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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Erema, by R. D. Blackmore
+#3 in our series by R. D. Blackmore
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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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