about it. And cherry brandy is the mildest form
+of tipple."
+
+"Shocking scandal! abominable talk!" cried the Major, who took every
+thing at its word. "I have heard all that sort of stuff ever since I was
+as high as this table. Waiter, show me this gentleman's bill. Oh well,
+oh well! you have not done so very badly. Two squares and a round, with
+a jug of Steinberg, and a pint of British stout with your Stilton. If
+this is your ante-lunch, what will you do when you come to your real
+luncheon? But I must not talk now; you may have it as you please."
+
+"The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood," said the young man, while I
+looked with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover just
+whisked off, and drops of its juice (like the rays of a lustre) shaking
+with soft inner wealth--"the truth of it is just this, and no more:
+we fix our minds and our thoughts, and all the rest of our higher
+intelligence, a great deal too much upon our mere food."
+
+"No doubt we do," I was obliged to answer. "It is very sad to think of,
+as soon as one has dined. But does that reflection occur, as it should,
+at the proper time to be useful--I mean when we are hungry?"
+
+"I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical."
+
+"No big words now, my dear fellow," cried the Major. "You have had your
+turn; let us have ours. But, Erema, you are eating nothing. Take a knife
+and fork, Montague, and help her. The beauty of these things consists
+entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in their having the smoke
+rushing out of them. A gush of steam like this should follow every turn
+of the knife. But there! I am spoiling every bit by talking so."
+
+"Is that any fault of mine?" asked Sir Montague, in a tone which made me
+look at him. The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor unpleasant, yet it
+gave me the idea that it could be all three, and worse than all three,
+upon occasion. So I looked at him, which I had refrained from doing, to
+see whether his face confirmed that idea. To the best of my perception,
+it did not. Sir Montague Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as
+form and color go, having regular features, and clear blue eyes, very
+beautiful teeth, and a golden beard. His appearance was grave, but
+not morose, as if he were always examining things and people without
+condemning them. It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand
+in general, to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to "be helped
+to all the stuffing of the pumpkin," as dear Uncle Sam was fond of
+saying. Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely,
+without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front, he
+was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-sight.
+
+The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner
+genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic anger
+with those who had done less justice to themselves. And in this state
+of mind he begged us to take note of one thing--that his ward should
+be christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the bells were his,
+according to their inscriptions, no later than next Thursday week, that
+being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir Montague failed to come to
+see how they could manage things under proper administration, he might
+be sure of one thing, if no more--that Major Hockin would never speak to
+him again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of, that I
+scarcely knew which to begin with. I used to be told how much wiser it
+was not to interfere with any thing--to let by-gones be by-gones, and
+consider my own self only. But this advice never came home to my case,
+and it always seemed an unworthy thing even to be listening to it. And
+now I saw reason to be glad for thanking people who advised me, and
+letting them go on to advise themselves. For if I had listened to Major
+Hockin, or even Uncle Sam for that part, where must I have been
+now? Why, simply knowing no more than as a child I knew, and feeling
+miserable about it. Whereas I had now at least something to go upon,
+and enough for a long time to occupy my mind. The difficulty was to know
+what to do first, and what to resolve to leave undone, or at least to
+put off for the present. One of my special desires had been to discover
+that man, that Mr. Goad, who had frightened me so about two years back,
+and was said to be lost in the snow-drifts. But nobody like him had ever
+been found, to the sorrow of the neighborhood; and Sylvester himself had
+been disappointed, not even to know what to do with his clothes.
+
+His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of
+Uncle Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was printed,
+with a glazing and much flourish, "Vypan, Goad, and Terryer: Private
+Inquiry Office, Little England Polygon, W.C." Uncle Sam, with a grunt
+and a rise of his foot, had sent this low card flying to the fire, after
+I had kissed him so for all his truth and loveliness; but I had caught
+it and made him give it to me, as was only natural. And having this now,
+I had been quite prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and
+ask what they wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do
+with me now, taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else
+a policeman well recommended.
+
+But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's opinion
+should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr. Shovelin what
+he thought about it, before doing any thing that might arouse a set of
+ideas quite opposite to mine, and so cause trouble afterward. And being
+unable to think any better for the time than to wait and be talked to,
+I got Major Hockin to take me back again to the right number in European
+Square.
+
+Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to hear a
+great deal more than I myself had heard that day. On the other hand, I
+had many questions, arising from things said to me, to which I required
+clear answers; and it never would do for her to suppose that because
+she had known me come into this world, she must govern the whole of my
+course therein. But it cost many words and a great deal of demeanor
+to teach her that, good and faithful as she was, I could not be always
+under her. Yet I promised to take her advice whenever it agreed with my
+own opinions.
+
+This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how well
+it would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they might ring
+and ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their bells; but if they
+wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it. Being Germans, who are the
+most docile of men in England, whatever they may be at home, they made
+no complaint, but retired to their pipes in a pleasant condition of
+surprise at London habits.
+
+Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and reputable
+turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to put by many
+things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept long enough.
+And I did hear--most careful as I am to pay no attention to petty
+rumors--that the first thing that moved the heart of Herr Strouss, and
+called forth his finest feelings, was a winding-up chair, which came out
+to make legs, with a pocket for tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.
+
+This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low things
+grieved me. And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself, having heard
+of none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse might not have done
+her best, yet might have done worse, when she married him. For he seemed
+to have taken a liking toward me, and an interest in my affairs, which
+redounded to his credit, if he would not be too inquisitive. And now
+I gladly allowed him to be present, and to rest in the chair which had
+captivated him, although last night I could scarcely have borne to have
+heard in his presence what I had to hear. To-night there was nothing
+distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale;
+whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which (while
+scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females might, with
+advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger sex.
+
+And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could what
+had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I had been),
+those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to the following
+purport--setting aside the main puzzle of all.
+
+Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father was
+dead, he himself had killed or murdered him? Betsy believed, when she
+came to think, that he had even used the worse word of these two.
+
+How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol--as
+clearly it had been--a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account, as
+Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near Chichester?
+
+What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor little
+brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and servants away?
+Betsy said it was called "Differeria," as differing so much from all
+other complaints. I had never yet heard of this, but discovered, without
+asking further than of Mr. Strouss, that she meant that urgent mandate
+for a levy of small angels which is called on earth "diphtheria."
+
+Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, to
+send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof of my
+dear father's death, and to bring me back, if possible? The present
+Lord Castlewood never would have done so, according to what Mr. Shovelin
+said; it was far more likely that (but for weak health) he would have
+come forth himself to seek me, upon any probable tidings. At once a
+religious and chivalrous man, he would never employ mean agency. And
+while thinking of that, another thought occurred--What had induced that
+low man Goad to give Uncle Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime
+which began all our misery? He had put it at ten, now twelve, years
+back, and dated it in November, whereas it had happened in September
+month, six years and two months before the date he gave. This question
+was out of all answer to me, and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr
+Strouss, being of a legal turn, believed that the law was to blame
+for it. He thought that proceedings might be bound to begin, under the
+Extradition Act, within ten years of the date of the crime; or there
+might be some other stipulation compelling Mr. Goad to add one to all
+his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about it, both of us thought
+it very likely.
+
+Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between my
+father and mother, when they said "good-by" to one another, and perhaps
+knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is concerned? Was
+it any thing about a poor little sleeping and whimpering creature like
+myself, who could not yet make any difference to any living being except
+the mother? Or was it concerning far more important things, justice,
+clear honor, good-will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come
+upward with high natures? And if so, was it not a promise from my
+mother, knowing every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering
+moment of lying beneath the point of death?
+
+This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very first
+that the pledge must be on my father's part--to wit, that he had vowed
+not to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the sake of his dear
+wife. And to my suggestion she could only say that she never had seen
+it in that light; but the landings were so narrow and the walls so soft
+that, with all her duty staring in her face, neither she, nor the best
+servant ever in an apron, could be held responsible to repeat their very
+words. And her husband said that this was good--very good--so good as
+ever could be; and what was to show now from the mouth of any one, after
+fifteen, sixteen, eighteen, the years?
+
+After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to
+contradict people duly married and of one accord. No other word, I mean,
+upon that point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more immediate,
+what was the next thing for me, perhaps, to do. And first of all it was
+settled among us that for me to present myself at the head-quarters of
+Vypau, Goad, and Terryer would be a very clumsy and stupid proceeding,
+and perhaps even dangerous. Of course they would not reveal to me the
+author of those kind inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the
+firm a very valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself. And while I
+should learn less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract
+from me, or at any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and
+what I was doing, and how I could most quietly be met and baffled, and
+perhaps even made away with, so as to save all further trouble.
+
+Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do nothing.
+Herr Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of true sagacity,
+and he warmly advised, in his very worst English, that none but my few
+trusty friends should be told of my visit to this country.
+
+"Why for make to know your enemies?" he asked, with one finger on his
+forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution. "Enemies find out
+vere soon, too soon, soon enough. Begin to plot--no, no, young lady
+begin first. Vilhelmina, your man say the right. Is it good, or is it
+bad?"
+
+It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for the
+present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from calling even on
+my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think it needful. In that
+and other matters I would act by his advice; and so with better spirits
+than I long had owned, at finding so much kindness, and with good hopes
+of the morrow, I went to the snug little bedroom which my good nurse had
+provided.
+
+Alas! What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep and
+abiding loss of many by a good man's death? When I went to the door at
+which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an answer. And
+even when somebody came at last, so far from being my guardian, it was
+only a poor old clerk, who said, "Hush, miss!" and then prayed that the
+will of the Lord might be done. "Couldn't you see the half-shutters
+up?" he continued, rather roughly. "'Tis a bad job for many a poor man
+to-day. And it seems no more than yesterday I was carrying him about!"
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?" I asked. "Is he poorly? Has any thing
+happened? I can wait, or come again."
+
+"The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his private
+address at Sydenham Hill. A burning and a shining light! May we like
+him be found watching in that day, with our lamps trimmed and our loins
+girded!"
+
+For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man led me
+into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was. He belonged, like
+his master, and a great part of their business, to a simple religious
+persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom heard of.
+
+"It was just in this way," he said, as soon as tears had enabled me to
+speak--for even at the first sight I had felt affection toward my new
+guardian. "Our master is a very punctual man, for five-and-thirty years
+never late--never late once till this morning. Excuse me, miss, I ought
+to be ashamed. The Lord knoweth what is best for us. Well, you threw him
+out a good bit yesterday, and there was other troubles. And he had to
+work late last night, I hear; for through his work he would go, be it
+anyhow--diligent in business, husbanding the time--and when he came down
+to breakfast this morning, he prayed with his household as usual, but
+they noticed his voice rather weak and queer; and the mistress looked
+at him when he got up from his knees; but he drank his cup of tea and
+he ate his bit of toast, which was all he ever took for breakfast. But
+presently when his cob came up to the door--for he always rode in to
+business, miss, no matter what the weather was--he went to kiss his wife
+and his daughters all round, according to their ages; and he got through
+them all, when away he fell down, with the riding-whip in one hand, and
+expired on a piece of Indian matting."
+
+"How terrible!" I exclaimed, with a sob. And the poor old man, in spite
+of all his piety, was sobbing.
+
+"No, miss; not a bit of terror about it, to a man prepared as he was.
+He had had some warning just a year ago; and the doctors all told him he
+must leave off work. He could no more do without his proper work than he
+could without air or victuals. What this old established concern will
+do without him, our Divine Master only knows. And a pinch coming on in
+Threadneedle Street, I hear--but I scarcely know what I am saying, miss;
+I was thinking of the camel and the needle."
+
+"I will not repeat what you have not meant to tell," I answered, seeing
+his confusion, and the clumsy turn he had made of it. "Only tell me what
+dear Mr. Shovelin died of."
+
+"Heart-disease, miss. You might know in a moment. Nothing kills like
+that. His poor father died of it, thirty years agone. And the better
+people are, the more they get it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+AT THE PUMP
+
+
+This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all power to
+go on. The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls upon stronger
+people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through long troubles,
+mysteriously fades away.
+
+Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a thing
+to be ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's family thus,
+without a moment's warning, robbed of love and hope and happiness. But
+Mrs. Strouss, who often brooded on predestination, imbittered all my
+thoughts by saying, or rather conveying without words, that my poor
+fathers taint of some Divine ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed
+his banker.
+
+Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter. She
+called herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me thus
+from ever having been baptized. I do not understand these things, and
+the battles fought about them; but knowing that my father was a member
+of the English Church, I resolved to be the same, and told Betsy that
+she ought not to set up against her master's doctrine. Then she herself
+became ashamed of trying to convert me, not only because of my ignorance
+(which made argument like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because
+she could mention no one of title with such theology.
+
+This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame) what
+opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very same
+predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm would have
+thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the Major and his dinner
+party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman, who examined me, and being
+satisfied with little, took me to an old City church of deep and damp
+retirement. And here, with a great din of traffic outside, and a mildewy
+depth of repose within, I was presented by certain sponsors (the clerk
+and his wife and his wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to
+keep the impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.
+
+I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old
+name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in two
+syllables only. But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and looked at
+me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old school, put never a
+question about it.
+
+Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs. Hockin,
+to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I scarcely knew
+how to be moving next, though move I must before very long. For it cost
+me a great deal of money to stay in European Square like this, albeit
+Herr Strouss was of all men the most generous, by his own avowal, and
+his wife (by the same test) noble-hearted among women. Yet each of them
+spoke of the other's pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the
+other was out of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all
+to say about cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met
+together, were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a
+thought of payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but
+run away between them.
+
+This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable to
+keep my secret about the great nugget. The Major had told me not to
+speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not the smallest
+intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way; but somehow or other
+it came out one night when I was being pitied for my desolation. And all
+the charges against me began to be doubled from that moment.
+
+If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
+content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me. But there
+was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and lodgings
+and all the rest of my expenses. And that was the iron pump in European
+Square. For this pump stood in the very centre of a huddled district
+of famine, filth, and fever. When once I had seen from the leads of
+our house the quag of reeking life around, the stubs and snags of
+chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled streets, and the broken
+blains called houses, I was quite ashamed of paying any thing to become
+a Christian.
+
+Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
+and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas, fiercely
+resented all interference, and were good to one another in their own
+rough way. It was more than three years since there had been a single
+murder among them, and even then the man who was killed confessed that
+he deserved it. She told me, also, that in some mining district of
+Wales, well known to her, things were a great deal worse than here,
+although the people were not half so poor. And finally, looking at a
+ruby ring which I had begged her to wear always, for the sake of her
+truth to me, she begged me to be wiser than to fret about things that I
+could not change. "All these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means
+of grace before them, and if they would not stretch forth their hands,
+it was only because they were vessels of wrath. Her pity was rather
+for our poor black brethren who had never enjoyed no opportunities, and
+therefore must be castaways."
+
+Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my doctrine
+(since first I went to America), I dropped all intention of attempting
+any good in places where I might be murdered. But I could not help
+looking at the pump which was in front, and the poor things who came
+there for water, and, most of all, the children. With these it was
+almost the joy of the day, and perhaps the only joy, to come into this
+little open space and stand, and put their backs up stiffly, and stare
+about, ready for some good luck to turn up--such as a horse to hold, or
+a man coming out of the docks with a half-penny to spare--and then,
+in failure of such golden hope, to dash about, in and out, after one
+another, splashing, and kicking over their own cans, kettles, jars, or
+buckets, and stretching their dirty little naked legs, and showing very
+often fine white chests, and bright teeth wet with laughter. And then,
+when this chivy was done, and their quick little hearts beat aloud with
+glory, it was pretty to see them all rally round the pump, as crafty
+as their betters, and watching with sly humor each other's readiness to
+begin again.
+
+Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little body
+with a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl, whose mother,
+perhaps, lay sick at home, and a stern idea of responsibility began
+to make the buckets clank. Then might you see, if you cared to do so,
+orderly management have its turn--a demand for pins and a tucking up
+of skirts (which scarcely seemed worthy of the great young fuss), large
+children scolding little ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the
+while the very least child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and
+only come for company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down,
+and look up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.
+
+Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a little
+checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom, especially
+when the real work began, and the children, vying with one another,
+set to at the iron handle. This was too large for their little hands to
+grasp, and by means of some grievance inside, or perhaps through a cruel
+trick of the plumber, up went the long handle every time small fingers
+were too confiding, and there it stood up like the tail of a rampant
+cow, or a branch inaccessible, until an old shawl or the cord of a
+peg-top could be cast up on high to reduce it. But some engineering boy,
+"highly gifted," like Uncle Sam's self, "with machinery," had discovered
+an ingenious cure for this. With the help of the girls he used to fasten
+a fat little thing, about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle
+of the handle, and there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby
+and enjoyed seesaw, and laughed at its own utility.
+
+I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and bright
+revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and discretion,
+and rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own delicious Blue River.
+People used to look at me from the windows with pity and astonishment,
+supposing me to be crazed or frantic, especially the Germans. For to run
+out like this, without a pocket full of money, would have been insanity;
+and to run out with it, to their minds, was even clearer proof of that
+condition. For the money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on
+this side and on that it flew, each child in succession making deeper
+drain upon it, in virtue of still deeper woes. They were dreadful little
+story-tellers, I am very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as
+soon as I came out, in contrast with all the recent glee and frolic,
+suggested to even the youngest charity suspicions of some inconsistency.
+However, they were so ingenious and clever that they worked my pockets
+like the pump itself, only with this unhappy difference, that the former
+had no inexhaustible spring of silver, or even of copper.
+
+And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature), was
+I driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh supply
+should come. For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was, did not mean
+to let me melt all away at once my share of the great Blue River nugget,
+any more than to make ducks and drakes of his own. Indeed, that rock of
+gold was still untouched, and healthily reposing in a banker's cellar
+in the good town of Sacramento. People were allowed to go in and see
+it upon payment of a dollar, and they came out so thirsty from feasting
+upon it that a bar was set up, and a pile of money made--all the
+gentlemen, and ladies even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about
+small money after seeing that. But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of
+the profit of all this excitable work. It was wholly against his wish
+that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense of
+religion condemned it. He said, in his very first letter to me, that
+even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the grandest
+work of the Lord yet discovered in America--a country more full of all
+works of the Lord than the rest of the world put together. And to keep
+it in a cellar, without any air or sun, grated harshly upon his ideas of
+right.
+
+However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did, and
+if they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as having
+large families. And the balance might go to his credit against the
+interest on any cash advanced to him. Not that he meant to be very fast
+with this, never having run into debt in all his life.
+
+This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump any
+longer. I had come into England with money enough to last me (according
+to the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of every needful
+work; whereas, in less than half that time, I was arriving at my last
+penny. This reminded me of my dear father, who was nearly always in
+trouble about money (although so strictly upright); and at first I was
+proud to be like him about this, till I came to find the disadvantages.
+
+It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any difference
+in the behavior of any one toward me. Mrs. Strouss, Herr Strouss, the
+lady on the stairs, and a very clever woman who had got no rooms, but
+was kindly accommodated every where, as well as the baron on the first
+floor front, and the gentleman from a hotel at Hanover, who looked
+out the other way, and even the children at the pump--not one made any
+difference toward me (as an enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my
+last half crown was gone. It was admitted upon every side that I ought
+to be forgiven for my random cast of money, because I knew no better,
+and was sure to have more in a very little time. And the children of
+the pump came to see me go away, through streets of a mile and a half, I
+should think; and they carried my things, looking after one another, so
+that none could run away. And being forbidden at the platform gate, for
+want of respectability, they set up a cheer, and I waved my hat, and
+promised, amidst great applause, to come back with it full of sixpences.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+COCKS AND COXCOMBS
+
+
+Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea, to
+meet me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want of
+further encouragement.
+
+"Very soon you go," he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, or
+whatever are the things that close the career of a land-engine.
+"Station-master, you are very wise in putting in your very best cabbage
+plants there. You understand your own company. Well done! If I were to
+offer you a shilling apiece for those young early Yorks, what would you
+say, now?"
+
+"Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir," the Scotch station-master made
+answer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and put on a
+dissolute Glengary. "They are a veery fine young kail, that always pays
+for planting."
+
+"The villain!" said the Major, as I jumped into the fly. "However, I
+suppose he does quite right. Set a thief to watch a thief. The company
+are big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger. We shall cut through his
+garden in about three months, just when his cabbages are getting firm,
+and their value will exceed that of pine-apples. The surveyor will
+come down and certify, and the 'damage to crops' will be at least five
+pounds, when they have no right to sow even mustard and cress, and a
+saucepan would hold all the victuals on the land."
+
+From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative
+schemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly turn
+aside from the unfenced road and take the turf. "Coachman," he cried,
+"just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance much longer."
+
+There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver seemed to
+know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf where once had
+run the river. And the salt breath of the sea came over the pebble
+ridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so much London.
+
+"It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of," Major Hockin began
+to say to me. "Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin! A man of large capital--the
+very thing we want. It might have been the making of this place. I have
+very little doubt that I must have brought him to see our great natural
+advantages--the beauty of the situation, the salubrity of the air, the
+absence of all clay, or marsh, or noxious deposit, the bright crisp
+turf, and the noble underlay of chalk, which (if you perceive my
+meaning) can not retain any damp, but transmits it into sweet natural
+wells. Why, driver, where the devil are you driving us?"
+
+"No fear, your honor. I know every trick of it. It won't come over
+the wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the world to his
+sand-cracks. Whoa-ho, my boy, then! And the young lady's feet might
+go up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin, Sir; and Mr. Rasper will
+excuse of it."
+
+"What the"--something hot--"do you mean, Sir?" the Major roared over
+the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on. "Pull out this
+instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three months' hard
+labor. May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your pardon for speaking with
+such sincerity--I simply mean, may I go straightway to the devil, if I
+don't put this fellow on the tread-mill. Oh, you can pull out now, then,
+can you?"
+
+"If your honor pleases, I never did pull in," the poor driver answered,
+being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the manor. "My orders
+was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now just to Bruntsea, and
+keep in the middle of that same I did, and this here little wet is a
+haxident--a haxident of the full moon, I do assure you, and the wind
+coming over the sea, as you might say. These pebbles is too round, miss,
+to stick to one another; you couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes
+the water here and there comes a-leaking like through the bottom. I have
+seed it so, ever since I can remember."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," the Major said, as we waited a little
+for the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright sea
+flowers. "Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West Bruntseyans, and
+you have driven us into a vile bog to scare me. They have bribed you.
+I see the whole of it. Tell me the truth, and you shall have five
+shillings."
+
+The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received such
+an offer before. Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed the
+proper thing, and have called for a balance of considerations, and made
+a demand upon his energies. But to earn five shillings by the truth had
+never fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me, because I smiled,
+and he said, "Will you taste the water, miss?"
+
+"Bless me!" cried the Major, "now I never thought of that. Common people
+have such ways about things they are used to! I might have stood
+here for a month, and never have thought of that way to settle it.
+Ridiculously simple. Give me a taste, Erema. Ah, that is the real beauty
+of our coast, my dear! The strongest proportion of the saline element--I
+should know the taste of it any where. No sea-weed, no fishy particles,
+no sludge, no beards of oysters. The pure, uncontaminated, perfect
+brine, that sets every male and female on his legs, varicose,
+orthopedic--I forget their scientifics, but I know the smack of it."
+
+"Certainly," I said, "it is beautifully salt. It will give you an
+appetite for dinner, Major Hockin. I could drink a pint of it, after all
+that smoke. But don't you think it is a serious thing for the sea itself
+to come pouring through the bottom of this pebble bank in this way?"
+
+"Not at all. No, I rather like it. It opens up many strictly practical
+ideas. It adds very much to the value of the land. For instance, a
+'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it--and set up an infirmary for
+foot and mouth disease. And better still, the baths, the baths, my dear.
+No expense for piping, or pumping, or any thing. Only place your marble
+at the proper level, and twice a day you have the grand salubrious
+sparkling influx of ocean's self, self-filtered, and by its own
+operation permeated with a fine siliceous element. What foreign mud
+could compete with such a bath?"
+
+"But supposing there should come too much of it," I said, "and wash both
+the baths and the bathers away?"
+
+"Such an idea is ridiculous. It can be adjusted to a nicety. I am very
+glad I happened to observe this thing, this--this noble phenomenon.
+I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I am half an hour
+older. My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite forgot to tell you;
+but never mind that for the present. Driver, here is half a crown for
+you. Your master will put down the fly to my account. He owes me a
+heriot. I shall claim his best beast, the moment he gets one without a
+broken wind."
+
+As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted
+alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had done
+in London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw) that
+somebody else might come down for me. And this was Sir Montague Hockin,
+as I feared was only too likely from what had been said. If I had even
+suspected that this gentleman was at Bruntlands, I would have done my
+utmost to stay where I was, in spite of all absence of money. Betsy
+would gladly have allowed me to remain, without paying even a farthing,
+until it should become convenient. Pride had forbidden me to speak of
+this; but I would have got over that pride much rather than meet this
+Sir Montague Hockin thus. Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether;
+and having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,
+foolish importance to that.
+
+However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one through
+instinct; and I knew already that in England young women are not quite
+such masters of their own behavior as in the far West they are allowed
+to be. And so I did my best that, even in my eyes, he should not see
+how vexed I was at meeting him. And soon it appeared that this behavior,
+however painful to me, was no less wise than good, because both with my
+host and hostess this new visitor was already at the summit of all good
+graces. He had conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes
+and upshots, and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the
+distance; and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had
+opened a hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of
+an extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with
+every feather sticking inside out. When I saw them, I tried for my life
+not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded, until the
+cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb and very sad
+inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife (who stood beneath
+him, even more turned inside out), capered with his twiggy legs, and
+gave a long, sad crow. Mrs. Hockin looked at him with intense delight.
+
+"Erema, is it possible that you laugh? I thought that you never laughed,
+Erema. At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might choose a
+fitter opportunity, I think. You have spoiled his demonstration
+altogether--see, he does not understand such unkindness--and it is the
+very first he has uttered since he came. Oh, poor Fluffsky!"
+
+"I am very, very sorry. But how was I to help it? I would not, on any
+account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive. Fluffsky,
+do please to begin again."
+
+"These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you," said Sir Montague,
+coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers for one more
+crow. "Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have a fowl that even
+Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have it in a week, or a
+fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can manage it. They are not
+to be had except through certain channels, and the fellows who write the
+poultry books have never even heard of them."
+
+"Oh, how delighted I shall be! Lady Clara despises all her neighbors so.
+But do they lay eggs? Half the use of keeping poultry, when you never
+kill them, is to get an egg for breakfast; and Major Hockin looks round
+and says, 'Now is this our own?' and I can not say that it is; and I am
+vexed with the books, and he begins to laugh at me. People said it was
+for want of chalk, but they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you can
+see."
+
+"And their food, Mrs. Hockin. They are walking upon that. Starve
+them for a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for stern
+discipline."
+
+But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs.
+Hockin was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, and
+resolute talk about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps, was
+even less to be trusted to get his cash out of any poor and honest man.
+
+On the very day after my return from London I received a letter from
+"Colonel Gundry" (as we always called the Sawyer now, through his
+kinship to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into less
+compass, I may as well give his very words:
+
+
+"DEAR MISS REMA,--Your last favor to hand, with thanks. Every thing is
+going on all right with us. The mill is built up, and goes better than
+ever; more orders on hand than we can get through. We have not cracked
+the big nugget yet. Expect the government to take him at a trifle below
+value, for Washington Museum. Must have your consent; but, for my part,
+would rather let him go there than break him. Am ready to lose a few
+dollars upon him, particularly as he might crack up all quartzy in the
+middle. They offer to take him by weight at three dollars and a half per
+pound below standard. Please say if agreeable.
+
+"I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us here
+in this part. Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad will, and
+contention, and rebellion, perhaps. What we hear concerning it is not
+much here; but even here thoughts are very much divided. Ephraim takes
+a different view from mine; which is not a right thing for a grandson
+to do; and neighbor Sylvester goes with him. The Lord send agreement and
+concord among us; but, if He doeth so, He must change his mind first,
+for every man is borrowing his neighbor's gun.
+
+"If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his duty,
+my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it. If Firm was
+to run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of slavery, I never
+should care more for naught upon this side of Jordan; and the new mill
+might go to Jericho; though it does look uncommon handsome now, I can
+assure you, and tears through its work like a tiger.
+
+"Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England, and
+having carried over some to your account, inclosed please to find a bill
+for five hundred dollars, though not likely to be wanted yet. Save a
+care of your money, my dear; but pay your way handsome, as a Castlewood
+should do. Jowler goes his rounds twice a day looking for you; and
+somebody else never hangs his hat up without casting one eye at the
+corner you know. Sylvester's girl was over here last week, dashing about
+as usual. If Firm goes South, he may have her, for aught I care, and
+never see saw-mill again. But I hope that the Lord will spare my old
+days such disgrace and tribulation.
+
+"About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious. I have been young,
+and now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I see of the
+ways of men, the less I verily think of them. Their good esteem, their
+cap in hand, their fair fame, as they call it, goes by accident, and
+fortune, the whim of the moment, and the way the clever ones have of
+tickling them. A great man laughs at the flimsy of it, and a good one
+goes to his conscience. Your father saw these things at their value.
+I have often grieved that you can not see them so; but perhaps I have
+liked you none the worse, my dear.
+
+"Don't forget about going South. A word from you may stop him. It is
+almost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late. Suan Isco
+and Martin send messages. The flowers are on your father's grave. I have
+got a large order for pine cradles in great haste, but have time to be,
+
+"Truly yours,
+
+"SAMPSON GUNDRY."
+
+
+That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of money,
+cost me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of anxiety. The
+Sawyer had written to me twice ere this--kind, simple letters, but of
+no importance, except for their goodness and affection. But now it was
+clear that when he wrote this letter he must have been sadly put out and
+upset. His advice to me was beyond all value; but he seemed to have kept
+none at home for himself. He was carried quite out of his large, staid
+ways when he wrote those bitter words about poor Firm--the very apple of
+his eye, as the holy Psalmist says. And, knowing the obstinacy of them
+both, I dreaded clash between them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ADRIFT
+
+
+Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to simplicity,
+and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with charity or furnished
+lodgings (what though kept by one's own nurse), I cast about now for
+good reason to be off from all the busy works at Bruntsea. So soon after
+such a tremendous blow, it was impossible for me to push my own little
+troubles and concerns upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed
+to know what was to become of my father's will, if any thing. But my
+desire to be doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time
+from Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange
+behavior toward me.
+
+That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my age,
+scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten years older
+than poor Firm--began more and more every day to come after me, just
+when I wanted to be quite alone. There was nothing more soothing to my
+thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet from the former, I suppose)
+than for the whole of me to rest a while in such a little scollop of
+the shingle as a new-moon tide, in little crescents, leaves just below
+high-water mark. And now it was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after
+the flooding of our fly by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling
+how I longed to understand these things--which seem to be denied to all
+who are of the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick,
+where no wind could make me look worse than nature willed. But of my own
+looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of such
+a subject.
+
+Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering by
+what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced, and not
+even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by side and purely
+tally with each other. Right and left, for miles and miles, millions
+multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any one in my palm and be
+sure that it never had been there before. And of the quiet wavelets
+even, taking their own time and manner, in default of will of wind,
+all to come and call attention to their doom by arching over, and
+endeavoring to make froth, were any two in sound and size, much more
+in shape and shade, alike? Every one had its own little business, of
+floating pop-weed or foam bubbles or of blistered light, to do; and
+every one, having done it, died and subsided into its successor.
+
+"A trifle sentimental, are we?" cried a lively voice behind me, and
+the waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood Sir
+Montague Hockin, with a hideous parasol.
+
+I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him; but
+he was one of those people who think that women are all whims and ways.
+
+"I grieve to intrude upon large ideas," he said, as I rose and looked at
+him, "but I act under positive orders now. A lady knows what is best
+for a lady. Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the window, and she thinks
+that you ought not to be sitting in the sun like this. There has been
+a case of sun-stroke at Southbourne--a young lady meditating under the
+cliff--and she begs you to accept this palm leaf."
+
+I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce Californian
+sun; but I would not speak to him of that. "Thank you," I said; "it was
+very kind of her to think of it, and of you to do it. But will it be
+safe for you to go back without it?"
+
+"Oh, why should I do so?" he answered, with a tone of mock pathos which
+provoked me always, though I never could believe it to be meant in
+ridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing; and, besides,
+I never spoke so. "Could you bear to see me slain by the shafts of the
+sun? Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply large for both of us."
+
+I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his vein
+at all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want every body to
+be like myself.
+
+"Thank you; I mean to stay here," I said; "you may either leave the
+parasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome. At any rate, I
+shall not use it."
+
+A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon his
+way; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff. He seemed to look
+upon me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh from little
+schools, would be. Nothing more annoyed me, after all my thoughts and
+dream of some power in myself, than this.
+
+"Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two," he said, while I kept gazing
+at some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him to go--"a
+little thing or two of which you have no idea, even in your most lonely
+musings, which might have a very deep interest for you. Do you think
+that I came to this hole to see the sea? Or that fussy old muff of a
+Major's doings?"
+
+"Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his intellect and
+great plans," I answered. "And after all his kindness to you!"
+
+"You never will do that," he said; "because you are a lady, and will not
+repeat what is said in confidence. I could help you materially in your
+great object, if you would only make a friend of me."
+
+"And what would your own object be? The pure anxiety to do right?"
+
+"Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your good
+opinion, which seems so inaccessible. But you will think me selfish if I
+even hint at any condition of any kind. Every body I have ever met with
+likes me, except Miss Castlewood."
+
+As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining in the
+sun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason which Mrs.
+Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it hard that a man
+with such a beard should be valued lightly.
+
+"I do not see why we should talk," I said, "about either likes or
+dislikes. Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very much
+obliged to you."
+
+This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed in
+England. A general idea there prevails that the free and enlightened
+natives of the West are in front of those here in intelligence, and
+to some extent, therefore, in dishonesty. But there must be many cases
+where the two are not the same.
+
+"No," I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had every
+British animal upon them; "I mean nothing more than the simple thing
+I say. If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it. I am accustomed to
+straightforward people. But they disappoint one by their never knowing
+any thing."
+
+"But I know something," he answered, with a nod of grave, mysterious
+import; "and perhaps I will tell you some day, when admitted, if ever I
+have such an honor, to some little degree of friendship."
+
+"Oh, please not to think of yourself," I exclaimed, in a manner which
+must have amused him. "In such a case, the last thing that you should do
+is that. Think only of what is right and honorable, and your duty toward
+a lady. Also your duty to the laws of your country. I am not at all sure
+that you ought not to be arrested. But perhaps it is nothing at all,
+after all; only something invented to provoke me."
+
+"In that case, I can only drop the subject," he answered, with that
+stern gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested. "I
+was also to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the usual time,
+that my cousin may go out in the boat for whiting. The sea will be as
+smooth as glass. Perhaps you will come with us."
+
+With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a most
+uncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even tried to
+think. For I could not get the smallest idea what he meant; and, much as
+I tried to believe that he must be only pretending, for reasons of his
+own, to have something important to tell me, scarcely was it possible to
+be contented so. A thousand absurd imaginations began to torment me as
+to what he meant. He lived in London so much, for instance, that he had
+much quicker chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was
+a man of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate
+what I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with Shovelin,
+Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and I knew not that
+a banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit; moreover--which, to
+my mind, was almost stronger proof than any thing--Sir Montague Hockin
+was of smuggling pedigree, and likely to be skillful in illicit runs of
+knowledge.
+
+However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I say
+to him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it. But,
+though I waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person I
+scarcely could have done, he would not condescend to give me even
+another look about it.
+
+Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct and
+certainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good host and
+hostess. But here there was very little help or support to be obtained
+at present. Major Hockin was laying the foundations of "The Bruntsea
+Assembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual Improvement Association,
+Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;" while Mrs. Hockin had a hatch
+of "White Sultans," or, rather, a prolonged sitting of eggs, fondly
+hoped to hatch at last, from having cost so much, like a chicken-hearted
+Conference. Much as I sorrowed at her disappointment--for the sitting
+cost twelve guineas--I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty and
+ignoble smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth day
+she placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, in
+which they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen. The
+poor lady tried to believe that they were spinning with vitality; but at
+last she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had been half boiled by the
+advertiser. "This is very sad," cried Mrs. Hockin; and the patient old
+hen, who was come in a basket of hay to see the end of it, echoed with a
+cluck that sentiment.
+
+These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own guidance,
+which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever since my father
+died. For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my great joy and
+comfort, as a guide and guardian; but, alas! for one day only. And,
+except for his good advice and kind paternal conduct to me, it seemed
+at present an unlucky thing that I had ever discovered him. Not only
+through deep sense of loss and real sorrow for him, but also because
+Major Hockin, however good and great and generous, took it unreasonably
+into his head that I threw him over, and threw myself (as with want of
+fine taste he expressed it) into the arms of the banker. This hurt
+me very much, and I felt that Major Hockin could never have spoken so
+hastily unless his hair had been originally red; and so it might be
+detected, even now, where it survived itself, though blanched where he
+brushed it into that pretentious ridge. Sometimes I liked that man, when
+his thoughts were large and liberal; but no sooner had he said a fine
+brave thing than he seemed to have an after-thought not to go too
+far with it; just as he had done about the poor robbed woman from the
+steerage and the young man who pulled out his guinea. I paid him for
+my board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle Sam himself, at
+California prices; therefore I am under no obligation to conceal his
+foibles. But, take him altogether, he was good and brave and just,
+though unable, from absence of inner light, to be to me what Uncle Sam
+had been.
+
+When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in London,
+and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) "blew hot and cold" in
+half a minute--hot when I thought of any good things to be done, and
+cold as soon as he became the man to do them--also, when I remembered
+what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the shape of Sir Montague,
+who went to and fro, but could never be trusted to be far off, I
+resolved to do what I had long been thinking of, and believed that
+my guardian, if he had lived another day, would have recommended. I
+resolved to go and see Lord Castlewood, my father's first cousin and
+friend in need.
+
+When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they both
+declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of advising,
+which, however, they had forborne from doing because I never took
+advice. At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I could not help
+smiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage opinion that,
+before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and ask his leave to
+do so. For that would have made it quite a rude thing to call, as I
+must still have done, if he should decline beforehand to receive me.
+Moreover, it would look as if I sought an invitation, while only wanting
+an interview. Therefore, being now full of money again, I hired the
+flyman who had made us taste the water, and taking train at Newport, and
+changing at two or three places as ordered, crossed many little streams,
+and came to a fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a few
+miles above Reading.
+
+In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and
+tribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small feelings, as
+for the first time I drew near to the home of my forefathers. I should
+have been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or lying in a hole, or even
+modern or insignificant; and when none of these charges could be brought
+against it, I was filled with highly discreditable pain that Providence
+had not seen fit to issue me into this world in the masculine form; in
+which case this fine property would, according to the rules of mankind,
+have been mine. However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat
+down on a bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.
+
+The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to shape
+it, so as not to spoil the site. It stood near the brow of a bosoming
+hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from the rigor
+and fury of the north and east; while in front the sloping foreground
+widened its soft lap of green. In bays and waves of rolling grass,
+promontoried, here and there, by jutting copse or massive tree, and
+jotted now and then with cattle as calm as boats at anchor, the range
+of sunny upland fell to the reedy fringe and clustered silence of deep
+river meadows. Here the Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and
+courtesy, yet with will of its own ways, being now a plenteous river,
+spreads low music, and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields,
+casting afar a broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulous
+infinitude of flash.
+
+Now these things touched me all the more because none of them belonged
+to me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got up with much
+better heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever it might be.
+A girl brought up in the real English way would have spent her last
+shilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the station--a most sad
+machine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in a more becoming manner.
+
+One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as
+quietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's. If any body had
+been rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that sort, my
+spirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually happens then,
+good reason to go down afterward. But happily there was nothing of the
+kind. An elderly man, without any gaudy badges, opened the door very
+quietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke, for asking me to speak
+softly. It was one of his lordship's very worst days, and when he was
+so, every sound seemed to reach him. I took the hint, and did not speak
+at all, but followed him over deep matting into a little room to which
+he showed me. And then I gave him a little note, written before I left
+Bruntsea, and asked him whether he thought that his master was well
+enough to attend to it.
+
+He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father well,
+having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked whether my
+message was important. I answered that it was, but that I would wait for
+another time rather than do any harm. But he said that, however ill his
+master was, nothing provoked him more than to find that any thing was
+neglected through it. And before I could speak again he was gone with my
+letter to Lord Castlewood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+AT HOME
+
+
+Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had
+befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force their
+remembrance upon me. Such dark figures always seem to make the most of
+a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to fluttering fear and small
+misgivings. There any body seems to lie, as a stranded sailor lies, at
+the foot of perpendicular cliffs of most inhuman humanity, with all the
+world frowning down over the crest, and no one to throw a rope down.
+Often and often had I felt this want of any one to help me, but the only
+way out of it seemed to be to do my best to help myself.
+
+Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and knowing
+that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's strength. He
+might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me with kind feeling;
+but if he wanted to do more, surely he might have tried ere now. But my
+thoughts about this were cut short by a message that he would be glad to
+see me, and I followed the servant to the library.
+
+Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair, uncushioned
+and uncomfortable. When he saw me near him he got up and took my hand,
+and looked at me, and I was pleased to find his face well-meaning,
+brave, and generous. But even to rise from his chair was plainly no
+small effort to him, and he leaned upon a staff or crutch as he offered
+me a small white hand.
+
+"Miss Castlewood," he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery
+voice, "for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to hear
+of you. I have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense of want of
+energy; yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do my best to think
+so."
+
+"I am sure you have," I replied, without thinking, knowing his kindness
+to my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to Mr. Shovelin
+about him. "I owe you more gratitude than I can tell, for your goodness
+to my dear father. I am not come now to trouble you, but because it was
+my duty."
+
+While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could
+walk, to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have had
+few chances. And in every step and word and gesture I recognized that
+foreign grace which true-born Britons are proud to despise on both sides
+of the Atlantic. And, being in the light, I watched him well, because I
+am not a foreigner.
+
+In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for
+accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm face,
+which might in good health have been powerful--a face which might be
+called the moonlight image of my father's. I could not help turning away
+to cry, and suspicion fled forever.
+
+"My dear young cousin," he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to, "your
+father trusted me, and so must you. You may think that I have forgotten
+you, or done very little to find you out. It was no indifference, no
+forgetfulness: I have not been able to work myself, and I have had very
+deep trouble of my own."
+
+He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down when
+thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were those of a
+learned and intellectual man. How I knew this it is impossible to say,
+for I never had met with such a character as this, unless it were the
+Abbe of Flechon, when I was only fourteen years old, and valued his
+great skill in spinning a top tenfold more than all his deep learning.
+Lord Castlewood had long, silky hair, falling in curls of silver gray
+upon either side of his beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft
+dark eyes was sad, gentle, yet penetrating. Weak health and almost
+constant pain had chastened his delicate features to an expression
+almost feminine, though firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine
+will and fortitude. And when he spoke of his own trouble (which,
+perhaps, he would not have done except for consolation's sake), I knew
+that he meant something even more grievous than bodily anguish.
+
+"It is hard," he said, "that you, so young and healthy and full of high
+spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin the best
+years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in such a cloud
+of gloom and shame."
+
+"There is no shame at all," I answered; "and if there is gloom, I am
+used to that; and so was my father for years and years. What is my
+trouble compared with his?"
+
+"Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards the
+mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load; you are a
+young and a sensitive woman. The burden may even be worse for you. Now
+tell me all about yourself, and what has brought you to me."
+
+His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath it. He
+had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor plied me at all
+with those pious allusions, which even to the reverent mind are like
+illusions when so urged. Lord Castlewood had too deep a sense of the
+will of God to know what it is; and he looked at me wistfully as at one
+who might have worse experience of it.
+
+Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met mine,
+I told him every thing I could think of about my father and myself, and
+all I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were set upon
+getting to the bottom of every thing. And while I spoke with spirit, or
+softness, or, I fear, sometimes with hate, I could not help seeing that
+he was surprised, but not wholly displeased, with my energy. And then,
+when all was exhausted, came the old question I had heard so often, and
+found so hard to answer--
+
+"And what do you propose to do next, Erema?"
+
+"To go to the very place itself," I said, speaking strongly under
+challenge, though quite unresolved about such a thing before; "to live
+in the house where my father lived, and my mother and all of the family
+died; and from day to day to search every corner and fish up every bit
+of evidence, until I get hold of the true man at last, of the villain
+who did it--who did it, and left my father and all the rest of us to be
+condemned and die for it."
+
+"Erema," replied my cousin, as he had told me now to call him, "you are
+too impetuous for such work, and it is wholly unfit for you. For such a
+task, persons of trained sagacity and keen observation are needed. And
+after all these eighteen years, or nearly nineteen now it must be, there
+can not be any thing to discover there."
+
+"But if I like, may I go there, cousin, if only to satisfy my own mind?
+I am miserable now at Bruntsea, and Sir Montague Hockin wears me out."
+
+"Sir Montague Hockin!" Lord Castlewood exclaimed; "why, you did not tell
+me that he was there. Wherever he is, you should not be."
+
+"I forgot to speak of him. He does not live there, but is continually
+to and fro for bathing, or fishing, or rabbit-shooting, or any other
+pretext. And he makes the place very unpleasant to me, kind as the Major
+and Mrs. Hockin are, because I can never make him out at all."
+
+"Do not try to do so," my cousin answered, looking at me earnestly; "be
+content to know nothing of him, my dear. If you can put up with a very
+dull house, and a host who is even duller, come here and live with me,
+as your father would have wished, and as I, your nearest relative, now
+ask and beg of you."
+
+This was wonderfully kind, and for a moment I felt tempted. Lord
+Castlewood being an elderly man, and, as the head of our family, my
+natural protector, there could be nothing wrong, and there might be much
+that was good, in such an easy arrangement. But, on the other hand, it
+seemed to me that after this my work would languish. Living in comfort
+and prosperity under the roof of my forefathers, beyond any doubt I
+should begin to fall into habits of luxury, to take to the love of
+literature, which I knew to be latent within me, to lose the clear,
+strong, practical sense of the duty for which I, the last of seven, was
+spared, and in some measure, perhaps, by wanderings and by hardships,
+fitted. And then I thought of my host's weak health, continual pain (the
+signs of which were hardly repressed even while he was speaking), and
+probably also his secluded life. Was it fair to force him, by virtue of
+his inborn kindness and courtesy, to come out of his privileges and deal
+with me, who could not altogether be in any place a mere nobody? And so
+I refused his offer.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you indeed," I said, "but I think you might
+be sorry for it. I will come and stop with you every now and then, when
+your health is better, and you ask me. But to live here altogether would
+not do; I should like it too well, and do nothing else."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he replied, with the air of one who cares
+little for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and
+worse than any distress almost; "you are very young, my dear, and years
+should be allowed to pass before you know what full-grown sorrow is. You
+have had enough, for your age, of it. You had better not live in this
+house; it is not a house for cheerfulness."
+
+"Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea," I asked, with sudden
+remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of me or to
+worry me, "to what place in all the world am I to go, unless it is back
+to America? I will go at once to Shoxford, and take lodgings of my own."
+
+"Perhaps you had better wait a little while," Lord Castlewood answered,
+gently, "although I would much rather have you at Shoxford than where
+you are at present. But please to remember, my good Erema, that you can
+not go to Shoxford all alone. I have a most faithful and trusty man--the
+one who opened the door to you. He has been here before his remembrance.
+He disdains me still as compared with your father. Will you have him to
+superintend you? I scarcely see how you can do any good, but if you do
+go, you must go openly, and as your father's daughter."
+
+"I have no intention whatever of going in any other way, Lord
+Castlewood; but perhaps," I continued, "it would be as well to make as
+little stir as possible. Of an English village I know nothing but the
+little I have seen at Bruntsea, but there they make a very great fuss
+about any one who comes down with a man-servant."
+
+"To be sure," replied my cousin, with a smile; "they would not be true
+Britons otherwise. Perhaps you would do better without Stixon; but of
+course you must not go alone. Could you by any means persuade your old
+nurse Betsy to go with you?"
+
+"How good of you to think of it!--how wise you are!" I really could not
+help saying, as I gazed at his delicate and noble face. "I am sure that
+if Betsy can come, she will; though of course she must be compensated
+well for the waste all her lodgers will make of it. They are very
+wicked, and eat most dreadfully if she even takes one day's holiday.
+What do you think they even do? She has told me with tears in her eyes
+of it. They are all allowed a pat of butter, a penny roll, and two
+sardines for breakfast. No sooner do they know that her back is
+turned--"
+
+"Erema!" cried my cousin, with some surprise; and being so recalled,
+I was ashamed. But I never could help taking interest in very little
+things indeed, until my own common-sense, or somebody else, came to tell
+me what a child I was. However, I do believe that Uncle Sam liked me all
+the better for this fault.
+
+"My dear, I did not mean to blame you," Lord Castlewood said, most
+kindly; "it must be a great relief for you to look on at other people.
+But tell me--or rather, since you have told me almost every thing you
+know--let me, if only in one way I can help you, help you at least in
+that way."
+
+Knowing that he must mean money, I declined, from no false pride, but a
+set resolve to work out my work, if possible, through my own resources.
+But I promised to apply to him at once if scarcity should again befall
+me, as had happened lately. And then I longed to ask him why he seemed
+to have so low an opinion of Sir Montague Hockin. That question,
+however, I feared to put, because it might not be a proper one, and
+also because my cousin had spoken in a very strange tone, as if of some
+private dislike or reserve on that subject. Moreover, it was too evident
+that I had tried his courtesy long enough. From time to time pale shades
+of bodily pain, and then hot flushes, had flitted across his face, like
+clouds on a windy summer evening. And more than once he had glanced at
+the time-piece, not to hurry me, but as if he dreaded its announcements.
+It was a beautiful clock, and struck with a silvery sound every quarter
+of an hour. And now, as I rose to say good-by, to catch my evening
+train, it struck a quarter to five, and my cousin stood up, with his
+weight upon his staff, and looked at me with an inexpressible depth of
+weary misery.
+
+"I have only a few minutes left," he said, "during which I can say any
+thing. My time is divided into two sad parts: the time when I am capable
+of very little, and the time when I am capable of nothing; and the
+latter part is twice the length of the other. For sixteen hours of every
+day, far better had I be dead than living, so far as our own little
+insolence may judge. But I speak of it only to excuse bad manners, and
+perhaps I show worse by doing so. I shall not be able to see you again
+until to-morrow morning. Do not go; they will arrange all that. Send a
+note to Major Hockin by Stixon's boy. Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to
+your comfort, if those who are free from pain require any other comfort.
+Forgive me; I did not mean to be rude. Sometimes I can not help giving
+way."
+
+Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his hard
+stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his knees, and
+set his thin lips in straight blue lines. Each hand was as rigid as the
+ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, and his lips were like
+clamped wire. This was his regular way of preparing for the onset of
+the night, so that no grimace, no cry, no moan, or other token of fierce
+agony should be wrung from him.
+
+"My lord will catch it stiff to-night," said Mr. Stixon, who came as I
+rang, and then led me away to the drawing-room; "he always have it ten
+times worse after any talking or any thing to upset him like. And so,
+then, miss--excuse a humble servant--did I understand from him that you
+was the Captain's own daughter?"
+
+"Yes; but surely your master wants you--he is in such dreadful pain. Do
+please to go to him, and do something."
+
+"There is nothing to be done, miss," Stixon answered, with calm
+resignation; "he is bound to stay so for sixteen hours, and then
+he eases off again. But bless my heart, miss--excuse me in your
+presence--his lordship is thoroughly used to it. It is my certain
+knowledge that for seven years now he has never had seven minutes free
+from pain--seven minutes all of a heap, I mean. Some do say, miss, as
+the Lord doeth every thing according to His righteousness, that the
+reason is not very far to seek."
+
+I asked him what he meant, though I ought, perhaps, to have put a stop
+to his loquacity; and he pretended not to hear, which made me ask him
+all the more.
+
+"A better man never lived than my lord," he answered, with a little
+shock at my misprision; "but it has been said among censoorous persons
+that nobody ever had no luck as came in suddenly to a property and a
+high state of life on the top of the heads of a family of seven."
+
+"What a poor superstition!" I cried, though I was not quite sure of its
+being a wicked one. "But what is your master's malady, Stixon? Surely
+there might be something done to relieve his violent pain, even if there
+is no real cure for it?"
+
+"No, miss, nothing can be done. The doctors have exorced themselves.
+They tried this, that, and the other, but nature only flew worse against
+them. 'Tis a thing as was never heard of till the Constitooshon was
+knocked on the head and to pieces by the Reform Bill. And though they
+couldn't cure it, they done what they could do, miss. They discovered a
+very good name for it--they christened it the 'New-rager!'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+LORD CASTLEWOOD
+
+
+In the morning, when I was called again to see my afflicted
+cousin--Stixon junior having gladly gone to explain things for me at
+Bruntsea--little as I knew of any bodily pain (except hunger, or thirst,
+or weariness, and once in my life a headache), I stood before Lord
+Castlewood with a deference and humility such as I had never felt before
+toward any human being. Not only because he bore perpetual pain in
+the two degrees of night and day--the day being dark and the night
+jet-black--without a murmur or an evil word; not only because through
+the whole of this he had kept his mind clear and his love of knowledge
+bright; not even because he had managed, like Job, to love God through
+the whole of it. All these were good reasons for very great and very
+high respect of any man; and when there was no claim whatever on his
+part to any such feeling, it needs must come. But when I learned another
+thing, high respect at once became what might be called deep reverence.
+And this came to pass in a simple and, as any one must confess, quite
+inevitable way.
+
+It was not to be supposed that I could sit the whole of my first evening
+in that house without a soul to speak to. So far as my dignity and sense
+of right permitted, I wore out Mr. Stixon, so far as he would go,
+not asking him any thing that the very worst-minded person could call
+"inquisitive," but allowing him to talk, as he seemed to like to do,
+while he waited upon me, and alternately lamented my hapless history and
+my hopeless want of taste.
+
+"Ah, your father, the Captain, now, he would have knowed what this is!
+You've no right to his eyes, Miss Erma, without his tongue and palate.
+No more of this, miss! and done for you a-purpose! Well, cook will be
+put out, and no mistake! I better not let her see it go down, anyhow."
+And the worthy man tearfully put some dainty by, perhaps without any
+view to his own supper.
+
+"Lord Castlewood spoke to me about a Mrs. Price--the housekeeper, is
+she not?" I asked at last, being so accustomed to like what I could get,
+that the number of dishes wearied me.
+
+"Oh yes, miss," said Stixon, very shortly, as if that description
+exhausted Mrs. Price.
+
+"If she is not too busy, I should like to see her as soon as these
+things are all taken away. I mean if she is not a stranger, and if she
+would like to see me."
+
+"No new-comers here," Mr. Stixon replied; "we all works our way up
+regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do. New-fangled ways is
+not accepted here. We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing of the steps
+till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a bean. The old lord
+was the man for discipline--your grandfather, if you please, miss. He
+catched me when I were about that high--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as you
+so very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?"
+
+I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was angry
+with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only smiled and
+touched his forehead.
+
+"Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss. I could
+have heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh and
+distant. And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty years agone
+next Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was; you may see the
+very tree if you please to stand here, miss, though the pears is quite
+altered now, and scarcely fit to eat. Well, I was running off with my
+cap chock-full, miss--"
+
+"Please to keep that story for another time," I said; "I shall be most
+happy to hear it then. But I have a particular wish, if you please, to
+see Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good reason why I should
+not."
+
+"Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all. Only please to bear in mind,
+miss, that she is a coorous woman. She is that jealous, and I might say
+forward--"
+
+"Then she is capable of speaking for herself."
+
+"You are right, miss, there, and no mistake. She can speak for herself
+and for fifty others--words enough, I mean, for all of them. But I would
+not have her know for all the world that I said it."
+
+"Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall do
+will be to tell her."
+
+"Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has been
+done anonymous."
+
+I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure impatience.
+And having no motive but downright jealousy for keeping Mrs. Price from
+me, he made up his mind at last to let her come. But he told me to be
+careful what I said; I must not expect it to be at all like talking to
+himself, for instance.
+
+The housekeeper came up at last, by dint of my persistence, and she
+stopped in the doorway and made me a courtesy, which put me out of
+countenance, for nobody ever does that in America, and scarcely any one
+in England now, except in country-dancing. Instead of being as described
+by Stixon, Mrs. Price was of a very quiet, sensible, and respectful
+kind. She was rather short, but looked rather tall, from her even
+walk and way of carrying her head. Her figure was neat, and her face
+clear-spoken, with straight pretty eyebrows, and calm bright eyes. I
+felt that I could tell her almost any thing, and she would think
+before she talked of it. And in my strong want of some woman to advise
+with--Betsy Bowen being very good but very narrow, and Mrs. Hockin a
+mere echo of the Major until he contradicted her, and Suan Isco, with
+her fine, large views, five thousand miles out of sight just now--this
+was a state of things to enhance the value of any good countenance
+feminine.
+
+At any rate, I was so glad to see her that, being still ungraduated in
+the steps of rank (though beginning to like a good footing there), I ran
+up and took her by both hands, and fetched her out of her grand courtesy
+and into a low chair. At this she was surprised, as one quick glance
+showed; and she thought me, perhaps, what is called in England "an
+impulsive creature." This put me again upon my dignity, for I never have
+been in any way like that, and I clearly perceived that she ought to
+understand a little more distinctly my character.
+
+It is easy to begin with this intention, but very hard indeed to keep
+it up when any body of nice ways and looks is sitting with a proper
+deferential power of listening, and liking one's young ideas, which
+multiply and magnify themselves at each demand. So after some general
+talk about the weather, the country, the house, and so on, we came to
+the people of the house, or at any rate the chief person. And I asked
+her a few quiet questions about Lord Castlewood's health and habits, and
+any thing else she might like to tell me. For many things had seemed
+to me a little strange and out of the usual course, and on that account
+worthy to be spoken of without common curiosity. Mrs. Price told me that
+there were many things generally divulged and credited, which therefore
+lay in her power to communicate without any derogation from her office.
+Being pleased with these larger words (which I always have trouble in
+pronouncing), I asked her whether there was any thing else. And she
+answered yes, but unhappily of a nature to which it was scarcely
+desirable to allude in my presence. I told her that this was not
+satisfactory, and I might say quite the opposite; that having "alluded"
+to whatever it might be, she was bound to tell me all about it. That
+I had lived in very many countries, in all of which wrong things
+continually went on, of which I continually heard just in that sort of
+way and no more. Enough to make one uncomfortable, but not enough to
+keep one instructed and vigilant as to things that ought to be avoided.
+Upon this she yielded either to my arguments or to her own dislike
+of unreasonable silence, and gave me the following account of the
+misfortunes of Lord Castlewood:
+
+Herbert William Castlewood was the third son of Dean Castlewood, a
+younger brother of my grandfather, and was born in the year 1806. He
+was older, therefore, than my father, but still (even before my father's
+birth, which provided a direct heir) there were many lives betwixt him
+and the family estates. And his father, having as yet no promotion in
+the Church, found it hard to bring up his children. The eldest son got
+a commission in the army, and the second entered the navy, while Herbert
+was placed in a bank at Bristol--not at all the sort of life which he
+would have chosen. But being of a gentle, unselfish nature, as well as a
+weak constitution, he put up with his state in life, and did his best to
+give satisfaction.
+
+This calm courage generally has its reward, and in the year 1842, not
+very long before the death of my grandfather at Shoxford, Mr. Herbert
+Castlewood, being well-connected, well-behaved, diligent, and pleasing,
+obtained a partnership in the firm, which was, perhaps, the foremost in
+the west of England. His two elder brothers happened then to be at home,
+Major and Commander Castlewood, each of whom had seen very hard service,
+and found it still harder slavery to make both ends meet, although
+bachelors. But, returning full of glory, they found one thing harder
+still, and that was to extract any cash from their father, the highly
+venerated Dean, who in that respect, if in no other, very closely
+resembled the head of the family. Therefore these brave men resolved to
+go and see their Bristol brother, to whom they were tenderly attached,
+and who now must have money enough and to spare. So they wrote to their
+brother to meet them on the platform, scarcely believing that they could
+be there in so short a time from London; for they never had travelled by
+rail before; and they set forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at
+the strange, giddy rush of the travelling, and made bets with each other
+about punctual time (for trains kept much better time while new), and,
+as long as they could time it, they kept time to a second. But, sad to
+relate, they wanted no chronometers when they arrived at Bristol, both
+being killed at a blow, with their watches still going, and a smile
+on their faces. For the train had run into a wall of Bath stone, and
+several of the passengers were killed.
+
+The sight of his two brothers carried out like this, after so many years
+of not seeing them, was too much for Mr. Herbert Castlewood's nerves,
+which always had been delicate. And he shivered all the more from
+reproach of conscience, having made up his mind not to lend them any
+money, as a practical banker was compelled to do. And from that very
+moment he began to feel great pain.
+
+Mrs. Price assured me that the doctors all agreed that nothing but
+change of climate could restore Mr. Castlewood's tone and system, and
+being full of art (though so simple, as she said, which she could not
+entirely reconcile), he set off for Italy, and there he stopped, with
+the good leave of his partners, being now valued highly as heir to the
+Dean, who was known to have put a good trifle together. And in Italy
+my father must have found him, as related by Mr. Shovelin, and there
+received kindness and comfort in his trouble, if trouble so deep could
+be comforted.
+
+Now I wondered and eagerly yearned to know whether my father, at such
+a time, and in such a state of loneliness, might not have been led to
+impart to his cousin and host and protector the dark mystery which lay
+at the bottom of his own conduct. Knowing how resolute and stern he was,
+and doubtless then imbittered by the wreck of love and life, I thought
+it more probable that he had kept silence even toward so near a
+relative, especially as he had seen very little of his cousin Herbert
+till he had found him thus. Moreover, my grandfather and the Dean had
+spent little brotherly love on each other, having had a life-long feud
+about a copy-hold furze brake of nearly three-quarters of an acre, as
+Betsy remembered to have heard her master say.
+
+To go on, however, with what Mrs. Price was saying. She knew scarcely
+any thing about my father, because she was too young at that time to
+be called into the counsels of the servants' hall, for she scarcely was
+thirty-five yet, as she declared, and she certainly did not look forty.
+But all about the present Lord Castlewood she knew better than any body
+else, perhaps, because she had been in the service of his wife, and,
+indeed, her chief attendant. Then, having spoken of her master's wife,
+Mrs. Price caught herself up, and thenceforth called her only his
+"lady."
+
+Mr. Herbert Castlewood, who had minded his business for so many years,
+and kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure in good
+literature, at this time of life and in this state of health (for the
+shock he had received struck inward), fell into an accident tenfold
+worse--the fatal accident of love. And this malady raged the more
+powerfully with him on account of breaking out so late in life. In one
+of the picture-galleries at Florence, or some such place, Mrs. Price
+declared, he met with a lady who made all the pictures look cold and
+dull and dead to him. A lovely young creature she must have been (as
+even Mrs. Price, who detested her, acknowledged), and to the eyes of a
+learned but not keen man as good as lovely. My father was gone to look
+after me, and fetch me out of England, but even if he had been there,
+perhaps he scarcely could have stopped it; for this Mr. Castlewood,
+although so quiet, had the family fault of tenacity.
+
+Mrs. Price, being a very steady person, with a limited income, and
+enough to do, was inclined to look down upon the state of mind in which
+Mr. Castlewood became involved. She was not there at the moment, of
+course, but suddenly sent for when all was settled; nevertheless, she
+found out afterward how it began from her master's man, through what he
+had for dinner. And in the kitchen-garden at Castlewood no rampion
+would she allow while she lived. I asked her whether she had no pity, no
+sympathy, no fine feeling, and how she could have become Mrs. Price if
+she never had known such sentiments. But she said that they only called
+her "Mistress" on account of her authority, and she never had been drawn
+to the opposite sex, though many times asked in marriage. And what she
+had seen of matrimony led her far away from it. I was sorry to hear her
+say this, and felt damped, till I thought that the world was not all
+alike.
+
+Then she told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a pound
+of tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and persistent,
+was kept off and on for at least two years by the mother of his sweet
+idol. How the old lady held a balance in her mind as to the likelihood
+of his succession, trying, through English friends, to find the value
+and the course of property. Of what nation she was, Mrs. Price could
+not say, and only knew that it must be a bad one. She called herself the
+Countess of Ixorism, as truly pronounced in English; and she really was
+of good family too, so far as any foreigner can be. And her daughter's
+name was Flittamore, not according to the right spelling, perhaps, but
+pronounced with the proper accent.
+
+Flittamore herself did not seem to care, according to what Mrs. Price
+had been told, but left herself wholly in her mother's hands, being sure
+of her beauty still growing upon her, and desiring to have it admired
+and praised. And the number of foreigners she always had about her
+sometimes made her real lover nearly give her up. But, alas! he was not
+quite wise enough for this, with all that he had read and learned and
+seen. Therefore, when it was reported from Spain that my father had
+been killed by bandits--the truth being that he was then in Greece--the
+Countess at last consented to the marriage of her daughter with Herbert
+Castlewood, and even seemed to press it forward for some reasons of her
+own. And the happy couple set forth upon their travels, and Mrs. Price
+was sent abroad to wait upon the lady.
+
+For a few months they seemed to get on very well, Flittamore showing
+much affection for her husband, whose age was a trifle more than her own
+doubled, while he was entirely wrapped up in her, and labored that the
+graces of her mind might be worthy to compare with those more visible.
+But her spiritual face and most sweet poetic eyes were vivid with bodily
+brilliance alone. She had neither mind enough to learn, nor heart enough
+to pretend to learn.
+
+It is out of my power to describe such things, even if it were my duty
+to do so, which, happily, it has never been; moreover, Mrs. Price, in
+what she told me, exercised a just and strict reserve. Enough that Mr.
+Castlewood's wedded life was done with in six months and three days.
+Lady Castlewood, as she would be called, though my father still was
+living and his cousin disclaimed the title--away she ran from some dull
+German place, after a very stiff lesson in poetry, and with her ran off
+a young Englishman, the present Sir Montague Hockin. He was Mr. Hockin
+then, and had not a half-penny of his own; but Flittamore met that
+difficulty by robbing her husband to his last farthing.
+
+This had happened about twelve years back, soon after I was placed at
+the school in Languedoc, to which I was taken so early in life that
+I almost forget all about it. But it might have been better for poor
+Flittamore if she had been brought up at a steady place like that, with
+sisters and ladies of retreat, to teach her the proper description of
+her duties to mankind. I seemed now in my own mind to condemn her quite
+enough, feeling how superior her husband must have been; but Mrs. Price
+went even further, and became quite indignant that any one should pity
+her.
+
+"A hussy! a hussy! a poppet of a hussy!" she exclaimed, with greater
+power than her quiet face could indicate; "never would I look at her.
+Speak never so, Miss Castlewood. My lord is the very best of all men,
+and she has made him what he is. The pity she deserves is to be trodden
+under foot, as I saw them do in Naples."
+
+After all the passion I had seen among rough people, I scarcely could
+help trembling at the depth of wrath dissembled and firmly controlled
+in calm clear eyes under very steadfast eyebrows. It was plain that Lord
+Castlewood had, at any rate, the gift of being loved by his dependents.
+
+"I hope that he took it aright!" I cried, catching some of her
+indignation; "I hope that he cast her to the winds, without even a sigh
+for such a cruel creature!"
+
+"He was not strong enough," she answered, sadly; "his bodily health was
+not equal to it. From childhood he had been partly crippled and spoiled
+in his nerves by an accident. And the shock of that sight at Bristol
+flew to his weakness, and was too much for him. And now this third and
+worst disaster, coming upon him where his best hope lay, and at such a
+time of life, took him altogether off his legs. And off his head too,
+I might almost say, miss; for, instead of blaming her, he put the fault
+entirely upon himself. At his time of life, and in such poor health, he
+should not have married a bright young girl: how could he ever hope to
+make her happy? That was how he looked at it, when he should have sent
+constables after her."
+
+"And what became of her--the mindless animal, to forsake so good and
+great a man! I do hope she was punished, and that vile man too."
+
+"She was, Miss Castlewood; but he was not; at least he has not received
+justice yet. But he will, he will, he will, miss. The treacherous thief!
+And my lord received him as a young fellow-countryman under a cloud, and
+lent him money, and saved him from starving; for he had broken with his
+father and was running from his creditors."
+
+"Tell me no more," I said; "not another word. It is my fate to meet
+that--well, that gentleman--almost every day. And he, and he--oh, how
+thankful I am to have found out all this about him!"
+
+The above will show why, when I met my father's cousin on the following
+morning--with his grand, calm face, as benevolent as if he had passed a
+night of luxurious rest instead of sleepless agony--I knew myself to be
+of a lower order in mind and soul and heart than his; a small, narrow,
+passionate girl, in the presence of a large, broad-sighted, and
+compassionate man.
+
+I threw myself altogether on his will; for, when I trust, I trust
+wholly. And, under his advice, I did not return with any rash haste to
+Bruntsea, but wrote in discharge of all duty there; while Mrs. Price, a
+clear and steadfast woman, was sent to London to see Wilhelmina Strouss.
+These two must have had very great talks together, and, both being
+zealous and faithful, they came to many misunderstandings. However, on
+the whole, they became very honest friends, and sworn allies at last,
+discovering more, the more they talked, people against whom they felt a
+common and just enmity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+SHOXFORD
+
+
+Are there people who have never, in the course of anxious life, felt
+desire to be away, to fly away, from every thing, however good and dear
+to them, and rest a little, and think new thought, or let new thought
+flow into them, from the gentle air of some new place, where nobody has
+heard of them--a place whose cares, being felt by proxy, almost seem
+romantic, and where the eyes spare brain and heart with a critic's
+self-complacence? If any such place yet remains, the happy soul may seek
+it in an inland English village.
+
+A village where no billows are to stun or to confound it, no crag or
+precipice to trouble it with giddiness, and where no hurry of restless
+tide makes time, its own father, uneasy. But in the quiet, at the bottom
+of the valley, a beautiful rivulet, belonging to the place, hastens or
+lingers, according to its mood; hankering here and there, not to be away
+yet; and then, by the doing of its own work, led to a swift perplexity
+of ripples. Here along its side, and there softly leaning over it, fresh
+green meadows lie reposing in the settled meaning of the summer day. For
+this is a safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, when
+the impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleak
+east wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their bright
+lips browned with cold. Then, moreover, must the meads have felt the
+worry of scarcely knowing yet what would be demanded of them; whether to
+carry an exacting load of hay, or only to feed a few sauntering cows.
+
+But now every trouble has been settled for the best; the long grass
+is mown, and the short grass browsed, and capers of the fairies and
+caprices of the cows have dappled worn texture with a deeper green.
+Therefore let eyes that are satisfied here--as any but a very bad eye
+must be, with so many changes of softness--follow the sweet lead of the
+valley; and there, in a bend of the gently brawling river, stands the
+never-brawling church.
+
+A church less troubled with the gift of tongues is not to be found in
+England: a church of gray stone that crumbles just enough to entice
+frail mortal sympathy, and confesses to the storms it has undergone in
+a tone that conciliates the human sigh. The tower is large, and high
+enough to tell what the way of the wind is without any potato-bury on
+the top, and the simple roof is not cruciated with tiles of misguided
+fancy. But gray rest, and peace of ages, and content of lying calmly
+six feet deeper than the bustle of the quick; memory also, and oblivion,
+following each other slowly, like the shadows of the church-yard
+trees--for all of these no better place can be, nor softer comfort.
+
+For the village of Shoxford runs up on the rise, and straggles away from
+its burial-place, as a child from his school goes mitching. There are
+some few little ups and downs in the manner of its building, as well as
+in other particulars about it; but still it keeps as parallel with the
+crooked river as the far more crooked ways of men permit. But the whole
+of the little road of houses runs down the valley from the church-yard
+gate; and above the church, looking up the pretty valley, stands nothing
+but the mill and the plank bridge below it; and a furlong above that
+again the stone bridge, where the main road crosses the stream, and is
+consoled by leading to a big house--the Moonstock Inn.
+
+The house in which my father lived so long--or rather, I should say, my
+mother, while he was away with his regiment--and where we unfortunate
+seven saw the light, stands about half-way down the little village,
+being on the right-hand side of the road as you come down the valley
+from the Moonstock bridge. Therefore it is on the further and upper side
+of the street--if it can be called a street--from the valley and the
+river and the meads below the mill, inasmuch as every bit of Shoxford,
+and every particle of the parish also, has existence--of no mean sort,
+as compared with other parishes, in its own esteem--on the right side of
+the river Moon.
+
+My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the street,
+was higher at one end than at the other. That is to say, the ground came
+sloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said, from one end to the
+other of it, so that it looked like a Noah's ark tilted by Behemoth
+under the stern-post. And a little lane, from a finely wooded hill, here
+fell steeply into the "High Street" (as the grocer and the butcher loved
+to call it), and made my father's house most distinct, by obeying a
+good deal of its outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply of
+water under the weather-board of our front-door. This front-door opened
+on the little steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road,
+while the back-door led into a long but narrow garden running along the
+road, but raised some feet above it; the bank was kept up by a rough
+stone wall crested with stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian, and
+faced with rosettes and disks and dills of houseleek, pennywort, and
+hart's-tongue.
+
+Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used to
+be; for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his grandson,
+having proved his will, was resolved to make short work with it. The
+poor house was blamed for the sorrows it had sheltered, and had the
+repute of two spectres, as well as the pale shadow of misfortune. For my
+dear father was now believed by the superstitious villagers to haunt the
+old home of his happiness and love, and roam from room to room in search
+of his wife and all his children. But his phantom was most careful not
+to face that of his father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooved
+a lord, and pointed forever to a red wound in its breast. No wonder,
+therefore, that the house would never let; and it would have been
+pulled down long ago if the owner had not felt a liking for it, through
+memories tender and peculiar to himself. His grandson, having none of
+these to contend with, resolved to make a mere stable of it, and build
+a public-house at the bottom of the garden, and turn the space between
+them into skittle-ground, and so forth.
+
+To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a
+sacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would have
+offered hundreds to prevent it. But I found myself now in a delicate
+state of mind concerning money, having little of my own, and doubting
+how much other people might intend for me. So that I durst not offer to
+buy land and a house without any means to pay.
+
+And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves
+quiet. We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such as my
+name might at once set going--would once for all destroy all hope
+of doing good by coming. Betsy knew more of such matters than I did,
+besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great superiority
+of age; therefore I left to her all little management, as was in every
+way fair and wise. For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a large and good
+company of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look after them--and
+who was he among them? If she trod on one side of her foot, or felt a
+tingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear, she knew in a moment what
+it was--of pounds and pounds was she being cheated, a hundred miles off,
+by foreigners!
+
+For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her
+faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my good
+nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so she never
+would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs. Price, then visiting
+Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady was too busy to be
+spared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord Castlewood to spare me
+his housekeeper. Upon this Mrs. Strouss at once declared that Mrs.
+Price would ruin every thing; and rather than that--no matter what she
+lost--she herself would go with me. And so she did, and she managed very
+well, keeping my name out of sight (for, happen what might, I would have
+no false one); and she got quiet lodgings in her present name, which
+sounded nicely foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my
+father's material house, and the work they were promised in pulling it
+down, than about his shattered household, we had a very favorable time
+for coming in, and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not be
+allowed to run up bills.
+
+This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed it
+unwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American dollar at
+the shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we were looked upon
+with some pity, and yet a kind desire for our custom. Thus, without any
+attempt of ours at either delusion or mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailed
+throughout the place as "Madam Straw," while I, through the sagacity
+of a deeply read shoe-maker, obtained a foreign name, as will by-and-by
+appear.
+
+We lodged at the post-office, not through any wisdom or even any thought
+on our part, but simply because we happened there to find the cleanest
+and prettiest rooms in the place. For the sun being now in the height
+of August, and having much harvest to ripen, at middle day came ramping
+down the little street of Shoxford like the chairman of the guild of
+bakers. Every house having lately brightened up its whitewash--which
+they always do there when the frosts are over, soon after the feast of
+St. Barnabas--and the weeds of the way having fared amiss in the absence
+of any water-cart, it was not in the strong, sharp character of the sun
+to miss such an opportunity. After the red Californian glare, I had no
+fear of any English sun; but Betsy was frightened, and both of us were
+glad to get into a little place sheltered by green blinds. This chanced
+to be the post-office, and there we found nice lodgings.
+
+By an equal chance this proved to be the wisest thing we could possibly
+have done, if we had set about it carefully. For why, that nobody ever
+would impute any desire of secrecy to people who straightway unpacked
+their boxes at the very head-quarters of all the village news. And the
+mistress of the post was a sharp-tongued woman, pleased to speak freely
+of her neighbors' doings, and prompt with good advice that they should
+heed their own business, if any of them durst say a word about her own.
+She kept a tidy little shop, showing something of almost every thing;
+but we had a side door, quite of our own, where Betsy met the baker's
+wife and the veritable milkman; and neither of them knew her, which was
+just what she had hoped; and yet it made her speak amiss of them.
+
+But if all things must be brought to the harsh test of dry reason, I
+myself might be hard pushed to say what good I hoped to do by coming
+thus to Shoxford. I knew of a great many things, for certain, that never
+had been thoroughly examined here; also I naturally wished to see, being
+a native, what the natives were; and, much more than that, it was always
+on my mind that here lay my mother and the other six of us.
+
+Therefore it was an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working out the
+afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices, combating now
+as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she never would allow
+even to be moot questions. If any applicant in European Square had dared
+so much as hint at any of all the requirements which she now expected
+gratis, she would simply have whisked her duster, and said that the
+lodgings for such people must be looked for down the alley. However,
+Mrs. Busk, our new landlady, although she had a temper of her own (as
+any one keeping a post-office must have) was forced by the rarity
+of lodgers here to yield many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her own
+boards, would not even have allowed to be debated. All this was entirely
+against my wish; for when I have money, I spend it, finding really no
+other good in it; but Betsy told me that the purest principle of all
+was--not to be cheated.
+
+So I left her to have these little matters out, and took that occasion
+for stealing away (as the hours grew on toward evening) to a place where
+I wished to be quite alone. And the shadow of the western hills shed
+peace upon the valley, when I crossed a little stile leading into
+Shoxford church-yard.
+
+For a minute or two I was quite afraid, seeing nobody any where about,
+nor even hearing any sound in the distance to keep me company. For the
+church lay apart from the village, and was thickly planted out from it,
+the living folk being full of superstition, and deeply believing in the
+dead people's ghosts. And even if this were a wife to a husband, or even
+a husband reappearing to his wife, there was not a man or a woman in the
+village that would not run away from it.
+
+This I did not know at present, not having been there long enough;
+neither had I any terror of that sort, not being quite such a coward, I
+should hope. But still, as the mantles of the cold trees darkened, and
+the stony remembrance of the dead grew pale, and of the living there was
+not even the whistle of a grave-digger--my heart got the better of
+my mind for a moment, and made me long to be across that stile again.
+Because (as I said to myself) if there had been a hill to go up, that
+would be so different and so easy; but going down into a place like
+this, whence the only escape must be by steps, and where any flight must
+be along channels that run in and out of graves and tombstones, I tried
+not to be afraid, yet could not altogether help it.
+
+But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely thinking
+what to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place which made me
+stop and wonder. Here were six little grassy tuffets, according to the
+length of children, all laid east and west, without any stint of room,
+harmoniously.
+
+From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at which
+their lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.
+
+And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage them, as
+a hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to shelter. Without
+a name to any of them, all these seven graves lay together, as in a
+fairy ring of rest, and kind compassion had prevented any stranger from
+coming to be buried there.
+
+I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the pretty
+grass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its foot, and
+bent my head, and counted all the little ones. Then I thought of my
+father in the grove of peaches, more than six thousand miles away, on
+the banks of the soft Blue River. And a sense of desolate sorrow and of
+the blessing of death overwhelmed me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE SEXTON
+
+
+With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my work
+again. It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these proofs of
+God's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, "I will do this,"
+or even to think, "I will try to do that." My own poor helplessness, and
+loss of living love to guide me, laid upon my heart a weight from which
+it scarcely cared to move. All was buried, all was done with, all had
+passed from out the world, and left no mark but graves behind. What good
+to stir anew such sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move
+its mystery?
+
+Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener, brought
+me back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right courage
+within me. But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror and interest
+vividly. It may be remembered that this good man had been my father's
+gardener at the time of our great calamity, and almost alone of the
+Shoxford people had shown himself true and faithful. Not that the
+natives had turned against us, or been at all unfriendly; so far from
+this was the case, that every one felt for our troubles, and pitied us,
+my father being of a cheerful and affable turn, until misery hardened
+him; but what I mean is that only one or two had the courage to go
+against the popular conclusion and the convictions of authority.
+
+But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for his
+master, who many and many a time--as he told me--had taken a spade and
+dug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born, instead
+of a fine young nobleman; "and nobody gifted with that turn of mind,
+likewise very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever be relied
+upon to go and shoot his father." Thus reasoned old Jacob, and he always
+had done so, and meant evermore to abide by it; and the graves which
+he had tended now for nigh a score of years, and meant to tend till
+he called for his own, were--as sure as he stood there in Shoxford
+church-yard a-talking to me, who was the very image of my father, God
+bless me, though not of course so big like--the graves of slaughtered
+innocents, and a mother who was always an angel. And the parson might
+preach forever to him about the resurrection, and the right coming
+uppermost when you got to heaven, but to his mind that was scarcely any
+count at all; and if you came to that, we ought to hang Jack Ketch, as
+might come to pass in the Revelations. But while a man had got his own
+bread to earn, till his honor would let him go to the work-house, and
+his duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that vexed him more than
+to be told any texts of Holy Scripture. Whatever God Almighty had put
+down there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being long the most
+ancient people, though none the more for that did he like them; and
+so it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a day's work worth
+eighteenpence, that could enter into Bible promises. Not that he was at
+all behindhand about interpretation; but as long as he could fetch and
+earn, at planting box and doing borders, two shillings and ninepence a
+day and his beer, he was not going to be on for kingdom come.
+
+I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here would
+be approved by wise men who had found time to study the subject. But he
+answered that whatever their words might be, their doings showed that
+they knew what was the first thing to attend to. And if it ever happened
+him to come across a parson who was as full of heaven outside as he
+was inside his surplice, he would keep his garden in order for nothing
+better than his blessing.
+
+I knew of no answer to be made to this. And indeed he seemed to be aware
+that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon his spade,
+and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the church tower, holding
+as he did the position of sexton, and preparing even now to dig a grave.
+
+"I keeps them well away from you," he said, as he began to chop out a
+new oblong in the turf; "many a shilling have I been offered by mothers
+about their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy ring,' as we
+calls this little cluster; but not for five golden guineas would I do
+it, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive, about it. We heard that
+he was dead, because it was put in all the papers; and a pleasant place
+I keeps for him, to come home alongside of his family. A nicer gravelly
+bit of ground there couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of
+him occupying it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss."
+
+"Thank you," I answered; "you are certainly most kind; but, Mr. Rigg, I
+would rather wait a little. I have had a very troublesome life thus far,
+and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would rather not have my
+peg driven down just--just at present."
+
+"Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their
+coffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet. Lord bless you
+for not knowing what He hath in hand! Now this one you see me a-raising
+of the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a fortnight back, and as
+good about the chest and shoulders, and three times the color in her
+cheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright as yourn be. Not aristocratic,
+you must understand me, miss, being only the miller's daughter, nor
+instructed to throw her voice the same as you do, which is better than
+gallery music; but setting these haxidents to one side, a farmer would
+have said she was more preferable, because more come-at-able, though not
+in my opinion to be compared--excuse me for making so free, miss, but
+when it comes to death we has a kind of right to do it--and many a young
+farmer, coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and
+far and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the Moonshine,
+from the name of our little river. She used to call me 'Jacob Diggs,'
+because of my porochial office, with a meaning of a joke on my parenshal
+name. Ah, what a merry one she were! And now this is what I has to do
+for her! And sooner would I 'a doed it a'most for my own old ooman!"
+
+"Oh, Jacob!" I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore up the
+ground, as if his wife was waiting, "the things you say are quite wrong,
+I am sure, for a man in your position. You are connected with this
+church almost as much as the clerk is."
+
+"More, miss, ten times more! He don't do nothing but lounge on the front
+of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my time of
+life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer, with a stick
+that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the boys with their
+pocket full of nuts. When I was a boy there was no nuts, except at the
+proper time of year, a month or two on from this time of speaking; and
+we used to crack they in the husk, and make no noise to disturb the
+congregation; but now it is nuts, nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with
+three corners to them--all the year round nuts to crack, and me to find
+out who did it!"
+
+"But, Mr. Rigg," I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind than
+in body, "is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all the nuts on
+a Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?"
+
+"My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few. But not of a
+Saturday more than any other day."
+
+"Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any sale
+of nuts except to good boys of high principles. And has it not happened
+sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on their nuts, and bought
+them again at your shop on a Monday? I mean, of course, when your duty
+has compelled you to empty the pockets of a boy in church."
+
+Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up naturally
+by my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as I had spoken
+I became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought to my mind that I
+had promised not even to whisper it; and now I had told it to the man of
+all men! But Jacob appeared to have been quite deaf, and diligently went
+on digging. And I said "good-evening," for the grave was for the morrow;
+and he let me go nearly to the stile before he stuck his spade into the
+ground and followed.
+
+"Excoose of my making use," he said, "of a kind of a personal reference,
+miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh me believe you
+must be sharp inside--more than your father, the poor Captain, were, as
+all them little grass buttons argueth. Now, miss, if I thought you had
+head-piece enough to keep good counsel and ensue it, maybe I could tell
+you a thing as would make your hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups,
+and your heart a'most bust them there braids of fallallies."
+
+"Why, what in the world do you mean?" I asked, being startled by the old
+man's voice and face.
+
+"Nothing, miss, nothing. I was only a-joking. If you bain't come to no
+more discretion than that--to turn as white as the clerk's smock-frock
+of a Easter-Sunday--why, the more of a joke one has, the better, to
+bring your purty color back to you. Ah! Polly of the mill was the maid
+for color--as good for the eyesight as a chaney-rose in April. Well,
+well, I must get on with her grave; they're a-coming to speak the good
+word over un on sundown."
+
+He might have known how this would vex and perplex me. I could not bear
+to hinder him in his work--as important as any to be done by man for
+man--and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave him there,
+and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to tell. So I quietly
+said, "Then I will wish you a very good evening again, Mr. Rigg, as you
+are too busy to be spoken with." And I walked off a little way, having
+met with men who, having begun a thing, needs must have it out, and
+fully expecting him to call me back. But Jacob only touched his hat, and
+said, "A pleasant evening to you, ma'am."
+
+Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did. I did not
+hesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and demanding
+of Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any thing or
+nothing; for I was not to be played with about important matters, like
+the boys in the church who were cracking nuts.
+
+"Lord! Lord, now!" he said, with his treddled heel scraping the shoulder
+of his shining spade; "the longer I live in this world, the fitter I
+grow to get into the ways of the Lord. His ways are past finding out,
+saith King David: but a man of war, from his youth upward, hath no
+chance such as a gardening man hath. What a many of them have I found
+out!"
+
+"What has that got to do with it!" I cried. "Just tell me what it was
+you were speaking of just now."
+
+"I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss," he answered, in the
+prime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only, not because
+he wanted it, "how little us knows of the times and seasons and the
+generations of the sons of men. There you stand, miss, and here stand I,
+as haven't seen your father for a score of years a'most; and yet there
+comes out of your eyes into mine the very same look as the Captain used
+to send, when snakes in the grass had been telling lies about me coming
+late, or having my half pint or so on. Not that the Captain was a hard
+man, miss--far otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the
+women be. But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made
+you come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyes
+like--Selah!"
+
+"You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not," I answered, quite
+gently, being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried to
+hurry him; "but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg, to
+me, your master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking. Is this the
+place to joke with me?"
+
+I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a foot
+without stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man, callous
+as he might be, could not help feeling for--a pinch of snuff. This
+he found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat, and took it very
+carefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and thus, being fully
+self-assured again, he stood, with his feet far apart and his head on
+one side, regarding me warily. And I took good care not to say another
+word.
+
+"You be young," he said at last; "and in these latter days no wisdom is
+ordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always in the mouths
+of them as is themselves ordained. But you have a way of keeping your
+chin up, miss, as if you was gifted with a stiff tongue likewise. And
+whatever may hap, I has as good mind to tell 'e."
+
+"That you are absolutely bound to do," I answered, as forcibly as I
+could. "Duty to your former master and to me, his only child--and to
+yourself, and your Maker too--compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me every
+thing you know."
+
+"Then, miss," he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a low,
+hoarse voice, "as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by all this
+murdered family, I knows the man who done it!"
+
+He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips, and the
+spade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I became as firm
+as the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of fluttering, grew as
+steadfast as a glacier. Then, for the first time, I knew that God had
+not kept me living, when all the others died, without fitting me also
+for the work there was to do.
+
+"Come here to the corner of the tower, miss," old Jacob went on, in his
+excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket. "Where
+we stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of them big
+tombstones. And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may be a-watching
+of us while here we stand."
+
+I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if only
+I could see him once. But the place was as silent as its graves; and
+I followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress. Here he went into
+a deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip from the roof; and
+being, both in his clothes and self, pretty much of that same color,
+he was not very easy to discern from stone when the light of day was
+declining.
+
+"This is where I catches all the boys," he whispered; "and this is where
+I caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to nurse my knees
+a bit. Let me see--why, let me see! Don't you speak till I do, miss.
+Were it the last but one I dug? Or could un 'a been the last but two?
+Never mind; I can't call to mind quite justly. We puts down about one a
+month in this parish, without any distemper or haxident. Well, it must
+'a been the one afore last--to be sure, no call to scratch my head
+about un. Old Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here--done handsome by
+the rate-payers. Over there, miss, if you please to look--about two
+land-yard and a half away. Can you see un with the grass peeking up
+a'ready?"
+
+"Never mind that, Jacob. Do please to go on."
+
+"So I be, miss. So I be doing to the best of the power granted me. Well,
+I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally used to say
+as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it--a spiteful old ooman,
+and I done her grave with pleasure, only wishing her had to pay for
+it; and to prove to her mind that I never goed asleep here, I was just
+making ready to set fire to my pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease
+my legs, like this, when from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and
+over again that there old tree, I seed a something movin' along--movin'
+along, without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking. You may
+see the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here
+finger."
+
+"Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?"
+
+"I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard, such
+as a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away from. But they
+no right, after the service of the Church, to come up for more than one
+change of the moon, unless they been great malefactors. And then they be
+ashamed of it; and I reminds them of it. 'Amen,' I say, in the very same
+voice as I used at the tail of their funerals; and then they knows well
+that I covered them up, and the most uneasy goes back again. Lor' bless
+you, miss, I no fear of the dead. At both ends of life us be harmless.
+It is in the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all the
+death for one another."
+
+This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to interject any
+new ideas from which he might go rambling.
+
+"Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you," the old man continued,
+as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with another pinch of
+snuff, "being tall and grim, and white in the face, and very onpleasant
+for to look at, and its eyes seemed a'most to burn holes in the air. No
+sooner did I see that it were not a ghostie, but a living man the
+same as I be, than my knees begins to shake and my stumps of teeth to
+chatter. And what do you think it was stopped me, miss, from slipping
+round this corner, and away by belfry? Nort but the hoddest idea you
+ever heared on. For all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that the
+Lord had been pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome as
+he used to be, but in the living flesh, however, in spite of they
+newspapers. And I were just at the pint of coming forrard, out of this
+here dark cornder, knowing as I had done my duty by them graves that his
+honor, to my mind, must 'a come looking after, when, lucky for me, I
+see summat in his walk, and then in his countenance, and then in all
+his features, unnateral on the Captain's part, whatever his time of life
+might be. And sure enough, miss, it were no Captain more nor I myself
+be."
+
+"Of course not. How could it be? But who was it, Jacob?"
+
+"You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole. Well, by that time
+'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge up into
+the elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as nigh as might
+be, and keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a face more full
+of malice and uncharity. However, he come on as straight as a arrow,
+holding his long chin out, like this, as if he gotten crutches under
+it, as the folk does with bad water. A tall man, as tall as the Captain
+a'most, but not gifted with any kind aspect. He trampsed over the
+general graves, like the devil come to fetch their souls out; but when
+he come here to the 'holy ring,' he stopped short, and stood with his
+back to me. I could hear him count the seven graves, as pat as the
+shells of oysters to pay for, and then he said all their names, as true,
+from the biggest to the leastest one, as Betsy Bowen could 'a done it,
+though none of 'em got no mark to 'em. Oh, the poor little hearts, it
+was cruel hard upon them! And then my lady in the middle, making
+seven. So far as I could catch over his shoulder, he seemed to be quite
+a-talking with her--not as you and I be, miss, but a sort of a manner of
+a way, like."
+
+"And what did he seem to say? Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over it!"
+
+"Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain. And glad I was
+to have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to such a
+condition--ay, and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had caught
+sight of me--as the parish might 'a had to fight over the appintment of
+another sexton. And so at last a' went away. And I were that stiff with
+scrooging in this cornder--"
+
+"Is that all? Oh, that comes to nothing. Surely you must have more to
+tell me? It may have been some one who knew our names. It may have been
+some old friend of the family."
+
+"No, miss, no! No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like King
+David's. He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of asps
+were under his lips. In this here hattitude he stood, with his back
+toward me, and his reins more upright than I be capable of putting it.
+And this was how he held up his elbow and his head. Look 'e see, miss,
+and then 'e know as much as I do."
+
+Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step--a most difficult strain for
+his short bowed legs--as far as the place he had been pointing out; and
+there he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what the tall man
+had done, so far as the difference of size allowed.
+
+It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness; and yet
+Jacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching himself in
+such a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger, that--low as it
+was--I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally offending him.
+
+"That warn't quite right, miss. Now you look again," he exclaimed, with
+a little readjustment. "Only he had a thing over one shoulder, the like
+of what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was beyond me, because of
+the back of his head, like. For God's sake keep out of his way, miss."
+
+The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude, with
+the right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand resting
+half-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown back, as if
+ready for a blow.
+
+"What a very odd way to stand!" I said.
+
+"Yes, miss. And what he said was odder. 'Six, and the mother!' I heared
+un say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.' But stop, miss. Not a
+breath to any one! Here comes the poor father and mother to speak the
+blessing across their daughter's grave--and the grave not two foot down
+yet!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A SIMPLE QUESTION
+
+
+Now this account of what Jacob Rigg had seen and heard threw me into a
+state of mind extremely unsatisfactory. To be in eager search of some
+unknown person who had injured me inexpressibly, without any longing for
+revenge on my part, but simply with a view to justice--this was a very
+different thing from feeling that an unknown person was in quest of
+me, with the horrible purpose of destroying me to insure his own wicked
+safety.
+
+At first I almost thought that he was welcome to do this; that such a
+life as mine (if looked at from an outer point of view) was better to be
+died than lived out. Also that there was nobody left to get any good out
+of all that I could do; and even if I ever should succeed, truth would
+come out of her tomb too late. And this began to make me cry, which I
+had long given over doing, with no one to feel for the heart of it.
+
+But a thing of this kind could not long endure; and as soon as the sun
+of the morrow arose (or at least as soon as I was fit to see him), my
+view of the world was quite different. Here was the merry brook, playing
+with the morning, spread around with ample depth and rich retreat of
+meadows, and often, after maze of leisure, hastening with a tinkle into
+shadowy delight of trees. Here, as well, were happy lanes, and footpaths
+of a soft content, unworn with any pressure of the price of time or
+business. None of them knew (in spite, at flurried spots, of their own
+direction posts) whence they were coming or whither going--only that
+here they lay, between the fields or through them, like idle veins
+of earth, with sometimes company of a man or boy, whistling to his
+footfall, or a singing maid with a milking pail. And how ungrateful it
+would be to forget the pleasant copses, in waves of deep green leafage
+flowing down and up the channeled hills, waving at the wind to tints and
+tones of new refreshment, and tempting idle folk to come and hear the
+hush, and see the twinkled texture of pellucid gloom.
+
+Much, however, as I loved to sit in places of this kind alone, for some
+little time I feared to do so, after hearing the sexton's tale; for
+Jacob's terror was so unfeigned (though his own life had not been
+threatened) that, knowing as I did from Betsy's account, as well as his
+own appearance, that he was not at all a nervous man, I could not help
+sharing his vague alarm. It seemed so terrible that any one should come
+to the graves of my sweet mother and her six harmless children, and,
+instead of showing pity, as even a monster might have tried to do,
+should stand, if not with threatening gestures, yet with a most hostile
+mien, and thirst for the life of the only survivor--my poor self.
+
+But terrible or not, the truth was so; and neither Betsy nor myself
+could shake Mr. Rigg's conclusion. Indeed, he became more and more
+emphatic, in reply to our doubts and mild suggestions, perhaps that his
+eyes had deceived him, or perhaps that, taking a nap in the corner of
+the buttress, he had dreamed at least a part of it. And Betsy, on the
+score of ancient friendship and kind remembrance of his likings, put
+it to him in a gentle way whether his knowledge of what Sally Mock had
+been, and the calumnies she might have spoken of his beer (when herself,
+in the work-house, deprived of it), might not have induced him to take
+a little more than usual in going down so deep for her. But he answered,
+"No; it was nothing of the sort. Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his
+fling; not from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because
+the parish paid, and the parish would have measurement. And when that
+was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the public;
+and never had none down afterward. Otherwise the ground was so ticklish,
+that a man, working too free, might stay down there. No, no! That
+idea was like one of Sally's own. He just had his quart of Persfield
+ale--short measure, of course, with a woman at the bar--and if that were
+enough to make a man dream dreams, the sooner he dug his own grave, the
+better for all connected with him."
+
+We saw that we had gone too far in thinking of such a possibility; and
+if Mr. Rigg had not been large-minded, as well as notoriously sober,
+Betsy might have lost me all the benefit of his evidence by her
+London-bred clumsiness with him. For it takes quite a different
+handling, and a different mode of outset, to get on with the London
+working class and the laboring kind of the country; or at least it
+seemed to me so.
+
+Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to Betsy
+Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing ever since
+I brought her down from London. And now I was glad that, in one point
+at least, her judgment had overruled mine--to wit, that my name and
+parentage were as yet not generally known in the village. Indeed, only
+Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful old washer-woman, with no roof to
+her mouth, were aware of me as Miss Castlewood. Not that I had taken any
+other name--to that I would not stoop--but because the public, of its
+own accord, paying attention to Betsy's style of addressing me, followed
+her lead (with some little improvement), and was pleased to entitle me
+"Miss Raumur."
+
+Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man of
+advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several pairs of
+spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop), that no other
+way could be right except that. For there it was in print, as any one
+able might see, on the side of an instrument whose name and qualities
+were even more mysterious than those in debate. Therefore I became "Miss
+Raumur;" and a protest would have gone for nothing unless printed also.
+But it did not behoove me to go to that expense, while it suited me very
+well to be considered and pitied as a harmless foreigner--a being who
+on English land may find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own
+country, a prophet could be less thought of. And this large pity for me,
+as an outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me
+with tenfold the privilege of the proudest native. For the natives of
+this valley are declared to be of a different stock from those around
+them, not of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or Danish
+origin. How that may be I do not know; at any rate, they think well of
+themselves, and no doubt they have cause to do so.
+
+Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways amused
+me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner, equally beyond
+and below inquiry. They told me that I was kindly welcome to stay there
+as long as it pleased me; and knowing how fond I was of making pictures,
+after beholding my drawing-book, every farmer among them gave me leave
+to come into his fields, though he never had heard there was any thing
+there worth painting.
+
+When once there has been a deposit of idea in the calm deep eocene of
+British rural mind, the impression will outlast any shallow deluge of
+the noblest education. Shoxford had settled two points forever, without
+troubling reason to come out of her way--first, that I was a foreign
+young lady of good birth, manners, and money; second, and far more
+important, I was here to write and paint a book about Shoxford. Not
+for the money, of that I had no need (according to the congress at the
+"Silver-edged Holly"), but for the praise and the knowledge of it,
+like, and to make a talk among high people. But the elders shook their
+heads--as I heard from Mr. Rigg, who hugged his knowledge proudly, and
+uttered dim sayings of wisdom let forth at large usury: he did not mind
+telling me that the old men shook their heads, for fear of my being a
+deal too young, and a long sight too well favored (as any man might tell
+without his specs on), for to write any book upon any subject yet, leave
+alone an old, ancient town like theirs. However, there might be no harm
+in my trying, and perhaps the school-master would cross out the bad
+language.
+
+Thus for once fortune now was giving me good help, enabling me to go
+about freely, and preventing (so far as I could see, at least) all
+danger of discovery by my unknown foe. So here I resolved to keep my
+head-quarters, dispensing, if it must be so, with Betsy's presence,
+and not even having Mrs. Price to succeed her, unless my cousin should
+insist upon it. And partly to dissuade him from that, and partly to
+hear his opinion of the sexton's tale, I paid a flying visit to Lord
+Castlewood; while "Madam Straw," as Betsy now was called throughout the
+village, remained behind at Shoxford. For I long had desired to know a
+thing which I had not ventured to ask my cousin--though I did ask Mr.
+Shovelin--whether my father had intrusted him with the key of his own
+mysterious acts. I scarcely knew whether it was proper even now to put
+this question to Lord Castlewood; but even without doing so, I might get
+at the answer by watching him closely while I told my tale. Not a letter
+had reached me since I came to Shoxford, neither had I written any,
+except one to Uncle Sam; and keeping to this excellent rule, I arrived
+at Castlewood without notice.
+
+In doing this I took no liberty, because full permission had been given
+me about it; and indeed I had been expected there, as Stixon told me,
+some days before. He added that his master was about as usual, but had
+shown some uneasiness on my account, though the butler was all in the
+dark about it, and felt it very hard after all these years, "particular,
+when he could hardly help thinking that Mrs. Price--a new hand compared
+to himself, not to speak of being a female--knowed all about it, and
+were very aggravating. But there, he would say no more; he knew his
+place, and he always had been valued in it, long afore Mrs. Price come
+up to the bottom of his waistcoat."
+
+My cousin received me with kindly warmth, and kissed me gently on the
+forehead. "My dear, how very well you look!" he said. "Your native air
+has agreed with you. I was getting, in my quiet way, rather sedulous
+and self-reproachful about you. But you would have your own way, like a
+young American; and it seems that you were right."
+
+"It was quite right," I answered, with a hearty kiss, for I never could
+be cold-natured; and this was my only one of near kin, so far, at least,
+as my knowledge went. "I was quite right in going; and I have done good.
+At any rate, I have found out something--something that may not be of
+any kind of use; but still it makes me hope things."
+
+With that, in as few words as ever I could use, I told Lord Castlewood
+the whole of Jacob's tale, particularly looking at him all the while I
+spoke, to settle in my own mind whether the idea of such a thing was new
+to him. Concerning that, however, I could make out nothing. My cousin,
+at his time of life, and after so much travelling, had much too large a
+share of mind and long skill of experience for me to make any thing out
+of his face beyond his own intention. And whether he had suspicion or
+not of any thing at all like what I was describing, or any body having
+to do with it, was more than I ever might have known, if I had not
+gathered up my courage and put the question outright to him. I told
+him that if I was wrong in asking, he was not to answer; but, right or
+wrong, ask him I must.
+
+"The question is natural, and not at all improper," replied Lord
+Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his
+relief. "Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before. But, Erema, I
+have also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any right to answer
+you. And I have decided not to do so, unless you will pledge yourself to
+one thing."
+
+"I will pledge myself to any thing," I answered, rashly; "I do not care
+what it is, if only to get at the bottom of this mystery."
+
+"I scarcely think you will hold good to your words when you hear what
+you have to promise. The condition upon which I tell you what I believe
+to be the cause of all is, that you let things remain as they are, and
+keep silence forever about them."
+
+"Oh, you can not be so cruel, so atrocious!" I cried, in my bitter
+disappointment. "What good would it be for me to know things thus, and
+let the vile wrong continue? Surely you are not bound to lay on me a
+condition so impossible?"
+
+"After much consideration and strong wish to have it otherwise, I have
+concluded that I am so bound."
+
+"In duty to my father, or the family, or what? Forgive me for asking,
+but it does seem so hard."
+
+"It seems hard, my dear, and it is hard as well," he answered, very
+gently, yet showing in his eyes and lips no chance of any yielding. "But
+remember that I do not know, I only guess, the secret; and if you give
+the pledge I speak of, you merely follow in your father's steps."
+
+"Never," I replied, with as firm a face as his. "It may have been my
+father's duty, or no doubt he thought it so; but it can not be mine,
+unless I make it so by laying it on my honor. And I will not do that."
+
+"Perhaps you are right; but, at any rate, remember that I have not tried
+to persuade you. I wish to do what is for your happiness, Erema. And
+I think that, on the whole, with your vigor and high spirit, you are
+better as you are than if you had a knowledge which you could only brood
+over and not use."
+
+"I will find out the whole of it myself," I cried, for I could not
+repress all excitement; "and then I need not brood over it, but may have
+it out and get justice. In the wildest parts of America justice comes
+with perseverance: am I to abjure it in the heart of England? Lord
+Castlewood, which is first--justice or honor?"
+
+"My cousin, you are fond of asking questions difficult to answer.
+Justice and honor nearly always go together. When they do otherwise,
+honor stands foremost, with people of good birth, at least."
+
+"Then I will be a person of very bad birth. If they come into conflict
+in my life, as almost every thing seems to do, my first thought shall be
+of justice; and honor shall come in as its ornament afterward."
+
+"Erema," said my cousin, "your meaning is good, and at your time of life
+you can scarcely be expected to take a dispassionate view of things."
+
+At first I felt almost as if I could hate a "dispassionate view of
+things." Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as meanness and
+villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance of the world,
+can contemplate them all "dispassionately," more clearly than any thing
+else, to my mind, that proves the beauty of being young. I am sure that
+I never was hot or violent--qualities which I especially dislike--but
+still I would rather almost have those than be too philosophical. And
+now, while I revered my father's cousin for his gentleness, wisdom, and
+long-suffering, I almost longed to fly back to the Major, prejudiced,
+peppery, and red-hot for justice, at any rate in all things that
+concerned himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+SOME ANSWER TO IT
+
+
+Hasty indignation did not drive me to hot action. A quiet talk with
+Mrs. Price, as soon as my cousin's bad hour arrived, was quite enough to
+bring me back to a sense of my own misgovernment. Moreover, the evening
+clouds were darkening for a night of thunder, while the silver Thames
+looked nothing more than a leaden pipe down the valleys. Calm words fall
+at such times on quick temper like the drip of trees on people who
+have been dancing. I shivered, as my spirit fell, to think of my weak
+excitement, and poor petulance to a kind, wise friend, a man of many
+sorrows and perpetual affliction. And then I recalled what I had
+observed, but in my haste forgotten--Lord Castlewood was greatly changed
+even in the short time since I had left his house for Shoxford. Pale he
+had always been, and his features (calm as they were, and finely cut)
+seemed almost bleached by in-door life and continual endurance. But
+now they showed worse sign than this--a delicate transparence of faint
+color, and a waxen surface, such as I had seen at a time I can not bear
+to think of. Also he had tottered forward, while he tried for steadfast
+footing, quite as if his worried members were almost worn out at last.
+
+Mrs. Price took me up quite sharply--at least for one of her
+well-trained style--when I ventured to ask if she had noticed this,
+which made me feel uneasy. "Oh dear, no!" she said, looking up from
+the lace-frilled pockets of her silk apron, which appeared to my mind
+perhaps a little too smart, and almost of a vulgar tincture; and I think
+that she saw in my eyes that much, and was vexed with herself for not
+changing it--"oh dear, no, Miss Castlewood! We who know and watch
+him should detect any difference of that nature at the moment of its
+occurrence. His lordship's health goes vacillating; a little up now,
+and then a little down, like a needle that is mounted to show the dip
+of compass; and it varies according to the electricity, as well as the
+magnetic influence."
+
+"What doctor told you that?" I asked, seeing in a moment that this
+housekeeper was dealing in quotation.
+
+"You are very"--she was going to say "rude," but knew better when she
+saw me waiting for it--"well, you are rather brusque, as we used to call
+it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of observing for myself?"
+
+"I never implied that," was my answer. "I believe that you are most
+intelligent, and fit to nurse my cousin, as you are to keep his
+house. And what you have said shows the clearness of your memory and
+expression."
+
+"You are very good to speak so," she answered, recovering her temper
+beautifully, but, like a true woman, resolved not to let me know any
+thing more about it. "Oh, what a clap of thunder! Are you timid? This
+house has been struck three times, they say. It stands so prominently.
+It is this that has made my lord look so."
+
+"Let us hope, then to see him much better to-morrow," I said, very
+bravely, though frightened at heart, being always a coward of thunder.
+"What are these storms you get in England compared to the tropical
+outbursts? Let us open the window, if you please, and watch it."
+
+"I hear myself called," Mrs. Price exclaimed. "I am sorry to leave you,
+miss. You know best. But please not to sit by an open window; nothing is
+more dangerous."
+
+"Except a great bunch of steel keys," I replied; and gazing at her nice
+retreating figure, saw it quickened, as a flash of lightning passed,
+with the effort of both hands to be quit of something.
+
+The storm was dreadful; and I kept the window shut, but could not help
+watching, with a fearful joy, the many-fingered hazy pale vibrations,
+the reflections of the levin in the hollow of the land. And sadly I
+began to think of Uncle Sam and all his goodness; and how in a storm,
+a thousandfold of this, he went down his valley in the torrent of the
+waves, and must have been drowned, and perhaps never found again, if he
+had not been wearing his leathern apron.
+
+This made me humble, as all great thoughts do, and the sidelong drizzle
+in among the heavy rain (from the big drops jostling each other in the
+air, and dashing out splashes of difference) gave me an idea of the sort
+of thing I was--and how very little more. And feeling rather lonely in
+the turn that things had taken, I rang the bell for somebody; and up
+came Stixon.
+
+"Lor', miss! Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!--'Prick' we call her,
+in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic language;
+and all abroad about her husband. My very first saying to you was, not
+to be too much okkipied with her. Look at the pinafore on her! Lord be
+with me! If his lordship, as caught me, that day of this very same month
+fifty years, in the gooseberry bush--"
+
+"To be sure!" I said, knowing that story by heart, together with all its
+embellishments; "but things are altered since that day. Nothing can be
+more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to tell such a tale in
+the very place where it happened."
+
+"But, Miss--Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it."
+
+"Because you remember that I am acquainted with it. A thing so
+remarkable is not to be forgotten. Now let me ask you a question of
+importance; and I beg you, as an old servant of this family, to
+answer it carefully and truly. Do you remember any one, either here or
+elsewhere, so like my father, Captain Castlewood, as to be taken for
+him at first sight, until a difference of expression and of walk was
+noticed?"
+
+Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think
+profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.
+
+"Let me see--like the Captain?" He reflected slowly: "Did I ever see a
+gentleman like poor Master George, as was? A gentleman, of course, it
+must have been--and a very tall, handsome, straight gentleman, to be
+taken anyhow for young Master George. And he must have been very like
+him, too, to be taken for him by resemblance. Well then, miss, to the
+best of my judgment, I never did see such a gentleman."
+
+"I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not," I answered, with
+some impatience at his tantalizing slowness; "but he carried his chin
+stretched forth--like this."
+
+For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in Jacob
+Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.
+
+"Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!" resumed the butler, with
+an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous. "Why, let me see,
+now, let me see. Something do come across my mind when you puts out your
+purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a score of years agone,
+or more--perhaps five-and-twenty. What a daft old codger I be getting,
+surely! No wonder them new lights puts a bushel over me."
+
+"No," I replied; "you are simply showing great power of memory, Stixon.
+And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was--a tall man,
+remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps, or at any rate
+dark eyes--who resembled (perhaps not very closely, but still enough to
+mislead at a distance) my dear father--Master George, as you call him,
+for whose sake you are bound to tell me every thing you know. Now try to
+think--do please try your very best, for my sake."
+
+"That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my mind,
+with all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have to say
+with my hands behind my back, afore education were invented. Only please
+you to stand with your chin put out, miss, and your profield towards me.
+That is what brings it up, and nothing else at all, miss. Only, not to
+say a word of any sort to hurry me. A tracherous and a deep thing is the
+memory and the remembrance."
+
+Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom to it,
+or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get at. And I
+waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of his researches.
+
+"I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!" the old man
+cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, "Please to leave
+off; I am sure it is too much for you." "Not a pictur' in all of our
+gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see that there man,
+dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing. What you call them things,
+miss, if you please, as comes with the sun, like a face upon the water?
+Wicked things done again the will of the Lord, and He makes them fade
+out afterwards."
+
+"Perhaps you mean photographs. Is that the word?"
+
+"The very word, and no mistake. A sinful trespass on the works of God,
+to tickle the vanity of gals. But he never spread himself abroad like
+them. They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks, and smiles. But
+he never would have shown his nose, if he could help it, that stormy
+night when I come to do my duty. He come into this house without so much
+as a 'by your leave' to nobody, and vexed me terrible accordingly. It
+was in the old lord's time, you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as
+would have things respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look.
+And it put me quite upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all
+the footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my opinion,
+having my own son worth a dozen of him. This made me look at the nature
+of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be after every body."
+
+"Yes, Stixon, yes! Now do go on. You must always have been, not only
+after, but a very long way after, every body."
+
+"Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous. In a
+heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word. Now, did
+I see him come along the big passage?--a 'currydoor' they call it now,
+though no more curry in it than there is door. No, I never seed him come
+along the passage, and that made it more reproachful. He come out of
+a green-baize door--the very place I can point out to you, and the
+selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy of the mind that knows
+it, by reason of having been covered up red, and all the brass buttons
+lost to it in them new-fangled upholsteries. Not that I see him come
+through, if you please, but the sway of the door, being double-jointed,
+was enough to show legs, had been there. And knowing that my lord's
+private room was there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful."
+
+"Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly."
+
+"No, miss, no. I were lissome in those days, though not so very stiff
+at this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the guidance of the
+tongue. And now, miss, I think if you please to hear the rest to-morrow,
+I could tell it better."
+
+A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me. Even if I
+could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have made up his
+mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he would speak, there
+might be nothing left to say. His memory was nursed up now, and my only
+chance was to keep it so. Therefore I begged him to please to go on, and
+no more would I interrupt him. And I longed to be ten years older, so as
+not to speak when needless.
+
+"So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on," resumed the well-coaxed Stixon,
+"if my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing subjeck, no words
+can more justly tell what come to pass than my language to my wife. She
+were alive then, the poor dear hangel, and the mother of seven children,
+which made me, by your leave comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a
+little stiff to him up stairs, as come in on the top of seven. For I
+said to my wife when I went home--sleeping out of the house, you see,
+miss, till the Lord was pleased to dissolve matrimony--'Polly,' I
+said, when I took home my supper, 'you may take my word for it there is
+something queer.' Not another word did I mean to tell her, as behooved
+my dooty. Howsoever, no peace was my lot till I made a clean bosom of
+it, only putting her first on the Testament, and even that not safe with
+most of them. And from that night not a soul has heard a word till it
+comes to you, miss. He come striding along, with his face muffled up,
+for all the world like a bugglar, and no more heed did he pay to me than
+if I was one of the pedestals. But I were in front of him at the door,
+and to slip out so was against all orders. So in front of him I stands,
+with my hand upon the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to
+know who he was, and such like, and how he comes there, and what he had
+been seeking, with the spoons and the forks and the gravies on my mind.
+And right I would have been in a court of law (if the lawyers was put
+out of it) for my hefforts in that situation. And then, what do you
+think he done, miss? So far from entering into any conversation with me,
+or hitting at me, like a man--which would have done good to think of--he
+send out one hand to the bottom of my vest--as they call it now in all
+the best livery tailors--and afore I could reason on it, there I was
+a-lying on a star in six colors of marble. When I come to think on it,
+it was but a push directed to a part of my system, and not a hit
+under the belt, the like of which no Briton would think of delivering.
+Nevertheless, there was no differ in what came to me, miss, and my
+spirit was roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of the prizemen.
+No time to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs as a' was
+slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over that he
+let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same moment a
+strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face to me. For a
+bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by reason of the kick
+I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit of the mind, a proud and
+'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said to my poor wife, reminded me
+a little of our Master George; not in his ordinary aspect, to be sure,
+but as Master George might look if he was going to the devil. Pray
+excoose me, miss, for bad words, but no good ones will do justice.
+And so off he goes, after one look at me on the ground, not worth
+considering, with his chin stuck up, as if the air was not good enough
+to be breathed perpendiklar like."
+
+"And of course you followed him," I exclaimed, perceiving that Stixon
+would allow me now to speak. "Without any delay you went after him."
+
+"Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was. My dooty was to stay by the
+door and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion. No little
+coorosity, or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in doing so. As
+an outraged man I was up for rushing out, but as a trusted official, and
+responsible head footman, miss--for I were not butler till nine months
+after that--my dooty was to put the big bolt in."
+
+"And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set the
+house on fire! Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened."
+
+"Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to obleege
+you, to put a bad construction upon me. You hurts me, miss, in my
+tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's darter would 'a
+doed. But there, they be none of them as they used to be! Master George
+would 'a said, if he ever had heard it. 'Stixon, my man, you have acted
+for the best, and showed a sound discretion. Stixon,' he would have
+said, 'here's a George and Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.'
+Ah, that sort of manliness is died out now."
+
+This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted with
+selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own recollections
+of my father. But still Mr. Stixon must have suffered severely in that
+conflict, and to blame him for not showing rashness was to misunderstand
+his position. And so, before putting any other questions to him, I felt
+in my pocket for a new half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.
+
+Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still in the
+struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful. Yet I
+saw that he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly philosophic
+proverb--"the half is more than the whole." Nevertheless, he stowed away
+his half, in harmony with a good old English saying.
+
+"Now, when you were able to get up at last," I inquired, with tender
+interest, "what did you see, and what did you do, and what conclusion
+did you come to?"
+
+"I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable.
+Coorosity on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub myself.
+But a man is a man, and the last thing to complain of is the exercise of
+his functions. And when I come round I went off to his lordship, as if
+I had heared his bell ring. All of us knew better than to speak till him
+beginning, for he were not what they now call 'halfable,' but very much
+to the contrary. So he says, 'You door-skulker, what do you want there?'
+And I see that he got his hot leg up, certain to fly to bad language.
+According, I asked, with my breath in my hand, if he pleased to see any
+young man there just now, by reason that such likes had been observated
+going out in some direction. But his lordship roared to me to go in
+another direction, not fit for young ladies. My old lord was up to every
+word of English; but his present lordship is the hopposite extreme."
+
+"Is that all you have to tell me, Stixon? Did you never see that fearful
+man again? Did you never even hear of him?"
+
+"Never, miss, never! And to nobody but you have I ever told all as I
+told now. But you seems to be born to hear it all."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+A WITCH
+
+
+It was true enough that Stixon now had nothing more to tell, but what he
+had told already seemed of very great importance, confirming strongly,
+as it did, the description given me by Jacob Rigg. And even the butler's
+concluding words--that I seemed born to hear it all--comforted me like
+some good omen, and cheered me forward to make them true. Not that I
+could, in my sad and dangerous enterprise, always be confident.
+Some little spirit I must have had, and some resolve to be faithful,
+according to the power of a very common mind, admiring but never
+claiming courage. For I never did feel in any kind of way any gift of
+inspiration, or even the fitness of a quick, strong mind for working out
+deeds of justice. There were many good ladies in America then, and now
+there are some in England, perceiving so clearly their own superiority
+as to run about largely proclaiming it. How often I longed to be a
+little more like these, equal to men in achievements of the body, and
+very far beyond them in questions of the mind!
+
+However, it was useless to regret my lacks, and foolish, perhaps, to
+think of them. To do my very best with what little gifts I had was more
+to the purpose and more sensible. Taking in lonely perplexity now this
+dim yet exciting view of things, I resolved, right or wrong, to abide
+at the place where the only chance was of pursuing my search. I was
+pledged, as perhaps has been said before, to keep from every one
+excepting faithful Betsy, and above all from Lord Castlewood, the
+unexpected little tale wrung out of Mr. Stixon. That promise had been
+given without any thought, in my eagerness to hear every thing, and
+probably some people would have thought of it no more. But the trusty
+butler was so scared when I asked him to release me from it, so penitent
+also at his own indiscretion, which never would have overcome him (as he
+said in the morning) only for the thunder-storm, that instead of getting
+off, I was quite obliged to renew and confirm my assurances.
+
+Therefore, in truth, I had no chance left but to go back to Shoxford and
+do my best, meeting all dark perils with the shield of right spread over
+me. And a great thing now in my favor was to feel some confidence again
+in the guidance of kind Wisdom. The sense of this never had abandoned me
+so much as to make me miserable about it; but still I had never tried to
+shelter under it, and stay there faithfully, as the best of people
+do. And even now I was not brought to such a happy attitude, although
+delivered by these little gleams of light from the dark void of
+fatalism, into which so many bitter blows had once been driving me.
+
+However, before setting off again, I made one more attempt upon Lord
+Castlewood, longing to know whether his suspicions would help me at
+all to identify the figure which had frightened both the sexton and the
+butler. That the person was one and the same, I did not for a moment
+call in question, any more than I doubted that he was the man upon
+whose head rested the blood of us. But why he should be allowed to go
+scot-free while another bore his brand, and many others died for him,
+and why all my most just and righteous efforts to discover him should
+receive, if not discouragement, at any rate most lukewarm aid--these and
+several other questions were as dark as ever.
+
+"You must not return to Shoxford, my cousin," Lord Castlewood said to
+me that day, after a plain though courteous refusal to enlighten me even
+with a mere surmise, except upon the condition before rejected. "I can
+not allow you to be there without strict supervision and protection. You
+will not, perhaps, be aware of it, as perhaps you have not been before;
+but a careful watch will be kept on you. I merely tell you this that you
+may not make mistakes, and confound friendly vigilance with the spying
+of an enemy. Erema, you will be looked after."
+
+I could not help being grateful for his kindness, and really, try as I
+might to be fearless, it would be a great comfort to have some one to
+protect me. On the other hand, how would this bear upon my own freedom
+of looking about, my desire to make my own occasions, and the need of
+going every where? Could these be kept to my liking at all while an
+unknown power lay in kind regard of me? Considering these things, I
+begged my cousin to leave me to my own devices, for that I was afraid
+of nobody on earth, while only seeking justice, and that England must
+be worse than the worst parts of America if any harm to me could be
+apprehended at quiet times and in such a quiet place.
+
+My cousin said no more upon that point, though I felt that he was not in
+any way convinced; but he told me that he thought I should pay a little
+visit, if only for a day, such as I treated him with, to my good friends
+at Bruntsea, before I returned to Shoxford. There was no one now
+at Bruntsea whom I might not wish to meet, as he knew by a trifling
+accident; and after all the kind services rendered by Major and Mrs.
+Hockin, it was hardly right to let them begin to feel themselves
+neglected. Now the very same thing had occurred to me, and I was going
+to propose it; and many things which I found it hard to do without were
+left in my little chest of locked-up drawers there. But of that, to my
+knowledge, I scarcely thought twice; whereas I longed to see and have
+a talk with dear "Aunt Mary." Now, since my affairs had been growing so
+strange, and Lord Castlewood had come forward--not strongly, but still
+quite enough to speak of--there had been a kind-hearted and genuine wish
+at Bruntsea to recover me. And this desire had unreasonably grown while
+starved with disappointment. The less they heard of me, the more they
+imagined in their rich good-will, and the surer they became that, after
+all, there was something in my ideas.
+
+But how could I know this, without any letters from them, since letters
+were a luxury forbidden me at Shoxford? I knew it through one of the
+simplest and commonest of all nature's arrangements. Stixon's boy,
+as every body called him (though he must have been close upon
+five-and-twenty, and carried a cane out of sight of the windows), being
+so considered, and treated boyishly by the maids of Castlewood, asserted
+his dignity, and rose above his value as much as he had lain below it,
+by showing that he owned a tender heart, and them that did not despise
+it. For he chanced to be walking with his cane upon the beach (the very
+morning after he first went to Bruntsea, too late for any train back
+again), and casting glances of interior wonder over the unaccustomed
+sea--when from the sea itself out-leaped a wondrous rosy deity.
+
+"You there, Mr. Stixon! Oh my! How long?" exclaimed Mrs. Hockin's new
+parlormaid, ready to drop, though in full print now, on the landward
+steps of the bathing-machine set up by the reckless Major.
+
+"Come this very hinstant, miss, honor bright!" replied the junior
+Stixon, who had moved in good society; "and just in the hackmy of time,
+miss, if I may offer you my 'umble hand."
+
+The fair nymph fixed him with a penetrating gaze through tresses full
+of salt curliness, while her cheeks were conscious of an unclad dip. But
+William Stixon's eyes were firm with pure truth, gently toning into shy
+reproach and tenderness. He had met her at supper last night, and done
+his best; but (as he said to the Castlewood maids) it was only feeling
+then, whereas now it was emoshun.
+
+"Then you are a gentleman!" Polly Hopkins cried; "and indeed, Mr.
+Stixon, these are slippery things." She was speaking of the steps, as
+she came down them, and they had no hand-rails; and the young man felt
+himself to be no more Stixon's boy, but a gentleman under sweet refining
+pressure.
+
+From that hour forth it was pronounced, and they left the world to its
+own opinion, that they were keeping company; and although they were
+sixty miles apart by air, and eighty-two by railway, at every post
+their hearts were one, with considerable benefit to the United Kingdom's
+revenue. Also they met by the sad sea waves, when the bathing-machines
+had been hauled up--for the Major now had three of them--as often as
+Stixon senior smiled--which he did whenever he was not put out--on the
+bygone ways of these children. For Polly Hopkins had a hundred pounds,
+as well as being the only child of the man who kept the only shop for
+pickled pork in Bruntsea. And my Mr. Stixon could always contrive to get
+orders from his lordship to send the boy away, with his carriage paid,
+when his health demanded bathing. Hence it is manifest that the deeds
+and thoughts of Bruntsea House, otherwise called "Bruntlands,"
+were known quite as well, and discussed even better--because
+dispassionately--at Castlewood than and as they were at home.
+
+Now I won forever the heart of Stixon's boy, and that of Polly
+Hopkins, by recoiling with horror from the thought of going to Bruntsea
+unattended. After all my solitary journeys, this might have been called
+hypocrisy, if it had been inconvenient; but coming as it did, it was
+pronounced, by all who desired either news or love, to be another proof
+of the goodness of my heart.
+
+Escorted thus by William Stixon (armed with a brilliant cane bought for
+this occasion), and knowing that Sir Montague Hockin was not there, I
+arrived at Bruntlands in the afternoon, and received a kindly welcome
+from my dear friend Mrs. Hockin. Her husband was from home, and she
+grieved to say that now he was generally doing this; but nobody else
+could have any idea what his avocations were! Then she paid me some
+compliments on my appearance--a thing that I never thought of, except
+when I came to a question of likeness, or chanced to be thinking of
+things, coming up as they will, at a looking-glass.
+
+That the Major was out was a truth established in my mind some time
+ago; because I had seen him, as our fly crawled by, expressly and
+emphatically at work on a rampart of his own designing. The work was
+quite new to me, but not so his figure. Though I could not see people
+three miles off, as Firm Gundry was said to do, I had pretty clear
+sight, and could not mistake the Major within a furlong. And there he
+was, going about in a row of square notches against the sea-line, with
+his coat off, and brandishing some tool, vehemently carrying on to
+spirits less active than his own. I burned with desire to go and join
+him, for I love to see activity; but Mrs. Hockin thought that I had
+better stay away, because it was impossible to get on there without
+language too strong for young ladies.
+
+This closed the question, and I stopped with her, and found the best
+comfort that I ever could have dreamed of. "Aunt Mary" was so steadfast,
+and so built up with, or rather built of, the very faith itself, that to
+talk with her was as good as reading the noblest chapter of the Bible.
+She put by all possibility of doubt as to the modern interference of the
+Lord, with such a sweet pity and the seasoned smile of age, and so much
+feeling (which would have been contempt if she had not been softened
+by her own escapes), that really I, who had come expecting to set her
+beautiful white hair on end, became like a little child put into the
+corner, but too young yet for any other punishment at school, except to
+be looked at. Nevertheless, though I did look small, it made me all the
+happier. I seemed to become less an individual, and more a member of
+a large kind race under paternal management. From a practical point of
+view this may have been amiss, but it helped to support me afterward.
+And before I began to get weary or rebel against her gentle teaching, in
+came her husband; and she stopped at once, because he had never any time
+for it.
+
+"My geological hammer!" cried the Major, being in a rush as usual.
+"Oh, Miss Castlewood! I did not see you. Pardon me! It is the want of
+practice only; so wholly have you deserted us. Fallen into better hands,
+of course. Well, how are you? But I need not ask. If ever there was a
+young lady who looked well--don't tell me of troubles, or worries, or
+nerves--I put up my glasses, and simply say, 'Pretty young ladies
+are above all pity!' My hammer, dear Mary; my hammer I must have. The
+geological one, you know; we have come on a bit of old Roman work; the
+bricklayer's hammers go flat, like lead. I have just one minute and a
+half to spare. What fine fellows those Romans were! I will build like
+a Roman. See to every bit of it myself, Erema. No contractor's jobs for
+me. Mary, you know where to find it."
+
+"Well, dear, I think that you had it last, to get the bung out of the
+beer barrel, when the stool broke down in the corner, you know, because
+you would--"
+
+"Never mind about that. The drayman made a fool of himself. I proceeded
+upon true principles. That fellow knew nothing of leverage."
+
+"Well, dear, of course you understand it best. But he told cook that it
+was quite a mercy that you got off without a broken leg; and compared
+with that, two gallons of spilled ale--" Mrs. Hockin made off, without
+finishing her sentence.
+
+"What a woman she is!" cried the Major; "she takes such a lofty view
+of things, and she can always find my tools. Erema, after dinner I
+must have a talk with you. There is something going on here--on my
+manor--which I can not at all get a clew to, except by connecting you
+with it, the Lord knows how. Of course you have nothing to do with it;
+but still my life has been so free from mystery that, that--you know
+what I mean--"
+
+"That you naturally think I must be at the bottom of every thing
+mysterious. Now is there any thing dark about me? Do I not labor to get
+at the light? Have I kept from your knowledge any single thing? But you
+never cared to go into them."
+
+"It is hardly fair of you to say that. The fact is that you, of your own
+accord, have chosen other counselors. Have you heard any more of your
+late guardian, Mr. Shovelin? I suppose that his executor, or some one
+appointed by him, is now your legal guardian."
+
+"I have not even asked what the law is," I replied. "Lord Castlewood is
+my proper guardian, according to all common-sense, and I mean to have
+him so. He has inquired through his solicitors as to Mr. Shovelin, and
+I am quite free there. My father's will is quite good, they say; but it
+never has been proved, and none of them care to do it. My cousin thinks
+that I could compel them to prove it, or to renounce in proper form; but
+Mr. Shovelin's sons are not nice people--as different from him as night
+from day, careless and wild and dashing."
+
+"Then do you mean to do nothing about it? What a time she is finding
+that hammer!"
+
+"I leave it entirely to my cousin, and he is waiting for legal advice.
+I wish to have the will, of course, for the sake of my dear father; but
+with or without any will, my mother's little property comes to me. And
+if my dear father had nothing to leave, why should we run up a great
+lawyer's bill?"
+
+"To be sure not! I see. That makes all the difference. I admire your
+common-sense," said the Major--"but there! Come and look, and just
+exercise it here. There is that very strange woman again, just at the
+end of my new road. She stands quite still, and then stares about,
+sometimes for an hour together. Nobody knows who she is, or why she
+came. She has taken a tumble-down house on my manor, from a wretch of a
+fellow who denies my title; and what she lives on is more than any one
+can tell, for she never spends sixpence in Bruntsea. Some think that she
+walks in the dark to Newport, and gets all her food at some ship stores
+there. And one of our fishermen vows that he met her walking on the sea,
+as he rowed home one night, and she had a long red bag on her shoulder.
+She is a witch, that is certain; for she won't answer me, however
+politely I accost her. But the oddest thing of all is the name she gave
+to the fellow she took the house from. What do you think she called
+herself? Of all things in the world--'Mrs. Castlewood!' I congratulate
+you on your relative."
+
+"How very strange!" I answered. "Oh, now I see why you connect me with
+it; and I beg your pardon for having been vexed. But let me go and see
+her. Oh, may I go at once, if you please, and speak to her?"
+
+"The very thing I wish--if you are not afraid. I will come with you,
+when I get my hammer. Oh, here it is! Mary, how clever you are! Now look
+out of the window, and you shall see Erema make up to her grandmamma."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+NOT AT HOME
+
+
+Mrs. Hockin, however, had not the pleasure promised her by the facetious
+Major of seeing me "make up to my grandmamma." For although we set off
+at once to catch the strange woman who had roused so much curiosity,
+and though, as we passed the door of Bruntlands, we saw her still at her
+post in the valley, like Major Hockin's new letter-box, for some reason
+best known to herself we could not see any more of her. For, hurry as he
+might upon other occasions, nothing would make the Major cut a corner of
+his winding "drive" when descending it with a visitor. He enjoyed every
+yard of its length, because it was his own at every step, and he counted
+his paces in an under-tone, to be sure of the length, for perhaps the
+thousandth time. It was long enough in a straight line, one would have
+thought, but he was not the one who thought so; and therefore he had
+doubled it by judicious windings, as if for the purpose of breaking the
+descent.
+
+"Three hundred and twenty-one," he said, as he came to a post, where he
+meant to have a lodge as soon as his wife would let him; "now the old
+woman stands fifty-five yards on, at a spot where I mean to have an
+ornamental bridge, because our fine saline element runs up there when
+the new moon is perigee. My dear, I am a little out of breath, which
+affects my sight for the moment. Doubtless that is why I do not see
+her."
+
+"If I may offer an opinion," I said, "in my ignorance of all the changes
+you have made, the reason why we do not see her may be that she is gone
+out of sight."
+
+"Impossible!" Major Hockin cried--"simply impossible, Erema! She never
+moves for an hour and a half. And she was not come, was she, when you
+came by?"
+
+"I will not be certain," I answered; "but I think that I must have seen
+her if she had been there, because I was looking about particularly at
+all your works as we came by."
+
+"Then she must be there still; let us tackle her."
+
+This was easier said than done, for we found no sign of any body at the
+place where she certainly had been standing less than five minutes ago.
+We stood at the very end and last corner of the ancient river trough,
+where a little seam went inland from it, as if some trifle of a brook
+had stolen down while it found a good river to welcome it. But now there
+was only a little oozy gloss from the gleam of the sun upon some lees of
+marshy brine left among the rushes by the last high tide.
+
+"You see my new road and the key to my intentions?" said the Major,
+forgetting all about his witch, and flourishing his geological hammer,
+while standing thus at his "nucleus." "To understand all, you have only
+to stand here. You see those leveling posts, adjusted with scientific
+accuracy. You see all those angles, calculated with micrometric
+precision. You see how the curves are radiated--"
+
+"It is very beautiful, I have no doubt; but you can not have Uncle Sam's
+gift of machinery. And do you understand every bit of it yourself?"
+
+"Erema, not a jot of it. I like to talk about it freely when I can,
+because I see all its beauties. But as to understanding it, my dear, you
+might set to, if you were an educated female, and deliver me a lecture
+upon my own plan. Intellect is, in such matters, a bubble. I know good
+bricks, good mortar, and good foundations."
+
+"With your great ability, you must do that," I answered, very gently,
+being touched with his humility and allowance of my opinion; "you will
+make a noble town of it. But when is the railway coming?"
+
+"Not yet. We have first to get our Act; and a miserable-minded wretch,
+who owns nothing but a rabbit-warren, means to oppose it. Don't let us
+talk of him. It puts one out of patience when a man can not see his
+own interest. But come and see our assembly-rooms, literary institute,
+baths, etc., etc.--that is what we are urging forward now."
+
+"But may I not go first and look for my strange namesake? Would it be
+wrong of me to call upon her?"
+
+"No harm whatever," replied my companion; "likewise no good. Call fifty
+times, but you will get no answer. However, it is not a very great
+round, and you will understand my plans more clearly. Step out, my dear,
+as if you had got a troop of Mexicans after you. Ah, what a fine turn
+for that lot now!" He was thinking of the war which had broken out, and
+the battle of Bull's Run.
+
+Without any such headlong speed, we soon came to the dwelling-place of
+the stranger, and really for once the good Major had not much overdone
+his description. Truly it was almost tumbling down, though massively
+built, and a good house long ago; and it looked the more miserable now
+from being placed in a hollow of the ground, whose slopes were tufted
+with rushes and thistles and ragwort. The lower windows were blocked up
+from within, the upper were shattered and crumbling and dangerous,
+with blocks of cracked stone jutting over them; and the last surviving
+chimney gave less smoke than a workman's homeward whiff of his pipe to
+comfort and relieve the air.
+
+The only door that we could see was of heavy black oak, without any
+knocker; but I clinched my hand, having thick gloves on, and made what
+I thought a very creditable knock, while the Major stood by, with his
+blue-lights up, and keenly gazed and gently smiled.
+
+"Knock again, my dear," he said; "you don't knock half hard enough."
+
+I knocked again with all my might, and got a bruised hand for a
+fortnight, but there was not even the momentary content produced by an
+active echo. The door was as dead as every thing else.
+
+"Now for my hammer," my companion cried. "This house, in all sound law,
+is my own. I will have a 'John Doe and Richard Roe'--a fine action of
+ejectment. Shall I be barred out upon my own manor?"
+
+With hot indignation he swung his hammer, but nothing came of it except
+more noise. Then the Major grew warm and angry.
+
+"My charter contains the right of burning witches or drowning them,
+according to their color. The execution is specially imposed upon the
+bailiff of this ancient town, and he is my own pickled-pork man. His
+name is Hopkins, and I will have him out with his seal and stick and all
+the rest. Am I to be laughed at in this way?"
+
+For we thought we heard a little screech of laughter from the loneliness
+of the deep dark place, but no other answer came, and perhaps it was
+only our own imagining.
+
+"Is there no other door--perhaps one at the back?" I asked, as the lord
+of the manor stamped.
+
+"No, that has been walled up long ago. The villain has defied me from
+the very first. Well, we shall see. This is all very fine. You witness
+that they deny the owner entrance?"
+
+"Undoubtedly I can depose to that. But we must not waste your valuable
+time."
+
+"After all, the poor ruin is worthless," he went on, calming down as we
+retired. "It must be leveled, and that hole filled up. It is quite an
+eye-sore to our new parade. And no doubt it belongs to me--no doubt it
+does. The fellow who claims it was turned out of the law. Fancy any man
+turned out of the law! Erema, in all your far West experience, did you
+ever see a man bad enough to be turned out of the law?"
+
+"Major Hockin, how can I tell? But I fear that their practice was very,
+very sad--they very nearly always used to hang them."
+
+"The best use--the best use a rogue can be put to. Some big thief has
+put it the opposite way, because he was afraid of his own turn. The
+constitution must be upheld, and, by the Lord! it shall be--at any rate,
+in East Bruntsea. West Bruntsea is all a small-pox warren out of my
+control, and a skewer in my flesh. And some of my tenants have gone
+across the line to snap their dirty hands at me."
+
+Being once in this cue, Major Hockin went on, not talking to me much,
+but rather to himself, though expecting me now and then to say "yes;"
+and this I did when necessary, for his principles of action were beyond
+all challenge, and the only question was how he carried them out.
+
+He took me to his rampart, which was sure to stop the sea, and at the
+same time to afford the finest place in all Great Britain for a view of
+it. Even an invalid might sit here in perfect shelter from the heaviest
+gale, and watch such billows as were not to be seen except upon the
+Major's property.
+
+"The reason of that is quite simple," he said, "and a child may see the
+force of it. In no other part of the kingdom can you find so steep a
+beach fronting the southwest winds, which are ten to one of all other
+winds, without any break of sand or rock outside. Hence we have what you
+can not have on a shallow shore--grand rollers: straight from the very
+Atlantic, Erema; you and I have seen them. You may see by the map that
+they all end here, with the wind in the proper quarter."
+
+"Oh, please not to talk of such horrors," I said. "Why, your ramparts
+would go like pie crust."
+
+The Major smiled a superior smile, and after more talk we went home to
+dinner.
+
+From something more than mere curiosity, I waited at Bruntsea for a day
+or two, hoping to see that strange namesake of mine who had shown so
+much inhospitality. For she must have been at home when we made that
+pressing call, inasmuch as there was no other place to hide her within
+the needful distance of the spot where she had stood. But the longer
+I waited, the less would she come out--to borrow the good Irishman's
+expression--and the Major's pillar-box, her favorite resort, was left in
+conspicuous solitude. And when a letter came from Sir Montague Hockin,
+asking leave to be at Bruntlands on the following evening, I packed
+up my goods with all haste, and set off, not an hour too soon, for
+Shoxford.
+
+But before taking leave of these kind friends, I begged them to do for
+me one little thing, without asking me to explain my reason, which,
+indeed, was more than I could do. I begged them, not of course to watch
+Sir Montague, for that they could not well do to a guest, but simply to
+keep their eyes open and prepared for any sign of intercourse, if such
+there were, between this gentleman and that strange interloper. Major
+Hockin stared, and his wife looked at me as if my poor mind must
+have gone astray, and even to myself my own thought appeared absurd.
+Remembering, however, what Sir Montague had said, and other little
+things as well, I did not laugh as they did. But perhaps one part of my
+conduct was not right, though the wrong (if any) had been done before
+that--to wit, I had faithfully promised Mrs. Price not to say a word
+at Bruntlands about their visitor's low and sinful treachery toward my
+cousin. To give such a promise had perhaps been wrong, but still without
+it I should have heard nothing of matters that concerned me nearly. And
+now it seemed almost worse to keep than to break such a pledge, when I
+thought of a pious, pure-minded, and holy-hearted woman, like my dear
+"Aunt Mary," unwittingly brought into friendly contact with a man of the
+lowest nature. And as for the Major, instead of sitting down with such
+a man to dinner, what would he have done but drive him straightway from
+the door, and chase him to the utmost verge of his manor with the peak
+end of his "geological hammer?"
+
+However, away I went without a word against that contemptible and base
+man, toward whom--though he never had injured me--I cherished, for my
+poor cousin's sake, the implacable hatred of virtuous youth. And a wild
+idea had occurred to me (as many wild ideas did now in the crowd of
+things gathering round me) that this strange woman, concealed from the
+world, yet keenly watching some members of it, might be that fallen and
+miserable creature who had fled from a good man with a bad one, because
+he was more like herself--Flittamore, Lady Castlewood. Not that she
+could be an "old woman" yet, but she might look old, either by disguise,
+or through her own wickedness; and every body knows how suddenly those
+southern beauties fall off, alike in face and figure. Mrs. Price had not
+told me what became of her, or even whether she was dead or alive, but
+merely said, with a meaning look, that she was "punished" for her sin,
+and I had not ventured to inquire how, the subject being so distasteful.
+
+To my great surprise, and uneasiness as well, I had found at Bruntlands
+no letter whatever, either to the Major or myself, from Uncle Sam or any
+other person at the saw-mills. There had not been time for any answer
+to my letter of some two months back, yet being alarmed by the Sawyer's
+last tidings, I longed, with some terror, for later news. And all the
+United Kingdom was now watching with tender interest the dismemberment,
+as it almost appeared, of the other mighty Union. Not with malice, or
+snug satisfaction, as the men of the North in their agony said, but
+certainly without any proper anguish yet, and rather as a genial
+and sprightly spectator, whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his
+applause of the spirit and skill of the weaker side. "'Tis a good
+fight--let them fight it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but
+in spite of some American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been
+galling) every true Englishman deeply would have mourned the humiliation
+of his kindred.
+
+In this anxiety for news I begged that my letters might be forwarded
+under cover to the postmistress at Shoxford, and bearing my initials.
+For now I had made up my mind to let Mrs. Busk know whatever I could
+tell her. I had found her a cross and well-educated woman, far above her
+neighbors, and determined to remain so. Gossip, that universal leveler,
+theoretically she despised; and she had that magnificent esteem for
+rank which works so beautifully in England. And now when my good nurse
+reasonably said that, much as she loved to be with me, her business
+would allow that delight no longer, and it also came home to my own mind
+that money would be running short again, and small hope left in this
+dreadful civil war of our nugget escaping pillage (which made me shudder
+horribly at internal discord), I just did this--I dismissed Betsy, or
+rather I let her dismiss herself, which she might not have altogether
+meant to do, although she threatened it so often. For here she had
+nothing to do but live well, and protest against tricks of her own
+profession which she practiced as necessary laws at home; and so, with
+much affection, for the time we parted.
+
+Mrs. Busk was delighted at her departure, for she never had liked to be
+criticised so keenly while she was doing her very best. And as soon as
+the wheels of Betsy's fly had shown their last spoke at the corner, she
+told me, with a smile, that her mind had been made up to give us notice
+that very evening to seek for better lodgings. But she could not wish
+for a quieter, pleasanter, or more easily pleased young lady than I was
+without any mischief-maker; and so, on the spur of the moment, I took
+her into my own room, while her little girl minded the shop, and there
+and then I told her who I was, and what I wanted.
+
+And now she behaved most admirably. Instead of expressing surprise, she
+assured me that all along she had felt there was something, and that
+I must be somebody. Lovely as my paintings were (which I never heard,
+before or since, from any impartial censor), she had known that it could
+not be that alone which had kept me so long in their happy valley. And
+now she did hope I would do her the honor to stay beneath her humble
+roof, though entitled to one so different. And was the fairy ring in the
+church-yard made of all my family?
+
+I replied that too surely this was so, and that nothing would please me
+better than to find, according to my stature, room to sleep inside it
+as soon as ever I should have solved the mystery of its origin. At the
+moment this was no exaggeration, so depressing was the sense of fighting
+against the unknown so long, with scarcely any one to stand by me, or
+avenge me if I fell. And Betsy's departure, though I tried to take it
+mildly, had left me with a readiness to catch my breath.
+
+But to dwell upon sadness no more than need be (a need as sure as
+hunger), it was manifest now to my wondering mind that once more I had
+chanced upon a good, and warm, and steadfast heart. Every body is said
+to be born, whether that happens by night or day, with a certain little
+widowed star, which has lost its previous mortal, concentrating from a
+billion billion of miles, or leagues, or larger measure, intense, but
+generally invisible, radiance upon him or her; and to take for the
+moment this old fable as of serious meaning, my star was to find bad
+facts at a glance, but no bad folk without long gaze.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+THE MAN AT LAST
+
+
+This new alliance with Mrs. Busk not only refreshed my courage, but
+helped me forward most importantly. In truth, if it had not been for
+this I never could have borne what I had to bear, and met the perils
+which I had to meet. For I had the confidence of feeling now that here
+was some one close at hand, an intelligent person, and well acquainted
+with the place and neighborhood, upon whom I could rely for warning,
+succor, and, if the worst should come to the very worst, revenge. It is
+true that already I had Jacob Rigg, and perhaps the protector promised
+by my cousin; but the former was as ignorant as he was honest, and of
+the latter, as he made no sign, how could I tell any thing?
+
+Above all things, Mrs. Busk's position, as mistress of the letters, gave
+me very great advantage both for offense and defense. For without the
+smallest breach of duty or of loyal honor she could see that my letters
+passed direct to me or from me, as the case might be, at the same time
+that she was bound to observe all epistles addressed to strangers or
+new-comers in her district, which extended throughout the valley. And
+by putting my letters in the Portsmouth bag, instead of that for
+Winchester, I could freely correspond with any of my friends without any
+one seeing name or postmark in the neighboring villages.
+
+It is needless to say that I had long since explored and examined with
+great diligence that lonely spot where my grandfather met his terrible
+and mysterious fate. Not that there seemed to be any hope now, after
+almost nineteen years, of finding even any token of the crime committed
+there. Only that it was natural for me, feeling great horror of this
+place, to seek to know it thoroughly.
+
+For this I had good opportunity, because the timid people of the valley,
+toward the close of day, would rather trudge another half mile of the
+homeward road than save brave legs at the thumping cost of hearts not
+so courageous. For the planks were now called "Murder-bridge;" and
+every body knew that the red spots on it, which could never be seen by
+daylight, began to gleam toward the hour of the deed, and glowed (as if
+they would burn the wood) when the church clock struck eleven.
+
+This phenomenon was beyond my gifts of observation; and knowing that
+my poor grandfather had scarcely set foot on the bridge, if ever he set
+foot there at all--which at present was very doubtful--also that he
+had fallen backward, and only bled internally, I could not reconcile
+tradition (however recent) with proven truth. And sure of no disturbance
+from the step of any native, here I often sat in a little bowered
+shelter of my own, well established up the rise, down which the path
+made zigzag, and screened from that and the bridge as well by sheaf of
+twigs and lop of leaves. It was a little forward thicket, quite detached
+from the upland copse, to which perhaps it had once belonged, and
+crusted up from the meadow slope with sod and mould in alternate steps.
+And being quite the elbow of a foreland of the meadow-reach, it yielded
+almost a "bird's-eye view" of the beautiful glade and the wandering
+brook.
+
+One evening when I was sitting here, neither drawing, nor working, nor
+even thinking with any set purpose, but idly allowing my mind to rove,
+like the rivulet, without any heed, I became aware of a moving figure
+in the valley. At first it did not appear to me as a thing at all worth
+notice; it might be a very straightforward cow, or a horse, coming on
+like a stalking-horse, keeping hind-legs strictly behind, in direct
+desire of water. I had often seen those sweet things that enjoy four
+legs walking in the line of distance as if they were no better off than
+we are, kindly desiring, perhaps, to make the biped spectator content
+with himself. And I was content to admire this cow or horse, or whatever
+it might be, without any more than could be helped of that invidious
+feeling which has driven the human race now to establish its right to a
+tail, and its hope of four legs. So little, indeed, did I think of what
+I saw, that when among the hazel twigs, parted carelessly by my hand,
+a cluster of nuts hung manifest, I gathered it, and began to crack and
+eat, although they were scarcely ripe yet.
+
+But while employed in this pleasant way, I happened to glance again
+through my leafy screen, and then I distinguished the figure in the
+distance as that of a man walking rapidly. He was coming down the
+mill-stream meadow toward the wooden bridge, carrying a fishing rod, but
+clearly not intent on angling. For instead of following the course
+of the stream, he was keeping quite away from it, avoiding also the
+footpath, or, at any rate, seeming to prefer the long shadows of the
+trees and the tufted places. This made me look at him, and very soon I
+shrank into my nest and watched him.
+
+As he came nearer any one could tell that he was no village workman,
+bolder than the rest, and venturesome to cross the "Murder-bridge" in
+his haste to be at home. The fishing rod alone was enough to show this
+when it came into clearer view; for our good people, though they fished
+sometimes, only used rough rods of their own making, without any varnish
+or brass thing for the line. And the man was of different height and
+walk and dress from any of our natives.
+
+"Who can he be?" I whispered to myself, as my heart began to beat
+heavily, and then seemed almost to stop, as it answered, "This is the
+man who was in the churchyard." Ignoble as it was, and contemptible,
+and vile, and traitorous to all duty, my first thought was about my own
+escape; for I felt that if this man saw me there he would rush up
+the hill and murder me. Within pistol-shot of the very place where my
+grandfather had been murdered--a lonely place, an unholy spot, and I was
+looking at the hand that did it.
+
+The thought of this made me tremble so, though well aware that my death
+might ensue from a twig on the rustle, or a leaf upon the flutter, that
+my chance of making off unseen was gone ere I could seize it. For now
+the man was taking long strides over the worn-out planks of the bridge,
+disdaining the hand-rail, and looking upward, as if to shun sight of the
+footing. Advancing thus, he must have had his gaze point-blank upon my
+lair of leafage; but, luckily for me, there was gorse upon the ridge,
+and bracken and rag-thistles, so that none could spy up and through the
+footing of my lurking-place. But if any person could have spied me,
+this man was the one to do it. So carefully did he scan the distance
+and inspect the foreground, as if he were resolved that no eye should be
+upon him while he was doing what he came to do. And he even drew forth
+a little double telescope, such as are called "binoculars," and fixed
+it on the thicket which hid me from him, and then on some other dark
+places.
+
+No effort would compose or hush the heavy beating of my heart; my lips
+were stiffened with dread of loud breath, and all power of motion left
+me. For even a puff of wind might betray me, the ruffle of a spray, or
+the lifting of a leaf, or the random bounce of a beetle. Great peril
+had encompassed me ere now, but never had it grasped me as this did, and
+paralyzed all the powers of my body. Rather would I have stood in the
+midst of a score of Mexican rovers than thus in the presence of that one
+man. And yet was not this the very thing for which I had waited, longed,
+and labored? I scorned myself for this craven loss of nerve, but that
+did not enable me to help it. In this benumbed horror I durst not even
+peep at the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that he had
+moved from the end of the planks (where he stood for some time as calmly
+as if he had done nothing there), and had passed round the back of the
+hawthorn-tree, and gone down to the place where the body was found, and
+was making most narrow and minute search there. And now I could watch
+him without much danger, standing as I did well above him, while his
+eyes were steadfastly bent downward. And, not content with eyesight
+only, he seemed to be feeling every blade of grass or weed, every single
+stick or stone, craning into each cranny of the ground, and probing
+every clod with his hands. Then, after vainly searching with the very
+utmost care all the space from the hawthorn trunk to the meadow-leet
+(which was dry as usual), he ran, in a fury of impatience, to his rod,
+which he had stuck into the bank, as now I saw, and drew off the butt
+end, and removed the wheel, or whatever it is that holds the fishing
+line; and this butt had a long spike to it, shining like a halberd in a
+picture.
+
+This made me shudder; but my spirit was returning, and therewith my
+power of reasoning, and a deep stir of curiosity. After so many years
+and such a quantity of searching, what could there still be left to seek
+for in this haunted and horrible place? And who was the man that was
+looking for it?
+
+The latter question partly solved itself. It must be the murderer, and
+no other, whoever he might be among the many black spots of humanity.
+But as to the other point, no light could be thrown upon it, unless the
+search should be successful, and perhaps not even then. But now this
+anxiety, and shame of terror, made me so bold--for I can not call it
+brave--that I could not rest satisfied where I was, and instead of
+blessing every leaf and twig that hid me from the enemy, nothing would
+do for me but to creep nearer, in spite of that truculent long bright
+spike.
+
+I thought of my father, and each fibre of my frame seemed to harden with
+vigor and fleetness. Every muscle of my body could be trusted now. I had
+always been remarkably light of foot. Could a man of that age catch me?
+It was almost as much as Firm Gundry could do, as in childish days I had
+proved to him. And this man, although his hair was not gray, must be on
+the slow side of fifty now, and perhaps getting short of his very wicked
+breath. Then I thought of poor Firm, and of good Uncle Sam, and how they
+scorned poltroonery; and, better still, I thought of that great Power
+which always had protected me: in a word, I resolved to risk it.
+
+But I had not reckoned upon fire-arms, which such a scoundrel was pretty
+sure to have; and that idea struck cold upon my valor. Nevertheless, I
+would not turn back. With no more sound than a field-mouse makes in the
+building of its silken nest, and feet as light as the step of the wind
+upon the scarcely ruffled grass, I quitted my screen, and went gliding
+down a hedge, or rather the residue of some old hedge, which would
+shelter me a little toward the hollow of the banks. I passed low places,
+where the man must have seen me if he had happened to look up; but he
+was stooping with his back to me, and working in the hollow of the dry
+water trough. He was digging with the long spike of his rod, and I heard
+the rattle of each pebble that he struck.
+
+Before he stood up again, to ease his back and to look at the
+ground which he still had to turn, I was kneeling behind a short,
+close-branched holly, the very last bush of the hedge-row, scarcely
+fifteen yards from the hawthorn-tree. It was quite impossible to get
+nearer without coming face to face with him. And now I began again to
+tremble, but with a great effort conquered it.
+
+The man was panting with his labor, and seemed to be in a vile temper
+too. He did not swear, but made low noises full of disappointment. And
+then he caught up his tool, with a savage self-control, and fell to
+again.
+
+Now was my time to see what he was like, and engrave him on my memory.
+But, lo! in a moment I need not do that. The face was the bad image
+of my father's. A lowered, and vicious, and ill-bred image of a noble
+countenance--such as it was just possible to dream that my dear father's
+might have fallen to, if his mind and soul had plunged away from the
+good inborn and implanted in them. The figure was that of a tall strong
+man, with shoulders rather slouching, and a habit of keeping his head
+thrown back, which made a long chin look longer. Altogether he seemed a
+perilous foe, and perhaps a friend still more perilous.
+
+Be he what he might, he was working very hard. Not one of all Uncle
+Sam's men, to my knowledge, least of all Martin, would have worked so
+hard. With his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived to turn over, in
+less than twenty minutes, the entire bed of the meadow-leet, or trough,
+for a length of about ten yards. Then he came to the mouth, where the
+water of the main stream lapped back into it, and he turned up the
+bottom as far as he could reach, and waited for the mud he had raised to
+clear away. When this had flowed down with the stream, he walked in for
+some little distance till the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his
+labor, there was nothing.
+
+Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze crept up
+the tranquil valley. Shadows waned and faded into dimness more diffuse,
+and light grew soft and vague and vaporous. The gleam of water, and the
+gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees, began to lose their several
+phase and mingle into one large twilight blend. And cattle, from
+their milking sheds, came lowing for more pasture; and the bark of a
+shepherd's dog rang quick, as if his sheep were drowsy.
+
+In the midst of innocent sights and sounds that murderer's heart misgave
+him. He left his vain quest off, and gazed, with fear and hate of
+nature's beauty, at the change from day to night which had not waited
+for him. Some touch of his childhood moved him perhaps, some thought of
+times when he played "I spy," or listened to twilight ghost tales; at
+any rate, as he rose and faced the evening, he sighed heavily.
+
+Then he strode away; and although he passed me almost within length of
+his rod, there was little fear of his discovering me, because his mind
+was elsewhere.
+
+It will, perhaps, be confessed by all who are not as brave as lions
+that so far I had acquitted myself pretty well in this trying matter.
+Horribly scared as I was at first, I had not allowed this to conquer
+me, but had even rushed into new jeopardy. But now the best part of my
+courage was spent; and when the tall stranger refixed his rod and calmly
+recrossed those ominous planks, I durst not set forth on the perilous
+errand of spying out his ways and tracking him. A glance was enough to
+show the impossibility in those long meadows of following without being
+seen in this stage of the twilight. Moreover, my nerves had been tried
+too long, and presence of mind could not last forever. All I could do,
+therefore, was to creep as far as the trunk of the hawthorn-tree, and
+thence observe that my enemy did not return by the way he had come, but
+hastened down the dusky valley.
+
+One part of his labors has not been described, though doubtless a highly
+needful one. To erase the traces of his work, or at least obscure them
+to a careless eye, when he had turned as much ground as he thought it
+worth his while to meddle with, he trod it back again to its level as
+nearly as might be, and then (with a can out of his fishing basket)
+sluiced the place well with the water of the stream. This made it look
+to any heedless person, who would not descend to examine it, as if there
+had been nothing more than a little reflux from the river, caused by a
+flush from the mill-pond. This little stratagem increased my fear of a
+cunning and active villain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+A STRONG TEMPTATION
+
+
+Now it will be said, and I also knew, that there was nothing as yet,
+except most frail and feeble evidence, to connect that nameless stranger
+with the crime charged upon my father. Indeed, it might be argued well
+that there was no evidence at all, only inference and suspicion. That,
+however, was no fault of mine; and I felt as sure about it as if I had
+seen him in the very act. And this conclusion was not mine alone; for
+Mrs. Busk, a most clever woman, and the one who kept the post-office,
+entirely agreed with me that there could be no doubt on earth about it.
+
+But when she went on to ask me what it was my intention to do next, for
+the moment I could do nothing more than inquire what her opinion was.
+And she told me that she must have a good night's rest before advising
+any thing. For the thought of having such a heinous character in her own
+delivery district was enough to unhinge her from her postal duties, some
+of which might be useful to me.
+
+With a significant glance she left me to my own thoughts, which were sad
+enough, and too sad to be worth recording. For Mrs. Busk had not the
+art of rousing people and cheering them, such as Betsy Strouss, my
+old nurse, had, perhaps from her knowledge of the nursery. My present
+landlady might be the more sagacious and sensible woman of the two, and
+therefore the better adviser; but for keeping one up to the mark she was
+not in any way equal to Betsy.
+
+There is no ingratitude in saying this, because she herself admitted it.
+A clever woman, with a well-balanced mind, knows what she can do, and
+wherein she fails, better than a man of her own proportion does. And
+Mrs. Busk often lamented, without much real mortification, that she had
+not been "born sympathetic."
+
+All the more perhaps for that, she was born sagacious, which is a less
+pleasing, but, in a bitter pinch, a more really useful, quality. And
+before I had time to think much of her defects, in the crowd of more
+important thought, in she came again, with a letter in her hand, and a
+sparkle of triumph in her small black eyes. After looking back along the
+passage, and closing my door, she saw that my little bay-window had its
+old-fashioned shutters fastened, and then, in a very low whisper, she
+said, "What you want to know is here, miss."
+
+"Indeed!" I answered, in my usual voice. "How can you know that? The
+letter is sealed."
+
+"Hush! Would you have me ruined for your sake? This was at the bottom of
+the Nepheton bag. It fell on the floor. That was God's will, to place it
+in your power."
+
+"It is not in my power," I answered, whispering in my turn, and staring
+at it, in the strong temptation. "I have no right even to look at it. It
+is meant for some one else, and sealed."
+
+"The seal is nothing. I can manage that. Another drop of wax--and I
+strike our stamp by accident over the breakage. I refuse to know any
+thing about it. I am too busy with the other letters. Five minutes--lock
+the door--and I will come again."
+
+This was a desperate conflict for me, worse even than bodily danger. My
+first impulse was to have nothing to do with it--even to let the letter
+lie untouched, and, if possible, unglanced at. But already it was too
+late for the eyes to turn away. The address had flashed upon me before I
+thought of any thing, and while Mrs. Busk held it up to me. And now
+that address was staring at me, like a contemptuous challenge, while the
+seal, the symbol of private rights and deterrent honor, lay undermost.
+The letter was directed to "H. W. C., Post-office, Newport, Sussex." The
+writing was in round hand, and clear, so as not to demand any scrutiny,
+and to seem like that of a lawyer's clerk, and the envelope was of thin
+repellent blue.
+
+My second impulse was to break the letter open and read it without
+shrinking. Public duty must conquer private scruples. Nothing but the
+hand of Providence itself could have placed this deadly secret in my
+power so amazingly. Away with all squeamishness, and perhaps prevent
+more murder.
+
+But that "perhaps" gave me sudden pause. I had caught up the letter, and
+stood near the candle to soften the wax and lift the cover with a small
+sharp paper-knife, when it flashed on my mind that my cousin would
+condemn and scorn what I was doing. Unconsciously I must have made him
+now my standard of human judgment, or what made me think of him at that
+moment? I threw down the letter, and then I knew. The image of Lord
+Castlewood had crossed my mind, because the initials were his own--those
+of Herbert William Castlewood. This strange coincidence--if it were,
+indeed, an accident--once more set me thinking. Might not this letter be
+from his agent, of whom he had spoken as my protector here, but to whom
+as all unseen I scarcely ever gave a thought? Might not young Stixon,
+who so often was at Bruntsea, be employed to call at Newport for such
+letters, and return with them to his master? It was not very likely, for
+my cousin had the strongest contempt of anonymous doings. Still it was
+possible, and the bare possibility doubled my reluctance to break the
+seal.
+
+For one minute longer I stood in doubt, and then honor and candor and
+truth prevailed. If any other life had been in peril but my own, duty to
+another might have overridden all. But duty to one's self, if overpushed
+in such a case, would hold some taint of cowardice. So I threw the
+letter, with a sense of loathing, on a chair. Whatever it might contain,
+it should pass, at least for me, inviolate.
+
+Now when Mrs. Busk came to see what I had done, or rather left undone,
+she flew into a towering passion, until she had no time to go on with
+it. The rattle of the rickety old mail-cart, on its way to Winchester
+that night, was heard, and the horn of the driver as he passed the
+church.
+
+"Give it me. 'A mercy! A young natural, that you are!" the good woman
+cried, as she flung out of the room to dash her office stamp upon that
+hateful missive, and to seal the leathern bag. "Seal, indeed! Inviolate!
+How many seals have I got to make every day of my life?"
+
+I heard a great thump from the corner of the shop where the business of
+the mails was conducted; and she told me afterward that she was so put
+out, that broken that seal should be--one way or another. Accordingly
+she smashed it with the office stamp, which was rather like a
+woman's act, methought; and then, having broken it, she never looked
+inside--which, perhaps, was even more so.
+
+When she recovered her leisure and serenity, and came in, to forgive
+me and be forgiven, we resolved to dismiss the moral aspect of the
+question, as we never should agree about it, although Mrs. Busk was not
+so certain as she had been, when she found that the initials were the
+initials of a lord. And then I asked her how she came to fix upon that
+letter among so many others, and to feel so sure that it came from my
+treacherous enemy.
+
+"In the first place, I know every letter from Nepheton," she answered,
+very sensibly. "There are only fourteen people that write letters in the
+place, and twelve of those fourteen buy their paper in my shop--there is
+no shop at all at Nepheton. In the next place, none of them could write
+a hand like that, except the parson and the doctor, who are far above
+disguise. And two other things made me certain as could be. That letter
+was written at the 'Green Man' ale-house; not on their paper, nor yet
+with their ink; but being in great hurry, it was dusted with their
+sand--a sand that turns red upon ink, miss. And the time of dispatch
+there is just what he would catch, by walking fast after his dig where
+you saw him, going in that direction too, and then having his materials
+ready to save time. And if all that is not enough to convince you,
+miss--you remember that you told me our old sexton's tale?"
+
+"To be sure I do. The first evening I was left alone here. And you have
+been so kind, there is nothing I would hide from you."
+
+"Well, miss, the time of old Jacob's tale is fixed by the death of poor
+old Sally Mock; and the stranger came again after you were here, just
+before the death of the miller's eldest daughter, and you might almost
+have seen him. Poor thing! we all called her the 'flower of the Moon,'
+meaning our little river. What a fine young woman she was, to be sure!
+Whenever we heard of any strangers about, we thought they were prowling
+after her. I was invited to her funeral, and I went, and nothing could
+be done nicer. But they never will be punctual with burials here; they
+like to dwell on them, and keep the bell going, for the sake of the
+body, and the souls that must come after it. And so, when it was done, I
+was twenty minutes late for the up mail and the cross-country post,
+and had to move my hands pretty sharp, I can assure you. That doesn't
+matter; I got through it, with the driver of the cart obliging, by means
+of some beer and cold bacon. But what I feared most was the Nepheton
+bag, having seen the old man at the funeral, and knowing what they do
+afterward. I could not return him 'too late' again, or he would lose his
+place for certain, and a shilling a day made all the difference to
+him, between wife and no wife. The old pair without it must go to the
+workhouse, and never see one another. However, when I was despairing
+quite of him, up he comes with his bag quite correct, but only one
+letter to sort in it, and that letter was, miss, the very identical of
+the one you held in your hands just now. And a letter as like it as two
+peas had come when we buried old Sally. It puzzled me then, but I had
+no clew to it; only now, you see, putting this and that together, the
+things we behold must have some meaning for us; and to let them go
+without it is against the will of God; especially when at the bottom of
+the bag."
+
+"If you hear so soon of any stranger in the valley," I asked, to escape
+the re-opening of the opening question, "how can that man come and go--a
+man of remarkable stature and appearance--without any body asking who he
+is?"
+
+"You scarcely could have put it better, miss, for me to give the answer.
+They do ask who he is, and they want to know it, and would like any
+body to tell them. But being of a different breed, as they are, from all
+outside the long valley, speaking also with a different voice, they fear
+to talk so freely out of their own ways and places. Any thing they can
+learn in and out among themselves, they will learn; but any thing out of
+that they let go, in the sense of outlandish matter. Bless you, miss,
+if your poor grandfather had been shot any where else in England, how
+different it would have been for him!"
+
+"For us, you mean, Mrs. Busk. Do you think the man who did it had that
+in his mind?"
+
+"Not unless he knew the place, as few know it. No, that was an accident
+of his luck, as many other things have been. But the best luck stops at
+last, Miss Erema; and unless I am very much mistaken, you will be the
+stop of his. I shall find out, in a few days, where he came from, where
+he staid, and when he went away. I suppose you mean to let him go away?"
+
+"What else am I to do?" I asked. "I have no evidence at all against him;
+only my own ideas. The police would scarcely take it up, even if--"
+
+"Oh, don't talk of them. They spoil every thing. And none of our people
+would say a word, or care to help us, if it came to that. The police are
+all strangers, and our people hate them. And, indeed, I believe that
+the worst thing ever done was the meddling of that old Jobbins. The old
+stupe is still alive at Petersfield, and as pompous-headed as ever. My
+father would have been the man for your sad affair, miss, if the
+police had only been invented in his time. Ah, yes, he was sharp! Not a
+Moonstock man--you may take your oath of that, miss--but a good honest
+native from Essex. But he married my mother, a Moonstock woman; or they
+would not put up with me here at all. You quality people have your ideas
+to hold by, and despise all others, and reasonable in your opinions; but
+you know nothing--nothing--nothing--of the stiffness of the people under
+you."
+
+"How should I know any thing of that?" I answered; "all these things are
+new to me. I have not been brought up in this country, as you know. I
+come from a larger land, where your stiffness may have burst out into
+roughness, from having so much room suddenly. But tell me what you think
+now your father would have done in such a case as mine is."
+
+"Miss Erema, he was that long-headed that nobody could play leap-frog
+with him. None of them ever cleared over his barrel. He walked into this
+village fifty-five years back, this very month, with his spade upon his
+shoulder and the knowledge of every body in his eye. They all put up
+against him, but they never put him down; and in less than three months
+he went to church, I do assure you, with the only daughter of the only
+baker. After that he went into the baking line himself; he turned his
+spade into a shovel, as he said, and he introduced new practices."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?"
+
+"No, miss, no! The very last thing he would think of. Only the good use
+of potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and painful dear.
+What is the best meal of the day? he used to reason. Dinner. And why?
+Why, because of the potatoes. If I can make people take potato for their
+breakfast, and potato for their supper too, I am giving them three meals
+a day instead of one. And the health of the village corresponded to it."
+
+"Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion, or at
+least with their own knowledge--"
+
+"No, miss, no! The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of it,
+is never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion. If St. Paul was to
+come and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in the shop would
+go rotten. They hate any meddling with their likings, and they suspect
+doctor's rubbish in all of it."
+
+"I am quite of their opinion," I replied; "and I am glad to hear of
+their independence. I always used to hear that in England none of the
+poor people dared have a will of their own."
+
+Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance,
+and said that she "must run away and put the shutters up, or else the
+policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer, which he had
+no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin; and this one was
+only tapped last Sunday week. Don't you ever think of the police, miss."
+
+Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the opinions
+of others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant lethargy of "the
+force," as they called themselves, in my father's case. Mrs. Busk had
+more activity and intelligence in her little head than all the fat
+sergeants and inspectors of the county, helmet, belt, and staff, and
+all.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+MASTER WITHYPOOL
+
+
+At first I was much inclined to run for help, or at least for counsel,
+either to Lord Castlewood or to Major Hockin; but further consideration
+kept me from doing any thing of the kind. In the first place, neither
+of them would do much good; for my cousin's ill health would prevent him
+from helping me, even if his strange view of the case did not, while
+the excellent Major was much too hot and hasty for a delicate task like
+this. And, again, I might lose the most valuable and important of all
+chances by being away from the spot just now. And so I remained at
+Shoxford for a while, keeping strict watch upon the stranger's haunt,
+and asking about him by means of Mrs. Busk.
+
+"I have heard more about him, miss," she said one day, when the down
+letters had been dispatched, which happened about middle-day. "He has
+been here only those three times this summer, upon excuse of fishing
+always. He stays at old Wellham, about five miles down the river, where
+the people are not true Moonites. And one thing that puzzles them is,
+that although he puts up there simply for the angling, he always chooses
+times when the water is so low that to catch fish is next to impossible.
+He left his fishing quarters upon the very day after you saw him
+searching so; and he spoke as if he did not mean to come again this
+season. And they say that they don't want him neither, he is such a
+morose, close-fisted man; and drinking nothing but water, there is very
+little profit with him."
+
+"And did you find out what his name is? How cleverly you have managed!"
+
+"He passes by the name of 'Captain Brown;' but the landlord of his inn,
+who has been an old soldier, is sure he was never in the army, nor
+any other branch of the service. He thinks that he lives by inventing
+things, for he is always at some experiments, and one of his great
+points is to make a lamp that will burn and move about under water. To
+be sure you see the object of that, miss?"
+
+"No, really, Mrs. Busk, I can not. I have not your penetration."
+
+"Why, of course, to find what he can not find upon land. There is
+something of great importance there, either for its value or its
+meaning. Have you ever been told that your poor grandfather wore any
+diamonds or precious jewels?"
+
+"No. I have asked about that most especially. He had nothing about him
+to tempt a robber. He was a very strong-willed man, and he hated outward
+trumpery."
+
+"Then it must be something that this man himself has dropped, unless it
+were a document, or any other token, missing from his lordship. And few
+things of that sort would last for twenty years almost."
+
+"Nineteen years the day after to-morrow," I answered, with a glance at
+my pocket-book. "I determined to be here on that very day. No doubt I
+am very superstitious. But one thing I can not understand is this--what
+reason can there have been for his letting so many years pass, and then
+hunting like this?"
+
+"No one can answer that question, miss, without knowing more than we
+know. But many reasons might be supposed. He might have been roving
+abroad, for instance, just as you and your father have been. Or he might
+not have known that the thing was there; or it might not have been of
+importance till lately; or he might have been afraid, until something
+else happened. Does he know that you are now in England?"
+
+"How can I possibly tell, Mrs. Busk? He seems to know a great deal
+too much. He found me out when I was at Colonel Gundry's. At least I
+conclude so, from what I know now; but I hope he does not know"--and at
+such a dreadful idea I shuddered.
+
+"I am almost sure that he can not know it," the good postmistress
+answered, "or he would have found means to put an end to you. That would
+have been his first object."
+
+"But, Mrs. Busk," I said, being much disturbed by her calmness, "surely,
+surely he is not to be allowed to make an end of every one! I came to
+this country with the full intention of going into every thing. But
+I did not mean at all, except in my very best moments, to sacrifice
+myself. It seems too bad--too bad to think of."
+
+"So it is, Miss Erema," Mrs. Busk replied, without any congenial
+excitement. "It does seem hard for them that have the liability on them.
+But still, miss, you have always shown such a high sense of duty, and of
+what you were about--"
+
+"I can't--I can not. There are times, I do assure you, when I am fit for
+nothing, Mrs. Busk, and wish myself back in America. And if this man is
+to have it all his own way--"
+
+"Not he, miss--not he. Be you in no hurry. Could he even have his way
+with our old miller? No; Master Withypool was too many for him."
+
+"That is a new thing. You never told me that. What did he try to do with
+the miller?"
+
+"I don't justly know what it was, Miss Erema. I never spoke to miller
+about it, and, indeed, I have had no time since I heard of it. But those
+that told me said that the tall strange gentleman was terribly put out,
+and left the gate with a black cloud upon his face, and the very next
+day the miller's daughter died, quite sudden and mysterious."
+
+"How very strange! But now I have got a new idea. Has the miller a
+strong high dam to his pond, and a good stout sluice-gate at the end!"
+
+"Yes, miss, to be sure he has," said Mrs. Busk; "otherwise how could he
+grind at all, when the river is so low as it is sometimes?"
+
+"Then I know what he wanted, and I will take a leaf out of his own
+book--the miscreant! He wanted the miller to stop back the water and
+leave the pool dry at the 'Murder-bridge.' Would it be possible for him
+to do that?"
+
+"I can not tell you, miss; but your thought is very clever. It is likely
+enough that he did want that, though he never would dare to ask without
+some pretense--some other cause I mean, to show for it. He may have been
+thinking that whatever he was wanting was likely to be under water. And
+that shows another thing, if it is so."
+
+"Mrs. Busk, my head goes round with such a host of complications. I do
+my best to think them out--and then there comes another!"
+
+"No, miss; this only clears things up a little. If the man can not be
+sure whether what he is looking for is on land or under water, it seems
+to me almost to show that it was lost at the murder time in the dark
+and flurry. A man would know if he dropped any thing in the water by
+daylight, from the splash and the ripple, and so on, for the stream is
+quite slow at that corner. He dropped it, miss, when he did the deed, or
+else it came away from his lordship."
+
+"Nothing was lost, as I said before, from the body of my grandfather,
+so far at least as our knowledge goes. Whatever was lost was the
+murderer's. Now please to tell me all about the miller, and how I may
+get round him."
+
+"You make me laugh in the middle of black things, miss, by the way
+you have of putting them. But as to the miller--Master Withypool is a
+wonder, as concerns the ladies. He is one of those men that stand up for
+every thing when a man tries upper side of them. But let a woman come,
+and get up under, and there he is--a pie crust lifted. Why, I, at my
+age, could get round him, as you call it. But you, miss--and more than
+that, you are something like his daughter; and the old man frets after
+her terrible. Go you into his yard, and just smile upon him, miss, and
+if the Moon River can be stopped, he'll stop it for you."
+
+This seemed a very easy way to do it. But I told Mrs. Busk that I would
+pay well also, for the loss of a day's work at the mill was more than
+fifty smiles could make up.
+
+But she told me, above all things, not to do that. For old Master
+Withypool was of that sort that he would stand for an hour with his
+hands in his pocket for a half-penny, if not justly owing from him. But
+nothing more angered him than a bribe to step outside of his duty. He
+had plenty of money, and was proud of it. But sooner would he lose a
+day's work to do a kindness, when he was sure of having right behind it,
+than take a week's profit without earning it. And very likely that was
+where the dark man failed, from presuming that money would do every
+thing. However, there was nothing like judging for one's self; and if
+I would like to be introduced, she could do it for me with the best
+effect; taking as she did a good hundred-weight of best "households"
+from him every week, although not herself in the baking line, but always
+keeping quartern bags, because the new baker did adulterate so.
+
+I thought of her father, and how things work round; but that they would
+do without remarks of mine. So I said nothing on that point, but asked
+whether Master Withypool would require any introduction. And to this
+Mrs. Busk said, "Oh dear, no!" And her throat had been a little rough
+since Sunday, and the dog was chained tight, even if any dog would bite
+a sweet young lady; and to her mind the miller would be more taken up
+and less fit to vapor into obstacles, if I were to hit upon him all
+alone, just when he came out to the bank of his cabbage garden, not
+so very long after his dinner, to smoke his pipe and to see his things
+a-growing.
+
+It was time to get ready if I meant to catch him then, for he always
+dined at one o'clock, and the mill was some three or four meadows up the
+stream; therefore as soon as Mrs. Busk had re-assured me that she was
+quite certain of my enemy's departure, I took my drawing things and set
+forth to call upon Master Withypool.
+
+Passing through the church-yard, which was my nearest way, and glancing
+sadly at the "fairy ring," I began to have some uneasiness about the
+possible issue of my new scheme. Such a thing required more thinking
+out than I had given to it. For instance, what reason could I give the
+miller for asking so strange a thing of him? And how could the whole of
+the valley be hindered from making the greatest talk about the stoppage
+of their own beloved Moon, even if the Moon could be stopped without
+every one of them rushing down to see it? And if it was so talked of,
+would it not be certain to come to the ears of that awful man? And if
+so, how long before he found me out, and sent me to rejoin my family?
+
+These thoughts compelled me to be more discreet; and having lately
+done a most honorable thing, in refusing to read that letter, I felt a
+certain right to play a little trick now of a purely harmless character.
+I ran back therefore to my writing-desk, and took from its secret drawer
+a beautiful golden American eagle, a large coin, larger and handsomer
+than any in the English coinage. Uncle Sam gave it to me on my birthday,
+and I would not have taken 50 pounds for it. With this I hurried to that
+bridge of fear, which I had not yet brought myself to go across; and
+then, not to tell any story about it, I snipped a little hole in the
+corner of my pocket, while my hand was still steady ere I had to mount
+the bridge. Then pinching that hole up with a squeeze, I ran and got
+upon that wicked bridge, and then let go. The heavy gold coin fell upon
+the rotten plank, and happily rolled into the water, as if it were glad
+not to tempt its makers to any more sin for the sake of it.
+
+Shutting up thought, for fear of despising myself for the coinage of
+such a little trick, I hurried across the long meadow to the mill, and
+went through the cow-gate into the yard, and the dog began to bark at
+me. Seeing that he had a strong chain on, I regarded him with lofty
+indignation. "Do you know what Jowler would do to you?" I said; "Jowler,
+a dog worth ten of you. He would take you by the neck and drop you into
+that pond for daring to insult his mistress!" The dog appeared to feel
+the force of my remarks, for he lay down again, and with one eye watched
+me in a manner amusing, but insidious. Then, taking good care to keep
+out of his reach, I went to the mill-pond and examined it.
+
+It looked like a very nice pond indeed, long, and large, and well banked
+up, not made into any particular shape, but producing little rushy
+elbows. The water was now rather low, and very bright (though the Moon
+itself is not a crystal stream), and a school of young minnows, just
+watching a water-spider with desirous awe, at sight of me broke away,
+and reunited, with a speed and precision that might shame the whole of
+our very best modern fighting. Then many other things made a dart away,
+and furrowed the shadow of the willows, till distance quieted the fear
+of man--that most mysterious thing in nature--and the shallow pool was
+at peace again, and bright with unruffled reflections.
+
+"What ails the dog?" said a deep gruff voice; and the poor dog received
+a contemptuous push, not enough to hurt him, but to wound his feelings
+for doing his primary duty. "Servant, miss. What can I do for you?
+Foot-path is t'other side of that there hedge."
+
+"Yes, but I left the foot-path on purpose. I came to have a talk with
+you, if you will allow me."
+
+"Sartain! sartain," the miller replied, lifting a broad floury hat and
+showing a large gray head. "Will you come into house, miss, or into
+gearden?"
+
+I chose the garden, and he led the way, and set me down upon an old oak
+bench, where the tinkle of the water through the flood-gates could be
+heard.
+
+"So you be come to paint the mill at last," he said. "Many a time I've
+looked out for you. The young leddy down to Mother Busk's, of course.
+Many's the time we've longed for you to come, you reminds us so of
+somebody. Why, my old missus can't set eyes on you in church, miss,
+without being forced to sit down a'most. But we thought it very pretty
+of you not to come, miss, while the trouble was so new upon us."
+
+Something in my look or voice made the old man often turn away, while
+I told him that I would make the very best drawing of his mill that I
+could manage, and would beg him to accept it.
+
+"Her ought to 'a been on the plank," he said, with trouble in getting
+his words out. "But there! what good? Her never will stand on that plank
+no more. No, nor any other plank."
+
+I told him that I would put her on the plank, if he had any portrait of
+her showing her dress and her attitude. Without saying what he had, he
+led me to the house, and stood behind me, while I went inside. And then
+he could not keep his voice as I went from one picture of his darling to
+another, not thinking (as I should have done) of what his feelings might
+be, but trying, as no two were at all alike, to extract a general idea
+of her.
+
+"Nobody knows what her were to me," the old man said, with a quiet
+little noise and a sniff behind my shoulder. "And with one day's illness
+her died--her died."
+
+"But you have others left. She was not the only one. Please, Mr.
+Withypool, to try to think of that. And your dear wife still alive
+to share your trouble. Just think for a moment of what happened to my
+father. His wife and six children all swept off in a month--and I just
+born, to be brought up with a bottle!"
+
+I never meant, of course, to have said a word of this, but was carried
+away by that common old idea of consoling great sorrow with a greater
+one. And the sense of my imprudence broke vexatiously upon me when the
+old man came and stood between me and his daughter's portraits.
+
+"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, with his bright eyes steadfast with
+amazement. "I know you now, miss. Now I knows you. To think what a set
+of blind newts us must be! And you the very moral of your poor father,
+in a female kind of way! To be sure, how well I knew the Captain! A
+nicer man never walked the earth, neither a more unlucky one."
+
+"I beg you--let me beg you," I began to say; "since you have found me
+out like this--"
+
+"Hush, miss, hush! Not my own wife shall know, unless your own tongue
+telleth her. A proud man I shall be, Miss Raumur," he continued, with
+emphasis on my local name, "if aught can be found in my power to serve
+you. Why, Lord bless you, miss," he whispered, looking round, "your
+father and I has spent hours together! He were that pleasant in his ways
+and words, he would drop in from his fishing, when the water was too
+low, and sit on that very same bench where you sat, and smoke his pipe
+with me, and tell me about battles, and ask me about bread. And many a
+time I have slipped up the gate, to give him more water for his flies
+to play, and the fish not to see him so plainly. Ah, we have had many
+pleasant spells together; and his eldest boy and girl, Master George and
+Miss Henrietta, used to come and fetch our eggs. My Polly there was in
+love with him, we said; she sat upon his lap so, when she were two years
+old, and played with his beautiful hair, and blubbered--oh, she did
+blubber, when the Captain went away!"
+
+This invested Polly with new interest for me, and made me determine to
+spare no pains in putting her pretty figure well upon the plank. Then
+I said to the miller, "How kind of you to draw up your sluice-gates to
+oblige my father! Now will you put them down and keep them down, to do a
+great service both to him and me?"
+
+Without a moment's hesitation, he promised that any thing he could do
+should be done, if I would only tell him what I wanted. But perhaps it
+would be better to have our talk outside. Taking this hint, I followed
+him back to the bench in the open garden, and there explained what I
+wished to have done, and no longer concealed the true reason. The good
+miller answered that with all his heart he would do that much to oblige
+me, and a hundred times more than that; but some little thought and care
+were needful. With the river so low as it was now, he could easily stop
+the back-water, and receive the whole of the current in his dam, and
+keep it from flowing down his wheel trough, and thus dry the lower
+channel for perhaps half an hour, which would be ample for my purpose.
+Engineering difficulties there were none; but two or three other things
+must be heeded. Miller Sims, a mile or so down river, must be settled
+with, to fill his dam well, and begin to discharge, when the upper water
+failed, so as not to dry the Moon all down the valley, which would
+have caused a commotion. Miller Sims being own brother-in-law to Master
+Withypool, that could be arranged easily enough, after one day's notice.
+But a harder thing to manage would be to do the business without rousing
+curiosity, and setting abroad a rumor which would be sure to reach my
+enemy. And the hardest thing of all, said Master Withypool, smiling as
+he thought of what himself had once been, would be to keep those blessed
+boys away, who find out every thing, and go every where. Not a boy
+of Shoxford but would be in the river, or dancing upon its empty bed,
+screeching and scolloping up into his cap any poor bewildered trout
+chased into the puddles, if it were allowed to leak out, however feebly,
+that the Moon water was to stop running. And then how was I to seek for
+any thing?
+
+This was a puzzle. But, with counsel, we did solve it. And we quietly
+stopped the Moon, without man or boy being much the wiser.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+GOING TO THE BOTTOM
+
+
+It is not needful to explain every thing, any more than it was for me to
+tell the miller about my golden eagle, and how I had managed to lose it
+in the Moon--a trick of which now I was heartily ashamed, in the face
+of honest kindness. So I need not tell how Master Withypool managed to
+settle with his men, and to keep the boys unwitting of what was about
+to come to pass. Enough that I got a note from him to tell me that the
+little river would be run out, just when all Shoxford was intent upon
+its dinner, on the second day after I had seen him. And he could not say
+for certain, but thought it pretty safe, that nobody would come near me,
+if I managed to be there at a quarter before one, when the stream would
+begin to run dry, and I could watch it. I sent back a line by the pretty
+little girl, a sister of poor Polly, to say how much I thanked him,
+and how much I hoped that he himself would meet me there, if his time
+allowed. For he had been too delicate to say a word of that; but I felt
+that he had a good right to be there, and, knowing him now, I was not
+afraid.
+
+Nearly every thing came about as well as could be wished almost. Master
+Withypool took the precaution, early in the morning, to set his great
+fierce bull at large, who always stopped the foot-path. This bull knew
+well the powers of a valley in conducting sound; and he loved to stand,
+as if at the mouth of a funnel, and roar down it to another bull a mile
+below him, belonging to his master's brother-in-law. And when he did
+this, there was scarcely a boy, much less a man or woman, with
+any desire to assert against him the public right of thoroughfare.
+Throughout that forenoon, then, this bull bellowed nobly, still finding
+many very wicked flies about, so that two mitching boys, who meant to
+fish for minnows with a pin, were obliged to run away again.
+
+However, I was in the dark about him, and as much afraid of him as any
+body, when he broke into sight of me round a corner, without any tokens
+of amity. I had seen a great many great bulls before, including Uncle
+Sam's good black one, who might not have meant any mischief at all, and
+atoned for it--if he did--by being washed away so.
+
+And therefore my courage soon returned, when it became quite clear that
+this animal now had been fastened with a rope, and could come no nearer.
+For some little time, then, I waited all alone, as near that bridge as I
+could bring myself to stand, for Mrs. Busk, my landlady, could not leave
+the house yet, on account of the mid-day letters. Moreover, she thought
+that she had better stay away, as our object was to do things as quietly
+as could be.
+
+Much as I had watched this bridge from a distance, or from my
+sheltering-place, I had never been able to bring myself to make any kind
+of sketch of it, or even to insert it in a landscape, although it
+was very well suited and expressive, from its crooked and antique
+simplicity. The overhanging, also, of the hawthorn-tree (not ruddy yet,
+but russety with its coloring crop of coral), and the shaggy freaks of
+ivy above the twisted trunk, and the curve of the meadows and bold elbow
+of the brook, were such as an artist would have pitched his tent for,
+and tantalized poor London people with a dream of cool repose.
+
+As yet the little river showed no signs of doing what the rustic--or
+surely it should have been the cockney--was supposed to stand still and
+wait for. There was no great rush of headlong water, for that is not
+the manner of the stream in the very worst of weather; but there was the
+usual style of coming on, with lips and steps at the sides, and cords of
+running toward the middle. Quite enough, at any rate, to make the trout
+jump, without any omen of impending drought, and to keep all the play
+and the sway of movement going on serenely.
+
+I began to be afraid that the miller must have failed in his stratagem
+against the water-god, and that, as I had read in Pope's Homer, the
+liquid deity would beat the hero, when all of a sudden there were signs
+that man was the master of this little rustic. Broadswords of flag and
+rapiers of water-grass, which had been quivering merrily, began to hang
+down and to dip themselves in loops, and the stones of the brink showed
+dark green stripes on their sides as they stood naked. Then fine little
+cakes of conglomerated stuff, which only a great man of nature could
+describe, came floating about, and curdling into corners, and holding
+on to one another in long-tailed strings. But they might do what they
+liked, and make their very best of it, as they fell away to nothing upon
+stones and mud. For now more important things began to open, the like
+of which never had been yielded up before--plots of slimy gravel, varied
+with long streaks of yellow mud, dotted with large double shells, and
+parted into little oozy runs by wriggling water-weeds. And here was
+great commotion and sad panic of the fish, large fellows splashing and
+quite jumping out of water, as their favorite hovers and shelves ran
+dry, and darting away, with their poor backs in the air, to the deepest
+hole they could think of. Hundreds must have come to flour, lard, and
+butter if boys had been there to take advantage. But luckily things had
+been done so well that boys were now in their least injurious moment,
+destroying nothing worse than their own dinners.
+
+A very little way below the old wooden bridge the little river ran into
+a deepish pool, as generally happens at or near a corner, especially
+where there is a confluence sometimes. And seeing nothing, as I began to
+search intently, stirring with a long-handled spud which I had brought,
+I concluded that even my golden eagle had been carried into that deep
+place. However, water or no water, I resolved to have it out with that
+dark pool as soon as the rest of the channel should be drained, which
+took a tormenting time to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my
+skirts, and jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion
+which reminded me of childish days passed pleasantly in the Blue River.
+
+Too busy thus to give a thought to any other thing, I did not even see
+the miller, until he said,
+
+"Good-day, miss," lifting his hat, with a nice kind smile. "Very busy,
+miss, I see, and right you are to be so. The water will be upon us again
+in less than half an hour. Now let me clear away they black weeds for
+you. I brought this little shivel a-purpose. If I may make so bold,
+miss, what do 'e look to find here?"
+
+"I have not the very smallest notion," I could only answer; "but if
+there is any thing, it must be in that hole. I have searched all the
+shallow part so closely that I doubt whether even a sixpence could
+escape me, unless it were buried in the mud or pebbles. Oh, how can I
+manage to search that hole? There must be a yard of water there."
+
+"One thing I ought to have told 'e for to do," Master Withypool
+whispered, as he went on shoveling--"to do what the boys do when they
+lose a farden--to send another after un. If so be now, afore the water
+was run out, you had stood on that there bridge, and dropped a bright
+coin into it, a new half crown or a two-shilling piece, why, the chances
+would be that the run of the current would 'a taken it nigh to the
+likeliest spot for holding any other little matter as might 'a dropped,
+permiskous, you might say, into this same water."
+
+"I have done so," I answered; "I have done that very thing, though not
+at all with that object. The day before yesterday a beautiful coin, a
+golden eagle of America, fell from my pocket on that upper plank, and
+rolled into the water. I would not lose it for a great deal, because it
+was given to me by my dearest friend, the greatest of all millers."
+
+"And ha'n't you found it yet, miss? Well, that is queer. Perhaps we
+shall find it now, with something to the back of it. I thought yon hole
+was too far below the bridge. But there your gold must be, and something
+else, most likely. Plaise to wait a little bit, and us 'll have the wet
+out of un. I never should 'a thought of that but for your gold guinea,
+though."
+
+With these words Master Withypool pulled his coat off and rolled up his
+shirt sleeves, displaying arms fit to hold their own even with Uncle
+Sam's almost; and then he fell to with his shovel and dug, while I ran
+with my little spud to help.
+
+"Plaise keep out of way, miss; I be afeard of knocking you. Not but what
+you works very brave indeed, miss."
+
+Knowing what men are concerning "female efforts," I got out of the
+strong man's way, although there was plenty of room for me. What he
+wanted to do was plain enough--to dig a trench down the empty bed of the
+Moon River, deep enough to drain that pit before the stream came down
+again.
+
+"Never thought to run a race against my own old dam," he said, as he
+stopped for a moment to recover breath. "Us never knows what us may have
+to do. Old dam must be a'most busting now. But her's sound enough, till
+her beginneth to run over."
+
+I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but I
+could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of the water
+coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do. Master Withypool had
+been working, not as I myself would have done, from the lips of the dark
+pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty yards below, where there
+was almost a little cascade when the river was full flowing; from this
+he had made his channel upward, cutting deeper as he came along, till
+now, at the brink of the obstinate pool, his trench was two feet deep
+almost. I had no idea that any man could work so with a shovel, which
+seems such a clumsy tool compared with a spade: but a gentleman who
+knows the country and the people told me that, with their native weapon,
+Moonites will do as much digging in an hour as other folk get through in
+an hour and a half with a spade. But this may be only, perhaps, because
+they are working harder.
+
+"Now," said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red face,
+and desiring to keep all that unheeded--"now, miss, to you it belongeth
+to tap this here little cornder, if desirable. Plaise to excoose of me
+going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down again."
+
+"Please to do nothing of the sort," I answered, knowing that he offered
+to stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion. "Please to tap
+the pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of what we find in it."
+
+"As you plaise, miss, as you plaise. Not a moment for to lose in
+arguing. Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam. Her will be here
+in five minutes."
+
+With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost
+as fast as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the plug of earth
+severing his channel from the deep, reluctant hole. And then I saw the
+wisdom of his way of working: for if he had dug downward from the pool
+itself, the water would have followed him all the way, and even drowned
+his tool out of its own strokes; whereas now, with a swirl and a curl of
+ropy mud, away rushed the thick, sluggish, obstinate fluid, and in less
+than two minutes the hole was almost dry.
+
+The first thing I saw was my golden eagle, lodged about half-way down
+the slope on a crust of black sludge, from which I caught it up and
+presented it to Master Withypool, as a small token and record of his
+kindness; and to this day he carries it upon his Sunday watch chain.
+
+"I always am lucky in finding things," I exclaimed, while he watched
+me, and the up stream too, whence a babble of water was approaching. "As
+sure as I live I have found it!"
+
+"No doubt about your living, miss. And the Captain were always lively.
+But what have your bright eyes hit upon? I see nort for the life of me."
+
+"Look there," I cried, "at the very bottom of it--almost under the
+water. Here, where I put my spud--a bright blue line! Oh, can I go down,
+or is it quicksand?"
+
+"No quicksand in our little river, miss. But your father's daughter
+shannot go into the muck, while John Withypool stands by. I see un now,
+sure enough; now I see un! But her needeth care, or her may all goo away
+in mullock. Well, I thought my eyes was sharp enough; but I'm blest if I
+should have spied that, though. A bit of flint, mebbe, or of blue glass
+bottle. Anyhow, us will see the bottom of un."
+
+He was wasting no time while he spoke, but working steadfastly for his
+purpose, fixing the blade of his shovel below the little blue line I
+was peering at, so that no slip of the soft yellow slush should bury
+it down, and plunge over it. If that had once happened, good-by to all
+chance of ever beholding this thing again, for the river was coming,
+with fury and foam, to assert its ancient right of way.
+
+With a short laugh the miller jumped down into the pit. "Me to be served
+so, by my own mill-stream! Lor', if I don't pay you out for this!"
+
+His righteous wrath failed to stop the water from pouring into the pit
+behind him; and, strong as he was, he nearly lost his footing, having
+only mud to stand upon. It seemed to me that he was going to be drowned,
+and I offered him the handle of my spud to help him; but he stopped
+where he was, and was not going to be hurried.
+
+"I got un now," he said; "now I don't mind coming out. You see if I
+don't pay you out for this! Why, I always took you for a reasonable
+hanimal."
+
+He shook his fist strongly at the river, which had him well up to the
+middle by this time; and then he disdainfully waded out, with wrath in
+all his countenance.
+
+"I've a great mind to stop there, and see what her would do," he said to
+me, forgetting altogether what he went for. "And I would, if I had had
+my dinner. A scat of a thing as I can manage with my thumb! Ah, you have
+made a bad day of it."
+
+"But what have you found, Mr. Withypool?" I asked, for I could not enter
+into his wrath against the water, wet as he was to the shoulders. "You
+have something in your hand. May I see it, if you please? And then do
+please to go home and change your clothes."
+
+"A thing I never did in my life, miss, and should be ashamed to begin at
+this age. Clothes gets wet, and clothes dries on us, same as un did on
+the sheep afore us; else they gets stiff and creasy. What this little
+thing is ne'er a body may tell, in my line of life--but look'th
+aristocratic."
+
+The "mullock," as he called it, from his hands, and from the bed where
+it had lain so long, so crusted the little thing which he gave me, that
+I dipped it again in the swelling stream, and rubbed it with both hands,
+to make out what it was. And then I thought how long it had lain there;
+and suddenly to my memory it came, that in all likelihood the time of
+that was nineteen years this very day.
+
+"Will another year pass," I cried, "before I make out all about it? What
+are you, and who, now looking at me with such sad, sad eyes?"
+
+For I held in my hand a most handsome locket, of blue enamel and
+diamonds, with a back of chased gold, and in front the miniature of a
+beautiful young woman, done as they never seem to do them now. The
+work was so good, and the fitting so close, that no drop of water had
+entered, and the face shone through the crystal glass as fresh as the
+day it was painted. A very lovely face it was, yet touched with a shade
+of sadness, as the loveliest faces generally are; and the first thought
+of any beholder would be, "That woman was born for sorrow."
+
+The miller said as much when I showed it to him.
+
+"Lord bless my heart! I hope the poor craitur' hathn't lasted half so
+long as her pictur' hath."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+HERMETICALLY SEALED
+
+
+The discovery which I have described above (but not half so well as
+the miller tells it now) created in my young heart a feeling of really
+strong curiosity. To begin with, how could this valuable thing have got
+into the Moon-stream, and lain there so long, unsought for, or at best
+so unskillfully sought for? What connection could it have with the
+tragic death of my grandfather? Why was that man so tardily come to
+search for it, if he might do so without any body near him? Again,
+what woman was this whose beauty no water or mud could even manage to
+disguise? That last was a most disturbing question to one's bodily peace
+of mind. And then came another yet more urgent--what was in the inside
+of this tight case?
+
+That there was something inside of it seemed almost a certainty. The
+mere value of the trinket, or even the fear that it ever might turn
+up as evidence, would scarcely have brought that man so often to stir
+suspicion by seeking it; though, after so long a time, he well might
+hope that suspicion was dead and buried. And being unable to open this
+case--after breaking three good nails over it, and then the point of a
+penknife--I turned to Master Withypool, who was stamping on the grass to
+drain himself.
+
+"What sort of a man was that," I asked, "who wanted you to do what
+now you have so kindly done for me? About a month or six weeks ago? Do
+please to tell me, as nearly as you can."
+
+If Mrs. Withypool had been there, she might have lost all patience with
+me for putting long questions so selfishly to a man who had done so much
+for me, and whose clothes were now dripping in a wind which had arisen
+to test his theory of drying. He must have lost a large quantity of
+what scientific people call "caloric." But never a shiver gave he in
+exchange.
+
+"Well, miss," he said, "I was thinking a'most of speaking on that very
+matter. More particular since you found that little thing, with the
+pretty lady inside of it. It were borne in on my mind that thissom were
+the very thing he were arter."
+
+"No doubt of it," I answered, with far less patience, though being
+comparatively dry. "But what was he like? Was he like this portrait?"
+
+"This picture of the lady? No; I can't say that he were, so much. The
+face of a big man he hath, with short black fringes to it. Never showeth
+to my idea any likeliness of a woman. No, no, miss; think you not at all
+that you have got him in that blue thing. Though some of their pictures
+is like men, the way they dress up nowadays."
+
+"I did not mean that it was meant for him; what I mean is, do you see
+any sign of family likeness? Any resemblance about the eyes, or mouth,
+or forehead?"
+
+"Well, now, I don't know but what I might," replied Master Withypool,
+gazing very hard; "if I was to look at 'un long enough, a' might find
+some'at favoring of that tall fellow, I do believe. Indeed, I do believe
+the more I look, the more I diskivers the image of him."
+
+The good and kind miller's perception of the likeness strengthened
+almost too fast, as if the wish were father to the thought, until I saw
+clearly how selfish I was in keeping him in that state so long; for I
+knew, from what Mrs. Busk had told me, that in spite of all his large
+and grand old English sentiments about his clothes, his wife would make
+him change them all ere ever she gave him a bit of dinner, and would
+force him then to take a glass of something hot. So I gave him a
+thousand thanks, though not a thousandth part of what he deserved, and
+saw him well on his homeward way before I went back to consider things.
+
+As soon as my landlady was at leisure to come in and talk with me,
+and as soon as I had told her how things happened, and shown her our
+discovery, we both of us did the very same thing, and said almost the
+very same words. Our act was, with finger and nail and eye, to rime into
+every jot of it; and our words were,
+
+"I am sure there is something inside. If not, it would open sensibly."
+
+In the most senseless and obstinate manner it refused not only to open,
+but to disclose any thing at all about itself. Whether it ever had been
+meant to open, and if so, where, and by what means; whether, without
+any gift of opening, it might have a hidden thing inside; whether, when
+opened by force or skill, it might show something we had no business
+with, or (which would be far worse) nothing at all--good Mrs. Busk and
+myself tested, tapped, and felt, and blew, and listened, and tried every
+possible overture, and became at last quite put out with it.
+
+"It is all of a piece with the villains that owned it," the postmistress
+exclaimed at last. "There is no penetrating either it or them. Most
+likely they have made away with this beautiful lady on the cover. Kill
+one, kill fifty, I have heard say. I hope Master Withypool will let out
+nothing, or evil it will be for you, miss. If I was you, I would carry a
+pistol."
+
+"Now please not to frighten me, Mrs. Busk. I am not very brave at the
+best of times, and this has made me so nervous. If I carried a pistol, I
+should shoot myself the very first hour of wearing it. The mere thought
+of it makes me tremble. Oh, why was I ever born, to do man's work?"
+
+"Because, miss, a man would not have done it half so well. When you
+saw that villain digging, a man would have rushed out and spoiled
+all chance. And now what man could have ever found this? Would Master
+Withypool ever have emptied the Moon River for a man, do you think? Or
+could any man have been down among us all this time, in this jealous
+place, without his business being long ago sifted out and scattered over
+him? No, no, miss; you must not talk like that--and with me as well to
+help you. The rogues will have reason to wish, I do believe, that they
+had only got a man to deal with."
+
+In this argument there were points which had occurred to me before; but
+certainly it is a comfort to have one's own ideas in a doubtful matter
+reproduced, and perhaps put better, by a mind to which one may have lent
+them, perhaps, with a loan all unacknowledged. However, trouble teaches
+care, and does it so well that the master and the lesson in usage of
+words are now the same; therefore I showed no sign of being suggested
+with my own suggestions, but only asked, quietly, "What am I to do?"
+
+"My dear young lady," Mrs. Busk replied, after stopping some time to
+think of it, "my own opinion is, for my part, that you ought to consult
+somebody."
+
+"But I am, Mrs. Busk. I am now consulting you."
+
+"Then I think, miss, that this precious case should be taken at once to
+a jeweler, who can open it without doing any damage, which is more than
+we can do."
+
+"To be sure; I have thought of that," I replied. "But how can that
+be done without arousing curiosity?--without the jeweler seeing its
+contents, if indeed it has any? And in that case the matter would be no
+longer at our own disposal, as now it is. I have a great mind to split
+it with a hammer. What are the diamonds to me?"
+
+"It is not the diamonds, but the picture, miss, that may be most
+important. And more than that, you might ruin the contents, so as not
+to make head or tale of them. No, no; it is a risk that must be run; we
+must have a jeweler, but not one of this neighborhood."
+
+"Then I shall have to go to London again, and perhaps lose something
+most important here. Can you think of no other way out of it?"
+
+"No, miss, at present I see nothing else. Unless you will place it all
+in the hands of the police."
+
+"Constable Jobbins, to wit, or his son! No, thank you, Mrs. Busk, not
+yet. Surely we are not quite reduced to such a hopeless pass as that. My
+father knew what the police were worth, and so does Betsy, and so does
+Major Hockin. 'Pompous noodles,' the Major calls them, who lay hold of
+every thing by the wrong end."
+
+"Then if he can lay hold of the right end, miss, what better could you
+do than consult him?"
+
+I had been thinking of this already, and pride alone debarred me. That
+gentleman's active nature drove him to interfere with other people's
+business, even though he had never heard of them; and yet through some
+strange reasoning of his own, or blind adoption of public unreason, he
+had made me dislike, or at any rate not like, him, until he began to
+show signs at last of changing his opinion. And now the question was,
+had he done that enough for me, without loss of self-respect, to open my
+heart to him, and seek counsel?
+
+In settling that point the necessity of the case overrode, perhaps, some
+scruples; in sooth, I had nobody else to go to. What could I do with
+Lord Castlewood? Nothing; all his desire was to do exactly what my
+father would have done: and my father had never done any thing more than
+rove and roam his life out. To my mind this was dreadful now, when every
+new thing rising round me more and more clearly to my mind established
+what I never had doubted--his innocence. Again, what good could I do by
+seeking Betsy's opinion about it, or that of Mrs. Price, or Stixon, or
+any other person I could think of? None whatever--and perhaps much harm.
+Taking all in all, as things turn up, I believed myself to be almost
+equal to the cleverest of those three in sense, and in courage not
+inferior. Moreover, a sort of pride--perhaps very small, but not
+contemptible--put me against throwing my affairs so much into the hands
+of servants.
+
+For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would perhaps
+condemn me. But still I was not of the grand New World, whose pedigrees
+are arithmetic (at least with many of its items, though the true Uncle
+Sam was the last for that); neither could I come up to the largeness of
+universal brotherhood. That was not to be expected of a female; and few
+things make a man more angry than for his wife to aspire to it. No such
+ideas had ever troubled me; I had more important things to think of,
+or, at any rate, something to be better carried out. And of all these
+desultory thoughts it came that I packed up that odious but very lovely
+locket, without further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very
+good and clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early. By so doing I
+could have three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet
+return for the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.
+
+Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and the
+equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before the tardy
+sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once when he finds
+the weights go against him. Mrs. Busk considered not the sun, neither
+any of his doings. The time of day was more momentous than any of the
+sun's proceedings. Railway time was what she had to keep (unless a good
+customer dropped in), and as for the sun--"clock slow, clock fast," in
+the almanacs, showed how he managed things; and if that was not enough,
+who could trust him to keep time after what he had done upon the dial of
+Ahaz? Reasoning thus--if reason it was--she packed me off in a fly for
+the nearest railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on
+his ramparts.
+
+After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the
+rapid rise of things. Houses here and houses there, springing up like
+children's teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a long
+gap, and then some more. And down the slope a grand hotel, open for
+refreshment, though as yet it had no roof on; for the Major, in virtue
+of his charter, defied all the magistrates to stop him from selling
+whatever was salable on or off the premises. But noblest and grandest
+of all to look at was the "Bruntsea Athenaeum, Lyceum, Assembly-Rooms,
+Institution for Mutual Instruction, Christian Young Men's Congress, and
+Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic Hall, at nominal prices to be had gratis."
+
+"How you do surprise me!" I said to Major Hockin, after reading all
+that, which he kindly requested me to do with care; "but where are the
+people to come from?"
+
+"Erema," he replied, as if that question had been asked too often, "you
+have not had time to study the laws of political economy--the noblest
+of noble sciences. The first of incontrovertible facts is that supply
+creates demand. Now ask yourself whether there could even be a Yankee if
+ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?"
+
+This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the utmost
+not to do so. "You understand those things, and I do not," said I, with
+a smile, which pleased him. "My dear aunt Mary always says that you are
+the cleverest man in the world; and she must know most about it."
+
+"Partiality! partiality!" cried the Major, with a laugh, and pulling his
+front hair up. "Such things pass by me like the idle wind; or rather,
+perhaps, they sadden me, from my sense of my own deficiencies. But,
+bless me! dinner must be waiting. Look at that fellow's trowel--he
+knows: he turns up the point of it like a spoon. They say that he can
+smell his dinner two miles off. We all dine at one o'clock now, that I
+may rout up every man-Jack of them."
+
+The Major sounded a steam-guard's whistle, and led me off in the rapidly
+vanishing wake of his hungry workmen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+CONVICTION
+
+
+Sir Montague Hockin, to my great delight, was still away from Bruntsea.
+If he had been there, it would have been a most awkward thing for me to
+meet him, or to refuse to do so. The latter course would probably have
+been the one forced upon me by self-respect and affection toward my
+cousin; and yet if so, I could scarcely have avoided an explanation with
+my host. From the nature of the subject, and several other reasons, this
+would have been most unpleasant; and even now I was haunted with doubts,
+as I had been from the first, whether I ought not to have told Mrs.
+Hockin long ago what had been said of him. At first sight that seemed
+the honest thing to do; but three things made against it. It might seem
+forward and meddlesome; it must be a grievous thing to my cousin to have
+his sad story discussed again; and lastly, I had promised Mrs. Price
+that her words should go no further. So that on the whole perhaps I
+acted aright in keeping that infamous tale to myself as long as ever it
+was possible.
+
+But now ere ever I spoke of him--which I was always loath to do--Mrs.
+Hockin told me that he very seldom came to see them now, and when he did
+come he seemed to be uneasy and rather strange in his manners. I thought
+to myself that the cause of this was clear. Sir Montague, knowing that I
+went to Castlewood, was pricked in his conscience, and afraid of having
+his vile behavior to my cousin disclosed. However, that idea of mine
+was wrong, and a faulty conception of simple youth. The wicked forgive
+themselves so quickly, if even they find any need of it, that every body
+else is supposed to do the same. With this I have no patience. A
+wrong unrepented of and unatoned gathers interest, instead of getting
+discount, from lost time. And so I hated that man tenfold.
+
+Good Mrs. Hockin lamented his absence not only for the sake of her
+darling fowls, but also because she considered him a check upon the
+Major's enterprise. Great as her faith was in her husband's ability and
+keenness, she was often visited with dark misgivings about such heavy
+outlay. Of economy (as she often said) she certainly ought to know
+something, having had to practice it as strictly as any body in the
+kingdom, from an age she could hardly remember. But as for what was now
+brought forward as a great discovery--economy in politics--Mrs. Hockin
+had tried to follow great opinions, but could only find, so far,
+downright extravagance. Supply (as she had observed fifty times with her
+own butcher and fishmonger), instead of creating demand, produced a
+lot of people hankering round the corner, till the price came down to
+nothing. And if it were so with their institutions--as her dear husband
+called his new public-house--who was to find all the interest due to
+the building and land societies? Truly she felt that Sir Rufus Hockin,
+instead of doing any good to them, had behaved very badly in leaving
+them land, and not even a shilling to work it with.
+
+It relieved her much to tell me this, once for all and in strict
+confidence; because her fine old-fashioned (and we now may say quite
+obsolete) idea of duty toward her husband forbade her ever to say to
+him, or about him, when it could be helped, any thing he might not like,
+any thing which to an evil mind might convey a desire on her part to
+meddle with--with--
+
+"Political economy," I said; and she laughed, and said, Yes, that was
+just it. The Major of course knew best, and she ought with all her
+heart to trust him not to burden their old days with debt, after all the
+children they had brought up and fairly educated upon the professional
+income of a distinguished British officer, who is not intended by his
+superiors to provide successors.
+
+"Perhaps it is like the boiled eggs they send me," the old lady said,
+with her soft sweet smile, "for my poor hens to sit upon. Their race is
+too good to be made common. So now they get tinkers' and tailors' boys,
+after much competition, and the crammed sons of cooks. And in peace-time
+they do just as well."
+
+Of such things I knew nothing; but she seemed to speak with bitterness,
+the last thing to be found in all her nature, yet discoverable--as all
+bad things (except its own) are--by the British government. I do not
+speak from my own case, in which they discovered nothing.
+
+By the time these things had been discussed, my host (who was always
+particular about his dress) came down to dinner, and not until that was
+over could I speak of the subject which had brought me there. No sooner
+had I begun my tale than they both perceived that it must neither be
+flurried nor interrupted, least of all should it be overheard.
+
+"Come into my lock-up," cried the Major; "or, better still, let us go
+out of doors. We can sit in my snuggery on the cliff, with only gulls
+and jackdaws to listen, and mount my telescope and hoist my flag, and
+the men know better than to skulk their work. I can see every son of a
+gun of them as clearly as if I had them on parade. You wish Mrs. Hockin
+to come, I suppose. Very well, let us be off at once. I shall count my
+fellows coming back from dinner."
+
+With a short quick step the Major led the way to a beautifully situated
+outpost at a corner of the cliff, where land and sea for many a fair
+league rolled below. A niche of the chalk had been cleverly enlarged and
+scooped into a shell-shaped bower, not, indeed, gloriously overhung, as
+in the far West might have been, but broken of its white defiant glare
+by climbing and wandering verdure. Seats and slabs of oak were fixed to
+check excess of chalkiness, and a parapet of a pattern which the Major
+called Egyptian saved fear of falling down the cliff, and served to
+spread a paper on, or to rest a telescope.
+
+"From this point," said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial legs,
+"the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a bird's-eye view.
+It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing, compared with the Earl
+of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount Gamberley; still, such as it
+is, it carries my ideas, and it has an extent of marine frontage such
+as they might envy. We are asked 5 pounds per foot for a thread of land
+fronting on a highway, open to every kind of annoyance, overlooked,
+without any thing to look at. How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if
+you please, by cable-lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent,
+uncontaminating, healthful sea? Whence can come no coster-mongers'
+cries, no agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no
+German band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only
+sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a boatman
+catching your breakfast lobster. Where, again, if you love the
+picturesque--"
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Hockin, gently, "you always were eloquent from the
+first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as you hope,
+and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you will create!
+But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that Erema is waiting to
+tell her tale."
+
+"To be sure. I will not stop her. Eloquence is waste of time, and I
+never yet had half a second to spare. Fear no eloquence from me; facts
+and logic are my strong points. And now, Erema, show what yours are."
+
+At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that any
+strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale. To my mind the
+difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to make of it
+when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling what I had
+seen, heard, and found.
+
+The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through
+his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf
+of chalk--and dear "Aunt Mary's" soft pink cheeks, which her last
+grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes, so
+full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a most
+human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.
+
+"Seven!" she cried; "oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me there
+were seven!"
+
+"There were not seven graves without the mother," the Major answered,
+sternly. "And what odds whether seven or seventy? The criminality is the
+point, not the accumulation of results. Still, I never heard of so big a
+blackguard. And what did he do next, my dear?"
+
+The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me, because,
+although they were so good, they had never paid any attention to it
+until it became exciting. They listened with mere politeness until the
+scent of a very wicked man began to taint my narrative; but from that
+moment they drew nearer, and tightened their lips, and held their
+breath, and let no word escape them. It made me almost think that
+people even of pure excellence, weaned as they are from wicked things by
+teaching and long practice, must still retain a hankering for them done
+at other people's cost.
+
+"And now," cried the Major, "let us see it"--even before I had time to
+pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his ways.
+"Show it, and you shall have my opinion. And Mary's is certain to agree
+with mine. My dear, that makes yours so priceless."
+
+"Then, Nicholas, if I retain my own, yours is of no value. Never mind
+that. Now don't catch words, or neither opinion will be worth a thought.
+My dear, let us see it and then judge."
+
+"My own idea, but not so well expressed," Major Hockin answered, as he
+danced about, while I with stupid haste was tugging at my package of the
+hateful locket. For I had not allowed that deceitful thing any quarters
+in my pocket, where dear little relics of my father lay, but had
+fastened it under my dress in a manner intended in no way for gentlemen
+to think about. Such little things annoy one's comfort, and destroy
+one's power of being quite high-minded. However, I got it out at last,
+and a flash of the sun made the difference.
+
+"Brilliants, Mary!" the Major cried; "brilliants of first water; such
+as we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army except
+myself, I do believe, would have had them at once in his camlet
+pouch--my dear, you know all about it. Bless my heart, how slow you are!
+Is it possible you have forgotten it? There came out a fellow, and I cut
+him down, as my duty was, without ceremony. You know how I used to do
+it, out of regulation, with a slash like this--"
+
+"Oh, Nicholas, you will be over the cliff! You have shown me how you
+used to do it, a thousand times--but you had no cricks in your back
+then: and remember how brittle the chalk is."
+
+"The chalk may be brittle, but I am tough. I insist upon doing every
+thing as well as I did it forty years ago. Mary, you ought not to speak
+to me like that. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty brilliants, worth twenty
+pounds apiece upon an average, I do believe. Four hundred pounds. That
+would finish our hotel."
+
+"Nicholas!"
+
+"My dear, I was only in fun. Erema understands me. But who is this
+beautiful lady?"
+
+"The very point," I exclaimed, while he held it so that the pensive
+beauty of the face gleamed in soft relief among bright blue enamel and
+sparkling gems. "The very thing that I must know--that I would give my
+life to know--that I have fifty thousand fancies--"
+
+"Now don't be excited, Erema, if you please. What will you give me to
+tell you who it is?"
+
+"All those diamonds, which I hate the sight of, and three-quarters of my
+half nugget; and if that is not enough--"
+
+"It is a thousand times too much; I will tell you for just one smile,
+and I know it, will be a smile of unbelief."
+
+"No, no; I will believe it, whoever you say," with excitement superior
+to grammar, I cried; "only tell me at once--don't be so long."
+
+"But then you won't believe me when I do tell you," the Major replied,
+in the most provoking way. "I shall tell you the last person you would
+ever think of, and then you will only laugh at me."
+
+"I won't laugh; how can I laugh in such a matter? I will believe you if
+you say it is--Aunt Mary."
+
+"My dear, you had better say at once that it is I, and have no more
+mystery about it." Mrs. Hockin was almost as impatient as myself.
+
+"Mrs. Hockin, you must indeed entertain an exalted idea of your own
+charms. I knew that you were vain, but certainly did not--Well, then,
+if you will allow me no peace, this is the lady that lives down in the
+ruin, and stands like a pillar by my pillar-box."
+
+"I never thought you would joke like that," I cried, with vexation and
+anger. "Oh, is it a subject to be joked about?"
+
+"I never was graver in my life; and you promised implicitly to believe
+me. At any rate, believe that I speak in earnest."
+
+"That I must believe, when you tell me so. But what makes you think such
+a wonderful thing? I should have thought nothing more impossible. I had
+made up my mind that it was Flittamore who lived down here; but this can
+not be she. Flittamore was unheard of at the time of my grandfather's
+death. Moreover, her character was not like this; she was giddy and
+light and heartless. This lady had a heart--good or bad, a deep one.
+Most certainly it is not Flittamore."
+
+"Flittamore! I do not remember that name. You should either tell us all
+or tell us nothing." The Major's tone was reproachful, and his eyes from
+their angular roofs looked fierce.
+
+"I have not told you," I said, "because it can have nothing to do with
+it. The subject is a painful one, and belongs to my family only."
+
+"Enough. I am not inquisitive--on the other hand, too forgetful. I have
+an appointment at 3.25. It takes me seven minutes and a quarter to get
+there. I must be two minutes and three-quarters late. Mrs. Hockin, mount
+the big telescope and point it at the ramparts; keep the flag up also.
+Those fellows will be certain that I am up here, while I enfilade
+them from the western end with this fine binocular. Surprises maintain
+discipline. Good-by, my dear, and, Miss Castlewood, good-by. Tea at
+6.30, and not too much water."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+VAIN ZEAL
+
+
+Leaving his telescope leveled at the men, the Major marched off with
+his opera-glass in a consciously provoking style, and Mrs. Hockin most
+heartily joined me in condemning such behavior. In a minute or two,
+however, she would not have one word said against him, and the tide of
+her mind (as befits a married woman) was beyond all science; so that the
+drift of all words came back to her husband's extraordinary merits. And
+certainly these, if at all like her description, deserved to be dwelt
+upon at very precious periods.
+
+However, I had heard enough of them before; for the Major himself was
+not mute upon this point, though comparatively modest, and oftentimes
+deprecating praise ere ever he received it. And so I brought Mrs. Hockin
+back at last to talk about the lady who was living in the ruin.
+
+"It is not quite a ruin," she said. "My dear husband is fond of
+picturesque expressions. However, it is not in very good repair; and
+being unable to get possession of it, through some legal quibble,
+possibly he may look at it from a rather unfavorable point of view. And
+for the same reason--though he is so purely just--he may have formed a
+bad opinion of the strange individual who lives there. What right has
+she to be living without his leave upon his own manor? But there she is,
+and she does not care for us or any body. She fetches all she wants, she
+speaks to none, and if any body calls for rates or taxes, or any other
+public intrusion, they may knock and knock, but never get in, and at
+last they go away again."
+
+"But surely that can not go on forever. Bruntsea is such an enlightened
+place."
+
+"Our part of it is, but the rest quite benighted. As the man says--I
+forget his name, but the man that misunderstands us so--his contention
+is that 'Desolate Hole,' as the Major calls it, although in the middle
+of our land, is entirely distinct from it. My husband never will put up
+with that--his love of justice is far too strong--and he means to have a
+lawsuit. But still he has reasons for not beginning yet; and he puts up
+with a great deal, I am sure. It is too bad for them to tease him so."
+
+"It does seem a very sad thing," I replied; "and the poor soul living
+there all alone! Even in the summer it is bad enough; but whatever will
+she do when the winter comes? Why, the sea in bad weather must be almost
+in upon her. And the roar of the pebbles all night! Major Hockin will
+never allow her to stay there."
+
+"What can he do, when he can not get in, and they even deny his title?
+I assure you, Erema, I have sent down cream, and even a dozen of my
+precious eggs, with the lady of the manor's compliments; but instead
+of being grateful, they were never taken in; and my Polly--'Miss Polly
+Hopkins,' you know--very wisely took it all to her grandmother."
+
+"To her grandmother instead of mine, as the Major facetiously calls her.
+And now he says this is her portrait; and instead of giving his reasons,
+runs away! Really you must excuse me, Aunt Mary, for thinking that your
+good husband has a little too much upon his mind sometimes."
+
+The old lady laughed, as I loved to see her do. "Well, my dear, after
+that, I think you had better have it out with him. He comes home to tea
+at 6.30, which used to be half past six in my days. He is very tired
+then, though he never will allow it, and it would not be fair to attack
+him. I give him a mutton-chop, or two poached eggs, or some other trifle
+of nourishment. And then I make him doze for an hour and a half, to
+soothe his agitated intellect. And when he wakes he has just one glass
+of hot water and sugar, with a little Lochnagar. And then he is equal to
+any thing--backgammon, bezique, or even conversation."
+
+Impatient as I was, I saw nothing better; and by this time I was
+becoming used to what all of us must put up with--the long postponement
+of our heavy cares to the light convenience of others. Major Hockin
+might just as well have stopped, when he saw how anxious I was. Uncle
+Sam would have stopped the mill itself, with a dozen customers waiting;
+but no doubt he had spoiled me; and even that should not make me bitter.
+Aunt Mary and I understood one another. We gazed away over the breadth
+of the sea and the gleam of its texture, and we held our peace.
+
+Few things are more surprising than the calm way in which ripe age looks
+on at things which ought to amaze it. And yet any little one of its own
+concerns grows more important, perhaps, than ever as the shadow of the
+future dwindles. Major Hockin had found on the beach a pebble with a
+streak of agate in it. He took it as the harbinger of countless
+agates, and resolved to set up a lapidary, with a tent, or even a shop,
+perhaps--not to pay, but to be advertised, and catch distinguished
+visitors.
+
+"Erema, you are a mighty finder; you found the biggest nugget yet
+discovered. You know about stones from the Rocky Mountains, or at least
+the Sierra Nevada. You did not discover this beautiful agate, but you
+saw and greatly admired it. We might say that a 'young lady, eminent for
+great skill in lithology, famed as the discoverer,' etc. Hold it between
+your eyes and this candle, but wet it in the slop-basin first; now you
+see the magnificent veins of blue."
+
+"I see nothing of the kind," I said; for really it was too bad of him.
+"It seems to me a dirty bit of the commonest flint you could pick up."
+
+This vexed him more than I wished to have done, and I could not help
+being sorry; for he went into a little fit of sulks, and Aunt Mary
+almost frowned at me. But he could not stay long in that condition, and
+after his doze and his glass he came forth as lively and meddlesome as
+ever. And the first thing he did was to ask me for the locket.
+
+"Open it?" he cried; "why, of course I can; there is never any
+difficulty about that. The finest workmanship in the world is that of
+the Indian jewelers. I have been among them often; I know all their
+devices and mechanism, of which the European are bad copies. I have only
+to look round this thing twice, and then pronounce my Sesame."
+
+"My dear, then look round it as fast as you can," said his wife, with
+a traitorous smile at me, "and we won't breathe a Sess till it flies
+asunder."
+
+"Mary, Miss Castlewood makes you pert, although herself so well
+conducted. However, I do not hesitate to say that I will open this case
+in two minutes."
+
+"Of course you will, dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking
+acquiescence. "The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so sure
+about; and this is a mere child's toy to him. Well, dear, have you done
+it? But I need not ask. Oh, let us see what is inside of it!"
+
+"I have not done it yet, Mrs. Hockin; and if you talk with such
+rapidity, of course you throw me out. How can I command my thoughts, or
+even recall my experience?"
+
+"Hush! now hush, Erema! And I myself will hush most reverently."
+
+"You have no reverence in you, and no patience. Do you expect me to do
+such a job in one second? Do you take me for a common jeweler? I beg you
+to remember--"
+
+"Well, my dear, I remember only what you told us. You were to turn it
+round twice, you know, and then cry Sesame. Erema, was it not so?"
+
+"I never said any thing of the sort. What I said was simply
+this--However, to reason with ladies is rude; I shall just be off to my
+study."
+
+"Where you keep your tools, my darling," Mrs. Hockin said, softly, after
+him: "at least, I mean, when you know where they are."
+
+I was astonished at Aunt Mary's power of being so highly provoking, and
+still more at her having the heart to employ it. But she knew best what
+her husband was; and to worship forever is not wise.
+
+"Go and knock at his door in about five minutes," Mrs. Hockin said to
+me, with some mischief in her eyes. "If he continues to fail, he may
+possibly take a shorter way with it. And with his tools so close at
+hand--"
+
+"Oh," I exclaimed, "his geological hammer--that dreadful crusher! May I
+go at once? I detest that thing, but I can not have it smashed."
+
+"He will not break it up, my dear, without your leave. He never would
+think of such a thing, of course. However, you may as well go after
+him."
+
+It was wrong of Mrs. Hockin to make me do this; and I felt quite
+ashamed of myself when I saw the kind old Major sitting by his lamp, and
+wrinkling his forehead into locks and keys of puzzle, but using violence
+to his own mind alone. And I was the more ashamed when, instead of
+resenting my intrusion, he came to meet me, and led me to his chair, and
+placed the jeweled trinket in my hand, and said, "My dear, I give it
+up. I was wrong in taking it away from you. You must consult some one
+wiser."
+
+"That odious thing!" I answered, being touched by this unusual humility
+of his; "you shall not give it up; and I know no wiser person. A
+lapidary's tricks are below your knowledge. But if you are not tired of
+me and offended, may I leave it to you to get it opened?"
+
+"I would like nothing better," he replied, recovering his natural
+briskness and importance; "but you ought to be there, my dear; you must
+be there. Are you sure that you ought not rather to take it to your good
+cousin Lord Castlewood? Now think before you answer."
+
+"I need not think twice of that, Major Hockin. Good and learned as
+my father's cousin is, he has distinctly refused to help me, for some
+mysterious reason of his own, in searching into this question. Indeed,
+my great hope is to do it without him: for all that I know, he might
+even wish to thwart me."
+
+"Enough, my dear; it shall be just as you wish. I brought you to
+England, and I will stand by you. My cousin, Colonel Gundry, has
+committed you to me. I have no patience with malefactors. I never took
+this matter up, for very many reasons; and among them not the least was
+that Sampson, your beloved 'Uncle Sam,' thought it better not to do so.
+But if you desire it, and now that I feel certain that an infamous wrong
+has been done to you--which I heartily beg your pardon for my doubt
+of--by the Lord of all justice, every thing else may go to the devil,
+till I see it out. Do you desire it, Erema?"
+
+"I certainly do not wish that any of your great works should be
+neglected. But if, without that, you can give me your strong help, my
+only difficulty will be to thank you."
+
+"I like plain speaking, and you always speak plainly; sometimes too
+plainly," he said, recollecting little times when he had the worst of
+it. "How far do you trust me now?"
+
+"Major Hockin, I trust you altogether. You may make mistakes, as all men
+do--"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes. About my own affairs; but I never do that for other
+people. I pay a bill for twopence, if it is my own. If I am trustee of
+it, I pay three half-pence."
+
+His meaning was a little beyond me now; but it seemed better not to tell
+him so; for he loved to explain his own figures of speech, even when he
+had no time to spare for it. And he clearly expected me to ask him to
+begin; or at least it seemed so from his eyebrows. But that only came
+home to me afterward.
+
+"Please not to speak of my affairs like that," I said, as if I were
+quite stupid; "I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence--both to
+friends and enemies."
+
+"You are a queer girl; I have always said so. You turn things to your
+own ideas so. However, we must put up with that, though none of my
+daughters have ever done it; for which I am truly thankful. But now
+there is very little time to lose. The meaning of this thing must be
+cleared up at once. And there is another thing to be done as well, quite
+as important, in my opinion. I will go to London with you to-morrow, if
+you like. My clever little Cornishman will see to things here--the man
+that sets up all the angles."
+
+"But why should I hurry you to London so?" I asked. "Surely any good
+country jeweler could manage it? Or let us break it open."
+
+"On no account," he answered; "we might spoil it all; besides the great
+risk to the diamonds, which are very brittle things. To London we must
+take it, for this reason--the closure of this case is no jeweler's work;
+of that I have quite convinced myself. It is the work of a first-rate
+lapidary, and the same sort of man must undo it."
+
+To this I agreed quite readily, because of such things I knew nothing;
+whereas my host spoke just as if he had been brought up to both those
+walks of art. And then I put a question which had long been burning on
+my tongue.
+
+"What made you imagine, Major Hockin, that this very beautiful face
+could have ever been that of the old lady living in the ruin?"
+
+"In Desolate Hole? I will tell you at once; and then call it, if you
+like, an imagination. Of all the features of the human face there is
+none more distinctive than the eyebrow. 'Distinctive' is not exactly
+what I mean--I mean more permanently marked and clear. The eyes change,
+the nose changes, so does the mouth, and even the shape of the forehead
+sometimes; but the eyebrows change very little, except in color. This I
+have noticed, because my own may perhaps be a little peculiar; and they
+have always been so. At school I received a nickname about it, for boys
+are much sharper than men about such things; and that name after fifty
+years fits as well as ever. You may smile, if you like; I shall not tell
+you what it was, but leave you to re-invent it, if you can. Now look
+at this first-rate miniature. Do you see an unusual but not uncomely
+formation of the eyebrows?"
+
+"Certainly I do; though I did not observe it until you drew my
+attention. I had only regarded the face, as a whole."
+
+"The face, as a whole, is undoubtedly fine. But the eyebrows have a
+peculiar arch, and the least little turn at the lower end, as if they
+designed to rise again. The lady of Desolate Hole has the same."
+
+"But how can you tell? How very strange! I thought she let nobody see
+her face."
+
+"You are perfectly right about that, Erema; so far at least as she has
+vouchsafed to exhibit her countenance to me. Other people may be more
+fortunate. But when I met her for the second time, being curious already
+about her, I ventured to offer my services, with my inborn chivalry, at
+a place where the tide was running up, and threatened to surround her.
+My politeness was not appreciated, as too often is the case; for she
+made me a very stiff bow, and turned away. Her face had been covered by
+the muffler of her cloak, as if the sea-breeze were too much for her;
+and she did not even raise her eyes. But before she turned away, I
+obtained a good glance at her eyebrows--and they were formed like
+these."
+
+"But her age, Major Hockin! Her age--what is it?"
+
+"Upon that proverbially delicate point I can tell you but little,
+Erema. Perhaps, however, I may safely say that she can not be much under
+twenty."
+
+"It is not right to provoke me so. You call her 'the old woman,'
+and compare her to your letter-box. You must have some idea--is she
+seventy?"
+
+"Certainly not, I should say; though she can not expect me to defend
+her, when she will not show her face to me; and what is far worse, at my
+time of life, she won't even pay me a half-penny of rent. Now let us go
+back to Aunt Mary, my dear; she always insists upon packing overnight."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+CADMEIAN VICTORY
+
+
+Before two o'clock of the following day Major Hockin and myself were
+in London, and ready to stay there for two or three days, if it should
+prove needful. Before leaving Bruntsea I had written briefly to Lord
+Castlewood, telling him that important matters had taken me away from
+Shoxford, and as soon as I could explain them, I would come and tell him
+all about it. This was done only through fear of his being annoyed at my
+independence.
+
+From London Bridge the Major took a cab direct to Clerkenwell; and again
+I observed that of all his joys one of the keenest was to match his wits
+against a cabman's. "A regular muff, this time," he said, as he jerked
+up and down with his usual delight in displaying great knowledge of
+London; "no sport to be had out of him. Why, he stared at me when I said
+'Rosamond Street,' and made me stick on 'Clerkenwell.' Now here he is
+taking us down Snow Hill, when he should have been crossing Smithfield.
+Smithfield, cabby, Smithfield!"
+
+"Certain, Sir, Smiffle, if you gives the order;" and he turned the
+poor horse again, and took us up the hill, and among a great number of
+barriers. "No thoroughfare," "No thoroughfare," on all hands stretched
+across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till he came to the
+brink of a precipice. The horse seemed quite ready, like a Roman, to
+leap down it, seeing nothing less desirable than his present mode of
+life, till a man with a pickaxe stopped him.
+
+"What are you at?" cried the Major, with fury equalled by nothing except
+his fright. "Erema, untie my big rattan. Quick--quick--"
+
+"Captain," said the cabman, coolly, "I must have another shilling for
+this job. A hextra mile and a quarter, to your orders. You knows Lunnon
+so much better. Smiffle stopped--new railway--new meat market--never
+heered of that now, did you?"
+
+"You scoundrel, drive straight to the nearest police office."
+
+"Must jump this little ditch, then, Captain. Five pun' fine for you,
+when we gets there. Hold on inside, old gentleman. Kuck, kuck, Bob, you
+was a hunter once. It ain't more than fifty feet deep, my boy."
+
+"Turn round! turn round, I tell you! turn round! If your neck is
+forfeit, you rogue, mine is not. I never was so taken in in my life!"
+Major Hockin continued to rave, and amid many jeers we retreated humbly,
+and the driver looked in at us with a gentle grin. "And I thought he was
+so soft, you know! Erema, may I swear at him?"
+
+"On no account," I said. "Why, after all, it is only a shilling, and the
+loss of time. And then, you can always reflect that you have discharged,
+as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a vile system."
+
+"Protesting is very well, when it pays," the Major answered, gloomily;
+"but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes."
+
+This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote
+him for eight-pence more. "Four parcels on the roof, Captain," he said,
+looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning his extra
+shilling. "Twopence each under new hact, you know. Scarcely thought a
+hofficer would 'a tried evasion."
+
+"You consummate scoundrel--and you dress yourself like a countryman!
+I'll have your badge indorsed--I'll have your license marked. Erema, pay
+the thief; it is more than I can do."
+
+"Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for scurrilous
+language, as the hact directs. Ah, you do right to be driven to a pawn
+shop."
+
+Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, "Never tie up my
+rattan again. Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it? What a fool I was not to
+stop on my own manor!"
+
+"I pray you to disdain such low impudence," I said, for I could not bear
+to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him into it.
+"You have beaten fifty of them--a hundred of them--I have heard you
+say."
+
+"Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could not
+afford to pay the rogues. That makes me feel it so bitterly, so loftily,
+and so righteously. To be treated like this, when I think of all my
+labors for the benefit of the rascally human race! my Institute, my
+Lyceum, my Mutual Improvement Association, and Christian Young Men's
+something. There is no institution, after all, to be compared to the
+tread-mill."
+
+Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a little
+sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an old black
+door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken his, while
+I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet, like a true
+peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the rattan cane. And
+thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to have that weapon nicely
+sheathed with silk.
+
+Major Hockin's breath was short, through too much talking without
+action, and he waited for a minute at this door, to come back to his
+equanimity. And I thought that our female breath falls short for the
+very opposite reason--when we do too much and talk too little; which
+happily seldom happens.
+
+He was not long in coming back to his usual sprightliness and decision.
+And it was no small relief to me, who was looking at him miserably,
+and longing that his wife was there, through that very sad
+one-and-eightpence, when he pulled out a key, which he always carried
+as signer and lord of Bruntsea, the key of the town-hall, which had
+survived lock, door, and walls by centuries, and therewith struck a door
+which must have reminded that key of its fine old youth.
+
+Before he had knocked so very many times, the door was opened by a young
+man wearing an apron and a brown paper cap, who knew Major Hockin at
+once, and showed us up stairs to a long low workshop. Here were many
+wheels and plates and cylinders revolving by energy of a strap which
+came through the floor and went through the ceiling. And the young man
+told us to be careful how we walked, for fear of getting entangled.
+Several men, wearing paper caps and aprons of leather or baize, were
+sitting doing dextrous work, no doubt, and doing it very easily, and the
+master of them all was hissing over some fine touch of jewel as a groom
+does at a horse. Then seeing us, he dropped his holders, and threw a
+leather upon his large lens, and came and took us to a little side room.
+
+"Are you not afraid to leave them?" asked the Major. "They may secrete
+some gems, Mr. Handkin."
+
+"Never," said the lapidary, with some pride. "I could trust these men
+with the Koh-i-noor; which we could have done better, I believe, than
+it was done by the Hollanders. But we don't get the chance to do much in
+diamonds, through the old superstition about Amsterdam, and so on. No,
+no; the only thing I can't trust my men about is to work as hard when
+I am away as when I am there. And now, Sir, what can I do for you? Any
+more Bruntsea pebbles? The last were not worth the cutting."
+
+"So you said; but I did not think so. We have some agates as good as
+any from Aberystwith or Perthshire. But what I want now is to open this
+case. It must be done quite privately, for a most particular reason. It
+does open, doesn't it? I am sure it does."
+
+"Certainly it opens," Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with
+anxiety as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers engrained
+with corundum. "I could open it in one instant, but the enamel might
+fly. Will you risk it?"
+
+The Major looked at me, and I said, "Oh no; please not to risk any
+thing, if any slower process will do it without risk. We want it done
+without injury."
+
+"Then it will cost a good bit," he replied. "I can open it for five
+shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must charge
+five pounds."
+
+"Say three," cried the Major. "Well, then, say four guineas: I have a
+lot of work in store for you."
+
+"I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures," the lapidary
+answered. "There is only one other man in London who knows the secret of
+this enamel, and he is my brother. They never make such enamel now. The
+art is lost, like that of the French paste of a hundred years ago,
+which almost puzzles even me until I go behind it. I will give you
+my brother's address if you like; but instead of five pounds, he will
+charge you ten guineas--if it must be done in private. Without that
+condition, I can do it for two pounds. You wish to know why that should
+make such a difference. Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of
+the job, it must be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief
+work-room; if no one is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp
+eyes, I can tell you), all my hands must be sacked for the afternoon,
+but not without their wages. That alone would go far toward the
+difference, and then there is the dropping of the jobs in hand, and
+waste of power, and so on. I have asked you too little, Major Hockin, I
+assure you; but having said, I will stick to it, although I would much
+rather you would let me off."
+
+"I have known you for many years," the Major answered--"ever since you
+were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals. You would
+have done a lot of work for five pounds then. But I never knew you
+overcharge for any thing. We agree to your terms, and are obliged to
+you. But you guarantee no damage?"
+
+"I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may be,
+and reclose it so that the maker, if still alive--which is not very
+probable--should not know that it had been meddled with."
+
+"Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about it
+which I may try to go on with afterward. And for that it is essential to
+have no symptom that it ever has been opened. What are these brilliants
+worth, Mr. Handkin?"
+
+"Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare say
+they cost three hundred. And the portrait is worth another hundred, if I
+find on the back the marks I expect."
+
+"You do not mean to say that you know the artist?" I could not help
+exclaiming, though determined not to speak. "Oh, then, we shall find out
+every thing!"
+
+"Erema, you are a--well, you are a silly!" Major Hockin exclaimed, and
+then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my lapse
+pass. But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to be calling
+down to some one far below. "Now mind what you say," the Major whispered
+to me, just as if he were the essence of discretion.
+
+"The work-room is clear now," Mr. Handkin said; "the fellows were
+delighted to get their afternoon. Now you see that I have to take off
+this hoop, and there lies the difficulty. I could have taken out the
+gold back, as I said, with very little trouble, by simply cutting it.
+But the locket would never have been quite the same, though we put a
+new back; and, more than that, the pressure of the tool might flaw
+the enamel, or even crack the portrait, for the make of this thing is
+peculiar. Now first I submit the rim or verge, without touching the
+brilliants, mind you, to the action of a little preparation of my own--a
+gentle but penetrative solvent. You are welcome to watch me; you will be
+none the wiser; you are not in the trade, though the young lady looks as
+if she would make a good polisher. Very well: if this were an ordinary
+closure, with two flat surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed
+into the adhesion, expansion would take place, and there we have it. But
+this is what we call a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved surfaces,
+formed in a reflex curve which admits the solvent most reluctantly,
+or, indeed, not at all, without too long application. For that, then,
+another kind of process is needful, and we find it in frictional
+heat applied most gradually and judiciously. For that I must have a
+buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed to a nicety, and that
+wheel I only have in this room. Now you see why I sent the men away."
+
+Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my power
+to describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful. Major Hockin,
+according to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient, and even
+went out for a walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed against
+cabmen. But I was content to wait and watch, having always heard and
+thought that good work will not do itself, but must have time and
+skill to second it. And Mr. Handkin, moving arms, palms, and fingers
+beautifully, put the same thought into words.
+
+"Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all the
+time knows well that it will take long to undo. Here it comes undone at
+last!"
+
+As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.
+
+"Done it, eh? Well, you are a clever fellow. Now don't look inside it;
+that is no part of your business, nor mine either, unless this young
+lady desires it. Hand it to her first, my friend."
+
+"Wait half a minute," said the lapidary; "it is so far opened that the
+hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools. The lady
+may lift it then with care. I have done this job as a piece of fine art;
+I have no wish to see any more of it."
+
+"Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman. I thought that
+I was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me."
+
+"Well, Major Hockin," the lapidary answered, "I beg your pardon, if I
+said harm. But a man doing careful and skilled work--and skilled work
+it is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness, while you
+walked off--he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he would fight his
+own brother to maintain it."
+
+"Very well, very well. Let us come away. I always enter into every
+body's feelings. I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you had laid
+them open on that blessed wheel. My insight has always been remarkable.
+Every one, without exception, says that of me. Now come away, come
+away--will you never see?"
+
+Intent as I was upon what lay in my left palm relaxing itself, I could
+not help being sorry for the way in which the man of art, after all his
+care, was ground down by his brother Cornishman. However, he had lived
+long enough in the world to feel no surprise at ingratitude.
+
+Now I went to one of the windows, as the light (which had been very
+good) began to pale from its long and labored sufferance of London,
+and then, with soft and steady touch, I lifted off the loosened hoop. A
+smell of mustiness--for smells go through what nothing else can--was
+the first thing to perceive, and then, having moved the disk of gold, I
+found a piece of vellum. This was doubled, and I opened it, and read, in
+small clear writing:
+
+
+"May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only child
+of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.
+
+"CASTLEWOOD.
+
+"(Witness) THOMAS HOYLE."
+
+
+There was nothing more inside this locket, except two little wisps of
+hair tied with gold thread, and the miniature upon ivory, bearing on the
+back some anagram, probably that of the artist.
+
+Already had I passed through a great many troubles, changes, chances,
+and adventures which always seem strange (when I come to look back), but
+never surprised me at the moment. Indeed, I might almost make bold to
+pronounce that not many persons of my age and sex have been visited,
+wholly against their own will, by such a series of incidents, not to say
+marvelous, but at any rate fairly to be called unusual. And throughout
+them perhaps it will be acknowledged by all who have cared to consider
+them, that up to the present time I did not fail more than themselves
+might have done in patience. And in no description of what came to
+pass have I colored things at all in my own favor--at least so far as
+intention goes--neither laid myself out to get sympathy, though it often
+would have done me a world of good.
+
+But now I am free to confess that my patience broke down very sadly.
+Why, if what was written on that vellum was true, and Major Hockin
+correct as well, it came to no less than this, that my own dear father
+was a base-born son, and I had no right to the name I was so proud of!
+If, moreover, as I now began to dream, that terrible and mysterious
+man did not resemble my father so closely without some good reason,
+it seemed too likely that he might be his elder brother and the proper
+heir.
+
+This was bad enough to think of, but an idea a thousandfold worse
+assailed me in the small hours of the night, as I lay on Mrs. Strouss's
+best bed, which she kept for consuls, or foreign barons, or others whom
+she loved to call "international notorieties." Having none of these now,
+she assigned me that bed after hearing all I had to say, and not making
+all that she might have done of it, because of the praise that would
+fall to Mrs. Busk.
+
+However, she acknowledged that she knew nothing of the history of "the
+poor old lord." He might have carried on, for all she could tell, with
+many wives before his true one--a thing she heard too much of; but
+as for the Captain not being his true son and the proper heir to the
+peerage, let any one see him walk twice, and then have a shadow of a
+doubt about it! This logic pleased but convinced me not, and I had to go
+to bed in a very unhappy, restless, and comfortless state of mind.
+
+I hope that, rather than myself, that bed, full of international
+confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while I
+could not even try to sleep. One of them--and a loyal daughter could
+scarcely have a worse one--was that my own dear father, knowing Lord
+Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in consequence, and
+through that knowledge caring little to avenge his death, for wife and
+children's sake preferred to foil inquiry rather than confront the
+truth and challenge it. He might not have meant to go so far, at first
+beginning with it; but, starting once, might be driven on by grievous
+loss, and bitter sense of recreant friends, and the bleak despair of a
+homeless world before him. And serving as the scape-goat thus, he might
+have received from the real culprit a pledge for concealment of the
+family disgrace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+A RETURN CALL
+
+
+In the morning I labored to dismiss these thoughts, these shameful
+suspicions, almost as injurious to my father's honor as it was to
+suspect him of the crime itself. And calling back my memories of him,
+and dwelling on what Mr. Shovelin said, and Uncle Sam and others, I
+became quite happy in the firm conviction that I ought to be put upon
+bread and water for having such vile visions. Then suddenly a thing came
+to my mind which shattered happy penitence.
+
+Major Hockin had spoken of another purpose which he had in store while
+bringing me thus to London--another object, that is to say, besides the
+opening of the trinket. And this his second intention was to "have it
+out," as he expressed it, "with that league of curs and serpents, Vypan,
+Goad, and Terryer." This was the partnership whose card of business had
+been delivered at the sawmills under circumstances which, to say the
+least, required explanation. And the Major, with strong words and tugs
+of his head-crest, had vowed to get that explanation, or else put the
+lot of them into a police dock.
+
+Moreover, when, at the opening of the locket, I did not think fit to
+show the lapidary what I had found inside it, except the painting
+on ivory (which proved to be as he expected), and when my companion
+suppressed curiosity at the risk of constitution, and while I could
+scarcely tell what I was about (through sudden shock and stupidity), I
+must have been hurried on to tell Major Hockin the whole of the private
+things I had discovered. For, in truth, there was scarcely any time
+to think; and I was afraid of giving way, which must have befallen me
+without relief of words; and being so much disturbed I may, in the cab,
+have rushed off for comfort to the Major, sitting so close to me. No
+doubt I did so, from what happened afterward; but in the morning, after
+such a night, I really could not be certain what I had said to Betsy,
+and what to him.
+
+A large mind would have been steady throughout, and regarded the
+question of birth as a thing to which we, who are not consulted about
+it, should bear ourselves indifferently. And gladly would I have done
+so, if I could, but the power was not in me. No doubt it served me right
+for having been proud about such a trifle; but though I could call it a
+trifle as long as it seemed to be in my favor, my strength of mind was
+not enough to look at it so when against me.
+
+Betsy told me not to be like that, for I had a great deal to go through
+yet, and must not be drawing on my spirit so, every atom of which would
+be needful. For the General--as she called the Major--was coming to
+fetch me at eleven o'clock to face some abominable rascals, and without
+any breakfast how could I do it? Then I remembered all about the
+appointment to go to Messrs. Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, and beginning to
+think about them, I saw sad confirmation of my bad ideas. My father's
+wicked elder brother by another mother had left his own rights pending,
+as long as my father lived, for good reason. For if the latter had
+turned against him, through a breach of compact, things might go ill in
+a criminal court; but having him silenced now by death, this man might
+come forward boldly and claim estates and title. His first point would
+be to make sure as sure could be of the death of my father, to get hold
+of his private papers, and of me, who might possess dangerous knowledge.
+And if this were so, one could understand at once Mr. Goad's attempt
+upon Uncle Sam.
+
+"Now none of this! none of this, I say, Erema!" Major Hockin exclaimed,
+as he ran in and saw me scarcely even caring to hold my own with the
+gentle Maximilian--to which name Mr. Strouss was promoted from the too
+vernacular "Hans." "My dear, I never saw you look ill before. Why, bless
+my heart, you will have crows'-feet! Nurse, what are you doing with her?
+Look at her eyes, and be ashamed of yourself. Give her goulard, tisane,
+tiffany--I never know what the proper word is--something, any thing,
+volatile Sally, hartshorn, ammonia, aromatic vinegar, saline draught, or
+something strong. Why, I want her to look at her very, very best."
+
+"As if she was a-going to a ball, poor dear!" Betsy Strouss replied,
+with some irony. "A young lady full of high spirits by nature, and have
+never had her first dance yet! The laws and institutions of this
+kingdom is too bad for me, General. I shall turn foreigner, like my poor
+husband."
+
+"It is vere goot, vere goot always," said the placid Maximilian;
+"foreigner dis way, foreigner dat way; according to de hills, or de sea,
+or de fighting, or being born, or someting else."
+
+"Hold your tongue, Hans," cried his Wilhelmina; "remember that you are
+in England now, and must behave constitutionally. None of your loose
+outlandish ideas will ever get your bread in England. Was I born
+according to fighting, or hills, or sea, or any thing less than the will
+of the Lord, that made the whole of them, and made you too? General,
+I beg you to excuse him, if you can. When he gets upon such things, he
+never can stop. His goodness is very great; but he must have a firm hand
+put upon his 'philosophy.' Maximilian, you may go and smoke your pipe
+for an hour and a quarter, and see where the cheapest greens and oil
+are, for his Excellence is coming in to-night; and mind you get plenty
+of stump in them. His Excellence loves them, and they fill the dish,
+besides coming cheaper. Now, Miss Erema, if you please, come here. Trust
+you in me, miss, and soon I will make you a credit to the General."
+
+I allowed her to manage my dress and all that according to her own
+ideas; but when she entreated to finish me up with the "leastest
+little touch of red, scarcely up to the usual color, by reason of not
+sleeping," I stopped her at once, and she was quite content with the
+color produced by the thought of it. Meanwhile Major Hockin, of course,
+was becoming beyond all description impatient. He had made the greatest
+point of my being adorned, and expected it done in two minutes! And he
+hurried me so, when I did come down, that I scarcely noticed either cab
+or horse, and put on my new gloves anyhow.
+
+"My dear, you look very nice," he said at last, when thoroughly tired
+of grumbling. "That scoundrel of a Goad will be quite amazed at sight of
+the child he went to steal."
+
+"Mr. Goad!" I replied, with a shudder, caused, perhaps, by dark
+remembrance; "if we go to the office, you surely will not expect me to
+see Mr. Goad himself?"
+
+"That depends, as the Frenchmen say. It is too late now to shrink back
+from any thing. If I can spare you, I will. If not, you must not be
+ashamed to show yourself."
+
+"I am never ashamed to show myself. But I would rather not go to that
+place at all. If things should prove to be as I begin to think, I had
+better withdraw from the whole of it, and only lament that I ever began.
+My father was right; after all, my father was wise; and I ought to have
+known it. And perhaps Uncle Sam knew the truth, and would not tell me,
+for fear of my rushing to the Yosemite. Cabman, please to turn the horse
+and go in the opposite direction." But the Major pulled me back, and the
+driver lifted his elbow and said, "All right."
+
+"Erema," the Major began, quite sternly, "things are gone a little
+too far for this. We are now embarked upon a most important
+investigation"--even in my misery I could scarce help smiling at his
+love of big official words--"an investigation of vast importance. A
+crime of the blackest dye has been committed, and calmly hushed up, for
+some petty family reason, for a period of almost twenty years. I am not
+blaming your father, my dear; you need not look so indignant. It is
+your own course of action, remember, which has led to the present--the
+present--well, let us say imbroglio. A man of honor and an officer of
+her Majesty's service stands now committed at your request--mind, at
+your own request--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; but I only meant you to--to go as far as I should
+wish."
+
+"Confidential instructions, let us say; but there are times when duty
+to society overrides fine feeling. I have felt that already. The die
+is cast. No half-and-half measures, no beating about the bush, for me.
+After what I saw yesterday, and the light that burst upon me, I did not
+act hastily--I never do, though slow coaches may have said so. I put
+this and that together carefully, and had my dinner, and made up my
+mind. And you see the result in that man on the box."
+
+"The cabman? Oh yes, you resolved to have a cab, and drive to those
+wicked informers."
+
+"Where are your eyes? You are generally so quick. This morning you are
+quite unlike yourself--so weak, so tearful, and timorous. Have you not
+seen that by side of the cabman there sits another man altogether? One
+of the most remarkable men of the age, as your dear Yankees say."
+
+"Not a policeman in disguise, I hope. I saw a very common, insignificant
+man. I thought he was the driver's groom, perhaps."
+
+"Hush! he hears every thing, even on this granite. He is not a
+policeman; if he were, a few things that disgrace the force never would
+happen. If the policemen of England did their duty as our soldiers do,
+at once I would have gone to them; my duty would have been to do so. As
+it is, I go to our private police, who would not exist if the force were
+worth a rap. Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, in spite of Goad's clumsiness,
+rank second. I go to the first of all these firms, and I get their very
+cleverest rascal."
+
+Major Hockin, speaking in this hoarse whisper--for he could not whisper
+gently--folded his arms, and then nodded his head, as much as to say,
+"I have settled it now. You have nothing to do but praise me." But I was
+vexed and perplexed too much to trust my voice with an answer.
+
+"The beauty of this arrangement is," he continued, with vast
+complacency, "that the two firms hate one another as the devil
+hates--no, that won't do; there is no holy water to be found among
+them--well, as a snake hates a slow-worm, let us say. 'Set a thief to
+catch a thief' is a fine old maxim; still better when the two thieves
+have robbed one another."
+
+As he spoke, the noble stranger slipped off the driving seat without
+troubling the cabman to stop his jerking crawl, and he did it so well
+that I had no chance of observing his nimble face or form. "You are
+disappointed," said the Major, which was the last thing I would have
+confessed. "You may see that man ten thousand times, and never be able
+to swear to him. Ha! ha! he is a oner!"
+
+"I disdain such mean tricks beyond all expression," I exclaimed, as was
+only natural, "and every thing connected with them. It is so low to talk
+of such things. But what in the world made him do it? Where does he come
+from, and what is his name?"
+
+"Like all noble persons, he has got so many names that he does not know
+which is the right one; only his are short and theirs are long. He
+likes 'Jack' better than any thing else, because it is not distinctive.
+'Cosmopolitan Jack,' some call him, from his combining the manners and
+customs, features and figures, of nearly all mankind. He gets on with
+every one, for every one is gratified by seeing himself reflected in
+him. And he can jump from one frame to another as freely as Proteus
+or the populace. And yet, with all that, he is perfectly honest to any
+allegiance he undertakes. He would not betray us to Vypan, Goad, and
+Terryer for your great nugget and the Castlewood estates."
+
+"I have heard that there are such people," I said; "but what can he
+possibly know about me? And what is he coming to do for us now?"
+
+"He knows all about you, for a very simple reason. That you do not know
+him, is a proof of his ability. For you must have met him times out of
+number. This is the fellow employed by your good but incapable cousin,
+Lord Castlewood."
+
+"He is not incapable; he is a man of great learning, and noble
+character--"
+
+"Well, never mind that; you must not be so hot. What I mean is that he
+has done nothing for you beyond providing for your safety. And that
+he certainly did right well, and at considerable expense, for this man
+can't be had for nothing. You need have been under no terror at all in
+any of the scenes you have been through. Your safety was watched for
+continually."
+
+"Then why did he not come and help me? Why did he not find out that
+horrible man?"
+
+"Because it was not in his orders, and Jack is the last man to go beyond
+those. He is so clever that the stupid Moonites took him for a stupid
+Moonite. You should have employed him yourself, Erema; but you are so
+proud and independent."
+
+"I should hope so, indeed. Should I put up with deceit? If the truth
+is not to be had without falsehood, it is not worth having. But what is
+this man to do here now?"
+
+"That depends upon circumstances. He has better orders than I could
+give, for I am no hand at scheming. Here we are; or here we stop.
+Say nothing till I tell you. Pray allow me the honor. You keep in the
+background, remember, with your veil, or whatever you call it, down.
+Nobody stops at the very door. Of course that is humbug--we conform to
+it."
+
+With a stiff inclination, the gallant Major handed me out of the cab in
+a quiet corner of a narrow street, then paid the driver with less
+fuss than usual, and led me into a queer little place marked in almost
+illegible letters, "Little England Polygon." "You have the card, my
+dear?" he whispered; "keep it till I call you in. But be ready to
+produce it in a moment. For the rest, I leave you to your own wit. Jack
+is on the watch, mind."
+
+There were two doors near together, one a brave door with a plate,
+and swung on playing hinges, the other of too secluded a turn to even
+pronounce itself "private." We passed through the public door, and found
+only a lobby, with a boy on guard. "Mr. Goad? Yes, Sir. This way, Sir,"
+cried the boy. "Lady stay? Yes, Sir; waiting-room for ladies. Chair,
+miss; here, if you please--first right. Mr. Goad, second on the left.
+Knock twice. Paper, miss? Poker chained at this time of year. Bell A,
+glass of water. Bell B, cup of tea, if ladies grows impatient."
+
+If I had been well, I might have reduced this boy to his proper
+magnitude, for I never could endure young flippancy; but my spirits
+were so low that the boy banged the door with a fine sense of having
+vanquished me. And before there was any temptation to ring Bell A, not
+to mention Bell B, the sound of a wrathful voice began coming.
+Nearer and nearer it came, till the Major strode into the "ladies'
+waiting-room," and used language no ladies should wait for.
+
+"Oh, don't!" I said; "what would Mrs. Hockin say? And consider me too,
+Major Hockin, if you please."
+
+"I have considered you, and that makes me do it. Every body knows what
+I am. Did I ever exaggerate in all my life? Did I ever say any thing
+without just grounds? Did I ever take any distorted views? Did I ever
+draw upon my imagination? Erema, answer me this instant!"
+
+"I do not remember a single instance of your drawing upon your
+imagination," I answered, gravely, and did not add, "because there is
+none to draw upon."
+
+"Very well. I was sure of your concurrence. Then just come with me. Take
+my arm, if you please, and have the thief's card ready. Now keep your
+temper and your self-command."
+
+With this good advice, the Major, whose arm and whole body were jerking
+with wrath, led me rapidly down the long passage and through a door, and
+my eyes met the eyes of the very man who had tried to bribe Uncle Sam of
+me. He never saw me then, and he did not know me now; but his insolent
+eyes fell under mine. I looked at him quietly, and said nothing.
+
+"Now, Mr. Goad, you still assert that you never were in
+California--never even crossed the Atlantic. This young lady under
+my protection--don't you be afraid, my dear--is the Honorable Erema
+Castlewood, whom you, in the pay of a murderer, went to fetch,
+and perhaps to murder. Now, do you acknowledge it? You wrote her
+description, and ought to know her. You double-dyed villain, out with
+it!"
+
+"Major Hockin," said Mr. Goad, trying to look altogether at his ease,
+but failing, and with his bull-dog forehead purple, "if indeed you are
+an officer--which I doubt for the credit of her Majesty's service--if
+the lady were not present, I should knock you down." And the big man got
+up as if to do it.
+
+"Never mind her," my companion answered, in a magnanimous manner; "she
+has seen worse than that, poor thing. Here I am--just come and do it."
+
+The Major was scarcely more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere
+bodily bulk, and yet he defied him in this way. He carefully took his
+blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his wife's
+most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a desk, and
+doubled his fists, and waited. Then he gave a blink from the corner of
+his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see it out." It was a
+distressing thing to see, and the Major's courage was so grand that I
+could not help smiling. Mr. Goad, however, did not advance, but assumed
+a superior manner.
+
+"Major," he said, "we are not young men; we must not be so hasty. You
+carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt to do.
+Sir, I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and apologize. We
+move in different spheres of life, Sir, or I would offer you my hand."
+
+"No, thank you!" the Major exclaimed, and then looked sorry for his
+arrogance. "When a man has threatened me, and that man sees the mistake
+of doing so, I am pacified, Sir, in a moment; but it takes me some time
+to get over it. I have served his Gracious Majesty, and now hers,
+in every quarter of the civilized globe, with distinction, Sir--with
+distinction, and thanks, and no profit to taint the transaction, Sir.
+In many battles I have been menaced with personal violence, and have
+received it, as in such positions is equitable. I am capable, Sir, of
+receiving it still, and repaying it, not without interest."
+
+"Hang it, Major, if a man is sorry, a soldier forgives him frankly.
+You abused me, and I rashly threatened you. I beg your pardon, as a man
+should do, and that should be an end to it."
+
+"Very well, very well; say no more about it. But am I to understand that
+you still deny in that barefaced manner, with my witness here, the fact
+of your having been at Colonel Gundry's--my cousin, Sir, and a man not
+to be denied, without an insult to myself--a man who possesses ingots
+of gold, ingots of gold, enough to break the Bank of England, and a
+man whose integrity doubles them all. Have you not heard of the monster
+nugget, transcending the whole of creation, discovered by this young
+lady looking at you, in the bed of the saw-mill river, and valued at
+more than half a million?"
+
+"You don't mean to say so? When was it? Sylvester never said a word
+about it--the papers, I mean, never mentioned it."
+
+"Try no more--well, I won't say lies, though they are confounded
+lies--what I mean is, no further evasion, Mr. Goad. Sylvester's name
+is enough, Sir. Here is the card of your firm, with your own note of
+delivery on the back, handed by you to my cousin, the Colonel. And here
+stands the lady who saw you do it."
+
+"Major, I will do my very best to remember. I am here, there, every
+where--China one day, Peru the next, Siberia the day after. And this
+young lady found the nugget, did she? How wonderfully lucky she must
+be!"
+
+"I am lucky; I find out every thing; and I shall find out you, Mr.
+Goad." Thus I spoke on the spur of the moment, and I could not have
+spoken better after a month of consultation. Rogues are generally
+superstitious. Mr. Goad glanced at me with a shudder, as I had gazed
+at him some three years back; and then he dropped his bad, oily-looking
+eyes.
+
+"I make mistakes sometimes," he said, "as to where I have been and where
+I have not. If this young lady saw me there, it stands to reason that I
+may have been there. I have a brother extremely similar. He goes about a
+good deal also. Probably you saw my brother."
+
+"I saw no brother of yours, but yourself. Yourself--your mean and
+cowardly self--and I shall bring you to justice."
+
+"Well, well," he replied, with a poor attempt to turn the matter
+lightly; "I never contradict ladies; it is an honor to be so observed by
+them. Now, Major, can you give me any good reason for drawing upon a bad
+memory? My time is valuable. I can not refer to such by-gone matters for
+nothing."
+
+"We will not bribe you, if that is what you mean," Major Hockin made
+answer, scornfully. "This is a criminal case, and we have evidence you
+little dream of. Our only offer is--your own safety, if you make a clean
+breast of it. We are on the track of a murderer, and your connection
+with him will ruin you. Unless you wish to stand in the dock at his
+side, you will tell us every thing."
+
+"Sir, this is violent language."
+
+"And violent acts will follow it: if you do not give up your principal,
+and every word you know about him, you will leave this room in custody.
+I have Cosmopolitan Jack outside, and the police at a sign from him will
+come."
+
+"Is this job already in the hands of the police, then?"
+
+"No, not yet. I resolved to try you first. If you refuse, it will be
+taken up at once; and away goes your last chance, Sir."
+
+Mr. Goad's large face became like a field of conflicting passions and
+low calculations. Terror, fury, cupidity, and doggedness never had a
+larger battle-field.
+
+"Allow me at least to consult my partners," he said, in a low voice and
+almost with a whine; "we may do things irregular sometimes, but we never
+betray a client."
+
+"Either betray your client or yourself," the Major answered, with a
+downright stamp. "You shall consult no one. You have by this watch
+forty-five seconds to consider it."
+
+"You need not trouble yourself to time me," the other answered, sulkily;
+"my duty to the firm overrides private feeling. Miss Castlewood, I call
+you to witness, since Major Hockin is so peppery--"
+
+"Peppery, Sir, is the very last word that ever could be applied to
+me. My wife, my friends, every one that knows me, even my furthest-off
+correspondents, agree that I am pure patience."
+
+"It may be so, Major; but you have not shown it. Miss Castlewood, I have
+done you no harm. If you had been given up to me, you would have been
+safer than where you were. My honor would have been enlisted. I now
+learn things which I never dreamed of--or, at least--at least only
+lately. I always believed the criminality to be on the other side.
+We never ally ourselves with wrong. But lately things have come to my
+knowledge which made me doubtful as to facts. I may have been duped--I
+believe I have been: I am justified, therefore, in turning the tables."
+
+"If you turn tables," broke in the Major, who was grumbling to himself
+at the very idea of having any pepper in his nature--"Goad, if you turn
+tables, mind you, you must do it better than the mesmerists. Out of this
+room you do not stir; no darkness--no bamboozling! Show your papers,
+Sir, without sleight of hand. Surrender, or you get no quarter."
+
+To me it was quite terrifying to see my comrade thus push his victory.
+Mr. Goad could have killed him at any moment, and but for me perhaps
+would have done so. But even in his fury he kept on casting glances of
+superstitious awe at me, while I stood quite still and gazed at him.
+Then he crossed the room to a great case of drawers, unlocked something
+above the Major's head, made a sullen bow, and handed him a packet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+WANTED, A SAWYER
+
+
+To judge Mr. Goad by his own scale of morality and honor, he certainly
+had behaved very well through a trying and unexpected scene. He fought
+for his honor a great deal harder than ever it could have deserved of
+him; and then he strove well to appease it with cash, the mere thought
+of which must have flattered it. However, it was none the worse for
+a little disaster of this kind. At the call of duty it coalesced with
+interest and fine sense of law, and the contact of these must have
+strengthened it to face any future production.
+
+For the moment he laid it aside in a drawer--and the smallest he
+possessed would hold it--and being compelled to explain his instructions
+(partly in short-hand and partly in cipher), he kindly, and for the main
+of it truly, interpreted them as follows:
+
+"July 31, 1858.--Received directions from M. H. to attend without
+fail, at whatever expense, to any matter laid before us by a tall, dark
+gentleman bearing his card. M. H. considerably in our debt; but his
+father can not last long. Understand what he means, having dealt with
+this matter before, and managed well with it.
+
+"August 2.--Said gentleman called, gave no name, and was very close.
+Had experienced some great wrong. Said that he was true heir to the C.
+estates now held by Lord C. Only required a little further evidence to
+claim them; and some of this was to be got through us. Important
+papers must be among the effects of the old lord's son, lately dead in
+California, the same for whom a reward had been offered, and we had been
+employed about it. Must get possession of those papers, and of the girl,
+if possible. Yankees to be bribed, at whatever figure, and always stand
+out for a high one. Asked where funds were to come from; gave good
+reference, and verified it. To be debited to the account of M. H.
+Said we would have nothing to do with it without more knowledge of our
+principal. Replied, with anger, that he himself was Lord C., ousted by
+usurpers. Had not the necessary proofs as yet, but would get them, and
+blast all his enemies. Had doubts about his sanity, and still greater
+about his solvency. Resolved to inquire into both points.
+
+"August 3.--M. H. himself, as cool as ever, but shammed to be indignant.
+Said we were fools if we did not take it up. Not a farthing would he pay
+of his old account, and fellows like us could not bring actions. Also a
+hatful of money was to be made of this job, managed snugly. Emigrants to
+California were the easiest of all things to square up. A whole train
+of them disappeared this very year, by Indians or Mormons, and no bones
+made. The best and most active of us must go--too ticklish for an agent.
+We must carry on all above-board out there, and as if sent by British
+government. In the far West no one any wiser. Resolved to go myself,
+upon having a certain sum in ready.
+
+"August 5.--The money raised. Start for Liverpool to-morrow. Require a
+change, or would not go. May hit upon a nugget, etc., etc."
+
+Mr. Goad's memoranda of his adventures, and signal defeat by Uncle Sam,
+have no claim to be copied here, though differing much from my account.
+With their terse unfeeling strain, they might make people laugh who had
+not sadder things to think of. And it matters very little how that spy
+escaped, as such people almost always seem to do.
+
+"Two questions, Goad, if you please," said Major Hockin, who had smiled
+sometimes, through some of his own remembrances; "what has happened
+since your return, and what is the name of the gentleman whom you have
+called 'M.H.?'"
+
+"Is it possible that you do not know, Sir? Why, he told us quite lately
+that you were at his back! You must know Sir Montague Hockin."
+
+"Yes, yes; certainly I do," the old man said, shortly, with a quick
+gleam in his eyes; "a highly respected gentleman now, though he may have
+sown his wild oats like the rest. To be sure; of course I know all about
+it. His meaning was good, but he was misled."
+
+In all my little experience of life nothing yet astonished me more than
+this. I scarcely knew whom to believe, or what. That the Major, most
+upright of men, should take up his cousin's roguery--all new to him--and
+speak of him thus! But he gave me a nudge; and being all confusion, I
+said nothing, and tried to look at neither of them, because my eyes must
+always tell the truth.
+
+"As to the other point," Mr. Goad went on; "since my embassy failed, we
+have not been trusted with the confidence we had the right to expect.
+Ours is a peculiar business, Sir: 'Trust me in all, or trust me not at
+all,' as one of our modern poets says, is the very essence of it. And
+possibly, Major, if that had been done, even your vigor and our sense
+of law might not have extorted from me what you have heard. Being
+cashiered, as we are, we act according to the strictest honor in
+divulging things no longer confided to us."
+
+"Goad, you have done yourself the utmost credit, legally,
+intellectually, and--well, I will not quite say morally. If I ever have
+a nasty job to do--at least I mean a stealthy one--which God, who
+has ever kept me straight, forbid!--I will take care not to lose your
+address. I have a very queer thing occurring on my manor--I believe
+it is bound up with this affair--never mind; I must think--I hate all
+underhanded work."
+
+"Major, our charges are strictly moderate. We do in a week what takes
+lawyers a twelvemonth. Allow me to hand you one of our new cards."
+
+"No, no. My pockets are all full. And I don't want to have it found
+among my papers. No offense, Mr. Goad, no offense at all. Society is
+not as it was when I was young. I condemn no modern institutions, Sir,
+though the world gets worse every day of its life."
+
+In terror of committing himself to any connection with such a firm, the
+Major put on his dark lights again, took up his cane, and let every body
+know, with a summary rap on the floor, that he might have relaxed, but
+would not allow any further liberty about it. And as he marched away,
+not proudly, yet with a very nice firmness, I was almost afraid to say
+any thing to him to disturb his high mental attitude. For Mrs. Hockin
+must have exclaimed that here was a noble spectacle.
+
+"But one thing," I forced myself to suggest; "do ask one thing before
+we go. That strange man who called himself 'Lord Castlewood' here, and
+'Captain Brown' at Soberton--have they any idea where to find him now?
+And why does he not come forward?"
+
+My comrade turned back, and put these questions; and the private
+inquirer answered that they had no idea of his whereabouts, but could
+easily imagine many good reasons for his present reserve of claim. For
+instance, he might be waiting for discovery of further evidence;
+or (which was even more likely) for the death of the present Lord
+Castlewood, which could not be very far distant, and would remove the
+chief opponent. It grieved me deeply to find that my cousin's condition
+was so notorious, and treated of in such a cold-blooded way, like a mule
+fallen lame, or a Chinaman in Frisco.
+
+"My dear, you must grow used to such things," Major Hockin declared,
+when he saw that I was vexed, after leaving those selfish premises. "If
+it were not for death, how could any body live? Right feeling is shown
+by considering such points, and making for the demise of others even
+more preparation than for our own. Otherwise there is a selfishness
+about it by no means Christian-minded. You look at things always from
+such an intense and even irreligious point of view. But such things are
+out of my line altogether. Your Aunt Mary understands them best."
+
+"Would you be able," I said, "to account to Aunt Mary conscientiously
+for that dreadful story which I heard you tell? I scarcely knew where I
+stood, Major Hockin."
+
+"You mean about Montague? Family honor must be defended at any price.
+Child, I was greatly pained to go beyond the truth; but in such a case
+it is imperative. I was shocked and amazed at my cousin's conduct; but
+how could I let such a fellow know that? And think what I owe to his
+father, Sir Rufus? No, no; there are times when Bayard himself must
+stretch a point. Honor and religion alike demand it; and Mrs. Hockin
+need never hear of it."
+
+"Certainly I shall not speak of it," I answered, though a little
+surprised at his arguments; "but you mean, of course, to find out all
+about it. It seems to me such a suspicious thing. But I never could bear
+Sir Montague."
+
+The Major smiled grimly, and, perceiving that he wished to drop the
+subject, I said no more. He had many engagements in London always, and I
+must not attempt to engross his time. However, he would not for a moment
+hear of leaving me any where but with Betsy, for perhaps he saw how
+strange I was. And, being alone at last with her, I could keep up my
+pride no longer.
+
+Through all that had happened, there never had been such a dreadful
+trial as I had borne this day without a word to any one. Danger and loss
+and sad dreariness of mind, from want of young companionship; mystery
+also, and obscurity of life, had always been my fortune. With all of
+these I had striven, to the best of my very small ability, having from
+nature no gift except the dull one of persistence. And throughout that
+struggle I had felt quite sure that a noble yearning for justice and a
+lofty power of devotion were my two impelling principles. But now,
+when I saw myself sprung of low birth, and the father of my worship
+base-born, down fell all my arduous castles, and I craved to go under
+the earth and die.
+
+For every word of Mr. Goad, and every crooked turn of little things in
+twist against me--even the Major's last grim smile--all began to work
+together, and make up a wretched tumult, sounding in my ears like drums.
+Where was the use of going on, of proving any body's guilt or any body's
+innocence, if the utmost issue of the whole would be to show my father
+an impostor? Then, and only then, I knew that love of abstract justice
+is to little minds impossible, that sense of honor is too prone to hang
+on chance of birth, and virtue's fountain, self-respect, springs but ill
+from parental taint.
+
+When I could no longer keep such bitter imaginings to myself, but poured
+them forth to Betsy, she merely laughed, and asked me how I could be
+such a simpleton. Only to think of my father in such a light was beyond
+her patience! Where was my pride, she would like to know, and my birth,
+and my family manners? However, she did believe there was something in
+my ideas, if you turned them inside out, and took hold of them by the
+other end. It was much more likely, to her mind, that the villain, the
+unknown villain at the bottom of all the misery, was really the son
+born out of wedlock, if any such there were at all, and therefore a wild
+harum-scarum fellow like Ishmael in the Book of Genesis. And it would
+be just of a piece, she thought, with the old lord's character to drive
+such a man to desperation by refusing to give him a farthing.
+
+"All that might very well be," I answered; "but it would in no way serve
+to explain my father's conduct, which was the great mystery of all."
+Nevertheless, I was glad to accept almost any view of the case rather
+than that which had forced itself upon me since the opening of the
+locket. Any doubt of that most wretched conclusion was a great relief
+while it lasted; and, after so long a time of hope and self-reliance,
+should I cast away all courage through a mere suspicion?
+
+While I was thus re-assuring myself, and being re-assured by my faithful
+nurse, sad news arrived, and drove my thoughts into another crooked
+channel. Mrs. Hockin, to meet my anxiety for some tidings from
+California, had promised that if any letter came, she would not even
+wait for the post, but forward it by special messenger. And thus, that
+very same evening, I received a grimy epistle, in an unknown hand, with
+the postmark of Sacramento. Tearing it open, I read as follows:
+
+
+"MISS 'REMA,--No good luck ever came, since you, to this Blue River
+Station, only to be washed away, and robbed by greasers, and shot
+through the ribs, and got more work than can do, and find an almighty
+nugget sent by Satan. And now the very worst luck of all have come,
+wholly and out of all denial, by you and your faces and graces and
+French goings on. Not that I do not like you, mind; for you always was
+very polite to me, and done your best when you found me trying to put up
+with the trials put on me. But now this trial is the worst of all that
+ever come to my establishings; and to go away now as I used to think
+of doing when tyrannized upon is out of my way altogether, and only an
+action fit for a half-breed. Sawyer Gundry hath cut and run, without a
+word behind him--no instructions for orders in hand, and pouring in--no
+directions where to find him, not even 'God bless you' to any one of the
+many hands that looked up to him. Only a packet of dollars for me to pay
+the wages for two months to come, and a power of lawyer to receive all
+debts, and go on anyhow just the same. And to go on just the same is
+more than the worst of us has the heart for, without the sight of his
+old red face. He may have been pretty sharp, and too much the master now
+and then, perhaps; but to do without him is a darned sight worse, and
+the hands don't take to me like him. Many's the time I have seen his
+faults, of having his own way, and such likes, and paying a man beyond
+his time if his wife was out of order. And many's the time I have said
+myself I was fitter to be at the head of it.
+
+"About that I was right enough, perhaps, if I had started upon my own
+hook; but to stand in the tracks he has worn to his own foot is to
+go into crooked compasses. There is never a day without some hand
+threatening to strike and to better himself, as if they were hogs to
+come and go according to the acorns; and such low words I can never put
+up with, and packs them off immediate. No place can be carried on if
+the master is to shut up his lips to impudence. And now I have only
+got three hands left, with work enough for thirty, and them three only
+stopped on, I do believe, to grumble of me if the Sawyer do come home!
+
+"But what we all want to know--and old Suan took a black stick to make
+marks for you--is why the old man hath run away, and where. Young Firm,
+who was getting a sight too uppish for me to have long put up with him,
+he was going about here, there, and every where, from the very first
+time of your going away, opening his mouth a deal too much, and asking
+low questions how long I stopped to dinner. Old Suan said he was
+troubled in his mind, as the pale-faces do about young girls, instead
+of dragging them to their wigwams; and she would give him a spell to get
+over it. But nothing came of that; and when the war broke out, he had
+words with his grandfather, and went off, so they said, to join the
+rebels.
+
+"Sawyer let him go, as proud as could be, though he would sooner have
+cut his own head off; and the very same night he sat down by his fire
+and shammed to eat supper as usual. But I happened to go in to get some
+orders, and, my heart, I would never wish to see such things again!
+
+"The old man would never waste a bit of victuals, as you know, Miss
+'Rema; and, being acquaint with Suan's way of watching, he had
+slipped all his supper aside from his plate, and put it on a clean
+pocket-handkerchief to lock it in the press till his appetite should
+serve; and I caught him in the act, and it vexed him. 'Ha'n't you the
+manners to knock at the door?' he said; and I said, 'Certainly,' and
+went back and done it; and, troubled as he was, he grinned a bit. Then
+he bowed his great head, as he always did when he knew he had gone
+perhaps a trifle too far with a man in my position. I nodded to forgive
+him, and he stood across, and saw that he could do no less than liquor
+me, after such behavior. But he only brought out one glass; and I said,
+'Come, Colonel, square is square, you know.' 'Excuse of me, Martin,' he
+said; 'but no drop of strong drink passes the brim of my mouth till this
+gallivanting is done with. I might take too much, as the old men do,
+to sink what they don't want to think on.' 'You mean about bully-cock
+Firm,' says I; 'rebel Firm--nigger-driver Firm.' 'Hush!' he said; 'no
+bad words about it. He has gone by his conscience and his heart. What do
+we know of what come inside of him?'
+
+"This was true enough, for I never did make that boy out to my liking:
+and the old man now was as stiff as a rock, and pretty nigh as peculiar.
+He made me a cocktail of his own patent, to show how firm his hand was;
+but the lines of his face was like wainscot mouldings, and the cords of
+his arm stood out like cogs. Then he took his long pipe, as he may have
+done perhaps every blessed night for the last fifty years; but that
+length of time ought to have learned him better than to go for to fill
+it upside down. 'Ha, ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I
+was a man under heaven--countries and nations and kindreds and duties;
+and why not a old tobacco-pipe? That's the way babies blow bubbles with
+them. We shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is
+busted up. Fill yours, and try it, Martin.'
+
+"Instead of enjoying my cocktail, Miss 'Rema, I never was so down at
+mouth; for, to my mind, his old heart was broken while he carried on so.
+And let every body say what they will, one thing there is no denying of.
+Never was seen on this side of the big hills a man fit to walk in the
+tracks of Uncle Sam, so large and good-hearted according to his lights,
+hard as a grizzly bear for a man to milk him, but soft in the breastbone
+as a young prairie-hen for all folk down upon their nine-pins.
+
+"You may be surprised, miss, to find me write so long. Fact is, the
+things won't go out of my mind without it. And it gives me a comfort,
+after all I may have said, to put good opinions upon paper. If he never
+should turn up again, my language will be to his credit; whereas if
+he do come back, with the betting a horse to a duck against it, to
+his pride he will read this testimonial of yours, faithfully, MARTIN
+CLOGFAST.
+
+"P.S.--Can't carry on like this much longer. Enough to rip one's heart
+up. You never would know the old place, miss. The heads of the horses is
+as long as their tails with the way they carry them; the moss is as big
+as a Spaniard's beard upon the kitchen door-sill; and the old dog howls
+all day and night, like fifty thousand scalpers. Suan saith, if you was
+to come back, the lad might run home after you. 'Tisn't the lad I cares
+about so much, but poor old Sawyer, at his time of life, swallowed up in
+the wilderness."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+THE PANACEA
+
+
+As if my own trouble were not enough, so deeply was I grieved by this
+sad news that I had a great mind to turn back on my own and fly to
+far-off disasters. To do so appeared for the moment a noble thing, and
+almost a duty; but now, looking back, I perceive that my instinct was
+right when it told me to stay where I was, and see out my own sad story
+first. And Betsy grew hot at the mere idea of my hankering after a
+miller's affairs, as she very rudely expressed it. To hear about lords
+and ladies, and their crimes and adventures, was lovely; but to dwell
+upon people of common birth, and in trade, was most unbeseeming. A man
+who mended his own mill, and had hands like horn--well, even she was of
+better blood than that, she hoped.
+
+Before these large and liberal views had fairly been expounded, Major
+Hockin arrived, with his mind in such a state that he opened his watch
+every second.
+
+"Erema, I must speak to you alone," he cried; "no, not even you, Mrs.
+Strouss, if you please. If my ward likes to tell you, why, of course she
+can; but nobody shall say that I did. There are things that belong to
+the family alone. The most loyal retainers--you know what I mean."
+
+"General, I was not aware that you belonged to the family. But this way,
+Sir; this way, if you please. There is lath and plaster to that wall,
+and a crack in the panel of the door, Sir. But here is a room where I
+keep my jams, with double brick and patent locks, from sweet-toothed
+lodgers. The 'scutcheon goes over the key-hole, General. Perhaps you
+will see to that, while I roll up the carpet outside; and then, if any
+retainers come, you will hear their footsteps."
+
+"Bless the woman, what a temper she has!" whispered the Major, in dread
+of her ears. "Is she gone, Erema? She wants discipline."
+
+"Yes, she is gone," I said, trying to be lightsome; "but you are enough
+to frighten any one."
+
+"So far from that, she has quite frightened me. But never mind such
+trifles. Erema, since I saw you I have discovered, I may almost say,
+every thing."
+
+Coming upon me so suddenly, even with all allowance made for the Major's
+sanguine opinion of his own deeds, this had such effect upon my flurried
+brain that practice alone enabled me to stand upright and gaze at him.
+
+"Perhaps you imagined when you placed the matter in my hands, Miss
+Castlewood," he went on, with sharp twinkles from the gables of his
+eyes, but soft caresses to his whiskers, "that you would be left in the
+hands of a man who encouraged a crop of hay under his feet. Never did
+you or any body make a greater mistake. That is not my character, Miss
+Castlewood."
+
+"Why do you call me 'Miss Castlewood' so? You quite make me doubt my own
+right to the name."
+
+Major Hockin looked at me with surprise, which gladdened even more than
+it shamed me. Clearly his knowledge of all, as he described it, did not
+comprise the disgrace which I feared.
+
+"You are almost like Mrs. Strouss to-day," he answered, with some
+compassion. "What way is the wind? I have often observed that when one
+female shows asperity, nearly all the others do the same. The weather
+affects them more than men, because they know nothing about it. But to
+come back--are you prepared to hear what I have got to tell you?"
+
+I bowed without saying another word. For he should be almost the last of
+mankind to give a lecture upon irritation.
+
+"Very well; you wish me to go on. Perceiving how sadly you were upset by
+the result of those interviews, first with Handkin, and then with Goad,
+after leaving you here I drove at once to the office, studio, place of
+business, or whatever you please to call it, of the famous fellow in
+the portrait line, whose anagram, private mark, or whatever it is, was
+burned into the back of the ivory. Handkin told me the fellow was dead,
+or, of course, his work would be worth nothing; but the name was carried
+on, and the register kept, at a little place somewhere in Soho, where,
+on the strength of his old repute, they keep up a small trade with
+inferior hands. I gave them a handsome order for a thing that will never
+be handsome, I fear--my old battered physiognomy. And then I produced
+the locket which in some queer state of mind you had given me, and made
+them hunt out their old books, and at last discovered the very entry.
+But to verify it I must go to Paris, where his son is living."
+
+"Whose son? Lord Castlewood's?"
+
+"Erema, have you taken leave of your senses? What son has Lord
+Castlewood? The artist's son, to be sure; the son of the man who did the
+likeness. Is it the vellum and the stuff upon it that has so upset your
+mind? I am glad that you showed it to me, because it would have been
+mean to do otherwise. But show it to no one else, my dear, except your
+cousin, Lord Castlewood. He has the first right of all to know it,
+though he will laugh at it as I do. Trumpery of that sort! Let them
+produce a certified copy of a register. If they could do that, need they
+ever have shot that raffish old lord--I beg pardon, my dear--your highly
+respected grandfather? No, no; don't tell me. Nicholas Hockin was never
+in any way famous for want of brains, my dear, and he tells you to keep
+your pluck up."
+
+"I never can thank you enough," I replied, "for such inspiriting
+counsel. I have been rather miserable all this day. And I have had such
+a letter from America!"
+
+Without my intending any offer of the kind, or having such idea at the
+furthest tip of any radius of mind, I found myself under a weight about
+the waist, like the things the young girls put on now. And this was the
+arm of the Major, which had been knocked about in some actions, but was
+useful still to let other people know, both in this way and that, what
+he thought of them. And now it let me know that he pitied me.
+
+This kindness from so old a soldier made me partial to him. He had taken
+an age to understand me, because my father was out of the army almost
+before I was born, and therefore I had no traditions. Also, from want
+of drilling, I had been awkward to this officer, and sometimes mutinous,
+and sometimes a coward. All that, however, he forgave me when he saw
+me so downhearted; and while I was striving to repress all signs, the
+quivering of my lips perhaps suggested thoughts of kissing. Whereupon
+he kissed my forehead with nice dry lips, and told me not to be at all
+afraid.
+
+"How many times have you been brave?" he inquired, to set me counting,
+knowing from all his own children, perhaps, that nothing stops futile
+tears and the waste of sobs like prompt arithmetic. "Six, if not seven,
+times you have displayed considerable valor. Are you going to fall
+away through some wretched imagination of your own? Now don't stop to
+argue--time will not allow it. I have put Cosmopolitan Jack as well upon
+the track of Captain Brown. I have not told you half of what I could
+tell, and what I am doing; but never mind, never mind; it is better that
+you should not know too much, my dear. Young minds, from their want of
+knowledge of the world, are inclined to become uneasy. Now go to bed and
+sleep soundly, Erema, for we have lots to do to-morrow, and you have had
+a most worrying day to-day. To-morrow, of course, you must come with me
+to Paris. You can parleyvoo better than I can."
+
+However, as it happened, I did nothing of the kind, for when he came
+back in the morning, and while he was fidgeting and hurrying me, and
+vowing that we should lose the tidal train, a letter from Bruntsea was
+put into my hand. I saw Mrs. Price's clear writing, followed by good
+Aunt Mary's crooked lines, and knew that the latter must have received
+it too late to be sent by her messenger. In few words it told me that
+if I wished to see my cousin alive, the only chance was to start
+immediately.
+
+Shock and self-reproach and wonder came (as usual) before grief, which
+always means to stay, and waits to get its mourning ready. I loved and
+respected my cousin more deeply than any one living, save Uncle Sam; and
+now to lose them both at once seemed much too dreadful to be true.
+There was no time to think. I took the Major's cab, and hurried off to
+Paddington, leaving him to catch his tidal train.
+
+Alas! when I got to Castlewood, there was but a house of mourning!
+Faithful Stixon's eyes were dim, and he pointed upward and said,
+"Hush!" I entered with great awe, and asked, "How long?" And he said,
+"Four-and-twenty hours now; and a more peacefuller end was never seen,
+and to lament was sinful; but he was blessed if he could help it." I
+told him, through my tears, that this was greatly to his credit, and he
+must not crush fine feelings, which are an honor to our nature. And he
+said that I was mistress now, and must order him to my liking.
+
+I asked him to send Mrs. Price to me, if she was not too busy; and he
+answered that he believed her to be a very good soul, and handy. And if
+he ever had been thought to speak in a sense disparishing of her, such
+things should not be borne in mind, with great afflictions over us. Mrs.
+Price, hearing that I was come, already was on her way to me, and
+now glanced at the door for Mr. Stixon to depart, in a manner past
+misunderstanding.
+
+"He gives himself such airs!" she said; "sometimes one would think--but
+I will not trouble you now with that, Miss Castlewood, or Lady
+Castlewood--which do you please to be called, miss? They say that the
+barony goes on, when there is no more Viscount."
+
+"I please to be called 'Miss Castlewood,' even if I have any right to be
+called that. But don't let us talk of such trifles now. I wish to hear
+only of my cousin."
+
+"Well, you know, ma'am, what a sufferer he has been for years. If ever
+an angel had pains all over, and one leg compulsory of a walking-stick,
+that angel was his late lordship. He would stand up and look at one, and
+give orders in that beautiful silvery voice of his, just as if he was
+lying on a bed of down. And never a twitch, nor a hitch in his face, nor
+his words, nor any other part of him. I assure you, miss, that I have
+been quite amazed and overwhelmed with interest while looking at his
+poor legs, and thinking--"
+
+"I can quite enter into it. I have felt the same. But please to come to
+what has happened lately."
+
+"The very thing I was at the point of doing. Then last Sunday, God alone
+knows why, the pain did not come on at all. For the first time for seven
+years or more the pain forgot the time-piece. His lordship thought that
+the clock was wrong; but waited with his usual patience, though missing
+it from the length of custom, instead of being happy. But when it
+was come to an hour too late for the proper attack of the enemy, his
+lordship sent orders for Stixon's boy to take a good horse and ride to
+Pangbourne for a highly respectable lawyer. There was no time to fetch
+Mr. Spines, you see, miss, the proper solicitor, who lives in London.
+The gentleman from Pangbourne was here by eight o'clock; and then and
+there his lordship made his will, to supersede all other wills. He put
+it more clearly, the lawyer said, than he himself could have put it, but
+not, of course, in such legal words, but doubtless far more beautiful.
+Nobody in the house was forgotten; and the rule of law being, it seems,
+that those with best cause to remember must not witness, two of the
+tenants were sent for, and wrote down their names legitimate. And then
+his lordship lay back and smiled, and said, 'I shall have no more pain.'
+
+"All that night and three days more he slept as sound as a little child,
+to make up for so many years. We called two doctors in; but they only
+whispered and looked dismal, and told us to have hot water ready at any
+hour of the day or night. Nobody loved him as I did, miss, from seeing
+so much of his troubles and miraculous way of bearing them; and I sat by
+the hour and hour, and watched him, trusting no paid nurses.
+
+"It must have been eight o'clock on Wednesday morning--what is to-day?
+Oh, Friday--then Thursday morning it must have been, when the clouds
+opened up in the east, and the light of the sun was on the window-sill,
+not glaring or staring, but playing about, with patterns of leaves
+between it; and I went to screen it from his poor white face; but he
+opened his eyes, as if he had been half awake, half dreaming, and he
+tried to lift one of his thin, thin hands to tell me not to do it. So I
+let the curtain stay as it was, and crept back, and asked, very softly,
+'Will your lordship have some breakfast?'
+
+"He did not seem to comprehend me, but only watched the window; and
+if ever a blessed face there was, looking toward heaven's glory, his
+lordship had it, so that I could scarcely keep from sobbing. For I never
+had seen any living body die, but knew that it must be so. He heard me
+catching my breath, perhaps, or at any rate he looked at me; and the
+poor angel knew that I was a woman; and being full of high respect, as
+he always was for females--in spite of the way they had served him--it
+became apparent to his mind that the pearl button of his neck was open,
+as ordered by the doctors. And he tried to lift his hand to do it; and
+then he tried to turn away, but could not manage either. Poor dear! the
+only movement he could make was to a better world.
+
+"Then I drew the sheet across his chest, and he gave me a little smile
+of thanks, and perhaps he knew whose hand it was. But the look of his
+kind soft eyes was flickering--not steady, I mean, miss--but glancing
+and stopping and going astray, as drops of rain do on the window-glass.
+But I could not endure to examine him much; at such a holy time I felt
+that to watch death was unholy.
+
+"Perhaps I ought to have rung the bell for others to be present. But his
+lordship was always shy, you know, miss; and with none of his kindred
+left, and no wife to say 'good-by' to him, right or wrong I resolved
+alone to see him depart to his everlasting rest. And people may talk
+about hirelings, but I think nobody loved him as I did."
+
+Here Mrs. Price broke fairly down, and I could not help admiring her.
+To a faithful servant's humility and duty she had added a woman's pure
+attachment to one more gifted than herself, and ruined for life by her
+own sex. But she fell away frightened and ashamed beneath my look, as if
+I had caught her in sacrilege.
+
+"Well, miss, we all must come and go," she began again, rather clumsily;
+"and, good and great as he was, his lordship has left few to mourn for
+him. Only the birds and beasts and animals that he was so good to; they
+will miss him, if men don't. There came one of his favorite pigeons,
+white as snow all over, and sat on the sill of the window, and cooed,
+and arched up its neck for his fingers. And he tried to put his fingers
+out, but they were ice already. Whether that or something else brought
+home his thoughts, who knows, miss? but he seemed to mix the pigeon up
+with some of his own experience.
+
+"'Say that I have forgiven her, if ever she did harm to me,' he
+whispered, without moving lips. 'Times and times, when I was young, I
+was not always steady;' and then he seemed to wander in his mind among
+old places; and he would have laughed at something if his voice had been
+sufficient.
+
+"'Bitter grief and pain shall never come again,' he seemed to breathe,
+with a calm, soft smile, like a child with its rhyme about the rain when
+the sun breaks out; and sure enough, the sun upon the quilt above
+his heart was shining, as if there could be no more clouds. Then he
+whispered a few short words to the Lord, more in the way of thanks than
+prayer, and his eyes seemed to close of their own accord, or with some
+good spirit soothing them. And when or how his sleep passed from this
+world into the other there was scarcely the flutter of a nerve to show.
+There he lies, like an image of happiness. Will you come and see him?"
+
+I followed her to the bedroom, and am very glad that I did so; for
+it showed me the bliss of a good man's rest, and took away my fear of
+death.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+LIFE SINISTER
+
+
+When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again, every
+one told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at first, but
+soon to increasing acquiescence) that I was now the mistress of the fair
+estates of Castlewood, and, the male line being extinct, might claim
+the barony, if so pleased me; for that, upon default of male heirs,
+descended by the spindle. And as to the property, with or without any
+will of the late Lord Castlewood, the greater part would descend to me
+under unbarred settlement, which he was not known to have meddled with.
+On the contrary, he confirmed by his last will the settlement--which
+they told me was quite needless--and left me all that he had to leave,
+except about a thousand pounds distributed in legacies. A private
+letter to me was sealed up with his will, which, of course, it would not
+behoove me to make public. But thus much--since our family history is,
+alas! so notorious--in duty to him I should declare. He begged me, if
+his poor lost wife--of whom he had never spoken to me--should re-appear
+and need it, to pay her a certain yearly sum, which I thought a great
+deal too much for her, but resolved to obey him exactly.
+
+Neither the will nor the letter contained any reference to my
+grandfather, or the possibility of an adverse claim. I could not,
+however, be quit of deep uneasiness and anxiety, but stanchly determined
+that every acre should vanish in folds of "the long robe" rather than
+pass to a crafty villain who had robbed me of all my kindred. My hatred
+of that man deepened vastly, as he became less abstract, while my terror
+decreased in proportion. I began to think that, instead of being
+the reckless fiend I had taken him for, he was only a low, plotting,
+cold-blooded rogue, without even courage to save him. By this time
+he must have heard all about me, my pursuit of him, and my presence
+here--then why not come and shoot me, just as he shot my grandfather?
+
+The idea of this was unwelcome; still, I felt no sort of gratitude, but
+rather a lofty contempt toward him for not having spirit to try it.
+In Shoxford church-yard he had expressed (if Sexton Rigg was not then
+deceived) an unholy wish to have me there, at the feet of my brothers
+and sisters. Also he had tried to get hold of me--doubtless with a
+view to my quietude--when I was too young to defend myself, and left at
+haphazard in a lawless land. What was the reason, if his mind was
+still the same, for ceasing to follow me now? Was I to be treated with
+contempt as one who had tried her best and could do nothing, as a feeble
+creature whose movements were not even worth inquiry? Anger at such an
+idea began to supersede fear, as my spirits returned.
+
+Meanwhile Major Hockin was making no sign as to what had befallen him
+in Paris, or what Cosmopolitan Jack was about. But, strangely enough,
+he had sent me a letter from Bruntsea instead of Paris, and addressed
+in grand style to no less a person than "The right honorable Baroness
+Castlewood"--a title which I had resolved, for the present, neither to
+claim nor acknowledge. In that letter the Major mingled a pennyweight
+of condolence with more congratulation than the post could carry for the
+largest stamp yet invented. His habit of mind was to magnify things; and
+he magnified my small grandeur, and seemed to think nothing else worthy
+of mention.
+
+Through love of the good kind cousin I had lost, even more than through
+common and comely respect toward the late head of the family, I felt it
+impossible to proceed, for the present, with any inquiries, but left
+the next move to the other side. And the other side made it, in a manner
+such as I never even dreamed of.
+
+About three weeks after I became, in that sad way, the mistress,
+escaping one day from lawyers and agents, who held me in dreary
+interview, with long computations of this and of that, and formalities
+almost endless, I went, for a breath of good earnest fresh air, beyond
+precinct of garden or shrubbery. To me these seemed in mild weather to
+temper and humanize the wind too strictly, and take the wild spirit out
+of it; and now, for the turn of the moment, no wind could be too rough
+to tumble in. After long months of hard trouble, and worry, and fear,
+and sad shame, and deep sorrow, the natural spring of clear youth into
+air and freedom set me upward. For the nonce there was nothing upon my
+selfish self to keep it downward; troubles were bubbles, and grief a
+low thief, and reason almost treason. I drank the fine fountain of air
+unsullied, and the golden light stamped with the royalty of sun.
+
+Hilarious moments are but short, and soon cold sense comes back again.
+Already I began to feel ashamed of young life's selfish outburst, and
+the vehement spring of mere bodily health. On this account I sat down
+sadly in a little cove of hill, whereto the soft breeze from the river
+came up, with a tone of wavelets, and a sprightly water-gleam. And here,
+in fern and yellow grass and tufted bights of bottom growth, the wind
+made entry for the sun, and they played with one another.
+
+Besting here, and thinking, with my face between my hands, I wondered
+what would be the end. Nothing seemed secure or certain, nothing even
+steady or amenable to foresight. Even guess-work or the wider cast of
+dreams was always wrong. To-day the hills and valleys, and the glorious
+woods of wreathen gold, bright garnet, and deep amethyst, even that
+blue river yet unvexed by autumn's turbulence, and bordered with green
+pasture of a thousand sheep and cattle--to-day they all were mine (so
+far as mortal can hold ownership)--to-morrow, not a stick, or twig, or
+blade of grass, or fallen leaf, but might call me a trespasser. To see
+them while they still were mine, and to regard them humbly, I rose and
+took my black hat off--a black hat trimmed with mourning gray. Then
+turning round, I met a gaze, the wildest, darkest, and most awful ever
+fixed on human face.
+
+"Who are you? What do you want here?" I faltered forth, while shrinking
+back for flight, yet dreading or unable to withdraw my gaze from his.
+The hollow ground barred all escape; my own land was a pit for me, and
+I must face this horror out. Here, afar from house or refuge, hand of
+help, or eye of witness, front to front I must encounter this atrocious
+murderer.
+
+For moments, which were ages to me, he stood there without a word; and
+daring not to take my eyes from his, lest he should leap at me, I had no
+power (except of instinct), and could form no thought of him, for mortal
+fear fell over me. If he would only speak, would only move his lips, or
+any thing!
+
+"The Baroness is not brave," he said at last, as if reproachfully; "but
+she need have no fear now of me. Does her ladyship happen to know who I
+am?"
+
+"The man who murdered my grandfather."
+
+"Yes, if you put a false color on events. The man who punished a
+miscreant, according to the truer light. But I am not here to argue
+points. I intend to propose a bargain. Once for all, I will not harm
+you. Try to listen calmly. Your father behaved like a man to me, and I
+will be no worse to you. The state of the law in this country is such
+that I am forced to carry fire-arms. Will it conduce to your peace of
+mind if I place myself at your mercy?"
+
+I tried to answer; but my heart was beating so that no voice came, only
+a flutter in my trembling throat. Wrath with myself for want of courage
+wrestled in vain with pale, abject fear. The hand which offered me
+the pistol seemed to my dazed eyes crimson still with the blood of my
+grandfather.
+
+"You will not take it? Very well; it lies here at your service. If your
+father's daughter likes to shoot me, from one point of view it will be
+just; and but for one reason, I care not. Don't look at me with pity,
+if you please. For what I have done I feel no remorse, no shadow of
+repentance. It was the best action of my life. But time will fail,
+unless you call upon your courage speedily. None of your family lack
+that; and I know that you possess it. Call your spirit up, my dear."
+
+"Oh, please not to call me that! How dare you call me that?"
+
+"That is right. I did it on purpose. And yet I am your uncle. Not by the
+laws of men, but by the laws of God--if there are such things. Now, have
+you the strength to hear me?"
+
+"Yes; I am quite recovered now. I can follow every word you say.
+But--but I must sit down again."
+
+"Certainly. Sit there, and I will stand. I will not touch or come nearer
+to you than a story such as mine requires. You know your own side of it;
+now hear mine.
+
+"More than fifty years ago there was a brave young nobleman, handsome,
+rich, accomplished, strong, not given to drink or gambling, or any
+fashionable vices. His faults were few, and chiefly three--he had
+a headstrong will, loved money, and possessed no heart at all. With
+chances in his favor, this man might have done as most men do who have
+such gifts from fortune. But he happened to meet with a maiden far
+beneath him in this noble world, and he set his affections--such as they
+were--upon that poor young damsel.
+
+"This was Winifred Hoyle, the daughter of Thomas Hoyle, a farmer, in a
+lonely part of Hampshire, and among the moors of Rambledon. The nobleman
+lost his way, while fishing, and being thirsty, went to ask for milk.
+What matter how it came about? He managed to win her heart before she
+heard of his rank and title. He persuaded her even to come and meet him
+in the valley far from her father's house, where he was wont to angle;
+and there, on a lonely wooden bridge across a little river, he knelt
+down (as men used to do) and pledged his solemn truth to her. His solemn
+lie--his solemn lie!
+
+"Such love as his could not overleap the bars of rank or the pale of
+wealth--are you listening to me carefully?--or, at any rate, not both
+of them. If the poor farmer could only have given his Winifred 50,000
+pounds, the peer would have dropped his pride, perhaps, so far as to be
+honest. But farmers in that land are poor, and Mr. Hoyle could give
+his only child his blessing only. And this he did in London, where his
+simple mind was all abroad, and he knew not church from chapel. He
+took his daughter for the wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor
+thing! when she was but his concubine. In 1809 such tricks were easily
+played by villains upon young girls so simple.
+
+"But he gave her attestation and certificate under his own hand; and
+her poor father signed it, and saw it secured in a costly case, and then
+went home as proud as need be for the father of a peer, but sworn to
+keep it three years secret, till the king should give consent. Such foul
+lies it was the pride of a lord to tell to a farmer.
+
+"You do not exclaim--of course you do not. The instincts of your race
+are in you, because you are legitimate. Those of the robbed side are in
+me, because I am of the robbed. I am your father's elder brother. Which
+is the worse, you proud young womam, the dastard or the bastard?"
+
+"You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs," I answered, meeting fierce eyes
+mildly; "but you should remember that I am guiltless of those wrongs,
+and so was my father. And I think that if you talk of birth so, you must
+know that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies."
+
+"What concern is that of mine? A gentleman is some one's son. I am the
+son of nobody. But to you I will speak quietly, for the sake of your
+poor father. And you must listen quietly. I am not famous for sweet
+temper. Well, this great lord took his toy to Paris, where he had her
+at his mercy. She could not speak a word of French; she did not know a
+single soul. In vain she prayed him to take her to his English home;
+or, if not that, to restore her to her father. Not to be too long about
+it--any more than he was--a few months were enough for him. He found
+fault with her manners, with her speech, her dress, her every thing--all
+which he had right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier. And
+she, although not born to the noble privilege of weariness, had been an
+old man's darling, and could not put up with harshness. From words they
+came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or rather
+his own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless, penniless, and
+brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.
+
+"There and thus I saw the light beneath most noble auspices. But I need
+not go on with all that. As long as human rules remain, this happy tale
+will always be repeated with immense applause. My mother's love was
+turned to bitter hatred of his lordship, and, when her father died from
+grief, to eager thirst for vengeance. And for this purpose I was born.
+
+"You see that--for a bastard--I have been fairly educated; but not a
+farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support his
+casual. My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his daughter
+Winifred; and upon that, and my mother's toil and mine, we have kept
+alive. Losing sight of my mother gladly--for she was full of pride, and
+hoped no more to trouble him, after getting her father's property--he
+married again, or rather he married for the first time without perjury,
+which enables the man to escape from it. She was of his own rank--as you
+know--the daughter of an earl, and not of a farmer. It would not have
+been safe to mock her, would it? And there was no temptation.
+
+"The history of my mother and myself does not concern you. Such people
+are of no account until they grow dangerous to the great. We lived in
+cheap places and wandered about, caring for no one, and cared for by
+the same. Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called ourselves when we wanted
+names; and I did not even know the story of our wrongs till the heat
+and fury of youth were past. Both for her own sake and mine my mother
+concealed it from me. Pride and habit, perhaps, had dulled her just
+desire for vengeance; and, knowing what I was, she feared--the thing
+which has befallen me. But when I was close upon thirty years old, and
+my mother eight-and-forty--for she was betrayed in her teens--a sudden
+illness seized her. Believing her death to be near, she told me, as
+calmly as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of
+the past, which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the
+wrong tenfold blacker. She did not die; if she had, it might have been
+better both for her and me, and many other people. Are you tired of my
+tale? Or do you want to hear the rest?"
+
+"You can not be asking me in earnest," I replied, while I watched his
+wild eyes carefully. "Tell me the rest, if you are not afraid."
+
+"Afraid, indeed! Then, for want of that proper tendance and comfort
+which a few pounds would have brought her, although she survived, she
+survived as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her poor unhappy self.
+I sank my pride for her sake, and even deigned to write to him, in rank
+and wealth so far above me, in every thing else such a clot below my
+heel. He did the most arrogant thing a snob can do--he never answered my
+letter.
+
+"I scraped together a little money, and made my way to England, and
+came to that house--which you now call yours--and bearded that noble
+nobleman--that father to be so proud of! He was getting on now in years,
+and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first appearance scared
+him. He got no obeisance from me, you may be certain, but still I did
+not revile him. I told him of my mother's state of mind, and the great
+care she required, and demanded that, in common justice, he, having
+brought her to this, should help her. But nothing would he promise, not
+a sixpence even, in the way of regular allowance. Any thing of that sort
+could only be arranged by means of his solicitors. He had so expensive a
+son, with a very large and growing family, that he could not be pledged
+to any yearly sum. But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign
+an acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving my
+identity.
+
+"What identity had I to prove? He had taken good care of that. I turned
+my back on him and left the house, without even asking for his curse,
+though as precious as a good man's blessing.
+
+"It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and going
+across this park--or whatever it is called--I met my brother. At a crest
+of the road we met face to face, with the moon across our foreheads. We
+had never met till now, nor even heard of one another; at least he had
+never heard of me. He started back as if at his own ghost; but I had
+nothing to be startled at, in this world or the other.
+
+"I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on
+very well together. At one time it seemed good luck for him to have
+illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled in the
+weeds of this river while bathing. You owe me no thanks. I thought twice
+about it, and if the name would have ended with him, I would never have
+used my basket-knife. By trade I am a basket-maker, like many another
+'love-child.'
+
+"However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some risk in
+doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and encouraged me to
+visit him. Not at his home--of course that would never do--but when
+he was with his regiment. Short of money as he always was, through
+his father's nature and his own, which in some points were the very
+opposite, he was even desirous to give me some of that; but I never took
+a farthing from him. If I had it at all, I would have it from the proper
+one. And from him I resolved to have it.
+
+"How terrified you look! I am coming to it now. Are you sure that you
+can bear it? It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young ladies--"
+
+"I feel a little faint," I could not help saying; "but that is nothing.
+I must hear the whole of it. Please to go on without minding me."
+
+"For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours. I can not have you
+fainting, and bringing people here. Go to the house and take food, and
+recover your strength, and then come here again. I promise to be here,
+and your father's daughter will not take advantage of my kindness."
+
+Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of strange
+tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father's, and asserted
+power over me. Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man, and left him
+there, and went slowly to the house, walking as if in a troubled dream.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+FOR LIFE, DEATH
+
+
+Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of
+browning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and furze,
+and wisps of grass. With great relief (of which I felt ashamed while
+even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid to tell the rest
+of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice had much time for
+self-congratulation a tall figure rose from the ground, and fear
+compelled me into courage. For throughout this long interview more and
+more I felt an extremely unpleasant conviction. That stranger might not
+be a downright madman, nor even what is called a lunatic; but still
+it was clear that upon certain points--the laws of this country, for
+instance, and the value of rank and station--his opinions were so
+outrageous that his reason must be affected. And, even without such
+proofs as these, his eyes and his manner were quite enough. Therefore I
+had need of no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures,
+but as to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these last
+as quickly as they flashed across me. I never had learned to conceal my
+thoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.
+
+"I hope you are better," he said, as kindly as it was possible for him
+to speak. "Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you. I will not sham
+any admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind; but as for harming
+you--why, your father was almost the only kind heart I ever met!"
+
+"Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father was
+dead in the desert?"
+
+"I never did any thing of the sort. It was done in my name, but not by
+me; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a score to
+settle with the man who did it."
+
+"But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the true
+Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America. I never saw truth
+more plainly stamped on a new situation--the face of a rogue--than I saw
+it then on the face of Mr. Goad."
+
+"You are quite right; he spoke the truth--to the utmost of his
+knowledge. I never saw Goad, and he never saw me. I never even dreamed
+of pretending to the title. I was personated by a mean, low friend of
+Sir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never stoop to such a
+trick. You will find out the meaning of that by-and-by. I have taken
+the law into my own hands--it is the only way to work such laws--I
+have committed what is called a crime. But, compared with Sir Montague
+Hockin, I am whiter than yonder shearling on his way to the river for
+his evening drink."
+
+I gazed at his face, and could well believe it. The setting sun shone
+upon his chin and forehead--good, resolute, well-marked features; his
+nose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt and pale (though
+they would have been better for being a trifle cleaner). There was
+nothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and but for the wildness
+of the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it might have been called a
+handsome face.
+
+"Very well," he began again, with one of those jerks which had
+frightened me, "your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but he
+knew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf. On
+the other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve; perhaps he
+thought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a woman! And partly
+for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my mother's, I made the short
+work which I made; for he was horribly straitened--and in his free,
+light way he told me so--by his hard curmudgeon of a father.
+
+"To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and
+plenty of openings for repentance. None of them would he embrace, and he
+thought scorn of my lenity. And I might have gone on with such weakness
+longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four was ordered for the
+Moonstock Inn.
+
+"That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so forsworn
+himself! I resolved that there he should pay justice, either with his
+life or death. And I went to your father's place to tell him to prepare
+for disturbances; but he was gone to see his wife, and I simply borrowed
+a pistol.
+
+"Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like that.
+I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets forth on
+circuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge affords to the
+guilty--the chance of leading a better life. I had brought my mother
+to England, and she was in a poor place in London; her mind was failing
+more and more, and reverting to her love-time, the one short happiness
+of her life. 'If I could but see him, if I could but see him, and show
+him his tall and clever son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking
+ever to be his wife. Oh, Thomas! I was too young to know it. If I could
+but see him once, just once!'
+
+"How all this drove me no tongue can tell. But I never let her know it;
+I only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever sees any body
+more!' And she trusted me and was satisfied. She only said, 'Take my
+picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy time, and his pledge to me
+inside of it.' And she gave me what she had kept for years in a bag of
+chamois leather, the case of which I spoke before, which even in our
+hardest times she would never send to the pawn-shop.
+
+"The rest is simple enough. I swore by the God, or the Devil, who made
+me, that this black-hearted man should yield either his arrogance or his
+life. I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate ordained that I should
+meet him where he forswore himself to my mother; on that very plank
+where he had breathed his deadly lies he breathed his last. Would you
+like to hear all about it?"
+
+For answer I only bowed my head. His calm, methodical way of telling
+his tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more shocking than any
+fury.
+
+"Then it was this. I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house in
+the village, where he dined with company; and I did not even know that
+it was the house of his son, your father--so great a gulf is fixed
+between the legitimate and the bastard! He had crossed the wooden bridge
+in going, and was sure to cross it in coming back. How he could tread
+those planks without contrition and horror--but never mind. I resolved
+to bring him to a quiet parley there, and I waited in the valley.
+
+"The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood closed
+in; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the moon was on
+the uplands. Time and place alike were fit for our little explanation.
+The path wound down the meadow toward me, and I knew that he must come.
+My firm intention was to spare him, if he gave me a chance of it; but he
+never had the manners to do that.
+
+"Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I heard
+a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path. Then a figure appeared in
+a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a staff. Perhaps his
+lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty years, to times when he
+told pretty stories here; and perhaps he laughed to himself to think how
+well he had got out of it. Whatever his meditations were, I let him have
+them out, and waited.
+
+"If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him; but
+he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I clearly heard
+him say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did I drink port-wine
+for!' He struck the ground with his stick and came onward, thinking far
+more of his feet than heart.
+
+"Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed himself,
+I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word looked at him.
+The moon was topping the crest of the hills and threw my shadow upon
+him, the last that ever fell upon his body to its knowledge.
+
+"'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice and
+air, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him began to
+rise.
+
+"'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this
+earth,' I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my orders.'
+
+"He saw his peril, but he had courage--perhaps his only virtue. 'Fool!
+whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him help; 'none
+of these moon-struck ways with me! If you want to rob me, try it!'
+
+"'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me back.
+'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice--to lick the dust, or be
+dust! Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for perjury. On this
+plank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you ruined and cast by; and
+now on this plank you shall kneel to her son and swear to obey him--or
+else you die!'
+
+"In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death himself,
+instead of his own dear eldest son.
+
+"'What do you want!' As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety rail
+and shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook. 'How much will
+satisfy you?'
+
+"'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your half
+crowns! We must have a little of what you have grudged--having none to
+spare--your honor. My demands are simple, and only two. My mother is
+fool enough to yearn for one more sight of your false face; you will
+come with me and see her.'
+
+"'And if I yield to that, what next?'
+
+"'The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you. Here I have, in
+this blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your solemn
+signature to a lie. At the foot of that you will have the truth to
+write, "I am a perjured liar!" and proudly sign it "Castlewood," in the
+presence of two witnesses. This can not hurt your feelings much, and it
+need not be expensive.'
+
+"Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check its
+outbreak. The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was better, in
+such lordly fields, than the whole of the harvest we got. He knew that I
+had him all to myself, to indulge my filial affection.
+
+"'You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have only
+heard your mother's story. Allow me to go back and to sit in a dry
+place; I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear my tale as
+well. I passed a dry stump just now; I will go back: there is no fear of
+interruption.' My lord was talking against time.
+
+"'From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your knees
+and sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be no perjury.
+Here I hold your cursed pledge--'
+
+"He struck at me, or at the locket--no matter which--but it flew away.
+My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-handed, as a
+bastard should be. From my left hand he took his death, and I threw the
+pistol after him: such love had he earned from his love-child!"
+
+Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here broke
+off from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my presence, set
+his gloomy eyes on the ground. Lightly he might try to speak, but there
+was no lightness in his mind, and no spark of light in his poor dead
+soul. Being so young, and unacquainted with the turns of life-worn mind,
+I was afraid to say a word except to myself, and to myself I only said,
+"The man is mad, poor fellow; and no wonder!"
+
+The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights, but
+over the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame England; and,
+different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad and fearful sunset
+lay before me: the fall of night upon my dying father and his helpless
+child, the hour of anguish and despair! Here at last was the cause of
+all laid horribly before me; and the pity deeply moving me passed into
+cold abhorrence. But the man was lost in his own visions.
+
+"So in your savage wrath," I said, "you killed your own father, and in
+your fright left mine to bear the brunt of it."
+
+He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray from
+mine. He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I had spoken.
+The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment of his father had
+worked upon him so much that he could not freely shift attention.
+
+"I came for something, something that can be only had from you," he
+said, "and only since your cousin's death, and something most important.
+But will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from mind and memory!"
+
+"I am not surprised at that," I answered, looking at his large wan face,
+and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness. "Whatever
+it is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post."
+
+"I see what you mean--not to come any more. You are right about that,
+for certain. But your father was good to me, and I loved him, though
+I had no right to love any one. My letter will show that I wronged him
+never. The weight of the world is off my mind since I have told you
+every thing; you can send me to the gallows, if you think fit, but leave
+it till my mother dies. Good-by, poor child. I have spoiled your life,
+but only by chance consequence, not in murder-birth--as I was born."
+
+Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so,
+he was far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life, his
+shadow fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+BRUNTSEA DEFIANT
+
+
+Thus at last--by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after turn
+of things to which I blindly gave my little help--the mystery of my life
+was solved. Many things yet remained to be fetched up to focus and seen
+round; but the point of points was settled.
+
+Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic. What tears
+of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!--not doubting
+his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for taking it upon
+him. I had been mean enough to dream that my dear father outraged
+justice to conceal his own base birth!
+
+That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me
+charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at any
+rate, it ought to do so. And the man in question, my own father, who
+had starved himself to save me! Better had I been the most illegal child
+ever issued into this cold world, than dare to think so of my father,
+and then find him the model of every thing.
+
+To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to
+appease the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark suspicion
+on himself, until his wronged and half-sane brother (to whom, moreover,
+he owed his life) should have time to fly from England. No doubt he
+blamed himself as much as he condemned the wretched criminal, because
+he had left his father so long unwarned and so unguarded, and had
+thoughtlessly used light words about him, which fell not lightly on a
+stern, distempered mind. Hence, perhaps, the exclamation which had told
+against him so.
+
+And then when he broke jail--which also told against him terribly--to
+revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant after that
+to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man should do. But his
+wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could not endure the thought of
+it, knowing how often jury is injury, and seeing all the weight against
+him. She naturally pledged him to pursue his flight, "for her sake,"
+until she should be better able to endure his trial, and until he should
+have more than his own pure word and character to show. And probably
+if he had then been tried, with so many things against him, and no
+production of that poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy
+invention, and "Guilty" would have been the verdict. And they could not
+know that, in such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we
+shall see that he meant to do.
+
+When my father heard of his dear wife's death, and believed, no doubt,
+that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and fated man,
+like polar night, settled down on him. What matter to him about public
+opinion or any thing else in the world just now? The sins of his father
+were on his head; let them rest there, rather than be trumpeted by him.
+He had nothing to care for; let him wander about. And so he did for
+several years, until I became a treasure to him--for parental is not
+intrinsic value--and then, for my sake, as now appeared, he betook us
+both to a large kind land.
+
+Revolving these things sadly, and a great many more which need not be
+told, I thought it my duty to go as soon as possible to Bruntsea, and
+tell my good and faithful friends what I was loath to write about.
+There, moreover, I could obtain what I wanted to confirm me--the opinion
+of an upright, law-abiding, honorable man about the course I proposed
+to take. And there I might hear something more as to a thing which
+had troubled me much in the deepest of my own troubles--the melancholy
+plight of dear Uncle Sam. Wild, and absurd as it may appear to people of
+no gratitude, my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble
+Sawyer, if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England.
+That such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too
+manifest; but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no mind
+to do a thing.
+
+Be that as it will, I made what my dear Yankees--to use the Major's
+impertinent phrase--call "straight tracks" for that ancient and obsolete
+town, rejuvenized now by its Signor. The cause of my good friend's
+silence--not to use that affected word "reticence"--was quite unknown to
+me, and disturbed my spirit with futile guesses.
+
+Resolute, therefore, to pierce the bottom of every surviving mystery,
+I made claim upon "Mr. Stixon, junior"--as "Stixon's boy" had now
+vindicated his right to be called, up to supper-time--and he with high
+chivalry responded. Not yet was he wedded to Miss Polly Hopkins, the
+daughter of the pickled-pork man; otherwise would he or could he have
+made telegraphic blush at the word "Bruntsea?" And would he have been
+quite so eager to come?
+
+Such things are trifling, compared to our own, which naturally fill the
+universe. I was bound to be a great lady now, and patronize and regulate
+and drill all the doings of nature. So I durst not even ask, though
+desiring much to do so, how young Mr. Stixon was getting on with his
+delightful Polly. And his father, as soon as he found me turned into
+the mistress, and "his lady" (as he would have me called thenceforth,
+whether or no on my part), not another word would he tell me of the
+household sentiments, politics, or romances. It would have been thought
+a thing beneath me to put any nice little questions now, and I was
+obliged to take up the tone which others used toward me. But all the
+while I longed for freedom, Uncle Sam, Suan Isco, and even Martin of the
+Mill.
+
+Law business, however, and other hinderances, kept me from starting at
+once for Bruntsea, impatient as I was to do so. Indeed, it was not until
+the morning of the last Saturday in November that I was able to get
+away. The weather had turned to much rain, I remember, with two or three
+tempestuous nights, and the woods were almost bare of leaves, and the
+Thames looked brown and violent.
+
+In the fly from Newport to Bruntsea I heard great rollers thundering
+heavily upon the steep bar of shingle, and such a lake of water shone in
+the old bed of the river that I quite believed at first that the Major
+had carried out his grand idea, and brought the river back again. But
+the flyman shook his head, and looked very serious, and told me that
+he feared bad times were coming. What I saw was the work of the Lord in
+heaven, and no man could prevail against it. He had always said, though
+no concern of his--for he belonged to Newport--that even a British
+officer could not fly in the face of the Almighty. He himself had a
+brother on the works, regular employed, and drawing good money, and
+proud enough about it; and the times he had told him across a pint of
+ale--howsomever, our place was to hope for the best; but the top of the
+springs was not come yet, and a pilot out of Newport told him the water
+was making uncommon strong; but he did hope the wind had nigh blowed
+itself out; if not, they would have to look blessed sharp tomorrow. He
+had heard say that in time of Queen Elizabeth sixscore of houses was
+washed clean away, and the river itself knocked right into the sea; and
+a thing as had been once might just come to pass again, though folk was
+all so clever now they thought they wor above it. But, for all that,
+their grandfathers' goggles might fit them. But here we was in Bruntsea
+town, and, bless his old eyes--yes! If I pleased to look along his whip,
+I might see ancient pilot come, he did believe, to warn of them!
+
+Following his guidance, I descried a stout old man, in a sailor's
+dress, weather-proof hat, and long boots, standing on a low seawall, and
+holding vehement converse with some Bruntsea boatmen and fishermen who
+were sprawling on the stones as usual.
+
+"Driver, you know him. Take the lower road," I said, "and ask what his
+opinion is."
+
+"No need to ask him," the flyman answered; "old Banks would never
+be here, miss, if he was of two opinions. He hath come to fetch his
+daughter out of harm, I doubt, the wife of that there Bishop Jim, they
+call him--the chap with two nails to his thumb, you know. Would you like
+to hear how they all take it, miss?"
+
+With these words he turned to the right, and drove into Major Hockin's
+"Sea Parade." There we stopped to hear what was going on, and it proved
+to be well worth our attention. The old pilot perhaps had exhausted
+reason, and now was beginning to give way to wrath. The afternoon was
+deepening fast, with heavy gray clouds lowering, showing no definite
+edge, but streaked with hazy lines, and spotted by some little murky
+blurs or blots, like tar pots, carried slowly.
+
+"Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?" the ancient pilot shouted, pointing
+with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the sea, whence came
+puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks backward. "Mackerel sky
+when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at noon, and now afore sunset
+Noah's Arks! Any of them breweth a gale of wind, and the three of them
+bodes a tempest. And the top of the springs of the year to-morrow.
+Are ye daft, or all gone upon the spree, my men? Your fathers would 'a
+knowed what the new moon meant. Is this all that cometh out of larning
+to read?"
+
+"Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man," said one, "to help you off with that
+stiff reel. What consarn can he be of yourn?"
+
+"Don't you be put out, mate," cried another. "Never came sea as could
+top that bar, and never will in our time. Go and calk your old leaky
+craft, Master Banks."
+
+"We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from
+Newport--a place never heerd on when this old town was made."
+
+"Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks. You must
+want it, after that long pipe."
+
+"'Hockin Arms,' indeed!" the pilot answered, turning away in a rage from
+them. "What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow? Hockin legs
+wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings. And you poor grinning ninnies,
+as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that ye had them to-morrow.
+However, ye've had warning, and ye can't blame me. The power of the Lord
+is in the air and sea. Is this the sort of stuff ye trust in?"
+
+He set one foot against our Major's wall--an action scarcely honest
+while it was so green--and, coming from a hale and very thickset man,
+the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward. Rattle, rattle went
+the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated fellows down below.
+
+"You'll try the walls of a jail," cried one. "You go to Noah's Ark,"
+shouted another. The rest bade him go to a place much worse; but he
+buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without spoiling the
+effect by any more weak words.
+
+"Right you are," cried my flyman--"right you are, Master Banks. Them
+lubbers will sing another song to-morrow. Gee up, old hoss, then!"
+
+All this, and the ominous scowl of the sky and menacing roar of the sea
+(already crowding with black rollers), disturbed me so that I could
+say nothing, until, at the corner of the grand new hotel, we met Major
+Hockin himself, attired in a workman's loose jacket, and carrying a
+shovel. He was covered with mud and dried flakes of froth, and even his
+short white whiskers were incrusted with sparkles of brine; but his face
+was ruddy and smiling, and his manner as hearty as ever.
+
+"You here, Erema! Oh, I beg pardon--Baroness Castlewood, if you please.
+My dear, again I congratulate you."
+
+"You have as little cause to do that as I fear I can find in your case.
+You have no news for me from America? How sad! But what a poor plight
+you yourself are in!"
+
+"Not a bit of it. At first sight you might think so; and we certainly
+have had a very busy time. Send back the fly. Leave your bag at our
+hotel. Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's luggage. One piece of
+luck befalls me--to receive so often this beautiful hand. What a lot of
+young fellows now would die of envy--"
+
+"I am glad that you still can talk nonsense," I said; "for I truly was
+frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even standing
+in the water."
+
+"It will do them good. It will settle the foundations and crystallize
+the mortar. They will look twice as well when they come out again,
+and never have rats or black beetles. We were foolish enough to be
+frightened at first; and there may have been danger a fortnight ago. But
+since that tide we have worked day and night, and every thing is now so
+stable that fear is simply ridiculous. On the whole, it has been a most
+excellent thing--quite the making, in fact, of Bruntsea."
+
+"Then Bruntsea must be made of water," I replied, gazing sadly at the
+gulf which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and Baths, the
+Bastion Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the streaky turmoil and
+misty scud of the waves were seen.
+
+"Made of beer, more likely," he retorted, with a laugh. "If my fellows
+worked like horses--which they did--they also drank like fishes. Their
+mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said. But the total abstainers
+were the worst, being out of practice with the can. However, let us
+make no complaints. We ought to be truly thankful; and I shall miss
+the exercise. That is why you have heard so little from me. You see the
+position at a glance. I have never been to Paris at all, Erema. I have
+not rubbed up my parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows. I was stopped
+by a telegram about this job--acrior illum. I had some Latin once, quite
+enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my elbows; and
+to ladies (by some superstition) it is rude--though they treat us to bad
+French enough. Never mind. What I want to say is this, that I have done
+nothing, but respected your sad trouble; for you took a wild fancy to
+that poor bedridden, who never did you a stroke of good except about
+Cosmopolitan Jack, and whose removal has come at the very nick of time.
+For what could you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each
+other's throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the
+very best, squared up in greenbacks?"
+
+"You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin. If all your plans were not
+under water, I should be quite put out with you. My cousin was not
+bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called him once
+or twice. He was an infinitely superior man to--to what one generally
+sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in his place
+you would have done just as he did. And as for money, and 'happy
+release'--as the people who never want it for themselves express
+it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so sordid."
+
+"What is there in this world that is not sordid--to the young in one
+sense, and to the old in another?"
+
+Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so unable
+to make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part at my
+juvenile arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep impression from
+sudden stamp of philosophy. I had nothing to say in reply, and he went
+up in my opinion greatly.
+
+He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, "Erema, come and see
+your dear aunt Mary. She has had an attack of rheumatic gout in her
+thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her life, and
+by far the most brilliant of her cocks (worth 20 pounds they tell me)
+breathed his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or croup, or something.
+This is why you have not heard again from her. I have been in the
+trenches day and night, stoning out the sea with his own stones, by a
+new form of concrete discovered by myself. And unless I am very much
+mistaken--in fact, I do not hesitate to say--But such things are not
+in your line at all. Let us go up to the house. Our job is done, and I
+think Master Neptune may pound away in vain. I have got a new range in
+the kitchen now, partly of my own invention; you can roast, or bake, or
+steam, or stew, or frizzle kabobs--all by turning a screw. And not only
+that, but you can keep things hot, piping hot, and ripening, as it were,
+better than when they first were done. Instead of any burned iron taste,
+or scum on the gravy, or clottiness, they mellow by waiting, and make
+their own sauce. If I ever have time I shall patent this invention; why,
+you may burn brick-dust in it, Bath-brick, hearth-stone, or potsherds!
+At any hour of the day or night, while the sea is in this condition, I
+may want my dinner; and there we have it. We say grace immediately,
+and down we sit. Let us take it by surprise, if it can be taken so. Up
+through my chief drive, instanter! I think that I scarcely ever felt
+more hungry. The thought of that range always sets me off. And one of
+its countless beauties is the noble juicy fragrance."
+
+Major Hockin certainly possessed the art--so meritorious in a host--of
+making people hungry; and we mounted the hill with alacrity, after
+passing his letter-box, which reminded me of the mysterious lady. He
+pointed to "Desolate Hole," as he called it, and said that he believed
+she was there still, though she never came out now to watch their house.
+And a man of dark and repelling aspect had been seen once or twice by
+his workmen, during the time of their night relays, rapidly walking
+toward Desolate Hole. How any one could live in such a place, with the
+roar and the spray of the sea, as it had been, at the very door, and
+through the windows, some people might understand, but not the Major.
+
+Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness, and
+scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all people seem
+to do when conscious of having neglected that duty themselves. Then she
+showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly was a little swollen;
+and then she poured forth her gratitude for her many blessings, as she
+always did after any little piece of grumbling. And I told her that
+if at her age I were only a quarter as pleasant and sweet of temper, I
+should consider myself a blessing to any man.
+
+After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the
+purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he admired
+so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him. Then I told
+him that, through a thing wholly unexpected--the confession of the
+criminal himself--no journey to Paris was needful now. I repeated that
+strange and gloomy tale, to the loud accompaniment of a rising wind and
+roaring sea, while both my friends listened intently.
+
+"Now what can have led him so to come to you?" they asked; "and what do
+you mean to do about it?"
+
+"He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not be
+made in my cousin's lifetime. But the telling of his tale made him feel
+so strange that he really could not remember what it was. As to what
+I am to do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is beyond my
+decision." Mrs. Hockin began to reply, but stopped, looking dutifully at
+her lord.
+
+"There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way," the
+Major said. "You are a British subject, I suppose, and you must obey
+the laws of the country. A man has confessed to you a murder--no matter
+whether it was committed twenty years ago or two minutes; no matter
+whether it was a savage, cold-blooded, premeditated crime, or whether
+there were things to palliate it. Your course is the same; you must hand
+him over. In fact, you ought never to have let him go."
+
+"How could I help it?" I pleaded, with surprise. "It was impossible for
+me to hold him."
+
+"Then you should have shot him with his own pistol. He offered it to
+you. You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and told him
+that he was a dead man if he stirred."
+
+"Aunt Mary, would you have done that?" I asked. "It is so easy to talk
+of fine things! But in the first place, I had no wish to stop him; and
+in the next, I could not if I had."
+
+"My dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view of
+the subject, "I should have done exactly what you did. If the laws
+of this country ordain that women are to carry them out against great
+strong men, who, after all, have been sadly injured, why, it proves that
+women ought to make the laws, which to my mind is simply ridiculous."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+BRUNTSEA DEFEATED
+
+
+Little sleep had I that night. Such conflict was in my mind about the
+proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind outside, above
+and between the distant uproar of the long tumultuous sea. Of that sound
+much was intercepted by the dead bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung
+fiercely over this, and rattled through all shelter. In the morning the
+storm was furious; but the Major declared that his weather-glass had
+turned, which proved that the gale was breaking. The top of the tide
+would be at one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he
+was rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against his
+patent concrete.
+
+"My dear, I scarcely like such talk," Mrs. Hockin gently interposed.
+"To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the Lord. Remember what
+happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his name was Smeaton, or
+Stanley, was it? But I dare say you know best. He defied the strength
+of the Lord, like the people at the mouth of their tent, and he was
+swallowed up."
+
+"Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book. Rasper's fly is waiting for us,
+and the parson has no manners. When he drops off, I present to the
+living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have it. He
+is fond of processions, and all that stuff. The only procession in the
+Church of England is that of the lord of the manor to his pew. I will be
+the master in my own church."
+
+"Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be. It always was so in my
+father's parish. But you must not speak so of our poor George. He may be
+'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows what is due to his family,
+and he has a large one coming."
+
+We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and buffets of
+wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the seaward window
+was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth, and the drift of
+sea-scud. I tried to look out, but the blur and the dash obscured the
+sight of every thing. And though in this lower road we were partly
+sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver was several times obliged to
+pull his poor horse up and face the wind, for fear of our being blown
+over.
+
+That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in the
+good old town, at the head of a street whose principal object now
+certainly is to lead to it. Three hundred years ago that street had
+business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps with fine men and
+maids at the time of the Spanish Armada. Its only bravery now was the
+good old church, and some queer gables, and a crypt (which was true
+to itself by being buried up to the spandrels), and one or two corners
+where saints used to stand, until they were pelted out of them, and
+where fisher-like men, in the lodging season, stand selling fish caught
+at Billingsgate. But to Bruntsea itself the great glory of that street
+was rather of hope than of memory. Bailiff Hopkins had taken out
+three latticed windows, and put in one grand one of plate-glass, with
+"finishing" blinds all varnished. And even on a Sunday morning Bruntsea
+wanted to know what ever the bailiff was at behind them. Some said that
+he did all his pickling on a Sunday; and by putting up "spectacle glass"
+he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try his focus.
+
+Despite all the rattle and roar of the wind, we went on in church
+as usual. The vicar had a stout young curate from Durham, who could
+outshout any tempest, with a good stone wall between them; and the
+Bruntsea folk were of thicker constitution than to care an old hat for
+the weather. Whatever was "sent by the Lord" they took with a grumble,
+but no excitement. The clock in front of the gallery told the time
+of the day as five minutes to twelve, when the vicar, a pleasant
+old-fashioned man, pronounced his text, which he always did thrice over
+to make us sure of it. And then he hitched up his old black gown, and
+directed his gaze at the lord of the manor, to impress the whole church
+with authority. Major Hockin acknowledged in a proper manner this
+courtesy of the minister by rubbing up his crest, and looking even more
+wide-awake than usual; whereas Aunt Mary, whose kind heart longed to
+see her own son in that pulpit, calmly settled back her shoulders, and
+arranged her head and eyes so well as to seem at a distance in rapt
+attention, while having a nice little dream of her own. But suddenly all
+was broken up. The sexton (whose license as warden of the church, and
+even whose duty it was to hear the sermon only fitfully, from the tower
+arch, where he watched the boys, and sniffed the bakehouse of his own
+dinner)--to the consternation of every body, this faithful man ran up
+the nave, with his hands above his head, and shouted,
+
+"All Brownzee be awash, awash"--sounding it so as to rhyme with
+"lash"--"the zea, the zea be all over us!"
+
+The clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window behind
+him, while all the congregation rose.
+
+"It is too true," the preacher cried; "the sea is in over the bank, my
+friends. Every man must rush to his own home. The blessing of the Lord
+be on you through His fearful visitation!"
+
+He had no time to say more; and we thought it very brave of him to say
+that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he had a
+wife and children sick. In half a minute the church was empty, and the
+street below it full of people, striving and struggling against the
+blast, and breasting it at an incline like swimmers, but beaten back
+ever and anon and hurled against one another, with tattered umbrellas,
+hats gone, and bonnets hanging. And among them, like gulls before the
+wind, blew dollops of spray and chunks of froth, with every now and then
+a slate or pantile.
+
+All this was so bad that scarcely any body found power to speak, or
+think, or see. The Major did his very best to lead us, but could by no
+means manage it. And I screamed into his soundest ear to pull Aunt Mary
+into some dry house--for she could not face such buffeting--and to let
+me fare for myself as I might. So we left Mrs. Hockin in the bailiff's
+house, though she wanted sadly to come with us, and on we went to behold
+the worst. And thus, by running the byes of the wind, and craftily
+hugging the corners, we got to the foot of the street at last, and then
+could go no further.
+
+For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting. Before
+us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn by the
+screeching squalls, and tossed in clashing tufts and pinnacles. And
+into these came, sweeping over the shattered chine of shingle, gigantic
+surges from the outer deep, towering as they crossed the bar, and
+combing against the sky-line, then rushing onward, and driving the
+huddle of the ponded waves before them.
+
+The tide was yet rising, and at every blow the wreck and the havoc grew
+worse and worse. That long sweep of brick-work, the "Grand Promenade,"
+bowed and bulged, with wall and window knuckled in and out, like
+wattles; the "Sea Parade" was a parade of sea; and a bathing-machine
+wheels upward lay, like a wrecked Noah's Ark, on the top of the
+"Saline-Silico-Calcareous Baths."
+
+The Major stood by me, while all his constructions "went by the board,"
+as they say at sea; and verily every thing was at sea. I grieved for him
+so that it was not the spray alone that put salt drops on my cheeks. And
+I could not bear to turn and look at his good old weather-beaten face.
+But he was not the man to brood upon his woes in silence. He might have
+used nicer language, perhaps, but his inner sense was manful.
+
+"I don't care a damn," he shouted, so that all the women heard him. "I
+can only say I am devilish glad that I never let one of those houses."
+
+There was a little band of seamen, under the shelter of a garden wall,
+crouching, or sitting, or standing (or whatever may be the attitude,
+acquired by much voyaging and experience of bad weather, which can not
+be solved, as to centre of gravity, even by the man who does it), and
+these men were so taken with the Major's manifesto, clinched at once and
+clarified to them by strong, short language, that they gave him a loud
+"hurrah," which flew on the wings of the wind over house-tops. So queer
+and sound is English feeling that now Major Hockin became in truth what
+hitherto he was in title only--the lord and master of Bruntsea.
+
+"A boat! a boat!" he called out again. "We know not who are drowning.
+The bank still breaks the waves; a stout boat surely could live inside
+it."
+
+"Yes, a boat could live well enough in this cockle, though never among
+them breakers," old Barnes, the fisherman, answered, who used to take us
+out for whiting; "but Lord bless your honor, all the boats are thumped
+to pieces, except yonner one, and who can get at her?"
+
+Before restoring his hands to their proper dwelling-place--his
+pockets--he jerked his thumb toward a long white boat, which we had not
+seen through the blinding scud. Bereft of its brethren, or sisters--for
+all fluctuating things are feminine--that boat survived, in virtue of
+standing a few feet higher than the rest. But even so, and mounted
+on the last hump of the pebble ridge, it was rolling and reeling with
+stress of the wind and the wash of wild water under it.
+
+"How nobly our Lyceum stands!" the Major shouted, for any thing less
+than a shout was dumb. "This is the time to try institutions. I am proud
+of my foundations."
+
+In answer to his words appeared a huge brown surge, a mountain ridge,
+seething backward at the crest with the spread and weight of onset.
+This great wave smote all other waves away, or else embodied them, and
+gathered its height against the poor worn pebble bank, and descended.
+A roar distinct above the universal roar proclaimed it; a crash of
+conflict shook the earth, and the shattered bank was swallowed in a
+world of leaping whiteness. When this wild mass dashed onward into the
+swelling flood before us, there was no sign of Lyceum left, but stubs of
+foundation, and a mangled roof rolling over and over, like a hen-coop.
+
+"Well, that beats every thing I ever saw," exclaimed the gallant Major.
+"What noble timber! What mortise-work! No London scamping there, my
+lads. But what comes here? Why, the very thing we wanted! Barnes, look
+alive, my man. Run to your house, and get a pair of oars and a bucket."
+
+It was the boat, the last surviving boat of all that hailed from
+Bruntsea. That monstrous billow had tossed it up like a school-boy's
+kite, and dropped it whole, with an upright keel, in the inland sea,
+though nearly half full of water. Driven on by wind and wave, it labored
+heavily toward us; and more than once it seemed certain to sink as it
+broached to and shipped seas again. But half a dozen bold fishermen
+rushed with a rope into the short angry surf--to which the polled
+shingle bank still acted as a powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had
+collapsed--and they hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her
+up straight with, "Yo--heave--oh!" and turned her on her side to drain,
+and then launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail out the
+rest of the water, and a pair of heavy oars brought down by Barnes, and
+nobody knows what other things.
+
+"Naught to steer with. Rudder gone!" cried one of the men, as the
+furious gale drove the boat, athwart the street, back again.
+
+"Wants another oar," said Barnes. "What a fool I were to bring only
+two!"
+
+"Here you are!" shouted Major Hockin. "One of you help me to pull up
+this pole."
+
+Through a shattered gate they waded into a little garden, which had been
+the pride of the season at Bruntsea; and there from the ground they tore
+up a pole, with a board at the top nailed across it, and the following
+not rare legend: "Lodgings to let. Inquire within. First floor front,
+and back parlors."
+
+"Fust-rate thing to steer with! Would never have believed you had the
+sense!" So shouted Barnes--a rough man, roughened by the stress of storm
+and fright. "Get into starn-sheets if so liketh. Ye know, ye may be
+useful."
+
+"I defy you to push off without my sanction. Useful, indeed! I am the
+captain of this boat. All the ground under it is mine. Did you think,
+you set of salted radicals, that I meant to let you go without me? And
+all among my own houses!"
+
+"Look sharp, governor, if you has the pluck, then. Mind, we are more
+like to be swamped than not."
+
+As the boat swung about, Major Hockin jumped in, and so, on the spur of
+the moment, did I. We staggered all about with the heave and roll,
+and both would have fallen on the planks, or out over, if we had not
+tumbled, with opposite impetus, into the arms of each other. Then a
+great wave burst and soaked us both, and we fell into sitting on a
+slippery seat.
+
+Meanwhile two men were tugging at each oar, and Barnes himself steering
+with the sign-board; and the head of the boat was kept against the
+wind and the billows from our breakwater. Some of these seemed resolved
+(though shorn of depth and height in crossing) to rush all over us and
+drown us in the washer-women's drying ground. By skill and presence
+of mind, our captain, Barnes, foiled all their violence, till we got a
+little shelter from the ruins of the "Young Men's Christian Institute."
+
+"Hold all!" cried Barnes; "only keep her head up, while I look about
+what there is to do."
+
+The sight was a thing to remember; and being on the better side now of
+the scud, because it was flying away from us, we could make out a great
+deal more of the trouble which had befallen Bruntsea. The stormy fiord
+which had usurped the ancient track of the river was about a furlong in
+width, and troughed with white waves vaulting over. And the sea rushed
+through at the bottom as well, through scores of yards of pebbles, as it
+did in quiet weather even, when the tide was brimming. We in the tossing
+boat, with her head to the inrush of the outer sea, were just like
+people sitting upon the floats or rafts of a furious weir; and if any
+such surge had topped the ridge as the one which flung our boat to us,
+there could be no doubt that we must go down as badly as the Major's
+houses. However, we hoped for the best, and gazed at the desolation
+inland.
+
+Not only the Major's great plan, but all the lower line of old Bruntsea,
+was knocked to pieces, and lost to knowledge in freaks of wind-lashed
+waters. Men and women were running about with favorite bits of
+furniture, or feather-beds, or babies' cradles, or whatever they had
+caught hold of. The butt ends of the three old streets that led down
+toward the sea-ground were dipped, as if playing seesaw in the surf, and
+the storm made gangways of them and lighthouses of the lamp-posts. The
+old public-house at the corner was down, and the waves leaping in at the
+post-office door, and wrecking the globes of the chemist.
+
+"Drift and dash, and roar and rush, and the devil let loose in the thick
+of it. My eyes are worn out with it. Take the glass, Erema, and tell
+us who is next to be washed away. A new set of clothes-props for Mrs.
+Mangles I paid for the very day I came back from town."
+
+With these words, the lord of the submarine manor (whose strength of
+spirit amazed me) offered his pet binocular, which he never went without
+upon his own domain. And fisherman Barnes, as we rose and fell, once
+more saved us from being "swamped" by his clever way of paddling through
+a scallop in the stern, with the board about the first floor front to
+let.
+
+The seamen, just keeping way on the boat, sheltered their eyes with
+their left hands, and fixed them on the tumultuous scene.
+
+I also gazed through the double glass, which was a very clear one; but
+none of us saw any human being at present in any peril.
+
+"Old pilot was right, after all," said one; "but what a good job as it
+come o' middle day, and best of all of a Sunday!"
+
+"I have heered say," replied another, "that the like thing come to pass
+nigh upon three hunder years agone. How did you get your things out, Jem
+Bishop?"
+
+Jem, the only one of them whose house was in the havoc, regarded with a
+sailor's calmness the entry of the sea through his bedroom window, and
+was going to favor us with a narrative, when one of his mates exclaimed,
+
+"What do I see yonner, lads? Away beyond town altogether. Seemeth to me
+like a fellow swimming. Miss, will you lend me spy-glass? Never seed a
+double-barreled one before. Can use him with one eye shut, I s'pose?"
+
+"No good that way, Joe," cried Barnes, with a wink of superior
+knowledge, for he often had used this binocular. "Shut one eye for one
+barrel--stands to reason, then, you shut both for two, my son."
+
+"Stow that," said the quick-eyed sailor, as he brought the glass to bear
+in a moment. "It is a man in the water, lads, and swimming to save the
+witch, I do believe."
+
+"Bless me!" cried the Major; "how stupid of us! I never thought once of
+that poor woman. She must be washed out long ago. Pull for your lives,
+my friends. A guinea apiece if you save her."
+
+"And another from me," I cried. Whereupon the boat swept round, and the
+tough ash bent, and we rushed into no small danger. For nearly half a
+mile had we to pass of raging and boisterous water, almost as wild as
+the open sea itself at the breaches of the pebble ridge. And the risk of
+a heavy sea boarding us was fearfully multiplied by having thus to cross
+the storm instead of breasting it. Useless and helpless, and only in
+the way, and battered about by wind and sea, so that my Sunday dress was
+become a drag, what folly, what fatuity, what frenzy, I might call it,
+could ever have led me to jump into that boat? "I don't know. I only
+know that I always do it," said my sensible self to its mad sister, as
+they both shut their eyes at a great white wave. "If I possibly survive,
+I will try to know better. But ever from my childhood I am getting into
+scrapes."
+
+The boat labored on, with a good many grunts, but not a word from any
+one. More than once we were obliged to fetch up as a great billow topped
+the poor shingle bank; and we took so much water on board that the
+men said afterward that I saved them. I only remember sitting down and
+working at the bucket with both hands, till much of the skin was
+gone, and my arms and many other places ached. But what was that to be
+compared with drowning?
+
+At length we were opposite "Desolate Hole," which was a hole no longer,
+but filled and flooded with the churning whirl and reckless dominance
+of water. Tufts and tussocks of shattered brush and rolling wreck played
+round it, and the old gray stone of mullioned windows split the wash
+like mooring-posts. We passed and gazed; but the only sound was the
+whistling of the tempest, and the only living sight a sea-gull, weary of
+his wings, and drowning.
+
+"No living creature can be there," the Major broke our long silence.
+"Land, my friends, if land we may. We risk our own lives for nothing."
+
+The men lay back on their oars to fetch the gallant boat to the wind
+again, when through a great gap in the ruins they saw a sight that
+startled manhood. At the back of that ruin, on the landward side, on a
+wall which, tottered under them, there were two figures standing. One a
+tall man, urging on, the other a woman shrinking. At a glance, or with
+a thought, I knew them both. One was Lord Castlewood's first love, the
+other his son and murderer.
+
+Our men shouted with the whole power of their hearts to tell that
+miserable pair to wait till succor should be brought to them. And the
+Major stood up and waved his hat, and in doing so tumbled back again.
+I can not tell--how could I tell in the thick of it?--but an idea or a
+flit of fancy touched me (and afterward became conviction) that while
+the man heard us not at all, and had no knowledge of us, his mother
+turned round and saw us all, and faced the storm in preference.
+
+Whatever the cause may have been, at least she suddenly changed her
+attitude. The man had been pointing to the roof, which threatened to
+fall in a mass upon them, while she had been shuddering back from the
+depth of eddying waves below her. But now she drew up her poor bent
+figure, and leaned on her son to obey him.
+
+Our boat, with strong arms laboring for life, swept round the old gable
+of the ruin; but we were compelled to "give it wide berth," as Captain
+Barnes shouted; and then a black squall of terrific wind and hail burst
+forth. We bowed our heads and drew our bodies to their tightest compass,
+and every rib of our boat vibrated as a violin does; and the oars were
+beaten flat, and dashed their drip into fringes like a small-toothed
+comb.
+
+That great squall was either a whirlwind or the crowning blast of a
+hurricane. It beat the high waves hollow, as if it fell from the sky
+upon them; and it snapped off one of our oars at the hilt, so that two
+of our men rolled backward. And when we were able to look about again
+the whole roof of "Desolate Hole" was gone, and little of the walls left
+standing. And how we should guide our course, or even save our lives, we
+knew not.
+
+We were compelled to bring up--as best we might--with the boat's head
+to the sea, and so to keep it by using the steering gear against the
+surviving oar. As for the people we were come to save, there was no
+chance whatever of approaching them. Even without the mishap to the oar,
+we never could have reached them.
+
+And indeed when first we saw them again they seemed better off than
+ourselves were. For they were not far from dry land, and the man (a
+skillful and powerful swimmer) had a short piece of plank, which he knew
+how to use to support his weak companion.
+
+"Brave fellow! fine fellow!" the Major cried, little knowing whom he was
+admiring. "See how he keeps up his presence of mind! Such a man as that
+is worth any thing. And he cares more for her than he does for himself.
+He shall have the Society's medal. One more long and strong stroke, my
+noble friend. Oh, great God! what has befallen him?"
+
+In horror and pity we gazed. The man had been dashed against something
+headlong. He whirled round and round in white water, his legs were
+thrown up, and we saw no more of him. The woman cast off the plank, and
+tossed her helpless arms in search of him. A shriek, ringing far on
+the billowy shore, declared that she had lost him; and then, without a
+struggle, she clasped her hands, and the merciless water swallowed her.
+
+"It is all over," cried Major Hockin, lifting his drenched hat solemnly.
+"The Lord knoweth best. He has taken them home."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+A DEAD LETTER
+
+
+With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of the
+compass than I can tell. Barnes, the fisherman, said how many; but I
+might be quite wrong in repeating it. One thing, at any rate, was within
+my compass--it had been blowing to the top of its capacity, direct from
+the sea, but now it began to blow quite as hard along the shore. This
+rough ingratitude of wind to waves, which had followed each breath of
+its orders, produced extraordinary passion, and raked them into pointed
+wind-cocks.
+
+"Captain, we can't live this out," cried Barnes; "we must run her ashore
+at once; tide has turned; we might be blown out to sea, with one oar,
+and then the Lord Himself couldn't save us."
+
+Crippled as we were, we contrived to get into a creek, or backwater,
+near the Major's gate. Here the men ran the boat up, and we all climbed
+out, stiff, battered, and terrified, but doing our best to be most truly
+thankful.
+
+"Go home, Captain, as fast as you can, and take the young lady along of
+you," said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the weltering breadth of
+disaster. "We are born to the drip, but not you, Sir; and you are not so
+young as you was, you know."
+
+"I am younger than ever I was," the lord of the manor answered, sternly,
+yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his better
+half--who had not even heard of his danger. "None of that nonsense to
+me, Barnes. You know your position, and I know mine. On board of that
+boat you took the lead, and that may have misled you. I am very much
+obliged to you, I am sure, for all your skill and courage, which have
+saved the lives of all of us. But on land you will just obey me."
+
+"Sartinly, Captain. What's your orders?"
+
+"Nothing at all. I give no orders. I only make suggestions. But if your
+experience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let us try it
+at once--at once, Barnes. Erema, run home. This is no scene for you. And
+tell Margaret to put on the double-bottomed boiler, with the stock she
+made on Friday, and a peck of patent pease. There is nothing to beat pea
+soup; and truly one never knows what may happen."
+
+This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him.
+
+Running up his "drive" to deliver that message, at one of the many
+bends I saw people from Bruntsea hurrying along a footpath through the
+dairy-farm. While the flood continued this was their only way to meet
+the boat's crew. On the steps of "Smuggler's Castle" (as Bruntlands
+House was still called by the wicked) I turned again, and the new
+sea-line was fringed with active searchers. I knew what they were
+looking for, but, scared and drenched and shivering as I was, no more
+would I go near them. My duty was rather to go in and comfort dear Aunt
+Mary and myself. In that melancholy quest I could do no good, but a
+great deal of harm, perhaps, if any thing was found, by breaking forth
+about it.
+
+Mrs. Hockin had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered.
+Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Rasper's fly by an inland road, and
+she kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband, to distract his
+mind from disaster. That trouble had happened she could not look out
+of her window without knowing; but could it be right, at their time of
+life, to stand in the wet so, and challenge Providence, and spoil the
+first turkey-poult of the season?
+
+But when she heard of her husband's peril, in the midst of all his
+losses, his self-command, and noble impulse first of all to rescue life,
+she burst into tears, and hugged and kissed me, and said the same thing
+nearly fifty times.
+
+"Just like him. Just like my Nicholas. You thought him a speculative,
+selfish man. Now you see your mistake, Erema."
+
+When her veteran husband came home at last (thoroughly jaded, and
+bringing his fishermen to gulp the pea soup and to gollop the turkey),
+a small share of mind, but a large one of heart, is required to imagine
+her doings. Enough that the Major kept saying, "Pooh-pooh!" and the more
+he said, the less he got of it.
+
+When feelings calmed down, and we returned to facts, our host and hero
+(who, in plain truth, had not so wholly eclipsed me in courage, though
+of course I expected no praise, and got none, for people hate courage in
+a lady), to put it more simply, the Major himself, making a considerable
+fuss, as usual--for to my mind he never could be Uncle Sam--produced
+from the case of his little "Church Service," to which he had stuck like
+a Briton, a sealed and stamped letter, addressed to me at Castlewood, in
+Berkshire--"stamped," not with any post-office tool, but merely with the
+red thing which pays the English post.
+
+Sodden and blurred as the writing was, I knew the clear, firm hand, the
+same which on the envelope at Shoxford had tempted me to meanness. This
+letter was from Thomas Hoyle; the Major had taken it from the pocket of
+his corpse; all doubt about his death was gone. When he felt his feet on
+the very shore, and turned to support his mother, a violent wave struck
+the back of his head upon Major Hockin's pillar-box.
+
+Such sadness came into my heart--though sternly it should have been
+gladness--that I begged their pardon, and went away, as if with a
+private message. And wicked as it may have been, to read was more than
+once to cry. The letter began abruptly:
+
+"You know nearly all my story now. I have only to tell you what brought
+me to you, and what my present offer is. But to make it clear, I must
+enlarge a little.
+
+"There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself. He
+forbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly, perhaps, to
+secure my escape, and partly for other reasons. If he had been brought
+to trial, his duty to his family and himself would have led him, no
+doubt, to explain things. And if that had failed, I would have returned
+and surrendered myself. As things happened, there was no need.
+
+"Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless the
+whole has been piled on my head, your father's home was destroyed, and
+he seems to have lost all care for every thing. Yet how much better off
+was he than I! Upon me the curse fell at birth; upon him, after thirty
+years of ease and happiness. However, for that very reason, perhaps, he
+bore it worse than I did. He grew imbittered against the world, which
+had in no way ill-treated him; whereas its very first principle is to
+scorn all such as I am. He seems to have become a misanthrope, and
+a fatalist like myself. Though it might almost make one believe the
+existence of such a thing as justice to see pride pay for its wickedness
+thus--the injury to the outcast son recoil upon the pampered one, and
+the family arrogance crown itself with the ignominy of the family.
+
+"In any case, there was no necessity for my interference; and being
+denied by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally driven to
+double my duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging upon mine.
+So we two for many years wandered about, shunning islands and insular
+prejudice. I also shunned your father, though (so far as I know) he
+neither sought me nor took any trouble to clear himself. If the one
+child now left him had been a son, heir to the family property and so
+on, he might have behaved quite otherwise, and he would have been bound
+to do so. But having only a female child, who might never grow up, and,
+if she did, was very unlikely to succeed, he must have resolved at least
+to wait. And perhaps he confirmed himself with the reflection that even
+if people believed his tale (so long after date and so unvouched), so
+far as family annals were concerned, the remedy would be as bad as the
+disease. Moreover, he owed his life to me, at great risk of my own; and
+to pay such a debt with the hangman's rope would scarcely appear quite
+honorable, even in the best society.
+
+"It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from my
+knowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps. We
+went our several ways in the world, neither of us very fortunate.
+
+"One summer, in the Black Forest, I fell in with an outcast Englishman,
+almost as great a vagabond as myself. He was under the ban of the law
+for writing his father's name without license. He did not tell me that,
+or perhaps even I might have despised him, for I never was dishonest.
+But one great bond there was between us--we both detested laws and men.
+My intimacy with him is the one thing in life which I am ashamed of. He
+passed by a false name then, of course. But his true name was Montague
+Hockin. My mother was in very weak health then, and her mind for the
+most part clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I
+had done for her sake. That man pretended to take the greatest interest
+in her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could cure her.
+
+"We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple villages,
+subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the little income left
+by my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle. But, compared with Hockin, we were well
+off; and he did his best to swindle us. Luckily all my faith in mankind
+was confined to the feminine gender, and not much even of that survived.
+In a very little time I saw that people may repudiate law as well from
+being below as from being above it.
+
+"Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt
+of every thing. We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all our
+kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two. Let me go into
+Freyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen. I asked him nothing as
+to what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of him, as of every body.
+However, I thought it just worth while, having some one who bought
+my wicker-work, to enter the outskirts of the town on the following
+evening, and wait to be told if any news was stirring. And the people
+were amazed at my not knowing that last night the wife of an English
+lord--for so they called him, though no lord yet--had run away with a
+golden-bearded man, believed to be also English.
+
+"About that you know more, perhaps, than I do. But I wish you to know
+what that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity. Of Herbert
+Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady. And to say (as
+Sir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all that wickedness, from
+spite toward all of the Castlewood name, is to tell as foul a lie as
+even he can well indulge in.
+
+"It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word of
+mine. To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's fate. But
+he seems to have guessed at once that there was something strange in
+my history; and then, after spying and low prying at my mother, to have
+shaped his own conclusion. Then, having entirely under his power
+that young fool who left a kind husband for him, he conceived a most
+audacious scheme. This was no less than to rob your cousin, the last
+Lord Castlewood, not of his wife and jewels and ready money only, but
+also of all the disposable portion of the Castlewood estates. For the
+lady's mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all
+the lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal
+with them. And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not really
+deal at all with them--your father being still alive--it appears that
+his succession (when it afterward took place) was bound, at any rate, as
+against himself. A divorce might have canceled this--I can not say--but
+your late cousin was the last man in the world to incur the needful
+exposure. Upon this they naturally counted.
+
+"The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right as
+'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but even then
+found her master in a man of deeper wickedness. But if her poor husband
+desired revenge--which he does not seem to have done, perhaps--he could
+not have had it better. She was seized with a loathsome disease, which
+devoured her beauty, like Herod and his glory. I believe that she
+still lives, but no one can go near her; least of all, the fastidious
+Montague."
+
+At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed, "Thank
+God!" I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime of me to do
+it even once.
+
+"Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little
+accident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband's
+death, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now,
+little as he cares for opinion--what did he do but shift hands
+altogether? He made up his mind to confer the honor of his hand on you,
+having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became the very
+opposite of what they had been hitherto. Your father's innocence now
+must be maintained instead of his guiltiness.
+
+"With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police after
+me--me, who could snap all their noses off! For he saw how your heart
+was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his serf forever,
+by the simple expedient of hanging me. The detectives failed, as they
+always do. He also failed in his overtures to you.
+
+"You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no ill-will,
+but rather admire your courage. You acted in a straightforward way, and
+employed no dirty agency. Of your simple devices I had no fear. However,
+I thought it as well to keep an eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy old
+fool, some relation of his, who had brought you back from America. To
+this end I kept my head-quarters near him, and established my mother
+comfortably. She was ordered sea air, and has had enough. To-morrow I
+shall remove her. By the time you receive this letter we shall both be
+far away, and come back no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin.
+Without personal violence this will be done.
+
+"Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly just.
+My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and comfort. She
+has wronged no one, but ever been wronged. Allow her 300 pounds a year,
+to be paid as I shall direct you. For myself I will not take a farthing.
+You will also restore, as I shall direct, the trinket upon which she
+sets great value, and for which I sought vainly when we came back to
+England. I happen to know that you have it now.
+
+"In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the
+whole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as
+people will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you also,
+to hear no more of
+
+"THOMAS HOYLE.
+
+"P.S.--Of course I am trusting your honor in this. But your father's
+daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already proved."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+WITH HIS OWN SWORD
+
+
+"What a most wonderful letter!" cried the Major, when, after several
+careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him. "He calls me
+a 'worthy old fool,' does he? Well, I call him something a great deal
+worse--an unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a subverter of rank, and a Radical!
+And because he was a bastard, is the whole world base? And to come and
+live like that in a house of mine, and pay me no rent, and never even
+let me see him! Your grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him
+the cold shoulder. Of course you won't pay him a farthing."
+
+"You forget that he is dead," I answered, "and his poor mother with him.
+At least he behaved well to his mother. You called him a hero--when you
+knew not who he was. Poor fellow, he is dead! And, in spite of all, I
+can not help being very sorry for him."
+
+"Yes, I dare say. Women always are. But you must show a little
+common-sense, Erema. Your grandfather seems to have had too much, and
+your father far too little. We must keep this matter quiet. Neither the
+man nor the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall have in all the
+county papers. There must be an inquest, of course, upon them both; but
+none of the fellows read this direction, for the admirable reason that
+they can not read. Our coming forward could do no good, and just now
+Bruntsea has other things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin,
+as they say."
+
+"Please not to talk of that," I exclaimed. "I can raise any quantity of
+money now, and you shall have it without paying interest. You wanted the
+course of the river restored, and now you have more--you have got the
+very sea. You could float the Bridal Veil itself, I do believe, at
+Bruntsea."
+
+"You have suggested a fine idea," the Major exclaimed, with emphasis.
+"You certainly should have been an engineer. It is a thousand times
+easier--as every body knows--to keep water in than to keep it out.
+Having burst my barricade, the sea shall stop inside and pay for it. Far
+less capital will be required. By Jove, what a fool I must have been
+not to see the hand of Providence in all this! Mary, can you spare me a
+minute, my dear? The noblest idea has occurred to me. Well, never mind,
+if you are busy; perhaps I had better not state it crudely, though it
+is not true that it happens every hour. I shall turn it over in my mind
+throughout the evening service. I mean to be there, just to let them
+see. They think that I am crushed, of course. They will see their
+mistake; and, Erema, you may come. The gale is over, and the evening
+bright. You sit by the fire, Mary, my dear; I shall not let you out
+again; keep the silver kettle boiling. In church I always think more
+clearly than where people talk so much. But when I come home I require
+something. I see, I see. Instead of an idle, fashionable lounging-place
+for nincompoops from London, instead of flirtation and novel-reading,
+vulgarity, show, and indecent attire, and positively immoral bathing,
+we will now have industry, commerce, wealth, triumph of mechanism, lofty
+enterprise, and international good-will. A harbor has been the great
+want of this coast; see what a thing it is at Newport! We will now have
+a harbor and floating docks, without any muddy, malarious river--all
+blue water from the sea; and our fine cliff range shall be studded with
+good houses. And the whole shall be called 'Erema-port.'"
+
+Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not at
+Bruntsea. Enough for this excellent man and that still more excellent
+woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the day is
+long--which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps, inasmuch as to
+the busy every day is short. But Mrs. Hockin, though as full of fowls as
+ever, gets no White Sultans nor any other rarity now from Sir Montague
+Hockin. That gentleman still is alive--so far, at least, as we have
+heard of; but no people owning any self-respect ever deal with him, to
+their knowledge. He gambled away all his father's estates, and the
+Major bought the last of them for his youngest son, a very noble Captain
+Hockin (according to his mother's judgment), whom I never had the honor
+of seeing. Sir Montague lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his cousin
+still hopes that he may turn honest.
+
+But as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a few words
+to be said. As soon as all necessary things were done at Bruntsea and at
+Castlewood, and my father's memory cleared from all stain, and by simple
+truth ennobled, in a manner strictly legal and consistent with
+heavy expenses, myself having made a long deposition and received
+congratulations--as soon as it was possible, I left them all, and set
+sail for America.
+
+The rashness of such a plan it is more easy for one to establish than
+two to deny. But what was there in it of peril or of enterprise compared
+with what I had been through already? I could not keep myself now from
+going, and reasoned but little about it.
+
+Meanwhile there had been no further tidings of Colonel Gundry or Firm,
+or even Martin of the Mill himself. But one thing I did which showed
+some little foresight. As soon as my mind was made up, and long before
+ever I could get away, I wrote to Martin Clogfast, telling him of my
+intention, and begging him, if he had any idea of the armies, or the
+Sawyer, or even Firm, or any thing whatever of interest, to write
+(without losing a day) to me, directing his letter to a house in New
+York whose address Major Hockin gave me.
+
+So many things had to be done, and I listened so foolishly to the Major
+(who did his very best to stop me), that it came to be May, 1862 (nearly
+four years after my father's death), before I could settle all my plans
+and start. For every body said that I was much too young to take such
+a journey all by myself, and "what every body says must be right,"
+whenever there is no exception to prove the rule. "Aunt Marys" are not
+to be found every day, nor even Major Hockins; and this again helped
+to throw me back in getting away from England. And but for his vast
+engineering ideas, and another slight touch of rheumatic gout (brought
+upon herself by Mrs. Hockin through setting seven hens in one evening),
+the Major himself might have come with me, "to observe the new military
+tactics," as well as to look for his cousin Sampson.
+
+In recounting this I seem to be as long as the thing itself was in
+accomplishing. But at last it was done, and most kindly was I offered
+the very thing to suit me--permission to join the party of a well-known
+British officer, Colonel Cheriton, of the Engineers. This gentleman,
+being of the highest repute as a writer upon military subjects,
+had leave from the Federal government to observe the course of this
+tremendous war. And perhaps he will publish some day what seems as
+yet to be wholly wanting--a calm and impartial narrative of that
+unparalleled conflict. At any rate, he meant to spare no trouble in a
+matter so instructive, and he took his wife and two daughters--very nice
+girls, who did me a world of good--to establish them in Washington, or
+wherever the case might require.
+
+Lucky as this was for me, I could not leave my dear and faithful friends
+without deep sorrow; but we all agreed that it should be only for a very
+little time. We landed first at New York, and there I found two letters
+from Martin of the Mill. In the first he grumbled much, and told me that
+nothing was yet known about Uncle Sam; in the second he grumbled (if
+possible) more, but gave me some important news. To wit, he had received
+a few lines from the Sawyer, who had failed as yet to find his grandson,
+and sadly lamented the misery he saw, and the shocking destruction of
+God's good works. He said that he could not bring himself to fight (even
+if he were young enough) against his own dear countrymen, one of whom
+was his own grandson; at the same time he felt that they must be put
+down for trying to have things too much their own way. About slavery, he
+had seen too much of niggers to take them at all for his equals, and no
+white man with any self-respect would desire to be their brother. The
+children of Ham were put down at the bottom, as their noses and their
+lips pronounced, according to Divine revelation; and for sons of Japheth
+to break up the noblest nation in the world, on their account, was
+like rushing in to inherit their curse. As sure as his name was Sampson
+Gundry, those who had done it would get the worst, though as yet they
+were doing wonders. And there could be no doubt about one thing--which
+party it was that began it. But come what would of it, here he was; and
+never would Saw-mills see him again unless he brought Firm Gundry. But
+he wanted news of poor Miss 'Rema; and if any came to the house, they
+must please to send it to the care of Colonel Baker, headquarters of the
+Army of the Potomac.
+
+This was the very thing I wished to know, and I saw now how stupid I
+must have been not to have thought of it long ago. For Colonel Baker
+was, to my knowledge, an ancient friend of Uncle Sam, and had joined the
+national army at the very outbreak of the war. Well known not only in
+California, but throughout the States, for gallantry and conduct, this
+officer had been a great accession to the Federal cause, when so many
+wavered, and so he was appointed to a good command. But, alas! when I
+told Colonel Cheriton my news, I learned from him (who had carefully
+watched all the incidents of the struggle) that Uncle Sam's noble friend
+had fallen in the battle of Ball's Bluff, while charging at the head of
+his regiment.
+
+Still, there was hope that some of the officers might know where to find
+Uncle Sam, who was not at all a man to be mislaid; and being allowed
+to accompany my English friends, I went on to Washington. We found
+that city in a highly nervous state, and from time to time ready to be
+captured. General Jackson was almost at the gates, and the President
+every day was calling out for men. The Army of Virginia had been beaten
+back to intrenchments before the capital, and General Lee was invading
+Maryland. Battle followed battle, thick as blows upon a threshing-floor,
+and though we were always said to be victorious, the enemy seemed
+none the more to run away. In this confusion, what chance had I of
+discovering even the Sawyer?
+
+Colonel Cheriton (who must have found me a dreadful thorn in the flank
+of his strategy) missed no opportunity of inquiry, as he went from one
+valley to another. For the war seemed to run along the course of rivers,
+though it also passed through the forests and lakes, and went up into
+the mountains. Our wonderfully clever and kind member of the British
+army was delighted with the movements of General Lee, who alone showed
+scientific elegance in slaying his fellow-countrymen; and the worst of
+it was that instead of going after my dear Uncle Sam, Colonel Cheriton
+was always rushing about with maps, plans, and telescopes, to follow the
+tracery of Lee's campaign. To treat of such matters is far beyond me,
+as I am most thankful to confess. Neither will I dare to be sorry for a
+great man doing what became his duty. My only complaint against him is
+that he kept us in a continual fright.
+
+However, this went by, and so did many other things, though heavily
+laden with grief and death; and the one thing we learned was to
+disbelieve ninety-nine out of every hundred. Letters for the Sawyer were
+dispatched by me to every likely place for him, and advertisements put
+into countless newspapers, but none of them seemed to go near him. Old
+as he was, he avoided feather-beds, and roamed like a true Californian.
+But at last I found him, in a sad, sad way.
+
+It was after the battle of Chancellorsville, and our army had been
+driven back across the Rappahannock. "Our army," I call it, because
+(although we belonged to neither party) fortune had brought us into
+contact with these, and knowing more about them, we were bound to take
+their side. And not only that, but to me it appeared altogether beyond
+controversy that a man of large mind and long experience (such as Uncle
+Sam had) should know much better than his grandson which cause was the
+one to fight for. At the same time Firm was not at all to be condemned.
+And if it was true, as Martin Clogfast said, that trouble of mind at my
+absence had driven him into a prejudiced view, nothing could possibly be
+more ungracious than for me to make light of his judgment.
+
+Being twenty years old by this time, I was wiser than I used to be, and
+now made a practice of thinking twice before rushing into peril, as I
+used to do in California, and to some extent also in England. For though
+my adventures might not have been as strange as many I myself have heard
+of (especially from Suan Isco), nevertheless they had comprised enough
+of teaching and suffering also to make me careful about having any more.
+And so for a long time I kept at the furthest distance possible, in
+such a war, from the vexing of the air with cannons, till even Colonel
+Cheriton's daughters--perfectly soft and peaceful girls--began to
+despise me as a coward. Knowing what I had been through, I indulged
+their young opinions.
+
+Therefore they were the more startled when I set forth under a sudden
+impulse, or perhaps impatience, for a town very near the head-quarters
+of the defeated General Hooker. As they were so brave, I asked them
+whether they would come with me; but although their father was known to
+be there, they turned pale at the thought of it. This pleased me, and
+made me more resolute to go; and in three days' time I was at Falmouth,
+a town on our side of the Rappahannock.
+
+Here I saw most miserable sights that made me ashamed of all trifling
+fear. When hundreds and thousands of gallant men were dying in crippled
+agony, who or what was I to make any fuss about my paltry self? Clumsy
+as I was, some kind and noble ladies taught me how to give help among
+the sufferers.
+
+At first I cried so at every body's pain, while asking why ever they
+should have it, that I did some good by putting them up to bear it
+rather than distress me so. And when I began to command myself (as
+custom soon enabled me), I did some little good again by showing them
+how I cared for them. Their poor weak eyes, perhaps never expecting
+to see a nice thing in the world again, used to follow me about with a
+faint, slow roll, and a feeble spark of jealousy.
+
+That I should have had such a chance of doing good, onefold to others
+and a thousandfold to self, at this turn of life, when I was full of
+little me, is another of the many most clear indications of a kind hand
+over me. Every day there was better than a year of ordinary life in
+breaking the mind from its little selfish turns, and opening the heart
+to a larger power. And all this discipline was needed.
+
+For one afternoon, when we all were tired, with great heat upon us
+suddenly, and the flies beginning to be dreadful, our chief being rather
+unwell and fast asleep, the surgeons away, and our beds as full as they
+could be, I was called down to reason with an applicant who would take
+no denial. "A rough man, a very rough old man, and in a most terrible
+state of mind," said the girl who brought the message; "and room he
+would have, or he would know the reason."
+
+"The reason is not far to seek," I answered, more to myself than her, as
+I ran down the stairs to discomfit that old man. At the open door, with
+the hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching shriveled cheeks, now
+wearily raising his battered hat, stood my dear Uncle Sam, the Sawyer.
+
+"Lor' a massy! young lady, be you altogether daft? In my best of days,
+never was I lips for kissing. And the bootifulest creatur--Come now, I
+ain't saved your life, have I now?"
+
+"Yes, fifty times over--fifty thousand times. Uncle Sam, don't you know
+Erema?"
+
+"My eyes be dashed! And dashed they be, to forget the look of yours,
+my dearie. Seven days have I marched without thanking the Lord; and hot
+coals of fire has He poured upon me now, for His mercy endureth forever.
+To think of you--to think of you--as like my own child as could be--only
+of more finer breed--here standing in front of me, like this here!
+There! I never dreamed to do that again, and would scorn a young man at
+the sight of it."
+
+The Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping. He simply
+turned his tanned and weathered face toward the door-post, not to hide
+his tears, but reconcile his pride by feigning it. I felt that he must
+be at very low ebb, and all that I had seen of other people's sorrow had
+no power to assuage me. Inside the door, to keep the hot wind out and
+hide my eyes from the old man's face, I had some little quiet sobs,
+until we could both express ourselves.
+
+"It is poor Firm, the poor, poor lad!--oh, what hath happened him? That
+I should see the day!"
+
+Uncle Sam's deep voice broke into a moan, and he bowed his rough
+forehead on his arm, and shook. Then I took him by the sleeve and
+brought him in.
+
+"Not dead--poor Firm, your only one--not dead?" as soon as words would
+come, I asked, and trembled for the opening of his lips.
+
+"Not dead--not quite; but ten times worse. He hath flown into the face
+of the Lord, like Saul and his armor-bearer; he hath fallen on his
+own sword; and the worst of it is that the darned thing won't come out
+again."
+
+"Firm--the last person in the world to do it! Oh, Uncle Sam, surely they
+have told you--"
+
+"No lies--no lie at all, my dear. And not only that, but he wanteth now
+to die--and won't be long first, I reckon. But no time to lose, my dear.
+The Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his leaving of the world.
+Can 'e raise a bed and a doctor here? If he would but groan, I could
+bear it a bit, instead of bleeding inward. And for sartin sure, a'
+would groan nicely, if only by force of habit, at first sight of a real
+doctor."
+
+"There are half a dozen here," I said; "or at least close by. He shall
+have my own bed. But where is he?"
+
+"We have laid 'un in the sand," he answered, simply, "for to dry his
+perspiration. That weak the poor chap is that he streameth night and
+day, miss. Never would you know him for our Firm now, any more than me
+for Sampson Gundry. Ah me! but the Lord is hard on us!"
+
+Slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor Firm to the hospital;
+while, with light feet but a heavy heart, I returned to arouse our
+managers. Speedily and well were all things done; and in half an hour
+Finn lay upon my bed, with two of the cleverest surgeons of New York
+most carefully examining his wasted frame. These whispered and shook
+their heads, as in such a case was indispensable; and listening eagerly,
+I heard the senior surgeon say, "No, he could never bear it." The
+younger man seemed to think otherwise, but to give way to the longer
+experience. Then dear Uncle Sam, having bought a new hat at the corner
+of the street, came forward. Knowing too well what excitement is, and
+how it changes every one, I lifted my hand for him to go back; but he
+only put his great hot web of fingers into mine, and drew me to him
+softly, and covered me up with his side. "He heareth nort, nort, nort,"
+he whispered to me; and then spoke aloud:
+
+"Gentlemen and ladies--or ladies and gentlemen, is the more correct form
+nowadays--have I leave to say a word or two? Then if I have, as your
+manner to me showeth, and heartily thanking you for that same, my words
+shall go into an acorn-cup. This lad, laid out at your mercy here,
+was as fine a young fellow as the West hath ever raised--straight and
+nimble, and could tell no lie. Family reasons, as you will excoose of,
+drew him to the arms of rebellion. I may have done, and overdone it
+myself, in arguing cantrips and convictions, whereof to my knowledge
+good never came yet. At any rate, off he went anyhow, and the force
+of nature drew me after him. No matter that to you, I dare say; but it
+would be, if you was in it.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, and no harm can you make out of him.
+Although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking, bravely
+hath he fought, and made his way to a colonelship, worth five thousand
+dollars, if ever they pay their wages. Never did I think that he would
+earn so much, having never owned gifts of machinery; and concerning the
+handling of the dollars, perhaps, will carry my opinion out. But where
+was I wandering of a little thing like that?
+
+"It hath pleased the Lord, who doeth all things well, when finally come
+to look back upon--the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this young
+man for going agin his grandfather. From Californy--a free State, mind
+you--he come away to fight for slavery. And how hath he magnified his
+office? By shooting the biggest man on that side, the almighty foe of
+the Union, the foremost captain of Midian--the general in whom they
+trusted. No bullets of ours could touch him; but by his own weapons he
+hath fallen. And soon as Ephraim Gundry heard it, he did what you see
+done to him."
+
+Uncle Sam having said his say--which must have cost him dearly--withdrew
+from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax, and grimy. To
+be sure that it was Firm, I gave one glance--for Firm had always been
+straight, tall, and large--and then, in a miserable mood, I stole to the
+Sawyer's side to stand with him. "Am I to blame? Is this my fault? For
+even this am I to blame?" I whispered; but he did not heed me, and his
+hands were like hard stone.
+
+After a long, hot, heavy time, while I was laboring vainly, the Sawyer
+also (through exhaustion of excitement) weary, and afraid to begin again
+with new bad news, as beaten people expect to do, the younger surgeon
+came up to him, and said, "Will you authorize it?"
+
+"To cut 'un up? To show your museums what a Western lad is? Never. By
+the Blue River he shall have a good grave. So help me God, to my own, my
+man!"
+
+"You misunderstand me. We have more subjects now than we should want for
+fifty years. War knocks the whole of their value on the head. We have
+fifty bodies as good as this, and are simply obliged to bury them. What
+I mean is, shall we pull the blade out?"
+
+"Can he do any thing with that there blade in him? I have heard of a man
+in Kentucky once--"
+
+"Yes, yes; we know all those stories, Colonel--suit the newspapers, not
+the journals. This fellow has what must kill him inside; he is worn to
+a shadow already. If there it is left, die he must, and quick stick;
+inflammation is set up already. If we extract it, his chance of
+surviving is scarcely one in a hundred."
+
+"Let him have the one, then, the one in the hundred, like the ninety and
+nine lost sheep. The Lord can multiply a hundredfold--some threescore,
+and some an hundredfold. I will speak to Him, gentlemen, while you try
+the job."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+FEMALE SUFFRAGE
+
+
+All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for Firm.
+Our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she could be spared,
+and all the other ladies vied in zeal for this young soldier, so that
+I could scarcely get near him. His grandfather's sad and extraordinary
+tale was confirmed by a wounded prisoner. Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare
+power of sight had been fatal perhaps to the cause he fought for, or
+at least to its greatest captain. Returning from desperate victory, the
+general, wrapped in the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his
+own stern thoughts, while it seemed quite impossible that he should be
+seen, encountered the fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was
+given by his favorite officer, Colonel Firm Gundry. When the young man
+learned that he had destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief idol of
+his heart, he called for a rifle, but all refused him, knowing too well
+what his purpose was. Then under the trees, without a word or sigh, he
+set the hilt of his sword upon the earth, and the point to his heart--as
+well as he could find it. The blade passed through him, and then snapped
+off--But I can not bear to speak of it.
+
+And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he was
+made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case but
+also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more frankly
+acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one. It was proved that,
+with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two wounds than one,
+even though they may not be at the same time taken. Firm had been
+shot by the captain of Mexican robbers, as long ago related. He was
+dreadfully pulled down at the time, and few people could have survived
+it. But now that stood him in the very best stead, not only as a lesson
+of patience, but also in the question of cartilage. But not being
+certain what cartilage is, I can only refer inquirers to the note-book
+of the hospital, which has been printed.
+
+For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be) this
+brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time successfully with
+that great enemy of the human race, to whom the human race so largely
+consign one another and themselves. But some did say, and emphatically
+Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry--for a colonel he was now, not by
+courtesy, but commission--would never have held up his head to do it,
+but must have gone on with his ravings for death, if somebody had not
+arrived in the nick of time, and cried over him--a female somebody from
+old England.
+
+And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be a
+man again, never would have calmed his conscience with the reflection,
+so commonplace and yet so high--that having done our best according to
+our lights, we must not dwell always on our darkness--if once again, and
+for the residue of life, there had not been some one to console him--a
+consolation that need not have, and is better without, pure reason,
+coming, as that would come, from a quarter whence it is never quite
+welcome. Enough for me that he never laid hand to a weapon of war again,
+and never shall unless our own home is invaded.
+
+For after many months--each equal to a year of teaching and of
+humbling--there seemed to be a good time for me to get away and attend
+to my duties in England. Of these I had been reminded often by letters,
+and once by a messenger; but all money matters seemed dust in the
+balance where life and death were swinging. But now Uncle Sam and his
+grandson, having their love knit afresh by disaster, were eager to start
+for the Saw-mill, and trust all except their own business to Providence.
+
+I had told them that, when they went westward, my time would be come for
+starting eastward; and being unlikely to see them again, I should hope
+for good news frequently. And then I got dear Uncle Sam by himself, and
+begged him, for the sake of Firm's happiness, to keep him as far as he
+could from Pennsylvania Sylvester. At the same time I thought that the
+very nice young lady who jumped upon his nose from the window, Miss
+Annie--I forgot her name, or at any rate I told him so--would make him
+a good straightforward wife, so far as one could tell from having seen
+her. And that seemed to have been settled in their infancy. And if he
+would let me know when it was to be, I had seen a thing in London I
+should like to give them.
+
+When I asked the Sawyer to see to this, instead of being sorry, he
+seemed quite pleased, and nodded sagaciously, and put his hat on, as he
+generally did, to calculate.
+
+"Both of them gals have married long ago," he said, looking at me with a
+fine soft gaze; "and bad handfuls their mates have got of them. But
+what made you talk of them, missy--or 'my lady,' as now you are in old
+country, I hear--what made you think of them like that, my dearie?"
+
+"I can't tell what made me think of them. How can I tell why I think of
+every thing?"
+
+"Still, it was an odd thing for your ladyship to say."
+
+"Uncle Sam, I am nobody's ladyship, least of all yours. What makes you
+speak so? I am your own little wandering child, whose life you saved,
+and whose father you loved, and who loses all who love her. Even from
+you I am forced to go away. Oh, why is it always my fate--my fate?"
+
+"Hush!" said the old man; and I stopped my outburst at his whisper. "To
+talk of fate, my dearie, shows either one thing or the other--that we
+have no will of our own, or else that we know not how to guide it. I
+never knew a good man talk of fate. The heathens and the pagans made it.
+The Lord in heaven is enough for me; and He always hath allowed me my
+own free-will, though I may not have handled 'un cleverly. And He giveth
+you your own will now, my missy--to go from us or to stop with us. And
+being as you are a very grand young woman now, owning English land and
+income paid in gold instead of greenbacks--the same as our nugget seems
+likely--to my ideas it would be wrong if we was so much as to ask you."
+
+"Is that what you are full of, then, and what makes you so mysterious? I
+did think that you knew me better, and I had a right to hope so."
+
+"Concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of. You might
+do this, or you might do that, according to what you was told, or, even
+more, according to what was denied you. For poor honest people, like
+Firm and me, to deal with such a case is out of knowledge. For us it
+is--go by the will of the Lord, and dead agin your own desires."
+
+"But, dear Uncle Sam," I cried, feeling that now I had him upon his
+own tenterhooks, "you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature for
+daring to talk about fate just now; but to what else comes your own
+conduct, if you are bound to go against your own desire? If you have
+such a lot of freewill, why must you do what you do not like to do?"
+
+"Well, well, perhaps I was talking rather large. The will of the world
+is upon us as well. And we must have respect for its settlements."
+
+"Now let me," I said, with a trembling wish to have every thing right
+and maidenly. "I have seen so much harm from misunderstandings, and they
+are so simple when it is too late--let me ask you one or two questions,
+Uncle Sam. You always answer every body. And to you a crooked answer is
+impossible."
+
+"Business is business," the Sawyer said. "My dear, I contract
+accordingly."
+
+"Very well. Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have done with
+me? Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who have never even
+heard of me."
+
+"Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so
+natural."
+
+"In the next place, what does your grandson wish?"
+
+"To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till death do
+you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs."
+
+"And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish? You say we all have so much
+free-will."
+
+"It is natural that you should wish, my dear, to go and be a great
+lady, and marry a nobleman of your own rank, and have a lot of little
+noblemen."
+
+"Then I fly against nature; and the fault is yours for filling me so
+with machinery."
+
+The Sawyer was beaten, and he never said again that a woman can not
+argue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS
+
+
+From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred, and fury of that wicked war
+we set our little convoy forth, with passes procured from either side.
+According to all rules of war, Firm was no doubt a prisoner; but having
+saved his life, and taken his word to serve no more against them,
+remembering also that he had done them more service than ten regiments,
+the Federal authorities were not sorry to be quit of him.
+
+He, for his part, being of a deep, retentive nature, bore in his wounded
+breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime. To me he said not a
+single word about his bitter fortune, and he could not bring himself
+to ask me whether I would share it. Only from his eyes sometimes I knew
+what he was thinking; and having passed through so much grief, I
+was moved with deep compassion. Poor Firm had been trained by his
+grandfather to a strong, earnest faith in Providence, and now this
+compelled him almost to believe that he had been specially visited. For
+flying in the face of his good grandfather, and selfishly indulging his
+own stiff neck, his punishment had been hard, and almost heavier than he
+could bear. Whatever might happen to him now, the spring and the flower
+of his life were gone; he still might have some calm existence, but
+never win another day of cloudless joy. And if he had only said this, or
+thought about it, we might have looked at him with less sadness of our
+own.
+
+But he never said any thing about himself, nor gave any opening for
+our comfort to come to him. Only from day to day he behaved gently and
+lovingly to both of us, as if his own trouble must be fought out by
+himself, and should dim no other happiness. And this kept us thinking of
+his sorrow all the more, so that I could not even look at him without a
+flutter of the heart, which was afraid to be a sigh.
+
+At last, upon the great mountain range, through which we now were
+toiling, with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks, and a
+sparkling veil for sunrise, dear Uncle Sam, who had often shown signs of
+impatience, drew me apart from the rest. Straightforward and blunt as he
+generally was, he did not seem altogether ready to begin, but pulled off
+his hat, and then put it on again, the weather being now cold and hot
+by turns. And while he did this he was thinking at his utmost, as every
+full vein of his forehead declared. And being at home with his ways, I
+waited.
+
+"Think you got ahead of me? No, not you," he exclaimed at last, in
+reply to some version of his own of my ideas, which I carefully made a
+nonentity under the scrutiny of his keen blue eyes. "No, no, missy;
+you wait a bit. Uncle Sam was not hatched yesterday, and it takes fifty
+young ladies to go round him."
+
+"Is that from your size, Uncle Sam, or your depth?"
+
+"Well, a mixture of both, I do believe. Now the last thing you ever
+would think of, if you lived to be older than Washington's nurse, is the
+very thing I mean to put to you. Only you must please to take it well,
+according to my meaning. You see our Firm going to a shadow, don't you?
+Very well; the fault of that is all yourn. Why not up and speak to him?"
+
+"I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam, and I spare no efforts to fatten
+him. I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook. But soon he will
+have Suan Isco."
+
+"Old Injun be darned! It's not the stomach, it's the heart as wants
+nourishment with yon poor lad. He looketh that pitiful at you sometimes,
+my faith, I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his newings or cry at
+the lean face that does it."
+
+"You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam. And he never does any
+thing of the kind. I am sure there is nothing to laugh at."
+
+"No, no; to be sure not. I made a mistake. Heroic is the word, of
+course--every thing is heroic."
+
+"It is heroic," I answered, with some vexation at his lightness. "If you
+can not see it, I am sorry for you. I like large things; and I know of
+nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on."
+
+"You to stand up for him!" Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could
+scarcely look at me. "You to talk large of him, my Lady Castlewood,
+while you are doing of his heart into small wittles! Well, I did
+believe, if no one else, that you were a straightforward one."
+
+"And what am I doing that is crooked now?"
+
+"Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no. Only onconsistent, when
+squared up."
+
+"Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day. What is inconsistent? What is
+there to square up?"
+
+He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise. Then, as if his
+main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and said, "Soup's
+a-bilin now."
+
+"Let it boil over, then. You must say what you mean. Oh, Uncle Sam, I
+only want to do the right!"
+
+"I dessay. I dessay. But have you got the pluck, miss? Our little missy
+would 'a done more than that. But come to be great lady--why, they take
+another tune. With much mind, of course it might be otherwise. But none
+of 'em have any much of that to spare."
+
+"Your view is a narrow one," I replied, knowing how that would astonish
+him. "You judge by your own experience only; and to do that shows a sad
+want of breadth, as the ladies in England express it."
+
+The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all about
+for his spectacles. The idea of being regarded by a "female" from a
+larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in his system.
+
+"Yes," I continued, with some enjoyment, "let us try to look largely
+at all things, Uncle Sam. And supposing me capable of that, what is the
+proper and the lofty course to take?"
+
+He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three words
+discomfited me--"Pop the question."
+
+Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind
+with man, and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that her
+privilege could be driven to this extent. But I shook my head till all
+my hair came down; and so if our constitutional right of voting by color
+was exercised, on this occasion it claimed the timid benefit of ballot.
+
+With us a suggestion, for the time discarded, has often double effect
+by-and-by; and though it was out of my power to dream of acting up to
+such directions, there could be no possible harm in reviewing such a
+theory theoretically.
+
+Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts, nor even so much as that
+(safely may I say), when Firm and myself met face to face on the third
+day after Uncle Sam's ideas. Our little caravan, of which the Sawyer
+was the captain, being bound for Blue River and its neighborhood, had
+quitted the Sacramento track by a fork on the left not a league from
+the spot where my father had bidden adieu to mankind. And knowing every
+twist and turn of rock, our drivers brought us at the camping-time
+almost to the verge of chaparral.
+
+I knew not exactly how far we were come, but the dust-cloud of memory
+was stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they used to
+look, the things done among them seemed larger. And wandering forth from
+the camp to think, when the evening meal was over, lo! there I stood in
+that selfsame breach or portal of the desert in which I stood once by
+my father's side, with scared and weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's
+shattered landmark. The time of year was different, being the ripe end
+of October now; but though the view was changed in tint, it was even
+more impressive. Sombre memories, and deep sense of grandeur, which is
+always sad, and solemn lights, and stealing shadows, compassed me with
+thoughtfulness. In the mouth of the gorge was a gray block of granite,
+whereupon I sat down to think.
+
+Old thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts as common as the clouds that cross
+the distant plain, and as vague as the wind that moves them--they please
+and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence, but what are
+they? The life that lies before us is, in some way, too, below us, like
+yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be traversed foot by foot, and
+laboriously travailed, without the cloudy vaporing or the high-flown
+meditation. And all that must be done by me, alone, with none to love
+me, and (which for a woman is so much worse) nobody ever to have for my
+own, to cherish, love, and cling to.
+
+Tier upon tier, and peak over peak, the finest mountains of the world
+are soaring into the purple firmament. Like northern lights, they flash,
+or flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders of heaven, they
+bar themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven itself, they rank
+their white procession. Lonely, feeble, puny, I look up with awe and
+reverence; the mind pronounces all things small compared with this
+magnificence. Yet what will all such grandeur do--the self-defensive
+heart inquires--for puny, feeble, lonely me?
+
+Before another shadow deepened or another light grew pale, a slow,
+uncertain step drew near, and by the merest chance it happened to be
+Ephraim Gundry's. I was quite surprised, and told him so; and he said
+that he also was surprised at meeting me in this way. Remembering how
+long I had been here, I thought this most irrational, but checked myself
+from saying so, because he looked so poorly. And more than that, I asked
+him kindly how he was this evening, and smoothed my dress to please his
+eye, and offered him a chair of rock. But he took no notice of all these
+things.
+
+I thought of the time when he would have behaved so very differently
+from this, and nothing but downright pride enabled me to repress
+vexation. However, I resolved to behave as kindly as if he were his own
+grandfather.
+
+"How grand these mountains are!" I said. "It must do you good to see
+them again. Even to me it is such a delight. And what must it be to you,
+a native?"
+
+"Yes, I shall wander from them no more. How I wish that I had never done
+so?"
+
+"Have men less courage than women?" I asked, with one glance at his pale
+worn face. "I owe you the debt of life; and this is the place to think
+and speak of it. I used to talk freely of that, you know. You used to
+like to hear me speak; but now you are tired of that, and tired of all
+the world as well, I fear."
+
+"No, I am tired of nothing, except my own vile degradation. I am tired
+of my want of spirit, that I can not cast my load. I am tired of my lack
+of reason, which should always guide a man. What is the use of mind or
+intellect, reasoning power, or whatever it is called, if the whole of
+them can not enable a man to hold out against a stupid heart?"
+
+"I think you should be proud," I said, while trembling to approach the
+subject which never had been touched between us, "at having a nature
+so sensitive. Your evil chance might have been any body's, and must of
+course have been somebody's. But nobody else would have taken it so--so
+delightfully as you have done!"
+
+"Delightfully! Is that the word you use? May I ask who gets any delight
+from it?"
+
+"Why, all who hate the Southern cause," I replied, with a sudden turn of
+thought, though I never had meant to use the word. "Surely that needs no
+explanation."
+
+"They are delighted, are they? Yes, I can very well believe it.
+Narrow-minded bigots! Yes, they are sure to be delighted. They call it a
+just visitation, of course, a righteous retribution. And they hope I may
+never get over it."
+
+"I pray you to take it more gently," I said; "they are very good
+men, and wish you no harm. But they must have their own opinions; and
+naturally they think them just."
+
+"Then all their opinions are just wrong. They hope to see me go down,
+to my grave. They shall not have that pleasure. I will outlive every
+old John Brown of them. I did not care two cents to live just now.
+Henceforth I will make a point of it. If I cannot fight for true freedom
+any more, having ruined it perhaps already, the least I can do is to
+give no more triumph to its bitter enemies. I will eat and drink, and
+begin this very night. I suppose you are one of them, as you put their
+arguments so neatly. I suppose you consider me a vile slave-driver?"
+
+"You are very ill," I said, with my heart so full of pity that anger
+could not enter; "you are very ill, and very weak. How could you drive
+the very best slave now--even such a marvel as Uncle Tom?"
+
+Firm Gundry smiled; on his lean dry face there shone a little flicker,
+which made me think of the time when he bought a jest-book, published at
+Cincinnati, to make himself agreeable to my mind. And little as I meant
+it, I smiled also, thinking of the way he used to come out with his
+hard-fought jokes, and expect it.
+
+"I wish you were at all as you used to be," he said, looking at me
+softly through the courage of his smile, "instead of being such a grand
+lady."
+
+"And I wish you were a little more like yourself," I answered, without
+thinking; "you used to think always there was nobody like me."
+
+"Suppose that I am of the same opinion still? Tenfold, fiftyfold, a
+millionfold?"
+
+"To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd, when you have
+shown no sign of it."
+
+"For your own dear sake I have shown no sign. The reason of that is too
+clear to explain."
+
+"Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it!"
+
+"Why, who would have any thing to say to me--a broken-down man, a fellow
+marked out for curses, one who hates even the sight of himself? The
+lowest of the low would shun me."
+
+He turned away from me, and gazed back toward the dismal, miserable,
+spectral desert; while I stood facing the fruitful, delicious, flowery
+Paradise of all the world. I thought of the difference in our lots,
+and my heart was in misery about him. Then I conquered my pride and my
+littleness and trumpery, and did what the gentle sweet Eve might have
+done. And never have I grieved for that action since.
+
+With tears on my cheeks quite undissembled, and a breast not ashamed of
+fluttering, I ran to Firm Gundry, and took his right hand, and allowed
+him no refuge from tender wet eyes. Then before he could come to see the
+meaning of this haste--because of his very high discipline--I was out
+of his distance, and sitting on a rock, and I lifted my eyes, full of
+eloquence, to his; then I dropped them, and pulled my hat forward, and
+said, as calmly as was possible, "I have done enough. The rest remains
+with you, Firm Gundry."
+
+The rest remained with him. Enough that I was part of that rest; and if
+not the foundation or crown of it, something desirous to be both, and
+failing (if fail it ever does) from no want of trial. Uncle Sam says
+that I never fail at all, and never did fail in any thing, unless it was
+when I found that blamed nugget, for which we got three wagon-loads of
+greenbacks; which (when prosperity at last revives) will pay perhaps for
+greasing all twelve wheels.
+
+Jowler admits not that failure even. As soon as he recovered from canine
+dementia, approaching very closely to rabies, at seeing me in the flesh
+once more (so that the Sierra Nevada rang with avalanches of barking),
+he tugged me to the place where his teeth were set in gold, and proved
+that he had no hydrophobia. His teeth are scanty now, but he still can
+catch a salmon, and the bright zeal and loyalty of his soft brown
+eyes and the sprightly elevation of his tail are still among dogs as
+pre-eminent as they are to mankind inimitable.
+
+
+
+Now the war is past, and here we sit by the banks of the soft Blue
+River. The early storm and young conflict of a clouded life are over.
+Still out of sight there may be yet a sea of troubles to buffet with;
+but it is not merely a selfish thought that others will face it with me.
+Dark mysteries have been cleared away by being confronted bravely; and
+the lesson has been learned that life (like California flowers) is of
+infinite variety. This little river, ten steps wide, on one side has all
+lupins, on the other side all larkspurs. Can I tell why? Can any body?
+Can even itself, so full of voice and light, unroll the reason?
+
+Behind us tower the stormy crags, before us spread soft tapestry of
+earth and sweep of ocean. Below us lies my father's grave, whose sin was
+not his own, but fell on him, and found him loyal. To him was I loyal
+also, as a daughter should be; and in my lap lies my reward--for I am no
+more Erema.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+#3 in our series by R. D. Blackmore
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+
+
+Title: Erema
+       My Father's Sin
+
+Author: R. D. Blackmore
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7112]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on March 11, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EREMA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Don Lainson
+
+
+
+
+
+EREMA; OR, MY FATHER'S SIN
+
+
+by
+
+
+R. D. BLACKMORE
+
+
+
+1877
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+A LOST LANDMARK
+
+
+"The sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and
+fourth generation of them that hate me."
+
+
+These are the words that have followed me always.  This is the
+curse which has fallen on my life.
+
+If I had not known my father, if I had not loved him, if I had not
+closed his eyes in desert silence deeper than the silence of the
+grave, even if I could have buried and bewailed him duly, the
+common business of this world and the universal carelessness might
+have led me down the general track that leads to nothing.
+
+Until my father fell and died I never dreamed that he could die.  I
+knew that his mind was quite made up to see me safe in my new home,
+and then himself to start again for still remoter solitudes.  And
+when his mind was thus made up, who had ever known him fail of it?
+
+If ever a resolute man there was, that very man was my father.  And
+he showed it now, in this the last and fatal act of his fatal life.
+"Captain, here I leave you all," he shouted to the leader of our
+wagon train, at a place where a dark, narrow gorge departed from
+the moilsome mountain track.  "My reasons are my own; let no man
+trouble himself about them.  All my baggage I leave with you.
+I have paid my share of the venture, and shall claim it at
+Sacramento.  My little girl and I will take this short-cut through
+the mountains."
+
+"General!" answered the leader of our train, standing up on his
+board in amazement.  "Forgive and forget, Sir; forgive and forget.
+What is a hot word spoken hotly?  If not for your own sake, at
+least come back for the sake of your young daughter."
+
+"A fair haven to you!" replied my father.  He offered me his hand,
+and we were out of sight of all that wearisome, drearisome,
+uncompanionable company with whom, for eight long weeks at least,
+we had been dragging our rough way.  I had known in a moment that
+it must be so, for my father never argued.  Argument, to his mind,
+was a very nice amusement for the weak.  My spirits rose as he
+swung his bear-skin bag upon his shoulder, and the last sound of
+the laboring caravan groaned in the distance, and the fresh air and
+the freedom of the mountains moved around us.  It was the 29th of
+May--Oak-apple Day in England--and to my silly youth this vast
+extent of snowy mountains was a nice place for a cool excursion.
+
+Moreover, from day to day I had been in most wretched anxiety, so
+long as we remained with people who could not allow for us.  My
+father, by his calm reserve and dignity and largeness, had always,
+among European people, kept himself secluded; but now in this rough
+life, so pent in trackless tracts, and pressed together by
+perpetual peril, every body's manners had been growing free and
+easy.  Every man had been compelled to tell, as truly as he could,
+the story of his life thus far, to amuse his fellow-creatures--
+every man, I mean, of course, except my own poor father.  Some told
+their stories every evening, until we were quite tired--although
+they were never the same twice over; but my father could never be
+coaxed to say a syllable more than, "I was born, and I shall die."
+
+This made him very unpopular with the men, though all the women
+admired it; and if any rough fellow could have seen a sign of fear,
+the speaker would have been insulted.  But his manner and the power
+of his look were such that, even after ardent spirits, no man saw
+fit to be rude to him.  Nevertheless, there had always been the
+risk of some sad outrage.
+
+"Erema," my father said to me, when the dust from the rear of the
+caravan was lost behind a cloud of rocks, and we two stood in the
+wilderness alone--"do you know, my own Erema, why I bring you from
+them?"
+
+"Father dear, how should I know?  You have done it, and it must be
+right."
+
+"It is not for their paltry insults.  Child, you know what I think
+all that.  It is for you, my only child, that I am doing what now I
+do."
+
+I looked up into his large, sad eyes without a word, in such a way
+that he lifted me up in his arms and kissed me, as if I were a
+little child instead of a maiden just fifteen.  This he had never
+done before, and it made me a little frightened.  He saw it, and
+spoke on the spur of the thought, though still with one arm round
+me.
+
+"Perhaps you will live to be thankful, my dear, that you had a
+stern, cold father.  So will you meet the world all the better;
+and, little one, you have a rough world to meet."
+
+For a moment I was quite at a loss to account for my father's
+manner; but now, in looking back, it is so easy to see into things.
+At the time I must have been surprised, and full of puzzled
+eagerness.
+
+Not half so well can I recall the weakness, anguish, and exhaustion
+of body and spirit afterward.  It may have been three days of
+wandering, or it may have been a week, or even more than that, for
+all that I can say for certain.  Whether the time were long or
+short, it seemed as if it would never end.  My father believed that
+he knew the way to the house of an old settler, at the western foot
+of the mountains, who had treated him kindly some years before, and
+with whom he meant to leave me until he had made arrangements
+elsewhere.  If we had only gone straightway thither, night-fall
+would have found us safe beneath that hospitable roof.
+
+My father was vexed, as I well remember, at coming, as he thought,
+in sight of some great landmark, and finding not a trace of it.
+Although his will was so very strong, his temper was good about
+little things, and he never began to abuse all the world because he
+had made a mistake himself.
+
+"Erema," he said, "at this corner where we stand there ought to be
+a very large pine-tree in sight, or rather a great redwood-tree, at
+least twice as high as any tree that grows in Europe, or Africa
+even.  From the plains it can be seen for a hundred miles or more.
+It stands higher up the mountainside than any other tree of even
+half its size, and that makes it so conspicuous.  My eyes must be
+failing me, from all this glare; but it must be in sight.  Can you
+see it now?"
+
+"I see no tree of any kind whatever, but scrubby bushes and yellow
+tufts; and oh, father, I am so thirsty!"
+
+"Naturally.  But now look again.  It stands on a ridge, the last
+ridge that bars the view of all the lowland.  It is a very straight
+tree, and regular, like a mighty column, except that on the
+northern side the wind from the mountains has torn a gap in it.
+Are you sure that you can not see it--a long way off, but
+conspicuous?"
+
+"Father, I am sure that I can not see any tree half as large as a
+broomstick.  Far or near, I see no tree."
+
+"Then my eyes are better than my memory.  We must cast back for a
+mile or two; but it can not make much difference."
+
+"Through the dust and the sand?" I began to say; but a glance from
+him stopped my murmuring.  And the next thing I can call to mind
+must have happened a long time afterward.
+
+Beyond all doubt, in this desolation, my father gave his life for
+mine.  I did not know it at the time, nor had the faintest dream of
+it, being so young and weary-worn, and obeying him by instinct.  It
+is a fearful thing to think of--now that I can think of it--but to
+save my own little worthless life I must have drained every drop of
+water from his flat half-gallon jar.  The water was hot and the
+cork-hole sandy, and I grumbled even while drinking it; and what
+must my father (who was dying all the while for a drop, but never
+took one)--what must he have thought of me?
+
+But he never said a word, so far as I remember; and that makes it
+all the worse for me.  We had strayed away into a dry, volcanic
+district of the mountains, where all the snow-rivers run out quite
+early; and of natural springs there was none forth-coming.  All we
+had to guide us was a little traveler's compass (whose needle stuck
+fast on the pivot with sand) and the glaring sun, when he came to
+sight behind the hot, dry, driving clouds.  The clouds were very
+low, and flying almost in our faces, like vultures sweeping down on
+us.  To me they seemed to shriek over our heads at the others
+rushing after them.  But my father said that they could make no
+sound, and I never contradicted him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+A PACIFIC SUNSET
+
+
+At last we came to a place from which the great spread of the earth
+was visible.  For a time--I can not tell how long--we had wholly
+lost ourselves, going up and down, and turning corners, without
+getting further.  But my father said that we must come right, if we
+made up our minds to go long enough.  We had been in among all
+shapes, and want of shapes, of dreariness, through and in and out
+of every thrup and thrum of weariness, scarcely hoping ever more to
+find our way out and discover memory of men for us, when all of a
+sudden we saw a grand sight.  The day had been dreadfully hot and
+baffling, with sudden swirls of red dust arising, and driving the
+great drought into us.  To walk had been worse than to drag one's
+way through a stubbly bed of sting-nettles.  But now the quick
+sting of the sun was gone, and his power descending in the balance
+toward the flat places of the land and sea.  And suddenly we looked
+forth upon an immeasurable spread of these.
+
+We stood at the gate of the sandy range, which here, like a vast
+brown patch, disfigures the beauty of the sierra.  On either side,
+in purple distance, sprang sky-piercing obelisks and vapor-mantled
+glaciers, spangled with bright snow, and shodden with eternal
+forest.  Before us lay the broad, luxuriant plains of California,
+checkered with more tints than any other piece of earth can show,
+sleeping in alluvial ease, and veined with soft blue waters.  And
+through a gap in the brown coast range, at twenty leagues of
+distance, a light (so faint as to seem a shadow) hovered above the
+Pacific.
+
+But none of all this grandeur touched our hearts except the water
+gleam.  Parched with thirst, I caught my father's arm and tried to
+urge him on toward the blue enchantment of ecstatic living water.
+But, to my surprise, he staggered back, and his face grew as white
+as the distant snow.  I managed to get him to a sandy ledge, with
+the help of his own endeavors, and there let him rest and try to
+speak, while my frightened heart throbbed over his.
+
+"My little child," he said at last, as if we were fallen back ten
+years, "put your hand where I can feel it."
+
+My hand all the while had been in his, and to let him know where it
+was, it moved.  But cold fear stopped my talking.
+
+"My child, I have not been kind to you," my father slowly spoke
+again, "but it has not been from want of love.  Some day you will
+see all this, and some day you will pardon me."
+
+He laid one heavy arm around me, and forgetting thirst and pain,
+with the last intensity of eyesight watched the sun departing.  To
+me, I know not how, great awe was every where, and sadness.  The
+conical point of the furious sun, which like a barb had pierced us,
+was broadening into a hazy disk, inefficient, but benevolent.
+Underneath him depth of night was waiting to come upward (after
+letting him fall through) and stain his track with redness.
+Already the arms of darkness grew in readiness to receive him: his
+upper arc was pure and keen, but the lower was flaked with
+atmosphere; a glow of hazy light soon would follow, and one bright
+glimmer (addressed more to the sky than to the earth), and after
+that a broad, soft gleam; and after that how many a man should
+never see the sun again, and among them would be my father.
+
+He, for the moment, resting there, with heavy light upon him, and
+the dark jaws of the mountain desert yawning wide behind him, and
+all the beautiful expanse of liberal earth before him--even so he
+seemed to me, of all the things in sight, the one that first would
+draw attention.  His face was full of quiet grandeur and impressive
+calm, and the sad tranquillity which comes to those who know what
+human life is through continual human death.  Although, in the
+matter of bodily strength, he was little past the prime of life,
+his long and abundant hair was white, and his broad and upright
+forehead marked with the meshes of the net of care.  But drought
+and famine and long fatigue had failed even now to change or weaken
+the fine expression of his large, sad eyes.  Those eyes alone would
+have made the face remarkable among ten thousand, so deep with
+settled gloom they were, and dark with fatal sorrow.  Such eyes
+might fitly have told the grief of Adrastus, son of Gordias, who,
+having slain his own brother unwitting, unwitting slew the only son
+of his generous host and savior.
+
+The pale globe of the sun hung trembling in the haze himself had
+made.  My father rose to see the last, and reared his tall form
+upright against the deepening background.  He gazed as if the
+course of life lay vanishing below him, while level land and waters
+drew the breadth of shadow over them.  Then the last gleam flowed
+and fled upon the face of ocean, and my father put his dry lips to
+my forehead, saying nothing.
+
+His lips might well be dry, for he had not swallowed water for
+three days; but it frightened me to feel how cold they were, and
+even tremulous.  "Let us run, let us run, my dear father!" I cried.
+"Delicious water!  The dark falls quickly; but we can get there
+before dark.  It is all down hill.  Oh, do let us run at once!"
+
+"Erema," he answered, with a quiet smile, "there is no cause now
+for hurrying, except that I must hurry to show you what you have to
+do, my child.  For once, at the end of my life, I am lucky.  We
+have escaped from that starving desert at a spot--at a spot where
+we can see--"
+
+For a little while he could say no more, but sank upon the stony
+seat, and the hand with which he tried to point some distant
+landmark fell away.  His face, which had been so pale before,
+became of a deadly whiteness, and he breathed with gasps of agony.
+I knelt before him and took his hands, and tried to rub the palms,
+and did whatever I could think of.
+
+"Oh, father, father, you have starved yourself, and given every
+thing to me!  What a brute I was to let you do it!  But I did not
+know; I never knew!  Please God to take me also!"
+
+He could not manage to answer this, even if he understood it; but
+he firmly lifted his arm again, and tried to make me follow it.
+
+"What does it matter?  Oh, never mind, never mind such, a wretch as
+I am!  Father, only try to tell me what I ought to do for you."
+
+"My child! my child!" were his only words; and he kept on saying,
+"My child! my child!" as if he liked the sound of it.
+
+At what time of the night my father died I knew not then or
+afterward.  It may have been before the moon came over the snowy
+mountains, or it may not have been till the worn-out stars in vain
+repelled the daybreak.  All I know is that I ever strove to keep
+more near to him through the night, to cherish his failing warmth,
+and quicken the slow, laborious, harassed breath.  From time to
+time he tried to pray to God for me and for himself; but every time
+his mind began to wander and to slip away, as if through want of
+practice.  For the chills of many wretched years had deadened and
+benumbed his faith.  He knew me, now and then, betwixt the conflict
+and the stupor; for more than once he muttered feebly, and as if
+from out a dream,
+
+"Time for Erema to go on her way.  Go on your way, and save your
+life; save your life, Erema."
+
+There was no way for me to go, except on my knees before him.  I
+took his hands, and made them lissome with a soft, light rubbing.
+I whispered into his ear my name, that he might speak once more to
+me; and when he could not speak, I tried to say what he would say
+to me.
+
+At last, with a blow that stunned all words, it smote my stupid,
+wandering mind that all I had to speak and smile to, all I cared to
+please and serve, the only one left to admire and love, lay here in
+my weak arms quite dead.  And in the anguish of my sobbing, little
+things came home to me, a thousand little things that showed how
+quietly he had prepared for this, and provided for me only.  Cold
+despair and self-reproach and strong rebellion dazed me, until I
+lay at my father's side, and slept with his dead hand in mine.
+There in the desert of desolation pious awe embraced me, and small
+phantasms of individual fear could not come nigh me.
+
+By-and-by long shadows of morning crept toward me dismally, and the
+pallid light of the hills was stretched in weary streaks away from
+me.  How I arose, or what I did, or what I thought, is nothing now.
+Such times are not for talking of.  How many hearts of anguish lie
+forlorn, with none to comfort them, with all the joy of life died
+out, and all the fear of having yet to live, in front arising!
+
+Young and weak, and wrong of sex for doing any valiance, long I lay
+by my father's body, wringing out my wretchedness.  Thirst and
+famine now had flown into the opposite extreme; I seemed to loathe
+the thought of water, and the smell of food would have made me
+sick.  I opened my father's knapsack, and a pang of new misery
+seized me.  There lay nearly all his rations, which he had made
+pretense to eat as he gave me mine from time to time.  He had
+starved himself; since he failed of his mark, and learned our risk
+of famishing, all his own food he had kept for me, as well as his
+store of water.  And I had done nothing but grumble and groan, even
+while consuming every thing.  Compared with me, the hovering
+vultures might be considered angels.
+
+When I found all this, I was a great deal too worn out to cry or
+sob.  Simply to break down may be the purest mercy that can fall on
+truly hopeless misery.  Screams of ravenous maws and flaps of fetid
+wings came close to me, and, fainting into the arms of death, I
+tried to save my father's body by throwing my own over it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+A STURDY COLONIST
+
+
+For the contrast betwixt that dreadful scene and the one on which
+my dim eyes slowly opened, three days afterward, first I thank the
+Lord in heaven, whose gracious care was over me, and after Him some
+very simple members of humanity.
+
+A bronze-colored woman, with soft, sad eyes, was looking at me
+steadfastly.  She had seen that, under tender care, I was just
+beginning to revive, and being acquainted with many troubles, she
+had learned to succor all of them.  This I knew not then, but felt
+that kindness was around me.
+
+"Arauna, arauna, my shild," she said, in a strange but sweet and
+soothing voice, "you are with the good man in the safe, good house.
+Let old Suan give you the good food, my shild."
+
+"Where is my father?  Oh, show me my father?" I whispered faintly,
+as she raised me in the bed and held a large spoon to my lips.
+
+"You shall--you shall; it is too very much Inglese; me tell you
+when have long Sunday time to think.  My shild, take the good food
+from poor old Suan."
+
+She looked at me with such beseeching eyes that, even if food had
+been loathsome to me, I could not have resisted her; whereas I was
+now in the quick-reviving agony of starvation.  The Indian woman
+fed me with far greater care than I was worth, and hushed me, with
+some soothing process, into another abyss of sleep.
+
+More than a week passed by me thus, in the struggle between life
+and death, before I was able to get clear knowledge of any body or
+any thing.  No one, in my wakeful hours, came into my little
+bedroom except this careful Indian nurse, who hushed me off to
+sleep whenever I wanted to ask questions.  Suan Isco, as she was
+called, possessed a more than mesmeric power of soothing a weary
+frame to rest; and this was seconded, where I lay, by the soft,
+incessant cadence and abundant roar of water.  Thus every day I
+recovered strength and natural impatience.
+
+"The master is coming to see you, shild," Suan said to me one day,
+when I had sat up and done my hair, and longed to be down by the
+water-fall; "if, if--too much Inglese--old Suan say no more can
+now."
+
+"If I am ready and able and willing!  Oh, Suan, run and tell him
+not to lose one moment."
+
+"No sure; Suan no sure at all," she answered, looking at me calmly,
+as if there were centuries yet to spare.  "Suan no hurry; shild no
+hurry; master no hurry: come last of all."
+
+"I tell you, Suan, I want to see him.  And I am not accustomed to
+be kept waiting.  My dear father insisted always--But oh, Suan,
+Suan, he is dead--I am almost sure of it."
+
+"Him old man quite dead enough, and big hole dug in the land for
+him.  Very good; more good than could be.  Suan no more Inglese."
+
+Well as I had known it long, a catching of the breath and hollow,
+helpless pain came through me, to meet in dry words thus the dread
+which might have been but a hovering dream.  I turned my face to
+the wall, and begged her not to send the master in.
+
+But presently a large, firm hand was laid on my shoulder softly,
+and turning sharply round, I beheld an elderly man looking down at
+me.  His face was plain and square and solid, with short white
+curls on a rugged forehead, and fresh red cheeks, and a triple
+chin--fit base for remarkably massive jaws.  His frame was in
+keeping with his face, being very large and powerful, though not of
+my father's commanding height.  His dress and appearance were those
+of a working--and a really hard-working--man, sober, steadfast, and
+self-respecting; but what engaged my attention most was the frank
+yet shrewd gaze of deep-set eyes.  I speak of things as I observed
+them later, for I could not pay much heed just then.
+
+"'Tis a poor little missy," he said, with a gentle tone.  "What
+things she hath been through!  Will you take an old man's hand, my
+dear?  Your father hath often taken it, though different from his
+rank of life.  Sampson Gundry is my name, missy.  Have you ever
+heard your father tell of it?"
+
+"Many and many a time," I said, as I placed my hot little hand in
+his.  "He never found more than one man true on earth, and it was
+you, Sir."
+
+"Come, now," he replied, with his eyes for a moment sparkling at my
+warmth of words; "you must not have that in your young head, missy.
+It leads to a miserable life.  Your father hath always been
+unlucky--the most unlucky that ever I did know.  And luck cometh
+out in nothing clearer than in the kind of folk we meet.  But the
+Lord in heaven ordereth all.  I speak like a poor heathen."
+
+"Oh, never mind that!" I cried: "only tell me, were you in time to
+save--to save--"  I could not bear to say what I wanted.
+
+"In plenty of time, my dear; thanks to you.  You must have fought
+when you could not fight: the real stuff, I call it.  Your poor
+father lies where none can harm him.  Come, missy, missy, you must
+not take on so.  It is the best thing that could befall a man so
+bound up with calamity.  It is what he hath prayed for for many a
+year--if only it were not for you.  And now you are safe, and for
+sure he knows it, if the angels heed their business."
+
+With these words he withdrew, and kindly sent Suan back to me,
+knowing that her soothing ways would help me more than argument.
+To my mind all things lay in deep confusion and abasement.
+Overcome with bodily weakness and with bitter self-reproach, I even
+feared that to ask any questions might show want of gratitude.  But
+a thing of that sort could not always last, and before very long I
+was quite at home with the history of Mr. Gundry.
+
+Solomon Gundry, of Mevagissey, in the county of Cornwall, in
+England, betook himself to the United States in the last year of
+the last century.  He had always been a most upright man, as well
+as a first-rate fisherman; and his family had made a rule--as most
+respectable families at that time did--to run a nice cargo of
+contraband goods not more than twice in one season.  A highly
+querulous old lieutenant of the British navy (who had served under
+Nelson and lost both, arms, yet kept "the rheumatics" in either
+stump) was appointed, in an evil hour, to the Cornish coast-guard;
+and he never rested until he had caught all the best county
+families smuggling.  Through this he lost his situation, and had to
+go to the workhouse; nevertheless, such a stir had been roused that
+(to satisfy public opinion) they made a large sacrifice of inferior
+people, and among them this Solomon Gundry.  Now the Gundries had
+long been a thickset race, and had furnished some champion
+wrestlers; and Solomon kept to the family stamp in the matter of
+obstinacy.  He made a bold mark at the foot of a bond for 150
+pounds; and with no other sign than that, his partner in their
+stanch herring-smack (the Good Hope, of Mevagissey) allowed him to
+make sail across the Atlantic with all he cared for.
+
+This Cornish partner deserved to get all his money back; and so he
+did, together with good interest.  Solomon Gundry throve among a
+thrifty race at Boston; he married a sweet New England lass, and
+his eldest son was Sampson.  Sampson, in the prime of life, and at
+its headstrong period, sought the far West, overland, through not
+much less of distance, and through even more of danger, than his
+English father had gone through.  His name was known on the western
+side of the mighty chain of mountains before Colonel Fremont was
+heard of there, and before there was any gleam of gold on the
+lonely sunset frontage.
+
+Here Sampson Gundry lived by tillage of the nobly fertile soil ere
+Sacramento or San Francisco had any name to speak of.  And though
+he did not show regard for any kind of society, he managed to have
+a wife and son, and keep them free from danger.  But (as it appears
+to me the more, the more I think of every thing) no one must assume
+to be aside the reach of Fortune because he has gathered himself so
+small that she should not care to strike at him.  At any rate, good
+or evil powers smote Sampson Gundry heavily.
+
+First he lost his wife, which was a "great denial" to him.  She
+fell from a cliff while she was pegging out the linen, and the
+substance of her frame prevented her from ever getting over it.
+And after that he lost his son, his only son--for all the Gundries
+were particular as to quality; and the way in which he lost his son
+made it still more sad for him.
+
+A reputable and valued woman had disappeared in a hasty way from a
+cattle-place down the same side of the hills.  The desire of the
+Indians was to enlarge her value and get it.  There were very few
+white men as yet within any distance to do good; but Sampson Gundry
+vowed that, if the will of the Lord went with him, that woman
+should come back to her family without robbing them of sixpence.
+To this intent he started with a company of some twenty men--white
+or black or middle-colored (according to circumstances).  He was
+their captain, and his son Elijah their lieutenant.  Elijah had
+only been married for a fortnight, but was full of spirit, and
+eager to fight with enemies; and he seems to have carried this too
+far; for all that came back to his poor bride was a lock of his
+hair and his blessing.  He was buried in a bed of lava on the
+western slope of Shasta, and his wife died in her confinement, and
+was buried by the Blue River.
+
+It was said at the time and long afterward that Elijah Gundry--thus
+cut short--was the finest and noblest young man to be found from
+the mountains to the ocean.  His father, in whose arms he died, led
+a sad and lonely life for years, and scarcely even cared (although
+of Cornish and New England race) to seize the glorious chance of
+wealth which lay at his feet beseeching him.  By settlement he had
+possessed himself of a large and fertile district, sloping from the
+mountain-foot along the banks of the swift Blue River, a tributary
+of the San Joaquin.  And this was not all; for he also claimed the
+ownership of the upper valley, the whole of the mountain gorge and
+spring head, whence that sparkling water flows.  And when that fury
+of gold-digging in 1849 arose, very few men could have done what he
+did without even thinking twice of it.
+
+For Sampson Gundry stood, like a bull, on the banks of his own
+river, and defied the worst and most desperate men of all nations
+to pollute it.  He had scarcely any followers or steadfast friends
+to back him; but his fame for stern courage was clear and strong,
+and his bodily presence most manifest.  Not a shovel was thrust nor
+a cradle rocked in the bed of the Blue River.
+
+But when a year or two had passed, and all the towns and villages,
+and even hovels and way-side huts, began to clink with money, Mr.
+Gundry gradually recovered a wholesome desire to have some.  For
+now his grandson Ephraim was growing into biped shape, and having
+lost his mother when he first came into the world, was sure to need
+the more natural and maternal nutriment of money.
+
+Therefore Sampson Gundry, though he would not dig for gold, wrought
+out a plan which he had long thought of.  Nature helped him with
+all her powers of mountain, forest, and headlong stream.  He set up
+a saw-mill, and built it himself; and there was no other to be
+found for twelve degrees of latitude and perhaps a score of
+longitude.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE "KING OF THE MOUNTAINS."
+
+
+If I think, and try to write forever with the strongest words, I
+can not express to any other mind a thousandth part of the
+gratitude which was and is, and ought to be forever, in my own poor
+mind toward those who were so good to me.  From time to time it is
+said (whenever any man with power of speech or fancy gets some
+little grievances) that all mankind are simply selfish, miserly,
+and miserable.  To contradict that saying needs experience even
+larger, perhaps, than that which has suggested it; and this I can
+not have, and therefore only know that I have not found men or
+women behave at all according to that view of them.
+
+Whether Sampson Gundry owed any debt, either of gratitude or of
+loyalty, to my father, I did not ask; and he seemed to be (like
+every one else) reserved and silent as to my father's history.  But
+he always treated me as if I belonged to a rank of life quite
+different from and much above his own.  For instance, it was long
+before he would allow me to have my meals at the table of the
+household.
+
+But as soon as I began in earnest to recover from starvation, loss,
+and loneliness, my heart was drawn to this grand old man, who had
+seen so many troubles.  He had been here and there in the world so
+much, and dealt with so many people, that the natural frankness of
+his mind was sharpened into caution.  But any weak and helpless
+person still could get the best of him; and his shrewdness
+certainly did not spring from any form of bitterness.  He was rough
+in his ways sometimes, and could not bear to be contradicted when
+he was sure that he was right, which generally happened to him.
+But above all things he had one very great peculiarity, to my mind
+highly vexatious, because it seemed so unaccountable.  Sampson
+Gundry had a very low opinion of feminine intellect.  He never
+showed this contempt in any unpleasant way, and indeed he never,
+perhaps, displayed it in any positive sayings.  But as I grew older
+and began to argue, sure I was that it was there; and it always
+provoked me tenfold as much by seeming to need no assertion, but to
+stand as some great axiom.
+
+The other members of the household were his grandson Ephraim (or
+"Firm" Gundry), the Indian woman Suan Isco, and a couple of helps,
+of race or nation almost unknown to themselves.  Suan Isco belonged
+to a tribe of respectable Black Rock Indians, and had been the wife
+of a chief among them, and the mother of several children.  But
+Klamath Indians, enemies of theirs (who carried off the lady of the
+cattle ranch, and afterward shot Elijah), had Suan Isco in their
+possession, having murdered her husband and children, and were
+using her as a mere beast of burden, when Sampson Gundry fell on
+them.  He, with his followers, being enraged at the cold-blooded
+death of Elijah, fell on those miscreants to such purpose that
+women and children alone were left to hand down their bad
+propensities.
+
+But the white men rescued and brought away the stolen wife of the
+stockman, and also the widow of the Black Rock chief.  She was in
+such poor condition and so broken-hearted that none but the finest
+humanity would have considered her worth a quarter of the trouble
+of her carriage.  But she proved to be worth it a thousandfold; and
+Sawyer Gundry (as now he was called) knew by this time all the
+value of uncultivated gratitude.  And her virtues were so many that
+it took a long time to find them out, for she never put them
+forward, not knowing whether they were good or bad.
+
+Until I knew these people, and the pure depth of their kindness, it
+was a continual grief to me to be a burden upon them.  But when I
+came to understand them and their simple greatness, the only thing
+I was ashamed of was my own mistrust of them.  Not that I expected
+ever that any harm would be done to me, only that I knew myself to
+have no claim on any one.
+
+One day, when I was fit for nothing but to dwell on trouble,
+Sampson Gundry's grandson "Firm"--as he was called for Ephraim--ran
+up the stairs to the little room where I was sitting by myself.
+
+"Miss Rema, will you come with us?" he said, in his deep, slow
+style of speech.  "We are going up the mountain, to haul down the
+great tree to the mill."
+
+"To be sure I will come," I answered, gladly.  "What great tree is
+it, Mr. Ephraim?"
+
+"The largest tree any where near here--the one we cut down last
+winter.  Ten days it took to cut it down.  If I could have saved
+it, it should have stood.  But grandfather did it to prove his
+rights.  We shall have a rare job to lead it home, and I doubt if
+we can tackle it.  I thought you might like to see us try."
+
+In less than a minute I was ready, for the warmth and softness of
+the air made cloak or shawl unbearable.  But when I ran down to the
+yard of the mill, Mr. Gundry, who was giving orders, came up and
+gave me an order too.
+
+"You must not go like this, my dear.  We have three thousand feet
+to go upward.  The air will be sharp up there, and I doubt if we
+shall be home by night-fall.  Run, Suan, and fetch the young lady's
+cloak, and a pair of thicker boots for change."
+
+Suan Isco never ran.  That manner of motion was foreign to her, at
+least as we accomplish it.  When speed was required, she attained
+it by increased length of stride and great vigor of heel.  In this
+way she conquered distance steadily, and with very little noise.
+
+The air, and the light, and the beauty of the mountains were a
+sudden joy to me.  In front of us all strode Sampson Gundry,
+clearing all tangles with a short, sharp axe, and mounting steep
+places as if twoscore were struck off his threescore years and
+five.  From time to time he turned round to laugh, or see that his
+men and trained bullocks were right; and then, as his bright eyes
+met my dark ones, he seemed to be sorry for the noise he made.  On
+the other hand, I was ashamed of damping any one's pleasure by
+being there.
+
+But I need not have felt any fear about this.  Like all other
+children, I wrapped myself up too much in my own importance, and
+behaved as if my state of mind was a thing to be considered.  But
+the longer we rose through the freedom and the height, the lighter
+grew the heart of every one, until the thick forest of pines closed
+round us, and we walked in a silence that might be felt.
+
+Hence we issued forth upon the rough bare rock, and after much
+trouble with the cattle, and some bruises, stood panting on a
+rugged cone, or crest, which had once been crowned with a Titan of
+a tree.  The tree was still there, but not its glory; for, alas!
+the mighty trunk lay prostrate--a grander column than ever was or
+will be built by human hands.  The tapering shaft stretched out of
+sight for something like a furlong, and the bulk of the butt rose
+over us so that we could not see the mountains.  Having never seen
+any such tree before, I must have been amazed if I had been old
+enough to comprehend it.
+
+Sampson Gundry, large as he was, and accustomed to almost every
+thing, collected his men and the whole of his team on the ground-
+floor or area of the stump before he would say any thing.  Here we
+all looked so sadly small that several of the men began to laugh;
+the bullocks seemed nothing but raccoons or beavers to run on the
+branches or the fibres of the tree; and the chains and the
+shackles, and the blocks and cranes, and all the rest of the things
+they meant to use, seemed nothing whatever, or at all to be
+considered, except as a spider's web upon this tree.
+
+The sagacious bullocks, who knew quite well what they were expected
+to do, looked blank.  Some rubbed their horns into one another's
+sadly, and some cocked their tails because they felt that they
+could not be called upon to work.  The light of the afternoon sun
+came glancing along the vast pillar, and lit its dying hues--
+cinnamon, purple, and glabrous red, and soft gray where the lichens
+grew.
+
+Every body looked at Mr. Gundry, and he began to cough a little,
+having had lately some trouble with his throat.  Then in his sturdy
+manner he spoke the truth, according to his nature.  He set his
+great square shoulders against the butt of the tree, and delivered
+himself:
+
+"Friends and neighbors, and hands of my own, I am taken in here,
+and I own to it.  It serves me right for disbelieving what my
+grandson, Firm Gundry, said.  I knew that the tree was a big one,
+of course, as every body else does; but till you see a tree laid
+upon earth you get no grip of his girth, no more than you do of a
+man till he lieth a corpse.  At the time of felling I could not
+come anigh him, by reason of an accident; and I had some words with
+this boy about it, which kept me away ever since that time.  Firm,
+you were right, and I was wrong.  It was a real shame, now I see
+it, to throw down the 'King of the Mountains.'  But, for all that,
+being down, we must use him.  He shall be sawn into fifty-foot
+lengths.  And I invite you all to come again, for six or seven good
+turns at him."
+
+At the hearing of this, a cheer arose, not only for the Sawyer's
+manly truth, but also for his hospitality; because on each of these
+visits to the mountain he was the host, and his supplies were good.
+But before the descent with the empty teams began, young Ephraim
+did what appeared to me to be a gallant and straightforward thing.
+He stood on the chine of the fallen monster, forty feet above us,
+having gained the post of vantage by activity and strength, and he
+asked if he might say a word or two.
+
+"Say away, lad," cried his grandfather, supposing, perhaps, in his
+obstinate way (for truly he was very obstinate), that his grandson
+was going now to clear himself from art or part in the murder of
+that tree--an act which had roused indignation over a hundred
+leagues of lowland.
+
+"Neighbors," said Firm, in a clear young voice, which shook at
+first with diffidence, "we all have to thank you, more than I can
+tell, for coming to help us with this job.  It was a job which
+required to be done for legal reasons which I do not understand,
+but no doubt they were good ones.  For that we have my grandfather's
+word; and no one, I think, will gainsay it.  Now, having gone
+so far, we will not be beaten by it, or else we shall not be
+Americans."
+
+These simple words were received with great applause; and an
+orator, standing on the largest stump to be found even in America,
+delivered a speech which was very good to hear, but need not now be
+repeated.  And Mr. Gundry's eyes were moist with pleasure at his
+grandson's conduct.
+
+"Firm knoweth the right thing to do," he said; "and like a man he
+doeth it.  But whatever aileth you, Miss Rema, and what can 'e see
+in the distance yonner?  Never mind, my dear, then.  Tell me by-
+and-by, when none of these folk is 'longside of us."
+
+But I could not bear to tell him, till he forced it from me under
+pain of his displeasure.  I had spied on the sky-line far above us,
+in the desert track of mountain, the very gap in which my father
+stood and bade me seek this landmark.  His memory was true, and his
+eyesight also; but the great tree had been felled.  The death of
+the "King of the Mountains" had led to the death of the king of
+mankind, so far as my little world contained one.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+UNCLE SAM
+
+
+The influence of the place in which I lived began to grow on me.
+The warmth of the climate and the clouds of soft and fertile dust
+were broken by the refreshing rush of water and the clear soft
+green of leaves.  We had fruit trees of almost every kind, from the
+peach to the amber cherry, and countless oaks by the side of the
+river--not large, but most fantastic.  Here I used to sit and
+wonder, in a foolish, childish way, whether on earth there was any
+other child so strangely placed as I was.  Of course there were
+thousands far worse off, more desolate and destitute, but was there
+any more thickly wrapped in mystery and loneliness?
+
+A wanderer as I had been for years, together with my father, change
+of place had not supplied the knowledge which flows from lapse of
+time.  Faith, and warmth, and trust in others had not been dashed
+out of me by any rude blows of the world, as happens with unlucky
+children huddled together in large cities.  My father had never
+allowed me much acquaintance with other children; for six years he
+had left me with a community of lay sisters, in a little town of
+Languedoc, where I was the only pupil, and where I was to remain as
+I was born, a simple heretic.  Those sisters were very good to me,
+and taught me as much as I could take of secular accomplishment.
+And it was a bitter day for me when I left them for America.
+
+For during those six years I had seen my father at long intervals,
+and had almost forgotten the earlier days when I was always with
+him.  I used to be the one little comfort of his perpetual
+wanderings, when I was a careless child, and said things to amuse
+him.  Not that he ever played with me any more than he played with
+any thing; but I was the last of his seven children, and he liked
+to watch me grow.  I never knew it, I never guessed it, until he
+gave his life for mine; but, poor little common thing as I was, I
+became his only tie to earth.  Even to me he was never loving, in
+the way some fathers are.  He never called me by pet names, nor
+dandled me on his knee, nor kissed me, nor stroked down my hair and
+smiled.  Such things I never expected of him, and therefore never
+missed them; I did not even know that happy children always have
+them.
+
+But one thing I knew, which is not always known to happier
+children: I had the pleasure of knowing my own name.  My name was
+an English one--Castlewood--and by birth I was an English girl,
+though of England I knew nothing, and at one time spoke and thought
+most easily in French.  But my longing had always been for England,
+and for the sound of English voices and the quietude of English
+ways.  In the chatter and heat and drought of South France some
+faint remembrance of a greener, cooler, and more silent country
+seemed to touch me now and then.  But where in England I had lived,
+or when I had left that country, or whether I had relations there,
+and why I was doomed to be a foreign girl--all these questions were
+but as curling wisps of cloud on memory's sky.
+
+Of such things (much as I longed to know a good deal more about
+them) I never had dared to ask my father; nor even could I, in a
+roundabout way, such as clever children have, get second-hand
+information.  In the first place, I was not a clever child; for the
+next point, I never had underhand skill; and finally, there was no
+one near me who knew any thing about me.  Like all other girls--and
+perhaps the very same tendency is to be found in boys--I had strong
+though hazy ideas of caste.  The noble sense of equality,
+fraternity, and so on, seems to come later in life than childhood,
+which is an age of ambition.  I did not know who in the world I
+was, but felt quite sure of being somebody.
+
+One day, when the great tree had been sawn into lengths, and with
+the aid of many teams brought home, and the pits and the hoisting
+tackle were being prepared and strengthened to deal with it, Mr.
+Gundry, being full of the subject, declared that he would have his
+dinner in the mill yard.  He was anxious to watch, without loss of
+time, the settlement of some heavy timbers newly sunk in the
+river's bed, to defend the outworks of the mill.  Having his good
+leave to bring him his pipe, I found him sitting upon a bench with
+a level fixed before him, and his empty plate and cup laid by,
+among a great litter of tools and things.  He was looking along the
+level with one eye shut, and the other most sternly intent; but
+when I came near he rose and raised his broad pith hat, and made me
+think that I was not interrupting him.
+
+"Here is your pipe, Uncle Sam," I said; for, in spite of all his
+formal ways, I would not be afraid of him.  I had known him now
+quite long enough to be sure he was good and kind.  And I knew that
+the world around these parts was divided into two hemispheres, the
+better half being of those who loved, and the baser half made of
+those who hated, Sawyer Sampson Gundry.
+
+"What a queer world it is!" said Mr. Gundry, accepting his pipe to
+consider that point.  "Who ever would have dreamed, fifty years
+agone, that your father's daughter would ever have come with a pipe
+to light for my father's son?"
+
+"Uncle Sam," I replied, as he slowly began to make those puffs
+which seem to be of the highest essence of pleasure, and wisps of
+blue smoke flitted through his white eyebrows and among the snowy
+curls of hair--"dear Uncle Sam, I am sure that it would be an honor
+to a princess to light a pipe for a man like you."
+
+"Miss Rema, I should rather you would talk no nonsense," he
+answered, very shortly, and he set his eye along his level, as if I
+had offended him.  Not knowing how to assert myself and declare
+that I had spoken my honest thoughts, I merely sat down on the
+bench and waited for him to speak again to me.  But he made believe
+to be very busy, and scarcely to know that I was there.  I had a
+great mind to cry, but resolved not to do it.
+
+"Why, how is this?  What's the matter?" he exclaimed at last, when
+I had been watching the water so long that I sighed to know where
+it was going to.  "Why, missy, you look as if you had never a
+friend in all the wide world left."
+
+"Then I must look very ungrateful," I said; "for at any rate I have
+one, and a good one."
+
+"And don't you know of any one but me, my dear?"
+
+"You and Suan Isco and Firm--those are all I have any knowledge
+of."
+
+"'Tis a plenty--to my mind, almost too many.  My plan is to be a
+good friend to all, but not let too many be friends with me.  Rest
+you quite satisfied with three, Miss Rema.  I have lived a good
+many years, and I never had more than three friends worth a puff of
+my pipe."
+
+"But one's own relations, Uncle Sam--people quite nearly related to
+us: it is impossible for them to be unkind, you know."
+
+"Do I, my dear?  Then I wish that I did.  Except one's own father
+and mother, there is not much to be hoped for out of them.  My own
+brother took a twist against me because I tried to save him from
+ruin; and if any man ever wished me ill, he did.  And I think that
+your father had the same tale to tell.  But there!  I know nothing
+whatever about that."
+
+"Now you do, Mr. Gundry; I am certain that you do, and beg you to
+tell me, or rather I demand it.  I am old enough now, and I am
+certain my dear father would have wished me to know every thing.
+Whatever it was, I am sure that he was right; and until I know
+that, I shall always be the most miserable of the miserable."
+
+The Sawyer looked at me as if he could not enter into my meaning,
+and his broad, short nose and quiet eyes were beset with wrinkles
+of inquiry.  He quite forgot his level and his great post in the
+river, and tilted back his ancient hat, and let his pipe rest on
+his big brown arm.  "Lord bless me!" he said, "what a young gal you
+are!  Or, at least, what a young Miss Rema.  What good can you do,
+miss, by making of a rout?  Here you be in as quiet a place as you
+could find, and all of us likes and pities you.  Your father was a
+wise man to settle you here in this enlightened continent.  Let the
+doggoned old folk t'other side of the world think out their own
+flustrations.  A female young American you are now, and a very fine
+specimen you will grow.  'Tis the finest thing to be on all God's
+earth."
+
+"No, Mr. Gundry, I am an English girl, and I mean to be an
+Englishwoman.  The Americans may be more kind and generous, and
+perhaps my father thought so, and brought me here for that reason.
+And I may be glad to come back to you again when I have done what I
+am bound to do.  Remember that I am the last of seven children, and
+do not even know where the rest are buried."
+
+"Now look straight afore you, missy.  What do you see yonner?"  The
+Sawyer was getting a little tired, perhaps, of this long
+interruption.
+
+"I see enormous logs, and a quantity of saws, and tools I don't
+even know the names of.  Also I see a bright, swift river."
+
+"But over here, missy, between them two oaks.  What do you please
+to see there, Miss Rema?"
+
+"What I see there, of course, is a great saw-mill."
+
+"But it wouldn't have been 'of course,' and it wouldn't have been
+at all, if I had spent all my days a-dwelling on the injuries of my
+family.  Could I have put that there unekaled sample of water-power
+and human ingenuity together without laboring hard for whole months
+of a stretch, except upon the Sabbath, and laying awake night after
+night, and bending all my intellect over it?  And could I have done
+that, think you now, if my heart was a-mooning upon family wrongs,
+and this, that, and the other?"
+
+Here Sampson Gundry turned full upon me, and folded his arms, and
+spread his great chin upon his deer-skin apron, and nodded briskly
+with his deep gray eyes, surveying me in triumph.  To his mind,
+that mill was the wonder of the world, and any argument based upon
+it, with or without coherence, was, like its circular saws,
+irresistible.  And yet he thought that women can not reason!
+However, I did not say another word just then, but gave way to him,
+as behooved a child.  And not only that, but I always found him too
+good to be argued with--too kind, I mean, and large of heart, and
+wedded to his own peculiar turns.  There was nothing about him that
+one could dislike, or strike fire at, and be captious; and he
+always proceeded with such pity for those who were opposed to him
+that they always knew they must be wrong, though he was too polite
+to tell them so.  And he had such a pleasant, paternal way of
+looking down into one's little thoughts when he put on his
+spectacles, that to say any more was to hazard the risk of
+ungrateful inexperience.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A BRITISHER
+
+
+The beautiful Blue River came from the jagged depths of the
+mountains, full of light and liveliness.  It had scarcely run six
+miles from its source before it touched our mill-wheel; but in that
+space and time it had gathered strong and copious volume.  The
+lovely blue of the water (like the inner tint of a glacier) was
+partly due to its origin, perhaps, and partly to the rich, soft
+tone of the granite sand spread under it.  Whatever the cause may
+have been, the river well deserved its title.
+
+It was so bright and pure a blue, so limpid and pellucid, that it
+even seemed to out-vie the tint of the sky which it reflected, and
+the myriad sparks of sunshine on it twinkled like a crystal rain.
+Plodding through the parched and scorching dust of the mountain-
+foot, through the stifling vapor and the blinding, ochreous glare,
+the traveler suddenly came upon this cool and calm delight.  It was
+not to be descried afar, for it lay below the level, and the oaks
+and other trees of shelter scarcely topped the narrow comb.  There
+was no canyon, such as are--and some of them known over all the
+world--both to the north and south of it.  The Blue River did not
+owe its birth to any fierce convulsion, but sparkled on its
+cheerful way without impending horrors.  Standing here as a child,
+and thinking, from the manner of my father, that strong men never
+wept nor owned the conquest of emotion, I felt sometimes a fool's
+contempt for the gushing transport of brave men.  For instance, I
+have seen a miner, or a tamer of horses, or a rough fur-hunter, or
+(perhaps the bravest of all) a man of science and topography,
+jaded, worn, and nearly dead with drought and dearth and choking,
+suddenly, and beyond all hope, strike on this buried Eden.  And
+then he dropped on his knees and spread his starved hands upward,
+if he could, and thanked the God who made him, till his head went
+round, and who knows what remembrance of loved ones came to him?
+And then, if he had any moisture left, he fell to a passion of
+weeping.
+
+In childish ignorance I thought that this man weakly degraded
+himself, and should have been born a woman.  But since that time I
+have truly learned that the bravest of men are those who feel their
+Maker's Land most softly, and are not ashamed to pay the tribute of
+their weakness to Him.
+
+Living, as we did, in a lonely place, and yet not far from a track
+along the crest of the great Californian plain from Sacramento
+southward, there was scarcely a week which did not bring us some
+traveler needing comfort.  Mr. Gundry used to be told that if he
+would set up a rough hotel, or house of call for cattle-drovers,
+miners, loafers, and so on, he might turn twice the money he could
+ever make by his thriving saw-mill.  But he only used to laugh, and
+say that nature had made him too honest for that; and he never
+thought of charging any thing for his hospitality, though if a rich
+man left a gold piece, or even a nugget, upon a shelf, as happened
+very often, Sawyer Gundry did not disdain to set it aside for a
+rainy day.  And one of his richest or most lavish guests arrived on
+my account, perhaps.
+
+It happened when daylight was growing shorter, and the red heat of
+the earth was gone, and the snow-line of distant granite peaks had
+crept already lower, and the chattering birds that spent their
+summer in our band of oak-trees were beginning to find their food
+get short, and to prime swift wings for the lowland; and I, having
+never felt bitter cold, was trembling at what I heard of it.  For
+now it was clear that I had no choice but to stay where I was for
+the present, and be truly thankful to God and man for having the
+chance of doing so.  For the little relics of my affairs--so far as
+I had any--had taken much time in arrangement, perhaps because it
+was so hard to find them.  I knew nothing, except about my own
+little common wardrobe, and could give no information about the
+contents of my father's packages.  But these, by dint of
+perseverance on the part of Ephraim (who was very keen about all
+rights), had mainly been recovered, and Mr. Gundry had done the
+best that could be done concerning them.  Whatever seemed of a
+private nature, or likely to prove important, had been brought home
+to Blue River Mills; the rest had been sold, and had fetched large
+prices, unless Mr. Gundry enlarged them.
+
+He more than enlarged, he multiplied them, as I found out long
+afterward, to make me think myself rich and grand, while a beggar
+upon his bounty.  I had never been accustomed to think of money,
+and felt some little contempt for it--not, indeed, a lofty hatred,
+but a careless wonder why it seemed to be always thought of.  It
+was one of the last things I ever thought of; and those who were
+waiting for it were--until I got used to them--obliged in self-duty
+to remind me.
+
+This, however, was not my fault.  I never dreamed of wronging them.
+But I had earned no practical knowledge of the great world any
+where, much though I had wandered about, according to vague
+recollections.  The duty of paying had never been mine; that
+important part had been done for me.  And my father had such a
+horror always of any growth of avarice that he never gave me
+sixpence.
+
+And now, when I heard upon every side continual talk of money, from
+Suan Isco upward, I thought at first that the New World must be
+different from the Old one, and that the gold mines in the
+neighborhood must have made them full of it; and once or twice I
+asked Uncle Sam; but he only nodded his head, and said that it was
+the practice every where.  And before very long I began to perceive
+that he did not exaggerate.
+
+Nothing could prove this point more clearly than the circumstance
+above referred to--the arrival of a stranger, for the purpose of
+bribing even Uncle Sam himself.  This happened in the month of
+November, when the passes were beginning to be blocked with snow,
+and those of the higher mountain tracts had long been overwhelmed
+with it.  On this particular day the air was laden with gray,
+oppressive clouds, threatening a heavy downfall, and instead of
+faring forth, as usual, to my beloved river, I was kept in-doors,
+and even up stairs, by a violent snow-headache.  This is a crushing
+weight of pain, which all new-comers, or almost all, are obliged to
+endure, sometimes for as much as eight-and-forty hours, when the
+first great snow of the winter is breeding, as they express it,
+overhead.  But I was more lucky than most people are; for after
+about twelve hours of almost intolerable throbbing, during which
+the sweetest sound was odious, and the idea of food quite
+loathsome, the agony left me, and a great desire for something to
+eat succeeded.  Suan Isco, the kindest of the kind, was gone down
+stairs at last, for which I felt ungrateful gratitude--because she
+had been doing her best to charm away my pain by low, monotonous
+Indian ditties, which made it ten times worse; and yet I could not
+find heart to tell her so.
+
+Now it must have been past six o'clock in the evening of the
+November day when the avalanche slid off my head, and I was able to
+lift it.  The light of the west had been faint, and was dead;
+though often it used to prolong our day by the backward glance of
+the ocean.  With pangs of youthful hunger, but a head still weak
+and dazy, I groped my way in the dark through the passage and down
+the stairs of redwood.
+
+At the bottom, where a railed landing was, and the door opened into
+the house-room, I was surprised to find that, instead of the usual
+cheerful company enjoying themselves by the fire-light, there were
+only two people present.  The Sawyer sat stiffly in his chair of
+state, delaying even the indulgence of his pipe, and having his
+face set sternly, as I had never before beheld it.  In the
+visitor's corner, as we called it, where people sat to dry
+themselves, there was a man, and only one.
+
+Something told me that I had better keep back and not disturb them.
+The room was not in its usual state of comfort and hospitality.
+Some kind of meal had been made at the table, as always must be in
+these parts; but not of the genial, reckless sort which random
+travelers carried on without any check from the Sawyer.  For he of
+all men ever born in a civilized age was the finest host, and a
+guest beneath his roof was sacred as a lady to a knight.  Hence it
+happened that I was much surprised.  Proper conduct almost
+compelled me to withdraw; but curiosity made me take just one more
+little peep, perhaps.  Looking back at these things now, I can not
+be sure of every thing; and indeed if I could, I must have an
+almost supernatural memory.  But I remember many things; and the
+headache may have cleared my mind.
+
+The stranger who had brought Mr. Gundry's humor into such stiff
+condition was sitting in the corner, a nook where light and shadow
+made an eddy.  He seemed to be perfectly unconcerned about all the
+tricks of the hearth flame, presenting as he did a most solid face
+for any light to play upon.  To me it seemed to be a weather-beaten
+face of a bluff and resolute man, the like of which we attribute to
+John Bull.  At any rate, he was like John Bull in one respect: he
+was sturdy and square, and fit to hold his own with any man.
+
+Strangers of this sort had come (as Englishmen rove every where),
+and been kindly welcomed by Uncle Sam, who, being of recent English
+blood, had a kind of hankering after it, and would almost rather
+have such at his board than even a true-born American; and
+infinitely more welcome were they than Frenchman, Spaniard, or
+German, or any man not to be distinguished, as was the case with
+some of them.  Even now it was clear that the Sawyer had not
+grudged any tokens of honor, for the tall, square, brazen
+candlesticks, of Boston make, were on the table, and very little
+light they gave.  The fire, however, was grandly roaring of stub-
+oak and pine antlers, and the black grill of the chimney bricks was
+fringed with lifting filaments.  It was a rich, ripe light,
+affording breadth and play for shadow; and the faces of the two men
+glistened, and darkened in their creases.
+
+I was dressed in black, and could not be seen, though I could see
+them so clearly; and I doubted whether to pass through, upon my way
+to the larder, or return to my room and starve a little longer; for
+I did not wish to interrupt, and had no idea of listening.  But
+suddenly I was compelled to stop; and to listen became an honest
+thing, when I knew what was spoken of--or, at any rate, I did it.
+
+"Castlewood, Master Colonist; Castlewood is the name of the man
+that I have come to ask about.  And you will find it worth your
+while to tell me all you know of him."  Thus spoke the Englishman
+sitting in the corner; and he seemed to be certain of producing his
+effect.
+
+"Wal," said Uncle Sam, assuming what all true Britons believe to be
+the universal Yankee tone, while I knew that he was laughing in his
+sleeve, "Squire, I guess that you may be right.  Considerations of
+that 'ere kind desarves to be considered of."
+
+"Just so.  I knew that you must see it," the stranger continued,
+bravely.  "A stiff upper lip, as you call it here, is all very well
+to begin with.  But all you enlightened members of the great
+republic know what is what.  It will bring you more than ten years'
+income of your saw-mill, and farm, and so on, to deal honestly with
+me for ten minutes.  No more beating about the bush and fencing
+with me, as you have done.  Now can you see your own interest?"
+
+"I never were reckoned a fool at that.  Squire, make tracks, and be
+done with it."
+
+"Then, Master Colonist, or Colonel--for I believe you are all
+colonels here--your task is very simple.  We want clear proof,
+sworn properly and attested duly, of the death of a villain--George
+Castlewood, otherwise the Honorable George Castlewood, otherwise
+Lord Castlewood: a man who murdered his own father ten years ago
+this November: a man committed for trial for the crime, but who
+bribed his jailers and escaped, and wandered all over the
+Continent.  What is that noise?  Have you got rats?"
+
+"Plenty of foreign rats, and native 'coons, and skunks, and other
+varmint.  Wal, Squire, go on with it."
+
+The voice of Uncle Sam was stern, and his face full of rising fury,
+as I, who had made that noise in my horror, tried to hush my heart
+with patience.
+
+"The story is well known," continued the stranger: "we need make no
+bones of it.  George Castlewood went about under a curse--"
+
+"Not quite so loud, Squire, if you please.  My household is not
+altogether seasoned."
+
+"And perhaps you have got the young lady somewhere.  I heard a
+report to that effect.  But here you think nothing of a dozen
+murders.  Now, Gundry, let us have no squeamishness.  We only want
+justice, and we can pay for it.  Ten thousand dollars I am
+authorized to offer for a mere act of duty on your part.  We have
+an extradition treaty.  If the man had been alive, we must have had
+him.  But as he has cheated the hangman by dying, we can only see
+his grave and have evidence.  And all well-disposed people must
+rejoice to have such a quiet end of it.  For the family is so well
+known, you see."
+
+"I see," Mr. Gundry answered, quietly, laying a finger on his lips.
+"Guess you want something more than that, though, Squire.  Is there
+nothing more than the grave to oblige a noble Britisher with?"
+
+"Yes, Colonel; we want the girl as well.  We know that she was with
+him in that caravan, or wagon train, or whatever you please to call
+it.  We know that you have made oath of his death, produced his
+child, and obtained his trunks, and drawn his share in the
+insurance job.  Your laws must be queer to let you do such things.
+In England it would have taken at least three years, and cost a
+deal more than the things were worth, even without a Chancery suit.
+However, of his papers I shall take possession; they can be of no
+earthly use to you."
+
+"To be sure.  And possession of his darter too, without so much as
+a Chancery suit.  But what is to satisfy me, Squire, agin goin'
+wrong in this little transaction?"
+
+"I can very soon satisfy you," said the stranger, "as to their
+identity.  Here is their full, particular, and correct description--
+names, weights, and colors of the parties."
+
+With a broad grin at his own exquisite wit, the bluff man drew
+forth his pocket-book, and took out a paper, which he began to
+smooth on his knee quite leisurely.  Meanwhile, in my hiding-place,
+I was trembling with terror and indignation.  The sense of
+eavesdropping was wholly lost, in that of my own jeopardy.  I must
+know what was arranged about me; for I felt such a hatred and fear
+of that stranger that sooner than be surrendered to him I would
+rush back to my room and jump out of the window, and trust myself
+to the trackless forest and the snowy night.  I was very nearly
+doing so, but just had sense enough to wait and hear what would be
+said of me.  So I lurked in the darkness, behind the rails, while
+the stranger read slowly and pompously.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+DISCOMFITURE
+
+
+The Englishman drew forth a double eyeglass from a red velvet
+waistcoat, and mounting it on his broad nose, came nearer to get
+the full light of the candles.  I saw him as clearly as I could
+wish, and, indeed, a great deal too clearly; for the more I saw of
+the man, the more I shrank from the thought of being in his power.
+Not that he seemed to be brutal or fierce, but selfish, and
+resolute, and hard-hearted, and scornful of lofty feelings.  Short
+dust-colored hair and frizzly whiskers framed his large, thick-
+featured face, and wearing no mustache, he showed the clumsy sneer
+of a wide, coarse mouth.  I watched him with all my eyes, because
+of his tone of authority about myself.  He might even be my
+guardian or my father's nearest relation--though he seemed to be
+too ill-bred for that.
+
+"Sorry to keep you waiting, Colonel," he went on, in a patronizing
+tone, such as he had assumed throughout.  "Here it is.  Now prick
+your ears up, and see if these candid remarks apply.  I am reading
+from a printed form, you see:
+
+"'George Castlewood is forty-eight years old, but looks perhaps ten
+years older.  His height is over six feet two, and he does not
+stoop or slouch at all.  His hair is long and abundant, but white;
+his eyes are dark, piercing, and gloomy.  His features are fine,
+and of Italian cast, but stern, morose, and forbidding, and he
+never uses razor.  On the back of his left hand, near the wrist,
+there is a broad scar.  He dresses in half-mourning always, and
+never wears any jewelry, but strictly shuns all society, and
+prefers uncivilized regions.  He never stays long in any town, and
+follows no occupation, though his aspect and carriage are military,
+as he has been a cavalry officer.  From time to time he has been
+heard of in Europe, Asia, and Africa, and is now believed to be in
+America.
+
+"'His only surviving child, a girl of about fifteen, has been seen
+with him.  She is tall and slight and very straight, and speaks
+French better than English.  Her hair is very nearly black, and her
+eyes of unusual size and lustre.  She is shy, and appears to have
+been kept under, and she has a timid smile.  Whether she knows of
+her father's crime or not is quite uncertain; but she follows him
+like a dog almost.'
+
+"There now, Colonel," cried the Englishman, as he folded the paper
+triumphantly; "most of that came from my information, though I
+never set eyes upon the child.  Does the cap fit or not, Brother
+Jonathan?"
+
+Mr. Gundry was leaning back in his own corner, with a favorite
+pipe, carved by himself, reposing on his waistcoat.  And being thus
+appealed to, he looked up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been
+dozing, though he never had been more wide awake, as I, who knew
+his attitudes, could tell.  And my eyes filled with tears of love
+and shame, for I knew by the mere turn of his chin that he never
+would surrender me.
+
+"Stranger," he said, in a most provoking drawl, "a hard day's work
+tells its tale on me, you bet.  You do read so bootiful, you read
+me hard asleep.  And the gutturals of that furrin English is always
+a little hard to catch.  Mought I trouble you just to go through it
+again?  You likes the sound of your own voice; and no blame to you,
+being such a swate un."
+
+The Englishman looked at him keenly, as if he had some suspicion of
+being chaffed; but the face of the Sawyer was so grave and the bend
+of his head so courteous that he could not refuse to do as he was
+asked.  But he glanced first at the whiskey bottle standing between
+the candlesticks; and I knew it boded ill for his errand when Uncle
+Sam, the most hospitable of men, feigned pure incomprehension of
+that glance.  The man should have no more under that roof.
+
+With a sullen air and a muttered curse, at which Mr. Gundry blew a
+wreath of smoke, the stranger unfolded his paper again, and saying,
+"Now I beg you to attend this time," read the whole of his
+description, with much emphasis, again, while the Sawyer turned
+away and beat time upon the hearth, with his white hair, broad
+shoulders, and red ears prominent.  The Englishman looked very
+seriously vexed, but went through his business doggedly.  "Are you
+satisfied now?" he asked when he had finished.
+
+"Wal, now, Squire," replied Uncle Sam, still keeping up his
+provoking drawl, but turning round and looking at the stranger very
+steadfastly, "some thin's is so pooty and so ilegantly done, they
+seems a'most as good as well-slung flapjacks.  A natteral honest
+stomick can't nohow have enough of them.  Mought I be so bold, in a
+silly, mountaneous sort of a way, as to ax for another heerin' of
+it?"
+
+"Do you mean to insult me, Sir?" shouted the visitor, leaping up
+with a flaming face, and throwing himself into an attitude of
+attack.
+
+"Stranger, I mought," answered Mr. Gundry, standing squarely before
+him, and keeping his hands contemptuously behind his back--"I
+mought so do, barrin' one little point.  The cutest commissioner in
+all the West would have to report 'Non compos' if his orders was to
+diskiver somethin' capable of bein' insulted in a fellow of your
+natur'."
+
+With these words Uncle Sam sat down, and powerfully closed his
+mouth, signifying that now the matter was taken through every phase
+of discussion, and had been thoroughly exhausted.  His visitor
+stared at him for a moment, as if at some strange phenomenon, and
+then fell back into self-command, without attempting bluster.
+
+"Colonel, you are a 'cure,' as we call it on our side of the
+herring pond.  What have I done to 'riz your dander,' as you
+elegantly express it here?"
+
+"Britisher, nothing.  You know no better.  It takes more than that
+to put my back up.  But forty years agone I do believe I must 'a
+heaved you out o' window."
+
+"Why, Colonel, why?  Now be reasonable.  Not a word have I said
+reflecting either upon you or your country; and a finer offer than
+I have made can not come to many of you, even in this land of gold.
+Ten thousand dollars I offer, and I will exceed my instructions and
+say fifteen, all paid on the nail by an order on Frisco, about
+which you may assure yourself.  And what do I ask in return?  Legal
+proof of the death of a man whom we know to be dead, and the
+custody of his child, for her own good."
+
+"Squire, I have no other answer to make.  If you offered me all the
+gold dug in these mountains since they were discovered, I could
+only say what I have said before.  You came from Sylvester's ranch--
+there is time for you to get back ere the snow begins."
+
+"What a hospitable man you are!  Upon my word, Gundry, you deserve
+to have a medal from our Humane Society.  You propose to turn me
+out of doors to-night, with a great fall of snow impending?"
+
+"Sir, the fault is entirely your own.  What hospitality can you
+expect after coming to buy my guest?  If you are afraid of the ten-
+mile ride, my man at the mill will bed you.  But here you must not
+sleep, because I might harm you in the morning.  I am apt to lose
+my temper sometimes, when I go on to think of things."
+
+"Colonel, I think I had better ride back.  I fear no man, nor his
+temper, nor crotchets.  But if I were snowed up at your mill, I
+never might cross the hill-foot for months; but from Sylvester's I
+can always get to Minto.  You refuse, then, to help me in any way?"
+
+"More than that.  I will do every thing in my power to confound
+you.  If any one comes prowling after that young lady, he shall be
+shot."
+
+"That is most discouraging.  However, you may think better of it.
+Write to this address if you do.  You have the girl here, of
+course?"
+
+"That is her concern and mine.  Does your guide know the way right
+well!  The snow is beginning.  You do not know our snows, any more
+than you know us."
+
+"Never mind, Mr. Gundry.  I shall do very well.  You are rough in
+your ways, but you mean to do the right; and your indignation is
+virtuous.  But mark my words upon one little point.  If George
+Castlewood had been living, I have such credentials that I would
+have dragged him back with me in spite of all your bluster.  But
+over his corpse I have no control, in the present condition of
+treaties.  Neither can I meddle with his daughter, if it were worth
+while to do so.  Keep her and make the best of her, my man.  You
+have taken a snake in the grass to your bosom, if that is what you
+are up for.  A very handsome girl she may be, but a bad lot, as her
+father was.  If you wish the name of Gundry to have its due respect
+hereafter, let the heir of the sawmills have nothing to do with the
+Honorable Miss Castlewood."
+
+"Let alone, let alone," Uncle Sam said, angrily.  "It is well for
+you that the 'heir of the saw-mills' hath not heard your insolence.
+Firm is a steady lad; but he knoweth well which foot to kick with.
+No fear of losing the way to Sylvester's ranch with Firm behind
+you.  But, meddlesome as you be, and a bitter weed to my
+experience, it shall not be said that Sampson Gundry sent forth a
+fellow to be frozen.  Drink a glass of hot whiskey before you get
+to saddle.  Not in friendship, mind you, Sir, but in common human
+nature."
+
+That execrable man complied, for he began to be doubtful of the
+driving snow, now huddling against the window-frames.  And so he
+went out; and when he was gone, I came forth into the fire-light,
+and threw my arms round the Sawyer's neck and kissed him till he
+was ashamed of me.
+
+"Miss Rema, my dear, my poor little soul, what makes you carry on
+so?"
+
+"Because I have heard every word, Uncle Sam, and I was base enough
+to doubt you."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+A DOUBTFUL LOSS
+
+
+When I tried to look out of my window in the morning, I was quite
+astonished at the state of things.  To look out fairly was
+impossible; for not only was all the lower part of the frame
+hillocked up like a sandglass, and the sides filled in with dusky
+plaits, but even in the middle, where some outlook was, it led to
+very little.  All the air seemed choked with snow, and the ground
+coming up in piles to meet it; all sounds were deadened in the
+thick gray hush, and nothing had its own proportion.  Never having
+seen such a thing before, I was frightened, and longed to know more
+of it.
+
+Mr. Gundry had a good laugh at me, in which even Suan Isco joined,
+when I proposed to sweep a path to the mill, and keep it open
+through the winter.
+
+"It can be done--I am sure it can," I exclaimed, with vigorous
+ignorance.  "May I do it if I can?  It only requires perseverance.
+If you keep on sweeping as fast as it falls, you must overcome it.
+Don't you see, Uncle Sam?"
+
+"To be sure I do, Miss Rema, as plain as any pikestaff.  Suan,
+fetch a double bundle of new brooms from top loft, and don't forget
+while you be up there to give special orders--no snow is to fall at
+night or when missy is at dinner."
+
+"You may laugh as much as you please, Uncle Sam, but I intend to
+try it.  I must try to keep my path to--somewhere."
+
+"What a fool I am, to be sure!" said Mr. Gundry, softly.  "There,
+now, I beg your pardon, my dear, for never giving a thought to it.
+Firm and I will do it for you, as long as the Lord allows of it.
+Why, the snow is two foot deep a'ready, and twenty foot in places.
+I wonder whether that rogue of a Goad got home to Sylvester's ranch
+last night?  No fault of mine if he never did, for go he would in
+spite of me."
+
+I had not been thinking of Mr. Goad, and indeed I did not know his
+name until it was told in this way.  My mind was dwelling on my
+father's grave, where I used to love to sit and think; and I could
+not bear the idea of the cold snow lying over it, with nobody
+coming to care for him.  Kind hands had borne him down the
+mountains (while I lay between life and death) and buried him in
+the soft peach orchard, in the soothing sound of the mill-wheel.
+Here had been planted above his head a cross of white un-painted
+wood, bearing only his initials, and a small "Amen" below them.
+
+With this I was quite content, believing that he would have wished
+no better, being a very independent man, and desirous of no kind of
+pomp.  There was no "consecrated ground" within miles and miles of
+traveling; but I hoped that he might rest as well with simple tears
+to hallow it.  For often and often, even now, I could not help
+giving way and sobbing, when I thought how sad it was that a
+strong, commanding, mighty man, of great will and large experience,
+should drop in a corner of the world and die, and finally be
+thought lucky--when he could think for himself no longer--to obtain
+a tranquil, unknown grave, and end with his initials, and have a
+water-wheel to sing to him.  Many a time it set me crying, and made
+me long to lie down with him, until I thought of earth-worms.
+
+All that could be done was done by Sampson and Firm Gundry, to let
+me have my clear path, and a clear bourne at the end of it.  But
+even with a steam snow-shovel they could not have kept the way
+unstopped, such solid masses of the mountain clouds now descended
+over us.  And never had I been so humored in my foolish wishes: I
+was quite ashamed to see the trouble great men took to please me.
+
+"Well, I am sorry to hear it, Firm," said the Sawyer, coming in one
+day, with clouts of snow in his snowy curls.  "Not that I care a
+cent for the fellow--and an impudenter fellow never sucked a pipe.
+Still, he might have had time to mend, if his time had been as good
+as the room for it.  However, no blame rests on us.  I told him to
+bed down to saw-mill.  They Englishmen never know when they are
+well off.  But the horse got home, they tell me?"
+
+"The horse got home all right, grandfather, and so did the other
+horse and man.  But Sylvester thinks that a pile of dollars must
+have died out in the snow-drift.  It is a queer story.  We shall
+never know the rights."
+
+"How many times did I tell him," the Sawyer replied, without much
+discontent, "that it were a risky thing to try the gulches, such a
+night as that?  His own way he would have, however; and finer liars
+than he could ever stick up to be for a score of years have gone,
+time upon time, to the land of truth by means of that same view of
+things.  They take every body else for a liar."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, who is it?" I cried.  "Is it that dreadful--that
+poor man who wanted to carry me away from you?"
+
+"Now you go in, missy; you go to the fire-hearth," Mr. Gundry
+answered, more roughly than usual.  "Leave you all such points to
+the Lord.  They are not for young ladies to talk about."
+
+"Grandfather, don't you be too hard," said Firm, as he saw me
+hurrying away.  "Miss Rema has asked nothing unbecoming, but only
+concerning her own affairs.  If we refuse to tell her, others
+will."
+
+"Very well, then, so be it," the Sawyer replied; for he yielded
+more to his grandson than to the rest of the world put together.
+"Turn the log up, Firm, and put the pan on.  You boys can go on
+without victuals all day, but an old man must feed regular.  And,
+bad as he was, I thank God for sending him on his way home with his
+belly full.  If ever he turneth up in the snow, that much can be
+proved to my account."
+
+Young as I was, and little practiced in the ways of settlers, I
+could not help perceiving that Uncle Sam was very much put out--not
+at the death of the man so sadly, as at the worry of his dying so
+in going from a hospitable house.  Mr. Gundry cared little what any
+body said concerning his honor, or courage, or such like; but the
+thought of a whisper against his hospitality would rouse him.
+
+"Find him, Firm, find him," he said, in his deep sad voice, as he
+sat down on the antlered stump and gazed at the fire gloomily.
+"And when he is found, call a public postmortem, and prove that we
+gave him his bellyful."
+
+Ephraim, knowing the old man's ways, and the manners, perhaps, of
+the neighborhood, beckoned to Suan to be quick with something hot,
+that he might hurry out again.  Then he took his dinner standing,
+and without a word went forth to seek.
+
+"Take the snow-harrow, and take Jowler," the old man shouted after
+him, and the youth turned round at the gate and waved his cap to
+show that he heard him.  The snow was again falling heavily, and
+the afternoon was waning; and the last thing we saw was the brush
+of the mighty tail of the great dog Jowler.
+
+"Oh, uncle, Firm will be lost himself!" I cried, in dismay at the
+great white waste.  "And the poor man, whoever he is, must be dead.
+Do call him back, or let me run."
+
+Mr. Gundry's only answer was to lead me back to the fireside, where
+he made me sit down, and examined me, while Suan was frying the
+butter-beans.
+
+"Who was it spied you on the mountains, missy, the whole of the way
+from the redwood-tree, although you lay senseless on the ground,
+and he was hard at work with the loppings?"
+
+"Why, Ephraim, of course, Uncle Sam; every body says that nobody
+else could have noticed such a thing at such a distance."
+
+"Very well, my dear; and who was it carried you all the way to this
+house, without stopping, or even letting your head droop down,
+although it was a burning hot May morn?"
+
+"Mr. Gundry, as if you did not know a great deal better than I do!
+It was weeks before I could thank him, even.  But you must have
+seen him do it all."
+
+The Sawyer rubbed his chin, which was large enough for a great deal
+of rubbing; and when he did that, I was always sure that an
+argument went to his liking.  He said nothing more for the present,
+but had his dinner, and enjoyed it.
+
+"Supposing now that he did all that," he resumed, about an hour
+afterward, "is Firm the sort of boy you would look to to lose his
+own self in a snow-drift?  He has three men with him, and he is
+worth all three, let alone the big dog Jowler, who has dug out
+forty feet of snow ere now.  If that rogue of an Englishman, Goad,
+has had the luck to cheat the hangman, and the honor to die in a
+Californy snow-drift, you may take my experience for it, missy,
+Firm and Jowler will find him, and clear Uncle Sam's reputation."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WATER-SPOUT
+
+
+If Mr. Gundry was in one way right, he was equally wrong in the
+other.  Firm came home quite safe and sound, though smothered with
+snow and most hungry; but he thought that he should have staid out
+all the night, because he had failed of his errand.  Jowler also
+was full of discontent and trouble of conscience.  He knew, when he
+kicked up his heels in the snow, that his duty was to find
+somebody, and being of Alpine pedigree, and trained to act up to
+his ancestry, he now dropped his tail with failure.
+
+"It comes to the same thing," said Sawyer Gundry; "it is foolish to
+be so particular.  A thousand better men have sunk through being so
+pig-headed.  We shall find the rogue toward the end of March, or in
+April, if the season suits.  Firm, eat your supper and shake
+yourself."
+
+This was exactly the Sawyer's way--to take things quietly when
+convinced that there was no chance to better them.  He would always
+do his best about the smallest trifle; but after that, be the
+matter small or great, he had a smiling face for the end of it.
+
+The winter, with all its weight of sameness and of dreariness, went
+at last, and the lovely spring from the soft Pacific found its
+gradual way to us.  Accustomed as I was to gentler climates and
+more easy changes, I lost myself in admiration of this my first
+Californian spring.  The flowers, the leagues and leagues of
+flowers, that burst into color and harmony--purple, yellow, and
+delicate lilac, woven with bright crimson threads, and fringed with
+emerald-green by the banks, and blue by the course of rivers, while
+deepened here and there by wooded shelter and cool places, with the
+silver-gray of the soft Pacific waning in far distance, and silken
+vapor drawing toward the carding forks of the mountain range; and
+over all the never-wearying azure of the limpid sky: child as I
+was, and full of little worldly troubles on my own account, these
+grand and noble sights enlarged me without any thinking.
+
+The wheat and the maize were grown apace, and beans come into full
+blossom, and the peaches swinging in the western breeze were almost
+as large as walnuts, and all things in their prime of freshness,
+ere the yellow dust arrived, when a sudden melting of snow in some
+gully sent a strong flood down our Blue River.  The saw-mill
+happened to be hard at work; and before the gear could be lifted,
+some damage was done to the floats by the heavy, impetuous rush of
+the torrent.  Uncle Sam was away, and so was Firm; from which,
+perhaps, the mischief grew.  However, the blame was all put on the
+river, and little more was said of it.
+
+The following morning I went down before even Firm was out-of-
+doors, under some touch, perhaps, of natural desire to know things.
+The stream was as pure and bright as ever, hastening down its
+gravel-path of fine granite just as usual, except that it had more
+volume and a stronger sense of freshness.  Only the bent of the
+grasses and the swath of the pendulous twigs down stream remained
+to show that there must have been some violence quite lately.
+
+All Mr. Gundry's strengthening piles and shores were as firm as
+need be, and the clear blue water played around them as if they
+were no constraint to it.  And none but a practiced eye could see
+that the great wheel had been wounded, being undershot, and lifted
+now above the power of the current, according to the fine old plan
+of locking the door when the horse is gone.
+
+When I was looking up and wondering where to find the mischief,
+Martin, the foreman, came out and crossed the plank, with his mouth
+full of breakfast.
+
+"Show me," I said, with an air, perhaps, of very young importance,
+"where and what the damage is.  Is there any strain to the iron-
+work?"
+
+"Lor' a mercy, young missus!" he answered, gruffly, being by no
+means a polished man, "where did you ever hear of ironwork?
+Needles and pins is enough for you.  Now don't you go and make no
+mischief."
+
+"I have no idea what you mean," I answered.  "If you have been
+careless, that is no concern of mine."
+
+"Careless, indeed!  And the way I works, when others is a-snorin'
+in their beds!  I might just as well do nort, every bit, and get
+more thanks and better wages.  That's the way of the world all
+over.  Come Saturday week, I shall better myself."
+
+"But if it's the way of the world all over, how will you better
+yourself, unless you go out of the world altogether!"  I put this
+question to Martin with the earnest simplicity of the young,
+meaning no kind of sarcasm, but knowing that scarcely a week went
+by without his threatening to "better himself."  And they said that
+he had done so for seven years or more.
+
+"Don't you be too sharp," he replied, with a grim smile, partly at
+himself, perhaps.  "If half as I heard about you is true, you'll
+want all your sharpness for yourself, Miss Remy.  And the
+Britishers are worse than we be."
+
+"Well, Martin, I am sure you would help me," I said, "if you saw
+any person injuring me.  But what is it I am not to tell your
+master?"
+
+"My master, indeed!  Well, you need not tell old Gundry any thing
+about what you have seen.  It might lead to hard words; and hard
+words are not the style of thing I put up with.  If any man tries
+hard words with me, I knocks him down, up sticks, and makes
+tracks."
+
+I could not help smiling at the poor man's talk.  Sawyer Gundry
+could have taken him with one hand and tossed him over the
+undershot wheel.
+
+"You forget that I have not seen any thing," I said, "and
+understand nothing but 'needles and pins.'  But, for fear of doing
+any harm, I will not even say that I have been down here, unless I
+am asked about it."
+
+"Miss Remy, you are a good girl, and you shall have the mill some
+day.  Lord, don't your little great eyes see the job they are a-
+doin' of?  The finest stroke in all Californy, when the stubborn
+old chap takes to quartz-crushing."
+
+All this was beyond me, and I told him so, and we parted good
+friends, while he shook his long head and went home to feed many
+pappooses.  For the strangest thing of all things was, though I
+never at that time thought of it, that there was not any one about
+this place whom any one could help liking.  Martin took as long as
+any body to be liked, until one understood him; but after that he
+was one of the best, in many ways that can not be described.  Also
+there was a pair of negroes, simply and sweetly delightful.  They
+worked all day and they sang all night, though I had not the
+pleasure of hearing them; and the more Suan Isco despised them--
+because they were black, and she was only brown--the more they made
+up to her, not at all because she governed the supply of victuals.
+It was childish to have such ideas, though Suan herself could never
+get rid of them.  The truth, as I came to know afterward, was that
+a large, free-hearted, and determined man was at the head of every
+thing.  Martin was the only one who ever grumbled, and he had
+established a long right to do so by never himself being grumbled
+at.
+
+"I'll be bound that poor fellow is in a sad way," Mr. Gundry said
+at breakfast-time.  "He knows how much he is to blame, and I fear
+that he won't eat a bit for the day.  Martin is a most conscientious
+man.  He will offer to give up his berth, although it would be his
+simple ruin."
+
+I was wise enough not to say a word, though Firm looked at me
+keenly.  He knew that I had been down at the mill, and expected me
+to say something.
+
+"We all must have our little mistakes," continued Sawyer Gundry;
+"but I never like to push a man when he feels it.  I shall not say
+a syllable to Martin; and, Ephraim, you will do the like.  When a
+fellow sticks well to his work like Martin, never blame him for a
+mere accident."
+
+Firm, according to his habit, made no answer when he did not quite
+agree.  In talking with his own age he might have argued, but he
+did not argue with his grandfather.
+
+"I shall just go down and put it right myself.  Martin is a poor
+hand at repairing.  Firm, you go up the gulch, and see if the fresh
+has hurt the hurdles.  Missy, you may come with me, if you please,
+and sketch me at work in the mill-wheel.  You have drawn that wheel
+such a sight of times, you must know every feather of it better
+than the man who made it."
+
+"Uncle Sam, you are too bad," I said.  "I have never got it right,
+and I never shall."
+
+I did not dare as yet to think what really proved to be true in the
+end--that I could not draw the wheel correctly because itself was
+incorrect.  In spite of all Mr. Gundry's skill and labor and
+ingenuity, the wheel was no true circle.  The error began in the
+hub itself, and increased, of course, with the distance; but still
+it worked very well, like many other things that are not perfect.
+
+Having no idea of this as yet, and doubting nothing except my own
+perception of "perspective," I sat down once more in my favorite
+spot, and waited for the master to appear as an active figure in
+the midst of it.  The air was particularly bright and clear, even
+for that pure climate, and I could even see the blue-winged flies
+darting in and out of the oozy floats.  But half-way up the
+mountains a white cloud was hanging, a cloud that kept on changing
+shape.  I only observed it as a thing to put in for my background,
+because I was fond of trying to tone and touch up my sketches with
+French chalks.
+
+Presently I heard a harsh metallic sound and creaking of machinery.
+The bites, or clamps, or whatever they are called, were being put
+on, to keep the wheel from revolving with the Sawyer's weight.
+Martin, the foreman, was grumbling and growling, according to his
+habit, and peering through the slot, or channel of stone, in which
+the axle worked, and the cheery voice of Mr. Gundry was putting
+down his objections.  Being much too large to pass through the
+slot, Mr. Gundry came round the corner of the building, with a
+heavy leathern bag of tools strapped round his neck, and his canvas
+breeches girt above his knees.  But the foreman staid inside to
+hand him the needful material into the wheel.
+
+The Sawyer waded merrily down the shallow blue water, for he was
+always like a boy when he was at work, and he waved his little
+skull-cap to me, and swung himself up into the wheel, as if he were
+nearer seventeen than seventy.  And presently I could only see his
+legs and arms as he fell to work.  Therefore I also fell to work,
+with my best attempts at penciling, having been carefully taught
+enough of drawing to know that I could not draw.  And perhaps I
+caught from the old man's presence and the sound of his activity
+that strong desire to do my best which he seemed to impart to every
+one.
+
+At any rate, I was so engrossed that I scarcely observed the
+changing light, except as a hindrance to my work and a trouble to
+my distance, till suddenly some great drops fell upon my paper and
+upon my hat, and a rush of dark wind almost swept me from the log
+upon which I sat.  Then again all was a perfect calm, and the young
+leaves over the stream hung heavily on their tender foot-stalks,
+and the points of the breeze-swept grass turned back, and the
+ruffle of all things smoothed itself.  But there seemed to be a
+sense of fear in the waiting silence of earth and air.
+
+This deep, unnatural stillness scared me, and I made up my mind to
+run away.  But the hammer of the Sawyer sounded as I had never
+heard it sound.  He was much too hard at work to pay any heed to
+sky or stream, and the fall of his strokes was dead and hollow, as
+if the place resented them.
+
+"Come away, come away," I cried, as I ran and stood on the opposite
+bank to him; "there is something quite wrong in the weather, I am
+sure.  I entreat you to come away at once, Uncle Sam.  Every thing
+is so strange and odd."
+
+"Why, what's to do now?" asked the Sawyer, coming to my side of the
+wheel and looking at me, with his spectacles tilted up, and his
+apron wedged in a piece of timber, and his solid figure resting in
+the impossibility of hurry.  "Missy, don't you make a noise out
+there.  You can't have your own way always."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, don't talk like that.  I am in such a fright about
+you.  Do come out and look at the mountains."
+
+"I have seen the mountains often enough, and I am up to every trick
+of them.  There may be a corn or two of rain; no more.  My sea-weed
+was like tinder.  There can't be no heavy storm when it is like
+that.  Don't you make pretense, missy, to know what is beyond you."
+
+Uncle Sam was so seldom cross that I always felt that he had a
+right to be so.  And he gave me one of his noble smiles to make up
+for the sharpness of his words, and then back he went to his work
+again.  So I hoped that I was altogether wrong, till a bolt of
+lightning, like a blue dagger, fell at my very feet, and a crash of
+thunder shook the earth and stunned me.  These opened the sluice of
+the heavens, and before I could call out I was drenched with rain.
+Clinging to a bush, I saw the valley lashed with cloudy blasts, and
+a whirling mass of spiral darkness rushing like a giant toward me.
+And the hissing and tossing and roaring mixed whatever was in sight
+together.
+
+Such terror fell upon me at first that I could not look, and could
+scarcely think, but cowered beneath the blaze of lightning as a
+singed moth drops and shivers.  And a storm of wind struck me from
+my hold, so that I fell upon the wet earth.  Every moment I
+expected to be killed, for I never could be brave in a thunder-
+storm, and had not been told much in France of God's protection
+around me.  And the darts of lightning hissed and crossed like a
+blue and red web over me.  So I laid hold of a little bent of weed,
+and twisted it round my dabbled wrist, and tried to pray to the
+Virgin, although I had often been told it was vanity.
+
+Then suddenly wiping my eyes, I beheld a thing which entirely
+changed me.  A vast, broad wall of brown water, nearly as high as
+the mill itself, rushed down with a crest of foam from the
+mountains.  It seemed to fill up all the valley and to swallow up
+all the trees; a whole host of animals fled before it, and birds,
+like a volley of bullets, flew by.  I lost not a moment in running
+away, and climbing a rock and hiding.  It was base, ungrateful, and
+a nasty thing to do; but I did it almost without thinking.  And if
+I had staid to cry out, what good could I have done--only to be
+swept away?
+
+Now, as far as I can remember any thing out of so much horror, I
+must have peeped over the summit of my rock when the head of the
+deluge struck the mill.  But whether I saw it, or whether I knew it
+by any more summary process, such as outruns the eyes sometimes, is
+more than I dare presume to say.  Whichever way I learned it, it
+was thus:
+
+A solid mass of water, much bigger than the mill itself, burst on
+it, dashed it to atoms, leaped off with it, and spun away the great
+wheel anyhow, like the hoop of a child sent trundling.  I heard no
+scream or shriek; and, indeed, the bellow of a lion would have been
+a mere whisper in the wild roar of the elements.  Only, where the
+mill had been, there was nothing except a black streak and a boil
+in the deluge.  Then scores of torn-up trees swept over, as a bush-
+harrow jumps on the clods of the field; and the unrelenting flood
+cast its wrath, and shone quietly in the lightning.
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam!  Uncle Sam!" I cried.  But there was not a sign to
+be seen of him; and I thought of his gentle, good, obstinate ways,
+and my heart was almost broken.  "What a brute--what a wretch I
+am!" I kept saying, as if I could have helped it; and my fear of
+the lightning was gone, and I stood and raved with scorn and
+amazement.
+
+In this misery of confusion it was impossible to think, and
+instinct alone could have driven my despair to a desperate venture.
+With my soaked clothes sticking between my legs, I ran as hard as
+they would go, by a short-cut over a field of corn, to a spot where
+the very last bluff or headland jutted into the river.  This was a
+good mile below the mill according to the bends of channel, but
+only a furlong or so from the rock upon which I had taken refuge.
+However, the flood was there before me, and the wall of water
+dashed on to the plains, with a brindled comb behind it.
+
+Behind it also came all the ruin of the mill that had any floatage,
+and bodies of bears and great hogs and cattle, some of them alive,
+but the most part dead.  A grand black bull tossed back his horns,
+and looked at me beseechingly: he had frightened me often in quiet
+days, but now I was truly grieved for him.  And then on a wattle of
+brush-wood I saw the form of a man--the Sawyer.
+
+His white hair draggled in the wild brown flood, and the hollow of
+his arms was heaped with froth, and his knotted legs hung helpless.
+Senseless he lay on his back, and sometimes the wash of the waves
+went over him.  His face was livid, but his brave eyes open, and a
+heavy weight hung round his neck.  I had no time to think, and
+deserve no praise, for I knew not what I did.  But just as an eddy
+swept him near me, I made a desperate leap at him, and clutched at
+something that tore my hands, and then I went under the water.  My
+senses, however, were not yet gone, and my weight on the wattle
+stopped it, and I came up gurgling, and flung one arm round a fat,
+woolly sheep going by me.  The sheep was water-logged, and could
+scarcely keep his own poor head from drowning, and he turned his
+mild eyes and looked at me, but I could not spare him.  He struck
+for the shore in forlorn hope, and he towed us in some little.
+
+It is no good for me to pretend to say how things were managed for
+us, for of course I could do nothing.  But the sheep must have
+piloted us to a tree, whose branches swept the torrent.  Here I let
+him go, and caught fast hold; and Uncle Sam's raft must have stuck
+there also, for what could my weak arm have done?  I remember only
+to have felt the ground at last, as the flood was exhausted; and
+good people came and found him and me, stretched side by side, upon
+rubbish and mud.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+A NUGGET
+
+
+In a sacred corner (as soon as ever we could attend to any thing)
+we hung up the leathern bag of tools, which had done much more
+toward saving the life of Uncle Sam than I did; for this had served
+as a kind of kedge, or drag, upon his little craft, retarding it
+from the great roll of billows, in which he must have been drowned
+outright.  And even as it was, he took some days before he was like
+himself again.
+
+Firm, who had been at the head of the valley, repairing some broken
+hurdles, declared that a water-spout had burst in the bosom of the
+mountain gorge where the Blue River has its origin, and the whole
+of its power got ponded back by a dam, which the Sawyer himself had
+made, at about five furlongs above the mill.  Ephraim, being
+further up the gulch, and high above the roaring flood, did his
+utmost with the keen edge of his eyes to pierce into the mischief;
+but it rained so hard, and at the same time blew so violently
+around him, that he could see nothing of what went on, but hoped
+for the best, with uneasiness.
+
+Now when the Sawyer came round so well as to have a clear mind of
+things, and learn that his mill was gone and his business lost, and
+himself, at this ripe time of life, almost driven to begin the
+world again, it was natural to expect that he ought to indulge in a
+good deal of grumbling.  Many people came to comfort him, and to
+offer him deep condolence and the truest of true sympathy, and
+every thing that could be thought of, unless it were a loan of
+money.  Of that they never thought, because it was such a trifling
+matter; and they all had confidence in his power to do any thing
+but pay them.  They told him that he was a young man still, and
+Providence watched over him; in a year or two he would be all the
+better for this sad visitation.  And he said yes to their excellent
+advice, and was very much obliged to them.  At the same time it was
+clear to me, who watched him like a daughter, that he became heavy
+in his mind, and sighed, as these kind friends, one after the
+other, enjoyed what he still could do for them, but rode away out
+of his gate with too much delicacy to draw purse-strings.  Not that
+he would have accepted a loan from the heartiest heart of all of
+them, only that he would have liked the offer, to understand their
+meaning.  And several of them were men--as Firm, in his young
+indignation, told me--who had been altogether set up in life by the
+kindness of Sampson Gundry.
+
+Perhaps the Sawyer, after all his years, had no right to be vexed
+by this.  But whether he was right or wrong, I am sure that it
+preyed upon his mind, though he was too proud to speak of it.  He
+knew that he was not ruined, although these friends assumed that he
+must be; and some of them were quite angry with him because they
+had vainly warned him.  He could not remember these warnings, yet
+he contradicted none of them; and fully believing in the goodness
+of the world, he became convinced that he must have been hard in
+the days of his prosperity.
+
+No sooner was he able to get about again than he went to San
+Francisco to raise money on his house and property for the
+rebuilding of the mill.  Firm rode with him to escort him back, and
+so did Martin, the foreman; for although the times were not so bad
+as they used to be some ten years back, in the height of the gold
+fever, it still was a highly undesirable thing for a man who was
+known to have money about him to ride forth alone from San
+Francisco, or even Sacramento town.  And having mentioned the
+foreman Martin, in justice to him I ought to say that although his
+entire loss from the disaster amounted only to a worn-out waistcoat
+of the value of about twenty cents, his vehemence in grumbling
+could only be equaled by his lofty persistence.  By his great
+activity in running away and leaving his employer to meet the
+brunt, he had saved not only himself, but his wife and children and
+goods and chattels.  This failed, however, to remove or even
+assuage his regret for the waistcoat; and he moaned and threatened
+to such good purpose that a speedy subscription was raised, which
+must have found him in clothes for the rest of his life, as well as
+a silver tea-pot with an inscription about his bravery.
+
+When the three were gone, after strict injunctions from Mr. Gundry,
+and his grandson too, that I was on no account to venture beyond
+calling distance from the house, for fear of being run away with, I
+found the place so sad and lonesome that I scarcely knew what to
+do.  I had no fear of robbers, though there were plenty in the
+neighborhood; for we still had three or four men about, who could
+be thoroughly trusted, and who staid with us on half wages rather
+than abandon the Sawyer in his trouble.  Suan Isco, also, was as
+brave as any man, and could shoot well with a rifle.  Moreover, the
+great dog Jowler was known and dreaded by all his enemies.  He
+could pull down an Indian, or two half-castes, or three Mexicans,
+in about a second; and now he always went about with me, having
+formed a sacred friendship.
+
+Uncle Sam had kissed me very warmly when he said "good-by," and
+Firm had shown some disposition to follow his example; but much as
+I liked and admired Firm, I had my own ideas as to what was
+unbecoming, and now in my lonely little walks I began to think
+about it.  My father's resting-place had not been invaded by the
+imperious flood, although a line of driftage, in a zigzag swath,
+lay near the mound.  This was my favorite spot for thinking, when I
+felt perplexed and downcast in my young unaided mind.  For although
+I have not spoken of my musings very copiously, any one would do me
+wrong who fancied that I was indifferent.  Through the great
+kindness of Mr. Gundry and other good friends around me, I had no
+bitter sense as yet of my own dependence and poverty.  But the vile
+thing I had heard about my father, the horrible slander and wicked
+falsehood--for such I was certain it must be--this was continually
+in my thoughts, and quite destroyed my cheerfulness.  And the worst
+of it was that I never could get my host to enter into it.
+Whenever I began, his face would change and his manner grow
+constrained, and his chief desire always seemed to lead me to some
+other subject.
+
+One day, when the heat of the summer came forth, and the peaches
+began to blush toward it, and bronze-ribbed figs grew damask-gray
+with a globule of sirup in their eyes, and melons and pumpkins
+already had curved their fluted stalks with heaviness, and the dust
+of the plains was beginning to fly, and the bright spring flowers
+were dead more swiftly even than they first were born, I sat with
+Suan Isco at my father's cross, and told her to make me cry with
+some of all the many sad things she knew.  She knew a wondrous
+number of things insatiably sad and wild; and the quiet way in
+which she told them (not only without any horror, but as if they
+were rightly to be expected), also the deep and rather guttural
+tone of voice, and the stillness of the form, made it impossible to
+help believing verily every word she said.
+
+That there should be in the world such things, so dark, unjust, and
+full of woe, was enough to puzzle a child brought up among the
+noblest philosophers; whereas I had simply been educated by good
+unpretentious women, who had partly retired from the world, but not
+to such a depth as to drown all thought of what was left behind
+them.  These were ready at any time to return upon good opportunity;
+and some of them had done so, with many tears, when they came into
+property.
+
+"Please to tell me no more now," I said at last to Suan; "my eyes
+are so sore they will be quite red, and perhaps Uncle Sam will come
+home to-night.  I am afraid he has found some trouble with the
+money, or he ought to have been at home before.  Don't you think
+so, Suan?"
+
+"Yes, yes; trouble with the money.  Always with the white mans
+that."
+
+"Very well.  I shall go and look for some money.  I had a most
+wonderful dream last night.  Only I must go quite alone.  You had
+better go and look to the larder, Suan.  If they come, they are
+sure to be hungry."
+
+"Yes, yes; the white mans always hungry, sep when thirsty."
+
+The Indian woman, who had in her heart a general contempt for the
+white race, save those of our own household, drew her bright-
+colored shawl around her, and set off with her peculiar walk.  Her
+walk was not ungraceful, because it was so purely natural; but it
+differed almost as much as the step of a quadruped from what we are
+taught.  I, with heavy thoughts but careless steps, set off on my
+wanderings.  I wanted to try to have no set purpose, course, or
+consideration, but to go wherever chance should lead me, without
+choice, as in my dream.  And after many vague turns, and even
+closings of rebellious eyes, I found myself, perhaps by the force
+of habit, at the ruins of the mill.
+
+I seemed to recognize some resemblance (which is as much as one can
+expect) to the scene which had been in my sleep before me.  But
+sleeping I had seen roaring torrents; waking, I beheld a quiet
+stream.  The little river, as blue as ever, and shrinking from all
+thoughts of wrath, showed nothing in its pure gaze now but a
+gladness to refresh and cool.  In many nicely sheltered corners it
+was full of soft reflection as to the good it had to do; and then,
+in silver and golden runnels, on it went to do it.  And the happy
+voice and many sweetly flashing little glances told that it knew of
+the lovely lives beside it, created and comforted by itself.
+
+But I looked at the dark ruin it had wrought, and like a child I
+was angry with it for the sake of Uncle Sam.  Only the foundations
+and the big heavy stones of the mill were left, and the clear
+bright water purled around, or made little eddies among them.  All
+were touched with silvery sound, and soft caressing dimples.  But I
+looked at the passionate mountains first, to be sure of no more
+violence; for if a burned child dreads the fire, one half drowned
+may be excused for little faith in water.  The mountains in the
+sunshine looked as if nothing could move their grandeur, and so I
+stepped from stone to stone, in the bed of the placid brightness.
+
+Presently I came to a place where one of the great black piles,
+driven in by order of the Sawyer, to serve as a back-stay for his
+walls, had been swept by the flood from its vertical sinking, but
+had not been swept away.  The square tarred post of mountain pine
+reclined down stream, and gently nodded to the current's impact.
+But overthrown as it was, it could not make its exit and float
+away, as all its brethren had done.  At this I had wondered before,
+and now I went to see what the reason was.  By throwing a short
+piece of plank from one of the shattered foundations into a nick in
+the shoulder of the reclining pile, I managed to get there and sit
+upon it, and search for its obstruction.
+
+The water was flowing smoothly toward me, and as clear as crystal,
+being scarcely more than a foot in depth.  And there, on the upper
+verge of the hole, raised by the leverage of the butt from the
+granite sand of the river-bed, I saw a great bowlder of rich yellow
+light.  I was so much amazed that I cried out at once, "Oh! what a
+beautiful great yellow fish!"  And I shouted to Jowler, who had
+found where I was, and followed me, as usual.  The great dog was
+famous for his love of fishing, and had often brought a fine salmon
+forth.
+
+Jowler was always a zealous fellow, and he answered eagerly to my
+call by dashing at once into the water, and following the guidance
+of my hand.  But when he saw what I pointed at, he was bitterly
+disappointed, and gave me to understand as much by looking at me
+foolishly.  "Now don't be a stupid dog," I said; "do what I tell
+you immediately.  Whatever it is, bring it out, Sir."
+
+Jowler knew that I would be obeyed whenever I called him "Sir;" so
+he ducked his great head under the water, and tugged with his teeth
+at the object.  His back corded up, and his tail grew rigid with
+the intensity of his labor, but the task was quite beyond him.  He
+could not even stir the mighty mass at which he struggled, but he
+bit off a little projecting corner, and came to me with it in his
+mouth.  Then he laid his dripping jaws on my lap, and his ears fell
+back, and his tail hung down with utter sense of failure.
+
+I patted his broad intelligent forehead, and wiped his black eyes
+with his ears, and took from his lips what he offered to me.  Then
+I saw that his grinders were framed with gold, as if he had been to
+a dentist regardless of expense, and into my hand he dropped a lump
+of solid glittering virgin ore.  He had not the smallest idea of
+having done any thing worthy of human applause; and he put out his
+long red tongue and licked his teeth to get rid of uneatable dross,
+and gave me a quiet nudge to ask what more I wanted of him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ROVERS
+
+
+From Jowler I wanted nothing more.  Such matters were too grand for
+him.  He had beaten the dog of Hercules, who had only brought the
+purple dye--a thing requiring skill and art and taste to give it
+value.  But gold does well without all these, and better in their
+absence.  From handling many little nuggets, and hearkening to Suan
+Isco's tales of treachery, theft, and murder done by white men for
+the sake of this, I knew that here I had found enough to cost the
+lives of fifty men.
+
+At present, however, I was not possessed with dread so much as I
+was with joy, and even a secret exultation, at the power placed in
+my hands.  For I was too young to moralize or attempt philosophy.
+Here I had a knowledge which the wisest of mankind might envy, much
+as they despise it when they have no chance of getting it.  I
+looked at my father's grave, in the shadow of the quiet peach-
+trees, and I could not help crying as I thought that this was come
+too late for him.  Then I called off Jowler, who wished (like a
+man) to have another tug at it; and home I ran to tell my news, but
+failing of breath, had time to think.
+
+It was lucky enough that this was so, for there might have been the
+greatest mischief; and sadly excited as I was, the trouble I had
+seen so much of came back to my beating heart and told me to be
+careful.  But surely there could be no harm in trusting Suan Isco.
+However, I looked at her several times, and was not quite so sure
+about it.  She was wonderfully true and faithful, and scarcely
+seemed to concede to gold its paramount rank and influence.  But
+that might only have been because she had never known the want of
+it, or had never seen a lump worth stealing, which I was sure that
+this must be; and the unregenerate state of all who have never been
+baptized had been impressed on me continually.  How could I
+mistrust a Christian, and place confidence in an Indian?  Therefore
+I tried to sleep without telling any one, but was unable.
+
+But, as it happened, my good discovery did not keep me so very long
+awake, for on the following day our troop of horsemen returned from
+San Francisco.  Of course I have done very foolish things once and
+again throughout my life, but perhaps I never did any thing more
+absurd than during the whole of that day.  To begin with, I was up
+before the sun, and down at the mill, and along the plank, which I
+had removed overnight, but now replaced as my bridge to the pine-
+wood pile.  Then I gazed with eager desire and fear--which was the
+stronger I scarcely knew--for the yellow under-gleam, to show the
+safety of my treasure.  There it lay, as safe as could be, massive,
+grand, and beautiful, with tones of varying richness as the ripples
+varied over it.  The pale light of the morning breathed a dewy
+lustre down the banks; the sun (although unrisen yet) drew furrows
+through the mountain gaps; the birds from every hanging tree
+addressed the day with melody; the crystal water, purer than
+religion's brightest dream, went by; and here among them lay,
+unmoved, unthought of, and inanimate, the thing which to a human
+being is worth all the rest put together.
+
+This contemplation had upon me an effect so noble that here I
+resolved to spend my time, for fear of any robbery.  I was afraid
+to gaze more than could be helped at this grand sight, lest other
+eyes should spy what was going on, and long to share it.  And after
+hurrying home to breakfast and returning in like haste, I got a
+scare, such as I well deserved, for being so extremely foolish.
+
+The carpentry of the mill-wheel had proved so very stanch and
+steadfast that even in that raging deluge the whole had held
+together.  It had been bodily torn from its hold and swept away
+down the valley; but somewhere it grounded, as the flood ebbed out,
+and a strong team had tugged it back again.  And the Sawyer had
+vowed that, come what would, his mill should work with the self-
+same wheel which he with younger hands had wrought.  Now this wheel
+(to prevent any warp, and save the dry timber from the sun) was
+laid in a little shady cut, where water trickled under it.  And
+here I had taken up my abode to watch my monster nugget.
+
+I had pulled my shoes and stockings off, and was paddling in the
+runnel, sheltered by the deep rim of the wheel, and enjoying the
+water.  Little fish darted by me, and lovely spotted lizards played
+about, and I was almost beginning even to forget my rock of gold.
+In self-defense it is right to say that for the gold, on my own
+account, I cared as much as I might have done for a fig worm-eaten.
+It was for Uncle Sam, and all his dear love, that I watched the
+gold, hoping in his sad disaster to restore his fortunes.  But
+suddenly over the rim of the wheel (laid flat in the tributary
+brook) I descried across the main river a moving company of
+horsemen.
+
+These men could have nothing to do with Uncle Sam and his party,
+for they were coming from the mountain-side, while he would return
+by the track across the plains.  And they were already so near that
+I could see their dress quite plainly, and knew them to be Mexican
+rovers, mixed with loose Americans.  There are few worse men on the
+face of the earth than these, when in the humor, and unluckily they
+seem almost always to be in that humor.  Therefore, when I saw
+their battered sun-hats and baggy slouching boots, I feared that
+little ruth, or truth, or mercy dwelt between them.
+
+On this account I shrank behind the shelter of the mill-wheel, and
+held my head in one trembling hand, and with the other drew my
+wind-tossed hair into small compass.  For my blood ran cold at the
+many dreadful things that came into my mind.  I was sure that they
+had not spied me yet, and my overwhelming desire was to decline all
+introduction.
+
+I counted fourteen gentlemen, for so they always styled themselves,
+and would pistol any man who expressed a contrary opinion.
+Fourteen of them rode to the brink of the quiet blue river on the
+other side; and there they let their horses drink, and some
+dismounted and filled canteens, and some of longer reach stooped
+from the saddle and did likewise.  But one, who seemed to be the
+captain, wanted no water for his rum.
+
+"Cut it short, boys," I heard him say, with a fine South
+Californian twang (which, as well as his free swearing, I will
+freely omit).  "If we mean to have fair play with the gal, now or
+never's the time for it: old Sam may come home almost any time."
+
+What miserable cowards!  Though there were so many of them, they
+really had no heart to face an old man known for courage.
+Frightened as I was, perhaps good indignation helped me to flutter
+no more, and not faint away, but watch those miscreants steadily.
+
+The horses put down their sandy lips over and over again to drink,
+scarcely knowing when they ought to stop, and seemed to get thicker
+before my eyes.  The dribbling of the water from their mouths
+prepared them to begin again, till the riders struck the savage
+unroweled spur into their refreshment.  At this they jerked their
+noses up, and looked at one another to say that they expected it,
+and then they lifted their weary legs and began to plash through
+the river.
+
+It is a pretty thing to see a skillful horse plod through a stream,
+probing with his eyes the depth, and stretching his head before his
+feet, and at every step he whisks his tail to tell himself that he
+is right.  In my agony of observation all these things I heeded,
+but only knew that I had done so when I thought long afterward.  At
+the moment I was in such a fright that my eyes worked better than
+my mind.  However, even so, I thought of my golden millstone, and
+was aware that they crossed below, and could not see it.
+
+They gained the bank upon our side within fifty yards of where I
+crouched; and it was not presence of mind, but abject fear, which
+kept me crouching.  I counted them again as they leaped the bank
+and seemed to look at me.  I could see the dark array of eyes, and
+could scarcely keep from shrieking.  But my throat was dry and made
+no sound, and a frightened bird set up a scream, which drew off
+their attention.
+
+In perils of later days I often thought of this fear, and almost
+felt that the hand of Heaven had been stretched forth on purpose to
+help my helplessness.
+
+For the moment, however, I lay as close as if under the hand of the
+evil one; and the snorting of the horses passed me, and wicked
+laughter of the men.  One was telling a horrible tale, and the rest
+rejoicing in it; and the bright sun, glowing on their withered
+skin, discovered perhaps no viler thing in all the world to shine
+upon.  One of them even pointed at my mill-wheel with a witty
+gibe--at least, perhaps, it was wit to him--about the Sawyer's
+misfortune; but the sun was then in his eyes, and my dress was just
+of the color of the timber.  So on they rode, and the pleasant turf
+(having lately received some rain) softly answered to the kneading
+of their hoofs as they galloped away to surround the house.
+
+I was just at the very point of rising and running up into the dark
+of the valley, when a stroke of arithmetic stopped me.  Fourteen
+men and fourteen horses I had counted on the other side; on this
+side I could not make any more than thirteen of them.  I might have
+made a mistake; but still I thought I would stop just a minute to
+see.  And in that minute I saw the other man walking slowly on the
+opposite bank.  He had tethered his horse, and was left as outpost
+to watch and give warning of poor Uncle Sam's return.
+
+At the thought of this, my frightened courage, in some extraordinary
+way, came back.  I had played an ignoble part thus far, as almost
+any girl might have done.  But now I resolved that, whatever might
+happen, my dear friend and guardian should not be entrapped and
+lose his life through my cowardice.  We had been expecting him all
+the day; and if he should come and fall into an ambush, I only
+might survive to tell the tale.  I ought to have hurried and warned
+the house, as my bitter conscience told me; but now it was much too
+late for that.  The only amends that I could make was to try and
+warn our travelers.
+
+Stooping as low as I could, and watching my time to cross the more
+open places when the sentry was looking away from me, I passed up
+the winding of the little watercourse, and sheltered in the swampy
+thicket which concealed its origin.  Hence I could see for miles
+over the plain--broad reaches of corn land already turning pale,
+mazy river fringed with reed, hamlets scattered among clustering
+trees, and that which I chiefly cared to see, the dusty track from
+Sacramento.
+
+Whether from ignorance of the country or of Mr. Gundry's plans, the
+sentinel had been posted badly.  His beat commanded well enough the
+course from San Francisco; but that from Sacramento was not equally
+clear before him.  For a jut of pine forest ran down from the
+mountains and cut off a part of his view of it.  I had not the
+sense or the presence of mind to perceive this great advantage, but
+having a plain, quick path before me, forth I set upon it.  Of
+course if the watchman had seen me, he would have leaped on his
+horse and soon caught me; but of that I scarcely even thought, I
+was in such confusion.
+
+When I had run perhaps a mile (being at that time very slight, and
+of active figure), I saw a cloud of dust, about two miles off,
+rising through the bright blue haze.  It was rich yellow dust of
+the fertile soil, which never seems to cake or clot.  Sometimes you
+may walk for miles without the smallest fear of sinking, the earth
+is so elastic.  And yet with a slight exertion you may push a
+walking-stick down through it until the handle stops it.  My heart
+gave a jump: that cloud of dust was a sign of men on horseback.
+And who could it be but Uncle Sam and Firm and the foreman Martin?
+
+As soon as it began to show itself, it proved to be these very
+three, carelessly lounging on their horses' backs, overcome with
+heat and dust and thirst.  But when they saw me there all alone
+under the fury of the sun, they knew that something must have gone
+amiss, and were all wide awake in a moment.
+
+"Well, now," said the Sawyer, when I had told my tale as well as
+short breath allowed, "put this thing over your head, my dear, or
+you may gain a sun-stroke.  I call it too bad of them skunks to
+drive you in Californy noon, like this."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, never think of me; think of your house and your
+goods and Suan, and all at those bad men's mercy!"
+
+"The old house ain't afire yet," he answered, looking calmly under
+his hand in that direction.  "And as for Suan, no fear at all.  She
+knows how to deal with such gallowses; and they will keep her to
+cook their dinner.  Firm, my lad, let us go and embrace them.  They
+wouldn't 'a made much bones of shooting us down if we hadn't known
+of it, and if they had got miss afore the saddle.  But if they
+don't give bail, as soon as they see me ride up to my door, my
+name's not Sampson Gundry.  Only you keep out of the way, Miss
+Remy.  You go to sleep a bit, that's a dear, in the graywitch
+spinny yonder, and wait till you hear Firm sound the horn.  And
+then come you in to dinner-time; for the Lord is always over you."
+
+I hastened to the place which he pointed out--a beautiful covert of
+birch-trees--but to sleep was out of the question, worn out though
+I was with haste and heat, and (worst of all) with horror.  In a
+soft mossy nest, where a breeze from the mountains played with the
+in and out ways of the wood, and the murmurous dream of genial
+insects now was beginning to drowse upon the air, and the heat of
+the sun could almost be seen thrilling through the alleys like a
+cicale's drum--here, in the middle of the languid peace, I waited
+for the terror of the rifle-crack.
+
+For though Uncle Sam had spoken softly, and made so little of the
+peril he would meet, I had seen in his eyes some token of the deep
+wrath and strong indignation which had kept all his household and
+premises safe.  And it seemed a most ominous sign that Firm had
+never said a word, but grasped his gun, and slowly got in front of
+his grandfather.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+GOLD AND GRIEF
+
+
+It may have been an hour, but it seemed an age, ere the sound of
+the horn, in Firm's strong blast, released me from my hiding-place.
+I had heard no report of fire-arms, nor perceived any sign of
+conflict; and certainly the house was not on fire, or else I must
+have seen the smoke.  For being still in great alarm, I had kept a
+very sharp lookout.
+
+Ephraim Gundry came to meet me, which was very kind of him.  He
+carried his bugle in his belt, that he might sound again for me, if
+needful.  But I was already running toward the house, having made
+up my mind to be resolute.  Nevertheless, I was highly pleased to
+have his company, and hear what had been done.
+
+"Please to let me help you," he said, with a smile.  "Why, miss,
+you are trembling dreadfully.  I assure you there is no cause for
+that."
+
+"But you might have been killed, and Uncle Sam, and Martin, and
+every body.  Oh, those men did look so horrible!"
+
+"Yes, they always do till you come to know them.  But bigger
+cowards were never born.  If they can take people by surprise, and
+shoot them without any danger, it is a splendid treat to them.  But
+if any one like grandfather meets them face to face in the
+daylight, their respect for law and life returns.  It is not the
+first visit they have paid us.  Grandfather kept his temper well.
+It was lucky for them that he did."
+
+Remembering that the Rovers must have numbered nearly three to one,
+even if all our men were stanch, I thought it lucky for ourselves
+that there had been no outbreak.  But Firm seemed rather sorry that
+they had departed so easily.  And knowing that he never bragged, I
+began to share his confidence.
+
+"They must be shot, sooner or later," he said, "unless, indeed,
+they should be hanged.  Their manner of going on is out of date in
+these days of settlement.  It was all very well ten years ago.  But
+now we are a civilized State, and the hand of law is over us.  I
+think we were wrong to let them go.  But of course I yield to the
+governor.  And I think he was afraid for your sake.  And to tell
+the truth, I may have been the same."
+
+Here he gave my arm a little squeeze, which appeared to me quite
+out of place; therefore I withdrew and hurried on.  Before he could
+catch me I entered the door, and found the Sawyer sitting calmly
+with his own long pipe once more, and watching Suan cooking.
+
+"They rogues have had all the best of our victuals," he said, as
+soon as he had kissed me.  "Respectable visitors is my delight, and
+welcome to all of the larder; but at my time of life it goes agin
+the grain to lease out my dinner to galley-rakers.  Suan, you are
+burning the fat again."
+
+Suan Isco, being an excellent cook (although of quiet temper),
+never paid heed to criticism, but lifted her elbow and went on.
+Mr. Gundry knew that it was wise to offer no further meddling,
+although it is well to keep them up to their work by a little
+grumbling.  But when I came to see what broken bits were left for
+Suan to deal with, I only wondered that he was not cross.
+
+"Thank God for a better meal than I deserve," he said, when they
+all had finished.  "Suan, you are a treasure, as I tell you every
+day a'most.  Now if they have left us a bottle of wine, let us have
+it up.  We be all in the dumps.  But that will never do, my lad."
+
+He patted Firm on the shoulder, as if he were the younger man of
+the two, and his grandson went down to the wreck of the cellar;
+while I, who had tried to wait upon them in an eager, clumsy way,
+perceived that something was gone amiss, something more serious and
+lasting than the mischief made by the robber troop.  Was it that
+his long ride had failed, and not a friend could be found to help
+him?
+
+When Martin and the rest were gone, after a single glass of wine,
+and Ephraim had made excuse of something to be seen to, the Sawyer
+leaned back in his chair, and his cheerful face was troubled.  I
+filled his pipe and lit it for him, and waited for him to speak,
+well knowing his simple and outspoken heart.  But he looked at me
+and thanked me kindly, and seemed to be turning some grief in his
+mind.
+
+"It ain't for the money," he said at last, talking more to himself
+than to me; "the money might 'a been all very well and useful in a
+sort of way.  But the feelin'--the feelin' is the thing I look at,
+and it ought to have been more hearty.  Security!  Charge on my
+land, indeed!  And I can run away, but my land must stop behind!
+What security did I ask of them?  'Tis enough a'most to make a
+rogue of me."
+
+"Nothing could ever do that, Uncle Sam," I exclaimed, as I came and
+sat close to him, while he looked at me bravely, and began to
+smile.
+
+"Why, what was little missy thinking of?" he asked.  "How solid she
+looks!  Why, I never see the like!"
+
+"Then you ought to have seen it, Uncle Sam.  You ought to have seen
+it fifty times, with every body who loves you.  And who can help
+loving you, Uncle Sam?"
+
+"Well, they say that I charged too much for lumber, a-cuttin' on
+the cross, and the backstroke work.  And it may 'a been so, when I
+took agin a man.  But to bring up all that, with the mill strown
+down, is a cowardly thing, to my thinking.  And to make no count of
+the beadin' I threw in, whenever it were a straightforrard job, and
+the turpsy knots, and the clogging of the teeth--'tis a bad bit to
+swallow, when the mill is strown."
+
+"But the mill shall not be strown, Uncle Sam.  The mill shall be
+built again.  And I will find the money."
+
+Mr. Gundry stared at me and shook his head.  He could not bear to
+tell me how poor I was, while I thought myself almost made of
+money.  "Five thousand dollars you have got put by for me," I
+continued, with great importance.  "Five thousand dollars from the
+sale and the insurance fund.  And five thousand dollars must be
+five-and-twenty thousand francs.  Uncle Sam, you shall have every
+farthing of it.  And if that won't build the mill again, I have got
+my mother's diamonds."
+
+"Five thousand dollars!" cried the Sawyer, in amazement, opening
+his great gray eyes at me.  And then he remembered the tale which
+he had told, to make me seem independent.  "Oh yes, to be sure, my
+dear; now I recollect.  To be sure--to be sure--your own five
+thousand dollars.  But never will I touch one cent of your nice
+little fortune; no, not to save my life.  After all, I am not so
+gone in years but what I can build the mill again myself.  The Lord
+hath spared my hands and eyes, and gifted me still with machinery.
+And Firm is a very handy lad, and can carry out a job pretty
+fairly, with better brains to stand over him, although it has not
+pleased the Lord to gift him with sense of machinery, like me.  But
+that is all for the best, no doubt.  If Ephraim had too much of
+brains, he might have contradicted me.  And that I could never
+abide, God knows, from any green young jackanapes."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, let me tell you something--something very
+important!"
+
+"No, my dear, nothing more just now.  It has done me good to have a
+little talk, and scared the blue somethings out of me.  But just go
+and ask whatever is become of Firm.  He was riled with them
+greasers.  It was all I could do to keep the boy out of a
+difficulty with them.  And if they camp any where nigh, it is like
+enough he may go hankerin' after them.  The grand march of
+intellect hathn't managed yet to march old heads upon young
+shoulders.  And Firm might happen to go outside the law."
+
+The thought of this frightened me not a little; for Firm, though
+mild of speech, was very hot of spirit at any wrong, as I knew from
+tales of Suan Isco, who had brought him up and made a glorious idol
+of him.  And now, when she could not say where he was, but only was
+sure that he must be quite safe (in virtue of a charm from a great
+medicine man which she had hung about him), it seemed to me,
+according to what I was used to, that in these regions human life
+was held a great deal too lightly.
+
+It was not for one moment that I cared about Firm, any more than is
+the duty of a fellow-creature.  He was a very good young man, and
+in his way good-looking, educated also quite enough, and polite,
+and a very good carver of a joint; and when I spoke, he nearly
+always listened.  But of course he was not to be compared as yet to
+his grandfather, the true Sawyer.
+
+When I ran back from Suan Isco, who was going on about her charm,
+and the impossibility of any one being scalped who wore it, I found
+Mr. Gundry in a genial mood.  He never made himself uneasy about
+any trifles.  He always had a very pure and lofty faith in the ways
+of Providence, and having lost his only son Elijah, he was sure
+that he never could lose Firm.  He had taken his glass of hot
+whiskey and water, which always made him temperate; and if he felt
+any of his troubles deeply, he dwelt on them now from a high point
+of view.
+
+"I may 'a said a little too much, my dear, about the badness of
+mankind," he observed, with his pipe lying comfortably on his
+breast; "all sayings of that sort is apt to go too far.  I ought to
+have made more allowance for the times, which gets into a ticklish
+state, when a old man is put about with them.  Never you pay no
+heed whatever to any harsh words I may have used.  All that is a
+very bad thing for young folk."
+
+"But if they treated you badly, Uncle Sam, how can you think that
+they treated you well?"
+
+He took some time to consider this, because he was true in all his
+thoughts; and then he turned off to something else.
+
+"Why, the smashing of the mill may have been a mercy, although in
+disguise to the present time of sight.  It will send up the price
+of scantlings, and we was getting on too fast with them.  By the
+time we have built up the mill again we shall have more orders than
+we know how to do with.  When I come to reckon of it, to me it
+appears to be the reasonable thing to feel a lump of grief for the
+old mill, and then to set to and build a stronger one.  Yes, that
+must be about the right thing to do.  And we'll have all the
+neighbors in when we lay foundations."
+
+"But what will be the good of it, Uncle Sam, when the new mill may
+at any time be washed away again?"
+
+"Never, at any time," he answered, very firmly, gazing through the
+door as if he saw the vain endeavor.  "That little game can easily
+be stopped, for about fifty dollars, by opening down the bank
+toward the old track of the river.  The biggest waterspout that
+ever came down from the mountains could never come anigh the mill,
+but go right down the valley.  It hath been in my mind to do it
+often, and now that I see the need, I will.  Firm and I will begin
+tomorrow."
+
+"But where is all the money to come from, Uncle Sam?  You said that
+all your friends had refused to help you."
+
+"Never mind, my dear.  I will help myself.  It won't be the first
+time, perhaps, in my life."
+
+"But supposing that I could help you, just some little?  Supposing
+that I had found the biggest lump of gold ever found in all
+California?"
+
+Mr. Gundry ought to have looked surprised, and I was amazed that he
+did not; but he took it as quietly as if I had told him that I had
+just picked up a brass button of his; and I thought that he doubted
+my knowledge, very likely, even as to what gold was.
+
+"It is gold, Uncle Sam, every bit of it gold--here is a piece of
+it; just look--and as large, I am sure, as this table.  And it may
+be as deep as this room, for all that one can judge to the
+contrary.  Why, it stopped the big pile from coming to the top,
+when even you went down the river."
+
+"Well, now, that explains a thing or two," said the Sawyer, smiling
+peacefully, and beginning to think of another pipe, if preparation
+meant any thing.  "Two things have puzzled me about that stump,
+and, indeed, I might say three things.  Why did he take such a time
+to drive? and why would he never stand up like a man? and why
+wouldn't he go away when he ought to?"
+
+"Because he had the best of all reasons, Uncle Sam.  He was
+anchored on his gold, as I have read in French, and he had a good
+right to be crooked about it, and no power could get him away from
+it."
+
+"Hush, my dear, hush!  It is not at all good for young people to
+let their minds run on so.  But this gold looks very good indeed.
+Are you sure that it is a fair sample, and that there is any more
+of it?"
+
+"How can you be so dreadfully provoking, Uncle Sam, when I tell you
+that I saw it with my own eyes?  And there must be at least half a
+ton of it."
+
+"Well, half a hundred-weight will be enough for me.  And you shall
+have all the rest, my dear--that is, if you will spare me a bit,
+Miss Remy.  It all belongs to you by discovery, according to the
+diggers' law.  And your eyes are so bright about it, miss, that the
+whole of your heart must be running upon it."
+
+"Then you think me as bad as the rest of the world!  How I wish
+that I had never seen it!  It was only for you that I cared about
+it--for you, for you; and I will never touch a scrap of it."
+
+Mr. Gundry had only been trying me, perhaps.  But I did not see it
+in that light, and burst into a flood of childish tears, that he
+should misunderstand me so.  Gold had its usual end, in grief.
+Uncle Sam rose up to soothe me and to beg my pardon, and to say
+that perhaps he was harsh because of the treatment he had received
+from his friends.  He took me in his arms and kissed me; but before
+I could leave off sobbing, the crack of a rifle rang through the
+house, and Suan Isco, with a wail, rushed out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+THE SAWYER'S PRAYER
+
+
+The darkness of young summer night was falling on earth and tree
+and stream.  Every thing looked of a different form and color from
+those of an hour ago, and the rich bloom of shadow mixed with
+color, and cast by snowy mountains, which have stored the purple
+adieu of the sun, was filling the air with delicious calm.  The
+Sawyer ran out with his shirt sleeves shining, so that any sneaking
+foe might shoot him; but, with the instinct of a settler, he had
+caught up his rifle.  I stood beneath a carob-tree, which had been
+planted near the porch, and flung fantastic tassels down, like the
+ear-rings of a negress.  And not having sense enough to do good, I
+was only able to be frightened.
+
+Listening intently, I heard the sound of skirring steps on the
+other side of and some way down the river; and the peculiar tread,
+even thus far off, was plainly Suan Isco's.  And then in the
+stillness a weary and heavy foot went toiling after it.  Before I
+could follow, which I longed to do, to learn at once the worst of
+it, I saw the figure of a man much nearer, and even within twenty
+yards of me, gliding along without any sound.  Faint as the light
+was, I felt sure that it was not one of our own men, and the barrel
+of a long gun upon his shoulder made a black line among silver
+leaves.  I longed to run forth and stop him, but my courage was not
+prompt enough, and I shamefully shrank away behind the trunk of the
+carob-tree.  Like a sleuth, compact, and calm-hearted villain, he
+went along without any breath of sound, stealing his escape with
+skill, till a white bower-tent made a background for him, and he
+leaped up and fell flat without a groan.  The crack of a rifle came
+later than his leap, and a curl of white smoke shone against a
+black rock, and the Sawyer, in the distance, cried, "Well, now!" as
+he generally did when satisfied.
+
+So scared was I that I caught hold of a cluster of pods to steady
+me; and then, without any more fear for myself, I ran to see
+whether it was possible to help.  But the poor man lay beyond
+earthly help; he was too dead to palpitate.  His life must have
+left him in the air, and he could not even have felt his fall.
+
+In violent terror, I burst into tears, and lifted his heavy head,
+and strove to force his hot hands open, and did I know not what,
+without thinking, laboring only to recall his life.
+
+"Are you grieving for the skulk who has shot my Firm?" said a stern
+voice quite unknown to me; and rising, I looked at the face of Mr.
+Gundry, unlike the countenance of Uncle Sam.  I tried to speak to
+him, but was too frightened.  The wrath of blood was in his face,
+and all his kind desires were gone.
+
+"Yes, like a girl, you are sorry for a man who has stained this
+earth, till his only atonement is to stain it with his blood.
+Captain Pedro, there you lie, shot, like a coward, through the
+back.  I wish you were alive to taste my boots.  Murderer of men
+and filthy ravisher of women, miscreant of God, how can I keep from
+trampling on you?"
+
+It never had been in my dream that a good man could so entirely
+forget himself.  I wanted to think that it must be somebody else,
+and not our Uncle Sam.  But he looked toward the west, as all men
+do when their spirits are full of death, and the wan light showed
+that his chin was triple.
+
+Whether it may have been right or wrong, I made all haste to get
+away.  The face of the dead man was quite a pleasant thing,
+compared with the face of the old man living.  He may not have
+meant it, and I hope he never did, but beyond all controversy he
+looked barbarous for the moment.
+
+As I slipped away, to know the worst, there I saw him standing
+still, longing to kick the vile man's corpse, but quieted by the
+great awe of death.  If the man had stirred, or breathed, or even
+moaned, the living man would have lost all reverence in his fury.
+But the power of the other world was greater than even revenge
+could trample on.  He let it lie there, and he stooped his head,
+and went away quite softly.
+
+My little foolish heart was bitterly visited by a thing like this.
+The Sawyer, though not of great human rank, was gifted with the
+largest human nature that I had ever met with.  And though it was
+impossible as yet to think, a hollow depression, as at the loss of
+some great ideal, came over me.
+
+Returning wretchedly to the house, I met Suan Isco and two men
+bringing the body of poor Firm.  His head and both his arms hung
+down, and they wanted somebody to lift them; and this I ran to do,
+although they called out to me not to meddle.  The body was carried
+in, and laid upon three chairs, with a pillow at the head; and then
+a light was struck, and a candle brought by somebody or other.  And
+Suan Isco sat upon the floor, and set up a miserable Indian dirge.
+
+"Stow away that," cried Martin of the mill, for he was one of those
+two men; "wait till the lad is dead, and then pipe up to your
+liking.  I felt him try to kick while we carried him along.  He
+come forth on a arrand of that sort, and he seem to 'a been
+disappointed.  A very fine young chap I call him, for to try to do
+it still, howsomever his mind might be wandering.  Missy, keep his
+head up."
+
+I did as I was told, and watched poor Firm as if my own life hung
+upon any sign of life in him.  When I look back at these things, I
+think that fright and grief and pity must have turned an excitable
+girl almost into a real woman.  But I had no sense of such things
+then.
+
+"I tell you he ain't dead," cried Martin; "no more dead than I be.
+He feels the young gal's hand below him, and I see him try to turn
+up his eyes.  He has taken a very bad knock, no doubt, and trouble
+about his breathing.  I seed a fellow scalped once, and shot
+through the heart; but he came all round in about six months, and
+protected his head with a document.  Firm, now, don't you be a
+fool.  I have had worse things in my family."
+
+Ephraim Gundry seemed to know that some one was upbraiding him.  At
+any rate, his white lips trembled with a weak desire to breathe,
+and a little shadow of life appeared to flicker in his open eyes.
+And on my sleeve, beneath his back, some hot bright blood came
+trickling.
+
+"Keep him to that," said Martin, with some carpenter sort of
+surgery; "less fear of the life when the blood begins to run.
+Don't move him, missy; never mind your arm.  It will be the saving
+of him."
+
+I was not strong enough to hold him up, but Suan ran to help me;
+and they told me afterward that I fell faint, and no doubt it must
+have been so.  But when the rest were gone, and had taken poor Firm
+to his straw mattress, the cold night air must have flowed into the
+room, and that, perhaps, revived me.  I went to the bottom of the
+stairs and listened, and then stole up to the landing, and heard
+Suan Isco, who had taken the command, speaking cheerfully in her
+worst English.  Then I hoped for the best, and, without any
+knowledge, wandered forth into the open air.
+
+Walking quite as in a dream this time (which I had vainly striven
+to do when seeking for my nugget), I came to the bank of the
+gleaming river, and saw the water just in time to stop from
+stepping into it.  Careless about this and every other thing for
+the moment, I threw myself on the sod, and listened to the mournful
+melody of night.  Sundry unknown creatures, which by day keep timid
+silence, were sending timid sounds into the darkness, holding quiet
+converse with themselves, or it, or one another.  And the silvery
+murmur of the wavelets soothed the twinkling sleep of leaves.
+
+I also, being worn and weary, and having a frock which improved
+with washing, and was spoiled already by nursing Firm, was well
+content to throw myself into a niche of river-bank and let all
+things flow past me.  But before any thing had found time to flow
+far, or the lullaby of night had lulled me, there came to me a
+sadder sound than plaintive Nature can produce without her Master's
+aid, the saddest sound in all creation--a strong man's wail.
+
+Child as I was--and, perhaps, all the more for that reason as
+knowing so little of mankind--I might have been more frightened,
+but I could not have been a bit more shocked, by the roaring of a
+lion.  For I knew in a moment whose voice it was, and that made it
+pierce me tenfold.  It was Uncle Sam, lamenting to himself, and to
+his God alone, the loss of his last hope on earth.  He could not
+dream that any other than his Maker (and his Maker's works, if ever
+they have any sympathy) listened to the wild outpourings of an aged
+but still very natural heart, which had always been proud of
+controlling itself.  I could see his great frame through a willow-
+tree, with the sere grass and withered reeds around, and the faint
+gleam of fugitive water beyond.  He was kneeling toward his
+shattered mill, having rolled his shirt sleeves back to pray, and
+his white locks shone in the starlight; then, after trying several
+times, he managed to pray a little.  First (perhaps partly from
+habit), he said the prayer of Our Lord pretty firmly, and then he
+went on to his own special case, with a doubting whether he should
+mention it.  But as he went on he gathered courage, or received it
+from above, and was able to say what he wanted.
+
+"Almighty Father of the living and the dead, I have lived long, and
+shall soon be dead, and my days have been full of trouble.  But I
+never had such trouble as this here before, and I don't think I
+ever shall get over it.  I have sinned every day of my life, and
+not thought of Thee, but of victuals, and money, and stuff; and
+nobody knows, but myself and Thou, all the little bad things inside
+of me.  I cared a deal more to be respectable and get on with my
+business than to be prepared for kingdom come.  And I have just
+been proud about the shooting of a villain, who might 'a gone free
+and repented.  There is nobody left to me in my old age.  Thou hast
+taken all of them.  Wife, and son, and mill, and grandson, and my
+brother who robbed me--the whole of it may have been for my good,
+but I have got no good out of it.  Show me the way for a little
+time, O Lord, to make the best of it; and teach me to bear it like
+a man, and not break down at this time of life.  Thou knowest what
+is right.  Please to do it.  Amen."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+NOT FAR TO SEEK
+
+
+In the present state of controversies most profoundly religious,
+the Lord alone can decide (though thousands of men would hurry to
+pronounce) for or against the orthodoxy of the ancient Sawyer's
+prayer.  But if sound doctrine can be established by success (as it
+always is), Uncle Sam's theology must have been unusually sound;
+for it pleased a gracious Power to know what he wanted, and to
+grant it.
+
+Brave as Mr. Gundry was, and much-enduring and resigned, the latter
+years of his life on earth must have dragged on very heavily, with
+abstract resignation only, and none of his blood to care for him.
+Being so obstinate a man, he might have never admitted this, but
+proved against every one's voice, except his own, his special
+blessedness.  But this must have been a trial to him, and happily
+he was spared from it.
+
+For although Firm had been very badly shot, and kept us for weeks
+in anxiety about him, his strong young constitution and well-
+nourished frame got over it.  A truly good and learned doctor came
+from Sacramento, and we hung upon his words, and found that there
+he left us hanging.  And this was the wisest thing perhaps that he
+could do, because in America medical men are not absurdly expected,
+as they are in England, to do any good, but are valued chiefly upon
+their power of predicting what they can not help.  And this man of
+science perceived that he might do harm to himself and his family
+by predicting amiss, whereas he could do no good to his patient by
+predicting rightly.  And so he foretold both good and evil, to meet
+the intentions of Providence.
+
+He had not been sent for in vain, however; and to give him his due,
+he saved Ephraim's life, for he drew from the wound a large bullet,
+which, if left, must have poisoned all his circulation, although it
+was made of pure silver.  The Sawyer wished to keep this silver
+bullet as a token, but the doctor said that it belonged to him
+according to miners' law; and so it came to a moderate argument.
+Each was a thoroughly stubborn man, according to the bent of all
+good men, and reasoning increased their unreason.  But the doctor
+won--as indeed he deserved, for the extraction had been delicate--
+because, when reason had been exhausted, he just said this:
+
+"Colonel Gundry, let us have no more words.  The true owner is your
+grandson.  I will put it back where I took it from."
+
+Upon this, the Sawyer being tickled, as men very often are in sad
+moments, took the doctor by the hand, and gave him the bullet
+heartily.  And the medical man had a loop made to it, and wore it
+upon his watch chain.  And he told the story so often (saying that
+another man perhaps might have got it out, but no other man could
+have kept it), that among a great race who judge by facts it
+doubled his practice immediately.
+
+The leader of the robbers, known far and wide as "Captain Pedro,"
+was buried where he fell; and the whole so raised Uncle Sam's
+reputation that his house was never attacked again; and if any bad
+characters were forced by circumstances to come near him, they
+never asked for any thing stronger than ginger-beer or lemonade,
+and departed very promptly.  For as soon as Ephraim Gundry could
+give account of his disaster, it was clear that Don Pedro owed his
+fate to a bottle of the Sawyer's whiskey.  Firm had only intended
+to give him a lesson for misbehavior, being fired by his
+grandfather's words about swinging me on the saddle.  This idea had
+justly appeared to him to demand a protest; to deliver which he at
+once set forth with a valuable cowhide whip.  Coming thus to the
+Rovers' camp, and finding their captain sitting in the shade to
+digest his dinner, Firm laid hold of him by the neck, and gave way
+to feelings of severity.  Don Pedro regretted his misconduct, and
+being lifted up for the moment above his ordinary view, perceived
+that he might have done better, and shaped the pattern of his
+tongue to it.  Firm, hearing this, had good hopes of him; yet
+knowing how volatile repentance is, he strove to form a well-marked
+track for it.  And when the captain ceased to receive cowhide, he
+must have had it long enough to miss it.
+
+Now this might have ended honorably and amicably for all concerned,
+if the captain had known when he was well off.  Unluckily he had
+purloined a bottle of Mr. Gundry's whiskey, and he drew the cork
+now to rub his stripes, and the smell of it moved him to try it
+inside.  And before very long his ideas of honor, which he had
+sense enough to drop when sober, began to come into his eyes again,
+and to stir him up to mischief.  Hence it was that he followed
+Firm, who was riding home well satisfied, and appeased his honor by
+shooting in cold blood, and justice by being shot anyhow.
+
+It was beautiful, through all this trying time, to watch Uncle
+Sam's proceedings: he appeared so delightfully calm and almost
+careless whenever he was looked at.  And then he was ashamed of
+himself perpetually, if any one went on with it.  Nobody tried to
+observe him, of course, or remark upon any of his doings, and for
+this he would become so grateful that he would long to tell all his
+thoughts, and then stop.  This must have been a great worry to him,
+seeing how open his manner was; and whenever he wanted to hide any
+thing, he informed us of that intention.  So that we exhorted Firm
+every day to come round and restore us to our usual state.  This
+was the poor fellow's special desire; and often he was angry with
+himself, and made himself worse again by declaring that he must be
+a milksop to lie there so long.  Whereas, it was much more near the
+truth that few other men, even in the Western States, would ever
+have got over such a wound.  I am not learned enough to say exactly
+where the damage was, but the doctor called it, I think, the
+sternum, and pronounced that "a building-up process" was required,
+and must take a long time, if it ever could be done.
+
+It was done at last, thanks to Suan Isco, who scarcely ever left
+him by day or night, and treated him skillfully with healing herbs.
+But he, without meaning it, vexed her often by calling for me--a
+mere ignorant child.  Suan was dreadfully jealous of this, and
+perhaps I was proud of that sentiment of hers, and tried to justify
+it, instead of laboring to remove it, as would have been the more
+proper course.  And Firm most ungratefully said that my hand was
+lighter than poor Suan's, and every thing I did was better done,
+according to him, which was shameful on his part, and as untrue as
+any thing could be.  However, we yielded to him in all things while
+he was so delicate; and it often made us poor weak things cry to be
+the masters of a tall strong man.
+
+Firm Gundry received that shot in May, about ten days before the
+twelvemonth was completed from my father's death.  The brightness
+of summer and beauty of autumn went by without his feeling them,
+and while his system was working hard to fortify itself by walling
+up, as the learned man had called it.  There had been some
+difficulties in this process, caused partly, perhaps, by our too
+lavish supply of the raw material; and before Firm's gap in his
+"sternum" was stopped, the mountains were coming down upon us, as
+we always used to say when the snow-line stooped.  In some seasons
+this is a sharp time of hurry, broken with storms, and capricious,
+while men have to slur in the driving weather tasks that should
+have been matured long since.  But in other years the long descent
+into the depth of winter is taken not with a jump like that, but
+gently and softly and windingly, with a great many glimpses back at
+the summer, and a good deal of leaning on the arm of the sun.
+
+And so it was this time.  The autumn and the winter for a fortnight
+stood looking quietly at each other.  They had quite agreed to
+share the hours, to suit the arrangements of the sun.  The nights
+were starry and fresh and brisk, without any touch of tartness; and
+the days were sunny and soft and gentle, without any sense of
+languor.  It was a lovely scene--blue shadows gliding among golden
+light.
+
+The Sawyer came forth, and cried, "What a shame!  This makes me
+feel quite young again.  And yet I have done not a stroke of work.
+No excuse; make no excuse.  I can do that pretty well for myself.
+Praise God for all His mercies.  I might do worse, perhaps, than
+have a pipe."
+
+Then Firm came out to surprise him, and to please us all with the
+sight of himself.  He steadied his steps with one great white hand
+upon his grandfather's Sunday staff, and his clear blue eyes were
+trembling with a sense of gratitude and a fear of tears.  And I
+stepped behind a red strawberry-tree, for my sense of respect for
+him almost made me sob.
+
+Then Jowler thought it high time to appear upon the scene, and
+convince us that he was not a dead dog yet.  He had known
+tribulation, as his master had, and had found it a difficult thing
+to keep from the shadowy hunting ground of dogs who have lived a
+conscientious life.  I had wondered at first what his reason could
+have been for not coming forward, according to his custom, to meet
+that troop of robbers.  But his reason, alas! was too cogent to
+himself, though nobody else in that dreadful time could pay any
+attention to him.  The Rovers, well knowing poor Jowler's repute,
+and declining the fair mode of testing it, had sent in advance a
+very crafty scout, a half-bred Indian, who knew as much about dogs
+as they could ever hope to know about themselves.  This rogue
+approached faithful Jowler--so we were told long afterward--not in
+an upright way, but as if he had been a brother quadruped.  And he
+took advantage of the dog's unfeigned surprise and interest to
+accost him with a piece of kidney containing a powerful poison.
+According to all sound analogy, this should have stopped the dear
+fellow's earthly tracks; but his spirit was such that he simply
+went away to nurse himself up in retirement.  Neither man nor dog
+can tell what agonies he suffered; and doubtless his tortures of
+mind about duty unperformed were the worst of all.  These things
+are out of human knowledge in its present unsympathetic state.
+Enough that poor Jowler came home at last, with his ribs all up and
+his tail very low.
+
+Like friends who have come together again, almost from the jaws of
+death, we sat in the sunny noon, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.
+The trees above us looked proud and cheerful, laying aside the mere
+frippery of leaves with a good grace and contented arms, and a
+surety of having quite enough next spring.  Much of the fruity
+wealth of autumn still was clustering in our sight, heavily
+fetching the arched bough down to lessen the fall, when fall they
+must.  And against the golden leaves of maple behind the
+unpretending roof a special wreath of blue shone like a climbing
+Ipomaea.  But coming to examine this, one found it to be nothing
+more nor less than the smoke of the kitchen chimney, busy with a
+quiet roasting job.
+
+This shows how clear the air was; but a thousand times as much
+could never tell how clear our spirits were.  Nobody made any
+"demonstration," or cut any frolicsome capers, or even said any
+thing exuberant.  The steadfast brooding breed of England, which
+despises antics, was present in us all, and strengthened by a soil
+whose native growth is peril, chance, and marvel.  And so we nodded
+at one another, and I ran over and courtesied to Uncle Sam, and he
+took me to him.
+
+"You have been a dear good child," he said, as he rose, and looked
+over my head at Firm.  "My own granddarter, if such there had been,
+could not have done more to comfort me, nor half so much, for aught
+I know.  There is no picking and choosing among the females, as God
+gives them.  But he has given you for a blessing and saving to my
+old age, my dearie."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Sam, now the nugget!" I cried, desiring like a child to
+escape deep feeling, and fearing any strong words from Firm.  "You
+have promised me ever so long that I should be the first to show
+Firm the nugget."
+
+"And so you shall, my dear, and Firm shall see it before he is an
+hour older, and Jowler shall come down to show us where it is."
+
+Firm, who had little faith in the nugget, but took it for a dream
+of mine, and had proved conclusively from his pillow that it could
+not exist in earnest, now with a gentle, satirical smile declared
+his anxiety to see it; and I led him along by his better arm,
+faster, perhaps, than he ought to have walked.
+
+In a very few minutes we were at the place, and I ran eagerly to
+point it; but behold, where the nugget had been, there was nothing
+except the white bed of the river!  The blue water flowed very
+softly on its way, without a gleam of gold to corrupt it.
+
+"Oh, nobody will ever believe me again!" I exclaimed, in the
+saddest of sad dismay.  "I dreamed about it first, but it never can
+have been a dream throughout.  You know that I told you about it,
+Uncle Sam, even when you were very busy, and that shows that it
+never could have been a dream."
+
+"You told me about it, I remember now," Mr. Gundry answered, dryly;
+"but it does not follow that there was such a thing.  My dear, you
+may have imagined it; because it was the proper time for it to
+come, when my good friends had no money to lend.  Your heart was so
+good that it got into your brain, and you must not be vexed, my
+dear child; it has done you good to dream of it."
+
+"I said so all along," Firm observed.  "Miss Rema felt that it
+ought to be, and so she believed that it must be, there.  She is
+always so warm and trustful."
+
+"Is that all you are good for?" I cried, with no gratitude for his
+compliment.  "As sure as I stand here, I saw a great bowlder of
+gold, and so did Jowler, and I gave you the piece that he brought
+up.  Did you take them all in a dream, Uncle Sam?  Come, can you
+get over that?"
+
+I assure you that for the moment I knew not whether I stood upon my
+feet or head, until I perceived an extraordinary grin on the
+Sawyer's ample countenance; but Firm was not in the secret yet, for
+he gazed at me with compassion, and Uncle Sam looked at us both as
+if he were balancing our abilities.
+
+"Send your dog in, missy," at last he said.  "He is more your dog
+than mine, I believe, and he obeys you like a Christian.  Let him
+go and find it if he can."
+
+At a sign from me, the great dog dashed in, and scratched with all
+four feet at once, and made the valley echo with the ring of mighty
+barkings; and in less than two minutes there shone the nugget, as
+yellow and as big as ever.
+
+"Ha! ha!  I never saw a finer thing," shouted Uncle Sam, like a
+school-boy.  "I were too many for you, missy dear; but the old dog
+wollops the whole of us.  I just shot a barrow-load of gravel on
+your nugget, to keep it all snug till Firm should come round; and
+if the boy had never come round, there the gold might have waited
+the will of the Almighty.  It is a big spot, anyhow."
+
+It certainly was not a little spot, though they all seemed to make
+so light of it--which vexed me, because I had found it, and was as
+proud as if I had made it.  Not by any means that the Sawyer was
+half as careless as he seemed to be; he put on much of this for my
+sake, having very lofty principles, especially concerning the duty
+of the young.  Young people were never to have small ideas, so far
+as he could help it, particularly upon such matters as Mammon, or
+the world, or fashion; and not so very seldom he was obliged to
+catch himself up in his talking, when he chanced to be going on and
+forgetting that I, who required a higher vein of thought for my
+youth, was taking his words downright; and I think that all this
+had a great deal to do with his treating all that gold in such an
+exemplary manner; for if it had really mattered nothing, what made
+him go in the dark and shoot a great barrow-load of gravel over it?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+BROUGHT TO BANK
+
+
+The sanity of a man is mainly tested among his neighbors and
+kindred by the amount of consideration which he has consistently
+given to cash.  If money has been the chief object of his life, and
+he for its sake has spared nobody, no sooner is he known to be
+successful than admiration overpowers all the ill-will he has
+caused.  He is shrewd, sagacious, long-headed, and great; he has
+earned his success, and few men grudge, while many seek to get a
+slice of it; but he, as a general rule, declines any premature
+distribution, and for this custody of his wealth he is admired all
+the more by those who have no hope of sharing it.
+
+As soon as ever it was known that Uncle Sam had lodged at his
+banker's a tremendous lump of gold, which rumor declared to be
+worth at least a hundred thousand dollars, friends from every side
+poured in, all in hot haste, to lend him their last farthing.  The
+Sawyer was pleased with their kindness, but thought that his
+second-best whiskey met the merits of the case.  And he was more
+particular than usual with his words; for, according to an old
+saying of the diggers, a big nugget always has children, and, being
+too heavy to go very far, it is likely to keep all its little ones
+at home.  Many people, therefore, were longing to seek for the
+frogs of this great toad; for so in their slang the miners called
+them, with a love of preternatural history.  But Mr. Gundry allowed
+no search for the frogs, or even the tadpoles, of his patriarchal
+nugget.  And much as he hated the idea of sowing the seeds of
+avarice in any one, he showed himself most consistent now in
+avoiding that imputation; for not only did he refuse to show the
+bed of his great treasure, after he had secured it, but he fenced
+the whole of it in, and tarred the fence, and put loopholes in it;
+and then he established Jowler where he could neither be shot nor
+poisoned, and kept a man with a double-barreled rifle in the ruin
+of the mill, handy to shoot, but not easy to be shot; and this was
+a resolute man, being Martin himself, who had now no business.  Of
+course Martin grumbled; but the worse his temper was, the better
+for his duty, as seems to be the case with a great many men; and if
+any one had come to console him in his grumbling, never would he
+have gone away again.
+
+It would have been reckless of me to pretend to say what any body
+ought to do; from the first to the last I left every thing to those
+who knew so much better; at the same time I felt that it might have
+done no harm if I had been more consulted, though I never dreamed
+of saying so, because the great gold had been found by me, and
+although I cared for it scarcely more than for the tag of a boot-
+lace, nobody seemed to me able to enter into it quite as I did; and
+as soon as Firm's danger and pain grew less, I began to get rather
+impatient, but Uncle Sam was not to be hurried.
+
+Before ever he hoisted that rock of gold, he had made up his mind
+for me to be there, and he even put the business off, because I
+would not come one night, for I had a superstitious fear on account
+of its being my father's birthday.  Uncle Sam had forgotten the
+date, and begged my pardon for proposing it; but he said that we
+must not put it off later than the following night, because the
+moonlight would be failing, and we durst not have any kind of lamp,
+and before the next moon the hard weather might begin.  All this
+was before the liberal offers of his friends, of which I have
+spoken first, although they happened to come after it.
+
+While the Sawyer had been keeping the treasure perdu, to abide the
+issue of his grandson's illness, he had taken good care both to
+watch it and to form some opinion of its shape and size; for,
+knowing the pile which I had described, he could not help finding
+it easily enough; and indeed the great fear was that others might
+find it, and come in great force to rob him; but nothing of that
+sort had happened, partly because he held his tongue rigidly, and
+partly, perhaps, because of the simple precaution which he had
+taken.
+
+Now, however, it was needful to impart the secret to one man at
+least; for Firm, though recovering, was still so weak that it might
+have killed him to go into the water, or even to exert himself at
+all; and strong as Uncle Sam was, he knew that even with hoisting-
+tackle, he alone could never bring that piece of bullion to bank;
+so, after much consideration, he resolved to tell Martin of the
+mill, as being the most trusty man about the place, as well as the
+most surly; but he did not tell him until every thing was ready,
+and then he took him straightway to the place.
+
+Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan
+Isco, who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to
+keep watch, or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an
+ordinary man.  The night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though
+dull in the radiance of the moon) darted, like soft little
+shooting-stars, across the still face of shadow, and the flood of
+the light of the moon was at its height, submerging every thing.
+
+While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of
+attracting any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the
+Sawyer rising from a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin
+the foreman, and we soon saw that due preparation had been made,
+for they took from under some drift-wood (which had prevented us
+from observing it) a small movable crane, and fixed it on a
+platform of planks which they set up in the river-bed.
+
+"Palefaces eat gold," Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to
+satisfy herself.  "Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of
+one other's ears.  Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now."
+
+"Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan," I answered; "as if it were
+possible to have enough!"
+
+"For my part," said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the
+evening, "I wish it had never been found at all.  As sure as I
+stand here, mischief will come of it.  It will break up our
+household.  I hope it will turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the
+face, as those big nuggets do, ninety-nine out of a hundred.  I
+have had no faith in it all along."
+
+"Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather
+pettishly, for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about
+my nugget.  "Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have
+had great faith in it."
+
+"Can't say, can't say," was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the
+silent vein again.
+
+"Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!" cried the Sawyer,
+who was splashing for his life in the water.  "I've tackled 'un
+now.  Just tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like.
+You can't lift 'un!  Lord bless 'ee, not you.  It 'll take all I
+know to do that, I guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it.
+Don't you be in such a doggoned hurry.  Hold hard, can't you?"
+
+For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught
+hold of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the
+Sawyer swung himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was
+orderly.  He showed us exactly where to throw our weight, and he
+used his own to such good effect that, after some creaking and
+groaning, the long horn of the crane rose steadily, and a mass of
+dripping sparkles shone in the moonlight over the water.
+
+"Hurrah! what a whale!  How the tough ash bends!" cried Uncle Sam,
+panting like a boy, and doing nearly all the work himself.
+"Martin, lay your chest to it.  We'll grass him in two seconds.
+Californy never saw a sight like this, I reckon."
+
+There was plenty of room for us all to stand round the monster and
+admire it.  In shape it was just like a fat toad, squatting with
+his shoulders up and panting.  Even a rough resemblance to the head
+and the haunches might be discovered, and a few spots of quartz
+shone here and there on the glistening and bossy surface.  Some of
+us began to feel and handle it with vast admiration; but Firm, with
+his heavy boots, made a vicious kick at it, and a few bright
+scales, like sparks, flew off.
+
+"Why, what ails the lad?" cried the Sawyer, in some wrath; "what
+harm hath the stone ever done to him?  To my mind, this here lump
+is a proof of the whole creation of the world, and who hath lived
+long enough to gainsay?  Here this lump hath lain, without changing
+color, since creation's day; here it is, as big and heavy as when
+the Lord laid hand to it.  What good to argue agin such facts?
+Supposin' the world come out o' nothing, with nobody to fetch it,
+or to say a word of orders, how ever could it 'a managed to get a
+lump of gold like this in it?  They clever fellers is too clever.
+Let 'em put all their heads together, and turn out a nugget, and
+I'll believe them."
+
+Uncle Sam's reasoning was too deep for any but himself to follow.
+He was not long in perceiving this, though we were content to
+admire his words without asking him to explain them; so he only
+said, "Well, well," and began to try with both hands if he could
+heft this lump.  He stirred it, and moved it, and raised it a
+little, as the glisten of the light upon its roundings showed; but
+lift it fairly from the ground he could not, however he might bow
+his sturdy legs and bend his mighty back to it; and, strange to
+say, he was pleased for once to acknowledge his own discomfiture.
+
+"Five hundred and a half I used to lift to the height of my knee-
+cap easily; I may 'a fallen off now a hundred-weight with years,
+and strings in my back, and rheumatics; but this here little toad
+is a clear hundredweight out and beyond my heftage.  If there's a
+pound here, there's not an ounce under six hundred-weight, I'll lay
+a thousand dollars.  Miss Rema, give a name to him.  All the
+thundering nuggets has thundering names."
+
+"Then this shall be called 'Uncle Sam,'" I answered, "because he is
+the largest and the best of all."
+
+"It shall stand, miss," cried Martin, who was in great spirits, and
+seemed to have bettered himself forever.  "You could not have given
+it a finer name, miss, if you had considered for a century.  Uncle
+Sam is the name of our glorious race, from the kindness of our
+natur'.  Every body's uncle we are now, in vartue of superior
+knowledge, and freedom, and giving of general advice, and stickin'
+to all the world, or all the good of it.  Darned if old Sam aren't
+the front of creation!"
+
+"Well, well," said the Sawyer, "let us call it 'Uncle Sam,' if the
+dear young lady likes it; it would be bad luck to change the name;
+but, for all that, we must look uncommon sharp, or some of our
+glorious race will come and steal it afore we unbutton our eyes."
+
+"Pooh!" cried Martin; but he knew very well that his master's words
+were common-sense; and we left him on guard with a double-barreled
+gun, and Jowler to keep watch with him.  And the next day he told
+us that he had spent the night in such a frame of mind from
+continual thought that when our pet cow came to drink at daybreak,
+it was but the blowing of her breath that saved her from taking a
+bullet between her soft tame eyes.
+
+Now it could not in any kind of way hold good that such things
+should continue; and the Sawyer, though loath to lose sight of the
+nugget, perceived that he must not sacrifice all the morals of the
+neighborhood to it, and he barely had time to dispatch it on its
+road at the bottom of a load of lumber, with Martin to drive, and
+Jowler to sit up, and Firm to ride behind, when a troop of mixed
+robbers came riding across, with a four-wheel cart and two sturdy
+mules--enough to drag off every thing.  They had clearly heard of
+the golden toad, and desired to know more of him; but Uncle Sam,
+with his usual blandness, met these men at the gate of his yard,
+and upon the top rail, to ease his arm, he rested a rifle of heavy
+metal, with seven revolving chambers.  The robbers found out that
+they had lost their way, and Mr. Gundry answered that so they had,
+and the sooner they found it in another direction, the better it
+would be for them.  They thought that he had all his men inside,
+and they were mighty civil, though we had only two negroes to help
+us, and Suan Isco, with a great gun cocked.  But their curiosity
+was such that they could not help asking about the gold; and,
+sooner than shoot them, Uncle Sam replied that, upon his honor, the
+nugget was gone.  And the fame of his word was so well known that
+these fellows (none of whom could tell the truth, even at
+confession) believed him on the spot, and begged his pardon for
+trespassing on his premises.  They hoped that he would not say a
+word to the Vigilance Committee, who hanged a poor fellow for
+losing his road; and he told them that if they made off at once,
+nobody should pursue them; and so they rode off very happily.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+FIRM AND INFIRM
+
+
+Strange as it may appear, our quiet little home was not yet
+disturbed by that great discovery of gold.  The Sawyer went up to
+the summit of esteem in public opinion; but to himself and to us he
+was the same as ever.  He worked with his own hard hands and busy
+head just as he used to do; for although the mill was still in
+ruins, there was plenty of the finer work to do, which always
+required hand-labor.  And at night he would sit at the end of the
+table furthest from the fire-place, with his spectacles on, and his
+red cheeks glowing, while he designed the future mill, which was to
+be built in the spring, and transcend every mill ever heard,
+thought, or dreamed of.
+
+We all looked forward to a quiet winter, snug with warmth and cheer
+in-doors, and bright outside with sparkling trees, brisk air, and
+frosty appetite, when a foolish idea arose which spoiled the
+comfort at least of two of us.  Ephraim Gundry found out, or
+fancied, that he was entirely filled with love of a very young
+maid, who never dreamed of such things, and hated even to hear of
+them; and the maid, unluckily, was myself.
+
+During the time of his ailment I had been with him continually,
+being only too glad to assuage his pain, or turn his thoughts away
+from it.  I partly suspected that he had incurred his bitter wound
+for my sake; though I never imputed his zeal to more than a young
+man's natural wrath at an outrage.  But now he left me no longer in
+doubt, and made me most uncomfortable.  Perhaps I was hard upon
+him, and afterward I often thought so, for he was very kind and
+gentle; but I was an orphan child, and had no one to advise me in
+such matters.  I believe that he should have considered this, and
+allowed me to grow a little older; but perhaps he himself was too
+young as yet and too bashful to know how to manage things.  It was
+the very evening after his return from Sacramento, and the beauty
+of the weather still abode in the soft warm depth around us.  In
+every tint of rock and tree and playful glass of river a quiet
+clearness seemed to lie, and a rich content of color.  The grandeur
+of the world was such that one could only rest among it, seeking
+neither voice nor thought.
+
+Therefore I was more surprised than pleased to hear my name ring
+loudly through the echoing hollows, and then to see the bushes
+shaken, and an eager form leap out.  I did not answer a word, but
+sat with a wreath of white bouvardia and small adiantum round my
+head, which I had plaited anyhow.
+
+"What a lovely dear you are!" cried Firm, and then he seemed
+frightened at his own words.
+
+"I had no idea that you would have finished your dinner so soon as
+this, Mr. Firm."
+
+"And you did not want me.  You are vexed to see me.  Tell the
+truth, Miss Rema."
+
+"I always tell the truth," I answered; "and I did not want to be
+disturbed just now.  I have so many things to think of."
+
+"And not me among them.  Oh no, of course you never think of me,
+Erema."
+
+"It is very unkind of you to say that," I answered, looking clearly
+at him, as a child looks at a man.  "And it is not true, I assure
+you, Firm.  Whenever I have thought of dear Uncle Sam, I very often
+go on to think of you, because he is so fond of you."
+
+"But not for my own sake, Erema; you never think of me for my own
+sake."
+
+"But yes, I do, I assure you, Mr. Firm; I do greatly.  There is
+scarcely a day that I do not remember how hungry you are, and I
+think of you."
+
+"Tush!" replied Firm, with a lofty gaze.  "Even for a moment that
+does not in any way express my meaning.  My mind is very much above
+all eating when it dwells upon you, Erema.  I have always been fond
+of you, Erema."
+
+"You have always been good to me, Firm," I said, as I managed to
+get a great branch between us.  "After your grandfather, and Suan
+Isco, and Jowler, I think that I like you best of almost any body
+left to me.  And you know that I never forget your slippers."
+
+"Erema, you drive me almost wild by never understanding me.  Now
+will you just listen to a little common-sense?  You know that I am
+not romantic."
+
+"Yes, Firm; yes, I know that you never did any thing wrong in any
+way."
+
+"You would like me better if I did.  What an extraordinary thing it
+is!  Oh, Erema, I beg your pardon."
+
+He had seen in a moment, as men seem to do, when they study the
+much quicker face of a girl, that his words had keenly wounded me--
+that I had applied them to my father, of whom I was always
+thinking, though I scarcely ever spoke of him.  But I knew that
+Firm had meant no harm, and I gave him my hand, though I could not
+speak.
+
+"My darling," he said, "you are very dear to me--dearer than all
+the world besides.  I will not worry you any more.  Only say that
+you do not hate me."
+
+"How could I?  How could any body?  Now let us go in and attend to
+Uncle Sam.  He thinks of every body before himself."
+
+"And I think of every body after myself.  Is that what you mean,
+Erema?"
+
+"To be sure! if you like.  You may put any meaning on my words that
+you think proper.  I am accustomed to things of that sort, and I
+pay no attention whatever, when I am perfectly certain that I am
+right."
+
+"I see," replied Firm, applying one finger to the side of his nose
+in deep contemplation, which, of all his manners, annoyed me most.
+"I see how it is; Miss Rema is always perfectly certain that she is
+right, and the whole of the rest of the world quite wrong.  Well,
+after all, there is nothing like holding a first-rate opinion of
+one's self."
+
+"You are not what I thought of you," I cried, being vexed beyond
+bearance by such words, and feeling their gross injustice.  "If you
+wish to say any thing more, please to leave it until you recover
+your temper.  I am not quite accustomed to rudeness."
+
+With these words, I drew away and walked off, partly in earnest and
+partly in joke, not wishing to hear another word; and when I looked
+back, being well out of sight, there he sat still, with his head on
+his hands, and my heart had a little ache for him.
+
+However, I determined to say no more, and to be extremely careful.
+I could not in justice blame Ephraim Gundry for looking at me very
+often.  But I took good care not to look at him again unless he
+said something that made me laugh, and then I could scarcely help
+it.  He was sharp enough very soon to find out this; and then he
+did a thing which was most unfair, as I found out long afterward.
+He bought an American jest-book, full of ideas wholly new to me,
+and these he committed to heart, and brought them out as his own
+productions.  If I had only known it, I must have been exceedingly
+sorry for him.  But Uncle Sam used to laugh and rub his hands,
+perhaps for old acquaintance' sake; and when Uncle Sam laughed,
+there was nobody near who could help laughing with him.  And so I
+began to think Firm the most witty and pleasant of men, though I
+tried to look away.
+
+But perhaps the most careful and delicate of things was to see how
+Uncle Sam went on.  I could not understand him at all just then,
+and thought him quite changed from my old Uncle Sam; but afterward,
+when I came to know, his behavior was as clear and shallow as the
+water of his own river.  He had very strange ideas about what he
+generally called "the female kind."  According to his ideas (and
+perhaps they were not so unusual among mankind, especially
+settlers), all "females" were of a good but weak and consistently
+inconsistent sort.  The surest way to make them do whatever their
+betters wanted, was to make them think that it was not wanted, but
+was hedged with obstacles beyond their power to overcome, and so to
+provoke and tantalize them to set their hearts upon doing it.  In
+accordance with this idea (than which there can be none more
+mistaken), he took the greatest pains to keep me from having a word
+to say to Firm; and even went so far as to hint, with winks and
+nods of pleasantry, that his grandson's heart was set upon the
+pretty Miss Sylvester, the daughter of a man who owned a herd of
+pigs, much too near our saw-mills, and herself a young woman of
+outrageous dress, and in a larger light contemptible.  But when
+Mr. Gundry, without any words, conveyed this piece of news to
+me, I immediately felt quite a liking for gaudy but harmless
+Pennsylvania--for so her parents had named her when she was too
+young to help it; and I heartily hoped that she might suit Firm,
+which she seemed all the more likely to do as his conduct could not
+be called noble.  Upon that point, however, I said not a word,
+leaving him purely to judge for himself, and feeling it a great
+relief that now he could not say any thing more to me.  I was glad
+that his taste was so easily pleased, and I told Suan Isco how glad
+I was.
+
+This I had better have left unsaid, for it led to a great
+explosion, and drove me away from the place altogether before the
+new mill was finished, and before I should otherwise have gone from
+friends who were so good to me; not that I could have staid there
+much longer, even if this had never come to pass; for week by week
+and month by month I was growing more uneasy: uneasy not at my
+obligations or dependence upon mere friends (for they managed that
+so kindly that I seemed to confer the favor), but from my own sense
+of lagging far behind my duty.
+
+For now the bright air, and the wholesome food, and the pleasure of
+goodness around me, were making me grow, without knowledge or
+notice, into a tall and not altogether to be overlooked young
+woman.  I was exceedingly shy about this, and blushed if any one
+spoke of it; but yet in my heart I felt it was so; and how could I
+help it?  And when people said, as rough people will, and even
+Uncle Sam sometimes, "Handsome is as handsome does," or "Beauty is
+only skin-deep," and so on, I made it my duty not to be put out,
+but to bear it in mind and be thankful.  And though I had no idea
+of any such influence at the moment, I hope that the grandeur of
+nature around and the lofty style of every thing may have saved me
+from dwelling too much on myself, as Pennsylvania Sylvester did.
+
+Now the more I felt my grown-up age and health and buoyant vigor,
+the surer I knew that the time was come for me to do some good with
+them; not to benefit the world in general, in a large and scattery
+way (as many young people set out to do, and never get any
+further), but to right the wrong of my own house, and bring home
+justice to my own heart.  This may be thought a partial and paltry
+object to set out with; and it is not for me to say otherwise.  At
+the time, it occurred to me in no other light except as my due
+business, and I never took any large view at all.  But even now I
+do believe (though not yet in pickle of wisdom) that if every body,
+in its own little space and among its own little movements, will
+only do and take nothing without pure taste of the salt of justice,
+no reeking atrocity of national crimes could ever taint the heaven.
+
+Such questions, however, become me not.  I have only to deal with
+very little things, sometimes too slim to handle well, and too hazy
+to be woven; and if they seem below my sense and dignity to treat
+of, I can only say that they seemed very big at the time when I had
+to encounter them.
+
+For instance, what could be more important, in a little world of
+life, than for Uncle Sam to be put out, and dare even to think ill
+of me?  Yet this he did; and it shows how shallow are all those
+theories of the other sex which men are so pleased to indulge in.
+Scarcely any thing could be more ridiculous from first to last,
+when calmly and truly considered, than the firm belief which no
+power of reason could for the time root out of him.
+
+Uncle Sam, the dearest of all mankind to me, and the very kindest,
+was positively low-enough to believe, in his sad opinion of the
+female race, that my young head was turned because of the wealth to
+which I had no claim, except through his own justice.  He had
+insisted at first that the whole of that great nugget belonged to
+me by right of sole discovery.  I asked him whether, if any
+stranger had found it, it would have been considered his, and
+whether he would have allowed a "greaser," upon finding, to make
+off with it.  At the thought of this, Mr. Gundry gave a little
+grunt, and could not go so far as to maintain that view of it.  But
+he said that my reasoning did not fit; that I was not a greaser,
+but a settled inhabitant of the place, and entitled to all a
+settler's rights; that the bed of the river would have been his
+grave but for the risk of my life, and therefore whatever I found
+in the bed of the river belonged to me, and me only.
+
+In argument he was so much stronger than I could ever attempt to be
+that I gave it up, and could only say that if he argued forever it
+could never make any difference.  He did not argue forever, but
+only grew obstinate and unpleasant, so that I yielded at last to
+own the half share of the bullion.
+
+Very well.  Every body would have thought, who has not studied the
+nature of men or been dragged through it heavily, that now there
+could be no more trouble between two people entirely trusting each
+other, and only anxious that the other should have the best of it.
+Yet, instead of that being the case, the mischief, the myriad
+mischief, of money set in, until I heartily wished sometimes that
+my miserable self was down in the hole which the pelf had left
+behind it.
+
+For what did Uncle Sam take into his head (which was full of
+generosity and large ideas, so loosely packed that little ones grew
+between them, especially about womankind)--what else did he really
+seem to think, with the downright stubbornness of all his thoughts,
+but that I, his poor debtor and pensioner and penniless dependent,
+was so set up and elated by this sudden access of fortune that
+henceforth none of the sawing race was high enough for me to think
+of?  It took me a long time to believe that so fair and just a man
+ever could set such interpretation upon me.  And when it became too
+plain that he did so, truly I know not whether grief or anger was
+uppermost in my troubled heart.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+HARD AND SOFT
+
+
+Before very long it was manifest enough that Mr. Gundry looked down
+upon Miss Sylvester with a large contempt.  But while this raised
+my opinion of his judgment, it almost deprived me of a great
+relief--the relief of supposing that he wished his grandson to
+marry this Pennsylvania.  For although her father, with his pigs
+and cattle, and a low sort of hostelry which he kept, could settle
+"a good pile of dollars" upon her, and had kept her at the
+"learnedest ladies' college" even in San Francisco till he himself
+trembled at her erudition, still it was scarcely to be believed
+that a man of the Sawyer's strong common-sense and disregard of
+finery would ever accept for his grandchild a girl made of
+affectation, vulgarity, and conceit.  And one day, quite in the
+early spring, he was so much vexed with the fine lady's airs that
+he left no doubt about his meaning.
+
+Miss Sylvester was very proud of the figure she made on horseback;
+and having been brought up, perhaps as a child, to ride after pigs
+and so on, she must have had fine opportunities of acquiring a
+graceful style of horsemanship.  And now she dashed through thick
+and thin in a most commanding manner, caring no more for a snow-
+drift than ladies do for a scraping of the road.  No one with the
+least observation could doubt that this young woman was extremely
+anxious to attract Firm Gundry's notice; and therefore, on the day
+above spoken of, once more she rode over, with her poor father in
+waiting upon her as usual.
+
+Now I know very well how many faults I have, and to deny them has
+never been my practice; but this is the honest and earnest truth,
+that no smallness of mind, or narrowness of feeling, or want of
+large or fine sentiments made me bolt my door when that girl was in
+the house.  I simply refused, after seeing her once, to have any
+thing more to say to her; by no means because of my birth and
+breeding (which are things that can be most easily waived when the
+difference is acknowledged), nor yet on account of my being brought
+up in the company of ladies, nor even by reason of any dislike
+which her bold brown eyes put into me.  My cause was sufficient and
+just and wise.  I felt myself here as a very young girl, in safe
+and pure and honest hands, yet thrown on my own discretion, without
+any feminine guidance whatever.  And I had learned enough from the
+wise French sisters to know at a glance that Miss Sylvester was not
+a young woman who would do me good.
+
+Even Uncle Sam, who was full of thought and delicate care about me,
+so far as a man can understand, and so far as his simple shrewdness
+went, in spite of all his hospitable ways and open universal
+welcome, though he said not a word (as on such a point he was quite
+right in doing)--even he, as I knew by his manner, was quite
+content with my decision.  But Firm, being young and in many ways
+stupid, made a little grievance of it.  And, of course, Miss
+Sylvester made a great one.
+
+"Oh, I do declare, I am going away," through my open window I heard
+her exclaim in her sweetly affected tone, at the end of that long
+visit, "without even having the honor of saying a kind word to your
+young visitor.  Do not wait for me, papa; I must pay my devoirs.
+Such a distinguished and travelled person can hardly be afflicted
+with mauvaise honte.  Why does she not rush to embrace me?  All the
+French people do; and she is so French!  Let me see her, for the
+sake of my accent."
+
+"We don't want no French here, ma'am," replied Uncle Sam, as
+Sylvester rode off, "and the young lady wants no Doctor Hunt.  Her
+health is as good as your own, and you never catch no French
+actions from her.  If she wanted to see you, she would 'a come
+down."
+
+"Oh, now, this is too barbarous!  Colonel Gundry, you are the most
+tyrannous man; in your own dominions an autocrat.  Every body says
+so, but I never would believe it.  Oh, don't let me go away with
+that impression.  And you do look so good-natured!"
+
+"And so I mean to look, Miss Penny, until you are out of sight."
+
+The voice of the Sawyer was more dry than that of his oldest and
+rustiest saw.  The fashionable and highly finished girl had no idea
+what to make of him; but gave her young horse a sharp cut, to show
+her figure as she reined him; and then galloping off, she kissed
+her tan gauntlet with crimson net-work down it, and left Uncle Sam
+to revolve his rudeness, with the dash of the wet road scattered in
+the air.
+
+"I wouldn't 'a spoke to her so course," he said to Firm, who now
+returned from opening the gate and delivering his farewell, "if she
+wasn't herself so extra particular, gild me, and sky-blue my
+mouldings fine.  How my mother would 'a stared at the sight of such
+a gal!  Keep free of her, my lad, keep free of her.  But no harm to
+put her on, to keep our missy alive and awake, my boy."
+
+Immediately I withdrew from ear-shot, more deeply mortified than I
+can tell, and perhaps doing Firm an injustice by not waiting for
+his answer.  I knew not then how lightly men will speak of such
+delicate subjects; and it set me more against all thoughts of Firm
+than a month's reflection could have done.  When I came to know
+more of the world, I saw that I had been very foolish.  At the
+time, however, I was firmly set in a strong resolve to do that
+which alone seemed right, or even possible--to quit with all speed
+a place which could no longer be suited for me.
+
+For several days I feared to say a single word about it, while
+equally I condemned myself for having so little courage.  But it
+was not as if there were any body to help me, or tell me what to
+do; sometimes I was bold with a surety of right, and then again I
+shook with the fear of being wrong.  Because, through the whole of
+it, I felt how wonderfully well I had been treated, and what a
+great debt I owed of kindness; and it seemed to be only a nasty
+little pride which made me so particular.  And being so unable to
+settle for myself, I waited for something to settle it.
+
+Something came, in a way which I had not by any means expected.  I
+had told Suan Isco how glad I was that Firm had fixed his liking
+steadily upon Miss Sylvester.  If any woman on earth could be
+trusted not to say a thing again, that one was this good Indian.
+Not only because of her provident habits, but also in right of the
+difficulty which encompassed her in our language.  But she managed
+to get over both of these, and to let Mr. Ephraim know, as cleverly
+as if she had lived in drawing-rooms, whatever I had said about
+him.  She did it for the best; but it put him in a rage, which he
+came at once to have out with me.
+
+"And so, Miss Erema," he said, throwing down his hat upon the table
+of the little parlor, where I sat with an old book of Norman
+ballads, "I have your best wishes, then, have I, for a happy
+marriage with Miss Sylvester?"
+
+I was greatly surprised at the tone of his voice, while the flush
+on his cheeks and the flash of his eyes, and even his quick heavy
+tread, showed plainly that his mind was a little out of balance.
+He deserved it, however, and I could not grieve.
+
+"You have my best wishes," I replied, demurely, "for any state of
+life to which you may be called.  You could scarcely expect any
+less of me than that."
+
+"How kind you are!  But do you really wish that I should marry old
+Sylvester's girl?"
+
+Firm, as he asked this question, looked so bitterly reproachful (as
+if he were saying, "Do you wish to see me hanged?"), while his eyes
+took a form which reminded me so of the Sawyer in a furious puzzle,
+that it was impossible for me to answer as lightly as I meant to
+do.
+
+"No, I can not say, Firm, that I wish it at all; unless your heart
+is set on it--"
+
+"Don't you know, then, where my heart is set?" he asked me, in a
+deep voice, coming nearer, and taking the ballad-book from my
+hands.  "Why will you feign not to know, Erema, who is the only one
+I can ever think of twice?  Above me, I know, in every possible
+way--birth and education and mind and appearance, and now far above
+me in money as well.  But what are all these things?  Try to think
+if only you could like me.  Liking gets over every thing, and
+without it nothing is any thing.  Why do I like you so, Erema?  Is
+it because of your birth, and teaching, and manners, and sweet
+looks, and all that, or even because of your troubles?"
+
+"How can I tell, Firm--how can I tell?  Perhaps it is just because
+of myself.  And why do you do it at all, Firm?"
+
+"Ah, why do I do it?  How I wish I knew!  Perhaps then I might cure
+it.  To begin with, what is there, after all, so very wonderful
+about you?"
+
+"Oh, nothing, I should hope.  Most surely nothing.  It would grieve
+me to be at all wonderful.  That I leave for American ladies."
+
+"Now you don't understand me.  I mean, of course, that you are
+wonderfully good and kind and clever; and your eyes, I am sure, and
+your lips and smile, and all your other features--there is nothing
+about them that can be called any thing else but wonderful."
+
+"Now, Firm, how exceedingly foolish you are!  I did hope that you
+knew better."
+
+"Erema, I never shall know better.  I never can swerve or change,
+if I live to be a hundred and fifty.  You think me presumptuous, no
+doubt, from what you are brought up to.  And you are so young that
+to seek to bind you, even if you loved me, would be an unmanly
+thing.  But now you are old enough, and you know your own mind
+surely well enough, just to say whether you feel as if you could
+ever love me as I love you."
+
+He turned away, as if he felt that he had no right to press me so,
+and blamed himself for selfishness; and I liked him better for
+doing that than for any thing he had done before.  Yet I knew that
+I ought to speak clearly, and though my voice was full of tears, I
+tried.
+
+"Dear Firm," I said, as I took his hand and strove to look at him
+steadily, "I like and admire you very much; and by-and-by--by-and-
+by, I might, that is, if you did not hurry me.  Of all the
+obstacles you have mentioned, none is worth considering.  I am
+nothing but a poor castaway, owing my life to Uncle Sam and you.
+But one thing there is which could never be got over, even if I
+felt as you feel toward me.  Never can I think of little matters,
+or of turning my thoughts to--to any such things as you speak of,
+as long as a vile reproach and wicked imputation lies on me.  And
+before even that, I have to think of my father, who gave his life
+for me.  Firm, I have been here too long delaying, and wasting my
+time in trifles.  I ought to have been in Europe long ago.  If I am
+old enough for what you talk of, I am old enough to do my duty.  If
+I am old enough for love, as it is called, I am old enough for
+hate.  I have more to do with hate than love, I think."
+
+"Erema," cried Firm, "what a puzzle you are!  I never even dreamed
+that you could be so fierce.  You are enough to frighten Uncle Sam
+himself."
+
+"If I frighten you, Firm, that is quite enough.  You see now how
+vain it is to say another word."
+
+"I do not see any thing of the sort.  Come back, and look at me
+quite calmly."
+
+Being frightened at the way in which I had spoken, and having
+passed the prime of it, I obeyed him in a moment, and came up
+gently and let him look at me to his liking.  For little as I
+thought of such things till now, I seemed already to know more
+about them, or at least to wonder--which is the stir of the curtain
+of knowledge.  I did not say any thing, but labored to think
+nothing and to look up with unconscious eyes.  But Firm put me out
+altogether by his warmth, and made me flutter like a stupid little
+bird.
+
+"My darling," he said, smoothing back my hair with a kindness such
+as I could not resent, and quieting me with his clear blue eyes,
+"you are not fit for the stormy life to which your high spirit is
+devoting you.  You have not the hardness and bitterness of mind,
+the cold self-possession and contempt of others, the power of
+dissembling and the iron will--in a word, the fundamental
+nastiness, without which you never could get through such a job.
+Why, you can not be contemptuous even to me!"
+
+"I should hope not.  I should earn your contempt, if I could."
+
+"There, you are ready to cry at the thought.  Erema, do not mistake
+yourself.  Remember that your father would never have wished it--
+would have given his life ten thousand times over to prevent it.
+Why did he bring you to this remote, inaccessible part of the world
+except to save you from further thought of evil?  He knew that we
+listen to no rumors here, no social scandals, or malignant lies;
+but we value people as we find them.  He meant this to be a haven
+for you; and so it shall be if you will only rest; and you shall be
+the queen of it.  Instead of redressing his memory now, you would
+only distress his spirit.  What does he care for the world's gossip
+now?  But he does care for your happiness.  I am not old enough to
+tell you things as I should like to tell them.  I wish I could--how
+I wish I could!  It would make all the difference to me."
+
+"It would make no difference, Firm, to me; because I should know it
+was selfishness.  Not selfishness of yours, I mean, for you never
+could be selfish; but the vilest selfishness of mine, the same as
+starved my father.  You can not see things as I see them, or else
+you would not talk so.  When you know that a thing is right, you do
+it.  Can you tell me otherwise?  If you did, I should despise you."
+
+"If you put it so, I can say no more.  You will leave us forever,
+Erema?"
+
+"No, not forever.  If the good God wills it, I will come back when
+my work is done.  Forgive me, dear Firm, and forget me."
+
+"There is nothing to forgive, Erema; but a great deal I never can
+hope to forgot."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+OUT OF THE GOLDEN GATE
+
+
+Little things, or what we call little, always will come in among
+great ones, or at least among those which we call great.  Before I
+passed the Golden Gate in the clipper ship Bridal Veil (so called
+from one of the Yosemite cascades) I found out what I had long
+wished to know--why Firm had a crooked nose.  At least, it could
+hardly be called crooked if any body looked aright at it; but still
+it departed from the bold straight line which nature must have
+meant for it, every thing else about him being as straight as could
+be required.  This subject had troubled me more than once, though
+of course it had nothing whatever to do with the point of view
+whence I regarded him.
+
+Suan Isco could not tell me, neither could Martin of the mill; I
+certainly could not ask Firm himself, as the Sawyer told me to do
+when once I put the question, in despair, to him.  But now, as we
+stood on the wharf exchanging farewells, perhaps forever, and tears
+of anguish were in my eyes, and my heart was both full and empty,
+ample and unexpected light was thrown on the curvature of Firm's
+nose.
+
+For a beautiful girl, of about my own age, and very nicely dressed,
+came up and spoke to the Sawyer (who stood at my side), and then,
+with a blush, took his grandson's hand.  Firm took off his hat to
+her very politely, but allowed her to see perhaps by his manner
+that he was particularly engaged just now; and the young lady, with
+a quick glance at me, walked off to rejoin her party.  But a
+garrulous old negro servant, who seemed to be in attendance upon
+her, ran up and caught Firm by his coat, and peered up curiously at
+his face.
+
+"How young massa's poor nose dis long time?  How him feel, spose
+now again?" he inquired, with a deferential grin.  "Young massa
+ebber able take a pinch of good snuff?  He! he! missy berry heavy
+den?  Missy no learn to dance de nose polka den?"
+
+"What on earth does he mean?" I could not help asking, in spite of
+our sorrowful farewell, as the negro went on with sundry other
+jokes and cackles at his own facetiousness.  And then Uncle Sam, to
+divert my thoughts, while I waited for signal to say good-by, told
+me how Firm got a slight twist to his nose.
+
+Ephraim Gundry had been well taught, in all the common things a man
+should learn, at a good quiet school at Frisco, which distinguished
+itself from all other schools by not calling itself a college.  And
+when he was leaving to begin home life, with as much put into him
+as he could manage--for his nature was not bookish--when he was
+just seventeen years old, and tall and straight and upright, but
+not set into great bodily strength, which could not yet be
+expected, a terrible fire broke out in a great block of houses
+newly occupied, over against the school-house front.  Without
+waiting for master's leave or matron's, the boys, in the
+Californian style, jumped over the fencing and went to help.  And
+they found a great crowd collected, and flames flaring out of the
+top of the house.  At the top of the house, according to a stupid
+and therefore general practice, was the nursery, made of more
+nurses than children, as often happens with rich people.  The
+nurses had run away for their lives, taking two of the children
+with them; but the third, a fine little girl of ten, had been left
+behind, and now ran to the window with red hot flames behind her.
+The window was open, and barbs of fire, like serpents' tongues,
+played over it.
+
+"Jump, child, jump! for God's sake, jump!" cried half a hundred
+people, while the poor scared creature quivered on the ledge, and
+shrank from the frightful depth below.  At last, stung by a
+scorching volley, she gathered her night-gown tight, and leaped,
+trusting to the many faces and many arms raised toward her.  But
+though many gallant men were there, only one stood fast just where
+she fell, and that one was the youth, Firm Gundry.  Upon him she
+fell, like a stone from heaven, and though he held up his arms in
+the smoky glare, she came down badly: badly, at least, for him,
+but, as her father said, providentially; for one of her soles, or
+heels, alighted on the bridge of Ephraim's young nose.  He caught
+her on his chest, and forgetful of himself, he bore her to her
+friends triumphantly, unharmed, and almost smiling.  But the
+symmetry of an important part of his face was spoiled forever.
+
+When I heard of this noble affair, and thought of my own
+pusillanimous rendering--for verily I had been low enough, from
+rumors of Firm's pugnacity, to attribute these little defects of
+line to some fisticuffs with some miner--I looked at Firm's nose
+through the tears in my eyes, and had a great mind not to go away
+at all.  For what is the noblest of all things in man--as I
+bitterly learned thereafter, and already had some guesses?  Not the
+power of moving multitudes with eloquence or by orders; not the
+elevation of one tribe through the lowering of others, nor even the
+imaginary lift of all by sentiments as yet above them: there may be
+glory in all of these, but the greatness is not with them.  It
+remains with those who behave like Firm, and get their noses
+broken.
+
+However, I did not know those things at that time of life, though I
+thought it right for every man to be brave and good; and I could
+not help asking who the young lady was, as if that were part of the
+heroism.  The Sawyer, who never was unready for a joke, of however
+ancient quality, gave a great wink at Firm (which I failed to
+understand), and asked him how much the young lady was worth.  He
+expected that Firm would say, "Five hundred thousand dollars"--
+which was about her value, I believe--and Uncle Sam wanted me to
+hear it; not that he cared a single cent himself, but to let me
+know what Firm could do.
+
+Firm, however, was not to be led into any trap of that sort.  He
+knew me better than the old man did, and that nothing would stir me
+to jealousy, and he quite disappointed the Sawyer.
+
+"I have never asked what she is worth," he said, with a glance of
+contempt at money; "but she scarcely seems worth looking at,
+compared--compared with certain others."
+
+In the distance I saw the young lady again, attempting no
+attraction, but walking along quite harmlessly, with the talkative
+negro after her.  It would have been below me to pursue the
+subject, and I waited for others to re-open it; but I heard no more
+about her until I had been for more than a week at sea, and was
+able again to feel interest.  Then I heard that her name was Annie
+Banks, of the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., who owned the ship I
+sailed in.
+
+But now it was nothing to me who she was, or how beautiful, or how
+wealthy, when I clung for the last time to Uncle Sam, and implored
+him not to forget me.  Over and over again he promised to be full
+of thoughts of me, even when the new mill was started, which would
+be a most trying time.  He bowed his tall white head into my
+sheveled hair, and blessed and kissed me, although I never deserved
+it, and a number of people were looking on.  Then I laid my hand in
+Firm's, and he did not lift it to his lips, or sigh, but pressed it
+long and softly, and looked into my eyes without a word.  And I
+knew that there would be none to love like them, wherever I might
+go.
+
+But the last of all to say "good-by" was my beloved Jowler.  He
+jumped into the boat after me (for we were obliged to have a boat,
+the ship having laden further down), and he put his fore-paws on my
+shoulders, and whined and drooped his under-jaw.  And when he
+looked at me as he used, to know whether I was in fun or earnest,
+with more expression in his bright brown eyes than any human being
+has, I fell back under his weight and sobbed, and could not look at
+any one.
+
+We had beautiful weather, and the view was glorious, as we passed
+the Golden Gate, the entrance to what will one day be the capital
+of the world, perhaps.  For, as our captain said, all power and
+human energy and strength are always going westward, and when they
+come here they must stop, or else they would be going eastward
+again, which they never yet have done.  His argument may have been
+right or wrong--and, indeed, it must have been one or the other--
+but who could think of such things now, with a grander thing than
+human power--human love fading away behind?  I could not even bear
+to see the glorious mountains sinking, but ran below and cried for
+hours, until all was dark and calm.
+
+The reason for my sailing by this particular ship, and, indeed,
+rather suddenly, was that an old friend and Cornish cousin of Mr.
+Gundry, who had spent some years in California, was now returning
+to England by the Bridal Veil.  This was Major Hockin, an officer
+of the British army, now on half-pay, and getting on in years.  His
+wife was going home with him; for their children were married and
+settled in England, all but one, now in San Francisco.  And that
+one being well placed in the firm of Heniker, Banks, and Co., had
+obtained for his father and mother passage upon favorable terms,
+which was, as we say, "an object to them."
+
+For the Major, though admirably connected (as his kinship to
+Colonel Gundry showed), and having a baronet not far off (if the
+twists of the world were set aside), also having served his
+country, and received a furrow on the top of his head, which made
+him brush his hair up, nevertheless, or all the more for that, was
+as poor as a British officer must be without official sesame.  How
+he managed to feed and teach a large and not clever family, and
+train them all to fight their way in a battle worse than any of his
+own, and make gentlemen and ladies of them, whatever they did or
+wherever they went, he only knew, and his faithful wife, and the
+Lord who helps brave poverty.  Of such things he never spoke,
+unless his temper was aroused by luxury and self-indulgence and
+laziness.
+
+But now he was a little better off, through having his children off
+his hands, and by means of a little property left him by a distant
+relative.  He was on his way home to see to this; and a better man
+never returned to England, after always standing up for her.
+
+Being a child in the ways of the world, and accustomed to large
+people, I could not make out Major Hockin at first, and thought him
+no more than a little man with many peculiarities.  For he was not
+so tall as myself, until he put his high-heeled boots on, and he
+made such a stir about trifles at which Uncle Sam would have only
+grunted, that I took him to be nothing more than a fidgety old
+campaigner.  He wore a black-rimmed double eyeglass with blue side-
+lights at his temples, and his hat, from the shape of his forehead,
+hung back; he had narrow white wiry whiskers, and a Roman nose, and
+most prominent chin, and keen gray eyes with gingery brows, which
+contracted, like sharp little gables over them, whenever any thing
+displeased him.  Rosy cheeks, tight-drawn, close-shaven, and
+gleaming with friction of yellow soap, added vigor to the general
+expression of his face, which was firm and quick and straightforward.
+The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin
+was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and
+beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which,
+though he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready
+for a game of leap-frog.
+
+We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the
+coast ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower
+Nevada could only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every
+body lay about in our ship where it seemed to afford the least
+smell and heat, and nobody for a moment dreamed--for we really all
+were dreaming--of any body with energy enough to be disturbed about
+any thing, when Major Hockin burst in upon us all (who were trying
+not to be red-hot in the feeble shade of poop awnings), leading by
+the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed with decency, and
+howling in a tone very sad to hear.
+
+"This lady has been robbed!" cried the Major; "robbed, not fifteen
+feet below us.  Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished
+treasures of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of
+a life of honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a
+fine cut of Colorado cheese."
+
+"Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!" cried the poor woman,
+wringing her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
+
+"Go to the captain," muttered one sleepy gentleman.  "Go to the
+devil," said another sleepy man: "what have we to do with it?"
+
+"I will neither go to the captain," replied the Major, very
+distinctly, "nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has
+dared to suggest to me--"
+
+"All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!" the poor old woman began
+to scream; "the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un.  Only
+two have I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of
+'em.  Oh dear! oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of
+my things!"
+
+"Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
+Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like
+to be treated so?  Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you
+lie like a parcel of Mexicans.  If any body picked your pockets,
+would you have life enough to roll over?"
+
+"I don't think I should," said a fat young Briton, with a very
+good-natured face; "but for a poor woman I can stand upright.
+Major Hockin, here is a guinea for her.  Perhaps more of us will
+give a trifle."
+
+"Well done!" cried the Major; "but not so much as that.  Let us
+first ascertain all the rights of the case.  Perhaps half a crown
+apiece would reach it."
+
+Half a crown apiece would have gone beyond it, as we discovered
+afterward, for the old lady's handkerchief was in her box, lost
+under some more of her property; and the tide of sleepy charity
+taking this direction under such vehement impulse, several other
+steerage passengers lost their goods, but found themselves too late
+in doing so.  But the Major was satisfied, and the rude man who had
+told him to go amiss, begged his pardon, and thus we sailed on
+slowly and peaceably.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+INSIDE THE CHANNEL
+
+
+That little incident threw some light upon Major Hockin's
+character.  It was not for himself alone that he was so particular,
+or, as many would call it, fidgety, to have every thing done
+properly; for if any thing came to his knowledge which he thought
+unfair to any one, it concerned him almost as much as if the wrong
+had been done to his own home self.  Through this he had fallen
+into many troubles, for his impressions were not always accurate;
+but they taught him nothing, or rather, as his wife said, "the
+Major could not help it."  The leading journals of the various
+places in which Major Hockin sojourned had published his letters of
+grievances sometimes, in the absence of the chief editor, and had
+suffered in purse by doing so.  But the Major always said,
+"Ventilate it, ventilate the subject, my dear Sir; bring public
+opinion to bear on it."  And Mrs. Hockin always said that it was
+her husband to whom belonged the whole credit of this new and
+spirited use of the fine word "ventilation."
+
+As betwixt this faithful pair, it is scarcely needful perhaps to
+say that the Major was the master.  His sense of justice dictated
+that, as well as his general briskness.  Though he was not at all
+like Mr. Gundry in undervaluing female mind, his larger experience
+and more frequent intercourse with our sex had taught him to do
+justice to us; and it was pleasant to hear him often defer to the
+judgment of ladies.  But this he did more, perhaps, in theory than
+in practice; yet it made all the ladies declare to one another that
+he was a perfect gentleman.  And so he was, though he had his
+faults; but his faults were such as we approve of.
+
+But Mrs. Hockin had no fault in any way worth speaking of.  And
+whatever she had was her husband's doing, through her desire to
+keep up with him.  She was pretty, even now in her sixtieth year,
+and a great deal prettier because she never tried to look younger.
+Silver hair, and gentle eyes, and a forehead in which all the cares
+of eight children had scarcely imprinted a wrinkle, also a kind
+expression of interest in whatever was spoken of, with a quiet
+voice and smile, and a power of not saying too much at a time,
+combined to make this lady pleasant.
+
+Without any fuss or declaration, she took me immediately under her
+care; and I doubt not that, after two years passed in the society
+of Suan Isco and the gentle Sawyer, she found many things in me to
+amend, which she did by example and without reproof.  She shielded
+me also in the cleverest way from the curiosity of the saloon,
+which at first was very trying.  For the Bridal Veil being a well-
+known ship both for swift passages and for equipment, almost every
+berth was taken, and when the weather was calm, quite a large
+assembly sat down to dinner.  Among these, of course, were some
+ill-bred people, and my youth and reserve and self-consciousness,
+and so on, made my reluctant face the mark for many a long and
+searching gaze.  My own wish had been not to dine thus in public;
+but hearing that my absence would only afford fresh grounds for
+curiosity, I took my seat between the Major and his wife, the
+former having pledged himself to the latter to leave every thing to
+her management.  His temper was tried more than once to its utmost--
+which was not a very great distance--but he kept his word, and did
+not interfere; and I having had some experience with Firm, eschewed
+all perception of glances.  And as for all words, Mrs. Hockin met
+them with an obtuse obliqueness; so that after a day or two it was
+settled that nothing could be done about "Miss Wood."
+
+It had been a very sore point to come to, and cost an unparalleled
+shed of pride, that I should be shorn of two-thirds of my name, and
+called "Miss Wood," like almost anybody else.  I refused to
+entertain such a very poor idea, and clung to the name which had
+always been mine--for my father would never depart from it--and I
+even burst into tears, which would, I suppose, be called
+"sentimental;" but still the stern fact stared me in the face--I
+must go as "Miss Wood," or not go at all.  Upon this Major Hockin
+had insisted; and even Colonel Gundry could not move him from his
+resolution.
+
+Uncle Sam had done his utmost, as was said before, to stop me from
+wishing to go at all; but when he found my whole heart bent upon
+it, and even my soul imperiled by the sense of neglecting life's
+chief duty, his own stern sense of right came in and sided with my
+prayers to him.  And so it was that he let me go, with pity for my
+youth and sex, but a knowledge that I was in good hands, and an
+inborn, perhaps "Puritanical" faith, that the Lord of all right
+would see to me.
+
+The Major, on the other hand, had none of this.  He differed from
+Uncle Sam as much as a trim-cut and highly cultured garden tree
+differs from a great spreading king of the woods.  He was not
+without a strict sense of religion, especially when he had to march
+men to church; and he never even used a bad word, except when
+wicked facts compelled him.  When properly let alone, and allowed
+to nurse his own opinions, he had a respectable idea that all
+things were certain to be ordered for the best; but nothing enraged
+him so much as to tell him that when things went against him, or
+even against his predictions.
+
+It was lucky for me, then, that Major Hockin had taken a most
+adverse view of my case.  He formed his opinions with the greatest
+haste, and with the greatest perseverance stuck to them; for he was
+the most generous of mankind, if generous means one quite full of
+his genus.  And in my little case he had made up his mind that the
+whole of the facts were against me.  "Fact" was his favorite word,
+and one which he always used with great effect, for nobody knows
+very well what it means, as it does not belong to our language.
+And so when he said that the facts were against me, who was there
+to answer that facts are not truth?
+
+This fast-set conclusion of his was known to me not through
+himself, but through his wife.  For I could not yet bring myself to
+speak of the things that lay close at my heart to him, though I
+knew that he must be aware of them.  And he, like a gentleman, left
+me to begin.  I could often see that he was ready and quite eager
+to give me the benefit of his opinion, which would only have turned
+me against him, and irritated him, perhaps, with me.  And having no
+home in England, or, indeed, I might say, any where, I was to live
+with the Major and his wife, supposing that they could arrange it
+so, until I should discover relatives.
+
+We had a long and stormy voyage, although we set sail so fairly;
+and I thought that we never should round Cape Horn in the teeth of
+the furious northeast winds; and after that we lay becalmed, I have
+no idea in what latitude, though the passengers now talked quite
+like seamen, at least till the sea got up again.  However, at last
+we made the English Channel, in the dreary days of November, and
+after more peril there than any where else, we were safely docked
+at Southampton.  Here the Major was met by two dutiful daughters,
+bringing their husbands and children, and I saw more of family life
+(at a distance) than had fallen to my lot to observe before; and
+although there were many little jars and brawls and cuts at one
+another, I was sadly inclined to wish sometimes for some brothers
+and sisters to quarrel with.
+
+But having none to quarrel with, and none to love, except good Mrs.
+Hockin, who went away by train immediately, I spent such a wretched
+time in that town that I longed to be back in the Bridal Veil in
+the very worst of weather.  The ooze of the shore and the reek of
+the water, and the dreary flatness of the land around (after the
+glorious heaven-clad heights, which made me ashamed of littleness),
+also the rough, stupid stare of the men, when I went about as an
+American lady may freely do in America, and the sharpness of every
+body's voice (instead of the genial tones which those who can not
+produce them call "nasal," but which from a higher view are
+cordial)--taken one after other, or all together, these things made
+me think, in the first flush of thought, that England was not a
+nice country.  After a little while I found that I had been a great
+deal too quick, as foreigners are with things which require quiet
+comprehension.  For instance, I was annoyed at having a stupid
+woman put over me, as if I could not mind myself--a cook, or a
+nurse, or housekeeper, or something very useful in the Hockin
+family, but to me a mere incumbrance, and (as I thought in my wrath
+sometimes) a spy.  What was I likely to do, or what was any one
+likely to do to me, in a thoroughly civilized country, that I could
+not even stay in private lodgings, where I had a great deal to
+think of, without this dull creature being forced upon me?  But the
+Major so ordered it, and I gave in.
+
+There I must have staid for the slowest three mouths ever passed
+without slow starvation finishing my growth, but not knowing how to
+"form my mind," as I was told to do.  Major Hockin came down once
+or twice to see me, and though I did not like him, yet it was
+almost enough to make me do so to see a little liveliness.  But I
+could not and would not put up with a frightful German baron of
+music, with a polished card like a toast-rack, whom the Major tried
+to impress on me.  As if I could stop to take music lessons!
+
+"Miss Wood," said Major Hockin, in his strongest manner, the last
+time he came to see me, "I stand to you in loco parentis.  That
+means, with the duties, relationships, responsibilities, and what
+not, of the unfortunate--I should say rather of the beloved--parent
+deceased.  I wish to be more careful of you than of a daughter of
+my own--a great deal more careful, ten times, Miss Wood; I may say
+a thousand times more careful, because you have not had the
+discipline which a daughter of mine would have enjoyed.  And you
+are so impulsive when you take an idea!  You judge every body by
+your likings.  That leads to error, error, error."
+
+"My name is not Miss Wood," I answered; "my name is 'Erema
+Castlewood.'  Whatever need may have been on board ship for nobody
+knowing who I am, surely I may have my own name now."
+
+When any body says "surely," at once up springs a question; nothing
+being sure, and the word itself at heart quite interrogative.  The
+Major knew all those little things which manage women so manfully.
+So he took me by the hand and led me to the light and looked at me.
+
+I had not one atom of Russian twist or dyed China grass in my hair,
+nor even the ubiquitous aid of horse and cow; neither in my face or
+figure was I conscious of false presentment.  The Major was welcome
+to lead me to the light and to throw up all his spectacles and gaze
+with all his eyes.  My only vexation was with myself, because I
+could not keep the weakness--which a stranger should not see--out
+of my eyes, upon sudden remembrance who it was that used to have
+the right to do such things to me.  This it was, and nothing else,
+that made me drop my eyes, perhaps.
+
+"There, there, my dear!" said Major Hockin, in a softer voice than
+usual.  "Pretty fit you are to combat with the world, and defy the
+world, and brave the world, and abolish the world--or at least the
+world's opinion!  'Bo to a goose,' you can say, my dear; but no
+'bo' to a gander.  No, no; do quietly what I advise--by-the-bye,
+you have never asked my advice."
+
+I can not have been hypocritical, for of all things I detest that
+most; but in good faith I said, being conquered by the Major's
+relaxation of his eyes,
+
+"Oh, why have you never offered it to me?  You knew that I never
+could ask for it."
+
+For the moment he looked surprised, as if our ideas had gone
+crosswise; and then he remembered many little symptoms of my faith
+in his opinions; which was now growing inevitable, with his wife
+and daughters, and many grandchildren--all certain that he was a
+Solomon.
+
+"Erema," he said, "you are a dear good girl, though sadly, sadly
+romantic.  I had no idea that you had so much sense.  I will talk
+with you, Erema, when we both have leisure."
+
+"I am quite at leisure, Major Hockin," I replied, "and only too
+happy to listen to you."
+
+"Yes, yes, I dare say.  You are in lodgings.  You can do exactly as
+you please.  But I have a basin of ox-tail soup, a cutlet, and a
+woodcock waiting for me at the Cosmopolitan Hotel.  Bless me!  I am
+five minutes late already.  I will come and have a talk with you
+afterward."
+
+"Thank you," I said; "we had better leave it.  It seems of no
+importance, compared--compared with--"
+
+"My dinner!" said the Major; but he was offended, and so was I a
+little, though neither of us meant to vex the other.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+BRUNTSEA
+
+
+It would be unfair to Major Hockin to take him for an extravagant
+man or a self-indulgent one because of the good dinner he had
+ordered, and his eagerness to sit down to it.  Through all the best
+years of his life he had been most frugal, abstemious, and self-
+denying, grudging every penny of his own expense, but sparing none
+for his family.  And now, when he found himself so much better off,
+with more income and less outlay, he could not be blamed for
+enjoying good things with the wholesome zest of abstinence.
+
+For, coming to the point, and going well into the matter, the Major
+had discovered that the "little property" left to him, and which he
+was come to see to, really was quite a fine estate for any one who
+knew how to manage it, and would not spare courage and diligence.
+And of these two qualities he had such abundance that, without any
+outlet, they might have turned him sour.
+
+The property lately devised to him by his cousin, Sir Rufus Hockin,
+had long been far more plague than profit to that idle baronet.
+Sir Rufus hated all exertion, yet could not comfortably put up with
+the only alternative--extortion.  Having no knowledge of his cousin
+Nick (except that he was indefatigable), and knowing his own son to
+be lazier even than himself had been, longing also to inflict even
+posthumous justice upon the land agent, with the glad consent of
+his heir he left this distant, fretful, and naked spur of land to
+his beloved cousin Major Nicholas Hockin.
+
+The Major first heard of this unexpected increase of his belongings
+while he was hovering, in the land of gold, between his desire to
+speculate and his dread of speculation.  At once he consulted our
+Colonel Gundry, who met him by appointment at Sacramento; and Uncle
+Sam having a vast idea of the value of land in England, which the
+Major naturally made the most of, now being an English land-owner,
+they spent a most pleasant evening, and agreed upon the line marked
+out by Providence.
+
+Thus it was that he came home, bringing (by kind arrangement) me,
+who was much more trouble than comfort to him, and at first
+disposed to be cold and curt.  And thus it was that I was left so
+long in that wretched Southampton, under the care of a very kind
+person who never could understand me.  And all this while (as I
+ought to have known, without any one to tell me) Major Hockin was
+testing the value and beating the bounds of his new estate, and
+prolonging his dinner from one to two courses, or three if he had
+been travelling.  His property was large enough to afford him many
+dinners, and rich enough (when rightly treated) to insure their
+quality.
+
+Bruntsea is a quiet little village on the southeast coast of
+England, in Kent or in Sussex, I am not sure which, for it has a
+constitution of its own, and says that it belongs to neither.  It
+used to be a place of size and valor, furnishing ships, and finding
+money for patriotic purposes.  And great people both embarked and
+landed, one doing this and the other that, though nobody seems to
+have ever done both, if history is to be relied upon.  The glory of
+the place is still preserved in a seal and an immemorial stick,
+each of which is blessed with marks as incomprehensible as could be
+wished, though both are to be seen for sixpence.  The name of the
+place is written in more than forty different ways, they say; and
+the oldest inhabitant is less positive than the youngest how to
+spell it.
+
+This village lies in the mouth, or rather at the eastern end of the
+mouth, of a long and wide depression among the hills, through which
+a sluggish river wins its muddy consummation.  This river once went
+far along the sea-brink, without entering (like a child who is
+afraid to bathe), as the Adur does at Shoreham, and as many other
+rivers do.  And in those days the mouth and harbor were under the
+cliff at Bruntsea, whence its seal and corporation, stick, and
+other blessings.  But three or four centuries ago the river was
+drawn by a violent storm, like a badger from his barrel, and forced
+to come straight out and face the sea, without any three miles of
+dalliance.  The time-serving water made the best of this, forsook
+its ancient bed (as classic nymphs and fountains used to do), and
+left poor Bruntsea with a dry bank, and no haven for a cockle-
+shell.  A new port, such as it is, incrusted the fickle jaw of the
+river; piles were driven and earth-works formed, lest the water
+should return to its old love; and Bruntsea, as concerned her
+traffic, became but a mark of memory.  Her noble corporation never
+demanded their old channel, but regarded the whole as the will of
+the Lord, and had the good sense to insist upon nothing except
+their time-honored ceremonies.
+
+In spite of all these and their importance, land became of no value
+there.  The owner of the Eastern Manor and of many ancient rights,
+having no means of getting at them, sold them for an "old song,"
+which they were; and the buyer was one of the Hockin race, a
+shipwrecked mariner from Cornwall, who had been kindly treated
+there, and took a fancy accordingly.  He sold his share in some
+mine to pay for it, settled here, and died here; and his son,
+getting on in the world, built a house, and took to serious
+smuggling.  In the chalk cliff's eastward he found holes of honest
+value to him, capable of cheap enlargement (which the Cornish holes
+were not), and much more accessible from France.  Becoming a
+magistrate and deputy-lieutenant, he had the duty and privilege of
+inquiring into his own deeds, which enabled him to check those few
+who otherwise might have competed with him.  He flourished, and
+bought more secure estates; and his son, for activity against
+smugglers, was made a gentle baronet.
+
+These things now had passed away, and the first fee-simple of the
+Hockin family became a mere load and incumbrance.  Sir George and
+Sir Robert and Sir Rufus, one after another, did not like the hints
+about contraband dealings which met them whenever they deigned to
+come down there, till at last the estate (being left to an agent)
+cost a great deal more than he ever paid in.  And thus--as should
+have been more briefly told--the owner was our Major Hockin.
+
+No wonder that this gentleman, with so many cares to attend to, had
+no time at first to send for me.  And no wonder that when he came
+down to see me, he was obliged to have good dinners.  For the work
+done by him in those three months surprised every body except
+himself, and made in old Bruntsea a stir unknown since the time of
+the Spanish Armada.  For he owned the house under the eastern
+cliff, and the warren, and the dairy-farm inland, and the slope of
+the ground where the sea used to come, and fields where the people
+grew potatoes gratis, and all the eastern village, where the
+tenants paid their rents whenever they found it rational.
+
+A hot young man, in a place like this, would have done a great deal
+of mischief.  Either he would have accepted large views, and
+applauded this fine communism (if he could afford it, and had no
+wife), or else he would have rushed at every body headlong, and
+batted them back to their abutments.  Neither course would have
+created half the excitement which the Major's did.  At least, there
+might have been more talk at first, but not a quarter so much in
+sum total.  Of those things, however, there is time enough to
+speak, if I dare to say any thing about them.
+
+The things more to my mind (and therefore more likely to be made
+plain to another mind) are not the petty flickering phantoms of the
+shadow we call human, and which alone we realize, and dwell inside
+it and upon it, as if it were all creation; but the infinitely
+nobler things of ever-changing but perpetual beauty, and no
+selfishness.  These, without deigning to us even sense to be aware
+of them, shape our little minds and bodies and our large self-
+importance, and fail to know when the lord or king who owns is
+buried under them.  To have perception of such mighty truths is
+good for all of us: and I never had keener perception of them than
+when I sat down on the Major's camp-stool, and saw all his land
+around me, and even the sea--where all the fish were his, as soon
+as he could catch them--and largely reflected that not a square
+foot of the whole world would ever belong to me.
+
+"Bruntlands," as the house was called, perhaps from standing well
+above the sea, was sheltered by the curve of the eastern cliff,
+which looked down over Bruntsea.  The cliff was of chalk, very
+steep toward the sea, and showing a prominent headland toward the
+south, but prettily rising in grassy curves from the inland and
+from the westward.  And then, where it suddenly chined away from
+land-slope into sea-front, a long bar of shingle began at right
+angles to it, and, as level as a railroad, went to the river's
+mouth, a league or so now to the westward.  And beyond that another
+line of white cliffs rose, and looked well till they came to their
+headland.  Inside this bank of shingle, from end to end, might be
+traced the old course of the river, and to landward of that trough
+at the hither end stood, or lay, the calm old village.
+
+Forsaken as it was by the river, this village stuck to its ancient
+site and home, and instead of migrating, contracted itself, and
+cast off needless members.  Shrunken Bruntsea clung about the
+oldest of its churches, while the four others fell to rack and
+ruin, and settled into cow-yards and barns, and places where old
+men might sit and sigh.  But Bruntsea distinctly and trenchantly
+kept the old town's division into east and west.
+
+East Bruntsea was wholly in the Major's manor, which had a special
+charter; and most of the houses belonged to him.  This ownership
+hitherto had meant only that the landlord should do all the tumble-
+down repairs (when the agent reported that they must be done), but
+never must enter the door for his rent.  The borough had been
+disfranchised, though the snuggest of the snug for generations; and
+the freemen, thus being robbed of their rights, had no power to
+discharge their duties.  And to complicate matters yet further, for
+the few who wished to simplify them, the custom of "borough-
+English" prevailed, and governed the descent of dilapidations,
+making nice niceties for clever men of law.
+
+"You see a fine property here, Miss Wood," Major Hockin said to me,
+as we sat, on the day after I was allowed to come, enjoying the
+fresh breeze from the sea and the newness of the February air, and
+looking abroad very generally: "a very fine property, but
+neglected--shamefully, horribly, atrociously neglected--but capable
+of noble things, of grand things, of magnificent, with a trifle of
+judicious outlay."
+
+"Oh, please not to talk of outlay, my dear," said good Mrs. Hockin,
+gently; "it is such an odious word; and where in the world is it to
+come from?"
+
+"Leave that to me.  When I was a boy my favorite copy in my copy-
+book was, 'Where there's a will there's a way.'  Miss Wood, what is
+your opinion?  But wait, you must have time to understand the
+subject.  First we bring a railway--always the first step; why, the
+line is already made for it by the course of the old river, and the
+distance from Newport three miles and a half.  It ought not to cost
+quite 200 pounds a mile--the mere outlay for rails and sleepers.
+The land is all mine, and--and of course other landed proprietors'.
+Very well: these would all unite, of course; so that not a farthing
+need be paid for land, which is the best half of the battle.  We
+have the station here--not too near my house; that would never do;
+I could not bear the noise--but in a fine central place where
+nobody on earth could object to it--lively, and close at hand for
+all of them.  Unluckily I was just too late.  We have lost a
+Parliamentary year through that execrable calm--you remember all
+about it.  Otherwise we would have had Billy Puff stabled at
+Bruntsea by the first of May.  But never mind; we shall do it all
+the better and cheaper by taking our time about it.  Very well: we
+have the railway opened and the trade of the place developed.  We
+build a fine terrace of elegant villas, a crescent also, and a
+large hotel replete with every luxury; and we form the finest sea-
+parade in England by simply assisting nature.  Half London comes
+down here to bathe, to catch shrimps, to flirt, and to do the rest
+of it.  We become a select, salubrious, influential, and yet
+economical place; and then what do we do, Mrs. Hockin?"
+
+"My dear, how can I tell?  But I hope that we should rest and be
+thankful."
+
+"Not a bit of it.  I should hope not, indeed.  Erema, what do we do
+then?"
+
+"It is useless to ask me.  Well, then, perhaps you set up a
+handsome saw-mill!"
+
+"A saw-mill!  What a notion of Paradise!  No; this is what we do--
+but remember that I speak in the strictest confidence; dishonest
+antagonism might arise, if we ventilated our ideas too soon--Mrs.
+Hockin and Miss Wood, we demand the restoration of our river!--the
+return of our river to its ancient course."
+
+"I see," said his wife; "oh, how grand that would be! and how
+beautiful from our windows!  That really, now, is a noble thought!"
+
+"A just one--simply a just one.  Justice ought not to be noble, my
+dear, however rare it may be.  Generosity, magnanimity, heroism,
+and so on--those are the things we call noble, my dear."
+
+"And the founding of cities.  Oh, my dear, I remember, when I was
+at school, it was always said, in what we called our histories,
+that the founders of cities had honors paid them, and altars built,
+and divinities done, and holidays held in their honor."
+
+"To that I object," cried the Major, sternly.  "If I founded fifty
+cities, I would never allow one holiday.  The Sabbath is enough;
+one day in seven--fifteen per cent, of one's whole time; and twenty
+per cent, of your Sunday goes in church.  Very right, of course,
+and loyal, and truly edifying--Mrs. Hockin's father was a
+clergyman, Miss Wood; and the last thing I would ever allow on my
+manor would be a Dissenting chapel; but still I will have no new
+churches here, and a man who might go against me.  They all want to
+pick their own religious views, instead of reflecting who supports
+them!  It never used to be so; and such things shall never occur on
+my manor.  A good hotel, attendance included, and a sound and
+moderate table d'hote; but no church, with a popish bag sent round,
+and money to pay, 'without anything to eat.'"
+
+"My dear! my dear!" cried Mrs. Hockin, "I never like you to talk
+like that.  You quite forget who my father was, and your own second
+son such a very sound priest!"
+
+"A priest!  Don't let him come here," cried the Major, "or I'll let
+him know what tonsure is, and read him the order of Melchisedec.  A
+priest!  After going round the world three times, to come home and
+be hailed as the father of a priest!  Don't let him come near me,
+or I'll sacrifice him."
+
+"Now, Major, you are very proud of him," his good wife answered, as
+he shook his stick.  "How could he help taking orders when he was
+under orders to do so?  And his views are sound to the last degree,
+most strictly correct and practical--at least except as to
+celibacy."
+
+"He holds that his own mother ought never to have been born!  Miss
+Wood, do you call that practical?"
+
+"I have no acquaintance with such things," I replied; "we had none
+of them in California.  But is it practical, Major Hockin--of
+course you know best in your engineering--I mean, would it not
+require something like a tunnel for the river and the railway to
+run on the same ground?"
+
+"Why, bless me!  That seems to have escaped my notice.  You have
+not been with old Uncle Sam for nothing.  We shall have to appoint
+you our chief engineer."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI
+
+LISTLESS
+
+
+It seemed an unfortunate thing for me, and unfavorable to my
+purpose, that my host, and even my hostess too, should be so
+engrossed with their new estate, its beauties and capabilities.
+Mrs. Hockin devoted herself at once to fowls and pigs and the like
+extravagant economies, having bought, at some ill-starred moment, a
+book which proved that hens ought to lay eggs in a manner to
+support themselves, their families, and the family they belonged
+to, at the price of one penny a dozen.  Eggs being two shillings a
+dozen in Bruntsea, here was a margin for profit--no less than two
+thousand per cent, to be made, allowing for all accidents.  The
+lady also found another book, divulging for a shilling the author's
+purely invaluable secret--how to work an acre of ground, pay house
+rent, supply the house grandly, and give away a barrow-load of
+vegetables every day to the poor of the parish, by keeping a pig--
+if that pig were kept properly.  And after that, pork and ham and
+bacon came of him, while another golden pig went on.
+
+Mrs. Hockin was very soft-hearted, and said that she never could
+make bacon of a pig like that; and I answered that if she ever got
+him it would be unwise to do so.  However, the law was laid down in
+both books that golden fowls and diamondic pigs must die the death
+before they begin to overeat production; and the Major said, "To be
+sure.  Yes, yes.  Let them come to good meat, and then off with
+their heads."  And his wife said that she was sure she could do it.
+When it comes to a question of tare and tret, false sentiment must
+be excluded.
+
+At the moment, these things went by me as trifles, yet made me more
+impatient.  Being older now, and beholding what happens with
+tolerance and complacence, I am only surprised that my good friends
+were so tolerant of me and so complacent.  For I must have been a
+great annoyance to them, with my hurry and my one idea.  Happily
+they made allowance for me, which I was not old enough to make for
+them.
+
+"Go to London, indeed!  Go to London by yourself!" cried the Major,
+with a red face, and his glasses up, when I told him one morning
+that I could stop no longer without doing something.  "Mary, my
+dear, when you have done out there, will you come in and reason--if
+you can--with Miss Wood.  She vows that she is going to London, all
+alone."
+
+"Oh, Major Hockin--oh, Nicholas dear, such a thing has happened!"
+Mrs. Hockin had scarcely any breath to tell us, as she came in
+through the window.  "You know that they have only had three
+bushels, or, at any rate, not more than five, almost ever since
+they came.  Erema, you know as well as I do."
+
+"Seven and three-quarter bushels of barley, at five and ninepence a
+bushel, Mary," said the Major, pulling out a pocket-book; "besides
+Indian corn, chopped meat, and potatoes."
+
+"And fourteen pounds of paddy," I said--which was a paltry thing of
+me; "not to mention a cake of graves, three sacks of brewers'
+grains, and then--I forget what next."
+
+"You are too bad, all of you.  Erema, I never thought you would
+turn against me so.  And you made me get nearly all of it.  But
+please to look here.  What do you call this?  Is this no reward?
+Is this not enough?  Major, if you please, what do you call this?
+What a pity you have had your breakfast!"
+
+"A blessing--if this was to be my breakfast.  I call that, my dear,
+the very smallest egg I have seen since I took sparrows' nests.  No
+wonder they sell them at twelve a penny.  I congratulate you upon
+your first egg, my dear Mary."
+
+"Well, I don't care," replied Mrs. Hockin, who had the sweetest
+temper in the world.  "Small beginnings make large endings; and an
+egg must be always small at one end.  You scorn my first egg, and
+Erema should have had it if she had been good.  But she was very
+wicked, and I know not what to do with it."
+
+"Blow it!" cried the Major.  "I mean no harm, ladies.  I never use
+low language.  What I mean is, make a pinhole at each end, give a
+puff, and away goes two pennyworth, and you have a cabinet
+specimen, which your egg is quite fitted by its cost to be.  But
+now, Mary, talk to Miss Wood, if you please.  It is useless for me
+to say any thing, and I have three appointments in the town"--he
+always called it "the town" now--"three appointments, if not four;
+yes, I may certainly say four.  Talk to Miss Wood, my dear, if you
+please.  She wants to go to London, which would be absurd.  Ladies
+seem to enter into ladies' logic.  They seem to be able to
+appreciate it better, to see all the turns, and the ins and outs,
+which no man has intellect enough to see, or at least to make head
+or tail of.  Good-by for the present; I had better be off."
+
+"I should think you had," exclaimed Mrs. Hockin, as her husband
+marched off, with his side-lights on, and his short, quick step,
+and well-satisfied glance at the hill which belonged to him, and
+the beach, over which he had rights of plunder--or, at least, Uncle
+Sam would have called them so, strictly as he stood up for his own.
+
+"Now come and talk quietly to me, my dear," Mrs. Hockin began, most
+kindly, forgetting all the marvel of her first-born egg.  "I have
+noticed how restless you are, and devoid of all healthy interest in
+any thing.  'Listless' is the word.  'Listless' is exactly what I
+mean, Erema.  When I was at your time of life, I could never have
+gone about caring for nothing.  I wonder that you knew that I even
+had a fowl; much more how much they had eaten!"
+
+"I really do try to do all I can, and that is a proof of it," I
+said.  "I am not quite so listless as you think.  But those things
+do seem so little to me."
+
+"My dear, if you were happy, they would seem quite large, as, after
+all the anxieties of my life, I am able now to think them.  It is a
+power to be thankful for, or, at least, I often think so.  Look at
+my husband!  He has outlived and outlasted more trouble than any
+one but myself could reckon up to him; and yet he is as brisk, as
+full of life, as ready to begin a new thing to-morrow--when, at our
+age, there may be no to-morrow, except in that better world, my
+dear, of which it is high time for him and me to think, as I truly
+hope we may spare the time to do."
+
+"Oh, don't talk like that," I cried.  "Please, Mrs. Hockin, to talk
+of your hens and chicks--at least there will be chicks by-and-by.
+I am almost sure there will, if you only persevere.  It seems
+unfair to set our minds on any other world till justice has been
+done in this."
+
+"You are very young, my child, or you would know that in that case
+we never should think of it at all.  But I don't want to preach you
+a sermon, Erema, even if I could do so.  I only just want you to
+tell me what you think, what good you imagine that you can do."
+
+"It is no imagination.  I am sure that I can right my father's
+wrongs.  And I never shall rest till I do so."
+
+"Are you sure that there is any wrong to right?" she asked, in the
+warmth of the moment; and then, seeing perhaps how my color
+changed, she looked at me sadly, and kissed my forehead.
+
+"Oh, if you had only once seen him," I said; "without any
+exaggeration, you would have been satisfied at once.  That he could
+ever have done any harm was impossible--utterly impossible.  I am
+not as I was.  I can listen to almost any thing now quite calmly.
+But never let me hear such a wicked thing again."
+
+"You must not go on like that, Erema, unless you wish to lose all
+your friends.  No one can help being sorry for you.  Very few girls
+have been placed as you are.  I am sure when I think of my own
+daughters I can never be too thankful.  But the very first thing
+you have to learn, above all things, is to control yourself."
+
+"I know it--I know it, of course," I said; "and I keep on trying my
+very best.  I am thoroughly ashamed of what I said, and I hope you
+will try to forgive me."
+
+"A very slight exertion is enough for that.  But now, my dear, what
+I want to know is this--and you will excuse me if I ask too much--
+what good do you expect to get by going thus to London?  Have you
+any friend there, any body to trust, any thing settled as to what
+you are to do?"
+
+"Yes, every thing is settled in my own mind," I answered, very
+bravely: "I have the address of a very good woman, found among my
+father's papers, who nursed his children and understood his nature,
+and always kept her faith in him.  There must be a great many more
+who do the same, and she will be sure to know them and introduce me
+to them; and I shall be guided by their advice."
+
+"But suppose that this excellent woman is dead, or not to be found,
+or has changed her opinion?"
+
+"Her opinion she never could change.  But if she is not to be
+found, I shall find her husband, or her children, or somebody; and
+besides that, I have a hundred things to do.  I have the address of
+the agent through whom my father drew his income, though Uncle Sam
+let me know as little as he could.  And I know who his bankers were
+(when he had a bank), and he may have left important papers there."
+
+"Come, that looks a little more sensible, my dear; bankers may
+always be relied upon.  And there may be some valuable plate,
+Erema.  But why not let the Major go with you?  His advice is so
+invaluable."
+
+"I know that it is, in all ordinary things.  But I can not have him
+now, for a very simple reason.  He has made up his mind about my
+dear father--horribly, horribly; I can't speak of it.  And he never
+changes his mind; and sometimes when I look at him I hate him."
+
+"Erema, you are quite a violent girl, although you so seldom show
+it.  Is the whole world divided, then, into two camps--those who
+think as you wish and those who are led by their judgment to think
+otherwise?  And are you to hate all who do not think as you wish?"
+
+"No, because I do not hate you," I said; "I love you, though you do
+not think as I wish.  But that is only because you think your
+husband must be right of course.  But I can not like those who have
+made up their minds according to their own coldness."
+
+"Major Hockin is not cold at all.  On the contrary, he is a warm-
+hearted man--I might almost say hot-hearted."
+
+"Yes, I know he is.  And that makes it ten times worse.  He takes
+up every body's case--but mine."
+
+"Sad as it is, you almost make me smile," my hostess answered,
+gravely; "and yet it must be very bitter for you, knowing how just
+and kind my husband is.  I am sure that you will give him credit
+for at least desiring to take your part.  And doing so, at least
+you might let him go with you, if only as a good protection."
+
+"I have no fear of any one; and I might take him into society that
+he would not like.  In a good cause he would go any where, I know.
+But in my cause, of course he would be scrupulous.  Your kindness I
+always can rely upon, and I hope in the end to earn his as well."
+
+"My dear, he has never been unkind to you.  I am certain that you
+never can say that of him.  Major Hockin unkind to a poor girl like
+you!"
+
+"The last thing I wish to claim is any body's pity," I answered,
+less humbly than I should have spoken, though the pride was only in
+my tone, perhaps.  "If people choose to pity me, they are very
+good, and I am not at all offended, because--because they can not
+help it, perhaps, from not knowing any thing about me.  I have
+nothing whatever to be pitied for, except that I have lost my
+father, and have nobody left to care for me, except Uncle Sam in
+America."
+
+"Your Uncle Sam, as you call him, seems to be a very wonderful man,
+Erema," said Mrs. Hockin, craftily, so far as there could be any
+craft in her; "I never saw him--a great loss on my part.  But the
+Major went up to meet him somewhere, and came home with the stock
+of his best tie broken, and two buttons gone from his waistcoat.
+Does Uncle Sam make people laugh so much? or is it that he has some
+extraordinary gift of inducing people to taste whiskey?  My husband
+is a very--most abstemious man, as you must be well aware, Miss
+Wood, or we never should have been as we are, I am sure.  But, for
+the first time in all my life, I doubted his discretion on the
+following day, when he had--what shall I say?--when he had been
+exchanging sentiments with Uncle Sam."
+
+"Uncle Sam never takes too much in any way," I replied to this new
+attack; "he knows what he ought to take, and then he stops.  Do you
+think that it may have been his 'sentiments,' perhaps, that were
+too strong and large for the Major?"
+
+"Erema!" cried Mrs. Hockin, with amazement, as if I had no right to
+think or express my thoughts on life so early; "if you can talk
+politics at eighteen, you are quite fit to go any where.  I have
+heard a great deal of American ladies, and seen not a little of
+them, as you know.  But I thought that you called yourself an
+English girl, and insisted particularly upon it."
+
+"Yes, that I do; and I have good reason.  I am born of an old
+English family, and I hope to be no disgrace to it.  But being
+brought up in a number of ways, as I have been without thinking of
+it, and being quite different from the fashionable girls Major
+Hockin likes to walk with--"
+
+"My dear, he never walks with any body but myself!"
+
+"Oh yes, I remember!  I was thinking of the deck.  There are no
+fashionable girls here yet.  Till the terrace is built, and the
+esplanade--"
+
+"There shall be neither terrace nor esplanade if the Major is to do
+such things upon them."
+
+"I am sure that he never would," I replied; "it was only their
+dresses that he liked at all, and that very, to my mind,
+extraordinary style, as well as unbecoming.  You know what I mean,
+Mrs. Hockin, that wonderful--what shall I call it?--way of looping
+up."
+
+"Call me 'Aunt Mary,' my dear, as you did when the waves were so
+dreadful.  You mean that hideous Mexican poncho, as they called it,
+stuck up here, and going down there.  Erema, what observation you
+have!  Nothing ever seems to escape you.  Did you ever see any
+thing so indecorous?"
+
+"It made me feel just as if I ought not to look at them," I
+answered, with perfect truth, for so it did; "I have never been
+accustomed to such things.  But seeing how the Major approved of
+them, and liked to be walking up and down between them, I knew that
+they must be not only decorous, but attractive.  There is no appeal
+from his judgment, is there?"
+
+"I agree with him upon every point, my dear child; but I have
+always longed to say a few words about that.  For I can not help
+thinking that he went too far."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII
+
+BETSY BOWEN
+
+
+So far, then, there was nobody found to go into my case, and to
+think with me, and to give me friendly countenance, with the
+exception of Firm Gundry.  And I feared that he tried to think with
+me because of his faithful and manly love, more than from balance
+of evidence.  The Sawyer, of course, held my father guiltless,
+through his own fidelity and simple ways; but he could not enter
+into my set thought of a stern duty laid upon me, because to his
+mind the opinion of the world mattered nothing so long as a man did
+aright.  For wisdom like this, if wisdom it is, I was a great deal
+too young and ardent; and to me fair fame was of almost equal value
+with clear conscience.  And therefore, wise or foolish, rich or
+poor, beloved or unloved, I must be listless about other things,
+and restless in all, until I should establish truth and justice.
+
+However, I did my best to be neither ungrateful nor stupidly
+obstinate, and, beginning more and more to allow for honest though
+hateful opinions, I yielded to dear Mrs. Hockin's wish that I
+should not do any thing out of keeping with English ideas and
+habits.  In a word, I accepted the Major's kind offer to see me
+quite safe in good hands in London, or else bring me straightway
+back again.  And I took only just things enough for a day or two,
+meaning to come back by the end of the week.  And I kissed Mrs.
+Hockin just enough for that.
+
+It would not be a new thing for me to say that "we never know what
+is going to happen;" but, new or stale, it was true enough, as old
+common sayings of common-sense (though spurned when not wanted)
+show themselves.  At first, indeed, it seemed as if I were come for
+nothing, at least as concerned what I thought the chief business of
+my journey.  The Major had wished to go first to the bank, and
+appeared to think nothing of any thing else; but I, on the other
+hand, did not want him there, preferring to keep him out of my
+money matters, and so he was obliged to let me have my way.
+
+I always am sorry when I have been perverse, and it seemed to serve
+me right for willfulness when no Betsy Bowen could be discovered
+either at the place which we tried first, or that to which we were
+sent thence.  Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as
+much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all
+a wild-goose chase.  And being more curious than ever now to go to
+the bank and ransack, he actually called out to the cabman to drive
+without delay to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin.  But I
+begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the
+servant-maid alone.  Then I showed her a sovereign, at which she
+opened her mouth in more ways than one, for she told me that
+"though she had faithfully promised to say nothing about it,
+because of a dreadful quarrel between her mistress and Mrs. Strouss
+that was now, and a jealousy between them that was quite beyond
+belief, she could not refuse such a nice young lady, if I would
+promise faithfully not to tell."  This promise I gave with
+fidelity, and returning to the cabman, directed him to drive not to
+Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin just yet, but to No. 17
+European Square, St. Katharine's.
+
+From a maze of streets and rugged corners, and ins and outs nearly
+as crooked as those of a narrow human nature, we turned at last
+into European Square, which was no square at all, but an oblong
+opening pitched with rough granite, and distinguished with a pump.
+There were great thoroughfares within a hundred yards, but the
+place itself seemed unnaturally quiet upon turning suddenly into
+it, only murmurous with distant London din, as the spires of a
+shell hold the heavings of the sea.  After driving three or four
+times round the pump, for the houses were numbered anyhow, we found
+No. 17, and I jumped out.
+
+"Now don't be in such a fierce hurry, Miss Wood," cried the Major,
+who was now a little crusty; "English ladies allow themselves to be
+handed out, without hurrying the gentlemen who have the honor."
+
+"But I wanted to save you the honor," I said.  "I will come back
+immediately, if you will kindly wait."  And with this I ran up the
+old steps, and rang and knocked, while several bearded faces came
+and gazed through dingy windows.
+
+"Can I see Mrs. Strouss?" I asked, when a queer old man in faded
+brown livery came to the door with a candle in his hand, though the
+sun was shining.
+
+"I am the Meesther Strouss; when you see me, you behold the good
+Meeses Strouss also."
+
+"Thank you, but that will not do," I replied; "my business is with
+Mrs. Strouss alone."
+
+He did not seem to like this at first sight, but politely put the
+chain-bolt on the door while he retired to take advice; and the
+Major looked out of the cab and laughed.
+
+"You had better come back while you can," he said, "though they
+seem in no hurry to swallow you."
+
+This was intended to vex me, and I did not even turn my head to
+him.  The house looked very respectable, and there were railings to
+the area.
+
+"The house is very respectable," continued Major Hockin, who always
+seemed to know what I was thinking of, and now in his quick manner
+ran up the steps; "just look, the scraper is clean.  You never see
+that, or at least not often, except with respectable people,
+Erema."
+
+"Pray what would my scraper be? and who is Erema?" cried a strong,
+clear voice, as the chain of the door was set free, and a stout,
+tall woman with a flush in her cheeks confronted us.  "I never knew
+more than one Erema--Good mercy!"
+
+My eyes met hers, and she turned as pale as death, and fell back
+into a lobby chair.  She knew me by my likeness to my father,
+falling on the memories started by my name; and strong as she was,
+the surprise overcame her, at the sound of which up rushed the
+small Herr Strouss.
+
+"Vhat are you doing dere, all of you? vhat have you enterprised
+with my frau?  Explain, Vilhelmina, or I call de policemans, vhat I
+should say de peelers."
+
+"Stop!" cried the Major, and he stopped at once, not for the word,
+which would have had no power, although I knew nothing about it
+then, but because he had received a sign which assured him that
+here was a brother Mason.  In a moment the infuriated husband
+vanished into the rational and docile brother.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemans, valk in, if you please," he said, to my
+great astonishment; "Vilhelmina and my good self make you velcome
+to our poor house.  Vilhelmina, arise and say so."
+
+"Go to the back kitchen, Hans," replied Wilhelmina, whose name was
+"Betsy," "and don't come out until I tell you.  You will find work
+to do there, and remember to pump up.  I wish to hear things that
+you are not to hear, mind you.  Shut yourself in, and if you soap
+the door to deceive me, I shall know it."
+
+"Vere goot, vere goot," said the philosophical German; "I never
+meddle with nothing, Vilhelmina, no more than vhat I do for de
+money and de house."
+
+Betsy, however, was not quite so sure of that.  With no more
+ceremony she locked him in, and then came back to us, who could not
+make things out.
+
+"My husband is the bravest of the brave," she told us, while she
+put down his key on the table; "and a nobler man never lived; I am
+sure of that.  But every one of them foreigners--excuse me, Sir,
+you are an Englishman?"
+
+"I am," replied the Major, pulling up his little whiskers; "I am
+so, madam, and nothing you can say will in any way hurt my
+feelings.  I am above nationalities."
+
+"Just so, Sir.  Then you will feel with me when I say that they
+foreigners is dreadful.  Oh, the day that I ever married one of
+'em--but there, I ought to be ashamed of myself, and my lord's
+daughter facing me."
+
+"Do you know me?" I asked, with hot color in my face, and my eyes,
+I dare say, glistening.  "Are you sure that you know me?  And then
+please to tell me how."
+
+As I spoke I was taking off the close silk bonnet which I had worn
+for travelling, and my hair, having caught in a pin, fell round me,
+and before I could put it up, or even think of it, I lay in the
+great arms of Betsy Bowen, as I used to lie when I was a little
+baby, and when my father was in his own land, with a home and wife
+and seven little ones.  And to think of this made me keep her
+company in crying, and it was some time before we did any thing
+else.
+
+"Well, well," replied the Major, who detested scenes, except when
+he had made them; "I shall be off.  You are in good hands; and the
+cabman pulled out his watch when we stopped.  So did I.  But he is
+sure to beat me.  They draw the minute hand on with a magnet, I am
+told, while the watch hangs on their badge, and they can swear they
+never opened it.  Wonderful age, very wonderful age, since the time
+when you and I were young, ma'am."
+
+"Yes, Sir; to be sure, Sir!" Mrs. Strouss replied, as she wiped her
+eyes to speak of things; "but the most wonderfulest of all things,
+don't you think, is the going of the time, Sir?  No cabby can make
+it go faster while he waits, or slower while he is a-driving, than
+the minds inside of us manage it.  Why, Sir, it wore only like
+yesterday that this here tall, elegant, royal young lady was a-
+lying on my breast, and what a hand she was to kick!  And I said
+that her hair was sure to grow like this.  If I was to tell you
+only half what comes across me--"
+
+"If you did, ma'am, the cabman would make his fortune, and I should
+lose mine, which is more than I can afford.  Erema, after dinner I
+shall look you up.  I know a good woman when I see her, Mrs.
+Strouss, which does not happen every day.  I can trust Miss
+Castlewood with you.  Good-by, good-by for the present."
+
+It was the first time he had ever called me by my proper name, and
+that made me all the more pleased with it.
+
+"You see, Sir, why I were obliged to lock him in," cried the "good
+woman," following to the door, to clear every blur from her
+virtues; "for his own sake I done it, for I felt my cry a-coming,
+and to see me cry--Lord bless you, the effect upon him is to call
+out for a walking-stick and a pint of beer."
+
+"All right, ma'am, all right!" the Major answered, in a tone which
+appeared to me unfeeling.  "Cabman, are you asleep there?  Bring
+the lady's bag this moment."
+
+As the cab disappeared without my even knowing where to find that
+good protector again in this vast maze of millions, I could not
+help letting a little cold fear encroach on the warmth of my
+outburst.  I had heard so much in America of the dark, subtle
+places of London, and the wicked things that happen all along the
+Thames, discovered or invented by great writers of their own, that
+the neighborhood of the docks and the thought of rats (to which I
+could never grow accustomed) made me look with a flash perhaps of
+doubt at my new old friend.
+
+"You are not sure of me, Miss Erema," said Mrs. Strouss, without
+taking offense.  "After all that has happened, who can blame it on
+you?  But your father was not so suspicious, miss.  It might have
+been better for him if he had--according, leastways, to my belief,
+which a team of wild horses will never drag out."
+
+"Oh, only let me hear you talk of that!" I exclaimed, forgetting
+all other things.  "You know more about it than any body I have
+ever met with, except my own father, who would never tell a word."
+
+"And quite right he was, miss, according to his views.  But come to
+my little room, unless you are afraid.  I can tell you some things
+that your father never knew."
+
+"Afraid! do you think I am a baby still?  But I can not bear that
+Mr. Strouss should be locked up on my account."
+
+"Then he shall come out," said Mrs. Strouss, looking at me very
+pleasantly.  "That was just like your father, Miss Erema.  But I
+fall into the foreign ways, being so much with the foreigners."
+Whether she thought it the custom among "foreigners" for wives to
+lock their husbands in back kitchens was more than she ever took
+the trouble to explain.  But she walked away, in her stout, firm
+manner, and presently returned with Mr. Strouss, who seemed to be
+quite contented, and made me a bow with a very placid smile.
+
+"He is harmless; his ideas are most grand and good," his wife
+explained to me, with a nod at him.  "But I could not have you in
+with the gentleman, Hans.  He always makes mistakes with the
+gentlemen, miss, but with the ladies he behaves quite well."
+
+"Yes, yes, with the ladies I am nearly always goot," Herr Strouss
+replied, with diffidence.  "The ladies comprehend me right, all
+right, because I am so habitual with my wife.  But the gentlemans
+in London have no comprehension of me."
+
+"Then the loss is on their side," I answered, with a smile; and he
+said, "Yes, yes, they lose vere much by me."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+BETSY'S TALE
+
+
+Now I scarcely know whether it would be more clear to put into
+narrative what I heard from Betsy Bowen, now Wilhelmina Strouss, or
+to let her tell the whole in her own words, exactly as she herself
+told it then to me.  The story was so dark and sad--or at least to
+myself it so appeared--that even the little breaks and turns of
+lighter thought or livelier manner, which could scarcely fail to
+vary now and then the speaker's voice, seemed almost to grate and
+jar upon its sombre monotone.  On the other hand, by omitting
+these, and departing from her homely style, I might do more of harm
+than good through failing to convey impressions, or even facts, so
+accurately.  Whereas the gist and core and pivot of my father's
+life and fate are so involved (though not evolved) that I would not
+miss a single point for want of time or diligence.  Therefore let
+me not deny Mrs. Strouss, my nurse, the right to put her words in
+her own way.  And before she began to do this she took the trouble
+to have every thing cleared away and the trays brought down, that
+her boarders (chiefly German) might leave their plates and be
+driven to their pipes.
+
+"If you please, Miss Castlewood," Mrs. Strouss said, grandly, "do
+you or do you not approve of the presence of 'my man,' as he calls
+himself?--an improper expression, in my opinion; such, however, is
+their nature.  He can hold his tongue as well as any man, though
+none of them are very sure at that.  And he knows pretty nigh as
+much as I do, so far as his English can put things together, being
+better accustomed in German.  For when we were courting I was fain
+to tell him all, not to join him under any false pretenses, miss,
+which might give him grounds against me."
+
+"Yes, yes, it is all vere goot and true--so goot and true as can
+be."
+
+"And you might find him come very handy, my dear, to run of any
+kind of messages.  He can do that very well, I assure you, miss--
+better than any Englishman."
+
+Seeing that he wished to stay, and that she desired it, I begged
+him to stop, though it would have been more to my liking to hear
+the tale alone.
+
+"Then sit by the door, Hans, and keep off the draught," said his
+Wilhelmina, kindly.  "He is not very tall, miss, but he has good
+shoulders; I scarcely know what I should do without him.  Well,
+now, to begin at the very beginning: I am a Welshwoman, as you may
+have heard.  My father was a farmer near Abergavenny, holding land
+under Sir Watkin Williams, an old friend of your family.  My father
+had too many girls, and my mother scarcely knew what to do with the
+lot of us.  So some of us went out to service, while the boys staid
+at home to work the land.  One of my sisters was lady's-maid to
+Lady Williams, Sir Watkin's wife, at the time when your father came
+visiting there for the shooting of the moor-fowl, soon after his
+marriage with your mother.  What a sweet good lady your mother was!
+I never saw the like before or since.  No sooner did I set eyes
+upon her but she so took my fancy that I would have gone round the
+world with her.  We Welsh are a very hot people, they say--not
+cold-blooded, as the English are.  So, wise or foolish, right,
+wrong, or what might be, nothing would do for me but to take
+service, if I could, under Mrs. Castlewood.  Your father was called
+Captain Castlewood then--as fine a young man as ever clinked a
+spur, but without any boast or conceit about him; and they said
+that your grandfather, the old lord, kept him very close and spare,
+although he was the only son.  Now this must have been--let me see,
+how long ago?--about five-and-twenty years, I think.  How old are
+you now, Miss Erema?  I can keep the weeks better than the years,
+miss."
+
+"I was eighteen on my last birthday.  But never mind about the
+time--go on."
+
+"But the time makes all the difference, miss, although at the time
+we may never think so.  Well, then, it must have been better than
+six-and-twenty year agone; for though you came pretty fast, in the
+Lord's will, there was eight years between you and the first-born
+babe, who was only just a-thinking of when I begin to tell.  But to
+come back to myself, as was--mother had got too many of us still,
+and she was glad enough to let me go, however much she might cry
+over it, as soon as Lady Williams got me the place.  My place was
+to wait upon the lady first, and make myself generally useful, as
+they say.  But it was not very long before I was wanted in other
+more important ways, and having been brought up among so many
+children, they found me very handy with the little ones; and being
+in a poor way, as they were then--for people, I mean, of their
+birth and place--they were glad enough soon to make head nurse of
+me, although I was under-two-and-twenty.
+
+"We did not live at the old lord's place, which is under the hills
+looking on the river Thames, but we had a quiet little house in
+Hampshire; for the Captain was still with his regiment, and only
+came to and fro to us.  But a happier little place there could not
+be, with the flowers, and the cow, and the birds all day, and the
+children running gradually according to their age, and the pretty
+brook shining in the valley.  And as to the paying of their way, it
+is true that neither of them was a great manager.  The Captain
+could not bear to keep his pretty wife close; and she, poor thing,
+was trying always to surprise him with other presents besides all
+the beautiful babies.  But they never were in debt all round, as
+the liars said when the trouble burst; and if they owed two or
+three hundred pounds, who could justly blame them?
+
+"For the old lord, instead of going on as he should, and widening
+his purse to the number of the mouths, was niggling at them always
+for offense or excuse, to take away what little he allowed them.
+The Captain had his pay, which would go in one hand, and the lady
+had a little money of her own; but still it was cruel for brought-
+up people to have nothing better to go on with.  Not that the old
+lord was a miser neither; but it was said, and how far true I know
+not, that he never would forgive your father for marrying the
+daughter of a man he hated.  And some went so far as to say that if
+he could have done it, he would have cut your father out of all the
+old family estates.  But such a thing never could I believe of a
+nobleman having his own flesh and blood.
+
+"But, money or no money, rich or poor, your father and mother, I
+assure you, my dear, were as happy as the day was long.  For they
+loved one another and their children dearly, and they did not care
+for any mixing with the world.  The Captain had enough of that when
+put away in quarters; likewise his wife could do without it better
+and better at every birth, though once she had been the very gayest
+of the gay, which you never will be, Miss Erema.
+
+"Now, my dear, you look so sad and so 'solid,' as we used to say,
+that if I can go on at all, I must have something ready.  I am
+quite an old nurse now, remember.  Hans, go across the square, and
+turn on the left hand round the corner, and then three more streets
+toward the right, and you see one going toward the left, and you go
+about seven doors down it, and then you see a corner with a lamp-
+post."
+
+"Vilhelmina, I do see de lamp-post at de every corner."
+
+"That will teach you to look more bright, Hans.  Then you find a
+shop window with three blue bottles, and a green one in the
+middle."
+
+"How can be any middle to three, without it is one of them?"
+
+"Then let it be two of them.  How you contradict me!  Take this
+little bottle, and the man with a gold braid round a cap, and a
+tassel with a tail to it, will fill it for four-pence when you tell
+him who you are."
+
+"Yes, yes; I do now comprehend.  You send me vhere I never find de
+vay, because I am in de vay, Vilhelmina!"
+
+I was most thankful to Mrs. Strouss for sending her husband
+(however good and kind-hearted he might be) to wander among many
+shops of chemists, rather than to keep his eyes on me, while I
+listened to things that were almost sure to make me want my eyes my
+own.  My nurse had seen, as any good nurse must, that, grown and
+formed as I might be, the nature of the little child that cries for
+its mother was in me still.
+
+"It is very sad now," Mrs. Strouss began again, without replying to
+my grateful glance; "Miss Erema, it is so sad that I wish I had
+never begun with it.  But I see by your eyes--so like your
+father's, but softer, my dear, and less troublesome--that you will
+have the whole of it out, as he would with me once when I told him
+a story for the sake of another servant.  It was just about a month
+before you were born, when the trouble began to break on us.  And
+when once it began, it never stopped until all that were left ran
+away from it.  I have read in the newspapers many and many sad
+things coming over whole families, such as they call 'shocking
+tragedies;' but none of them, to my mind, could be more galling
+than what I had to see with my very own eyes.
+
+"It must have been close upon the middle of September when old Lord
+Castlewood came himself to see his son's house and family at
+Shoxford.  We heard that he came down a little on the sudden to see
+to the truth of some rumors which had reached him about our style
+of living.  It was the first time he had ever been there; for
+although he had very often been invited, he could not bear to be
+under the roof of the daughter, as he said, of his enemy.  The
+Captain, just happening to come home on leave for his autumn
+holiday, met his father quite at his own door--the very last place
+to expect him.  He afterward acknowledged that he was not pleased
+for his father to come 'like a thief in the night.'  However, they
+took him in and made him welcome, and covered up their feelings
+nicely, as high-bred people do.
+
+"What passed among them was unknown to any but themselves, except
+so far as now I tell you.  A better dinner than usual for two was
+ready, to celebrate the master's return and the beginning of his
+holiday; and the old lord, having travelled far that day, was
+persuaded to sit down with them.  The five eldest children (making
+all except the baby, for you was not born, miss, if you please)
+they were to have sat up at table, as pretty as could be--three
+with their high cushioned stools, and two in their arm-chairs
+screwed on mahogany, stuffed with horsehair, and with rods in
+front, that the little dears might not tumble out in feeding, which
+they did--it was a sight to see them!  And how they would give to
+one another, with their fingers wet and shining, and saying, 'Oo,
+dat for oo.'  Oh dear, Miss Erema, you were never born to see it!
+What a blessing for you!  All those six dear darlings laid in their
+little graves within six weeks, with their mother planted under
+them; and the only wonder is that you yourself was not upon her
+breast.
+
+"Pay you no heed to me, Miss Erema, when you see me a-whimpering in
+and out while I am about it.  It makes my chest go easy, miss, I do
+assure you, though not at the time of life to understand it.  All
+they children was to have sat up for the sake of their dear father,
+as I said just now; but because of their grandfather all was
+ordered back.  And back they come, as good as gold, with Master
+George at the head of them, and asked me what milk-teeth was.
+Grandpa had said that 'a dinner was no dinner if milk-teeth were
+allowed at it.'  The hard old man, with his own teeth false!  He
+deserved to sit down to no other dinner--and he never did, miss.
+
+"You may be sure that I had enough to do to manage all the little
+ones and answer all their questions; but never having seen a live
+lord before, and wanting to know if the children would be like him
+before so very long, I went quietly down stairs, and the biggest of
+my dears peeped after me.  And then, by favor of the parlor-maid--
+for they kept neither butler nor footman now--I saw the Lord
+Castlewood, sitting at his ease, with a glass of port-wine before
+him, and my sweet mistress (the Captain's wife, and your mother, if
+you understand, miss) doing her very best, thinking of her
+children, to please him and make the polite to him.  To me he
+seemed very much to be thawing to her--if you can understand, miss,
+what my meaning is--and the Captain was looking at them with a
+smile, as if it were just what he had hoped for.  From my own
+eyesight I can contradict the lies put about by nobody knows who,
+that the father and the son were at hot words even then.
+
+"And I even heard my master, when they went out at the door, vainly
+persuading his father to take such a bed as they could offer him.
+And good enough it would have been for ten lords; for I saw nothing
+wonderful in him, nor fit to compare any way with the Captain.  But
+he would not have it, for no other reason of ill-will or temper,
+but only because he had ordered his bed at the Moonstock Inn, where
+his coach and four were resting.
+
+"'I expect you to call me in the morning, George,' I heard him say,
+as clear as could be, while his son was helping his coat on.  'I am
+glad I have seen you.  There are worse than you.  And when the
+times get better, I will see what I can do.'
+
+"With him this meant more than it might have done; for he was not a
+man of much promises, as you might tell by his face almost, with
+his nose so stern, and his mouth screwed down, and the wrinkles the
+wrong way for smiling.  I could not tell what the Captain answered,
+for the door banged on them, and it woke the baby, who was
+dreaming, perhaps, about his lordship's face, and his little teeth
+gave him the wind on his chest, and his lungs was like bellows--
+bless him!
+
+"Well, that stopped me, Miss Erema, from being truly accurate in my
+testimony.  What with walking the floor, and thumping his back, and
+rattling of the rings to please him--when they put me on the
+Testament, cruel as they did, with the lawyers' eyes eating into
+me, and both my ears buzzing with sorrow and fright, I may have
+gone too far, with my heart in my mouth, for my mind to keep out of
+contradiction, wishful as I was to tell the whole truth in a manner
+to hurt nobody.  And without any single lie or glaze of mine, I do
+assure you, miss, that I did more harm than good; every body in the
+room--a court they called it, and no bigger than my best parlor--
+one and all they were convinced that I would swear black was white
+to save my master and mistress!  And certainly I would have done
+so, and the Lord in heaven thought the better of me, for the sake
+of all they children, if I could have made it stick together, as
+they do with practice."
+
+At thought of the little good she had done, and perhaps the great
+mischief, through excess of zeal, Mrs. Strouss was obliged to stop,
+and put her hand to her side, and sigh.  And eager as I was for
+every word of this miserable tale, no selfish eagerness could deny
+her need of refreshment, and even of rest; for her round cheeks
+were white, and her full breast trembled.  And now she was
+beginning to make snatches at my hand, as if she saw things she
+could only tell thus.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+BETSY'S TALE--(Continued.)
+
+
+"I am only astonished, my dear," said my nurse, as soon as she had
+had some tea and toast, and scarcely the soft roe of a red herring,
+"that you can put up so well, and abide with my instincts in the
+way you do.  None of your family could have done it, to my
+knowledge of their dispositions, much less the baby that was next
+above you.  But it often comes about to go in turns like that;
+'one, three, five, and seven is sweet, while two, four, and six is
+a-squalling with their feet.'  But the Lord forgive me for an ill
+word of them, with their precious little bodies washed, and laying
+in their patterns till the judgment-day.
+
+"But putting by the words I said in the dirty little room they
+pleased to call a 'court,' and the Testament so filthy that no lips
+could have a hold of it, my meaning is to tell you, miss, the very
+things that happened, so that you may fairly judge of them.  The
+Captain came back from going with his father, I am sure, in less
+than twenty minutes, and smoking a cigar in his elegant way, quite
+happy and contented, for I saw him down the staircase.  As for sign
+of any haste about him, or wiping of his forehead, or fumbling with
+his handkerchief, or being in a stew in any sort of way--as the
+stupid cook who let him in declared, by reason of her own having
+been at the beer-barrel--solemnly, miss, as I hope to go to heaven,
+there was nothing of the sort about him.
+
+"He went into the dining-room, and mistress, who had been up stairs
+to see about the baby, went down to him; and there I heard them
+talking as pleasant and as natural as they always were together.
+Not one of them had the smallest sense of trouble hanging over
+them; and they put away both the decanters and cruets, and came up
+to bed in their proper order, the master stopping down just to
+finish his cigar and see to the doors and the bringing up the
+silver, because there was no man-servant now.  And I heard him
+laughing at some little joke he made as he went into the bedroom.
+A happier household never went to bed, nor one with better hopes of
+a happy time to come.  And the baby slept beside his parents in his
+little cot, as his mother liked to have him, with his blessed mouth
+wide open.
+
+"Now we three (cook and Susan and myself) were accustomed to have a
+good time of it whenever the master first came home and the
+mistress was taken up with him.  We used to count half an hour more
+in bed, without any of that wicked bell-clack, and then go on to
+things according to their order, without any body to say any thing.
+Accordingly we were all snug in bed, and turning over for another
+tuck of sleep, when there came a most vicious ringing of the outer
+bell.  'You get up, Susan,' I heard the cook say, for there only
+was a door between us; and Susan said, 'Blest if I will!  Only
+Tuesday you put me down about it when the baker came.'  Not a peg
+would either of them stir, no more than to call names on one
+another; so I slipped on my things, with the bell going clatter all
+the while, like the day of judgment.  I felt it to be hard upon me,
+and I went down cross a little--just enough to give it well to a
+body I were not afraid of.
+
+"But the Lord in His mercy remember me, miss!  When I opened the
+door, I had no blood left.  There stood two men, with a hurdle on
+their shoulders, and on the hurdle a body, with the head hanging
+down, and the front of it slouching, like a sack that has been
+stolen from; and behind it there was an authority with two buttons
+on his back, and he waited for me to say something; but to do so
+was beyond me.  Not a bit of caution or of fear about my sham
+dress-up, as the bad folk put it afterward; the whole of such
+thoughts was beyond me outright, and no thought of any thing came
+inside me, only to wait and wonder.
+
+"'This corpse belongeth here, as I am informed,' said the man, who
+seemed to be the master of it, and was proud to be so.  'Young
+woman, don't you please to stand like that, or every duffer in the
+parish will be here, and the boys that come hankering after it.
+You be off!' he cried out to a boy who was calling some more round
+the corner.  'Now, young woman, we must come in if you please, and
+the least said the soonest mended.'
+
+"'Oh, but my mistress, my mistress!' I cried; 'and her time up, as
+nigh as may be, any day or night before new moon.  'Oh, Mr.
+Constable, Mr. Rural Polishman, take it to the tool shed, if you
+ever had a wife, Sir.'  Now even this was turned against us as if I
+had expected it.  They said that I must have known who it was, and
+to a certain length so I did, miss, but only by the dress and the
+manner of the corpse, and lying with an attitude there was no
+contradicting.
+
+"I can not tell you now, my dear, exactly how things followed.  My
+mind was gone all hollow with the sudden shock upon it.  However, I
+had thought enough to make no noise immediate, nor tell the other
+foolish girls, who would have set up bellowing.  Having years to
+deal with little ones brings knowledge of the rest to us.  I think
+that I must have gone to master's door, where Susan's orders were
+to put his shaving water in a tin, and fetched him out, with no
+disturbance, only in his dressing-gown.  And when I told him what
+it was, his rosy color turned like sheets, and he just said,
+'Hush!' and nothing more.  And guessing what he meant, I ran and
+put my things on properly.
+
+"But having time to think, the shock began to work upon me, and I
+was fit for nothing when I saw the children smiling up with their
+tongues out for their bread and milk, as they used to begin the day
+with.  And I do assure you, Miss Erema, my bitterest thought was of
+your coming, though unknown whether male or female, but both most
+inconvenient then, with things in such a state of things.  You have
+much to answer for, miss, about it; but how was you to help it,
+though?
+
+"The tool-shed door was too narrow to let the hurdle and the body
+in, and finding some large sea-kale pots standing out of use
+against the door, the two men (who were tired with the weight and
+fright, I dare say) set down their burden upon these, under a row
+of hollyhocks, at the end of the row of bee-hives.  And here they
+wiped their foreheads with some rags they had for handkerchiefs, or
+one of them with his own sleeve, I should say, and, gaining their
+breath, they began to talk with the boldness of the sunrise over
+them.  But Mr. Rural Polishman, as he was called in those parts,
+was walking up and down on guard, and despising of their foolish
+words.
+
+"My master, the Captain, your father, miss, came out of a window
+and down the cross-walk, while I was at the green door peeping, for
+I thought that I might be wanted, if only to take orders what was
+to be done inside.  The constable stiffly touched his hat, and
+marched to the head of the hurdle, and said,
+
+"'Do you know this gentleman?'
+
+"Your father took no more notice of him than if he had been a stiff
+hollyhock, which he might have resembled if he had been good-
+looking.  The Captain thought highly of discipline always, and no
+kinder gentleman could there be to those who gave his dues to him.
+But that man's voice had a low and dirty impertinent sort of a
+twang with it.  Nothing could have been more unlucky.  Every thing
+depended on that fellow in an ignorant neighborhood like that; and
+his lordship, for such he was now, of course, would not even deign
+to answer him.  He stood over his head in his upright way by a good
+foot, and ordered him here and there, as the fellow had been
+expecting, I do believe, to order his lordship.  And that made the
+bitterest enemy of him, being newly sent into these parts, and
+puffed up with authority.  And the two miller's men could not help
+grinning, for he had waved them about like a pair of dogs.
+
+"But to suppose that my master 'was unmoved, and took it brutally'
+(as that wretch of a fellow swore afterward), only shows what a
+stuck-up dolt he was.  For when my master had examined his father,
+and made his poor body be brought in and spread on the couch in the
+dining-room, and sent me hot-foot for old Dr. Diggory down at the
+bottom of Shoxford, Susan peeped in through the crack of the door,
+with the cook to hold her hand behind, and there she saw the
+Captain on his knees at the side of his father's corpse, not saying
+a word, only with his head down.  And when the doctor came back
+with me, with his night-gown positive under his coat, the first
+thing he said was, 'My dear Sir--my lord, I mean--don't take on so;
+such things will always happen in this world;' which shows that my
+master was no brute.
+
+"Then the Captain stood up in his strength and height, without any
+pride and without any shame, only in the power of a simple heart,
+and he said words fit to hang him:
+
+"'This is my doing!  There is no one else to blame.  If my father
+is dead, I have killed him!'
+
+"Several of us now were looking in, and the news going out like a
+winnowing woman with no one to shut the door after her; our passage
+was crowding with people that should have had a tar-brush in their
+faces.  And of course a good score of them ran away to tell that
+the Captain had murdered his father.  The milk-man stood there with
+his yoke and cans, and his naily boots on our new oil-cloth, and,
+not being able to hide himself plainly, he pulled out his slate and
+began to make his bill.
+
+"'Away with you all!' your father said, coming suddenly out of the
+dining-room, while the doctor was unbuttoning my lord, who was dead
+with all his day clothes on; and every body brushed away like flies
+at the depth of his voice and his stature.  Then he bolted the
+door, with only our own people and the doctor and the constable
+inside.  Your mother was sleeping like a lamb, as I could swear,
+having had a very tiring day the day before, and being well away
+from the noise of the passage, as well as at a time when they must
+sleep whenever sleep will come, miss.  Bless her gentle heart, what
+a blessing to be out of all that scare of it!
+
+"All this time, you must understand, there was no sign yet what had
+happened to his lordship, over and above his being dead.  All of us
+thought, if our minds made bold to think, that it must have pleased
+the Lord to take his lordship either with an appleplexy or a sudden
+heart-stroke, or, at any rate, some other gracious way not having
+any flow of blood in it.  But now, while your father was gone up
+stairs--for he knew that his father was dead enough--to be sure
+that your mother was quiet, and perhaps to smooth her down for
+trouble, and while I was run away to stop the ranting of the
+children, old Dr. Diggory and that rural officer were handling poor
+Lord Castlewood.  They set him to their liking, and they cut his
+clothes off--so Susan told me afterward--and then they found why
+they were forced to do so, which I need not try to tell you, miss.
+Only they found that he was not dead from any wise visitation, but
+because he had been shot with a bullet through his heart.
+
+"Old Dr. Diggory came out shaking, and without any wholesome sense
+to meet what had arisen, after all his practice with dead men, and
+he called out 'Murder!' with a long thing in his hand, till my
+master leaped down the stairs, twelve at a time, and laid his
+strong hand on the old fool's mouth.
+
+"'Would you kill my wife?' he said; 'you shall not kill my wife.'
+
+"'Captain Castlewood,' the constable answered, pulling out his
+staff importantly, 'consider yourself my prisoner.'
+
+"The Captain could have throttled him with one hand, and Susan
+thought he would have done it.  But, instead of that, he said,
+'Very well; do your duty.  But let me see what you mean by it.'
+Then he walked back again to the body of his father, and saw that
+he had been murdered.
+
+"But, oh, Miss Erema, you are so pale!  Not a bit of food have you
+had for hours.  I ought not to have told you such a deal of it to
+once.  Let me undo all your things, my dear, and give you something
+cordial; and then lie down and sleep a bit."
+
+"No, thank you, nurse," I answered, calling all my little courage
+back.  "No sleep for me until I know every word.  And to think of
+all my father had to see and bear!  I am not fit to be his
+daughter."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+BETSY'S TALE--(Concluded.)
+
+
+"Well, now," continued Mrs. Strouss, as soon as I could persuade
+her to go on, "if I were to tell you every little thing that went
+on among them, miss, I should go on from this to this day week, or
+I might say this day fortnight, and then not half be done with it.
+And the worst of it is that those little things make all the odds
+in a case of that sort, showing what the great things were.  But
+only a counselor at the Old Bailey could make head or tail of the
+goings on that followed.
+
+"For some reason of his own, unknown to any living being but
+himself, whether it were pride (as I always said) or something
+deeper (as other people thought), he refused to have any one on
+earth to help him, when he ought to have had the deepest lawyer to
+be found.  The constable cautioned him to say nothing, as it seems
+is laid down in their orders, for fear of crimination.  And he
+smiled at this, with a high contempt, very fine to see, but not
+bodily wise.  But even that jack-in-office could perceive that the
+poor Captain thought of his sick wife up stairs, and his little
+children, ten times for one thought he ever gave to his own
+position.  And yet I must tell you that he would have no denial,
+but to know what it was that had killed his parent.  When old Dr.
+Diggory's hands were shaking so that his instrument would not bite
+on the thing lodged in his lordship's back, after passing through
+and through him, and he was calling for somebody to run for his
+assistant, who do you think did it for him, Miss Erema?  As sure as
+I sit here, the Captain!  His face was like a rock, and his hands
+no less; and he said, 'Allow me, doctor.  I have been in action.'
+And he fetched out the bullet--which showed awful nerve, according
+to my way of thinking--as if he had been a man with three rows of
+teeth.
+
+"'This bullet is just like those of my own pistol!' he cried, and
+he sat down hard with amazement.  You may suppose how this went
+against him, when all he desired was to know and tell the truth;
+and people said that of course he got it out, after a bottleful of
+doctors failed, because he knew best how it was put in.'
+
+"'I shall now go and see the place, if you please, or whether you
+please or not,' my master said.  'Constable, you may come and point
+it out, unless you prefer going to your breakfast.  My word is
+enough that I shall not run away.  Otherwise, as you have acted on
+your own authority, I shall act on mine, and tie you until you have
+obtained a warrant.  Take your choice, my man; and make it quickly,
+while I offer it.'
+
+"The rural polishman stared at this, being used on the other hand
+to be made much of.  But seeing how capable the Captain was of
+acting up to any thing, he made a sulky scrape, and said, 'Sir, as
+you please for the present,' weighting his voice on those last
+three words, as much as to say, 'Pretty soon you will be
+handcuffed.'  'Then,' said my master, 'I shall also insist on the
+presence of two persons, simply to use their eyes without any fear
+or favor.  One is my gardener, a very honest man, but apt to be
+late in the morning.  The other is a faithful servant, who has been
+with us for several years.  Their names are Jacob Rigg and Betsy
+Bowen.  You may also bring two witnesses, if you choose.  And the
+miller's men, of course, will come.  But order back all others.'
+
+"'That is perfectly fair and straightforward, my lord,' the
+constable answered, falling naturally into abeyance to orders.  'I
+am sure that all of us wishes your lordship kindly out of this rum
+scrape.  But my duty is my duty.'
+
+"With a few more words we all set forth, six in number, and no
+more; for the constable said that the miller's men, who had first
+found the late Lord Castlewood, were witnesses enough for him.  And
+Jacob Rigg, whose legs were far apart (as he said) from trenching
+celery, took us through the kitchen-garden, and out at a gap, which
+saved every body knowing.
+
+"Then we passed through a copse or two, and across a meadow, and
+then along the turnpike-road, as far as now I can remember.  And
+along that we went to a stile on the right, without any house for a
+long way off.  And from that stile a foot-path led down a slope of
+grass land to the little river, and over a hand-bridge, and up
+another meadow full of trees and bushes, to a gate which came out
+into the road again a little to this side of the Moonstock Inn,
+saving a quarter of a mile of road, which ran straight up the
+valley and turned square at the stone bridge to get to the same
+inn.
+
+"I can not expect to be clear to you, miss, though I see it all now
+as I saw it then, every tree, and hump, and hedge of it; only about
+the distances from this to that, and that to the other, they would
+be beyond me.  You must be on the place itself; and I never could
+carry distances--no, nor even clever men, I have heard my master
+say.  But when he came to that stile he stopped and turned upon all
+of us clearly, and as straight as any man of men could be.  'Here I
+saw my father last, at a quarter past ten o'clock last night, or
+within a few minutes of that time.  I wished to see him to his inn,
+but he would not let me do so, and he never bore contradiction.  He
+said that he knew the way well, having fished more than thirty
+years ago up and down this stream.  He crossed this stile, and we
+shook hands over it, and the moon being bright, I looked into his
+face, and he said, "My boy, God bless you!"  Knowing his short
+ways, I did not even look after him, but turned away, and went
+straight home along this road.  Upon my word as an Englishman, and
+as an officer of her Majesty, that is all I know of it.  Now let us
+go on to the--to the other place.
+
+"We all of us knew in our hearts, I am sure, that the Captain spoke
+the simple truth, and his face was grand as he looked at us.  But
+the constable thought it his duty to ask,
+
+"'Did you hear no sound of a shot, my lord?  For he fell within a
+hundred yards of this.'
+
+"'I heard no sound of any shot whatever.  I heard an owl hooting as
+I went home, and then the rattle of a heavy wagon, and the bells of
+horses.  I have said enough.  Let us go forward.'
+
+"We obeyed him at once; and even the constable looked right and
+left, as if he had been wrong.  He signed to the miller's man to
+lead the way, and my lord walked proudly after him.  The path was
+only a little narrow track, with the grass, like a front of hair,
+falling over it on the upper side and on the under, dropping away
+like side curls; such a little path that I was wondering how a
+great lord could walk over it.  Then we came down a steep place to
+a narrow bridge across a shallow river--abridge made of only two
+planks and a rail, with a prop or two to carry them.  And one end
+of the handrail was fastened into a hollow and stubby old hawthorn-
+tree, overhanging the bridge and the water a good way.  And just
+above this tree, and under its shadow, there came a dry cut into
+the little river, not more than a yard or two above the wooden
+bridge, a water-trough such as we have in Wales, miss, for the
+water to run in, when the farmer pleases; but now there was no
+water in it, only gravel.
+
+"The cleverest of the miller's men, though, neither of them had
+much intellect, stepped down at a beck from the constable, right
+beneath the old ancient tree, and showed us the marks on the grass
+and the gravel made by his lordship where he fell and lay.  And it
+seemed that he must have fallen off the bridge, yet not into the
+water, but so as to have room for his body, if you see, miss,
+partly on the bank, and partly in the hollow of the meadow trough.
+
+"'Have you searched the place well?' the Captain asked.  'Have you
+found any weapon or implement?'
+
+"'We have found nothing but the corpse, so far,' the constable
+answered, in a surly voice, not liking to be taught his business.
+'My first duty was to save life, if I could.  These men, upon
+finding the body, ran for me, and knowing who it was, I came with
+it to your house.'
+
+"'You acted for the best, my man.  Now search the place carefully,
+while I stand here.  I am on my parole, I shall not run away.
+Jacob, go down and help them.'
+
+"Whether from being in the army, or what, your father always spoke
+in such a way that the most stiff-neckedest people began without
+thinking to obey him.  So the constable and the rest went down,
+while the Captain and I stood upon the plank, looking at the four
+of them.
+
+"For a long time they looked about, according to their attitudes,
+without finding any thing more than the signs of the manner in
+which the poor lord fell, and of these the constable pulled out a
+book and made a pencil memorial.  But presently Jacob, a spry sort
+of man, cried, 'Hulloa! whatever have I got hold of here?  Many a
+good craw-fish have I pulled out from this bank when the water
+comes down the gully, but never one exactly like this here afore.'
+
+"'Name of the Lord!' cried the constable, jumping behind the
+hawthorn stump; 'don't point it at me, you looby!  It's loaded,
+loaded one barrel, don't you see?  Put it down, with the muzzle
+away from me.'
+
+"'Hand it to me, Jacob,' the Captain said.  'You understand a gun,
+and this goes off just the same.'  Constable Jobbins have no fear.
+'Yes, it is exactly as I thought.  This pistol is one of the
+double-barreled pair which I bought to take to India.  The barrels
+are rifled; it shoots as true as any rifle, and almost as hard up
+to fifty yards.  The right barrel has been fired, the other is
+still loaded.  The bullet I took from my father's body most
+certainly came from this pistol.'
+
+"'Can 'e say, can 'e say then, who done it, master?' asked Jacob, a
+man very sparing of speech, but ready at a beck to jump at
+constable and miller's men, if only law was with him.  'Can 'e give
+a clear account, and let me chuck 'un in the river?'
+
+"'No, Jacob, I can do nothing of the kind,' your father answered;
+while the rural man came up and faced things, not being afraid of a
+fight half so much as he was of an accident; by reason of his own
+mother having been blown up by a gunpowder start at Dartford, yet
+came down all right, miss, and had him three months afterward,
+according to his own confession; nevertheless, he came up now as if
+he had always been upright, in the world, and he said, 'My lord,
+can you explain all this?'
+
+"Your father looked at him with one of his strange gazes, as if he
+were measuring the man while trying his own inward doing of his own
+mind.  Proud as your father was, as proud as ever can be without
+cruelty, it is my firm belief, Miss Erema, going on a woman's
+judgment, that if the man's eyes had come up to my master's sense
+of what was virtuous, my master would have up and told him the
+depth and contents of his mind and heart, although totally gone
+beyond him.
+
+"But Jobbins looked back at my lord with a grin, and his little
+eyes, hard to put up with.  'Have you nothing to say, my lord?
+Then I am afeared I must ask you just to come along of me.'  And my
+master went with him, miss, as quiet as a lamb; which Jobbins said,
+and even Jacob fancied, was a conscience sign of guilt.
+
+"Now after I have told you all this, Miss Erema, you know very
+nearly as much as I do.  To tell how the grief was broken to your
+mother, and what her state of mind was, and how she sat up on the
+pillows and cried, while things went on from bad to worse, and a
+verdict of 'willful murder' was brought against your father by the
+crowner's men, and you come headlong, without so much as the birds
+in the ivy to chirp about you, right into the thick of the worst of
+it.  I do assure you, Miss Erema, when I look at your bright eyes
+and clear figure, the Lord in heaven, who has made many cripples,
+must have looked down special to have brought you as you are.  For
+trouble upon trouble fell in heaps, faster than I can wipe my eyes
+to think.  To begin with, all the servants but myself and gardener
+Jacob ran away.  They said that the old lord haunted the house, and
+walked with his hand in the middle of his heart, pulling out a
+bullet if he met any body, and sighing 'murder' three times, till
+every hair was crawling.  I took it on myself to fetch the Vicar of
+the parish to lay the evil spirit, as they do in Wales.  A nice
+kind gentleman he was as you could see, and wore a velvet skull-
+cap, and waited with his legs up.  But whether he felt that the
+power was not in him, or whether his old lordship was frightened of
+the Church, they never made any opportunity between them to meet
+and have it out, miss.
+
+"Then it seemed as if Heaven, to avenge his lordship, rained down
+pestilence upon that house.  A horrible disease, the worst I ever
+met, broke out upon the little harmless dears, the pride of my
+heart and of every body's eyes, for lovelier or better ones never
+came from heaven.  They was all gone to heaven in a fortnight and
+three days, and laid in the church-yard at one another's side, with
+little beds of mould to the measure of their stature, and their
+little carts and drums, as they made me promise, ready for the
+judgment-day.  Oh, my heart was broken, miss, my heart was broken!
+I cried so, I thought I could never cry more.
+
+"But when your dear mother, who knew nothing of all this (for we
+put all their illness, by the doctor's orders, away at the further
+end of the house), when she was a little better of grievous pain
+and misery (for being so upset her time was hard), when she sat up
+on the pillow, looking like a bride almost, except that she had
+what brides hasn't--a little red thing in white flannel at her
+side--then she says to me, 'I am ready, Betsy; it is high time for
+all of them to see their little sister.  They always love the baby
+so, whenever there is a new one.  And they are such men and women
+to it.  They have been so good this time that I have never heard
+them once.  And I am sure that I can trust them, Betsy, not to make
+the baby cry.  I do so long to see the darlings.  Now do not even
+whisper to them not to make a noise.  They are too good to require
+it; and it would hurt their little feelings.'
+
+"I had better have been shot, my dear, according as the old lord
+was, than have the pain that went through all my heart, to see the
+mother so.  She sat up, leaning on one arm, with the hand of the
+other round your little head, and her beautiful hair was come out
+of its loops, and the color in her cheeks was like a shell.  Past
+the fringe of the curtain, and behind it too, her soft bright eyes
+were a-looking here and there for the first to come in of her
+children.  The Lord only knows what lies I told her, so as to be
+satisfied without them.  First I said they were all gone for a
+walk; and then that the doctor had ordered them away; and then that
+they had got the measles.  That last she believed, because it was
+worse than what I had said before of them; and she begged to see
+Dr. Diggory about it, and I promised that she should as soon as he
+had done his dinner.  And then, with a little sigh, being very
+weak, she went down into her nest again, with only you to keep her
+company.
+
+"Well, that was bad enough, as any mortal sufferer might have said;
+enough for one day at any rate.  But there was almost worse to
+come.  For when I was having a little sit down stairs, with my
+supper and half pint of ale (that comes like drawing a long breath
+to us when spared out of sickrooms, miss), and having no nursery
+now on my mind, was thinking of all the sad business, with only a
+little girl in the back kitchen come in to muck up the dishes,
+there appeared a good knock at the garden door, and I knew it for
+the thumb of the Captain.  I locked the young girl up, by knowing
+what their tongues are, and then I let your father in, and the
+candle-sight of him made my heart go low.
+
+"He had come out of prison; and although not being tried, his
+clothes were still in decency, they had great holes in them, and
+the gloss all gone to a smell of mere hedges and ditches.  The hat
+on his head was quite out of the fashion, even if it could be
+called a hat at all, and his beautiful beard had no sign of a comb,
+and he looked as old again as he had looked a month ago.
+
+"'I know all about it.  You need not be afraid,' he said, as I took
+him to the breakfast-room, where no one up stairs could hear us.
+'I know that my children are all dead and buried, except the one
+that was not born yet.  Ill news flies quick.  I know all about it.
+George, Henrietta, Jack, Alf, little Vi, and Tiny.  I have seen
+their graves and counted them, while the fool of a policeman beat
+his gloves through the hedge within a rod of me.  Oh yes, I have
+much to be thankful for.  My life is in my own hand now.'
+
+"'Oh, master; oh, Captain; oh, my lord!' I cried; 'for the sake of
+God in heaven, don't talk like that.  Think of your sweet wife,
+your dear lady.'
+
+"'Betsy,' he answered, with his eyes full upon me, noble, yet
+frightful to look at, 'I am come to see my wife.  Go and let her
+know it, according to your own discretion.'
+
+"My discretion would have been not to let him see her, but go on
+and write to her from foreign countries, with the salt sea between
+them; but I give you my word that I had no discretion, but from
+pity and majesty obeyed him.  I knew that he must have broken
+prison, and by good rights ought to be starving.  But I could no
+more offer him the cold ham and pullet than take him by his beard
+and shake him.
+
+"'Is he come, at last, at last?' my poor mistress said, whose wits
+were wandering after her children.  'At last, at last!  Then he
+will find them all.'
+
+"'Yes, ma'am, at last, at the last he will,' I answered, while I
+thought of the burial service, which I had heard three times in a
+week--for the little ones went to their graves in pairs to save
+ceremony; likewise of the Epistle of Saint Paul, which is not like
+our Lord's way of talking at all, but arguing instead of
+comforting.  And not to catch her up in that weak state, I said,
+'He will find every one of them, ma'am.'
+
+"'Oh, but I want him for himself, for himself, as much as all the
+rest put together,' my dear lady said, without listening to me, but
+putting her hand to her ear to hearken for even so much as a mouse
+on the stairs.  'Do bring him, Betsy; only bring him, Betsy, and
+then let me go where my children are.'
+
+"I was surprised at her manner of speaking, which I would not have
+allowed to her, but more than all about her children, which she
+could only have been dreaming yet, for nobody else came nigh her
+except only me, miss, and you, miss, and for you to breathe words
+was impossible.  All you did was to lie very quiet, tucked up into
+your mother's side; and as regular as the time-piece went, wide
+came your eyes and your mouth to be fed.  If your nature had been
+cross or squally, 'baby's coffin No. 7' would have come after all
+the other six, which the thief of a carpenter put down on his bill
+as if it was so many shavings.
+
+"Well, now, to tell you the downright truth, I have a lot of work
+to do to-morrow, miss, with three basketfuls of washing coming
+home, and a man about a tap that leaks and floods the inside of the
+fender; and if I were to try to put before you the way that those
+two for the last time of their lives went on to one another--the
+one like a man and the other like a woman, full of sobs and
+choking--my eyes would be in such a state to-morrow that the whole
+of them would pity and cheat me.  And I ought to think of you as
+well, miss, who has been sadly harrowed listening when you was not
+born yet.  And to hear what went on, full of weeping, when yourself
+was in the world, and able to cry for yourself, and all done over
+your own little self, would leave you red eyes and no spirit for
+the night, and no appetite in the morning; and so I will pass it
+all over, if you please, and let him go out of the backdoor again.
+
+"This he was obliged to do quick, and no mistake, glad as he might
+have been to say more words, because the fellows who call
+themselves officers, without any commission, were after him.  False
+it was to say, as was said, that he got out of Winchester jail
+through money.  That story was quite of a piece with the rest.  His
+own strength and skill it was that brought him out triumphantly, as
+the scratches on his hands and cheeks might show.  He did it for
+the sake of his wife, no doubt.  When he heard that the children
+were all in their graves, and their mother in the way to follow
+them, madness was better than his state of mind, as the officers
+told me when they could not catch him--and sorry they would have
+been to do it, I believe.
+
+"To overhear my betters is the thing of all things most against my
+nature; and my poor lady being unfit to get up, there was nothing
+said on the landing, which is the weakest part of gentlefolks.
+They must have said 'Good-by' to one another quite in silence, and
+the Captain, as firm a man as ever lived, had lines on his face
+that were waiting for tears, if nature should overcome bringing up.
+Then I heard the words, 'for my sake,' and the other said, 'for
+your sake,' a pledge that passed between them, making breath more
+long than life is.  But when your poor father was by the back-door,
+going out toward the woods and coppices, he turned sharp round, and
+he said, 'Betsy Bowen!' and I answered, 'Yes, at your service,
+Sir.'  'You have been the best woman in the world,' he said--'the
+bravest, best, and kindest.  I leave my wife and my last child to
+you.  The Lord has been hard on me, but He will spare me those two.
+I do hope and believe He will.'
+
+"We heard a noise of horses in the valley, and the clank of swords--
+no doubt the mounted police from Winchester a-crossing of the
+Moonstock Bridge to search our house for the runaway.  And the
+Captain took my hand, and said, 'I trust them to you.  Hide the
+clothes I took off, that they may not know I have been here.  I
+trust my wife and little babe to you, and may God bless you,
+Betsy!'
+
+"He had changed all his clothes, and he looked very nice, but a
+sadder face was never seen.  As he slipped through the hollyhocks I
+said to myself, 'There goes a broken-hearted man, and he leaves a
+broken heart behind.'  And your dear mother died on the Saturday
+night.  Oh my! oh my! how sad it was!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+AT THE BANK
+
+
+In telling that sad tale my faithful and soft-hearted nurse had
+often proved her own mistake in saying, as she did, that tears can
+ever be exhausted.  And I, for my part, though I could scarcely cry
+for eager listening, was worse off perhaps than if I had wetted
+each sad fact as it went by.  At any rate, be it this way or that,
+a heavy and sore heart was left me, too distracted for asking
+questions, and almost too depressed to grieve.
+
+In the morning Mrs. Strouss was bustling here and there and every
+where, and to look at her nice Welsh cheeks and aprons, and to hear
+how she scolded the butcher's boy, nobody would for a moment
+believe that her heart was deeper than her skin, as the saying of
+the west country is.  Major Hockin had been to see me last night,
+for he never forgot a promise, and had left me in good hands, and
+now he came again in the morning.  According to his usual way of
+taking up an opinion, he would not see how distracted I was, and
+full of what I had heard overnight, but insisted on dragging me off
+to the bank, that being in his opinion of more importance than old
+stories.  I longed to ask Betsy some questions which had been
+crowding into my mind as she spoke, and while I lay awake at night;
+however, I was obliged to yield to the business of the morning, and
+the good Major's zeal and keen knowledge of the world; and he
+really gave me no time to think.
+
+"Yes, I understand all that as well as if I had heard every word of
+it," he said, when he had led me helpless into the Hansom cab he
+came in, and had slammed down the flood-gates in front of us.  "You
+must never think twice of what old women say" (Mrs. Strouss was
+some twenty years younger than himself); "they always go prating
+and finding mares'-nests, and then they always cry.  Now did she
+cry, Erema?"
+
+I would have given a hundred dollars to be able to say, "No, not
+one drop;" but the truth was against me, and I said, "How could she
+help it?"
+
+"Exactly!" the Major exclaimed, so loudly that the cabman thought
+he was ordered to stop.  "No, go on, cabby, if your horse can do
+it.  My dear, I beg your pardon, but you are so very simple!  You
+have not been among the eye-openers of the west.  This comes of the
+obsolete Uncle Sam."
+
+"I would rather be simple than 'cute!'" I replied; "and my own
+Uncle Sam will be never obsolete."
+
+Silly as I was, I could never speak of the true Uncle Sam in this
+far country without the bright shame of a glimmer in my eyes; and
+with this, which I cared not to hide, I took my companion's hand
+and stood upon the footway of a narrow and crowded lane.
+
+"Move on! move on!" cried a man with a high-crowned hat japanned at
+intervals, and, wondering at his rudeness to a lady, I looked at
+him.  But he only said, "Now move on, will you?" without any wrath,
+and as if he were vexed at our littleness of mind in standing
+still.  Nobody heeded him any more than if he had said, "I am
+starving," but it seemed a rude thing among ladies.  Before I had
+time to think more about this--for I always like to think of
+things--I was led through a pair of narrow swinging doors, and down
+a close alley between two counters full of people paying and
+receiving money.  The Major, who always knew how to get on, found a
+white-haired gentleman in a very dingy corner, and whispered to him
+in a confidential way, though neither had ever seen the other
+before, and the white-haired gentleman gazed at me as sternly as if
+I were a bank-note for at least a thousand pounds; and then he
+said, "Step this way, young lady.  Major Hockin, step this way,
+Sir."
+
+The young lady "stepped that way" in wonder as to what English
+English is, and then we were shown into a sacred little room, where
+the daylight had glass reflectors for it, if it ever came to use
+them.  But as it cared very little to do this, from angular
+disabilities, three bright gas-lights were burning in soft covers,
+and fed the little room with a rich, sweet glow.  And here shone
+one of the partners of the bank, a very pleasant-looking gentleman,
+and very nicely dressed.
+
+"Major Hockin," he said, after looking at the card, "will you
+kindly sit down, while I make one memorandum?  I had the pleasure
+of knowing your uncle well--at least I believe that the late Sir
+Rufus was your uncle."
+
+"Not so," replied the Major, well pleased, however.  "I fear that I
+am too old to have had any uncle lately.  Sir Rufus Hockin was my
+first cousin."
+
+"Oh, indeed!  To be sure, I should have known it, but Sir Rufus
+being much your senior, the mistake was only natural.  Now what can
+I do to serve you, or perhaps this young lady--Miss Hockin, I
+presume?"
+
+"No," said his visitor, "not Miss Hockin.  I ought to have
+introduced her, but for having to make my own introduction.  Mr.
+Shovelin, this lady is Miss Erema Castlewood, the only surviving
+child of the late Captain George Castlewood, properly speaking,
+Lord Castlewood."
+
+Mr. Shovelin had been looking at me with as much curiosity as good
+manners and his own particular courtesy allowed.  And I fancied
+that he felt that I could not be a Hockin.
+
+"Oh, dear, dear me!" was all he said, though he wanted to say,
+"God bless me!" or something more sudden and stronger.  "Lord
+Castlewood's daughter--poor George Castlewood!  My dear young lady,
+is it possible?"
+
+"Yes, I am my father's child," I said; "and I am proud to hear that
+I am like him."
+
+"That you well may be," he answered, putting on his spectacles.
+"You are astonished at my freedom, perhaps; you will allow for it,
+or at least, you will not be angry with me, when you know that your
+father was my dearest friend at Harrow; and that when his great
+trouble fell upon him--"
+
+Here Mr. Shovelin stopped, as behooves a man who begins to outrun
+himself.  He could not tell me that it was himself who had found
+all the money for my father's escape, which cost much cash as well
+as much good feeling.  Neither did I, at the time, suspect it,
+being all in the dark upon such points.  Not knowing what to say, I
+looked from the banker to the Major, and back again.
+
+"Can you tell me the exact time?" the latter asked.  "I am due in
+the Temple at 12.30, and I never am a minute late, whatever
+happens."
+
+"You will want a swift horse," Mr. Shovelin answered, "or else this
+will be an exception to your rule.  It is twenty-one minutes past
+twelve now."
+
+"May I leave my charge to you, then, for a while?  She will be very
+quiet; she is always so.  Erema, will you wait for me?"
+
+I was not quick enough then to see that this was arranged between
+them.  Major Hockin perceived that Mr. Shovelin wished to have a
+talk with me about dearer matters than money, having children of
+his own, and being (as his eyes and forehead showed) a man of
+peculiar views, perhaps, but clearly of general good-will.
+
+"In an hour, in an hour, in less than an hour"--the Major
+intensified his intentions always--"in three-quarters of an hour I
+shall be back.  Meanwhile, my dear, you will sit upon a stool, and
+not say a word, nor make any attempt to do any thing every body is
+not used to."
+
+This vexed me, as if I were a savage here; and I only replied with
+a very gentle bow, being glad to see his departure; for Major
+Hockin was one of those people, so often to be met with, whom any
+one likes or dislikes according to the changes of their behavior.
+But Mr. Shovelin was different from that.
+
+"Miss Castlewood, take this chair," he said; "a hard one, but
+better than a stool, perhaps.  Now how am I to talk to you--as an
+inquirer upon business matters, or as the daughter of my old
+friend?  Your smile is enough.  Well, and you must talk to me in
+the same unreasonable manner.  That being clearly established
+between us, let us proceed to the next point.  Your father, my old
+friend, wandered from the track, and unfortunately lost his life in
+a desolate part of America."
+
+"No; oh no.  It was nothing like that.  He might have been alive,
+and here at this moment, if I had not drunk and eaten every bit and
+drop of his."
+
+"Now don't, my dear child, don't be so romantic--I mean, look at
+things more soberly.  You did as you were ordered, I have no doubt;
+George Castlewood always would have that.  He was a most commanding
+man.  You do not quite resemble him in that respect, I think."
+
+"Oh, but did he do it, did he do it?" I cried out.  "You were at
+school with him, and knew his nature.  Was it possible for him to
+do it, Sir?"
+
+"As possible as it is for me to go down to Sevenoaks and shoot my
+dear old father, who is spending a green and agreeable old age
+there.  Not that your grandfather, if I may say it without causing
+pain to you, was either green or agreeable.  He was an uncommonly
+sharp old man; I might even say a hard one.  As you never saw him,
+you will not think me rude in saying that much.  Your love, of
+course, is for your father; and if your father had had a father of
+larger spirit about money, he might have been talking to me
+pleasantly now, instead of--instead of all these sad things."
+
+"Please not to slip away from me," I said, bluntly, having so often
+met with that.  "You believe, as every good person does, that my
+father was wholly innocent.  But do tell me who could have done it
+instead.  Somebody must have done it; that seems clear."
+
+"Yes," replied Mr. Shovelin, with a look of calm consideration;
+"somebody did it, undoubtedly; and that makes the difficulty of the
+whole affair.  'Cui bono,' as the lawyers say.  Two persons only
+could have had any motive, so far as wealth and fortune go.  The
+first and most prominent, your father, who, of course, would come
+into every thing (which made the suspicion so hot and strong); and
+the other, a very nice gentleman, whom it is wholly impossible to
+suspect."
+
+"Are you sure of that?  People have more than suspected--they have
+condemned--my father.  After that, I can suspect any body.  Who is
+it?  Please to tell me."
+
+"It is the present Lord Castlewood, as he is beginning to be
+called.  He would not claim the title, or even put forward his
+right in any way, until he had proof of your dear father's death;
+and even then he behaved so well--"
+
+"He did it! he did it!" I cried, in hot triumph.  "My father's name
+shall be clear of it.  Can there be any doubt that he did it?  How
+very simple the whole of it becomes!  Nothing astonishes me, except
+the stupidity of people.  He had every thing to gain, and nothing
+to lose--a bad man, no doubt--though I never heard of him.  And
+putting it all on my father, of course, to come in himself, and
+abide his time, till the misery killed my father.  How simple, how
+horribly simple, it becomes!"
+
+"You are much too quick, too hot, too sudden.  Excuse me a minute"--
+as a silver bell struck--"I am wanted in the next room.  But
+before I go, let me give you a glass of cold water, and beg you to
+dismiss that new idea from your mind."
+
+I could see, as I took with a trembling hand the water he poured
+out for me, that Mr. Shovelin was displeased.  His kind and
+handsome face grew hard.  He had taken me for a nice young lady,
+never much above the freezing-point, and he had found me boil over
+in a moment.  I was sorry to have grieved him; but if he had heard
+Betsy Bowen's story, and seen her tell it, perhaps he would have
+allowed for me.  I sat down again, having risen in my warmth, and
+tried to quiet and command myself by thinking of the sad points
+only.  Of these there were plenty to make pictures of, the like of
+which had kept me awake all night; and I knew by this time, from
+finding so much more of pity than real sympathy, that men think a
+woman may well be all tears, but has no right to even the shadow of
+a frown.  That is their own prerogative.
+
+And so, when Mr. Shovelin returned, with a bundle of papers which
+had also vexed him--to judge by the way in which he threw them
+down--I spoke very mildly, and said that I was very sorry for my
+display of violence, but that if he knew all, he would pardon me;
+and he pardoned me in a moment.
+
+"I was going to tell you, my dear Miss Castlewood," he continued,
+gently, "that your sudden idea must be dismissed, for reasons which
+I think will content you.  In the first place, the present Lord
+Castlewood is, and always has been, an exemplary man, of great
+piety and true gentleness; in the next place, he is an invalid, who
+can not walk a mile with a crutch to help him, and so he has been
+for a great many years; and lastly, if you have no faith in the
+rest, he was in Italy at the time, and remained there for some
+years afterward.  There he received and sheltered your poor father
+after his sad calamity, and was better than a brother to him, as
+your father, in a letter to me, declared.  So you see that you must
+acquit him."
+
+"That is not enough.  I would beg his pardon on my knees, since he
+helped my father, for he must have thought him innocent.  Now, Mr.
+Shovelin, you were my father's friend, and you are such a clever
+man--"
+
+"How do you know that, young lady?  What a hurry you are always
+in!"
+
+"Oh, there can be no doubt about it.  But you must not ask reasons,
+if I am so quick.  Now please to tell me what your own conclusion
+is.  I can talk of it calmly now; yes, quite calmly, because I
+never think of any thing else.  Only tell me what you really
+believe, and I will keep it most strictly to myself."
+
+"I am sure you will do that," he answered, smiling, "not only from
+the power of your will, my dear, but also because I have nothing to
+say.  At first I was strongly inclined to believe (knowing, from my
+certainty of your father, that the universal opinion must be wrong)
+that the old lord had done it himself; for he always had been of a
+headstrong and violent nature, which I am sure will never re-appear
+in you.  But the whole of the evidence went against this, and
+little as I think of evidence, especially at an inquest, your
+father's behavior confirmed what was sworn to.  Your father knew
+that his father had not made away with himself in a moment of
+passion, otherwise he was not the man to break prison and fly
+trial.  He would have said, boldly, 'I am guiltless; there are many
+things that I can not explain; I can not help that; I will face it
+out.  Condemn me, if you like, and I will suffer.'  From your own
+remembrance of your father's nature, is not that certainly the
+course he would have taken?"
+
+"I have not an atom of doubt about it.  His flight and persistent
+dread of trial puzzle me beyond imagination.  Of his life he was
+perfectly reckless, except, at least, for my sake."
+
+"I know that he was," Mr. Shovelin replied; "as a boy he was
+wonderfully fearless.  As a man, with a sweet wife and a lot of
+children, he might have begun to be otherwise.  But when all those
+were gone, and only a poor little baby left--"
+
+"Yes, I suppose I was all that."
+
+"Forgive me.  I am looking back at you.  Who could dream that you
+would ever even live, without kith or kin to care for you?  Your
+life was saved by some good woman who took you away to Wales.  But
+when you were such a poor little relic, and your father could
+scarcely have seen you, to have such a mite left must have been
+almost a mockery of happiness.  That motive could not have been
+strong enough to prevent a man of proud honor from doing what honor
+at once demanded.  Your father would have returned and surrendered
+as soon as he heard of his dear wife's death, if in the balance
+there had been only you."
+
+"Yes, Mr. Shovelin, perhaps he would.  I was never very much as a
+counter-balance.  Yet my father loved me."  I could have told him
+of the pledge exchanged--"For my sake," and, "Yes, for your sake,"
+with love and wedded honor set to fight cold desolate repute--but I
+did not say a word about it.
+
+"He loved you afterward, of course.  But a man who has had seven
+children is not enthusiastic about a baby.  There must have been a
+larger motive."
+
+"But when I was the only one left alive.  Surely I became valuable
+then.  I can not have been such a cipher."
+
+"Yes, for a long time you would have been," replied the Saturnian
+banker.  "I do not wish to disparage your attractions when you were
+a fortnight old.  They may have begun already to be irresistible.
+Excuse me; you have led me into the light vein, when speaking of a
+most sad matter.  You must blame your self-assertion for it.  All I
+wish to convey to you is my belief that something wholly unknown to
+us, some dark mystery of which we have no inkling, lies at the
+bottom of this terrible affair.  Some strange motive there must
+have been, strong enough even to overcome all ordinary sense of
+honor, and an Englishman's pride in submitting to the law, whatever
+may be the consequence.  Consider that his 'flight from justice,'
+as it was called, of course, by every one, condemned his case and
+ruined his repute.  Even for that he would not have cared so much
+as for his own sense of right.  And though he was a very lively
+fellow, as I first remember him, full of tricks and jokes, and so
+on, which in this busy age are out of date, I am certain that he
+always had a stern sense of right.  One never knows how love
+affairs and weakness about children may alter almost any man; but
+my firm conviction is that my dear old school-fellow, George
+Castlewood, even with a wife and lovely children hanging altogether
+upon his life, not only would not have broken jail, but would
+calmly have given up his body to be hanged--pardon me, my dear, for
+putting it so coarsely--if there had not been something paramount
+to override even apparent honor.  What it can have been I have no
+idea, and I presume you have none."
+
+"None whatever," I said at once, in answer to his inquiring gaze.
+"I am quite taken by surprise; I never even thought of such a
+thing.  It has always seemed to me so natural that my dear father,
+being shamefully condemned, because appearances were against him,
+and nobody could enter into him, should, for the sake of his wife
+and children, or even of one child like me, depart or banish
+himself, or emigrate, or, as they might call it, run away.
+Knowing that he never could have a fair trial, it was the only
+straightforward and good and affectionate thing for him to do."
+
+"You can not see things as men see them.  We must not expect it of
+you," Mr. Shovelin answered, with a kind but rather too superior
+smile, which reminded me a little of dear Uncle Sam when he
+listened to what, in his opinion, was only female reason; "but,
+dear me, here is Major Hockin come!  Punctuality is the soul of
+business."
+
+"So I always declare," cried the Major, who was more than three-
+quarters of an hour late, for which in my heart I thanked him.  "My
+watch keeps time to a minute, Sir, and its master to a second.
+Well, I hope you have settled all questions of finance, and endowed
+my young maid with a fortune."
+
+"So far from that," Mr. Shovelin replied, in a tone very different
+from that he used to me, "we have not even said one word of
+business; all that has been left for your return.  Am I to
+understand that you are by appointment or relationship the guardian
+of this young lady?"
+
+"God forbid!" cried Major Hockin, shortly.  I thought it very rude
+of him, yet I could not help smiling to see how he threw his
+glasses up and lifted his wiry crest of hair.  "Not that she is
+bad, I mean, but good, very good; indeed, I may say the very best
+girl ever known outside of my own family.  My cousin, Colonel
+Gundry, who owns an immense estate in the most auriferous district
+of all California, but will not spoil his splendid property by
+mining, he will--he will tell you the very same thing, Sir."
+
+"I am very glad to hear it," said the banker, smiling at me, while
+I wondered what it was, but hoped that it meant my praises.  "Now I
+really fear that I must be very brief, though the daughter of my
+oldest friend may well be preferred to business.  But now we will
+turn at once to business, if you please."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+COUSIN MONTAGUE
+
+
+Mr. Shovelin went to a corner of the room, which might be called
+his signal-box, having a little row of port-holes like a toy
+frigate or accordion, and there he made sounds which brought steps
+very promptly, one clerk carrying a mighty ledger, and the other a
+small strong-box.
+
+"No plate," Major Hockin whispered to me, shaking his gray crest
+with sorrow; "but there may be diamonds, you know, Erema.  One
+ounce of diamonds is worth a ton of plate."
+
+"No," said Mr. Shovelin, whose ears were very keen, "I fear that
+you will find nothing of mercantile value.  Thank you, Mr.
+Robinson; by-and-by perhaps we shall trouble you.  Strictly
+speaking, perhaps I should require the presence of your father's
+lawyer, or of some one producing probate, ere I open this box, Miss
+Castlewood.  But having you here, and Major Hockin, and knowing
+what I do about the matter (which is one of personal confidence), I
+will dispense with formalities.  We have given your father's
+solicitor notice of this deposit, and requested his attention, but
+he never has deigned to attend to it; so now we will dispense with
+him.  You see that the seal is unbroken; you know your father's
+favorite seal, no doubt.  The key is nothing; it was left to my
+charge.  You wish that I should open this?"
+
+Certainly I did, and the banker split the seal with an ebony-
+handled paper-knife, and very soon unlocked the steel-ribbed box,
+whose weight was chiefly of itself.  Some cotton-wool lay on the
+top to keep the all-penetrative dust away, and then a sheet of blue
+foolscap paper, partly covered with clear but crooked writing, and
+under that some little twists of silver paper, screwed as if there
+had been no time to tie them, and a packet of letters held together
+by a glittering bracelet.
+
+"Poor fellow!" Mr. Shovelin said, softly, while I held my breath,
+and the Major had the courtesy to be silent.  "This is his will; of
+no value, I fear, in a pecuniary point of view, but of interest to
+you his daughter.  Shall I open it, Miss Castlewood, or send it to
+his lawyers?"
+
+"Open it, and never think of them," said I.  "Like the rest, they
+have forsaken him.  Please to read it to yourself, and then tell
+us."
+
+"Oh, I wish I had known this before!" cried the banker, after a
+rapid glance or two.  "Very kind, very flattering, I am sure!  Yes,
+I will do my duty by him; I wish there was more to be done in the
+case.  He has left me sole executor, and trustee of all his
+property, for the benefit of his surviving child.  Yet he never
+gave me the smallest idea of expecting me to do this for him.
+Otherwise, of course, I should have had this old box opened years
+ago."
+
+"We must look at things as they are," said Major Hockin, for I
+could say nothing.  "The question is, what do you mean to do now?"
+
+"Nothing whatever," said the banker, crisply, being displeased at
+the other's tone; and then, seeing my surprise, he addressed
+himself to me:  "Nothing at present, but congratulate myself upon
+my old friend's confidence, and, as Abernethy said, 'take advice.'
+A banker must never encroach upon the province of the lawyer.  But
+so far as a layman may judge, Major Hockin, I think you will have
+to transfer to me the care of this young lady."
+
+"I shall be only too happy, I assure you," the Major answered,
+truthfully.  "My wife has a great regard for her, and so have I--
+the very greatest, the strongest regard, and warm parental
+feelings; as you know, Erema.  But--but, I am not so young as I
+was; and I have to develop my property."
+
+"Of which she no longer forms a part," Mr. Shovelin answered, with
+a smile at me, which turned into pleasure my momentary pain at the
+other's calm abandonment.  "You will find me prompt and proud to
+claim her, as soon as I am advised that this will is valid; and
+that I shall learn to-morrow."
+
+In spite of pride, or by its aid, my foolish eyes were full of
+tears, and I gave him a look of gratitude which reminded him of my
+father, as he said in so many words.
+
+"Oh, I hope it is valid!  How I hope it is!" I exclaimed, turning
+round to the Major, who smiled rather grimly, and said he hoped so
+too.
+
+"But surely," he continued, "as we are all here, we should not
+neglect the opportunity of inspecting the other contents of this
+box.  To me it appears that we are bound to do so; that it is our
+plain duty to ascertain--Why, there might even be a later will.
+Erema, my dear, you must be most anxious to get to the bottom of
+it."
+
+So I was, but desired even more that his curiosity should be
+foiled.  "We must leave that to Mr. Shovelin," I said.
+
+"Then for the present we will seal it down again," the banker
+answered, quietly; "we can see that there is no other will, and a
+later one would scarcely be put under this.  The other little
+packets, whatever they may be, are objects of curiosity, perhaps,
+rather than of importance.  They will keep till we have more
+leisure."
+
+"We have taken up a great deal of your time, Sir, I am sure," said
+the Major, finding that he could take no more.  "We ought to be,
+and we are, most grateful."
+
+"Well," the banker answered, as we began to move, "such things do
+not happen every day.  But there is no friend like an old friend,
+Erema, as I mean to call you now.  I was to have been your
+godfather; but I fear that you never have been baptized."
+
+"What!" cried the Major, staring at us both.  "Is such a thing
+possible in a Christian land?  Oh, how I have neglected my duty to
+the Church!  Come back with me to Bruntsea, and my son shall do it.
+The church there is under my orders, I should hope; and we will
+have a dinner party afterward.  What a horrible neglect of duty!"
+
+"But how could I help it?" I exclaimed, with some terror at Major
+Hockin's bristling hair.  "I can not remember--I am sure I can not
+say.  It may have been done in France, or somewhere, if there was
+no time in England.  At any rate, my father is not to be blamed."
+
+"Papistical baptism is worse than none," the Major said,
+impressively.  "Never mind, my dear, we will make that all right.
+You shall not be a savage always.  We will take the opportunity to
+change your name.  Erema is popish and outlandish; one scarcely
+knows how to pronounce it.  You shall have a good English Christian
+name--Jemima, Jane, or Sophy.  Trust me to know a good name.  Trust
+me."
+
+"Jemima!" I cried.  "Oh, Mr. Shovelin, save me from ever being
+called Jemima!  Rather would I never be baptized at all."
+
+"I am no judge of names," he answered, smiling, as he shook hands
+with us; "but, unless I am a very bad judge of faces, you will be
+called just what you please."
+
+"And I please to be called what my father called me.  It may be
+unlucky, as a gentleman told me, who did not know how to pronounce
+it.  However, it will do very well for me.  You wish to see me,
+then, to-morrow, Mr. Shovelin?"
+
+"If you please; but later in the day, when I am more at leisure.  I
+do not run away very early.  Come at half past four to this door,
+and knock.  I hear every sound at this door in my room; and the
+place will be growing quiet then."
+
+He showed us out into a narrow alley through a heavy door sheathed
+with iron, and soon we recovered the fair light of day, and the
+brawl and roar of a London street.
+
+"Now where shall we go?" the Major asked, as soon as he had found a
+cab again; for he was very polite in that way.  "You kept early
+hours with your 'uncle Sam,' as you call Colonel Gundry, a slow-
+witted man, but most amusing when he likes, as slow-witted men very
+often are.  Now will you come and dine with me?  I can generally
+dine, as you, with virtuous indignation, found out at Southampton.
+But we are better friends now, Miss Heathen."
+
+"Yes, I have more than I can ever thank you for," I answered, very
+gravely, for I never could become jocose to order, and sadness
+still was uppermost.  "I will go where you like.  I am quite at
+your orders, because Betsy Bowen is busy now.  She will not have
+done her work till six o'clock."
+
+"Well done!" he cried.  "Bravo, Young America!  Frankness is the
+finest of all good manners.  And what a lot of clumsy deception it
+saves!  Then let us go and dine.  I will imitate your truthfulness.
+It was two words for myself, and one for you.  The air of London
+always makes me hungry after too much country air.  It is wrong
+altogether, but I can not help it.  And going along, I smell hungry
+smells coming out of deep holes with a plate at the top.  Hungry I
+mean to a man who has known what absolute starvation is--when a man
+would thank God for a blue-bottle fly who had taken his own nip any
+where.  When I see the young fellows at the clubs pick this, and
+poke that, and push away the other, may I be d----d--my dear, I beg
+your pardon.  Cabby, to the 'Grilled Bone and Scolloped Cockle,' at
+the bottom of St. Ventricle Lane, you know."
+
+This place seemed, from what the Major said, to have earned repute
+for something special, something esteemed by the very clever
+people, and only to be found in true virtue here.  And he told me
+that luxury and self-indulgence were the greatest sins of the
+present age, and how he admired a man who came here to protest
+against Epicureans, by dining (liquors not included) for the sum of
+three and sixpence.
+
+All this, no doubt, was wise and right; but I could not attend to
+it properly now, and he might take me where he would, and have all
+the talking to himself, according to his practice.  And I might not
+even have been able to say what this temple of bones and cockles
+was like, except for a little thing which happened there.  The
+room, at the head of a twisting staircase, was low and dark, and
+furnished almost like a farmhouse kitchen.  It had no carpet, nor
+even a mat, but a floor of black timber, and a ceiling colored
+blue, with stars and comets, and a full moon near the fire-place.
+On either side of the room stood narrow tables endwise to the
+walls, inclosed with high-backed seats like settles, forming thus a
+double set of little stalls or boxes, with scarcely space enough
+between for waiters, more urgent than New York firemen, to push
+their steaming and breathless way.
+
+"Square or round, miss?" said one of them to me as soon as the
+Major had set me on a bench, and before my mind had time to rally
+toward criticism of the knives and forks, which deprecated any such
+ordeal; and he cleverly whipped a stand for something dirty, over
+something still dirtier, on the cloth.
+
+"I don't understand what you mean," I replied to his highly zealous
+aspect, while the Major sat smiling dryly at my ignorance, which
+vexed me.  "I have never received such a question before.  Major
+Hockin, will you kindly answer him?"
+
+"Square," said the Major; "square for both."  And the waiter, with
+a glance of pity at me, hurried off to carry out his order.
+
+"Erema, your mind is all up in the sky," my companion began to
+remonstrate.  "You ought to know better after all your travels."
+
+"Then the sky should not fall and confuse me so," I said, pointing
+to the Milky Way, not more than a yard above me; "but do tell me
+what he meant, if you can.  Is it about the formation of the soup?"
+
+"Hush, my dear.  Soup is high treason here until night, when they
+make it of the leavings.  His honest desire was to know whether you
+would have a grilled bone of mutton, which is naturally round, you
+know, or of beef, which, by the same law of nature, seems always to
+be square, you know."
+
+"Oh, I see," I replied, with some confusion, not at his osteology,
+but at the gaze of a pair of living and lively eyes fastened upon
+me.  A gentleman, waiting for his bill, had risen in the next low
+box, and stood calmly (as if he had done all his duty to himself)
+gazing over the wooden back at me, who thus sat facing him.  And
+Major Hockin, following my glance, stood up and turned round to see
+to it.
+
+"What!  Cousin Montague!  Bless my heart, who could have dreamed of
+lighting on you here?  Come in, my dear follow; there is plenty of
+room.  Let me introduce you to my new ward, Miss Erema Castlewood.
+Miss Castlewood, this is Sir Montague Hockin, the son of my
+lamented first cousin Sir Rufus, of whom you have heard so much.
+Well, to be sure!  I have not seen you for an age.  My dear fellow,
+now how are you?"
+
+"Miss Castlewood, please not to move; I sit any where.  Major, I am
+most delighted to see you.  Over and over again I have been at the
+point of starting for Bruntsea Island--it is an island now, isn't
+it?  My father would never believe that it was till I proved it
+from the number of rabbits that came up.  However, not a desolate
+island now, if it contains you and all your energies, and Miss
+Castlewood, as well as Mrs. Hockin."
+
+"It is not an island, and it never shall be," the Major cried,
+knocking a blue plate over, and spilling the salt inauspiciously.
+"It never was an island, and it never shall be.  My intention is to
+reclaim it altogether.  Oh, here come the squares.  Well done! well
+done!  I quite forget the proper thing to have to drink.  Are the
+cockles in the pan, Mr. Waiter?  Quite right, then; ten minutes is
+the proper time; but they know that better than I do.  I am very
+sorry, Montague, that you have dined."
+
+"Surely you would not call this a dinner; I take my true luncheon
+afterward.  But lately my appetite has been so bad that it must be
+fed up at short intervals.  You can understand that, perhaps, Miss
+Castlewood.  It makes the confectioners' fortunes, you know.  The
+ladies once came only twice to feed, but now they come three times,
+I am assured by a young man who knows all about it.  And cherry
+brandy is the mildest form of tipple."
+
+"Shocking scandal! abominable talk!" cried the Major, who took
+every thing at its word.  "I have heard all that sort of stuff ever
+since I was as high as this table.  Waiter, show me this
+gentleman's bill.  Oh well, oh well! you have not done so very
+badly.  Two squares and a round, with a jug of Steinberg, and a
+pint of British stout with your Stilton.  If this is your ante-
+lunch, what will you do when you come to your real luncheon?  But I
+must not talk now; you may have it as you please."
+
+"The truth of it is, Miss Castlewood," said the young man, while I
+looked with some curiosity at my frizzling bone, with the cover
+just whisked off, and drops of its juice (like the rays of a
+lustre) shaking with soft inner wealth--"the truth of it is just
+this, and no more: we fix our minds and our thoughts, and all the
+rest of our higher intelligence, a great deal too much upon our
+mere food."
+
+"No doubt we do," I was obliged to answer.  "It is very sad to
+think of, as soon as one has dined.  But does that reflection
+occur, as it should, at the proper time to be useful--I mean when
+we are hungry?"
+
+"I fear not; I fear that it is rather praeterite than practical."
+
+"No big words now, my dear fellow," cried the Major.  "You have had
+your turn; let us have ours.  But, Erema, you are eating nothing.
+Take a knife and fork, Montague, and help her.  The beauty of these
+things consists entirely, absolutely, essentially, I may say, in
+their having the smoke rushing out of them.  A gush of steam like
+this should follow every turn of the knife.  But there!  I am
+spoiling every bit by talking so."
+
+"Is that any fault of mine?" asked Sir Montague, in a tone which
+made me look at him.  The voice was not harsh, nor rough, nor
+unpleasant, yet it gave me the idea that it could be all three, and
+worse than all three, upon occasion.  So I looked at him, which I
+had refrained from doing, to see whether his face confirmed that
+idea.  To the best of my perception, it did not.  Sir Montague
+Hockin was rather good-looking, so far as form and color go, having
+regular features, and clear blue eyes, very beautiful teeth, and a
+golden beard.  His appearance was grave, but not morose, as if he
+were always examining things and people without condemning them.
+It was evident that he expected to take the upper hand in general,
+to play the first fiddle, to hold the top saw, to "be helped to all
+the stuffing of the pumpkin," as dear Uncle Sam was fond of saying.
+Of moderate stature, almost of middle age, and dressed nicely,
+without any gewgaws, which look so common upon a gentleman's front,
+he was likely to please more people than he displeased at first on-
+sight.
+
+The Major was now in the flush of goodwill, having found his dinner
+genial; and being a good man, he yielded to a little sympathetic
+anger with those who had done less justice to themselves.  And in
+this state of mind he begged us to take note of one thing--that his
+ward should be christened in Bruntsea Church, as sure as all the
+bells were his, according to their inscriptions, no later than next
+Thursday week, that being the day for a good sirloin; and if Sir
+Montague failed to come to see how they could manage things under
+proper administration, he might be sure of one thing, if no more--
+that Major Hockin would never speak to him again.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+A CHECK
+
+
+So many things now began to open upon me, to do and to think of,
+that I scarcely knew which to begin with.  I used to be told how
+much wiser it was not to interfere with any thing--to let by-gones
+be by-gones, and consider my own self only.  But this advice never
+came home to my case, and it always seemed an unworthy thing even
+to be listening to it.  And now I saw reason to be glad for
+thanking people who advised me, and letting them go on to advise
+themselves.  For if I had listened to Major Hockin, or even Uncle
+Sam for that part, where must I have been now?  Why, simply knowing
+no more than as a child I knew, and feeling miserable about it.
+Whereas I had now at least something to go upon, and enough for a
+long time to occupy my mind.  The difficulty was to know what to do
+first, and what to resolve to leave undone, or at least to put off
+for the present.  One of my special desires had been to discover
+that man, that Mr. Goad, who had frightened me so about two years
+back, and was said to be lost in the snow-drifts.  But nobody like
+him had ever been found, to the sorrow of the neighborhood; and
+Sylvester himself had been disappointed, not even to know what to
+do with his clothes.
+
+His card, however, before he went off, had been left to the care of
+Uncle Sam for security of the 15,000 dollars; and on it was
+printed, with a glazing and much flourish, "Vypan, Goad, and
+Terryer:  Private Inquiry Office, Little England Polygon, W.C."
+Uncle Sam, with a grunt and a rise of his foot, had sent this low
+card flying to the fire, after I had kissed him so for all his
+truth and loveliness; but I had caught it and made him give it to
+me, as was only natural.  And having this now, I had been quite
+prepared to go and present it at its mean address, and ask what
+they wanted me for in America, and what they would like to do with
+me now, taking care to have either the Major close at hand, or else
+a policeman well recommended.
+
+But now I determined to wait a little while (if Betsy Bowen's
+opinion should be at all the same as mine was), and to ask Mr.
+Shovelin what he thought about it, before doing any thing that
+might arouse a set of ideas quite opposite to mine, and so cause
+trouble afterward.  And being unable to think any better for the
+time than to wait and be talked to, I got Major Hockin to take me
+back again to the right number in European Square.
+
+Here I found Mrs. Strouss (born Betsy Bowen) ready and eager to
+hear a great deal more than I myself had heard that day.  On the
+other hand, I had many questions, arising from things said to me,
+to which I required clear answers; and it never would do for her to
+suppose that because she had known me come into this world, she
+must govern the whole of my course therein.  But it cost many words
+and a great deal of demeanor to teach her that, good and faithful
+as she was, I could not be always under her.  Yet I promised to
+take her advice whenever it agreed with my own opinions.
+
+This pleased her, and she promised to offer it always, knowing how
+well it would be received, and she told all her lodgers that they
+might ring and ring, for she did not mean to answer any of their
+bells; but if they wanted any thing, they must go and fetch it.
+Being Germans, who are the most docile of men in England, whatever
+they may be at home, they made no complaint, but retired to their
+pipes in a pleasant condition of surprise at London habits.
+
+Mrs. Strouss, being from her earliest years of a thrifty and
+reputable turn of mind, had managed, in a large yet honest way, to
+put by many things which must prove useful in the long-run, if kept
+long enough.  And I did hear--most careful as I am to pay no
+attention to petty rumors--that the first thing that moved the
+heart of Herr Strouss, and called forth his finest feelings, was a
+winding-up chair, which came out to make legs, with a pocket for
+tobacco, and a flat place for a glass.
+
+This was certainly a paltry thought; and to think of such low
+things grieved me.  And now, when I looked at Mr. Strouss himself,
+having heard of none of these things yet, I felt that my nurse
+might not have done her best, yet might have done worse, when she
+married him.  For he seemed to have taken a liking toward me, and
+an interest in my affairs, which redounded to his credit, if he
+would not be too inquisitive.  And now I gladly allowed him to be
+present, and to rest in the chair which had captivated him,
+although last night I could scarcely have borne to have heard in
+his presence what I had to hear.  To-night there was nothing
+distressful to be said, compared, at least, with last night's tale;
+whereas there were several questions to be put, in some of which
+(while scouting altogether Uncle Sam's low estimate) two females
+might, with advantage perhaps, obtain an opinion from the stronger
+sex.
+
+And now, as soon as I had told my two friends as well as I could
+what had happened at the bank (with which they were pleased, as I
+had been), those questions arose, and were, I believe, chiefly to
+the following purport--setting aside the main puzzle of all.
+
+Why did my father say, on that dreadful morning, that if his father
+was dead, he himself had killed or murdered him?  Betsy believed,
+when she came to think, that he had even used the worse word of
+these two.
+
+How could the fatal shot have been discharged from his pistol--as
+clearly it had been--a pistol, moreover, which, by his own account,
+as Betsy now remembered, he had left in his quarters near
+Chichester?
+
+What was that horrible disease which had carried off all my poor
+little brothers and sisters, and frightened kind neighbors and
+servants away?  Betsy said it was called "Differeria," as differing
+so much from all other complaints.  I had never yet heard of this,
+but discovered, without asking further than of Mr. Strouss, that
+she meant that urgent mandate for a levy of small angels which is
+called on earth "diphtheria."
+
+Who had directed those private inquirers, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer,
+to send to the far West a member of their firm to get legal proof
+of my dear father's death, and to bring me back, if possible?  The
+present Lord Castlewood never would have done so, according to what
+Mr. Shovelin said; it was far more likely that (but for weak
+health) he would have come forth himself to seek me, upon any
+probable tidings.  At once a religious and chivalrous man, he would
+never employ mean agency.  And while thinking of that, another
+thought occurred--What had induced that low man Goad to give Uncle
+Sam a date wrong altogether for the crime which began all our
+misery?  He had put it at ten, now twelve, years back, and dated it
+in November, whereas it had happened in September month, six years
+and two months before the date he gave.  This question was out of
+all answer to me, and also to Mrs. Strouss herself; but Herr
+Strouss, being of a legal turn, believed that the law was to blame
+for it.  He thought that proceedings might be bound to begin, under
+the Extradition Act, within ten years of the date of the crime; or
+there might be some other stipulation compelling Mr. Goad to add
+one to all his falsehoods; and not knowing any thing about it, both
+of us thought it very likely.
+
+Again, what could have been that last pledge which passed between
+my father and mother, when they said "good-by" to one another, and
+perhaps knew that it was forever, so far as this bodily world is
+concerned?  Was it any thing about a poor little sleeping and
+whimpering creature like myself, who could not yet make any
+difference to any living being except the mother?  Or was it
+concerning far more important things, justice, clear honor, good-
+will, and duty, such as in the crush of time come upward with high
+natures?  And if so, was it not a promise from my mother, knowing
+every thing, to say nothing, even at the quivering moment of lying
+beneath the point of death?
+
+This was a new idea for Betsy, who had concluded from the very
+first that the pledge must be on my father's part--to wit, that he
+had vowed not to surrender, or hurt himself in any way, for the
+sake of his dear wife.  And to my suggestion she could only say
+that she never had seen it in that light; but the landings were so
+narrow and the walls so soft that, with all her duty staring in her
+face, neither she, nor the best servant ever in an apron, could be
+held responsible to repeat their very words.  And her husband said
+that this was good--very good--so good as ever could be; and what
+was to show now from the mouth of any one, after fifteen, sixteen,
+eighteen, the years?
+
+After this I had no other word to say, being still too young to
+contradict people duly married and of one accord.  No other word, I
+mean, upon that point; though still I had to ask, upon matters more
+immediate, what was the next thing for me, perhaps, to do.  And
+first of all it was settled among us that for me to present myself
+at the head-quarters of Vypau, Goad, and Terryer would be a very
+clumsy and stupid proceeding, and perhaps even dangerous.  Of
+course they would not reveal to me the author of those kind
+inquiries about myself, which perhaps had cost the firm a very
+valuable life, the life of Mr. Goad himself.  And while I should
+learn less than nothing from them, they would most easily extract
+from me, or at any rate find out afterward, where I was living, and
+what I was doing, and how I could most quietly be met and baffled,
+and perhaps even made away with, so as to save all further trouble.
+
+Neither was that the only point upon which I resolved to do
+nothing.  Herr Strouss was a very simple-minded man, yet full of
+true sagacity, and he warmly advised, in his very worst English,
+that none but my few trusty friends should be told of my visit to
+this country.
+
+"Why for make to know your enemies?" he asked, with one finger on
+his forehead, which was his mode of indicating caution.  "Enemies
+find out vere soon, too soon, soon enough.  Begin to plot--no, no,
+young lady begin first.  Vilhelmina, your man say the right.  Is it
+good, or is it bad?"
+
+It appeared to us both to be good, so far as might be judged for
+the present; and therefore I made up my mind to abstain from
+calling even on my father's agent, unless Mr. Shovelin should think
+it needful.  In that and other matters I would act by his advice;
+and so with better spirits than I long had owned, at finding so
+much kindness, and with good hopes of the morrow, I went to the
+snug little bedroom which my good nurse had provided.
+
+Alas!  What was my little grief on the morrow, compared to the deep
+and abiding loss of many by a good man's death?  When I went to the
+door at which I had been told to knock, it was long before I got an
+answer.  And even when somebody came at last, so far from being my
+guardian, it was only a poor old clerk, who said, "Hush, miss!" and
+then prayed that the will of the Lord might be done.  "Couldn't you
+see the half-shutters up?" he continued, rather roughly.  "'Tis a
+bad job for many a poor man to-day.  And it seems no more than
+yesterday I was carrying him about!"
+
+"Do you mean Mr. Shovelin?" I asked.  "Is he poorly?  Has any thing
+happened?  I can wait, or come again."
+
+"The Lord has taken him to the mansions of the just, from his
+private address at Sydenham Hill.  A burning and a shining light!
+May we like him be found watching in that day, with our lamps
+trimmed and our loins girded!"
+
+For the moment I was too surprised to speak, and the kind old man
+led me into the passage, seeing how pale and faint I was.  He
+belonged, like his master, and a great part of their business, to a
+simple religious persuasion, or faith, which now is very seldom
+heard of.
+
+"It was just in this way," he said, as soon as tears had enabled me
+to speak--for even at the first sight I had felt affection toward
+my new guardian.  "Our master is a very punctual man, for five-and-
+thirty years never late--never late once till this morning.  Excuse
+me, miss, I ought to be ashamed.  The Lord knoweth what is best for
+us.  Well, you threw him out a good bit yesterday, and there was
+other troubles.  And he had to work late last night, I hear; for
+through his work he would go, be it anyhow--diligent in business,
+husbanding the time--and when he came down to breakfast this
+morning, he prayed with his household as usual, but they noticed
+his voice rather weak and queer; and the mistress looked at him
+when he got up from his knees; but he drank his cup of tea and he
+ate his bit of toast, which was all he ever took for breakfast.
+But presently when his cob came up to the door--for he always rode
+in to business, miss, no matter what the weather was--he went to
+kiss his wife and his daughters all round, according to their ages;
+and he got through them all, when away he fell down, with the
+riding-whip in one hand, and expired on a piece of Indian matting."
+
+"How terrible!" I exclaimed, with a sob.  And the poor old man, in
+spite of all his piety, was sobbing.
+
+"No, miss; not a bit of terror about it, to a man prepared as he
+was.  He had had some warning just a year ago; and the doctors all
+told him he must leave off work.  He could no more do without his
+proper work than he could without air or victuals.  What this old
+established concern will do without him, our Divine Master only
+knows.  And a pinch coming on in Threadneedle Street, I hear--but I
+scarcely know what I am saying, miss; I was thinking of the camel
+and the needle."
+
+"I will not repeat what you have not meant to tell," I answered,
+seeing his confusion, and the clumsy turn he had made of it.  "Only
+tell me what dear Mr. Shovelin died of."
+
+"Heart-disease, miss.  You might know in a moment.  Nothing kills
+like that.  His poor father died of it, thirty years agone.  And
+the better people are, the more they get it."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+AT THE PUMP
+
+
+This blow was so sharp and heavy that I lost for the moment all
+power to go on.  The sense of ill fortune fell upon me, as it falls
+upon stronger people, when a sudden gleam of hope, breaking through
+long troubles, mysteriously fades away.
+
+Even the pleasure of indulging in the gloom of evil luck was a
+thing to be ashamed of now, when I thought of that good man's
+family thus, without a moment's warning, robbed of love and
+hope and happiness.  But Mrs. Strouss, who often brooded on
+predestination, imbittered all my thoughts by saying, or rather
+conveying without words, that my poor fathers taint of some Divine
+ill-will had re-appeared, and even killed his banker.
+
+Betsy held most Low-Church views, by nature being a Dissenter.  She
+called herself a Baptist, and in some strange way had stopped me
+thus from ever having been baptized.  I do not understand these
+things, and the battles fought about them; but knowing that my
+father was a member of the English Church, I resolved to be the
+same, and told Betsy that she ought not to set up against her
+master's doctrine.  Then she herself became ashamed of trying to
+convert me, not only because of my ignorance (which made argument
+like shooting into the sea), but chiefly because she could mention
+no one of title with such theology.
+
+This settled the question at once; and remembering (to my shame)
+what opinions I had held even of Suan Isco, while being in the very
+same predicament myself, reflecting also what Uncle Sam and Firm
+would have thought of me, had they known it, I anticipated the
+Major and his dinner party by going to a quiet ancient clergyman,
+who examined me, and being satisfied with little, took me to an old
+City church of deep and damp retirement.  And here, with a great
+din of traffic outside, and a mildewy depth of repose within, I was
+presented by certain sponsors (the clerk and his wife and his
+wife's sister), and heard good words, and hope to keep the
+impression, both outward and inward, gently made upon me.
+
+I need not say that I kept, and now received with authority, my old
+name; though the clerk prefixed an aspirate to it, and indulged in
+two syllables only.  But the ancient parson knew its meaning, and
+looked at me with curiosity; yet, being a gentleman of the old
+school, put never a question about it.
+
+Now this being done, and full tidings thereof sent off to Mrs.
+Hockin, to save trouble to the butcher, or other disappointment, I
+scarcely knew how to be moving next, though move I must before very
+long.  For it cost me a great deal of money to stay in European
+Square like this, albeit Herr Strouss was of all men the most
+generous, by his own avowal, and his wife (by the same test) noble-
+hearted among women.  Yet each of them spoke of the other's
+pecuniary views in such a desponding tone (when the other was out
+of the way), and so lamented to have any thing at all to say about
+cash--by compulsion of the other--also both, when met together,
+were so large and reckless, and not to be insulted by a thought of
+payment, that it came to pass that my money did nothing but run
+away between them.
+
+This was not their fault at all, but all my own, for being unable
+to keep my secret about the great nugget.  The Major had told me
+not to speak of this, according to wise experience; and I had not
+the smallest intention of doing an atom of mischief in that way;
+but somehow or other it came out one night when I was being pitied
+for my desolation.  And all the charges against me began to be
+doubled from that moment.
+
+If this had been all, I should not have cared so much, being quite
+content that my money should go as fast as it came in to me.  But
+there was another thing here which cost me as much as my board and
+lodgings and all the rest of my expenses.  And that was the iron
+pump in European Square.  For this pump stood in the very centre of
+a huddled district of famine, filth, and fever.  When once I had
+seen from the leads of our house the quag of reeking life around,
+the stubs and snags of chimney-pots, the gashes among them entitled
+streets, and the broken blains called houses, I was quite ashamed
+of paying any thing to become a Christian.
+
+Betsy, who stood by me, said that it was better than it used to be,
+and that all these people lived in comfort of their own ideas,
+fiercely resented all interference, and were good to one another in
+their own rough way.  It was more than three years since there had
+been a single murder among them, and even then the man who was
+killed confessed that he deserved it.  She told me, also, that in
+some mining district of Wales, well known to her, things were a
+great deal worse than here, although the people were not half so
+poor.  And finally, looking at a ruby ring which I had begged her
+to wear always, for the sake of her truth to me, she begged me to
+be wiser than to fret about things that I could not change.  "All
+these people, whose hovels I saw, had the means of grace before
+them, and if they would not stretch forth their hands, it was only
+because they were vessels of wrath.  Her pity was rather for our
+poor black brethren who had never enjoyed no opportunities, and
+therefore must be castaways."
+
+Being a stranger, and so young, and accustomed to receive my
+doctrine (since first I went to America), I dropped all intention
+of attempting any good in places where I might be murdered.  But I
+could not help looking at the pump which was in front, and the poor
+things who came there for water, and, most of all, the children.
+With these it was almost the joy of the day, and perhaps the only
+joy, to come into this little open space and stand, and put their
+backs up stiffly, and stare about, ready for some good luck to turn
+up--such as a horse to hold, or a man coming out of the docks with
+a half-penny to spare--and then, in failure of such golden hope, to
+dash about, in and out, after one another, splashing, and kicking
+over their own cans, kettles, jars, or buckets, and stretching
+their dirty little naked legs, and showing very often fine white
+chests, and bright teeth wet with laughter.  And then, when this
+chivy was done, and their quick little hearts beat aloud with
+glory, it was pretty to see them all rally round the pump, as
+crafty as their betters, and watching with sly humor each other's
+readiness to begin again.
+
+Then suddenly a sense of neglected duty would seize some little
+body with a hand to its side, nine times out of ten a girl,
+whose mother, perhaps, lay sick at home, and a stern idea of
+responsibility began to make the buckets clank.  Then might you
+see, if you cared to do so, orderly management have its turn--a
+demand for pins and a tucking up of skirts (which scarcely seemed
+worthy of the great young fuss), large children scolding little
+ones not a bit more muddy than themselves, the while the very least
+child of all, too young as yet for chivying, and only come for
+company, would smooth her comparatively clean frock down, and look
+up at her sisters with condemnatory eyes.
+
+Trivial as they were, these things amused me much, and made a
+little checker of reflected light upon the cloud of selfish gloom,
+especially when the real work began, and the children, vying with
+one another, set to at the iron handle.  This was too large for
+their little hands to grasp, and by means of some grievance inside,
+or perhaps through a cruel trick of the plumber, up went the long
+handle every time small fingers were too confiding, and there it
+stood up like the tail of a rampant cow, or a branch inaccessible,
+until an old shawl or the cord of a peg-top could be cast up on
+high to reduce it.  But some engineering boy, "highly gifted," like
+Uncle Sam's self, "with machinery," had discovered an ingenious
+cure for this.  With the help of the girls he used to fasten a fat
+little thing, about twelve months old, in the bend at the middle of
+the handle, and there (like a ham on the steelyard) hung this baby
+and enjoyed seesaw, and laughed at its own utility.
+
+I never saw this, and the splashing and dribbling and play and
+bright revelry of water, without forgetting all sad counsel and
+discretion, and rushing out as if the dingy pump were my own
+delicious Blue River.  People used to look at me from the windows
+with pity and astonishment, supposing me to be crazed or frantic,
+especially the Germans.  For to run out like this, without a pocket
+full of money, would have been insanity; and to run out with it, to
+their minds, was even clearer proof of that condition.  For the
+money went as quickly as the water of the pump; on this side and on
+that it flew, each child in succession making deeper drain upon it,
+in virtue of still deeper woes.  They were dreadful little story-
+tellers, I am very much afraid; and the long faces pulled, as soon
+as I came out, in contrast with all the recent glee and frolic,
+suggested to even the youngest charity suspicions of some
+inconsistency.  However, they were so ingenious and clever that
+they worked my pockets like the pump itself, only with this unhappy
+difference, that the former had no inexhaustible spring of silver,
+or even of copper.
+
+And thus, by a reason (as cogent as any of more exalted nature),
+was I driven back to my head-quarters, there to abide till a fresh
+supply should come.  For Uncle Sam, generous and noble as he was,
+did not mean to let me melt all away at once my share of the great
+Blue River nugget, any more than to make ducks and drakes of his
+own.  Indeed, that rock of gold was still untouched, and healthily
+reposing in a banker's cellar in the good town of Sacramento.
+People were allowed to go in and see it upon payment of a dollar,
+and they came out so thirsty from feasting upon it that a bar was
+set up, and a pile of money made--all the gentlemen, and ladies
+even worse than they, taking a reckless turn about small money
+after seeing that.  But dear Uncle Sam refused every cent of the
+profit of all this excitable work.  It was wholly against his wish
+that any thing so artificial should be done at all, and his sense
+of religion condemned it.  He said, in his very first letter to me,
+that even a heathen must acknowledge this champion nugget as the
+grandest work of the Lord yet discovered in America--a country more
+full of all works of the Lord than the rest of the world put
+together.  And to keep it in a cellar, without any air or sun,
+grated harshly upon his ideas of right.
+
+However, he did not expect every body to think exactly as he did,
+and if they could turn a few dollars upon it, they were welcome, as
+having large families.  And the balance might go to his credit
+against the interest on any cash advanced to him.  Not that he
+meant to be very fast with this, never having run into debt in all
+his life.
+
+This, put shortly, was the reason why I could not run to the pump
+any longer.  I had come into England with money enough to last me
+(according to the Sawyer's calculations) for a year and a half of
+every needful work; whereas, in less than half that time, I was
+arriving at my last penny.  This reminded me of my dear father, who
+was nearly always in trouble about money (although so strictly
+upright); and at first I was proud to be like him about this, till
+I came to find the disadvantages.
+
+It must not even for a moment be imagined that this made any
+difference in the behavior of any one toward me.  Mrs. Strouss,
+Herr Strouss, the lady on the stairs, and a very clever woman who
+had got no rooms, but was kindly accommodated every where, as well
+as the baron on the first floor front, and the gentleman from a
+hotel at Hanover, who looked out the other way, and even the
+children at the pump--not one made any difference toward me (as an
+enemy might, perhaps, suppose) because my last half crown was gone.
+It was admitted upon every side that I ought to be forgiven for my
+random cast of money, because I knew no better, and was sure to
+have more in a very little time.  And the children of the pump came
+to see me go away, through streets of a mile and a half, I should
+think; and they carried my things, looking after one another, so
+that none could run away.  And being forbidden at the platform
+gate, for want of respectability, they set up a cheer, and I waved
+my hat, and promised, amidst great applause, to come back with it
+full of sixpences.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+COCKS AND COXCOMBS
+
+
+Major Hockin brought the only fly as yet to be found in Bruntsea,
+to meet me at Newport, where the railway ended at present, for want
+of further encouragement.
+
+"Very soon you go," he cried out to the bulkheads, or buffers, or
+whatever are the things that close the career of a land-engine.
+"Station-master, you are very wise in putting in your very best
+cabbage plants there.  You understand your own company.  Well done!
+If I were to offer you a shilling apiece for those young early
+Yorks, what would you say, now?"
+
+"Weel, a think I should say nah, Sir," the Scotch station-master
+made answer, with a grin, while he pulled off his cap of office and
+put on a dissolute Glengary.  "They are a veery fine young kail,
+that always pays for planting."
+
+"The villain!" said the Major, as I jumped into the fly.  "However,
+I suppose he does quite right.  Set a thief to watch a thief.  The
+company are big rogues, and he tries to be a bigger.  We shall cut
+through his garden in about three months, just when his cabbages
+are getting firm, and their value will exceed that of pine-apples.
+The surveyor will come down and certify, and the 'damage to crops'
+will be at least five pounds, when they have no right to sow even
+mustard and cress, and a saucepan would hold all the victuals on
+the land."
+
+From this I perceived that my host was as full of his speculative
+schemes as ever; and soon he made the driver of the one-horse fly
+turn aside from the unfenced road and take the turf.  "Coachman,"
+he cried, "just drive along the railway; you won't have the chance
+much longer."
+
+There was no sod turned yet and no rod set up; but the driver
+seemed to know what was meant, and took us over the springy turf
+where once had run the river.  And the salt breath of the sea came
+over the pebble ridge, full of appetite and briskness, after so
+much London.
+
+"It is one of the saddest things I ever heard of," Major Hockin
+began to say to me.  "Poor Shovelin! poor Shovelin!  A man of large
+capital--the very thing we want.  It might have been the making of
+this place.  I have very little doubt that I must have brought him
+to see our great natural advantages--the beauty of the situation,
+the salubrity of the air, the absence of all clay, or marsh, or
+noxious deposit, the bright crisp turf, and the noble underlay of
+chalk, which (if you perceive my meaning) can not retain any damp,
+but transmits it into sweet natural wells.  Why, driver, where the
+devil are you driving us?"
+
+"No fear, your honor.  I know every trick of it.  It won't come
+over the wheels, I do believe, and it does all the good in the
+world to his sand-cracks.  Whoa-ho, my boy, then!  And the young
+lady's feet might go up upon the cushion, if her boots is thin,
+Sir; and Mr. Rasper will excuse of it."
+
+"What the"--something hot--"do you mean, Sir?" the Major roared
+over the water, which seemed to be deepening as we went on.  "Pull
+out this instant; pull out, I tell you, or you shall have three
+months' hard labor.  May I be d----d now--my dear, I beg your
+pardon for speaking with such sincerity--I simply mean, may I go
+straightway to the devil, if I don't put this fellow on the tread-
+mill.  Oh, you can pull out now, then, can you?"
+
+"If your honor pleases, I never did pull in," the poor driver
+answered, being frightened at the excitement of the lord of the
+manor.  "My orders was, miss, to drive along the line coming on now
+just to Bruntsea, and keep in the middle of that same I did, and
+this here little wet is a haxident--a haxident of the full moon, I
+do assure you, and the wind coming over the sea, as you might say.
+These pebbles is too round, miss, to stick to one another; you
+couldn't expect it of them; and sometimes the water here and there
+comes a-leaking like through the bottom.  I have seed it so, ever
+since I can remember."
+
+"I don't believe a word of it," the Major said, as we waited a
+little for the vehicle to drain, and I made a nosegay of the bright
+sea flowers.  "Tell me no lies, Sir; you belong to the West
+Bruntseyans, and you have driven us into a vile bog to scare me.
+They have bribed you.  I see the whole of it.  Tell me the truth,
+and you shall have five shillings."
+
+The driver looked over the marshes as if he had never received such
+an offer before.  Five shillings for a falsehood would have seemed
+the proper thing, and have called for a balance of considerations,
+and made a demand upon his energies.  But to earn five shillings by
+the truth had never fallen to his luck before; and he turned to me,
+because I smiled, and he said, "Will you taste the water, miss?"
+
+"Bless me!" cried the Major, "now I never thought of that.  Common
+people have such ways about things they are used to!  I might have
+stood here for a month, and never have thought of that way to
+settle it.  Ridiculously simple.  Give me a taste, Erema.  Ah, that
+is the real beauty of our coast, my dear!  The strongest proportion
+of the saline element--I should know the taste of it any where.  No
+sea-weed, no fishy particles, no sludge, no beards of oysters.  The
+pure, uncontaminated, perfect brine, that sets every male and
+female on his legs, varicose, orthopedic--I forget their
+scientifics, but I know the smack of it."
+
+"Certainly," I said, "it is beautifully salt.  It will give you an
+appetite for dinner, Major Hockin.  I could drink a pint of it,
+after all that smoke.  But don't you think it is a serious thing
+for the sea itself to come pouring through the bottom of this
+pebble bank in this way?"
+
+"Not at all.  No, I rather like it.  It opens up many strictly
+practical ideas.  It adds very much to the value of the land.  For
+instance, a 'salt-lick,' as your sweet Yankees call it--and set up
+an infirmary for foot and mouth disease.  And better still, the
+baths, the baths, my dear.  No expense for piping, or pumping, or
+any thing.  Only place your marble at the proper level, and twice a
+day you have the grand salubrious sparkling influx of ocean's self,
+self-filtered, and by its own operation permeated with a fine
+siliceous element.  What foreign mud could compete with such a
+bath?"
+
+"But supposing there should come too much of it," I said, "and wash
+both the baths and the bathers away?"
+
+"Such an idea is ridiculous.  It can be adjusted to a nicety.  I am
+very glad I happened to observe this thing, this--this noble
+phenomenon.  I shall speak to Montague about it at once, before I
+am half an hour older.  My dear, you have made a conquest; I quite
+forgot to tell you; but never mind that for the present.  Driver,
+here is half a crown for you.  Your master will put down the fly to
+my account.  He owes me a heriot.  I shall claim his best beast,
+the moment he gets one without a broken wind."
+
+As the Major spoke, he got out at his own door with all his wonted
+alacrity; but instead of offering me his hand, as he always had
+done in London, he skipped up his nine steps, on purpose (as I saw)
+that somebody else might come down for me.  And this was Sir
+Montague Hockin, as I feared was only too likely from what had been
+said.  If I had even suspected that this gentleman was at
+Bruntlands, I would have done my utmost to stay where I was, in
+spite of all absence of money.  Betsy would gladly have allowed me
+to remain, without paying even a farthing, until it should become
+convenient.  Pride had forbidden me to speak of this; but I would
+have got over that pride much rather than meet this Sir Montague
+Hockin thus.  Some instinct told me to avoid him altogether; and
+having so little now of any other guidance, I attached, perhaps,
+foolish importance to that.
+
+However, it was not the part of a lady to be rude to any one
+through instinct; and I knew already that in England young women
+are not quite such masters of their own behavior as in the far West
+they are allowed to be.  And so I did my best that, even in my
+eyes, he should not see how vexed I was at meeting him.  And soon
+it appeared that this behavior, however painful to me, was no less
+wise than good, because both with my host and hostess this new
+visitor was already at the summit of all good graces.  He had
+conquered the Major by admiration of all his schemes and upshots,
+and even offering glimmers of the needful money in the distance;
+and Mrs. Hockin lay quite at his feet ever since he had opened a
+hamper and produced a pair of frizzled fowls, creatures of an
+extraordinary aspect, toothed all over like a dandelion plant, with
+every feather sticking inside out.  When I saw them, I tried for my
+life not to laugh, and biting my lips very hard, quite succeeded,
+until the cock opened up a pair of sleepy eyes, covered with comb
+and very sad inversions, and glancing with complacency at his wife
+(who stood beneath him, even more turned inside out), capered with
+his twiggy legs, and gave a long, sad crow.  Mrs. Hockin looked at
+him with intense delight.
+
+"Erema, is it possible that you laugh?  I thought that you never
+laughed, Erema.  At any rate, if you ever do indulge, you might
+choose a fitter opportunity, I think.  You have spoiled his
+demonstration altogether--see, he does not understand such
+unkindness--and it is the very first he has uttered since he came.
+Oh, poor Fluffsky!"
+
+"I am very, very sorry.  But how was I to help it?  I would not, on
+any account, have stopped him if I had known he was so sensitive.
+Fluffsky, do please to begin again."
+
+"These beggars are nothing at all, I can assure you," said Sir
+Montague, coming to my aid, when Fluffsky spurned all our prayers
+for one more crow.  "Mrs. Hockin, if you really would like to have
+a fowl that even Lady Clara Crowcombe has not got, you shall have
+it in a week, or a fortnight, or, at any rate, a month, if I can
+manage it.  They are not to be had except through certain channels,
+and the fellows who write the poultry books have never even heard
+of them."
+
+"Oh, how delighted I shall be!  Lady Clara despises all her
+neighbors so.  But do they lay eggs?  Half the use of keeping
+poultry, when you never kill them, is to get an egg for breakfast;
+and Major Hockin looks round and says, 'Now is this our own?' and I
+can not say that it is; and I am vexed with the books, and he
+begins to laugh at me.  People said it was for want of chalk, but
+they walk upon nothing but chalk, as you can see."
+
+"And their food, Mrs. Hockin.  They are walking upon that.  Starve
+them for a week, and forty eggs at least will reward you for stern
+discipline."
+
+But all this little talk I only tell to show how good and soft Mrs.
+Hockin was; and her husband, in spite of all his self-opinion, and
+resolute talk about money and manorial dues, in his way, perhaps,
+was even less to be trusted to get his cash out of any poor and
+honest man.
+
+On the very day after my return from London I received a letter
+from "Colonel Gundry" (as we always called the Sawyer now, through
+his kinship to the Major), and, as it can not easily be put into
+less compass, I may as well give his very words:
+
+
+"DEAR MISS REMA,--Your last favor to hand, with thanks.  Every
+thing is going on all right with us.  The mill is built up, and
+goes better than ever; more orders on hand than we can get through.
+We have not cracked the big nugget yet.  Expect the government to
+take him at a trifle below value, for Washington Museum.  Must have
+your consent; but, for my part, would rather let him go there than
+break him.  Am ready to lose a few dollars upon him, particularly
+as he might crack up all quartzy in the middle.  They offer to take
+him by weight at three dollars and a half per pound below standard.
+Please say if agreeable.
+
+"I fear, my dear, that there are bad times coming for all of us
+here in this part.  Not about money, but a long sight worse; bad
+will, and contention, and rebellion, perhaps.  What we hear
+concerning it is not much here; but even here thoughts are very
+much divided.  Ephraim takes a different view from mine; which is
+not a right thing for a grandson to do; and neighbor Sylvester goes
+with him.  The Lord send agreement and concord among us; but, if He
+doeth so, He must change his mind first, for every man is borrowing
+his neighbor's gun.
+
+"If there is any thing that you can do to turn Ephraim back to his
+duty, my dear, I am sure that, for love of us, you will do it.  If
+Firm was to run away from me now, and go fighting on behalf of
+slavery, I never should care more for naught upon this side of
+Jordan; and the new mill might go to Jericho; though it does look
+uncommon handsome now, I can assure you, and tears through its work
+like a tiger.
+
+"Noting symptoms in your last of the price of things in England,
+and having carried over some to your account, inclosed please to
+find a bill for five hundred dollars, though not likely to be
+wanted yet.  Save a care of your money, my dear; but pay your way
+handsome, as a Castlewood should do.  Jowler goes his rounds twice
+a day looking for you; and somebody else never hangs his hat up
+without casting one eye at the corner you know.  Sylvester's girl
+was over here last week, dashing about as usual.  If Firm goes
+South, he may have her, for aught I care, and never see saw-mill
+again.  But I hope that the Lord will spare my old days such
+disgrace and tribulation.
+
+"About you know what, my dear, be not overanxious.  I have been
+young, and now am old, as the holy Psalmist says; and the more I
+see of the ways of men, the less I verily think of them.  Their
+good esteem, their cap in hand, their fair fame, as they call it,
+goes by accident, and fortune, the whim of the moment, and the way
+the clever ones have of tickling them.  A great man laughs at the
+flimsy of it, and a good one goes to his conscience.  Your father
+saw these things at their value.  I have often grieved that you can
+not see them so; but perhaps I have liked you none the worse, my
+dear.
+
+"Don't forget about going South.  A word from you may stop him.  It
+is almost the only hope I have, and even that may be too late.
+Suan Isco and Martin send messages.  The flowers are on your
+father's grave.  I have got a large order for pine cradles in great
+haste, but have time to be,
+
+"Truly yours,
+
+"SAMPSON GUNDRY."
+
+
+That letter, while it relieved me in one way, from the want of
+money, cost me more than ten times five hundred dollars' worth of
+anxiety.  The Sawyer had written to me twice ere this--kind, simple
+letters, but of no importance, except for their goodness and
+affection.  But now it was clear that when he wrote this letter he
+must have been sadly put out and upset.  His advice to me was
+beyond all value; but he seemed to have kept none at home for
+himself.  He was carried quite out of his large, staid ways when he
+wrote those bitter words about poor Firm--the very apple of his
+eye, as the holy Psalmist says.  And, knowing the obstinacy of them
+both, I dreaded clash between them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+ADRIFT
+
+
+Having got money enough to last long with one brought up to
+simplicity, and resolved to have nothing to do for a while with
+charity or furnished lodgings (what though kept by one's own
+nurse), I cast about now for good reason to be off from all the
+busy works at Bruntsea.  So soon after such a tremendous blow, it
+was impossible for me to push my own little troubles and concerns
+upon good Mr. Shovelin's family, much as I longed to know what was
+to become of my father's will, if any thing.  But my desire to be
+doing something, or, at least, to get away for a time from
+Bruntsea, was largely increased by Sir Montague Hockin's strange
+behavior toward me.
+
+That young man, if still he could be called young--which, at my
+age, scarcely seemed to be his right, for he must have been ten
+years older than poor Firm--began more and more every day to come
+after me, just when I wanted to be quite alone.  There was nothing
+more soothing to my thoughts and mind (the latter getting quiet
+from the former, I suppose) than for the whole of me to rest a
+while in such a little scollop of the shingle as a new-moon tide,
+in little crescents, leaves just below high-water mark.  And now it
+was new-moon tide again, a fortnight after the flooding of our fly
+by the activity of the full moon; and, feeling how I longed to
+understand these things--which seem to be denied to all who are of
+the same sex as the moon herself--I sat in a very nice nick, where
+no wind could make me look worse than nature willed.  But of my own
+looks I never did think twice, unless there was any one to speak of
+such a subject.
+
+Here I was sitting in the afternoon of a gentle July day, wondering
+by what energy of nature all these countless pebbles were produced,
+and not even a couple to be found among them fit to lie side by
+side and purely tally with each other.  Right and left, for miles
+and miles, millions multiplied into millions; yet I might hold any
+one in my palm and be sure that it never had been there before.
+And of the quiet wavelets even, taking their own time and manner,
+in default of will of wind, all to come and call attention to their
+doom by arching over, and endeavoring to make froth, were any two
+in sound and size, much more in shape and shade, alike?  Every one
+had its own little business, of floating pop-weed or foam bubbles
+or of blistered light, to do; and every one, having done it, died
+and subsided into its successor.
+
+"A trifle sentimental, are we?" cried a lively voice behind me, and
+the waves of my soft reflections fell, and instead of them stood
+Sir Montague Hockin, with a hideous parasol.
+
+I never received him with worse grace, often as I had repulsed him;
+but he was one of those people who think that women are all whims
+and ways.
+
+"I grieve to intrude upon large ideas," he said, as I rose and
+looked at him, "but I act under positive orders now.  A lady knows
+what is best for a lady.  Mrs. Hockin has been looking from the
+window, and she thinks that you ought not to be sitting in the sun
+like this.  There has been a case of sun-stroke at Southbourne--a
+young lady meditating under the cliff--and she begs you to accept
+this palm leaf."
+
+I thought of the many miles I had wandered under the fierce
+Californian sun; but I would not speak to him of that.  "Thank
+you," I said; "it was very kind of her to think of it, and of you
+to do it.  But will it be safe for you to go back without it?"
+
+"Oh, why should I do so?" he answered, with a tone of mock pathos
+which provoked me always, though I never could believe it to be
+meant in ridicule of me, for that would have been too low a thing;
+and, besides, I never spoke so.  "Could you bear to see me slain by
+the shafts of the sun?  Miss Castlewood, this parasol is amply
+large for both of us."
+
+I would not answer him in his own vein, because I never liked his
+vein at all; though I was not so entirely possessed as to want
+every body to be like myself.
+
+"Thank you; I mean to stay here," I said; "you may either leave the
+parasol or take it, whichever will be less troublesome.  At any
+rate, I shall not use it."
+
+A gentleman, according to my ideas, would have bowed and gone upon
+his way; but Sir Montague Hockin would have no rebuff.  He seemed
+to look upon me as a child, such as average English girls, fresh
+from little schools, would be.  Nothing more annoyed me, after all
+my thoughts and dream of some power in myself, than this.
+
+"Perhaps I might tell you a thing or two," he said, while I kept
+gazing at some fishing-boats, and sat down again, as a sign for him
+to go--"a little thing or two of which you have no idea, even in
+your most lonely musings, which might have a very deep interest for
+you.  Do you think that I came to this hole to see the sea?  Or
+that fussy old muff of a Major's doings?"
+
+"Perhaps you would like me to tell him your opinion of his
+intellect and great plans," I answered.  "And after all his
+kindness to you!"
+
+"You never will do that," he said; "because you are a lady, and
+will not repeat what is said in confidence.  I could help you
+materially in your great object, if you would only make a friend of
+me."
+
+"And what would your own object be?  The pure anxiety to do right?"
+
+"Partly, and I might say mainly, that; also an ambition for your
+good opinion, which seems so inaccessible.  But you will think me
+selfish if I even hint at any condition of any kind.  Every body I
+have ever met with likes me, except Miss Castlewood."
+
+As he spoke he glanced down his fine amber-colored beard, shining
+in the sun, and even in the sun showing no gray hair (for a reason
+which Mrs. Hockin told me afterward), and he seemed to think it
+hard that a man with such a beard should be valued lightly.
+
+"I do not see why we should talk," I said, "about either likes or
+dislikes.  Only, if you have any thing to tell, I shall be very
+much obliged to you."
+
+This gentleman looked at me in a way which I have often observed
+in England.  A general idea there prevails that the free and
+enlightened natives of the West are in front of those here in
+intelligence, and to some extent, therefore, in dishonesty.  But
+there must be many cases where the two are not the same.
+
+"No," I replied, while he was looking at his buttons, which had
+every British animal upon them; "I mean nothing more than the
+simple thing I say.  If you ought to tell me any thing, tell it.  I
+am accustomed to straightforward people.  But they disappoint one
+by their never knowing any thing."
+
+"But I know something," he answered, with a nod of grave,
+mysterious import; "and perhaps I will tell you some day, when
+admitted, if ever I have such an honor, to some little degree of
+friendship."
+
+"Oh, please not to think of yourself," I exclaimed, in a manner
+which must have amused him.  "In such a case, the last thing that
+you should do is that.  Think only of what is right and honorable,
+and your duty toward a lady.  Also your duty to the laws of your
+country.  I am not at all sure that you ought not to be arrested.
+But perhaps it is nothing at all, after all; only something
+invented to provoke me."
+
+"In that case, I can only drop the subject," he answered, with that
+stern gleam of the eyes which I had observed before, and detested.
+"I was also to tell you that we dine to-day an hour before the
+usual time, that my cousin may go out in the boat for whiting.  The
+sea will be as smooth as glass.  Perhaps you will come with us."
+
+With these words, he lifted his hat and went off, leaving me in a
+most uncomfortable state, as he must have known if he had even
+tried to think.  For I could not get the smallest idea what he
+meant; and, much as I tried to believe that he must be only
+pretending, for reasons of his own, to have something important to
+tell me, scarcely was it possible to be contented so.  A thousand
+absurd imaginations began to torment me as to what he meant.  He
+lived in London so much, for instance, that he had much quicker
+chance of knowing whatever there was to know; again, he was a man
+of the world, full of short, sharp sagacity, and able to penetrate
+what I could not; then, again, he kept a large account with
+Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin, as Major Hockin chanced to say; and
+I knew not that a banker's reserve is much deeper than his deposit;
+moreover--which, to my mind, was almost stronger proof than any
+thing--Sir Montague Hockin was of smuggling pedigree, and likely to
+be skillful in illicit runs of knowledge.
+
+However, in spite of all this uneasiness, not another word would I
+say to him about it, waiting rather for him to begin again upon it.
+But, though I waited and waited, as, perhaps, with any other person
+I scarcely could have done, he would not condescend to give me even
+another look about it.
+
+Disliking that gentleman more and more for his supercilious conduct
+and certainty of subduing me, I naturally turned again to my good
+host and hostess.  But here there was very little help or support
+to be obtained at present.  Major Hockin was laying the foundations
+of "The Bruntsea Assembly-Rooms, Literary Institute, Mutual
+Improvement Association, Lyceum, and Baths, from sixpence upward;"
+while Mrs. Hockin had a hatch of "White Sultans," or, rather, a
+prolonged sitting of eggs, fondly hoped to hatch at last, from
+having cost so much, like a chicken-hearted Conference.  Much as I
+sorrowed at her disappointment--for the sitting cost twelve
+guineas--I could not feel quite guiltless of a petty and ignoble
+smile, when, after hoping against hope, upon the thirtieth day she
+placed her beautifully sound eggs in a large bowl of warm water, in
+which they floated as calmly as if their price was a penny a dozen.
+The poor lady tried to believe that they were spinning with
+vitality; but at last she allowed me to break one, and lo! it had
+been half boiled by the advertiser.  "This is very sad," cried Mrs.
+Hockin; and the patient old hen, who was come in a basket of hay to
+see the end of it, echoed with a cluck that sentiment.
+
+These things being so, I was left once more to follow my own
+guidance, which had seemed, in the main, to be my fortune ever
+since my father died.  For one day Mr. Shovelin had appeared, to my
+great joy and comfort, as a guide and guardian; but, alas! for one
+day only.  And, except for his good advice and kind paternal
+conduct to me, it seemed at present an unlucky thing that I had
+ever discovered him.  Not only through deep sense of loss and real
+sorrow for him, but also because Major Hockin, however good and
+great and generous, took it unreasonably into his head that I threw
+him over, and threw myself (as with want of fine taste he expressed
+it) into the arms of the banker.  This hurt me very much, and I
+felt that Major Hockin could never have spoken so hastily unless
+his hair had been originally red; and so it might be detected, even
+now, where it survived itself, though blanched where he brushed it
+into that pretentious ridge.  Sometimes I liked that man, when his
+thoughts were large and liberal; but no sooner had he said a fine
+brave thing than he seemed to have an after-thought not to go too
+far with it; just as he had done about the poor robbed woman from
+the steerage and the young man who pulled out his guinea.  I paid
+him for my board and lodging, upon a scale settled by Uncle Sam
+himself, at California prices; therefore I am under no obligation
+to conceal his foibles.  But, take him altogether, he was good and
+brave and just, though unable, from absence of inner light, to be
+to me what Uncle Sam had been.
+
+When I perceived that the Major condemned my simple behavior in
+London, and (if I may speak it, as I said it to myself) "blew hot
+and cold" in half a minute--hot when I thought of any good things
+to be done, and cold as soon as he became the man to do them--also,
+when I remembered what a chronic plague was now at Bruntsea, in the
+shape of Sir Montague, who went to and fro, but could never be
+trusted to be far off, I resolved to do what I had long been
+thinking of, and believed that my guardian, if he had lived another
+day, would have recommended.  I resolved to go and see Lord
+Castlewood, my father's first cousin and friend in need.
+
+When I asked my host and hostess what they thought of this, they
+both declared that it was the very thing they were at the point of
+advising, which, however, they had forborne from doing because I
+never took advice.  At this, as being such a great exaggeration, I
+could not help smiling seriously; but I could not accept their sage
+opinion that, before I went to see my kinsman, I ought to write and
+ask his leave to do so.  For that would have made it quite a rude
+thing to call, as I must still have done, if he should decline
+beforehand to receive me.  Moreover, it would look as if I sought
+an invitation, while only wanting an interview.  Therefore, being
+now full of money again, I hired the flyman who had made us taste
+the water, and taking train at Newport, and changing at two or
+three places as ordered, crossed many little streams, and came to a
+fair river, which proved to be the Thames itself, a few miles above
+Reading.
+
+In spite of all the larger lessons of travel, adventure, and
+tribulation, my heart was throbbing with some rather small
+feelings, as for the first time I drew near to the home of my
+forefathers.  I should have been sorry to find it ugly or mean, or
+lying in a hole, or even modern or insignificant; and when none of
+these charges could be brought against it, I was filled with highly
+discreditable pain that Providence had not seen fit to issue me
+into this world in the masculine form; in which case this fine
+property would, according to the rules of mankind, have been mine.
+However, I was very soon ashamed of such ideas, and sat down on a
+bank to dispel them with the free and fair view around me.
+
+The builder of that house knew well both where to place and how to
+shape it, so as not to spoil the site.  It stood near the brow of a
+bosoming hill, which sheltered it, both with wood and clevice, from
+the rigor and fury of the north and east; while in front the
+sloping foreground widened its soft lap of green.  In bays and
+waves of rolling grass, promontoried, here and there, by jutting
+copse or massive tree, and jotted now and then with cattle as calm
+as boats at anchor, the range of sunny upland fell to the reedy
+fringe and clustered silence of deep river meadows.  Here the
+Thames, in pleasant bends of gentleness and courtesy, yet with will
+of its own ways, being now a plenteous river, spreads low music,
+and holds mirror to the woods and hills and fields, casting afar a
+broad still gleam, and on the banks presenting tremulous infinitude
+of flash.
+
+Now these things touched me all the more because none of them
+belonged to me; and, after thus trying to enlarge my views, I got
+up with much better heart, and hurried on to have it over, whatever
+it might be.  A girl brought up in the real English way would have
+spent her last shilling to drive up to the door in the fly at the
+station--a most sad machine--but I thought it no disgrace to go in
+a more becoming manner.
+
+One scarcely ever acts up to the force of situation; and I went as
+quietly into that house as if it were Betsy Bowen's.  If any body
+had been rude to me, or asked who I was, or a little thing of that
+sort, my spirit might have been up at once, and found, as usually
+happens then, good reason to go down afterward.  But happily there
+was nothing of the kind.  An elderly man, without any gaudy badges,
+opened the door very quietly, and begged my pardon, before I spoke,
+for asking me to speak softly.  It was one of his lordship's very
+worst days, and when he was so, every sound seemed to reach him.  I
+took the hint, and did not speak at all, but followed him over deep
+matting into a little room to which he showed me.  And then I gave
+him a little note, written before I left Bruntsea, and asked him
+whether he thought that his master was well enough to attend to it.
+
+He looked at me in a peculiar manner, for he had known my father
+well, having served from his youth in the family; but he only asked
+whether my message was important.  I answered that it was, but that
+I would wait for another time rather than do any harm.  But he said
+that, however ill his master was, nothing provoked him more than to
+find that any thing was neglected through it.  And before I could
+speak again he was gone with my letter to Lord Castlewood.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+AT HOME
+
+
+Some of the miserable, and I might say strange, things which had
+befallen me from time to time unseasonably, now began to force
+their remembrance upon me.  Such dark figures always seem to make
+the most of a nervous moment, when solid reason yields to
+fluttering fear and small misgivings.  There any body seems to lie,
+as a stranded sailor lies, at the foot of perpendicular cliffs of
+most inhuman humanity, with all the world frowning down over the
+crest, and no one to throw a rope down.  Often and often had I felt
+this want of any one to help me, but the only way out of it seemed
+to be to do my best to help myself.
+
+Even, now I had little hope, having been so often dashed, and
+knowing that my father's cousin possessed no share of my father's
+strength.  He might, at the utmost, give good advice, and help me
+with kind feeling; but if he wanted to do more, surely he might
+have tried ere now.  But my thoughts about this were cut short by a
+message that he would be glad to see me, and I followed the servant
+to the library.
+
+Here I found Lord Castlewood sitting in a high-backed chair,
+uncushioned and uncomfortable.  When he saw me near him he got up
+and took my hand, and looked at me, and I was pleased to find his
+face well-meaning, brave, and generous.  But even to rise from his
+chair was plainly no small effort to him, and he leaned upon a
+staff or crutch as he offered me a small white hand.
+
+"Miss Castlewood," he said, with a very weak yet clear and silvery
+voice, "for many years I have longed in vain and sought in vain to
+hear of you.  I have not escaped all self-reproach through my sense
+of want of energy; yet, such as I am, I have done my best, or I do
+my best to think so."
+
+"I am sure you have," I replied, without thinking, knowing his
+kindness to my father, and feeling the shame of my own hot words to
+Mr. Shovelin about him.  "I owe you more gratitude than I can tell,
+for your goodness to my dear father.  I am not come now to trouble
+you, but because it was my duty."
+
+While I was speaking he managed to lead me, feebly as himself could
+walk, to a deep chair for reading, or some such use, whereof I have
+had few chances.  And in every step and word and gesture I
+recognized that foreign grace which true-born Britons are proud to
+despise on both sides of the Atlantic.  And, being in the light, I
+watched him well, because I am not a foreigner.
+
+In the clear summer light of the westering sun (which is better for
+accurate uses than the radiance of the morning) I saw a firm, calm
+face, which might in good health have been powerful--a face which
+might be called the moonlight image of my father's.  I could not
+help turning away to cry, and suspicion fled forever.
+
+"My dear young cousin," he said, as soon as I was fit to speak to,
+"your father trusted me, and so must you.  You may think that I
+have forgotten you, or done very little to find you out.  It was no
+indifference, no forgetfulness: I have not been able to work
+myself, and I have had very deep trouble of my own."
+
+He leaned on his staff, and looked down at me, for I had sat down
+when thus overcome, and I knew that the forehead and eyes were
+those of a learned and intellectual man.  How I knew this it is
+impossible to say, for I never had met with such a character as
+this, unless it were the Abbe of Flechon, when I was only fourteen
+years old, and valued his great skill in spinning a top tenfold
+more than all his deep learning.  Lord Castlewood had long, silky
+hair, falling in curls of silver gray upon either side of his
+beautiful forehead, and the gaze of his soft dark eyes was sad,
+gentle, yet penetrating.  Weak health and almost constant pain had
+chastened his delicate features to an expression almost feminine,
+though firm thin lips and rigid lines showed masculine will and
+fortitude.  And when he spoke of his own trouble (which, perhaps,
+he would not have done except for consolation's sake), I knew that
+he meant something even more grievous than bodily anguish.
+
+"It is hard," he said, "that you, so young and healthy and full of
+high spirit as you are (unless your face belies you), should begin
+the best years of your life, as common opinion puts such things, in
+such a cloud of gloom and shame."
+
+"There is no shame at all," I answered; "and if there is gloom, I
+am used to that; and so was my father for years and years.  What is
+my trouble compared with his?"
+
+"Your trouble is nothing when compared with his, so far as regards
+the mere weight of it; but he was a strong man to carry his load;
+you are a young and a sensitive woman.  The burden may even be
+worse for you.  Now tell me all about yourself, and what has
+brought you to me."
+
+His voice was so quiet and soothing that I seemed to rest beneath
+it.  He had not spoken once of religion or the will of God, nor
+plied me at all with those pious allusions, which even to the
+reverent mind are like illusions when so urged.  Lord Castlewood
+had too deep a sense of the will of God to know what it is; and he
+looked at me wistfully as at one who might have worse experience of
+it.
+
+Falling happily under his influence, as his clear, kind eyes met
+mine, I told him every thing I could think of about my father and
+myself, and all I wanted to do next, and how my heart and soul were
+set upon getting to the bottom of every thing.  And while I spoke
+with spirit, or softness, or, I fear, sometimes with hate, I could
+not help seeing that he was surprised, but not wholly displeased,
+with my energy.  And then, when all was exhausted, came the old
+question I had heard so often, and found so hard to answer--
+
+"And what do you propose to do next, Erema?"
+
+"To go to the very place itself," I said, speaking strongly under
+challenge, though quite unresolved about such a thing before; "to
+live in the house where my father lived, and my mother and all of
+the family died; and from day to day to search every corner and
+fish up every bit of evidence, until I get hold of the true man at
+last, of the villain who did it--who did it, and left my father and
+all the rest of us to be condemned and die for it."
+
+"Erema," replied my cousin, as he had told me now to call him, "you
+are too impetuous for such work, and it is wholly unfit for you.
+For such a task, persons of trained sagacity and keen observation
+are needed.  And after all these eighteen years, or nearly nineteen
+now it must be, there can not be any thing to discover there."
+
+"But if I like, may I go there, cousin, if only to satisfy my own
+mind?  I am miserable now at Bruntsea, and Sir Montague Hockin
+wears me out."
+
+"Sir Montague Hockin!" Lord Castlewood exclaimed; "why, you did not
+tell me that he was there.  Wherever he is, you should not be."
+
+"I forgot to speak of him.  He does not live there, but is
+continually to and fro for bathing, or fishing, or rabbit-shooting,
+or any other pretext.  And he makes the place very unpleasant to
+me, kind as the Major and Mrs. Hockin are, because I can never make
+him out at all."
+
+"Do not try to do so," my cousin answered, looking at me earnestly;
+"be content to know nothing of him, my dear.  If you can put up
+with a very dull house, and a host who is even duller, come here
+and live with me, as your father would have wished, and as I, your
+nearest relative, now ask and beg of you."
+
+This was wonderfully kind, and for a moment I felt tempted.  Lord
+Castlewood being an elderly man, and, as the head of our family, my
+natural protector, there could be nothing wrong, and there might be
+much that was good, in such an easy arrangement.  But, on the other
+hand, it seemed to me that after this my work would languish.
+Living in comfort and prosperity under the roof of my forefathers,
+beyond any doubt I should begin to fall into habits of luxury, to
+take to the love of literature, which I knew to be latent within
+me, to lose the clear, strong, practical sense of the duty for
+which I, the last of seven, was spared, and in some measure,
+perhaps, by wanderings and by hardships, fitted.  And then I
+thought of my host's weak health, continual pain (the signs of
+which were hardly repressed even while he was speaking), and
+probably also his secluded life.  Was it fair to force him, by
+virtue of his inborn kindness and courtesy, to come out of his
+privileges and deal with me, who could not altogether be in any
+place a mere nobody?  And so I refused his offer.
+
+"I am very much obliged to you indeed," I said, "but I think you
+might be sorry for it.  I will come and stop with you every now and
+then, when your health is better, and you ask me.  But to live here
+altogether would not do; I should like it too well, and do nothing
+else."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he replied, with the air of one who cares
+little for any thing, which is to me the most melancholy thing, and
+worse than any distress almost; "you are very young, my dear, and
+years should be allowed to pass before you know what full-grown
+sorrow is.  You have had enough, for your age, of it.  You had
+better not live in this house; it is not a house for cheerfulness."
+
+"Then if I must neither live here nor at Bruntsea," I asked, with
+sudden remonstrance, feeling as if every body desired to be quit of
+me or to worry me, "to what place in all the world am I to go,
+unless it is back to America?  I will go at once to Shoxford, and
+take lodgings of my own."
+
+"Perhaps you had better wait a little while," Lord Castlewood
+answered, gently, "although I would much rather have you at
+Shoxford than where you are at present.  But please to remember, my
+good Erema, that you can not go to Shoxford all alone.  I have a
+most faithful and trusty man--the one who opened the door to you.
+He has been here before his remembrance.  He disdains me still as
+compared with your father.  Will you have him to superintend you?
+I scarcely see how you can do any good, but if you do go, you must
+go openly, and as your father's daughter."
+
+"I have no intention whatever of going in any other way, Lord
+Castlewood; but perhaps," I continued, "it would be as well to make
+as little stir as possible.  Of an English village I know nothing
+but the little I have seen at Bruntsea, but there they make a very
+great fuss about any one who comes down with a man-servant."
+
+"To be sure," replied my cousin, with a smile; "they would not be
+true Britons otherwise.  Perhaps you would do better without
+Stixon; but of course you must not go alone.  Could you by any
+means persuade your old nurse Betsy to go with you?"
+
+"How good of you to think of it!--how wise you are!" I really could
+not help saying, as I gazed at his delicate and noble face.  "I am
+sure that if Betsy can come, she will; though of course she must be
+compensated well for the waste all her lodgers will make of it.
+They are very wicked, and eat most dreadfully if she even takes one
+day's holiday.  What do you think they even do?  She has told me
+with tears in her eyes of it.  They are all allowed a pat of
+butter, a penny roll, and two sardines for breakfast.  No sooner do
+they know that her back is turned--"
+
+"Erema!" cried my cousin, with some surprise; and being so
+recalled, I was ashamed.  But I never could help taking interest in
+very little things indeed, until my own common-sense, or somebody
+else, came to tell me what a child I was.  However, I do believe
+that Uncle Sam liked me all the better for this fault.
+
+"My dear, I did not mean to blame you," Lord Castlewood said, most
+kindly; "it must be a great relief for you to look on at other
+people.  But tell me--or rather, since you have told me almost
+every thing you know--let me, if only in one way I can help you,
+help you at least in that way."
+
+Knowing that he must mean money, I declined, from no false pride,
+but a set resolve to work out my work, if possible, through my own
+resources.  But I promised to apply to him at once if scarcity
+should again befall me, as had happened lately.  And then I longed
+to ask him why he seemed to have so low an opinion of Sir Montague
+Hockin.  That question, however, I feared to put, because it might
+not be a proper one, and also because my cousin had spoken in a
+very strange tone, as if of some private dislike or reserve on that
+subject.  Moreover, it was too evident that I had tried his
+courtesy long enough.  From time to time pale shades of bodily
+pain, and then hot flushes, had flitted across his face, like
+clouds on a windy summer evening.  And more than once he had
+glanced at the time-piece, not to hurry me, but as if he dreaded
+its announcements.  It was a beautiful clock, and struck with a
+silvery sound every quarter of an hour.  And now, as I rose to say
+good-by, to catch my evening train, it struck a quarter to five,
+and my cousin stood up, with his weight upon his staff, and looked
+at me with an inexpressible depth of weary misery.
+
+"I have only a few minutes left," he said, "during which I can say
+any thing.  My time is divided into two sad parts: the time when I
+am capable of very little, and the time when I am capable of
+nothing; and the latter part is twice the length of the other.  For
+sixteen hours of every day, far better had I be dead than living,
+so far as our own little insolence may judge.  But I speak of it
+only to excuse bad manners, and perhaps I show worse by doing so.
+I shall not be able to see you again until to-morrow morning.  Do
+not go; they will arrange all that.  Send a note to Major Hockin by
+Stixon's boy.  Stixon and Mrs. Price will see to your comfort, if
+those who are free from pain require any other comfort.  Forgive
+me; I did not mean to be rude.  Sometimes I can not help giving
+way."
+
+Less enviable than the poorest slave, Lord Castlewood sank upon his
+hard stiff chair, and straightened his long narrow hands upon his
+knees, and set his thin lips in straight blue lines.  Each hand was
+as rigid as the ivory handle of an umbrella or walking-stick, and
+his lips were like clamped wire.  This was his regular way of
+preparing for the onset of the night, so that no grimace, no cry,
+no moan, or other token of fierce agony should be wrung from him.
+
+"My lord will catch it stiff to-night," said Mr. Stixon, who came
+as I rang, and then led me away to the drawing-room; "he always
+have it ten times worse after any talking or any thing to upset him
+like.  And so, then, miss--excuse a humble servant--did I
+understand from him that you was the Captain's own daughter?"
+
+"Yes; but surely your master wants you--he is in such dreadful
+pain.  Do please to go to him, and do something."
+
+"There is nothing to be done, miss," Stixon answered, with calm
+resignation; "he is bound to stay so for sixteen hours, and then he
+eases off again.  But bless my heart, miss--excuse me in your
+presence--his lordship is thoroughly used to it.  It is my certain
+knowledge that for seven years now he has never had seven minutes
+free from pain--seven minutes all of a heap, I mean.  Some do say,
+miss, as the Lord doeth every thing according to His righteousness,
+that the reason is not very far to seek."
+
+I asked him what he meant, though I ought, perhaps, to have put a
+stop to his loquacity; and he pretended not to hear, which made me
+ask him all the more.
+
+"A better man never lived than my lord," he answered, with a little
+shock at my misprision; "but it has been said among censoorous
+persons that nobody ever had no luck as came in suddenly to a
+property and a high state of life on the top of the heads of a
+family of seven."
+
+"What a poor superstition!" I cried, though I was not quite sure of
+its being a wicked one.  "But what is your master's malady, Stixon?
+Surely there might be something done to relieve his violent pain,
+even if there is no real cure for it?"
+
+"No, miss, nothing can be done.  The doctors have exorced
+themselves.  They tried this, that, and the other, but nature only
+flew worse against them.  'Tis a thing as was never heard of till
+the Constitooshon was knocked on the head and to pieces by the
+Reform Bill.  And though they couldn't cure it, they done what they
+could do, miss.  They discovered a very good name for it--they
+christened it the 'New-rager!'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+LORD CASTLEWOOD
+
+
+In the morning, when I was called again to see my afflicted cousin--
+Stixon junior having gladly gone to explain things for me at
+Bruntsea--little as I knew of any bodily pain (except hunger, or
+thirst, or weariness, and once in my life a headache), I stood
+before Lord Castlewood with a deference and humility such as I had
+never felt before toward any human being.  Not only because he bore
+perpetual pain in the two degrees of night and day--the day being
+dark and the night jet-black--without a murmur or an evil word; not
+only because through the whole of this he had kept his mind clear
+and his love of knowledge bright; not even because he had managed,
+like Job, to love God through the whole of it.  All these were good
+reasons for very great and very high respect of any man; and when
+there was no claim whatever on his part to any such feeling, it
+needs must come.  But when I learned another thing, high respect at
+once became what might be called deep reverence.  And this came to
+pass in a simple and, as any one must confess, quite inevitable
+way.
+
+It was not to be supposed that I could sit the whole of my first
+evening in that house without a soul to speak to.  So far as my
+dignity and sense of right permitted, I wore out Mr. Stixon, so far
+as he would go, not asking him any thing that the very worst-minded
+person could call "inquisitive," but allowing him to talk, as he
+seemed to like to do, while he waited upon me, and alternately
+lamented my hapless history and my hopeless want of taste.
+
+"Ah, your father, the Captain, now, he would have knowed what this
+is!  You've no right to his eyes, Miss Erma, without his tongue and
+palate.  No more of this, miss! and done for you a-purpose!  Well,
+cook will be put out, and no mistake!  I better not let her see it
+go down, anyhow."  And the worthy man tearfully put some dainty by,
+perhaps without any view to his own supper.
+
+"Lord Castlewood spoke to me about a Mrs. Price--the housekeeper,
+is she not?" I asked at last, being so accustomed to like what I
+could get, that the number of dishes wearied me.
+
+"Oh yes, miss," said Stixon, very shortly, as if that description
+exhausted Mrs. Price.
+
+"If she is not too busy, I should like to see her as soon as these
+things are all taken away.  I mean if she is not a stranger, and if
+she would like to see me."
+
+"No new-comers here," Mr. Stixon replied; "we all works our way up
+regular, the same as my lad is beginning for to do.  New-fangled
+ways is not accepted here.  We puts the reforming spirits scrubbing
+of the steps till their knuckles is cracked and their knees like a
+bean.  The old lord was the man for discipline--your grandfather,
+if you please, miss.  He catched me when I were about that high--"
+
+"Excuse me, Mr. Stixon; but would he have encouraged you to talk as
+you so very kindly talk to me, instead of answering a question?"
+
+I thought that poor Stixon would have been upset by this, and was
+angry with myself for saying it; but instead of being hurt, he only
+smiled and touched his forehead.
+
+"Well, now, you did remind me uncommon of him then, miss.  I could
+have heard the old lord speak almost, though he were always harsh
+and distant.  And as I was going for to say, he catched me fifty
+years agone next Lammas-tide; a pear-tree of an early sort it was;
+you may see the very tree if you please to stand here, miss, though
+the pears is quite altered now, and scarcely fit to eat.  Well, I
+was running off with my cap chock-full, miss--"
+
+"Please to keep that story for another time," I said; "I shall be
+most happy to hear it then.  But I have a particular wish, if you
+please, to see Mrs. Price before dark, unless there is any good
+reason why I should not."
+
+"Oh no, Miss Erma, no reason at all.  Only please to bear in mind,
+miss, that she is a coorous woman.  She is that jealous, and I
+might say forward--"
+
+"Then she is capable of speaking for herself."
+
+"You are right, miss, there, and no mistake.  She can speak for
+herself and for fifty others--words enough, I mean, for all of
+them.  But I would not have her know for all the world that I said
+it."
+
+"Then if you do not send her to me at once, the first thing I shall
+do will be to tell her."
+
+"Oh no, miss, none of your family would do that; that never has
+been done anonymous."
+
+I assured him that my threat was not in earnest, but of pure
+impatience.  And having no motive but downright jealousy for
+keeping Mrs. Price from me, he made up his mind at last to let her
+come.  But he told me to be careful what I said; I must not expect
+it to be at all like talking to himself, for instance.
+
+The housekeeper came up at last, by dint of my persistence, and she
+stopped in the doorway and made me a courtesy, which put me out of
+countenance, for nobody ever does that in America, and scarcely any
+one in England now, except in country-dancing.  Instead of being as
+described by Stixon, Mrs. Price was of a very quiet, sensible, and
+respectful kind.  She was rather short, but looked rather tall,
+from her even walk and way of carrying her head.  Her figure was
+neat, and her face clear-spoken, with straight pretty eyebrows, and
+calm bright eyes.  I felt that I could tell her almost any thing,
+and she would think before she talked of it.  And in my strong want
+of some woman to advise with--Betsy Bowen being very good but very
+narrow, and Mrs. Hockin a mere echo of the Major until he
+contradicted her, and Suan Isco, with her fine, large views, five
+thousand miles out of sight just now--this was a state of things to
+enhance the value of any good countenance feminine.
+
+At any rate, I was so glad to see her that, being still ungraduated
+in the steps of rank (though beginning to like a good footing
+there), I ran up and took her by both hands, and fetched her out of
+her grand courtesy and into a low chair.  At this she was
+surprised, as one quick glance showed; and she thought me, perhaps,
+what is called in England "an impulsive creature."  This put me
+again upon my dignity, for I never have been in any way like that,
+and I clearly perceived that she ought to understand a little more
+distinctly my character.
+
+It is easy to begin with this intention, but very hard indeed to
+keep it up when any body of nice ways and looks is sitting with a
+proper deferential power of listening, and liking one's young
+ideas, which multiply and magnify themselves at each demand.  So
+after some general talk about the weather, the country, the house,
+and so on, we came to the people of the house, or at any rate the
+chief person.  And I asked her a few quiet questions about Lord
+Castlewood's health and habits, and any thing else she might like
+to tell me.  For many things had seemed to me a little strange and
+out of the usual course, and on that account worthy to be spoken of
+without common curiosity.  Mrs. Price told me that there were many
+things generally divulged and credited, which therefore lay in her
+power to communicate without any derogation from her office.  Being
+pleased with these larger words (which I always have trouble in
+pronouncing), I asked her whether there was any thing else.  And
+she answered yes, but unhappily of a nature to which it was
+scarcely desirable to allude in my presence.  I told her that this
+was not satisfactory, and I might say quite the opposite; that
+having "alluded" to whatever it might be, she was bound to tell me
+all about it.  That I had lived in very many countries, in all of
+which wrong things continually went on, of which I continually
+heard just in that sort of way and no more.  Enough to make one
+uncomfortable, but not enough to keep one instructed and vigilant
+as to things that ought to be avoided.  Upon this she yielded
+either to my arguments or to her own dislike of unreasonable
+silence, and gave me the following account of the misfortunes of
+Lord Castlewood:
+
+Herbert William Castlewood was the third son of Dean Castlewood, a
+younger brother of my grandfather, and was born in the year 1806.
+He was older, therefore, than my father, but still (even before my
+father's birth, which provided a direct heir) there were many lives
+betwixt him and the family estates.  And his father, having as yet
+no promotion in the Church, found it hard to bring up his children.
+The eldest son got a commission in the army, and the second entered
+the navy, while Herbert was placed in a bank at Bristol--not at all
+the sort of life which he would have chosen.  But being of a
+gentle, unselfish nature, as well as a weak constitution, he put up
+with his state in life, and did his best to give satisfaction.
+
+This calm courage generally has its reward, and in the year 1842,
+not very long before the death of my grandfather at Shoxford, Mr.
+Herbert Castlewood, being well-connected, well-behaved, diligent,
+and pleasing, obtained a partnership in the firm, which was,
+perhaps, the foremost in the west of England.  His two elder
+brothers happened then to be at home, Major and Commander
+Castlewood, each of whom had seen very hard service, and found it
+still harder slavery to make both ends meet, although bachelors.
+But, returning full of glory, they found one thing harder still,
+and that was to extract any cash from their father, the highly
+venerated Dean, who in that respect, if in no other, very closely
+resembled the head of the family.  Therefore these brave men
+resolved to go and see their Bristol brother, to whom they were
+tenderly attached, and who now must have money enough and to spare.
+So they wrote to their brother to meet them on the platform,
+scarcely believing that they could be there in so short a time from
+London; for they never had travelled by rail before; and they set
+forth in wonderful spirits, and laughed at the strange, giddy rush
+of the travelling, and made bets with each other about punctual
+time (for trains kept much better time while new), and, as long as
+they could time it, they kept time to a second.  But, sad to
+relate, they wanted no chronometers when they arrived at Bristol,
+both being killed at a blow, with their watches still going, and a
+smile on their faces.  For the train had run into a wall of Bath
+stone, and several of the passengers were killed.
+
+The sight of his two brothers carried out like this, after so many
+years of not seeing them, was too much for Mr. Herbert Castlewood's
+nerves, which always had been delicate.  And he shivered all the
+more from reproach of conscience, having made up his mind not to
+lend them any money, as a practical banker was compelled to do.
+And from that very moment he began to feel great pain.
+
+Mrs. Price assured me that the doctors all agreed that nothing but
+change of climate could restore Mr. Castlewood's tone and system,
+and being full of art (though so simple, as she said, which she
+could not entirely reconcile), he set off for Italy, and there he
+stopped, with the good leave of his partners, being now valued
+highly as heir to the Dean, who was known to have put a good trifle
+together.  And in Italy my father must have found him, as related
+by Mr. Shovelin, and there received kindness and comfort in his
+trouble, if trouble so deep could be comforted.
+
+Now I wondered and eagerly yearned to know whether my father, at
+such a time, and in such a state of loneliness, might not have been
+led to impart to his cousin and host and protector the dark mystery
+which lay at the bottom of his own conduct.  Knowing how resolute
+and stern he was, and doubtless then imbittered by the wreck of
+love and life, I thought it more probable that he had kept silence
+even toward so near a relative, especially as he had seen very
+little of his cousin Herbert till he had found him thus.  Moreover,
+my grandfather and the Dean had spent little brotherly love on each
+other, having had a life-long feud about a copy-hold furze brake of
+nearly three-quarters of an acre, as Betsy remembered to have heard
+her master say.
+
+To go on, however, with what Mrs. Price was saying.  She knew
+scarcely any thing about my father, because she was too young at
+that time to be called into the counsels of the servants' hall, for
+she scarcely was thirty-five yet, as she declared, and she
+certainly did not look forty.  But all about the present Lord
+Castlewood she knew better than any body else, perhaps, because she
+had been in the service of his wife, and, indeed, her chief
+attendant.  Then, having spoken of her master's wife, Mrs. Price
+caught herself up, and thenceforth called her only his "lady."
+
+Mr. Herbert Castlewood, who had minded his business for so many
+years, and kept himself aloof from ladies, spending all his leisure
+in good literature, at this time of life and in this state of
+health (for the shock he had received struck inward), fell into an
+accident tenfold worse--the fatal accident of love.  And this
+malady raged the more powerfully with him on account of breaking
+out so late in life.  In one of the picture-galleries at Florence,
+or some such place, Mrs. Price declared, he met with a lady who
+made all the pictures look cold and dull and dead to him.  A lovely
+young creature she must have been (as even Mrs. Price, who detested
+her, acknowledged), and to the eyes of a learned but not keen man
+as good as lovely.  My father was gone to look after me, and fetch
+me out of England, but even if he had been there, perhaps he
+scarcely could have stopped it; for this Mr. Castlewood, although
+so quiet, had the family fault of tenacity.
+
+Mrs. Price, being a very steady person, with a limited income, and
+enough to do, was inclined to look down upon the state of mind in
+which Mr. Castlewood became involved.  She was not there at the
+moment, of course, but suddenly sent for when all was settled;
+nevertheless, she found out afterward how it began from her
+master's man, through what he had for dinner.  And in the kitchen-
+garden at Castlewood no rampion would she allow while she lived.  I
+asked her whether she had no pity, no sympathy, no fine feeling,
+and how she could have become Mrs. Price if she never had known
+such sentiments.  But she said that they only called her "Mistress"
+on account of her authority, and she never had been drawn to the
+opposite sex, though many times asked in marriage.  And what she
+had seen of matrimony led her far away from it.  I was sorry to
+hear her say this, and felt damped, till I thought that the world
+was not all alike.
+
+Then she told me, just as if it were no more than a bargain for a
+pound of tallow candles, how Mr. Herbert Castlewood, patient and
+persistent, was kept off and on for at least two years by the
+mother of his sweet idol.  How the old lady held a balance in her
+mind as to the likelihood of his succession, trying, through
+English friends, to find the value and the course of property.  Of
+what nation she was, Mrs. Price could not say, and only knew that
+it must be a bad one.  She called herself the Countess of Ixorism,
+as truly pronounced in English; and she really was of good family
+too, so far as any foreigner can be.  And her daughter's name was
+Flittamore, not according to the right spelling, perhaps, but
+pronounced with the proper accent.
+
+Flittamore herself did not seem to care, according to what Mrs.
+Price had been told, but left herself wholly in her mother's hands,
+being sure of her beauty still growing upon her, and desiring to
+have it admired and praised.  And the number of foreigners she
+always had about her sometimes made her real lover nearly give her
+up.  But, alas! he was not quite wise enough for this, with all
+that he had read and learned and seen.  Therefore, when it was
+reported from Spain that my father had been killed by bandits--the
+truth being that he was then in Greece--the Countess at last
+consented to the marriage of her daughter with Herbert Castlewood,
+and even seemed to press it forward for some reasons of her own.
+And the happy couple set forth upon their travels, and Mrs. Price
+was sent abroad to wait upon the lady.
+
+For a few months they seemed to get on very well, Flittamore
+showing much affection for her husband, whose age was a trifle more
+than her own doubled, while he was entirely wrapped up in her, and
+labored that the graces of her mind might be worthy to compare with
+those more visible.  But her spiritual face and most sweet poetic
+eyes were vivid with bodily brilliance alone.  She had neither mind
+enough to learn, nor heart enough to pretend to learn.
+
+It is out of my power to describe such things, even if it were my
+duty to do so, which, happily, it has never been; moreover, Mrs.
+Price, in what she told me, exercised a just and strict reserve.
+Enough that Mr. Castlewood's wedded life was done with in six
+months and three days.  Lady Castlewood, as she would be called,
+though my father still was living and his cousin disclaimed the
+title--away she ran from some dull German place, after a very stiff
+lesson in poetry, and with her ran off a young Englishman, the
+present Sir Montague Hockin.  He was Mr. Hockin then, and had not a
+half-penny of his own; but Flittamore met that difficulty by
+robbing her husband to his last farthing.
+
+This had happened about twelve years back, soon after I was placed
+at the school in Languedoc, to which I was taken so early in life
+that I almost forget all about it.  But it might have been better
+for poor Flittamore if she had been brought up at a steady place
+like that, with sisters and ladies of retreat, to teach her the
+proper description of her duties to mankind.  I seemed now in my
+own mind to condemn her quite enough, feeling how superior her
+husband must have been; but Mrs. Price went even further, and
+became quite indignant that any one should pity her.
+
+"A hussy! a hussy! a poppet of a hussy!" she exclaimed, with
+greater power than her quiet face could indicate; "never would I
+look at her.  Speak never so, Miss Castlewood.  My lord is the very
+best of all men, and she has made him what he is.  The pity she
+deserves is to be trodden under foot, as I saw them do in Naples."
+
+After all the passion I had seen among rough people, I scarcely
+could help trembling at the depth of wrath dissembled and firmly
+controlled in calm clear eyes under very steadfast eyebrows.  It
+was plain that Lord Castlewood had, at any rate, the gift of being
+loved by his dependents.
+
+"I hope that he took it aright!" I cried, catching some of her
+indignation; "I hope that he cast her to the winds, without even a
+sigh for such a cruel creature!"
+
+"He was not strong enough," she answered, sadly; "his bodily health
+was not equal to it.  From childhood he had been partly crippled
+and spoiled in his nerves by an accident.  And the shock of that
+sight at Bristol flew to his weakness, and was too much for him.
+And now this third and worst disaster, coming upon him where his
+best hope lay, and at such a time of life, took him altogether off
+his legs.  And off his head too, I might almost say, miss; for,
+instead of blaming her, he put the fault entirely upon himself.  At
+his time of life, and in such poor health, he should not have
+married a bright young girl: how could he ever hope to make her
+happy?  That was how he looked at it, when he should have sent
+constables after her."
+
+"And what became of her--the mindless animal, to forsake so good
+and great a man!  I do hope she was punished, and that vile man
+too."
+
+"She was, Miss Castlewood; but he was not; at least he has not
+received justice yet.  But he will, he will, he will, miss.  The
+treacherous thief!  And my lord received him as a young fellow-
+countryman under a cloud, and lent him money, and saved him from
+starving; for he had broken with his father and was running from
+his creditors."
+
+"Tell me no more," I said; "not another word.  It is my fate to
+meet that--well, that gentleman--almost every day.  And he, and he--
+oh, how thankful I am to have found out all this about him!"
+
+The above will show why, when I met my father's cousin on the
+following morning--with his grand, calm face, as benevolent as if
+he had passed a night of luxurious rest instead of sleepless agony--
+I knew myself to be of a lower order in mind and soul and heart
+than his; a small, narrow, passionate girl, in the presence of a
+large, broad-sighted, and compassionate man.
+
+I threw myself altogether on his will; for, when I trust, I trust
+wholly.  And, under his advice, I did not return with any rash
+haste to Bruntsea, but wrote in discharge of all duty there; while
+Mrs. Price, a clear and steadfast woman, was sent to London to see
+Wilhelmina Strouss.  These two must have had very great talks
+together, and, both being zealous and faithful, they came to many
+misunderstandings.  However, on the whole, they became very honest
+friends, and sworn allies at last, discovering more, the more they
+talked, people against whom they felt a common and just enmity.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+SHOXFORD
+
+
+Are there people who have never, in the course of anxious life,
+felt desire to be away, to fly away, from every thing, however good
+and dear to them, and rest a little, and think new thought, or let
+new thought flow into them, from the gentle air of some new place,
+where nobody has heard of them--a place whose cares, being felt by
+proxy, almost seem romantic, and where the eyes spare brain and
+heart with a critic's self-complacence?  If any such place yet
+remains, the happy soul may seek it in an inland English village.
+
+A village where no billows are to stun or to confound it, no crag
+or precipice to trouble it with giddiness, and where no hurry of
+restless tide makes time, its own father, uneasy.  But in the
+quiet, at the bottom of the valley, a beautiful rivulet, belonging
+to the place, hastens or lingers, according to its mood; hankering
+here and there, not to be away yet; and then, by the doing of its
+own work, led to a swift perplexity of ripples.  Here along its
+side, and there softly leaning over it, fresh green meadows lie
+reposing in the settled meaning of the summer day.  For this is a
+safer time of year than the flourish of the spring-tide, when the
+impulse of young warmth awaking was suddenly smitten by the bleak
+east wind, and cowslip and cuckoo-flower and speedwell got their
+bright lips browned with cold.  Then, moreover, must the meads have
+felt the worry of scarcely knowing yet what would be demanded of
+them; whether to carry an exacting load of hay, or only to feed a
+few sauntering cows.
+
+But now every trouble has been settled for the best; the long grass
+is mown, and the short grass browsed, and capers of the fairies and
+caprices of the cows have dappled worn texture with a deeper green.
+Therefore let eyes that are satisfied here--as any but a very bad
+eye must be, with so many changes of softness--follow the sweet
+lead of the valley; and there, in a bend of the gently brawling
+river, stands the never-brawling church.
+
+A church less troubled with the gift of tongues is not to be found
+in England: a church of gray stone that crumbles just enough to
+entice frail mortal sympathy, and confesses to the storms it has
+undergone in a tone that conciliates the human sigh.  The tower is
+large, and high enough to tell what the way of the wind is without
+any potato-bury on the top, and the simple roof is not cruciated
+with tiles of misguided fancy.  But gray rest, and peace of ages,
+and content of lying calmly six feet deeper than the bustle of the
+quick; memory also, and oblivion, following each other slowly, like
+the shadows of the church-yard trees--for all of these no better
+place can be, nor softer comfort.
+
+For the village of Shoxford runs up on the rise, and straggles away
+from its burial-place, as a child from his school goes mitching.
+There are some few little ups and downs in the manner of its
+building, as well as in other particulars about it; but still it
+keeps as parallel with the crooked river as the far more crooked
+ways of men permit.  But the whole of the little road of houses
+runs down the valley from the church-yard gate; and above the
+church, looking up the pretty valley, stands nothing but the mill
+and the plank bridge below it; and a furlong above that again the
+stone bridge, where the main road crosses the stream, and is
+consoled by leading to a big house--the Moonstock Inn.
+
+The house in which my father lived so long--or rather, I should
+say, my mother, while he was away with his regiment--and where we
+unfortunate seven saw the light, stands about half-way down the
+little village, being on the right-hand side of the road as you
+come down the valley from the Moonstock bridge.  Therefore it is on
+the further and upper side of the street--if it can be called a
+street--from the valley and the river and the meads below the mill,
+inasmuch as every bit of Shoxford, and every particle of the parish
+also, has existence--of no mean sort, as compared with other
+parishes, in its own esteem--on the right side of the river Moon.
+
+My father's house, in this good village, standing endwise to the
+street, was higher at one end than at the other.  That is to say,
+the ground came sloping, or even falling, as fairly might be said,
+from one end to the other of it, so that it looked like a Noah's
+ark tilted by Behemoth under the stern-post.  And a little lane,
+from a finely wooded hill, here fell steeply into the "High Street"
+(as the grocer and the butcher loved to call it), and made my
+father's house most distinct, by obeying a good deal of its
+outline, and discharging in heavy rain a free supply of water under
+the weather-board of our front-door.  This front-door opened on the
+little steep triangle formed by the meeting of lane and road, while
+the back-door led into a long but narrow garden running along the
+road, but raised some feet above it; the bank was kept up by a
+rough stone wall crested with stuck-up snap-dragon and valerian,
+and faced with rosettes and disks and dills of houseleek,
+pennywort, and hart's-tongue.
+
+Betsy and I were only just in time to see the old house as it used
+to be; for the owner had died about half a year ago, and his
+grandson, having proved his will, was resolved to make short work
+with it.  The poor house was blamed for the sorrows it had
+sheltered, and had the repute of two spectres, as well as the pale
+shadow of misfortune.  For my dear father was now believed by the
+superstitious villagers to haunt the old home of his happiness and
+love, and roam from room to room in search of his wife and all his
+children.  But his phantom was most careful not to face that of his
+father, which stalked along haughtily, as behooved a lord, and
+pointed forever to a red wound in its breast.  No wonder,
+therefore, that the house would never let; and it would have been
+pulled down long ago if the owner had not felt a liking for it,
+through memories tender and peculiar to himself.  His grandson,
+having none of these to contend with, resolved to make a mere
+stable of it, and build a public-house at the bottom of the garden,
+and turn the space between them into skittle-ground, and so forth.
+
+To me this seemed such a very low idea, and such a desecration of a
+sacred spot, that if I had owned any money to be sure of, I would
+have offered hundreds to prevent it.  But I found myself now in a
+delicate state of mind concerning money, having little of my own,
+and doubting how much other people might intend for me.  So that I
+durst not offer to buy land and a house without any means to pay.
+
+And it was not for that reason only that Betsy and I kept ourselves
+quiet.  We knew that any stir in this little place about us--such
+as my name might at once set going--would once for all destroy all
+hope of doing good by coming.  Betsy knew more of such matters than
+I did, besides all her knowledge of the place itself, and her great
+superiority of age; therefore I left to her all little management,
+as was in every way fair and wise.  For Mrs. Strouss had forsaken a
+large and good company of lodgers, with only Herr Strouss to look
+after them--and who was he among them?  If she trod on one side of
+her foot, or felt a tingling in her hand, or a buzzing in her ear,
+she knew in a moment what it was--of pounds and pounds was she
+being cheated, a hundred miles off, by foreigners!
+
+For this reason it had cost much persuasion and many appeals to her
+faithfulness, as well as considerable weekly payment, ere ever my
+good nurse could be brought away from London; and perhaps even so
+she never would have come if I had not written myself to Mrs.
+Price, then visiting Betsy in European Square, that if the landlady
+was too busy to be spared by her lodgers, I must try to get Lord
+Castlewood to spare me his housekeeper.  Upon this Mrs. Strouss at
+once declared that Mrs. Price would ruin every thing; and rather
+than that--no matter what she lost--she herself would go with me.
+And so she did, and she managed very well, keeping my name out of
+sight (for, happen what might, I would have no false one); and she
+got quiet lodgings in her present name, which sounded nicely
+foreign; and the village being more agitated now about my father's
+material house, and the work they were promised in pulling it down,
+than about his shattered household, we had a very favorable time
+for coming in, and were pronounced to be foreigners who must not be
+allowed to run up bills.
+
+This rustic conclusion suited us quite well, and we soon confirmed
+it unwittingly, Betsy offering a German thaler and I an American
+dollar at the shop of the village chandler and baker, so that we
+were looked upon with some pity, and yet a kind desire for our
+custom.  Thus, without any attempt of ours at either delusion or
+mystery, Mrs. Strouss was hailed throughout the place as "Madam
+Straw," while I, through the sagacity of a deeply read shoe-maker,
+obtained a foreign name, as will by-and-by appear.
+
+We lodged at the post-office, not through any wisdom or even any
+thought on our part, but simply because we happened there to find
+the cleanest and prettiest rooms in the place.  For the sun being
+now in the height of August, and having much harvest to ripen, at
+middle day came ramping down the little street of Shoxford like the
+chairman of the guild of bakers.  Every house having lately
+brightened up its whitewash--which they always do there when the
+frosts are over, soon after the feast of St. Barnabas--and the
+weeds of the way having fared amiss in the absence of any water-
+cart, it was not in the strong, sharp character of the sun to miss
+such an opportunity.  After the red Californian glare, I had no
+fear of any English sun; but Betsy was frightened, and both of us
+were glad to get into a little place sheltered by green blinds.
+This chanced to be the post-office, and there we found nice
+lodgings.
+
+By an equal chance this proved to be the wisest thing we could
+possibly have done, if we had set about it carefully.  For why,
+that nobody ever would impute any desire of secrecy to people who
+straightway unpacked their boxes at the very head-quarters of all
+the village news.  And the mistress of the post was a sharp-tongued
+woman, pleased to speak freely of her neighbors' doings, and prompt
+with good advice that they should heed their own business, if any
+of them durst say a word about her own.  She kept a tidy little
+shop, showing something of almost every thing; but we had a side
+door, quite of our own, where Betsy met the baker's wife and the
+veritable milkman; and neither of them knew her, which was just
+what she had hoped; and yet it made her speak amiss of them.
+
+But if all things must be brought to the harsh test of dry reason,
+I myself might be hard pushed to say what good I hoped to do by
+coming thus to Shoxford.  I knew of a great many things, for
+certain, that never had been thoroughly examined here; also I
+naturally wished to see, being a native, what the natives were;
+and, much more than that, it was always on my mind that here lay my
+mother and the other six of us.
+
+Therefore it was an impatient thing for me to hear Betsy working
+out the afternoon with perpetual chatter and challenge of prices,
+combating now as a lodger all those points which as a landlady she
+never would allow even to be moot questions.  If any applicant in
+European Square had dared so much as hint at any of all the
+requirements which she now expected gratis, she would simply have
+whisked her duster, and said that the lodgings for such people must
+be looked for down the alley.  However, Mrs. Busk, our new
+landlady, although she had a temper of her own (as any one keeping
+a post-office must have) was forced by the rarity of lodgers here
+to yield many points, which Mrs. Strouss, on her own boards, would
+not even have allowed to be debated.  All this was entirely against
+my wish; for when I have money, I spend it, finding really no other
+good in it; but Betsy told me that the purest principle of all was--
+not to be cheated.
+
+So I left her to have these little matters out, and took that
+occasion for stealing away (as the hours grew on toward evening) to
+a place where I wished to be quite alone.  And the shadow of the
+western hills shed peace upon the valley, when I crossed a little
+stile leading into Shoxford church-yard.
+
+For a minute or two I was quite afraid, seeing nobody any where
+about, nor even hearing any sound in the distance to keep me
+company.  For the church lay apart from the village, and was
+thickly planted out from it, the living folk being full of
+superstition, and deeply believing in the dead people's ghosts.
+And even if this were a wife to a husband, or even a husband
+reappearing to his wife, there was not a man or a woman in the
+village that would not run away from it.
+
+This I did not know at present, not having been there long enough;
+neither had I any terror of that sort, not being quite such a
+coward, I should hope.  But still, as the mantles of the cold trees
+darkened, and the stony remembrance of the dead grew pale, and of
+the living there was not even the whistle of a grave-digger--my
+heart got the better of my mind for a moment, and made me long to
+be across that stile again.  Because (as I said to myself) if there
+had been a hill to go up, that would be so different and so easy;
+but going down into a place like this, whence the only escape must
+be by steps, and where any flight must be along channels that run
+in and out of graves and tombstones, I tried not to be afraid, yet
+could not altogether help it.
+
+But lo! when I came to the north side of the tower, scarcely
+thinking what to look for, I found myself in the middle of a place
+which made me stop and wonder.  Here were six little grassy
+tuffets, according to the length of children, all laid east and
+west, without any stint of room, harmoniously.
+
+From the eldest to the youngest, one could almost tell the age at
+which their lowly stature stopped, and took its final measurement.
+
+And in the middle was a larger grave, to comfort and encourage
+them, as a hen lies down among her chicks and waits for them to
+shelter.  Without a name to any of them, all these seven graves lay
+together, as in a fairy ring of rest, and kind compassion had
+prevented any stranger from coming to be buried there.
+
+I would not sit on my mother's grave for fear of crushing the
+pretty grass, which some one tended carefully; but I stood at its
+foot, and bent my head, and counted all the little ones.  Then I
+thought of my father in the grove of peaches, more than six
+thousand miles away, on the banks of the soft Blue River.  And a
+sense of desolate sorrow and of the blessing of death overwhelmed
+me.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+THE SEXTON
+
+
+With such things in my mind, it took me long to come back to my
+work again.  It even seemed a wicked thing, so near to all these
+proofs of God's great visitation over us, to walk about and say, "I
+will do this," or even to think, "I will try to do that."  My own
+poor helplessness, and loss of living love to guide me, laid upon
+my heart a weight from which it scarcely cared to move.  All was
+buried, all was done with, all had passed from out the world, and
+left no mark but graves behind.  What good to stir anew such
+sadness, even if a poor weak thing like me could move its mystery?
+
+Time, however, and my nurse Betsy, and Jacob Rigg the gardener,
+brought me back to a better state of mind, and renewed the right
+courage within me.  But, first of all, Jacob Rigg aroused my terror
+and interest vividly.  It may be remembered that this good man had
+been my father's gardener at the time of our great calamity, and
+almost alone of the Shoxford people had shown himself true and
+faithful.  Not that the natives had turned against us, or been at
+all unfriendly; so far from this was the case, that every one felt
+for our troubles, and pitied us, my father being of a cheerful and
+affable turn, until misery hardened him; but what I mean is that
+only one or two had the courage to go against the popular
+conclusion and the convictions of authority.
+
+But Jacob was a very upright man, and had a strong liking for his
+master, who many and many a time--as he told me--had taken a spade
+and dug along with him, just as if he were a jobbing gardener born,
+instead of a fine young nobleman; "and nobody gifted with that turn
+of mind, likewise very clever in white-spine cowcumbers, could ever
+be relied upon to go and shoot his father."  Thus reasoned old
+Jacob, and he always had done so, and meant evermore to abide by
+it; and the graves which he had tended now for nigh a score of
+years, and meant to tend till he called for his own, were--as sure
+as he stood there in Shoxford church-yard a-talking to me, who was
+the very image of my father, God bless me, though not of course so
+big like--the graves of slaughtered innocents, and a mother who was
+always an angel.  And the parson might preach forever to him about
+the resurrection, and the right coming uppermost when you got to
+heaven, but to his mind that was scarcely any count at all; and if
+you came to that, we ought to hang Jack Ketch, as might come to
+pass in the Revelations.  But while a man had got his own bread to
+earn, till his honor would let him go to the work-house, and his
+duty to the rate-payers, there was nothing that vexed him more than
+to be told any texts of Holy Scripture.  Whatever God Almighty had
+put down there was meant for ancient people, the Jews being long
+the most ancient people, though none the more for that did he like
+them; and so it was mainly the ancient folk, who could not do a
+day's work worth eighteenpence, that could enter into Bible
+promises.  Not that he was at all behindhand about interpretation;
+but as long as he could fetch and earn, at planting box and doing
+borders, two shillings and ninepence a day and his beer, he was not
+going to be on for kingdom come.
+
+I told him that I scarcely thought his view of our condition here
+would be approved by wise men who had found time to study the
+subject.  But he answered that whatever their words might be, their
+doings showed that they knew what was the first thing to attend to.
+And if it ever happened him to come across a parson who was as full
+of heaven outside as he was inside his surplice, he would keep his
+garden in order for nothing better than his blessing.
+
+I knew of no answer to be made to this.  And indeed he seemed to be
+aware that his conversation was too deep for me; so he leaned upon
+his spade, and rubbed his long blue chin in the shadow of the
+church tower, holding as he did the position of sexton, and
+preparing even now to dig a grave.
+
+"I keeps them well away from you," he said, as he began to chop out
+a new oblong in the turf; "many a shilling have I been offered by
+mothers about their little ones, to put 'em inside of the 'holy
+ring,' as we calls this little cluster; but not for five golden
+guineas would I do it, and have to face the Captain, dead or alive,
+about it.  We heard that he was dead, because it was put in all the
+papers; and a pleasant place I keeps for him, to come home
+alongside of his family.  A nicer gravelly bit of ground there
+couldn't be in all the county; and if no chance of him occupying
+it, I can drive down a peg with your mark, miss."
+
+"Thank you," I answered; "you are certainly most kind; but, Mr.
+Rigg, I would rather wait a little.  I have had a very troublesome
+life thus far, and nothing to bind me to it much; but still I would
+rather not have my peg driven down just--just at present."
+
+"Ah, you be like all the young folk that think the tree for their
+coffins ain't come to the size of this spade handle yet.  Lord
+bless you for not knowing what He hath in hand!  Now this one you
+see me a-raising of the turf for, stood as upright as you do, a
+fortnight back, and as good about the chest and shoulders, and
+three times the color in her cheeks, and her eyes a'most as bright
+as yourn be.  Not aristocratic, you must understand me, miss, being
+only the miller's daughter, nor instructed to throw her voice the
+same as you do, which is better than gallery music; but setting
+these haxidents to one side, a farmer would have said she was more
+preferable, because more come-at-able, though not in my opinion to
+be compared--excuse me for making so free, miss, but when it comes
+to death we has a kind of right to do it--and many a young farmer,
+coming to the mill, was disturbed in his heart about her, and far
+and wide she was known, being proud, as the Beauty of the
+Moonshine, from the name of our little river.  She used to call me
+'Jacob Diggs,' because of my porochial office, with a meaning of a
+joke on my parenshal name.  Ah, what a merry one she were!  And now
+this is what I has to do for her!  And sooner would I 'a doed it
+a'most for my own old ooman!"
+
+"Oh, Jacob!" I cried, being horrified at the way in which he tore
+up the ground, as if his wife was waiting, "the things you say are
+quite wrong, I am sure, for a man in your position.  You are
+connected with this church almost as much as the clerk is."
+
+"More, miss, ten times more!  He don't do nothing but lounge on the
+front of his desk, and be too lazy to keep up 'Amen,' while I at my
+time of life go about, from Absolution to the fifth Lord's prayer,
+with a stick that makes my rheumatics worse, for the sake of the
+boys with their pocket full of nuts.  When I was a boy there was no
+nuts, except at the proper time of year, a month or two on from
+this time of speaking; and we used to crack they in the husk, and
+make no noise to disturb the congregation; but now it is nuts,
+nuts, round nuts, flat nuts, nuts with three corners to them--all
+the year round nuts to crack, and me to find out who did it!"
+
+"But, Mr. Rigg," I replied, as he stopped, looking hotter in mind
+than in body, "is it not Mrs. Rigg, your good wife, who sells all
+the nuts on a Saturday for the boys to crack on a Sunday?"
+
+"My missus do sell some, to be sure; yes, just a few.  But not of a
+Saturday more than any other day."
+
+"Then surely, Mr. Rigg, you might stop it, by not permitting any
+sale of nuts except to good boys of high principles.  And has it
+not happened sometimes, Mr. Rigg, that boys have made marks on
+their nuts, and bought them again at your shop on a Monday?  I
+mean, of course, when your duty has compelled you to empty the
+pockets of a boy in church."
+
+Now this was a particle of shamefully small gossip, picked up
+naturally by my Betsy, but pledged to go no further; and as soon as
+I had spoken I became a little nervous, having it suddenly brought
+to my mind that I had promised not even to whisper it; and now I
+had told it to the man of all men!  But Jacob appeared to have been
+quite deaf, and diligently went on digging.  And I said "good-
+evening," for the grave was for the morrow; and he let me go nearly
+to the stile before he stuck his spade into the ground and
+followed.
+
+"Excoose of my making use," he said, "of a kind of a personal
+reference, miss; but you be that pat with your answers, it maketh
+me believe you must be sharp inside--more than your father, the
+poor Captain, were, as all them little grass buttons argueth.  Now,
+miss, if I thought you had head-piece enough to keep good counsel
+and ensue it, maybe I could tell you a thing as would make your
+hair creep out of them coorous hitch-ups, and your heart a'most
+bust them there braids of fallallies."
+
+"Why, what in the world do you mean?" I asked, being startled by
+the old man's voice and face.
+
+"Nothing, miss, nothing.  I was only a-joking.  If you bain't come
+to no more discretion than that--to turn as white as the clerk's
+smock-frock of a Easter-Sunday--why, the more of a joke one has,
+the better, to bring your purty color back to you.  Ah!  Polly of
+the mill was the maid for color--as good for the eyesight as a
+chaney-rose in April.  Well, well, I must get on with her grave;
+they're a-coming to speak the good word over un on sundown."
+
+He might have known how this would vex and perplex me.  I could not
+bear to hinder him in his work--as important as any to be done by
+man for man--and yet it was beyond my power to go home and leave
+him there, and wonder what it was that he had been so afraid to
+tell.  So I quietly said, "Then I will wish you a very good evening
+again, Mr. Rigg, as you are too busy to be spoken with."  And I
+walked off a little way, having met with men who, having begun a
+thing, needs must have it out, and fully expecting him to call me
+back.  But Jacob only touched his hat, and said, "A pleasant
+evening to you, ma'am."
+
+Nothing could have made me feel more resolute than this did.  I did
+not hesitate one moment in running back over the stile again, and
+demanding of Jacob Rigg that he should tell me whether he meant any
+thing or nothing; for I was not to be played with about important
+matters, like the boys in the church who were cracking nuts.
+
+"Lord!  Lord, now!" he said, with his treddled heel scraping the
+shoulder of his shining spade; "the longer I live in this world,
+the fitter I grow to get into the ways of the Lord.  His ways are
+past finding out, saith King David: but a man of war, from his
+youth upward, hath no chance such as a gardening man hath.  What a
+many of them have I found out!"
+
+"What has that got to do with it!" I cried.  "Just tell me what it
+was you were speaking of just now."
+
+"I was just a-thinking, when I looked at you, miss," he answered,
+in the prime of leisure, and wiping his forehead from habit only,
+not because he wanted it, "how little us knows of the times and
+seasons and the generations of the sons of men.  There you stand,
+miss, and here stand I, as haven't seen your father for a score of
+years a'most; and yet there comes out of your eyes into mine the
+very same look as the Captain used to send, when snakes in the
+grass had been telling lies about me coming late, or having my half
+pint or so on.  Not that the Captain was a hard man, miss--far
+otherwise, and capable of allowance, more than any of the women be.
+But only the Lord, who doeth all things aright, could 'a made you
+come, with a score of years atween, and the twinkle in your eyes
+like--Selah!"
+
+"You know what you mean, perhaps, but I do not," I answered, quite
+gently, being troubled by his words and the fear of having tried to
+hurry him; "but you should not say what you have said, Jacob Rigg,
+to me, your master's daughter, if you only meant to be joking.  Is
+this the place to joke with me?"
+
+I pointed to all that lay around me, where I could not plant a foot
+without stepping over my brothers or sisters; and the old man,
+callous as he might be, could not help feeling for--a pinch of
+snuff.  This he found in the right-hand pocket of his waistcoat,
+and took it very carefully, and made a little noise of comfort; and
+thus, being fully self-assured again, he stood, with his feet far
+apart and his head on one side, regarding me warily.  And I took
+good care not to say another word.
+
+"You be young," he said at last; "and in these latter days no
+wisdom is ordained in the mouths of babes and sucklings, nor always
+in the mouths of them as is themselves ordained.  But you have a
+way of keeping your chin up, miss, as if you was gifted with a
+stiff tongue likewise.  And whatever may hap, I has as good mind to
+tell 'e."
+
+"That you are absolutely bound to do," I answered, as forcibly as I
+could.  "Duty to your former master and to me, his only child--and
+to yourself, and your Maker too--compel you, Jacob Rigg, to tell me
+every thing you know."
+
+"Then, miss," he answered, coming nearer to me, and speaking in a
+low, hoarse voice, "as sure as I stand here in God's churchyard, by
+all this murdered family, I knows the man who done it!"
+
+He looked at me, with a trembling finger upon his hard-set lips,
+and the spade in his other hand quivered like a wind vane; but I
+became as firm as the monument beside me, and my heart, instead of
+fluttering, grew as steadfast as a glacier.  Then, for the first
+time, I knew that God had not kept me living, when all the others
+died, without fitting me also for the work there was to do.
+
+"Come here to the corner of the tower, miss," old Jacob went on, in
+his excitement catching hold of the sleeve of my black silk jacket.
+"Where we stand is a queer sort of echo, which goeth in and out of
+them big tombstones.  And for aught I can say to contrairy, he may
+be a-watching of us while here we stand."
+
+I glanced around, as if he were most welcome to be watching me, if
+only I could see him once.  But the place was as silent as its
+graves; and I followed the sexton to the shadow of a buttress.
+Here he went into a deep gray corner, lichened and mossed by a drip
+from the roof; and being, both in his clothes and self, pretty much
+of that same color, he was not very easy to discern from stone when
+the light of day was declining.
+
+"This is where I catches all the boys," he whispered; "and this is
+where I caught him, one evening when I were tired, and gone to
+nurse my knees a bit.  Let me see--why, let me see!  Don't you
+speak till I do, miss.  Were it the last but one I dug?  Or could
+un 'a been the last but two?  Never mind; I can't call to mind
+quite justly.  We puts down about one a month in this parish,
+without any distemper or haxident.  Well, it must 'a been the one
+afore last--to be sure, no call to scratch my head about un.  Old
+Sally Mock, as sure as I stand here--done handsome by the rate-
+payers.  Over there, miss, if you please to look--about two land-
+yard and a half away.  Can you see un with the grass peeking up
+a'ready?"
+
+"Never mind that, Jacob.  Do please to go on."
+
+"So I be, miss.  So I be doing to the best of the power granted me.
+Well, I were in this little knuckle of a squat, where old Sally
+used to say as I went to sleep, and charged the parish for it--a
+spiteful old ooman, and I done her grave with pleasure, only
+wishing her had to pay for it; and to prove to her mind that I
+never goed asleep here, I was just making ready to set fire to my
+pipe, having cocked my shovel in to ease my legs, like this, when
+from round you corner of the chancel-foot, and over again that
+there old tree, I seed a something movin' along--movin' along,
+without any noise or declarance of solid feet walking.  You may see
+the track burnt in the sod, if you let your eyes go along this here
+finger."
+
+"Oh, Jacob, how could you have waited to see it?"
+
+"I did, miss, I did; being used to a-many antics in this dead-yard,
+such as a man who hadn't buried them might up foot to run away
+from.  But they no right, after the service of the Church, to come
+up for more than one change of the moon, unless they been great
+malefactors.  And then they be ashamed of it; and I reminds them of
+it.  'Amen,' I say, in the very same voice as I used at the tail of
+their funerals; and then they knows well that I covered them up,
+and the most uneasy goes back again.  Lor' bless you, miss, I no
+fear of the dead.  At both ends of life us be harmless.  It is in
+the life, and mostways in the middle of it, we makes all the death
+for one another."
+
+This was true enough; and I only nodded to him, fearing to
+interject any new ideas from which he might go rambling.
+
+"Well, that there figure were no joke, mind you," the old man
+continued, as soon as he had freshened his narrative powers with
+another pinch of snuff, "being tall and grim, and white in the
+face, and very onpleasant for to look at, and its eyes seemed
+a'most to burn holes in the air.  No sooner did I see that it were
+not a ghostie, but a living man the same as I be, than my knees
+begins to shake and my stumps of teeth to chatter.  And what do you
+think it was stopped me, miss, from slipping round this corner, and
+away by belfry?  Nort but the hoddest idea you ever heared on.  For
+all of a suddint it was borne unto my mind that the Lord had been
+pleased to send us back the Captain; not so handsome as he used to
+be, but in the living flesh, however, in spite of they newspapers.
+And I were just at the pint of coming forrard, out of this here
+dark cornder, knowing as I had done my duty by them graves that his
+honor, to my mind, must 'a come looking after, when, lucky for me,
+I see summat in his walk, and then in his countenance, and then in
+all his features, unnateral on the Captain's part, whatever his
+time of life might be.  And sure enough, miss, it were no Captain
+more nor I myself be."
+
+"Of course not.  How could it be?  But who was it, Jacob?"
+
+"You bide a bit, miss, and you shall hear the whole.  Well, by that
+time 'twas too late for me to slip away, and I was bound to scrooge
+up into the elbow of this nick here, and try not to breathe, as
+nigh as might be, and keep my Lammas cough down; for I never see a
+face more full of malice and uncharity.  However, he come on as
+straight as a arrow, holding his long chin out, like this, as if he
+gotten crutches under it, as the folk does with bad water.  A tall
+man, as tall as the Captain a'most, but not gifted with any kind
+aspect.  He trampsed over the general graves, like the devil come
+to fetch their souls out; but when he come here to the 'holy ring,'
+he stopped short, and stood with his back to me.  I could hear him
+count the seven graves, as pat as the shells of oysters to pay for,
+and then he said all their names, as true, from the biggest to the
+leastest one, as Betsy Bowen could 'a done it, though none of 'em
+got no mark to 'em.  Oh, the poor little hearts, it was cruel hard
+upon them!  And then my lady in the middle, making seven.  So far
+as I could catch over his shoulder, he seemed to be quite a-talking
+with her--not as you and I be, miss, but a sort of a manner of a
+way, like."
+
+"And what did he seem to say?  Oh, Jacob, how long you do take over
+it!"
+
+"Well, he did not, miss; that you may say for sartain.  And glad I
+was to have him quick about it; for he might have redooced me to
+such a condition--ay, and I believe a' would, too, if onst a' had
+caught sight of me--as the parish might 'a had to fight over the
+appintment of another sexton.  And so at last a' went away.  And I
+were that stiff with scrooging in this cornder--"
+
+"Is that all?  Oh, that comes to nothing.  Surely you must have
+more to tell me?  It may have been some one who knew our names.  It
+may have been some old friend of the family."
+
+"No, miss, no!  No familiar friend; or if he was, he were like King
+David's.  He bore a tyrannous hate against 'e, and the poison of
+asps were under his lips.  In this here hattitude he stood, with
+his back toward me, and his reins more upright than I be capable of
+putting it.  And this was how he held up his elbow and his head.
+Look 'e see, miss, and then 'e know as much as I do."
+
+Mr. Rigg marched with a long smooth step--a most difficult strain
+for his short bowed legs--as far as the place he had been pointing
+out; and there he stood with his back to me, painfully doing what
+the tall man had done, so far as the difference of size allowed.
+
+It was not possible for me to laugh in a matter of such sadness;
+and yet Jacob stood, with his back to me, spreading and stretching
+himself in such a way, to be up to the dimensions of the stranger,
+that--low as it was--I was compelled to cough, for fear of fatally
+offending him.
+
+"That warn't quite right, miss.  Now you look again," he exclaimed,
+with a little readjustment.  "Only he had a thing over one
+shoulder, the like of what the Scotchmen wear; and his features was
+beyond me, because of the back of his head, like.  For God's sake
+keep out of his way, miss."
+
+The sexton stood in a musing and yet a stern and defiant attitude,
+with the right elbow clasped in the left-hand palm, the right hand
+resting half-clinched upon the forehead, and the shoulders thrown
+back, as if ready for a blow.
+
+"What a very odd way to stand!" I said.
+
+"Yes, miss.  And what he said was odder.  'Six, and the mother!' I
+heared un say; 'no cure for it, till I have all seven.'  But stop,
+miss.  Not a breath to any one!  Here comes the poor father and
+mother to speak the blessing across their daughter's grave--and the
+grave not two foot down yet!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI
+
+A SIMPLE QUESTION
+
+
+Now this account of what Jacob Rigg had seen and heard threw me
+into a state of mind extremely unsatisfactory.  To be in eager
+search of some unknown person who had injured me inexpressibly,
+without any longing for revenge on my part, but simply with a view
+to justice--this was a very different thing from feeling that an
+unknown person was in quest of me, with the horrible purpose of
+destroying me to insure his own wicked safety.
+
+At first I almost thought that he was welcome to do this; that such
+a life as mine (if looked at from an outer point of view) was
+better to be died than lived out.  Also that there was nobody left
+to get any good out of all that I could do; and even if I ever
+should succeed, truth would come out of her tomb too late.  And
+this began to make me cry, which I had long given over doing, with
+no one to feel for the heart of it.
+
+But a thing of this kind could not long endure; and as soon as the
+sun of the morrow arose (or at least as soon as I was fit to see
+him), my view of the world was quite different.  Here was the merry
+brook, playing with the morning, spread around with ample depth and
+rich retreat of meadows, and often, after maze of leisure,
+hastening with a tinkle into shadowy delight of trees.  Here, as
+well, were happy lanes, and footpaths of a soft content, unworn
+with any pressure of the price of time or business.  None of them
+knew (in spite, at flurried spots, of their own direction posts)
+whence they were coming or whither going--only that here they lay,
+between the fields or through them, like idle veins of earth, with
+sometimes company of a man or boy, whistling to his footfall, or a
+singing maid with a milking pail.  And how ungrateful it would be
+to forget the pleasant copses, in waves of deep green leafage
+flowing down and up the channeled hills, waving at the wind to
+tints and tones of new refreshment, and tempting idle folk to come
+and hear the hush, and see the twinkled texture of pellucid gloom.
+
+Much, however, as I loved to sit in places of this kind alone, for
+some little time I feared to do so, after hearing the sexton's
+tale; for Jacob's terror was so unfeigned (though his own life had
+not been threatened) that, knowing as I did from Betsy's account,
+as well as his own appearance, that he was not at all a nervous
+man, I could not help sharing his vague alarm.  It seemed so
+terrible that any one should come to the graves of my sweet mother
+and her six harmless children, and, instead of showing pity, as
+even a monster might have tried to do, should stand, if not with
+threatening gestures, yet with a most hostile mien, and thirst for
+the life of the only survivor--my poor self.
+
+But terrible or not, the truth was so; and neither Betsy nor myself
+could shake Mr. Rigg's conclusion.  Indeed, he became more and more
+emphatic, in reply to our doubts and mild suggestions, perhaps that
+his eyes had deceived him, or perhaps that, taking a nap in the
+corner of the buttress, he had dreamed at least a part of it.  And
+Betsy, on the score of ancient friendship and kind remembrance of
+his likings, put it to him in a gentle way whether his knowledge of
+what Sally Mock had been, and the calumnies she might have spoken
+of his beer (when herself, in the work-house, deprived of it),
+might not have induced him to take a little more than usual in
+going down so deep for her.  But he answered, "No; it was nothing
+of the sort.  Deep he had gone, to the tiptoe of his fling; not
+from any feeling of a wish to keep her down, but just because the
+parish paid, and the parish would have measurement.  And when that
+was on, he never brought down more than the quart tin from the
+public; and never had none down afterward.  Otherwise the ground
+was so ticklish, that a man, working too free, might stay down
+there.  No, no!  That idea was like one of Sally's own.  He just
+had his quart of Persfield ale--short measure, of course, with a
+woman at the bar--and if that were enough to make a man dream
+dreams, the sooner he dug his own grave, the better for all
+connected with him."
+
+We saw that we had gone too far in thinking of such a possibility;
+and if Mr. Rigg had not been large-minded, as well as notoriously
+sober, Betsy might have lost me all the benefit of his evidence by
+her London-bred clumsiness with him.  For it takes quite a
+different handling, and a different mode of outset, to get on with
+the London working class and the laboring kind of the country; or
+at least it seemed to me so.
+
+Now my knowledge of Jacob Rigg was owing, as might be supposed, to
+Betsy Strouss, who had taken the lead of me in almost every thing
+ever since I brought her down from London.  And now I was glad
+that, in one point at least, her judgment had overruled mine--to
+wit, that my name and parentage were as yet not generally known in
+the village.  Indeed, only Betsy herself and Jacob and a faithful
+old washer-woman, with no roof to her mouth, were aware of me as
+Miss Castlewood.  Not that I had taken any other name--to that I
+would not stoop--but because the public, of its own accord, paying
+attention to Betsy's style of addressing me, followed her lead
+(with some little improvement), and was pleased to entitle me "Miss
+Raumur."
+
+Some question had been raised as to spelling me aright, till a man
+of advanced intelligence proved to many eyes, and even several
+pairs of spectacles (assembled in front of the blacksmith's shop),
+that no other way could be right except that.  For there it was in
+print, as any one able might see, on the side of an instrument
+whose name and qualities were even more mysterious than those in
+debate.  Therefore I became "Miss Raumur;" and a protest would have
+gone for nothing unless printed also.  But it did not behoove me to
+go to that expense, while it suited me very well to be considered
+and pitied as a harmless foreigner--a being who on English land may
+find some cause to doubt whether, even in his own country, a
+prophet could be less thought of.  And this large pity for me, as
+an outlandish person, in the very spot where I was born, endowed me
+with tenfold the privilege of the proudest native.  For the natives
+of this valley are declared to be of a different stock from those
+around them, not of the common Wessex strain, but of Jutish or
+Danish origin.  How that may be I do not know; at any rate, they
+think well of themselves, and no doubt they have cause to do so.
+
+Moreover, they all were very kind to me, and their primitive ways
+amused me, as soon as they had settled that I was a foreigner,
+equally beyond and below inquiry.  They told me that I was kindly
+welcome to stay there as long as it pleased me; and knowing how
+fond I was of making pictures, after beholding my drawing-book,
+every farmer among them gave me leave to come into his fields,
+though he never had heard there was any thing there worth painting.
+
+When once there has been a deposit of idea in the calm deep eocene
+of British rural mind, the impression will outlast any shallow
+deluge of the noblest education.  Shoxford had settled two points
+forever, without troubling reason to come out of her way--first,
+that I was a foreign young lady of good birth, manners, and money;
+second, and far more important, I was here to write and paint a
+book about Shoxford.  Not for the money, of that I had no need
+(according to the congress at the "Silver-edged Holly"), but for
+the praise and the knowledge of it, like, and to make a talk among
+high people.  But the elders shook their heads--as I heard from Mr.
+Rigg, who hugged his knowledge proudly, and uttered dim sayings of
+wisdom let forth at large usury: he did not mind telling me that
+the old men shook their heads, for fear of my being a deal too
+young, and a long sight too well favored (as any man might tell
+without his specs on), for to write any book upon any subject yet,
+leave alone an old, ancient town like theirs.  However, there might
+be no harm in my trying, and perhaps the school-master would cross
+out the bad language.
+
+Thus for once fortune now was giving me good help, enabling me to
+go about freely, and preventing (so far as I could see, at least)
+all danger of discovery by my unknown foe.  So here I resolved to
+keep my head-quarters, dispensing, if it must be so, with Betsy's
+presence, and not even having Mrs. Price to succeed her, unless my
+cousin should insist upon it.  And partly to dissuade him from
+that, and partly to hear his opinion of the sexton's tale, I paid a
+flying visit to Lord Castlewood; while "Madam Straw," as Betsy now
+was called throughout the village, remained behind at Shoxford.
+For I long had desired to know a thing which I had not ventured to
+ask my cousin--though I did ask Mr. Shovelin--whether my father had
+intrusted him with the key of his own mysterious acts.  I scarcely
+knew whether it was proper even now to put this question to Lord
+Castlewood; but even without doing so, I might get at the answer by
+watching him closely while I told my tale.  Not a letter had
+reached me since I came to Shoxford, neither had I written any,
+except one to Uncle Sam; and keeping to this excellent rule, I
+arrived at Castlewood without notice.
+
+In doing this I took no liberty, because full permission had been
+given me about it; and indeed I had been expected there, as Stixon
+told me, some days before.  He added that his master was about as
+usual, but had shown some uneasiness on my account, though the
+butler was all in the dark about it, and felt it very hard after
+all these years, "particular, when he could hardly help thinking
+that Mrs. Price--a new hand compared to himself, not to speak of
+being a female--knowed all about it, and were very aggravating.
+But there, he would say no more; he knew his place, and he always
+had been valued in it, long afore Mrs. Price come up to the bottom
+of his waistcoat."
+
+My cousin received me with kindly warmth, and kissed me gently on
+the forehead.  "My dear, how very well you look!" he said.  "Your
+native air has agreed with you.  I was getting, in my quiet way,
+rather sedulous and self-reproachful about you.  But you would have
+your own way, like a young American; and it seems that you were
+right."
+
+"It was quite right," I answered, with a hearty kiss, for I never
+could be cold-natured; and this was my only one of near kin, so
+far, at least, as my knowledge went.  "I was quite right in going;
+and I have done good.  At any rate, I have found out something--
+something that may not be of any kind of use; but still it makes me
+hope things."
+
+With that, in as few words as ever I could use, I told Lord
+Castlewood the whole of Jacob's tale, particularly looking at him
+all the while I spoke, to settle in my own mind whether the idea of
+such a thing was new to him.  Concerning that, however, I could
+make out nothing.  My cousin, at his time of life, and after so
+much travelling, had much too large a share of mind and long skill
+of experience for me to make any thing out of his face beyond his
+own intention.  And whether he had suspicion or not of any thing at
+all like what I was describing, or any body having to do with it,
+was more than I ever might have known, if I had not gathered up my
+courage and put the question outright to him.  I told him that if I
+was wrong in asking, he was not to answer; but, right or wrong, ask
+him I must.
+
+"The question is natural, and not at all improper," replied Lord
+Castlewood, standing a moment for change of pain, which was all his
+relief.  "Indeed, I expected you to ask me that before.  But,
+Erema, I have also had to ask myself about it, whether I have any
+right to answer you.  And I have decided not to do so, unless you
+will pledge yourself to one thing."
+
+"I will pledge myself to any thing," I answered, rashly; "I do not
+care what it is, if only to get at the bottom of this mystery."
+
+"I scarcely think you will hold good to your words when you hear
+what you have to promise.  The condition upon which I tell you what
+I believe to be the cause of all is, that you let things remain as
+they are, and keep silence forever about them."
+
+"Oh, you can not be so cruel, so atrocious!" I cried, in my bitter
+disappointment.  "What good would it be for me to know things thus,
+and let the vile wrong continue?  Surely you are not bound to lay
+on me a condition so impossible?"
+
+"After much consideration and strong wish to have it otherwise, I
+have concluded that I am so bound."
+
+"In duty to my father, or the family, or what?  Forgive me for
+asking, but it does seem so hard."
+
+"It seems hard, my dear, and it is hard as well," he answered, very
+gently, yet showing in his eyes and lips no chance of any yielding.
+"But remember that I do not know, I only guess, the secret; and if
+you give the pledge I speak of, you merely follow in your father's
+steps."
+
+"Never," I replied, with as firm a face as his.  "It may have been
+my father's duty, or no doubt he thought it so; but it can not be
+mine, unless I make it so by laying it on my honor.  And I will not
+do that."
+
+"Perhaps you are right; but, at any rate, remember that I have not
+tried to persuade you.  I wish to do what is for your happiness,
+Erema.  And I think that, on the whole, with your vigor and high
+spirit, you are better as you are than if you had a knowledge which
+you could only brood over and not use."
+
+"I will find out the whole of it myself," I cried, for I could not
+repress all excitement; "and then I need not brood over it, but may
+have it out and get justice.  In the wildest parts of America
+justice comes with perseverance: am I to abjure it in the heart of
+England?  Lord Castlewood, which is first--justice or honor?"
+
+"My cousin, you are fond of asking questions difficult to answer.
+Justice and honor nearly always go together.  When they do
+otherwise, honor stands foremost, with people of good birth, at
+least."
+
+"Then I will be a person of very bad birth.  If they come into
+conflict in my life, as almost every thing seems to do, my first
+thought shall be of justice; and honor shall come in as its
+ornament afterward."
+
+"Erema," said my cousin, "your meaning is good, and at your time of
+life you can scarcely be expected to take a dispassionate view of
+things."
+
+At first I felt almost as if I could hate a "dispassionate view of
+things."  Things are made to arouse our passion, so long as
+meanness and villainy prevail; and if old men, knowing the balance
+of the world, can contemplate them all "dispassionately," more
+clearly than any thing else, to my mind, that proves the beauty of
+being young.  I am sure that I never was hot or violent--qualities
+which I especially dislike--but still I would rather almost have
+those than be too philosophical.  And now, while I revered my
+father's cousin for his gentleness, wisdom, and long-suffering, I
+almost longed to fly back to the Major, prejudiced, peppery, and
+red-hot for justice, at any rate in all things that concerned
+himself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII
+
+SOME ANSWER TO IT
+
+
+Hasty indignation did not drive me to hot action.  A quiet talk
+with Mrs. Price, as soon as my cousin's bad hour arrived, was quite
+enough to bring me back to a sense of my own misgovernment.
+Moreover, the evening clouds were darkening for a night of thunder,
+while the silver Thames looked nothing more than a leaden pipe down
+the valleys.  Calm words fall at such times on quick temper like
+the drip of trees on people who have been dancing.  I shivered, as
+my spirit fell, to think of my weak excitement, and poor petulance
+to a kind, wise friend, a man of many sorrows and perpetual
+affliction.  And then I recalled what I had observed, but in my
+haste forgotten--Lord Castlewood was greatly changed even in the
+short time since I had left his house for Shoxford.  Pale he had
+always been, and his features (calm as they were, and finely cut)
+seemed almost bleached by in-door life and continual endurance.
+But now they showed worse sign than this--a delicate transparence
+of faint color, and a waxen surface, such as I had seen at a time I
+can not bear to think of.  Also he had tottered forward, while he
+tried for steadfast footing, quite as if his worried members were
+almost worn out at last.
+
+Mrs. Price took me up quite sharply--at least for one of her well-
+trained style--when I ventured to ask if she had noticed this,
+which made me feel uneasy.  "Oh dear, no!" she said, looking up
+from the lace-frilled pockets of her silk apron, which appeared to
+my mind perhaps a little too smart, and almost of a vulgar
+tincture; and I think that she saw in my eyes that much, and was
+vexed with herself for not changing it--"oh dear, no, Miss
+Castlewood!  We who know and watch him should detect any difference
+of that nature at the moment of its occurrence.  His lordship's
+health goes vacillating; a little up now, and then a little down,
+like a needle that is mounted to show the dip of compass; and it
+varies according to the electricity, as well as the magnetic
+influence."
+
+"What doctor told you that?" I asked, seeing in a moment that this
+housekeeper was dealing in quotation.
+
+"You are very"--she was going to say "rude," but knew better when
+she saw me waiting for it--"well, you are rather brusque, as we
+used to call it abroad, Miss Castlewood; but am I incapable of
+observing for myself?"
+
+"I never implied that," was my answer.  "I believe that you are
+most intelligent, and fit to nurse my cousin, as you are to keep
+his house.  And what you have said shows the clearness of your
+memory and expression."
+
+"You are very good to speak so," she answered, recovering her
+temper beautifully, but, like a true woman, resolved not to let me
+know any thing more about it.  "Oh, what a clap of thunder!  Are
+you timid?  This house has been struck three times, they say.  It
+stands so prominently.  It is this that has made my lord look so."
+
+"Let us hope, then to see him much better to-morrow," I said, very
+bravely, though frightened at heart, being always a coward of
+thunder.  "What are these storms you get in England compared to the
+tropical outbursts?  Let us open the window, if you please, and
+watch it."
+
+"I hear myself called," Mrs. Price exclaimed.  "I am sorry to leave
+you, miss.  You know best.  But please not to sit by an open
+window; nothing is more dangerous."
+
+"Except a great bunch of steel keys," I replied; and gazing at her
+nice retreating figure, saw it quickened, as a flash of lightning
+passed, with the effort of both hands to be quit of something.
+
+The storm was dreadful; and I kept the window shut, but could not
+help watching, with a fearful joy, the many-fingered hazy pale
+vibrations, the reflections of the levin in the hollow of the land.
+And sadly I began to think of Uncle Sam and all his goodness; and
+how in a storm, a thousandfold of this, he went down his valley in
+the torrent of the waves, and must have been drowned, and perhaps
+never found again, if he had not been wearing his leathern apron.
+
+This made me humble, as all great thoughts do, and the sidelong
+drizzle in among the heavy rain (from the big drops jostling each
+other in the air, and dashing out splashes of difference) gave me
+an idea of the sort of thing I was--and how very little more.  And
+feeling rather lonely in the turn that things had taken, I rang the
+bell for somebody; and up came Stixon.
+
+"Lor', miss!  Lor', what a burning shame of Prick!--'Prick' we call
+her, in our genial moments, hearing as the 'k' is hard in Celtic
+language; and all abroad about her husband.  My very first saying
+to you was, not to be too much okkipied with her.  Look at the
+pinafore on her!  Lord be with me!  If his lordship, as caught me,
+that day of this very same month fifty years, in the gooseberry
+bush--"
+
+"To be sure!" I said, knowing that story by heart, together with
+all its embellishments; "but things are altered since that day.
+Nothing can be more to your credit, I am sure, than to be able to
+tell such a tale in the very place where it happened."
+
+"But, Miss--Miss Erma, I ain't begun to tell it."
+
+"Because you remember that I am acquainted with it.  A thing so
+remarkable is not to be forgotten.  Now let me ask you a question
+of importance; and I beg you, as an old servant of this family, to
+answer it carefully and truly.  Do you remember any one, either
+here or elsewhere, so like my father, Captain Castlewood, as to be
+taken for him at first sight, until a difference of expression and
+of walk was noticed?"
+
+Mr. Stixon looked at me with some surprise, and then began to think
+profoundly, and in doing so he supported his chin with one hand.
+
+"Let me see--like the Captain?"  He reflected slowly:  "Did I ever
+see a gentleman like poor Master George, as was?  A gentleman, of
+course, it must have been--and a very tall, handsome, straight
+gentleman, to be taken anyhow for young Master George.  And he must
+have been very like him, too, to be taken for him by resemblance.
+Well then, miss, to the best of my judgment, I never did see such a
+gentleman."
+
+"I don't know whether it was a gentleman or not," I answered, with
+some impatience at his tantalizing slowness; "but he carried his
+chin stretched forth--like this."
+
+For Stixon's own attitude had reminded me of a little point in
+Jacob Rigg's description, which otherwise might have escaped me.
+
+"Lor', now, and he carried his chin like that!" resumed the butler,
+with an increase of intelligence by no means superfluous.  "Why,
+let me see, now, let me see.  Something do come across my mind when
+you puts out your purty chin, miss; but there, it must have been a
+score of years agone, or more--perhaps five-and-twenty.  What a
+daft old codger I be getting, surely!  No wonder them new lights
+puts a bushel over me."
+
+"No," I replied; "you are simply showing great power of memory,
+Stixon.  And now please to tell me, as soon as you can, who it was--
+a tall man, remember, and a handsome one, with dark hair, perhaps,
+or at any rate dark eyes--who resembled (perhaps not very closely,
+but still enough to mislead at a distance) my dear father--Master
+George, as you call him, for whose sake you are bound to tell me
+every thing you know.  Now try to think--do please try your very
+best, for my sake."
+
+"That I will, miss; that I will, with all my heart, with all my
+mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength, as I used to have
+to say with my hands behind my back, afore education were invented.
+Only please you to stand with your chin put out, miss, and your
+profield towards me.  That is what brings it up, and nothing else
+at all, miss.  Only, not to say a word of any sort to hurry me.  A
+tracherous and a deep thing is the memory and the remembrance."
+
+Mr. Stixon's memory was so deep that there seemed to be no bottom
+to it, or, at any rate, what lay there took a very long time to get
+at.  And I waited, with more impatience than hope, the utterance of
+his researches.
+
+"I got it now; I got it all, miss, clear as any pictur'!" the old
+man cried out, at the very moment when I was about to say, "Please
+to leave off; I am sure it is too much for you."  "Not a pictur' in
+all of our gallery, miss, two-and-fifty of 'em, so clear as I see
+that there man, dark as it was, and a heavy wind a-blowing.  What
+you call them things, miss, if you please, as comes with the sun,
+like a face upon the water?  Wicked things done again the will of
+the Lord, and He makes them fade out afterwards."
+
+"Perhaps you mean photographs.  Is that the word?"
+
+"The very word, and no mistake.  A sinful trespass on the works of
+God, to tickle the vanity of gals.  But he never spread himself
+abroad like them.  They shows all their ear-rings, and their necks,
+and smiles.  But he never would have shown his nose, if he could
+help it, that stormy night when I come to do my duty.  He come into
+this house without so much as a 'by your leave' to nobody, and
+vexed me terrible accordingly.  It was in the old lord's time,
+you know, miss, a one of the true sort, as would have things
+respectful, and knock down any man as soon as look.  And it put me
+quite upon the touch-and-go, being responsible for all the
+footman's works, and a young boy promoted in the face of my
+opinion, having my own son worth a dozen of him.  This made me look
+at the nature of things, miss, and find it on my conscience to be
+after every body."
+
+"Yes, Stixon, yes!  Now do go on.  You must always have been, not
+only after, but a very long way after, every body."
+
+"Miss Erma, if you throw me out, every word goes promiscuous.  In a
+heffort of the mind like this it is every word, or no word.  Now,
+did I see him come along the big passage?--a 'currydoor' they call
+it now, though no more curry in it than there is door.  No, I never
+seed him come along the passage, and that made it more reproachful.
+He come out of a green-baize door--the very place I can point out
+to you, and the selfsame door, miss, though false to the accuracy
+of the mind that knows it, by reason of having been covered up
+red, and all the brass buttons lost to it in them new-fangled
+upholsteries.  Not that I see him come through, if you please, but
+the sway of the door, being double-jointed, was enough to show
+legs, had been there.  And knowing that my lord's private room was
+there, made me put out my legs quite wonderful."
+
+"Oh, do please to put out your words half as quickly."
+
+"No, miss, no.  I were lissome in those days, though not so very
+stiff at this time of speaking, and bound to be guarded in the
+guidance of the tongue.  And now, miss, I think if you please to
+hear the rest to-morrow, I could tell it better."
+
+A more outrageous idea than this was never presented to me.  Even
+if I could have tried to wait, this dreadful old man might have
+made up his mind not to open his lips in the morning, or, if he
+would speak, there might be nothing left to say.  His memory was
+nursed up now, and my only chance was to keep it so.  Therefore I
+begged him to please to go on, and no more would I interrupt him.
+And I longed to be ten years older, so as not to speak when
+needless.
+
+"So then, Miss Erma, if I must go on," resumed the well-coaxed
+Stixon, "if my duty to the family driveth me to an 'arrowing
+subjeck, no words can more justly tell what come to pass than my
+language to my wife.  She were alive then, the poor dear hangel,
+and the mother of seven children, which made me, by your leave
+comparing humble roofs with grandeur, a little stiff to him up
+stairs, as come in on the top of seven.  For I said to my wife when
+I went home--sleeping out of the house, you see, miss, till the
+Lord was pleased to dissolve matrimony--'Polly,' I said, when I
+took home my supper, 'you may take my word for it there is
+something queer.'  Not another word did I mean to tell her, as
+behooved my dooty.  Howsoever, no peace was my lot till I made a
+clean bosom of it, only putting her first on the Testament, and
+even that not safe with most of them.  And from that night not a
+soul has heard a word till it comes to you, miss.  He come striding
+along, with his face muffled up, for all the world like a bugglar,
+and no more heed did he pay to me than if I was one of the
+pedestals.  But I were in front of him at the door, and to slip out
+so was against all orders.  So in front of him I stands, with my
+hand upon the handles, and meaning to have a word with him, to know
+who he was, and such like, and how he comes there, and what he had
+been seeking, with the spoons and the forks and the gravies on my
+mind.  And right I would have been in a court of law (if the
+lawyers was put out of it) for my hefforts in that situation.  And
+then, what do you think he done, miss?  So far from entering into
+any conversation with me, or hitting at me, like a man--which would
+have done good to think of--he send out one hand to the bottom of
+my vest--as they call it now in all the best livery tailors--and
+afore I could reason on it, there I was a-lying on a star in six
+colors of marble.  When I come to think on it, it was but a push
+directed to a part of my system, and not a hit under the belt, the
+like of which no Briton would think of delivering.  Nevertheless,
+there was no differ in what came to me, miss, and my spirit was
+roused, as if I had been hit foul by one of the prizemen.  No time
+to get up, but I let out one foot at his long legs as a' was
+slipping through the door, and so nearly did I fetch him over that
+he let go his muffle to balance himself with the jamb, and same
+moment a strong rush of wind laid bare the whole of his wicked face
+to me.  For a bad wicked face it was, as ever I did see; whether by
+reason of the kick I gave, and a splinter in the shin, or by habit
+of the mind, a proud and 'aughty and owdacious face, and, as I said
+to my poor wife, reminded me a little of our Master George; not in
+his ordinary aspect, to be sure, but as Master George might look if
+he was going to the devil.  Pray excoose me, miss, for bad words,
+but no good ones will do justice.  And so off he goes, after one
+look at me on the ground, not worth considering, with his chin
+stuck up, as if the air was not good enough to be breathed
+perpendiklar like."
+
+"And of course you followed him," I exclaimed, perceiving that
+Stixon would allow me now to speak.  "Without any delay you went
+after him."
+
+"Miss Erma, you forget what my dooty was.  My dooty was to stay by
+the door and make it fast, as custodian of all this mansion.  No
+little coorosity, or private resentment, could 'a borne me out in
+doing so.  As an outraged man I was up for rushing out, but as a
+trusted official, and responsible head footman, miss--for I were
+not butler till nine months after that--my dooty was to put the big
+bolt in."
+
+"And you did it, without even looking out to see if he tried to set
+the house on fire!  Oh, Stixon, I fear that you were frightened."
+
+"Now, Miss Erma, I calls it ungrateful, after all my hefforts to
+obleege you, to put a bad construction upon me.  You hurts me,
+miss, in my tenderest parts, as I never thought Master George's
+darter would 'a doed.  But there, they be none of them as they used
+to be!  Master George would 'a said, if he ever had heard it.
+'Stixon, my man, you have acted for the best, and showed a sound
+discretion.  Stixon,' he would have said, 'here's a George and
+Dragon in reward of your gallant conduck.'  Ah, that sort of
+manliness is died out now."
+
+This grated at first upon my feelings, because it seemed tainted
+with selfishness, and it did not entirely agree with my own
+recollections of my father.  But still Mr. Stixon must have
+suffered severely in that conflict, and to blame him for not
+showing rashness was to misunderstand his position.  And so, before
+putting any other questions to him, I felt in my pocket for a new
+half sovereign, which I hoped would answer.
+
+Mr. Stixon received it in an absent manner, as if he were still
+in the struggle of his story, and too full of duty to be thankful.
+Yet I saw that he did not quite realize the truth of a nobly
+philosophic proverb--"the half is more than the whole."
+Nevertheless, he stowed away his half, in harmony with a good
+old English saying.
+
+"Now, when you were able to get up at last," I inquired, with
+tender interest, "what did you see, and what did you do, and what
+conclusion did you come to?"
+
+"I came to the conclusion, miss, that I were hurt considerable.
+Coorosity on my part were quenched by the way as I had to rub
+myself.  But a man is a man, and the last thing to complain of is
+the exercise of his functions.  And when I come round I went off to
+his lordship, as if I had heared his bell ring.  All of us knew
+better than to speak till him beginning, for he were not what they
+now call 'halfable,' but very much to the contrary.  So he says,
+'You door-skulker, what do you want there?'  And I see that he got
+his hot leg up, certain to fly to bad language.  According, I
+asked, with my breath in my hand, if he pleased to see any young
+man there just now, by reason that such likes had been observated
+going out in some direction.  But his lordship roared to me to go
+in another direction, not fit for young ladies.  My old lord was up
+to every word of English; but his present lordship is the hopposite
+extreme."
+
+"Is that all you have to tell me, Stixon?  Did you never see that
+fearful man again?  Did you never even hear of him?"
+
+"Never, miss, never!  And to nobody but you have I ever told all as
+I told now.  But you seems to be born to hear it all."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII
+
+A WITCH
+
+
+It was true enough that Stixon now had nothing more to tell, but
+what he had told already seemed of very great importance,
+confirming strongly, as it did, the description given me by Jacob
+Rigg.  And even the butler's concluding words--that I seemed born
+to hear it all--comforted me like some good omen, and cheered me
+forward to make them true.  Not that I could, in my sad and
+dangerous enterprise, always be confident.  Some little spirit I
+must have had, and some resolve to be faithful, according to the
+power of a very common mind, admiring but never claiming courage.
+For I never did feel in any kind of way any gift of inspiration, or
+even the fitness of a quick, strong mind for working out deeds of
+justice.  There were many good ladies in America then, and now
+there are some in England, perceiving so clearly their own
+superiority as to run about largely proclaiming it.  How often I
+longed to be a little more like these, equal to men in achievements
+of the body, and very far beyond them in questions of the mind!
+
+However, it was useless to regret my lacks, and foolish, perhaps,
+to think of them.  To do my very best with what little gifts I had
+was more to the purpose and more sensible.  Taking in lonely
+perplexity now this dim yet exciting view of things, I resolved,
+right or wrong, to abide at the place where the only chance was of
+pursuing my search.  I was pledged, as perhaps has been said
+before, to keep from every one excepting faithful Betsy, and above
+all from Lord Castlewood, the unexpected little tale wrung out of
+Mr. Stixon.  That promise had been given without any thought, in my
+eagerness to hear every thing, and probably some people would have
+thought of it no more.  But the trusty butler was so scared when I
+asked him to release me from it, so penitent also at his own
+indiscretion, which never would have overcome him (as he said in
+the morning) only for the thunder-storm, that instead of getting
+off, I was quite obliged to renew and confirm my assurances.
+
+Therefore, in truth, I had no chance left but to go back to
+Shoxford and do my best, meeting all dark perils with the shield of
+right spread over me.  And a great thing now in my favor was to
+feel some confidence again in the guidance of kind Wisdom.  The
+sense of this never had abandoned me so much as to make me
+miserable about it; but still I had never tried to shelter under
+it, and stay there faithfully, as the best of people do.  And even
+now I was not brought to such a happy attitude, although delivered
+by these little gleams of light from the dark void of fatalism,
+into which so many bitter blows had once been driving me.
+
+However, before setting off again, I made one more attempt upon
+Lord Castlewood, longing to know whether his suspicions would help
+me at all to identify the figure which had frightened both the
+sexton and the butler.  That the person was one and the same, I did
+not for a moment call in question, any more than I doubted that he
+was the man upon whose head rested the blood of us.  But why he
+should be allowed to go scot-free while another bore his brand, and
+many others died for him, and why all my most just and righteous
+efforts to discover him should receive, if not discouragement, at
+any rate most lukewarm aid--these and several other questions were
+as dark as ever.
+
+"You must not return to Shoxford, my cousin," Lord Castlewood said
+to me that day, after a plain though courteous refusal to enlighten
+me even with a mere surmise, except upon the condition before
+rejected.  "I can not allow you to be there without strict
+supervision and protection.  You will not, perhaps, be aware of it,
+as perhaps you have not been before; but a careful watch will be
+kept on you.  I merely tell you this that you may not make
+mistakes, and confound friendly vigilance with the spying of an
+enemy.  Erema, you will be looked after."
+
+I could not help being grateful for his kindness, and really, try
+as I might to be fearless, it would be a great comfort to have some
+one to protect me.  On the other hand, how would this bear upon my
+own freedom of looking about, my desire to make my own occasions,
+and the need of going every where?  Could these be kept to my
+liking at all while an unknown power lay in kind regard of me?
+Considering these things, I begged my cousin to leave me to my own
+devices, for that I was afraid of nobody on earth, while only
+seeking justice, and that England must be worse than the worst
+parts of America if any harm to me could be apprehended at quiet
+times and in such a quiet place.
+
+My cousin said no more upon that point, though I felt that he was
+not in any way convinced; but he told me that he thought I should
+pay a little visit, if only for a day, such as I treated him with,
+to my good friends at Bruntsea, before I returned to Shoxford.
+There was no one now at Bruntsea whom I might not wish to meet, as
+he knew by a trifling accident; and after all the kind services
+rendered by Major and Mrs. Hockin, it was hardly right to let them
+begin to feel themselves neglected.  Now the very same thing had
+occurred to me, and I was going to propose it; and many things
+which I found it hard to do without were left in my little chest of
+locked-up drawers there.  But of that, to my knowledge, I scarcely
+thought twice; whereas I longed to see and have a talk with dear
+"Aunt Mary."  Now, since my affairs had been growing so strange,
+and Lord Castlewood had come forward--not strongly, but still quite
+enough to speak of--there had been a kind-hearted and genuine wish
+at Bruntsea to recover me.  And this desire had unreasonably grown
+while starved with disappointment.  The less they heard of me, the
+more they imagined in their rich good-will, and the surer they
+became that, after all, there was something in my ideas.
+
+But how could I know this, without any letters from them, since
+letters were a luxury forbidden me at Shoxford?  I knew it through
+one of the simplest and commonest of all nature's arrangements.
+Stixon's boy, as every body called him (though he must have been
+close upon five-and-twenty, and carried a cane out of sight of the
+windows), being so considered, and treated boyishly by the maids of
+Castlewood, asserted his dignity, and rose above his value as much
+as he had lain below it, by showing that he owned a tender heart,
+and them that did not despise it.  For he chanced to be walking
+with his cane upon the beach (the very morning after he first went
+to Bruntsea, too late for any train back again), and casting
+glances of interior wonder over the unaccustomed sea--when from the
+sea itself out-leaped a wondrous rosy deity.
+
+"You there, Mr. Stixon!  Oh my!  How long?" exclaimed Mrs. Hockin's
+new parlormaid, ready to drop, though in full print now, on the
+landward steps of the bathing-machine set up by the reckless Major.
+
+"Come this very hinstant, miss, honor bright!" replied the junior
+Stixon, who had moved in good society; "and just in the hackmy of
+time, miss, if I may offer you my 'umble hand."
+
+The fair nymph fixed him with a penetrating gaze through tresses
+full of salt curliness, while her cheeks were conscious of an
+unclad dip.  But William Stixon's eyes were firm with pure truth,
+gently toning into shy reproach and tenderness.  He had met her at
+supper last night, and done his best; but (as he said to the
+Castlewood maids) it was only feeling then, whereas now it was
+emoshun.
+
+"Then you are a gentleman!" Polly Hopkins cried; "and indeed, Mr.
+Stixon, these are slippery things."  She was speaking of the steps,
+as she came down them, and they had no hand-rails; and the young
+man felt himself to be no more Stixon's boy, but a gentleman under
+sweet refining pressure.
+
+From that hour forth it was pronounced, and they left the world to
+its own opinion, that they were keeping company; and although they
+were sixty miles apart by air, and eighty-two by railway, at every
+post their hearts were one, with considerable benefit to the United
+Kingdom's revenue.  Also they met by the sad sea waves, when the
+bathing-machines had been hauled up--for the Major now had three of
+them--as often as Stixon senior smiled--which he did whenever he
+was not put out--on the bygone ways of these children.  For Polly
+Hopkins had a hundred pounds, as well as being the only child of
+the man who kept the only shop for pickled pork in Bruntsea.  And
+my Mr. Stixon could always contrive to get orders from his lordship
+to send the boy away, with his carriage paid, when his health
+demanded bathing.  Hence it is manifest that the deeds and thoughts
+of Bruntsea House, otherwise called "Bruntlands," were known quite
+as well, and discussed even better--because dispassionately--at
+Castlewood than and as they were at home.
+
+Now I won forever the heart of Stixon's boy, and that of Polly
+Hopkins, by recoiling with horror from the thought of going to
+Bruntsea unattended.  After all my solitary journeys, this might
+have been called hypocrisy, if it had been inconvenient; but coming
+as it did, it was pronounced, by all who desired either news or
+love, to be another proof of the goodness of my heart.
+
+Escorted thus by William Stixon (armed with a brilliant cane bought
+for this occasion), and knowing that Sir Montague Hockin was not
+there, I arrived at Bruntlands in the afternoon, and received a
+kindly welcome from my dear friend Mrs. Hockin.  Her husband was
+from home, and she grieved to say that now he was generally doing
+this; but nobody else could have any idea what his avocations were!
+Then she paid me some compliments on my appearance--a thing that I
+never thought of, except when I came to a question of likeness, or
+chanced to be thinking of things, coming up as they will, at a
+looking-glass.
+
+That the Major was out was a truth established in my mind some time
+ago; because I had seen him, as our fly crawled by, expressly and
+emphatically at work on a rampart of his own designing.  The work
+was quite new to me, but not so his figure.  Though I could not see
+people three miles off, as Firm Gundry was said to do, I had pretty
+clear sight, and could not mistake the Major within a furlong.  And
+there he was, going about in a row of square notches against the
+sea-line, with his coat off, and brandishing some tool, vehemently
+carrying on to spirits less active than his own.  I burned with
+desire to go and join him, for I love to see activity; but Mrs.
+Hockin thought that I had better stay away, because it was
+impossible to get on there without language too strong for young
+ladies.
+
+This closed the question, and I stopped with her, and found the
+best comfort that I ever could have dreamed of.  "Aunt Mary" was so
+steadfast, and so built up with, or rather built of, the very faith
+itself, that to talk with her was as good as reading the noblest
+chapter of the Bible.  She put by all possibility of doubt as to
+the modern interference of the Lord, with such a sweet pity and the
+seasoned smile of age, and so much feeling (which would have been
+contempt if she had not been softened by her own escapes), that
+really I, who had come expecting to set her beautiful white hair on
+end, became like a little child put into the corner, but too young
+yet for any other punishment at school, except to be looked at.
+Nevertheless, though I did look small, it made me all the happier.
+I seemed to become less an individual, and more a member of a large
+kind race under paternal management.  From a practical point of
+view this may have been amiss, but it helped to support me
+afterward.  And before I began to get weary or rebel against her
+gentle teaching, in came her husband; and she stopped at once,
+because he had never any time for it.
+
+"My geological hammer!" cried the Major, being in a rush as usual.
+"Oh, Miss Castlewood!  I did not see you.  Pardon me!  It is the
+want of practice only; so wholly have you deserted us.  Fallen into
+better hands, of course.  Well, how are you?  But I need not ask.
+If ever there was a young lady who looked well--don't tell me of
+troubles, or worries, or nerves--I put up my glasses, and simply
+say, 'Pretty young ladies are above all pity!'  My hammer, dear
+Mary; my hammer I must have.  The geological one, you know; we have
+come on a bit of old Roman work; the bricklayer's hammers go flat,
+like lead.  I have just one minute and a half to spare.  What fine
+fellows those Romans were!  I will build like a Roman.  See to
+every bit of it myself, Erema.  No contractor's jobs for me.  Mary,
+you know where to find it."
+
+"Well, dear, I think that you had it last, to get the bung out of
+the beer barrel, when the stool broke down in the corner, you know,
+because you would--"
+
+"Never mind about that.  The drayman made a fool of himself.  I
+proceeded upon true principles.  That fellow knew nothing of
+leverage."
+
+"Well, dear, of course you understand it best.  But he told cook
+that it was quite a mercy that you got off without a broken leg;
+and compared with that, two gallons of spilled ale--"  Mrs. Hockin
+made off, without finishing her sentence.
+
+"What a woman she is!" cried the Major; "she takes such a lofty
+view of things, and she can always find my tools.  Erema, after
+dinner I must have a talk with you.  There is something going on
+here--on my manor--which I can not at all get a clew to, except by
+connecting you with it, the Lord knows how.  Of course you have
+nothing to do with it; but still my life has been so free from
+mystery that, that--you know what I mean--"
+
+"That you naturally think I must be at the bottom of every thing
+mysterious.  Now is there any thing dark about me?  Do I not labor
+to get at the light?  Have I kept from your knowledge any single
+thing?  But you never cared to go into them."
+
+"It is hardly fair of you to say that.  The fact is that you, of
+your own accord, have chosen other counselors.  Have you heard any
+more of your late guardian, Mr. Shovelin?  I suppose that his
+executor, or some one appointed by him, is now your legal
+guardian."
+
+"I have not even asked what the law is," I replied.  "Lord
+Castlewood is my proper guardian, according to all common-sense,
+and I mean to have him so.  He has inquired through his solicitors
+as to Mr. Shovelin, and I am quite free there.  My father's will is
+quite good, they say; but it never has been proved, and none of
+them care to do it.  My cousin thinks that I could compel them to
+prove it, or to renounce in proper form; but Mr. Shovelin's sons
+are not nice people--as different from him as night from day,
+careless and wild and dashing."
+
+"Then do you mean to do nothing about it?  What a time she is
+finding that hammer!"
+
+"I leave it entirely to my cousin, and he is waiting for legal
+advice.  I wish to have the will, of course, for the sake of my
+dear father; but with or without any will, my mother's little
+property comes to me.  And if my dear father had nothing to leave,
+why should we run up a great lawyer's bill?"
+
+"To be sure not!  I see.  That makes all the difference.  I admire
+your common-sense," said the Major--"but there!  Come and look, and
+just exercise it here.  There is that very strange woman again,
+just at the end of my new road.  She stands quite still, and then
+stares about, sometimes for an hour together.  Nobody knows who she
+is, or why she came.  She has taken a tumble-down house on my
+manor, from a wretch of a fellow who denies my title; and what she
+lives on is more than any one can tell, for she never spends
+sixpence in Bruntsea.  Some think that she walks in the dark to
+Newport, and gets all her food at some ship stores there.  And one
+of our fishermen vows that he met her walking on the sea, as he
+rowed home one night, and she had a long red bag on her shoulder.
+She is a witch, that is certain; for she won't answer me, however
+politely I accost her.  But the oddest thing of all is the name she
+gave to the fellow she took the house from.  What do you think she
+called herself?  Of all things in the world--'Mrs. Castlewood!'  I
+congratulate you on your relative."
+
+"How very strange!" I answered.  "Oh, now I see why you connect me
+with it; and I beg your pardon for having been vexed.  But let me
+go and see her.  Oh, may I go at once, if you please, and speak to
+her?"
+
+"The very thing I wish--if you are not afraid.  I will come with
+you, when I get my hammer.  Oh, here it is!  Mary, how clever you
+are!  Now look out of the window, and you shall see Erema make up
+to her grandmamma."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX
+
+NOT AT HOME
+
+
+Mrs. Hockin, however, had not the pleasure promised her by the
+facetious Major of seeing me "make up to my grandmamma."  For
+although we set off at once to catch the strange woman who had
+roused so much curiosity, and though, as we passed the door of
+Bruntlands, we saw her still at her post in the valley, like Major
+Hockin's new letter-box, for some reason best known to herself we
+could not see any more of her.  For, hurry as he might upon other
+occasions, nothing would make the Major cut a corner of his winding
+"drive" when descending it with a visitor.  He enjoyed every yard
+of its length, because it was his own at every step, and he counted
+his paces in an under-tone, to be sure of the length, for perhaps
+the thousandth time.  It was long enough in a straight line, one
+would have thought, but he was not the one who thought so; and
+therefore he had doubled it by judicious windings, as if for the
+purpose of breaking the descent.
+
+"Three hundred and twenty-one," he said, as he came to a post,
+where he meant to have a lodge as soon as his wife would let him;
+"now the old woman stands fifty-five yards on, at a spot where I
+mean to have an ornamental bridge, because our fine saline element
+runs up there when the new moon is perigee.  My dear, I am a little
+out of breath, which affects my sight for the moment.  Doubtless
+that is why I do not see her."
+
+"If I may offer an opinion," I said, "in my ignorance of all the
+changes you have made, the reason why we do not see her may be that
+she is gone out of sight."
+
+"Impossible!" Major Hockin cried--"simply impossible, Erema!  She
+never moves for an hour and a half.  And she was not come, was she,
+when you came by?"
+
+"I will not be certain," I answered; "but I think that I must have
+seen her if she had been there, because I was looking about
+particularly at all your works as we came by."
+
+"Then she must be there still; let us tackle her."
+
+This was easier said than done, for we found no sign of any body at
+the place where she certainly had been standing less than five
+minutes ago.  We stood at the very end and last corner of the
+ancient river trough, where a little seam went inland from it, as
+if some trifle of a brook had stolen down while it found a good
+river to welcome it.  But now there was only a little oozy gloss
+from the gleam of the sun upon some lees of marshy brine left among
+the rushes by the last high tide.
+
+"You see my new road and the key to my intentions?" said the Major,
+forgetting all about his witch, and flourishing his geological
+hammer, while standing thus at his "nucleus."  "To understand all,
+you have only to stand here.  You see those leveling posts,
+adjusted with scientific accuracy.  You see all those angles,
+calculated with micrometric precision.  You see how the curves are
+radiated--"
+
+"It is very beautiful, I have no doubt; but you can not have Uncle
+Sam's gift of machinery.  And do you understand every bit of it
+yourself?"
+
+"Erema, not a jot of it.  I like to talk about it freely when I
+can, because I see all its beauties.  But as to understanding it,
+my dear, you might set to, if you were an educated female, and
+deliver me a lecture upon my own plan.  Intellect is, in such
+matters, a bubble.  I know good bricks, good mortar, and good
+foundations."
+
+"With your great ability, you must do that," I answered, very
+gently, being touched with his humility and allowance of my
+opinion; "you will make a noble town of it.  But when is the
+railway coming?"
+
+"Not yet.  We have first to get our Act; and a miserable-minded
+wretch, who owns nothing but a rabbit-warren, means to oppose it.
+Don't let us talk of him.  It puts one out of patience when a man
+can not see his own interest.  But come and see our assembly-rooms,
+literary institute, baths, etc., etc.--that is what we are urging
+forward now."
+
+"But may I not go first and look for my strange namesake?  Would it
+be wrong of me to call upon her?"
+
+"No harm whatever," replied my companion; "likewise no good.  Call
+fifty times, but you will get no answer.  However, it is not a very
+great round, and you will understand my plans more clearly.  Step
+out, my dear, as if you had got a troop of Mexicans after you.  Ah,
+what a fine turn for that lot now!"  He was thinking of the war
+which had broken out, and the battle of Bull's Run.
+
+Without any such headlong speed, we soon came to the dwelling-place
+of the stranger, and really for once the good Major had not much
+overdone his description.  Truly it was almost tumbling down,
+though massively built, and a good house long ago; and it looked
+the more miserable now from being placed in a hollow of the ground,
+whose slopes were tufted with rushes and thistles and ragwort.  The
+lower windows were blocked up from within, the upper were shattered
+and crumbling and dangerous, with blocks of cracked stone jutting
+over them; and the last surviving chimney gave less smoke than a
+workman's homeward whiff of his pipe to comfort and relieve the
+air.
+
+The only door that we could see was of heavy black oak, without any
+knocker; but I clinched my hand, having thick gloves on, and made
+what I thought a very creditable knock, while the Major stood by,
+with his blue-lights up, and keenly gazed and gently smiled.
+
+"Knock again, my dear," he said; "you don't knock half hard
+enough."
+
+I knocked again with all my might, and got a bruised hand for a
+fortnight, but there was not even the momentary content produced by
+an active echo.  The door was as dead as every thing else.
+
+"Now for my hammer," my companion cried.  "This house, in all sound
+law, is my own.  I will have a 'John Doe and Richard Roe'--a fine
+action of ejectment.  Shall I be barred out upon my own manor?"
+
+With hot indignation he swung his hammer, but nothing came of it
+except more noise.  Then the Major grew warm and angry.
+
+"My charter contains the right of burning witches or drowning them,
+according to their color.  The execution is specially imposed upon
+the bailiff of this ancient town, and he is my own pickled-pork
+man.  His name is Hopkins, and I will have him out with his seal
+and stick and all the rest.  Am I to be laughed at in this way?"
+
+For we thought we heard a little screech of laughter from the
+loneliness of the deep dark place, but no other answer came, and
+perhaps it was only our own imagining.
+
+"Is there no other door--perhaps one at the back?" I asked, as the
+lord of the manor stamped.
+
+"No, that has been walled up long ago.  The villain has defied me
+from the very first.  Well, we shall see.  This is all very fine.
+You witness that they deny the owner entrance?"
+
+"Undoubtedly I can depose to that.  But we must not waste your
+valuable time."
+
+"After all, the poor ruin is worthless," he went on, calming down
+as we retired.  "It must be leveled, and that hole filled up.  It
+is quite an eye-sore to our new parade.  And no doubt it belongs to
+me--no doubt it does.  The fellow who claims it was turned out of
+the law.  Fancy any man turned out of the law!  Erema, in all your
+far West experience, did you ever see a man bad enough to be turned
+out of the law?"
+
+"Major Hockin, how can I tell?  But I fear that their practice was
+very, very sad--they very nearly always used to hang them."
+
+"The best use--the best use a rogue can be put to.  Some big thief
+has put it the opposite way, because he was afraid of his own turn.
+The constitution must be upheld, and, by the Lord! it shall be--at
+any rate, in East Bruntsea.  West Bruntsea is all a small-pox
+warren out of my control, and a skewer in my flesh.  And some of my
+tenants have gone across the line to snap their dirty hands at me."
+
+Being once in this cue, Major Hockin went on, not talking to me
+much, but rather to himself, though expecting me now and then to
+say "yes;" and this I did when necessary, for his principles of
+action were beyond all challenge, and the only question was how he
+carried them out.
+
+He took me to his rampart, which was sure to stop the sea, and at
+the same time to afford the finest place in all Great Britain for a
+view of it.  Even an invalid might sit here in perfect shelter from
+the heaviest gale, and watch such billows as were not to be seen
+except upon the Major's property.
+
+"The reason of that is quite simple," he said, "and a child may see
+the force of it.  In no other part of the kingdom can you find so
+steep a beach fronting the southwest winds, which are ten to one of
+all other winds, without any break of sand or rock outside.  Hence
+we have what you can not have on a shallow shore--grand rollers:
+straight from the very Atlantic, Erema; you and I have seen them.
+You may see by the map that they all end here, with the wind in the
+proper quarter."
+
+"Oh, please not to talk of such horrors," I said.  "Why, your
+ramparts would go like pie crust."
+
+The Major smiled a superior smile, and after more talk we went home
+to dinner.
+
+From something more than mere curiosity, I waited at Bruntsea for a
+day or two, hoping to see that strange namesake of mine who had
+shown so much inhospitality.  For she must have been at home when
+we made that pressing call, inasmuch as there was no other place to
+hide her within the needful distance of the spot where she had
+stood.  But the longer I waited, the less would she come out--to
+borrow the good Irishman's expression--and the Major's pillar-box,
+her favorite resort, was left in conspicuous solitude.  And when a
+letter came from Sir Montague Hockin, asking leave to be at
+Bruntlands on the following evening, I packed up my goods with all
+haste, and set off, not an hour too soon, for Shoxford.
+
+But before taking leave of these kind friends, I begged them to do
+for me one little thing, without asking me to explain my reason,
+which, indeed, was more than I could do.  I begged them, not of
+course to watch Sir Montague, for that they could not well do to a
+guest, but simply to keep their eyes open and prepared for any sign
+of intercourse, if such there were, between this gentleman and that
+strange interloper.  Major Hockin stared, and his wife looked at me
+as if my poor mind must have gone astray, and even to myself my own
+thought appeared absurd.  Remembering, however, what Sir Montague
+had said, and other little things as well, I did not laugh as they
+did.  But perhaps one part of my conduct was not right, though the
+wrong (if any) had been done before that--to wit, I had faithfully
+promised Mrs. Price not to say a word at Bruntlands about their
+visitor's low and sinful treachery toward my cousin.  To give such
+a promise had perhaps been wrong, but still without it I should
+have heard nothing of matters that concerned me nearly.  And now it
+seemed almost worse to keep than to break such a pledge, when I
+thought of a pious, pure-minded, and holy-hearted woman, like my
+dear "Aunt Mary," unwittingly brought into friendly contact with a
+man of the lowest nature.  And as for the Major, instead of sitting
+down with such a man to dinner, what would he have done but drive
+him straightway from the door, and chase him to the utmost verge of
+his manor with the peak end of his "geological hammer?"
+
+However, away I went without a word against that contemptible and
+base man, toward whom--though he never had injured me--I cherished,
+for my poor cousin's sake, the implacable hatred of virtuous youth.
+And a wild idea had occurred to me (as many wild ideas did now in
+the crowd of things gathering round me) that this strange woman,
+concealed from the world, yet keenly watching some members of it,
+might be that fallen and miserable creature who had fled from a
+good man with a bad one, because he was more like herself--
+Flittamore, Lady Castlewood.  Not that she could be an "old woman"
+yet, but she might look old, either by disguise, or through her own
+wickedness; and every body knows how suddenly those southern
+beauties fall off, alike in face and figure.  Mrs. Price had not
+told me what became of her, or even whether she was dead or alive,
+but merely said, with a meaning look, that she was "punished" for
+her sin, and I had not ventured to inquire how, the subject being
+so distasteful.
+
+To my great surprise, and uneasiness as well, I had found at
+Bruntlands no letter whatever, either to the Major or myself, from
+Uncle Sam or any other person at the saw-mills.  There had not been
+time for any answer to my letter of some two months back, yet being
+alarmed by the Sawyer's last tidings, I longed, with some terror,
+for later news.  And all the United Kingdom was now watching with
+tender interest the dismemberment, as it almost appeared, of the
+other mighty Union.  Not with malice, or snug satisfaction, as the
+men of the North in their agony said, but certainly without any
+proper anguish yet, and rather as a genial and sprightly spectator,
+whose love of fair play perhaps kindles his applause of the spirit
+and skill of the weaker side.  "'Tis a good fight--let them fight
+it out!" seemed to be the general sentiment; but in spite of some
+American vaunt and menace (which of late years had been galling)
+every true Englishman deeply would have mourned the humiliation of
+his kindred.
+
+In this anxiety for news I begged that my letters might be
+forwarded under cover to the postmistress at Shoxford, and bearing
+my initials.  For now I had made up my mind to let Mrs. Busk know
+whatever I could tell her.  I had found her a cross and well-
+educated woman, far above her neighbors, and determined to remain
+so.  Gossip, that universal leveler, theoretically she despised;
+and she had that magnificent esteem for rank which works so
+beautifully in England.  And now when my good nurse reasonably said
+that, much as she loved to be with me, her business would allow
+that delight no longer, and it also came home to my own mind that
+money would be running short again, and small hope left in this
+dreadful civil war of our nugget escaping pillage (which made me
+shudder horribly at internal discord), I just did this--I dismissed
+Betsy, or rather I let her dismiss herself, which she might not
+have altogether meant to do, although she threatened it so often.
+For here she had nothing to do but live well, and protest against
+tricks of her own profession which she practiced as necessary laws
+at home; and so, with much affection, for the time we parted.
+
+Mrs. Busk was delighted at her departure, for she never had liked
+to be criticised so keenly while she was doing her very best.  And
+as soon as the wheels of Betsy's fly had shown their last spoke at
+the corner, she told me, with a smile, that her mind had been made
+up to give us notice that very evening to seek for better lodgings.
+But she could not wish for a quieter, pleasanter, or more easily
+pleased young lady than I was without any mischief-maker; and so,
+on the spur of the moment, I took her into my own room, while her
+little girl minded the shop, and there and then I told her who I
+was, and what I wanted.
+
+And now she behaved most admirably.  Instead of expressing
+surprise, she assured me that all along she had felt there was
+something, and that I must be somebody.  Lovely as my paintings
+were (which I never heard, before or since, from any impartial
+censor), she had known that it could not be that alone which had
+kept me so long in their happy valley.  And now she did hope I
+would do her the honor to stay beneath her humble roof, though
+entitled to one so different.  And was the fairy ring in the
+church-yard made of all my family?
+
+I replied that too surely this was so, and that nothing would
+please me better than to find, according to my stature, room to
+sleep inside it as soon as ever I should have solved the mystery of
+its origin.  At the moment this was no exaggeration, so depressing
+was the sense of fighting against the unknown so long, with
+scarcely any one to stand by me, or avenge me if I fell.  And
+Betsy's departure, though I tried to take it mildly, had left me
+with a readiness to catch my breath.
+
+But to dwell upon sadness no more than need be (a need as sure as
+hunger), it was manifest now to my wondering mind that once more I
+had chanced upon a good, and warm, and steadfast heart.  Every body
+is said to be born, whether that happens by night or day, with a
+certain little widowed star, which has lost its previous mortal,
+concentrating from a billion billion of miles, or leagues, or
+larger measure, intense, but generally invisible, radiance upon him
+or her; and to take for the moment this old fable as of serious
+meaning, my star was to find bad facts at a glance, but no bad folk
+without long gaze.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL
+
+THE MAN AT LAST
+
+
+This new alliance with Mrs. Busk not only refreshed my courage, but
+helped me forward most importantly.  In truth, if it had not been
+for this I never could have borne what I had to bear, and met the
+perils which I had to meet.  For I had the confidence of feeling
+now that here was some one close at hand, an intelligent person,
+and well acquainted with the place and neighborhood, upon whom I
+could rely for warning, succor, and, if the worst should come to
+the very worst, revenge.  It is true that already I had Jacob Rigg,
+and perhaps the protector promised by my cousin; but the former was
+as ignorant as he was honest, and of the latter, as he made no
+sign, how could I tell any thing?
+
+Above all things, Mrs. Busk's position, as mistress of the letters,
+gave me very great advantage both for offense and defense.  For
+without the smallest breach of duty or of loyal honor she could see
+that my letters passed direct to me or from me, as the case might
+be, at the same time that she was bound to observe all epistles
+addressed to strangers or new-comers in her district, which
+extended throughout the valley.  And by putting my letters in the
+Portsmouth bag, instead of that for Winchester, I could freely
+correspond with any of my friends without any one seeing name or
+postmark in the neighboring villages.
+
+It is needless to say that I had long since explored and examined
+with great diligence that lonely spot where my grandfather met his
+terrible and mysterious fate.  Not that there seemed to be any hope
+now, after almost nineteen years, of finding even any token of the
+crime committed there.  Only that it was natural for me, feeling
+great horror of this place, to seek to know it thoroughly.
+
+For this I had good opportunity, because the timid people of the
+valley, toward the close of day, would rather trudge another half
+mile of the homeward road than save brave legs at the thumping cost
+of hearts not so courageous.  For the planks were now called
+"Murder-bridge;" and every body knew that the red spots on it,
+which could never be seen by daylight, began to gleam toward the
+hour of the deed, and glowed (as if they would burn the wood) when
+the church clock struck eleven.
+
+This phenomenon was beyond my gifts of observation; and knowing
+that my poor grandfather had scarcely set foot on the bridge, if
+ever he set foot there at all--which at present was very doubtful--
+also that he had fallen backward, and only bled internally, I could
+not reconcile tradition (however recent) with proven truth.  And
+sure of no disturbance from the step of any native, here I often
+sat in a little bowered shelter of my own, well established up the
+rise, down which the path made zigzag, and screened from that and
+the bridge as well by sheaf of twigs and lop of leaves.  It was a
+little forward thicket, quite detached from the upland copse, to
+which perhaps it had once belonged, and crusted up from the meadow
+slope with sod and mould in alternate steps.  And being quite the
+elbow of a foreland of the meadow-reach, it yielded almost a
+"bird's-eye view" of the beautiful glade and the wandering brook.
+
+One evening when I was sitting here, neither drawing, nor working,
+nor even thinking with any set purpose, but idly allowing my mind
+to rove, like the rivulet, without any heed, I became aware of a
+moving figure in the valley.  At first it did not appear to me as a
+thing at all worth notice; it might be a very straightforward cow,
+or a horse, coming on like a stalking-horse, keeping hind-legs
+strictly behind, in direct desire of water.  I had often seen those
+sweet things that enjoy four legs walking in the line of distance
+as if they were no better off than we are, kindly desiring,
+perhaps, to make the biped spectator content with himself.  And I
+was content to admire this cow or horse, or whatever it might be,
+without any more than could be helped of that invidious feeling
+which has driven the human race now to establish its right to a
+tail, and its hope of four legs.  So little, indeed, did I think of
+what I saw, that when among the hazel twigs, parted carelessly by
+my hand, a cluster of nuts hung manifest, I gathered it, and began
+to crack and eat, although they were scarcely ripe yet.
+
+But while employed in this pleasant way, I happened to glance again
+through my leafy screen, and then I distinguished the figure in the
+distance as that of a man walking rapidly.  He was coming down the
+mill-stream meadow toward the wooden bridge, carrying a fishing
+rod, but clearly not intent on angling.  For instead of following
+the course of the stream, he was keeping quite away from it,
+avoiding also the footpath, or, at any rate, seeming to prefer the
+long shadows of the trees and the tufted places.  This made me look
+at him, and very soon I shrank into my nest and watched him.
+
+As he came nearer any one could tell that he was no village
+workman, bolder than the rest, and venturesome to cross the
+"Murder-bridge" in his haste to be at home.  The fishing rod alone
+was enough to show this when it came into clearer view; for our
+good people, though they fished sometimes, only used rough rods of
+their own making, without any varnish or brass thing for the line.
+And the man was of different height and walk and dress from any of
+our natives.
+
+"Who can he be?" I whispered to myself, as my heart began to beat
+heavily, and then seemed almost to stop, as it answered, "This is
+the man who was in the churchyard."  Ignoble as it was, and
+contemptible, and vile, and traitorous to all duty, my first
+thought was about my own escape; for I felt that if this man saw me
+there he would rush up the hill and murder me.  Within pistol-shot
+of the very place where my grandfather had been murdered--a lonely
+place, an unholy spot, and I was looking at the hand that did it.
+
+The thought of this made me tremble so, though well aware that my
+death might ensue from a twig on the rustle, or a leaf upon the
+flutter, that my chance of making off unseen was gone ere I could
+seize it.  For now the man was taking long strides over the worn-
+out planks of the bridge, disdaining the hand-rail, and looking
+upward, as if to shun sight of the footing.  Advancing thus, he
+must have had his gaze point-blank upon my lair of leafage; but,
+luckily for me, there was gorse upon the ridge, and bracken and
+rag-thistles, so that none could spy up and through the footing of
+my lurking-place.  But if any person could have spied me, this man
+was the one to do it.  So carefully did he scan the distance and
+inspect the foreground, as if he were resolved that no eye should
+be upon him while he was doing what he came to do.  And he even
+drew forth a little double telescope, such as are called
+"binoculars," and fixed it on the thicket which hid me from him,
+and then on some other dark places.
+
+No effort would compose or hush the heavy beating of my heart; my
+lips were stiffened with dread of loud breath, and all power of
+motion left me.  For even a puff of wind might betray me, the
+ruffle of a spray, or the lifting of a leaf, or the random bounce
+of a beetle.  Great peril had encompassed me ere now, but never had
+it grasped me as this did, and paralyzed all the powers of my body.
+Rather would I have stood in the midst of a score of Mexican rovers
+than thus in the presence of that one man.  And yet was not this
+the very thing for which I had waited, longed, and labored?  I
+scorned myself for this craven loss of nerve, but that did not
+enable me to help it.  In this benumbed horror I durst not even
+peep at the doings of my enemy; but presently I became aware that
+he had moved from the end of the planks (where he stood for some
+time as calmly as if he had done nothing there), and had passed
+round the back of the hawthorn-tree, and gone down to the place
+where the body was found, and was making most narrow and minute
+search there.  And now I could watch him without much danger,
+standing as I did well above him, while his eyes were steadfastly
+bent downward.  And, not content with eyesight only, he seemed to
+be feeling every blade of grass or weed, every single stick or
+stone, craning into each cranny of the ground, and probing every
+clod with his hands.  Then, after vainly searching with the very
+utmost care all the space from the hawthorn trunk to the meadow-
+leet (which was dry as usual), he ran, in a fury of impatience, to
+his rod, which he had stuck into the bank, as now I saw, and drew
+off the butt end, and removed the wheel, or whatever it is that
+holds the fishing line; and this butt had a long spike to it,
+shining like a halberd in a picture.
+
+This made me shudder; but my spirit was returning, and therewith my
+power of reasoning, and a deep stir of curiosity.  After so many
+years and such a quantity of searching, what could there still be
+left to seek for in this haunted and horrible place?  And who was
+the man that was looking for it?
+
+The latter question partly solved itself.  It must be the murderer,
+and no other, whoever he might be among the many black spots of
+humanity.  But as to the other point, no light could be thrown upon
+it, unless the search should be successful, and perhaps not even
+then.  But now this anxiety, and shame of terror, made me so bold--
+for I can not call it brave--that I could not rest satisfied where
+I was, and instead of blessing every leaf and twig that hid me from
+the enemy, nothing would do for me but to creep nearer, in spite of
+that truculent long bright spike.
+
+I thought of my father, and each fibre of my frame seemed to harden
+with vigor and fleetness.  Every muscle of my body could be trusted
+now.  I had always been remarkably light of foot.  Could a man of
+that age catch me?  It was almost as much as Firm Gundry could do,
+as in childish days I had proved to him.  And this man, although
+his hair was not gray, must be on the slow side of fifty now, and
+perhaps getting short of his very wicked breath.  Then I thought of
+poor Firm, and of good Uncle Sam, and how they scorned poltroonery;
+and, better still, I thought of that great Power which always had
+protected me: in a word, I resolved to risk it.
+
+But I had not reckoned upon fire-arms, which such a scoundrel was
+pretty sure to have; and that idea struck cold upon my valor.
+Nevertheless, I would not turn back.  With no more sound than a
+field-mouse makes in the building of its silken nest, and feet as
+light as the step of the wind upon the scarcely ruffled grass, I
+quitted my screen, and went gliding down a hedge, or rather the
+residue of some old hedge, which would shelter me a little toward
+the hollow of the banks.  I passed low places, where the man must
+have seen me if he had happened to look up; but he was stooping
+with his back to me, and working in the hollow of the dry water
+trough.  He was digging with the long spike of his rod, and I heard
+the rattle of each pebble that he struck.
+
+Before he stood up again, to ease his back and to look at the
+ground which he still had to turn, I was kneeling behind a short,
+close-branched holly, the very last bush of the hedge-row, scarcely
+fifteen yards from the hawthorn-tree.  It was quite impossible to
+get nearer without coming face to face with him.  And now I began
+again to tremble, but with a great effort conquered it.
+
+The man was panting with his labor, and seemed to be in a vile
+temper too.  He did not swear, but made low noises full of
+disappointment.  And then he caught up his tool, with a savage
+self-control, and fell to again.
+
+Now was my time to see what he was like, and engrave him on my
+memory.  But, lo! in a moment I need not do that.  The face was the
+bad image of my father's.  A lowered, and vicious, and ill-bred
+image of a noble countenance--such as it was just possible to dream
+that my dear father's might have fallen to, if his mind and soul
+had plunged away from the good inborn and implanted in them.  The
+figure was that of a tall strong man, with shoulders rather
+slouching, and a habit of keeping his head thrown back, which made
+a long chin look longer.  Altogether he seemed a perilous foe, and
+perhaps a friend still more perilous.
+
+Be he what he might, he was working very hard.  Not one of all
+Uncle Sam's men, to my knowledge, least of all Martin, would have
+worked so hard.  With his narrow and ill-adapted tool he contrived
+to turn over, in less than twenty minutes, the entire bed of the
+meadow-leet, or trough, for a length of about ten yards.  Then he
+came to the mouth, where the water of the main stream lapped back
+into it, and he turned up the bottom as far as he could reach, and
+waited for the mud he had raised to clear away.  When this had
+flowed down with the stream, he walked in for some little distance
+till the pool grew deep; but in spite of all his labor, there was
+nothing.
+
+Meanwhile the sunset glow was failing, and a gray autumnal haze
+crept up the tranquil valley.  Shadows waned and faded into dimness
+more diffuse, and light grew soft and vague and vaporous.  The
+gleam of water, and the gloss of grass, and deep relief of trees,
+began to lose their several phase and mingle into one large
+twilight blend.  And cattle, from their milking sheds, came lowing
+for more pasture; and the bark of a shepherd's dog rang quick, as
+if his sheep were drowsy.
+
+In the midst of innocent sights and sounds that murderer's heart
+misgave him.  He left his vain quest off, and gazed, with fear and
+hate of nature's beauty, at the change from day to night which had
+not waited for him.  Some touch of his childhood moved him perhaps,
+some thought of times when he played "I spy," or listened to
+twilight ghost tales; at any rate, as he rose and faced the
+evening, he sighed heavily.
+
+Then he strode away; and although he passed me almost within length
+of his rod, there was little fear of his discovering me, because
+his mind was elsewhere.
+
+It will, perhaps, be confessed by all who are not as brave as lions
+that so far I had acquitted myself pretty well in this trying
+matter.  Horribly scared as I was at first, I had not allowed this
+to conquer me, but had even rushed into new jeopardy.  But now the
+best part of my courage was spent; and when the tall stranger
+refixed his rod and calmly recrossed those ominous planks, I durst
+not set forth on the perilous errand of spying out his ways and
+tracking him.  A glance was enough to show the impossibility in
+those long meadows of following without being seen in this stage of
+the twilight.  Moreover, my nerves had been tried too long, and
+presence of mind could not last forever.  All I could do,
+therefore, was to creep as far as the trunk of the hawthorn-tree,
+and thence observe that my enemy did not return by the way he had
+come, but hastened down the dusky valley.
+
+One part of his labors has not been described, though doubtless a
+highly needful one.  To erase the traces of his work, or at least
+obscure them to a careless eye, when he had turned as much ground
+as he thought it worth his while to meddle with, he trod it back
+again to its level as nearly as might be, and then (with a can out
+of his fishing basket) sluiced the place well with the water of the
+stream.  This made it look to any heedless person, who would not
+descend to examine it, as if there had been nothing more than a
+little reflux from the river, caused by a flush from the mill-pond.
+This little stratagem increased my fear of a cunning and active
+villain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI
+
+A STRONG TEMPTATION
+
+
+Now it will be said, and I also knew, that there was nothing as
+yet, except most frail and feeble evidence, to connect that
+nameless stranger with the crime charged upon my father.  Indeed,
+it might be argued well that there was no evidence at all, only
+inference and suspicion.  That, however, was no fault of mine; and
+I felt as sure about it as if I had seen him in the very act.  And
+this conclusion was not mine alone; for Mrs. Busk, a most clever
+woman, and the one who kept the post-office, entirely agreed with
+me that there could be no doubt on earth about it.
+
+But when she went on to ask me what it was my intention to do next,
+for the moment I could do nothing more than inquire what her
+opinion was.  And she told me that she must have a good night's
+rest before advising any thing.  For the thought of having such a
+heinous character in her own delivery district was enough to
+unhinge her from her postal duties, some of which might be useful
+to me.
+
+With a significant glance she left me to my own thoughts, which
+were sad enough, and too sad to be worth recording.  For Mrs. Busk
+had not the art of rousing people and cheering them, such as Betsy
+Strouss, my old nurse, had, perhaps from her knowledge of the
+nursery.  My present landlady might be the more sagacious and
+sensible woman of the two, and therefore the better adviser; but
+for keeping one up to the mark she was not in any way equal to
+Betsy.
+
+There is no ingratitude in saying this, because she herself
+admitted it.  A clever woman, with a well-balanced mind, knows what
+she can do, and wherein she fails, better than a man of her own
+proportion does.  And Mrs. Busk often lamented, without much real
+mortification, that she had not been "born sympathetic."
+
+All the more perhaps for that, she was born sagacious, which is a
+less pleasing, but, in a bitter pinch, a more really useful,
+quality.  And before I had time to think much of her defects, in
+the crowd of more important thought, in she came again, with a
+letter in her hand, and a sparkle of triumph in her small black
+eyes.  After looking back along the passage, and closing my door,
+she saw that my little bay-window had its old-fashioned shutters
+fastened, and then, in a very low whisper, she said, "What you want
+to know is here, miss."
+
+"Indeed!" I answered, in my usual voice.  "How can you know that?
+The letter is sealed."
+
+"Hush!  Would you have me ruined for your sake?  This was at the
+bottom of the Nepheton bag.  It fell on the floor.  That was God's
+will, to place it in your power."
+
+"It is not in my power," I answered, whispering in my turn, and
+staring at it, in the strong temptation.  "I have no right even to
+look at it.  It is meant for some one else, and sealed."
+
+"The seal is nothing.  I can manage that.  Another drop of wax--and
+I strike our stamp by accident over the breakage.  I refuse to know
+any thing about it.  I am too busy with the other letters.  Five
+minutes--lock the door--and I will come again."
+
+This was a desperate conflict for me, worse even than bodily
+danger.  My first impulse was to have nothing to do with it--even
+to let the letter lie untouched, and, if possible, unglanced at.
+But already it was too late for the eyes to turn away.  The address
+had flashed upon me before I thought of any thing, and while Mrs.
+Busk held it up to me.  And now that address was staring at me,
+like a contemptuous challenge, while the seal, the symbol of
+private rights and deterrent honor, lay undermost.  The letter was
+directed to "H. W. C., Post-office, Newport, Sussex."  The writing
+was in round hand, and clear, so as not to demand any scrutiny, and
+to seem like that of a lawyer's clerk, and the envelope was of thin
+repellent blue.
+
+My second impulse was to break the letter open and read it without
+shrinking.  Public duty must conquer private scruples.  Nothing but
+the hand of Providence itself could have placed this deadly secret
+in my power so amazingly.  Away with all squeamishness, and perhaps
+prevent more murder.
+
+But that "perhaps" gave me sudden pause.  I had caught up the
+letter, and stood near the candle to soften the wax and lift the
+cover with a small sharp paper-knife, when it flashed on my mind
+that my cousin would condemn and scorn what I was doing.
+Unconsciously I must have made him now my standard of human
+judgment, or what made me think of him at that moment?  I threw
+down the letter, and then I knew.  The image of Lord Castlewood had
+crossed my mind, because the initials were his own--those of
+Herbert William Castlewood.  This strange coincidence--if it were,
+indeed, an accident--once more set me thinking.  Might not this
+letter be from his agent, of whom he had spoken as my protector
+here, but to whom as all unseen I scarcely ever gave a thought?
+Might not young Stixon, who so often was at Bruntsea, be employed
+to call at Newport for such letters, and return with them to his
+master?  It was not very likely, for my cousin had the strongest
+contempt of anonymous doings.  Still it was possible, and the bare
+possibility doubled my reluctance to break the seal.
+
+For one minute longer I stood in doubt, and then honor and candor
+and truth prevailed.  If any other life had been in peril but my
+own, duty to another might have overridden all.  But duty to one's
+self, if overpushed in such a case, would hold some taint of
+cowardice.  So I threw the letter, with a sense of loathing, on a
+chair.  Whatever it might contain, it should pass, at least for me,
+inviolate.
+
+Now when Mrs. Busk came to see what I had done, or rather left
+undone, she flew into a towering passion, until she had no time to
+go on with it.  The rattle of the rickety old mail-cart, on its way
+to Winchester that night, was heard, and the horn of the driver as
+he passed the church.
+
+"Give it me.  'A mercy!  A young natural, that you are!" the good
+woman cried, as she flung out of the room to dash her office stamp
+upon that hateful missive, and to seal the leathern bag.  "Seal,
+indeed!  Inviolate!  How many seals have I got to make every day of
+my life?"
+
+I heard a great thump from the corner of the shop where the
+business of the mails was conducted; and she told me afterward that
+she was so put out, that broken that seal should be--one way or
+another.  Accordingly she smashed it with the office stamp, which
+was rather like a woman's act, methought; and then, having broken
+it, she never looked inside--which, perhaps, was even more so.
+
+When she recovered her leisure and serenity, and came in, to
+forgive me and be forgiven, we resolved to dismiss the moral aspect
+of the question, as we never should agree about it, although Mrs.
+Busk was not so certain as she had been, when she found that the
+initials were the initials of a lord.  And then I asked her how she
+came to fix upon that letter among so many others, and to feel so
+sure that it came from my treacherous enemy.
+
+"In the first place, I know every letter from Nepheton," she
+answered, very sensibly.  "There are only fourteen people that
+write letters in the place, and twelve of those fourteen buy their
+paper in my shop--there is no shop at all at Nepheton.  In the next
+place, none of them could write a hand like that, except the parson
+and the doctor, who are far above disguise.  And two other things
+made me certain as could be.  That letter was written at the 'Green
+Man' ale-house; not on their paper, nor yet with their ink; but
+being in great hurry, it was dusted with their sand--a sand that
+turns red upon ink, miss.  And the time of dispatch there is just
+what he would catch, by walking fast after his dig where you saw
+him, going in that direction too, and then having his materials
+ready to save time.  And if all that is not enough to convince you,
+miss--you remember that you told me our old sexton's tale?"
+
+"To be sure I do.  The first evening I was left alone here.  And
+you have been so kind, there is nothing I would hide from you."
+
+"Well, miss, the time of old Jacob's tale is fixed by the death of
+poor old Sally Mock; and the stranger came again after you were
+here, just before the death of the miller's eldest daughter, and
+you might almost have seen him.  Poor thing! we all called her the
+'flower of the Moon,' meaning our little river.  What a fine young
+woman she was, to be sure!  Whenever we heard of any strangers
+about, we thought they were prowling after her.  I was invited to
+her funeral, and I went, and nothing could be done nicer.  But they
+never will be punctual with burials here; they like to dwell on
+them, and keep the bell going, for the sake of the body, and the
+souls that must come after it.  And so, when it was done, I was
+twenty minutes late for the up mail and the cross-country post, and
+had to move my hands pretty sharp, I can assure you.  That doesn't
+matter; I got through it, with the driver of the cart obliging, by
+means of some beer and cold bacon.  But what I feared most was the
+Nepheton bag, having seen the old man at the funeral, and knowing
+what they do afterward.  I could not return him 'too late' again,
+or he would lose his place for certain, and a shilling a day made
+all the difference to him, between wife and no wife.  The old pair
+without it must go to the workhouse, and never see one another.
+However, when I was despairing quite of him, up he comes with his
+bag quite correct, but only one letter to sort in it, and that
+letter was, miss, the very identical of the one you held in your
+hands just now.  And a letter as like it as two peas had come when
+we buried old Sally.  It puzzled me then, but I had no clew to it;
+only now, you see, putting this and that together, the things we
+behold must have some meaning for us; and to let them go without it
+is against the will of God; especially when at the bottom of the
+bag."
+
+"If you hear so soon of any stranger in the valley," I asked, to
+escape the re-opening of the opening question, "how can that man
+come and go--a man of remarkable stature and appearance--without
+any body asking who he is?"
+
+"You scarcely could have put it better, miss, for me to give the
+answer.  They do ask who he is, and they want to know it, and would
+like any body to tell them.  But being of a different breed, as
+they are, from all outside the long valley, speaking also with a
+different voice, they fear to talk so freely out of their own ways
+and places.  Any thing they can learn in and out among themselves,
+they will learn; but any thing out of that they let go, in the
+sense of outlandish matter.  Bless you, miss, if your poor
+grandfather had been shot any where else in England, how different
+it would have been for him!"
+
+"For us, you mean, Mrs. Busk.  Do you think the man who did it had
+that in his mind?"
+
+"Not unless he knew the place, as few know it.  No, that was an
+accident of his luck, as many other things have been.  But the best
+luck stops at last, Miss Erema; and unless I am very much mistaken,
+you will be the stop of his.  I shall find out, in a few days,
+where he came from, where he staid, and when he went away.  I
+suppose you mean to let him go away?"
+
+"What else am I to do?" I asked.  "I have no evidence at all
+against him; only my own ideas.  The police would scarcely take it
+up, even if--"
+
+"Oh, don't talk of them.  They spoil every thing.  And none of our
+people would say a word, or care to help us, if it came to that.
+The police are all strangers, and our people hate them.  And,
+indeed, I believe that the worst thing ever done was the meddling
+of that old Jobbins.  The old stupe is still alive at Petersfield,
+and as pompous-headed as ever.  My father would have been the man
+for your sad affair, miss, if the police had only been invented in
+his time.  Ah, yes, he was sharp!  Not a Moonstock man--you may
+take your oath of that, miss--but a good honest native from Essex.
+But he married my mother, a Moonstock woman; or they would not put
+up with me here at all.  You quality people have your ideas to hold
+by, and despise all others, and reasonable in your opinions; but
+you know nothing--nothing--nothing--of the stiffness of the people
+under you."
+
+"How should I know any thing of that?" I answered; "all these
+things are new to me.  I have not been brought up in this country,
+as you know.  I come from a larger land, where your stiffness may
+have burst out into roughness, from having so much room suddenly.
+But tell me what you think now your father would have done in such
+a case as mine is."
+
+"Miss Erema, he was that long-headed that nobody could play leap-
+frog with him.  None of them ever cleared over his barrel.  He
+walked into this village fifty-five years back, this very month,
+with his spade upon his shoulder and the knowledge of every body in
+his eye.  They all put up against him, but they never put him down;
+and in less than three months he went to church, I do assure you,
+with the only daughter of the only baker.  After that he went into
+the baking line himself; he turned his spade into a shovel, as he
+said, and he introduced new practices."
+
+"Oh, Mrs. Busk, not adulteration?"
+
+"No, miss, no!  The very last thing he would think of.  Only the
+good use of potatoes in the bread, when flour was frightful bad and
+painful dear.  What is the best meal of the day? he used to reason.
+Dinner.  And why?  Why, because of the potatoes.  If I can make
+people take potato for their breakfast, and potato for their supper
+too, I am giving them three meals a day instead of one.  And the
+health of the village corresponded to it."
+
+"Oh, but, Mrs. Busk, he might have made them do it by persuasion,
+or at least with their own knowledge--"
+
+"No, miss, no!  The whole nature of our people, Moonstock or out of
+it, is never to take victuals by any sort of persuasion.  If St.
+Paul was to come and preach, 'Eat this or that,' all I had of it in
+the shop would go rotten.  They hate any meddling with their
+likings, and they suspect doctor's rubbish in all of it."
+
+"I am quite of their opinion," I replied; "and I am glad to hear of
+their independence.  I always used to hear that in England none of
+the poor people dared have a will of their own."
+
+Mrs. Busk lifted up her hands to express amazement at my ignorance,
+and said that she "must run away and put the shutters up, or else
+the policeman would come rapping, and look for a glass of beer,
+which he had no right to till it came to the bottom of the firkin;
+and this one was only tapped last Sunday week.  Don't you ever
+think of the police, miss."
+
+Probably this was good advice, and it quite agreed with the
+opinions of others, and my own impressions as to the arrogant
+lethargy of "the force," as they called themselves, in my father's
+case.  Mrs. Busk had more activity and intelligence in her little
+head than all the fat sergeants and inspectors of the county,
+helmet, belt, and staff, and all.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII
+
+MASTER WITHYPOOL
+
+
+At first I was much inclined to run for help, or at least for
+counsel, either to Lord Castlewood or to Major Hockin; but further
+consideration kept me from doing any thing of the kind.  In the
+first place, neither of them would do much good; for my cousin's
+ill health would prevent him from helping me, even if his strange
+view of the case did not, while the excellent Major was much too
+hot and hasty for a delicate task like this.  And, again, I might
+lose the most valuable and important of all chances by being away
+from the spot just now.  And so I remained at Shoxford for a while,
+keeping strict watch upon the stranger's haunt, and asking about
+him by means of Mrs. Busk.
+
+"I have heard more about him, miss," she said one day, when the
+down letters had been dispatched, which happened about middle-day.
+"He has been here only those three times this summer, upon excuse
+of fishing always.  He stays at old Wellham, about five miles down
+the river, where the people are not true Moonites.  And one thing
+that puzzles them is, that although he puts up there simply for the
+angling, he always chooses times when the water is so low that to
+catch fish is next to impossible.  He left his fishing quarters
+upon the very day after you saw him searching so; and he spoke as
+if he did not mean to come again this season.  And they say that
+they don't want him neither, he is such a morose, close-fisted man;
+and drinking nothing but water, there is very little profit with
+him."
+
+"And did you find out what his name is?  How cleverly you have
+managed!"
+
+"He passes by the name of 'Captain Brown;' but the landlord of his
+inn, who has been an old soldier, is sure he was never in the army,
+nor any other branch of the service.  He thinks that he lives by
+inventing things, for he is always at some experiments, and one of
+his great points is to make a lamp that will burn and move about
+under water.  To be sure you see the object of that, miss?"
+
+"No, really, Mrs. Busk, I can not.  I have not your penetration."
+
+"Why, of course, to find what he can not find upon land.  There is
+something of great importance there, either for its value or its
+meaning.  Have you ever been told that your poor grandfather wore
+any diamonds or precious jewels?"
+
+"No.  I have asked about that most especially.  He had nothing
+about him to tempt a robber.  He was a very strong-willed man, and
+he hated outward trumpery."
+
+"Then it must be something that this man himself has dropped,
+unless it were a document, or any other token, missing from his
+lordship.  And few things of that sort would last for twenty years
+almost."
+
+"Nineteen years the day after to-morrow," I answered, with a glance
+at my pocket-book.  "I determined to be here on that very day.  No
+doubt I am very superstitious.  But one thing I can not understand
+is this--what reason can there have been for his letting so many
+years pass, and then hunting like this?"
+
+"No one can answer that question, miss, without knowing more than
+we know.  But many reasons might be supposed.  He might have been
+roving abroad, for instance, just as you and your father have been.
+Or he might not have known that the thing was there; or it might
+not have been of importance till lately; or he might have been
+afraid, until something else happened.  Does he know that you are
+now in England?"
+
+"How can I possibly tell, Mrs. Busk?  He seems to know a great deal
+too much.  He found me out when I was at Colonel Gundry's.  At
+least I conclude so, from what I know now; but I hope he does not
+know"--and at such a dreadful idea I shuddered.
+
+"I am almost sure that he can not know it," the good postmistress
+answered, "or he would have found means to put an end to you.  That
+would have been his first object."
+
+"But, Mrs. Busk," I said, being much disturbed by her calmness,
+"surely, surely he is not to be allowed to make an end of every
+one!  I came to this country with the full intention of going into
+every thing.  But I did not mean at all, except in my very best
+moments, to sacrifice myself.  It seems too bad--too bad to think
+of."
+
+"So it is, Miss Erema," Mrs. Busk replied, without any congenial
+excitement.  "It does seem hard for them that have the liability on
+them.  But still, miss, you have always shown such a high sense of
+duty, and of what you were about--"
+
+"I can't--I can not.  There are times, I do assure you, when I am
+fit for nothing, Mrs. Busk, and wish myself back in America.  And
+if this man is to have it all his own way--"
+
+"Not he, miss--not he.  Be you in no hurry.  Could he even have his
+way with our old miller?  No; Master Withypool was too many for
+him."
+
+"That is a new thing.  You never told me that.  What did he try to
+do with the miller?"
+
+"I don't justly know what it was, Miss Erema.  I never spoke to
+miller about it, and, indeed, I have had no time since I heard of
+it.  But those that told me said that the tall strange gentleman
+was terribly put out, and left the gate with a black cloud upon his
+face, and the very next day the miller's daughter died, quite
+sudden and mysterious."
+
+"How very strange!  But now I have got a new idea.  Has the miller
+a strong high dam to his pond, and a good stout sluice-gate at the
+end!"
+
+"Yes, miss, to be sure he has," said Mrs. Busk; "otherwise how
+could he grind at all, when the river is so low as it is
+sometimes?"
+
+"Then I know what he wanted, and I will take a leaf out of his own
+book--the miscreant!  He wanted the miller to stop back the water
+and leave the pool dry at the 'Murder-bridge.'  Would it be
+possible for him to do that?"
+
+"I can not tell you, miss; but your thought is very clever.  It is
+likely enough that he did want that, though he never would dare to
+ask without some pretense--some other cause I mean, to show for it.
+He may have been thinking that whatever he was wanting was likely
+to be under water.  And that shows another thing, if it is so."
+
+"Mrs. Busk, my head goes round with such a host of complications.
+I do my best to think them out--and then there comes another!"
+
+"No, miss; this only clears things up a little.  If the man can not
+be sure whether what he is looking for is on land or under water,
+it seems to me almost to show that it was lost at the murder time
+in the dark and flurry.  A man would know if he dropped any thing
+in the water by daylight, from the splash and the ripple, and so
+on, for the stream is quite slow at that corner.  He dropped it,
+miss, when he did the deed, or else it came away from his
+lordship."
+
+"Nothing was lost, as I said before, from the body of my
+grandfather, so far at least as our knowledge goes.  Whatever was
+lost was the murderer's.  Now please to tell me all about the
+miller, and how I may get round him."
+
+"You make me laugh in the middle of black things, miss, by the way
+you have of putting them.  But as to the miller--Master Withypool
+is a wonder, as concerns the ladies.  He is one of those men that
+stand up for every thing when a man tries upper side of them.  But
+let a woman come, and get up under, and there he is--a pie crust
+lifted.  Why, I, at my age, could get round him, as you call it.
+But you, miss--and more than that, you are something like his
+daughter; and the old man frets after her terrible.  Go you into
+his yard, and just smile upon him, miss, and if the Moon River can
+be stopped, he'll stop it for you."
+
+This seemed a very easy way to do it.  But I told Mrs. Busk that I
+would pay well also, for the loss of a day's work at the mill was
+more than fifty smiles could make up.
+
+But she told me, above all things, not to do that.  For old Master
+Withypool was of that sort that he would stand for an hour with his
+hands in his pocket for a half-penny, if not justly owing from him.
+But nothing more angered him than a bribe to step outside of his
+duty.  He had plenty of money, and was proud of it.  But sooner
+would he lose a day's work to do a kindness, when he was sure of
+having right behind it, than take a week's profit without earning
+it.  And very likely that was where the dark man failed, from
+presuming that money would do every thing.  However, there was
+nothing like judging for one's self; and if I would like to be
+introduced, she could do it for me with the best effect; taking as
+she did a good hundred-weight of best "households" from him every
+week, although not herself in the baking line, but always keeping
+quartern bags, because the new baker did adulterate so.
+
+I thought of her father, and how things work round; but that they
+would do without remarks of mine.  So I said nothing on that point,
+but asked whether Master Withypool would require any introduction.
+And to this Mrs. Busk said, "Oh dear, no!"  And her throat had been
+a little rough since Sunday, and the dog was chained tight, even if
+any dog would bite a sweet young lady; and to her mind the miller
+would be more taken up and less fit to vapor into obstacles, if I
+were to hit upon him all alone, just when he came out to the bank
+of his cabbage garden, not so very long after his dinner, to smoke
+his pipe and to see his things a-growing.
+
+It was time to get ready if I meant to catch him then, for he
+always dined at one o'clock, and the mill was some three or four
+meadows up the stream; therefore as soon as Mrs. Busk had re-
+assured me that she was quite certain of my enemy's departure, I
+took my drawing things and set forth to call upon Master Withypool.
+
+Passing through the church-yard, which was my nearest way, and
+glancing sadly at the "fairy ring," I began to have some uneasiness
+about the possible issue of my new scheme.  Such a thing required
+more thinking out than I had given to it.  For instance, what
+reason could I give the miller for asking so strange a thing of
+him?  And how could the whole of the valley be hindered from making
+the greatest talk about the stoppage of their own beloved Moon,
+even if the Moon could be stopped without every one of them rushing
+down to see it?  And if it was so talked of, would it not be
+certain to come to the ears of that awful man?  And if so, how long
+before he found me out, and sent me to rejoin my family?
+
+These thoughts compelled me to be more discreet; and having lately
+done a most honorable thing, in refusing to read that letter, I
+felt a certain right to play a little trick now of a purely
+harmless character.  I ran back therefore to my writing-desk, and
+took from its secret drawer a beautiful golden American eagle, a
+large coin, larger and handsomer than any in the English coinage.
+Uncle Sam gave it to me on my birthday, and I would not have taken
+50 pounds  for it.  With this I hurried to that bridge of fear,
+which I had not yet brought myself to go across; and then, not to
+tell any story about it, I snipped a little hole in the corner of
+my pocket, while my hand was still steady ere I had to mount the
+bridge.  Then pinching that hole up with a squeeze, I ran and got
+upon that wicked bridge, and then let go.  The heavy gold coin fell
+upon the rotten plank, and happily rolled into the water, as if it
+were glad not to tempt its makers to any more sin for the sake of
+it.
+
+Shutting up thought, for fear of despising myself for the coinage
+of such a little trick, I hurried across the long meadow to the
+mill, and went through the cow-gate into the yard, and the dog
+began to bark at me.  Seeing that he had a strong chain on, I
+regarded him with lofty indignation.  "Do you know what Jowler
+would do to you?" I said; "Jowler, a dog worth ten of you.  He
+would take you by the neck and drop you into that pond for daring
+to insult his mistress!"  The dog appeared to feel the force of my
+remarks, for he lay down again, and with one eye watched me in a
+manner amusing, but insidious.  Then, taking good care to keep out
+of his reach, I went to the mill-pond and examined it.
+
+It looked like a very nice pond indeed, long, and large, and well
+banked up, not made into any particular shape, but producing little
+rushy elbows.  The water was now rather low, and very bright
+(though the Moon itself is not a crystal stream), and a school of
+young minnows, just watching a water-spider with desirous awe, at
+sight of me broke away, and reunited, with a speed and precision
+that might shame the whole of our very best modern fighting.  Then
+many other things made a dart away, and furrowed the shadow of the
+willows, till distance quieted the fear of man--that most
+mysterious thing in nature--and the shallow pool was at peace
+again, and bright with unruffled reflections.
+
+"What ails the dog?" said a deep gruff voice; and the poor dog
+received a contemptuous push, not enough to hurt him, but to wound
+his feelings for doing his primary duty.  "Servant, miss.  What can
+I do for you?  Foot-path is t'other side of that there hedge."
+
+"Yes, but I left the foot-path on purpose.  I came to have a talk
+with you, if you will allow me."
+
+"Sartain! sartain," the miller replied, lifting a broad floury hat
+and showing a large gray head.  "Will you come into house, miss, or
+into gearden?"
+
+I chose the garden, and he led the way, and set me down upon an old
+oak bench, where the tinkle of the water through the flood-gates
+could be heard.
+
+"So you be come to paint the mill at last," he said.  "Many a time
+I've looked out for you.  The young leddy down to Mother Busk's, of
+course.  Many's the time we've longed for you to come, you reminds
+us so of somebody.  Why, my old missus can't set eyes on you in
+church, miss, without being forced to sit down a'most.  But we
+thought it very pretty of you not to come, miss, while the trouble
+was so new upon us."
+
+Something in my look or voice made the old man often turn away,
+while I told him that I would make the very best drawing of his
+mill that I could manage, and would beg him to accept it.
+
+"Her ought to 'a been on the plank," he said, with trouble in
+getting his words out.  "But there! what good?  Her never will
+stand on that plank no more.  No, nor any other plank."
+
+I told him that I would put her on the plank, if he had any
+portrait of her showing her dress and her attitude.  Without saying
+what he had, he led me to the house, and stood behind me, while I
+went inside.  And then he could not keep his voice as I went from
+one picture of his darling to another, not thinking (as I should
+have done) of what his feelings might be, but trying, as no two
+were at all alike, to extract a general idea of her.
+
+"Nobody knows what her were to me," the old man said, with a quiet
+little noise and a sniff behind my shoulder.  "And with one day's
+illness her died--her died."
+
+"But you have others left.  She was not the only one.  Please, Mr.
+Withypool, to try to think of that.  And your dear wife still alive
+to share your trouble.  Just think for a moment of what happened to
+my father.  His wife and six children all swept off in a month--and
+I just born, to be brought up with a bottle!"
+
+I never meant, of course, to have said a word of this, but was
+carried away by that common old idea of consoling great sorrow with
+a greater one.  And the sense of my imprudence broke vexatiously
+upon me when the old man came and stood between me and his
+daughter's portraits.
+
+"Well, I never!" he exclaimed, with his bright eyes steadfast with
+amazement.  "I know you now, miss.  Now I knows you.  To think what
+a set of blind newts us must be!  And you the very moral of your
+poor father, in a female kind of way!  To be sure, how well I knew
+the Captain!  A nicer man never walked the earth, neither a more
+unlucky one."
+
+"I beg you--let me beg you," I began to say; "since you have found
+me out like this--"
+
+"Hush, miss, hush!  Not my own wife shall know, unless your own
+tongue telleth her.  A proud man I shall be, Miss Raumur," he
+continued, with emphasis on my local name, "if aught can be found
+in my power to serve you.  Why, Lord bless you, miss," he
+whispered, looking round, "your father and I has spent hours
+together!  He were that pleasant in his ways and words, he would
+drop in from his fishing, when the water was too low, and sit on
+that very same bench where you sat, and smoke his pipe with me, and
+tell me about battles, and ask me about bread.  And many a time I
+have slipped up the gate, to give him more water for his flies to
+play, and the fish not to see him so plainly.  Ah, we have had many
+pleasant spells together; and his eldest boy and girl, Master
+George and Miss Henrietta, used to come and fetch our eggs.  My
+Polly there was in love with him, we said; she sat upon his lap so,
+when she were two years old, and played with his beautiful hair,
+and blubbered--oh, she did blubber, when the Captain went away!"
+
+This invested Polly with new interest for me, and made me determine
+to spare no pains in putting her pretty figure well upon the plank.
+Then I said to the miller, "How kind of you to draw up your sluice-
+gates to oblige my father!  Now will you put them down and keep
+them down, to do a great service both to him and me?"
+
+Without a moment's hesitation, he promised that any thing he could
+do should be done, if I would only tell him what I wanted.  But
+perhaps it would be better to have our talk outside.  Taking this
+hint, I followed him back to the bench in the open garden, and
+there explained what I wished to have done, and no longer concealed
+the true reason.  The good miller answered that with all his heart
+he would do that much to oblige me, and a hundred times more than
+that; but some little thought and care were needful.  With the
+river so low as it was now, he could easily stop the back-water,
+and receive the whole of the current in his dam, and keep it from
+flowing down his wheel trough, and thus dry the lower channel for
+perhaps half an hour, which would be ample for my purpose.
+Engineering difficulties there were none; but two or three other
+things must be heeded.  Miller Sims, a mile or so down river, must
+be settled with, to fill his dam well, and begin to discharge, when
+the upper water failed, so as not to dry the Moon all down the
+valley, which would have caused a commotion.  Miller Sims being own
+brother-in-law to Master Withypool, that could be arranged easily
+enough, after one day's notice.  But a harder thing to manage would
+be to do the business without rousing curiosity, and setting abroad
+a rumor which would be sure to reach my enemy.  And the hardest
+thing of all, said Master Withypool, smiling as he thought of what
+himself had once been, would be to keep those blessed boys away,
+who find out every thing, and go every where.  Not a boy of
+Shoxford but would be in the river, or dancing upon its empty bed,
+screeching and scolloping up into his cap any poor bewildered trout
+chased into the puddles, if it were allowed to leak out, however
+feebly, that the Moon water was to stop running.  And then how was
+I to seek for any thing?
+
+This was a puzzle.  But, with counsel, we did solve it.  And we
+quietly stopped the Moon, without man or boy being much the wiser.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII
+
+GOING TO THE BOTTOM
+
+
+It is not needful to explain every thing, any more than it was for
+me to tell the miller about my golden eagle, and how I had managed
+to lose it in the Moon--a trick of which now I was heartily
+ashamed, in the face of honest kindness.  So I need not tell how
+Master Withypool managed to settle with his men, and to keep the
+boys unwitting of what was about to come to pass.  Enough that I
+got a note from him to tell me that the little river would be run
+out, just when all Shoxford was intent upon its dinner, on the
+second day after I had seen him.  And he could not say for certain,
+but thought it pretty safe, that nobody would come near me, if I
+managed to be there at a quarter before one, when the stream would
+begin to run dry, and I could watch it.  I sent back a line by the
+pretty little girl, a sister of poor Polly, to say how much I
+thanked him, and how much I hoped that he himself would meet me
+there, if his time allowed.  For he had been too delicate to say a
+word of that; but I felt that he had a good right to be there, and,
+knowing him now, I was not afraid.
+
+Nearly every thing came about as well as could be wished almost.
+Master Withypool took the precaution, early in the morning, to set
+his great fierce bull at large, who always stopped the foot-path.
+This bull knew well the powers of a valley in conducting sound; and
+he loved to stand, as if at the mouth of a funnel, and roar down it
+to another bull a mile below him, belonging to his master's
+brother-in-law.  And when he did this, there was scarcely a boy,
+much less a man or woman, with any desire to assert against him the
+public right of thoroughfare.  Throughout that forenoon, then, this
+bull bellowed nobly, still finding many very wicked flies about, so
+that two mitching boys, who meant to fish for minnows with a pin,
+were obliged to run away again.
+
+However, I was in the dark about him, and as much afraid of him as
+any body, when he broke into sight of me round a corner, without
+any tokens of amity.  I had seen a great many great bulls before,
+including Uncle Sam's good black one, who might not have meant any
+mischief at all, and atoned for it--if he did--by being washed away
+so.
+
+And therefore my courage soon returned, when it became quite clear
+that this animal now had been fastened with a rope, and could come
+no nearer.  For some little time, then, I waited all alone, as near
+that bridge as I could bring myself to stand, for Mrs. Busk, my
+landlady, could not leave the house yet, on account of the mid-day
+letters.  Moreover, she thought that she had better stay away, as
+our object was to do things as quietly as could be.
+
+Much as I had watched this bridge from a distance, or from my
+sheltering-place, I had never been able to bring myself to make any
+kind of sketch of it, or even to insert it in a landscape, although
+it was very well suited and expressive, from its crooked and
+antique simplicity.  The overhanging, also, of the hawthorn-tree
+(not ruddy yet, but russety with its coloring crop of coral), and
+the shaggy freaks of ivy above the twisted trunk, and the curve of
+the meadows and bold elbow of the brook, were such as an artist
+would have pitched his tent for, and tantalized poor London people
+with a dream of cool repose.
+
+As yet the little river showed no signs of doing what the rustic--
+or surely it should have been the cockney--was supposed to stand
+still and wait for.  There was no great rush of headlong water, for
+that is not the manner of the stream in the very worst of weather;
+but there was the usual style of coming on, with lips and steps at
+the sides, and cords of running toward the middle.  Quite enough,
+at any rate, to make the trout jump, without any omen of impending
+drought, and to keep all the play and the sway of movement going on
+serenely.
+
+I began to be afraid that the miller must have failed in his
+stratagem against the water-god, and that, as I had read in Pope's
+Homer, the liquid deity would beat the hero, when all of a sudden
+there were signs that man was the master of this little rustic.
+Broadswords of flag and rapiers of water-grass, which had been
+quivering merrily, began to hang down and to dip themselves in
+loops, and the stones of the brink showed dark green stripes on
+their sides as they stood naked.  Then fine little cakes of
+conglomerated stuff, which only a great man of nature could
+describe, came floating about, and curdling into corners, and
+holding on to one another in long-tailed strings.  But they might
+do what they liked, and make their very best of it, as they fell
+away to nothing upon stones and mud.  For now more important things
+began to open, the like of which never had been yielded up before--
+plots of slimy gravel, varied with long streaks of yellow mud,
+dotted with large double shells, and parted into little oozy runs
+by wriggling water-weeds.  And here was great commotion and sad
+panic of the fish, large fellows splashing and quite jumping out of
+water, as their favorite hovers and shelves ran dry, and darting
+away, with their poor backs in the air, to the deepest hole they
+could think of.  Hundreds must have come to flour, lard, and butter
+if boys had been there to take advantage.  But luckily things had
+been done so well that boys were now in their least injurious
+moment, destroying nothing worse than their own dinners.
+
+A very little way below the old wooden bridge the little river ran
+into a deepish pool, as generally happens at or near a corner,
+especially where there is a confluence sometimes.  And seeing
+nothing, as I began to search intently, stirring with a long-
+handled spud which I had brought, I concluded that even my golden
+eagle had been carried into that deep place.  However, water or no
+water, I resolved to have it out with that dark pool as soon as the
+rest of the channel should be drained, which took a tormenting time
+to do; and having thick boots on, I pinned up my skirts, and
+jumping down into the shoals, began to paddle in a fashion which
+reminded me of childish days passed pleasantly in the Blue River.
+
+Too busy thus to give a thought to any other thing, I did not even
+see the miller, until he said,
+
+"Good-day, miss," lifting his hat, with a nice kind smile.  "Very
+busy, miss, I see, and right you are to be so.  The water will be
+upon us again in less than half an hour.  Now let me clear away
+they black weeds for you.  I brought this little shivel a-purpose.
+If I may make so bold, miss, what do 'e look to find here?"
+
+"I have not the very smallest notion," I could only answer; "but if
+there is any thing, it must be in that hole.  I have searched all
+the shallow part so closely that I doubt whether even a sixpence
+could escape me, unless it were buried in the mud or pebbles.  Oh,
+how can I manage to search that hole?  There must be a yard of
+water there."
+
+"One thing I ought to have told 'e for to do," Master Withypool
+whispered, as he went on shoveling--"to do what the boys do when
+they lose a farden--to send another after un.  If so be now, afore
+the water was run out, you had stood on that there bridge, and
+dropped a bright coin into it, a new half crown or a two-shilling
+piece, why, the chances would be that the run of the current would
+'a taken it nigh to the likeliest spot for holding any other little
+matter as might 'a dropped, permiskous, you might say, into this
+same water."
+
+"I have done so," I answered; "I have done that very thing, though
+not at all with that object.  The day before yesterday a beautiful
+coin, a golden eagle of America, fell from my pocket on that upper
+plank, and rolled into the water.  I would not lose it for a great
+deal, because it was given to me by my dearest friend, the greatest
+of all millers."
+
+"And ha'n't you found it yet, miss?  Well, that is queer.  Perhaps
+we shall find it now, with something to the back of it.  I thought
+yon hole was too far below the bridge.  But there your gold must
+be, and something else, most likely.  Plaise to wait a little bit,
+and us 'll have the wet out of un.  I never should 'a thought of
+that but for your gold guinea, though."
+
+With these words Master Withypool pulled his coat off and rolled up
+his shirt sleeves, displaying arms fit to hold their own even with
+Uncle Sam's almost; and then he fell to with his shovel and dug,
+while I ran with my little spud to help.
+
+"Plaise keep out of way, miss; I be afeard of knocking you.  Not
+but what you works very brave indeed, miss."
+
+Knowing what men are concerning "female efforts," I got out of the
+strong man's way, although there was plenty of room for me.  What
+he wanted to do was plain enough--to dig a trench down the empty
+bed of the Moon River, deep enough to drain that pit before the
+stream came down again.
+
+"Never thought to run a race against my own old dam," he said, as
+he stopped for a moment to recover breath.  "Us never knows what us
+may have to do.  Old dam must be a'most busting now.  But her's
+sound enough, till her beginneth to run over."
+
+I did not say a word, because it might have done some mischief, but
+I could not help looking rather anxiously up stream, for fear of
+the water coming down with a rush, as it very soon must do.  Master
+Withypool had been working, not as I myself would have done, from
+the lips of the dark pit downward, but from a steep run some twenty
+yards below, where there was almost a little cascade when the river
+was full flowing; from this he had made his channel upward, cutting
+deeper as he came along, till now, at the brink of the obstinate
+pool, his trench was two feet deep almost.  I had no idea that any
+man could work so with a shovel, which seems such a clumsy tool
+compared with a spade: but a gentleman who knows the country and
+the people told me that, with their native weapon, Moonites will do
+as much digging in an hour as other folk get through in an hour and
+a half with a spade.  But this may be only, perhaps, because they
+are working harder.
+
+"Now," said Master Withypool at last, standing up, with a very red
+face, and desiring to keep all that unheeded--"now, miss, to you it
+belongeth to tap this here little cornder, if desirable.  Plaise to
+excoose of me going up of bank to tell 'e when the wet cometh down
+again."
+
+"Please to do nothing of the sort," I answered, knowing that he
+offered to stand out of sight from a delicate dread of intrusion.
+"Please to tap the pool yourself, and stay here, as a witness of
+what we find in it."
+
+"As you plaise, miss, as you plaise.  Not a moment for to lose in
+arguing.  Harken now, the water is atopping of our dam.  Her will
+be here in five minutes."
+
+With three or four rapid turns of his shovel, which he spun almost
+as fast as a house-maid spins a mop, he fetched out the plug of
+earth severing his channel from the deep, reluctant hole.  And then
+I saw the wisdom of his way of working: for if he had dug downward
+from the pool itself, the water would have followed him all the
+way, and even drowned his tool out of its own strokes; whereas now,
+with a swirl and a curl of ropy mud, away rushed the thick,
+sluggish, obstinate fluid, and in less than two minutes the hole
+was almost dry.
+
+The first thing I saw was my golden eagle, lodged about half-way
+down the slope on a crust of black sludge, from which I caught it
+up and presented it to Master Withypool, as a small token and
+record of his kindness; and to this day he carries it upon his
+Sunday watch chain.
+
+"I always am lucky in finding things," I exclaimed, while he
+watched me, and the up stream too, whence a babble of water was
+approaching.  "As sure as I live I have found it!"
+
+"No doubt about your living, miss.  And the Captain were always
+lively.  But what have your bright eyes hit upon?  I see nort for
+the life of me."
+
+"Look there," I cried, "at the very bottom of it--almost under the
+water.  Here, where I put my spud--a bright blue line!  Oh, can I
+go down, or is it quicksand?"
+
+"No quicksand in our little river, miss.  But your father's
+daughter shannot go into the muck, while John Withypool stands by.
+I see un now, sure enough; now I see un!  But her needeth care, or
+her may all goo away in mullock.  Well, I thought my eyes was sharp
+enough; but I'm blest if I should have spied that, though.  A bit
+of flint, mebbe, or of blue glass bottle.  Anyhow, us will see the
+bottom of un."
+
+He was wasting no time while he spoke, but working steadfastly for
+his purpose, fixing the blade of his shovel below the little blue
+line I was peering at, so that no slip of the soft yellow slush
+should bury it down, and plunge over it.  If that had once
+happened, good-by to all chance of ever beholding this thing again,
+for the river was coming, with fury and foam, to assert its ancient
+right of way.
+
+With a short laugh the miller jumped down into the pit.  "Me to be
+served so, by my own mill-stream!  Lor', if I don't pay you out for
+this!"
+
+His righteous wrath failed to stop the water from pouring into the
+pit behind him; and, strong as he was, he nearly lost his footing,
+having only mud to stand upon.  It seemed to me that he was going
+to be drowned, and I offered him the handle of my spud to help him;
+but he stopped where he was, and was not going to be hurried.
+
+"I got un now," he said; "now I don't mind coming out.  You see if
+I don't pay you out for this!  Why, I always took you for a
+reasonable hanimal."
+
+He shook his fist strongly at the river, which had him well up to
+the middle by this time; and then he disdainfully waded out, with
+wrath in all his countenance.
+
+"I've a great mind to stop there, and see what her would do," he
+said to me, forgetting altogether what he went for.  "And I would,
+if I had had my dinner.  A scat of a thing as I can manage with my
+thumb!  Ah, you have made a bad day of it."
+
+"But what have you found, Mr. Withypool?" I asked, for I could not
+enter into his wrath against the water, wet as he was to the
+shoulders.  "You have something in your hand.  May I see it, if you
+please?  And then do please to go home and change your clothes."
+
+"A thing I never did in my life, miss, and should be ashamed to
+begin at this age.  Clothes gets wet, and clothes dries on us, same
+as un did on the sheep afore us; else they gets stiff and creasy.
+What this little thing is ne'er a body may tell, in my line of
+life--but look'th aristocratic."
+
+The "mullock," as he called it, from his hands, and from the bed
+where it had lain so long, so crusted the little thing which he
+gave me, that I dipped it again in the swelling stream, and rubbed
+it with both hands, to make out what it was.  And then I thought
+how long it had lain there; and suddenly to my memory it came, that
+in all likelihood the time of that was nineteen years this very
+day.
+
+"Will another year pass," I cried, "before I make out all about it?
+What are you, and who, now looking at me with such sad, sad eyes?"
+
+For I held in my hand a most handsome locket, of blue enamel and
+diamonds, with a back of chased gold, and in front the miniature of
+a beautiful young woman, done as they never seem to do them now.
+The work was so good, and the fitting so close, that no drop of
+water had entered, and the face shone through the crystal glass as
+fresh as the day it was painted.  A very lovely face it was, yet
+touched with a shade of sadness, as the loveliest faces generally
+are; and the first thought of any beholder would be, "That woman
+was born for sorrow."
+
+The miller said as much when I showed it to him.
+
+"Lord bless my heart!  I hope the poor craitur' hathn't lasted half
+so long as her pictur' hath."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV
+
+HERMETICALLY SEALED
+
+
+The discovery which I have described above (but not half so well as
+the miller tells it now) created in my young heart a feeling of
+really strong curiosity.  To begin with, how could this valuable
+thing have got into the Moon-stream, and lain there so long,
+unsought for, or at best so unskillfully sought for?  What
+connection could it have with the tragic death of my grandfather?
+Why was that man so tardily come to search for it, if he might do
+so without any body near him?  Again, what woman was this whose
+beauty no water or mud could even manage to disguise?  That last
+was a most disturbing question to one's bodily peace of mind.  And
+then came another yet more urgent--what was in the inside of this
+tight case?
+
+That there was something inside of it seemed almost a certainty.
+The mere value of the trinket, or even the fear that it ever might
+turn up as evidence, would scarcely have brought that man so often
+to stir suspicion by seeking it; though, after so long a time, he
+well might hope that suspicion was dead and buried.  And being
+unable to open this case--after breaking three good nails over it,
+and then the point of a penknife--I turned to Master Withypool, who
+was stamping on the grass to drain himself.
+
+"What sort of a man was that," I asked, "who wanted you to do what
+now you have so kindly done for me?  About a month or six weeks
+ago?  Do please to tell me, as nearly as you can."
+
+If Mrs. Withypool had been there, she might have lost all patience
+with me for putting long questions so selfishly to a man who had
+done so much for me, and whose clothes were now dripping in a wind
+which had arisen to test his theory of drying.  He must have lost a
+large quantity of what scientific people call "caloric."  But never
+a shiver gave he in exchange.
+
+"Well, miss," he said, "I was thinking a'most of speaking on that
+very matter.  More particular since you found that little thing,
+with the pretty lady inside of it.  It were borne in on my mind
+that thissom were the very thing he were arter."
+
+"No doubt of it," I answered, with far less patience, though being
+comparatively dry.  "But what was he like?  Was he like this
+portrait?"
+
+"This picture of the lady?  No; I can't say that he were, so much.
+The face of a big man he hath, with short black fringes to it.
+Never showeth to my idea any likeliness of a woman.  No, no, miss;
+think you not at all that you have got him in that blue thing.
+Though some of their pictures is like men, the way they dress up
+nowadays."
+
+"I did not mean that it was meant for him; what I mean is, do you
+see any sign of family likeness?  Any resemblance about the eyes,
+or mouth, or forehead?"
+
+"Well, now, I don't know but what I might," replied Master
+Withypool, gazing very hard; "if I was to look at 'un long enough,
+a' might find some'at favoring of that tall fellow, I do believe.
+Indeed, I do believe the more I look, the more I diskivers the
+image of him."
+
+The good and kind miller's perception of the likeness strengthened
+almost too fast, as if the wish were father to the thought, until I
+saw clearly how selfish I was in keeping him in that state so long;
+for I knew, from what Mrs. Busk had told me, that in spite of all
+his large and grand old English sentiments about his clothes, his
+wife would make him change them all ere ever she gave him a bit of
+dinner, and would force him then to take a glass of something hot.
+So I gave him a thousand thanks, though not a thousandth part of
+what he deserved, and saw him well on his homeward way before I
+went back to consider things.
+
+As soon as my landlady was at leisure to come in and talk with me,
+and as soon as I had told her how things happened, and shown her
+our discovery, we both of us did the very same thing, and said
+almost the very same words.  Our act was, with finger and nail and
+eye, to rime into every jot of it; and our words were,
+
+"I am sure there is something inside.  If not, it would open
+sensibly."
+
+In the most senseless and obstinate manner it refused not only to
+open, but to disclose any thing at all about itself.  Whether it
+ever had been meant to open, and if so, where, and by what means;
+whether, without any gift of opening, it might have a hidden thing
+inside; whether, when opened by force or skill, it might show
+something we had no business with, or (which would be far worse)
+nothing at all--good Mrs. Busk and myself tested, tapped, and felt,
+and blew, and listened, and tried every possible overture, and
+became at last quite put out with it.
+
+"It is all of a piece with the villains that owned it," the
+postmistress exclaimed at last.  "There is no penetrating either it
+or them.  Most likely they have made away with this beautiful lady
+on the cover.  Kill one, kill fifty, I have heard say.  I hope
+Master Withypool will let out nothing, or evil it will be for you,
+miss.  If I was you, I would carry a pistol."
+
+"Now please not to frighten me, Mrs. Busk.  I am not very brave at
+the best of times, and this has made me so nervous.  If I carried a
+pistol, I should shoot myself the very first hour of wearing it.
+The mere thought of it makes me tremble.  Oh, why was I ever born,
+to do man's work?"
+
+"Because, miss, a man would not have done it half so well.  When
+you saw that villain digging, a man would have rushed out and
+spoiled all chance.  And now what man could have ever found this?
+Would Master Withypool ever have emptied the Moon River for a man,
+do you think?  Or could any man have been down among us all this
+time, in this jealous place, without his business being long ago
+sifted out and scattered over him?  No, no, miss; you must not talk
+like that--and with me as well to help you.  The rogues will have
+reason to wish, I do believe, that they had only got a man to deal
+with."
+
+In this argument there were points which had occurred to me before;
+but certainly it is a comfort to have one's own ideas in a doubtful
+matter reproduced, and perhaps put better, by a mind to which one
+may have lent them, perhaps, with a loan all unacknowledged.
+However, trouble teaches care, and does it so well that the master
+and the lesson in usage of words are now the same; therefore I
+showed no sign of being suggested with my own suggestions, but only
+asked, quietly, "What am I to do?"
+
+"My dear young lady," Mrs. Busk replied, after stopping some time
+to think of it, "my own opinion is, for my part, that you ought to
+consult somebody."
+
+"But I am, Mrs. Busk.  I am now consulting you."
+
+"Then I think, miss, that this precious case should be taken at
+once to a jeweler, who can open it without doing any damage, which
+is more than we can do."
+
+"To be sure; I have thought of that," I replied.  "But how can that
+be done without arousing curiosity?--without the jeweler seeing its
+contents, if indeed it has any?  And in that case the matter would
+be no longer at our own disposal, as now it is.  I have a great
+mind to split it with a hammer.  What are the diamonds to me?"
+
+"It is not the diamonds, but the picture, miss, that may be most
+important.  And more than that, you might ruin the contents, so as
+not to make head or tale of them.  No, no; it is a risk that must
+be run; we must have a jeweler, but not one of this neighborhood."
+
+"Then I shall have to go to London again, and perhaps lose
+something most important here.  Can you think of no other way out
+of it?"
+
+"No, miss, at present I see nothing else.  Unless you will place it
+all in the hands of the police."
+
+"Constable Jobbins, to wit, or his son!  No, thank you, Mrs. Busk,
+not yet.  Surely we are not quite reduced to such a hopeless pass
+as that.  My father knew what the police were worth, and so does
+Betsy, and so does Major Hockin.  'Pompous noodles,' the Major
+calls them, who lay hold of every thing by the wrong end."
+
+"Then if he can lay hold of the right end, miss, what better could
+you do than consult him?"
+
+I had been thinking of this already, and pride alone debarred me.
+That gentleman's active nature drove him to interfere with other
+people's business, even though he had never heard of them; and yet
+through some strange reasoning of his own, or blind adoption of
+public unreason, he had made me dislike, or at any rate not like,
+him, until he began to show signs at last of changing his opinion.
+And now the question was, had he done that enough for me, without
+loss of self-respect, to open my heart to him, and seek counsel?
+
+In settling that point the necessity of the case overrode, perhaps,
+some scruples; in sooth, I had nobody else to go to.  What could I
+do with Lord Castlewood?  Nothing; all his desire was to do exactly
+what my father would have done: and my father had never done any
+thing more than rove and roam his life out.  To my mind this was
+dreadful now, when every new thing rising round me more and more
+clearly to my mind established what I never had doubted--his
+innocence.  Again, what good could I do by seeking Betsy's opinion
+about it, or that of Mrs. Price, or Stixon, or any other person
+I could think of?  None whatever--and perhaps much harm.  Taking
+all in all, as things turn up, I believed myself to be almost equal
+to the cleverest of those three in sense, and in courage not
+inferior.  Moreover, a sort of pride--perhaps very small, but not
+contemptible--put me against throwing my affairs so much into the
+hands of servants.
+
+For this idea Uncle Sam, no doubt the most liberal of men, would
+perhaps condemn me.  But still I was not of the grand New World,
+whose pedigrees are arithmetic (at least with many of its items,
+though the true Uncle Sam was the last for that); neither could I
+come up to the largeness of universal brotherhood.  That was not to
+be expected of a female; and few things make a man more angry than
+for his wife to aspire to it.  No such ideas had ever troubled me;
+I had more important things to think of, or, at any rate, something
+to be better carried out.  And of all these desultory thoughts it
+came that I packed up that odious but very lovely locket, without
+further attempt to unriddle it, and persuaded my very good and
+clever Mrs. Busk to let me start right early.  By so doing I could
+have three hours with a good gentleman always in a hurry, and yet
+return for the night to Shoxford, if he should advise me so.
+
+Men and women seem alike to love to have their counsels taken; and
+the equinox being now gone by, Mrs. Busk was ready to begin before
+the tardy sun was up, who begins to give you short measure at once
+when he finds the weights go against him.  Mrs. Busk considered not
+the sun, neither any of his doings.  The time of day was more
+momentous than any of the sun's proceedings.  Railway time was what
+she had to keep (unless a good customer dropped in), and as for the
+sun--"clock slow, clock fast," in the almanacs, showed how he
+managed things; and if that was not enough, who could trust him to
+keep time after what he had done upon the dial of Ahaz?  Reasoning
+thus--if reason it was--she packed me off in a fly for the nearest
+railway station, and by midday I found the Major laboring on his
+ramparts.
+
+After proper salutations, I could not help expressing wonder at the
+rapid rise of things.  Houses here and houses there, springing up
+like children's teeth, three or four in a row together, and then a
+long gap, and then some more.  And down the slope a grand hotel,
+open for refreshment, though as yet it had no roof on; for the
+Major, in virtue of his charter, defied all the magistrates to stop
+him from selling whatever was salable on or off the premises.  But
+noblest and grandest of all to look at was the "Bruntsea Athenaeum,
+Lyceum, Assembly-Rooms, Institution for Mutual Instruction,
+Christian Young Men's Congress, and Sanitary, Saline, Hydropathic
+Hall, at nominal prices to be had gratis."
+
+"How you do surprise me!" I said to Major Hockin, after reading all
+that, which he kindly requested me to do with care; "but where are
+the people to come from?"
+
+"Erema," he replied, as if that question had been asked too often,
+"you have not had time to study the laws of political economy--the
+noblest of noble sciences.  The first of incontrovertible facts is
+that supply creates demand.  Now ask yourself whether there could
+even be a Yankee if ideas like yours had occurred to Columbus?"
+
+This was beyond me; for I never could argue, and strove to the
+utmost not to do so.  "You understand those things, and I do not,"
+said I, with a smile, which pleased him.  "My dear aunt Mary always
+says that you are the cleverest man in the world; and she must know
+most about it."
+
+"Partiality! partiality!" cried the Major, with a laugh, and
+pulling his front hair up.  "Such things pass by me like the idle
+wind; or rather, perhaps, they sadden me, from my sense of my own
+deficiencies.  But, bless me! dinner must be waiting.  Look at that
+fellow's trowel--he knows: he turns up the point of it like a
+spoon.  They say that he can smell his dinner two miles off.  We
+all dine at one o'clock now, that I may rout up every man-Jack of
+them."
+
+The Major sounded a steam-guard's whistle, and led me off in the
+rapidly vanishing wake of his hungry workmen.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV
+
+CONVICTION
+
+
+Sir Montague Hockin, to my great delight, was still away from
+Bruntsea.  If he had been there, it would have been a most awkward
+thing for me to meet him, or to refuse to do so.  The latter course
+would probably have been the one forced upon me by self-respect and
+affection toward my cousin; and yet if so, I could scarcely have
+avoided an explanation with my host.  From the nature of the
+subject, and several other reasons, this would have been most
+unpleasant; and even now I was haunted with doubts, as I had been
+from the first, whether I ought not to have told Mrs. Hockin long
+ago what had been said of him.  At first sight that seemed the
+honest thing to do; but three things made against it.  It might
+seem forward and meddlesome; it must be a grievous thing to my
+cousin to have his sad story discussed again; and lastly, I had
+promised Mrs. Price that her words should go no further.  So that
+on the whole perhaps I acted aright in keeping that infamous tale
+to myself as long as ever it was possible.
+
+But now ere ever I spoke of him--which I was always loath to do--
+Mrs. Hockin told me that he very seldom came to see them now, and
+when he did come he seemed to be uneasy and rather strange in his
+manners.  I thought to myself that the cause of this was clear.
+Sir Montague, knowing that I went to Castlewood, was pricked in his
+conscience, and afraid of having his vile behavior to my cousin
+disclosed.  However, that idea of mine was wrong, and a faulty
+conception of simple youth.  The wicked forgive themselves so
+quickly, if even they find any need of it, that every body else is
+supposed to do the same.  With this I have no patience.  A wrong
+unrepented of and unatoned gathers interest, instead of getting
+discount, from lost time.  And so I hated that man tenfold.
+
+Good Mrs. Hockin lamented his absence not only for the sake of her
+darling fowls, but also because she considered him a check upon the
+Major's enterprise.  Great as her faith was in her husband's
+ability and keenness, she was often visited with dark misgivings
+about such heavy outlay.  Of economy (as she often said) she
+certainly ought to know something, having had to practice it as
+strictly as any body in the kingdom, from an age she could hardly
+remember.  But as for what was now brought forward as a great
+discovery--economy in politics--Mrs. Hockin had tried to follow
+great opinions, but could only find, so far, downright extravagance.
+Supply (as she had observed fifty times with her own butcher and
+fishmonger), instead of creating demand, produced a lot of people
+hankering round the corner, till the price came down to nothing.
+And if it were so with their institutions--as her dear husband
+called his new public-house--who was to find all the interest due
+to the building and land societies?  Truly she felt that Sir Rufus
+Hockin, instead of doing any good to them, had behaved very badly
+in leaving them land, and not even a shilling to work it with.
+
+It relieved her much to tell me this, once for all and in strict
+confidence; because her fine old-fashioned (and we now may say
+quite obsolete) idea of duty toward her husband forbade her ever to
+say to him, or about him, when it could be helped, any thing he
+might not like, any thing which to an evil mind might convey a
+desire on her part to meddle with--with--
+
+"Political economy," I said; and she laughed, and said, Yes, that
+was just it.  The Major of course knew best, and she ought with all
+her heart to trust him not to burden their old days with debt,
+after all the children they had brought up and fairly educated upon
+the professional income of a distinguished British officer, who is
+not intended by his superiors to provide successors.
+
+"Perhaps it is like the boiled eggs they send me," the old lady
+said, with her soft sweet smile, "for my poor hens to sit upon.
+Their race is too good to be made common.  So now they get tinkers'
+and tailors' boys, after much competition, and the crammed sons of
+cooks.  And in peace-time they do just as well."
+
+Of such things I knew nothing; but she seemed to speak with
+bitterness, the last thing to be found in all her nature, yet
+discoverable--as all bad things (except its own) are--by the
+British government.  I do not speak from my own case, in which they
+discovered nothing.
+
+By the time these things had been discussed, my host (who was
+always particular about his dress) came down to dinner, and not
+until that was over could I speak of the subject which had brought
+me there.  No sooner had I begun my tale than they both perceived
+that it must neither be flurried nor interrupted, least of all
+should it be overheard.
+
+"Come into my lock-up," cried the Major; "or, better still, let us
+go out of doors.  We can sit in my snuggery on the cliff, with only
+gulls and jackdaws to listen, and mount my telescope and hoist my
+flag, and the men know better than to skulk their work.  I can see
+every son of a gun of them as clearly as if I had them on parade.
+You wish Mrs. Hockin to come, I suppose.  Very well, let us be off
+at once.  I shall count my fellows coming back from dinner."
+
+With a short quick step the Major led the way to a beautifully
+situated outpost at a corner of the cliff, where land and sea for
+many a fair league rolled below.  A niche of the chalk had been
+cleverly enlarged and scooped into a shell-shaped bower, not,
+indeed, gloriously overhung, as in the far West might have been,
+but broken of its white defiant glare by climbing and wandering
+verdure.  Seats and slabs of oak were fixed to check excess of
+chalkiness, and a parapet of a pattern which the Major called
+Egyptian saved fear of falling down the cliff, and served to spread
+a paper on, or to rest a telescope.
+
+"From this point," said the Major, crossing wiry yet substantial
+legs, "the whole of my little domain may be comprised as in a
+bird's-eye view.  It is nothing, of course, much less than nothing,
+compared with the Earl of Crowcombe's, or the estate of Viscount
+Gamberley; still, such as it is, it carries my ideas, and it has an
+extent of marine frontage such as they might envy.  We are asked 5
+pounds per foot for a thread of land fronting on a highway, open to
+every kind of annoyance, overlooked, without any thing to look at.
+How much, then, per fathom (or measure, if you please, by cable-
+lengths) is land worth fronting the noble, silent, uncontaminating,
+healthful sea?  Whence can come no coster-mongers' cries, no
+agitating skir of bagpipes or the maddening hurdy-gurdy, no German
+band expecting half a crown for the creation of insanity; only
+sweet murmur of the wavelets, and the melodious whistle of a
+boatman catching your breakfast lobster.  Where, again, if you love
+the picturesque--"
+
+"My dear," said Mrs. Hockin, gently, "you always were eloquent from
+the first day I saw you; and if you reconstitute our borough, as
+you hope, and enter Parliament for Bruntsea, what a sensation you
+will create!  But I wished to draw your attention to the fact that
+Erema is waiting to tell her tale."
+
+"To be sure.  I will not stop her.  Eloquence is waste of time, and
+I never yet had half a second to spare.  Fear no eloquence from me;
+facts and logic are my strong points.  And now, Erema, show what
+yours are."
+
+At first this made me a little timid, for I had never thought that
+any strong points would be needed for telling a simple tale.  To my
+mind the difficulty was, not to tell the story, but to know what to
+make of it when told; and soon I forgot all about myself in telling
+what I had seen, heard, and found.
+
+The Major could not keep himself from stamping great holes through
+his--something I forget the name of, but people sow it to make turf
+of chalk--and dear "Aunt Mary's" soft pink cheeks, which her last
+grandchild might envy, deepened to a tone of rose; while her eyes,
+so full of heavenly faith when she got upon lofty subjects, took a
+most human flash and sparkle of hatred not theological.
+
+"Seven!" she cried; "oh, Nicholas, Nicholas, you never told me
+there were seven!"
+
+"There were not seven graves without the mother," the Major
+answered, sternly.  "And what odds whether seven or seventy?  The
+criminality is the point, not the accumulation of results.  Still,
+I never heard of so big a blackguard.  And what did he do next, my
+dear?"
+
+The way in which they took my story was a great surprise to me,
+because, although they were so good, they had never paid any
+attention to it until it became exciting.  They listened with mere
+politeness until the scent of a very wicked man began to taint my
+narrative; but from that moment they drew nearer, and tightened
+their lips, and held their breath, and let no word escape them.  It
+made me almost think that people even of pure excellence, weaned as
+they are from wicked things by teaching and long practice, must
+still retain a hankering for them done at other people's cost.
+
+"And now," cried the Major, "let us see it"--even before I had time
+to pull it out, though ready to be quick, from a knowledge of his
+ways.  "Show it, and you shall have my opinion.  And Mary's is
+certain to agree with mine.  My dear, that makes yours so
+priceless."
+
+"Then, Nicholas, if I retain my own, yours is of no value.  Never
+mind that.  Now don't catch words, or neither opinion will be worth
+a thought.  My dear, let us see it and then judge."
+
+"My own idea, but not so well expressed," Major Hockin answered, as
+he danced about, while I with stupid haste was tugging at my
+package of the hateful locket.  For I had not allowed that
+deceitful thing any quarters in my pocket, where dear little relics
+of my father lay, but had fastened it under my dress in a manner
+intended in no way for gentlemen to think about.  Such little
+things annoy one's comfort, and destroy one's power of being quite
+high-minded.  However, I got it out at last, and a flash of the sun
+made the difference.
+
+"Brilliants, Mary!" the Major cried; "brilliants of first water;
+such as we saw, you know where; and any officer in the British army
+except myself, I do believe, would have had them at once in his
+camlet pouch--my dear, you know all about it.  Bless my heart, how
+slow you are!  Is it possible you have forgotten it?  There came
+out a fellow, and I cut him down, as my duty was, without ceremony.
+You know how I used to do it, out of regulation, with a slash like
+this--"
+
+"Oh, Nicholas, you will be over the cliff!  You have shown me how
+you used to do it, a thousand times--but you had no cricks in your
+back then: and remember how brittle the chalk is."
+
+"The chalk may be brittle, but I am tough.  I insist upon doing
+every thing as well as I did it forty years ago.  Mary, you ought
+not to speak to me like that.  Eighteen, nineteen, twenty
+brilliants, worth twenty pounds apiece upon an average, I do
+believe.  Four hundred pounds.  That would finish our hotel."
+
+"Nicholas!"
+
+"My dear, I was only in fun.  Erema understands me.  But who is
+this beautiful lady?"
+
+"The very point," I exclaimed, while he held it so that the pensive
+beauty of the face gleamed in soft relief among bright blue enamel
+and sparkling gems.  "The very thing that I must know--that I would
+give my life to know--that I have fifty thousand fancies--"
+
+"Now don't be excited, Erema, if you please.  What will you give me
+to tell you who it is?"
+
+"All those diamonds, which I hate the sight of, and three-quarters
+of my half nugget; and if that is not enough--"
+
+"It is a thousand times too much; I will tell you for just one
+smile, and I know it, will be a smile of unbelief."
+
+"No, no; I will believe it, whoever you say," with excitement
+superior to grammar, I cried; "only tell me at once--don't be so
+long."
+
+"But then you won't believe me when I do tell you," the Major
+replied, in the most provoking way.  "I shall tell you the last
+person you would ever think of, and then you will only laugh at
+me."
+
+"I won't laugh; how can I laugh in such a matter?  I will believe
+you if you say it is--Aunt Mary."
+
+"My dear, you had better say at once that it is I, and have no more
+mystery about it."  Mrs. Hockin was almost as impatient as myself.
+
+"Mrs. Hockin, you must indeed entertain an exalted idea of your own
+charms.  I knew that you were vain, but certainly did not--Well,
+then, if you will allow me no peace, this is the lady that lives
+down in the ruin, and stands like a pillar by my pillar-box."
+
+"I never thought you would joke like that," I cried, with vexation
+and anger.  "Oh, is it a subject to be joked about?"
+
+"I never was graver in my life; and you promised implicitly to
+believe me.  At any rate, believe that I speak in earnest."
+
+"That I must believe, when you tell me so.  But what makes you
+think such a wonderful thing?  I should have thought nothing more
+impossible.  I had made up my mind that it was Flittamore who lived
+down here; but this can not be she.  Flittamore was unheard of at
+the time of my grandfather's death.  Moreover, her character was
+not like this; she was giddy and light and heartless.  This lady
+had a heart--good or bad, a deep one.  Most certainly it is not
+Flittamore."
+
+"Flittamore!  I do not remember that name.  You should either tell
+us all or tell us nothing."  The Major's tone was reproachful, and
+his eyes from their angular roofs looked fierce.
+
+"I have not told you," I said, "because it can have nothing to do
+with it.  The subject is a painful one, and belongs to my family
+only."
+
+"Enough.  I am not inquisitive--on the other hand, too forgetful.
+I have an appointment at 3.25.  It takes me seven minutes and a
+quarter to get there.  I must be two minutes and three-quarters
+late.  Mrs. Hockin, mount the big telescope and point it at the
+ramparts; keep the flag up also.  Those fellows will be certain
+that I am up here, while I enfilade them from the western end with
+this fine binocular.  Surprises maintain discipline.  Good-by, my
+dear, and, Miss Castlewood, good-by.  Tea at 6.30, and not too much
+water."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI
+
+VAIN ZEAL
+
+
+Leaving his telescope leveled at the men, the Major marched off
+with his opera-glass in a consciously provoking style, and Mrs.
+Hockin most heartily joined me in condemning such behavior.  In a
+minute or two, however, she would not have one word said against
+him, and the tide of her mind (as befits a married woman) was
+beyond all science; so that the drift of all words came back to her
+husband's extraordinary merits.  And certainly these, if at all
+like her description, deserved to be dwelt upon at very precious
+periods.
+
+However, I had heard enough of them before; for the Major himself
+was not mute upon this point, though comparatively modest, and
+oftentimes deprecating praise ere ever he received it.  And so I
+brought Mrs. Hockin back at last to talk about the lady who was
+living in the ruin.
+
+"It is not quite a ruin," she said.  "My dear husband is fond of
+picturesque expressions.  However, it is not in very good repair;
+and being unable to get possession of it, through some legal
+quibble, possibly he may look at it from a rather unfavorable point
+of view.  And for the same reason--though he is so purely just--he
+may have formed a bad opinion of the strange individual who lives
+there.  What right has she to be living without his leave upon his
+own manor?  But there she is, and she does not care for us or any
+body.  She fetches all she wants, she speaks to none, and if any
+body calls for rates or taxes, or any other public intrusion, they
+may knock and knock, but never get in, and at last they go away
+again."
+
+"But surely that can not go on forever.  Bruntsea is such an
+enlightened place."
+
+"Our part of it is, but the rest quite benighted.  As the man says--
+I forget his name, but the man that misunderstands us so--his
+contention is that 'Desolate Hole,' as the Major calls it, although
+in the middle of our land, is entirely distinct from it.  My
+husband never will put up with that--his love of justice is far too
+strong--and he means to have a lawsuit.  But still he has reasons
+for not beginning yet; and he puts up with a great deal, I am sure.
+It is too bad for them to tease him so."
+
+"It does seem a very sad thing," I replied; "and the poor soul
+living there all alone!  Even in the summer it is bad enough; but
+whatever will she do when the winter comes?  Why, the sea in bad
+weather must be almost in upon her.  And the roar of the pebbles
+all night!  Major Hockin will never allow her to stay there."
+
+"What can he do, when he can not get in, and they even deny his
+title?  I assure you, Erema, I have sent down cream, and even a
+dozen of my precious eggs, with the lady of the manor's
+compliments; but instead of being grateful, they were never taken
+in; and my Polly--'Miss Polly Hopkins,' you know--very wisely took
+it all to her grandmother."
+
+"To her grandmother instead of mine, as the Major facetiously calls
+her.  And now he says this is her portrait; and instead of giving
+his reasons, runs away!  Really you must excuse me, Aunt Mary, for
+thinking that your good husband has a little too much upon his mind
+sometimes."
+
+The old lady laughed, as I loved to see her do.  "Well, my dear,
+after that, I think you had better have it out with him.  He comes
+home to tea at 6.30, which used to be half past six in my days.  He
+is very tired then, though he never will allow it, and it would not
+be fair to attack him.  I give him a mutton-chop, or two poached
+eggs, or some other trifle of nourishment.  And then I make him
+doze for an hour and a half, to soothe his agitated intellect.  And
+when he wakes he has just one glass of hot water and sugar, with a
+little Lochnagar.  And then he is equal to any thing--backgammon,
+bezique, or even conversation."
+
+Impatient as I was, I saw nothing better; and by this time I was
+becoming used to what all of us must put up with--the long
+postponement of our heavy cares to the light convenience of others.
+Major Hockin might just as well have stopped, when he saw how
+anxious I was.  Uncle Sam would have stopped the mill itself, with
+a dozen customers waiting; but no doubt he had spoiled me; and even
+that should not make me bitter.  Aunt Mary and I understood one
+another.  We gazed away over the breadth of the sea and the gleam
+of its texture, and we held our peace.
+
+Few things are more surprising than the calm way in which ripe age
+looks on at things which ought to amaze it.  And yet any little one
+of its own concerns grows more important, perhaps, than ever as the
+shadow of the future dwindles.  Major Hockin had found on the beach
+a pebble with a streak of agate in it.  He took it as the harbinger
+of countless agates, and resolved to set up a lapidary, with a
+tent, or even a shop, perhaps--not to pay, but to be advertised,
+and catch distinguished visitors.
+
+"Erema, you are a mighty finder; you found the biggest nugget yet
+discovered.  You know about stones from the Rocky Mountains, or at
+least the Sierra Nevada.  You did not discover this beautiful
+agate, but you saw and greatly admired it.  We might say that a
+'young lady, eminent for great skill in lithology, famed as the
+discoverer,' etc.  Hold it between your eyes and this candle, but
+wet it in the slop-basin first; now you see the magnificent veins
+of blue."
+
+"I see nothing of the kind," I said; for really it was too bad of
+him.  "It seems to me a dirty bit of the commonest flint you could
+pick up."
+
+This vexed him more than I wished to have done, and I could not
+help being sorry; for he went into a little fit of sulks, and Aunt
+Mary almost frowned at me.  But he could not stay long in that
+condition, and after his doze and his glass he came forth as lively
+and meddlesome as ever.  And the first thing he did was to ask me
+for the locket.
+
+"Open it?" he cried; "why, of course I can; there is never any
+difficulty about that.  The finest workmanship in the world is that
+of the Indian jewelers.  I have been among them often; I know all
+their devices and mechanism, of which the European are bad copies.
+I have only to look round this thing twice, and then pronounce my
+Sesame."
+
+"My dear, then look round it as fast as you can," said his wife,
+with a traitorous smile at me, "and we won't breathe a Sess till it
+flies asunder."
+
+"Mary, Miss Castlewood makes you pert, although herself so well
+conducted.  However, I do not hesitate to say that I will open this
+case in two minutes."
+
+"Of course you will, dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, with provoking
+acquiescence.  "The Major never fails, Erema, in any thing he is so
+sure about; and this is a mere child's toy to him.  Well, dear,
+have you done it?  But I need not ask.  Oh, let us see what is
+inside of it!"
+
+"I have not done it yet, Mrs. Hockin; and if you talk with such
+rapidity, of course you throw me out.  How can I command my
+thoughts, or even recall my experience?"
+
+"Hush! now hush, Erema!  And I myself will hush most reverently."
+
+"You have no reverence in you, and no patience.  Do you expect me
+to do such a job in one second?  Do you take me for a common
+jeweler?  I beg you to remember--"
+
+"Well, my dear, I remember only what you told us.  You were to turn
+it round twice, you know, and then cry Sesame.  Erema, was it not
+so?"
+
+"I never said any thing of the sort.  What I said was simply this--
+However, to reason with ladies is rude; I shall just be off to my
+study."
+
+"Where you keep your tools, my darling," Mrs. Hockin said, softly,
+after him: "at least, I mean, when you know where they are."
+
+I was astonished at Aunt Mary's power of being so highly provoking,
+and still more at her having the heart to employ it.  But she knew
+best what her husband was; and to worship forever is not wise.
+
+"Go and knock at his door in about five minutes," Mrs. Hockin said
+to me, with some mischief in her eyes.  "If he continues to fail,
+he may possibly take a shorter way with it.  And with his tools so
+close at hand--"
+
+"Oh," I exclaimed, "his geological hammer--that dreadful crusher!
+May I go at once?  I detest that thing, but I can not have it
+smashed."
+
+"He will not break it up, my dear, without your leave.  He never
+would think of such a thing, of course.  However, you may as well
+go after him."
+
+It was wrong of Mrs. Hockin to make me do this; and I felt quite
+ashamed of myself when I saw the kind old Major sitting by his
+lamp, and wrinkling his forehead into locks and keys of puzzle, but
+using violence to his own mind alone.  And I was the more ashamed
+when, instead of resenting my intrusion, he came to meet me, and
+led me to his chair, and placed the jeweled trinket in my hand, and
+said, "My dear, I give it up.  I was wrong in taking it away from
+you.  You must consult some one wiser."
+
+"That odious thing!" I answered, being touched by this unusual
+humility of his; "you shall not give it up; and I know no wiser
+person.  A lapidary's tricks are below your knowledge.  But if you
+are not tired of me and offended, may I leave it to you to get it
+opened?"
+
+"I would like nothing better," he replied, recovering his natural
+briskness and importance; "but you ought to be there, my dear; you
+must be there.  Are you sure that you ought not rather to take it
+to your good cousin Lord Castlewood?  Now think before you answer."
+
+"I need not think twice of that, Major Hockin.  Good and learned as
+my father's cousin is, he has distinctly refused to help me, for
+some mysterious reason of his own, in searching into this question.
+Indeed, my great hope is to do it without him: for all that I know,
+he might even wish to thwart me."
+
+"Enough, my dear; it shall be just as you wish.  I brought you to
+England, and I will stand by you.  My cousin, Colonel Gundry, has
+committed you to me.  I have no patience with malefactors.  I never
+took this matter up, for very many reasons; and among them not the
+least was that Sampson, your beloved 'Uncle Sam,' thought it better
+not to do so.  But if you desire it, and now that I feel certain
+that an infamous wrong has been done to you--which I heartily beg
+your pardon for my doubt of--by the Lord of all justice, every
+thing else may go to the devil, till I see it out.  Do you desire
+it, Erema?"
+
+"I certainly do not wish that any of your great works should be
+neglected.  But if, without that, you can give me your strong help,
+my only difficulty will be to thank you."
+
+"I like plain speaking, and you always speak plainly; sometimes too
+plainly," he said, recollecting little times when he had the worst
+of it.  "How far do you trust me now?"
+
+"Major Hockin, I trust you altogether.  You may make mistakes, as
+all men do--"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes.  About my own affairs; but I never do that for
+other people.  I pay a bill for twopence, if it is my own.  If I am
+trustee of it, I pay three half-pence."
+
+His meaning was a little beyond me now; but it seemed better not to
+tell him so; for he loved to explain his own figures of speech,
+even when he had no time to spare for it.  And he clearly expected
+me to ask him to begin; or at least it seemed so from his eyebrows.
+But that only came home to me afterward.
+
+"Please not to speak of my affairs like that," I said, as if I were
+quite stupid; "I mean to pay fourpence for every twopence--both to
+friends and enemies."
+
+"You are a queer girl; I have always said so.  You turn things to
+your own ideas so.  However, we must put up with that, though none
+of my daughters have ever done it; for which I am truly thankful.
+But now there is very little time to lose.  The meaning of this
+thing must be cleared up at once.  And there is another thing to be
+done as well, quite as important, in my opinion.  I will go to
+London with you to-morrow, if you like.  My clever little
+Cornishman will see to things here--the man that sets up all the
+angles."
+
+"But why should I hurry you to London so?" I asked.  "Surely any
+good country jeweler could manage it?  Or let us break it open."
+
+"On no account," he answered; "we might spoil it all; besides the
+great risk to the diamonds, which are very brittle things.  To
+London we must take it, for this reason--the closure of this case
+is no jeweler's work; of that I have quite convinced myself.  It is
+the work of a first-rate lapidary, and the same sort of man must
+undo it."
+
+To this I agreed quite readily, because of such things I knew
+nothing; whereas my host spoke just as if he had been brought up to
+both those walks of art.  And then I put a question which had long
+been burning on my tongue.
+
+"What made you imagine, Major Hockin, that this very beautiful face
+could have ever been that of the old lady living in the ruin?"
+
+"In Desolate Hole?  I will tell you at once; and then call it, if
+you like, an imagination.  Of all the features of the human face
+there is none more distinctive than the eyebrow.  'Distinctive' is
+not exactly what I mean--I mean more permanently marked and clear.
+The eyes change, the nose changes, so does the mouth, and even the
+shape of the forehead sometimes; but the eyebrows change very
+little, except in color.  This I have noticed, because my own may
+perhaps be a little peculiar; and they have always been so.  At
+school I received a nickname about it, for boys are much sharper
+than men about such things; and that name after fifty years fits as
+well as ever.  You may smile, if you like; I shall not tell you
+what it was, but leave you to re-invent it, if you can.  Now look
+at this first-rate miniature.  Do you see an unusual but not
+uncomely formation of the eyebrows?"
+
+"Certainly I do; though I did not observe it until you drew my
+attention.  I had only regarded the face, as a whole."
+
+"The face, as a whole, is undoubtedly fine.  But the eyebrows have
+a peculiar arch, and the least little turn at the lower end, as if
+they designed to rise again.  The lady of Desolate Hole has the
+same."
+
+"But how can you tell?  How very strange!  I thought she let nobody
+see her face."
+
+"You are perfectly right about that, Erema; so far at least as she
+has vouchsafed to exhibit her countenance to me.  Other people may
+be more fortunate.  But when I met her for the second time, being
+curious already about her, I ventured to offer my services, with my
+inborn chivalry, at a place where the tide was running up, and
+threatened to surround her.  My politeness was not appreciated, as
+too often is the case; for she made me a very stiff bow, and turned
+away.  Her face had been covered by the muffler of her cloak, as if
+the sea-breeze were too much for her; and she did not even raise
+her eyes.  But before she turned away, I obtained a good glance at
+her eyebrows--and they were formed like these."
+
+"But her age, Major Hockin!  Her age--what is it?"
+
+"Upon that proverbially delicate point I can tell you but little,
+Erema.  Perhaps, however, I may safely say that she can not be much
+under twenty."
+
+"It is not right to provoke me so.  You call her 'the old woman,'
+and compare her to your letter-box.  You must have some idea--is
+she seventy?"
+
+"Certainly not, I should say; though she can not expect me to
+defend her, when she will not show her face to me; and what is far
+worse, at my time of life, she won't even pay me a half-penny of
+rent.  Now let us go back to Aunt Mary, my dear; she always insists
+upon packing overnight."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII
+
+CADMEIAN VICTORY
+
+
+Before two o'clock of the following day Major Hockin and myself
+were in London, and ready to stay there for two or three days, if
+it should prove needful.  Before leaving Bruntsea I had written
+briefly to Lord Castlewood, telling him that important matters had
+taken me away from Shoxford, and as soon as I could explain them, I
+would come and tell him all about it.  This was done only through
+fear of his being annoyed at my independence.
+
+From London Bridge the Major took a cab direct to Clerkenwell; and
+again I observed that of all his joys one of the keenest was to
+match his wits against a cabman's.  "A regular muff, this time," he
+said, as he jerked up and down with his usual delight in displaying
+great knowledge of London; "no sport to be had out of him.  Why, he
+stared at me when I said 'Rosamond Street,' and made me stick on
+'Clerkenwell.'  Now here he is taking us down Snow Hill, when he
+should have been crossing Smithfield.  Smithfield, cabby,
+Smithfield!"
+
+"Certain, Sir, Smiffle, if you gives the order;" and he turned the
+poor horse again, and took us up the hill, and among a great number
+of barriers.  "No thoroughfare," "No thoroughfare," on all hands
+stretched across us; but the cabman threaded his way between, till
+he came to the brink of a precipice.  The horse seemed quite ready,
+like a Roman, to leap down it, seeing nothing less desirable than
+his present mode of life, till a man with a pickaxe stopped him.
+
+"What are you at?" cried the Major, with fury equalled by nothing
+except his fright.  "Erema, untie my big rattan.  Quick--quick--"
+
+"Captain," said the cabman, coolly, "I must have another shilling
+for this job.  A hextra mile and a quarter, to your orders.  You
+knows Lunnon so much better.  Smiffle stopped--new railway--new
+meat market--never heered of that now, did you?"
+
+"You scoundrel, drive straight to the nearest police office."
+
+"Must jump this little ditch, then, Captain.  Five pun' fine for
+you, when we gets there.  Hold on inside, old gentleman.  Kuck,
+kuck, Bob, you was a hunter once.  It ain't more than fifty feet
+deep, my boy."
+
+"Turn round! turn round, I tell you! turn round!  If your neck is
+forfeit, you rogue, mine is not.  I never was so taken in in my
+life!"  Major Hockin continued to rave, and amid many jeers we
+retreated humbly, and the driver looked in at us with a gentle
+grin.  "And I thought he was so soft, you know!  Erema, may I swear
+at him?"
+
+"On no account," I said.  "Why, after all, it is only a shilling,
+and the loss of time.  And then, you can always reflect that you
+have discharged, as you say, a public duty, by protesting against a
+vile system."
+
+"Protesting is very well, when it pays," the Major answered,
+gloomily; "but to pay for protesting is another pair of shoes."
+
+This made him cross, and he grew quite fierce when the cabman smote
+him for eight-pence more.  "Four parcels on the roof, Captain," he
+said, looking as only a cabman can look at his money, and spinning
+his extra shilling.  "Twopence each under new hact, you know.
+Scarcely thought a hofficer would 'a tried evasion."
+
+"You consummate scoundrel--and you dress yourself like a
+countryman!  I'll have your badge indorsed--I'll have your license
+marked.  Erema, pay the thief; it is more than I can do."
+
+"Captain, your address, if you please; I shall summon you for
+scurrilous language, as the hact directs.  Ah, you do right to be
+driven to a pawn shop."
+
+Triumphantly he drove off, while the Major cried, "Never tie up my
+rattan again.  Oh, it was Mrs. Hockin, was it?  What a fool I was
+not to stop on my own manor!"
+
+"I pray you to disdain such low impudence," I said, for I could not
+bear to see him shake like that, and grieved to have brought him
+into it.  "You have beaten fifty of them--a hundred of them--I have
+heard you say."
+
+"Certainly I have, my dear; but I had no Bruntsea then, and could
+not afford to pay the rogues.  That makes me feel it so bitterly,
+so loftily, and so righteously.  To be treated like this, when I
+think of all my labors for the benefit of the rascally human race!
+my Institute, my Lyceum, my Mutual Improvement Association, and
+Christian Young Men's something.  There is no institution, after
+all, to be compared to the tread-mill."
+
+Recovering himself with this fine conclusion, he led me down a
+little sloping alley, scarcely wide enough for a wheelbarrow, to an
+old black door, where we set down our parcels; for he had taken
+his, while I carried mine, and not knowing what might happen yet,
+like a true peace-maker I stuck to the sheaf of umbrellas and the
+rattan cane.  And thankful I was, and so might be the cabman, to
+have that weapon nicely sheathed with silk.
+
+Major Hockin's breath was short, through too much talking without
+action, and he waited for a minute at this door, to come back to
+his equanimity.  And I thought that our female breath falls short
+for the very opposite reason--when we do too much and talk too
+little; which happily seldom happens.
+
+He was not long in coming back to his usual sprightliness and
+decision.  And it was no small relief to me, who was looking at him
+miserably, and longing that his wife was there, through that very
+sad one-and-eightpence, when he pulled out a key, which he always
+carried as signer and lord of Bruntsea, the key of the town-hall,
+which had survived lock, door, and walls by centuries, and
+therewith struck a door which must have reminded that key of its
+fine old youth.
+
+Before he had knocked so very many times, the door was opened by a
+young man wearing an apron and a brown paper cap, who knew Major
+Hockin at once, and showed us up stairs to a long low workshop.
+Here were many wheels and plates and cylinders revolving by energy
+of a strap which came through the floor and went through the
+ceiling.  And the young man told us to be careful how we walked,
+for fear of getting entangled.  Several men, wearing paper caps and
+aprons of leather or baize, were sitting doing dextrous work, no
+doubt, and doing it very easily, and the master of them all was
+hissing over some fine touch of jewel as a groom does at a horse.
+Then seeing us, he dropped his holders, and threw a leather upon
+his large lens, and came and took us to a little side room.
+
+"Are you not afraid to leave them?" asked the Major.  "They may
+secrete some gems, Mr. Handkin."
+
+"Never," said the lapidary, with some pride.  "I could trust these
+men with the Koh-i-noor; which we could have done better, I
+believe, than it was done by the Hollanders.  But we don't get the
+chance to do much in diamonds, through the old superstition about
+Amsterdam, and so on.  No, no; the only thing I can't trust my men
+about is to work as hard when I am away as when I am there.  And
+now, Sir, what can I do for you?  Any more Bruntsea pebbles?  The
+last were not worth the cutting."
+
+"So you said; but I did not think so.  We have some agates as good
+as any from Aberystwith or Perthshire.  But what I want now is to
+open this case.  It must be done quite privately, for a most
+particular reason.  It does open, doesn't it?  I am sure it does."
+
+"Certainly it opens," Mr. Handkin answered, while I trembled with
+anxiety as he lightly felt it round the edges with fingers
+engrained with corundum.  "I could open it in one instant, but the
+enamel might fly.  Will you risk it?"
+
+The Major looked at me, and I said, "Oh no; please not to risk any
+thing, if any slower process will do it without risk.  We want it
+done without injury."
+
+"Then it will cost a good bit," he replied.  "I can open it for
+five shillings, if you run the risk; if that rests with me, I must
+charge five pounds."
+
+"Say three," cried the Major.  "Well, then, say four guineas: I
+have a lot of work in store for you."
+
+"I never overcharge, and I never depart from my figures," the
+lapidary answered.  "There is only one other man in London who
+knows the secret of this enamel, and he is my brother.  They never
+make such enamel now.  The art is lost, like that of the French
+paste of a hundred years ago, which almost puzzles even me until I
+go behind it.  I will give you my brother's address if you like;
+but instead of five pounds, he will charge you ten guineas--if it
+must be done in private.  Without that condition, I can do it for
+two pounds.  You wish to know why that should make such a
+difference.  Well, for this simple reason: to make sure of the job,
+it must be done by daylight; it can be done only in my chief work-
+room; if no one is to see what I am about (and my men have sharp
+eyes, I can tell you), all my hands must be sacked for the
+afternoon, but not without their wages.  That alone would go far
+toward the difference, and then there is the dropping of the jobs
+in hand, and waste of power, and so on.  I have asked you too
+little, Major Hockin, I assure you; but having said, I will stick
+to it, although I would much rather you would let me off."
+
+"I have known you for many years," the Major answered--"ever since
+you were a boy, with a flat box, working at our Cornish opals.  You
+would have done a lot of work for five pounds then.  But I never
+knew you overcharge for any thing.  We agree to your terms, and are
+obliged to you.  But you guarantee no damage?"
+
+"I will open this locket, take out its contents, whatever they may
+be, and reclose it so that the maker, if still alive--which is not
+very probable--should not know that it had been meddled with."
+
+"Very well; that is exactly what we want; for I have an idea about
+it which I may try to go on with afterward.  And for that it is
+essential to have no symptom that it ever has been opened.  What
+are these brilliants worth, Mr. Handkin?"
+
+"Well, Sir, in the trade, about a hundred and fifty, though I dare
+say they cost three hundred.  And the portrait is worth another
+hundred, if I find on the back the marks I expect."
+
+"You do not mean to say that you know the artist?" I could not help
+exclaiming, though determined not to speak.  "Oh, then, we shall
+find out every thing!"
+
+"Erema, you are a--well, you are a silly!" Major Hockin exclaimed,
+and then colored with remembering that rather he should have let my
+lapse pass.  But the lapidary seemed to pay no attention, only to
+be calling down to some one far below.  "Now mind what you say,"
+the Major whispered to me, just as if he were the essence of
+discretion.
+
+"The work-room is clear now," Mr. Handkin said; "the fellows were
+delighted to get their afternoon.  Now you see that I have to take
+off this hoop, and there lies the difficulty.  I could have taken
+out the gold back, as I said, with very little trouble, by simply
+cutting it.  But the locket would never have been quite the same,
+though we put a new back; and, more than that, the pressure of the
+tool might flaw the enamel, or even crack the portrait, for the
+make of this thing is peculiar.  Now first I submit the rim or
+verge, without touching the brilliants, mind you, to the action of
+a little preparation of my own--a gentle but penetrative solvent.
+You are welcome to watch me; you will be none the wiser; you are
+not in the trade, though the young lady looks as if she would make
+a good polisher.  Very well: if this were an ordinary closure, with
+two flat surfaces meeting, the solvent would be absorbed into the
+adhesion, expansion would take place, and there we have it.  But
+this is what we call a cyme-joint, a cohesion of two curved
+surfaces, formed in a reflex curve which admits the solvent most
+reluctantly, or, indeed, not at all, without too long application.
+For that, then, another kind of process is needful, and we find it
+in frictional heat applied most gradually and judiciously.  For
+that I must have a buff-leather wheel, whose revolutions are timed
+to a nicety, and that wheel I only have in this room.  Now you see
+why I sent the men away."
+
+Though I watched his work with great interest, it is out of my
+power to describe it now, and, moreover, it is not needful.  Major
+Hockin, according to his nature, grew quite restless and impatient,
+and even went out for a walk, with his cane unpacked and unsheathed
+against cabmen.  But I was content to wait and watch, having always
+heard and thought that good work will not do itself, but must have
+time and skill to second it.  And Mr. Handkin, moving arms, palms,
+and fingers beautifully, put the same thought into words.
+
+"Good work takes a deal of time to do; but the man that does it all
+the time knows well that it will take long to undo.  Here it comes
+undone at last!"
+
+As he spoke, the excitable Major returned.
+
+"Done it, eh?  Well, you are a clever fellow.  Now don't look
+inside it; that is no part of your business, nor mine either,
+unless this young lady desires it.  Hand it to her first, my
+friend."
+
+"Wait half a minute," said the lapidary; "it is so far opened that
+the hoop spins round, but it must not be taken off until it cools.
+The lady may lift it then with care.  I have done this job as a
+piece of fine art; I have no wish to see any more of it."
+
+"Handkin, don't you be so touchy to a brother Cornishman.  I
+thought that I was Cornish enough, but you go cliffs beyond me."
+
+"Well, Major Hockin," the lapidary answered, "I beg your pardon, if
+I said harm.  But a man doing careful and skilled work--and skilled
+work it is, at every turn of the hand, as miss can bear witness,
+while you walked off--he don't care who it is, Major Hockin, he
+would fight his own brother to maintain it."
+
+"Very well, very well.  Let us come away.  I always enter into
+every body's feelings.  I see yours as clearly, Handkin, as if you
+had laid them open on that blessed wheel.  My insight has always
+been remarkable.  Every one, without exception, says that of me.
+Now come away, come away--will you never see?"
+
+Intent as I was upon what lay in my left palm relaxing itself, I
+could not help being sorry for the way in which the man of art,
+after all his care, was ground down by his brother Cornishman.
+However, he had lived long enough in the world to feel no surprise
+at ingratitude.
+
+Now I went to one of the windows, as the light (which had been very
+good) began to pale from its long and labored sufferance of London,
+and then, with soft and steady touch, I lifted off the loosened
+hoop.  A smell of mustiness--for smells go through what nothing
+else can--was the first thing to perceive, and then, having moved
+the disk of gold, I found a piece of vellum.  This was doubled, and
+I opened it, and read, in small clear writing:
+
+
+"May 7, 1809 A.D., George, Lord Castlewood, married Winifred, only
+child of Thomas Hoyle, as this his signature witnesseth.
+
+"CASTLEWOOD.
+
+"(Witness) THOMAS HOYLE."
+
+
+There was nothing more inside this locket, except two little wisps
+of hair tied with gold thread, and the miniature upon ivory,
+bearing on the back some anagram, probably that of the artist.
+
+Already had I passed through a great many troubles, changes,
+chances, and adventures which always seem strange (when I come to
+look back), but never surprised me at the moment.  Indeed, I might
+almost make bold to pronounce that not many persons of my age and
+sex have been visited, wholly against their own will, by such a
+series of incidents, not to say marvelous, but at any rate fairly
+to be called unusual.  And throughout them perhaps it will be
+acknowledged by all who have cared to consider them, that up to the
+present time I did not fail more than themselves might have done in
+patience.  And in no description of what came to pass have I
+colored things at all in my own favor--at least so far as intention
+goes--neither laid myself out to get sympathy, though it often
+would have done me a world of good.
+
+But now I am free to confess that my patience broke down very
+sadly.  Why, if what was written on that vellum was true, and Major
+Hockin correct as well, it came to no less than this, that my own
+dear father was a base-born son, and I had no right to the name I
+was so proud of!  If, moreover, as I now began to dream, that
+terrible and mysterious man did not resemble my father so closely
+without some good reason, it seemed too likely that he might be his
+elder brother and the proper heir.
+
+This was bad enough to think of, but an idea a thousandfold worse
+assailed me in the small hours of the night, as I lay on Mrs.
+Strouss's best bed, which she kept for consuls, or foreign barons,
+or others whom she loved to call "international notorieties."
+Having none of these now, she assigned me that bed after hearing
+all I had to say, and not making all that she might have done of
+it, because of the praise that would fall to Mrs. Busk.
+
+However, she acknowledged that she knew nothing of the history of
+"the poor old lord."  He might have carried on, for all she could
+tell, with many wives before his true one--a thing she heard too
+much of; but as for the Captain not being his true son and the
+proper heir to the peerage, let any one see him walk twice, and
+then have a shadow of a doubt about it!  This logic pleased but
+convinced me not, and I had to go to bed in a very unhappy,
+restless, and comfortless state of mind.
+
+I hope that, rather than myself, that bed, full of international
+confusion, is to blame for the wicked ideas which assailed me while
+I could not even try to sleep.  One of them--and a loyal daughter
+could scarcely have a worse one--was that my own dear father,
+knowing Lord Castlewood's bad behavior, and his own sad plight in
+consequence, and through that knowledge caring little to avenge his
+death, for wife and children's sake preferred to foil inquiry
+rather than confront the truth and challenge it.  He might not have
+meant to go so far, at first beginning with it; but, starting once,
+might be driven on by grievous loss, and bitter sense of recreant
+friends, and the bleak despair of a homeless world before him.  And
+serving as the scape-goat thus, he might have received from the
+real culprit a pledge for concealment of the family disgrace.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII
+
+A RETURN CALL
+
+
+In the morning I labored to dismiss these thoughts, these shameful
+suspicions, almost as injurious to my father's honor as it was to
+suspect him of the crime itself.  And calling back my memories of
+him, and dwelling on what Mr. Shovelin said, and Uncle Sam and
+others, I became quite happy in the firm conviction that I ought to
+be put upon bread and water for having such vile visions.  Then
+suddenly a thing came to my mind which shattered happy penitence.
+
+Major Hockin had spoken of another purpose which he had in store
+while bringing me thus to London--another object, that is to say,
+besides the opening of the trinket.  And this his second intention
+was to "have it out," as he expressed it, "with that league of curs
+and serpents, Vypan, Goad, and Terryer."  This was the partnership
+whose card of business had been delivered at the sawmills under
+circumstances which, to say the least, required explanation.  And
+the Major, with strong words and tugs of his head-crest, had vowed
+to get that explanation, or else put the lot of them into a police
+dock.
+
+Moreover, when, at the opening of the locket, I did not think fit
+to show the lapidary what I had found inside it, except the
+painting on ivory (which proved to be as he expected), and when my
+companion suppressed curiosity at the risk of constitution, and
+while I could scarcely tell what I was about (through sudden shock
+and stupidity), I must have been hurried on to tell Major Hockin
+the whole of the private things I had discovered.  For, in truth,
+there was scarcely any time to think; and I was afraid of giving
+way, which must have befallen me without relief of words; and being
+so much disturbed I may, in the cab, have rushed off for comfort to
+the Major, sitting so close to me.  No doubt I did so, from what
+happened afterward; but in the morning, after such a night, I
+really could not be certain what I had said to Betsy, and what to
+him.
+
+A large mind would have been steady throughout, and regarded the
+question of birth as a thing to which we, who are not consulted
+about it, should bear ourselves indifferently.  And gladly would I
+have done so, if I could, but the power was not in me.  No doubt it
+served me right for having been proud about such a trifle; but
+though I could call it a trifle as long as it seemed to be in my
+favor, my strength of mind was not enough to look at it so when
+against me.
+
+Betsy told me not to be like that, for I had a great deal to go
+through yet, and must not be drawing on my spirit so, every atom of
+which would be needful.  For the General--as she called the Major--
+was coming to fetch me at eleven o'clock to face some abominable
+rascals, and without any breakfast how could I do it?  Then I
+remembered all about the appointment to go to Messrs. Vypan, Goad,
+and Terryer, and beginning to think about them, I saw sad
+confirmation of my bad ideas.  My father's wicked elder brother by
+another mother had left his own rights pending, as long as my
+father lived, for good reason.  For if the latter had turned
+against him, through a breach of compact, things might go ill in a
+criminal court; but having him silenced now by death, this man
+might come forward boldly and claim estates and title.  His first
+point would be to make sure as sure could be of the death of my
+father, to get hold of his private papers, and of me, who might
+possess dangerous knowledge.  And if this were so, one could
+understand at once Mr. Goad's attempt upon Uncle Sam.
+
+"Now none of this! none of this, I say, Erema!" Major Hockin
+exclaimed, as he ran in and saw me scarcely even caring to hold my
+own with the gentle Maximilian--to which name Mr. Strouss was
+promoted from the too vernacular "Hans."  "My dear, I never saw you
+look ill before.  Why, bless my heart, you will have crows'-feet!
+Nurse, what are you doing with her?  Look at her eyes, and be
+ashamed of yourself.  Give her goulard, tisane, tiffany--I never
+know what the proper word is--something, any thing, volatile Sally,
+hartshorn, ammonia, aromatic vinegar, saline draught, or something
+strong.  Why, I want her to look at her very, very best."
+
+"As if she was a-going to a ball, poor dear!" Betsy Strouss
+replied, with some irony.  "A young lady full of high spirits by
+nature, and have never had her first dance yet!  The laws and
+institutions of this kingdom is too bad for me, General.  I shall
+turn foreigner, like my poor husband."
+
+"It is vere goot, vere goot always," said the placid Maximilian;
+"foreigner dis way, foreigner dat way; according to de hills, or de
+sea, or de fighting, or being born, or someting else."
+
+"Hold your tongue, Hans," cried his Wilhelmina; "remember that you
+are in England now, and must behave constitutionally.  None of your
+loose outlandish ideas will ever get your bread in England.  Was I
+born according to fighting, or hills, or sea, or any thing less
+than the will of the Lord, that made the whole of them, and made
+you too?  General, I beg you to excuse him, if you can.  When he
+gets upon such things, he never can stop.  His goodness is very
+great; but he must have a firm hand put upon his 'philosophy.'
+Maximilian, you may go and smoke your pipe for an hour and a
+quarter, and see where the cheapest greens and oil are, for his
+Excellence is coming in to-night; and mind you get plenty of stump
+in them.  His Excellence loves them, and they fill the dish,
+besides coming cheaper.  Now, Miss Erema, if you please, come here.
+Trust you in me, miss, and soon I will make you a credit to the
+General."
+
+I allowed her to manage my dress and all that according to her own
+ideas; but when she entreated to finish me up with the "leastest
+little touch of red, scarcely up to the usual color, by reason of
+not sleeping," I stopped her at once, and she was quite content
+with the color produced by the thought of it.  Meanwhile Major
+Hockin, of course, was becoming beyond all description impatient.
+He had made the greatest point of my being adorned, and expected it
+done in two minutes!  And he hurried me so, when I did come down,
+that I scarcely noticed either cab or horse, and put on my new
+gloves anyhow.
+
+"My dear, you look very nice," he said at last, when thoroughly
+tired of grumbling.  "That scoundrel of a Goad will be quite amazed
+at sight of the child he went to steal."
+
+"Mr. Goad!" I replied, with a shudder, caused, perhaps, by dark
+remembrance; "if we go to the office, you surely will not expect me
+to see Mr. Goad himself?"
+
+"That depends, as the Frenchmen say.  It is too late now to shrink
+back from any thing.  If I can spare you, I will.  If not, you must
+not be ashamed to show yourself."
+
+"I am never ashamed to show myself.  But I would rather not go to
+that place at all.  If things should prove to be as I begin to
+think, I had better withdraw from the whole of it, and only lament
+that I ever began.  My father was right; after all, my father was
+wise; and I ought to have known it.  And perhaps Uncle Sam knew the
+truth, and would not tell me, for fear of my rushing to the
+Yosemite.  Cabman, please to turn the horse and go in the opposite
+direction."  But the Major pulled me back, and the driver lifted
+his elbow and said, "All right."
+
+"Erema," the Major began, quite sternly, "things are gone a little
+too far for this.  We are now embarked upon a most important
+investigation"--even in my misery I could scarce help smiling at
+his love of big official words--"an investigation of vast
+importance.  A crime of the blackest dye has been committed, and
+calmly hushed up, for some petty family reason, for a period of
+almost twenty years.  I am not blaming your father, my dear; you
+need not look so indignant.  It is your own course of action,
+remember, which has led to the present--the present--well, let us
+say imbroglio.  A man of honor and an officer of her Majesty's
+service stands now committed at your request--mind, at your own
+request--"
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; but I only meant you to--to go as far as I
+should wish."
+
+"Confidential instructions, let us say; but there are times when
+duty to society overrides fine feeling.  I have felt that already.
+The die is cast.  No half-and-half measures, no beating about the
+bush, for me.  After what I saw yesterday, and the light that burst
+upon me, I did not act hastily--I never do, though slow coaches may
+have said so.  I put this and that together carefully, and had my
+dinner, and made up my mind.  And you see the result in that man on
+the box."
+
+"The cabman?  Oh yes, you resolved to have a cab, and drive to
+those wicked informers."
+
+"Where are your eyes?  You are generally so quick.  This morning
+you are quite unlike yourself--so weak, so tearful, and timorous.
+Have you not seen that by side of the cabman there sits another man
+altogether?  One of the most remarkable men of the age, as your
+dear Yankees say."
+
+"Not a policeman in disguise, I hope.  I saw a very common,
+insignificant man.  I thought he was the driver's groom, perhaps."
+
+"Hush! he hears every thing, even on this granite.  He is not a
+policeman; if he were, a few things that disgrace the force never
+would happen.  If the policemen of England did their duty as our
+soldiers do, at once I would have gone to them; my duty would have
+been to do so.  As it is, I go to our private police, who would not
+exist if the force were worth a rap.  Vypan, Goad, and Terryer, in
+spite of Goad's clumsiness, rank second.  I go to the first of all
+these firms, and I get their very cleverest rascal."
+
+Major Hockin, speaking in this hoarse whisper--for he could not
+whisper gently--folded his arms, and then nodded his head, as much
+as to say, "I have settled it now.  You have nothing to do but
+praise me."  But I was vexed and perplexed too much to trust my
+voice with an answer.
+
+"The beauty of this arrangement is," he continued, with vast
+complacency, "that the two firms hate one another as the devil
+hates--no, that won't do; there is no holy water to be found among
+them--well, as a snake hates a slow-worm, let us say.  'Set a thief
+to catch a thief' is a fine old maxim; still better when the two
+thieves have robbed one another."
+
+As he spoke, the noble stranger slipped off the driving seat
+without troubling the cabman to stop his jerking crawl, and he did
+it so well that I had no chance of observing his nimble face or
+form.  "You are disappointed," said the Major, which was the last
+thing I would have confessed.  "You may see that man ten thousand
+times, and never be able to swear to him.  Ha! ha! he is a oner!"
+
+"I disdain such mean tricks beyond all expression," I exclaimed, as
+was only natural, "and every thing connected with them.  It is so
+low to talk of such things.  But what in the world made him do it?
+Where does he come from, and what is his name?"
+
+"Like all noble persons, he has got so many names that he does not
+know which is the right one; only his are short and theirs are
+long.  He likes 'Jack' better than any thing else, because it is
+not distinctive.  'Cosmopolitan Jack,' some call him, from his
+combining the manners and customs, features and figures, of nearly
+all mankind.  He gets on with every one, for every one is gratified
+by seeing himself reflected in him.  And he can jump from one frame
+to another as freely as Proteus or the populace.  And yet, with all
+that, he is perfectly honest to any allegiance he undertakes.  He
+would not betray us to Vypan, Goad, and Terryer for your great
+nugget and the Castlewood estates."
+
+"I have heard that there are such people," I said; "but what can he
+possibly know about me?  And what is he coming to do for us now?"
+
+"He knows all about you, for a very simple reason.  That you do not
+know him, is a proof of his ability.  For you must have met him
+times out of number.  This is the fellow employed by your good but
+incapable cousin, Lord Castlewood."
+
+"He is not incapable; he is a man of great learning, and noble
+character--"
+
+"Well, never mind that; you must not be so hot.  What I mean is
+that he has done nothing for you beyond providing for your safety.
+And that he certainly did right well, and at considerable expense,
+for this man can't be had for nothing.  You need have been under no
+terror at all in any of the scenes you have been through.  Your
+safety was watched for continually."
+
+"Then why did he not come and help me?  Why did he not find out
+that horrible man?"
+
+"Because it was not in his orders, and Jack is the last man to go
+beyond those.  He is so clever that the stupid Moonites took him
+for a stupid Moonite.  You should have employed him yourself,
+Erema; but you are so proud and independent."
+
+"I should hope so, indeed.  Should I put up with deceit?  If the
+truth is not to be had without falsehood, it is not worth having.
+But what is this man to do here now?"
+
+"That depends upon circumstances.  He has better orders than I
+could give, for I am no hand at scheming.  Here we are; or here we
+stop.  Say nothing till I tell you.  Pray allow me the honor.  You
+keep in the background, remember, with your veil, or whatever you
+call it, down.  Nobody stops at the very door.  Of course that is
+humbug--we conform to it."
+
+With a stiff inclination, the gallant Major handed me out of the
+cab in a quiet corner of a narrow street, then paid the driver with
+less fuss than usual, and led me into a queer little place marked
+in almost illegible letters, "Little England Polygon."  "You have
+the card, my dear?" he whispered; "keep it till I call you in.  But
+be ready to produce it in a moment.  For the rest, I leave you to
+your own wit.  Jack is on the watch, mind."
+
+There were two doors near together, one a brave door with a plate,
+and swung on playing hinges, the other of too secluded a turn to
+even pronounce itself "private."  We passed through the public
+door, and found only a lobby, with a boy on guard.  "Mr. Goad?
+Yes, Sir.  This way, Sir," cried the boy.  "Lady stay?  Yes, Sir;
+waiting-room for ladies.  Chair, miss; here, if you please--first
+right.  Mr. Goad, second on the left.  Knock twice.  Paper, miss?
+Poker chained at this time of year.  Bell A, glass of water.  Bell
+B, cup of tea, if ladies grows impatient."
+
+If I had been well, I might have reduced this boy to his proper
+magnitude, for I never could endure young flippancy; but my spirits
+were so low that the boy banged the door with a fine sense of
+having vanquished me.  And before there was any temptation to ring
+Bell A, not to mention Bell B, the sound of a wrathful voice began
+coming.  Nearer and nearer it came, till the Major strode into the
+"ladies' waiting-room," and used language no ladies should wait
+for.
+
+"Oh, don't!" I said; "what would Mrs. Hockin say?  And consider me
+too, Major Hockin, if you please."
+
+"I have considered you, and that makes me do it.  Every body knows
+what I am.  Did I ever exaggerate in all my life?  Did I ever say
+any thing without just grounds?  Did I ever take any distorted
+views?  Did I ever draw upon my imagination?  Erema, answer me this
+instant!"
+
+"I do not remember a single instance of your drawing upon your
+imagination," I answered, gravely, and did not add, "because there
+is none to draw upon."
+
+"Very well.  I was sure of your concurrence.  Then just come with
+me.  Take my arm, if you please, and have the thief's card ready.
+Now keep your temper and your self-command."
+
+With this good advice, the Major, whose arm and whole body were
+jerking with wrath, led me rapidly down the long passage and
+through a door, and my eyes met the eyes of the very man who had
+tried to bribe Uncle Sam of me.  He never saw me then, and he did
+not know me now; but his insolent eyes fell under mine.  I looked
+at him quietly, and said nothing.
+
+"Now, Mr. Goad, you still assert that you never were in California--
+never even crossed the Atlantic.  This young lady under my
+protection--don't you be afraid, my dear--is the Honorable Erema
+Castlewood, whom you, in the pay of a murderer, went to fetch, and
+perhaps to murder.  Now, do you acknowledge it?  You wrote her
+description, and ought to know her.  You double-dyed villain, out
+with it!"
+
+"Major Hockin," said Mr. Goad, trying to look altogether at his
+ease, but failing, and with his bull-dog forehead purple, "if
+indeed you are an officer--which I doubt for the credit of her
+Majesty's service--if the lady were not present, I should knock you
+down."  And the big man got up as if to do it.
+
+"Never mind her," my companion answered, in a magnanimous manner;
+"she has seen worse than that, poor thing.  Here I am--just come
+and do it."
+
+The Major was scarcely more than half the size of Mr. Goad in mere
+bodily bulk, and yet he defied him in this way.  He carefully took
+his blue lights off, then drew up the crest of his hair, like his
+wife's most warlike cock a-crowing, and laid down his rattan upon a
+desk, and doubled his fists, and waited.  Then he gave a blink from
+the corner of his gables, clearly meaning, "Please to stop and see
+it out."  It was a distressing thing to see, and the Major's
+courage was so grand that I could not help smiling.  Mr. Goad,
+however, did not advance, but assumed a superior manner.
+
+"Major," he said, "we are not young men; we must not be so hasty.
+You carry things with too high a hand, as veteran officers are apt
+to do.  Sir, I make allowance for you; I retract my menace, and
+apologize.  We move in different spheres of life, Sir, or I would
+offer you my hand."
+
+"No, thank you!" the Major exclaimed, and then looked sorry for his
+arrogance.  "When a man has threatened me, and that man sees the
+mistake of doing so, I am pacified, Sir, in a moment; but it takes
+me some time to get over it.  I have served his Gracious Majesty,
+and now hers, in every quarter of the civilized globe, with
+distinction, Sir--with distinction, and thanks, and no profit to
+taint the transaction, Sir.  In many battles I have been menaced
+with personal violence, and have received it, as in such positions
+is equitable.  I am capable, Sir, of receiving it still, and
+repaying it, not without interest."
+
+"Hang it, Major, if a man is sorry, a soldier forgives him frankly.
+You abused me, and I rashly threatened you.  I beg your pardon, as
+a man should do, and that should be an end to it."
+
+"Very well, very well; say no more about it.  But am I to
+understand that you still deny in that barefaced manner, with my
+witness here, the fact of your having been at Colonel Gundry's--my
+cousin, Sir, and a man not to be denied, without an insult to
+myself--a man who possesses ingots of gold, ingots of gold, enough
+to break the Bank of England, and a man whose integrity doubles
+them all.  Have you not heard of the monster nugget, transcending
+the whole of creation, discovered by this young lady looking at
+you, in the bed of the saw-mill river, and valued at more than half
+a million?"
+
+"You don't mean to say so?  When was it?  Sylvester never said a
+word about it--the papers, I mean, never mentioned it."
+
+"Try no more--well, I won't say lies, though they are confounded
+lies--what I mean is, no further evasion, Mr. Goad.  Sylvester's
+name is enough, Sir.  Here is the card of your firm, with your own
+note of delivery on the back, handed by you to my cousin, the
+Colonel.  And here stands the lady who saw you do it."
+
+"Major, I will do my very best to remember.  I am here, there,
+every where--China one day, Peru the next, Siberia the day after.
+And this young lady found the nugget, did she?  How wonderfully
+lucky she must be!"
+
+"I am lucky; I find out every thing; and I shall find out you, Mr.
+Goad."  Thus I spoke on the spur of the moment, and I could not
+have spoken better after a month of consultation.  Rogues are
+generally superstitious.  Mr. Goad glanced at me with a shudder, as
+I had gazed at him some three years back; and then he dropped his
+bad, oily-looking eyes.
+
+"I make mistakes sometimes," he said, "as to where I have been and
+where I have not.  If this young lady saw me there, it stands to
+reason that I may have been there.  I have a brother extremely
+similar.  He goes about a good deal also.  Probably you saw my
+brother."
+
+"I saw no brother of yours, but yourself.  Yourself--your mean and
+cowardly self--and I shall bring you to justice."
+
+"Well, well," he replied, with a poor attempt to turn the matter
+lightly; "I never contradict ladies; it is an honor to be so
+observed by them.  Now, Major, can you give me any good reason for
+drawing upon a bad memory?  My time is valuable.  I can not refer
+to such by-gone matters for nothing."
+
+"We will not bribe you, if that is what you mean," Major Hockin
+made answer, scornfully.  "This is a criminal case, and we have
+evidence you little dream of.  Our only offer is--your own safety,
+if you make a clean breast of it.  We are on the track of a
+murderer, and your connection with him will ruin you.  Unless you
+wish to stand in the dock at his side, you will tell us every
+thing."
+
+"Sir, this is violent language."
+
+"And violent acts will follow it: if you do not give up your
+principal, and every word you know about him, you will leave this
+room in custody.  I have Cosmopolitan Jack outside, and the police
+at a sign from him will come."
+
+"Is this job already in the hands of the police, then?"
+
+"No, not yet.  I resolved to try you first.  If you refuse, it will
+be taken up at once; and away goes your last chance, Sir."
+
+Mr. Goad's large face became like a field of conflicting passions
+and low calculations.  Terror, fury, cupidity, and doggedness never
+had a larger battle-field.
+
+"Allow me at least to consult my partners," he said, in a low voice
+and almost with a whine; "we may do things irregular sometimes, but
+we never betray a client."
+
+"Either betray your client or yourself," the Major answered, with a
+downright stamp.  "You shall consult no one.  You have by this
+watch forty-five seconds to consider it."
+
+"You need not trouble yourself to time me," the other answered,
+sulkily; "my duty to the firm overrides private feeling.  Miss
+Castlewood, I call you to witness, since Major Hockin is so
+peppery--"
+
+"Peppery, Sir, is the very last word that ever could be applied to
+me.  My wife, my friends, every one that knows me, even my
+furthest-off correspondents, agree that I am pure patience."
+
+"It may be so, Major; but you have not shown it.  Miss Castlewood,
+I have done you no harm.  If you had been given up to me, you would
+have been safer than where you were.  My honor would have been
+enlisted.  I now learn things which I never dreamed of--or, at
+least--at least only lately.  I always believed the criminality to
+be on the other side.  We never ally ourselves with wrong.  But
+lately things have come to my knowledge which made me doubtful as
+to facts.  I may have been duped--I believe I have been: I am
+justified, therefore, in turning the tables."
+
+"If you turn tables," broke in the Major, who was grumbling to
+himself at the very idea of having any pepper in his nature--"Goad,
+if you turn tables, mind you, you must do it better than the
+mesmerists.  Out of this room you do not stir; no darkness--no
+bamboozling!  Show your papers, Sir, without sleight of hand.
+Surrender, or you get no quarter."
+
+To me it was quite terrifying to see my comrade thus push his
+victory.  Mr. Goad could have killed him at any moment, and but for
+me perhaps would have done so.  But even in his fury he kept on
+casting glances of superstitious awe at me, while I stood quite
+still and gazed at him.  Then he crossed the room to a great case
+of drawers, unlocked something above the Major's head, made a
+sullen bow, and handed him a packet.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX
+
+WANTED, A SAWYER
+
+
+To judge Mr. Goad by his own scale of morality and honor, he
+certainly had behaved very well through a trying and unexpected
+scene.  He fought for his honor a great deal harder than ever it
+could have deserved of him; and then he strove well to appease it
+with cash, the mere thought of which must have flattered it.
+However, it was none the worse for a little disaster of this kind.
+At the call of duty it coalesced with interest and fine sense of
+law, and the contact of these must have strengthened it to face any
+future production.
+
+For the moment he laid it aside in a drawer--and the smallest he
+possessed would hold it--and being compelled to explain his
+instructions (partly in short-hand and partly in cipher), he
+kindly, and for the main of it truly, interpreted them as follows:
+
+"July 31, 1858.--Received directions from M. H. to attend without
+fail, at whatever expense, to any matter laid before us by a tall,
+dark gentleman bearing his card.  M. H. considerably in our debt;
+but his father can not last long.  Understand what he means, having
+dealt with this matter before, and managed well with it.
+
+"August 2.--Said gentleman called, gave no name, and was very
+close.  Had experienced some great wrong.  Said that he was true
+heir to the C. estates now held by Lord C.  Only required a little
+further evidence to claim them; and some of this was to be got
+through us.  Important papers must be among the effects of the old
+lord's son, lately dead in California, the same for whom a reward
+had been offered, and we had been employed about it.  Must get
+possession of those papers, and of the girl, if possible.  Yankees
+to be bribed, at whatever figure, and always stand out for a high
+one.  Asked where funds were to come from; gave good reference, and
+verified it.  To be debited to the account of M. H.  Said we would
+have nothing to do with it without more knowledge of our principal.
+Replied, with anger, that he himself was Lord C., ousted by
+usurpers.  Had not the necessary proofs as yet, but would get them,
+and blast all his enemies.  Had doubts about his sanity, and still
+greater about his solvency.  Resolved to inquire into both points.
+
+"August 3.--M. H. himself, as cool as ever, but shammed to be
+indignant.  Said we were fools if we did not take it up.  Not a
+farthing would he pay of his old account, and fellows like us could
+not bring actions.  Also a hatful of money was to be made of this
+job, managed snugly.  Emigrants to California were the easiest of
+all things to square up.  A whole train of them disappeared this
+very year, by Indians or Mormons, and no bones made.  The best and
+most active of us must go--too ticklish for an agent.  We must
+carry on all above-board out there, and as if sent by British
+government.  In the far West no one any wiser.  Resolved to go
+myself, upon having a certain sum in ready.
+
+"August 5.--The money raised.  Start for Liverpool to-morrow.
+Require a change, or would not go.  May hit upon a nugget, etc.,
+etc."
+
+Mr. Goad's memoranda of his adventures, and signal defeat by Uncle
+Sam, have no claim to be copied here, though differing much from my
+account.  With their terse unfeeling strain, they might make people
+laugh who had not sadder things to think of.  And it matters very
+little how that spy escaped, as such people almost always seem to
+do.
+
+"Two questions, Goad, if you please," said Major Hockin, who had
+smiled sometimes, through some of his own remembrances; "what has
+happened since your return, and what is the name of the gentleman
+whom you have called 'M.H.?'"
+
+"Is it possible that you do not know, Sir?  Why, he told us quite
+lately that you were at his back!  You must know Sir Montague
+Hockin."
+
+"Yes, yes; certainly I do," the old man said, shortly, with a quick
+gleam in his eyes; "a highly respected gentleman now, though he may
+have sown his wild oats like the rest.  To be sure; of course I
+know all about it.  His meaning was good, but he was misled."
+
+In all my little experience of life nothing yet astonished me more
+than this.  I scarcely knew whom to believe, or what.  That the
+Major, most upright of men, should take up his cousin's roguery--
+all new to him--and speak of him thus!  But he gave me a nudge; and
+being all confusion, I said nothing, and tried to look at neither
+of them, because my eyes must always tell the truth.
+
+"As to the other point," Mr. Goad went on; "since my embassy
+failed, we have not been trusted with the confidence we had the
+right to expect.  Ours is a peculiar business, Sir:  'Trust me in
+all, or trust me not at all,' as one of our modern poets says, is
+the very essence of it.  And possibly, Major, if that had been
+done, even your vigor and our sense of law might not have extorted
+from me what you have heard.  Being cashiered, as we are, we act
+according to the strictest honor in divulging things no longer
+confided to us."
+
+"Goad, you have done yourself the utmost credit, legally,
+intellectually, and--well, I will not quite say morally.  If I ever
+have a nasty job to do--at least I mean a stealthy one--which God,
+who has ever kept me straight, forbid!--I will take care not to
+lose your address.  I have a very queer thing occurring on my
+manor--I believe it is bound up with this affair--never mind; I
+must think--I hate all underhanded work."
+
+"Major, our charges are strictly moderate.  We do in a week what
+takes lawyers a twelvemonth.  Allow me to hand you one of our new
+cards."
+
+"No, no.  My pockets are all full.  And I don't want to have it
+found among my papers.  No offense, Mr. Goad, no offense at all.
+Society is not as it was when I was young.  I condemn no modern
+institutions, Sir, though the world gets worse every day of its
+life."
+
+In terror of committing himself to any connection with such a firm,
+the Major put on his dark lights again, took up his cane, and let
+every body know, with a summary rap on the floor, that he might
+have relaxed, but would not allow any further liberty about it.
+And as he marched away, not proudly, yet with a very nice firmness,
+I was almost afraid to say any thing to him to disturb his high
+mental attitude.  For Mrs. Hockin must have exclaimed that here was
+a noble spectacle.
+
+"But one thing," I forced myself to suggest; "do ask one thing
+before we go.  That strange man who called himself 'Lord
+Castlewood' here, and 'Captain Brown' at Soberton--have they any
+idea where to find him now?  And why does he not come forward?"
+
+My comrade turned back, and put these questions; and the private
+inquirer answered that they had no idea of his whereabouts, but
+could easily imagine many good reasons for his present reserve of
+claim.  For instance, he might be waiting for discovery of further
+evidence; or (which was even more likely) for the death of the
+present Lord Castlewood, which could not be very far distant, and
+would remove the chief opponent.  It grieved me deeply to find that
+my cousin's condition was so notorious, and treated of in such a
+cold-blooded way, like a mule fallen lame, or a Chinaman in Frisco.
+
+"My dear, you must grow used to such things," Major Hockin
+declared, when he saw that I was vexed, after leaving those selfish
+premises.  "If it were not for death, how could any body live?
+Right feeling is shown by considering such points, and making for
+the demise of others even more preparation than for our own.
+Otherwise there is a selfishness about it by no means Christian-
+minded.  You look at things always from such an intense and even
+irreligious point of view.  But such things are out of my line
+altogether.  Your Aunt Mary understands them best."
+
+"Would you be able," I said, "to account to Aunt Mary conscientiously
+for that dreadful story which I heard you tell?  I scarcely knew
+where I stood, Major Hockin."
+
+"You mean about Montague?  Family honor must be defended at any
+price.  Child, I was greatly pained to go beyond the truth; but in
+such a case it is imperative.  I was shocked and amazed at my
+cousin's conduct; but how could I let such a fellow know that?  And
+think what I owe to his father, Sir Rufus?  No, no; there are times
+when Bayard himself must stretch a point.  Honor and religion alike
+demand it; and Mrs. Hockin need never hear of it."
+
+"Certainly I shall not speak of it," I answered, though a little
+surprised at his arguments; "but you mean, of course, to find out
+all about it.  It seems to me such a suspicious thing.  But I never
+could bear Sir Montague."
+
+The Major smiled grimly, and, perceiving that he wished to drop the
+subject, I said no more.  He had many engagements in London always,
+and I must not attempt to engross his time.  However, he would not
+for a moment hear of leaving me any where but with Betsy, for
+perhaps he saw how strange I was.  And, being alone at last with
+her, I could keep up my pride no longer.
+
+Through all that had happened, there never had been such a dreadful
+trial as I had borne this day without a word to any one.  Danger
+and loss and sad dreariness of mind, from want of young
+companionship; mystery also, and obscurity of life, had always been
+my fortune.  With all of these I had striven, to the best of my
+very small ability, having from nature no gift except the dull one
+of persistence.  And throughout that struggle I had felt quite sure
+that a noble yearning for justice and a lofty power of devotion
+were my two impelling principles.  But now, when I saw myself
+sprung of low birth, and the father of my worship base-born, down
+fell all my arduous castles, and I craved to go under the earth and
+die.
+
+For every word of Mr. Goad, and every crooked turn of little things
+in twist against me--even the Major's last grim smile--all began to
+work together, and make up a wretched tumult, sounding in my ears
+like drums.  Where was the use of going on, of proving any body's
+guilt or any body's innocence, if the utmost issue of the whole
+would be to show my father an impostor?  Then, and only then, I
+knew that love of abstract justice is to little minds impossible,
+that sense of honor is too prone to hang on chance of birth, and
+virtue's fountain, self-respect, springs but ill from parental
+taint.
+
+When I could no longer keep such bitter imaginings to myself, but
+poured them forth to Betsy, she merely laughed, and asked me how I
+could be such a simpleton.  Only to think of my father in such a
+light was beyond her patience!  Where was my pride, she would like
+to know, and my birth, and my family manners?  However, she did
+believe there was something in my ideas, if you turned them inside
+out, and took hold of them by the other end.  It was much more
+likely, to her mind, that the villain, the unknown villain at the
+bottom of all the misery, was really the son born out of wedlock,
+if any such there were at all, and therefore a wild harum-scarum
+fellow like Ishmael in the Book of Genesis.  And it would be just
+of a piece, she thought, with the old lord's character to drive
+such a man to desperation by refusing to give him a farthing.
+
+"All that might very well be," I answered; "but it would in no way
+serve to explain my father's conduct, which was the great mystery
+of all."  Nevertheless, I was glad to accept almost any view of the
+case rather than that which had forced itself upon me since the
+opening of the locket.  Any doubt of that most wretched conclusion
+was a great relief while it lasted; and, after so long a time of
+hope and self-reliance, should I cast away all courage through a
+mere suspicion?
+
+While I was thus re-assuring myself, and being re-assured by my
+faithful nurse, sad news arrived, and drove my thoughts into
+another crooked channel.  Mrs. Hockin, to meet my anxiety for some
+tidings from California, had promised that if any letter came, she
+would not even wait for the post, but forward it by special
+messenger.  And thus, that very same evening, I received a grimy
+epistle, in an unknown hand, with the postmark of Sacramento.
+Tearing it open, I read as follows:
+
+
+"MISS 'REMA,--No good luck ever came, since you, to this Blue River
+Station, only to be washed away, and robbed by greasers, and shot
+through the ribs, and got more work than can do, and find an
+almighty nugget sent by Satan.  And now the very worst luck of all
+have come, wholly and out of all denial, by you and your faces and
+graces and French goings on.  Not that I do not like you, mind; for
+you always was very polite to me, and done your best when you found
+me trying to put up with the trials put on me.  But now this trial
+is the worst of all that ever come to my establishings; and to go
+away now as I used to think of doing when tyrannized upon is out of
+my way altogether, and only an action fit for a half-breed.  Sawyer
+Gundry hath cut and run, without a word behind him--no instructions
+for orders in hand, and pouring in--no directions where to find
+him, not even 'God bless you' to any one of the many hands that
+looked up to him.  Only a packet of dollars for me to pay the wages
+for two months to come, and a power of lawyer to receive all debts,
+and go on anyhow just the same.  And to go on just the same is more
+than the worst of us has the heart for, without the sight of his
+old red face.  He may have been pretty sharp, and too much the
+master now and then, perhaps; but to do without him is a darned
+sight worse, and the hands don't take to me like him.  Many's the
+time I have seen his faults, of having his own way, and such likes,
+and paying a man beyond his time if his wife was out of order.  And
+many's the time I have said myself I was fitter to be at the head
+of it.
+
+"About that I was right enough, perhaps, if I had started upon my
+own hook; but to stand in the tracks he has worn to his own foot is
+to go into crooked compasses.  There is never a day without some
+hand threatening to strike and to better himself, as if they were
+hogs to come and go according to the acorns; and such low words I
+can never put up with, and packs them off immediate.  No place can
+be carried on if the master is to shut up his lips to impudence.
+And now I have only got three hands left, with work enough for
+thirty, and them three only stopped on, I do believe, to grumble of
+me if the Sawyer do come home!
+
+"But what we all want to know--and old Suan took a black stick to
+make marks for you--is why the old man hath run away, and where.
+Young Firm, who was getting a sight too uppish for me to have long
+put up with him, he was going about here, there, and every where,
+from the very first time of your going away, opening his mouth a
+deal too much, and asking low questions how long I stopped to
+dinner.  Old Suan said he was troubled in his mind, as the pale-
+faces do about young girls, instead of dragging them to their
+wigwams; and she would give him a spell to get over it.  But
+nothing came of that; and when the war broke out, he had words with
+his grandfather, and went off, so they said, to join the rebels.
+
+"Sawyer let him go, as proud as could be, though he would sooner
+have cut his own head off; and the very same night he sat down by
+his fire and shammed to eat supper as usual.  But I happened to go
+in to get some orders, and, my heart, I would never wish to see
+such things again!
+
+"The old man would never waste a bit of victuals, as you know, Miss
+'Rema; and, being acquaint with Suan's way of watching, he had
+slipped all his supper aside from his plate, and put it on a clean
+pocket-handkerchief to lock it in the press till his appetite
+should serve; and I caught him in the act, and it vexed him.
+'Ha'n't you the manners to knock at the door?' he said; and I said,
+'Certainly,' and went back and done it; and, troubled as he was, he
+grinned a bit.  Then he bowed his great head, as he always did when
+he knew he had gone perhaps a trifle too far with a man in my
+position.  I nodded to forgive him, and he stood across, and saw
+that he could do no less than liquor me, after such behavior.  But
+he only brought out one glass; and I said, 'Come, Colonel, square
+is square, you know.'  'Excuse of me, Martin,' he said; 'but no
+drop of strong drink passes the brim of my mouth till this
+gallivanting is done with.  I might take too much, as the old men
+do, to sink what they don't want to think on.'  'You mean about
+bully-cock Firm,' says I; 'rebel Firm--nigger-driver Firm.'
+'Hush!' he said; 'no bad words about it.  He has gone by his
+conscience and his heart.  What do we know of what come inside of
+him?'
+
+"This was true enough, for I never did make that boy out to my
+liking: and the old man now was as stiff as a rock, and pretty nigh
+as peculiar.  He made me a cocktail of his own patent, to show how
+firm his hand was; but the lines of his face was like wainscot
+mouldings, and the cords of his arm stood out like cogs.  Then he
+took his long pipe, as he may have done perhaps every blessed night
+for the last fifty years; but that length of time ought to have
+learned him better than to go for to fill it upside down.  'Ha,
+ha!' he said; 'every thing is upside down since I was a man under
+heaven--countries and nations and kindreds and duties; and why not
+a old tobacco-pipe?  That's the way babies blow bubbles with them.
+We shall all have to smoke 'em that way if our noble republic is
+busted up.  Fill yours, and try it, Martin.'
+
+"Instead of enjoying my cocktail, Miss 'Rema, I never was so down
+at mouth; for, to my mind, his old heart was broken while he
+carried on so.  And let every body say what they will, one thing
+there is no denying of.  Never was seen on this side of the big
+hills a man fit to walk in the tracks of Uncle Sam, so large and
+good-hearted according to his lights, hard as a grizzly bear for a
+man to milk him, but soft in the breastbone as a young prairie-hen
+for all folk down upon their nine-pins.
+
+"You may be surprised, miss, to find me write so long.  Fact is,
+the things won't go out of my mind without it.  And it gives me a
+comfort, after all I may have said, to put good opinions upon
+paper.  If he never should turn up again, my language will be to
+his credit; whereas if he do come back, with the betting a horse to
+a duck against it, to his pride he will read this testimonial of
+yours, faithfully, MARTIN CLOGFAST.
+
+"P.S.--Can't carry on like this much longer.  Enough to rip one's
+heart up.  You never would know the old place, miss.  The heads of
+the horses is as long as their tails with the way they carry them;
+the moss is as big as a Spaniard's beard upon the kitchen door-
+sill; and the old dog howls all day and night, like fifty thousand
+scalpers.  Suan saith, if you was to come back, the lad might run
+home after you.  'Tisn't the lad I cares about so much, but poor
+old Sawyer, at his time of life, swallowed up in the wilderness."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L
+
+THE PANACEA
+
+
+As if my own trouble were not enough, so deeply was I grieved by
+this sad news that I had a great mind to turn back on my own and
+fly to far-off disasters.  To do so appeared for the moment a noble
+thing, and almost a duty; but now, looking back, I perceive that my
+instinct was right when it told me to stay where I was, and see out
+my own sad story first.  And Betsy grew hot at the mere idea of my
+hankering after a miller's affairs, as she very rudely expressed
+it.  To hear about lords and ladies, and their crimes and
+adventures, was lovely; but to dwell upon people of common birth,
+and in trade, was most unbeseeming.  A man who mended his own mill,
+and had hands like horn--well, even she was of better blood than
+that, she hoped.
+
+Before these large and liberal views had fairly been expounded,
+Major Hockin arrived, with his mind in such a state that he opened
+his watch every second.
+
+"Erema, I must speak to you alone," he cried; "no, not even you,
+Mrs. Strouss, if you please.  If my ward likes to tell you, why, of
+course she can; but nobody shall say that I did.  There are things
+that belong to the family alone.  The most loyal retainers--you
+know what I mean."
+
+"General, I was not aware that you belonged to the family.  But
+this way, Sir; this way, if you please.  There is lath and plaster
+to that wall, and a crack in the panel of the door, Sir.  But here
+is a room where I keep my jams, with double brick and patent locks,
+from sweet-toothed lodgers.  The 'scutcheon goes over the key-hole,
+General.  Perhaps you will see to that, while I roll up the carpet
+outside; and then, if any retainers come, you will hear their
+footsteps."
+
+"Bless the woman, what a temper she has!" whispered the Major, in
+dread of her ears.  "Is she gone, Erema?  She wants discipline."
+
+"Yes, she is gone," I said, trying to be lightsome; "but you are
+enough to frighten any one."
+
+"So far from that, she has quite frightened me.  But never mind
+such trifles.  Erema, since I saw you I have discovered, I may
+almost say, every thing."
+
+Coming upon me so suddenly, even with all allowance made for the
+Major's sanguine opinion of his own deeds, this had such effect
+upon my flurried brain that practice alone enabled me to stand
+upright and gaze at him.
+
+"Perhaps you imagined when you placed the matter in my hands, Miss
+Castlewood," he went on, with sharp twinkles from the gables of his
+eyes, but soft caresses to his whiskers, "that you would be left in
+the hands of a man who encouraged a crop of hay under his feet.
+Never did you or any body make a greater mistake.  That is not my
+character, Miss Castlewood."
+
+"Why do you call me 'Miss Castlewood' so?  You quite make me doubt
+my own right to the name."
+
+Major Hockin looked at me with surprise, which gladdened even more
+than it shamed me.  Clearly his knowledge of all, as he described
+it, did not comprise the disgrace which I feared.
+
+"You are almost like Mrs. Strouss to-day," he answered, with some
+compassion.  "What way is the wind?  I have often observed that
+when one female shows asperity, nearly all the others do the same.
+The weather affects them more than men, because they know nothing
+about it.  But to come back--are you prepared to hear what I have
+got to tell you?"
+
+I bowed without saying another word.  For he should be almost the
+last of mankind to give a lecture upon irritation.
+
+"Very well; you wish me to go on.  Perceiving how sadly you were
+upset by the result of those interviews, first with Handkin, and
+then with Goad, after leaving you here I drove at once to the
+office, studio, place of business, or whatever you please to call
+it, of the famous fellow in the portrait line, whose anagram,
+private mark, or whatever it is, was burned into the back of the
+ivory.  Handkin told me the fellow was dead, or, of course, his
+work would be worth nothing; but the name was carried on, and the
+register kept, at a little place somewhere in Soho, where, on the
+strength of his old repute, they keep up a small trade with
+inferior hands.  I gave them a handsome order for a thing that will
+never be handsome, I fear--my old battered physiognomy.  And then I
+produced the locket which in some queer state of mind you had given
+me, and made them hunt out their old books, and at last discovered
+the very entry.  But to verify it I must go to Paris, where his son
+is living."
+
+"Whose son?  Lord Castlewood's?"
+
+"Erema, have you taken leave of your senses?  What son has Lord
+Castlewood?  The artist's son, to be sure; the son of the man who
+did the likeness.  Is it the vellum and the stuff upon it that has
+so upset your mind?  I am glad that you showed it to me, because it
+would have been mean to do otherwise.  But show it to no one else,
+my dear, except your cousin, Lord Castlewood.  He has the first
+right of all to know it, though he will laugh at it as I do.
+Trumpery of that sort!  Let them produce a certified copy of a
+register.  If they could do that, need they ever have shot that
+raffish old lord--I beg pardon, my dear--your highly respected
+grandfather?  No, no; don't tell me.  Nicholas Hockin was never in
+any way famous for want of brains, my dear, and he tells you to
+keep your pluck up."
+
+"I never can thank you enough," I replied, "for such inspiriting
+counsel.  I have been rather miserable all this day.  And I have
+had such a letter from America!"
+
+Without my intending any offer of the kind, or having such idea at
+the furthest tip of any radius of mind, I found myself under a
+weight about the waist, like the things the young girls put on now.
+And this was the arm of the Major, which had been knocked about in
+some actions, but was useful still to let other people know, both
+in this way and that, what he thought of them.  And now it let me
+know that he pitied me.
+
+This kindness from so old a soldier made me partial to him.  He had
+taken an age to understand me, because my father was out of the
+army almost before I was born, and therefore I had no traditions.
+Also, from want of drilling, I had been awkward to this officer,
+and sometimes mutinous, and sometimes a coward.  All that, however,
+he forgave me when he saw me so downhearted; and while I was
+striving to repress all signs, the quivering of my lips perhaps
+suggested thoughts of kissing.  Whereupon he kissed my forehead
+with nice dry lips, and told me not to be at all afraid.
+
+"How many times have you been brave?" he inquired, to set me
+counting, knowing from all his own children, perhaps, that nothing
+stops futile tears and the waste of sobs like prompt arithmetic.
+"Six, if not seven, times you have displayed considerable valor.
+Are you going to fall away through some wretched imagination of
+your own?  Now don't stop to argue--time will not allow it.  I have
+put Cosmopolitan Jack as well upon the track of Captain Brown.  I
+have not told you half of what I could tell, and what I am doing;
+but never mind, never mind; it is better that you should not know
+too much, my dear.  Young minds, from their want of knowledge of
+the world, are inclined to become uneasy.  Now go to bed and sleep
+soundly, Erema, for we have lots to do to-morrow, and you have had
+a most worrying day to-day.  To-morrow, of course, you must come
+with me to Paris.  You can parleyvoo better than I can."
+
+However, as it happened, I did nothing of the kind, for when he
+came back in the morning, and while he was fidgeting and hurrying
+me, and vowing that we should lose the tidal train, a letter from
+Bruntsea was put into my hand.  I saw Mrs. Price's clear writing,
+followed by good Aunt Mary's crooked lines, and knew that the
+latter must have received it too late to be sent by her messenger.
+In few words it told me that if I wished to see my cousin alive,
+the only chance was to start immediately.
+
+Shock and self-reproach and wonder came (as usual) before grief,
+which always means to stay, and waits to get its mourning ready.  I
+loved and respected my cousin more deeply than any one living, save
+Uncle Sam; and now to lose them both at once seemed much too
+dreadful to be true.  There was no time to think.  I took the
+Major's cab, and hurried off to Paddington, leaving him to catch
+his tidal train.
+
+Alas! when I got to Castlewood, there was but a house of mourning!
+Faithful Stixon's eyes were dim, and he pointed upward and said,
+"Hush!"  I entered with great awe, and asked, "How long?"  And he
+said, "Four-and-twenty hours now; and a more peacefuller end was
+never seen, and to lament was sinful; but he was blessed if he
+could help it."  I told him, through my tears, that this was
+greatly to his credit, and he must not crush fine feelings, which
+are an honor to our nature.  And he said that I was mistress now,
+and must order him to my liking.
+
+I asked him to send Mrs. Price to me, if she was not too busy; and
+he answered that he believed her to be a very good soul, and handy.
+And if he ever had been thought to speak in a sense disparishing
+of her, such things should not be borne in mind, with great
+afflictions over us.  Mrs. Price, hearing that I was come, already
+was on her way to me, and now glanced at the door for Mr. Stixon to
+depart, in a manner past misunderstanding.
+
+"He gives himself such airs!" she said; "sometimes one would think--
+but I will not trouble you now with that, Miss Castlewood, or Lady
+Castlewood--which do you please to be called, miss?  They say that
+the barony goes on, when there is no more Viscount."
+
+"I please to be called 'Miss Castlewood,' even if I have any right
+to be called that.  But don't let us talk of such trifles now.  I
+wish to hear only of my cousin."
+
+"Well, you know, ma'am, what a sufferer he has been for years.
+If ever an angel had pains all over, and one leg compulsory of a
+walking-stick, that angel was his late lordship.  He would stand up
+and look at one, and give orders in that beautiful silvery voice of
+his, just as if he was lying on a bed of down.  And never a twitch,
+nor a hitch in his face, nor his words, nor any other part of him.
+I assure you, miss, that I have been quite amazed and overwhelmed
+with interest while looking at his poor legs, and thinking--"
+
+"I can quite enter into it.  I have felt the same.  But please to
+come to what has happened lately."
+
+"The very thing I was at the point of doing.  Then last Sunday, God
+alone knows why, the pain did not come on at all.  For the first
+time for seven years or more the pain forgot the time-piece.  His
+lordship thought that the clock was wrong; but waited with his
+usual patience, though missing it from the length of custom,
+instead of being happy.  But when it was come to an hour too late
+for the proper attack of the enemy, his lordship sent orders for
+Stixon's boy to take a good horse and ride to Pangbourne for a
+highly respectable lawyer.  There was no time to fetch Mr. Spines,
+you see, miss, the proper solicitor, who lives in London.  The
+gentleman from Pangbourne was here by eight o'clock; and then and
+there his lordship made his will, to supersede all other wills.  He
+put it more clearly, the lawyer said, than he himself could have
+put it, but not, of course, in such legal words, but doubtless far
+more beautiful.  Nobody in the house was forgotten; and the rule of
+law being, it seems, that those with best cause to remember must
+not witness, two of the tenants were sent for, and wrote down their
+names legitimate.  And then his lordship lay back and smiled, and
+said, 'I shall have no more pain.'
+
+"All that night and three days more he slept as sound as a little
+child, to make up for so many years.  We called two doctors in; but
+they only whispered and looked dismal, and told us to have hot
+water ready at any hour of the day or night.  Nobody loved him as I
+did, miss, from seeing so much of his troubles and miraculous way
+of bearing them; and I sat by the hour and hour, and watched him,
+trusting no paid nurses.
+
+"It must have been eight o'clock on Wednesday morning--what is to-
+day?  Oh, Friday--then Thursday morning it must have been, when the
+clouds opened up in the east, and the light of the sun was on the
+window-sill, not glaring or staring, but playing about, with
+patterns of leaves between it; and I went to screen it from his
+poor white face; but he opened his eyes, as if he had been half
+awake, half dreaming, and he tried to lift one of his thin, thin
+hands to tell me not to do it.  So I let the curtain stay as it
+was, and crept back, and asked, very softly, 'Will your lordship
+have some breakfast?'
+
+"He did not seem to comprehend me, but only watched the window; and
+if ever a blessed face there was, looking toward heaven's glory,
+his lordship had it, so that I could scarcely keep from sobbing.
+For I never had seen any living body die, but knew that it must be
+so.  He heard me catching my breath, perhaps, or at any rate he
+looked at me; and the poor angel knew that I was a woman; and being
+full of high respect, as he always was for females--in spite of the
+way they had served him--it became apparent to his mind that the
+pearl button of his neck was open, as ordered by the doctors.  And
+he tried to lift his hand to do it; and then he tried to turn away,
+but could not manage either.  Poor dear! the only movement he could
+make was to a better world.
+
+"Then I drew the sheet across his chest, and he gave me a little
+smile of thanks, and perhaps he knew whose hand it was.  But the
+look of his kind soft eyes was flickering--not steady, I mean,
+miss--but glancing and stopping and going astray, as drops of rain
+do on the window-glass.  But I could not endure to examine him
+much; at such a holy time I felt that to watch death was unholy.
+
+"Perhaps I ought to have rung the bell for others to be present.
+But his lordship was always shy, you know, miss; and with none of
+his kindred left, and no wife to say 'good-by' to him, right or
+wrong I resolved alone to see him depart to his everlasting rest.
+And people may talk about hirelings, but I think nobody loved him
+as I did."
+
+Here Mrs. Price broke fairly down, and I could not help admiring
+her.  To a faithful servant's humility and duty she had added a
+woman's pure attachment to one more gifted than herself, and ruined
+for life by her own sex.  But she fell away frightened and ashamed
+beneath my look, as if I had caught her in sacrilege.
+
+"Well, miss, we all must come and go," she began again, rather
+clumsily; "and, good and great as he was, his lordship has left few
+to mourn for him.  Only the birds and beasts and animals that he
+was so good to; they will miss him, if men don't.  There came one
+of his favorite pigeons, white as snow all over, and sat on the
+sill of the window, and cooed, and arched up its neck for his
+fingers.  And he tried to put his fingers out, but they were ice
+already.  Whether that or something else brought home his thoughts,
+who knows, miss? but he seemed to mix the pigeon up with some of
+his own experience.
+
+"'Say that I have forgiven her, if ever she did harm to me,' he
+whispered, without moving lips.  'Times and times, when I was
+young, I was not always steady;' and then he seemed to wander in
+his mind among old places; and he would have laughed at something
+if his voice had been sufficient.
+
+"'Bitter grief and pain shall never come again,' he seemed to
+breathe, with a calm, soft smile, like a child with its rhyme about
+the rain when the sun breaks out; and sure enough, the sun upon the
+quilt above his heart was shining, as if there could be no more
+clouds.  Then he whispered a few short words to the Lord, more in
+the way of thanks than prayer, and his eyes seemed to close of
+their own accord, or with some good spirit soothing them.  And when
+or how his sleep passed from this world into the other there was
+scarcely the flutter of a nerve to show.  There he lies, like an
+image of happiness.  Will you come and see him?"
+
+I followed her to the bedroom, and am very glad that I did so; for
+it showed me the bliss of a good man's rest, and took away my fear
+of death.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI
+
+LIFE SINISTER
+
+
+When business and the little cares of earthly life awoke again,
+every one told me (to my great surprise and no small terror at
+first, but soon to increasing acquiescence) that I was now the
+mistress of the fair estates of Castlewood, and, the male line
+being extinct, might claim the barony, if so pleased me; for that,
+upon default of male heirs, descended by the spindle.  And as to
+the property, with or without any will of the late Lord Castlewood,
+the greater part would descend to me under unbarred settlement,
+which he was not known to have meddled with.  On the contrary, he
+confirmed by his last will the settlement--which they told me was
+quite needless--and left me all that he had to leave, except about
+a thousand pounds distributed in legacies.  A private letter to me
+was sealed up with his will, which, of course, it would not behoove
+me to make public.  But thus much--since our family history is,
+alas! so notorious--in duty to him I should declare.  He begged me,
+if his poor lost wife--of whom he had never spoken to me--should
+re-appear and need it, to pay her a certain yearly sum, which I
+thought a great deal too much for her, but resolved to obey him
+exactly.
+
+Neither the will nor the letter contained any reference to my
+grandfather, or the possibility of an adverse claim.  I could not,
+however, be quit of deep uneasiness and anxiety, but stanchly
+determined that every acre should vanish in folds of "the long
+robe" rather than pass to a crafty villain who had robbed me of all
+my kindred.  My hatred of that man deepened vastly, as he became
+less abstract, while my terror decreased in proportion.  I began to
+think that, instead of being the reckless fiend I had taken him
+for, he was only a low, plotting, cold-blooded rogue, without even
+courage to save him.  By this time he must have heard all about me,
+my pursuit of him, and my presence here--then why not come and
+shoot me, just as he shot my grandfather?
+
+The idea of this was unwelcome; still, I felt no sort of gratitude,
+but rather a lofty contempt toward him for not having spirit to try
+it.  In Shoxford church-yard he had expressed (if Sexton Rigg was
+not then deceived) an unholy wish to have me there, at the feet of
+my brothers and sisters.  Also he had tried to get hold of me--
+doubtless with a view to my quietude--when I was too young to
+defend myself, and left at haphazard in a lawless land.  What was
+the reason, if his mind was still the same, for ceasing to follow
+me now?  Was I to be treated with contempt as one who had tried her
+best and could do nothing, as a feeble creature whose movements
+were not even worth inquiry?  Anger at such an idea began to
+supersede fear, as my spirits returned.
+
+Meanwhile Major Hockin was making no sign as to what had befallen
+him in Paris, or what Cosmopolitan Jack was about.  But, strangely
+enough, he had sent me a letter from Bruntsea instead of Paris, and
+addressed in grand style to no less a person than "The right
+honorable Baroness Castlewood"--a title which I had resolved, for
+the present, neither to claim nor acknowledge.  In that letter the
+Major mingled a pennyweight of condolence with more congratulation
+than the post could carry for the largest stamp yet invented.  His
+habit of mind was to magnify things; and he magnified my small
+grandeur, and seemed to think nothing else worthy of mention.
+
+Through love of the good kind cousin I had lost, even more than
+through common and comely respect toward the late head of the
+family, I felt it impossible to proceed, for the present, with any
+inquiries, but left the next move to the other side.  And the other
+side made it, in a manner such as I never even dreamed of.
+
+About three weeks after I became, in that sad way, the mistress,
+escaping one day from lawyers and agents, who held me in dreary
+interview, with long computations of this and of that, and
+formalities almost endless, I went, for a breath of good earnest
+fresh air, beyond precinct of garden or shrubbery.  To me these
+seemed in mild weather to temper and humanize the wind too
+strictly, and take the wild spirit out of it; and now, for the turn
+of the moment, no wind could be too rough to tumble in.  After long
+months of hard trouble, and worry, and fear, and sad shame, and
+deep sorrow, the natural spring of clear youth into air and freedom
+set me upward.  For the nonce there was nothing upon my selfish
+self to keep it downward; troubles were bubbles, and grief a low
+thief, and reason almost treason.  I drank the fine fountain of air
+unsullied, and the golden light stamped with the royalty of sun.
+
+Hilarious moments are but short, and soon cold sense comes back
+again.  Already I began to feel ashamed of young life's selfish
+outburst, and the vehement spring of mere bodily health.  On this
+account I sat down sadly in a little cove of hill, whereto the soft
+breeze from the river came up, with a tone of wavelets, and a
+sprightly water-gleam.  And here, in fern and yellow grass and
+tufted bights of bottom growth, the wind made entry for the sun,
+and they played with one another.
+
+Besting here, and thinking, with my face between my hands, I
+wondered what would be the end.  Nothing seemed secure or certain,
+nothing even steady or amenable to foresight.  Even guess-work or
+the wider cast of dreams was always wrong.  To-day the hills and
+valleys, and the glorious woods of wreathen gold, bright garnet,
+and deep amethyst, even that blue river yet unvexed by autumn's
+turbulence, and bordered with green pasture of a thousand sheep and
+cattle--to-day they all were mine (so far as mortal can hold
+ownership)--to-morrow, not a stick, or twig, or blade of grass, or
+fallen leaf, but might call me a trespasser.  To see them while
+they still were mine, and to regard them humbly, I rose and took my
+black hat off--a black hat trimmed with mourning gray.  Then
+turning round, I met a gaze, the wildest, darkest, and most awful
+ever fixed on human face.
+
+"Who are you?  What do you want here?" I faltered forth, while
+shrinking back for flight, yet dreading or unable to withdraw my
+gaze from his.  The hollow ground barred all escape; my own land
+was a pit for me, and I must face this horror out.  Here, afar from
+house or refuge, hand of help, or eye of witness, front to front I
+must encounter this atrocious murderer.
+
+For moments, which were ages to me, he stood there without a word;
+and daring not to take my eyes from his, lest he should leap at me,
+I had no power (except of instinct), and could form no thought of
+him, for mortal fear fell over me.  If he would only speak, would
+only move his lips, or any thing!
+
+"The Baroness is not brave," he said at last, as if reproachfully;
+"but she need have no fear now of me.  Does her ladyship happen to
+know who I am?"
+
+"The man who murdered my grandfather."
+
+"Yes, if you put a false color on events.  The man who punished a
+miscreant, according to the truer light.  But I am not here to
+argue points.  I intend to propose a bargain.  Once for all, I will
+not harm you.  Try to listen calmly.  Your father behaved like a
+man to me, and I will be no worse to you.  The state of the law in
+this country is such that I am forced to carry fire-arms.  Will it
+conduce to your peace of mind if I place myself at your mercy?"
+
+I tried to answer; but my heart was beating so that no voice came,
+only a flutter in my trembling throat.  Wrath with myself for want
+of courage wrestled in vain with pale, abject fear.  The hand which
+offered me the pistol seemed to my dazed eyes crimson still with
+the blood of my grandfather.
+
+"You will not take it?  Very well; it lies here at your service.
+If your father's daughter likes to shoot me, from one point of view
+it will be just; and but for one reason, I care not.  Don't look at
+me with pity, if you please.  For what I have done I feel no
+remorse, no shadow of repentance.  It was the best action of my
+life.  But time will fail, unless you call upon your courage
+speedily.  None of your family lack that; and I know that you
+possess it.  Call your spirit up, my dear."
+
+"Oh, please not to call me that!  How dare you call me that?"
+
+"That is right.  I did it on purpose.  And yet I am your uncle.
+Not by the laws of men, but by the laws of God--if there are such
+things.  Now, have you the strength to hear me?"
+
+"Yes; I am quite recovered now.  I can follow every word you say.
+But--but I must sit down again."
+
+"Certainly.  Sit there, and I will stand.  I will not touch or come
+nearer to you than a story such as mine requires.  You know your
+own side of it; now hear mine.
+
+"More than fifty years ago there was a brave young nobleman,
+handsome, rich, accomplished, strong, not given to drink or
+gambling, or any fashionable vices.  His faults were few, and
+chiefly three--he had a headstrong will, loved money, and possessed
+no heart at all.  With chances in his favor, this man might have
+done as most men do who have such gifts from fortune.  But he
+happened to meet with a maiden far beneath him in this noble world,
+and he set his affections--such as they were--upon that poor young
+damsel.
+
+"This was Winifred Hoyle, the daughter of Thomas Hoyle, a farmer,
+in a lonely part of Hampshire, and among the moors of Rambledon.
+The nobleman lost his way, while fishing, and being thirsty, went
+to ask for milk.  What matter how it came about?  He managed to win
+her heart before she heard of his rank and title.  He persuaded her
+even to come and meet him in the valley far from her father's
+house, where he was wont to angle; and there, on a lonely wooden
+bridge across a little river, he knelt down (as men used to do) and
+pledged his solemn truth to her.  His solemn lie--his solemn lie!
+
+"Such love as his could not overleap the bars of rank or the pale
+of wealth--are you listening to me carefully?--or, at any rate, not
+both of them.  If the poor farmer could only have given his
+Winifred 50,000 pounds, the peer would have dropped his pride,
+perhaps, so far as to be honest.  But farmers in that land are
+poor, and Mr. Hoyle could give his only child his blessing only.
+And this he did in London, where his simple mind was all abroad,
+and he knew not church from chapel.  He took his daughter for the
+wife of a lord, and so she took herself, poor thing! when she was
+but his concubine.  In 1809 such tricks were easily played by
+villains upon young girls so simple.
+
+"But he gave her attestation and certificate under his own hand;
+and her poor father signed it, and saw it secured in a costly case,
+and then went home as proud as need be for the father of a peer,
+but sworn to keep it three years secret, till the king should give
+consent.  Such foul lies it was the pride of a lord to tell to a
+farmer.
+
+"You do not exclaim--of course you do not.  The instincts of your
+race are in you, because you are legitimate.  Those of the robbed
+side are in me, because I am of the robbed.  I am your father's
+elder brother.  Which is the worse, you proud young womam, the
+dastard or the bastard?"
+
+"You have wrongs, most bitter wrongs," I answered, meeting fierce
+eyes mildly; "but you should remember that I am guiltless of those
+wrongs, and so was my father.  And I think that if you talk of
+birth so, you must know that gentlemen speak quietly to ladies."
+
+"What concern is that of mine?  A gentleman is some one's son.  I
+am the son of nobody.  But to you I will speak quietly, for the
+sake of your poor father.  And you must listen quietly.  I am not
+famous for sweet temper.  Well, this great lord took his toy to
+Paris, where he had her at his mercy.  She could not speak a word
+of French; she did not know a single soul.  In vain she prayed him
+to take her to his English home; or, if not that, to restore her to
+her father.  Not to be too long about it--any more than he was--a
+few months were enough for him.  He found fault with her manners,
+with her speech, her dress, her every thing--all which he had
+right, perhaps, to do, but should have used it earlier.  And she,
+although not born to the noble privilege of weariness, had been an
+old man's darling, and could not put up with harshness.  From words
+they came to worse, until he struck her, told her of her shame, or
+rather his own infamy, and left her among strangers, helpless,
+penniless, and brokenhearted, to endure the consequence.
+
+"There and thus I saw the light beneath most noble auspices.  But I
+need not go on with all that.  As long as human rules remain, this
+happy tale will always be repeated with immense applause.  My
+mother's love was turned to bitter hatred of his lordship, and,
+when her father died from grief, to eager thirst for vengeance.
+And for this purpose I was born.
+
+"You see that--for a bastard--I have been fairly educated; but not
+a farthing did his lordship ever pay for that, or even to support
+his casual.  My grandfather Hoyle left his little all to his
+daughter Winifred; and upon that, and my mother's toil and mine, we
+have kept alive.  Losing sight of my mother gladly--for she was
+full of pride, and hoped no more to trouble him, after getting her
+father's property--he married again, or rather he married for the
+first time without perjury, which enables the man to escape from
+it.  She was of his own rank--as you know--the daughter of an earl,
+and not of a farmer.  It would not have been safe to mock her,
+would it?  And there was no temptation.
+
+"The history of my mother and myself does not concern you.  Such
+people are of no account until they grow dangerous to the great.
+We lived in cheap places and wandered about, caring for no one, and
+cared for by the same.  Mrs. Hoyle and Thomas Hoyle we called
+ourselves when we wanted names; and I did not even know the story
+of our wrongs till the heat and fury of youth were past.  Both for
+her own sake and mine my mother concealed it from me.  Pride and
+habit, perhaps, had dulled her just desire for vengeance; and,
+knowing what I was, she feared--the thing which has befallen me.
+But when I was close upon thirty years old, and my mother eight-
+and-forty--for she was betrayed in her teens--a sudden illness
+seized her.  Believing her death to be near, she told me, as calmly
+as possible, every thing, with all those large, quiet views of the
+past, which at such a time seem the regular thing, but make the
+wrong tenfold blacker.  She did not die; if she had, it might have
+been better both for her and me, and many other people.  Are you
+tired of my tale?  Or do you want to hear the rest?"
+
+"You can not be asking me in earnest," I replied, while I watched
+his wild eyes carefully.  "Tell me the rest, if you are not
+afraid."
+
+"Afraid, indeed!  Then, for want of that proper tendance and
+comfort which a few pounds would have brought her, although she
+survived, she survived as a wreck, the mere relic and ruin of her
+poor unhappy self.  I sank my pride for her sake, and even deigned
+to write to him, in rank and wealth so far above me, in every thing
+else such a clot below my heel.  He did the most arrogant thing a
+snob can do--he never answered my letter.
+
+"I scraped together a little money, and made my way to England, and
+came to that house--which you now call yours--and bearded that
+noble nobleman--that father to be so proud of!  He was getting on
+now in years, and growing, perhaps, a little nervous, and my first
+appearance scared him.  He got no obeisance from me, you may be
+certain, but still I did not revile him.  I told him of my mother's
+state of mind, and the great care she required, and demanded that,
+in common justice, he, having brought her to this, should help her.
+But nothing would he promise, not a sixpence even, in the way of
+regular allowance.  Any thing of that sort could only be arranged
+by means of his solicitors.  He had so expensive a son, with a very
+large and growing family, that he could not be pledged to any
+yearly sum.  But if I would take a draft for 100 pounds, and sign
+an acquittance in full of all claims, I might have it, upon proving
+my identity.
+
+"What identity had I to prove?  He had taken good care of that.  I
+turned my back on him and left the house, without even asking for
+his curse, though as precious as a good man's blessing.
+
+"It was a wild and windy night, but with a bright moon rising, and
+going across this park--or whatever it is called--I met my brother.
+At a crest of the road we met face to face, with the moon across
+our foreheads.  We had never met till now, nor even heard of one
+another; at least he had never heard of me.  He started back as if
+at his own ghost; but I had nothing to be startled at, in this
+world or the other.
+
+"I made his acquaintance, with deference, of course, and we got on
+very well together.  At one time it seemed good luck for him to
+have illegitimate kindred; for I saved his life when he was tangled
+in the weeds of this river while bathing.  You owe me no thanks.  I
+thought twice about it, and if the name would have ended with him,
+I would never have used my basket-knife.  By trade I am a basket-
+maker, like many another 'love-child.'
+
+"However, he was grateful, if ever any body was, for I ran some
+risk in doing it; and he always did his very best for me, and
+encouraged me to visit him.  Not at his home--of course that would
+never do--but when he was with his regiment.  Short of money as he
+always was, through his father's nature and his own, which in some
+points were the very opposite, he was even desirous to give me some
+of that; but I never took a farthing from him.  If I had it at all,
+I would have it from the proper one.  And from him I resolved to
+have it.
+
+"How terrified you look!  I am coming to it now.  Are you sure that
+you can bear it?  It is nothing very harrowing; but still, young
+ladies--"
+
+"I feel a little faint," I could not help saying; "but that is
+nothing.  I must hear the whole of it.  Please to go on without
+minding me."
+
+"For my own sake I will not, as well as for yours.  I can not have
+you fainting, and bringing people here.  Go to the house and take
+food, and recover your strength, and then come here again.  I
+promise to be here, and your father's daughter will not take
+advantage of my kindness."
+
+Though his eyes were fierce (instead of being sad) and full of
+strange tempestuous light, they bore some likeness to my father's,
+and asserted power over me.  Reluctant as I was, I obeyed this man,
+and left him there, and went slowly to the house, walking as if in
+a troubled dream.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII
+
+FOR LIFE, DEATH
+
+
+Upon my return, I saw nothing for a time but fans and feathers of
+browning fern, dark shags of ling, and podded spurs of broom and
+furze, and wisps of grass.  With great relief (of which I felt
+ashamed while even breathing it), I thought that the man was afraid
+to tell the rest of his story, and had fled; but ere my cowardice
+had much time for self-congratulation a tall figure rose from the
+ground, and fear compelled me into courage.  For throughout this
+long interview more and more I felt an extremely unpleasant
+conviction.  That stranger might not be a downright madman, nor
+even what is called a lunatic; but still it was clear that upon
+certain points--the laws of this country, for instance, and the
+value of rank and station--his opinions were so outrageous that his
+reason must be affected.  And, even without such proofs as these,
+his eyes and his manner were quite enough.  Therefore I had need of
+no small caution, not only concerning my words and gestures, but as
+to my looks and even thoughts, for he seemed to divine these last
+as quickly as they flashed across me.  I never had learned to
+conceal my thoughts, and this first lesson was an awkward one.
+
+"I hope you are better," he said, as kindly as it was possible for
+him to speak.  "Now have no fear of me, once more I tell you.  I
+will not sham any admiration, affection, or any thing of that kind;
+but as for harming you--why, your father was almost the only kind
+heart I ever met!"
+
+"Then why did you send a most vile man to fetch me, when my father
+was dead in the desert?"
+
+"I never did any thing of the sort.  It was done in my name, but
+not by me; I never even heard of it until long after, and I have a
+score to settle with the man who did it."
+
+"But Mr. Goad told me himself that you came and said you were the
+true Lord Castlewood, and ordered him at once to America.  I never
+saw truth more plainly stamped on a new situation--the face of a
+rogue--than I saw it then on the face of Mr. Goad."
+
+"You are quite right; he spoke the truth--to the utmost of his
+knowledge.  I never saw Goad, and he never saw me.  I never even
+dreamed of pretending to the title.  I was personated by a mean,
+low friend of Sir Montague Hockin; base-born as I am, I would never
+stoop to such a trick.  You will find out the meaning of that by-
+and-by.  I have taken the law into my own hands--it is the only way
+to work such laws--I have committed what is called a crime.  But,
+compared with Sir Montague Hockin, I am whiter than yonder
+shearling on his way to the river for his evening drink."
+
+I gazed at his face, and could well believe it.  The setting sun
+shone upon his chin and forehead--good, resolute, well-marked
+features; his nose and mouth were keen and clear, his cheeks curt
+and pale (though they would have been better for being a trifle
+cleaner).  There was nothing suggestive of falsehood or fraud, and
+but for the wildness of the eyes and flashes of cold ferocity, it
+might have been called a handsome face.
+
+"Very well," he began again, with one of those jerks which had
+frightened me, "your father was kind to me, very kind indeed; but
+he knew the old lord too well to attempt to interpose on my behalf.
+On the other hand, he gave no warning of my manifest resolve;
+perhaps he thought it a woman's threat, and me no better than a
+woman!  And partly for his sake, no doubt, though mainly for my
+mother's, I made the short work which I made; for he was horribly
+straitened--and in his free, light way he told me so--by his hard
+curmudgeon of a father.
+
+"To that man, hopeless as he was, I gave fair grace, however, and
+plenty of openings for repentance.  None of them would he embrace,
+and he thought scorn of my lenity.  And I might have gone on with
+such weakness longer, if I had not heard that his coach-and-four
+was ordered for the Moonstock Inn.
+
+"That he should dare thus to pollute the spot where he had so
+forsworn himself!  I resolved that there he should pay justice,
+either with his life or death.  And I went to your father's place
+to tell him to prepare for disturbances; but he was gone to see his
+wife, and I simply borrowed a pistol.
+
+"Now you need not be at all afraid nor shrink away from me like
+that.  I was bound upon stricter justice than any judge that sets
+forth on circuit; and I meant to give, and did give, what no judge
+affords to the guilty--the chance of leading a better life.  I had
+brought my mother to England, and she was in a poor place in
+London; her mind was failing more and more, and reverting to her
+love-time, the one short happiness of her life.  'If I could but
+see him, if I could but see him, and show him his tall and clever
+son, he would forgive me all my sin in thinking ever to be his
+wife.  Oh, Thomas!  I was too young to know it.  If I could but see
+him once, just once!'
+
+"How all this drove me no tongue can tell.  But I never let her
+know it; I only said, 'Mother, he shall come and see you if he ever
+sees any body more!'  And she trusted me and was satisfied.  She
+only said, 'Take my picture, Thomas, to remind him of the happy
+time, and his pledge to me inside of it.'  And she gave me what she
+had kept for years in a bag of chamois leather, the case of which I
+spoke before, which even in our hardest times she would never send
+to the pawn-shop.
+
+"The rest is simple enough.  I swore by the God, or the Devil, who
+made me, that this black-hearted man should yield either his
+arrogance or his life.  I followed him to the Moon valley, and fate
+ordained that I should meet him where he forswore himself to my
+mother; on that very plank where he had breathed his deadly lies he
+breathed his last.  Would you like to hear all about it?"
+
+For answer I only bowed my head.  His calm, methodical way of
+telling his tale, like a common adventure with a dog, was more
+shocking than any fury.
+
+"Then it was this.  I watched him from the Moonstock Inn to a house
+in the village, where he dined with company; and I did not even
+know that it was the house of his son, your father--so great a gulf
+is fixed between the legitimate and the bastard!  He had crossed
+the wooden bridge in going, and was sure to cross it in coming
+back.  How he could tread those planks without contrition and
+horror--but never mind.  I resolved to bring him to a quiet parley
+there, and I waited in the valley.
+
+"The night was soft, and dark in patches where the land or wood
+closed in; and the stream was brown and threw no light, though the
+moon was on the uplands.  Time and place alike were fit for our
+little explanation.  The path wound down the meadow toward me, and
+I knew that he must come.  My firm intention was to spare him, if
+he gave me a chance of it; but he never had the manners to do that.
+
+"Here I waited, with the cold leaves fluttering around me, until I
+heard a firm, slow step coming down the narrow path.  Then a figure
+appeared in a stripe of moonlight, and stopped, and rested on a
+staff.  Perhaps his lordship's mind went back some five-and-thirty
+years, to times when he told pretty stories here; and perhaps he
+laughed to himself to think how well he had got out of it.
+Whatever his meditations were, I let him have them out, and waited.
+
+"If he had even sighed, I might have felt more kindness toward him;
+but he only gave something between a cough and a grunt, and I
+clearly heard him say, 'Gout to-morrow morning! what the devil did
+I drink port-wine for!'  He struck the ground with his stick and
+came onward, thinking far more of his feet than heart.
+
+"Then, as he planted one foot gingerly on the timber and stayed
+himself, I leaped along the bridge and met him, and without a word
+looked at him.  The moon was topping the crest of the hills and
+threw my shadow upon him, the last that ever fell upon his body to
+its knowledge.
+
+"'Fellow, out of the way!' he cried, with a most commanding voice
+and air, though only too well he knew me; and my wrath against him
+began to rise.
+
+"'You pass not here, and you never make another live step on this
+earth,' I said, as calmly as now I speak, 'unless you obey my
+orders.'
+
+"He saw his peril, but he had courage--perhaps his only virtue.
+'Fool! whoever you are,' he shouted, that his voice might fetch him
+help; 'none of these moon-struck ways with me!  If you want to rob
+me, try it!'
+
+"'You know too well who I am,' I answered, as he made to push me
+back.  'Lord Castlewood, here you have the choice--to lick the
+dust, or be dust!  Here you forswore yourself; here you pay for
+perjury.  On this plank you knelt to poor Winifred Hoyle, whom you
+ruined and cast by; and now on this plank you shall kneel to her
+son and swear to obey him--or else you die!'
+
+"In spite of all his pride, he trembled as if I had been Death
+himself, instead of his own dear eldest son.
+
+"'What do you want!'  As he asked, he laid one hand on the rickety
+rail and shook it, and the dark old tree behind him shook.  'How
+much will satisfy you?'
+
+"'Miser, none of your money for us! it is too late for your half
+crowns!  We must have a little of what you have grudged--having
+none to spare--your honor.  My demands are simple, and only two.
+My mother is fool enough to yearn for one more sight of your false
+face; you will come with me and see her.'
+
+"'And if I yield to that, what next?'
+
+"'The next thing is a trifle to a nobleman like you.  Here I have,
+in this blue trinket (false gems and false gold, of course), your
+solemn signature to a lie.  At the foot of that you will have the
+truth to write, "I am a perjured liar!" and proudly sign it
+"Castlewood," in the presence of two witnesses.  This can not hurt
+your feelings much, and it need not be expensive.'
+
+"Fury flashed in his bright old eyes, but he strove to check its
+outbreak.  The gleaning of life, after threescore years, was
+better, in such lordly fields, than the whole of the harvest we
+got.  He knew that I had him all to myself, to indulge my filial
+affection.
+
+"'You have been misled; you have never heard the truth; you have
+only heard your mother's story.  Allow me to go back and to sit in
+a dry place; I am tired, and no longer young; you are bound to hear
+my tale as well.  I passed a dry stump just now; I will go back:
+there is no fear of interruption.'  My lord was talking against
+time.
+
+"'From this bridge you do not budge until you have gone on your
+knees and sworn what I shall dictate to you; this time it shall be
+no perjury.  Here I hold your cursed pledge--'
+
+"He struck at me, or at the locket--no matter which--but it flew
+away.  My right arm was crippled by his heavy stick; but I am left-
+handed, as a bastard should be.  From my left hand he took his
+death, and I threw the pistol after him: such love had he earned
+from his love-child!"
+
+Thomas Castlewood, or Hoyle, or whatever else his name was, here
+broke off from his miserable words, and, forgetting all about my
+presence, set his gloomy eyes on the ground.  Lightly he might try
+to speak, but there was no lightness in his mind, and no spark of
+light in his poor dead soul.  Being so young, and unacquainted with
+the turns of life-worn mind, I was afraid to say a word except to
+myself, and to myself I only said, "The man is mad, poor fellow;
+and no wonder!"
+
+The sun was setting, not upon the vast Pacific from desert heights,
+but over the quiet hills and through the soft valleys of tame
+England; and, different as the whole scene was, a certain other sad
+and fearful sunset lay before me: the fall of night upon my dying
+father and his helpless child, the hour of anguish and despair!
+Here at last was the cause of all laid horribly before me; and the
+pity deeply moving me passed into cold abhorrence.  But the man was
+lost in his own visions.
+
+"So in your savage wrath," I said, "you killed your own father, and
+in your fright left mine to bear the brunt of it."
+
+He raised his dark eyes heavily, and his thoughts were far astray
+from mine.  He did not know what I had said, though he knew that I
+had spoken.  The labor of calling to mind and telling his treatment
+of his father had worked upon him so much that he could not freely
+shift attention.
+
+"I came for something, something that can be only had from you," he
+said, "and only since your cousin's death, and something most
+important.  But will you believe me? it is wholly gone, gone from
+mind and memory!"
+
+"I am not surprised at that," I answered, looking at his large wan
+face, and while I did so, losing half my horror in strange sadness.
+"Whatever it is, I will do it for you; only let me know by post."
+
+"I see what you mean--not to come any more.  You are right about
+that, for certain.  But your father was good to me, and I loved
+him, though I had no right to love any one.  My letter will show
+that I wronged him never.  The weight of the world is off my mind
+since I have told you every thing; you can send me to the gallows,
+if you think fit, but leave it till my mother dies.  Good-by, poor
+child.  I have spoiled your life, but only by chance consequence,
+not in murder-birth--as I was born."
+
+Before I could answer or call him back, if I even wished to do so,
+he was far away, with his long, quiet stride; and, like his life,
+his shadow fell, chilling, sombre, cast away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII
+
+BRUNTSEA DEFIANT
+
+
+Thus at last--by no direct exertion of my own, but by turn after
+turn of things to which I blindly gave my little help--the mystery
+of my life was solved.  Many things yet remained to be fetched up
+to focus and seen round; but the point of points was settled.
+
+Of all concerned, my father alone stood blameless and heroic.  What
+tears of shame and pride I shed, for ever having doubted him!--not
+doubting his innocence of the crime itself, but his motives for
+taking it upon him.  I had been mean enough to dream that my dear
+father outraged justice to conceal his own base birth!
+
+That ever such thought should have entered my mind may not make me
+charitable to the wicked thoughts of the world at large, but, at
+any rate, it ought to do so.  And the man in question, my own
+father, who had starved himself to save me!  Better had I been the
+most illegal child ever issued into this cold world, than dare to
+think so of my father, and then find him the model of every thing.
+
+To hide the perjury, avarice, and cowardice of his father, and to
+appease the bitter wrong, he had even bowed to take the dark
+suspicion on himself, until his wronged and half-sane brother (to
+whom, moreover, he owed his life) should have time to fly from
+England.  No doubt he blamed himself as much as he condemned the
+wretched criminal, because he had left his father so long unwarned
+and so unguarded, and had thoughtlessly used light words about him,
+which fell not lightly on a stern, distempered mind.  Hence,
+perhaps, the exclamation which had told against him so.
+
+And then when he broke jail--which also told against him terribly--
+to revisit his shattered home, it is likely enough that he meant
+after that to declare the truth, and stand his trial as a man
+should do.  But his wife, perhaps, in her poor weak state, could
+not endure the thought of it, knowing how often jury is injury, and
+seeing all the weight against him.  She naturally pledged him to
+pursue his flight, "for her sake," until she should be better able
+to endure his trial, and until he should have more than his own
+pure word and character to show.  And probably if he had then been
+tried, with so many things against him, and no production of that
+poor brother, his tale would have seemed but a flimsy invention,
+and "Guilty" would have been the verdict.  And they could not know
+that, in such case, the guilty man would have come forward, as we
+shall see that he meant to do.
+
+When my father heard of his dear wife's death, and believed, no
+doubt, that I was buried with the rest, the gloom of a broken and
+fated man, like polar night, settled down on him.  What matter to
+him about public opinion or any thing else in the world just now?
+The sins of his father were on his head; let them rest there,
+rather than be trumpeted by him.  He had nothing to care for; let
+him wander about.  And so he did for several years, until I became
+a treasure to him--for parental is not intrinsic value--and then,
+for my sake, as now appeared, he betook us both to a large kind
+land.
+
+Revolving these things sadly, and a great many more which need not
+be told, I thought it my duty to go as soon as possible to
+Bruntsea, and tell my good and faithful friends what I was loath to
+write about.  There, moreover, I could obtain what I wanted to
+confirm me--the opinion of an upright, law-abiding, honorable man
+about the course I proposed to take.  And there I might hear
+something more as to a thing which had troubled me much in the
+deepest of my own troubles--the melancholy plight of dear Uncle
+Sam.  Wild, and absurd as it may appear to people of no gratitude,
+my heart was set upon faring forth in search of the noble Sawyer,
+if only it could be reconciled with my duty here in England.  That
+such a proceeding would avail but little, seemed now, alas! too
+manifest; but a plea of that kind generally means that we have no
+mind to do a thing.
+
+Be that as it will, I made what my dear Yankees--to use the Major's
+impertinent phrase--call "straight tracks" for that ancient and
+obsolete town, rejuvenized now by its Signor.  The cause of my good
+friend's silence--not to use that affected word "reticence"--was
+quite unknown to me, and disturbed my spirit with futile guesses.
+
+Resolute, therefore, to pierce the bottom of every surviving
+mystery, I made claim upon "Mr. Stixon, junior"--as "Stixon's boy"
+had now vindicated his right to be called, up to supper-time--and
+he with high chivalry responded.  Not yet was he wedded to Miss
+Polly Hopkins, the daughter of the pickled-pork man; otherwise
+would he or could he have made telegraphic blush at the word
+"Bruntsea?"  And would he have been quite so eager to come?
+
+Such things are trifling, compared to our own, which naturally fill
+the universe.  I was bound to be a great lady now, and patronize
+and regulate and drill all the doings of nature.  So I durst not
+even ask, though desiring much to do so, how young Mr. Stixon was
+getting on with his delightful Polly.  And his father, as soon as
+he found me turned into the mistress, and "his lady" (as he would
+have me called thenceforth, whether or no on my part), not another
+word would he tell me of the household sentiments, politics, or
+romances.  It would have been thought a thing beneath me to put any
+nice little questions now, and I was obliged to take up the tone
+which others used toward me.  But all the while I longed for
+freedom, Uncle Sam, Suan Isco, and even Martin of the Mill.
+
+Law business, however, and other hinderances, kept me from starting
+at once for Bruntsea, impatient as I was to do so.  Indeed, it was
+not until the morning of the last Saturday in November that I was
+able to get away.  The weather had turned to much rain, I remember,
+with two or three tempestuous nights, and the woods were almost
+bare of leaves, and the Thames looked brown and violent.
+
+In the fly from Newport to Bruntsea I heard great rollers
+thundering heavily upon the steep bar of shingle, and such a lake
+of water shone in the old bed of the river that I quite believed at
+first that the Major had carried out his grand idea, and brought
+the river back again.  But the flyman shook his head, and looked
+very serious, and told me that he feared bad times were coming.
+What I saw was the work of the Lord in heaven, and no man could
+prevail against it.  He had always said, though no concern of his--
+for he belonged to Newport--that even a British officer could not
+fly in the face of the Almighty.  He himself had a brother on the
+works, regular employed, and drawing good money, and proud enough
+about it; and the times he had told him across a pint of ale--
+howsomever, our place was to hope for the best; but the top of the
+springs was not come yet, and a pilot out of Newport told him the
+water was making uncommon strong; but he did hope the wind had nigh
+blowed itself out; if not, they would have to look blessed sharp
+tomorrow.  He had heard say that in time of Queen Elizabeth
+sixscore of houses was washed clean away, and the river itself
+knocked right into the sea; and a thing as had been once might just
+come to pass again, though folk was all so clever now they thought
+they wor above it.  But, for all that, their grandfathers' goggles
+might fit them.  But here we was in Bruntsea town, and, bless his
+old eyes--yes!  If I pleased to look along his whip, I might see
+ancient pilot come, he did believe, to warn of them!
+
+Following his guidance, I descried a stout old man, in a sailor's
+dress, weather-proof hat, and long boots, standing on a low
+seawall, and holding vehement converse with some Bruntsea boatmen
+and fishermen who were sprawling on the stones as usual.
+
+"Driver, you know him.  Take the lower road," I said, "and ask what
+his opinion is."
+
+"No need to ask him," the flyman answered; "old Banks would never
+be here, miss, if he was of two opinions.  He hath come to fetch
+his daughter out of harm, I doubt, the wife of that there Bishop
+Jim, they call him--the chap with two nails to his thumb, you know.
+Would you like to hear how they all take it, miss?"
+
+With these words he turned to the right, and drove into Major
+Hockin's "Sea Parade."  There we stopped to hear what was going on,
+and it proved to be well worth our attention.  The old pilot
+perhaps had exhausted reason, and now was beginning to give way to
+wrath.  The afternoon was deepening fast, with heavy gray clouds
+lowering, showing no definite edge, but streaked with hazy lines,
+and spotted by some little murky blurs or blots, like tar pots,
+carried slowly.
+
+"Hath Noah's Ark ever told a lie?" the ancient pilot shouted,
+pointing with one hand at these, and with a clinched fist at the
+sea, whence came puffs of sullen air, and turned his gray locks
+backward.  "Mackerel sky when the sun got up, mermaiden's eggs at
+noon, and now afore sunset Noah's Arks!  Any of them breweth a gale
+of wind, and the three of them bodes a tempest.  And the top of the
+springs of the year to-morrow.  Are ye daft, or all gone upon the
+spree, my men?  Your fathers would 'a knowed what the new moon
+meant.  Is this all that cometh out of larning to read?"
+
+"Have a pinch of 'bacco, old man," said one, "to help you off with
+that stiff reel.  What consarn can he be of yourn?"
+
+"Don't you be put out, mate," cried another.  "Never came sea as
+could top that bar, and never will in our time.  Go and calk your
+old leaky craft, Master Banks."
+
+"We have rode out a good many gales without seeking prophet from
+Newport--a place never heerd on when this old town was made."
+
+"Come and wet your old whistle at the 'Hockin Arms,' Banks.  You
+must want it, after that long pipe."
+
+"'Hockin Arms,' indeed!" the pilot answered, turning away in a rage
+from them.  "What Hockin Arms will there be this time to-morrow?
+Hockin legs wanted, more likely, and Hockin wings.  And you poor
+grinning ninnies, as ought to have four legs, ye'll be praying that
+ye had them to-morrow.  However, ye've had warning, and ye can't
+blame me.  The power of the Lord is in the air and sea.  Is this
+the sort of stuff ye trust in?"
+
+He set one foot against our Major's wall--an action scarcely honest
+while it was so green--and, coming from a hale and very thickset
+man, the contemptuous push sent a fathom of it outward.  Rattle,
+rattle went the new patent concrete, starting up the lazy-pated
+fellows down below.
+
+"You'll try the walls of a jail," cried one.  "You go to Noah's
+Ark," shouted another.  The rest bade him go to a place much worse;
+but he buttoned his jacket in disdain, and marched away, without
+spoiling the effect by any more weak words.
+
+"Right you are," cried my flyman--"right you are, Master Banks.
+Them lubbers will sing another song to-morrow.  Gee up, old hoss,
+then!"
+
+All this, and the ominous scowl of the sky and menacing roar of the
+sea (already crowding with black rollers), disturbed me so that I
+could say nothing, until, at the corner of the grand new hotel, we
+met Major Hockin himself, attired in a workman's loose jacket, and
+carrying a shovel.  He was covered with mud and dried flakes of
+froth, and even his short white whiskers were incrusted with
+sparkles of brine; but his face was ruddy and smiling, and his
+manner as hearty as ever.
+
+"You here, Erema!  Oh, I beg pardon--Baroness Castlewood, if you
+please.  My dear, again I congratulate you."
+
+"You have as little cause to do that as I fear I can find in your
+case.  You have no news for me from America?  How sad!  But what a
+poor plight you yourself are in!"
+
+"Not a bit of it.  At first sight you might think so; and we
+certainly have had a very busy time.  Send back the fly.  Leave
+your bag at our hotel.  Porter, be quick with Lady Castlewood's
+luggage.  One piece of luck befalls me--to receive so often this
+beautiful hand.  What a lot of young fellows now would die of
+envy--"
+
+"I am glad that you still can talk nonsense," I said; "for I truly
+was frightened at this great lake, and so many of your houses even
+standing in the water."
+
+"It will do them good.  It will settle the foundations and
+crystallize the mortar.  They will look twice as well when they
+come out again, and never have rats or black beetles.  We were
+foolish enough to be frightened at first; and there may have been
+danger a fortnight ago.  But since that tide we have worked day and
+night, and every thing is now so stable that fear is simply
+ridiculous.  On the whole, it has been a most excellent thing--
+quite the making, in fact, of Bruntsea."
+
+"Then Bruntsea must be made of water," I replied, gazing sadly at
+the gulf which parted us from the Sea Parade, the Lyceum, and
+Baths, the Bastion Promenade, and so on; beyond all which the
+streaky turmoil and misty scud of the waves were seen.
+
+"Made of beer, more likely," he retorted, with a laugh.  "If my
+fellows worked like horses--which they did--they also drank like
+fishes.  Their mouths were so dry with the pickle, they said.  But
+the total abstainers were the worst, being out of practice with the
+can.  However, let us make no complaints.  We ought to be truly
+thankful; and I shall miss the exercise.  That is why you have
+heard so little from me.  You see the position at a glance.  I have
+never been to Paris at all, Erema.  I have not rubbed up my
+parleywoo, with a blast from Mr. Bellows.  I was stopped by a
+telegram about this job--acrior illum.  I had some Latin once,
+quite enough for the House of Commons, but it all oozed out at my
+elbows; and to ladies (by some superstition) it is rude--though
+they treat us to bad French enough.  Never mind.  What I want to
+say is this, that I have done nothing, but respected your sad
+trouble; for you took a wild fancy to that poor bedridden, who
+never did you a stroke of good except about Cosmopolitan Jack, and
+whose removal has come at the very nick of time.  For what could
+you have done for money, with the Yankees cutting each other's
+throats, and your nugget quite sure to be annexed, or, at the very
+best, squared up in greenbacks?"
+
+"You ought not to speak so, Major Hockin.  If all your plans were
+not under water, I should be quite put out with you.  My cousin was
+not bedridden; neither was he at all incapable, as you have called
+him once or twice.  He was an infinitely superior man to--to what
+one generally sees; and when you have heard what I have to tell, in
+his place you would have done just as he did.  And as for money,
+and 'happy release'--as the people who never want it for themselves
+express it--such words simply sicken me; at great times they are so
+sordid."
+
+"What is there in this world that is not sordid--to the young in
+one sense, and to the old in another?"
+
+Major Hockin so seldom spoke in this didactic way, and I was so
+unable to make it out, that, having expected some tiff on his part
+at my juvenile arrogance, I was just in the mould for a deep
+impression from sudden stamp of philosophy.  I had nothing to say
+in reply, and he went up in my opinion greatly.
+
+He knew it; and he said, with touching kindness, "Erema, come and
+see your dear aunt Mary.  She has had an attack of rheumatic gout
+in her thimble-finger, and her maids have worried her out of her
+life, and by far the most brilliant of her cocks (worth 20 pounds
+they tell me) breathed his last on Sunday night, with gapes, or
+croup, or something.  This is why you have not heard again from
+her.  I have been in the trenches day and night, stoning out the
+sea with his own stones, by a new form of concrete discovered by
+myself.  And unless I am very much mistaken--in fact, I do not
+hesitate to say--But such things are not in your line at all.  Let
+us go up to the house.  Our job is done, and I think Master Neptune
+may pound away in vain.  I have got a new range in the kitchen now,
+partly of my own invention; you can roast, or bake, or steam, or
+stew, or frizzle kabobs--all by turning a screw.  And not only
+that, but you can keep things hot, piping hot, and ripening, as it
+were, better than when they first were done.  Instead of any burned
+iron taste, or scum on the gravy, or clottiness, they mellow by
+waiting, and make their own sauce.  If I ever have time I shall
+patent this invention; why, you may burn brick-dust in it, Bath-
+brick, hearth-stone, or potsherds!  At any hour of the day or
+night, while the sea is in this condition, I may want my dinner;
+and there we have it.  We say grace immediately, and down we sit.
+Let us take it by surprise, if it can be taken so.  Up through my
+chief drive, instanter!  I think that I scarcely ever felt more
+hungry.  The thought of that range always sets me off.  And one of
+its countless beauties is the noble juicy fragrance."
+
+Major Hockin certainly possessed the art--so meritorious in a host--
+of making people hungry; and we mounted the hill with alacrity,
+after passing his letter-box, which reminded me of the mysterious
+lady.  He pointed to "Desolate Hole," as he called it, and said
+that he believed she was there still, though she never came out now
+to watch their house.  And a man of dark and repelling aspect had
+been seen once or twice by his workmen, during the time of their
+night relays, rapidly walking toward Desolate Hole.  How any one
+could live in such a place, with the roar and the spray of the sea,
+as it had been, at the very door, and through the windows, some
+people might understand, but not the Major.
+
+Good Mrs. Hockin received me with her usual warmth and kindness,
+and scolded me for having failed to write more to her, as all
+people seem to do when conscious of having neglected that duty
+themselves.  Then she showed me her thimble-finger, which certainly
+was a little swollen; and then she poured forth her gratitude for
+her many blessings, as she always did after any little piece of
+grumbling.  And I told her that if at her age I were only a quarter
+as pleasant and sweet of temper, I should consider myself a
+blessing to any man.
+
+After dinner my host produced the locket, which he had kept for the
+purpose of showing it to the artist's son in Paris, and which he
+admired so intensely that I wished it were mine to bestow on him.
+Then I told him that, through a thing wholly unexpected--the
+confession of the criminal himself--no journey to Paris was needful
+now.  I repeated that strange and gloomy tale, to the loud
+accompaniment of a rising wind and roaring sea, while both my
+friends listened intently.
+
+"Now what can have led him so to come to you?" they asked; "and
+what do you mean to do about it?"
+
+"He came to me, no doubt, to propose some bargain, which could not
+be made in my cousin's lifetime.  But the telling of his tale made
+him feel so strange that he really could not remember what it was.
+As to what I am to do, I must beg for your opinion; such a case is
+beyond my decision."  Mrs. Hockin began to reply, but stopped,
+looking dutifully at her lord.
+
+"There is no doubt what you are bound to do, at least in one way,"
+the Major said.  "You are a British subject, I suppose, and you
+must obey the laws of the country.  A man has confessed to you a
+murder--no matter whether it was committed twenty years ago or two
+minutes; no matter whether it was a savage, cold-blooded,
+premeditated crime, or whether there were things to palliate it.
+Your course is the same; you must hand him over.  In fact, you
+ought never to have let him go."
+
+"How could I help it?" I pleaded, with surprise.  "It was
+impossible for me to hold him."
+
+"Then you should have shot him with his own pistol.  He offered it
+to you.  You should have grasped it, pointed it at his heart, and
+told him that he was a dead man if he stirred."
+
+"Aunt Mary, would you have done that?" I asked.  "It is so easy to
+talk of fine things!  But in the first place, I had no wish to stop
+him; and in the next, I could not if I had."
+
+"My dear," Mrs. Hockin replied, perceiving my distress at this view
+of the subject, "I should have done exactly what you did.  If the
+laws of this country ordain that women are to carry them out
+against great strong men, who, after all, have been sadly injured,
+why, it proves that women ought to make the laws, which to my mind
+is simply ridiculous."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV
+
+BRUNTSEA DEFEATED
+
+
+Little sleep had I that night.  Such conflict was in my mind about
+the proper thing to be done next, and such a war of the wind
+outside, above and between the distant uproar of the long
+tumultuous sea.  Of that sound much was intercepted by the dead
+bulk of the cliff, but the wind swung fiercely over this, and
+rattled through all shelter.  In the morning the storm was furious;
+but the Major declared that his weather-glass had turned, which
+proved that the gale was breaking.  The top of the tide would be at
+one o'clock, and after church we should behold a sight he was
+rather proud of--the impotent wrath of the wind and tide against
+his patent concrete.
+
+"My dear, I scarcely like such talk," Mrs. Hockin gently
+interposed.  "To me it seems almost defiant of the power of the
+Lord.  Remember what happened to poor Smeaton--at least I think his
+name was Smeaton, or Stanley, was it?  But I dare say you know
+best.  He defied the strength of the Lord, like the people at the
+mouth of their tent, and he was swallowed up."
+
+"Mary, my dear, get your prayer-book.  Rasper's fly is waiting for
+us, and the parson has no manners.  When he drops off, I present to
+the living; and I am not at all sure that I shall let George have
+it.  He is fond of processions, and all that stuff.  The only
+procession in the Church of England is that of the lord of the
+manor to his pew.  I will be the master in my own church."
+
+"Of course, dear, of course; so you ought to be.  It always was so
+in my father's parish.  But you must not speak so of our poor
+George.  He may be 'High-Church,' as they call it; but he knows
+what is due to his family, and he has a large one coming."
+
+We set off hastily for the church, through blasts of rain and
+buffets of wind, which threatened to overturn the cab, and the
+seaward window was white, as in a snowstorm, with pellets of froth,
+and the drift of sea-scud.  I tried to look out, but the blur and
+the dash obscured the sight of every thing.  And though in this
+lower road we were partly sheltered by the pebble ridge, the driver
+was several times obliged to pull his poor horse up and face the
+wind, for fear of our being blown over.
+
+That ancient church, with its red-tiled spire, stands well up in
+the good old town, at the head of a street whose principal object
+now certainly is to lead to it.  Three hundred years ago that
+street had business of its own to think of, and was brave perhaps
+with fine men and maids at the time of the Spanish Armada.  Its
+only bravery now was the good old church, and some queer gables,
+and a crypt (which was true to itself by being buried up to the
+spandrels), and one or two corners where saints used to stand,
+until they were pelted out of them, and where fisher-like men, in
+the lodging season, stand selling fish caught at Billingsgate.  But
+to Bruntsea itself the great glory of that street was rather of
+hope than of memory.  Bailiff Hopkins had taken out three latticed
+windows, and put in one grand one of plate-glass, with "finishing"
+blinds all varnished.  And even on a Sunday morning Bruntsea wanted
+to know what ever the bailiff was at behind them.  Some said that
+he did all his pickling on a Sunday; and by putting up "spectacle
+glass" he had challenged the oldest inhabitant to come and try his
+focus.
+
+Despite all the rattle and roar of the wind, we went on in church
+as usual.  The vicar had a stout young curate from Durham, who
+could outshout any tempest, with a good stone wall between them;
+and the Bruntsea folk were of thicker constitution than to care an
+old hat for the weather.  Whatever was "sent by the Lord" they took
+with a grumble, but no excitement.  The clock in front of the
+gallery told the time of the day as five minutes to twelve, when
+the vicar, a pleasant old-fashioned man, pronounced his text, which
+he always did thrice over to make us sure of it.  And then he
+hitched up his old black gown, and directed his gaze at the lord of
+the manor, to impress the whole church with authority.  Major
+Hockin acknowledged in a proper manner this courtesy of the
+minister by rubbing up his crest, and looking even more wide-awake
+than usual; whereas Aunt Mary, whose kind heart longed to see her
+own son in that pulpit, calmly settled back her shoulders, and
+arranged her head and eyes so well as to seem at a distance in rapt
+attention, while having a nice little dream of her own.  But
+suddenly all was broken up.  The sexton (whose license as warden of
+the church, and even whose duty it was to hear the sermon only
+fitfully, from the tower arch, where he watched the boys, and
+sniffed the bakehouse of his own dinner)--to the consternation of
+every body, this faithful man ran up the nave, with his hands above
+his head, and shouted,
+
+"All Brownzee be awash, awash"--sounding it so as to rhyme with
+"lash"--"the zea, the zea be all over us!"
+
+The clergyman in the pulpit turned and looked through a window
+behind him, while all the congregation rose.
+
+"It is too true," the preacher cried; "the sea is in over the bank,
+my friends.  Every man must rush to his own home.  The blessing of
+the Lord be on you through His fearful visitation!"
+
+He had no time to say more; and we thought it very brave of him to
+say that, for his own house was in the lower village, and there he
+had a wife and children sick.  In half a minute the church was
+empty, and the street below it full of people, striving and
+struggling against the blast, and breasting it at an incline like
+swimmers, but beaten back ever and anon and hurled against one
+another, with tattered umbrellas, hats gone, and bonnets hanging.
+And among them, like gulls before the wind, blew dollops of spray
+and chunks of froth, with every now and then a slate or pantile.
+
+All this was so bad that scarcely any body found power to speak, or
+think, or see.  The Major did his very best to lead us, but could
+by no means manage it.  And I screamed into his soundest ear to
+pull Aunt Mary into some dry house--for she could not face such
+buffeting--and to let me fare for myself as I might.  So we left
+Mrs. Hockin in the bailiff's house, though she wanted sadly to come
+with us, and on we went to behold the worst.  And thus, by running
+the byes of the wind, and craftily hugging the corners, we got to
+the foot of the street at last, and then could go no further.
+
+For here was the very sea itself, with furious billows panting.
+Before us rolled and ran a fearful surf of crested whiteness, torn
+by the screeching squalls, and tossed in clashing tufts and
+pinnacles.  And into these came, sweeping over the shattered chine
+of shingle, gigantic surges from the outer deep, towering as they
+crossed the bar, and combing against the sky-line, then rushing
+onward, and driving the huddle of the ponded waves before them.
+
+The tide was yet rising, and at every blow the wreck and the havoc
+grew worse and worse.  That long sweep of brick-work, the "Grand
+Promenade," bowed and bulged, with wall and window knuckled in and
+out, like wattles; the "Sea Parade" was a parade of sea; and a
+bathing-machine wheels upward lay, like a wrecked Noah's Ark, on
+the top of the "Saline-Silico-Calcareous Baths."
+
+The Major stood by me, while all his constructions "went by the
+board," as they say at sea; and verily every thing was at sea.  I
+grieved for him so that it was not the spray alone that put salt
+drops on my cheeks.  And I could not bear to turn and look at his
+good old weather-beaten face.  But he was not the man to brood upon
+his woes in silence.  He might have used nicer language, perhaps,
+but his inner sense was manful.
+
+"I don't care a damn," he shouted, so that all the women heard him.
+"I can only say I am devilish glad that I never let one of those
+houses."
+
+There was a little band of seamen, under the shelter of a garden
+wall, crouching, or sitting, or standing (or whatever may be the
+attitude, acquired by much voyaging and experience of bad weather,
+which can not be solved, as to centre of gravity, even by the man
+who does it), and these men were so taken with the Major's
+manifesto, clinched at once and clarified to them by strong, short
+language, that they gave him a loud "hurrah," which flew on the
+wings of the wind over house-tops.  So queer and sound is English
+feeling that now Major Hockin became in truth what hitherto he was
+in title only--the lord and master of Bruntsea.
+
+"A boat! a boat!" he called out again.  "We know not who are
+drowning.  The bank still breaks the waves; a stout boat surely
+could live inside it."
+
+"Yes, a boat could live well enough in this cockle, though never
+among them breakers," old Barnes, the fisherman, answered, who used
+to take us out for whiting; "but Lord bless your honor, all the
+boats are thumped to pieces, except yonner one, and who can get at
+her?"
+
+Before restoring his hands to their proper dwelling-place--his
+pockets--he jerked his thumb toward a long white boat, which we had
+not seen through the blinding scud.  Bereft of its brethren, or
+sisters--for all fluctuating things are feminine--that boat
+survived, in virtue of standing a few feet higher than the rest.
+But even so, and mounted on the last hump of the pebble ridge, it
+was rolling and reeling with stress of the wind and the wash of
+wild water under it.
+
+"How nobly our Lyceum stands!" the Major shouted, for any thing
+less than a shout was dumb.  "This is the time to try institutions.
+I am proud of my foundations."
+
+In answer to his words appeared a huge brown surge, a mountain
+ridge, seething backward at the crest with the spread and weight of
+onset.  This great wave smote all other waves away, or else
+embodied them, and gathered its height against the poor worn pebble
+bank, and descended.  A roar distinct above the universal roar
+proclaimed it; a crash of conflict shook the earth, and the
+shattered bank was swallowed in a world of leaping whiteness.  When
+this wild mass dashed onward into the swelling flood before us,
+there was no sign of Lyceum left, but stubs of foundation, and a
+mangled roof rolling over and over, like a hen-coop.
+
+"Well, that beats every thing I ever saw," exclaimed the gallant
+Major.  "What noble timber!  What mortise-work!  No London scamping
+there, my lads.  But what comes here?  Why, the very thing we
+wanted!  Barnes, look alive, my man.  Run to your house, and get a
+pair of oars and a bucket."
+
+It was the boat, the last surviving boat of all that hailed from
+Bruntsea.  That monstrous billow had tossed it up like a school-
+boy's kite, and dropped it whole, with an upright keel, in the
+inland sea, though nearly half full of water.  Driven on by wind
+and wave, it labored heavily toward us; and more than once it
+seemed certain to sink as it broached to and shipped seas again.
+But half a dozen bold fishermen rushed with a rope into the short
+angry surf--to which the polled shingle bank still acted as a
+powerful breakwater, else all Bruntsea had collapsed--and they
+hauled up the boat with a hearty cheer, and ran her up straight
+with, "Yo--heave--oh!" and turned her on her side to drain, and
+then launched her again, with a bucket and a man to bail out the
+rest of the water, and a pair of heavy oars brought down by Barnes,
+and nobody knows what other things.
+
+"Naught to steer with.  Rudder gone!" cried one of the men, as the
+furious gale drove the boat, athwart the street, back again.
+
+"Wants another oar," said Barnes.  "What a fool I were to bring
+only two!"
+
+"Here you are!" shouted Major Hockin.  "One of you help me to pull
+up this pole."
+
+Through a shattered gate they waded into a little garden, which had
+been the pride of the season at Bruntsea; and there from the ground
+they tore up a pole, with a board at the top nailed across it, and
+the following not rare legend:  "Lodgings to let.  Inquire within.
+First floor front, and back parlors."
+
+"Fust-rate thing to steer with!  Would never have believed you had
+the sense!"  So shouted Barnes--a rough man, roughened by the
+stress of storm and fright.  "Get into starn-sheets if so liketh.
+Ye know, ye may be useful."
+
+"I defy you to push off without my sanction.  Useful, indeed!  I am
+the captain of this boat.  All the ground under it is mine.  Did
+you think, you set of salted radicals, that I meant to let you go
+without me?  And all among my own houses!"
+
+"Look sharp, governor, if you has the pluck, then.  Mind, we are
+more like to be swamped than not."
+
+As the boat swung about, Major Hockin jumped in, and so, on the
+spur of the moment, did I.  We staggered all about with the heave
+and roll, and both would have fallen on the planks, or out over, if
+we had not tumbled, with opposite impetus, into the arms of each
+other.  Then a great wave burst and soaked us both, and we fell
+into sitting on a slippery seat.
+
+Meanwhile two men were tugging at each oar, and Barnes himself
+steering with the sign-board; and the head of the boat was kept
+against the wind and the billows from our breakwater.  Some of
+these seemed resolved (though shorn of depth and height in
+crossing) to rush all over us and drown us in the washer-women's
+drying ground.  By skill and presence of mind, our captain, Barnes,
+foiled all their violence, till we got a little shelter from the
+ruins of the "Young Men's Christian Institute."
+
+"Hold all!" cried Barnes; "only keep her head up, while I look
+about what there is to do."
+
+The sight was a thing to remember; and being on the better side now
+of the scud, because it was flying away from us, we could make out
+a great deal more of the trouble which had befallen Bruntsea.  The
+stormy fiord which had usurped the ancient track of the river was
+about a furlong in width, and troughed with white waves vaulting
+over.  And the sea rushed through at the bottom as well, through
+scores of yards of pebbles, as it did in quiet weather even, when
+the tide was brimming.  We in the tossing boat, with her head to
+the inrush of the outer sea, were just like people sitting upon the
+floats or rafts of a furious weir; and if any such surge had topped
+the ridge as the one which flung our boat to us, there could be no
+doubt that we must go down as badly as the Major's houses.
+However, we hoped for the best, and gazed at the desolation inland.
+
+Not only the Major's great plan, but all the lower line of old
+Bruntsea, was knocked to pieces, and lost to knowledge in freaks of
+wind-lashed waters.  Men and women were running about with favorite
+bits of furniture, or feather-beds, or babies' cradles, or whatever
+they had caught hold of.  The butt ends of the three old streets
+that led down toward the sea-ground were dipped, as if playing
+seesaw in the surf, and the storm made gangways of them and
+lighthouses of the lamp-posts.  The old public-house at the corner
+was down, and the waves leaping in at the post-office door, and
+wrecking the globes of the chemist.
+
+"Drift and dash, and roar and rush, and the devil let loose in the
+thick of it.  My eyes are worn out with it.  Take the glass, Erema,
+and tell us who is next to be washed away.  A new set of clothes-
+props for Mrs. Mangles I paid for the very day I came back from
+town."
+
+With these words, the lord of the submarine manor (whose strength
+of spirit amazed me) offered his pet binocular, which he never went
+without upon his own domain.  And fisherman Barnes, as we rose and
+fell, once more saved us from being "swamped" by his clever way of
+paddling through a scallop in the stern, with the board about the
+first floor front to let.
+
+The seamen, just keeping way on the boat, sheltered their eyes with
+their left hands, and fixed them on the tumultuous scene.
+
+I also gazed through the double glass, which was a very clear one;
+but none of us saw any human being at present in any peril.
+
+"Old pilot was right, after all," said one; "but what a good job as
+it come o' middle day, and best of all of a Sunday!"
+
+"I have heered say," replied another, "that the like thing come to
+pass nigh upon three hunder years agone.  How did you get your
+things out, Jem Bishop?"
+
+Jem, the only one of them whose house was in the havoc, regarded
+with a sailor's calmness the entry of the sea through his bedroom
+window, and was going to favor us with a narrative, when one of his
+mates exclaimed,
+
+"What do I see yonner, lads?  Away beyond town altogether.  Seemeth
+to me like a fellow swimming.  Miss, will you lend me spy-glass?
+Never seed a double-barreled one before.  Can use him with one eye
+shut, I s'pose?"
+
+"No good that way, Joe," cried Barnes, with a wink of superior
+knowledge, for he often had used this binocular.  "Shut one eye for
+one barrel--stands to reason, then, you shut both for two, my son."
+
+"Stow that," said the quick-eyed sailor, as he brought the glass to
+bear in a moment.  "It is a man in the water, lads, and swimming to
+save the witch, I do believe."
+
+"Bless me!" cried the Major; "how stupid of us!  I never thought
+once of that poor woman.  She must be washed out long ago.  Pull
+for your lives, my friends.  A guinea apiece if you save her."
+
+"And another from me," I cried.  Whereupon the boat swept round,
+and the tough ash bent, and we rushed into no small danger.  For
+nearly half a mile had we to pass of raging and boisterous water,
+almost as wild as the open sea itself at the breaches of the pebble
+ridge.  And the risk of a heavy sea boarding us was fearfully
+multiplied by having thus to cross the storm instead of breasting
+it.  Useless and helpless, and only in the way, and battered about
+by wind and sea, so that my Sunday dress was become a drag, what
+folly, what fatuity, what frenzy, I might call it, could ever have
+led me to jump into that boat?  "I don't know.  I only know that I
+always do it," said my sensible self to its mad sister, as they
+both shut their eyes at a great white wave.  "If I possibly
+survive, I will try to know better.  But ever from my childhood I
+am getting into scrapes."
+
+The boat labored on, with a good many grunts, but not a word from
+any one.  More than once we were obliged to fetch up as a great
+billow topped the poor shingle bank; and we took so much water on
+board that the men said afterward that I saved them.  I only
+remember sitting down and working at the bucket with both hands,
+till much of the skin was gone, and my arms and many other places
+ached.  But what was that to be compared with drowning?
+
+At length we were opposite "Desolate Hole," which was a hole no
+longer, but filled and flooded with the churning whirl and reckless
+dominance of water.  Tufts and tussocks of shattered brush and
+rolling wreck played round it, and the old gray stone of mullioned
+windows split the wash like mooring-posts.  We passed and gazed;
+but the only sound was the whistling of the tempest, and the only
+living sight a sea-gull, weary of his wings, and drowning.
+
+"No living creature can be there," the Major broke our long
+silence.  "Land, my friends, if land we may.  We risk our own lives
+for nothing."
+
+The men lay back on their oars to fetch the gallant boat to the
+wind again, when through a great gap in the ruins they saw a sight
+that startled manhood.  At the back of that ruin, on the landward
+side, on a wall which, tottered under them, there were two figures
+standing.  One a tall man, urging on, the other a woman shrinking.
+At a glance, or with a thought, I knew them both.  One was Lord
+Castlewood's first love, the other his son and murderer.
+
+Our men shouted with the whole power of their hearts to tell that
+miserable pair to wait till succor should be brought to them.  And
+the Major stood up and waved his hat, and in doing so tumbled back
+again.  I can not tell--how could I tell in the thick of it?--but
+an idea or a flit of fancy touched me (and afterward became
+conviction) that while the man heard us not at all, and had no
+knowledge of us, his mother turned round and saw us all, and faced
+the storm in preference.
+
+Whatever the cause may have been, at least she suddenly changed her
+attitude.  The man had been pointing to the roof, which threatened
+to fall in a mass upon them, while she had been shuddering back
+from the depth of eddying waves below her.  But now she drew up her
+poor bent figure, and leaned on her son to obey him.
+
+Our boat, with strong arms laboring for life, swept round the old
+gable of the ruin; but we were compelled to "give it wide berth,"
+as Captain Barnes shouted; and then a black squall of terrific wind
+and hail burst forth.  We bowed our heads and drew our bodies to
+their tightest compass, and every rib of our boat vibrated as a
+violin does; and the oars were beaten flat, and dashed their drip
+into fringes like a small-toothed comb.
+
+That great squall was either a whirlwind or the crowning blast of a
+hurricane.  It beat the high waves hollow, as if it fell from the
+sky upon them; and it snapped off one of our oars at the hilt, so
+that two of our men rolled backward.  And when we were able to look
+about again the whole roof of "Desolate Hole" was gone, and little
+of the walls left standing.  And how we should guide our course, or
+even save our lives, we knew not.
+
+We were compelled to bring up--as best we might--with the boat's
+head to the sea, and so to keep it by using the steering gear
+against the surviving oar.  As for the people we were come to save,
+there was no chance whatever of approaching them.  Even without the
+mishap to the oar, we never could have reached them.
+
+And indeed when first we saw them again they seemed better off than
+ourselves were.  For they were not far from dry land, and the man
+(a skillful and powerful swimmer) had a short piece of plank, which
+he knew how to use to support his weak companion.
+
+"Brave fellow! fine fellow!" the Major cried, little knowing whom
+he was admiring.  "See how he keeps up his presence of mind!  Such
+a man as that is worth any thing.  And he cares more for her than
+he does for himself.  He shall have the Society's medal.  One more
+long and strong stroke, my noble friend.  Oh, great God! what has
+befallen him?"
+
+In horror and pity we gazed.  The man had been dashed against
+something headlong.  He whirled round and round in white water, his
+legs were thrown up, and we saw no more of him.  The woman cast off
+the plank, and tossed her helpless arms in search of him.  A
+shriek, ringing far on the billowy shore, declared that she had
+lost him; and then, without a struggle, she clasped her hands, and
+the merciless water swallowed her.
+
+"It is all over," cried Major Hockin, lifting his drenched hat
+solemnly.  "The Lord knoweth best.  He has taken them home."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV
+
+A DEAD LETTER
+
+
+With that great tornado, the wind took a leap of more points of the
+compass than I can tell.  Barnes, the fisherman, said how many; but
+I might be quite wrong in repeating it.  One thing, at any rate,
+was within my compass--it had been blowing to the top of its
+capacity, direct from the sea, but now it began to blow quite as
+hard along the shore.  This rough ingratitude of wind to waves,
+which had followed each breath of its orders, produced extraordinary
+passion, and raked them into pointed wind-cocks.
+
+"Captain, we can't live this out," cried Barnes; "we must run her
+ashore at once; tide has turned; we might be blown out to sea, with
+one oar, and then the Lord Himself couldn't save us."
+
+Crippled as we were, we contrived to get into a creek, or
+backwater, near the Major's gate.  Here the men ran the boat up,
+and we all climbed out, stiff, battered, and terrified, but doing
+our best to be most truly thankful.
+
+"Go home, Captain, as fast as you can, and take the young lady
+along of you," said Mr. Barnes, as we stood and gazed at the
+weltering breadth of disaster.  "We are born to the drip, but not
+you, Sir; and you are not so young as you was, you know."
+
+"I am younger than ever I was," the lord of the manor answered,
+sternly, yet glancing back to make sure of no interruption from his
+better half--who had not even heard of his danger.  "None of that
+nonsense to me, Barnes.  You know your position, and I know mine.
+On board of that boat you took the lead, and that may have misled
+you.  I am very much obliged to you, I am sure, for all your skill
+and courage, which have saved the lives of all of us.  But on land
+you will just obey me."
+
+"Sartinly, Captain.  What's your orders?"
+
+"Nothing at all.  I give no orders.  I only make suggestions.  But
+if your experience sees a way to recover those two poor bodies, let
+us try it at once--at once, Barnes.  Erema, run home.  This is no
+scene for you.  And tell Margaret to put on the double-bottomed
+boiler, with the stock she made on Friday, and a peck of patent
+pease.  There is nothing to beat pea soup; and truly one never
+knows what may happen."
+
+This was only too evident now, and nobody disobeyed him.
+
+Running up his "drive" to deliver that message, at one of the many
+bends I saw people from Bruntsea hurrying along a footpath through
+the dairy-farm.  While the flood continued this was their only way
+to meet the boat's crew.  On the steps of "Smuggler's Castle" (as
+Bruntlands House was still called by the wicked) I turned again,
+and the new sea-line was fringed with active searchers.  I knew
+what they were looking for, but, scared and drenched and shivering
+as I was, no more would I go near them.  My duty was rather to go
+in and comfort dear Aunt Mary and myself.  In that melancholy quest
+I could do no good, but a great deal of harm, perhaps, if any thing
+was found, by breaking forth about it.
+
+Mrs. Hockin had not the least idea of the danger we had encountered.
+Bailiff Hopkins had sent her home in Rasper's fly by an inland
+road, and she kept a good scolding quite ready for her husband, to
+distract his mind from disaster.  That trouble had happened she
+could not look out of her window without knowing; but could it be
+right, at their time of life, to stand in the wet so, and challenge
+Providence, and spoil the first turkey-poult of the season?
+
+But when she heard of her husband's peril, in the midst of all his
+losses, his self-command, and noble impulse first of all to rescue
+life, she burst into tears, and hugged and kissed me, and said the
+same thing nearly fifty times.
+
+"Just like him.  Just like my Nicholas.  You thought him a
+speculative, selfish man.  Now you see your mistake, Erema."
+
+When her veteran husband came home at last (thoroughly jaded, and
+bringing his fishermen to gulp the pea soup and to gollop the
+turkey), a small share of mind, but a large one of heart, is
+required to imagine her doings.  Enough that the Major kept saying,
+"Pooh-pooh!" and the more he said, the less he got of it.
+
+When feelings calmed down, and we returned to facts, our host and
+hero (who, in plain truth, had not so wholly eclipsed me in
+courage, though of course I expected no praise, and got none, for
+people hate courage in a lady), to put it more simply, the Major
+himself, making a considerable fuss, as usual--for to my mind he
+never could be Uncle Sam--produced from the case of his little
+"Church Service," to which he had stuck like a Briton, a sealed and
+stamped letter, addressed to me at Castlewood, in Berkshire--
+"stamped," not with any post-office tool, but merely with the red
+thing which pays the English post.
+
+Sodden and blurred as the writing was, I knew the clear, firm hand,
+the same which on the envelope at Shoxford had tempted me to
+meanness.  This letter was from Thomas Hoyle; the Major had taken
+it from the pocket of his corpse; all doubt about his death was
+gone.  When he felt his feet on the very shore, and turned to
+support his mother, a violent wave struck the back of his head upon
+Major Hockin's pillar-box.
+
+Such sadness came into my heart--though sternly it should have been
+gladness--that I begged their pardon, and went away, as if with a
+private message.  And wicked as it may have been, to read was more
+than once to cry.  The letter began abruptly:
+
+"You know nearly all my story now.  I have only to tell you what
+brought me to you, and what my present offer is.  But to make it
+clear, I must enlarge a little.
+
+"There was no compact of any kind between your father and myself.
+He forbore at first to tell what he must have known, partly,
+perhaps, to secure my escape, and partly for other reasons.  If he
+had been brought to trial, his duty to his family and himself would
+have led him, no doubt, to explain things.  And if that had failed,
+I would have returned and surrendered myself.  As things happened,
+there was no need.
+
+"Through bad luck, with which I had nothing to do, though doubtless
+the whole has been piled on my head, your father's home was
+destroyed, and he seems to have lost all care for every thing.  Yet
+how much better off was he than I!  Upon me the curse fell at
+birth; upon him, after thirty years of ease and happiness.
+However, for that very reason, perhaps, he bore it worse than I
+did.  He grew imbittered against the world, which had in no way
+ill-treated him; whereas its very first principle is to scorn all
+such as I am.  He seems to have become a misanthrope, and a
+fatalist like myself.  Though it might almost make one believe the
+existence of such a thing as justice to see pride pay for its
+wickedness thus--the injury to the outcast son recoil upon the
+pampered one, and the family arrogance crown itself with the
+ignominy of the family.
+
+"In any case, there was no necessity for my interference; and being
+denied by fate all sense of duty to a father, I was naturally
+driven to double my duty to my mother, whose life was left hanging
+upon mine.  So we two for many years wandered about, shunning
+islands and insular prejudice.  I also shunned your father, though
+(so far as I know) he neither sought me nor took any trouble to
+clear himself.  If the one child now left him had been a son, heir
+to the family property and so on, he might have behaved quite
+otherwise, and he would have been bound to do so.  But having only
+a female child, who might never grow up, and, if she did, was very
+unlikely to succeed, he must have resolved at least to wait.  And
+perhaps he confirmed himself with the reflection that even if
+people believed his tale (so long after date and so unvouched), so
+far as family annals were concerned, the remedy would be as bad as
+the disease.  Moreover, he owed his life to me, at great risk of my
+own; and to pay such a debt with the hangman's rope would scarcely
+appear quite honorable, even in the best society.
+
+"It is not for me to pretend to give his motives, although from my
+knowledge of his character I can guess them pretty well, perhaps.
+We went our several ways in the world, neither of us very
+fortunate.
+
+"One summer, in the Black Forest, I fell in with an outcast
+Englishman, almost as great a vagabond as myself.  He was under the
+ban of the law for writing his father's name without license.  He
+did not tell me that, or perhaps even I might have despised him,
+for I never was dishonest.  But one great bond there was between
+us--we both detested laws and men.  My intimacy with him is the one
+thing in life which I am ashamed of.  He passed by a false name
+then, of course.  But his true name was Montague Hockin.  My mother
+was in very weak health then, and her mind for the most part
+clouded; and I need not say that she knew nothing of what I had
+done for her sake.  That man pretended to take the greatest
+interest in her condition, and to know a doctor at Baden who could
+cure her.
+
+"We avoided all cities (as he knew well), and lived in simple
+villages, subsisting partly upon my work, and partly upon the
+little income left by my grandfather, Thomas Hoyle.  But, compared
+with Hockin, we were well off; and he did his best to swindle us.
+Luckily all my faith in mankind was confined to the feminine
+gender, and not much even of that survived.  In a very little time
+I saw that people may repudiate law as well from being below as
+from being above it.
+
+"Then he came one night, with the finest style and noblest contempt
+of every thing.  We must prepare ourselves for great news, and all
+our kindness to him would be repaid tenfold in a week or two.  Let
+me go into Freyburg that time to-morrow night, and listen.  I asked
+him nothing as to what he meant, for I was beginning to weary of
+him, as of every body.  However, I thought it just worth while,
+having some one who bought my wicker-work, to enter the outskirts
+of the town on the following evening, and wait to be told if any
+news was stirring.  And the people were amazed at my not knowing
+that last night the wife of an English lord--for so they called
+him, though no lord yet--had run away with a golden-bearded man,
+believed to be also English.
+
+"About that you know more, perhaps, than I do.  But I wish you to
+know what that Hockin was, and to clear myself of complicity.  Of
+Herbert Castlewood I knew nothing, and I never even saw the lady.
+And to say (as Sir Montague Hockin has said) that I plotted all
+that wickedness, from spite toward all of the Castlewood name, is
+to tell as foul a lie as even he can well indulge in.
+
+"It need not be said that he does not know my story from any word
+of mine.  To such a fellow I was not likely to commit my mother's
+fate.  But he seems to have guessed at once that there was
+something strange in my history; and then, after spying and low
+prying at my mother, to have shaped his own conclusion.  Then,
+having entirely under his power that young fool who left a kind
+husband for him, he conceived a most audacious scheme.  This was no
+less than to rob your cousin, the last Lord Castlewood, not of his
+wife and jewels and ready money only, but also of all the
+disposable portion of the Castlewood estates.  For the lady's
+mother had taken good care, like a true Hungarian, to have all the
+lands settled upon her daughter, so far as the husband could deal
+with them.  And though, at the date of the marriage, he could not
+really deal at all with them--your father being still alive--it
+appears that his succession (when it afterward took place) was
+bound, at any rate, as against himself.  A divorce might have
+canceled this--I can not say--but your late cousin was the last
+man in the world to incur the needful exposure.  Upon this they
+naturally counted.
+
+"The new 'Lady Hockin' (as she called herself, with as much right
+as 'Lady Castlewood') flirted about while her beauty lasted; but
+even then found her master in a man of deeper wickedness.  But if
+her poor husband desired revenge--which he does not seem to have
+done, perhaps--he could not have had it better.  She was seized
+with a loathsome disease, which devoured her beauty, like Herod and
+his glory.  I believe that she still lives, but no one can go near
+her; least of all, the fastidious Montague."
+
+At this part of the letter I drew a deep breath, and exclaimed,
+"Thank God!" I know not how many times; and perhaps it was a crime
+of me to do it even once.
+
+"Finding his nice prospective game destroyed by this little
+accident--for he meant to have married the lady after her husband's
+death, and set you at defiance; but even he could not do that now,
+little as he cares for opinion--what did he do but shift hands
+altogether?  He made up his mind to confer the honor of his hand on
+you, having seen you somewhere in London, and his tactics became
+the very opposite of what they had been hitherto.  Your father's
+innocence now must be maintained instead of his guiltiness.
+
+"With this in view, he was fool enough to set the detective police
+after me--me, who could snap all their noses off!  For he saw how
+your heart was all set on one thing, and expected to have you his
+serf forever, by the simple expedient of hanging me.  The
+detectives failed, as they always do.  He also failed in his
+overtures to you.
+
+"You did your utmost against me also, for which I bear you no
+ill-will, but rather admire your courage.  You acted in a
+straightforward way, and employed no dirty agency.  Of your simple
+devices I had no fear.  However, I thought it as well to keep an
+eye upon that Hockin, and a worthy old fool, some relation of his,
+who had brought you back from America.  To this end I kept my head-
+quarters near him, and established my mother comfortably.  She was
+ordered sea air, and has had enough.  To-morrow I shall remove her.
+By the time you receive this letter we shall both be far away, and
+come back no more; but first I shall punish that Hockin.  Without
+personal violence this will be done.
+
+"Now what I propose to you is simple, moderate, and most strictly
+just.  My mother's little residue of life must pass in ease and
+comfort.  She has wronged no one, but ever been wronged.  Allow her
+300 pounds a year, to be paid as I shall direct you.  For myself I
+will not take a farthing.  You will also restore, as I shall
+direct, the trinket upon which she sets great value, and for which
+I sought vainly when we came back to England.  I happen to know
+that you have it now.
+
+"In return for these just acts, you have the right to set forth the
+whole truth publicly, to proclaim your father's innocence, and (as
+people will say) his chivalry; and, which will perhaps rejoice you
+also, to hear no more of
+
+"THOMAS HOYLE.
+
+"P.S.--Of course I am trusting your honor in this.  But your
+father's daughter can be no sneak; as indeed I have already
+proved."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI
+
+WITH HIS OWN SWORD
+
+
+"What a most wonderful letter!" cried the Major, when, after
+several careful perusals, I thought it my duty to show it to him.
+"He calls me a 'worthy old fool,' does he?  Well, I call him
+something a great deal worse--an unworthy skulk, a lunatic, a
+subverter of rank, and a Radical!  And because he was a bastard, is
+the whole world base?  And to come and live like that in a house of
+mine, and pay me no rent, and never even let me see him!  Your
+grandfather was quite right, my dear, in giving him the cold
+shoulder.  Of course you won't pay him a farthing."
+
+"You forget that he is dead," I answered, "and his poor mother with
+him.  At least he behaved well to his mother.  You called him a
+hero--when you knew not who he was.  Poor fellow, he is dead!  And,
+in spite of all, I can not help being very sorry for him."
+
+"Yes, I dare say.  Women always are.  But you must show a little
+common-sense, Erema.  Your grandfather seems to have had too much,
+and your father far too little.  We must keep this matter quiet.
+Neither the man nor the woman must we know, or a nice stir we shall
+have in all the county papers.  There must be an inquest, of
+course, upon them both; but none of the fellows read this
+direction, for the admirable reason that they can not read.  Our
+coming forward could do no good, and just now Bruntsea has other
+things to think of; and, first and foremost, my ruin, as they say."
+
+"Please not to talk of that," I exclaimed.  "I can raise any
+quantity of money now, and you shall have it without paying
+interest.  You wanted the course of the river restored, and now you
+have more--you have got the very sea.  You could float the Bridal
+Veil itself, I do believe, at Bruntsea."
+
+"You have suggested a fine idea," the Major exclaimed, with
+emphasis.  "You certainly should have been an engineer.  It is a
+thousand times easier--as every body knows--to keep water in than
+to keep it out.  Having burst my barricade, the sea shall stop
+inside and pay for it.  Far less capital will be required.  By
+Jove, what a fool I must have been not to see the hand of
+Providence in all this!  Mary, can you spare me a minute, my dear?
+The noblest idea has occurred to me.  Well, never mind, if you are
+busy; perhaps I had better not state it crudely, though it is not
+true that it happens every hour.  I shall turn it over in my mind
+throughout the evening service.  I mean to be there, just to let
+them see.  They think that I am crushed, of course.  They will see
+their mistake; and, Erema, you may come.  The gale is over, and the
+evening bright.  You sit by the fire, Mary, my dear; I shall not
+let you out again; keep the silver kettle boiling.  In church I
+always think more clearly than where people talk so much.  But when
+I come home I require something.  I see, I see.  Instead of an
+idle, fashionable lounging-place for nincompoops from London,
+instead of flirtation and novel-reading, vulgarity, show, and
+indecent attire, and positively immoral bathing, we will now have
+industry, commerce, wealth, triumph of mechanism, lofty enterprise,
+and international good-will.  A harbor has been the great want of
+this coast; see what a thing it is at Newport!  We will now have a
+harbor and floating docks, without any muddy, malarious river--all
+blue water from the sea; and our fine cliff range shall be studded
+with good houses.  And the whole shall be called 'Erema-port.'"
+
+Well, Erema must be getting very near her port, although it was not
+at Bruntsea.  Enough for this excellent man and that still more
+excellent woman that there they are, as busy and as happy as the
+day is long--which imposes some limit upon happiness, perhaps,
+inasmuch as to the busy every day is short.  But Mrs. Hockin,
+though as full of fowls as ever, gets no White Sultans nor any
+other rarity now from Sir Montague Hockin.  That gentleman still is
+alive--so far, at least, as we have heard of; but no people owning
+any self-respect ever deal with him, to their knowledge.  He
+gambled away all his father's estates, and the Major bought the
+last of them for his youngest son, a very noble Captain Hockin
+(according to his mother's judgment), whom I never had the honor of
+seeing.  Sir Montague lives in a sad plight somewhere, and his
+cousin still hopes that he may turn honest.
+
+But as to myself and far greater persons, still there are a few
+words to be said.  As soon as all necessary things were done at
+Bruntsea and at Castlewood, and my father's memory cleared from all
+stain, and by simple truth ennobled, in a manner strictly legal and
+consistent with heavy expenses, myself having made a long
+deposition and received congratulations--as soon as it was
+possible, I left them all, and set sail for America.
+
+The rashness of such a plan it is more easy for one to establish
+than two to deny.  But what was there in it of peril or of
+enterprise compared with what I had been through already?  I could
+not keep myself now from going, and reasoned but little about it.
+
+Meanwhile there had been no further tidings of Colonel Gundry or
+Firm, or even Martin of the Mill himself.  But one thing I did
+which showed some little foresight.  As soon as my mind was made
+up, and long before ever I could get away, I wrote to Martin
+Clogfast, telling him of my intention, and begging him, if he had
+any idea of the armies, or the Sawyer, or even Firm, or any thing
+whatever of interest, to write (without losing a day) to me,
+directing his letter to a house in New York whose address Major
+Hockin gave me.
+
+So many things had to be done, and I listened so foolishly to the
+Major (who did his very best to stop me), that it came to be May,
+1862 (nearly four years after my father's death), before I could
+settle all my plans and start.  For every body said that I was much
+too young to take such a journey all by myself, and "what every
+body says must be right," whenever there is no exception to prove
+the rule.  "Aunt Marys" are not to be found every day, nor even
+Major Hockins; and this again helped to throw me back in getting
+away from England.  And but for his vast engineering ideas, and
+another slight touch of rheumatic gout (brought upon herself by
+Mrs. Hockin through setting seven hens in one evening), the Major
+himself might have come with me, "to observe the new military
+tactics," as well as to look for his cousin Sampson.
+
+In recounting this I seem to be as long as the thing itself was in
+accomplishing.  But at last it was done, and most kindly was I
+offered the very thing to suit me--permission to join the party of
+a well-known British officer, Colonel Cheriton, of the Engineers.
+This gentleman, being of the highest repute as a writer upon
+military subjects, had leave from the Federal government to observe
+the course of this tremendous war.  And perhaps he will publish
+some day what seems as yet to be wholly wanting--a calm and
+impartial narrative of that unparalleled conflict.  At any rate, he
+meant to spare no trouble in a matter so instructive, and he took
+his wife and two daughters--very nice girls, who did me a world of
+good--to establish them in Washington, or wherever the case might
+require.
+
+Lucky as this was for me, I could not leave my dear and faithful
+friends without deep sorrow; but we all agreed that it should be
+only for a very little time.  We landed first at New York, and
+there I found two letters from Martin of the Mill.  In the first he
+grumbled much, and told me that nothing was yet known about Uncle
+Sam; in the second he grumbled (if possible) more, but gave me some
+important news.  To wit, he had received a few lines from the
+Sawyer, who had failed as yet to find his grandson, and sadly
+lamented the misery he saw, and the shocking destruction of God's
+good works.  He said that he could not bring himself to fight (even
+if he were young enough) against his own dear countrymen, one of
+whom was his own grandson; at the same time he felt that they must
+be put down for trying to have things too much their own way.
+About slavery, he had seen too much of niggers to take them at all
+for his equals, and no white man with any self-respect would desire
+to be their brother.  The children of Ham were put down at the
+bottom, as their noses and their lips pronounced, according to
+Divine revelation; and for sons of Japheth to break up the noblest
+nation in the world, on their account, was like rushing in to
+inherit their curse.  As sure as his name was Sampson Gundry, those
+who had done it would get the worst, though as yet they were doing
+wonders.  And there could be no doubt about one thing--which party
+it was that began it.  But come what would of it, here he was; and
+never would Saw-mills see him again unless he brought Firm Gundry.
+But he wanted news of poor Miss 'Rema; and if any came to the
+house, they must please to send it to the care of Colonel Baker,
+headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.
+
+This was the very thing I wished to know, and I saw now how stupid
+I must have been not to have thought of it long ago.  For Colonel
+Baker was, to my knowledge, an ancient friend of Uncle Sam, and had
+joined the national army at the very outbreak of the war.  Well
+known not only in California, but throughout the States, for
+gallantry and conduct, this officer had been a great accession to
+the Federal cause, when so many wavered, and so he was appointed to
+a good command.  But, alas! when I told Colonel Cheriton my news, I
+learned from him (who had carefully watched all the incidents of
+the struggle) that Uncle Sam's noble friend had fallen in the
+battle of Ball's Bluff, while charging at the head of his regiment.
+
+Still, there was hope that some of the officers might know where to
+find Uncle Sam, who was not at all a man to be mislaid; and being
+allowed to accompany my English friends, I went on to Washington.
+We found that city in a highly nervous state, and from time to time
+ready to be captured.  General Jackson was almost at the gates, and
+the President every day was calling out for men.  The Army of
+Virginia had been beaten back to intrenchments before the capital,
+and General Lee was invading Maryland.  Battle followed battle,
+thick as blows upon a threshing-floor, and though we were always
+said to be victorious, the enemy seemed none the more to run away.
+In this confusion, what chance had I of discovering even the
+Sawyer?
+
+Colonel Cheriton (who must have found me a dreadful thorn in the
+flank of his strategy) missed no opportunity of inquiry, as he went
+from one valley to another.  For the war seemed to run along the
+course of rivers, though it also passed through the forests and
+lakes, and went up into the mountains.  Our wonderfully clever and
+kind member of the British army was delighted with the movements of
+General Lee, who alone showed scientific elegance in slaying his
+fellow-countrymen; and the worst of it was that instead of going
+after my dear Uncle Sam, Colonel Cheriton was always rushing about
+with maps, plans, and telescopes, to follow the tracery of Lee's
+campaign.  To treat of such matters is far beyond me, as I am most
+thankful to confess.  Neither will I dare to be sorry for a great
+man doing what became his duty.  My only complaint against him is
+that he kept us in a continual fright.
+
+However, this went by, and so did many other things, though heavily
+laden with grief and death; and the one thing we learned was to
+disbelieve ninety-nine out of every hundred.  Letters for the
+Sawyer were dispatched by me to every likely place for him, and
+advertisements put into countless newspapers, but none of them
+seemed to go near him.  Old as he was, he avoided feather-beds, and
+roamed like a true Californian.  But at last I found him, in a sad,
+sad way.
+
+It was after the battle of Chancellorsville, and our army had been
+driven back across the Rappahannock.  "Our army," I call it,
+because (although we belonged to neither party) fortune had brought
+us into contact with these, and knowing more about them, we were
+bound to take their side.  And not only that, but to me it appeared
+altogether beyond controversy that a man of large mind and long
+experience (such as Uncle Sam had) should know much better than his
+grandson which cause was the one to fight for.  At the same time
+Firm was not at all to be condemned.  And if it was true, as Martin
+Clogfast said, that trouble of mind at my absence had driven him
+into a prejudiced view, nothing could possibly be more ungracious
+than for me to make light of his judgment.
+
+Being twenty years old by this time, I was wiser than I used to be,
+and now made a practice of thinking twice before rushing into
+peril, as I used to do in California, and to some extent also in
+England.  For though my adventures might not have been as strange
+as many I myself have heard of (especially from Suan Isco),
+nevertheless they had comprised enough of teaching and suffering
+also to make me careful about having any more.  And so for a long
+time I kept at the furthest distance possible, in such a war, from
+the vexing of the air with cannons, till even Colonel Cheriton's
+daughters--perfectly soft and peaceful girls--began to despise me
+as a coward.  Knowing what I had been through, I indulged their
+young opinions.
+
+Therefore they were the more startled when I set forth under a
+sudden impulse, or perhaps impatience, for a town very near the
+head-quarters of the defeated General Hooker.  As they were so
+brave, I asked them whether they would come with me; but although
+their father was known to be there, they turned pale at the thought
+of it.  This pleased me, and made me more resolute to go; and in
+three days' time I was at Falmouth, a town on our side of the
+Rappahannock.
+
+Here I saw most miserable sights that made me ashamed of all
+trifling fear.  When hundreds and thousands of gallant men were
+dying in crippled agony, who or what was I to make any fuss about
+my paltry self?  Clumsy as I was, some kind and noble ladies taught
+me how to give help among the sufferers.
+
+At first I cried so at every body's pain, while asking why ever
+they should have it, that I did some good by putting them up to
+bear it rather than distress me so.  And when I began to command
+myself (as custom soon enabled me), I did some little good again by
+showing them how I cared for them.  Their poor weak eyes, perhaps
+never expecting to see a nice thing in the world again, used to
+follow me about with a faint, slow roll, and a feeble spark of
+jealousy.
+
+That I should have had such a chance of doing good, onefold to
+others and a thousandfold to self, at this turn of life, when I was
+full of little me, is another of the many most clear indications of
+a kind hand over me.  Every day there was better than a year of
+ordinary life in breaking the mind from its little selfish turns,
+and opening the heart to a larger power.  And all this discipline
+was needed.
+
+For one afternoon, when we all were tired, with great heat upon us
+suddenly, and the flies beginning to be dreadful, our chief being
+rather unwell and fast asleep, the surgeons away, and our beds as
+full as they could be, I was called down to reason with an
+applicant who would take no denial.  "A rough man, a very rough old
+man, and in a most terrible state of mind," said the girl who
+brought the message; "and room he would have, or he would know the
+reason."
+
+"The reason is not far to seek," I answered, more to myself than
+her, as I ran down the stairs to discomfit that old man.  At the
+open door, with the hot wind tossing worn white curls and parching
+shriveled cheeks, now wearily raising his battered hat, stood my
+dear Uncle Sam, the Sawyer.
+
+"Lor' a massy! young lady, be you altogether daft?  In my best of
+days, never was I lips for kissing.  And the bootifulest creatur--
+Come now, I ain't saved your life, have I now?"
+
+"Yes, fifty times over--fifty thousand times.  Uncle Sam, don't you
+know Erema?"
+
+"My eyes be dashed!  And dashed they be, to forget the look of
+yours, my dearie.  Seven days have I marched without thanking the
+Lord; and hot coals of fire has He poured upon me now, for His
+mercy endureth forever.  To think of you--to think of you--as like
+my own child as could be--only of more finer breed--here standing
+in front of me, like this here!  There!  I never dreamed to do that
+again, and would scorn a young man at the sight of it."
+
+The Sawyer was too honest to conceal that he was weeping.  He
+simply turned his tanned and weathered face toward the door-post,
+not to hide his tears, but reconcile his pride by feigning it.  I
+felt that he must be at very low ebb, and all that I had seen of
+other people's sorrow had no power to assuage me.  Inside the door,
+to keep the hot wind out and hide my eyes from the old man's face,
+I had some little quiet sobs, until we could both express
+ourselves.
+
+"It is poor Firm, the poor, poor lad!--oh, what hath happened him?
+That I should see the day!"
+
+Uncle Sam's deep voice broke into a moan, and he bowed his rough
+forehead on his arm, and shook.  Then I took him by the sleeve and
+brought him in.
+
+"Not dead--poor Firm, your only one--not dead?" as soon as words
+would come, I asked, and trembled for the opening of his lips.
+
+"Not dead--not quite; but ten times worse.  He hath flown into the
+face of the Lord, like Saul and his armor-bearer; he hath fallen on
+his own sword; and the worst of it is that the darned thing won't
+come out again."
+
+"Firm--the last person in the world to do it!  Oh, Uncle Sam,
+surely they have told you--"
+
+"No lies--no lie at all, my dear.  And not only that, but he
+wanteth now to die--and won't be long first, I reckon.  But no time
+to lose, my dear.  The Lord hath sent you to make him happy in his
+leaving of the world.  Can 'e raise a bed and a doctor here?  If he
+would but groan, I could bear it a bit, instead of bleeding inward.
+And for sartin sure, a' would groan nicely, if only by force of
+habit, at first sight of a real doctor."
+
+"There are half a dozen here," I said; "or at least close by.  He
+shall have my own bed.  But where is he?"
+
+"We have laid 'un in the sand," he answered, simply, "for to dry
+his perspiration.  That weak the poor chap is that he streameth
+night and day, miss.  Never would you know him for our Firm now,
+any more than me for Sampson Gundry.  Ah me! but the Lord is hard
+on us!"
+
+Slowly and heavily he went his way to fetch poor Firm to the
+hospital; while, with light feet but a heavy heart, I returned to
+arouse our managers.  Speedily and well were all things done; and
+in half an hour Finn lay upon my bed, with two of the cleverest
+surgeons of New York most carefully examining his wasted frame.
+These whispered and shook their heads, as in such a case was
+indispensable; and listening eagerly, I heard the senior surgeon
+say, "No, he could never bear it."  The younger man seemed to think
+otherwise, but to give way to the longer experience.  Then dear
+Uncle Sam, having bought a new hat at the corner of the street,
+came forward.  Knowing too well what excitement is, and how it
+changes every one, I lifted my hand for him to go back; but he only
+put his great hot web of fingers into mine, and drew me to him
+softly, and covered me up with his side.  "He heareth nort, nort,
+nort," he whispered to me; and then spoke aloud:
+
+"Gentlemen and ladies--or ladies and gentlemen, is the more correct
+form nowadays--have I leave to say a word or two?  Then if I have,
+as your manner to me showeth, and heartily thanking you for that
+same, my words shall go into an acorn-cup.  This lad, laid out at
+your mercy here, was as fine a young fellow as the West hath ever
+raised--straight and nimble, and could tell no lie.  Family
+reasons, as you will excoose of, drew him to the arms of rebellion.
+I may have done, and overdone it myself, in arguing cantrips and
+convictions, whereof to my knowledge good never came yet.  At any
+rate, off he went anyhow, and the force of nature drew me after
+him.  No matter that to you, I dare say; but it would be, if you
+was in it.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen, here he is, and no harm can you make out of
+him.  Although he hath fought for the wrong side to our thinking,
+bravely hath he fought, and made his way to a colonelship, worth
+five thousand dollars, if ever they pay their wages.  Never did I
+think that he would earn so much, having never owned gifts of
+machinery; and concerning the handling of the dollars, perhaps,
+will carry my opinion out.  But where was I wandering of a little
+thing like that?
+
+"It hath pleased the Lord, who doeth all things well, when finally
+come to look back upon--the Lord hath seen fit to be down on this
+young man for going agin his grandfather.  From Californy--a free
+State, mind you--he come away to fight for slavery.  And how hath
+he magnified his office?  By shooting the biggest man on that side,
+the almighty foe of the Union, the foremost captain of Midian--the
+general in whom they trusted.  No bullets of ours could touch him;
+but by his own weapons he hath fallen.  And soon as Ephraim Gundry
+heard it, he did what you see done to him."
+
+Uncle Sam having said his say--which must have cost him dearly--
+withdrew from the bed where his grandson's body lay shrunken, lax,
+and grimy.  To be sure that it was Firm, I gave one glance--for
+Firm had always been straight, tall, and large--and then, in a
+miserable mood, I stole to the Sawyer's side to stand with him.
+"Am I to blame?  Is this my fault?  For even this am I to blame?"
+I whispered; but he did not heed me, and his hands were like hard
+stone.
+
+After a long, hot, heavy time, while I was laboring vainly, the
+Sawyer also (through exhaustion of excitement) weary, and afraid to
+begin again with new bad news, as beaten people expect to do, the
+younger surgeon came up to him, and said, "Will you authorize it?"
+
+"To cut 'un up?  To show your museums what a Western lad is?
+Never.  By the Blue River he shall have a good grave.  So help me
+God, to my own, my man!"
+
+"You misunderstand me.  We have more subjects now than we should
+want for fifty years.  War knocks the whole of their value on the
+head.  We have fifty bodies as good as this, and are simply obliged
+to bury them.  What I mean is, shall we pull the blade out?"
+
+"Can he do any thing with that there blade in him?  I have heard of
+a man in Kentucky once--"
+
+"Yes, yes; we know all those stories, Colonel--suit the newspapers,
+not the journals.  This fellow has what must kill him inside; he is
+worn to a shadow already.  If there it is left, die he must, and
+quick stick; inflammation is set up already.  If we extract it, his
+chance of surviving is scarcely one in a hundred."
+
+"Let him have the one, then, the one in the hundred, like the
+ninety and nine lost sheep.  The Lord can multiply a hundredfold--
+some threescore, and some an hundredfold.  I will speak to Him,
+gentlemen, while you try the job."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII
+
+FEMALE SUFFRAGE
+
+
+All that could be done by skill and care and love, was done for
+Firm.  Our lady manager and head nurse never left him when she
+could be spared, and all the other ladies vied in zeal for this
+young soldier, so that I could scarcely get near him.  His
+grandfather's sad and extraordinary tale was confirmed by a wounded
+prisoner.  Poor Ephraim Gundry's rare power of sight had been fatal
+perhaps to the cause he fought for, or at least to its greatest
+captain.  Returning from desperate victory, the general, wrapped in
+the folds of night, and perhaps in the gloom of his own stern
+thoughts, while it seemed quite impossible that he should be seen,
+encountered the fire of his own troops; and the order to fire was
+given by his favorite officer, Colonel Firm Gundry.  When the young
+man learned that he had destroyed, by a lingering death, the chief
+idol of his heart, he called for a rifle, but all refused him,
+knowing too well what his purpose was.  Then under the trees,
+without a word or sigh, he set the hilt of his sword upon the
+earth, and the point to his heart--as well as he could find it.
+The blade passed through him, and then snapped off--But I can not
+bear to speak of it.
+
+And now, few people might suppose it, but the substance of which he
+was made will be clear, when not only his own knowledge of his case
+but also the purest scientific reasoning established a truth more
+frankly acknowledged in the New World than in the Old one.  It was
+proved that, with a good constitution, it is safer to receive two
+wounds than one, even though they may not be at the same time
+taken.  Firm had been shot by the captain of Mexican robbers, as
+long ago related.  He was dreadfully pulled down at the time, and
+few people could have survived it.  But now that stood him in the
+very best stead, not only as a lesson of patience, but also in the
+question of cartilage.  But not being certain what cartilage is, I
+can only refer inquirers to the note-book of the hospital, which
+has been printed.
+
+For us it was enough to know that (shattered as he was and must be)
+this brave and single-minded warrior struggled for the time
+successfully with that great enemy of the human race, to whom the
+human race so largely consign one another and themselves.  But some
+did say, and emphatically Uncle Sam, that Colonel Firm Gundry--for
+a colonel he was now, not by courtesy, but commission--would never
+have held up his head to do it, but must have gone on with his
+ravings for death, if somebody had not arrived in the nick of time,
+and cried over him--a female somebody from old England.
+
+And, even after that, they say that he never would have cared to be
+a man again, never would have calmed his conscience with the
+reflection, so commonplace and yet so high--that having done our
+best according to our lights, we must not dwell always on our
+darkness--if once again, and for the residue of life, there had not
+been some one to console him--a consolation that need not have, and
+is better without, pure reason, coming, as that would come, from a
+quarter whence it is never quite welcome.  Enough for me that he
+never laid hand to a weapon of war again, and never shall unless
+our own home is invaded.
+
+For after many months--each equal to a year of teaching and of
+humbling--there seemed to be a good time for me to get away and
+attend to my duties in England.  Of these I had been reminded often
+by letters, and once by a messenger; but all money matters seemed
+dust in the balance where life and death were swinging.  But now
+Uncle Sam and his grandson, having their love knit afresh by
+disaster, were eager to start for the Saw-mill, and trust all
+except their own business to Providence.
+
+I had told them that, when they went westward, my time would be
+come for starting eastward; and being unlikely to see them again, I
+should hope for good news frequently.  And then I got dear Uncle
+Sam by himself, and begged him, for the sake of Firm's happiness,
+to keep him as far as he could from Pennsylvania Sylvester.  At the
+same time I thought that the very nice young lady who jumped upon
+his nose from the window, Miss Annie--I forgot her name, or at any
+rate I told him so--would make him a good straightforward wife, so
+far as one could tell from having seen her.  And that seemed to
+have been settled in their infancy.  And if he would let me know
+when it was to be, I had seen a thing in London I should like to
+give them.
+
+When I asked the Sawyer to see to this, instead of being sorry, he
+seemed quite pleased, and nodded sagaciously, and put his hat on,
+as he generally did, to calculate.
+
+"Both of them gals have married long ago," he said, looking at me
+with a fine soft gaze; "and bad handfuls their mates have got of
+them.  But what made you talk of them, missy--or 'my lady,' as now
+you are in old country, I hear--what made you think of them like
+that, my dearie?"
+
+"I can't tell what made me think of them.  How can I tell why I
+think of every thing?"
+
+"Still, it was an odd thing for your ladyship to say."
+
+"Uncle Sam, I am nobody's ladyship, least of all yours.  What makes
+you speak so?  I am your own little wandering child, whose life you
+saved, and whose father you loved, and who loses all who love her.
+Even from you I am forced to go away.  Oh, why is it always my
+fate--my fate?"
+
+"Hush!" said the old man; and I stopped my outburst at his whisper.
+"To talk of fate, my dearie, shows either one thing or the other--
+that we have no will of our own, or else that we know not how to
+guide it.  I never knew a good man talk of fate.  The heathens and
+the pagans made it.  The Lord in heaven is enough for me; and He
+always hath allowed me my own free-will, though I may not have
+handled 'un cleverly.  And He giveth you your own will now, my
+missy--to go from us or to stop with us.  And being as you are a
+very grand young woman now, owning English land and income paid in
+gold instead of greenbacks--the same as our nugget seems likely--to
+my ideas it would be wrong if we was so much as to ask you."
+
+"Is that what you are full of, then, and what makes you so
+mysterious?  I did think that you knew me better, and I had a right
+to hope so."
+
+"Concerning of yourself alone is not what we must think of.  You
+might do this, or you might do that, according to what you was
+told, or, even more, according to what was denied you.  For poor
+honest people, like Firm and me, to deal with such a case is out of
+knowledge.  For us it is--go by the will of the Lord, and dead agin
+your own desires."
+
+"But, dear Uncle Sam," I cried, feeling that now I had him upon his
+own tenterhooks, "you rebuked me as sharply as lies in your nature
+for daring to talk about fate just now; but to what else comes your
+own conduct, if you are bound to go against your own desire?  If
+you have such a lot of freewill, why must you do what you do not
+like to do?"
+
+"Well, well, perhaps I was talking rather large.  The will of the
+world is upon us as well.  And we must have respect for its
+settlements."
+
+"Now let me," I said, with a trembling wish to have every
+thing right and maidenly.  "I have seen so much harm from
+misunderstandings, and they are so simple when it is too late--
+let me ask you one or two questions, Uncle Sam.  You always answer
+every body.  And to you a crooked answer is impossible."
+
+"Business is business," the Sawyer said.  "My dear, I contract
+accordingly."
+
+"Very well.  Then, in the first place, what do you wish to have
+done with me?  Putting aside all the gossip, I mean, of people who
+have never even heard of me."
+
+"Why, to take you back to Saw-mill with us, where you always was so
+natural."
+
+"In the next place, what does your grandson wish?"
+
+"To take you back to Saw-mill with him, and keep you there till
+death do you part, as chanceth to all mortal pairs."
+
+"And now, Uncle Sam, what do I wish?  You say we all have so much
+free-will."
+
+"It is natural that you should wish, my dear, to go and be a great
+lady, and marry a nobleman of your own rank, and have a lot of
+little noblemen."
+
+"Then I fly against nature; and the fault is yours for filling me
+so with machinery."
+
+The Sawyer was beaten, and he never said again that a woman can not
+argue.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII
+
+BEYOND DESERT, AND DESERTS
+
+
+From all the carnage, havoc, ruin, hatred, and fury of that wicked
+war we set our little convoy forth, with passes procured from
+either side.  According to all rules of war, Firm was no doubt a
+prisoner; but having saved his life, and taken his word to serve no
+more against them, remembering also that he had done them more
+service than ten regiments, the Federal authorities were not sorry
+to be quit of him.
+
+He, for his part, being of a deep, retentive nature, bore in his
+wounded breast a sorrow which would last his lifetime.  To me he
+said not a single word about his bitter fortune, and he could not
+bring himself to ask me whether I would share it.  Only from his
+eyes sometimes I knew what he was thinking; and having passed
+through so much grief, I was moved with deep compassion.  Poor Firm
+had been trained by his grandfather to a strong, earnest faith in
+Providence, and now this compelled him almost to believe that he
+had been specially visited.  For flying in the face of his good
+grandfather, and selfishly indulging his own stiff neck, his
+punishment had been hard, and almost heavier than he could bear.
+Whatever might happen to him now, the spring and the flower of his
+life were gone; he still might have some calm existence, but never
+win another day of cloudless joy.  And if he had only said this, or
+thought about it, we might have looked at him with less sadness of
+our own.
+
+But he never said any thing about himself, nor gave any opening for
+our comfort to come to him.  Only from day to day he behaved gently
+and lovingly to both of us, as if his own trouble must be fought
+out by himself, and should dim no other happiness.  And this kept
+us thinking of his sorrow all the more, so that I could not even
+look at him without a flutter of the heart, which was afraid to be
+a sigh.
+
+At last, upon the great mountain range, through which we now were
+toiling, with the snow little more than a mantle for the peaks, and
+a sparkling veil for sunrise, dear Uncle Sam, who had often shown
+signs of impatience, drew me apart from the rest.  Straightforward
+and blunt as he generally was, he did not seem altogether ready to
+begin, but pulled off his hat, and then put it on again, the
+weather being now cold and hot by turns.  And while he did this he
+was thinking at his utmost, as every full vein of his forehead
+declared.  And being at home with his ways, I waited.
+
+"Think you got ahead of me?  No, not you," he exclaimed at last, in
+reply to some version of his own of my ideas, which I carefully
+made a nonentity under the scrutiny of his keen blue eyes.  "No,
+no, missy; you wait a bit.  Uncle Sam was not hatched yesterday,
+and it takes fifty young ladies to go round him."
+
+"Is that from your size, Uncle Sam, or your depth?"
+
+"Well, a mixture of both, I do believe.  Now the last thing you
+ever would think of, if you lived to be older than Washington's
+nurse, is the very thing I mean to put to you.  Only you must
+please to take it well, according to my meaning.  You see our Firm
+going to a shadow, don't you?  Very well; the fault of that is all
+yourn.  Why not up and speak to him?"
+
+"I speak to him every day, Uncle Sam, and I spare no efforts to
+fatten him.  I am sure I never dreamed of becoming such a cook.
+But soon he will have Suan Isco."
+
+"Old Injun be darned!  It's not the stomach, it's the heart as
+wants nourishment with yon poor lad.  He looketh that pitiful at
+you sometimes, my faith, I can hardly tell whether to laugh at his
+newings or cry at the lean face that does it."
+
+"You are not talking like yourself, Uncle Sam.  And he never does
+any thing of the kind.  I am sure there is nothing to laugh at."
+
+"No, no; to be sure not.  I made a mistake.  Heroic is the word, of
+course--every thing is heroic."
+
+"It is heroic," I answered, with some vexation at his lightness.
+"If you can not see it, I am sorry for you.  I like large things;
+and I know of nothing larger than the way poor Firm is going on."
+
+"You to stand up for him!" Colonel Gundry answered, as if he could
+scarcely look at me.  "You to talk large of him, my Lady
+Castlewood, while you are doing of his heart into small wittles!
+Well, I did believe, if no one else, that you were a straightforward
+one."
+
+"And what am I doing that is crooked now?"
+
+"Well, not to say crooked, Miss 'Rema; no, no.  Only onconsistent,
+when squared up."
+
+"Uncle Sam, you're a puzzle to me to-day.  What is inconsistent?
+What is there to square up?"
+
+He fetched a long breath, and looked wondrous wise.  Then, as if
+his main object was to irritate me, he made a long stride, and
+said, "Soup's a-bilin now."
+
+"Let it boil over, then.  You must say what you mean.  Oh, Uncle
+Sam, I only want to do the right!"
+
+"I dessay.  I dessay.  But have you got the pluck, miss?  Our
+little missy would 'a done more than that.  But come to be great
+lady--why, they take another tune.  With much mind, of course it
+might be otherwise.  But none of 'em have any much of that to
+spare."
+
+"Your view is a narrow one," I replied, knowing how that would
+astonish him.  "You judge by your own experience only; and to do
+that shows a sad want of breadth, as the ladies in England express
+it."
+
+The Sawyer stared, and then took off his hat, and then felt all
+about for his spectacles.  The idea of being regarded by a "female"
+from a larger and loftier point of view, made a new sensation in
+his system.
+
+"Yes," I continued, with some enjoyment, "let us try to look
+largely at all things, Uncle Sam.  And supposing me capable of
+that, what is the proper and the lofty course to take?"
+
+He looked at me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and with three
+words discomfited me--"Pop the question."
+
+Much as I had heard of woman's rights, equality of body and mind
+with man, and superiority in morals, it did not appear to me that
+her privilege could be driven to this extent.  But I shook my head
+till all my hair came down; and so if our constitutional right of
+voting by color was exercised, on this occasion it claimed the
+timid benefit of ballot.
+
+With us a suggestion, for the time discarded, has often double
+effect by-and-by; and though it was out of my power to dream of
+acting up to such directions, there could be no possible harm in
+reviewing such a theory theoretically.
+
+Now nothing beyond this was in my thoughts, nor even so much as
+that (safely may I say), when Firm and myself met face to face on
+the third day after Uncle Sam's ideas.  Our little caravan, of
+which the Sawyer was the captain, being bound for Blue River and
+its neighborhood, had quitted the Sacramento track by a fork on the
+left not a league from the spot where my father had bidden adieu to
+mankind.  And knowing every twist and turn of rock, our drivers
+brought us at the camping-time almost to the verge of chaparral.
+
+I knew not exactly how far we were come, but the dust-cloud of
+memory was stirring, and though mountains looked smaller than they
+used to look, the things done among them seemed larger.  And
+wandering forth from the camp to think, when the evening meal was
+over, lo! there I stood in that selfsame breach or portal of the
+desert in which I stood once by my father's side, with scared and
+weary eyes, vainly seeking safety's shattered landmark.  The time
+of year was different, being the ripe end of October now; but
+though the view was changed in tint, it was even more impressive.
+Sombre memories, and deep sense of grandeur, which is always sad,
+and solemn lights, and stealing shadows, compassed me with
+thoughtfulness.  In the mouth of the gorge was a gray block of
+granite, whereupon I sat down to think.
+
+Old thoughts, dull thoughts, thoughts as common as the clouds that
+cross the distant plain, and as vague as the wind that moves them--
+they please and they pass, and they may have shed kindly influence,
+but what are they?  The life that lies before us is, in some way,
+too, below us, like yon vast amplitude of plain; but it must be
+traversed foot by foot, and laboriously travailed, without the
+cloudy vaporing or the high-flown meditation.  And all that must be
+done by me, alone, with none to love me, and (which for a woman is
+so much worse) nobody ever to have for my own, to cherish, love,
+and cling to.
+
+Tier upon tier, and peak over peak, the finest mountains of the
+world are soaring into the purple firmament.  Like northern lights,
+they flash, or flush, or fade into a reclining gleam; like ladders
+of heaven, they bar themselves with cloudy air; and like heaven
+itself, they rank their white procession.  Lonely, feeble, puny, I
+look up with awe and reverence; the mind pronounces all things
+small compared with this magnificence.  Yet what will all such
+grandeur do--the self-defensive heart inquires--for puny, feeble,
+lonely me?
+
+Before another shadow deepened or another light grew pale, a slow,
+uncertain step drew near, and by the merest chance it happened to
+be Ephraim Gundry's.  I was quite surprised, and told him so; and
+he said that he also was surprised at meeting me in this way.
+Remembering how long I had been here, I thought this most
+irrational, but checked myself from saying so, because he looked so
+poorly.  And more than that, I asked him kindly how he was this
+evening, and smoothed my dress to please his eye, and offered him a
+chair of rock.  But he took no notice of all these things.
+
+I thought of the time when he would have behaved so very
+differently from this, and nothing but downright pride enabled me
+to repress vexation.  However, I resolved to behave as kindly as if
+he were his own grandfather.
+
+"How grand these mountains are!" I said.  "It must do you good to
+see them again.  Even to me it is such a delight.  And what must it
+be to you, a native?"
+
+"Yes, I shall wander from them no more.  How I wish that I had
+never done so?"
+
+"Have men less courage than women?" I asked, with one glance at his
+pale worn face.  "I owe you the debt of life; and this is the place
+to think and speak of it.  I used to talk freely of that, you know.
+You used to like to hear me speak; but now you are tired of that,
+and tired of all the world as well, I fear."
+
+"No, I am tired of nothing, except my own vile degradation.  I am
+tired of my want of spirit, that I can not cast my load.  I am
+tired of my lack of reason, which should always guide a man.  What
+is the use of mind or intellect, reasoning power, or whatever it is
+called, if the whole of them can not enable a man to hold out
+against a stupid heart?"
+
+"I think you should be proud," I said, while trembling to approach
+the subject which never had been touched between us, "at having a
+nature so sensitive.  Your evil chance might have been any body's,
+and must of course have been somebody's.  But nobody else would
+have taken it so--so delightfully as you have done!"
+
+"Delightfully!  Is that the word you use?  May I ask who gets any
+delight from it?"
+
+"Why, all who hate the Southern cause," I replied, with a sudden
+turn of thought, though I never had meant to use the word.  "Surely
+that needs no explanation."
+
+"They are delighted, are they?  Yes, I can very well believe it.
+Narrow-minded bigots!  Yes, they are sure to be delighted.  They
+call it a just visitation, of course, a righteous retribution.  And
+they hope I may never get over it."
+
+"I pray you to take it more gently," I said; "they are very good
+men, and wish you no harm.  But they must have their own opinions;
+and naturally they think them just."
+
+"Then all their opinions are just wrong.  They hope to see me go
+down, to my grave.  They shall not have that pleasure.  I will
+outlive every old John Brown of them.  I did not care two cents to
+live just now.  Henceforth I will make a point of it.  If I cannot
+fight for true freedom any more, having ruined it perhaps already,
+the least I can do is to give no more triumph to its bitter
+enemies.  I will eat and drink, and begin this very night.  I
+suppose you are one of them, as you put their arguments so neatly.
+I suppose you consider me a vile slave-driver?"
+
+"You are very ill," I said, with my heart so full of pity that
+anger could not enter; "you are very ill, and very weak.  How could
+you drive the very best slave now--even such a marvel as Uncle
+Tom?"
+
+Firm Gundry smiled; on his lean dry face there shone a little
+flicker, which made me think of the time when he bought a jest-
+book, published at Cincinnati, to make himself agreeable to my
+mind.  And little as I meant it, I smiled also, thinking of the way
+he used to come out with his hard-fought jokes, and expect it.
+
+"I wish you were at all as you used to be," he said, looking at me
+softly through the courage of his smile, "instead of being such a
+grand lady."
+
+"And I wish you were a little more like yourself," I answered,
+without thinking; "you used to think always there was nobody like
+me."
+
+"Suppose that I am of the same opinion still?  Tenfold, fiftyfold,
+a millionfold?"
+
+"To suppose a thing of that sort is a little too absurd, when you
+have shown no sign of it."
+
+"For your own dear sake I have shown no sign.  The reason of that
+is too clear to explain."
+
+"Then how stupid I must be not to see an atom of it!"
+
+"Why, who would have any thing to say to me--a broken-down man, a
+fellow marked out for curses, one who hates even the sight of
+himself?  The lowest of the low would shun me."
+
+He turned away from me, and gazed back toward the dismal,
+miserable, spectral desert; while I stood facing the fruitful,
+delicious, flowery Paradise of all the world.  I thought of the
+difference in our lots, and my heart was in misery about him.  Then
+I conquered my pride and my littleness and trumpery, and did what
+the gentle sweet Eve might have done.  And never have I grieved for
+that action since.
+
+With tears on my cheeks quite undissembled, and a breast not
+ashamed of fluttering, I ran to Firm Gundry, and took his right
+hand, and allowed him no refuge from tender wet eyes.  Then before
+he could come to see the meaning of this haste--because of his very
+high discipline--I was out of his distance, and sitting on a rock,
+and I lifted my eyes, full of eloquence, to his; then I dropped
+them, and pulled my hat forward, and said, as calmly as was
+possible, "I have done enough.  The rest remains with you, Firm
+Gundry."
+
+The rest remained with him.  Enough that I was part of that rest;
+and if not the foundation or crown of it, something desirous to be
+both, and failing (if fail it ever does) from no want of trial.
+Uncle Sam says that I never fail at all, and never did fail in any
+thing, unless it was when I found that blamed nugget, for which we
+got three wagon-loads of greenbacks; which (when prosperity at last
+revives) will pay perhaps for greasing all twelve wheels.
+
+Jowler admits not that failure even.  As soon as he recovered from
+canine dementia, approaching very closely to rabies, at seeing me
+in the flesh once more (so that the Sierra Nevada rang with
+avalanches of barking), he tugged me to the place where his teeth
+were set in gold, and proved that he had no hydrophobia.  His teeth
+are scanty now, but he still can catch a salmon, and the bright
+zeal and loyalty of his soft brown eyes and the sprightly elevation
+of his tail are still among dogs as pre-eminent as they are to
+mankind inimitable.
+
+
+
+Now the war is past, and here we sit by the banks of the soft Blue
+River.  The early storm and young conflict of a clouded life are
+over.  Still out of sight there may be yet a sea of troubles to
+buffet with; but it is not merely a selfish thought that others
+will face it with me.  Dark mysteries have been cleared away by
+being confronted bravely; and the lesson has been learned that life
+(like California flowers) is of infinite variety.  This little
+river, ten steps wide, on one side has all lupins, on the other
+side all larkspurs.  Can I tell why?  Can any body?  Can even
+itself, so full of voice and light, unroll the reason?
+
+Behind us tower the stormy crags, before us spread soft tapestry of
+earth and sweep of ocean.  Below us lies my father's grave, whose
+sin was not his own, but fell on him, and found him loyal.  To him
+was I loyal also, as a daughter should be; and in my lap lies my
+reward--for I am no more Erema.
+
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+
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