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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76784 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+                         THE FAIR MISSISSIPPIAN
+
+
+[Illustration: HONORIA]
+
+
+
+
+                                THE FAIR
+                             MISSISSIPPIAN
+                               _A NOVEL_
+
+
+                       BY CHARLES EGBERT CRADDOCK
+
+[Illustration: [Logo]]
+
+                          BOSTON AND NEW YORK
+                        HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
+                    =The Riverside Press Cambridge=
+                                  1908
+
+
+
+
+                  COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY MARY N. MURFREE
+
+                          ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+                        _Published October 1908_
+
+
+
+
+                         THE FAIR MISSISSIPPIAN
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I
+
+
+The simplest fact of this life of ours is subject to manifold and
+diverse interpretations. It was the faithful belief of Edward Desmond,
+and his inward protest, that he did not care for money. He had the true
+scholar’s disdain of the froth and fret of fashion that can but scantily
+disguise the mental shallowness of society. He was not fond of luxury.
+He had an ardor for hard work and a passionate ambition for achievement.
+He desired but a modest competence and the opportunity for mental
+development along the lines which his expanding capacities gave promise
+of compassing. Nevertheless, at twenty-four years of age, his elaborate
+education at length complete, in the prime of his intellectual powers,
+tingling with the consciousness of ability, he found that he had become
+suddenly solicitous in small matters of social precedence; he
+experienced a pained deprecation of the presence of wealth; he winced
+with a sensitive realization of poverty; he had acquired a wavering yet
+proud self-assertion, consciously futile.
+
+The change had been wrought in a time of grievous tragedy, full of
+poignancies scarcely to be adequately appreciated by the practical
+world. For less sensitive men have suffered more bitter woes. It was a
+trite tragedy, with no traits of dramatic potentialities. On the sudden
+death of his father ensued the revelation of a shattered estate, the
+usual frantic, useless effort to avert total wreck, final defeat
+culminating in the forced sale of an old home with all its
+appurtenances. The memories, the dreams, the traditions, the broken
+hopes that had hallowed the old chattels were too immaterial even for
+the cormorant-like comprehensiveness of the inventories, and these
+sanctities were all that was left for the heir.
+
+His friends, however, took an optimistic view. When the struggle was
+over,—brief, but hopeless and conclusive,—they found solace in the
+completeness of his equipment; his education was at length finished; he
+had returned to his Maryland home only the previous June from an
+elaborate course of study abroad; the world was before him. As to the
+profession of the law for which he had been destined, they cheerfully
+argued that the preliminary training and the necessary library would be
+expensive, success uncertain,—and he must needs live pending its
+delay,—the tardy emoluments disproportioned to the labor and ability
+involved. Since there seemed no vacancy in the professorial ranks of the
+small western colleges, where they had hoped he might find a chair, they
+spoke of him as having fallen upon his feet when the unusual brilliancy
+of his scholastic record brought him the offer of the tutorship of the
+three sons in a wealthy family, dwelling in the isolation of a secluded
+Mississippi plantation, the opportunity coming at the ultimate crisis of
+the painful financial emergency. For although the salary was small, in
+comparison with the allowance which the generosity of his father had
+heretofore afforded an only son, his prospective earnings would have
+abashed the honoraria of a fledgeling lawyer’s professional labors, even
+had he already attained admission to the bar. Thus, followed by few
+regrets, the last month of the year found him arrived at the scene of
+his pedagogical work.
+
+“It is Mrs. Faurie’s chief desire that her sons shall be adequately
+prepared for college. She is a great believer in individual instruction
+by a thoroughly competent educator, who can discern and—ah—strengthen
+the weaknesses, and—ah—develop special capacities in the mind of
+youth,—ah, yes! She fears that our frequent and extended tours abroad
+have cultivated their powers of superficial observation and love of
+travel at the expense of their love of study, and—ah—capacity to absorb
+theories and to concentrate their thoughts, and to take an interest in
+books, and—ah—that is the reason,—_one_ of the reasons,”—with a bow and
+smile,—“why we esteem ourselves so fortunate,—so _very_ fortunate to
+have you with us.” Nothing could be more suave than the old gentleman
+beaming upon him from the foot of the table, but Edward Desmond, after
+an effort at a receptive and grateful smile, looked down at his fork and
+turned it aimlessly in his hand, without a word in response.
+
+He had had full range of the pastures, and the harness galled him. Yet
+logically he could not find aught of fault in this smooth courtesy and
+tone of appreciation. It so became even a quasi-employer, though
+conscious of his magnanimity and sense of _noblesse oblige_. The fact
+that Desmond had grown gradually aware that Mr. Stanlett was but basking
+in the reflection of his niece’s splendors, and, although having some
+indeterminate income of his own, was content to spend the evening of his
+days in her embellished entourage, scarcely mitigated his secret
+displeasure. He felt that the old gentleman assumed a patronage which he
+had no right to exercise. Yet this resentment was inconsistent with his
+own theory that mere money had no title to homage from him. Thus Mr.
+Stanlett’s patronage, poor, should not have been less acceptable than
+Mr. Stanlett’s patronage, rich. Mrs. Faurie had not hastened to make
+Desmond welcome, but indeed he had been in the house only for an hour or
+so, and Mr. Stanlett’s urbanity was surely expansive enough to atone. He
+gave the newcomer his choice of excuses in Mrs. Faurie’s behalf: first
+the fatigue of a long drive, and again he mentioned a sore throat as her
+reason for not joining the group at the dinner-table. “She will see you
+later in the evening,” Mr. Stanlett promised.
+
+If the lady did not choose to appear at her own board for any reason
+which might seem to her good and sufficient, Desmond was in no position
+to cavil, but the old gentleman’s inadvertences in the matter gave him
+an impression of insincerity about the methods of the household which
+grated on his exacting and sensitive mood. Even the manners of the
+domestics, smooth, and deft, and obsequious in the extreme, were
+incongruous with the veiled scorn of the stranger, as a man of scant
+means, which he subtly detected in their eyes, for, the servitors of
+wealth and large pretensions, they had slight toleration of poverty out
+of their own rank of life. He perceived, too, the relish which Joel, the
+antiquated negro butler, took in the elaboration of the details of the
+daily dinner service, especially the old-fashioned custom of removing
+the cloth with each successive course, which was so deftly accomplished,
+revealing the fresh one spread below, that it seemed a prandial miracle.
+Mr. Stanlett, however, apologized in some sort.
+
+“We keep up the old style, you see. My niece says she despairs of ever
+inducing Joel to condescend to one cloth for the table at dinner, though
+she brought some very fancy centrepieces and such gimcracks from Paris
+expressly to stimulate his ambition for novelty.”
+
+Desmond felt little drawn toward his prospective pupils, one seated
+beside him and the other two opposite. They were of a type with which he
+had scant sympathy. They were younger, too, than he had reason to expect
+from the amount of the salary and his own scholastic pretensions, and
+his consequence seemed further diminished in that he should be called
+upon to teach in effect mere children. While they were not handsome of
+feature, they were extremely handsomely built and tall for their
+respective ages; but he perceived with disapproval that they lacked
+muscle. They were very apt and delicate in all the usages of the table,
+and in their elegant nicety of attire “mamma’s darling” was writ large.
+They all had good eyes, and they held up their heads in a frank,
+gentlemanlike way; but their cosmopolitan air, their easy assurance,
+their ready phrasings far beyond their years, though evidently the
+superficial result of their travels and their precocious relations with
+the world, did not serve to commend them to one who loved a boy for his
+crude boyishness. These seemed little men of the world, and they sat
+smug and silent and looked at their great-uncle with faces of filial
+gravity when, under the influence of too much old port, he began to show
+traits of the ridiculous, albeit in a genteel and refined fashion. Yet
+Desmond admitted to himself that he would not have thought it becoming
+that they should laugh. The clear pallor of the old gentleman’s lean
+face grew delicately flushed. His white hair was sparse on his long
+head, showing its bony structure. He had a white mustache, and a
+factitious idea of youth was suggested by the gleam of a very natural
+set of false teeth beneath it. Presently he began to hum, as if
+absent-minded, and at length he sang out:—
+
+                “My girl so fair, my friend so rare,
+                With these what mortal could be richer?
+                Give me but these,—a fig for care,
+                My sweet girl, my friend, and pitcher.”
+
+It was the echo of what had been a very pretty tenor voice in its prime,
+and its resonant vibrations reached and roused a parrot asleep in a
+cage, hanging in a broad, deep bay-window. The bird suddenly fluffed its
+feathers and sent out a sharp, harsh cry; then, twisting on its perch
+and swinging inverted by one claw, it sang with a painfully realistic
+imitation and with all the taunting effect of mockery:—
+
+                “My sweet girl, my friend, and pitcher.”
+
+It was too much for the decorum of the youngest of the three boys. He
+broke into an irresistible puerile cackle, and the old man, catching
+suddenly to his senses and his sobriety, flushed deeply, the crimson
+stealing through his sparse white hair and all along his polished white
+scalp.
+
+The eldest of the boys, a lad of fourteen, came at once to the rescue
+with the tact of a Chesterfield, as smooth as cream.
+
+“The idea of Polly remembering your old ‘pitcher-song,’ Uncle
+Clarence,—that’s quite a compliment. And after so long an absence.”
+
+“Very true,—very true,” said the old gentleman, readily reassured.
+“Pretty Polly,”—smiling blandly at the accomplished fowl. “Want a
+cracker?”
+
+“My pitcher,” repeated Polly, as if with the intention of prompting the
+nature of the refreshment.
+
+“Why, we have been away—let me see—my memory fails me about these little
+details. How long were we in Europe this time, Reginald?—how long is it
+since Polly heard that song?”
+
+“Eighteen months, Uncle Clarence. I shouldn’t have thought Polly capable
+of such an effort. May we be excused, sir?”
+
+“Certainly—by all means.” Then, turning to Desmond, “I don’t care to see
+young boys linger at the table after the cloth is drawn and the bottle
+is stirring over the mahogany.”
+
+The disaffected Desmond thought a continuance here might prove a
+salutary object-lesson as to the pernicious effects of vinous
+indulgence, and his eyes followed with no great favor the little
+gentlemen as, prettily bowing, they nattily made their exit. Somehow he
+was reassured to hear a clumsy shuffling of feet in the hall as, to
+judge by auricular evidence, they engaged in a scuffle outside the
+closed door. Suddenly one of them was thrown with a great bang against
+it,—then an abrupt and awe-stricken silence ensued.
+
+“Eighteen months,” Mr. Stanlett repeated. “I did not realize the length
+of our absence. In truth,” he added, with a spark of mischief kindling
+the wine in his eyes, “we stayed as long as we could,—as long as our
+money held out. My niece, Mrs. Faurie, said that she had run the full
+length of her tether. You see, Mr. Desmond,”—his voice had a
+confidential intonation,—“by the provisions of the will,”—he spoke as if
+it were the sole and singular testamentary document in human
+experience,—“Mrs. Faurie has a large income,—a very large income,—but
+she cannot go beyond it,—she cannot touch the principal.”
+
+Desmond flushed haughtily. He had had such close dealings with debts and
+financial distresses and sheer poverty of late, nay, of rivings and
+wrestings of possessions that seemed so inalienably his own as to give
+their seizure the taint of robbery, that he had scant appetite to digest
+the prosperity of others, and he was devoid of the vulgar vice of
+curiosity which might otherwise have stimulated his interest. His dark
+blue eyes were on the vast, murky spread of the Mississippi River, seen
+through the window beyond a group of pecan trees, and the Arkansas bank
+opposite, a dim line of dark gray against the fainter gray of the low
+and clouded sky. His closely cut chestnut hair showed the contour of his
+shapely head. His tall, strong figure, for he had a record in college
+athletics as well as less esteemed branches of learning, had a supple
+grace that lent an air of distinction to the well-fitting suit of gray
+he wore, for at Great Oaks Plantation no one affected evening dress for
+daily dinner. So quiet was Desmond that his attitude expressed an
+attention which he did not really accord,—in fact, it was divided by a
+fear that in Mr. Stanlett’s garrulity he was liable to trench too far on
+the private affairs of the family. However, the old gentleman occupied
+the position of host or employer, according to the viewpoint; he was
+treated with filial deference by the youthful Fauries; he had received
+the tutor with a happy blending of hospitality and authority, and
+Desmond hardly knew how he might decorously evade disclosures of
+bibulous candor which he was neither entitled nor expected to hear.
+
+“No, sir,” Mr. Stanlett repeated, “by the will she cannot touch the
+principal, but she has a large income,—a fixed sum, thirty thousand
+dollars chargeable on the whole estate, and in addition the yield of
+this Great Oaks Plantation, which varies according to the season,—a very
+large income,—_so long as she remains a widow_. Yes, sir!—a widow she
+is, and a widow she must continue! Mr. Faurie was a very arbitrary man
+in point of temper—where are those boys?—and had a grudging against any
+other man’s getting a chance to spend his money. Notwithstanding the
+losses occasioned by the Civil War and the various fluctuations in
+values since, Faurie was worth little short of a million dollars when he
+died. He had a very level head. He made a remarkable will, a good, safe,
+sound, able document.” Mr. Stanlett had an evident relish of the
+provisions of that will,—a great respect for it.
+
+“She could dissent,—she could break it, I suppose.” Desmond forced
+himself to speak. He was not to have the typical tutor’s mental privacy,
+apparently. By reason of the magnanimity his employers intended to
+affect, treating him according to his former worldly station and as an
+equal, a friend, an honored man of letters, he was to have the trial of
+participating in their social life as at a Barmecide feast, really
+sharing naught, a mere figment of fraternity and festivity.
+
+“Break the will!” Mr. Stanlett skirled in dismay. “Impossible!—after
+nearly seven years’ acquiescence. But if she could, she would only get
+what the will gives her anyhow in the event of a second marriage,—simply
+her dower rights in Tennessee,—one fourth of the personalty, a
+life-interest in a third of the realty situated there, including his
+town residence in Nashville,—just what the law would allow her had he
+died intestate,—and in the Mississippi estate a child’s part in fee
+simple, for ‘dower,’ you know, is abolished in this State, and the law
+always follows the location of the realty. But, in fact, she has seemed
+perfectly satisfied with the arrangement,—as indeed well she might be! I
+fancy, too, that she has had about enough of matrimony. She likes her
+own way, and Mr. Faurie was a self-willed, proud, dictatorial—are those
+boys gone?—And what are _you_ doing there, Joel?” glimpsing the butler,
+standing stiffly near the sideboard. “Gimme the brandy decanter. Have
+some cognac, Mr. Desmond. Light those candles, Joel,—and take yourself
+off. Want to wait on the table _all_ night?”
+
+Then as the door closed noiselessly on the accomplished old
+servant,—“That nigger has got ears as long as a mule’s,” Mr. Stanlett
+commented in parenthesis, quaffed from his glass, sucked in his thin
+lips with extreme relish, and continued his confidences.
+
+“No,—my niece’s position under the will cannot dispose her greatly to a
+second experiment in the holy estate of matrimony. Mr. Faurie was
+considerably her senior,—in fact, he was quite an old bachelor, you
+might say, when they were married. How much older he was _I_ never knew,
+for _she_ would not tolerate any mention of the disparity in
+years,—though Faurie himself, who was a very stylish, impressive man,
+was too vain and arrogant to care one whit for it. Why,”—lowering his
+voice sepulchrally,—“when he died, I couldn’t mention his age in
+preparing the newspaper announcements because _I never knew it_.”
+
+He looked hard at Desmond and nodded his head significantly. “Now, don’t
+you know that people thought _that_ was funny?”
+
+He paused to light a cigar, having pushed the tray over to Desmond.
+“Yes,” he resumed puffingly, “as my niece says, we stayed in Europe as
+long as our money lasted. We had a fine time, went everywhere, saw
+everything, were fêted and made much of to our hearts’ content,—could
+have married into the nobility more than once, for”—the candle-light
+illumined the freakish slyness and glee in his senile smile—“people over
+there don’t know how the will is fixed in regard to a second marriage.
+No! pledge you my honor! They only saw the royal way in which Mrs.
+Faurie _can spend_ money. Now,” he broke out into a chirping laugh of
+relish of the incongruity, “my niece says that she doesn’t know how she
+can make both ends meet till her next year’s income begins to accrue.
+Ha! ha! We are to stay down here in the swamp till the hot weather runs
+us out, and then we shall go down to the Gulf coast, find some cheap
+little place near Biloxi or Pass Christian, and ah—ah”—he waved the
+cloud of cigar smoke from above his venerable head—“and I for one wish
+that time were come. You see plantation life is a sort of syncope at
+best,—that is, hereabouts. Further down the river, though, things are
+livelier. In Louisiana, now, the people are of a different disposition:
+they go about, visit each other; they make festival occasions; they are
+of French extraction; they have the light heart and the happy hand.
+Nothing can subdue the old Gallic _gaieté de cœur_, not even the swamp
+country. But all this upper region of ours was settled by people from
+Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky,—about the time that the mania for
+raising cotton in the bottom lands of Mississippi took hold on the
+progressive planters of the Border States. We have got our inherited
+English temperament to reckon with, our seriousness, our stolidity, our
+inability to be amused by a trifle, like a kitten with a string, or a
+Creole. And, too, it is a matter of neighborhood,—we are only a few
+hundred miles from Memphis, counting by the crankings of the river, all
+our associations are with the Border States, and we are out of earshot
+of the lively Creoles. I am afraid you will find it very dull here, Mr.
+Desmond, way down in the swamp.” He had evidently forgotten the fact
+that his companion was not a guest.
+
+“I am not here for pleasure, you know,” Desmond reminded him.
+
+“True,—oh, yes,—very true,—the boys,—their education. But you are so
+like”—Desmond thought that he was about to say “one of ourselves,” but
+perhaps he was supersensitive—“ah—so very like a collegian yourself,
+that I forget you occupy the reverend position of tutor. The boys have a
+good start in the modern languages—that is, they can gabble fast
+enough—their mother’s wanderings made them regular polyglots—they had
+native teachers at every stoppage; but I reckon you will find them poor
+shakes in the rudiments of natural science, mathematics, rhetoric,
+Latin, and so forth, and I suppose that in spite of their colloquial
+glibness, they know little of the construction of the foreign languages.
+Mrs. Faurie is very anxious for their solid advancement. And she is
+determined to make this enforced quiet recruit both her fortune and
+their education. So glad to have you here, Mr. Desmond,—so glad to have
+you with us.”
+
+He hesitated, waved the smoke from his white head, and once more filled
+his glass from the decanter. It was a small liqueur glass, but its size
+was not commensurate with the potations to which it ministered, for it
+was easily replenished, and of course he drank his Cognac neat. Desmond
+began to have a shrewd idea, partly because the tiny glass had been
+intended for a mere sip of Curaçoa, that had Mrs. Faurie been present at
+dinner, the bibulous exercises would have been much curtailed. He was
+experiencing some embarrassment in thus lingering over the potations,
+for he had arrived only that afternoon, and had never met Mrs. Faurie,
+having been employed by Mr. Keith, the guardian of her sons. Desmond was
+solicitous lest the breach of etiquette and good manners be imputed to
+his connivance. Perhaps Mr. Stanlett’s proclivity was known to his
+niece, but he must seldom have such complete immunity from remonstrance
+and caution. While the old gentleman’s vinous indulgence and senile
+impairments would suggest that his preferences might with impunity be
+set aside in such an emergency, the evident appreciation and deference
+with which he was treated implied that he was a person to be reckoned
+with. Desmond dared not himself propose to quit the table: the gaucherie
+would undoubtedly offend the old gentleman as an intentional disrespect.
+Yet the tutor really felt that by thus lingering he jeopardized all his
+prospects with that far more important personage, the lady of Great Oaks
+and the head of the family. Distasteful as was his position to him, he
+valued it exceedingly the moment it was threatened, as the only
+opportunity that had offered at his utmost need. He had been positively
+penniless at the crisis of his disasters. Even had he completed his law
+course, he must have had means to live while he waited for a practice to
+accrue. He had no commercial experience or aptitudes. He had no
+available business connections. Perhaps few people realize the
+difficulty of leaping into a paying position at a vault, instead of
+growing and climbing up with it from the ground. All values seem
+accessible only _per ambages_. A moment earlier he had been recoiling
+from the employment, the situation he liked so ill, and now he was
+asking himself if he were desirous of standing behind a dry goods
+counter in a village store, that he could afford to make his entry into
+Mrs. Faurie’s household under circumstances so inauspicious,—carousing
+over the dinner-table with a man, not his host, obviously superannuated,
+in a sort irresponsible, unable perhaps to justify his own dereliction,
+much less the infringement of decorum by the tutor. The village
+store,—quotha! No refuge awaited him there. He did not know insertion
+from indigo. He had fallen into his niche, his proper place, and with a
+sudden sense of prizing its values, he quitted his chair. Not to leave
+the room abruptly and at once, however. The crisis had called his tact
+into play. He walked toward the mantelpiece as if to scrutinize the
+picture above it and thus pave the way to an easy withdrawal.
+
+“Take the candle to it,—take the candle to it. That is Faurie himself
+when he was about sixteen,—do not know how long ago it was painted,
+though! But the length of that rifle is a dead give-away,” cried Mr.
+Stanlett, from the table, his glass in his hand.
+
+As Desmond lifted one of the candles, the light revealed a large
+oil-painting executed in the florid portrait style of the middle
+nineteenth century,—a crowded canvas it was, showing a fair, vigorous
+young stripling leaning on his gun, a horse and foliage in the distance,
+a deer, with only the fine head visible, gray and antlered, lying at the
+sportsman’s feet;—the frame, inclosing all, very handsome. There were
+some other pieces in the room, which was large, square, and high-ceiled,
+all suggestive of game, and the fact that the late Mr. Faurie may have
+been a bon-vivant. One, a dainty water-color sketch of a piscatorial
+subject, the catfish of the Mississippi, bore the marks of the hand of a
+clever amateur.
+
+The wall-paper was dimly pictorial, after the style of even an earlier
+day, a mélange of forest boughs and boles of great trees through which a
+shadowy outline of the figures of a chase sped, with deer, hounds,
+horsemen, huntsmen, and horns, of “elfland faintly blowing.” A great,
+dark, mahogany press showed through small diamonded panes rows of silver
+vessels, glistering in the dusk, which neither the flicker of the candle
+nor the twilight glimmer from the great windows could annul. Several of
+the large cups bore inscriptions, and he thought they looked at the
+distance like trophies captured by some winner of the turf. As Desmond
+turned to ask the question, he perceived that the old man had sunk back
+in his tall armchair, his delicate face, still in slumber, keenly
+outlined against the cushion of its head-rest in the clear, refined
+light of the candle close at hand, his white hair gleaming frostily.
+
+Desmond stood uncertain for a moment. He saw through the bay-window that
+the night was falling fast without. But for the flicker of the moon, he
+might not have known how the great Mississippi rippled and sparkled
+under the currents of the wind. The passing of the first steamboat that
+he had yet seen he marked by her chimney-lamps, red and green, swinging
+high in the air, and their reflection, ruby and emerald, gemming the
+water. As she sheered, she showed the long line of her side-lights, like
+a string of yellow topazes. She did not turn nor approach, but sounded
+her whistle as if for a landing, and he wondered at this. The boat was
+saluting the place by way of compliment, for it was known that the queen
+was in residence, so to speak, and Mrs. Faurie shipped much cotton from
+the contemned and avoided plantation in the old way by water, for the
+almost omnipresent railroads were still distant from Great Oaks Landing.
+Presently the lights were quenched, the craft had passed beyond his
+view, the moon was overcast, and only the gray night was visible from
+the window. Desmond seized his opportunity for escape. He placed the
+candle he held upon the table, and with a noiseless step and a furtive,
+apprehensive eye, as if the exacting old gentleman might rouse to
+displeasure and reproach at a mere rustle, he quitted the room, leaving
+his companion, his empty glass still poised in his hand, asleep in his
+chair.
+
+The mansion at Great Oaks Plantation was as ill-lighted by night as are
+most residences dependent still on candle and kerosene. Unless, indeed,
+some festival occasion demanded extra brilliancy, only the gleam from
+the chandelier in the main hall guided the exit from the dining-room
+through a cross-hall, the entry, so called. Desmond had not the
+necessity for wariness that might have befitted the steps of Mr.
+Stanlett, but he paused in the dim entry, marking the subdued glow at
+the intersection with the main hall, then carefully directed his steps
+thither. Even thus he ran over the “bike” of one of the boys,
+inadvertently placed where it might most opportunely trip the
+unsuspecting pedestrian in these glooms, and threw it upon the floor
+with a tremendous clatter. To his vexation he heard a door open in the
+hall beyond and a feminine voice call out unintelligibly, whether in
+inquiry or warning or commiseration he did not accurately discern in his
+confusion. He hastily set the wheel out of harm’s way against the wall,
+and with a swift, prompt step advanced up the lighted hall toward the
+open door, which he perceived led into the parlor where he had been
+received earlier in the afternoon. A large lamp on a high, old-fashioned
+pedestal stood on a round, marble-topped centre table; a wood fire
+blazed with a white light in the great chimney-place, and the brass
+andirons and fender glittered responsively; an old-fashioned crimson
+velvet carpet was on the floor, and long crimson satin damask curtains
+hung over lace draperies at the windows. In the midst of this atmosphere
+of glow and warmth the lady of Great Oaks stood with expectant mien,
+awaiting him.
+
+Somehow she was so different from his mental image, from what he was
+prepared to see, that he was disconcerted for a moment. He had imagined
+a middle-aged frump favored by fortune, portly, puffy, rubicund,
+overfed, overdressed, bursting with self-importance, smiling in creases,
+of husky voice and fixed opinions, and laying down the law. This was a
+woman seemingly as young as himself; tall, slender, regal, with rich
+brown hair in a high pompadour roll, an exquisitely white, delicate
+complexion, luminous gray eyes, with a marvelous capacity for
+expression, a clear, coercive glance delivered from beneath long black
+eyelashes, and finely drawn black eyebrows, perfectly straight. She wore
+a gown of thick, creamy lace, some fabric rich of effect though not of
+commensurate cost, one of the pretty fads of the day, and about her slim
+waist was twisted a soft, silken sash in Roman stripes of pink and azure
+and amber, the long ends hanging knotted at one side. The sentiment of
+youth that clung about her presence was oddly incongruous with her
+assured address, replete with authority and the manner of seniority.
+
+“This is Mr. Desmond,” she said, in a clear, dulcet, vibratory voice, as
+she advanced and held out her hand. “So sorry not to have met you at
+dinner! But I am sure the rest did what they could for you. We are all
+so glad to have you here.”
+
+He seated himself in the fauteuil she indicated, and she sank down into
+one on the opposite side of the table in the blended light of lamp and
+fire. She fixed her disconcerting eyes full upon him, as if utterly
+unaware of their bewildering beauty, gravely scrutinizing him, evidently
+“sizing him up,” taking her impressions of his mental quality and
+personal fitness for the position.
+
+“There are many places on the river which are very attractive. But we
+are differently situated. We are so far from any neighbors,—quite
+isolated. It really seems a godsend that you are willing to come to us
+in the swamp.”
+
+As she talked on her homely themes, he was irritated to be so
+tongue-tied, but somehow he could not reconcile the situation; and as
+she looked straight at him from beneath those level brows, he gazed
+spellbound at her.
+
+“My three big babies are too old for the nest, I know, and in fact they
+are toppling out. But I can’t bear to send them off as yet, and I have
+great faith in home influence and individual teaching.”
+
+Desmond thought if he could but shut his eyes for one moment; he could
+see the kind of frump whom her sage, staid discourse would befit.
+
+“I think they can be prepared here for college, right here in the swamp
+with me,—and then—why, we shall see what we shall see. And now,
+good-night. I will not detain you.” She touched a bell, and as the brisk
+young footman’s black face appeared in the door,—“See that the lamp is
+lighted in Mr. Desmond’s room, and that the fire is burning well.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER II
+
+
+Desmond, dismissed, felt cut through and through. It was no failure of
+courtesy, but the note of indifference, of complete self-absorption,
+impressed him; yet how could he expect Mrs. Faurie to be interested in
+her sons’ tutor except from her own viewpoint. To his apprehension it
+was as if in some psychic magic he had shifted his identity. He did not
+recognize himself in this null, unassertive personality. So lately he
+had been the centre of fond hopes, the pride of his father’s life. He
+was an object of mark at his university; his scholarship had been worthy
+the respect of the faculty. He recalled the words of their glowing
+commendations with a sort of pained wonder that they had ever been
+addressed to him. The president himself had not deemed it ill-advised to
+say, “With your equipment and your fine talents, we must expect great
+things of your future. Your name will reflect credit on our Alma Mater;
+I confidently believe it will stand high on the scroll.” His classmates
+rejoiced in his exceptional record, so far removed he was from envy or
+detraction. His popularity was unbounded, for he had an attractive
+personality and all the effervescence of cheery youth and
+good-fellowship, and his notability made him a lion in the social
+circles of the college town. His reputation followed him wherever he and
+his multitude of young friends had a connection; and he had enjoyed all
+the prestige of actual achievement, so amply did the flowering promise
+herald the rich fruition.
+
+How small was that microcosm of college life, how far removed from the
+actualities of the great uninstructed, prosperous world, blundering on
+in suave content, with its crass ignorance of all but money values, he
+learned only when the blow fell and he must needs have work, and work at
+once, for his daily bread. He might look in vain for market quotations
+on Greek. There was no corner in Old Saxon,—modern slang could better
+turn the trick on ’Change. The opportunities that lay in the line of
+pedagogy were already overcrowded; and thus instead of that road to the
+stars, to worthy achievement, for which he had so long and so
+laboriously prepared, for which he was so preëminently fitted, he was to
+trudge the by-paths of hopeless poverty; to be the drudging, futureless
+stipendiary in a rich, frivolous household, teaching three mollycoddle
+boys, buried in the seclusion of the Mississippi bottom lands, as if
+translated to another sphere.
+
+With these thoughts Desmond lay long awake that night. He mechanically
+watched the flicker of the fire on the light paper of the walls of the
+large, airy room, giving out here and there a sparkle of gilt from the
+scroll design, till it dulled gradually, and at length faded to a
+pervasive dusky red glow. He was not used to a bed with the
+old-fashioned tester and four posts, and when he was about to fall
+asleep, he was roused by the unaccustomed sense of something poised
+above his head, or standing solemnly sentinel, surrounding him as he
+lay. He was not sorry when the room grew too dark for aught to be seen
+but the gray night looking in between the long white curtains at the
+tall windows. Yet the hours brought incidents even in the monotony. He
+was apprised that he was on the side of the house nearest the river when
+he saw through the small panes the sudden distant glare of a steamboat’s
+electric search-light, making a rayonnant halo in the dim glooms of the
+riparian midnight, and heard the husky, remonstrant tones of her
+whistle, and the impact of “the buckets” on the water as the wheels
+revolved. He was not yet sufficiently familiar with the plan of the
+house to have otherwise known of his proximity to the bank; but after
+the boat had passed and the last vague echo of the stroke of the paddles
+on the water had died away, he was impressed by the silence of the night
+and the absolutely noiseless flow of the swift currents of the great
+river. It dismayed him in some sort, the sense of that mighty,
+irresistible, mute, moving force of nature out there in the still night,
+as changeful as life, as inexorable as fate, as ceaseless as eternity.
+He had felt small, reduced in worldly esteem, robbed of every prospect,
+and he had no heart to hope. With this expression of silent, majestic
+immensity brought to his contemplation, he seemed infinitely minute in
+the scheme of creation. So long had it rolled its waves from the far
+north to the Gulf; nations had risen on its banks and passed away, and
+strangers had come anew to die and be succeeded in turn by foreign faces
+still, and what mattered it what an atom such as he might suffer, or
+hope, or grieve to lose.
+
+He could not sleep; he had desisted from the conscious effort; he had
+resigned himself to the wakefulness embittered by such thoughts as
+these. It had grown dark, quite dark,—the windows, vague parallelograms
+in the gloom, more distinguished by his memory of the features of the
+room than by actual sight,—when he heard a sound that somehow thrilled
+his every nerve. Hardly a sound,—it was rather a sibilance. But for the
+intense stillness of the house he could not have noticed it,—a mere
+rustle.
+
+“What is it?” he asked himself, intent and curious. For when it vaguely
+came again, it conveyed the sense of motion; it suggested a varying
+distance. Once more his straining senses caught the sound,—very soft it
+was. Furtive, was it, he wondered, for he had identified it as the
+lisping note of a sliding foot on a velvet carpet. At first he thought
+it within his own room, but as it receded at regular intervals, he
+realized it as a step on the stair without. He began to appreciate that
+the head of his bed was against the wall, on the other side of which
+this stair ascended to the upper story, for his room was on the ground
+floor of the great, rambling house. He thus caught the vague vibration
+of motion, as well as the susurrus of the impact of the step on the pile
+of the carpet; otherwise he might not have distinguished so cautious, so
+very silent a transit. It had peculiar features of mystery. It receded
+into absolute quiet, then, approaching anew, seemed to pass.
+
+A long interval ensued while he lay still, the interest of his surmise,
+the doubt, the surprise, solacing his wakeful mood. Suddenly he started
+with a thrill that sought out some nerve of superstition which had
+contrived to coexist with all the logic of his mental training. It was
+coming again, softly, very softly, its sibilant passage scarcely to be
+discriminated even in the silence of the night, ascending once more the
+padded velvet stair. Then Desmond fancied that he heard a long-drawn
+breath, a stifled sigh. He lifted himself on his elbow, listening
+intently. The furtive step receded and yet receded, till it had won the
+distance that the ear might not reach. A long interval of absolute
+silence once more ensued. Then abruptly, again, a muffled step
+descending, softly, secretly.
+
+With a sudden thought Desmond sprang to his feet. His first idea of the
+passing of some member of the family to the upper regions of the house
+on some domestic errand, for extra coverings or for medicine or lamps,
+was annulled by the amazing silence and secrecy of the recurrent
+demonstration. Its repetition implied purpose. Its furtiveness suggested
+malignity. He reflected that, so far as he knew, the inmates of the
+house, with one feeble old man and three young boys, were all inadequate
+to cope with the intrusion of burglars or other marauders. He flung the
+door of the bedroom open and stood in the hall, his pistol in his hand.
+
+“Who is there?” he called out, his voice ringing through the darkness
+like a clarion.
+
+There was not a sound in response, not a stir.
+
+“Speak up,” he threatened, “or I’ll fire.” The metallic click of the
+weapon as he cocked it was of coercive intimations.
+
+Still not a sound, not a stir. No scurrying footstep to be out of harm’s
+way,—no premonition of the attack for which he was prepared, shifting
+his posture each time after he spoke, to escape a shot that might be
+aimed at the sound of his voice in the darkness. Nothing—the hall was
+absolutely vacant, silent.
+
+He stood irresolute for a moment. He scarcely dared turn to secure a
+light lest the lurking intruder escape in the interval of his absence.
+Yet when he heard a stir in a room farther down the hall, the sound of
+bare feet bouncing out of bed, the opening of a door heralding a
+trickling of candle-light into the gloom, he was all at once ashamed of
+the commotion he had aroused and its apparent lack of justification.
+
+As the light advanced along the hall, he was pleased to see that it was
+held in the hand of Reginald Faurie, the eldest of the three boys; the
+old man was too feebly irresponsible to be trusted, and he was glad that
+he had not aroused Mrs. Faurie. But as the young fellow held the candle
+high in his hand, the light showing his tousled auburn hair and his pink
+and white striped pajamas, the expression of his face, distinct in the
+glow, was not such as to ingratiate the future pupil with the tutor. It
+was of half-repressed mirth; yet Reginald paused once, and looked over
+his shoulder into the shadow with the half shudder of a qualm of cold
+fright. He showed no disposition to search for the cause of the
+disturbance, however, and he cut short Desmond’s excited attempt at
+explanation as of no importance.
+
+“Let me in here with you for a moment,” Reginald said. “Don’t want to
+wake up the kids! Yes,—yes,”—with a mature air of patronage,—“I know
+exactly what you heard,—old Slip-Slinksy, as we boys call him, going up
+and down stairs.”
+
+The coolness with which he shut the door, placed the candle on the high,
+white, painted mantelpiece, and sought to stir the fire was proof
+positive that there was no intruder to be reckoned with. Desmond yielded
+reluctantly. But it was the house of a stranger, and he was unused to
+his surroundings. He stood in his bath-robe, which he had flung on at
+the first alarm, and leaned on the high back of a chair, while Reginald
+set the blazes to flaring in the great fireplace, then dropped down on
+the rug and put the pointed toes of his bedroom slippers against the
+brass fender, evidently preparing to elucidate the mystery.
+
+“I know you’ll think I’m loony,—I hate to give myself away! But you are
+one of the solid, scientific, investigating kind, I’m sure. You will
+make inquiries, I know, and I don’t want mamma to learn that old
+Slip-Slinksy is at his queer tricks again. She is not a bit
+superstitious,—no sort of a crank,—but it is a creepy, inexplicable kind
+of thing that one doesn’t like to have in one’s house, and it would make
+her hate the plantation worse than ever; and as she has got to stay at
+Great Oaks for a while, I think she had better not hear about this
+demonstration to-night.”
+
+“But who is it?” asked Desmond, mystified.
+
+“Nobody,—just nothing at all!”
+
+Desmond walked around the chair, and, seating himself in the renewed
+radiance of the fire, drew the folds of his bath-robe close about him.
+He bent the brows of prospective authority upon Reginald, and the lad
+sought to explain.
+
+“What is a ghost but nothing at all!—its emptiness is what gets on your
+nerves. You can take your gun, as you did to-night, to the wicked man
+when he gets gay or out of place,—as long as he is alive. But once a
+deader, and he _has got you_. I’d like to hear your learned chemical
+analysis of a ghost. It is compounded of a winter night’s imaginings!
+It’s an untimely shiver! It’s the tremors of hearing a storm coming down
+the Mississippi River and making all the boats tie up for the night!
+It’s old Slip-Slinksy doing nothing but going upstairs and coming down
+again. I don’t know what on earth started it, but that is our ghost, and
+we have got it for keeps.”
+
+“Fudge!” exclaimed Desmond, contemptuously.
+
+“_You_ heard it,” said the boy, significantly. “I did not.”
+
+Desmond _had_ heard the strange manifestation, knowing naught of it
+hitherto. He remembered the unearthly thrill its first intimations had
+sent through every startled fibre. “But it must have some natural
+explanation, of course.”
+
+“I am sure I hope so,” rejoined Reginald. “But the natural explanation
+has defied us so far. We have done our little possible to solve the
+mystery. We have examined the walls and roof; we have taken up the
+carpets; we have lurked in wait for it, and rushed out upon it as you
+did to-night,—and found nothing,—as you did. I, for one, would take
+mighty kindly to any sort of a natural explanation. A ghost—no matter
+how much you give him the cold shoulder—doesn’t make for happiness in
+the home, and”—he shuddered—“he is apt to give you the cold shoulder.”
+
+“Is it an old affair?” asked Desmond.
+
+“We can’t exactly fix just when the manifestation began. It _always_
+butts in immediately after we come home. Then there will be a long
+interval. Presently it starts up again,—every few nights. Then we may
+have another long exemption. You would think this old house like any
+other happy old home. But in the midst of the preparation for departure
+it is sure to begin again,—if anybody is fool enough to lie awake to
+listen for it. Of course I don’t know what the ghost may do while we are
+away,—in our long absences he may run riot all over the place. At all
+events, we can get no caretaker to sleep in the house. I shouldn’t be
+surprised if its reputation of being haunted protects it from
+depredators, river pirates,—and such cattle. Anyhow, we leave only the
+ghost in charge, and there is not a thing stirred when we come back.
+Only the dust over all, and a sense of mystery.”
+
+“Of course there must be some natural explanation,” Desmond protested
+anew.
+
+“So glad you think so,” said Reginald, politely. “But you will not
+mention it to mamma.”
+
+“Certainly not; but is the demonstration always the same?”
+
+“Always the same,—a step going up and coming down the stair;—going up
+and presently coming down the stair, just as you heard it. It is up to
+you to explain it. It is no tradition as far as you are concerned; you
+were all unconscious and without expectation.”
+
+A sudden wind had sprung up without. It came down the great channel of
+the Mississippi in chilly gusts, with a thrill of dawn in its reviving
+stir. It shook the silence. Myriads of undiscriminated voices were rife
+in the air. The boughs of the great oaks of the grove without clashed
+and fell still again. The evergreen leaves of the Cherokee rose hedges,
+fencing the place for miles, kept up a rippling stir in the section
+close at hand. A draft became perceptible at the nearest window, and
+Desmond, looking toward it, saw through the parted curtains that the
+clouds were riven asunder and a clear, chill star was scintillating in a
+deep abyss of darkness. The night was wearing on,—not far from day—not
+far from a frosty dawn.
+
+“And nothing has ever been seen,” said Desmond, drawing the cord of his
+robe closer.
+
+Reginald stirred the fire; then resumed his easy posture before it, his
+eyes upon the blaze. “I beg pardon,” he rejoined, somewhat unwillingly;
+“but I did not say that.”
+
+“I misunderstood you, then,” said the tutor. He sought to laugh, but he
+had himself heard too much that he could not explain to make his
+ridicule effective. “But there must be some natural explanation.”
+
+“Well,—we can’t get at it,—that’s all,” said Reginald, somewhat nettled
+by the ridicule. “You see I am not stuffing you. I have not the least
+disposition to trot out our ghost to—to lord it over you. I do not
+expect you to bow down and admire him. I am not trying to make prestige
+on his account. You and he struck up an acquaintance without any
+introduction from me. And the apparition on the stairs is so logical and
+in keeping that it bears out the sound of the step,—and that is what
+troubles us,—especially mamma. She is not superstitious, but she is a
+very sensitive organization,—and she always hated this dull old
+plantation, and this gruesomeness that it has developed does not
+recommend it the least little bit.”
+
+“But about the apparition?” Desmond asked eagerly, even while he was
+ready to rally himself that he should entertain so primitive a
+curiosity.
+
+“Why, it came about the most natural way in the world,” declared
+Reginald. “There was a wedding over at Dryad-Dene, Colonel Kentopp’s
+plantation,—Mrs. Kentopp’s sister, I think,—a great wedding, all in the
+old style. The Kentopps are up-to-date people,—make a point of keeping
+up with the procession, unless some fashionable antique craze takes hold
+on them. Just at that time the imitation of the big old country wedding
+was all the go. So instead of having the ceremony at our little
+neighborhood church, and taking the next train or packet for the wedding
+tour, the marriage was at the mansion, in the style of fifty years ago.
+They invited the country; and the relatives and the friends came in
+their dozens, if you please. Of course the Kentopps couldn’t put them
+all up, so some of the guests were entertained by their neighbors, and
+there were many dinners and dances and such functions in the
+vicinity—houses five miles apart, mostly—to compliment the happy couple.
+We took our part, of course. We were just returned from Europe, Asia,
+Africa, and Oceanica” (with a pert little fling), “and the house was
+jammed. I don’t know if you have noticed that there isn’t a regular
+second story to this old bungalow. The rooms above are in a half
+story,—mighty near _all_ dormer window. We don’t use those rooms unless
+we are hard put to it. But on this occasion they were full,—even cots
+and pallets on the floor. Well, in the bedroom on the left hand side as
+you ascend the stairs were a lady and three children. They were nearly
+related to the bridegroom, but strangers to us,—they had never been here
+before—and one of the kids took advantage of the opportunity to make
+himself conspicuous by getting exceedingly ill. My mother suggested
+that, to have help near at hand in the night, the nurse should sleep on
+a pallet in the hall. The nurse was cheerful and agreed; there was a
+big, bright moon, and all the dormer windows were very festive. About
+midnight this lady was awakened by the nurse, who came and asked leave
+to draw her pallet into the bedroom, because she could not sleep for the
+continual passing up and down the stairs,—tip, tip, tip,—slyly slipping
+up and slyly slipping down.” He paused to listen apprehensively, then
+recommenced. “The good lady’s nerves were racked with anxiety, I dare
+say, for she declared that it was very ill-bred in the other guests not
+to let the house get quiet, when there was illness and a chance that her
+child would die. Then she told the nurse to return to her pallet,—that
+the room was too crowded already with herself and the three children,
+and the sick boy needed air. After a time the nurse, an intelligent,
+patient, reasonable woman, came back, declaring that she was afraid.
+There was something strange in this passing. It was not the other
+guests. The people were all still, asleep; the house was as silent as
+death; but yet—slip, slip, slip—something shuffling along so silently,
+so slyly,—she was fit to scream. She was once more rebuked and sent to
+her place. Presently she did scream! The moon had traveled over the
+house and the beams began to fall through the window over the staircase,
+and there she saw what had been going up and down the stops,—a man in
+fancy dress, she declared,—my uncle thinks it was some antique costume—”
+
+“Did he see the apparition, too?”
+
+“Sure! the whole house came running, scared to death,—in just what they
+had on,—a beautiful lot they were, too! but the thing had vanished. Only
+the nurse and her mistress, who, being awake, had run out instantly upon
+the alarm, saw it distinctly. They both said that it was a man in fancy
+dress, with powdered hair. My uncle had just opened his door on the
+lower floor, and, looking upward at the landing, his view was
+indistinct, but his impression was the same.”
+
+Desmond pondered for a moment. “Did it never occur to any of them that
+it was some wag of the house-party frightening the nurse for a freak.”
+
+“I have heard of making a long arm, but I can’t imagine making a long
+enough leg to keep a footstep going up and down a staircase, when none
+of our guests have been in the county, or even in the State, for four or
+five years.”
+
+“It is strange,” said Desmond, at last. “But all the same I am sure that
+there must be some reasonable natural explanation,—if it could be
+found.”
+
+“I wish I shared your belief, or disbelief,” said Reginald. He looked up
+doubtfully at the candle burning low now on the mantelpiece. It was not
+the regulation bedroom light, but in a tall, silver candlestick, that
+offered no protection against the drops which its guttering state sent
+dripping down its sides. The fire was sinking; the room had taken on a
+shadow and a sense of gloom; the wind suddenly rose in a shrill skirl;
+then one could hear some slight débris of leaves or twigs skittering
+across the grass as if in a weird dance without. Any suggestion of
+uncanny footsteps was in jeopardy to the maintenance of equilibrium.
+Desmond, fatigued from his journey and his vigils, was growing
+heavy-eyed and disposed to slumber. For some time he had been sensible
+of the increasing chill of the air, and was beginning to canvass the
+propriety of himself terminating the interview, and in his character of
+tutor authoritatively bidding the boy to betake himself to his own
+bedroom instead of awaiting his exit as a guest. But Reginald suddenly
+resumed. “I wish I could agree with you that there is a natural
+explanation,—if we could light upon it. I believe in its supernatural
+quality enough to wonder how I mustered the courage to come through the
+hall when I heard you call. I was afraid that if you spoke again, mamma
+would be roused. I don’t see how I am to get back. I am something of a
+man in the daytime, but a regular baby about it at night,—and—if you
+don’t mind—I’ll just climb over there in the back of the bed and stay
+with you till the rising bell. Oh, thanks, muchly. You have saved my
+reason, if not my life. Suppose—oh, just suppose—I was to meet old
+Slip-Slinksy in the hall,—and he was to—to—to blow out the candle.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III
+
+
+The breakfast-table showed little correlation to a haunted house. It was
+surrounded with bright and smiling faces when Desmond, to his chagrin a
+trifle tardy, opened the door. The sunshine lay among the potted plants
+blooming in wire stands at the two casements opposite the great
+bay-window, and through its broad outlook one could see the immense
+shining expanse of the king of rivers, with a golden glister on its
+ripples, and in the distance a line of tender brownish gray to denote
+the growth of cottonwood fringing the farther banks against the blue
+sky. The sylvan hunt on the wall-paper, in the medley of scrolls and
+fantastic tracery, had a realistic effect of motion as the sunshine and
+shadow shifted over it through the stirring boughs of the great live-oak
+tree close without. A fire of light wood glowed on the hearth, more it
+might seem for gladsome cheer than needed warmth, this balmy day of the
+southern winter, and old Joel, the butler, was holding on a silver tray
+a large, low basket of ripe figs and brilliant hothouse flowers, while
+Mrs. Faurie read a note that had come with the fruit. She paused for a
+moment and glanced up as the tutor entered.
+
+“Good-morning, Mr. Desmond. I hope you rested well.” Then, rustling the
+missive, she read aloud: “‘Congratulations on the date’—what the
+mischief is the date, Uncle Clarence?—the 5th of December?—Heavens and
+earth! The cruel woman! She is reminding me of my birthday.” She tossed
+the note aside with a gesture of mock desperation. “Let me give you some
+coffee, Mr. Desmond,—I can swallow my mortification later,—or will you
+have chocolate?”
+
+As she sat at the head of the table, moving the pieces of the large
+old-fashioned silver service, that glittered with polish, but showed
+here and there an indentation that bespoke the battering proclivity of
+years of daily usage, the light from the several windows was full on her
+face. Her complexion was more than ever like a white rose in its
+softness and delicacy thus displayed. Her fine, long throat was shown by
+the surplice cut of her plain white lawn blouse, of which the sleeves
+reached only to the elbow of her softly rounded arms, with their slim,
+dainty hands; her skirt was of plain pleated black voile, and her brown
+hair was rolled straight up from her forehead. Nothing could be more
+homelike, more simple; but the effect of her eyes as she looked at him
+from under her long lashes, her level brows slightly drawn, had a
+vaguely bewildering effect on Desmond. He had seen charming women
+heretofore, but none to parallel her loveliness. His mind was acclimated
+to the idea, the tradition of incomparable beauty, but not in these
+close relations. To breakfast with Helen of Troy, to receive a cup of
+chocolate from the hand of Diana herself, to reply to a word of simple
+inquiry and assured authority from the embodiment of the ideal that
+poets have sung and painters have limned in all ages, was disconcerting.
+Had she seemed herself more aware of her preëminent endowment, had she
+been self-conscious, he could have better adjusted himself to its
+continual contemplation; but he had the sentiment of a unique discovery,
+of perceiving somewhat unknown, unnoted.
+
+“I can’t see any cause for mortification; it seems to me a very pretty
+compliment, mamma.” Reginald had taken the note up with some anxiety and
+was perusing it with a clearing brow.
+
+“A compliment!—to be reminded of my dreadful age.”
+
+“Ah, Honoria, you are absurd, my dear,” Mr. Stanlett protested, with an
+air of concern. “Thirty-four is still young,—still young, my dear.”
+
+“Oh, how can you mention it, Uncle Clarence? Let me forget the exact
+number! I feel one foot in the grave! I am the prey of time!”
+
+She cast up her beautiful eyes in an affectation of distress; then,
+catching the serious regards of the youngest boy fixed upon her,
+dubiously, uncertain of her mood, she looked at him intently for a
+moment, and burst into a ripple of smiles, to which, reassured, he
+responded with a callow chuckle, infinitely alluring.
+
+“But we will have the basket in the centre of the table,” she continued.
+“All of you who have the heart can eat a fig. I’ll bet there are just
+thirty-four of them.”
+
+The two younger boys strained over the table to count.
+
+“Dead to rights, mamma,” said Rufus, the tenyear old, who enjoyed the
+preëminence of “baby.” “Just thirty-four figs.”
+
+“A very pretty compliment, mamma,” protested Reginald again. “For my
+part, I am obliged to Mrs. Kentopp, and I am ashamed that I did not
+remember the date myself.”
+
+“Oh, ho! You bet I did!” said Rufus, with a triumphant nod.
+
+Mrs. Faurie put down her spoon, and cast a look across the silver
+service so replete with maternal affection, so embellishing to her proud
+beauty, that it seemed indeed a pity that the face on which it was
+bestowed should be so round, so freckled, so jocosely creased, so
+facetiously winking.
+
+“What have you got for me, Chubby?” she asked. Her look was angelic.
+
+“You’ll see,—you’ll see!” He smiled widely. The dentist had been at work
+on that smile, and had eliminated two teeth, and the interval interfered
+with the happiest expression of filial affection.
+
+The other two brothers, though manifestly disconcerted and deprecatory,
+looked at him with the quizzical contempt with which an elder boy cannot
+refrain from tormenting his junior. “Chub, don’t be such a chump,”
+Horace admonished him. “You ought to be ashamed to give mamma a birthday
+offering of some of the trash that you have collected in your European
+_towers_,”—with a leer to emphasize the taunting mispronunciation,—“a
+last year’s calendar or a cigarette tag.”
+
+“’Tain’t no old European bibelot!” Chubby declared, his round cheeks no
+longer distended with happy smiles. His eyes were grave and flashing
+fire,—he was consciously on the defensive. He breathed hard and deep.
+
+“Oh, to be sure,—some of his chiffons from the Rue de la Paix,—souvenir
+de Paree,” Reginald twitted him, with a nettling laugh.
+
+“’Tain’t,—it’s brand-new,” Chub protested.
+
+“Where did you get it?” the other two asked in a breath.
+
+“I bought it with my own money,”—there was an intonation of pride in
+this assertion.
+
+“But where?—bloated capitalist!” asked Reginald, really curious, for
+there was scant opportunity to spend money at Great Oaks Plantation,
+forty miles distant from any town larger than a hamlet or a railroad
+way-station.
+
+“Where do you reckon?”—with temper. Then with a gush of pride, “From the
+trading-boat,—that’s where!”
+
+Desmond could not understand why the two elder boys stared at each other
+for a moment, then collapsed into inextinguishable laughter, scarlet in
+the face, nerveless, well-nigh helpless. Even Mr. Stanlett laughed with
+merry relish, and Chub looked from one to another, pitiably crestfallen.
+A “shanty-boat,” that had been tied up at the landing, was not of the
+usual type of trading-boat, offering provender and provisions and
+assortments of merchandise in localities remote from railway and packet
+connection, but a mere travesty on this mercantile craft, hardly more,
+indeed, than a raft, drifting with the current, bearing a little cabin
+in which the owner lived, and from which he sold a medley of
+stock,—pins, needles, stale candies, tobacco, whiskey, snuff, ribbons,
+plated jewelry,—such as might meet the needs or strike the taste of the
+humbler dwellers about the river-side, or the backwoods population among
+the bayous, along the sluggish current of which it was sometimes poled.
+
+“Oh,—oh, mamma,—the _trading-boat_!” cried Reginald, barely recovering
+the power of speech.
+
+But Horace was altogether beyond words.
+
+“It _is_ a trading-boat!” Chub protested. “Anyhow, they have lots of
+things to sell. They pole and row along the bayous and lakes, and they
+get towed by a steamboat once in a while, and go up any of the rivers
+they like. Then they drift down again. They have been selling along all
+the rivers in the State of Mississippi,—they _told_ me so.”
+
+“They must have been well able, then, to pay the considerable privilege
+tax to the State,” Mr. Stanlett commented dryly.
+
+“Did it occur to you to inquire into that question, Chubby?” asked
+Reginald, still gasping with merriment.
+
+“Ha! I’ll engage that the very word ‘license’ would make that boat’s
+crew cast off in a trice!” exclaimed Mr. Stanlett, with a significant
+nod. “That ‘trading-boat’ would be swallowed up from sight in the
+twinkling of an eye.”
+
+“But we have no right to take that for granted, Uncle Clarence,” Mrs.
+Faurie remonstrated. “Their trade along the bayous and bogues and lakes,
+where no other boats come, may be considerable and aggregate enough to
+justify the tax. The swampers in such out-of-the-way places have no
+other way to buy goods.”
+
+“Ah, well,—perhaps so,—I’m not a collector. We will be charitable and
+hope for the best. And they may have some exemption from the tax.”
+
+The proud Chub, suddenly brought down, was near to tears.
+
+Mrs. Faurie, all unmindful of the ridicule, was looking at him with eyes
+aglow. “With your money, Chubby,—your own little money?—and you always
+so hard up,—you dear little spendthrift! And you really remembered my
+birthday, and bled your precious nickels to commemorate it! Where is my
+present? I can’t wait to see it! I’ll value it above everything I have
+in the world. I’ll always treasure it as beyond price,—my lovely
+Chubby’s gift.”
+
+And then it developed that “lovely Chubby,” intent on surprise, had been
+seated throughout the meal with the present in a paper bag poised on his
+knee under his napkin. He was reassured in some sort by the cessation of
+the laughter of the fraternal torments. He was too young and too
+ingenuous to realize that it was only a momentary respite that they
+might better view the pomp of the presentation. Their physical condition
+might have alarmed one unused to view the ecstasies of adolescent mirth
+when the paper bag parted to disclose a large, round, wooden apple,
+highly tinted with the colors of nature, the upper section of which
+opened to reveal within an assortment of needles, pins, a cake of wax, a
+brass thimble, a bodkin, and an emery masquerading as a realistic
+strawberry.
+
+“An apple,—oh, ye gods and little fishes!” cried Horace.
+
+“An apple,—presented to mamma,—my prophetic soul! Didn’t I say it must
+be a souvenir of Paris,—to the fairest?” exclaimed Reginald, convulsed.
+
+“Ah, ha,—very good,—classical allusion,” said Mr. Stanlett,
+appreciatively. He cast a glance of pride at the tutor, as if calling
+his attention to this point of precocity.
+
+Mrs. Faurie silently examined every detail with deliberate gravity,
+while the two elder sons went from one spasm into another of mute
+laughter, deeming the episode too funny for words, and the breathless
+Chub looked seriously and expectantly at her.
+
+“Very useful, no doubt,” said Mr. Stanlett, taking his cue from the
+gravity of her manner. “Valuable,—always ready,—needle-case.”
+
+But when Mrs. Faurie lifted her eyes, Desmond could but note how
+brilliant they were with unshed tears.
+
+“Come here, Chubby,” she said, with a break in her voice. “I can’t wait
+to hug you!”
+
+He was a big boy for ten years of age, and looked bigger in his mother’s
+lap. She had pushed her chair a trifle back from the table, and as he
+sat enthroned and cherished beyond his fellows, some qualm of jealousy
+terminated their convulsions of mirth.
+
+“You have not touched your plate, mamma,” said one. “I have heard of
+people living on bread and cheese and kisses, but I never saw its
+demonstration before. Sweet Chub,—lovely breakfast food!”
+
+“You two must quit that thing of calling Rufus ‘Chub,’” remonstrated Mr.
+Stanlett.
+
+“Yes,” said Chub, whisking around in his mother’s lap, and facing the
+party from behind the silver service; “makes me feel like a fish,—chub
+and dace always mentioned together.”
+
+“Chub is a first-rate item on a bill of fare; serve him out, mamma,”
+suggested Horace.
+
+“I am coming down myself,” said Chub, with a final exasperating hug and
+kiss.
+
+“And—quite a coincidence!—the waffles are coming in,” jeered Horace.
+
+“And now,” said Chub, once more settled in his place at table, and
+feeling in fine fettle and high favor, “I move that, being mamma’s
+birthday, we have a holiday.”
+
+Desmond was altogether unused to being so set aside and passed over and
+made of scant account. He was aware that he could not expect aught else
+in a family life in which he had no part; nevertheless, he felt all the
+uneasiness incident to a false position and a new experience. He had
+scarcely spoken a word since he had entered the room. He could not
+expect the conversation to be guided with a special consideration of him
+in this circle of family privacy, and he had submitted to eat his
+breakfast among them, but not of them, with what grace he might. Chub’s
+last remark, however, trenched upon his own peculiar province, and he
+spoke uninvited and to the point: “And I move that we have no holiday.”
+
+Chub glanced up, his eyes both grieved and indignant. “Oh, why?” he
+said,—a phrase that is in more frequent use in remonstrance than any
+other in the English language by all American youth under twenty years
+of age,—a plea to which Desmond then and there resolved that he would
+never reply. There ensued a moment of awkward silence.
+
+Horace suddenly answered for him. “Because, Chub, we have to be
+classified, you know. Mr. Desmond might be expecting you to read Greek,
+if he started you without examination, you know.”
+
+“Don’t look so downcast, Chubby,” said Mrs. Faurie, with a caressing
+intonation; and Desmond was aware that, but for the pose of supporting
+his authority, the coveted holiday would have been granted without
+another moment’s consideration. “Mr. Desmond is not such an ogre.”
+
+Chubby wagged his head with a sorrowful monition of experience and
+forecast. “Tutors are all alike—when it comes to ogreing.”
+
+Despite her partiality, Mrs. Faurie evidently thought this hardly civil.
+She came hastily to the rescue. “And we have all the preliminaries to
+arrange; this must be a busy day.” Then, obviously with a lingering hope
+for Chubby’s release, for his appealing look was very touching, “But
+perhaps it might be best to begin to-morrow. I should think it would be
+well for you to look about you a little before going to work, Mr.
+Desmond,—familiarize yourself with your surroundings.” She ended with a
+rising inflection that required an answer, and her evident bias would
+seem to dictate its import. It was short, succinct.
+
+“Nothing whatever is gained, Mrs. Faurie, by the waste of time,” he
+said, “and much is lost by the bad precedent.”
+
+She was rising from the table. “Then we will at once consider the choice
+of a schoolroom,” she said, as she preceded the party out of the
+dining-room. At the intersection of the entry with the main hall she
+paused; here was an outer door which opened on a broad veranda, from
+which the glittering Mississippi could be seen through the vistas of the
+trees. This veranda ran quite around the front portion of the house, and
+passed through it, dividing the main building from the two wings. At one
+point this airy structure widened, the flooring extending into a
+roofless circular space, built around the great trunk of a live oak,
+that made a dense canopy of evergreen boughs above it, and let fall
+drooping shady branches all about it. The balustrade of the veranda was
+fitted with a circular bench, and one could scarcely imagine a more
+attractive bower.
+
+“This would make a fine schoolroom,” suggested Chub, and Desmond was
+irritated to observe that Mrs. Faurie actually seemed to consider it.
+
+“The less there is to distract the attention, the better,” he said
+promptly.
+
+“The passing of a steamboat,—or a squirrel, would put Chub out of the
+game for the day, I suppose,” she conceded, with evident reluctance.
+
+“We could come in if it rained,” persisted Chub.
+
+“We could if we had enough sense,” said Horace; “I have always
+understood that it required sense to know enough to come in out of the
+rain.”
+
+Desmond was feeling more interest in his unwelcome vocation as he
+followed Mrs. Faurie into the main hall. He was apprehensive lest some
+puerile folly of his pupils and the facile leniency of their mother
+jeopardize the practicability of his mission, and his vocation be riven
+from him when he had come to depend solely upon it. He looked about the
+place critically, noting facts that might have escaped him otherwise in
+a cursory, uninterested survey. The house bore little or indeed no token
+of the extensive wanderings of its inmates in foreign lands. There were
+a few good paintings on the walls, but their frames were old and
+tarnished and in several instances marred, and he fancied they were
+trophies of the travels of previous generations. Other canvases were
+devoted to the portraits of the family, some evidently painted by
+brushes of distinction, and others only redeemed from the imputation of
+being daubs by the facility and freedom with which the likeness had been
+caught, the art subordinate to the lifelike portrayal. The ornaments,
+clocks, vases, were rich and represented the expenditure of money, but
+were obviously the haphazard aggregations of years and successive
+owners, and with no system of collection or interest of suggestion. He
+divined that Mrs. Faurie cared too little for life in the mansion house
+of the hated plantation to spend time, or thought, or money on its
+decoration. Hence, in lieu of rich oriental rugs and polished floors,
+the old velvet carpets still did service, being of good quality,
+seemingly imperishable, covering every inch of the wood; the old satin
+damask curtains, with lace beneath, draped the windows as of yore. The
+furniture of carved rosewood, and especially that of ponderous mahogany,
+was better in countenance in view of the modern craze for ancient
+relics, but its owner valued it no whit more for the fashion. There was
+nowhere the museum-like effect to be seen so often in the home of a
+traveled proprietor. Except for a casual mention, no one could imagine
+that any of the household had sojourned in Japan, or journeyed on camels
+in remote deserts, or voyaged on the Nile and the Ganges. It was an old
+house, distinctly of its locality, in a fat, luxurious country, replete
+with the suggestions of decorous antecedents; and one might seem
+ungrateful to be so loath to come to it, and so eager to be gone again,
+as was Mrs. Faurie. The sons had evidently lost all sense of preference,
+small citizens of the world. Home was with each other and their mother;
+and it hardly mattered if it were in Rome, or in the light of the
+midnight sun, or on the banks of the great Mississippi.
+
+Desmond had felt himself somewhat expatriated in surroundings so foreign
+to the world of letters, of art, of public interest, of intellectual
+activity, until he came into the library. Unconsciously he drew a long
+breath of relief. On every hand he knew were friends. He was not sorry
+to see that the books were old and evidently long undisturbed. They bore
+the marks of some previous owner’s loving care. They were all under
+glass, the shelves built into the walls; below, extending up three feet
+from the floor, were solid doors betokening cabinets, fitted with locks,
+and doubtless containing treasures of old files of newspapers,
+pamphlets, magazines. These were all collections of elder members of the
+house of Faurie, and little troubled by the present generation. Two big
+globes, one terrestrial, the other celestial, could indeed give to the
+experienced young travelers of to-day only the information how very
+little was known of the world at the time of the construction of these
+microcosms.
+
+There was a great fireplace, vacant now, the room being out of use, with
+the usual glittering brasses of andirons and fender. The sun streamed in
+at the tall windows at the eastern side; on the other,—for the apartment
+was in one of the wings separated from the main building by the
+veranda,—one could look out through the vistas of gigantic trees at the
+great embankment of the levee in the foreground, the splendid scroll of
+the Mississippi emblazoning the middle distance, and far, far away the
+low line of the forests at the horizon meeting the blue sky. The windows
+were draped only by some old-time lambrequins, short and of a
+grape-blue, and below were suspended the slatted shades called Venetian
+blinds. A heavy mahogany desk, with innumerable pigeon-holes, and a wide
+writing-shelf, covered with grape-blue leather, looked tempting and
+scholarly. A long table with drawers was in the centre of the floor, and
+on each side some chance hand had arranged chairs high and stiff and
+ready for writing or reading.
+
+“This seems made for us. Could you spare this room?” Desmond asked,
+feeling nevertheless the assurance of the demand.
+
+She hesitated. Though she cared little for Great Oaks, the incongruity
+struck her. This was indeed a fine room to devote to the uses of pupils
+and pedagogue, and it might be that all that Chub would ever learn would
+not be worth the wear and tear that his acquisitions here would cost it.
+
+“But why not?” she asked in turn. “Certainly the parlors are ample for
+so little company as we see here.”
+
+“And we shall keep regular hours; the room can be at the service of the
+family in the evenings”; he rather pressed the point. “The library is
+separate from the rest of the building, and less liable to interruption,
+out of earshot of anything that may be going forward in the household;
+the books are all at hand; the atmosphere is inspiring.”
+
+“By all means, then,” she assented.
+
+But later, when she mentioned the decision to her uncle, he looked
+dismayed, and she half regretted her compliance.
+
+“He selected the library as a schoolroom!” exclaimed Mr. Stanlett.
+“Well, he _is_ moderate!”
+
+“He showed the first vestige of emotion that I think it is possible for
+him to entertain when he saw the books,” she said. “I want him to be
+satisfied at Great Oaks,—if anybody _can_ be satisfied in the
+Mississippi swamp.”
+
+“What sort of impression does he make upon your mind?” asked Mr.
+Stanlett, solicitously.
+
+“I think he is an iceberg; he lowers the temperature whenever he
+approaches.”
+
+But the value of the library as an educational influence was not
+immediately apparent, and Desmond, who had never taught, was destined to
+find that there is far more requisite for success than the equipment for
+instruction. The poignancy of the relinquishment of his dear ambitions,
+his sensitive appreciation of his reduction to an unsuitable, subsidiary
+position in the esteem of the world, the tingling sense of personal
+isolation, of humiliation in a sort, as of an unwelcome, disregarded,
+yet necessary supernumerary in the family circle, so apart themselves as
+to render his presence always felt,—he thought these elements of his
+poverty a sufficient handicap on satisfaction in the present and hope
+for the future. He might have been still further dismayed at the outset
+to realize that education is a cooperative function, and the receptivity
+of the student is as essential as the radiation of the professor. He had
+been himself so eager in the acquisition of knowledge, so earnest, so
+alertly intelligent, his mind assimilating as by an involuntary process
+the pabulum that the curriculum set forth in courses, that he did not
+readily grasp the idea of a different point of view. He was totally
+unaware of the luxury of mental inaction, the atrophy of the industrial
+muscles, the dead levels of the lack of ambition, of supine content with
+the least achievement compatible with the least exertion. He had given
+his instructors no occasion to seek to stimulate his aspirations to the
+goal of his best possibilities, and he had not even turned the eye of
+casual contemplation upon their labors as they herded their unwilling
+and loitering flocks along the dusty approaches to learning, fain to be
+content with such progress as their charges could be prevailed upon to
+make.
+
+Even in the preliminaries for instruction in the big, luxurious room,
+friction supervened. A fresh fire blazed on the hearth, the places at
+the table were assigned, the box of schoolbooks was unpacked, and the
+stationery deposited in appropriate drawers. Chub’s joy in the
+acquisition of a fountain pen it was necessary to moderate, and his plea
+to inaugurate his scholastic labors by experimenting with a writing
+lesson was tabooed.
+
+“You are not here to do what you wish, but what is best for you,”
+Desmond said finally, and Chub cast the pen from him on the table with
+an air of permanent repudiation and a sullen pout of disaffection.
+
+For a time Horace, with the puerile mania to be stirring something, must
+needs turn in his chair and with a meddlesome finger revolve again and
+again the terrestrial globe that stood near by, contemplating not its
+charted surface, but merely its pleasing semblance to a big ball, and
+its satisfactory poise that so slight a touch would compass the
+revolution of the earth. Twice Desmond politely requested him to desist.
+Horace was still for a little while, but soon his careless mood had lost
+the memory of the command, the world was briskly awhirl anew, and in his
+lazy consciousness he was scarcely aware of his own agency in the fact.
+
+Desmond hesitated. He gazed at the forgetful Horace for a moment, then
+he commented: “I hope that you are fond of the study of geography. If
+you turn that globe again, you shall map out every country on it and
+chart every body of water, working all the afternoons while the others
+are out of school till you practically own the earth and the boundaries
+thereof. Are you a pretty expert cartographer?”
+
+Horace, amazed and insulted, grew round-eyed and red. “Mamma would not
+permit it,” he said stiffly.
+
+“We shall see. This is _my_ schoolroom, and what I say here—goes!”
+
+“Now, Horace, I hope that you have got it!” Reginald exclaimed in
+reproach.
+
+Horace was motionless, mutinous in dubitation. Then with a fling he
+turned his back upon the allurements of the world and joined the silent
+and pouting Chub in fixedly regarding the grape-blue leather cover
+inlaid in the table, and spotted here and there with the ink of old-time
+chirographers.
+
+Desmond himself had his distractions. He was interested in the old
+sand-box, full of metal filings, formerly used instead of blotters to
+dry the ink on the page. He was surprised when a bronze bust on the
+table revealed an inkstand, as the helmet of the head of Pallas was
+lifted,—a series of inkstands, it contained, for different tints, and
+his set and joyless face relaxed as he refilled them. “This is a quaint
+fancy,—this inkstand,” he said.
+
+Then he must needs be quick to check Reginald’s intention to throw into
+the fire a bundle of carefully made quill pens of a bygone date. These
+came from a small drawer, evidently long disused, that had a trick of
+sticking. There were also some wafers here, for the sealing of letters,
+and a stick of sealing-wax.
+
+Desmond sought to inaugurate a more agreeable topic than had hitherto
+distinguished the incidents of the morning. He took these relics of the
+past as a suggestion. He said that it ought to be peculiarly pleasant to
+them to work here, where those of their own blood had read, and written,
+and thought out the problems of their day; and that this was home in the
+truest sense, a oneness of mind and heart and effort. They should have a
+sentiment to retain the inkstand, sand-box, and bunch of quills, these
+tokens of the mental activity of their forbears, hallowed by their
+usage; and the stiff, unnoticed, forgotten drawer of the table, where
+these writing-materials had been found, might cause them to think how
+yesterday always leaves a trace on to-day, and to take heed that it is
+not a vain regret nor the disaster of the waste of time.
+
+They listened in blank silence and unresponsiveness. Desmond, somewhat
+taken aback, for he had had a purpose of talking to his pupils to mould
+the form of their thought, to fashion their habit of phrasing, to direct
+their outlook and give the values of viewpoint, to accomplish their
+improvement insensibly even in their leisure hours, felt a disposition
+to recur to the line and rule of the text-book. “Let them learn, then,
+just what is set down for them,” he said, disappointed with the first
+experiment.
+
+But even thus his expectations were so suddenly dashed that he had a
+sense of helplessness,—an incapacity to reach that volition of mind that
+makes it a motive power. Words were all ineffective, argument thrown
+away. Already he began to perceive that he might teach in vain if they
+would not, and therefore could not, learn. His heart sank within him as
+he noted the look of dull disinclination, desolation indeed, with which
+Reginald turned the leaves of the Greek Reader.
+
+“What is the use of the classics, Mr. Desmond?” he asked in a tone of
+dreary protest. “Nobody speaks the languages any more. Why, when I was
+in Greece last winter, even I could see that what I had learned of
+ancient Greek was miles away from modern Hellenic. And I spoke Italian,
+not Latin, in Rome. As to Greek literature,—why, we have the finest
+translations,—better than any I can ever make. Now what gentleman ever
+sits down to read Euripides in the original? Now, honestly, Mr. Desmond,
+what good has Greek ever been to you?”
+
+This was indeed a home-thrust,—the contrast of his splendid and complete
+intellectual armament and the field of its employment.
+
+“It has given me the distinguished opportunity of teaching you.”
+
+There was dead silence for a few moments as the group sat around the
+table. The two sullen youngsters, apprehending rather the tone of the
+retort than its full significance, lifted their lowering eyes and looked
+in blank wonder from one of the speakers to the other. Reginald
+continued to turn the volume listlessly in his hand, but a scarlet flush
+was suffusing his face, and stealing to the roots of his auburn hair.
+Presently he said, with the air of venturing a suggestion, “It must be a
+language particularly rich in satire; it must cultivate the faculties
+for sarcasm, at all events.”
+
+The work got under way at length, and perhaps progressed as
+satisfactorily as if there had been a more genial understanding. Each
+faction was cautious, being uncertain of the other, and hence
+experiments were not in favor. There was much of the genuine gentleman
+in Reginald; he was averse to occasioning needless inconvenience or
+annoyance to others, and had he no further reason, he would have exerted
+himself to curb the vagaries of his wandering attention, so little
+accustomed to concentration. But he had, too, a proper pride. Without
+the opportunity of cramming for the examination, the disadvantages of
+his erratic training and the irregular development of his immature mind
+were to be discerned without palliation. This, however, gave token how
+solid an intellectual endowment he possessed. As he struggled with the
+questions and bent every faculty to the endeavor to do himself as little
+discredit as he might, Desmond felt somewhat encouraged. There was good
+material here, if it could be disengaged from the tangle of puerile
+folly, superficial observation, false standards, and a total lack of the
+habit of application.
+
+The other two promised less well, and Desmond had with them far less
+sympathy and less patience. Horace, still swelling with wrath for the
+indignity of the geographical threat, was merely biding his time, and
+temporizing with his tyrant till the close of the diurnal session should
+permit him to bear his tale of woe to his mother, who he doubted not
+would avenge him summarily. But Chub had capitulated. He adopted
+propitiatory tactics. Now and again he quitted his place and came around
+and stood beside Desmond’s chair, with a plump and pleading hand on his
+arm, and explained carefully that he could not really hope to master
+fractions because they had a peculiar effect on his head. He thought it
+would be much better to review long division, until his health was fully
+confirmed,—he was a crackerjack at long division. He would like to show
+Mr. Desmond what he could do; he could cover a slate with figures to
+beat the band. And would Mr. Desmond make those two boys quit laughing
+at him, and agree that he might skip fractions altogether. He had heard
+people say that fractions were of no use,—upon his word of honor, he
+had.
+
+“Some small people like unto yourself, I dare say,” Desmond retorted.
+
+Chub was always so disappointed and surprised when he was sent back to
+his place, his errand fruitless, to bend the round integer of his head
+over the tantalizing fractions on his slate, so eagerly abounding in
+renewed hope as he came out again with his plump paw to be laid
+persuasively on Desmond’s arm, as he stood by the tutor’s chair,
+advancing his enlightened views,—all of which tended to eliminate study
+from the scheme of things at Great Oaks mansion,—that it began to be
+very obvious that this was the pupil most difficult to contend with and
+for whose idiosyncrasies Desmond would have least toleration. For
+scholastic attainment was a very large and noble endeavor in Desmond’s
+mind, despite the reasons he had latterly perceived to minimize its
+worldly utilities. And to this effect did Mrs. Faurie express herself
+that evening at dinner when they were all grouped around the table.
+
+“I should judge from the children’s report, Mr. Desmond, that you have
+all had a rather serious time of it, to-day. And that is just what I
+desire,—that you should maintain your authority,”—she cast her beautiful
+coercive eyes on each of the youthful faces, shown in the candle-light
+intently regarding her—“and that they should exert themselves to do
+their duty.”
+
+They seemed to accept the fiat as law according to their several
+interpretations of duty,—Reginald with a sort of manly serenity, Horace
+as reduced to order, and the little Chub as so distressful and helpless
+and a-weary of the world that Mrs. Faurie could not refrain from
+reaching out her long fan, and with its downy tip touching him playfully
+under his chin to bring out his dimples and win from him once more a
+smile.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IV
+
+
+The insubordination of the youthful students at Great Oaks was happily
+at an end, but their educational problems remained. These promised
+Desmond food for much thought for an indefinite time, and roused him to
+an ingenuity of expedients to secure the best efforts of the young
+scholars themselves. For a time success swayed in the balance
+indeterminate. Sometimes it seemed impossible to break to habits of
+application, to harness the attention of these wildly roving minds. He
+did not love the spectacle of wounded pride, but the heroic treatment of
+bluff ridicule had the happiest effect.
+
+“For a fellow to have passed through the Suez Canal, to have seen the
+Assouan Dam, and the Sault Canal, and the Segovia Aqueduct, and the
+Ganges Canal, and the Solani Aqueduct, and have no more conception of
+the principles of hydraulics than a mule shipped in a stock-car has of
+the motive powers of a steam-engine! You didn’t notice?—neither does the
+mule.”
+
+Reginald was letter perfect the next day in such elementary exposition
+as the text-book on Natural Philosophy afforded concerning locks, dams,
+jetties, and the varied utilities of controlled waters; and Desmond,
+with a touch of self-reproach, called him into the library that evening
+after dinner, and made himself very gay and entertaining with stories of
+college life, details of hazing, rushes, athletics, such as had but a
+bitter flavor to his memory now, though likely to please the fancy of a
+destined collegian. Once or twice afterward Reginald dropped in again,
+his eyes bright and expectant; but the tutor had no immediate cruelties
+to atone for, and was dreary and sad himself, and of no mind to lacerate
+his sensibilities with reminiscences of happier days. He gave himself up
+to such solace as he could find in a book, and Reginald, quick of
+apprehension, sat on the other side of the table, a book in his own
+hands, albeit his attention wandered now and again to the black panes of
+the windows, where he could see the moon in the sky and a brilliant and
+shattered luminary fallen below, which he knew was the lunar reflection
+in the Mississippi River. The very touch of a book Desmond considered
+salutary, and thus he did not rebuke Reginald’s failure of attention.
+
+In truth, Desmond felt that he needed his evenings apart. He worked so
+hard with his difficult and unmalleable material during the day that he
+was likely to forget his disappointments, his perverted destiny, his
+many feuds with Fate. But he had not ceased when alone to set them in
+order before him, to canvass futile ways and means for a counter-stroke,
+to ponder with rancor on men who had made settlement of the financial
+difficulties impossible, and others who had found profit in pushing him
+to the wall. He would have his revenge, he resolved; he would pay them
+back in their own coin, some day,—some day,—and suddenly he would feel
+the sting of his own sharp ridicule as he would bitterly laugh aloud and
+demand of his utter helplessness how this might betide. Though it was
+now little more than a year since his father had died at the critical
+moment of a business enterprise of magnitude, which wrecked in its
+collapse his other interests, it had been already demonstrated that, had
+he lived, it would have succeeded signally,—indeed, in the hands into
+which it had gone, it was more than justifying the confidence of its
+projector. Desmond, who could not retain a single share for the lack of
+means, meditated ruefully on the sums spent in completing his course of
+study according to his father’s directions, before the condition of the
+decedent’s estate was definitely ascertained, and how these funds might
+have been applied to more utilitarian purposes. He was often too
+depressed, too distrait, too irritated by the untoward results of the
+day’s labor, to care to read; but a book in the hand was a protection
+from the intrusion of the family on the polite theory of not seeming to
+exclude him from their social life. He had been sent for once or twice
+in the evening to join a game at cards with Mr. Stanlett, Mrs. Faurie,
+and Reginald; but afterward, when he saw the boy’s figure appear on the
+veranda without and flit away softly from the library window, he was
+glad that the report that he was busy with books and papers had
+protected him from that irksome interruption. His leisure was not of
+pleasant flavor with his embittered memories, but it was his own bit of
+time with himself, and if he had come to be not a merry man, he could
+make no compact with a new identity. Sometimes he had a sudden thought,
+an abstract thought, as unsolicited, as unexpected, as beneficent as an
+angel’s visit, and he wrote. So late the light burned from the library
+windows night after night, so consecutively, that the pilots of the
+river craft came to reckon that stellular gleam among their nocturnal
+bearings betokening the Great Oaks mansion.
+
+Desmond soon began to take little note of other interests save indeed
+his pedagogic duties. He had begged off several times when guests,
+strangers of course to him, had come to dine. He was writing something,
+he once told Mrs. Faurie, confidentially; then he was offended by the
+eager alacrity with which she had excused his presence at the table, and
+the promptness and deftness with which the brisk waiter had served his
+dinner alone in the library. He did not write at all, that night. He
+smoked pipe after pipe of his own strong tobacco, instead of Mr.
+Stanlett’s fine mild cigars sent in with the dinner tray, although he
+esteemed it in the nature of “breaking training” as much now as when he
+was a star “half-back” on a crack Eleven. He meditated much and long
+over the bitter problems of the various degrees of want and woe
+expressed in poverty absolute and poverty relative, and in what actual
+wealth consists, and if the rich are not often paradoxically the poor,
+and if the poor,—but he felt that the converse was a more difficult
+proposition to be maintained, to demonstrate that the poor are ever by
+any fortuitous circumstance to be considered the rich.
+
+The winter was wearing away,—the passing of time marked only by the
+gradual development of approximate symmetry in the minds of the pupils;
+the slow budding of the trees of the grove, that had been the favored
+haunt of deer some fifty years earlier, before the marauding currents of
+the river had carried away the point called formerly “Faurie’s Landing,”
+amounting to near a thousand acres, thus bringing the mansion house
+forward on the banks of the stream, within half a mile of the levee,
+indeed; the adding of page after page to the record of the thought that
+had come to him in the deserted library in the midnight;—when there
+suddenly befell one of those incidents in which he played an important
+part, that were as links in a chain of events, fettering the lives and
+fortune of all in the house and many besides. This, the first of these
+significant happenings, came about in the simplest way, its importance
+all unrecognized at the time.
+
+It was morning, and in the library his pupils sat at their books, when
+there sounded a sudden tap at the door. Desmond turned, frowning, and
+looked over his shoulder. In response to his summons the footman
+entered, his face irradiated by subdued excitement; he presented
+formally, however, the compliments of Mrs. Faurie, who would be glad to
+see Mr. Desmond and his pupils in the parlor, Colonel and Mrs. Kentopp
+having arrived.
+
+Chubby sprang up with a whoop. It would be difficult to say whom he
+would not have welcomed with like enthusiasm to rescue him from the
+grisly lessons.
+
+Desmond rebuked him sternly, while the young servant looked on in amaze.
+
+“Say to Mrs. Faurie that Mr. Desmond and his pupils beg to be excused,
+as the hours for lessons are not over.”
+
+It is impossible to describe the look of wall-eyed remonstrance with
+which the footman hearkened to this message, and to emphasize his own
+opinion of it he closed the door so slowly that Desmond was sorely
+tempted to bound up and kick it to after him.
+
+Chub, on the verge of tears, was tempestuous in argument,—his mother had
+sent for him, he plained, and he was not allowed to go,—in the midst of
+which a second tap at the door heralded the footman, with a change of
+face if not of heart. Mrs. Faurie begged Mr. Desmond’s pardon for the
+interruption, but would be glad if Mr. Desmond would shorten the study
+hours by ten minutes in order to meet Colonel and Mrs. Kentopp in the
+parlor before luncheon.
+
+“Hi, Bob, they goin’ to stay to lunch?” cried Chub, hilariously. “Did
+the children come?”
+
+Bob’s grin of assent was petrified on his face.
+
+“Take your seat, Rufus,” said Desmond, sharply. “You must want to do
+some extras for penance.” Then to Bob, “Shut—that—door!”
+
+A great gush of talk and laughter issued from the parlor as Desmond
+approached it before luncheon. It scarcely seemed as if so limited a
+coterie could keep astir so cheery a conversational breeze, but Mrs.
+Kentopp was vivacity itself. She was about thirty-eight years of age, of
+medium height, but very slight. She impressed him at first as somewhat
+haggard, but he soon perceived that this was the effect of the dye or
+blondine, which heightened the natural tint of her light hair to a
+golden hue, that required special freshness of complexion to accord with
+this embellishment. This disparagement was obviated when she laughed,
+for a becoming flush came and went in her cheeks, and her light blue
+eyes danced. She was handsomely gowned in pastel-blue cloth, heavily
+braided, with a hat of the same shade trimmed with the breast of the
+golden pheasant. She wore long tan gloves on a hand so small and soft
+that Desmond almost thought the fingers boneless, for despite her air of
+condescension, she shook hands with him in the cordial southern fashion
+on informal occasions.
+
+“You have not given us the opportunity to welcome you earlier to this
+benighted region, Mr. Desmond,” she said, laughing always. “Misery loves
+company!”
+
+Her husband was tall, portly, fair, and flushed, with a bright, round,
+brown eye, dark hair, and a clean-shaven, square face. He was dressed in
+sedulous conformity to the dictates of the most recent fashion of
+gentleman’s garb, and this dudish suggestion was queerly accented by his
+peculiarly open and genial manner and his ringing, hearty voice. He
+strode quite across the room, and most cordially clasped the stranger’s
+hand. But Desmond appreciated that it was a very keen, searching, and
+business-like glance that Colonel Kentopp bent upon him, singularly
+unrelated to his jovial, haphazard manner and joyous tones. Desmond felt
+that it held an element of surprise, and that he was altogether
+different, for some reason, from what Colonel Kentopp had expected to
+see. Mrs. Kentopp, too, turned after a moment and seriously surveyed him
+through her gold-handled lorgnette, as he was replying to the civilities
+addressed to him by her husband. Concerning the newcomers Desmond made
+his own cursory deductions, almost mechanically, for they did not
+interest him in the least. He fancied that Colonel Kentopp rather valued
+himself upon his amiability and popularity, and was even prone to make
+it evident that his two children, a girl and a boy, were fonder of him
+than of their mother. They came in ever and anon from the veranda, where
+they raced and chased with Chubby, to acquaint him with some juvenile
+news, some change of moment to them, such as they had fed the parrot, or
+that Chubby had a Shetland pony, and they hung upon him, one on either
+side, their cheeks against his hair, their arms around his neck. Their
+neglected mother seemed no whit disconcerted by her supersedure in their
+affections, and talked on blithely to Mrs. Faurie and Mr.
+Stanlett—especially to the old gentleman, with whom Mrs. Kentopp
+exchanged many compliments and affected to hold a very gay flirtation.
+
+At the lunch-table Desmond would have felt quite apart from the
+occasion, since they were all old friends and had many subjects in
+common of which he knew naught, but that Colonel Kentopp, with his
+genius for geniality, persisted in drawing him out, making him talk,
+appealed again and again directly to him, and would not suffer him to be
+ignored by Mrs. Kentopp, who seemed disposed now to flaunt her
+condescension and now to give him the cold shoulder, albeit ever and
+anon she fixed upon him a surprised, contemplative gaze that temporarily
+stilled her brilliant, laughing face. Desmond could not imagine and he
+did not care in what respect he did not meet their expectations, and
+although he responded in good form to Colonel Kentopp’s lead, he was not
+sorry when the meal, unusually prolonged, was over at last, and he was
+free for the afternoon.
+
+He betook himself, as soon as the party had scattered sufficiently, to
+the library, where he sank down in one of the easy chairs to rest, not
+his bodily frame, but his tired mind and heart. He had not wished to
+seem to hold aloof from the family by withdrawing to his own room, yet
+he felt intrusive with them and their friends, who were no friends of
+his. He found the library a neutral ground; in some sort it befitted him
+and his calling. The quiet solaced him; the atmosphere of the books was
+always friendly; the traces of the scholastic labors were all effaced,
+shut up in the deep abysses of the drawers of the table; the fire glowed
+upon the hearth. He was more and more at ease as he rested, and the slow
+hours of the afternoon wore on. The shadows began to slant on the level
+reaches of the long vistas under the oaks; the sunlight had that dreamy,
+burnished splendor that embellishes the southern winter; it loitered
+slow, content, its progress imperceptible. All was still; not a sound
+reached his ear save the distant chatter of paroquets flitting about the
+pecan trees as if still in search of nuts. He could see from where he
+lounged in the great armchair the long stretch of the Mississippi River,
+the light reddening the hue of its murky floods, the ripples tipped with
+a sparkle like gold; he noted as often before the peculiar conformation
+of its surface, the curving centre rising apparently so much higher than
+the margins, which slanted downward still toward the interior after the
+manner of the banks of deltaic rivers; the opposite shores were merely
+distinguishable as a line of soft, tender green. Here and there a trio
+of white sea-gulls poised, then winged away, and again darted down
+toward the water, evidently roving hundreds of miles up from the Gulf
+intent on fishing. He was not reading; his mind seemed quiescent, blank.
+The intensity of his emotions, the dull discouragements of his position,
+had worn on him more than he was aware. He was mentally resting. He had
+no conscious thought, no recognized intellectual process, when suddenly
+he gave a start to perceive a figure standing at the French window that
+came down to the floor of the veranda. It was Mrs. Faurie. She opened
+one of the long sashes from outside, and entered without ceremony.
+
+“Why, how cosy you look in here!” she exclaimed. “‘There are none so
+deaf as those who will not hear.’ No wonder you did not answer.”
+
+“Were you calling me?” he asked, with an apologetic cadence. He had
+started to rise, but Mrs. Faurie had herself sunk into a chair, and he
+resumed his seat.
+
+She was looking about her with an intent, bright interest. “I think that
+we never quite appreciated this old room. What a scholarly look your
+rearrangement has brought into it! That old telescope,—why, you have
+mounted it again! How nice to put it in the centre of the bay-window—it
+is just the right height for observations of the sky, and can sweep it
+in three directions. Somebody yanked it off its stand long ago to read
+the names on passing steamboats from the veranda.”
+
+As she leaned her elbow on the arm of the chair and turned her
+beautifully poised head, he could not keep his eyes from her. She
+embodied to his mind the poetic ideal of all the beauties of fable or
+history. She was as a flout to the commonplace aspect of the day, to her
+associates, her surroundings, her own words and identity, and to
+himself. He could not accustom his eyes to such peculiar and preëminent
+perfection. Her charms seemed heightened at the moment by the
+embellishments of dress; for since luncheon she had made a toilet for
+the afternoon, of a richness which she had not hitherto affected,—a note
+of compliment to her guests. She was younger of aspect; her face seemed
+that of some radiant girl, though proud, assured, dominant. Her gown was
+of gray silk, quiet in tone and not heavy of texture, the brocaded
+pattern being a plume shading from darker gray to a tip of white. She
+wore on her richly tinted brown hair a velvet picture-hat of the same
+gray hue, with a line of vivid white about the brim, and apparently the
+ostrich plume of gray, that the brocaded gown simulated, coiled about
+the crown, its white tip drooping to her shoulder. And against this
+neutral background the splendor of her beauty glowed, her complexion so
+exquisite, her lips scarlet, her gray eyes so full and fine and lordly
+in their expression, and with those imperious brows so delicately drawn
+above. Somehow he could not hold his own before them. Never heretofore
+had eyes challenged him that he dared not meet. Her evident
+unconsciousness of the impression her beauty must make upon him added to
+his embarrassment. It was like talking to one in a mask or under a
+disguise. He could not speak to mother of hobbledehoys, householder,
+butterfly of fashion, while these incongruous characters were blended
+into the personality of Juno, or the ideal of the moon, or a muse of
+poetry. He was glad that she busied those radiant glances in scanning
+the sombre old room, and his chance bedizenment of it with such cast-off
+gear as had come to his hand.
+
+“Are the lenses of the telescope all right? Well, that’s a blessing! And
+you have brought out that old geological cabinet.”
+
+“It contains some quite valuable specimens,” said Desmond. He deprecated
+his tone; it seemed to him as if he were making excuses. “A few are
+genuinely rare.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie nodded her comprehension. “So I suppose; an uncle of Mr.
+Faurie’s had quite a fad in that direction.”
+
+“Mr. Stanlett?” asked Desmond, surprised.
+
+“No,—Mr. Stanlett is my uncle. This was a relative of Mr. Faurie’s, with
+quite literary tastes; and oh,—that old screen!—I had forgotten it
+completely,—skeleton leaves mounted between plates of crystal.”
+
+“There is nothing so symmetrical, to my mind, in all nature as the
+various tree-forms,” Desmond commented; “those outlines are grace
+itself, both in the denuded shape of the leaf and the tracery of the
+veins. Their preparation is exquisitely done.”
+
+“They look like lace!” she remarked. “If you are fond of tree-forms, you
+ought to have a beautiful time in the woods at Great Oaks”—she drew a
+deep sigh. “We have little else to offer as entertainment; but we are
+long on wilderness! Will the children study botany?”
+
+“Perhaps,—as a reward of merit,—when they shall have learned something
+in the indispensable branches.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie hastily changed the subject. “I am glad that you find enough
+interest in these things to resurrect them. I remember now that they
+were in that big old mahogany press in the alcove.”
+
+She rose suddenly, opened the door of the press, and looked in, her head
+poised inquiringly. There seemed nothing to attract her explorations,
+and she returned to her chair.
+
+“That’s where you found the frames for those old steel engravings; the
+arrangement of them is very inspiring, much better than that ragged old
+portfolio, which I see you have relegated to the press, where it ought
+to be. I wonder what used to be in those frames; but they are the very
+thing for steel engravings.” For between the bookshelves and the row of
+cupboards below, a blank space of paneled wood had received a series of
+small framed portraits of the great men in the world of letters and
+scientific achievement. The pictures were unharmed by time, save for
+spotted and yellowed margins, but the suggestion of antiquity better
+accorded with the old and worn fittings of the place than fresher
+equipment.
+
+“What did you find of interest in the cupboards of the bookcases?”
+
+“They are locked,” said Desmond, a trifle out of countenance to have
+tried doors obviously closed against intrusion.
+
+“Why, how odd! There must be lots of things in them which would interest
+you.” As if she could not trust the vigor of his experiment, she rose
+once more and flitted across the room, trying first one, then another of
+the small doors. They were without knobs, and only a key that might fit
+could open them. She had evidently broken a nail in her efforts to draw
+the doors ajar by the moulding, and she was looking somewhat ruefully at
+her dainty fingers as she returned. Not to remain seated at ease while
+she labored to open the obdurate cabinets, Desmond had followed her
+about the room, making similar efforts wherever the door seemed a less
+close fit; and as she took her chair by the fire he resumed his place
+near her, listening attentively as she talked on. “I remember that there
+are many old English periodicals there,—the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ the
+‘London Magazine,’ the ‘Annual Register,’ all from the beginning of
+their issue, and a thousand old scientific and literary pamphlets. Why
+should they be locked up? Perhaps Uncle Clarence may have the key; if
+not, we may find one about the house that will fit, or on that little
+trading-boat where Chubby bought my apple, don’t you know?”—with an
+animated glance. “It has been off on the bayous and lakes since then,
+and it dropped down the river to-day and tied up at our landing—it may
+have a bunch of keys among its treasures of junk. We must try that
+expedient, at all events. I know you would enjoy exploring those nooks,
+and you might find something that would interest you. What are you
+writing?—something for publication?”
+
+He drew back in surprise, embarrassed, half flattered, protesting. “Oh,
+no,—only jotting down a few thoughts that struck me,—of no value to the
+public,—for my own entertainment, or rather my own satisfaction,—a sort
+of argument, pro and con, on some questions of political economy that
+were never clear to my own mind, never justified to my own point of
+view. It is in a sort a dialogue, thoughts that, expressed otherwise,
+would bore the life out of any interlocutor.”
+
+“But why don’t you arrange to write something for publication while you
+are here, Mr. Desmond?—not history, for of course this library is too
+general in selection to afford you the data requisite, but—something
+else; why won’t questions of political economy do? something—I don’t
+know what,—but something for publication and permanent interest.”
+
+“Why, I couldn’t,” said Desmond, flushing painfully, so close had she
+come to his grief for the relinquished ambitions of achievement. “I am
+not capable of that kind of thing. Besides, I came here to teach—”
+
+“Surely you don’t have to sit up o’ nights to prepare for Chubby’s
+lessons! And you can’t work the boys all day; you have to let them
+stretch their muscles in the afternoon. You think that more consecutive
+time would be necessary,—more concentration—well, perhaps,—I am not up
+to such things myself. Such ideas as I have are originated in the
+twinkling of an eye. At all events, you have made this a mighty pleasant
+place to read and rest and jot down any vagrant ideas that may be
+roaming around when your day’s work is done.”
+
+She lay back in her chair and let her eyes rove smilingly about the
+changes in the aspect of the room. “I shouldn’t be surprised if you will
+have to share the library now. I dare say that all the rest of us will
+want to ‘butt in,’ as the boys say.” She laughed with a mischievous
+relish of the grotesque phrase and its unseemliness on her dainty lips.
+
+On the low marble mantelpiece were figures in bronze of two of the
+muses, Clio and Calliope, evidently costly and of some artistic merit,
+and Desmond had crossed on the wall above them two long swords, that had
+stood in a corner of the room, genuine relics of warfare that had seen
+grim service, and in their way carved out records in both history and
+poetry. An oil painting, a spirited battle-piece, was still above, the
+scarlet uniforms giving an intense note of color among the prevailing
+tints of grape-blue with which the room was furnished. Desmond had not
+inquired as to its subject, and the signature of the painter was not
+familiar to him. Its execution did not rise above a respectable
+mediocrity, save for the central figure, a commanding officer, who, with
+raised hat and mounted on a white charger, seemed galloping down the
+line of troops and straight out of the picture at the spectator.
+
+All these details did Mrs. Faurie successively scan as she sat languidly
+pulling on a pair of long gray gloves; all were brought into new
+significance, into added harmony, in the readjustment of the room. She
+seemed at great leisure, and it was some time before she spoke again.
+
+“You give a very beguiling aspect to scholastic labor. I don’t think
+that I should mind learning a thing or two, myself, from you here.”
+
+She looked at him with a smile touching the curving lines of her lips.
+His cheek flushed. He lifted his head as he returned her look. It was a
+fine head, and was well poised on his broad shoulders. That wonderful
+magnetic smile of hers was addressed to him, and he must needs have been
+more than human had he not responded to its subtle, unconscious
+flattery. He had been so reduced in pride, in the esteem of the specious
+world, so thwarted, agonized, deprived, humiliated, that this look of
+interest, of rallying mirth, of alluring charm, was singularly suave to
+his sensitive perceptions. For a moment his face was as it used to be;
+his dark blue eyes had a serene light, confident, spirited; they were
+smiling in their turn. His expression was lifted out of its wonted cold
+constraint,—it was earnest, ardent; and he seemed to Colonel Kentopp,
+pausing at the window on the veranda, as handsome a man as could be
+found between Lake Itasca and the Balize; he was stricken with amaze by
+the mutual expression of the two.
+
+“It would be my place and privilege to sit at your feet, Mrs. Faurie,”
+said Desmond.
+
+Perhaps because she was acclimated to the language of admiration and
+missed it sorely at Great Oaks, perhaps because she was so genuinely
+pleased with the tutor as a tutor that she could but approve him as a
+man, she cast upon him a warm radiance from her beautiful eyes, and
+broke out laughing and flushing as a much younger woman might have done.
+
+“What a pretty speech, Mr. Desmond,—and how pitifully insincere! What
+under heaven could you hope to learn from me?”
+
+He had not seen before that exquisite dimple in her cheek, for she
+seldom laughed with such exuberant mirth, or perhaps he might not have
+answered with such definite aplomb.
+
+“I should learn those higher things beyond the ken of books,” he
+declared.
+
+Before the fire was quenched in Desmond’s eyes, the pose of his head
+shifted, the flush on his cheek faded, while yet the whole changed
+aspect of the man was patent, Colonel Kentopp conceived it beneath his
+dignity to stand on the veranda and look in the library window at what
+seemed to him singularly like a flirtation between his hostess and the
+tutor of her sons. He forthwith laid his hand on the window-catch, and
+as it clicked in opening, Mrs. Faurie turned and burst into a peal of
+silvery laughter while he slowly and ponderously entered.
+
+“How funny!” she exclaimed. “Where is our walk on the levee? Have all
+our party fallen by the way or dispersed? I took upon me the mission to
+find Mr. Desmond, and I suppose the rest sent you to find me.”
+
+Colonel Kentopp could not smooth out the frown that would gather and be
+dissipated to corrugate his brow anew as he listened. She seemed all
+joyous unconsciousness and insouciance, yet this might be affected. He
+could not judge whether she was merely carrying off the awkwardness of
+having been so absorbed in the tutor’s conversation as to forget her
+waiting guests and her own errand, which was to invite him to join the
+party in a walk along the levee, or whether she was genuinely interested
+as she called Colonel Kentopp’s attention to the changes by which Mr.
+Desmond had so enhanced the attractions of the library. Colonel Kentopp,
+who was as far removed from the possibility of the appreciation of any
+literary point as a man of intelligence and education can well be,
+surveyed with blank assent the details which she indicated to him.
+
+“I thought,” he could not refrain from saying, “that you always declared
+that you did not care _un sou marqué_ how things look at Great Oaks
+Plantation.”
+
+“But this is not ‘things’—it is thought; it was done with an idea,—an
+inspiration. There never was a duller and a dowdier old room, and now it
+is replete with suggestion, with charm, with all the allurements of
+learning; and miracle of all, without the expenditure of a cent of
+money.”
+
+“Take care, Mrs. Faurie,” said Colonel Kentopp, laughing in that
+mirthless, rallying way in which privileged friends give themselves the
+pleasure of saying a disagreeable thing in the guise of jest; “after all
+your open-handed career, you may become a miser yet.”
+
+“Heaven send the day!” she exclaimed. And long, long afterward Desmond
+remembered the phrase and her look as she uttered the words. “It might
+be better for me and mine if the open hand had been always the close
+fist.” Then she broke off suddenly,—“Why, there is Mrs. Kentopp.”
+
+For that lady was coming in, laughing very much, which always started
+her pink flush to justify her blonded hair, and declaring that she had
+almost gone to sleep on the sofa in the parlor, while they neglected her
+and kept her waiting. If Colonel Kentopp had had scant appreciation of
+the esthetic value of the changes that Desmond had wrought in the aspect
+of the library, Mrs. Kentopp’s glacial, superficial glance at its
+details implied absolute disregard. It might have been a lesson to
+reduce the vanity of those purblind insects denominated men of science,
+who grope about the hidden meanings of the universe, who seek to
+“unclench from the granite hand of Nature her mighty secrets,” to bring
+near the stars, to revive the dead life of the rocks, to discern the
+brush that paints the flower and leaf, to descry whence comes the
+fashion of the cloud, to find out the paths of the trackless oceans,
+could they have appraised the degree of Mrs. Kentopp’s contempt for
+their objects as her eyes rested upon the insignia afforded by the
+telescope, the geological cabinet, the skeleton leaves, the epitome of
+history and poetry above the mantelpiece. Her flout of intentional
+inattention was so patent, her air of minimizing, almost ridiculing the
+importance of the tutor and all which to him pertained, that it became
+obvious to the other two that the afternoon walk was in order, and they
+were presently sauntering down the veranda, while Desmond ran for his
+hat.
+
+To Desmond’s surprise, he was not in the slightest degree mortified, nor
+intimidated, nor crushed by Mrs. Kentopp’s manner, as she had doubtless
+intended he should be. He was noting the fact that, despite their
+apparent intimacy, these people did not call each other by their
+Christian names after the manner of their sort elsewhere. It had never
+been the custom in this region, where a certain formality of the old
+regime still lingers, and he felt a kind of special gratitude that he
+was not called upon to endure to hear Mrs. Faurie address Colonel
+Kentopp as “Tom,” and his wife as “Annetta,” and their responsive
+familiarity to her as “Honoria.”
+
+The four walked abreast along the winding avenue under the boughs of the
+dense trees of the grove, which was perfectly clear of undergrowth and
+as level as a floor. Now and again the colonnades formed by the great
+boles parted to show beautiful open, grassy vistas amongst the gigantic
+growths that had given the place its name; but the eye could reach no
+limits of the forest, save on one side where the river had come
+“cranking in and cut a monstrous cantle out.” The party struck off
+presently into a byway, which at length brought them into the road at
+the base of the levee. Here they climbed the great embankment covered
+with Bermuda grass. The short, dense growth was evidently feeling the
+spring of the year in its thick mat of roots that held the earth
+together, being an almost impervious network of innumerable, interlacing
+fibres, and of special utility because of its imperviousness in times of
+“fighting water.” As they took their way along the broad path upon the
+summit, they could view from the elevation, of peculiar advantage in so
+flat a country, a vast circuit of the surrounding landscape. The water
+was high and the river was still on the rise. The space outside the
+levee seemed to Desmond to have shrunken very perceptibly since he had
+seen it a few days before. This strip varied greatly in width; now it
+looked at the distance as if it might measure a mile or more, and at
+certain points it showed only a few hundred yards, with here and there
+marshy intimations and disconnected pools where the water stood and
+reflected the light like oval mirrors. The sun, down-dropping, vermilion
+red, had turned all the currents of the great stream to crimson, and as
+it sunk lower and lower the shadows began to gloom in the dense woods on
+the hither shore, albeit there was still a line of gilding sunlight
+glinting along the forest summits.
+
+It was all very quiet; not a craft was visible on the currents; the vast
+river was absolutely mute. Despite the fact that this is one of the
+great highways of the world, a natural channel from boreal to
+subtropical climes, designed, one might fancy, to bring man near his
+brother man, without reference to his own ingenuity of device,—in
+conquering the wilderness, harnessing the steam, annulling time, and
+obliterating distance,—it could have seemed no lonelier were theirs the
+first of human eyes to rest upon it. There was no trace, no suggestion
+of man’s presence, save the great embankment of the levee along the
+river-side, now and again receding so far inland as to elude the sight,
+and the newly arrived “shanty-boat” lying at the landing.
+
+This craft held the degree of comparison with the usual trading-boat of
+these waters that a junk-shop bears to a warehouse. Desmond’s attention
+was first attracted to the humble and grotesque nondescript vessel when
+Chub, nimbly footing it in his trim little knickerbockers and
+well-filled stockings and natty Paris shoes, to overtake the group,
+joined his mother; he began to bang upon her, his arm about her waist,
+his head lolling against her arm, begging and pleading with her to buy
+him a bicycle,—a beautiful second-hand wheel,—which the amphibious
+trader had assured him was as good as new.
+
+“But you have your own wheel,” she remonstrated. “You actually want
+another? You would have to be a quadruped to ride both.”
+
+“And a long-eared one at that!” Colonel Kentopp declared, somewhat
+nettled; for his own small son had come up on the other side, casting up
+lustrous, anxious eyes, beseeching that if Chub did not secure this
+treasure, dear, _dear_ papa would open his heart and purse and bestow it
+upon him; for woe to tell! he had no bicycle whatever,—he had only a
+tricycle, and a bitter blow it was to his pride when Chub rode a safety
+and he could only accompany him, bowed to the earth, as it were, on a
+humiliating three-wheeler.
+
+“My wheel?—Gracious! my wheel is all out of whack!” cried the tumultuous
+Chub. “Just look at it, mamma,—that is all I ask. Just go down to the
+trading-boat and look at the wheel,—a—beautiful—second-hand—bike!”
+
+“But, Chubby, it would be out of the question for you to own two wheels
+and both already used—”
+
+“Mine’s got a punctured tire,” wailed Chub.
+
+“Gimme second choice,—if Chub don’t make it; lemme have it, papa dear,”
+beguiled the Kentopp hopeful.
+
+It had been Desmond’s firm determination, rigidly observed so far, that
+he would have no concern with his pupils other than scholastic. He would
+consider the trend of the conversation in their presence, as indeed is
+necessary always in association with young persons, that the equilibrium
+of their moral, political, or religious convictions be not shaken till
+they are of sufficient age and discretion to exercise a sober and
+independent judgment. He would direct their thoughts to subjects of
+value in their general reading. He would impart information or correct
+mistaken impressions in the course of casual chat. He would in moments
+of recreation narrate details of special interest or amusement, and thus
+further incidentally the judicious development of their mental
+faculties. But with the problems of their control outside the
+schoolroom, their sports, their manners, their moral training, he would
+not tax himself. This was in a manner interference, however salutary,
+and might be resented by those in actual authority, resulting in anarchy
+for the youths, and their last estate would be worse than their first.
+He thus argued that he did not stand in _loco parentis_; he was simply a
+machine for the furtherance of learning, a paid purveyor of wisdom, and
+when his day’s work was ended his responsibility ceased for the day.
+Therefore he was surprised at himself when he stepped forward briskly,
+as Mrs. Faurie, with a somewhat doubtful and disconsolate air, yielded
+so far as to agree to examine the treasure, and turned to the descent of
+the levee on the outer side.
+
+“Let me go and examine the wheel, Mrs. Faurie, and report its condition
+to you; I understand these machines better, probably, than you do.”
+
+She turned back with a wave of the hand,—a fine, free gesture at arm’s
+length. “A rescue!” she exclaimed. “I was just wondering if I could
+survive the unmitigated boredom of the tires, and the bell, and the
+handle-bar, and the pedals, and the saddle. Is the date set for your
+canonization, Mr. Desmond? Go, by all means, and add another to your
+deeds of grace.”
+
+But Chub emitted a disconcerted whine. “I don’t wish you to go, Mr.
+Desmond,” he plained, with the unwitting insolence of juvenile
+sincerity.
+
+Desmond was not out of countenance; he even sustained the furtive sneer
+in Mrs. Kentopp’s face. “Just as it happens, I don’t care in the least
+what you wish.”
+
+“Now, there it is, mamma. I want the bike, and Mr. Desmond doesn’t care
+what I want; _he says so_.”
+
+“It ought to be little trouble to teach the logical ideas of the clever
+Chub to shoot straight,” commented Colonel Kentopp.
+
+“Well, then,” Mrs. Faurie could not resist, “suppose I go, too. Mr.
+Desmond can instruct me as to the perfection of the tires and the bell
+and the handle-bar, and the tumbling guaranty, warranted to give the
+best headers in the market,”—she was looking down with her gracious
+maternal smile at Chub, as in his tumultuous callowness he clamored and
+clung about her skirts (“Oh, rats! mamma, it’s got no tumbling
+guaranty,” he interposed),—“and in the mean time I can meditate on the
+price.”
+
+“But, mamma, it is cheap, it is dirt cheap, it is dog cheap.”
+
+“What is the price?” Desmond demanded.
+
+When Chub responded, the tutor might have had a salutary monition of the
+discretion of his resolution to keep apart from the affairs of his
+pupils outside the schoolroom. “You just wait and see,” said Chub,
+sullenly.
+
+“Come!” cried Mrs. Faurie, her foot poised on the verge of the outer
+descent of the levee, her skirts held daintily clear of the grass with
+her left hand, her right about the shoulders of the enterprising Chub.
+She looked back with bright expectation at the Kentopps as they stood
+motionless.
+
+“Thank you, no,” said Colonel Kentopp. “We will await you here. I shan’t
+put myself in temptation’s way. To be dragooned into buying a crippled
+bike from such a trading-boat as that would be the final blow to my
+paternal authority.”
+
+He and his wife looked gravely after the pedestrians while standing
+together on the summit of the levee. The sparkle and suavity of their
+countenances, addressed to the exigencies of society, were dying out.
+They both seemed years older in a moment. Mrs. Kentopp’s haggard pallor
+was unrelieved by the flush that was wont to come and go as she laughed,
+and a certain pendulous effect of the cheeks became noticeable in the
+immobile contemplativeness of her expression. Her husband was more
+saturnine than one could have imagined from his arrogations of bonhomie.
+He had a spark of irritation in his eyes, too sharply flashing to have
+been kindled merely by the persistence of his little son, now picking
+his way after the group bound toward the trading-boat, now pausing
+irresolute.
+
+“Mr. Stanlett is certainly in his dotage!” Colonel Kentopp exclaimed
+acridly. “I never could have imagined him guilty of such folly as to
+bring that man here.”
+
+“Why, what is the matter with the man?”—his wife had a short, crisp
+tone, level and direct, and all devoid of the little aspirations and
+sudden rising inflections and exclamatory interludes which interspersed
+the tenor of her usual discourse.
+
+“The matter,—why, he is as handsome as a picture! He has the dignity of
+a lord, and I never saw a man who seemed more highly bred.”
+
+“Well,”—she drawled, “don’t you consider those facts advantages? A
+stranger in one’s house is always a nuisance, but it is better that a
+tutor or governess should be as genteel as possible.”
+
+“Great Scott! Annetta, how can you be so dense? He is a man whom Honoria
+Faurie might very well elect to fall in love with and marry.”
+
+Mrs. Kentopp laughed in derision,—not her breathy, flushing, becoming
+laughter, but a simple cackle of scorn. “Why, he is young enough to be
+her son.”
+
+“He is ten years younger,—that is all.”
+
+“_All!_ Ten years is enough. No doubt she seems an old lady to him.”
+
+“You wouldn’t think so if you had caught a glimpse of his face as I saw
+them talking together in the library. They would make a very comely
+married couple.”
+
+“Why, Tom Kentopp, you are wild! She would have to give up that big
+income if she married, thirty thousand dollars of it every year are as
+certain as taxes, chargeable on the whole estate, and the Great Oaks
+crops besides,—and take instead only her dower rights in Tennessee,—just
+a life-interest in a third of the real property, with that old Nashville
+residence, in a locality that is awfully unfashionable nowadays,—she has
+never lived there since Mr. Faurie’s death,—and a fourth of the
+Mississippi property. And such a sacrifice for such a man,—a penniless
+tutor! Why, if it were not way down here in the swamp, he would seem
+hardly of more consequence than a courier.”
+
+“Exactly; it is a mighty lonesome country for a pretty widow, and he is
+a mighty fine man.”
+
+Mrs. Kentopp grew grave. “I never was more surprised than when he came
+into the parlor. I expected to see a little lean, wizened body, like the
+man they had last,—little Mr. ——, Mr. ——, I have forgotten the little
+animal’s name. This man is not at all what a tutor should be in
+appearance; he carries himself as if he owned the world. And his look of
+cool, assured gravity is positively insulting. I don’t think that he
+gave himself the trouble to fetch out a smile throughout luncheon.”
+
+“He was not amused, perhaps,” Colonel Kentopp suggested.
+
+“But he should be amused when his betters choose to be merry,” the lady
+retorted.
+
+“It would be a deuced unpleasant thing for us,” her husband resumed the
+matrimonial speculation. “As long as Mrs. Faurie is in the world among
+her peers, and the value of that large and certain income is forever in
+her mind, with the bliss of spending it, and living like a princess, I
+am not afraid. Besides, the lords and counts would back out the instant
+the settlements would reveal the awful trap that Faurie set for his
+successor. But this man, this Desmond, would be mighty well satisfied
+with the division that gives her a life-interest in one third of the
+Tennessee real estate and a fourth part of the personalty there, and a
+fourth absolutely of everything in Mississippi. It would be a long sight
+better than tutoring. He would be mighty glad for another fellow to be
+hired to teach Chub,—especially with Chub’s own money. Mrs. Faurie is at
+no expense on her sons’ account—except such as is voluntary; she gives
+them those costly foreign trips, for instance.”
+
+“But _she_,—she wouldn’t be satisfied with that provision;—she would not
+give up her income for any man living.”
+
+“This is a very exceptional man, and this is the jumping-off place of
+all creation,” persisted Kentopp.
+
+Mrs. Kentopp’s shallow eyes scanned the far reaches of the Mississippi.
+The sun was no longer visible, but the vermilion reflection was still
+red upon the rippling waters, for the afterglow was in the sky. “I don’t
+see how Honoria Faurie manages so badly as to come to the end of her
+income in this way; it is positively ridiculous,” she said, with a sort
+of petulance.
+
+Colonel Kentopp bit off the end of his cigar and spat it forth with an
+expression that suggested it might be bitter, but his thought was
+wormwood. “Oh, she even anticipates her income as far as she can,—she
+spends at such a clip! She bought her steam yacht with her _savings_,
+Chub told me.” He smiled derisively. “It is in dock now; it ought to
+have been chartered while she is on dry land.”
+
+“And her automobile is another extravagance; why couldn’t she hire a
+touring-car for the little time that she is rusticating while abroad?”
+
+“Princesses don’t stoop to such economies, that is, abroad. Economy
+befits the swamp. I have nothing to say against the diamonds, although I
+think she might well have been satisfied with the Faurie family
+jewels,—nor yet those wonderful emeralds, for such ‘savings’ have an
+intrinsic value. But it does seem a most mischievous mischance that she
+should have to _faire maigre_ here in the swamp just at this time, with
+such a hero of romance as Mr. Stanlett has introduced as tutor.”
+
+“Mr. Stanlett never saw him till he was engaged and had arrived. I heard
+him say that the whole matter was arranged by correspondence through Mr.
+Keith, the boys’ guardian. It seems that he and the tutor had some
+mutual friends. I understand that this fellow has an exceptional
+collegiate record,—though if he has, I should think he could get a
+better place. But why should his presence here concern us, do you
+think?”
+
+“Because if there were a prospect that the Faurie property might come on
+the market for division, as the result of her marriage, at any
+reasonably early day, we should never be able to sell Dryad-Dene
+Plantation to Jack Loring. He evidently much prefers Great Oaks.”
+
+Her face lowered heavily. “I was just beginning to think of that,” she
+said, now dully out of sorts.
+
+“There are actual advantages,” he argued. “Dryad-Dene Plantation is
+subject to overflow, and Great Oaks rarely goes under unless their cross
+levee breaks. Our lands are cut up with bayous and sloughs, while Great
+Oaks has thousands of acres as level as a floor and as dry as a bone.
+And then the old house, the groves and the glades. Loring is as new as
+yesterday, himself, but he wants a place reeking of ancestors and
+aristocratic traditions.”
+
+“I don’t see why; it is his one merit that he grew in a single night! It
+is Jack that has shot up so surprisingly this time, and not the
+beanstalk,” said Mrs. Kentopp, sourly.
+
+“He isn’t going to stay new. That is the reason he does not locate
+somewhere else. The Great Oaks air of the _ancien régime_, its
+shabbiness and out-at-elbows look of romantic poverty, the ruin of
+princes, on account of that woman’s grudging neglect, when it is really
+bursting with richness and luxury, would fill his bill exactly. Loring
+would be furnished with all manner of aristocratic hereditaments, and in
+ten years people would forget that he was not born at Great Oaks. His
+people were natives of this region, and his name is familiar in
+Deepwater Bend; he would rather own Great Oaks than anything else his
+millions can buy. Let him once hear of that prince-in-disguise-looking
+tutor, of fine family and exceptional cultivation, in constant
+association with the beautiful Mrs. Faurie! He is not precipitate at
+best. He will wait till the division of the Faurie estate consequent
+upon a second marriage puts Great Oaks up at auction to the highest
+bidder.”
+
+Mrs. Kentopp’s face seemed in anxiety to suffer somewhat of a collapse.
+How, it might be impossible to describe, but now her blonde hair showed
+that much of it near her face was false, when its naturalness of
+arrangement had rendered this suspicion impossible hitherto. She was one
+of the women not pretty, but who contrive to compass that reputation by
+assuming the pose, the conscious attire, the bridling expression. As she
+looked now, the coquettishness of her equipment was a painful commentary
+upon her appearance, haggard with disappointment and foreboding. For the
+Kentopps had scant affinity with this secluded life in the Mississippi
+bottom, and they had not had such resources as Mrs. Faurie for shaking
+its mud—one cannot say its dust—from their feet for indefinite periods
+of absence. The sale of Dryad-Dene Plantation, with its elaborate
+industrial equipment and beautiful modern residence, would make possible
+the dream of their lives,—its transmutation into a handsome town house
+in New Orleans and a summer cottage on the Gulf coast, with lands enough
+somewhere at the minimum price to rent out to tenants to make cotton, as
+lands are created to do, to furnish an income for the absentees. But
+purchasers for a property of such value as Dryad-Dene are rare, and the
+_ci-devant_ swamper, Loring, who had grown very rich by speculation, was
+one of the few men who cared to invest in so inconvertible an asset as a
+fine house and large plantation in Deepwater Bend. A species of
+self-assertion it was to him, perchance. Here where he was born, as poor
+as poverty, though of genteel and respectable parentage, he could, as a
+bit of luxury, own the finest estate around which the river curved, and
+in the scene of his early privations have its magnates in hot
+competition to place their splendid holdings in the best light for his
+somewhat supercilious appraisement.
+
+“It would be idiotic,—it would positively be ridiculous—and she ten
+years older,” Mrs. Kentopp declared bitterly.
+
+Suddenly, like the lightning-change effect of a performer on the stage,
+she resumed her wonted aspect as if by magic. Her cheeks rounded out;
+her flush came and went; her lips were again curving and plump with
+distending smiles over her white teeth; her eyes were all a-sparkle; and
+she was waving the end of her long feather boa in a response of
+exaggerated mirth to a fancied greeting from the door of the
+“shanty-boat” far below. Mrs. Faurie was issuing thence, lifting one of
+her delicate hands, gloved to the elbow in gray kid; but the gesture was
+one of protest. She was not looking at her guests, but after a loutish,
+grotesque, thick-set man, of amphibious suggestions, who was springing
+with great leaps up the bank with an open knife in his hand. With this
+he so swiftly cut die rope that held the boat to a gnarled old tree,
+that the craft, feeling the impulse of the current, began to move from
+the shore before Mrs. Faurie could step from the gang-plank of the deck
+to the ground. As it was, the ripples ran over her feet, and she
+exclaimed aloud in agitation and sudden fright. She was safely on the
+bank when Desmond, still on the deck, sprang lightly across the
+ever-widening interval of water, now almost impracticable, swinging Chub
+ashore with a hand under each of the boy’s arms. As the boatman came
+running down the bank Desmond paused, and meeting him at the margin,
+struck him between the eyes a blow so fair and furious that the fellow
+was weltering saurian-like in the water before he scarcely realized that
+he had been felled. Perhaps the deficiencies of his craft, with no
+propelling power, constrained his attention; perhaps the vigor of the
+blow tamed his rancorous rage. He made no effort at reprisal, though
+Desmond lingered on the bank, but struck out swimming after his boat,
+and turned, only when once more safe on deck and out of Desmond’s reach,
+to gaze lowering and askance across the water, with a look at once
+vengeful, amazed, and dismayed.
+
+“What can have happened?” exclaimed Mrs. Kentopp, watching the scene
+from afar with wondering eyes. “Mr. Paragon is a muscular Christian, it
+seems.”
+
+“He is very injudicious,” said Colonel Kentopp, gravely. “These
+water-side vagrants are often dangerous rascals,—river pirates. Their
+good-will is safer than their grudges.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V
+
+
+The errand within the cabin of the shanty-boat had not proved swift or
+easy of dispatch. When Desmond and Mrs. Faurie had approached the dingy
+and plebeian craft along the muddy bank, he once more urged that she
+should wait without and permit him to make the preliminary examination.
+
+“The boat is clean!” cried Chub, on the defensive. “It is as clean as
+any other old place. Mr. Desmond is so particular. It _isn’t_ damp. Its
+smell is just doolicious.”
+
+Chub continued insistent, and Mrs. Faurie once more yielded.
+
+Oakum, tar, and the peculiar and distinctive odor of junk were the
+blended perfumes thus lauded which floated out to them from the open
+door of the cabin. The boat was gently oscillating on the current,
+teetering as if with the instinct of dance, for the river was at flood
+height, and even thus close to the shore the encroaching waters were
+deep. As Mrs. Faurie and Desmond made their way along the gang-plank to
+the deck, she glanced over her shoulder at the great cable that held the
+craft to the bank, passed again and again around the girth of a tree. “I
+hope she is tied up fast and hard; I should object of all things to go
+floating down the Mississippi River, the involuntary guest of such a
+trading-boat, impossible to land except by the uncovenanted grace of the
+current.”
+
+The cabin seemed dark at first, by contrast with the pellucid atmosphere
+without. A formless hodgepodge of barrel and box, of bunk and junk, it
+presented, until the eye was sufficiently accustomed to its comparative
+obscurity to discern such degree of symmetry as informed its
+arrangement. One end was dedicated to the domestic life of the
+proprietor; holding the cooking apparatus, expressed in a monkey stove
+that furnished heat as well, a tier of bunks on either side, a few
+broken-backed chairs grouped around a table, a gaunt, pale woman in a
+tattered gray woolen skirt and a man’s ragged red sweater, with a mass
+of dull, straight brown hair “banged” across her freckled forehead and
+hanging unkempt down upon her shoulders. She held in her arms a wan,
+puny baby, bent on sucking its thumb, and giving the universe only such
+attention as it could spare from that absorbing occupation. Knowing this
+habit to be an infringement of juvenile etiquette, the woman had tried
+to effect a diversion the instant she saw the flutter of Mrs. Faurie’s
+gray silk gown at the door. But a house cannot be set in order for
+distinguished inspection on the spur of the moment, and still less can a
+neglected infant’s conduct be immediately brought up to standard. A
+piercing, heart-rending wail made the air hideous, and as the released
+thumb, all curiously translucent and blanched and reduced in size, went
+back into the child’s mouth, Mrs. Faurie, entering, whirled around and
+saw both the effort to save appearances and its failure.
+
+She shook her head in indignant rebuke. “That will never do!” she said
+imperiously. “You ought not to let the child spoil its hand. That is a
+bad habit, and keeps it from being bright. It just sogs away over that
+old thumb, and you don’t care so long as it is quiet and doesn’t worry
+you.”
+
+The woman rose with a belligerent toss of the head. “Mighty easy to
+talk!—mighty easy! But you just wait, young lady, till you gits some
+childern of yer own, an’ see if you won’t be sorter lax todes anythink
+that will keep ’em from yellin’, when yer head is achin’ fit ter bust. I
+been havin’ chills and ager all winter.”
+
+“_Some children of my own!_” Mrs. Faurie drew herself up, majestic and
+boastful. “I have _three_ of my own,—nearly as tall as I am—_three_!
+This”—pulling Chub forward—“is my baby,—and doesn’t suck his thumb, and
+never did. And that reminds me,” she continued, as the forlorn river
+nymph stared amazed at this rich and brilliant apparition of health, and
+wealth, and beauty, and transcendent youth that might have seemed
+immortal, feeling the contrast God knows how poignantly, “there are a
+lot of baby clothes left over up at my house—I am Mrs. Faurie and live
+close by;—they will fit that fellow out for a year or two to come. I
+will send them down to you this evening if you will promise to put some
+pepper on that child’s thumb to keep it out of his mouth.”
+
+The woman murmured her thanks, but she did not feel her gratitude so
+acutely, rags and dirt being the natural concomitants of her life, as
+her interest in this resplendent personage, and the error as to her age
+and state of life. “Lord!”—she smiled broadly, showing the devastations
+of a mouth whence many aching teeth had been “rotted out with bluestone”
+in default of a dentist’s care—“I thought you was just a girl,—turned
+twenty, mebbe; and this”—she pointed at Desmond—“was your courtin’
+beau.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie for once looked embarrassed. “Oh, no,” she recovered herself
+swiftly; “I’m getting middle-aged now. And where is the bicycle,
+Chubby?”
+
+The other end of the cabin was fitted up as a store, with shelves about
+the walls and a sort of counter. Here were displayed toys and gewgaws of
+imitation jewelry and beads, some bolts of coarse cloth, a glitter of
+tinware, some earthen and wooden bowls, an assortment of candies and
+canned goods, tobacco, fine cut and plug, snuff, and some boxes of cheap
+cigars. Incongruously enough, among these things was a fine, fresh
+bicycle, with pneumatic tires, evidently perfectly new.
+
+Desmond looked sharply across the counter as the sodden, amphibious,
+nondescript animal that the raftsman seemed, hardly frog, hardly fish,
+hardly water-rat, yet partaking of the characteristics of all three,
+eyed the party furtively from his place among his medley of wares. His
+straight red hair was pulled forward in wisps on his brow as if it had
+been wet in a ducking and matted there. His big black hat was on the
+back of his head. His freckled, red, mottled face had a sort of soaked,
+bloated suggestion. He hesitated for a very perceptible interval before
+he named the price, and Mrs. Faurie exclaimed in surprise:—
+
+“Ten dollars! Why, Chubby, you told me that the price was five”; for
+Chub had waxed confidential with his mother as they had approached, her
+opposition withdrawn.
+
+Chubby’s earnest, eager countenance scarcely showed above a pile of
+cigar boxes on the counter over which he peered. He was genuinely
+surprised, yet not willing to seek to take advantage of any mistake that
+he might have made.
+
+“I understood you to say that you would sell the wheel for five
+dollars”; he addressed the boatman directly, with a sober but
+unflinching gaze.
+
+The trader’s broad face did not change, but there was a furtive gleam in
+his quick, sharply glancing, rodent-like eye, which sought to measure
+Chub’s simplicity. “No, sport, I said ten,” he declared, with a smile
+showing teeth singularly sharp and closely set together in his wide
+mouth, appearing as if he had more than the ordinary complement.
+
+Another man in the background, big and raw-boned, but young, leaning
+against the door of a cubby-hole at the rear, which from some
+obstruction, apparently hastily thrust within, would not shut fast,
+seemed to bear witness to this statement. He grimaced affirmatively at
+Chub with the familiarity of previous acquaintance. He had a large face,
+which seemed somehow out of drawing, as if swollen here and there, and
+with uninflamed red spots. One eye and one eyebrow were higher than the
+other, and he had a half-witted or mentally weak appearance, suddenly
+confirmed when he abruptly licked out a large red tongue in grotesque
+triumph in the conclusion of the dicker, as Chub responded:—
+
+“Well, ten dollars is cheap anyhow,—dirt cheap,—dog cheap. We will buy
+it at ten, won’t we, mamma?”
+
+The proprietor had taken Desmond’s measure the instant he entered the
+cabin. Silently gazing at one another across the counter, both knew as
+well as if the fact had been put into words that the price had been
+doubled to meet his scrutiny. It would have been still further advanced
+had the trader better understood the quality of the wheel.
+
+“Why, ten is _very_ cheap,” Mrs. Faurie began.
+
+“We cannot buy it at ten,” Desmond interrupted swiftly,—“in fact, not at
+any price.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie turned toward him in angry surprise, her eyes blazing. He
+met them without flinching. “You must take my word for it!” he said
+sternly. “Chubby shall not have it! It is useless to discuss prices.”
+
+Desmond had laid his hand on Mrs. Faurie’s arm and was about to lead her
+forth, when the flatboat-man in sudden fury flung the machine down
+behind the counter with a great clatter of the spokes and pedals.
+
+“No, no!” he vociferated to Chubby, the insurgent, who was hopefully
+emptying his pockets and counting his cash; “_you_ can’t buy it at any
+price. Clear out!—the whole bunch of ye. I’m about to cast off. I’ll
+souse any stowaways in your old Mississippi bilge-water. I’ll cut the
+rope and see how ye’ll get ashore then! I’ll land you all in the Gulf of
+Mexico!” As he voiced his frenzied, disconnected, incoherent threats he
+suddenly ran past the group, sprang from the deck, and with deer-like
+swiftness sped up the bank, his open knife in his hand.
+
+Within the cabin Mrs. Faurie started back in dismay as the half-witted
+creature left the door he had held closed, now showing within the cubby
+a glimpse of coarse bagging, intimating a surreptitious cotton bale, the
+corner of which had prevented the slipping of the bolt. He jumped up and
+down before the group with a capering step and a wild and foolish eye,
+now to the right as they pushed toward the door, and as they turned
+aside, now to the left, evidently with the intention of preventing or
+delaying their exit. Even the woman pushed a chair in front of Mrs.
+Faurie so suddenly that her knees struck painfully against it. “Take a
+seat, lady,” she said mockingly. “Oh, _do_ take a seat!”
+
+Desmond scarcely could credit his senses. It was like a disordered scene
+of a dream. His logical faculties grasped but the one idea of flight.
+“Make haste,” he cried out to Mrs. Faurie. “Get off the boat even if you
+jump into the water.” For he felt that the craft was already loosed and
+moving from the bank.
+
+“For God’s sake, hurry!” he adjured her.
+
+Then as the great gawk of an idiot sprang again in front of them,
+Desmond seized him, with an effort to sway him back and forth and fling
+him from his feet; but the river man was as strong and heavier, with a
+stolidity and lack of expectancy that seemed to add sensibly to his
+weight and immovableness; and when he was finally thrown, it was after a
+series of struggles that carried them locked and swaying together around
+the room, both coming down at last with a tremendous crash, bringing
+with them not only the stove-pipe but the monkey stove itself. This
+spewed forth a cataract of live coals over the floor, and as the clouds
+of soot and smoke circled about the rafters, obscuring still further the
+dingy quarters, the woman exclaimed loudly and resentfully her fears of
+fire in notes of woe and injury, and left off such schemes of hindrance
+as she had furthered to run for a bucket of water from the shelf. A coal
+had touched the gigantic idiot, and he was bleating like some great calf
+in a wide open-mouthed blare of sound till admonished by her to lend his
+aid in extinguishing the fire.
+
+In the midst of the confusion Desmond seized Chub, and though doubting
+if he could compass the space as the current swung the boat ever farther
+and farther from the bank, he leaped ashore. The flatboat-man was at the
+moment running down the bank for the purpose of reëmbarking. Despite the
+limit on his time which the receding craft imposed, he suddenly swerved
+from his intention, and made a swift lunge at Desmond, intending to stab
+him in the back. The attack was not altogether unexpected. Desmond, on
+the alert, sprang lightly aside, and, being unarmed, struck the boatman
+with his clenched fist, the blow landing between the eyes.
+
+It was a short, sharp fracas and an easy victory. Desmond was a trained
+boxer, and here he had light and air and elbow-room, which he had lacked
+in the wrestle within the cabin. There was not a word spoken between the
+two; but after the boatman had dragged himself out of the water where he
+was tossed, to his jeopardy of drowning in the suction, and regained the
+deck, Desmond, breathless and agitated, took his way up the bank to
+rejoin Mrs. Faurie, muttering to himself, and now and again pausing to
+look back over his shoulder at the progress of the boat.
+
+“He ought to be apprehended. If Kentopp had a pistol and had been
+nearer, we might together have held them both. Perhaps the miscreant
+might be stopped by a shot if we can get a rifle at Great Oaks mansion;
+but no,—he’ll be too far down the river by that time. The boat is
+crossing in the current; he is going to try to get screened behind the
+towhead, and then the boat will hug the Arkansas shore, and it will be
+too dark and far to risk a shot. Is there no chance to overhaul him? Is
+there no telegraph station nearer than Fairglade, Mrs. Faurie?”
+
+But Mrs. Faurie, pale and bewildered, did not reply directly. “Why, Mr.
+Desmond, that man tried to abduct us all! What could have been his
+object?”
+
+“Nefarious enough, no doubt; but I don’t understand it at all.”
+Desmond’s eyes had now a more definite expression of heed, yet she was
+aware that she only shared his attention.
+
+“And upon my word, Mr. Desmond, I don’t understand your high-handed
+interference,” she exclaimed. “What was the matter with the bicycle? It
+seemed a very good wheel. It was your refusal to allow us to buy it that
+made all the difficulty.”
+
+“The wheel was too good,” said Desmond,—“too good entirely for the
+price. It was perfectly new and obviously stolen. It was worth fifty
+dollars at least, and was offered at five. Chubby is no fool to mistake
+a price. The trader doubled the price when he saw me. But the rise was
+not enough.”
+
+“Oh, how fortunate that you were with us! I know nothing of the value of
+these things. No, Chubby, you must never buy from a doubtful source an
+article far below its value; it implies that you profit by a fraud that
+you understand.” Then looking over her shoulder, “How distant they are
+down the river. Mr. Desmond, _look_ how fast the current is running. Do
+you suppose they were afraid that we would report the suspicious bargain
+bicycle?”
+
+There was something evidently more than this. No mere effort to avoid
+the imputation of receiving stolen goods would justify such violence,
+Desmond was reflecting. The Great Oaks party were to be drowned, as if
+by accident, before the eyes of their friends; or they were to be
+carried off by a similar unlucky chance apparently, and among some
+trackless network of sloughs and bayous and lakes of the swamp country,
+of which such craft is the only voyager, the rickety flatboat would be
+sunk, with all on board save only the murderous crew, surviving not to
+tell the tale, and disappearing without a trace,—or was the whole
+demonstration the expression only of the wild, ungovernable rage of the
+miscreant, that such a clue to some terrible and heinous crime had been
+thus fortuitously discovered?
+
+Desmond could not judge, and he looked with a sense of baffled mystery
+at the craft as it swung along in midstream, smoke issuing not only from
+the stove-pipe, evidently once more in place, but from the windows and
+door as well. There was in this obviously no menace, for the proprietor
+was seated upon the deck at large leisure, manipulating an old violin in
+a style of very jaunty bravado. The strains floated far on the
+transmitting medium of the water, and the tune was easily
+distinguishable as again and again the catgut reiterated “A hot time,—a
+hot time in the old town to-night.” Desmond was of the opinion that the
+incident should be forthwith reported to the authorities. But Mr.
+Stanlett, hearing the details with some concern, demurred to the
+proposition.
+
+“You cannot be certain that the bicycle was stolen,—at any rate, by that
+particular flatboat-man. He may have bought it among a lot of stolen
+stuff, to be sure, but offered it for sale again, not knowing its value
+or suspecting its history,—a _bona-fide_ purchaser himself.”
+
+Desmond listened in surprise, for Mr. Stanlett had not impressed him as
+of a particularly charitable nature nor lenient in his judgments.
+
+They were sitting around the hearth in the front parlor after dinner;
+the fire was blazing in cheery wise, more in accord with the chill of
+the night and the record of the calendar than the springlike atmosphere
+of the day just closing in. The Kentopps were staying overnight, and the
+topic had been for some time up for discussion, after the manner of
+those whose lives are leisurely affairs and of little distraction. It
+had come in with the cigars, for the gentlemen had been sociably
+permitted to bring them into this sanctum after the service of the
+coffee.
+
+“We want to hear you talk,” said Mrs. Kentopp, with a pretty _moue_.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” cried Mrs. Faurie; “a man never has an idea in his head
+unless he has a cigar in his mouth. There is some obscure psychological
+connection between facility of cerebration and blowing rings, and some
+day when I am not too busy, I’ll think it out.”
+
+“As to the boatman’s casting off in that hasty way,” said Mr. Stanlett,
+pursuing the subject, “that is not an infrequent trick with better
+craft. Why, in my time I have been inadvertently left at a wayside
+landing ten miles from a habitation,—no joke in this country way back in
+the fifties,—and I have been carried off halfway to Vicksburg before I
+knew that the boiler had steam up. It is a pity that you floored the
+men. You overrated the provocation. Rough river rats can’t be expected
+to show drawing-room manners. That is one disadvantage of college
+athletics,—it makes a gentleman as handy with his fists as a
+professional bruiser.”
+
+When Mrs. Faurie interposed to protest her fright and danger, the temper
+of the party who did not participate in the turmoil within the cabin
+made it seem as if she were ambitious of the pose of heroine.
+
+“Why, my dear,” Mr. Stanlett reasoned with her, “you said yourself that
+the man who danced about and sought, as you supposed, to detain your
+party was a poor simpleton, a weak-minded creature; he doubtless meant
+no offense, though perhaps they were all nettled at Mr. Desmond’s
+refusal to buy the bicycle when he had heard it priced.”
+
+“I should have asked no questions about the bicycle, and therefore
+should have been told no lies,” said Mrs. Kentopp, with airy
+recklessness. “I should have taken the bicycle at the very cheap asking
+price, and in my innocent ignorance suffered no qualms of conscience. A
+little learning of the law is a dangerous thing.”
+
+“Quite right, quite right, madam,” commented Mr. Stanlett. “Really, I
+feel that we have no obligations in the premises, and our riparian
+situation here, so isolated, renders it peculiarly necessary for us to
+be on our guard against collision with the rougher river element.”
+
+Colonel Kentopp waved away the smoke that had thickened about his
+massive head. “Very true, very true!” he said, with a definiteness of
+assent welcome indeed to the old gentleman, who had spoken with some
+hesitation, for no man likes to express a fear that others may decline
+to entertain. Relieved of the imputation of timorousness, Mr. Stanlett
+went on with decision:—
+
+“These water-rats, many of them really river pirates, enjoy such
+immunity that I wonder that they are not more daring and enterprising
+than they are. I should not like to provoke personal animosity and
+possible reprisal for injuries, real or fancied, among them.”
+
+“That is just how our house at Dryad-Dene is so much more safely
+situated than you are here at Great Oaks. Why,”—Colonel Kentopp leaned
+forward with dilated eyes and lowered voice,—“a handful of marauders
+could loot Great Oaks mansion any foggy night; and once an oar’s length
+or two off the landing, they would be as completely lost in the mist and
+their pursuit as impracticable as if they were in the desert of Sahara.”
+
+Mr. Stanlett looked uncomfortable.
+
+“Yes, indeed,” declared Mrs. Kentopp, dimpling, “a bit inland,—as Great
+Oaks mansion used to be in the old time, before the bank caved in and
+the river carried off the whole point,—and this place would be Paradise!
+I sometimes wish that the river would make another grab at it and take
+it off—off—away down to the Gulf of Mexico!”
+
+“Thank you for your very queer wishes,” began Mrs. Faurie.
+
+“Only that you might move inland and rebuild near us,—we are _so_ far
+apart as it is,” said Mrs. Kentopp, with her head askew and her sweetest
+smile.
+
+“Never because of river pirates. What are our peace officers for, if we
+are not to take our ease under our own vine and fig tree?” retorted Mrs.
+Faurie.
+
+“Ah, but evil is inherently stronger than good. Hence the difficulty in
+the administration of the law and the conservation of the peace,” said
+Colonel Kentopp, magisterially. “Otherwise, of course, the cause of
+right and justice would have a clear walk-over. It is unfortunately far
+easier to conceal a crime than to detect it,—though skill and practice
+and persistence in ferreting out misdeeds go a long way and ultimately
+triumph in most instances, no doubt. But then, think of that affair last
+fall at Whippoorwill Landing,—nefarious business,—the malefactors still
+at large! Two men killed inside a good trig house,—big, healthy, hearty
+fellows. I knew Patton well,—used to keep a store in Arkansas;—and not a
+sign nor a clue yet as to how or why,—both wiped off the face of the
+earth,—touched off as lightly as the ash of this cigar,” suiting the
+action to the word, then shaking his head solemnly.
+
+“Oh, oh! raw head and bloody bones! Not another word! You will give the
+whole house awful dreams,” cried Mrs. Kentopp. “Come, Mr. Stanlett, let
+us show this worshipful company what bridge whist really is.”
+
+She rose with a great rustle of silk skirts and whisked away to the
+centre table, where she opened a drawer with an affectation of busy and
+sly peering, and thence produced a pack of cards. Desmond could not
+understand why Colonel Kentopp should look so disconcerted and annoyed.
+He had an air of positive concern as he said with pointed emphasis,
+“Choose some other game, Annetta, that perhaps we play better,”—with a
+heavy attempt at mirth. “We are too many for bridge. _I_ would sit out
+willingly, but I know that Mrs. Faurie will not permit me in my quality
+as guest,—distinguished stranger!—and Mr. Desmond being ‘home-folks’
+here.”
+
+“Bridge mote it be,” Desmond responded lightly, perceiving that Mrs.
+Kentopp, usurping the initiative of her hostess, had arranged the party
+expressly for his exclusion as if he were of no consideration, and
+caring little or naught what the tutor might think or feel; and to his
+surprise, Desmond cared naught for her demonstration. “I have letters to
+write,—I hear the packet passes near daylight to-morrow. I was just
+about to ask to be excused.”
+
+The straight, level brows above Mrs. Faurie’s fine eyes were drawn into
+something like a frown. It was inconsistent with her high-bred sense of
+courtesy that this exclusion should have been suggested. She would not
+willingly have ignored the gentleman, poor and proud, whose dignity
+should have been the more jealously regarded because of its jeopardy in
+his subsidiary position. As Desmond, on his way to the library, passed
+on the veranda without, he glanced through the window at the group, now
+settled at the table, a cheery scene, with the glow of the old-fashioned
+crimson curtains and velvet carpet, the sheen of gilt-framed mirrors,
+the elusive flicker of the fire, the rich dresses of the two women. He
+could but note that the frown was not altogether effaced from those
+level brows, somewhat formidable of expression in their _rapprochement_,
+and he discerned that Mrs. Kentopp had found it necessary to be even
+more resolutely alluring in her sparkle and flushing laughter and
+insistent gayety than her wont.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Desmond’s conviction that the matter of the bicycle was eminently fit
+for report to the authorities was shared by the party who was most
+intimately concerned, the flatboat-man himself. The jovial pose which
+Jedidiah Knoxton conserved that afternoon while he sat on a coil of rope
+on the deck and sawed on the fiddle, as the friendly current carried him
+farther and farther toward the centre of the stream, had no relation to
+the attitude of his mind. It was dismayed, intimidated, as he now
+reflected upon the episode and its possible consequences. He did not
+welcome the realization that his thought was shared by his wife, as he
+noted that she was standing with the child in her arms, staring with a
+sort of dull, apprehensive, quelled contemplation at the receding scene,
+for it seemed to move instead of the craft,—the bight of the great river
+bend, where the roiled water gave token of the path of the boat; the
+strip of level territory outside the levee; the immense, green,
+serpentine embankment where the group of “quality folks” stood dwindling
+till they seemed but a bunch of bright-hued fabric; the heavy, tangled
+growths of a stretch of swamp country to the north, and to the south,
+with no apparent limits to their extent, the seigneurial groves of Great
+Oaks.
+
+And here could be seen the mansion itself, with its score of red
+chimneys, its long, low white façade, each remove showing its many
+appanages,—now a wing and then, swinging into view, an ell, and
+straggling away the kitchen and offices, and dove-cote, and dairy and
+bell-tower, and stables, and orchards and vineyards; farther still was
+the village-like cluster of buildings for hired hands and tenants,
+formerly the “quarter” for slaves; and yet beyond appeared the
+steam-gin, the saw-and-grist mill, the potato-houses, the sheds for
+cows, and the work animals, mules, and horses; then thousands of acres
+of cotton-fields, orderly and neat as a flower border, already ploughed
+and bedded up, ready for the planting of the great staple,—a
+principality indeed, the realm of the rich and powerful and learned;—and
+was it wise to excite the just wrath, and the dangerous suspicion, or
+even to court the notice of those whose stake in the country was so
+large, whose hand was so heavy, whose ascendency was so complete!
+
+“Mighty fine folks, Jedidiah,” she said at length, still staring at the
+moving landscape. Her voice reached him even amidst the discordant
+sawings and scrapings of the horsehair and catgut. His hat was thrust
+back; his red forelock tossed to and fro as his head wagged in unison
+with his raucous performance. He did not speak, and presently, still
+eyeing the receding scene, she said, “Mighty rich folks, Jedidiah!” Her
+voice was pitched high, and its penetrating quality made itself
+insistent throughout the hubbub of the “hot time in the old town.” The
+discordant strain ceased suddenly. The bow, still held after the
+fiddler’s fashion, was shaken at her in emphasis as he drawled
+malignantly:—
+
+“Ye-es,—an’ if this fallin’ weather in the upper country holds a week
+longer, I can take a cool thirty thousand dollars outer that sucker’s
+pocket with three strokes of a spade; an’ by gum, I’ll do it, too!—if I
+gits a chanst.”
+
+He lifted his hand to the abrasions of his bruised and swollen face,
+which he had hitherto disregarded with an assumption of hardihood as
+naught. The last building of the “quarter” was disappearing in the
+distance, glistening with whitewash,—it was said on the river that the
+manager at Great Oaks whitewashed all creation when he was informed that
+Mrs. Faurie was returning from abroad, _even the under side of the
+horse-block_!—but the flatboat-man’s wife still stood staring, some
+vague premonition of trouble in her mind. Jedidiah, the frog-like
+suggestions of his face emphasized as he crouched his body forward, his
+legs doubled up among the coils of rope, stared, too, blinkingly. The
+light in the sky was a keen saffron gleam now; it dazzled his eyes; he
+was thinking hard, eagerly, fearfully, maliciously.
+
+The next moment the whole world seemed resonant and rocking with a wild,
+pervasive turbulence,—a steamer was rounding the point, and the little
+helpless, drifting leaf of a boat lay directly in her course. How he
+should not have heard the respiration of her engines, like that of an
+immense breathing creature which she resembled, he never knew, or how he
+had not felt the vibrations of the water pouring like a cataract over
+the great wheel at her stern,—for formidable as she moved upon the
+currents, loftily as she towered in her white, glistening presence, her
+chimneys seeming to vie with the forest heights of Great Oaks, she was
+not one of the fine packets plying between the cities. She was destined
+for one of the smaller tributaries, and the Mississippi made only a part
+of her course. But she looked to the flatboat-man like the scourge of
+God. She was materialized Fate! She was Terror, Doom, and Death in one
+to the wretched man whom momently she threatened to run down. He could
+never have described what he felt as now and again she lifted anew her
+frightful voice and spoke to him,—he could only feel,—spoke of warning,
+of smug and exact compliance with the law, of due notification of the
+death that she must presently mete out to him. He seemed all apart from
+the straining wretches that toiled, one at the pole and two at the
+rowlocks, as the two men and the woman strove against the current to
+bring the raft aside from the path of the domineering monster that bore
+straight down upon them,—for as far as consciousness was concerned, he
+could not have moved a muscle. It was a matter of instinct which
+controlled his labor, a mechanical effort, with which heart and brain
+had no part. He began to tremble when he perceived that the steamboat
+was slightly sheering to the left. Then for the first time he was
+sufficiently in command of his faculties to realize that the pilot’s
+bell was continually jangling, that the throbs of the engines were
+disjointed, feebler, that there was a desperate effort making to back,
+to sheer, to change the course.
+
+It was all useless,—too late! He saw as his frenzied muscles still
+strove against the impossible that the guards were filled with people,
+passengers, calling out undistinguished words of commiseration, of
+encouragement; the roustabouts stood on the lower deck, scarcely higher
+out of the river than himself in his humble craft level with the
+surface, and roared out advice.
+
+Suddenly with a wild scream the woman despaired. She rose, dropping her
+oar, and held up the child at arm’s length, with a gesture of appeal,
+toward the captain, who was standing on the hurricane deck. He waved his
+hand in encouraging response, and then the sheer was sufficient for
+Jedidiah to see that the yawl was unslung and sliding from the davits,
+and that the Flora F. Mayberry proposed to have the credit of humanely
+picking up their carcasses, after she had sent to the bottom their
+floating home and all their pitiful store of goods and chattels.
+
+For this was the aspect the episode took to his mind when, almost within
+the suction of the steamer, the flatboat struck a swift swirl of
+current, made, heaven only knows how. Some obstruction on the bottom may
+have caused it,—the smokestack of an old sunken boat, long since
+forgotten; a tree of former swamp growths, too deeply whelmed to be
+known to snag-boats or river charts, barely sufficient to turn a ripple.
+With the vast strength of the Mississippi River currents the deflecting
+ripple swung the flatboat around like a leaf in an eddy, and, as safe as
+if he had miles of sea-room, Jedidiah Knoxton stood on his raft, with
+his face corrugated and lined with rage, and his mouth stretched wide
+and distorted, and shook his fist at the towering steamer, and called
+out frenzied curses upon the craft and her captain, and passengers, and
+crew, and consigned them all to hell, a deep and fiery hole in his
+version. Meantime the passengers, their sympathy reacting, laughed and
+sneered; the deck-hands yelled out gibes of derision and responsive
+defiance; the captain shrugged his shoulders in silent contempt and
+ordered the yawl once more to its place.
+
+The woman, her arms akimbo, the baby, wailing unheeded now on the
+dancing, teetering floor, looked bitterly after the greater craft as she
+passed, the water playing in cascades of white foam over the wheel at
+her stern, her moving chimneys seeming to describe scrolls of mystic
+import among the clouds, punctuated here and there by the faint spark of
+a star.
+
+“It is allus the way, Jedidiah,” she said. She could scarcely get her
+breath as yet, and her voice had a catch like a sob. “It is allus the
+way! The big folks is safe, an’ high, an’ dry, while us pore folks take
+water, an’ skim the edge of hell.”
+
+His pride, if he might have claimed such an endowment, his
+self-sufficiency, had been grievously cut down by the incident; but
+since it had not culminated in death or disaster, it had seemed to
+resolve itself into a flout, an injury, a wanton insult. This view was
+confirmed in an illogical sort by the evident revulsion of the sentiment
+of the passengers and crew, their sympathy naturally enough checked,
+however, by his rage and futile venom as he volleyed his curses at them.
+
+“Not _allus_ so safe an’ sound,” he protested, “the rich folks ain’t.
+Them galoots up there at Whippoorwill Landing didn’t skim the edge of
+hell,—that’s true; they went teetotally in,—kerplunk!”
+
+The woman had been wringing out her hair and shaking out her skirts, all
+damp with the spray of the stern wheel of the steamer and the churning
+wake of her passage in which the raft yet rocked. An awed stillness
+though fearful delight came over her face at his words, and she softly
+drew near, and sat down on a coil of the ropes with the baby in her
+arms. The child had ceased to cry aloud bewailing his desertion, but as
+if silence were too great a boon to accord, he kept up a sort of
+absent-minded whimpering or crooning, reciting in some sort a theme of
+woe, learned by rote, the significance of which had been forgotten or
+was uncomprehended.
+
+“Yes, sir!” Jed Knoxton exclaimed with hearty satisfaction, “_they_ got
+the butt end of the club, sure! Providence was right after them at a
+two-forty clip!” He sneered as he laughed. “I tell you the way it was
+meted out to _them_, you might have thought they was pore folks, fur
+sure.”
+
+“I never could make out how ’t was they never suspicioned nothing,—how
+it was so easy done,” she speculated.
+
+There was not a soul within a mile of the boat, yet he glanced fearfully
+over his shoulder before he answered. His brother, the idiot, had gone
+back into the cabin, and now and again a long-drawn snore and at times a
+sputtering gasp told that he had sought his bunk for the night. The
+broad Mississippi stretched silent and deep, vacant on either hand, so
+broad that they could only see the line of the hither shore a mile away
+as they drifted along on the swift current. There was no other craft in
+view; no motion save the long, elastic undulations of the waves, here
+and there crisping into ripples when a flaw of the chill night breeze
+struck the water. Sometimes they were tipped with a shifting
+scintillation, the reflection of a star, and again only a sense of a
+dark, transparent lustre betokened the depths. A world, it was, and all
+to themselves; yet he looked over his shoulder, fearfully.
+
+“They got into the store by purtendin’ to be customers,—that’s how.”
+
+“But stores don’t keep open past midnight,” she remonstrated.
+
+He ducked his red head and chuckled into the bosom of his checked
+hickory shirt. It seemed so funny,—so very funny! “Of course ’twas outer
+business hours; but they was ailin’—oh, my, how ailin’ they was! Becburn
+give out that he had ptomaine pizenin’;—when they landed in the skiff,
+an’ came up the bank, Danvelt told me that they hallooed the store bold
+as brass, same as if they was in earnest. An’ them two, the proprietor
+of the store and his clerk, they took it all in, for gospel sure.
+Becburn _had_ swallowed something mighty nigh as bad,—a power o’
+ipecac,—and he was jus’ a-vomitin’ an’ retchin’ as he come,—an’ sure
+enough them suckers opened the door, to give him something to ease him
+off!” He paused again to laugh silently, holding his head down. “That
+light-haired, slim fellow, Oscar Patton, the clerk, he said that common
+kitchen sody was the antidote; an’ all bar’foot as he was, he run into
+the back room to git a box,—they dealt with him there.”
+
+The child still crooned its plaint, though forgetting its sorrow; the
+woman’s face was illumined by the light of the moon, only a mere segment
+of pearl, but all else was so dark,—the silent river running like the
+stream of Time, the glooms of the forest crowning the nearer banks
+towering dimly into the night, the opposite shore lost in distance,—that
+its lineaments were easily discerned by one familiar with them. Even one
+not accustomed might have noted the peculiar slant of the eyes, the
+snake-like contour of the countenance, the long, serpentine curve of the
+throat,—she seemed not out of place clinging to the slimy timbers of a
+raft in the midst of the murky Mississippi. She listened in cold-blooded
+interest to this tale of a deed of dread, but now and again she
+shuddered.
+
+“The t’other fellow, Ackworth, was harder to kill, they say. He got his
+chanst and fit. He got on to the game, whenst he heard Patton yell out
+‘Oh, my God!’ an’ drap to the floor. Ackworth made a break for the
+drawer of the counter then,—he had just been pourin’ out a glass of
+whiskey for the sufferer from ptomaine; Becburn declares now he ain’t
+responsible for nothin’ ’bout it all, for he done nothin’ but turn
+himself wrong side out with that ipecac!—an’ when Ackworth laid holt of
+the knob of the drawer, they knowed there was a pistol in it, an’ they
+jumped on him. Ben Danvelt jes’ held him by the nape o’ the neck, an’
+though he got the drawer open, they pushed him down an’ shut his head up
+in it. He couldn’t git a purchase on himself to pull his head outer it.
+Tom Turfin stabbed him twicet, while the t’others held him thar with his
+head in the drawer,—stabbed him twicet in the back just under the
+shoulder-blade. He wasn’t dead, though, when they let the drawer loost
+an’ he drapped,—he died hard. Tom say that he wriggled an’ writhed on
+the floor like a wum. He only spoke once; he lifted up his voice an’ he
+says, says he, ‘My blood shall be a testimony against you.’ An’ his
+mouth was full of it, then. But Ben Danvelt he spoke up,’ Incompetent
+testimony in this court.’ He’s a funny feller, full of his jokes! Then
+he let Ackworth have the knife agin,—right in the throat, this time. An’
+they got no more o’ his jaw then. A slick job, it was,— done right.”
+
+The progress was swift down the great, pulsing river; they could see the
+dark forests upon the bank all a-journeying northward as so elastically,
+so noiselessly, they swung along toward the south. Now and again the
+braided currents carried the craft close in shore, and they could smell
+the dank, rich vernal odor of the earth, the pungent tang of herb and
+tree; once in a deep, oozy tangle where a bayou went sluggishly forth
+into the woods, an outlet from the Mississippi, they heard a sudden
+resounding splash in the water. The woman started nervously, and with a
+sharp exclamation let her snuff-brush drop from her mouth into her lap.
+
+“Shucks, Jocelinda,” the man sneered, “don’t you know a ’gator takin’ to
+water yit?”
+
+The ripples of the great saurian’s stir as he swam along the marge were
+perceptible now in the moonlight as the boat shot past, down and down
+the stream, and they seemed far away and faint the sound when they heard
+the alligator’s resonant call to his mate in the lagoon, and presently
+another roar hardly more than some dull blast of a distant horn, so fast
+the river swept them on.
+
+“It ain’t seemin’ no slick job to me,” Jocelinda commented at length,
+“else it would never have been found out.”
+
+“Oh, _you_’d have done it mighty different, wouldn’t you, now?” he
+sneered. “_You_ are up to all sorts o’ tricks.”
+
+“I can kindle a fire that won’t go out,” Jocelinda declared.
+
+“But the fire didn’t go out; ’twas _put out_,—that’s whut! The light gin
+the alarm so denied quick. That old hussy, the Swamp Lily, came scootin’
+down the river a full day behind time; an’ headin’ for the landin’, the
+pilot seen the store afire. He sounded the whistle fit to wake the
+dead,—waked all the swamp country for miles around. The old boat jes’
+sot there on the water a-pipin’ an’ a-blowin’ as if she’d bust. Then all
+the galoots round about got inter their breeches an’ boots an’ run to
+the landing to help put it out. The Swamp Lily sent out all the
+deck-hands, an’ the Mississippi River had a leetle water to spare,—no
+reason why they couldn’t throw the water on the fire an’ put it out.
+_You_ couldn’t kindle a fire that the Mississippi River can’t squench,
+hey, ‘smart Aleck’?”
+
+“But then the folks found the bodies right there,” she objected.
+
+“Ye-es,” he drawled. “They had their own reasons for not having walked
+off.”
+
+“An’ so the folks found the bodies fresh killed, an’ seen that the store
+had been stripped of mighty nigh all the goods an’ all the money in the
+cash drawer.”
+
+“Ye-es, the boys loaded up all they could kerry on the steam-launch an’
+set the shebang afire. But for the accident of the Swamp Lily comin’
+along out of turn, the whole caboodle would have been ashes and cinders
+before the sun had riz. They would have thought the proprietor an’ his
+clerk was burned by accident, or in tryin’ to save something, or was
+drunk an’ didn’t wake. I ‘member Danvelt said he thought that Ackworth
+had the name of takin’ a glass too much once in a while.”
+
+“’Twas a big fire,” she remarked, as if making a concession. “It lighted
+up the whole country. The river shone like a stream of flames in the
+fog,—just seemed to split the world in two.”
+
+“_’Twas_ a big fire—an’ a slick job, too,” he protested. “They got away
+with the goods an’ some cash,—consid’ble spondulix,—an’ nobody ain’t
+’spicioned ’em yit. ’Twas way last fall, too.”
+
+“Them bodies ought not to have been found,” she argued dolorously. She
+felt that it was the one disparagement to the artistic achievement.
+
+He did not reply. They were now passing between a small island and the
+shore. The water, thus compressed in volume, ran with still more
+turbulent rapidity. He was not sure how their voices might carry on the
+still air and the transmitting medium of the silent river. They were too
+near the land on either hand to risk such words as might phrase the
+thoughts of their dark hearts. The island was in progress of swift
+building. At no distant day it would be the shore. The great, restless
+river—now sweeping away hundreds of acres, that melted into nothingness
+in the floods; now cutting channels through points of land in an
+inconceivably short time, transmogrifying them into islands far from
+their ancient affiliations—was here filling up with silt the shallows
+and rifts and chasms into solid continuity with the bank. This island
+was what is locally called “a towhead,” a spit of white sand, sparsely
+covered with brush; and one might imagine so desolate a loneliness could
+shield no human being who could lend the ear of comprehension to a
+chance word floating over the water. But Jedidiah Knoxton and his wife
+Jocelinda kept their dubious counsels, till once more they swung along
+between distant banks of the deep and lonely river below and the
+unpeopled skies above.
+
+“Jed, warn’t that bicycle one of the Ackworth stock?” she queried, in a
+mere whisper.
+
+“Ax me no questions an’ I’ll tell you no lies,” he retorted gruffly.
+
+“I allus believed them was ’spensive things,—heap mo’ ’spensive than you
+knowed. I b’lieve Danvelt let you have ’em jus’ to let you git tracked
+by ’em,” she suggested, “ter keep s’picion off ’n him.”
+
+“Shet yer mouth, Jocelinda,” he vociferated furiously, “else I’ll break
+it in.”
+
+“Why, _you_ had nothin’ to do with thar trick,” she expostulated. “I
+ain’t taxin’ _you_ with nothink.”
+
+She was quiescent for a time, as if knowing that her silence would
+stimulate him to speech. The surest way to reopen the discussion was
+paradoxically to close it. The child was sleeping now, and once and
+again she patted its back, as it lay on her breast, with a fragmentary
+“Bye-oh, Bye-oh.”
+
+“Them things ain’t labeled,” Knoxton recommenced, as if there had been
+no cessation of the discussion. “They are as common as crayfish. Folks
+are wheelin’ all over the country.”
+
+“Not at no five dollars, Jed,—nor yit ten. I tole you that I priced them
+jiggermarees whenst I was in Vicksburg, an’ some was as high as fifty
+dollars.”
+
+“An’ I tole you that the store folks was stuffin’ you,” he cried, with a
+sort of turbulence that was akin both to rage and woe. “A tacky body
+like you to go pricin’ wheels an’ such fixin’s!—they was makin’ game of
+you.”
+
+“Mebbe so, mebbe so,”—she yielded a facile acquiescence, apparently
+without sensitive vanity; “but I _did_ see this evening that ten dollars
+was a power too low. That man wouldn’t let Mrs. Faurie risk herself with
+it,—rich as she is! He knowed it war new and stole.”
+
+“Well, damn Mr. Faurie,—that is all I have got to say,” the flatboat-man
+cried, his hand going up to his bruised face tingling with pain as his
+rancor roused at the recollection of the incident. Then tremulous with a
+nervous rage, that yet contended with a cold chill of fear, “But if this
+wheel was to be tracked to me, what would ail me not to split on Danvelt
+and Turfin and the others?”
+
+“I reckon they are too far by this time to be caught; it all happened
+last October, and here it is nigh the spring o’ the year agin. I reckon
+they think that nobody would believe you. The law would have you safe by
+the laig, an’ the goods found on your boat. ’Twas only a blind if
+anybody took after them.”
+
+There was a long silence. The boat was again approaching the shore of
+its own accord, it seemed, yielded as it was to the whim of the current.
+The dark forests were coming down to the verge of the stream with
+beckoning, sheltering suggestions in their wild, tangled glooms. Her
+breath was short, so ardently she hoped what she dared not say. He
+divined her hope, but with that perverse sense of domination, so
+characteristic of the domestic tyrant, he would say naught to encourage
+it. He pursued the subject. “If I believed that, I’d sink the wheels in
+the river without more ado,” he declared.
+
+“They are too light,” she protested. “I dunno how them cur’ous
+injer-rubber rims might make ’em float.”
+
+Again there were no words between them for a time, while the river clove
+through the night as silent as the stars vibrating above in the sky. The
+moon was sinking toward the western bank. A vague sense of yearning, of
+wistful sadness, pervaded the lunar light that began to suffuse the
+summits of the great, gloomy, primeval forests. This glister seemed to
+respond to the slow down-dropping of the weary one who had finished her
+course through the skies,—no joyous welcome this, but replete with
+solemnity, with weird silence, with aloof suggestions such as might
+typify the down-dropping into a grave. The wind had grown more chill.
+Jocelinda wrapped closer a ragged petticoat of red flannel, which the
+baby wore about its shoulders like a mantle. The touch of the fabric
+reminded her of the infant’s wardrobe which Mrs. Faurie had promised
+her,—not that she cared for such comforts and means of tidy array; it
+would have been far too much trouble to keep the child clothed and
+tended in many whole and clean garments. The recollection merely brought
+to her mind a collocation of ideas that had earlier occurred to her. “I
+don’t believe that man was Mr. Faurie!” she said suddenly.
+
+It was an unlucky topic. The very name roused Knoxton’s rancor. “What
+for no?” he exclaimed, in a sudden gust of anger. His knowledge that the
+bicycle had been instantly recognized as stolen goods; the possibility
+that his possession of the machine might connect his identity with the
+miscreants who had plundered the store at Whippoorwill Landing, and
+murdered the proprietor and clerk; the fear that this was their
+nefarious intention in shunting off on him these costly wares so easily
+detected, so rare among the humbler population among whom his trade lay,
+so incongruous with his stock of goods and character of custom, filled
+him with a bewildered dismay. His was not a trained mind to think
+consecutively, to deduce correct conclusions; he blundered upon his
+convictions; his plans were founded on impulse, inclination. Ignorance
+is not compatible with a just and accurate foresight. His resolves,
+taken in a tumult of angry volition, he would seek to execute without
+due regard to feasibility or perception of sequences, and he had no
+sense of justice and could maintain no poise of temper. “What for no?”
+he reiterated, striking at his wife with the rope’s end.
+
+Thong-like it curled around her body, the end lashing her arm, bare to
+the elbow, with force enough to raise a welt. Experience had ripened
+such wisdom as she possessed, and in self-defense she forbore to
+exasperate further her brutal husband. She said naught of the smart of
+the lash, but recanted hastily. “I just took up the idee that he was
+somebody else. I thought that old man Faurie was dead. Ain’t this his
+widder?”
+
+“Widder?—rats! old Faurie’s widder? That slim, handsome, high-steppin’
+gal! She is his son’s wife,—she ’lowed to you that her name was Mrs.
+Faurie.”
+
+“Mebbe so; they hev been gone to Europe so long I lost the run of ’em,”
+the woman meekly admitted.
+
+“Naw, that ain’t it,” Jedidiah sneered. “Ye are grudgin’ her them good
+looks an’ brash, high-handed ways; draggle-tailed vixens like you can’t
+stand for other women to be young an’ sniptious.” He spat moodily into
+the Mississippi. “That was young Faurie an’ his brand-new wife—the old
+man is dead long ago. I’m thinkin’ the brat mus’ be his leetle brother.
+I remember that there was a new baby at Great Oaks mansion about ten
+year ago; I noticed it ’cause the old plantation bell was rung like mad
+for rejoicing, like it had an ager fit, an’ the Swamp Lily an’ other
+boats whistled a salute when they passed, though such is agin the
+regulations.”
+
+“I hedn’t never been hereabouts in them days,” she stipulated, by way of
+excuse for her lack of readiness to confirm these vagrant and erratic
+recollections of his wandering experiences as he floated down the river
+with his store of goods, or poled his craft laboriously in and out of
+the bogues and bayous. “I lived then over in the Arkansas.” She held her
+head down for a moment. A scene had arisen before her mind best
+discerned with eyes closed: a little cabin in a bit of clearing in the
+dense, dark woods; a filthy, miry dooryard; the fowls and hogs and lean
+old mule, all clustered about the rickety porch; a stationary home on
+dry land,—all seemed paradise at this instant to the amphibious nomad,
+for the rope’s end stung, and her indurated sensibilities had yet some
+nerve a-tingle to the coarse taunt and the bitter fling.
+
+“Why, any fool but _you_ would know. Didn’t _she_ say that she was Mrs.
+Faurie? And didn’t he tell the brat he shouldn’t have the wheel at no
+price? And didn’t he tell her she must take his word for it? And didn’t
+he grab the woman by the elbow and the cub by the collar, like they
+belonged to him, an’ start them off the boat, him looking as fierce as
+Judgment Day? An’ ain’t that the Faurie plantation, Great Oaks, where we
+was tied up? Answer me that,—answer me,—answer me,—ye tongue-tied
+slut,—or I’ll cut yer tongue out.”
+
+“Oh, laws, Jed,” said Jocelinda, her nerve shaken and very near to
+tears. “I ’lowed that she was a widder lady. She spoke of her kids. I
+’lowed that boy was one of ’em. I hearn her say that—”
+
+“Ye _’lowed_ an’ ye _hearn_ like a dod-rotted fool. That man is Faurie
+and owns Great Oaks! An’ ye can bet yer immortal soul I’ll give _him_
+somethink to think about soon that’ll make him forgit he ever seen a
+bike or a tradin’-boat, air one.”
+
+He had risen from the coil of rope and was stepping about elastically on
+the deck as if he intended to pole the craft in to the shore. She
+silently followed his example, first placing the child in the centre of
+the coil of rope, and taking her turn at the work with strength and
+activity as muscular as if she were a man. Perhaps an infusion of
+cheerfulness aided her exertions, for they were making for a bayou that
+the river sent sluggishly wandering down with scant impetus from its
+currents through the swamps and the heavy glooms of a cypress slough,
+and she welcomed the sense of added safety in the deep seclusions of the
+wilderness. Before the Faurie party, with the utmost expedition which
+the isolated situation of Great Oaks Plantation permitted them, could
+contrive to notify the authorities of any suspicion they might have
+entertained, the shanty-boat would have quitted the thoroughfares of the
+river, leaving not a trace. The story of the imminent danger of being
+run down by the Flora P. Mayberry would suggest some similar disaster as
+a reason for the disappearance of the flatboat-man and his craft. The
+bicycles—there were only three—could be hidden, destroyed, buried in the
+deep, murky, marshy tangles of the lagoons. Here it would be scarcely
+possible that the fugitives should be seen or followed,—a succession of
+cypress brakes, of swampy pools, a network of bayous and sloughs with
+scarcely a dry acre for miles, the land of no value and impracticable,
+the locality the deepest solitude, the aquatic growths of an
+impenetrable density. She had not expected to sleep that night with so
+grateful a sense of security, for it was not long before the boat was
+tied up in a jungle of young cottonwood trees, awaiting the passing of
+the hours till dawn should bring the light necessary for the navigation
+of such tortuous ways. But she was up and ready at the first glimmer,
+her energies recruited as much by the surcease of suspense as by the
+physical rest.
+
+As the gray day began to break, dim and clouded, it might seem to a
+sophisticated sense a desolate scene, for even such symmetry as the
+sluggish bayou possessed was obliterated; and now the boat was poled
+along a stream-like channel, and now it threaded a series of lakelets
+connected by narrow straits, full of half submerged growths, and again
+it seemed almost aground in a slough where the medium was mud rather
+than water. These lakelets were of an inky blackness, and in their midst
+stood forlorn forests of gigantic cypress; upon the dark, mirror-like
+surface of the water the white boles of the trees, long ago deadened by
+a permanent inundation from some freak of the changeful river, were
+reflected with weird distinctness and a spectral effect. The boat was as
+if afloat in a world of dead vegetation, the duplication of the lifeless
+trees below, the ghostly white forest towering above. Now and again a
+sharp bit of steering became necessary to keep the craft clear of the
+cypress-knees, as the conical, protruding excrescences of the roots are
+called, rising considerably above the surface of the water. Hanging moss
+depended in vast masses and heavy festoons from the bare white boughs
+far, far above, and served to deepen the gloom of the eerie effect of
+the scene. More than once the voyagers saw an alligator lying half
+embedded in ooze and mud, looking as lifeless as the log it resembled;
+but one had awakened apparently from the period of hibernation, and was
+swimming down the centre of the black lake. Jedidiah Knoxton, watching
+his approach, was dubious which course he might take, in meeting the
+boat, in the narrow passage.
+
+“He don’t understand the code of signals nohow,” he demurred.
+“’Twouldn’t be no good to whistle if I could.”
+
+The alligator solved the problem as far as he was concerned by diving
+suddenly, and doubtless embedded himself in the refuge of the mud. The
+question as to where he might come up again presented another doubt to
+the mind of Jed Knoxton, but he prodded boldly with his pole, and
+presently they had passed, the huge saurian still invisible.
+
+There were other tokens of the spring besides the awakening of the
+alligators from their wintry torpors. Birds were flitting through the
+air; frogs were all a-croak about the logs; the slimy, nondescript
+medley of vegetation and muck was here and there pierced by tender
+spears of delicate yet intense green, the folded leaves and shoots of
+the swamp lily. Suddenly the first ray of the sun struck upon a wide
+expanse of silver sheen in the distance,—it was a lake evidently miles
+in length, of the peculiar horseshoe contour characteristic of the
+lacustrine waters of the region, surrounded by dense and gloomy forests,
+and fringed with saw-grass. This thick, prickly growth, so heavily
+notched as to suggest its name, caught Jed Knoxton’s attention. It was a
+keen glint of green at this season, almost as intense as light itself.
+Jed Knoxton stood still and held his hand above his eyes as he gazed;
+then he turned to scan some landmark which he identified toward the
+west, and again he shifted toward the east.
+
+“I done los’ my bearin’s somehow in the swamp,” he muttered. “I been
+polin’ todes the north ‘stead o’ south. An’ damn that old corkscrew of a
+river. We drifted thirty miles las’ night to make five miles o’
+distance.”
+
+He still stood absorbed and pondering when his wife issued from the
+little cabin on the deck. “What’s the matter, Jed?” she asked
+apprehensively. Smoke was curling from the stove-pipe thrust through the
+roof, and the sizzling of frying pork came with its pungent odor from
+the open door. She held in her hand a long iron spoon coated with meal
+batter while she fixed expectant and anxious eyes upon him.
+
+“Jes’ as well, jes’ as well!” he muttered.
+
+“What is it, Jed; what you studyin’ about?” she persisted.
+
+“We made no distance las’ night scarcely on that twisted sarpient of a
+river,” he said. “It is blamed like that old joke of the fool
+drummers,—travel fifty mile down the Mississippi, an’ then take your
+gripsack an’ walk half a mile back to where you started from.” He
+grinned in surly mirth. “Then I done shortened it some more by missin’
+my way in the swamp.” He looked about in dull speculation, as if he were
+wondering anew how this mischance should have betided him, and she
+dreaded lest he might fail, in considering this problem, to disclose the
+intention evidently slowly forming in his mind. But for him its interest
+was paramount. It struck her as a blow in the face might have done when
+she heard it voiced anew, for she had hoped that time and distance had
+combined to obliterate it, and it boded ill, she knew. “We ain’t more’n
+five miles from the edge of Great Oaks Plantation,—I know it by the
+earmarks o’ that old White Deer Lake. An’ it’s just as well,—_just as
+well_—p’intedly convenient, in fac’. I’m goin’ to give Mr. Faurie of
+Great Oaks Plantation something to study about that will make him forgit
+there was ever sech a thing as a bike or a tradin’-boat, air one.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The ensuing days were bland and soft, and the Faurie family life
+gravitated insensibly to the wide verandas of the Great Oaks mansion,
+where much time was spent in futile chat, and where one could take the
+air without the exertion of exercise and be out-of-doors without the
+trouble of quitting the house. It was a fine illustration of the best
+method of _dolce far niente_. The favorite rendezvous was beneath the
+canopy of live-oak boughs on the extension of the veranda just outside
+the library windows, and here Desmond often joined the group, saying to
+himself that it had an air of churlish avoidance to hold himself aloof
+when they were all so near. In these days he heard no little of Mrs.
+Faurie’s plaints of the limited capacities of Great Oaks for rational
+entertainment.
+
+“Nothing to do,—nothing to say,—nothing to see. ‘Oh, give me to drink of
+mandragora, that I may sleep away this gap of time!’” she exclaimed, as
+she reclined languidly in her garden chair.
+
+There was something to see in the Great Oaks avenues,—the sward was rich
+and fresh, and all the vague, sparse, spring foliage of the trees sent
+out a glitter now of gold and now of green. Hyacinths, pink and white
+and blue, shook their fairy bells in a parterre near the house, and the
+trellises in the old-fashioned garden were delicately sprayed with
+green, lace-like leafage. There was much to see in the vast, murky
+floods of the Mississippi River; the opposite banks had wholly
+disappeared in the encroachments of the water on the swampy Arkansas
+shore, and as its limits were beyond the reach of vision, its aspect was
+that of some great inland sea. When Desmond remarked on the phenomenon,
+Mr. Stanlett stated, with the pride which the dwellers on the banks of
+the river take in its arbitrary and monarchical exhibitions of power,
+that sometimes here, in high water, it measured sixty miles wide, and
+always in the Bend its average depth was not less than one hundred and
+eighty feet.
+
+“And just beyond the point the lead-line often marks scant four feet on
+the sandbars,” Mrs. Faurie interpolated iconoclastically.
+
+The words suggested a lurking danger to the larger craft visible, the
+possibility of getting aground even in such a vast welter of waters. A
+great tow of coal was in midstream, bound from Pittsburgh to New
+Orleans, the steamboat pushing before her a score of broad, laden
+barges, ranged elliptically about her prow, and gliding slowly and
+majestically down the current. Seen above the summit of the dense
+forests in the distance, against the bland, blue sky, a whorl of black
+smoke uncoiling from lofty chimneys announced the approach of the
+steamer of the regular packet line rounding the point; and the upward
+course of a snag-boat had its own suggestion of yet another of the
+jeopardies of the navigation of the great, lawless river.
+
+“Talking about something to drink,” said Mr. Stanlett, a bit uneasily,
+“I had a queer experience yesterday. I was out riding, and when that
+sudden shower came up, I was pretty far from home and got soaking wet.
+And—you know my rheumatism—I stopped at the first house I could reach;
+it was Jessop’s shack, and I went in to dry off by his fire.
+Well,—Jessop is a friendly fellow, and would have me take a drink to
+keep from catching my death of cold. You know he is only an Irish
+wood-chopper,—makes a scanty living by furnishing wood from anybody’s
+land who will give it to him for the clearing, and selling it to anybody
+who will buy it; but I accepted because I don’t like to refuse a
+civility from such a person,—and, bless my soul! it was French
+brandy,—good sound Cognac. He was mightily surprised when I told him so.
+He said he knew that it was a tipple to which he was unaccustomed, but
+it cost the same as ‘bust-head whiskey’; he said it was all the same to
+him so long as it fired up all right,—‘made drunk come.’ He bought it
+from that shanty-boat.”
+
+Desmond looked up significantly at Mr. Stanlett, who resumed: “You are
+right, sir,—stolen, no doubt! I fear from the Whippoorwill Landing
+stock. I remember that though Ackworth kept a general assortment of
+goods, he had a limited class of fine custom. Some rich people live near
+Whippoorwill Landing, and they preferred to give him their orders
+instead of dealing elsewhere. Ackworth was of the gentry himself,—came
+of good people,—broken up by the Civil War. He put what he had left into
+this store; he had been in the Confederate army, though one of the
+youngest veterans—distinguished himself—was very popular—and as the
+planters round about gave him all their custom instead of sending to
+Memphis or New Orleans, he kept in stock such choice grades of articles
+as they would require. I fear this brandy was stolen and that bicycle
+also; I wish that I had taken your view and given notice of our
+suspicions to the police authorities.”
+
+“To be quite candid, I did not think it prudent to abide by the theory
+of non-action,” said Desmond. “I wrote that evening,—and the mail-boat
+took the letter next morning.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie sat up straight in her chair and looked about her with
+widening eyes,—that a tutor in her house should take the initiative in
+its direction! Mr. Stanlett’s delicate face flushed. Even through his
+sparse silver hair one could see the polished scalp, all roseate. He
+said nothing, however, looking down at his cigar as he flipped off the
+ash.
+
+Desmond noticed their evident attitude of mind both with humiliation and
+indignation. Then he roused himself,—for his paltry salary they did not
+buy his identity, annul his personality.
+
+“The responsibility was mine,” he said icily, more in self-assertion and
+in response to their offended silence, their mien of rebuke of his
+presumption, than because of any sense of obligation to give account of
+his motives. “It was I who discovered the quality of the article offered
+at a mere fraction of its value. Knowing that it must have been stolen,
+I did not feel justified, as far as I was concerned, in remaining
+silent.”
+
+“There is a grave responsibility in unwarranted interference,” remarked
+Mr. Stanlett, dryly.
+
+“And in bringing down suspicion on innocent people, perhaps,” Mrs.
+Faurie said, with cold reproach.
+
+“If the proprietor of the trading-boat came honestly by a wheel,
+perfectly new and a favorite make, which he is able to offer for sale at
+five dollars, he will have no difficulty in making the fact clear. It is
+not my prerogative to judge.”
+
+“I should be sorry to provoke the enmity of a rude, lawless man such as
+that, by putting upon him an unnecessary affront and hardship,” Mr.
+Stanlett coldly urged. He had no longer his genial drawl of leisure and
+luxury. His intonation was crisp, clear-cut.
+
+“As I understand it, a heinous and brutal murder was committed only last
+fall at Whippoorwill Landing,” Desmond said, his pride pulsing in his
+temples, his own restiveness under expressed displeasure showing
+haughtily in his flushed face. “To have knowledge—or such grounds of
+suspicion as amount to knowledge—of stolen merchandise being vended
+through the country at fantastic prices and yet say nothing, in my
+opinion comes perilously near conniving at the escape of the
+villains,—accessory after the fact.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie turned and surveyed the tutor with wide eyes and a look of
+such affronted amazement that even he quailed before them. Desmond was
+impressed with the fact, noted by him for the first time, but doubtless
+often perceived before by others, that the very rich are fearless of the
+ordinary operations of disaster. The ægis of great possessions
+overshadows them. The law is their ally, for their protection; the
+imputation that by their negligence, or assumptions, or bravado, or
+inconsiderateness it could be arrayed against them is in itself a
+ridiculous impossibility, a sort of grotesque parody on fact, a
+distortion of the powers of established order. All other menace is
+likewise abated in their favor. The dangers of travel are minimized for
+them; the distresses of sickness are mitigated; every ill that flesh is
+heir to is softened and alleviated and embellished till they are
+scarcely to be identified with the woes, savage and hideous, that rack
+the multitude; and death itself is so bedizened and beautified and
+exalted that it ceases to be the great leveler. Mrs. Faurie’s
+astonishment that anything that she or hers thought proper to do could
+be liable to misconstruction, to question, to disparagement, was beyond
+words.
+
+Mr. Stanlett, however, stared at him with a sort of dawning
+comprehension in his watery blue eyes. “Upon my word, I never thought of
+it in that light!—ridiculous aspersion—impossible, though, as far as we
+are concerned; but, I believe,—in respect to the law, the bare facts of
+the case,—silence might aid the murderers, shedding the goods of which
+they stripped that store among the flatboat-men, woodcutters, ditchers,
+and niggers.”
+
+“Then Mr. Desmond was right?” asked Mrs. Faurie, seriously.
+
+“Yes,—yes,—though I deprecate anything that tends to draw upon this
+house the enmity of the wretches.”
+
+“The law is its best protection,” declared Desmond. “To make them feel
+the power of the law is the real resource. To let them and their fences
+and pals get away with impunity is to invite depredations.”
+
+“Yes, yes,—true, true!” said Mr. Stanlett. “But you take a good deal on
+yourself, Mr. Desmond.”
+
+“It was imposed upon me by good conscience and good citizenship.”
+
+“Ah, well, now,—I don’t know about good conscience,” said Mr. Stanlett,
+drawing hard at his cigar, but with renewed satisfaction. “Batting the
+eye is necessary sometimes. It won’t do to see so much, and deduce so
+correctly, and act so promptly. Let sleeping dogs lie.”
+
+“Do you call these sleeping dogs?”
+
+“So far as we are concerned they are. Quiet, peace, security,—we have
+them all at Great Oaks.”
+
+“And a dullness that has no parallel outside the grave,” declared Mrs.
+Faurie, once more falling back in her graceful reclining posture. She
+had never seemed to Desmond so beautiful as to-day. She wore the
+daintiest of afternoon dresses, of delicate lavender broadcloth, and the
+dazzling purity of her complexion was even more radiantly asserted in
+the full light. Her gray eyes, with their dense, long black lashes,
+seemed more expressive in their petulant, slumberous disaffection. From
+her white brow her hair rose in the usual pompadour effect, but its rich
+brown tint was heightened by the broad illumination of out-of-doors, and
+her lips had all the lustre of wet coral. Into the meshes of the lace of
+her high “transparent collar” and chemisette, that showed the gleam of
+her snowy white neck and throat, was thrust a set of stick-pins of
+amethyst. She held some wands thickly studded with pink almond blooms in
+her hand. “Great Oaks leads the field for monotony,” she said
+disconsolately. “It might be a gentle distraction to be called upon to
+defend the mansion against river pirates.”
+
+She suddenly sat up straight, her eyes dilating and brightening, her
+infrequent flush, an incomparable tint, mounting into her cheeks. “Think
+how it would sound in the deep midnight,—if the old plantation bell
+should boom out on the air, up the river and down the river, and across
+the Bend, calling on all who ever stood on the pay-roll of Great Oaks
+Plantation, or owed it a good turn, or wished it well, to lend a hand at
+its utmost need. I can hear it now! It would sound so far! It would
+shake the moss on the cypress trees in the White Deer Swamp, where
+ghosts have been seen. It would rouse the gangs at the engineering work
+who are trying to raise the river on jackscrews, or sinking a revetment
+mat, or building a dyke at the point, or whatever they are up to over
+yonder in the chute. It would even start up the loafers from the
+card-tables at the old Shin-Plaster Landing, way down on the Arkansas
+side, where everybody says they gamble half the night. And the Swamp
+Lily would be climbing up the current, and old Captain Cleek—who dropped
+me into the Mississippi River once when I was a baby and he was a mud
+clerk, and my parents were leaving the steamboat in midstream to make
+the landing in a yawl, and who has always declared he owed me indemnity
+for a ducking—would signal to head for the shore with every pound of
+steam that his engines can carry.”
+
+Mr. Stanlett moved uneasily, and now and again cast a furtive, anxious
+glance at her sparkling, girlish face. This badinage was far from
+appealing to him. He had sought once or twice to interrupt, but in the
+very desperation of idleness and lack of interest she found a sort of
+entertainment in the picture that she had conjured up, and persisted:—
+
+“What would you two do? All out here in the grove where it is so
+egregiously dark of a moonless night—we shan’t have this function on
+till the moon changes—there would appear occasionally a sudden,
+funnel-shaped flare of light and a sharp report,”—she put her hands over
+her ears for a moment as if to shut out the sound,—“and Mr. Desmond
+would be winning his spurs, and Uncle Clarence would be wanting to show
+how worthy he is of his, already won, and the babies would be telling
+each other, and everybody else, how wrong and wicked and purblind I was
+never to let them learn to shoot so that they might now fill the
+marauders full of lead; and I—why I—would just open the door a bit ajar,
+and—‘Gentlemen,’”—with the most gracious bow and an airy waving of the
+hand,—“‘the goods and chattels in this house are somewhat antique, but
+with a lot of wear in them yet. They are racy of the soil, and the trail
+of the European serpent is over none of them. They are all at your
+service. As to the people,—Mr. Stanlett is a man wise in counsel, gentle
+in manner, and a genial companion at dinner; Mr. Desmond will teach you
+“to speak Greek as naturally as pigs squeak”; and you are welcome to
+_both_ of them until I can ransom them, which I will do as soon as I can
+save something from my next year’s income!—all for the slight
+consideration that you will give me and my squabs a free passage down to
+Natchez on the Swamp Lily,—and no questions asked!’” She paused
+breathless, triumphant. “Now, Uncle Clarence, don’t you think that would
+wake us up?”
+
+He turned to throw his cigar stub over his shoulder into the grass. The
+wind was stirring the long, drooping branches of the live oak above
+their heads, and little, fluttering ripples ran through the folds of the
+skirt of her gown. “I think that we may have yet something to disturb
+us, not so sensational, but sufficiently perturbing. There is no
+necessity to ‘raise the river on jackscrews.’ Colonel Kentopp thinks we
+are going to have an overflow in Deepwater Bend. The river is at flood
+height, and in several localities above, the water is standing against
+the levee. There have been recent rains all through the upper country.
+He says that since the rise, the work of the River Commission on the
+other side has had the effect of throwing a water of overwhelming weight
+against the levee above his place, and if it breaks at Ring-fence
+Plantation, where it was always liable to crevasses, considerable
+territory in the Bend must go under too.”
+
+“So poor Colonel Kentopp makes his moan! We never go under on account of
+the cross levee. I am mighty sorry for his anxiety; an overflow,
+especially if it were not general, would hurt the sale of Dryad-Dene,
+and he has been negotiating that place so long with that rich Mr.
+Loring. For my part, I believe that man will need only so much land as
+he can lie down in,—he will be dead before he makes up his mind to buy,”
+Mrs. Faurie prophesied.
+
+She gazed silently out for a time at the tawny sweep of the Mississippi
+at flood height, beyond the vivid variant tints of the bourgeoning
+spring growths. “I wish the Mississippi River were drained. Such a
+torment as it has been. What a queer thing its channel would be, though.
+Just think of it! Boats unnumbered, of all sizes and pretensions, from
+the first little stern-wheeler to the floating palaces of the days of
+the Robert E. Lee and the Great Republic. Then the bones of all the
+people that have gone down in the fires and collisions and swampings and
+sinkings to their watery graves! The nations, the races, they are all
+represented there, and who knows what prehistoric people! And in modern
+times the English, the French, the Spaniard,—De Soto, himself, must be
+there yet. He could not be swept with the current down to the Gulf, for
+he was buried in his armor, encased in a hollow log, and he must be
+lying still, oh, very still, the great wanderer! bound to one restricted
+spot,—the great explorer! under tons and tons of the ooze and mud of the
+Mississippi, that he came so far to find, and that has held him fast so
+long! Yes,—the bottom of the Mississippi River must be a strange sight
+indeed.”
+
+“Might try a diving-bell; that would put an end to the dullness!”
+suggested Reginald, who had come up and was leaning over the high back
+of her chair as she talked. Now and again his eyes wandered to the
+tennis-court at one side of the house, where Horace and Chubby were
+playing a match, running very nimbly, but serving the balls badly enough
+from the standpoint of his superior expertness. Mrs. Faurie did not
+reply. Her eyes were fixed on a mounted figure approaching through the
+grove, presently identified as a groom from Colonel Kentopp’s place.
+Dismounting at the foot of the steps, he presented a note with the
+request for an answer.
+
+“An answer?” said Reginald, who had run down the flight of steps to
+receive it. “Then you had better ride around to the kitchen and wait.”
+
+As the groom rode off and Reginald turned to ascend the steps he
+remarked: “From the Kentopps, mamma,” holding up the envelope, showing
+the elaborate crest. Then, as she extended her hand, he continued in the
+accents of an extreme but half-suppressed surprise: “It is addressed to
+Mr. Desmond.”
+
+The tutor looked up in blank amaze, the expression deepening on his face
+as, after a request for permission, he read the contents. The note was
+from Mrs. Kentopp, in a tone of the suavest urbanity and the most
+friendly and informal cordiality, begging that he would give Colonel
+Kentopp and herself the pleasure of his company at Dryad-Dene for the
+week-end. “We have some very charming young friends staying with us whom
+we wish you to meet, and especially we wish to give them the pleasure of
+knowing you. I have selected the week-end, thinking that this will not
+much conflict with your schoolroom duties with the little Faurie
+torments. So I beseech you to let us have you Thursday evening, Friday,
+Saturday, and Sunday. We will return you, with no disparagement of your
+wisdom, early Monday morning, though we don’t intend to be very serious
+and staid at Dryad-Dene either.”
+
+He could not command the muscles of his face in his surprise as he read,
+and his disconcerted doubt and dismay were so patent that Mrs. Faurie
+cried out gleefully:—
+
+“Have mercy on our curiosity! What are the Kentopps doing to you?”
+
+Without a word he handed her the note. Her brilliant eyes scanned the
+lines with a brightening interest over all her face. “Why, how perfectly
+delightful! A dance after dinner Thursday evening—Mercy! in Lent?—oh, I
+remember,—it is Mi-Carême. Will they have enough?—Yes, with Miss
+Allandyce and the Mayberrys and Miss Dennis and Rupert Regnan and those
+two young gentlemen who were landed from the Primrose last night, and
+Miss Kelvin, and she suggests others whose names she does not
+mention,—and a camp hunt on Friday and Saturday,—‘the young ladies are
+wild to go!’—Oh, I know they are, and I will bet everything that they do
+go, and spoil the fun for the men.—No shooting Sunday,—but only the
+sylvan pleasures of the camp; for if the ladies don’t go earlier, they
+will then join the hunters for a day in the woods. How delightful! How
+perfectly delightful! But,”—a shadow crossed her face, quizzical, but
+nevertheless a shadow—“how very strange that she doesn’t invite me!”
+
+“I was thinking of that,” Desmond remarked. “It must be an oversight.”
+
+“How can it be?—‘Cordial remembrances to dear Mrs. Faurie.’”
+
+“I don’t understand it,” he said helplessly.
+
+“I do,” Mrs. Faurie declared; “she is relegating me to my proper place
+as an old woman. This entertainment is given for the young people; ‘gay
+youth loves gay youth.’”
+
+Desmond flushed. “I think it an extreme impertinence on the part of the
+Kentopps.”
+
+“Well,—in a way. I shouldn’t take up much room,—and oh, how I should
+have enjoyed it,—the days are so long!”
+
+“If you will excuse me, I will step into the library and answer the
+note,” said Desmond, rising slowly from his chair.
+
+“Do; and I am sure that you will have a charming time,—it will be a
+delightful break in the monotony for you.”
+
+Desmond stood aghast. “I have not the most remote idea of accepting.” He
+had his hand on the back of his chair, and he leaned slightly upon it as
+he looked down at her. His expression seemed reflected upon her face.
+
+“But, my dear child, you must accept,” she exclaimed in dismay. “I
+wouldn’t have you miss it for any consideration.”
+
+“I don’t think an acceptance is appropriate—with you excluded.”
+
+She laughed lightly. “Can’t you see that it is a party of young people,
+and that it is only my incurable frivolity that makes me frenzied to go
+to it? You are the only member of the household of the appropriate age
+for such volatile amusements. The children are too young for society
+such as this, and Uncle Clarence and I are too old. I insist upon it. I
+will not have it otherwise. Go write your acceptance, or I will do it
+for you.”
+
+Still he leaned on the back of his chair, and still he looked at her
+doubtfully. Rarely indeed since his advent at Great Oaks had his face
+shown its natural lines of expression. It was frank, gentle, almost
+appealing now, without the cool constraint, the aloof dignity, the
+critical reserve, it generally wore. “The Kentopps did not particularly
+attract me,—and, to be candid, I think that I perceived that I was not
+acceptable to Mrs. Kentopp. It would be distasteful to me to go.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie remembered suddenly Mrs. Kentopp’s pointed exclusion of
+Desmond in her proposition for a game at cards, her manner of airy,
+unseeing indifference.
+
+“But you must perceive from this note that there was nothing
+intentional,—it is cordiality and consideration itself. Mrs. Kentopp’s
+manners are so affected and she is so self-absorbed that it is easy to
+take her amiss. One should not be too exacting; we must take the people
+in this world as we find them.”
+
+Obviously, however, he was not placated, and she resumed with a note of
+decision: “Now, I make this a personal matter. As a favor to _me_ I hope
+that you will accept this invitation. The Kentopps are exceedingly civil
+to you,—and you have no excuse. They would think a declination very
+strange. And, besides, I want you to have the little bit of
+entertainment that you can get from a neighborhood visit, while you are
+consigned to this slough of despond yclept Great Oaks Plantation. I only
+wish I had an invitation, too,—” She dropped her hands in her lap with a
+gesture of mock despair, then she laughed out gayly at herself.
+
+“Couldn’t you go without it,” he suggested. “There seems such an
+established friendship between the families, formality might be
+dispensed with.”
+
+“If the note had been addressed to me,—perhaps. If I had been charged
+with the transmission of the message to you, I might have stretched a
+point and interpreted it as inclusive. But no!—I am expressly and of set
+purpose excluded. I am out of the game! There is nothing for me but to
+sit down in the chimney-corner and just be old.”
+
+She turned her radiant face up toward him, the most apt interpretation
+of beauty in its fullest expression he had ever imagined, the bloom of
+perfect development upon it, the rare ripe fulfillment of the promise of
+first youth. She was apart from the idea of time. There were more lines
+about Chubby’s eyes, from much crinkling with laughter; her fair, smooth
+lids showed naught but the form of their perfect design. Reginald had a
+vertical crease between his brows, from a frown of perplexity he
+sometimes wore in moments of cogitation; but his mother’s face was as
+free from the trace of care as of age, and morning itself looked out of
+her eyes.
+
+The point of exclusion was so preposterous an incident,—it was so
+jejune, and lacking in social tact and appropriateness, that Desmond,
+try as he might, could not interpret it. He did not give over his
+impressions of Mrs. Kentopp, for all her fair words now; he did not
+easily forgive or forget, but the ground of offense was untenable. It
+was infinitely unpalatable to accept, yet it was not practicable to
+decline, and he was as little in a holiday mood as ever in his life
+when, two days later, the Kentopps’ phaeton, which had been sent for
+him, rolled up to the porte-cochère of the mansion at Dryad-Dene
+Plantation.
+
+If Great Oaks were reminiscent of the past, it might seem that
+Dryad-Dene was a respecter only of the morrow. It could hardly be said
+to be up-to-date,—it was an earnest of the future. Certainly it was the
+most modern house in all that portion of Mississippi; and but that the
+surrounding woods, with the peculiarity of harboring no shoots nor
+underbrush, betokened the locality, one could scarcely have identified
+the vicinage. The river was out of sight; the levee, unseemly,
+utilitarian, suggestive of jeopardy in its promise of protection, held
+its serpentine course far beyond the range of the windows of Dryad-Dene.
+There were no forest trees immediately about the house; the grounds were
+laid off in the formal Italian style, with conventional walks in the
+midst of a fine green turf embellished with cone-shaped evergreens and
+other ornamental shrubs, white stone vases, terraces with stone copings
+and steps; and pleasing though the effect was to the eye, it was as
+foreign to all suggestions of Mississippi as if it had been hundreds of
+miles from the dominant old river. Only when its beauty might compensate
+for its old-fashioned savor was aught brought into use of merely
+domestic suggestions. These walks were covered with tiny, fine white
+shells, brought up by steamer in hogsheads from the Gulf coast; and
+charming as was their aspect, this entailed not more expense than
+ordinary gravel, which must needs have been imported also, for there was
+not a pebble to be found in all this stoneless region. A crystalline
+glitter from one side betokened the slanting glass sashes of the
+conservatory, and great ornamental plants—palms and Japanese
+tree-ferns—were ranged on either side of the stone flight of steps of
+the main entrance, as well as the porte-cochère. The house was of brick,
+with stone facings, the roof of fantastic device, of many peaks and
+gables; a tower was at the eastern corner; a deep loggia, an oriel
+window, a balcony, embellished the façades elsewhere, breaking up every
+suggestion of regularity in the architectural effect.
+
+The large reception hall, into which Desmond was ushered, had a fire
+blazing in a deep chimney-place, so huge as to be of mediæval
+suggestion, and a grand staircase in massive oak, descending in devious
+turns, with here a landing below a great, stained glass window, and here
+a niche in which was a marble bust on a tall pedestal; on the lowest
+step was lolling a young lady, a cup of tea in her hand and a
+riding-crop across her knee. There were several other figures turning at
+gaze as he entered; in fact, the apartment seemed full of people to
+Desmond, coming into an unaccustomed entourage from the brighter light
+without. It was a moment or two before his dazed sight disintegrated the
+group. Most of the party were sipping tea, as they stood about, their
+whips under their arms, for they were in riding costume. Two ladies sat
+chatting in the high-backed antique chairs on either side of the fire. A
+little beyond, in a deep bay-window, was a tea-table, a rich gleam of
+color with its choice ware and lustre of silver, where Mrs. Kentopp, in
+a blue-and-white striped silk tea-gown, long and flowing, was handling
+the sugar-tongs, while a tall, blond youth was holding out his cup
+toward her, apparently facetiously dickering for an extra lump. She
+suddenly caught sight of Desmond, and sent the sugar-bowl falling to the
+tray and scattering its treasures as she rose precipitately.
+
+“There, now!” she exclaimed, “I said I heard horses’ hoofs, and this
+greedy thing said I didn’t,”—for the young man had possessed himself of
+the tongs and was sweetening his tea to his own taste. “I can’t hear the
+phaeton’s wheels for the rubber tires.”
+
+She swept toward Desmond, the skirt of her gown trailing behind her, and
+the white lace which veiled its front from yoke to hem all shimmering
+above the broad blue-and-white stripes of the silk foundation. “Mr.
+Desmond,” she cried, “how good of you to come!” She pressed his hand
+cordially, and turned about to the group with her most coquettish air,
+her fluffy flaxen curls above her forehead somewhat more deeply tinted
+in the glow of the fire and the light through the ruby “jewels” of the
+stained glass window. “This is the Mr. Desmond with whom we all fell in
+love over at Great Oaks,” she exclaimed joyously.
+
+“Is it the regulation thing to fall in love with Mr. Desmond?” one of
+the young ladies asked, as Mrs. Kentopp, having concluded her flaring
+collective introduction, began to mention the names of the guests
+nearest at hand.
+
+Miss Allandyce was standing beside the tall newel-post, and he noted in
+surprise that she wore the dark cloth “cross-saddle riding-breeches”
+affected by progressive horsewomen, with boots to the knee and a
+riding-coat, in lieu of the habit in which he was accustomed to see fair
+equestrians. The costume was not utterly unknown to his observation, but
+never should he have expected to see it here, and affected by a lady
+with the unmistakable southern accent. She was tall and thin, though of
+a large frame, and wore her masculine gear as successfully as a big,
+bony boy might have done. She was not without charm; her gauntleted
+hands were small, her boots were shapely and slender and displayed a
+high instep. She had a Derby hat in one hand, while she held her crop
+under her arm, and nibbled at a sandwich from the other. She had a fair,
+frank, freckled face; her auburn hair was packed high on her head to be
+well out of the way of the Derby, and amidst the mass two or three
+fleecy short curls escaped from a richly tinted tortoise-shell comb. She
+seemed much at ease, and moved about with great freedom among the
+petticoats, though there was no other costume similar to her attire. The
+delusive draperies of a divided skirt, which one of the party wore, came
+to the floor, and were even fuller and much less graceful than the
+familiar riding-habit of the girl who sat upon the step, and who was of
+the type so usual in that country,—the woman who looks like a white
+rose, with dark eyes and hair and very fair, delicate skin; who spends
+the summer-time resting indoors, with a novel, taking care of her
+complexion; who would as soon consign herself and her complexion to
+Tophet as bathe in the sea, or climb a mountain, or walk out without a
+veil or a mask of chamois after April. She had an oval face, her lips
+were red, and her high silk hat had all the chic which the contrast with
+exceeding femininity is expected to afford.
+
+“Can I bow upward?” she asked, with a ripple of lazy laughter. “Is it
+polite to bow when you are sitting on the floor?”
+
+“You are perfectly horrid, Gertie,—the idea of pretending to be so worn
+out as all that by a little horseback exercise!” Mrs. Kentopp declared,
+with an assumed air of pettish displeasure. “Please don’t speak to Miss
+Kelvin, I beg of you, Mr. Desmond. Remember that I haven’t introduced
+you.”
+
+“I am saving up for the dance this evening, Mr. Desmond,” the young lady
+declared. “You ought to be glad that you did not get here in time for
+the drag-hunt. We have had a run after an old bag, that we made believe
+was a fox,—and I never knew before how many bones I had to ache.”
+
+“Would you ache any less if you had had a fox instead of an anise-seed
+bag?” Mrs. Kentopp reproached her. “Let me give you some tea, Mr.
+Desmond”; and with all her silken train a-flutter she whisked back to
+the tea-table.
+
+“Yes, indeed,—glory would have sustained me,” Gertrude Kelvin declared.
+“I was ahead of the hounds, Mr. Desmond,” she protested, still in her
+soft collapse on the lowest step of the stairs. “The field was nowhere.
+I can’t say that I was in at the death, for there was nothing to die;
+but if I could have had the brush, I should have been forever happy.
+Nobody could call me lazy any more! I can’t say that I captured the
+bag—Is that sportsmanlike, Mr. Desmond?”
+
+“Did the hounds run well?” asked Desmond, seeking to seem interested,
+now equipped with a cup of tea and a sandwich, and free to stand about
+at a distance from Mrs. Kentopp.
+
+“Oh,—they did that!” exclaimed Miss Gertrude Kelvin, wagging her head
+and widening her eyes to express great speed; “and I was in—with the bag
+to hold!”
+
+“Oh, the hounds make me mad,—they are so easily deceived! I hate a
+fool!” Miss Allandyce came up in a gentlemanly fashion near Desmond and
+Miss Kelvin, looking down at that young lady, who was secretly a bit out
+of countenance at her proximity in this novel attire. She said no more,
+and Miss Allandyce went on presently, moving one of her handsome feet
+with a heel and toe alternation, to which she was accustomed with her
+skirts, but which now had a style of brazen indifference in the mind of
+the young lady clumped up in her habit at the foot of the stairs. “It is
+a pretty good pack, though.”
+
+“Colonel Kentopp’s kennels, or do they belong to a neighborhood hunt?”
+asked Desmond.
+
+Both girls opened wide eyes to horrify and impress him.
+
+“Neither!” replied Miss Kelvin, significantly.
+
+“Isn’t that ridiculous?” exclaimed the strong-minded Allandyce, whirling
+half around on her heel. “The pack belongs to an old wood-chopper named
+Sloper,—and ‘the quality’ _borrow_ his dogs.”
+
+“Isn’t that low?” Miss Kelvin cast up her dark eyes from her humble
+posture. “_He_ is all right—for a wood-chopper! Is he Irish,—or Scotch?
+He has a queer accent.”
+
+“Plain Mississippi,—without any foreign frills,” replied Miss Allandyce.
+
+“He lives all alone,—got no relatives,—and keeps such a lot of dogs for
+company, he says. They are just friends of his,—guests, a permanent
+house-party, and oh!—think of it!—when they all ask together to be
+helped first at breakfast.”
+
+“And the neighborhood planters object to it, for he won’t take a cent,
+and they don’t want him in the run; but if they borrow his dogs, they
+have to invite him and treat him as a guest for the time being. So about
+a year ago they thought they would make up a good pack—” explained Miss
+Allandyce.
+
+“Went at it in great style—” interpolated Miss Kelvin.
+
+“Imported dogs,—English—”
+
+“Colonel Kentopp bought some beauties—”
+
+“Great price—”
+
+“Oh,—oo—oo—!” said Miss Kelvin, but beyond that enigmatic syllable she
+could not express her sentiments.
+
+“Oh,—oo—oo!” echoed Miss Allandyce.
+
+Their eyes filled with tears of laughter, as one looked down and the
+other looked up.
+
+“Well, how did they run?” asked Desmond.
+
+Miss Kelvin in her lowly posture took refuge in the safety of silence.
+She began to manifest renewed interest in her sandwich, and proceeded to
+eat it up on both sides of its bit of encircling ribbon.
+
+Perhaps even the assumption of manly attire imparts a degree of courage.
+Miss Allandyce chose a bolder course. She walked first to the tea-table
+and put down her cup,—Desmond realizing too late that the influence of
+her boyish aspect had prevented him from offering that service. As she
+came back, her Derby in her hand and flecking her boots with her
+riding-whip, she looked over her shoulder once or twice to make sure of
+Mrs. Kentopp’s distance. Then she said: “I’ll tell you, but you must
+never mention it to her, and above all things never to the colonel,—he
+is a sweet dear and I love him! His English hounds ran like fun; they
+gave tongue like a bell,—the most mellow, searching, thrilling, musical
+sound you ever heard,—and the first staked-and-ridered rail fence they
+came to—”
+
+“They could as easily have climbed a tree, the poor foreigners!” giggled
+Miss Kelvin, sly in her corner.
+
+“Such a fence as our swamp dogs would just scramble over,” explained
+Miss Allandyce; “but the imported English hounds ran hither and thither,
+squeaking and wheezing, and Colonel Kentopp—”
+
+“They say his language was awful!”—Miss Kelvin had crumpled herself up
+very small.
+
+“I never see him so decorous in church without thinking of it,” said
+Miss Allandyce, and the two exchanged a glance of extreme relish.
+
+“The hounds climbed the fence at last?” asked Desmond, impatient for the
+sequel.
+
+There was a moment of silent and speechless mirth. Then Miss Allandyce
+said, in a husky voice and with eyes full of tears, “Colonel Kentopp and
+the huntsman dismounted and _lifted_ the imported English hounds over
+the fence,—and by that time the fox had run to Issaquena County!”
+
+“Why, what a gay time you are having over there! What’s the fun? Don’t
+keep the joke to yourselves,” called out Mrs. Kentopp, in the midst of
+their laughter. But she did not approach the group, and presently the
+two recovered their composure.
+
+“I wonder,—I have often wondered what did ever become of those imported
+hounds,” speculated Miss Allandyce.
+
+“Perfect dears, too.”
+
+“So handsome! But they were seen here no more, and whenever ‘the
+quality’ have a run, they borrow old man Sloper’s house-party, and put
+the old wood-chopper up on as good a horse as there is in the county.”
+
+“They don’t indulge in riding to hounds about Great Oaks, do they, Mr.
+Desmond?” asked Miss Kelvin, still resting her bones.
+
+“Not since I have been there,” replied Desmond.
+
+“How long will you be at Great Oaks?” asked Miss Allandyce.
+
+“Why, I hardly know,” replied Desmond, slightly embarrassed.
+
+“Oh, they make it so delightful to guests, I don’t wonder you can’t say
+when you will get your visit out,” Miss Kelvin remarked.
+
+A sudden illumination broke in upon Desmond’s mind. Mrs. Kentopp had not
+acquainted her house-party with their fellow guest’s vocation.
+
+“But I am not a guest at Great Oaks,” said Desmond, quickly. “I am the
+tutor.”
+
+An appalled astonishment was on the face of both young girls for an
+instant. Miss Kelvin remained silent, but Miss Allandyce rejoined in a
+tone which obviously sought to keep the key of the previous chat, “Oh,
+yes,—Mrs. Faurie has three children,—what a charming household it is
+there!” Then she drew a tiny watch from her fob and said in a low tone
+to Miss Kelvin: “I wonder that Mrs. Kentopp doesn’t let us go and dress.
+I shall be a fright if I don’t have at least an hour.”
+
+“We have to dance, too, in our dinner-gowns,” Miss Kelvin murmured a
+trifle absently.
+
+Desmond silently upbraided his folly in yielding to the insistence that
+had brought him here. Despite his gentle breeding, the position of his
+family, the opportunities of wealth that he had hitherto enjoyed, his
+culture, he felt that he was at a disadvantage in general society. His
+poverty, his station as a private tutor,—to small boys, mere
+children,—rendered his presence an incongruity among frivolous people
+who could not know and could not appreciate him fairly. He had no
+opportunity to make his value and quality felt. It was only in some
+cultured coterie capable of going deeper than the shallow appraisement
+of fashion that he could ever hope to find again his level. He could not
+forgive himself that he had laid himself liable to this misapprehension,
+and for his life he could not imagine why Mrs. Kentopp had given her
+guests no intimation of his position, to avoid such a contretemps as he
+had encountered. For their own sake, and for hers, they would have been
+civil in any event. Had she intended to pass him off as a man of their
+world, of wealth and leisure and luxury? And why, indeed? For his own
+part he had no desire to pose in a guise that must coerce their respect.
+But the malapropos incident had made him feel out of place, as if he
+were a presuming aspirant, patronized by the Kentopps, and foisted upon
+their guests’ society without warrant. Neither of the young ladies had
+spoken again, both apparently absorbed in their eagerness to be off to
+dress, and the negligence of Mrs. Kentopp, still flirting at the
+tea-table, to give them the opportunity.
+
+Suddenly Colonel Kentopp entered and rushed forward with an enthusiastic
+extended hand. “Why, my dear sir,” he exclaimed heartily, “I didn’t know
+that you had yet arrived. Glad to see you! How well you are looking! The
+sight of you is good for sore eyes.” His left hand had crept up to
+Desmond’s shoulder, which he patted affectionately as he spoke. “Wish
+you could have been with us on the run to-day,—great time!—But what are
+you all dawdling around here for? It is time to dress for dinner. The
+Mayberrys and Timlocks will be here long before you are ready. Joyce,
+keep those sweet nothings that you are whispering into my spouse’s ear
+for a season of more leisure.” And he advanced upon the tea-table, where
+Mrs. Kentopp was mildly carousing, so to speak, in a flirtation with a
+man almost young enough to have been her own son. She broke out into a
+peal of her affected, coquettish laughter, and Desmond in their midst
+looked on with as unresponsive a pulse, with as alien and unrelated a
+mien, as if among some mystic crew of Comus.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The room to which Desmond was assigned was never intended for an
+unimportant guest. As he looked about him, he could not understand the
+incongruity. The Kentopps were neither of them such people as value a
+man for his own sake, regardless of wealth or station; they had no fine
+perceptions that could discriminate the higher attributes; they were
+devoid of that gift of generosity which belittles self to make the more
+of greater worth; they could not even understand a lofty poise of mind,
+and it amazed him that they should seem to strain after it,—to ignore
+the trivial incident of the vital fact.
+
+It was a spacious, airy apartment at one of the corners of the building,
+and the sharp angle was decorated with a dainty oriel window, though
+large enough to hold a fauteuil, a writing-desk, and a shelf of books;
+from this outlook one might see down a deep bosky dell artificially
+beautified, with a tangle of vines and interlacing shrubs, amongst which
+was visible here and there an elusive face, with the pointed ears of the
+fauns and elves of garden statuary. There were no trees of tall growth,
+and hence he caught a repeated glimpse of jets of leaping water among
+the leafage, and in the stillness he could hear the splashing of a
+fountain. At the end of a pleached alley was a rustic pavilion,
+evidenced by its conical roof, and in the opposite direction a life-size
+figure in marble on a pedestal had suggestions befitting the classic
+ideal of sylvan nymphs. The new fad of an old dial was illustrated in a
+shadowy nook where the sun might make scant register of time. This,
+Desmond was sure, was the “dene” which gave the place its name. The
+preciousness of its design affronted him, despite its prettiness. In his
+unconsciousness he did no homage to the ingenuity of Kentopp, who, after
+the burning of his simple farmhouse, inherited from his father, at the
+other end of the place, had utilized this desirable building-site
+despite the proximity of an old “bear wallow,”—the swampy depression
+thus drained, civilized, and made ornamental and even poetic. Any
+declivity or acclivity was rare in this level region, and the “dene” was
+greatly admired; its original status was wholly forgotten in the success
+of the landscape gardener’s achievement, save when some blunt yeoman
+neighbor sought a rift in the armor of the Kentopps’ satisfaction and
+the relish of a crude joke by directing a note or other paper-writing to
+“Kentopp Bear Wallow” instead of “Dryad-Dene.”
+
+As Desmond turned from the window and again surveyed the room, he was
+struck anew by the elaborate aspect of its appointments. A
+reclining-chair invited to lounging, with foot-rest and book-holder.
+There was the daintiest of toilet tables draped with lace, instead of
+the heavy old mahogany bureau such as the gentry of Deepwater Bend were
+accustomed to use; and in place of the immemorial mahogany four-poster
+was a brass bedstead, also canopied and covered with lace, and furnished
+with a duvet of delicate, embroidered blue silk. The polished floor had
+rugs in which this azure hue predominated; an open door gave on a
+bath-room tiled in blue and white, and the cut-glass candlesticks among
+the other crystal accessories of the toilet table held faint blue wax
+tapers,—never intended for use, however, for a flood of gas-light
+illumined the room, and made his preparations an easy matter, in
+contrast with the usual labors of dressing in the country for a festive
+occasion by the light of a kerosene lamp, however decorated.
+
+Desmond had earlier experienced a natural youthful gratulation that his
+evening clothes, relic of his London visit the previous June, seeming a
+thousand years ago and in a different state of existence, were so fresh
+and unworn, and a specially handsome garb. He could at least appear to
+personal advantage and be no discredit to his entertainers. Now he did
+not care! He fretfully adjusted the diamond studs, a gift that he had
+not parted with in all the exigencies of the financial stress he had
+known, and the choice and fine sleeve-links, also mementos of happier
+days. He would as soon wear jeans, he said to himself, as he stood, tall
+and conspicuously imposing, before the long mirror, tying his cravat
+with a touch that grudged its practiced deftness, for in his
+undergraduate days he had been something of a dude, despite the
+roughening influences of the “Gridiron.” He called out in a peremptory
+tone when a tap fell upon the door, and as it opened admitting a young
+gentleman, one of the guests of the house, the leisurely drawl with
+which he entered upon his mission received an impetus from the imperious
+gravity and challenge of the eyes fixed upon him.
+
+“Mrs. Kentopp requested that as I was going by—Great Scott! they do you
+immensely proud.” He was young, and blond, and of slight figure, and had
+already a tendency to baldness. He was not tall, but very erect,
+deported himself with conscious chic, and spoke with a superficial,
+negligent enunciation. It was with an air of surprised amusement that he
+paused to look about the room. “They haven’t put me up half so fine. I
+feel slighted,” with an airy laugh. “Well,—Mrs. Kentopp asked that as I
+was going by I would stop for you, to—to”—he was beginning to feel the
+influence of Desmond’s eyes—“to show you where the drawing-rooms are
+located.”
+
+“Lest I should lose my way without chart or compass,” Desmond commented.
+
+“Well,—they seemed actually to try to twist things when this house was
+planned,—nothing is where you would expect to find it,” said Mr.
+Herndon.
+
+“I am beholden to you, then, for towing me to a safe harbor,” said
+Desmond.
+
+Young Herndon had recovered his equanimity. “Kentopp is such an
+incorrigible dawdle that she dare not trust him. But I have a special
+virtue of promptness,—among my many other virtues. My friends say that I
+will die some day twenty minutes before my time comes.”
+
+Notwithstanding this vaunted promptitude, there were several gentlemen
+already in the large drawinging-rooms when the two entered. The glitter
+of gas and crystal from the chandeliers, the gloss of the floors, the
+richness of the oriental rugs, the gilded chairs and sofas, upholstered
+in cream and terra-cotta satin brocade, the glow, deep yet delicate, of
+costly pictures, the scattered ornaments, vases of Venetian glass and
+choice porcelain, tall urns of Persian ware, Chinese curios in carved
+ivory,—there was not a suggestion of home but the great fire blazing
+behind a brass fender and andirons, and this was so bedizened by a
+modern “high-art” mantel, that the leaping hickory flames had much ado
+to make the domestic note heard in the bizarre medley; and indeed the
+fire itself was a mere matter of ornament, for the house was heated by a
+furnace fed by Pittsburgh coal, even more convenient in this riparian
+locality than wood which must be hewn, and incredibly cheap by reason of
+the low rates of water-carriage as compared with railway freightage.
+Neither of the Kentopps had yet appeared, and as Desmond entered the
+room, though maintaining his manner of proud composure, he was grateful
+for the fact. Their overwhelming cordiality daunted him in the
+realization of its superficiality. He fumbled vainly for his identity in
+the midst of their soft deceits and unimagined intention, beyond his
+ken, but unmistakable. He could meet their guests, to whom he was not
+even conventionally beholden, on a level as man to man, and he would
+make no concessions. He would maintain his sense of his own dignity.
+
+In the sensitiveness and self-consciousness incident to an unaccustomed
+and in a degree a false position, he did not reflect that beyond his
+name he was wholly unknown to the party, and that the momentary interval
+after his appearance was instinct only with uncertainty and a
+preliminary effort to “place him” in evolving some suitable phrase
+introductory to conversation with a stranger. He interpreted the silence
+as cool, critical, not to say supercilious, and he had no mind humbly to
+await his adjustment to such place in the coterie as the sense of the
+meeting, so to speak, might consign him. He walked to one side of the
+hearth, and stood for a moment as if in contemplation of the group. Then
+singling out one, a man of mature years, conventional of aspect, with a
+long, thin face and a most unenthusiastic expression, he remarked, “I
+think I have not met you earlier.”
+
+“And what of that?” was in the countenance of all the amazed group, as
+Desmond held the centre of the stage,—even in the impassive, wooden
+countenance of the gentleman whom he had addressed.
+
+“Mr. Loring, Mr. Desmond.” The youthful Herndon was no reluctant
+scholar; as he often remarked, when he had had a thing demonstrated to
+him forty thousand times, he had learned it. He had now mastered the
+fact that the tutor, for whatever reason placed in the position of
+Colonel Kentopp’s guest, was by no means disposed to interpret this as
+patronage, nor to capitulate to good-fellowship on anything short of the
+full honors of war. “Mr. Loring has just arrived,” Herndon further
+explained.
+
+As they shook hands Desmond’s next remark brought a sudden gleam of
+expression into the wooden grooves of Mr. Loring’s immobile face. “I
+have heard you mentioned at Great Oaks Plantation,” he said, recalling
+vaguely Mrs. Faurie’s account of the dilatory methods of the prospective
+purchaser of Dryad-Dene.
+
+“Great Oaks? Are you visiting at Great Oaks? Charming old place.”
+
+“I am living there. I am the tutor of the Faurie boys.”
+
+Mr. Loring could not control the surprise in his face, for this princely
+presence was not to his mind the way the tutor of unlicked cubs should
+look. It was no intentional discourtesy, for he said with more animation
+than an article so apparently manufactured might be expected to show:
+“Do you intend to make teaching your regular profession?” He could but
+think that there must be something unexplained. This was some friend of
+the Fauries, perhaps taking a pose for a freak; there was some lure that
+had induced a pretended lodging in a humble position at Great Oaks.
+
+“My present intention,—certainly.”
+
+Nevertheless, Mr. Loring did not for one moment relegate this imposing
+personage to the situation of a mere pedagogic drudge for small boys,
+because, if it were true, what did he here? The Fauries, with their
+ancient traditions and high standards, might annul and obliterate all
+worldly differences in their intercourse with a poor gentleman, refined
+and intellectual, but never the recent and purse-proud Kentopps.
+
+And here suddenly they both were, overflowing with cordial greetings and
+exclamatory apologies and with elaborate rustlings and bows. Colonel
+Kentopp showed such a glittering expanse of white shirt front over his
+broad bosom that the sight of so much linen suggested undress; and his
+wife showed so much collar-bone and sternum independent of fabric and
+almost of flesh that she suggested no dress at all. She wore, however, a
+ruby-tinted brocade, and a fine pendant of rubies and diamonds swung
+from a delicate chain about her throat. Her hair had a deeper hue of
+blondine than usual, and she wore in it a cluster of ruby-tinted ostrich
+tips, at the base of which a very large diamond scintillated.
+
+But diamonds were all at a discount in comparison with those that
+glimmered like dewdrops in the dark masses of Gertrude Kelvin’s hair.
+They were not many nor of great size, but they were set artfully to
+quiver and glitter at every movement of her head, and the midnight of
+her hair gave them a stellular brilliancy. She was attired in a gown of
+delicate green tissue over silk of the same shade, and the exquisite
+whiteness of her shoulders and arms and face, heightened by the dainty
+tint of the dress, seemed worth some deprivation of the garish light of
+the summer sun and outdoor joys.
+
+“Come, Mr. Desmond, you will take out Miss Kelvin,” said Mrs. Kentopp,
+busied in arranging her party. Then in an aside to Mr. Loring behind her
+fan of ruby-tinted ostrich plumes: “He was just dying with suspense!”
+She played her blue eyes at him significantly, and Mr. Loring was thus
+given to understand that Mr. Desmond’s lure in Deepwater Bend was Miss
+Kelvin.
+
+“But how old man Kelvin will cut up if there is really no money,” he
+thought sagely.
+
+In slow and stately wise they filed out in couples to the dining-room;
+and even if the predilections of Mr. Loring were already engaged by the
+traditions of the _ancien régime_, he must needs have admitted to
+himself that the entourage at Dryad-Dene was most attractive,
+embellished by this glittering company, which set off the house in its
+gala aspect to the greatest advantage.
+
+The dining-room was large, and its appointments betokened that its
+owners gave serious heed to the problems and the pleasures of the table.
+“My house was built around my refrigerator,” Mrs. Kentopp was fond of
+saying; and Colonel Kentopp might have added, with a significance not
+altogether literal, that his house was built over his cellar. For the
+Kentopps, though not sages of wisdom, were quite indisposed to depend
+largely upon the attractions of their personality and the feast of
+reason and the flow of soul to commend their entertainments. The wines
+were choice and had been long in bottle, and distance and
+inaccessibility worked no impairment upon the menu. All the delicacies
+of the season, and many out of season, graced the successive courses,
+and the decorations of rare exotics—the spring flowers were left to
+bloom in their thousands out-of-doors—had indeed scant affinity with the
+backwoods.
+
+“These are from our own hothouses,” Mrs. Kentopp was saying, in reply to
+a comment. “Yes,—we have the world at command at Dryad-Dene. This is the
+newly discovered site of the Garden of Eden, between the waters of the
+Mississippi and Bogue Humma-Echeto; they used to be called the Pishon
+and the Gihon rivers, you know.” She held her head down and looked up
+under the rims of her eyelids to emphasize the felicity of her remark.
+“If there is any little item that we haven’t got, the Mississippi River
+on one side and the railroad on the other will bring it to us.”
+
+Mr. Loring sat at her right hand and was subject to all her
+beguilements. Opposite at a little distance was Desmond, between Miss
+Kelvin and Miss Allandyce, with Herndon on the farther side. Desmond had
+been presented to the Mayberry and Timlock contingent, but he had taken
+only a vague impression of pink and blue draperies and blonde hair and
+roseate smiles, with the usual complement of attendant cavaliers; for in
+the place to which he had been assigned he was absorbed in an effort,
+more or less successful, to explain to Miss Allandyce a reason for not
+recognizing her that should be something less blunt than the statement
+that her riding-costume had quite disguised her at their earlier meeting
+in the afternoon.
+
+“I have heard that the cultivation of the powers of memory is considered
+important in modern education,” she twitted him. “I should think your
+pedagogical laurels would wilt after this. How can you urge upon Chub
+Faurie the value of such discipline of the faculty of—of—”
+
+“Observation,” suggested Miss Kelvin, on his other hand.
+
+“Yes,—observation and—and tabulation of traits as to enable you to
+recognize an object—”
+
+“In the landscape—” prompted Miss Kelvin.
+
+“Yes—in the landscape—an object with a red head, after the lapse of an
+interval of time,—an hour, say—”
+
+“Arithmetically, sixty minutes, to be exact,” Miss Kelvin urged her on.
+
+Desmond had no sense of amusement as he realized that he had tabulated
+her equestrian garb in his mind and would never forget it. The
+predicament he was in was far too critical for that. He made a gallant
+struggle for a diversion of interest. “I saw no object with a red head,”
+he stipulated. “I should never tabulate it as red, but auburn.”
+
+“Then you would be most discourteous; for red heads are very
+fashionable, and mine is treated with chemicals at stated intervals to
+make it seem redder than it is,” she said gravely, assuming an air of
+staid and offended decorum.
+
+He wondered in his desperation whether it would be permissible to tell
+her frankly that she was not half so gentlemanly in her gown of white
+silk. A necklace of seed pearls of fantastic device hung about her
+delicate white neck. Her short sleeves had a fall of lace that met the
+tops of her long white kid gloves, which she had slipped off her hands
+without disturbing the upper section, tucking the fingers beneath her
+bracelets. She wore a comb of seed pearls in her auburn hair, and she
+looked very handsome. He had an idea, curious enough to him, that she
+did not in the least grasp the reason of his failure to recognize her,
+his apparent lapse of memory, but that Miss Kelvin had divined it in an
+instant, and had a mischievous delight in his plight. Although Miss
+Kelvin would not have alluded to the riding-costume her friend
+affected,—for she thought it a horrifying, strong-minded notion, worthy
+of the woman who wants to vote, who engages in business, who preaches,
+who practices medicine and law, and its adoption by a southerner an
+apostasy, abominably uncharacteristic,—her eyes dwelt upon him with a
+luminous mirth, and now and then, as she caught his glance, she burst
+into a ripple of involuntary laughter.
+
+Her recurrent observation of him, her smiles in response to his glance
+as oysters and soup, and fish and entrée, successively filed past him,
+almost untouched, were remarked by Mr. Loring, and these apparently
+tender passages between the two were interpreted to further Mrs.
+Kentopp’s plan even more than she had anticipated. She had expected to
+artfully give Mr. Loring such an idea of mutual interest as their
+propinquity might suggest, aided by some crafty phrases of her own. But
+she had not dared to hope for these bright glances from Gertrude, for
+her half-suppressed delighted laughter, for the attitude of the girl,
+leaning half across Desmond to whisper and prompt Miss Allandyce to
+further jocose upbraidings of the mischance. Gertrude seemed, indeed,
+throwing herself at his head; and to her demonstration he ardently
+responded, now and again turning to take her counsel in a low voice how
+he might best plead his excuses, often misadvised to his detriment and
+setting Selina Allandyce off on a new score of rebukes and reproaches.
+For they found the tutor great fun. After the first shock of
+disappointment, they resigned themselves with a good grace to his
+impecunious state and ineligibility. He was too handsome a man to view
+with indifference, and too interesting, for his manner attracted no less
+than his presence. There was something, too, below the surface of his
+talk, and while they did not discriminate its quality, they were aware
+of its submergence there.
+
+As the gay chat grew in interest and animation, Mrs. Kentopp in her
+elation could not leave the aspect of the trio to produce its own
+impression; she must needs give it a nudge.
+
+“Love’s young dream,” she murmured sentimentally to Mr. Loring, her head
+held down, the iris of her eyes under the upper lids. “‘There’s nothing
+half so sweet in life.’”
+
+Mr. Loring for some time had seemed quite attentive to the champagne and
+the roast, but he was not altogether absorbed.
+
+“Not so young, I take it, as far as the gentleman is concerned,” he
+replied discerningly.
+
+“Oh,—oh,”—Mrs. Kentopp could hardly contradict this conclusion fast
+enough. “Why, _he_ is just a boy,—a collegian,—graduated last June,—just
+twenty-four.”
+
+“Rather old for a collegian,” commented Mr. Loring, dryly.
+
+“Took a very elaborate course, all sorts of elective extras as well as
+the regular curriculum. Has a degree from _two_ great universities.”
+
+“One is more than enough,” sneered Mr. Loring, who had matriculated with
+much brilliancy on ’Change.
+
+“Oh, yes,—he is a mere boy!” Mrs. Kentopp emphasized her insistence.
+
+“He looks fully thirty,” said Mr. Loring, wondering why olives were not
+always “pitted,”—otherwise it seemed more decent to swallow the pits, if
+the possibilities of appendicitis did not hinder.
+
+“Oh, he has had so much sorrow,”—and Mrs. Kentopp conjured an appealing
+sadness into her eyes and shook her flaxen head as she bent it to look
+down in token of sympathetic woe.
+
+“Hasn’t turned his hair gray,” said Mr. Loring. “He is the
+finest-looking man I ever saw.”
+
+“Oh, do you think so?” asked Mrs. Kentopp, with a surprised and negative
+tendency.
+
+“Certainly; he has a noble head, and a very fine and impressive face.
+They must be long on looks at Great Oaks. I always thought Mrs. Faurie
+the most beautiful woman in the world.”
+
+“‘The most beautiful woman in the world!’”—one of the Mayberry group
+caught the words and tossed them back. “I know just whom you are talking
+about.”
+
+The attention became concentrated. Mrs. Kentopp sought to divert it. “I
+want you to observe the mould of the sorbet,” she interrupted,
+bespeaking notice for the red ices. “Somebody said that this looks like
+a melon and ought not to be striped this deep red. Do you think it is a
+melon?”
+
+“Why, no,” said Desmond. “It is a pomegranate.”
+
+“There,—what did I tell you?” She clapped her hands in juvenile glee, as
+she spoke across the length of the table to her husband.
+
+“The first time I ever tasted a real pomegranate was down at Great
+Oaks,” said Miss Mayberry. “They have them in their old-fashioned garden
+yet. You have got the flavor, too,” she added, as she daintily tasted
+the ice.
+
+“And who do you say is the most beautiful woman in the world?” queried
+Mr. Loring, his inelastic countenance reluctantly crinkling in his
+smile, sure of her answer.
+
+“Mrs. Faurie, of course! I have always heard her called that, and
+everywhere as well as at home. I remember when we were at Vevey we met
+some Italians,—high-class people who knew the Berkeleys,—oh, they were
+very agreeable,—and one day we were talking at random of pictures and
+pose and elements of beauty, and one of the gentlemen, who was quite an
+art connoisseur, said that he believed he knew the most beautiful woman
+in all the world. He had met her in Chamouni, doing Mont Blanc, and that
+sort of thing; and when he said that she lived in Paris, Madame Honoria
+Faurie, we all screamed! He didn’t even know that she was an American.”
+
+“But she has gone off a good deal in her looks of late,” Mrs. Kentopp
+suggested.
+
+“I hoped that I would meet her here to-night,” said Mr. Loring, without
+even ordinary tact; everything connected with Great Oaks, the embodiment
+of his ideal, for which his soul sighed, was interesting to him. “Is
+Mrs. Faurie not well?” He fixed his eyes on Desmond and asked the
+question directly across the table.
+
+“Oh, yes,—quite well,” Desmond replied, a trifle embarrassed.
+
+There was a pause. The general attention was apparently required by the
+game course, which was just being served. The inference was too plain.
+Mrs. Faurie, it seemed, had not cared to honor the diversion at
+Dryad-Dene with the distinction of her presence. For who could imagine
+Mrs. Kentopp’s purblind folly in failing to invite her!
+
+The tact of all the party seemed to have suffered a collapse. “I suppose
+that Mrs. Faurie has gone so much, and seen so much, and had so much,
+that she does not care for our neighborhood gatherings,” said Gertrude
+Kelvin at length.
+
+“She finds Great Oaks as dull as the grave,” snapped Mrs. Kentopp, the
+pendulous tendency of her cheeks reasserted without the dimpling breadth
+of laughter. “Doesn’t she, Mr. Desmond?”
+
+He was a little at a loss. “She complains of its monotony,” he said.
+
+“The idea!” exclaimed Mr. Loring, indignantly; “one of the finest places
+in the whole Mississippi River country. From Memphis to the Balize you
+couldn’t find its superior. To my mind it is the loveliest place I ever
+saw. I wish it was mine! Monotony! I’d like to own that kind of
+monotony.”
+
+From the foot of the table Colonel Kentopp, in all his pose of
+geniality, with his glass of Chambertin in his hand, lowered upon Mrs.
+Kentopp.
+
+The woman rallied first from the contretemps. “The land I know is fine
+and there is a deal of it, and the outbuildings are good and stanch, but
+the old mansion is a rattle-trap,—so out of repair, and built on any
+kind of an old plan. It has no style about it, no modern improvements
+and embellishments and—”
+
+“It simply crystallizes the past,” Mr. Loring declared solemnly. “It is
+an epitome of the old South,—its comfort, its space, its disregard of
+ostentation; its broad acres about it can keep the tally of its values;
+it takes you back a hundred years; it has yesterday in every line. I
+wish it was mine!”
+
+He talked on and on, the taciturn man, over the salad and the sweets,
+the theme unvaried, throughout the service of the dessert with the
+notable ancient Madeira, till at last his voice was lost in a silken
+rustle. Mrs. Kentopp had given the signal for rising, and the young
+girls were presently flitting along the big square hall, still visible
+from the dining-room, making a picture that enhanced the charming
+setting which should have appealed to any man with an eye for beauty,
+who did not cultivate a distorted squint backward toward the exploded
+past instead of the sophisticated present.
+
+The ballroom was in the third story,—another intimation of the intensely
+modern spirit of Dryad-Dene. There was all out-of-doors to build on, and
+surely there was scant reason to economize space when the value of land
+was contemplated by the quarter section instead of the running foot. The
+destined use and cost of building materials alone might limit the size
+of any structure in Deepwater Bend. But though there was no need to
+climb stairs, there was much that was picturesque in this airy ballroom,
+and it was indeed a great contrast to the long, low wing devoted to the
+same purpose at Great Oaks, with its green shutters closed, the spiders
+weaving in the corners, and the wide, smooth spaces of its polished
+flooring devoted to the humble purposes of miscellaneous storage; for
+there was not a dance at Great Oaks mansion in all the quiet years while
+Mrs. Faurie had been the admired cynosure in palatial assemblages in
+many foreign capitals.
+
+Here the decorated ceiling had a fine pitch, and all the architectural
+embellishments of the house below culminated on this level; the cupola
+of the tower gave a circular alcove to the ballroom, and on the opposite
+side the French windows issued upon a long, flat roof that, furnished
+with a balustrade, offered a charming promenade between the waltzes for
+the young people under the white, palpitating stars and in close
+familiarity with the gentle night wind. It offered also every
+opportunity to the overheated dancers for pneumonia and influenza; but
+as they gave this fact no heed, it might scarcely be considered one of
+the choice advantages of the ballroom. The hothouses had sent hither
+their offering of palms and banana trees and ferns for a tasteful scheme
+of decoration, and an Italian band, brought up from New Orleans for the
+occasion, tossed lilting melodies from behind a leafy screen. The
+stringed vibrations found in Desmond’s heart a thrilling response of
+poignant memory, reviving in contrast with the present all the happy
+past, the cherished prospects, the vanished faces, the hallowed home.
+But he was young, and his pulses were astir with vitality and vigor. The
+rhythm, the motion, the sweet, swinging melody, imparted their own
+jubilant effects, and he could but enjoy with his muscles all the
+buoyancy of his stalwart young frame, while with a curious duality his
+heart’s sorrows were unassuaged and his mental indifference and
+aloofness were no self-deceit. It was perhaps the mental attitude of
+many a reveler in joyous scenes that awoke no sense of mirth, but it had
+no parallel among the dancers at Dryad-Dene. The young ladies were all
+a-weary of the dull season spent at the abominated plantations; it was
+too late for New Orleans, being mid-Lent, indeed, and yet too early for
+the White Sulphur Springs or the Gulf coast.
+
+“How delicious!” Gertrude Kelvin exclaimed. “I should have thought I had
+forgotten how to ‘two-step,’—I have scarcely stood on my feet since
+Mardi-Gras.” For it was with the charming white rose that Desmond found
+himself chiefly awhirl. He danced specially well, and more than once, as
+the music recommenced, she looked from a chatting group toward him, with
+so bright and expectant a smile that he was fain to ask the pleasure
+once more. And indeed it was no great constraint. She was as light, as
+airy, as poetic of movement, swinging as rhythmically as a blossom on a
+bough, with as little suggestion of effort. Her delicate green tissue
+draperies floated diaphanous in the breeze of their motion; her white
+arms and neck were fairer still in the moony gleams of the shades of the
+gas-jets; her ethereal pallor took on no unbecoming flush with the
+exertion; her movement was as devoid of the idea of fatigue as the
+flitting of a butterfly or the noiseless winging here and there of one
+of the white moths that, allured by the lights, came in, now and then,
+from out of the night. The sparkle of the diamonds in her hair flashed
+into his eyes occasionally as her head was poised so close to his
+shoulder, for she was tall despite her small and feminine ways, and they
+made a pretty couple to look at, as Mrs. Kentopp did not omit to point
+out to Mr. Loring when at length he came into the apartment.
+
+He had been loitering at the table over Kentopp’s good wine and fine
+cigars with his martyrized host, although the younger men had earlier
+joined the ladies, who had had coffee in the drawing-rooms, and together
+they had trooped up to the ballroom at the first long-drawn, plangent
+cadence of the violins. Mrs. Kentopp had a freshened, elated mien as she
+surveyed the scene, standing in the ballroom door beneath the vines of
+an elaborate hanging-basket, with the most feathery of trailing ferns,
+and plying her fan of ruby ostrich plumes, though she felt the cool
+breeze from the widely opened windows.
+
+“A handsome couple; that will be a match,” she commented, smiling
+sentimentally.
+
+“No doubt,—no doubt,” replied Mr. Loring. He smelled very strong of
+tobacco: when the cigars were mild, he smoked a good many of them. He
+was a self-made man, the architect of his own fortune,—a massive
+structure on which little ornament had been bestowed. He was apt to
+consider market prices, potential bargains, possible rebates, and
+equivalent values, even in social affairs, although his interest in
+social affairs scarcely seemed actively concerned with an adequate
+return for the outlay at present. He was bent upon enjoying his money,
+but he wanted the best article of pleasure that the market could afford.
+He saw an opportunity of richly rewarding himself at a very great
+bargain in buying one of the fine old estates in Deepwater Bend far
+below its value in the shrunken estimates of post-bellum ratings, where
+he might retire to enjoy the pose of magnate and millionaire within a
+few miles of where he had been born of poor but eminently respectable
+parents. His father, who had been one of the subordinate clerks, “mud
+clerk” it was called in those days, on a steamboat, had secured for him
+by favor a place in the office of a broker in New Orleans, and stood
+amazed by the portentous growth of his scion in that hotbed of
+speculation. Loring felt always much at his ease, assumed to be as “good
+as anybody,” yet he was very definitely aware that his consequence would
+be much enhanced in the neighborhood that he desired to dominate by the
+possession of one of the fine old places, at whose seigneurial splendor
+he had once gazed as at fairyland, without a thought of entrance. He had
+little sympathy with poverty,—it was never romantic, or picturesque, or
+appealing to him. Wealth had been his ambition, and wealth was now his
+admiration. His study was how to seem not less magnificently endowed
+than he really was with this world’s goods. He was a bachelor, and could
+not express his riches in the splendor of a wife’s equipment. He could
+not afford to marry when he would, and since he had been able to consult
+his wishes, he had lost the impulse toward domesticity. His eyes roamed
+over the charming scene of the decorated room, the whirling dancers, the
+dark blue night looking in with a myriad stars from the windows of
+balcony and long, railed promenade, with no fixity of interest and no
+undercurrent of sentiment.
+
+“Yes,” he reiterated, “no doubt it will be a match. Naturally, Mr.
+Desmond will recoup his disasters by marrying money.”
+
+For Mrs. Kentopp had effaced the dullness of his propinquity at table by
+talking much of Desmond. The matter just now nearest her heart was her
+scheme to divert Loring from the theory that Mrs. Faurie might become
+interested in the tutor, and she was sure that the peculiar quality of
+Desmond’s personality would soon set such a rumor afloat, were it not
+forestalled by one more credible. Mrs. Kentopp was one of those women
+whose shallow minds are reflected in their talk. She could no more have
+kept a secret without a word to play about it than she could have
+emulated the Spartan boy and without a sign held the gnawing fox beneath
+her cloak. She would never give such an intimation of her plan that
+Loring might discover and rush in upon it; but she needs must chat of
+Desmond, his recent history, his father’s death, the ensuing financial
+disasters, his relinquished career, the incongruity of his collegiate
+record with his humble position.
+
+“Oh,—I didn’t give you the idea that Mr. Desmond is a fortune-hunter,
+did I? Why, I wouldn’t have you think that for the world!”
+
+Mrs. Kentopp had a peculiar aversion to the character of a
+fortune-hunter. As a girl she had been rich in her own right, and
+Colonel Kentopp had not escaped the suspicion of a lively perception of
+the side on which his bread was buttered.
+
+“Why not? Are we not all fortune-hunters?” demanded Mr. Loring, dryly.
+“What else do we hunt?”
+
+“But not in that sense—a mercenary marriage! Oh, no!”
+
+Mr. Loring had a touch of perversity, or perhaps Mrs. Kentopp, with her
+_arrière pensée_ concerning the disinterestedness of her own marriage,
+had been heavy-handed enough to permit him to feel rebuked. “I can’t
+look on Miss Gertrude Kelvin as such a hardship,—even if she would tack
+a tidy little fortune on to a wedding-ring,” he retorted, his wooden
+countenance smiling satirically.
+
+“Gertie? why, she is adorable!” cried Mrs. Kentopp, seeking in a frenzy
+to find her feet in this slough of misapprehension. “Any man would be
+too lucky to talk about to win her, even if she would not have a cent!”
+
+“Just _my_ opinion,” said Mr. Loring, as if he had enforced its
+adoption. “But if Miss Kelvin has not enough money for our gentleman,
+perhaps his good looks, and his great learning,” his lip curled
+cynically, for Mr. Loring was very short on the classics, “and his
+collegiate honors, and his interesting dumps and douleur over the fling
+that Fate has given him, might appeal to Mrs. Faurie,—she will give up
+that nice income some day for a life-interest in a third of the estate
+and a husband,—and the third will be a deal more money than our tutor
+will ever see otherwise.”
+
+Mrs. Kentopp suddenly felt a cold chill stealing up and down her spine,
+to which her dress, cut low and loose in the neck, left her liable. But
+it was not the inclemency of the wind! Her heart sank at this deliberate
+wording of the fear which her husband had evolved and she had adopted.
+If this idea were seriously entertained, the sale of Dryad-Dene was
+indeed a distant and doubtful prospect, for there were few investors
+able to compass a purchase of such magnitude, and fewer still with a
+disposition toward property of this character. And Dryad-Dene was not
+always gay like this. With half the rooms shut up, and the gilt and
+brocade furniture in hollands, and the visitors few and far between and
+always the same, and no excitement, and naught to do, and her eyes
+forever fixed on a house in New Orleans in the winter and a cottage on
+the coast in summer,—oh, Dryad-Dene was but a dreary imprisonment indeed
+in the depths of the backwoods! The crisis was so acute that it imparted
+to Mrs. Kentopp a touch of dignity.
+
+“You forget, Mr. Loring, how very distasteful such a suggestion would be
+to Mrs. Faurie were she to hear of it. This man occupies a very humble
+position in her household,—a paid retainer,—not exactly like a courier—”
+
+“Why no, indeed,—I should say not!” cried Mr. Loring, as indignant with
+this perversion of his suggestion as with its affront to the dignity of
+the tutor. “He is a gentleman, of fine family, and a learned man.”
+
+“So _I_ said; but he _is_ a paid and humble attaché of her household,
+and the idea that she could unbend to consider such a person, ten years
+her junior,—”
+
+“_That_ makes no difference,” interrupted Mr. Loring, who took this
+schooling rather aversely.
+
+“—And sacrifice her great income for a man so egregiously beneath
+her,—why, the suggestion is belittling, Mr. Loring.”
+
+“It is belittling to get rid of money, sure!—and she _may_ hang on to
+her money yet,” Mr. Loring conceded.
+
+“Except that we are all so deadly dull down here and value any new
+face,” she began once more.
+
+“Especially such a handsome one,” Mr. Loring stipulated, with a knowing
+grin.
+
+“Yes,—and a dancing man, too.”
+
+Mr. Loring did not dance. At the period when he might have had the
+opportunity to learn the latest Terpsichorean quirks and kicks, he was
+absorbed in the saltatory vagaries of the stock market and the
+fandangoes of cotton futures.
+
+“And there is always such a dearth of cavaliers that we have admitted
+him among us as one of ourselves. Otherwise and elsewhere, as you know,
+the tutor would be in his place in the schoolroom.”
+
+“_Though_ a gentleman and a learned man!” sneered Loring.
+
+“Yes,—and I hope that he may marry Gertie Kelvin, and get a chair in
+some good college, and one day be the president of it.” Mrs. Kentopp
+benevolently smiled.
+
+“And what will old John Kelvin be doing all that time?” asked Mr.
+Loring, with a sidewise twist of his mouth, of which his wooden face
+seemed incapable.
+
+“Oh, Mr. Loring, in an argument you always vanquish me—Why, certainly,
+Mr. Herndon,—I am _dying_ to waltz.”
+
+And thus, perhaps because she had the only blondined coiffure in the
+room, was considerably rouged, and floridly attired in her rich,
+ruby-tinted brocade, Fate maliciously decreed that she should dance with
+Mr. Herndon, the slightest of spindling young gentlemen, wan of face,
+thin of flaxen hair, of incipient involuntary tonsure, altogether pallid
+and fragile of effect by contrast with the artificially heightened
+charms of his partner, and together they furnished the aptest
+illustration of “before and after.”
+
+Mr. Loring still stood in the doorway, apparently casting the eye of
+appraisement over the festive scene. He was of so monetary a
+personality, of so speculative a reputation, that it was impossible to
+disassociate his presence with a deal. It had a certain incongruity and
+incompatibility with the remainder of the company, and even Mrs.
+Kentopp, who had not the most delicate perceptions of tact, was vaguely
+aware of this with an irritating subconsciousness as she whirled and
+whirled. She had hoped that, being a single man, Mr. Loring would be at
+once assimilated in the merry party as one of the beaux, and while she
+could count with security upon his conventional acceptance, on the
+footing at which she proposed him, by the well-bred young people, she
+had not reckoned upon the lack of malleability of Mr. Loring’s own
+predilections in the matter. He was not one of them, he had no pulse in
+common, no affinity with their tastes, no social ambitions to which
+their warmth of reception might minister. He made no pretense of being a
+young man; he claimed naught of the courtesy that thus reckons one
+scarcely yet of middle age. He was not sensitive on the point; his
+record on ’Change kept the tally of the years, and he was proud of the
+events as they totted up. His age was known to people of more importance
+in his mind than these inexperienced girls just liberated from the
+schoolroom, and their cavaliers still with a lingering dependence on the
+paternal purse-strings. He had no response for the graceful coquetry of
+the young ladies, nor for the jejune opinions of the youths, financially
+mere cumberers of the ground, for he had no method of rating other than
+financial. He was too rich a man, too dominant, too self-centred and
+consciously important, to submit himself unnecessarily to boredom, and
+he had not that altruistic impulse of high social culture that would
+constrain him to sacrifice his preference for the sake of his hostess.
+Hence it pleased him to stand in isolation in the doorway, under the
+feathery fronds of the drooping ferns, and stare moodily, absently,
+silently, at the revolving dance, taking no part.
+
+He was never intentionally frank, but the unavowed reason of his
+presence became very definitely outlined as the evening wore on, and Mr.
+Loring associated with every appearance of satisfaction with himself.
+Mrs. Kentopp, now and again, fluttered up to him and made a great show
+of talk, aided by a waving fan and upturned eyes, and he had then the
+grace to respond; but to Colonel Kentopp, who must needs sometimes take
+her place, he had not a word to throw. Being of a festive temperament
+and relishing the joyous occasion, the host was obviously a martyr, in
+the long intervals when he felt constrained to stand beside the wooden
+figure and ply him with artful talk, so constructed as to need no
+response other than the absent grunt or nod which Loring vouchsafed in
+recognition of his character as quasi-guest.
+
+“‘How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour,’” quoted
+Gertrude Kelvin, as she and Desmond, breathless from the final whirls of
+the waltz, issued into the tower alcove to find already standing there,
+enjoying the breezes of the open space, Selina Allandyce and Rupert
+Regnan. He was a tall fellow, with an outdoor complexion suffused with a
+constant red flush, brightly glancing gray eyes, and dark hair. He had
+served in the Spanish War, and had acquired, besides the title of
+lieutenant, a military carriage which would be his proud possession for
+all time, and which added a certain stiff stateliness to his appearance
+in evening dress. His father, a veteran of another war, one of the
+Unreconstructed Rebels, was wont to look askance at him, tabooed his
+title at home, and had informed him that he could not set foot on the
+plantation while he wore a blue uniform. But the son cheerfully
+responded that he had shed the uniform when he had quitted the service,
+and that the title of lieutenant was too tight a fit for him,—he was out
+for bigger game! He had developed a sense of his own importance, and he
+now felt it jeopardized in some sort.
+
+“What is that man here for, do you suppose?” he said to Miss Allandyce.
+The coterie was quite confidential in the restricted space, which, with
+the windows all open between the pilasters on three sides, seemed to
+poise them in the midst of the cool, dark night, the airy roof of the
+cupola above.
+
+“For the same reason that you are here, I fancy,—for the pleasure and
+honor of your company,” she responded, looking in the dim light very
+sweetly feminine in her white silk gown and her pearl-crowned auburn
+hair.
+
+“But there isn’t any pleasure in _his_ company, I should judge from
+Colonel Kentopp’s countenance, and I should judge from his own that he
+isn’t disposed to confer any honor. I imagine that he has come to look
+at the house,—people say that he is going to buy it.”
+
+“You seem to object; are you a prospective purchaser, too?” Miss Kelvin
+twitted him with this incongruity in view of his youth and financial
+inexperience.
+
+“I do object. I may be exacting, but it strikes me that this party was
+made up to give him an opportunity to see Dryad-Dene to the best
+advantage. I can’t imagine what else he is doing here. He scarcely makes
+a feint toward the manner of a guest.”
+
+“And you object to dancing for a purpose,—how wrong! You know that the
+reproach of dancing is that it is at best but an idle amusement. You
+ought to be glad to convert it to some use.”
+
+“I object to being made use of without reference to my feelings,” he
+protested, as he wagged a somewhat round and close-cropped head with an
+emphatic, not to say affronted air.
+
+“And are you not willing to skip and leap like a young lamb to make Mr.
+Loring think this is a pretty house?”
+
+“I am not! The pleasure of my company was requested, and I came to
+compliment my hosts, and to enjoy myself, and to see you all,”—he
+included the whole group with a bow,—“and to contribute my little
+possible to the general entertainment.”
+
+“And you are frustrated!” Gertrude Kelvin averred. “Now, if I were you,
+I’d take it all back; I’d cancel my services. I’d make the whole thing
+ridiculous. You ought to go right out there in the middle of the
+ballroom floor and throw a somersault! Then you would undo all that you
+have done.”
+
+“Oh, do it, Mr. Regnan,—or rather undo it!” cried Selina Allandyce.
+
+He laughed, but did not stir.
+
+“He’s afraid!” Gertrude exclaimed. “You know that he must have been a
+coward in the Spanish War,—for see now, he’s afraid.”
+
+“I’m sure that he ran at the battles,—I’d be willing to take my
+affidavit to it,” Selina goaded him.
+
+“It’s a mere pretense that he got a presentation sword after the war—for
+he’s _afraid_!” said Gertrude.
+
+“He couldn’t have got it for gallant conduct, for he’s afraid!”
+
+Regnan looked from one to the other, but only laughed.
+
+“He is deceitful, too,” Gertrude recommenced, “and he encourages deceit
+in others. He lets Mr. Loring accredit Dryad-Dene with all the chic and
+style of his presence—”
+
+“And all the grace and agility of his waltzing,” Selina interrupted.
+
+“And all the bonhomie and sparkle of his conversation,” Gertrude added.
+
+“Oh, let up on me; I’ll be good! I’ll be good!” Regnan pleaded; but he
+made no saltatory intimations toward the required somersault.
+
+“And all the distinction of his military record,” persisted Gertrude.
+
+“And all the prestige of his hereditary position,” Selina supported her
+contention.
+
+“And when Mr. Loring buys this house, the title-deeds will call for more
+than they cover,—oh, poor defrauded Mr. Loring!”
+
+“But now, seriously,—” Regnan began.
+
+“Seriously,” Gertrude interrupted, “in fair dealing you ought to throw a
+somersault in the middle of the ballroom floor, in order that its lack
+of style and its grotesquerie and awkwardness, if _you_ can make it
+awkward, may condone for your unwitting alacrity in palming off a house,
+entitled to none of your signal attractions, on Mr. Loring, who will pay
+a bonus for the grace your presence lends to it!”
+
+“But now, seriously,— doesn’t it seem to you that this is not an
+appropriate time to show off the house to a buyer?” Regnan appealed to
+Desmond. “I may be exacting, but yet—”
+
+Desmond, who was aware that he himself was here for a purpose he could
+not fathom, had a monition of caution.
+
+“Don’t ask me; I am a stranger here, and—”
+
+“Hesitate to express an opinion, of course. Well,—we are all old
+friends, and but that it might seem a disrespect to Mrs. Kentopp’s
+feelings, and in so far uncivil, I should be willing to tax her with it
+myself.”
+
+The soft rustling of the treetops below in the bosky, benighted “dene”
+impinged upon the talk; the freshening breeze coursed through the tower,
+at this height inclosed only by the slight pilasters which upheld the
+conical roof. The sense of altitude, the vision of the lonely, starlit
+sky, and the dark, far-stretching wilderness on every side beyond the
+plantation clearings, were incongruous with the ballroom scene close at
+hand, the graceful figures promenading the glossy hard-wood floor with
+its mirror-like reflections. More akin was the romantic, languorous
+theme of the waltz, with a sort of melancholy yearning in its
+sentimental iteration, and presently a high-heeled white satin slipper
+was beginning to move unconsciously in rhythm as the quartette still
+stood in the tower together.
+
+“If your scruples against adorning the premises of Mr. Loring’s
+prospective purchase are not too great a restriction on this waltz,”
+Desmond suggested to Miss Allandyce, with whom he had not danced
+hitherto.
+
+“Oh, I repudiate the responsibility,” she exclaimed. “I am neither the
+bargainer nor the bargainee, and Mr. Loring is popularly supposed to be
+able to take care of himself financially.”
+
+She had lifted her hand to Desmond’s arm before they issued from the
+tower alcove, and as they came waltzing out of its seclusion together,
+Mr. Loring noted the change of partners. “He is making himself generally
+agreeable, and probably has no special idea of Miss Kelvin,” he
+commented within himself. “There is no money in his line of business. If
+he marries it, of course he will marry all he can. He would be mighty
+well pleased with the Faurie third,—which maybe Madame Honoria’s dukes
+and princes wouldn’t look at after they had seen her flourishing around
+on the income of so much more.”
+
+Mrs. Kentopp’s spirits were wilting; the lassitude of brain-fag was
+evident. She looked her thirty-eight years. Her cheeks were pendulous,
+so seldom did the distention incident to the redeeming smile visit them.
+She realized she had taken great pains to a doubtful end. She began to
+think that she might have better commended Dryad-Dene without the
+house-party. She could have managed Mr. Loring to greater advantage
+without its distractions. It had not made the excuse and occasion to get
+him here incidentally without obviously putting the house on parade. He
+assumed none of the pose and port of a guest. He seemed to consider that
+he was invited for business reasons only, and this doubtless suited his
+easy interpretations of the obligations imposed by hospitality as well.
+And why else should he have been invited? He was no friend of the
+Kentopps, and he had no desire to be friend of their friends. Why should
+they ask him here, save to show him the house to advantage? and
+to-morrow, on the camphunt, he would have every opportunity to see the
+land. The house certainly did appear to great advantage, but Mr. Loring
+was a discreet and discerning operator,—he could easily divest it of
+such attractions as were added to it by the fascinations of Mr. Regnan’s
+two-step and Miss Kelvin’s sylphine charms. He was appraising the
+woodwork, the quality of the plate-glass, the hand-carving on the
+newel-posts, with their long shafts holding up lily-like sprays of
+gas-jets. He condemned what he had learned to phrase as precious or
+Brummagem, and he regretted that it was all so new, so glossy, so like a
+fine hotel. He was ambitious of the pose of grand seigneur. He had now
+as much money as any one of the Mississippi princelings in the palmy
+days of the old plantation times. He coveted their entourage; it
+represented taste to him; wealth, family, culture, all the majesty of
+the magnate, as he rated the great in the world. A few modern
+conveniences kept as carefully as might be out of sight, a touch of
+modern frugality,—“I’d never throw away money with both hands like those
+old ducks,”—and this would comprise all the improvements that he thought
+would befit the domicile of eld. Still it was not to be had, and he
+addressed himself to contemplating the tower balcony, with the
+white-draped figures hanging on the balustrade, now gazing down into the
+dark shrubbery of the “dene,” where the fountain splashed rhythmically,
+and now chatting with the cavaliers while the group discussed the
+delectable ices. Mr. Loring partook of his selection with a meditative
+mien. It was of a mint flavor and was stiffly laced with old Bourbon,
+and a long, fragrant sprig of the newly budded herb stood in the midst
+of the delicate glass. Very perfect were the beautifully served
+refreshments, with accessories of daintiest device; but he knew full
+well that he would not have command of Mrs. Kentopp’s deft arrangements
+here if the house were his, for money itself could not buy good-will to
+equal her efforts in the interests of getting Dryad-Dene off on him.
+“Not even here will the larks fall all roasted into one’s mouth.” He
+remembered the old French proverb with a sardonic smile. He took no part
+in the outcry of protest with which, after one more entrancing waltz,
+the dancers greeted the strains of “Sleep well, Sweet Angel,” wafted out
+from the leafy screen embowering the Italian orchestra, with which the
+dinner dance was obviously brought to a close.
+
+Regnan followed Mrs. Kentopp here and there, insisting that she should
+look at his watch, which he had drawn from an inner pocket, and which
+marked but ten o’clock. She was doubtful for one moment; so little
+agreeable had she found the evening that she would not have been
+surprised to know that it had dragged as slowly as this witness
+maintained. Then she recognized the artifice.
+
+“It is a gay deceiver,—just like you!” she cried. “But if you did but
+know at what unearthly time you will have to rise, you would have been
+off to bed long ago. I expect to hear that old swamper’s halloo under
+the windows any moment, and the baying of his pack.”
+
+And so presently, reflected in the polished flooring, the procession
+wended its way through the ballroom and down the many turns of the
+elaborate staircase, pausing only once, at the first _entresol_, when
+Mrs. Kentopp called the attention of Mr. Loring to the electric button
+in the wall by means of which the gas-jets in the upper story were
+instantaneously extinguished, and the ballroom and the Mi-Carême dance
+were in a moment in the darkness of the past.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX
+
+
+It seemed indeed to Desmond that his head had scarcely touched the
+pillow when he was roused by the baying of hounds from the stable-yard
+at the rear of the house. He was on his feet in a moment, for Mr.
+Herndon did not monopolize the virtue of promptness at Dryad-Dene, and
+Desmond was zealously heedful that his distaste to the occasion and his
+entertainers should induce no breach of observance on his part. He was
+half dressed when the screech of the speaking-tube summoned him within
+the sound of Colonel Kentopp’s voice, urgently asking if he were awake,
+then with equal urgency if he were risen,—which demonstrated that
+Colonel Kentopp’s brain was not very completely cleared of the vapors of
+slumber.
+
+Desmond arrayed himself in his equestrian togs, which he considered the
+most appropriate gear at his command, and finding the halls alight and
+following the sound of voices, he soon made his way to the dining-room,
+where a hasty breakfast was going forward.
+
+“Just a snack,” Colonel Kentopp was saying to the gentlemen seated at
+the table, or standing at the sideboard helping themselves to cold
+mutton or ham as they would. He himself seemed to be breakfasting on
+brandy, and he went around the table, decanter in hand, administering a
+nip here and there, willy-nilly, like the Squeers treacle.
+
+“For the stomach’s sake,” he would insist to youths whose hearty young
+stomachs could with impunity have begun the day with ice-cold
+buttermilk. There was hot coffee, but no hot breads, and therefore, in
+Mississippi estimation, no breakfast. “We shall have a hot breakfast
+ready for us at the camp. We just want a snack here to enable us to get
+away. Those girls will be wild to go, and they couldn’t keep the saddle
+half the distance.”
+
+“Why, Miss Kelvin rides as well as any man,” said Rupert Regnan,
+displeased; “and Miss Allandyce—”
+
+“Rides just like a man,” Kentopp finished, with a laugh. “The truth is,”
+he spoke mysteriously, “we expect a rough day. We hope to get up a bear,
+and it isn’t safe to have ladies along in such a harum-scarum
+expedition. This is our last chance,—the game laws, you know. Monday is
+the first of March!”
+
+There was a touch of the _preux chevalier_ about Regnan. It was
+distasteful to him to sneak off and debar the young ladies of the
+pleasure they had set their hearts upon. If there had been any means of
+rousing them to the deceits practiced upon them, other than
+inappropriately appearing at their bedroom doors, he would have availed
+himself of it. What cared he for such stereotyped fun as was comprised
+in pulling through sloughs and cane-brakes with a lot of men after a
+bear, if one could be found! They were not of metropolitan life; the
+wilderness and its incidents were an every-day story; they were
+veritable “swampers,” as much old “residenters” as the bear himself!
+Such amusement as the day might offer lay, to his mind, in the
+incongruity of feminine society, and the enjoyment at second-hand of
+these hackneyed details, wonderful and new to the young girls’
+experience. He would fain have afforded them this joy, which they
+childishly craved.
+
+He realized, however, that it was not his place to dictate, and
+presently the men had all trooped out to a small room, ambitiously
+denominated the armory, and were busied over the choice of weapons and
+supply of ammunition. A great array of antique blades, helmets, shields,
+more or less genuine or suggestive of the junk-shops of New Orleans,
+hung upon the walls, with some really interesting specimens of the
+blunderbusses and cutlasses of the buccaneers of early times on the Gulf
+coast; of bows and arrows, beaded quivers, scalp-knives, tomahawks, from
+the date of the Chickasaw and Choctaw occupation of this region; and of
+the flintlock rifles, powder-horns, and shot-pouches of the pioneer
+days. Two or three of the party had brought their own guns, but others
+had depended on a chance furnishing forth from Kentopp’s armory. The
+modern repeating shotgun, holding in its magazine five cartridges, each
+with a dozen buckshot, permitting the discharge of sixty balls within
+five seconds, was a prime favorite with the sportsmen in preference to
+the staunch old double-barreled breechloader; only those who boasted
+special accuracy of aim were content with rifles; Desmond, not very
+enthusiastic in pressing forward, found his choice limited to necessity.
+
+“I hope that you are a good shot, Mr. Desmond,” said Colonel Kentopp,
+with polite concern, “for these fellows have left nothing but two rifles
+for us. First-rate make, though not repeaters.”
+
+Desmond’s outdoor accomplishments were limited to the “Gridiron.” He
+fancied the swamp game destined to be long-lived indeed, if they were to
+die from the chances of a single rifle-ball directed by his unaccustomed
+aim. For he was no sportsman. He did not thirst for victory over the
+sylvan folk. He accepted the rifle as graciously as if he were a dead
+shot and confident of his powers, secured his share of the appropriate
+ammunition, and rejoined the others, who had already repaired to the
+stable-yard.
+
+It was an animated scene. The gas-jet over the stable-door brought it
+out in high lights and black shadows. A number of fresh, restive horses
+had been led out of their stalls still in their blankets; others were
+bare and shivering in process of being saddled.
+
+“Will you ride with a curb, Desmond, or just with a snaffle?” asked
+Kentopp, as he bustled about, as busy as any of his negro grooms, who,
+with shining eyes and glittering teeth, entered into all the spirit of
+the occasion. The dogs were literally beside themselves, and with their
+dark, whisking shadows seemed twice as numerous as in reality. Now they
+leaped in a series of ecstatic gambols as if they could not keep their
+feet to the ground, and again they manifested strange proclivities not
+to be accounted for on a basis of human reasoning. One suddenly planted
+himself in front of a young and spirited steed and treated him to a
+succession of frenzied bayings and elastic boundings that sent the
+horse, restricted to a limited space, quite wild with surprise and
+dismay,—now leaping aside with the hope of evading his queer tormentor,
+and now rearing and threatening to bolt. Another of the dogs, with a
+yelp so shrill that it menaced the integrity of every tympanum within
+reach of the sound, urged the setting forth without more delay,
+scampering around among the hoofs of the horses and the legs of the men,
+and so to the gate and away!—looking over his shoulder presently, seeing
+that he was not followed, and returning to repeat the demonstration,
+calling “Come on! Come on! Come on!” as distinctly as if he had the
+powers of human speech.
+
+The horses, sniffing the morning air and the promise of adventure, again
+and again sent forth neighs shrill and clear and as matutinal of effect
+as a cock’s crow; there was a great stamping and champing; the voices of
+the stable-men were loud with calls for gear within the buildings, and
+admonitions to the horses, and adjurations to Mr. Sloper to take some
+order with his pack.
+
+“’Fore Gawd, them scandalous hound-dogs don’t show no more manners than
+if they were so many rapscallion childern,” the head of the stable
+averred.
+
+The guests discussed bits and saddles and chose according to their
+liking, and went in and out of the harness-room with grooms and
+lanterns. Often, in the midst of the turmoil, Colonel Kentopp looked up
+with apprehensive forecast at the house, which seemed with its three
+stories and tower very tall and stately in this region of the bungalow
+preference, expecting to hear a sash lifted and a voice, sweet but
+imperious, demand a stay of the proceedings. “Wait for us! Wait for us!”
+seemed to sound in his ears, until with the quick, assured tramp of a
+body of horse, a frenzied crescendo of the skirling of the dogs, a wild
+jocose “Yah! Yah!” of the stable-men left in the deserted yard, the
+hunters were mounted and gone.
+
+It was still so dark that Desmond could not have kept the road had it
+not been for the horsemen on either side, and the voices of those
+valiant precursors, the dogs, some of whom, however, now moderated their
+transports and were trotting silently forward. The tones of their owner,
+or entertainer it might seem, so honored were they in his domicile, came
+from the van, where he rode abreast with Colonel Kentopp, who had ceased
+his attentions to Mr. Loring to ply old Sloper with his courtesies. He
+really felt under special obligations to the old swamper for the loan of
+his pack of hounds, though, as in the case of many other politic people,
+his gratitude included a lively sense of favors yet to come. It was the
+opportunity for a day of sport preëminently appropriate to the region,
+which without Sloper’s coöperation it would have been impossible to
+offer to the house-party. Hence Colonel Kentopp had put up Mr. Sloper on
+the best horse in his stable, well knowing that the old swamper would be
+keen to discern and quick to resent any invidious distinction in the
+matter. Mr. Loring rode only the second best, a point which doubtless
+ministered to the swamper’s satisfaction and jealous sense of his own
+consequence. Therefore in fine fettle he led the cavalcade, continuously
+talking, his high-pitched voice, with its frequent breaks into a
+snuffling chuckle of falsetto laughter, coming back on the keen, dank,
+matutinal air with great distinctness.
+
+He was definitely of the class known as the “poor whites” of that
+region, and his company was not acceptable to Mr. Loring. The man who
+rises in the world is not tolerant of lower conditions. It is only the
+acknowledged aristocrat who can really unbend. Sloper’s estate in life
+did not duplicate or approximate Loring’s origin, which was in all
+essentials distinctly genteel,—in the fact of educated parents, in
+refinement of early association, in point of social connection; for
+although his immediate family were of small means, he was related to
+well-to-do people of good middle-class standing. Sloper, however,
+distinctly expressed the “common folks” of that region as contrasted
+with the baronial planter, and as Loring had no affiliations with the
+latter class, it offended him to be brought into familiar juxtaposition
+with the representative of the widely different lower order.
+
+Colonel Kentopp could suffer no reduction of personal consequence in
+hobnobbing as man to man with the old plebeian, but as far as Loring was
+concerned, familiarity might seem an outcropping of quondam tastes and
+associations and similarity of station. Hence he said naught as Colonel
+Kentopp’s jovial laughter rang out at the conclusion of one of Jerry
+Sloper’s stories that he had heard a score of times heretofore. As the
+old swamper’s high falsetto cackle punctuated the applausive mirth of
+the others, one might have thought that he was himself too noisy to
+distinguish the fact that Mr. Loring had not relaxed his risibles in
+compliment to the gifts of the raconteur; it was still too dark to
+discriminate facial expressions, and the lantern, which one of the
+colored grooms carried, was too far ahead to afford its gleams. There is
+not always that submission in the minds of the lowly in estate which
+would seem an appropriate concomitant of that humble condition.
+
+“Powerful glad to see you here, Mr. Loring,—though I don’t rightly see
+you yit,” Sloper remarked, holding in the spirited steed on which he was
+mounted to range alongside the millionaire. “We feel here in the
+Miss’ippi bottom that you jes’ nachully b’long to us. Why, I knowed yer
+dad way back in the fifties. _Yes_, sir! He used ter run the river in
+them days. He was mud clerk on the old Cher’kee Rose. I kep’ a wood-yard
+up yander on the p’int, an’ Gus Loring an’ me had chummy old times when
+he would come ashore to medjure the wood. That was before he
+married—considerable looking up his match was, for a mud clerk, ye know!
+Yer mother was a tidy gal,—plump as a partridge,—and I used to set up
+ter her considerable myself. He! he! he! She turned me off, though, for
+Gus Loring! An’ she done better, though I do say it myself. She done
+better to take Gus instead o’ me. She had a leetle chunk o’ money, an’
+yer dad quit the river an’ bought a share in a store an’ set out
+a-clerkin’. But Lawd! I reckon ye wouldn’t bat yer eye for no such stock
+o’ goods as he had. They tell me as ye have prospered considerable down
+yander in Orleans! I reckon if _ye_ was ter store-keep, like yer dad, ye
+could show forth as good a stock as they had at Whippoorwill
+Landing,—that would ha’ made Gus Loring stare! I don’t mean ye could
+_own_ it all—part credit o’ course! But I reckon from all I _have_ heard
+tell that ye could get a note in bank,—an’ that is mo’ ’n yer dad ever
+could do.”
+
+Regnan loved his fellow-man. “For God’s sake, pull that old fox off the
+Spartan’s vitals,” he said in a low voice to Kentopp. “I can’t abide for
+a fellow to be gnawed like that.”
+
+“Then, curse him,—why can’t he show some sense!” Kentopp growled _sotto
+voce_ in return. “Who but a fool would try to top old Jerry Sloper with
+his _nil admirari_ millionaire airs. _He_ knows what Loring cut his
+teeth on! I am afraid of my life to say a word.”
+
+Lieutenant Regnan had missed his billet as the destroyer of life. His
+instincts were all for first aid to the injured. He presently began
+melodiously to hum, and suddenly as he rode in the clump of horsemen he
+broke forth: “Say, Mr. Sloper, how does the tune go to that old
+high-water song:—
+
+             “Step light, neighbor,—_don’t_ jar the river!
+             Rising, rising, brimful and over—”
+
+Forthwith the old swamper was blissfully chanting as he rode at the head
+of the cavalcade, and Mr. Loring had time to readjust the expression of
+his face and to conceal the ravages of the onslaught on his pride before
+a certain pallid influence began to annul the darkness. A sense of mist
+was in the atmosphere, yet great, towering trees were visible, and far
+along apparently infinite vistas, level and devoid of woodland débris as
+a royal park, some vague presence shifted continually, never so
+distinct, so definitely embodied, as to be formulated to the vision, and
+at last realized as the impalpable medium of the dawning light. Suddenly
+day was revealed in the woods. The sun was up, not seeming to rise on
+those infinite levels, but to spring at once like a miracle into the
+place of darkness. It filled the world with the amplitudes of a glorious
+golden glow, so fresh, so elated, yet pervaded with a sort of awe, a
+splendid solemnity. Stillness characterized its earlier moments, but
+presently, in the chill morning, the spring birds were singing from the
+branches of the trees, which rustled with the sudden stir of the wind.
+Through the vistas to the west the great Mississippi was agleam with
+thousands of wavelets tipped with dazzling scintillations, and the
+rising mist that veiled the Arkansas shore shimmered with opalescent
+reflections. Beyond the limits of the forest one could see here and
+there a scattered growth of cottonwood trees and the serpentine line of
+the levee, its great embankment covered to the summit with the thick
+growth of Bermuda grass, the interlacing roots of which were considered
+of much avail in strengthening the earthwork to resist the action of the
+current in times of high water. At one point, where the river turned in
+its corkscrew convolutions, the horsemen could see that the encroaching
+flood had crossed the intervening space and was beginning to stand
+against the base of the levee. This premonitory symptom of overflow Mr.
+Loring was prompt to notice.
+
+“I have a cross levee half a mile back,” Colonel Kentopp said, with a
+jaunty air. “I don’t think we will go under, even if that stretch of
+levee should give. And if we do,” still more jauntily, “crawfish and
+river detritus are fine fertilizers.”
+
+“Best crops ever made in Deepwater Bend was after the biggest water I
+ever see,” interrupted Jerry Sloper, exceedingly glib. “Levees broke in
+March, and water stood sixty miles wide. Plantations were under till
+mighty nigh May. River was not in its banks till nigh May. Then the crop
+was planted and—”
+
+“I have heard my grandfather tell about that,” interposed Regnan. “The
+fields were so thick with cotton that they laughed and sang,—and the
+planters laughed and sang, too.”
+
+“Still, I’d rather Dryad-Dene should keep dry feet,” said Colonel
+Kentopp, turning in his saddle to look over his shoulder at the water
+lapping about the verdant spaces at the base of the levee. Nevertheless,
+he felt very cheerful. The cavalcade could hear the plantation bell at
+Dryad-Dene ring forth its strong, mellow acclaim, calling out the hired
+force to work, as well as the tenant farmers, who were under the same
+regimen. The broad expanse of fields was now and again visible, all
+prepared for the planting of cotton,—as carefully laid off and with the
+earth as thoroughly pulverized as if for a flower-bed. It was impossible
+for the heart of a proprietor of so fine a plantation not to swell at
+the sight, and while away from Annetta and her eager fostering of their
+mutual ambitions toward metropolitan life, Kentopp felt a sort of
+independence of the millionaire’s doubtful attitude. Let the event fall
+out as it would, he had here a mighty good thing.
+
+In the midst of these more vital and manly interests, Loring’s phlegm
+and pose of indifference could but give way. He knew the country and its
+possibilities thoroughly, and now and again he made searching inquiries
+into local conditions, which showed that his mind was genuinely occupied
+with the proposition, and caused Colonel Kentopp to think that he did
+not half care to sell at all. Repeatedly the richness of the opportunity
+was demonstrated. A turn in the road suddenly gave to view a lovely
+level of pasturage inclosed by hedges of the Cherokee rose, over whose
+wide-spreading evergreen brambles the horsemen could look upon a green
+plain, dotted with trees of gigantic girth, and embellished with as fine
+a flock of sheep as ever wore wool. Three or four black pickaninnies,
+already absorbed in a game of mumble-the-peg, and several collie dogs
+were entered upon their guardian duties for the day, and Colonel Kentopp
+was descanting upon varieties and pedigrees, weight of shearings and
+flavor of mutton.
+
+“We raise everything at Dryad-Dene, as a model plantation should. The
+world is within the bounds of Dryad-Dene. We buy nothing but gunpowder,
+salt, iron, and sugar.”
+
+This was, of course, the ancient brag of the great river principalities;
+but the immense drove of hogs which the horsemen passed after a time,
+crowding about a gate where swineherds were throwing out as breakfast
+the contents of a wagon loaded with corn over the high fence of the
+inclosure, the wide expanse of the potato-fields, harvested long ago,
+their yield garnered into the potato-sheds that stretched along on one
+side like the roofs of a little street, the saw-and-grist mill, the
+cotton-press and steam-gin, with the obeliscal smokestack towering above
+the plain,—all the appurtenances of the industry, went far to confirm
+the boast.
+
+And now into the depths of the wilderness, primeval, apparently
+illimitable, with the wind footing it featly alongside. There were
+clouds in the densely blue sky, but high, white, flocculent, and lightly
+floating. The odors of spring vegetation, of early blooms, came on every
+breath; and when the first of the sloughs was reached, it was so draped
+in lace-like willows, so full of verdant moss and ooze, so still and
+dreamy in its marshy pools, mirroring the sky, that one might have
+accounted it a valued feature of the landscape, but for the experience
+of fording it.
+
+“We can’t hunt bear in a parlor,” Colonel Kentopp declared, as he forced
+Ringdove to wet her dainty hoofs. The rest were soon splashing after,
+unmindful of mire and solicitous only of quicksands. But on the farther
+side they were on dry and level ground once more, cantering alertly
+amidst the great forest trees, the horses scarcely breathed, and the
+courage of the cavalcade rising to the summons of exertion. And
+now,—deepest shades, great overhanging, swamp-like growths! The dense
+cypress, festooned by the gray Spanish moss, rose towering out of
+ink-black water; a white heron, standing motionless beside a clump of
+the protuberances known as “cypress-knees,” looked as if it might have
+been sketched into the scene with a bit of chalk; logs, moss-covered and
+dripping with slime, lay half buried in the ooze; the canopy of foliage
+was so thick, the boughs of the trees so densely interlacing, that the
+light of the brilliant day was cut off and the hunters rode as if in a
+dream-shadow. Lakes presently opened alongside, series of glassy
+stretches, blue under the azure sky, and connected by a bayou so dully
+flowing that, gaze as one might, the motion of a current could not be
+discerned. Once wild ducks were glimpsed, and though old Jerry Sloper
+protested, he could not hinder the prompt discharge of one of the
+shot-guns. On the crash of the report ensued the whizzing of wings in
+the flurry of terrified flight, and two of the birds floated dead upon
+the water. A handsome setter sprang into the lake, and presently swam
+out with his feathered trophy; while the dogs of different breeds
+wheezed uneasily about the margin, and one of them, a famous bear hound
+of a singular bluish tint, his hide about his jaws hanging in loose
+folds, sat down and contemplated the feat with head askew, as much as to
+say, “Now, how did _you_ find out how to do that?”
+
+Jerry Sloper was beside himself with indignation. “Now, you fellers air
+goin’ to spile the chances fur the whole day! How fur d’ ye think this
+here piece o’ water ’ll carry the crack o’ that thar gun? Old Pa Bear
+will hide in the cane-brake an’ old Ma Bear will gather the children up
+in the hollow tree, an’ they won’t ventur’ out ’fore June. An’ then the
+manners of my dogs! I been tryin’ ter get it out o’ that thar
+Lightfoot’s fool head that he is expected to go arter what I shoot. _I_
+don’t kill fowels with a gun.” His lip curled with scorn, showing his
+long, tobacco-stained teeth. “I go ter my hen-cup an’ chop off thar
+heads with a hatchet. I am a man, I am! An’ when I play, I take my sport
+like a man. I shoot deer an’ bear an’ wolves an’ sech animals. The last
+time I killed a bear, ’twas by accident. I hed nobody with me but
+Lightfoot, thar. An’ the crittur,—durn his little old cranky soul!—he
+p’inted. Came to a stand, with his forefoot crooked,—jes’ so”—and Jerry
+Sloper crooked his great hairy paw in clumsy imitation of Lightfoot’s
+graceful instinct—“else I wouldn’t have seen old Bruin. I ’lowed a’ fust
+’twar jes’ a hawg over in the brake. An’ all of a suddenty, lo an’
+behold, ’twas revealed to me that thar was a bear! An’ I fired,—an’ o’
+course he fell. An’ off skittered Lightfoot ter _bring him in_, mind ye!
+Thar I was hollerin’ arter the child, thrown to the wild beast,—I warn’t
+able to stir hand or foot,—I was jes’ palsied with skeer. Lightfoot tuk
+him gently by the ear,—not to spile him with gnawing,—jes’ like he done
+that duck—Gimme that thar fowel, _you_ distracted beast!” and the
+setter, with half-squatting hind-legs and wriggles of delight and pride,
+and lifted, liquid, shining eyes, relinquished the game into his hand.
+“An’ what happened? The bear warn’t plumb dead! And Lightfoot come back
+tore mighty nigh ter the breastbone. See them scars on his chist? An’ ez
+soon as he was able to stand it, I gin him a beatin’ besides ter teach
+him better. An’ now,—ye have set him at his old tricks ag’in. I wouldn’t
+own a dog with sech a mania, if he warn’t a present ter me. An’ till ye
+fellers tuk to triflin’ with him, I ’lowed I’d got him plumb sensible.
+You see that duck?”—he looked down sternly at his accomplished retainer,
+who, discerning the change of tone, began to cringe miserably,
+thoroughly crestfallen. “Oh, ho! ain’t forgot what I told you, eh? Well,
+then,—want some mo’ slipper pie?”
+
+Oh, he did not! He did not, indeed,—his pleading countenance protested.
+But the threat was a mere feint; and as the old swamper turned to take
+up the route once more, the setter, with a shrill yelp of delight to get
+off from the colloquy with no painful sequence, dashed ahead, and was
+presently trotting nimbly with his companions of various families and
+traditions, the only bird dog, and the only one whose record comprised
+the heady effort to retrieve a bear.
+
+“I’d buy that setter, Mr. Sloper, if you’d put a price on him,” said
+Regnan, who sometimes descended to the trifling sport of bird hunting.
+
+“An’ _I’d_ buy the State of Miss’ippi, if ’twas layin’ around loose,”
+was the not too encouraging response.
+
+Sloughs, lagoons, bayous unnumbered! The horses were soon mired to their
+girths; the men were splashed from head to foot, and those inexpert at
+swimming a horse when suddenly out of his depth, had their high
+riding-boots full of water. More than once an alligator was viewed, half
+embedded in the ooze, only distinguished from the rotting log that he
+resembled when he would rouse himself to swim slowly a few yards,
+tempting the knights of the magazine shot-guns.
+
+“Don’t ye know that a bullet from a forward shot will glance off as if
+he wore chain armor!” old Sloper remonstrated. “The only chance is a
+rifle-ball behind the eye.”
+
+“And when did _you_ become acquainted with chain armor?” asked one of
+the Mayberry youths, in merry wonderment and with a twinkling eye.
+
+“About twenty-five years before you was bawn,” retorted the old swamper.
+He paused to spit forth an enormous volley of tobacco-juice against the
+trunk of a tree, with a seeming solicitude for the accuracy of his aim;
+then resumed with the greatest deliberation.
+
+“I holped in a jewel that was fought by two tremenjious swells, who got
+themselves landed by the Great Republic for that purpose. They tuk up an
+insult to each other while on the boat. They came up to my wood-yard—I
+used ter furnish fuel ter the packets reg’lar. They said all they wanted
+was a man ter see fair play an’ shut his mouth. They plastered mine good
+an’ tight with a double eagle. One of the parties was tremenjious brash
+an’ overbearin’; I could see that the other looked into death’s
+eyesockets at close quarters. I medjured the ground for them with the
+Flying Cloud’s wood-staff that the mud clerk had left at the
+yard,—miserable, unshifty, keerless cuss! Bet he needed it himself
+before he got ter New Orleans! An’ these two dandy fellers tuk thar
+stand an’ fired. An’ the one that was so cocksure missed his aim, though
+his hair-trigger was as fine a weepon as ever I see. An’ the t’other,
+that thought he had come to his las’ minit, shot straight. But he aimed
+at the man’s mouth, as it ’peared to me. He threw up his pistol at the
+last second. The ball tuk the gentleman right through the throat. Ought
+to have seen the blood spurt out ’n his jugular! Mighty nasty way to
+kill a gentleman, I thought! An’ as we both run to the body on the
+ground, one on either side, the winner’s hand shook so he could hardly
+undo the vest. So I laid back the fine linen shirt, though I knew it was
+no use to feel his heart, for he was as dead as a buckeye; I seen
+between it an’ his silk underwear a shirt of fine steel rings. ’T would
+turn a bullet; ’t would break a knife! An’ the s’vivor says,—his chin
+shook so that he could hardly talk,—‘What do you think of that? I
+s’picioned from the fust that he would give me no fair chance in a
+fight, an’ he forced it upon me.’ An’ I say, ‘Let’s put this murderer in
+the bayou. Thar’s some fierce catfish thar, an’ snakes, an’ slimy beasts
+to eat the flesh from his bones. The mud is deep an’ will hold him down,
+an’ the mire is fit for his last home! The Miss’ippi is too tricky to
+trust,—floats things, ye know. The bayou for me, every time!’”
+
+“Why, Mr. Sloper,” cried young Mayberry, suddenly grave and aghast. “I
+should think that you would have been afraid.”
+
+“Well, he ain’t never got up from thar,—so fur as I have heard tell.
+What’s to be afeard of?”
+
+“Was that _all_ you did? To bury him in the bayou?”
+
+“Naw, sir; I went down to Natchez an’ spreed away the double eagle, the
+twenty dollars.”
+
+“But I mean about notifying the authorities?”
+
+The old swamper’s face had a bewildered look. “Whar was they? What call
+had they ter meddle? I done nothin’ but the heftin’.”
+
+“Didn’t the Great Republic say anything the next time she passed?”
+
+“Oh, yes! I told the mud clerk that the price of wood had riz, an’ he
+told me to go to hell. That’s the last word with the Great Republic.”
+
+Suddenly a sound smote the sylvan silence. A keen note of query, a wide
+blare of discovery,—and all the pack opened on the scent, baying as
+rhythmically as if trained to this woodland music. The horn rang out its
+elated, spirited tones, the sound leaping like a live thing along the
+far reaches of the levels. The horsemen, in a frenzy of excitement, were
+separating, each taking his own course and riding as if the rout of some
+swift pursuit were upon his track. Desmond hesitated for a moment,
+bewildered, the only stranger to the wilderness of all the party,
+forgotten utterly by his host, by old Sloper, by the huntsman on ahead
+with the dogs, by the youthful sportsmen. Presently, however, Regnan
+bethought himself of the tutor and his imminent danger of being lost in
+the fastnesses, and paused after an instant of frantic plunging through
+a narrow bogue that issued from a swamp where there was promise indeed
+of scant solid ground.
+
+“Come with me,” he called. “I am going to try an old stand on a deer
+path I know. The hounds have got up a buck—I think so from the tongue
+they are giving. Follow me. Swim your horse when he begins to flounder
+in the bayous.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X
+
+
+There was no choice. Desmond had scant interest in this tumultuous sport
+of coursing deer with hounds, but he was fain to follow. He could not
+have retraced his way for his life, and to be lost in the wilderness—for
+every horseman had disappeared—was taking all the jeopardy of disaster
+and even of death. He congratulated himself that the excellent brute he
+bestrode seemed to know more about the matter than he. Suddenly Regnan,
+who had been for a few minutes lost to him, appeared in glimpses through
+the redundant vegetation about the lagoon, which could be characterized
+as neither water nor land, consisting now of one and now of the other,
+and again of a treacherous combination of both, that afforded neither
+footing nor the medium for swimming. The young sportsman was thrashing
+through brake and slough at a breakneck speed that presently carried him
+out of the reach of vision.
+
+The glimpse was sufficient for the powerful red roan that Desmond rode,
+and he needed no prompting. He sprang instantly into the water in the
+essay to follow, swimming with great spirit, now and then stretching his
+legs to gain a firm footing, and, with a splashing flounder that nearly
+shook Desmond out of the saddle, striking out again to swim with alert
+vigilance and stalwart strength. Desmond was used to equestrian exercise
+in milder form and found a need for all the principles of equitation
+that he had been taught, for the most progressive of mounts can hardly
+act on his own initiative throughout the incidents of such a drive as
+this promised to be. Desmond gave the horse his head as to direction,
+but checked him according to his own judgment at impassable obstacles,
+and held him up firmly when he threatened to go to his knees. A little
+later, in a deep quagmire, where he showed signs of sinking, and, losing
+courage, began to snort in fright, Desmond used bit and heel to such
+effect as to reinstate his confidence and bring him leaping lightly out
+of his floundering instabilities to good dry ground.
+
+When the wild, disordered turmoils of the alluvial wilderness gave way
+on the borders of a fine bit of water, Desmond was surprised himself to
+note how reassured he felt to perceive Regnan on his swimming horse
+nearly in the centre of the lakelet. In the swift transit he had
+scarcely had time to speculate if he were on the right track, but
+confirmation was welcome. Regnan had evidently felt a doubt, for he was
+looking over his shoulder; and as Desmond and the red roan galloped down
+to the margin, the horse sending forth a gleeful whinny at the sight of
+his swimming comrade in advance, Regnan waved his hand and pressed on to
+the opposite shore, where the dense shadows of a great stretch of forest
+gloomed. Here there was good going. Desmond pressed his horse to added
+speed to overhaul his precursor, and side by side they galloped at their
+utmost capacity, with scarcely a word exchanged, through miles of level
+woods, at last reaching the almost impenetrable densities of a
+cane-brake, skirting the growth rather than striking across it; this was
+the outpost of sluggish bayous and cypress sloughs, almost impassable,
+seeming impracticable, till suddenly they stood on a fair sheet of
+water. The blue sky looked down suavely upon it, and so serene it was
+that one might have thought the wild tangles through which the way
+hither had lain were some vision of a distraught imagination. All around
+the dense woods were silent, primeval. Something of the redundant swamp
+growths were about its margin and cloaked the approach to its placid
+waters, but beyond stretched the endless forests.
+
+Regnan was dismounting. “It is too wide to swim with a horse,” he said.
+“I suppose that is the reason the deer take to it. And once get this
+body of water between them and the dogs, and the scent is lost.”
+
+He was hitching his horse among the tangled growths at a little
+distance, where he would be invisible, and cautioned Desmond to follow
+his example.
+
+“See that deer path?” he said. A narrow line threaded the luxuriant
+marshy grasses about the margin,—scarcely a path,—yet a keen eye might
+discern the imprint of a cleft hoof in the moist ground at the water’s
+edge. “I have shot deer here before,” added Regnan.
+
+With the butt of his gun he beat down the boughs of evergreen shrubs to
+afford an elastic couch; and here they lay them down and rested and
+talked spasmodically and dully drowsed, while they awaited the sound of
+hound and horn.
+
+“He’s giving them a good run for the money,” opined Regnan, as time wore
+on and brought no change. The placid lake gleamed serene; the dark
+forest gloomed. But for their own languid voices they heard naught, and
+sometimes long pauses intervened in the desultory talk.
+
+“Fond of this sort of thing?” asked Regnan.
+
+Desmond was more comfortable since he had taken off his high
+riding-boots and poured the water from them, being advised by Regnan to
+put them on immediately, lest they so stiffen in drying that their
+resumption would be impossible. The amusement did not seem so
+disagreeable to Desmond as he lay stretched out at his long length, his
+soft hat over his eyes, and his gloves also dutifully drying into shape
+on his hands. He was able to answer both veraciously and courteously.
+
+“I am not used to it. I like the violent exercise well enough. But I
+don’t want to kill anything. I am glad I can’t.”
+
+“Why can’t you?”
+
+“Oh, I never shot at anything in my life but with a handful of
+bird-shot.”
+
+Regnan, also recumbent, with his hat over his eyes to be rid of the
+combined glare of lake and sky, lifted himself suddenly to look about
+him.
+
+“What a pity! We both have rifles! Kentopp ought to have given you a
+shotgun. I wish I had mine. I don’t know why I should have brought this
+thing.”
+
+Then he lay back once more and shaded his eyes. A long silence ensued.
+The glare on the lake had dulled; a network of clouds gathered
+gradually, the meshes weaving continually until dense, dark, impervious
+to any gleam, it hung unbroken above the lake. The woods had fallen into
+deeper gloom; only the green of the saw-grass fringing the water-side
+seemed lifted into an intenser chromatic grade by the lowering of a gray
+sky. When a sound smote the mute quietude of the woods, it was a
+muttering of thunder.
+
+“Rain! We are going to have it in plenty,” suggested Regnan.
+
+“It has been demonstrated to-day that we are neither sugar nor salt.”
+
+“But it will disperse the scent; the hounds will run counter.”
+
+“Hallo!” exclaimed Desmond, in sudden excitement, lifting himself on his
+elbow. He could not have said why it should thrill him; but that sound
+of a horn, elastically leaping along the distance, so signally clear, so
+searchingly vibrant, so infinitely sweet, sought out every fibre of the
+romantic in him. Then rose the melody of the dogs in full cry, rhythmic,
+mellow, musical, softened by the distance, significant, unceasing,
+echoing with the sentiment of the sylvan chase of all the days of eld.
+It was not old Sloper’s “house-party” that Desmond heard, but every pack
+of high degree that ever coursed through the realms of poesy or the
+liberties of tradition. He was on his feet,—a light in his eyes, a flush
+on his cheek, his hands trembling, his muscles alert.
+
+“They are coming this way! They are heading for the lake!” he exclaimed.
+
+Regnan listened for a moment. “Right you are!” he cried.
+
+As they took up their position at the stand, ambushed beside the deer
+path, Regnan insistently waived precedence.
+
+“You fire first. _You_ are company! If you miss, I’ll fire. Buck ague?”
+he whispered.
+
+The undulating sound of the cry of the hounds, emitted rhythmically with
+each bound, came ever nearer and nearer, and suddenly there was close at
+hand a crashing through the bushes down the deer path. Desmond threw up
+his rifle, conscious that he must catch the aim as quick as light. To
+his own surprise he was singularly cool and steady. A flash, the sharp
+report rang out; something clouded white and brown and gray leaped high
+into the air, issuing from the brush, and fell dead at the water’s
+edge,—a gigantic wildcat.
+
+“A crack shot you are!” Regnan exclaimed, amazed. The ball had taken the
+creature just beneath the ear and pierced the brain. “And this cat is
+the finest ever!”
+
+He bent over the magnificent specimen. “I didn’t know such a fellow as
+this was left in the country. But oh, how old Sloper will swear!”
+
+“Why?” asked Desmond, the excitement cooling only gradually.
+
+“His hounds are to run only deer and bear, no matter what’s the purpose
+of their creation and previous education. He lets them chase a fox, now
+and then, with a great palaver of explanation, and keeping right up with
+them. But a cat! He’ll be worth hearing!”
+
+When the pack came presently, swiftly loping through the brake, and
+beheld their prey, it was difficult indeed to reduce them to order; and
+as old Sloper raged, and fumed, and indignantly rebuked them, their air
+suggested contradiction as they whisked about their prostrate foe, their
+gait as if they could not keep feet to ground—lifting them as if it were
+hot—in the flutter and excitement, and they noisily yelped with delight
+every time he spoke to them. It would seem that the subtle current of
+comprehension, the medium of communication, was broken. They so
+valiantly protested that they had done a fine thing, and piqued
+themselves so pridefully on their prowess, that he was fain to end the
+discussion in his own interest in the prey.
+
+“Git out’n my way, or I’ll punch the nose off’n ye,” he roughly adjured
+them, as he dismounted to lay out at length the savage beast, in order
+to take its measure from its muzzle to the tip of the tail. “Thar! I’ve
+stepped on your foot, and I’m glad of it!” as a piercing squeak split
+the ears of the party. But the sufferer was game and hopped joyously
+about on three legs, participating in the event, despite his plaintive
+disabilities.
+
+“What you goin’ to do with this here cat, Mr. Desmond?” he asked, an
+added respect for so fine a shot unmistakable in every line of his face
+and every inflection of his voice. “Better git it off the ground—the
+dogs mought tear it; they air so durned sassy over it, I can’t govern
+’em none. And ’tis the finest thing I ever see. My! how handsome that
+fur is!”
+
+“Why,” exclaimed Desmond, suddenly roused to the possibilities of his
+possession, “I’ll have it stuffed and present it to Mrs. Kentopp as an
+ornament to the armory and a memento of the occasion.” He had not eaten
+much of her bread, but he distrusted the motive of her hospitality, and
+his pride welcomed the opportunity to make a requital so promptly and in
+a guise which he knew would be so acceptable. He began to take an
+interest in the exceptional beauty of the specimen.
+
+“Then it ought to be skun right now, before the critter stiffens. An’
+I’ll do it fur ye and send the pelt to ye.”
+
+Down old Sloper went on his hands and knees to the work _con amore_, his
+sharp hunting-knife gingerly tracing the lines where the cuticle and fur
+could be separated with least injury to the appearance of the
+integument. It was a long job and a careful one, but none of the other
+sportsmen had put in an appearance when it was finished. He straightened
+up and looked about him doubtfully.
+
+“They all lost out somehows,” he said. “Mighty rough ridin’ in them
+slashes. I reckon they’ve all rid off to camp, mightily interested in
+that thar barbecued shoat fur dinner.”
+
+The mention elicited a responsive interest and a desire to minimize the
+distance between the hunters and this dainty, time-honored of the _al
+fresco_ feast. The hounds, old Sloper, and the huntsman set out by way
+of the deer path, as they had come.
+
+“I’ll try a short cut,” suggested Regnan, “if you don’t mind a bit more
+wading and swimming.”
+
+Desmond protested his indifference to a renewal of their amphibious
+experience, and, mounting their horses, the two rode off through the
+saw-grass, which fringed the borders of the lake. Suddenly the
+slate-tinted clouds, darkening and still sinking lower, were cleft by a
+vivid forked flash; the thunder crashed with an appalling clangor; the
+horses were snorting in fright and plunging wildly, and the floodgates
+were unloosed. The rain descended in sheets; there was not a breath of
+wind, and the torrents fell vertically. It seemed for a time as if they
+were menaced by a cloud-burst. The quantity of water liberated was
+incalculable. The swamp which they now threaded was inundated so swiftly
+that Regnan more than once paused and looked back as if he canvassed the
+possibility of retracing their way to the solid earth they had quitted.
+But the rainfall was no translucent medium. He could distinguish naught
+beyond its opaque curtain. In serried lines in undiscriminated myriads
+the torrents fell, yet seemed always stationary. It hardly mattered
+which course they adopted, for each was soaked to the very bones. On and
+on they plodded, the horses dully drudging in the progress, making
+special exertion when they needs must, but obviously showing that they
+were of opinion the fun was at an end, and that there could be too much
+of a good thing. Like human beings, they found a vastly different animus
+in going forth full of expectation and coming back exhausted with the
+day’s run. They held down their heads in meek endurance as the rain beat
+upon them, and when they stumbled in the shifty, marshy soil, there was
+great danger both to the animal and his rider in the lack of that
+alertness of muscle to recover a footing or bound with his burdened
+saddle beyond the limits of the quagmire. Once or twice this recovery
+was so precarious, so clumsy a floundering, and sinking was so imminent,
+that both horsemen were alarmed and prescient of disaster.
+
+“We have done this thing once too often, I am afraid,” said Regnan.
+
+Desmond, too, had been looking over his shoulder, though not in the
+forlorn hope that they might be able to see the point from which they
+had started, for they had pressed the horses forward, against their
+will, with such energy that they had made it as impossible to retrace
+their way as to reach satisfactory footing in going on. Some injutting
+point of land in the irregular outline of the swamp, or one of the
+ridges of higher ground whereon switch cane grew luxuriantly, and which
+here and there traversed it, might yet afford them rescue, but if he
+could have discovered such opportunity in ordinary weather, the
+tumultuous, blinding downpour rendered it invisible now.
+
+“There is nothing for it but to go on,” he said in a depressed cadence,
+for his heart had a sensation of sinking. He was growing desperate. The
+rain had in its midst great shifting clouds of thin vapor. Now it so
+inclosed them that they lost sight of each other. Yet when they called
+out in alarm, fearful of the disaster of unwittingly parting company,
+the changing mist gave a vision of the head of the other horse close at
+hand, though a moment earlier it could not be discerned.
+
+Suddenly as Desmond shifted his position in the saddle, looking straight
+over his horse’s ears, he gave a start and an abrupt exclamation,
+staring as if he doubted his senses; for before him, in the pallid,
+hovering mists, half revealed and half concealed by the immaterial
+investitures of the curtaining rain and the cloaking cloud, like the
+travesty of a ship under full sail which tantalizes the desperate hope
+of wrecked or castaway mariners, he beheld as if suspended in the air
+between heaven and earth the outline of a river craft, a boat of some
+humble sort, a refuge.
+
+“Look, Regnan, what is that in the sky?” he exclaimed hastily.
+
+Regnan lifted his head and put up his hand to hold away the flapping
+brim of his drenched hat. His voice suddenly rang out with a thrill of
+good cheer: “In the sky? Why, it’s in the bayou, thank God!”
+
+“It is a flatboat?” Desmond hesitated.
+
+“A flatboat it is!”
+
+Regnan’s face had not regained its florid tint; the chill of the fog and
+the rain, that had not left a dry thread on his body, and the effluvia
+of the swamp, penetrating his lungs, had turned his lips blue. But he
+laughed out gayly, although as his lineaments moved he swallowed the
+rills of rain that ran down his face. “It is rescue, my boy! That’s what
+it is! The boat is half a mile off, and we can just about make it.”
+
+“Half a mile! A flatboat!” Even yet Desmond was hardly convinced that it
+was not a delusion. “What makes it so high!”
+
+“What makes us so low!” laughed Regnan. “Because we are away down in the
+swamp, and the flatboat is away up in the bayou.”
+
+“I should think the bayou would overflow and convert this swamp into a
+lake.”
+
+“And so it would but for the conformation of its banks. And so it will
+if this cloud-burst keeps on a bit longer and swells the waters of the
+bayou.”
+
+They shifted their direction and pushed on with a good heart, despite
+the difficulties that increased at every step; and though the horses,
+with their bent heads and drenched coats and drudging plod, had not seen
+the craft so high above their own level, now indeed obliterated from all
+view by the encircling cloud, they obviously felt the recruited hopes
+and energy of their riders. The revived spirits of the men were subtly
+imparted to the steeds, and the improved progress caused the distance to
+seem less than Regnan’s estimate when again the cloud lifted so much as
+to disclose the mirage-like craft, now lower on the limited horizon by
+reason of the nearer approach.
+
+“To tell you the truth, Desmond,” said Regnan,—the two had become
+chummy, despite the tutor’s sensitive reserve and repellent dignity, for
+there was no justification in holding Regnan at arm’s length,—“I thought
+our hour had come. I thought we were destined to leave our bones in the
+bayou with the caitiff of the shirt of mail.”
+
+Desmond shuddered. “Oh, give me better company!” he cried. “Death is a
+leveler, but it can never lay me so low as that.”
+
+Now and then each looked up from beneath his sodden hat-brim to discern
+if their approach had been noticed from the craft, but as yet she gave
+no sign of observation. There was no one on deck, as they soon
+perceived. The rain beat down heavily upon it, and the water washed over
+its low gunwales as if it were the waves of the bayou. The stream,
+however, showed even yet no motion, no current; it was covered by a
+myriad of tiny bosses, so to speak, the rain being so persistent, the
+fall so regular, as to make the drops seem to stand stationary on its
+surface. It had risen several feet, as was evinced by the half submerged
+vegetation along the banks, the tips fresh and green, with no token of
+having been long under water. Beneath that black cloud, with the
+sinister effect of the white trunks of the cypress trees on either hand,
+deadened by repeated overflows, their weird reflections in the trembling
+black water, the funereal aspect of the pendent Spanish moss hanging
+from the high limbs and even festooning the trees from one side of the
+stream to the other,—the world, the past, life itself, annihilated by
+the clouds,—the dark and gloomy watercourse might have suggested the
+river Styx, and the shadowy, visionary, ill-defined boat the craft of
+Charon. They both felt an averse curiosity as they approached still
+nearer, striving to disintegrate from the rain and the cloud some
+individual characteristic or sign of occupation of the phantom craft.
+Regnan began to think it a derelict, an old abandoned hulk; but he soon
+saw that it sat the water much too jauntily, a stout, dry hull, tight
+and serviceable. Presently their keen young eyes discriminated a curl of
+smoke amidst the vapors that lay on the roof of the cabin. This was
+little more than a shed of upright boards, very flimsily put together,
+and a tiny square window along the eaves promised little for light. It
+served the purpose of a lookout, however. A pale face appeared there. It
+seemed to scan disconsolately the rain-lost world without, the
+encroaching cloud, the swamp with its sinking aspect; and suddenly, with
+transfixed attention, to become aware of the approaching sportsmen, the
+horse of the one up to the girth as he plodded through the half
+submerged morass, that of the other out of his depth and beginning to
+swim.
+
+For one spectral moment the face stared as if confronted by doom. Then
+the door of the cabin opened, and disregarding the downpour, with skirts
+lashing about her, with long hair loose and flying, a tall, sinuous
+young woman appeared, sprang from the deck upon the marshy bank, cast
+loose the line about a tree, leaped back upon the deck in a moment,
+caught up a pole, and with a stalwart effort had pushed off an oar’s
+length or two before the man whom her shrill cries had summoned stumbled
+out of the cabin and stood staring at the newcomers, with little
+apparent inclination to lend a hand to the effort of clearing the
+harbor.
+
+It was vain. The horsemen were too close upon them. Such motive power as
+kept the sluggish bayou on its course from the Mississippi River was too
+slight to aid the pole to evade the speed of a swimming horse. Desmond,
+indeed, had boarded the craft while the imbecile face of the boat-hand
+was still bent upon him.
+
+“What do you mean by this behavior?” he demanded angrily, not as yet
+recognizing either the man or the woman. “Tie up the boat again, and
+show us your bar.”
+
+“Jocelindy! Jocelindy! ye fool, ye!” cried the boat-hand, striking the
+struggling woman on the shoulder with his heavy hand. But for this
+repulsive brutality it might have been pathetic to hear him tax another
+with his own obvious infirmity. “Don’t ye see the gentleman’s goin’ ter
+spen’ money with us!”
+
+He busied himself in tying up the boat in quick order, and found a place
+where the two horses could stand on pretty staunch ground under the
+interlacing boughs of cottonwood, so thick as to afford some shelter
+from the rain. He had fodder aboard, too, he said.
+
+“Some fodder we had to pack a lot o’ chany,” interposed the woman,
+suddenly and shrilly, “becase there wasn’t no straw convenient.”
+
+Desmond had no mind to linger on ceremony. Without waiting for an
+invitation, he turned toward the cabin door. The woman, still standing
+in the torrents, a secret thought in her face, her head askew, her
+draggled attire dripping with rain, her mouth bent down upon her
+clenched fist, suddenly asked:—
+
+“Tell me one word,—is your name Faurie?”
+
+“No,” said Desmond, frowning at the identification with his employers as
+if he were of no importance in himself; “my name is Desmond.”
+
+“Thar now, Jocelindy, ye told Jed that very word,” exclaimed the
+boat-hand, mowing and laughing with imbecile and extravagant glee. “Ye
+told him that this very mornin’ before he set out with his spade.”
+
+There was an incongruity in any mutual utilities between a boat and a
+spade, but Desmond was new to the river country and did not appreciate
+this fact. It struck Regnan at once, but he had no reason to place
+inimical construction upon the acts of the boat’s company, and it passed
+without comment.
+
+Though what is called “not right bright,” Ethan Knoxton was
+discriminating enough to preside very acceptably at a bar when two
+storm-drenched wights stood before it, and he ranged the glasses with an
+extra polish and tipped a decanter. It was a dull, squalid little hole,
+with a permanent aroma of the greasy fumes of many breakfasts fried on
+the monkey stove at the farther end of the cabin, and the heavy, oily
+flavor of the untrimmed wick of a kerosene lamp swinging above the bar.
+The water dripped dismally from their coats and riding-breeches into the
+already well-filled legs of their high boots, that gave a squashing
+sound at every step. From their hats chilly little streams trickled into
+their collapsed shirt collars and down their shivering spines; and as
+the first drop of liquor touched their palates, the surprise to find
+that instead of rank, coarse whiskey it was good French brandy was so
+grateful that they could but look at each other with glistening eyes
+over the rims of their glasses as they drank.
+
+The boat-hand watched them expectantly.
+
+“My! Ain’t that fine!” Then as they set the glasses down, he whooped out
+his vicarious joy and smote his leg with the palm of his open hand.
+
+Desmond had insisted on paying by right of his discovery of the bar, and
+he laid down the price of three drinks. “You will oblige me,” he said
+politely to the boat-hand, struggling with his distaste and disgust. One
+should not despise the poor, and the uncouth, and the deprived, who may
+have more value in their Maker’s eyes than one wots of. Therefore,
+because the semblance of humanity was not always disdained, he sought to
+have a regard to the mere image.
+
+“For me?” The protuberant, grotesque eyes of the boat-hand were
+stretched. “For _me_!” He could hardly realize the rich opportunity.
+“For ME!” And at last convinced, he exclaimed, “Lord love ye! Lord bless
+ye! Lord save ye!” and gulped down the French brandy, casting up the
+gloating eyes of extreme ecstasy at every swallow. He smacked his lips
+again and again, to be heard in the remotest corner of the cabin, then
+stood comfortably smelling the glass while the others turned toward the
+stove.
+
+“Isn’t that queer—French brandy?” Desmond suggested.
+
+“Smuggled, I suppose,” said Regnan.
+
+“Stolen, I’m afraid,” said Desmond, _sotto voce_, mopping the rain from
+his cold face and shaking the rills from his drenched hat. The jeopardy,
+the confusion, the exhaustion attendant on the moment of rescue from the
+sinister menace of the swamp and the cloud-burst engrossed his
+faculties, but he was vaguely recollecting that he had recently heard of
+the dispensing of this choice liquor among a class of swampers to whom
+its market price rendered it unaccustomed and unattainable.
+
+“Well, I was not _particeps criminis_ till it was halfway down,—too far
+to catch it. And it feels just as good where it is as if it was honestly
+come by,” Regnan laughed.
+
+The woman had utilized the interval while their backs were turned, and
+perhaps the shelter of a curtained bunk, to slip into a dry gown and a
+clean apron, and she, too, seemed to have determined on a change of
+tactics. She would fry for the gentlemen some rashers of bacon and eggs,
+if they liked; and set on a strong pot of coffee, she said.
+
+“Are you afraid of spoiling your appetite for that barbecued shoat?”
+Regnan asked Desmond, with a rallying eye.
+
+“No; are you?” For the day was wearing on into the afternoon. There were
+already dulling intimations in the clouds, as if the limits of light in
+their midst were curtailed. The woman listened intently as she set forth
+her poor and humble board with its best; and when they were seated on
+either side and she whisked about serving them, her strange, snake-like
+face had a more propitiatory and pleasing expression than seemed
+possible, with her high cheek-bones, her eyes aslant, her long,
+serpentine neck.
+
+She suddenly addressed Desmond. “You see he ain’t quit suckin’ his thumb
+yit,” she said, as an infantine babbling caused Desmond to turn his head
+to perceive sitting bolt upright in a bunk behind him an infant in a red
+gown with his thumb in his mouth, regarding the feasting with slobbering
+admiration, but making no effort to partake and no demand to be served.
+
+Desmond recognized her now for the first time. He had given her but
+little notice since coming aboard, and on the occasion of his previous
+visit to the shanty-boat, partly because of the dimness of the light in
+the little cabin, partly because of the sensational development of the
+interview, he had not sufficiently observed the subsidiary members of
+the crew—the woman, the child, and the boat-hand—to remember their
+faces. If Jedidiah Knoxton had been present, there would have been no
+delay in recalling the personnel of the whole party.
+
+“That lady, Mrs. Faurie,” continued the woman, speaking in a very
+propitiatory manner, “told me how to break him of it, too. She’s
+powerful handsome, sure, ain’t she?”
+
+“Yes,” said Desmond to this direct appeal. “And she is a very kind
+lady.”
+
+“Sure! She told me she’d gin little Ikey some baby clothes.”
+
+“But you left very suddenly,” said Desmond, significantly.
+
+Regnan continued to eat silently, surprised at the evidence of previous
+acquaintance, but comfortable enough that it made no conversational
+demands upon him, so keen an appetite had the vicissitudes of the day
+given him.
+
+“I want to tell you about that,” said the woman, winningly. “Jed’s a
+mighty techy kind o’ man an’ he got sorter nettled ’bout that thar
+wheel. He ’lowed you b’lieved it was stole. An’ truth was, he knowed he
+didn’t come by it right straight. A young boy nigh Ring-fence Plantation
+traded it to him fur mighty little money. His dad had give it to him fur
+Chris’mas, an’ the chile had got tired of it an’ had ruther have a few
+dollars. I begged Jed not to humor him; ’twas wuth mo’. But Jed said a
+plaything a boy is tired of ain’t wuth nothin’. ’Twas a good bargain fur
+him, an’ he gits a heap o’ trade ’mongst the young fry. But he oughtn’t
+ter helped the boy sell his wheel unbeknownst to his folks.”
+
+Her serpentine aspect was not altogether unjustified. As she charmed so
+wisely, Desmond’s conviction was shaken. She laughed a little, as if
+embarrassed, passing the hem of her apron back and forth in her hand.
+
+“Truth is, he was mad ’cause it carried out my warnings; an’ sorter
+skeered, too, ’cause he seen how it mought look to other folks. Jed’s
+real helterskelter. He pulled loose and drapped down the river, but he
+hadn’t gone a mile before he was sorry. That’s Jed.”
+
+The boat-hand, listening, and now quite won to complaisance by the
+unusual prosperity that had befallen the “trading-boat,” here in its
+cache, echoed loudly, “That’s Jed!”
+
+“So I didn’t git my duds the beautiful lady promised me.”
+
+“Mrs. Faurie would no doubt send them to you if she knew where you would
+be,” said Desmond, mechanically meditating on his suspicions. The story
+was very glib. The shanty-boaters might have had no complicity with the
+tragedy at Whippoorwill Landing and no culpability as the receivers of
+stolen goods,—thus accessory after the fact. But the flavor of the
+French brandy still lingered about his palate; evidently they did not
+know its value as a beverage, and this was suspicious. Still, smuggling
+was comparatively a venial matter, and he had a vague regret that he had
+been so quick to direct the suspicion of the authorities upon so poor
+and defenseless a group. But he had had no word how the information had
+been received, or whether it was to be acted upon. Nevertheless, it
+would be easy to prove the truth of her story, provided her story was
+true.
+
+“Just as well she is where she is to-day,” Regnan declared. He was
+leaning back in his chair, having finished his meal with a good relish,
+and feeling about in his cigar case to make sure that its contents had
+escaped without injury in the general flood. “Try one of these,”—he held
+it across the table to Desmond. “They seem to be all O. K.”
+
+Desmond selected one, and, leaning over, struck a match on the lid of
+the stove. “The luckiest thing imaginable for us,” he said in jerks, as
+he held the light to the end and pulled hard to set it aglow, “that we
+happened to see the boat when we did.”
+
+“Fires up all right?” Regnan queried. Then—“You must charge us a good
+round price for this dinner, madam. We are paying for not being at the
+bottom of the bayou,”—he laughed. “We have a special reason for not
+wanting to meet up with something we know is there.”
+
+His face changed suddenly; he looked at her in consternation. Never had
+he seen such an expression as settled upon her countenance. Fear it was
+at first. “For God’s sake, what!” she gasped. Then—anger. “Ye’d better
+mind yer tongue, now!” Her fingers closed on the handle of a great
+butcher knife on the meat block in the corner. And now—venom. “Ye’re
+jes’ two cowardly, lying rapscallions! Ye dunno _what’s_ in the bayou!
+An’ ye ain’t got no call to know! An’ besides,”— with a realization of
+self-betrayal,—“thar ain’t nuthin’ thar fur ye to know—ha! ha! ha!—te,
+he, he!”
+
+Regnan had risen, startled and wondering; but Desmond sat perfectly
+still, looking steadily at her, convinced that, added to the unstoried
+crimes and the unsavory detritus that the bayou hid under its black
+waters and its deep, unstable mire, lay the stolen wheel, and heaven
+knew what gear besides, from the looting of the store at Whippoorwill
+Landing by the merciless murderers.
+
+It was a painful moment. He was glad to walk to the door of the cabin
+and look out once more at the steadily falling rain; at the spurious
+palpitation that the drops set up on the surface of the immobile stream;
+at the dark, encompassing forest, the water-side vegetation still in the
+pallid green of spring, seeming to hold all the light and color of the
+neutral-tinted landscape; at the slow circling of the vapors about the
+deck of the shanty-boat. There was a projection above the door like the
+shelter of eaves, and as he stood, only an occasional drop of water fell
+upon his head. He was all unprescient; he was conscious merely of
+distaste, the exhaustion from exertion, a sense of inexpressible
+boredom, the discomfort of his half-dried garb, and an impatient desire
+to be through with the whole episode. It met him like fate!—the muffled
+boom of a distant bell!
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XI
+
+
+It was a strange thing to Desmond. Try as he might, Regnan could not
+hear it. Summoned to the door, he stood and looked out, and bent his
+attention to discern only the rhythmic throb of the rain, only the waves
+splashing across the deck, only the slow drip of the water through a
+leak in the flimsy roof. He looked curiously at his companion as
+Desmond, every fibre alert, his eyes afire with excitement, his lifted
+hand trembling, and the cigar between his fingers dead in its ash, would
+exclaim “Now!” and stand motionless again, listening acutely as if to an
+echo.
+
+“I hear nothing but the rain,” said Regnan. “But even if there were no
+rain, we couldn’t hear the bell at Dryad-Dene so far as this.”
+
+“But this might be the bell at Great Oaks,” argued Desmond.
+
+“They wouldn’t ring unless they were overflowed. We left Dryad-Dene high
+and dry this morning, and Great Oaks never goes under until Dryad-Dene
+is half drowned, hardly ever even then; for the Fauries have a private
+cross levee that protects Great Oaks, to a considerable extent. Besides,
+there is no danger yet from high water,—all talk and the usual spring
+scare.”
+
+“There!” The bell boomed again, shaking the mists. And Desmond looked
+into the face of Regnan in triumphant confirmation, to find his
+companion fixing agitated, half-compassionate, half-questioning eyes
+upon him.
+
+“My dear fellow,” laying his hand on Desmond’s arm, “you don’t hear a
+sound but the rain.”
+
+“I must go! I must return at once to Great Oaks.”
+
+Regnan remonstrated. They would be bogged down; the continued exposure
+would kill them; he would not be a party to so foolhardy a hazard. “What
+good could you do? If they are going under water, they are ringing up
+the force to bring out the gunny-sacks and patch up the break.”
+
+“It might be something else. There!”
+
+Along the dark waters the sound was borne. It filled the fall of the
+rain with a distant undiscriminated vibration.
+
+“I ought to be able to restrain you by reason, Desmond,” Regnan urged
+seriously. “Don’t let me have to appeal to these people for aid.”
+
+“Look out,” said Desmond, with a dangerous flash of the eye. “They are
+river pirates. I have cause to know.”
+
+“So have _I_,” declared Regnan, bursting with laughter. “I saw two bales
+of cotton tucked away in that closet when that rascal opened the door to
+get the brandy.”
+
+A word, a nod, an inferential phrase, and Regnan was in possession of
+the story of the bicycle and of the suspicions of the shanty-boat’s
+complicity as a “fence” with the marauders of the looted store at
+Whippoorwill Landing.
+
+“If you are minded to trust yourself to such creatures, I can only
+deplore your lack of judgment. If you will come with me, I know they
+will be glad to put you up at Great Oaks.”
+
+“I’m afraid of getting my feet wet,” Regnan whimsically protested.
+
+“You had much better come with me to Great Oaks.”
+
+“I’m all right here. There is nothing to gain by meddling with me. These
+people won’t dare. If I should be missing, they know that you would give
+information where I was last seen. I am perfectly safe. I am going to
+take up my abode on this trading-boat, my ark, as it seems, till the
+waters subside. The dove is apparently something of the fiercest. And
+the lunatic yonder sends cold chills down my spine. But I will risk
+them, rather than that treacherous swamp. So will you, if you are wise.”
+
+Boom! Desmond had already paid his score without question, to the
+surprise of the boat’s company, accustomed to dicker on a price.
+
+“Make my excuses to the Kentopps,” he said to Regnan, ending the
+discussion and turning to leave.
+
+“If ever I see them again,” cried Regnan. “I feel my feet spreading out
+in webs. I think my wing feathers are sprouting. I’ll be transformed
+into some sort of waterfowl and never get beyond Bogue Humma-Echeto any
+more!”
+
+“I’ll send the horse back to-morrow,” Desmond called out. He sprang
+through the rain from the deck to the dark and marshy soil. But his
+horse lifted his head with a glad neigh of recognition, and as he put
+foot in stirrup and rode off, the animal set out at a swift gait and
+with a stout willingness of heart that showed his eagerness for a
+comfortable stall and manger, and his weariness of the detention that
+had nevertheless rested him well. Under these conditions the inundated
+swamp proved a less difficult proposition, albeit the water had risen
+almost girth high and the wading was slow,—the horse splashing along
+with a distinct impact of the mire, pulling with a sort of suction under
+his hoofs.
+
+Desmond, prescient of disaster, he knew not what, fired with the ardor
+of a rescue, he knew not from what, ready to sacrifice comfort, safety,
+life itself, in this wild, adventurous sort in his premonition that
+Honoria Faurie had summoned assistance, that the bell had rung for help
+at Great Oaks Plantation, resolved that no aid should come more
+willingly, more instinct with protective spirit, than from him. It did
+not once occur to him that this was a superfluous hazard which it was no
+part of his duty to encounter. His only care, his only hope, was to
+reach the plantation safely, that he might reach it swiftly. He took no
+risks, less with a realization of his own interest than a prudence in
+compassing his object. He exerted a judgment that might have been
+thought impossible in one so unused to woodland experience; and though
+the sense of loneliness settled down heavily upon him when he could no
+longer see Regnan on the deck of his ark, and at last not even the
+outline of the trading-boat, rising ever higher and higher in the sky as
+he went down and down into the swamp till indeed it seemed caught up
+into the clouds, he kept a stout heart. He resolutely turned his mind
+from the knowledge of the coming of darkness, only an hour or so
+distant, the savage animals of this primeval aqueous wilderness, the
+probable chance that he might lose his way, the indefinite data by which
+he might keep it, his burning impatience of the slow progress which
+might yet fail to put him ere benighted beyond the immediate region of
+slough and swamp and bayou, now infinitely increased in extent by the
+rainfall. The small compass in his pocket which he had used in a lesson
+with the redoubtable Chub was of great advantage in keeping him to his
+direction. Straight to the south, Regnan had declared, and he would come
+at last to the cross levee which usually protected Great Oaks in time of
+overflow from receiving a share of the neighboring inundations, backing
+up as the waters were reinforced. Southward he went, struggling through
+sloughs, swimming bayous, scrambling up steep banks. On one of these his
+stout horse fell backward almost upon his rider, and Desmond, throwing
+himself to one side, escaped but for a bruised shoulder and arm, while
+the animal was badly shaken. He could hardly endure the delay as he
+stood on the edge of the water by the trembling creature and they had
+some conversation, as one may say, over the mischance and the necessity
+of pressing on. But the red roan was a good plucked brute, and before
+long they were forging ahead once more, man and horse in perfect mutual
+confidence.
+
+Desmond could have shouted with joy when at last he saw the great
+winding earthwork, covered with its green Bermuda grass; and when they
+climbed its steep slope and gained the path on the summit, the horse of
+his own accord struck a jaunty little canter, glad of the good going and
+the sight once more of a civilized landscape; for presently within view
+were great stretches of cotton-fields. And what was that immense expanse
+in the distance? Desmond could not distinguish for the rain and the
+mist, and for a phenomenon of far more import. In the shadow of a
+stretch of forest a huge gully intervened in the levee,—fresh, the earth
+on the sides showing a degree of dryness despite the rain, the sod of
+Bermuda ripped through, and the turf, still green, thrown aside. The
+levee had been cut, and Desmond received an illumination in the
+recollection of the boat-hand’s words that Jed Knoxton had gone forth
+that morning with his spade. He began to have an appalling sense of the
+extent of the disaster even before he came upon a counterpart excavation
+and realized that the levee had been cut in more than one place. The
+nefarious job had been thoroughly done, and though in broad daylight,
+the cloaking fog and blinding rain offered an impunity that a dark and
+clear night could scarcely have afforded. He understood now the
+significance of that broad expanse of copper-hued glister of which he
+had caught but a glimpse through the aisles of the woods and the serried
+ranks of the rainfall; it was overflow, miles of overflow, submerging
+the wide tilled and orderly fields of Great Oaks Plantation. And that
+roar in the air—what was it? Tumultuous, loud, with a petulant dash and
+a sinister sibilance, blended with episodic crashes and sudden wild
+clamors, like the frenzied turbulence of savage beasts. It was the voice
+of the Mississippi River, silent no longer in its deep channel, but
+rioting in shallow floods over the aghast, despoiled plains, crying out
+in its license and its mad joy, seeming now and again to smite against
+the sky.
+
+The wind was rising. The gusts, coming down the great, unimpeded highway
+of the stream, gave impetus to its currents surging against miles of
+levee still unbroken, and lashing and sweeping away, melting in a
+moment, the embankments that collapsed under its force. The water
+nearest at hand, he perceived, was backing up; it was not long before he
+had reached it, lapping playfully about the base of the cross levee on
+which he stood. How long this path would continue practicable he could
+not compute. The horse, more accustomed to the river and its incidents,
+was showing evident signs of uneasiness, and in fact he stopped
+presently, with tossing head and startled eyes and planted hoofs, before
+Desmond perceived through the rain and the distance a white flashing in
+the dun evening light, which, had he no experience of the locality, he
+might have mistaken for a cataract. The inference was obvious. It was
+the foam of raging waters as they tore through an excavation
+intersecting the cross levee once more. The great volume of the flood
+was surging over its summit. It was a question of only a very short time
+when the levee, along which he had come and where he now stood, would be
+swept away. Both he and the horse were in imminent danger of death by
+drowning. His first impulse was to turn back and retrace his way. But at
+this moment of hesitation his attention was caught by a moving object on
+the face of the waters, emerging from the fog and the rain, and
+gradually materializing as a man in a very small boat.
+
+“Hello!” cried Desmond, peremptorily.
+
+The man ceased to paddle and looked about him doubtfully, at first on
+his own level, only descrying the mounted figure on the embankment at a
+second stentorian roar from Desmond.
+
+“Fur de Lawd’s sake, is dat you, Mr. Desmond!” he cried out in instant
+recognition. “In de name o’ sense, what you gwine do up dar on dat
+levee?”
+
+“Is that you, Seth?” for the negro was a hostler on Great Oaks
+Plantation, a very black fellow, looking as he sat in the dugout like a
+silhouette against the gray rain and the white mist and the yellow
+water. “I don’t know what to think—”
+
+“I does,” Seth promptly interrupted. “I think you gwine git yo’se’f
+drownded, an’ Colonel Kentopp’s hawse, too.”
+
+“How deep is the water?” Desmond had the instinct of remonstrating
+against this as a decree of fate.
+
+“Six feet along dar, an’ risin’ every jump. I ain’t never seen the
+contrary old ribber on sech a bender, an’ I been knowin’ her gwine on
+fawty year.”
+
+Desmond was alarmed at the idea of jeopardizing the valuable horse. He
+hardly noticed Seth’s plaints.
+
+“We-all’s levee done cut—’fore de Lawd, dem planters in Deepwater Bend
+below Great Oaks would be mighty glad if dey could cotch dat varmint dat
+cut de levee. Dey nachully depends on Great Oaks cross levee to keep the
+ribber off ’n dem, when Dry’-Dene goes under. Oh, my Lawd A’mighty, dis
+am a drefful day, shore!”
+
+“I had better ride back along the levee,” said Desmond, ponderingly.
+
+“It’ll be under water in ten minutes.”
+
+“But I must take the horse to some place of safety.”
+
+“Whar is dat?” demanded Seth, walling his great eyes, with the whites
+very prominent as he gazed up at his interlocutor at long range; the
+distance was constantly lessened, however, for he paddled closer and
+closer to the base of the levee as he talked.
+
+“What is the safest way to the stables? I will take the horse there.”
+
+“What you gwine dar fur? You hatter charter a steamboat. Water up ter de
+mangers.”
+
+“In the Great Oaks stables? Is the mansion flooded, too?” Desmond, in
+keen alarm for the household, trembled to hear the reply.
+
+These disasters and their concurrent dangers were so new to his
+experience and even traditions that he could scarcely contemplate their
+encounter with composure. Seth seemed to him a stolidly unfeeling clod,
+hardly able to stretch his limited faculties to an adequate
+comprehension. But indeed, though there was no lack of water hereabout,
+Seth had contributed a tear or two to the floods in his woe and despair
+for the destruction of these familiar values by which he lived and in
+which he had such vicarious pride.
+
+“The stable under water? Why, how about the mansion?”
+
+“De gret house is safe!” Seth snapped out, as if the question were
+imputatious; even the insubordinate Mississippi River would not venture
+upon the presumption to meddle with the dignified mansion house of Great
+Oaks Plantation. “I jes’ seen Bob, an’ he ’lowed de water had filled de
+grove, an’ air lappin’ ‘round de underpinnin’, but ’tain’t riz yit inter
+de veranda.”
+
+Desmond was aghast at this intimation of jeopardy.
+
+“De gret house is on high groun’, an’ dough dey tuk up de kyarpets
+wunst, de overflow ain’t never been rightly in de mansion house.”
+
+“Bob ought to be there; it is the footman’s station,” Desmond exclaimed,
+thinking how few the inmates to cope with any unusual danger.
+
+“Dey ain’t none o’ de house sarvants dar, ’cept de cook-woman. Mis’
+Honoria sont de rest ob dem ter holp dar famblies at de quarter. Bless
+de Lawd, boss, ye oughter see de quarter!” Seth’s voice rose to a
+distressful quaver. “’Twas so suddint—the cross levee never gave way
+before, an’ we-all ain’t never had no sich water as dis here. Some o’ de
+tenant folks is sittin’ on de ridge-poles ob dar cabin roof, savin’
+nuttin’ but dar bedclothes; dar funicher is floatin’ ‘way like ’twar
+’witched an’ gone swimmin’. The chillen wuz mighty nigh drownded. One
+dem pickaninnies ob Liza Jane’s war cotched by the tail ob its coat an’
+hung in a cottonwood tree. Hit hollered! But hit never squirmed. Hit
+knowed catfish an’ yalligator war smackin’ dar lips an’ sharpenin’ dar
+teeth for hit. Lawd! Lawd! We ain’t never had no sech time. Mis’ Honoria
+sont ebery sarvant from de gret house ter holp dar folks, ’cept de
+cook-woman—an’ _she_ say she is feared ter ride ter de quarter in de
+overflow in a dugout.”
+
+“That was why the bell was ringing, then; to summon help?”
+
+The darkey paused, leaning on his paddle, and looked up at Desmond with
+a curious and searching eye.
+
+“Bell!” he exclaimed. “The Great Oaks plantation bell ain’t rung since
+daybreak.”
+
+There was a pause. Desmond knew the superstition concerning bells,—the
+ancient universal tradition of mystic summons. There was no habitation
+nearer the bayou whence some great brazen casting could send forth that
+coercive tone; the distance from the river was too great to admit the
+sound from a passing steamer.
+
+“Naw, sir; if you hearn bells callin’ you to-day, they ring in your
+mind. Somebody in heaven or hell, or somebody in yearth or air, is
+callin’ you, callin’ you by spirit bells—thoughts reach furder’n sound.
+Mighty cur’us, but that’s sure true. Bells!” Seth raised himself on his
+paddle and looked up with a face distorted by query and fear into the
+rain and fog. “_Bells!_” he said again. Then he lent himself to the work
+of the paddle, and was soon within leaping distance of the levee.
+
+“You gimme dat hawse, boss, an’ I’ll take him ter de risin’ ground whar
+we got what we is saved. Lawd! ye ought ter see de cattle drownded! My
+Gawd! De cows mooin’ an’ de calves a-blatin’, all swimmin’ as long as
+dar legs could work ’em along—an’ de sheep! Ef I had time, I’d jes set
+down an’ moan an’ weep an’ preach dar funeral. Some ob de best head ob
+our Great Oaks cattle! Dar carcases floatin’ down de ribber or cotched
+in de bushes in de swamp! Gimme dat hawse. Colonel Kentopp’s a perlite
+man, but I’d hate fur anything belongin’ ter him ter git lost on Great
+Oaks Plantation. _You_ couldn’t find yer way. I’ll take tacks an’ short
+cuts, an’ I know whar is risin’ ground. You an’ de hawse would lose yer
+way an’ both be drownded. You git in de dugout an’ go ter de mansion
+house. You kin find dat, ef ye kin see ter keep ter de west.”
+
+The immemorial dugout, peculiar to the Mississippi River country, is a
+primitive craft, nothing more, indeed, than a log, roughly hollowed out
+and shaped as to stern and prow. It is quite adequate, however, to the
+purposes of its creation, for skirting banks, navigating bayous and
+lakes, rarely venturing into midstream or crossing the great river. It
+is safe enough in accustomed hands, but it is doubtful if Desmond were
+not in more danger of drowning thus embarked than returning on his
+precarious route along the summit of the levee. The dugout wallowed
+portentously as Desmond stepped within its restricted space, but after a
+few words of instruction from Seth he righted the craft and presently
+paddled off easily enough, the darkey standing beside the horse,
+watching the boat till it was lost to sight in the rain and the
+approaching dusk and the fog closing down.
+
+“I ’spec’ dat ar man is safe in de dugout,” he muttered, “dough his kind
+is used ter de saloon ob a side-wheel steamboat, an’ dat’s de fac’. We
+done loss enough cattle drownded dis day, ’dout him ter top off wid.” So
+saying, Seth mounted and rode away into the rain.
+
+Though the dugout was a new proposition to Desmond, he had had some
+experience with the paddle as a propelling agent. His Alma Mater was
+situated on a watercourse, and at one time the Indian canoe and paddle
+was a favorite fad. Thus his progress was swift through the rain and the
+fog, despite the fact that for the first time he felt the strength of
+the current of the Mississippi; for he was soon out of the limits of the
+back water and in the direct course of the overflow. He would have
+scorned the acceptance of a superstition, but the premonition of a
+summons was so strong upon him that he stretched every muscle to his
+task. The glimpse of the wide expanse of water, that might have appalled
+him, alone and without guidance in the midst of its willful, riotous
+turbulence, was but limited. The fog shut in, and but for a few
+boat-lengths he could see naught but the surging yellow current of a
+restricted space and the pallid curtain of the cloudy dusk. Sometimes a
+shadowy looming near at hand intimated a building half submerged,
+invisible in the fog and rain. More than once he thought he heard
+voices, whether far or near he could not determine. An incident of the
+high water, on which he had not counted, was the débris aloose and
+afloat, which invested navigation with undreamed-of dangers, with which
+he could make no covenant of caution. More than once flotsam shot past
+him in the gloom on the swift current, with a force as if flung from a
+catapult; sometimes it was the lumber of a wrecked building; once it was
+a capsized boat, adrift, telling either of the strain of the current,
+breaking it loose from its moorings, or of a hapless wight lost upon the
+turbulent waves; once it was a drift log, which was upon him almost as
+soon as seen, shooting out of the white invisibilities of the mist and
+striking the dugout amidships with a force that threatened to send it to
+the bottom. It rocked so violently that Desmond had much ado to keep it
+right side up. When the drift log had disappeared and he was once more
+paddling on in clear water, it seemed so deep, the current was so
+strong, night was closing in so fast, that he began to fear he had been
+swept out to the main river; at length, however, the mist gave
+intimations here and there of vertical, shadowy objects at close
+intervals, which he only discriminated as the trees of the grove when he
+came in sudden contact with the bole of a gigantic oak. The dugout
+rebounded from the collision with a violent recoil that seemed to stir
+all the fibres of the hollowed log, but Desmond could hardly realize the
+shock which had jarred his every bone, so rejoiced was he to feel
+himself near his journey’s end. He steered more deftly after this, with
+more heed, with less effort at speed, perhaps because the mists were
+lightening, or that now he had his faculties better in hand since his
+plunging, frantic haste under the spur and lash of suspense was abated,
+as his object was achieved. Soon he was able to discern that he was
+surely and swiftly approaching the house, which to his surprise, massive
+and wide and low in the gloom, showed not a single gleam of light. He
+saw the live oak at one side, which the veranda encircled, towering up
+into the air, and suddenly he lifted his paddle and let the dugout drift
+without a sound. For there, in front of the main entrance, a yawl swung
+at a distance of a few oars’ length, kept from drifting by the
+occasional stroke of half a dozen rowers. At the bow a man was standing,
+holding a colloquy with the inmates of the house. Desmond had not heard
+his words, the husky, gruff voice and defective articulation had masked
+them, but his heart plunged responsive to the clear, vibrant tones,
+thrilled with fright, as Mrs. Faurie spoke as boldly as she might.
+
+“But they are not here,” she said.
+
+The man gave a sort of derisive chuckle and the oarsmen laughed
+together. One of them, a thick-set fellow with matted red hair, vaguely
+familiar to Desmond, sitting crouched in the place of the stroke-oar,
+spat contemptuously in the water.
+
+“Well, Mrs. Faurie, whar mought you be willin’ to say they are?” the
+spokesman asked.
+
+Another, pale, wiry, hatchet-faced, and evidently a meddlesome lout,
+intruded a sneer. “I reckon,” he said, with a simpering, brisk
+intonation,—“I reckon ye won’t purtend that you disremember whar you put
+thutty thousand dollars wuth o’ emeralds.”
+
+“I will not, indeed! I put them into a bank in New Orleans.”
+
+Desmond realized that she was standing at the open window of the parlor,
+and from such shelter as it afforded was holding parley with the
+villains,—it was doubtless the identical gang of river pirates who had
+looted the store at Whippoorwill Landing with such signal impunity.
+
+“Then, madam, we will take your order for them,” said the flippant
+intermeddler, airily.
+
+“Keep yer face out of it,—ye’re bug-house, Danvelt!” said the thick-set
+man. “What good would the order do? She would signal the fust steamboat
+that passed,—she would telegraph as soon as we were gone!—send a nigger
+in a dugout across the river to the railroad flag station in the
+Arkansas. Either one would overhaul us.”
+
+“Mightn’t be ekal to signalin’ an’ telegraphin’. Might be gagged an’
+under lock an’ key—ef still alive!”
+
+The man in the bow spoke authoritatively. “Sorry not to take a lady’s
+word. But biz is biz! We will search the house, an’ if the jools are not
+thar, sure enough, you will obleege us with your order on your bankers,
+and the key of your deposit box.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie had lost control of her voice. It was high and shrill in the
+dank, misty air. “I will not permit you to enter. I warn you of the
+consequences if you set foot on that veranda. You will all bear
+witness,” she added, as if she addressed an unseen group within.
+
+The feint, gallant-hearted as it was, failed of conviction. The
+spokesman, openly scornful, disdained response other than threats. “The
+Miss’ippi River is mighty convenient, here.”
+
+“Tain’t gone dry noways that I can see,” said the pert wit of the party,
+and there was a tumult of chuckling and shaking shoulders in the boat.
+
+“We have a lot of rope handy,” the spokesman continued, holding up a
+coil in his hand, his hard face white and fierce against the gray waters
+and lowering sky. “Look at them iron vases!”—the rims of the great lawn
+ornaments, six in number, showed above the surface of the swirling
+waters, where they stood at the end of the broad walk and at the
+intersections of the driveways on either side of the mansion. “They will
+make capital weights, enough to sink every soul in the house,—the three
+boys, old man Stanlett, yerself, and even that big fat nigger
+cook-woman, for that is all ye have got in the house,—sink ye, every
+one; the Miss’ippi River is one hunderd and eighty feet deep in
+Deepwater Bend, even at low water.” He shook his head ominously, and the
+rills of rain ran off the wide slouched brim of his hat with the
+sinister energy of his motion. “Never be heard tell of no more,—if ye
+don’t see yer way to accommodate us with the order and the key.”
+
+And, sooth to say, if she should! There was no alternative. It was only
+a subterfuge of inducement. Desmond’s blood ran cold. He perceived in
+aghast dismay the symmetry and perfection of the plan of the miscreants.
+They had doubtless made sure of the absence from the plantation of the
+manager, who was in Vicksburg on a business trip, and of the visit of
+the tutor to Dryad-Dene, before they ventured to cut the levee. The
+inundation of the plantation quarter with its flimsy low houses menaced
+its inhabitants, especially women and children, with drowning, and would
+draw to its succor every available man from the stanch mansion house,
+which was amply able to cope with floods. When the servants should
+return, the absence of the family would be accounted for variously in
+their minds and without apprehension of evil: some passing steamboat
+might have responded to a signal and sent out a yawl to assist them to a
+refuge in Natchez or Memphis, there to abide till the overflow should
+abate; some neighbor, the Kentopps, the Mayberrys, perchance still on
+dry ground themselves, might have come and delivered them from their
+inundated domicile. There would be no one among the tenants and servants
+left in authority, no one fitted to act. Days might well elapse before
+aught would be suspected. The order upon the bankers would be duly
+honored; the fence in New Orleans—for doubtless in an affair of such
+magnitude the robbers were provided with a respectable seeming _deus ex
+machina_, some shyster at the bar, some trickster of a loan agent, some
+defaulting bank official on the eve of detection and flight—would be
+upon the high seas with the famous emeralds, before the Faurie mystery,
+as the disappearance of the family would be called, should set the river
+country agog with horror and baffled wonder and impotent despair.
+
+Desmond’s strong head was dizzy; his stout heart fluttered as he
+realized the peril and the tenuous possibility of succor,—a single hair
+to which he might cling, the fraction of a minute of time! If only he
+could enter the house first! From without he could hope for naught. He
+could not cope here with six brutal and hardened villains, doubtless the
+miscreants who had wrought robbery and arson and malignant murder in the
+tragedy at Whippoorwill Landing. He could not show himself here, for he
+would only sacrifice his life, worth more at this moment than ever
+before,—than it could be again. He dared not shoot from ambush; for a
+failure of aim would result fatally to her, to him, to all in the house.
+He could not venture to step on the veranda, lest his footfall be heard
+or even his form be dimly descried from the yawl continually oscillating
+to and fro.
+
+Oh, for one impulse of courage in that fainting feminine heart! Could
+she but rally her forces to withstand their demand, to brave their
+hideous threat, to hold them in parley but one moment longer. His own
+heart leaped as he heard her voice again. It was full of quavering
+vibrations, high and shrill and strangely out of tune. But she spoke
+stanchly and with the poise of dignity. “This is my house. I forbid you
+to set foot in it,—to trespass one inch on this veranda. I warn you that
+I shall not be answerable for the consequences. I call you all to
+witness,” she seemed to address the group within. “And I have help at
+hand.”
+
+She uttered the words with such apparent confidence in the midst of her
+direful extremity that they seemed to carry somewhat of conviction, to
+stir the suspicion, the cowardice of the marauders. They did not at once
+move forward, but hung as it were in the wind on the oscillating water.
+
+It was a failure of judgment which induced her on noting the effect of
+her words to repeat them, for instantly interpreting them as a bluff,
+the oars struck the water and the craft moved forward. “I have help,”
+she piteously repeated. “I have help at hand.”
+
+“You have,—you have, indeed!” Desmond’s heart responded, for his plan
+was perfected in those few minutes of final parley. He let the dugout
+drift away while he caught the drooping branches of the live-oak tree
+that swept the surface of the water. The stir of the foliage, as with
+his rifle he clambered through the boughs, was not to be distinguished
+from the rustling of the wind. He lifted the sash of one of the dormer
+windows and was safe in a room he had never seen. A wan gleam of the
+twilight fell through the glass, barely enough to disclose the
+surroundings, for the window was curtained with some floriated opaque
+stuff. An unused room it apparently was, with an unfurnished bed, a few
+chairs, a table, and in the jamb of the chimney on either side tall
+presses built in the wall, one of which stood half open and was
+seemingly full of bundles of papers. A mere glance afforded these
+details as he dashed to the door. It gave easily under his touch; he had
+had one dreadful moment, faint with fear, lest it might prove to be
+locked. He was still trembling as he groped along the dark hall, his
+weapon in hand. He paused for an instant at the head of the unfamiliar,
+vaguely descried stairs, feeling with his foot for the edge of the first
+of the flight.
+
+He could hardly control his agitation, his wonder, as he heard a
+strange, muffled stir, that sibilant, lisping step on the stair which he
+remembered from the early days of his stay at Great Oaks Plantation, the
+silken sound of the invisible patrol.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII
+
+
+It shook his nerve, strained to the tension of breaking. But he rallied
+his faculties. This was no time for vague terrors, for theories, for
+hesitation. He moved on swiftly, silently. Nevertheless, as he hurried
+down the dark flight, he could have sworn he passed some mute presence,
+some sense of moving.
+
+He burst into the dim twilight of the parlor, but still without a sound.
+There were two figures at the window, infinitely incongruous of aspect
+with the scene without, with the frightful crisis, with the imminence of
+their danger. Both were dressed with some touch of elegance for the
+evening; Reginald with an incipient relish for his own good points, and
+in the wan light from the window and the dark shadows within the room
+Mrs. Faurie was like some antique picture, her gown of a light
+Pompeian-red silk, of a quasi-Empire effect, a girdle of dark red
+velvet, and a guimpe of thick, fine white lace to the throat,—yet
+robbery, arson, murder, faced her at the moment. Reginald, pale with a
+realization of his helplessness, nevertheless stoutly stood his ground,
+his arm around her waist.
+
+Without a thought, Desmond passed his arm around her from the other
+side. “Be quiet, be very quiet. I am here,” he said in a low tone.
+
+Her head drooped on his shoulder and she burst into tears. “How I have
+wished for you! How I have prayed for you!” she murmured.
+
+“I am here! I am here!” he said again and again. He could only repeat
+these words. The fact filled the universe.
+
+He was cool, confident, triumphant, despite the desperate odds, despite
+the awful responsibility that hung upon his judgment. He made his
+preparations without an instant’s flutter. He waited the significant
+moment without a pulse of impatience.
+
+Mrs. Faurie, quieted, reassured, in perfect confidence did as he bade
+her. She stood well up against the wall under the folds of the long and
+heavy silken curtains, while he placed himself in front of the window,
+too far withdrawn for his presence to be suggested in the dim light. Not
+until the yawl had almost reached the steps, not until several of the
+men had risen to spring upon the veranda, did he raise his rifle and
+fire. For one moment the flash, the smoke, the report,—deafening in the
+restricted space of the room,—were the only elements that could claim
+attention. The next instant the result was apparent. That accurate aim,
+that steady hand, that cool nerve, had come to Desmond as gifts, unknown
+until to-day. The ball crashed into the skull of the red-headed,
+thick-set man he had recognized as Jed Knoxton. He swayed to and fro for
+a moment, then fell like a stone into the water, leaving the yawl
+violently rocking, and the rowers doing all they could to prevent her
+from capsizing.
+
+The return fire came whizzing through the window, but Desmond had
+stepped aside and the ball crashed against a mirror on the opposite
+wall. The yawl’s party seemed to have recovered from the surprise at
+finding a defense attempted for the house, expected to be so easy a
+prey. They gave no heed to the welterings and writhings of Jed Knoxton
+in the water at their very gunwales, not able to recover himself, and
+yet not dead, until at last the relentless Mississippi drowned out the
+flickerings of life that the rifle had failed to extinguish.
+
+Once more, as they approached, this time with a heady rush, the rifle
+got in its work. One of the assailants sank down on the very steps of
+the veranda, and the blood flowed higher than the palpitant waves. An
+attack from an unexpected quarter further demoralized them. A charge of
+buckshot from the window across the hall rattled against the timbers of
+the yawl—with not the best aim in the world, it is true. Reginald had
+been stationed there in the short interval with a shotgun which happened
+to be in the hall, and which Desmond hurriedly loaded, directing him to
+blaze away at random, being careful, as Reginald loved to tell
+afterward, to warn him to keep from between the muzzle of the gun and
+himself!
+
+The apparent demonstration of adequate force to make good the defense of
+the house was too much for the nerve of the river pirates. The yawl was
+no longer water-tight; the buckshot had riven the wood, here and there,
+old and rotten. It was filling fast, and this fact threatened their safe
+retreat. They had intimations of more pressing personal interests than
+had centred in Mrs. Faurie’s famous emeralds. Suddenly putting about,
+they disappeared in the mist, leaving one of their comrades drowned in
+six feet of water at the bottom of the veranda steps, and another lying
+on the floor, apparently dying, the blood flowing from his mouth and
+tinging all the waves as they lapped about with a deeper hue than the
+copper tint of the great river.
+
+It would seem that no cheer of evening could ensue on so grisly a
+primordium of horrors. Honoria Faurie wrung her hands as she reflected,
+appalled, that a man had met a terrible doom at her door, and his
+bloating corpse still lay at the foot of the steps to await there the
+action of the coroner’s jury, and that another had stretched his
+lacerated body on her veranda to die a lingering death. But Desmond
+seemed to have no affinity or toleration for shuddering or tears. He
+came and went noisily, ordering fires to be rebuilt in the library and
+parlor. When Bob reappeared, having made the transit from the quarter in
+an old dugout, the footman was aghast to hear the startling news.
+
+“Ought to have been here, Bob; you missed the time of your life!” cried
+Desmond, cheerily. “Oh, it was great! And Mr. Reginald Faurie is a
+_man_, all right, and don’t you forget it. Equal to downing any kind of
+pirate! Pretty nearly sunk their yawl for them. They will all knuckle
+down to Great Oaks, after this. We are the pirate tamers here.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie had sunk into a chair before the dead ashes of the parlor
+fire, her face pallid, her chest heaving, her hands nerveless.
+
+“I wish you would give me a little brandy,” Desmond said to her, “and
+you would be the better for what Colonel Kentopp calls ‘a weeny teeny
+nip,’ yourself.” She walked with him to the dining-room, where he
+detained her upon the pretext that he, himself, wanted to order the
+belated dinner.
+
+“I need a _good_ dinner,” he said. “I have hardly had a bite since a
+daylight breakfast.”
+
+The cook was summoned, an immense woman, so tall and so fat that she was
+apparently immovable. She had been in the house throughout the turmoils.
+If the skies should fall, she would continue to sit in the open kitchen
+window and await events. She seemed to do nothing but sit on the sill of
+the kitchen window, but when she did move it must have been to the
+purpose, for she was a famous expert,—of an unparalleled excellence. So
+long did they discuss each dish and compare views and criticise sauces
+that Mrs. Faurie could scarcely compose herself to wait and listen to
+these trivial details. It was a distinct hint when she sank into a chair
+at one side of the old-fashioned mahogany table, the cloth not yet laid,
+and put her dimpled elbows on the glittering dark red surface and
+supported her chin in her clasped hands; while Desmond, still booted and
+spurred and holding his brandy glass, stood before the sideboard, and
+the cook filled the doorway, beaming with smiles upon a gentleman who
+knew so well how to appreciate the delicate miracles of her art.
+
+When at last the menu was settled, he turned for its approval to Mrs.
+Faurie.
+
+“Oh, how can you think of such things at such a moment”—and she shook
+her head to and fro while the ready tears came—“with a man dying at my
+door and another dead!”
+
+“The dying man is very comfortable upstairs in a nice clean room and a
+fresh, tidy bed, where Bob and Seth have no doubt put him by this time,
+as I ordered. And the other man got his deserts, as no doubt Providence
+intended he should. We are not going to sentimentalize about them. On
+the contrary, we are going to ask for the thanksgiving for special
+mercies to us to be said in the public prayers in our little
+neighborhood church next Sunday, and I should think you would write to
+the rector at once so that the request may be received in time. Go into
+the library, won’t you? and write the note at my desk,—the fire must be
+blazing there,—while I dress for dinner.”
+
+“Do you have to take the trouble to dress for dinner?”
+
+He spread out his hands in dismay. “Do you want me to come to the table
+like this,—with my boots full of water and all over mud?”
+
+She still sat at the table and looked at him through her tears,
+realizing his vital aid, his courageous rescue at the most crucial
+moment of her life. But his little devices to divert her mind, to
+sustain her composure, to prevent a morbid reaction of sensibility, all
+of which she appreciated, touched her in a different way. The one was
+essential salvation, but the other had so tender, so careful, so
+individual a thought for her.
+
+“You are so dear!” she said abruptly; “I shall never call you ‘Mr.
+Desmond’ any more. What is your Christian name? Yes, Edward. You are my
+dear, _dear_ Edward; like a dear, _dear_ son!”
+
+As she sat at his desk in the library, she was surprised to find how she
+liked to be there. She wrote her note, and wept some happy tears of
+gratitude over the occurrence which had taken on the aspect of a
+merciful deliverance rather than a tragedy; she lingered, fingering the
+little objects of chirographical use that belonged to him—the
+paper-weight, the pen, the blotter-holder—and thinking of his thought
+for her. But for the wholesome influence of his sound intellect her
+nerves would be shattered by the reaction, she would endure agonies of
+foolish regret and terror; she would not now have this glow of earnest
+love to God and confidence and gratitude that made her heart so warm.
+Yet her equanimity was not entirely restored, and she had a sentiment of
+recoil when Mr. Stanlett brought a very pallid, harassed, and tremulous
+face to the window and looked in; then entered by the long sash.
+
+“I am hunting for you, Honoria,” he said in a strained, husky voice. “I
+am much worried.”
+
+“There is no need, Uncle Clarence.” She was surprised by her full,
+steady tones. “Edward Desmond will attend to all these troubles. See
+what a miracle he wrought to-day, by the favor of God. We were at the
+end of our capacity even to hope.”
+
+“Yes—but, Honoria,” the old man leaned forward as he stood and laid an
+impressive finger upon the edge of the desk. “This man, Desmond,—I had
+forgotten his name was Edward, if I ever knew it,—he takes a deal on
+himself! Without a word to anybody, he ordered this marauder to be put
+in the blue room upstairs. And there he is now—in the _blue_ room!”
+
+She stared at him in amaze. “And why not the blue room as well as any
+other?”
+
+He shook his head, and with a gesture of despair struck his high, bony
+forehead with his outstretched palm.
+
+“I forget! I forget! You do not know!”
+
+She looked at him steadily, sternly, for a moment.
+
+“What is it I do not know, Uncle Clarence?”
+
+He had come around the desk and sat down on a sofa on the opposite side
+of the crackling fire. It was necessary to turn in her chair to face
+him, and she looked over her shoulder at him as she sat at the desk. He
+met her eyes miserably, with a detected, hangdog look, but he had closed
+his lips resolutely; she saw that he would say no more. His face was
+bloodless, deathlike in its pallor. He looked very old, with his spare
+frame, his clear-cut, bony lineaments, his thin, silver hair.
+
+There is something infantile in the infirmities of age. It touched her
+maternal spirit. No one was making enough of Uncle Clarence,—he had been
+neglected. He, too, was to-day greatly threatened by overpowering odds;
+and a man disabled by age and infirmity must feel an appalling
+helplessness, a pathetic shame, to be no longer of force, of availing
+courage in the face of physical danger, a source of refuge and
+protection to the weak. And so great had been the peril, of so terrible
+an aspect, that it might well have touched his intellect for the time
+being. She did not press for his answer, albeit she was of an imperious
+spirit and not accustomed to have her will gainsaid or her words set at
+naught. She rose and advanced toward him, pained to see how he cringed
+at the idea of her persistence while he yet massed his pitiful
+resources, his face hardening, his eyes aglow with an excited gleam, yet
+terrorized lest his steadfastness fail. He watched with doubt and
+expectancy, like a beast at bay, as she sat down beside him and laid her
+hand on his shoulder.
+
+“Don’t be troubled, Uncle Clarence,” she said, in a dulcet tone. “You
+are hardly yourself, you have been put through so much agitation and
+suspense to-day.”
+
+He glanced at her ever and anon with excited and furtive eyes, and
+moistened his lips, but kept silence.
+
+“I will ask no questions that you do not want to answer.” She passed one
+of her soft white arms around his wrinkled old neck, feeling it stiff
+and rigid with his tense resolve. Then she laid her cheek on his
+shoulder. “I love you so much. I can’t endure to see you worried.”
+
+“It is just for you, Honoria. Just for you,” he protested huskily.
+
+“Don’t worry for me, I feel so happy to-night—so happy! as if I had the
+world in a sling! I think it so strange. To-night—of all the nights in
+the year! I suppose it is because we had such an escape.” Yet when she
+thought of the escape, she shuddered.
+
+“I am much worried, Honoria. The—blue—room!”
+
+“If you loved me as much as I love you, you would not worry. Think,
+Uncle Clarence, how much we are to each other,—almost like father and
+daughter. We ought to stand by each other.”
+
+“That’s why, Honoria, I have taken my course. For you, my dear!
+And—the—blue—room!”
+
+“Let it pass for the time, Uncle Clarence,—for the moment. We will ask
+Mr. Desmond if the man can be moved without injury, and set your mind at
+rest; though for my life I can’t see that the blue room is less to be
+desecrated by his presence than any other.”
+
+He held his lips together once more as if afraid of disclosure, and sat
+stiff, immovable, furtively glancing about with absorbed eyes; and as
+she with maternal patience drew her soft arm closer about his neck, her
+head on his shoulder, the glow of the shaded lamp and the flaring fire
+on the rich tints of her dress, her beauty embellished by her softened
+expression, the two were a charming illustration of reverend age and
+filial youth when Desmond, freshly groomed once more, stood a moment by
+the window ere he entered by the sash.
+
+Desmond was in no mood for concessions. He had assumed control of the
+household, and he had a strong if not a heavy hand. He declined at once
+to interfere with the wounded man.
+
+“It might be as much as his life is worth to move him. I am not
+competent to judge. I am not willing to risk it.”
+
+Her sympathies went out to the old man, inadequate to cope with this
+masterful, youthful usurper.
+
+“Uncle Clarence seems to desire it,” she said, not without emphasis.
+
+“I cannot imagine a reason sufficient to jeopardize the man’s life,”
+Desmond rejoined.
+
+“I am not informed, sir, by what theory I am to submit my reasons to
+you,” said Mr. Stanlett, with stately and satiric dignity.
+
+“Oh, Uncle Clarence,”—Mrs. Faurie started up in alarmed
+remonstrance,—“think what we owe to Mr. Desmond—how grateful we should
+be!”
+
+“That is neither here nor there,” said Desmond, maintaining his
+placidity. “You are the arbiter of events here, Mrs. Faurie, but you
+_must_ not suffer this man to be moved, and perhaps sacrifice his life—”
+
+“Heavens—no!” she interpolated.
+
+“—Especially before he can be interrogated by the authorities. The
+information he may give will cause the apprehension and the breaking up
+of this gang of river pirates, and avoid the accomplishment of such
+disasters as menaced this house to-day.”
+
+He turned toward Mr. Stanlett, who had risen and stood stiffly, a sort
+of blight on his face, at one side of the low, old-fashioned marble
+mantel. “I am disturbed to differ with you, Mr. Stanlett, to urge my
+views against your preference when you have been so kind to me.”
+
+“My kindness is returned in a way I had not anticipated,” said Mr.
+Stanlett, coldly.
+
+“Oh, Uncle Clarence, I protest. _Don’t_ mind it, Edward!” She smiled
+and, leaning over, patted Desmond maternally on the coat-sleeve.
+
+“I _do_ mind it very much—to incur Mr. Stanlett’s disapproval. But, my
+dear sir, it will be only for a short time. The officers will reach here
+in the morning. I have sent Jacob off in a dugout with an imperative
+note to the constable and the coroner; they must come. If the man can be
+moved, he will be taken to jail; at all events, he can’t be long dying
+with that hole bored through his lungs. Then the blue room will be once
+more at your service.”
+
+“_At my service!_” the old man sneered. “You know nothing about it! You
+only show your ignorance.”
+
+The announcement of the belated dinner put an end to the discussion, and
+as they filed out, Mrs. Faurie’s face was pale and drawn and altogether
+unlike itself. But Desmond seemed in high spirits. He begged pardon for
+asking for a cocktail before the soup, and he praised a certain
+different combination so that Mr. Stanlett requested that a glass be
+mixed for him, remonstrating sharply against any dilution, when Desmond
+good-naturedly diverted his interest by reminding him of the classical
+apportionment of water with wine, smilingly quoting “Hail, Dionysus: are
+you Five-and-two?” The mixture proved sufficiently potent, and sent the
+blood to the old gentleman’s pale cheeks and brought out a gentle dew on
+his forehead, and predisposed him to enjoy and digest his dinner, to
+postpone his unrevealed trouble, and to hope for the best.
+
+Desmond developed a spirit of gossip. He recounted the details of the
+house-party at Dryad-Dene, and Mrs. Faurie and Mr. Stanlett laughed,
+though slyly, at Chub, who seemed to think that Desmond had committed a
+great impropriety in mentioning Miss Allandyce’s boyish equestrian
+costume and describing his embarrassment that he did not later recognize
+her when accoutred in white silk skirts. Reginald and Horace indulged in
+great hilarity at this demonstration of the prudish Chub, and Mr.
+Stanlett was immensely “tickled” by the description of Loring’s
+sufferings because of the unwelcome reminiscences of the old
+wood-chopper, Sloper, concerning the millionaire’s family.
+
+“Shows just what a snob Loring has graduated into,” said Mr. Stanlett,
+his face now pink from Clos Vougeot, the blue room forgotten. “His
+parents were most reputable, educated, respected people, even if they
+were not well off, and the only reason they were ever acquainted with
+such a party as Sloper, as every one knows, is that in this sparsely
+populated country everybody is acquainted with everybody else. But
+social differences are now and always have been rigorously maintained.”
+
+He had a keen commercial interest in Desmond’s detail of Regnan’s
+suspicions that the house-party had been made up to show Dryad-Dene to
+advantage to Mr. Loring, with charming young people in gala attire
+enlivening all its highly decorated apartments, and how Regnan resented
+the idea that he had danced not for his own pleasure, but like a trained
+dog, for a purpose.
+
+Mrs. Faurie dimpled and beamed, and asked him how the ladies looked and
+what they wore, now and then checking his description with the
+exclamation “Impossible!” and setting him to rights with apt conjectures
+as to fabrics and styles.
+
+“If I were mamma, I’d give a house-party that would mash the Kentopps
+flat,” said Chub, sturdily. “I’d have up a lot of swell guys from New
+Orleans and down from St. Louis and Memphis, and then I’d open the
+ballroom and dance all one day and one night on a stretch, and have a
+party supper and dinner and breakfast,—and leave the Kentopps out!”
+
+The older boys collapsed over this truculence of the vengeful Chub and
+his idea of a fashionable entertainment. Mrs. Faurie checked him, though
+smiling. “Mustn’t bear malice, Chubby. I am too old for a young people’s
+party.”
+
+“Prettier’n anybody, ain’t she, Mr. Desmond?” said the confident Chub,
+with his mouth full of salad.
+
+To the tutor’s amazement, he flushed to the roots of his hair at this
+appeal. He felt the blood mounting and pulsing as it rose, but he was
+ready with the repetition of Miss Mayberry’s compliment to the “most
+beautiful woman in the world,” albeit he doubted his good taste in the
+rehearsal. Mrs. Faurie, however, who had often heard similar
+appraisements of her attractions, took the remark quite simply, and was
+absorbed in the interest of recollecting details concerning this Italian
+count, who was a man of talent and high position, and whom she had often
+met in notable circles while she was living in Paris. This brought them
+to a harmonious end of the feast, and when they rose from the table,
+Desmond proposed a return to the parlor, where Mrs. Faurie countenanced
+the cigars, and seated herself before the fire in a great fauteuil, her
+Empire gown of rich yet delicate red enhancing her beauty, her eyes
+fascinated by the flames, her lovely neck glimpsed through the lace
+guimpe, her quiet respiration rising and falling calmly, the tumult of
+fear assuaged that had shaken her heart so few hours ago.
+
+Desmond had taken his station on one end of the sofa, where Chubby also
+ensconced himself, for out of school hours he had developed a great
+disposition to loll on his tormentor. The other two boys had seats here
+too, facing the window, but only the inconsiderate youngest spoke out
+his sudden surprise.
+
+“Where does all that light come from?”
+
+Mrs Faurie turned her head apprehensively. The verandas were under a
+steady illumination, and for a distance the murky waters of the overflow
+showed their constant, sinister palpitation.
+
+“I had those lamps filled and the brackets fastened to the posts,”
+Desmond said coolly. “I found them by rummaging around upstairs. I
+suppose they must have been used in some entertainment in the house.
+There were some reflectors, too, in the ballroom.”
+
+Mr. Stanlett raised himself in his chair, his cigar held out at arm’s
+length.
+
+“You have no call to go rummaging around the house. It—it—is outrageous!
+It is—is—intrusive!”
+
+Mrs Faurie had paled. “Do you anticipate another attack on the house
+to-night?” she asked in agitation.
+
+“No,” said Desmond, “for I am prepared for it.”
+
+Beneath his gay and cheerful exterior, sustaining the spirits of the
+household lest the palsy of panic overwhelm them and bring down
+undreamed-of disaster, Desmond had wrestled with some sombre fears,
+distressing doubts, troublous paucity of resource. There was no boat due
+to pass, or he would have braved the maddening floods in the primitive
+dugout to put Mrs. Faurie on board. He had thought of the neighbors, to
+ring the plantation bell and summon aid. But the neighbors by this time
+were struggling with the overflow, or seeking to patch sodden and
+threatened levees. Their own families were exposed to the manifold
+distresses of high water, and the very fact that marauders were abroad
+had homing promptings. Besides, he did not wish thus to advertise to the
+river pirates that the occupants of the mansion felt incapable of its
+defense. The garrison had already demonstrated its efficiency; the
+pirates no doubt believed that they had been misinformed as to the
+unprotected condition of the house; and though Desmond feared an attempt
+at the rescue of the wounded man, in order that he might not turn
+state’s evidence, inculpate the gang, and compass their capture, he
+could rely only on such means as had been equal to the emergency in the
+afternoon, hoping that this would prove adequate to whatever the night
+might bring forth. The idea that Mrs. Faurie was the focus of their
+schemes, the suggestion of wresting from her an order on her bankers and
+by some nefarious plan rendering her incapable of giving the alarm till
+it should be honored, filled him with dismay. The possibility suggested
+abduction, imprisonment, even murder. He had provided against surprise.
+No boat, no swimmer, could approach the house without becoming instantly
+visible,—the old ballroom lights playing a part undreamed of in their
+festive design. He had posted one of the most reliable of the house
+servants as a lookout on each veranda, and a relief sat in the kitchen,
+finding royal good cheer in the remainder of the big dinner he had
+ordered with this view. His rifle was loaded, his pistols at hand, and
+Reginald had been called aside and, as he protested, given some points
+concerning the best method of distinguishing the muzzle from the butt of
+the gun. He had in fact been taught to load, aim, cock the hammer, and
+pull the trigger, and he had a half dozen buckshot cartridges in his
+pocket as he lounged on the sofa.
+
+“Won’t the lights attract attention and make navigation easy?” she
+asked.
+
+“Perhaps; but they will show that we are on the alert and ready for all
+comers,” said Desmond. Then after a moment of hesitation, “It was an
+accident that they did not reach the veranda before I did this
+afternoon. Now, any approach would be detected at a considerable
+distance.”
+
+Her level eyebrows were drawn. “I had hoped the danger was over,” she
+said, with a sort of plaintive patience.
+
+“But not the precautions,” he replied, with a smile.
+
+“Why don’t we have up some of the tenants from the quarter? they could
+spare ten or twelve men.”
+
+He did not tell her that he had already attempted a levy from the
+quarter, and that the tenants had revolted. For the dead flatboat-man
+lay alongside the veranda steps with a dog collar and chain around his
+neck, to keep him from floating away while awaiting the coming of the
+coroner; this Desmond had been compelled to attach with his own hands.
+The negroes did not so much fear the living as the dead. They would not
+undertake to touch the floating body and lift it to the shelter and
+security of the veranda, there to await the coming of the coroner; they
+would not wittingly approach the house so long as it was there,—nay,
+until it should be removed to a distance and to an unknown place. They
+did not believe that the pirates would dare return, and were not
+actuated by fear of them, but they were sure that Jed Knoxton would
+haunt them to their dying day! “I think they are perhaps shy of meddling
+in our feud,” Desmond replied to her suggestion. “The darkeys always
+seem doubtful as to whether they are fairly instructed as to the points
+at issue in any disturbance among white people, and are afraid of
+getting into trouble with the authorities. They would merely give the
+sense of strength in numbers, anyhow. We had enough, to-day, and to
+spare.”
+
+Nevertheless, he had not permitted to depart those whose vocation had
+caused them to return to the mansion, and who, upon discovering the
+facts, would have been glad to get away again. They were fain to
+reconcile themselves to the grim necessity as best they might. The old
+butler, whose attachment to the family dated from before the war, a man
+of experience and intelligence, pinned his faith to the Faurie banner in
+weal or woe. He smartly admonished Bob, his son, to “show some manners,”
+when the footman was insisting upon putting a goodly quantity of the
+Mississippi River between himself and the locality where such dreadful
+deeds were done and which harbored such ghastly visitants, and
+withdrawing to the quarter. It was not merely that the old butler knew
+that special duty rendered in time of stress received a special and
+proportionate reward, for he was long past his prime and had no
+ambitions disconnected with an aspect of distinction in the Faurie
+dinner service. But a word to the wise Bob was sufficient. Though under
+constraint indeed, he cheerfully consented to watch in turn with his
+father on one side of the house, while Desmond and Reginald kept a
+lookout through the parlor windows from the front. The cook insisted
+that naught could approach undiscovered from the east while she sat on
+the sill of the kitchen window, and Seth, the old-time hostler, who
+dwelt in a world of Houyhnhnms and rated as slight matters any disasters
+that did not concern the frog and the fetlock, or threaten spavin or
+sprain, found his sympathy with mere humanity so indurated by disuse as
+to be able to stand guard over the wounded pirate to make sure that he
+did not attempt to escape, that he wanted for naught in comfort, and
+that no shadowy approach was made toward the house upon the waters
+viewed from the dormer window, from the hood of which Seth continually
+scanned the expanse.
+
+“Too many people make confusion and get into each other’s way,” Desmond
+explained to Mrs. Faurie. “I need only one steady lieutenant like
+Reginald here. I invited Regnan to return to Great Oaks with me, and I
+was sorry at first that he did not come. But we are all right without
+him.”
+
+“I wish I could shoot,” plained Chubby.
+
+“I am going to put a stop to this mollycoddle business, anyhow,” said
+Desmond, waving away the smoke from his cigar and looking at Mrs. Faurie
+with challenging, laughing eyes. “Just as soon as we get out of our ark,
+I am going to have regular target practice three times a week, and teach
+these boys how to shoot, and then we will borrow Mr. Sloper’s dogs and
+go on a camp hunt of our own.”
+
+“Oh, little Chubby,” protested Mrs. Faurie, while Chub fairly rolled
+himself into a ball of chuckling delight, hugging himself as if he felt
+that he might fly to pieces in the centrifugal force of so much ecstasy.
+
+“Little Chubby is a good plucked one! I was proud of Chub and Horace,—to
+stand here in the parlor, and hold still without a word, and get in
+nobody’s way, and make no confusion, and face danger without a protest.
+Oh, this is a great day for the house of Faurie! We have three men here,
+rather small-sized and callow as yet,—but _men_, for all that!”
+
+“Oh, you make me feel so proud of them!” cried Mrs. Faurie, laughing and
+flushing with pleasure.
+
+Suddenly a drear sound—knock! knock! knock! at the front of the house.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Mrs. Faurie sprang up with white lips and a half scream. The old
+gentleman, who had sunk into a placid doze, was roused from slumber to
+vague but terrible fright.
+
+Knock! knock! knock! again reiterated at the door. The three boys gazed
+in questioning suspense at the tutor’s face.
+
+“It is not”—Reginald began—he had held the chain while Desmond locked
+the dog collar—“it is not—it could not be—”
+
+“Oh, no! _Impossible!_” cried Desmond, bewildered nevertheless, and at a
+loss.
+
+The strain of the events of the evening was telling on the tutor,—even
+the stress of the effort to sustain the equilibrium of the household was
+making its impression. Some moments elapsed before his mind could evolve
+a conjecture, a reasonable solution of the mystery, and all the time the
+heavy, dull knocking was renewed at ominous intervals.
+
+“It must be—it is—a drift log!” he exclaimed at length. “No, you must
+stay here,” he insisted, as Mrs. Faurie started forward; “Reginald and I
+will see.”
+
+He led her back to her chair, and was not sorry that he had done so when
+he opened the door into the hall and saw there all the negro watchmen,
+trembling and agitated, with a look of abject terror shown in the
+swinging chandelier.
+
+“No, no! Nathan,—I am astonished at you. You know that a dead man cannot
+knock at the door! No, Bob! You can’t have the dugout. I have got it
+chained and padlocked. If you leave us here, you will have to swim.
+Seth—you, too! It _must_ be a drift log. I am going to see. I might have
+been afraid of that man alive, but I have got a cinch on him, sure, now
+that he is dead. Nobody in the house knows that he is there, but
+Reginald and me. You tell that fat old cook in the kitchen that the
+Mississippi River hasn’t swept him away from here, or that the other
+pirates didn’t take him with them, and she’ll die of fright. I should
+want no ghost of her size after me, if I were you. Keep quiet here and
+I’ll see.”
+
+It proved to be a drift log, and with the aid of a stout cane Desmond
+leaned over the railing and pushed it clear of the entrance to the
+house. The body of the flatboat-man had not yet risen, and as the log
+was on the surface, it struck against the floor of the veranda.
+Unluckily, as it floated down a little farther on, it caught in the
+angle between the flooring and the projection of the steps, and there it
+swung on the oscillations of the current,—knock, knock, knock,—and there
+it was destined to hang and, as if it were the dead man clamoring for
+admittance, knock, knock, knock in a dull monotone at intervals all the
+livelong night.
+
+Desmond could not rally his energies again for a show of cheerful
+spirits. He could no longer direct the trivial conversation and evolve
+ebullitions of satisfaction and pleasure. Despite his gratitude for the
+crowning mercy of his rescue of the household, he had a sentiment of
+infinite repugnance for the taking of life, necessary, justifiable, even
+laudable though it was. That dull knock, knock, knocking at the door
+where lay the man he had killed beat upon more sensitive nerves than he
+had yet known he possessed, and set them all a-quiver.
+
+When Desmond induced the negroes to return to their posts, old Joel made
+a great show of self-ridicule and abasement that so little a matter
+should have shaken his equilibrium. “’Fore Gawd, boss, I done turned
+fool, fur a fack! _Drift log!_ Gawd A’mighty! I wuz cradled in a _drift
+log_! I been paddlin’ in dugout hollowed out’n _drift log_ dese six or
+seben hunderd years. I been loadin’ up an’ firin’ powder fur Chris’mus
+in de _drift log_—Lawd! eber sence Noah fust went a-wadin’ in de
+overflow. An’ now—done took a skeer ob a _drift log_! Ye-all will have
+ter hire somebody to wait on de table at Great Oaks besides a
+_dee_stracted ole nigger whut is afeard ob a _drift log_.”
+
+Seth was retreating up the stairs, chuckling at the causeless fright,
+and Bob was mightily entertained to see the old butler at fault, who was
+so rich and ready in caustic reproof to the young and flighty. Desmond
+and Reginald turned from the servants and repaired to the parlor, where
+the tutor was able laughingly to explain the cause of the sound to the
+group waiting by the fireside, and to apologize for having awkwardly
+towed the log into the angle of the steps so that it could not shake
+free, and thus the melancholy iteration of its oscillations against the
+flooring would probably continue all night. “But I move that we pay as
+little attention to the sound as possible, and adjourn for the present,”
+Desmond continued, looking at his watch.
+
+“I feel as if I could never sleep again,” said Mrs. Faurie, pressing her
+hands to her temples.
+
+“What a pity that you sent your maid down to the quarter. She could have
+a cot in your dressing-room and be company for you so close at hand,”
+suggested Reginald.
+
+“Yes, she is afraid to come back. She made all sorts of excuses, but
+_that_ is the truth,” said Mrs. Faurie. “I sent her to help her people
+save their things; their household furniture and bedclothes are so
+important to them,—hard to come by and difficult for them to
+replace,—the accumulations of many years.”
+
+“Suppose you let Chub have a cot in your room,” suggested Desmond.
+
+“I won’t,” said Chubby, stoutly. “I won’t sleep in a room with a lady!”
+
+The collapse of the two elder boys over this demonstration of Chub’s
+delicate modesty was shared in less degree by the others, while Chub sat
+gravely on the edge of the sofa and ejaculated—“The _idea_!”
+
+“He’d be no good, anyhow. He is a perfect dormouse,” said Reginald.
+
+“Leave him alone in his propriety,” added Horace.
+
+“Let things be as usual,” said Mrs. Faurie. “Anything different might
+get on my nerves and make me wakeful.”
+
+Desmond was rummaging in a drawer. “There is a hammer here. Will you let
+me nail up the window-shutters so that the room can be entered only from
+the hall?”
+
+That idea of a coerced order on her banker operated on his mind like an
+obsession. Should the pirates return, in view of their peril by state’s
+evidence, to attempt the rescue of their comrade, they would have the
+opportunity for a renewed effort to secure the paper with its rich
+guerdon in case of success.
+
+“Nail up the windows!” exclaimed Mrs. Faurie. “Heavens! I feel like a
+pampered lunatic.”
+
+“It would do no harm except to the shutters, and would mightily set my
+mind at rest,” urged Desmond.
+
+“Work your will on the shutters, then, and peace to your mind!” she
+said, laughing a little at his impetuous haste, as Reginald caught up a
+lamp to light him and the two made off together.
+
+When they were through with the windows, it would have been as easy to
+tear down a section of the house as to effect an entrance there.
+
+As the group stood together in the hall for the last few words, the
+knock, knock, knocking was renewed, as of solemn clamors for admittance.
+None of them mentioned the sound, and presently they were all gone
+except Desmond and Reginald, who seemed to linger, but really intended
+to wait and watch all night.
+
+“The lights are better out,” said Desmond, reaching up and extinguishing
+the swinging lamp in the hall chandelier. “If they should come, which
+God forbid, they could not so easily get about the house in darkness,
+and we could fire at better advantage from the shadow than in the full
+glare of the veranda lights.”
+
+They closed the window-shutters of all the house as they patrolled the
+verandas. The width of these was great enough to limit the light sent
+across the rooms, but thence through the slats one could look out almost
+as with the distinctness of daylight on the great brown welter of water
+palpitating with the rainfall and undulating with the current.
+
+“You had better lie down for a while in the parlor,” Desmond said to
+Reginald. “No—you will play out long before day, if you have no rest at
+all. You will be well within call here, with your gun beside you, and
+you can watch through the slats for any approach from the front of the
+house.”
+
+They had arranged that one or the other should remain in the hall
+outside Mrs. Faurie’s door—unknown to her, however, lest this precaution
+excite her alarm anew—throughout the night. Reginald was in a tremor of
+terror to perceive that it was she against whom the schemes of the
+marauders were most directed. He had earlier thought of the family
+silver and the scattered valuables about the house, and had fancied that
+these had allured them hither, but that most appalling suggestion of a
+coerced order on her New Orleans bankers and the extremest measures to
+insure its being honored was of far more sinister import. The silver in
+its present form was easily identified; melted down, it would be mulcted
+of half its value in the loss of the rich chasing of the ornamentation
+and the fine workmanship. Moreover, the water-rats might well fear their
+own discrimination between what was real and what might be a heavy plate
+and for their purposes worthless. But there could be no possible doubt
+as to her order on her bankers. Without question they were in
+communication with fences and graduated rogues in New Orleans of such a
+quality as to be able to present such an order without fear that it
+would not be honored. Truly, the possibility invested the menace that
+hung over the house with a terror which he could scarcely contemplate
+without a complete collapse of all his faculties, and which drove every
+impulse of sleep from his heavy eyelids. He sank down obediently on the
+sofa, however, and sought to compose his mind, his eyes staring into the
+gloomy waters, his gun on the floor beside him within arm’s reach, his
+ears acutely discerning every sound within the house, and the splashing
+of the water against the foundations as the rain fell and the currents
+of the overflow rose ever higher and higher, and now and again the
+sombre vibrations of the knock, knock, knocking at the door before which
+the dead man lay.
+
+Desmond had thrown himself at full length on the long, old-fashioned,
+mahogany hall sofa, that he, too, might find some repose for his
+exhausted limbs,—now beginning to ache and stiffen from the stress of
+the day’s exertion,—if not solace for his racked and anxious mind.
+
+The dark house had grown still—so still that the silence seemed
+sinister, as if some portentous crash must break this unnatural hush.
+The lapping of the water had become monotonous, the ear so accustomed to
+it that it scarcely impinged upon the sense of silence. The ghostly
+knock, knock, knocking had its sombre echo, and the interval relapsed
+into muteness. There was no stir of whatever sort from the bedrooms; the
+inmates were all lost in slumber. The house might have seemed
+tenantless, when suddenly Desmond became conscious of a sense of motion.
+He raised himself on his elbow and stared about him.
+
+The hall was absolutely dark. The glass half-moon above the solid panels
+of the double front door, and the panes in the long side-lights on
+either hand, were covered with some quilled stuff that tempered the
+light to gloom by day, and utterly excluded the glimmer of night. He
+could not have said how or when it came, but something was astir, he
+knew, even before he heard that lisping sibilance of the ghost of a step
+on the padded velvet carpet of the stair. Again and again it sounded,
+sometimes regular for several steps; then silence; once more the
+sibilant tread, sliding on the silky pile of the velvet. Farther and
+farther it receded, unmolested; he thought it was gone! And once
+more—the impact! And now all was silence; he listened in vain. As he
+laid himself back on the sofa, the cold touch of the haircloth with
+which it was covered caused him to withdraw his hand with a jerk and
+start violently. Then he composed himself anew and sought the rest his
+fagged-out system so needed.
+
+At another moment he would have sprung up to challenge the presence, but
+in this juncture he remembered the alarm a sudden commotion in the hall
+would rouse. Mrs. Faurie was aware of the peculiar jeopardy in which she
+stood. The demand for the emeralds, for the order on her bankers, had
+apprised her that she was the special mark for the enterprise of the
+marauders. So extreme a terror as a sudden awakening to more turmoil and
+suspense might prove too much for her nerves, for her overstrained
+heart,—might, indeed, be fatal. This demonstration marked no intrusion,
+no new menace; it was only the old unexplained, inexplicable spectral
+mystery which he had encountered when he first reached Great Oaks
+Plantation,—almost forgotten until this afternoon when he had sprung
+into the window and rushed downstairs, hearing a sibilant descent and
+passing an unseen presence.
+
+In the midst of the lull induced by the uncanny associations, he felt a
+rush of impatience that this fantastic demonstration should be forced
+upon his attention now,—at this time, when any slight lapse of vigilance
+on his part, any failure of judgment under circumstances so strange to
+all his training and experience, might cost the life of every one in the
+house. He believed that there must be some natural explanation for the
+manifestation; but since it baffled reason and conjecture, it mattered
+little to the fact that he did not fully accept it. He had as distinct a
+thrill quivering icily along his spine as if he had no philosophy
+whatever, and as he placed his hand on his brow, he felt that cold drops
+were standing there.
+
+Suddenly he sprang to his feet. There was a commotion upstairs, not so
+much a tread or a movement, but a husky, half-smothered voice crying
+out. In the tremendous crisis that the moment was to him, he remembered
+to open the front parlor door, and with a whisper he motioned Reginald
+to take his post on the hall sofa while he bounded noiselessly up the
+stairs, three steps at a time. He burst into the room where the wounded
+man lay—expecting he hardly knew what. It was the only chamber alight in
+the house, yet full of distorted shadows. The kerosene lamp had been
+extinguished, and the dim illumination came from that primitive
+contrivance known as a button lamp,—a bit of cloth tied over a button,
+the end lighted and set afloat in a saucer of lard, giving a clear, tiny
+flame peculiarly adapted to a sick-room. Seth had placed this on the
+fireless hearth, and thus shining upward, all the furnishings cast
+gloomy shadows on the wall. They seemed curiously out of proportion,—out
+of drawing, so to speak, because of the slant of the walls of the
+half-story structure and the deep recesses of the dormer windows.
+
+In the middle of the room Seth stood staring, evidently just roused from
+slumber; his starting eyes were on the wounded man, who had struggled
+into a sitting posture, wildly gesticulating toward the door, every
+fresh exertion sending the blood spurting over the bosom of the white
+night-shirt furnished him, and trickling down the white coverings of the
+bed.
+
+“Who is that thar guy?” he exclaimed huskily. “An’ what’s he comin’
+after me fur?”
+
+He fixed wild eyes on Desmond, who marveled whether it was yet time for
+the delirium and fever attendant upon a gunshot wound to set in.
+
+As he spoke in a soothing voice, the incongruity of the situation could
+but strike him. He had sought to kill this man and had nearly compassed
+his object; but now he was laying the gentlest hands on the marauder’s
+shoulder, and trying to place him back in his recumbent posture. The
+danger was all gone out of him, but the semblance of kindness seemed
+strange.
+
+“Nobody is going to disturb you. Take your night’s rest. Lie down and be
+quiet.”
+
+The marauder grasped Desmond’s arm with a sunburned hand garnished with
+broken nails. “But—say—_who_ was he? Oh, my! he looked comical! What’s
+he want o’ me?”
+
+“There’s nobody here,” protested Desmond. “Lie down.”
+
+“Can’t stuff me! Ain’t slep’ a wink ter-night.” A shadow crossed his
+face, which was young and broad, and with a “bang” of straight sandy
+hair, a square jaw, and a long, thin mouth. “I got too much to study
+’bout.”
+
+“Don’t do it now,” Desmond kindly admonished him. “You have started that
+wound to bleeding. Lie down.”
+
+“That man looked comical; he didn’t look like folks hereabout! He had on
+a three-cornered hat.”
+
+Desmond gave so palpable a start that the wounded marauder noticed it.
+“Ai-yi! _You_ know him,” he said with significance. “Is he after me?”
+
+“Did he have powdered hair?” Desmond asked, surprised at his own
+temporizing, and remembering Reginald’s description of the nurse’s
+vision.
+
+“Gunpowder on his hair!” the man said wonderingly. “Naw, ’twuz white!
+An’ Lord! he didn’t expect to see me lookin’ at him. He flipped in—an’
+when his eyes met mine, he flipped out. Say—I be ’feard o’ him,—he
+looked so comical! Say—is he _alive_!”
+
+Desmond turned to the attendant. “Seth, who is this man?”
+
+“Gawd A’mighty, boss, I dunno!” Seth gasped, the whites of his eyes
+distended and their pupils wildly rolling. “Ter tell de trufe, boss, an’
+shame de debbil, I jes’ batted my eye one minit, an’ dar war dis man
+shyin’ an’ plungin’ an’ ’lowin’ dat he done seen—I reckon ’twuz dat ar
+Slip-Slinksy what de chillern talks about wunst in awhile. Lawe-a-massy,
+Mist’ Desmond, lemme go home! ’Fore Gawd, I can’t stay here no mo’!
+Lemme go’—leastways, down ter de kitchen, whar _he_ ain’t neber been
+seen nor hearn. I can’t stay whar Slip-Slinksy—oh, yi! hi-i!”
+
+He was looking in affright over his shoulder at a sudden movement of
+Desmond’s shadow across the slanting wall. It was clearly demonstrated
+that the utility of Seth in the offices of sick nurse and lookout was at
+an end. So charging him to say naught to his fellows downstairs, on pain
+of being ordered to return to the sick-room, Desmond assigned him to a
+post on the back piazza within call of the others, and within exchange
+of cheerful conversation with the corpulent old cook, always a fixture,
+half a-doze in the kitchen window.
+
+The clumsy descent of the stairs by Seth, used only to the one-story
+dwelling so common in the region, Desmond thought was sure to advertise
+his withdrawal to all the house. But when the back hall door had closed
+upon him, absolute quiet succeeded. All the inmates were asleep,—a much
+needed rest, obviously. But the continued hush demonstrated how
+essential was the strict watch, since so turbulent and erratic a transit
+had failed to rouse the domicile. He reflected that the cautious methods
+of burglars could never have permitted so much noise. He began to doubt
+the vigilance of his sentinels. He had no blame for Seth, who had slept
+at his post. It had been a strenuous day of excitement and labor for the
+hostler, and indeed for all the household retainers. The exposure to
+rain and wind is always of a peculiar exhaustion to the physical
+energies. He began to fear that, thus absorbed by the strange
+manifestation of the troublous peripatetic spirit of Great Oaks
+Plantation, worse dangers might have been allowed to approach.
+
+He went swiftly to one of the dormer windows, and looked out upon the
+great flood as upon an inland sea. Still the rain fell; the drops stood
+in bubbles, and again coursed lazily along the panes of the glass, and
+through their corrugations he could see the rippling waters in the wan
+light of the illuminated veranda; the vague boles of the trees in the
+shifting mist; the floating débris,—here and there uprooted bushes,
+logs, fence-rails, timbers of buildings; but never a boat, never a human
+suggestion. The ark could not have seemed more lonely, more aloof from
+all humanity in the floods that drowned the earth, than did Great Oaks
+mansion in that deep and memorable overflow in Deepwater Bend from the
+crevasse in the Faurie cross levee.
+
+The tiny light of the primitive button lamp burned whitely on the
+hearth; the fire was dead some hours since, and no coal gleamed through
+the ash. The room had a comfortable aspect, though the blue and white
+curtains were still undrawn as when he had sprung through the window
+there. It was at the opposite side, and without shifting his posture,
+where he sat in the recess of the other window, he could see through it
+the sloping roof of the veranda, on which lay the boughs of the live-oak
+tree towering high above. A table at the foot of the bed held a glass
+from which restoratives had been administered, a bowl which had been
+filled with the soup in which the old cook excelled, some lint and
+home-made bandages from an old linen sheet, ready for use in case they
+might be needed for stanching the further flow of blood. The floor was
+covered with a blue and white matting; the woodwork was of the old
+china-white paint, as smooth as enamel. The white wall-paper bloomed
+with blue corn-flowers,—it was the blue room! There were presses in the
+jambs beside the fireplace, and these, too, were of the spotless white
+of the door and chair-rail and wainscot. The bed was dressed in white,
+but from the half canopy long blue curtains depended, mottled with some
+indeterminate design in white. He rather wondered at the freshness of it
+all, considering its disuse; but there was little dust afloat amidst the
+densities of the woods and along the expanse of the river, and the
+traditions of Great Oaks were of famous housekeepers. A single sign of
+disorder the room showed!—one of the presses was open, and within was
+glimpsed a congeries of old account-books, bundles of papers, japanned
+boxes, all in a degree of confusion that implied long neglect or great
+haste.
+
+When he glanced again at the pillow, he was relieved to see that the
+wounded man had fallen asleep, doubtless from the exhaustion attendant
+upon the excitements of the last hour. The breath came with a queer
+whistling sound from his torn lung, and this gave Desmond a keen pang,
+notwithstanding the knowledge that the miscreant deserved far worse
+punishment than the wound he had received. His sunburned face was yet
+younger of aspect as he slept, and softer; his unkempt yellow hair, his
+stubbly, unshaven chin and upper lip, and his dirty face on the fine
+white linen of the pillow-case spoke the limitations of his low station;
+and the tutor, who had pinned his faith to training, had a reservation
+in his condemnation,—holding that this man might not have been what he
+was but for what his circumstances had made him.
+
+Desmond, in the deep, shadowy recess of the dormer window, thus
+meditating, looked out keenly at every shifting change of the watery
+expanse, listening acutely to every semblance of sound within the house,
+hearing even the recoil of the springs of the sofa in the hall below as
+Reginald altered his position; hearing the water rush futilely against
+the foundations and turn splashing aside; hearing every iteration of the
+knock, knock, knocking of the drift log caught at the veranda steps, and
+he was instantly aware when once more that scarcely to be discriminated
+impact of a sibilant footfall, so stealthy it was, sounded anew on the
+stairway of the hall. He could hardly control his impatience,—the
+inexplicable incident so jeopardized the fidelity of his watchmen, the
+composure of the rest of the household. He remembered that it was
+Reginald who had first told him the story of the strange step on the
+stair. He wondered if the boy heard it now, as he lay obediently waiting
+on the sofa in the hall below. He wondered that Reginald could hold
+himself motionless, for not a sound came save that lisping tread, soft,
+sibilant,—now still, now distinct once more, ascending the stairs.
+
+Desmond had an impulse almost uncontrollable to rush out into the hall,
+only checked by the fear that he would find nothing. Then, with an
+effort at self-control, he held himself quiet in the deep, curtained
+recess of the dormer window. Since the figure had entered this room
+before the unwilling vision of the wounded robber, perhaps the lure it
+then followed might again bring it hither. Desmond caught his breath as
+he heard the step approach nearer and yet nearer. When the footfall was
+just without, it paused, and Desmond fearfully heard the sombre knock,
+knock, knocking at the door below stairs before which the dead man lay.
+The next moment his heart was thumping so loudly that he thought the
+sound might betray his presence. For there entered slowly, cautiously,
+with a quick, nervous glance at the bed where the wounded robber slept,
+the apparition he had described hardly an hour ago,—the figure that
+patrolled the stairs in the wan moonlight in the tradition of the
+nurse’s vision.
+
+A tall man it was, and spare. He was muffled in a cloak to the chin. He
+had upon his head a hat, cocked as if accessory to a fancy costume; his
+hair was white, not powdered; he held in his hand a scroll of paper; his
+face was one that Desmond recognized instantly, despite the anxious,
+secret, blazing eye, the tension of excitement in every drawn feature.
+Mr. Stanlett, with that careful, soft tread, noiseless save for an
+occasional slipping shuffle incident to the step of age, crossed the
+room and stood for a moment scanning the face of the sleeping man.
+Desmond, invisible in the deep shadows of the curtained recessed window,
+trembled for him lest that peculiar mesmeric influence, responsive to an
+intent regard, rouse the sleeper to a moment of frenzied fright. But the
+man still slumbered, the breath still whistling in labored respiration
+from his torn lung. Mr. Stanlett evidently harbored no suspicion of the
+shadowed window recess. He was very old, and his age was telling on him
+in the draughts that this strange secret made upon his powers of
+endurance. He tottered as he approached the press, its door ajar, and as
+he paused and gazed at its disorder, he shook his head to and fro in
+dismay. He pulled the door back, and leaning within, he opened a drawer
+which Desmond fancied was a secret receptacle. He laid the scroll in
+this, and then with a cheering face and a brisk satisfaction of manner,
+his lips set firmly together, he began to push the bundles of papers and
+japanned boxes back into their places, his nervous, veinous old hands
+moving here and there with great diligence in his eager haste to be
+gone. As he forced the door to shut on the crowded shelves, he did not
+observe what the keen young eyes in the recess perceived, that the
+corner of one of these bundles so protruded that the door did not
+compactly close. He shot the bolt and turned the key, unaware that
+neither had gone home, whirled about with a jaunty air of capability,
+looked keenly at the sleeping face on the pillow, and went briskly but
+softly shuffling out of the door, leaving Desmond at once relieved,
+amazed, and dismayed.
+
+He could not for a time collect his faculties to ponder on this strange
+chance. He sat silently listening to the stealthy footsteps that had so
+long baffled inquiry at Great Oaks Plantation. He was remembering that
+on the occasion when the spectre was declared to have been seen, Mr.
+Stanlett was one of those first present in the hall below, and could not
+recognize, it was said, the features of the apparition through looking
+upward at the landing. The steps retreated farther and farther, and at
+last their sibilance sounded no more.
+
+In the silence Desmond took counsel with himself. There was something of
+mystery here, of an importance to justify some risk, of a continuance to
+warrant years of concealment. What it was, whom it might affect, he
+could not imagine. He had the sentiment that whatever is secret is
+wrong. And certainly this was in a keeping neither wise, nor consistent,
+nor competent. His nettling discovery, for he wished now he knew naught,
+entailed a certain responsibility. The old man imagined that the scroll
+was in a secret receptacle, locked and double locked. And, in fact, one
+man, perhaps indeed two—for Desmond could not feel sure of those
+half-closed eyes and whistling breath—knew that it was within reach of
+any deft and groping hand. He revolted at the assumption of
+responsibility with which he had no concern. Nevertheless, this had been
+thrust upon him, and in view of the personnel of all concerned, he could
+not shirk it.
+
+He rose abruptly, crossed the room, and opened the door of the press.
+He, too, gazed doubtfully at the sleeping man in the bed, who did not
+stir. Presently Desmond’s deft hands were fingering the outline of the
+secret drawer. It was constructed after an old and ordinary type, and
+with one or two efforts his thumb pressed a spring and the drawer shook
+loose. Taking the scroll, for there were no other contents, Desmond
+slipped it without examination or a glance of scrutiny into his breast
+pocket.
+
+As he descended the stairs, Reginald rose from the sofa to meet him.
+“Such a night,” he whispered. “As if we have not enough to bear already,
+I heard—I could almost swear it—old Slip-Slinksy going up and coming
+down the stairs!”
+
+Desmond passed his arm around him and gave him a jocose hug. “And this
+is the fellow I have been calling a man. Afraid of nursery ghosts!”
+
+He was going into the library. The rain had ceased; the mist was
+lifting. A pale gray light was sifting through the slats of the
+shuttered windows. The veranda lamps burned queerly out of countenance
+before its definite, pervasive distinctness. As Reginald threw open the
+blinds, Desmond was lighting a wax candle that stood on his desk, and
+sealing in a large envelope a paper at which he scrupulously forbore to
+look; and as he lifted his head, he saw that the sun was striking long,
+red, shifting gleams across the great inland sea of the Mississippi
+overflow.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+The waters had not yet disappeared from the face of the earth when the
+routine at Great Oaks mansion was reëstablished. Those ghastly events,
+the coroner’s inquest, the identification and removal of the
+flatboat-man’s corpse, the ante-mortem statement of the wounded
+prisoner, and the subsequent capture and incarceration of the river
+pirates, followed in a rapid succession that seemed incongruous with
+their importance. The horrified and superstitious servants now went
+about their duties with casual cheerful faces; the tutor had resumed his
+pedagogic struggles with the young idea; Chubby, in the intervals of his
+labors as a student, sat upon the railing of the veranda and fished in
+the overflow, his skill being now and again rewarded by the splashing of
+a finny trophy at the end of his line, whereupon long and serious
+conferences ensued between him and the cook as to the best methods to
+prepare certain piscatorial dishes considered of small gustatory value
+by the epicure, and always served in a single platter for Chub alone.
+Mrs. Faurie had resumed her plaints against the dullness and general
+vapidity of Great Oaks, but not her lassitude. For there was much to do.
+The preparation for repairs and rebuilding incident to the destruction
+wrought by the overflow to the farm machinery, the miles of fencing, the
+tenants’ cabins, brought the manager of the place, now returned from
+Vicksburg, almost daily to the house, with estimates and suggestions and
+discussions of ways and means. There were many problems presented,
+difficult of solution even to one of his experience, and Mrs. Faurie had
+come to dread the sight of him, with his perplexities, paddling up to
+the veranda in his dugout, the glister of the blinding sun on the
+expanse of waters narrowing his keen gray eyes to mere slits,
+corrugating his brow, burning his complexion almost to a scarlet hue,
+incongruous enough with his straight yellow hair and straw-colored full
+beard, for he wore his straw hat on the back of his head.
+
+Mrs. Faurie had begun to say often, “Let us ask Mr. Desmond,” when the
+alternative propositions of plans and computations of approximate
+expenses involved them both in doubt and anxiety, and he had found the
+clear-headed views of a man of judgment, progressive yet prudent, of
+value in appraising possibilities and reaching conclusions, despite
+Desmond’s inexperience in the questions at issue and need of information
+in the premises at every step. He was so quick to comprehend, so willing
+to take instruction, so cautious of precipitate decision, of such keen
+acumen and justice of reasoning, that Mr. Bainbridge was glad of his
+counsel and to be able to cease to confer only with a woman, albeit the
+owner of the interests involved. He broached the suggestion himself one
+day in his big, hearty voice, “Let’s submit the whole idee to Mr.
+Desmond”; then, abashed, perturbed, he looked up fearfully from under
+his bushy blond eyebrows, perceiving the many untoward inferences to be
+drawn from his reference to this arbitration.
+
+But Mrs. Faurie discerned none of them. “The very thing,” she concurred,
+touching the bell. Then as the servant appeared, “Ask Mr. Desmond if he
+can’t come here for one tiny minute. Tell him to lock Chubby up in the
+mahogany cupboard, or fasten him in the letter-press, or kill him a
+little,—anything, to get rid of him,—and come here quick.”
+
+She, too, relied upon Desmond’s judgment implicitly, and sometimes he
+was disposed to protest. “What will you two say if all this goes wrong?
+You know that I am as green as a gourd to this business.”
+
+“Ah, but it cannot go wrong,—it is instinct with right reason. I
+couldn’t devise it myself, but I can discriminate its value. You have
+the happy hand; everything you touch is successful.”
+
+Mr. Bainbridge sat demurely by, scarcely daring to breathe for the
+temerity of the thought in his mind, his eyes discreetly downcast. Would
+the widow really sacrifice her great income for this man of pinched
+conditions? “Mighty smart man, though!” he was sufficiently just to say
+to himself when out of her presence, as he flung himself into his dugout
+and took up his paddle. “Mighty glad he is here. Don’t know how in the
+world I’d ha’ made out to git along with all these perplexity fits with
+just a woman’s whims to control things.” For Desmond often boldly
+battled with Mrs. Faurie’s preferences and prejudices in the cause of
+her best interests, and demonstrated what was most worth while, and what
+was idle and useless expense in the rehabilitation of the wreckage of
+the overflow; and though she disputed with spirit, she was open to
+reason, and if convinced, was willing to concede.
+
+There were other visitors at Great Oaks in these days, and mightily
+surprised to find the trio in one of these heady discussions were
+Colonel Kentopp and Mr. Loring, rowing in a skiff up to the veranda
+steps and ushered into the parlor before the wranglers well knew that
+intruders were upon them. At the sight of the papers piled upon the
+table, the account-book in Desmond’s hand, and the budget of letters
+that Mr. Bainbridge held from Mrs. Faurie’s “machinery man,” as she
+dubbed a great factory, Colonel Kentopp’s face clouded.
+
+“You have fallen upon evil days, Mr. Bainbridge,” he said, gripping the
+hand of the manager, for he made it a point to be hearty and cordial
+with all sorts and conditions of people in the conservation of his
+reputation for popularity. “You will raise more crayfish than cotton
+this year,” he continued, with that agreeable manner of making a
+distasteful remark which serves the double purpose of indulging one’s
+ill-humor at an interlocutor’s expense while complimenting him with
+conversation.
+
+“Not at all,” interposed Mrs. Faurie, for she had an affinity with
+success, and resented evil prognostications in her affairs as intrusive.
+“Mr. Desmond says that if the water recedes in time to get cotton
+planted properly, the alluvium of the overflow will enrich the land and
+materially increase the yield.”
+
+“Much virtue in an ‘if,’” Colonel Kentopp contended, as he came around
+the table with a rolling step and flung himself into one of the big
+armchairs. “I did not know that Mr. Desmond is an agricultural
+authority,” he continued with a large air of jocularity as he crossed
+his legs. “I thought his knowledge of rural matters was contained in the
+Georgics of Virgil—ha! ha! ha!” And he sent a glance of rallying
+laughter at Desmond from out his round, dark, glossy, unamused eyes.
+
+“Mr. Desmond knows a great deal about many things,” Mrs. Faurie retorted
+promptly, unaccustomed to contradiction or discipline, and restive under
+the slur of ridicule cast upon Desmond.
+
+“So _we_ found out who had the pleasure of being his fellow guests at
+Dryad-Dene,” said Mr. Loring, who had a very bland aspect for a wooden
+man, as he sat in the group before the fire. He had a great respect for
+money in the abstract, and Mrs. Faurie represented large aggregations of
+wealth and thus commanded his interest. He was disposed to soften to her
+liking the tone of the conversation, which he thought ill-taken.
+Moreover, he had not often had the opportunity of meeting her, and the
+sight of the great beauty was an event of moment. He was not a “ladies’
+man” in the ordinary acceptation of the term, but he had the successful
+man’s reverence for preëminence in any form, and the splendor of her
+personal gifts appealed to his appreciation of the predominant. Her
+beauty was always so striking that whatever she wore seemed cunningly
+designed to enhance it,—even to-day, when her costume was a sheer lawn
+blouse and a plain black skirt. Her arms and shoulders were so
+dazzlingly white through the soft fabric; its absolute simplicity made
+so undeniable a demand to mark how the lack of effort or ornamentation
+brought into higher relief and added importance all the fine details of
+her perfect face, the exquisite tints of her long-lashed gray eyes, the
+lustre of her rich brown hair rolled up so plainly from her fair brow,
+the beautiful shape of her hands and arms, shaded only by a simple
+ruffle at the end of her elbow-sleeves. She was in Mr. Loring’s eyes a
+woman whose wishes were to be considered, whose station and wealth were
+to be respected, whose beauty was to be worshiped, and he wondered at
+Kentopp’s fatuity when, catching his cue, he said:—
+
+“Indeed, Mr. Desmond was greatly appreciated at Dryad-Dene,—especially
+by the young ladies!” with an arch glance at the tutor.
+
+Loring thought of the dim, pale attractions of Miss Kelvin and Miss
+Allandyce in comparison with the resplendent vision before him, and he
+deemed Kentopp mentally a poor creature.
+
+“Of course Mr. Desmond has not had agricultural experience, but he has a
+very good article of common sense, and with what mind Mr. Bainbridge and
+I have left, since the overflow fairly crazed us both, we think we are
+going to make out mighty well,” stoutly insisted Mrs. Faurie.
+
+“I’ll be bound you do,” said Mr. Loring, admiringly.
+
+“But Mr. Desmond is due at Dryad-Dene,” protested Kentopp, now on the
+back track. “He took French leave of us, and our week-end party is not
+yet dispersed, though the week has. The overflow gave us that boon, at
+all events. They haven’t been able to get away.”
+
+“You are very kind, but it is impossible for me to return,” said
+Desmond, courteously.
+
+“Oh, I’m so glad,” cried out Mrs. Faurie, unexpectedly, and in a tone of
+girlish glee. “I was so afraid that Edward might accept.” Then, turning
+to the amazed Kentopp, she added. “You know that he is the source of all
+our courage. We were in a state of siege here. We look upon him as if he
+were as powerful as an army with banners.”
+
+“Killed two of the men with your own hands; I believe the testimony at
+the inquest showed that,”—Colonel Kentopp’s lip curled as if in
+distaste. “Painful necessity.”
+
+“Not all,—providential opportunity! Edward and I agreed that we would
+have no morbid sensibility over it,” declared Mrs. Faurie.
+
+“Why, I should smile!” said the wooden man, in hearty indorsement, his
+slang literal. It was not his place, and he knew it, but he rose from
+his chair with the intention of himself terminating the visit and taking
+the malapropos Kentopp home. “You have much to do here; we had best be
+going.”
+
+“If Mr. Desmond will not return with us,” said Kentopp, gathering his
+faculties together as best he could, and perceiving the light of elation
+in Loring’s eyes. Great Oaks Plantation would doubtless be soon on the
+market. Its overflow scarcely made against its value, though it might be
+utilized to cry down the asking price, since it was only the result of
+the nefarious crime of cutting the cross levee, that was hitherto a
+complete protection. Mrs. Faurie, evidently all unwitting of the future,
+was herself to defray the immense expense of its rehabilitation. Loring
+scarcely looked as wooden as was his wont, smoothing down his bristly
+mustache with a jaunty air, a secret smile behind his eyes, as it were,
+so confidential, so introspective, so self-communing was its expression.
+Of all the boons that his money had brought within reach of the
+millionaire, Great Oaks Plantation was the one he most coveted. Even its
+semi-grotesque amphibious aspect could not diminish his desire as he
+paused on the veranda, the water lapping about it, the great trees
+standing inundated, as if knee-deep, the glistening expanse of the
+overflow stretching out to the Mississippi proper, its channel only to
+be now discerned by the course of a steamboat ploughing her way through
+the illimitable floods, no vestige of a shore within view. He was
+cheerful in his leave-taking, and turned in the skiff, even after the
+darkey at the oars had rowed far down the submerged avenue, to wave his
+hand at the group on the veranda, while Colonel Kentopp moodily pulled
+his hat down over his eyes with a muttered “Confound this glare,” as the
+sun flashed blindingly upon the waste of waters.
+
+The prominence of Desmond in the lady’s counsels was also noticed by old
+Mr. Stanlett, and he regarded it obviously with jealous distrust. He had
+been peculiarly favorably impressed by the young man during the earlier
+days of his stay at Great Oaks, and had taken pains to bestow upon him a
+kindly consideration and courteous attention, of which the tutor, then
+fresh to his duties and despondent, consciously out of his element, was
+very definitely sensible. Now, Mr. Stanlett seldom addressed Desmond,
+and when this was necessary he used a cold civility, in strong contrast
+to his former demeanor, and savoring very distinctly of a realization of
+the inferiority of the tutor’s position and a resolute intention of
+relegating him to his proper sphere. Whenever Mrs. Faurie spoke to
+Desmond, discussing her affairs and deferring to his opinion, Mr.
+Stanlett was wont to draw his heavy white eyebrows together in a very
+definite frown, scanning first one and then the other, an angry flush
+mantling his face, evidently minded to protest. One day at the table,
+when she chanced to address the tutor as “Edward,” Mr. Stanlett stared
+as if startled, then broke out with so satirical and frosty a laugh that
+she looked up in surprise, forgetting what she was about to say. She
+manifested no confusion nor self-consciousness, but Reginald flushed
+hotly to the temples, and Chubby paused, his fork in his hand, and
+remarked in callow affront: “Uncle Clarence seems to have a good joke
+that he keeps to himself.”
+
+“Just so, Chubby,—a very good joke—ha, ha, ha!—and I wish to God I could
+keep it to myself!”
+
+Mrs. Faurie had so far recovered her composure and the tone of her
+nerves, greatly imperiled in all the anxiety and jeopardy and stress of
+the tragic events of the overflow, that Desmond resolved on the evening
+after the visit of Kentopp and Loring to defer no longer to acquaint her
+with his discovery of the mystery of the spectral manifestations at
+Great Oaks mansion, and to surrender to her keeping the paper which he
+had seen so strangely and significantly concealed. From time to time he
+had furtively watched Mr. Stanlett, seeking to discern if he had become
+aware of the abstraction of the scroll from the secret drawer of the
+press in the blue room. He was sure that the old man would manifest such
+disquietude as would be ample evidence that his caution had gone amiss.
+But Mr. Stanlett maintained a genuine composure, absorbed in the simple
+routine of his day,—the mail from the packet, or the neighborhood news
+brought by some amphibian in a dugout scouting on various errands on the
+face of the waters; his cigars; sometimes humming an old song and
+looking from his easy chair placidly out on the waste of the overflow.
+Occasionally he occupied himself in telling one of the boys, or the
+three in conclave, old stories of war times, the gunboats on the
+Mississippi, the riders and raiders, the burning of cotton—bales, gin,
+and all—by the soldiers rather than let the precious staple fall into
+the enemy’s hands; and again he abounded in anecdotes of the palmy days
+of river travel and traffic, the tremendous loads of cotton the
+freighters carried, the choice company on the floating palaces, the
+phenomenally high play of the “gentleman gamblers,” the competitive
+speed of the steamers and details of the exciting races, the horrible
+accidents and the frightful picture a blazing boat presented, a tower of
+flames, as she came swinging around Deepwater Bend on her course. No;
+placidity was the keynote of his life save when his frown gathered as
+his eye fell on Desmond, and his manner stiffened, and his intonation
+grew crisp and icy.
+
+To-night, as they sat by the parlor fire, he was busied in a game of
+chess, the fashion of his youth in which he excelled. He had taught
+Reginald to play with such skill as to give him difficulty enough to
+maintain his interest in reaching the finality of checkmate. The other
+two boys were on the rug romping with an Irish setter, and the dog was
+most unwillingly learning to sit up and shake hands and make a feint of
+smoking an empty pipe. Desmond could count on their absorption for some
+time as he passed the window on the veranda and saw them there thus
+occupied. The moon was beginning to steer clear of a surge of clouds
+that had hung in the sky all the afternoon, presaging rain, and as its
+long, golden slant fell upon the waste of waters Mrs. Faurie rose from
+her chair, laid her book on the centre table, and went anxiously to the
+window. As she saw Desmond standing outside, she naturally supposed that
+he, too, was absorbed in scanning the signs of the skies. With more
+falling weather the waters would rise anew and postpone, perhaps past
+feasibility for the season, all the plans for the rehabilitation of the
+plantation, and all the possibility of making a crop or even a half crop
+of cotton.
+
+“Don’t you think that it looks less like rain?” she asked, slipping the
+thumb-bolt of the sash of the long French window and joining him at the
+balustrade.
+
+“The rain has gone around this time,” he said. “I am very sure of that.”
+
+It was difficult for him to bring his mind back to the weather signs,
+bent as he was upon the imminent disclosure, canvassing continually its
+best method. He was sensitive in submitting his own conduct for
+scrutiny, and eager for her approval. He was solicitous concerning
+matters of phraseology, knowing how she valued her uncle and cherished
+his age, fearful lest some unconsidered word offend, or, worse still,
+wound her. He was afraid that the disclosure might involve some shock to
+her nerves. He did not know, he could not imagine, what the paper so
+significantly hidden might contain, and how she might condemn his course
+in possessing himself of it. Indeed, she might deem that he had exceeded
+all the bounds of convention, and, declining to look at the paper,
+require him to surrender it to Mr. Stanlett and make confession of his
+unwarranted interference. He stood in silence, his meditative eyes on
+her face so long that she noted his absorption.
+
+“What is it?” she said suddenly. “You look strange, troubled. Surely
+there is nothing more amiss.”
+
+“Let us take a turn along the veranda. I have been waiting for days to
+tell you something.”
+
+She assented in silent suspense, and together they walked along the
+broad, moonlit veranda, the shadows of the trees now and again falling
+athwart it, the sheen on the waters striking across the expanse for
+sixty miles, making a vast roadway of glister to the vague unknown of
+the shimmering distance. Her lustrous dark eyes with the moon in their
+depths were dilated, expectant, her face was ethereally white and
+quietly serious. Her dress was white, of a soft, clinging woolen fabric,
+with a stripe of satin at intervals, that shone itself with a moony
+lustre. The square-cut bodice was filled in with lace that rose and fell
+with the stir of her breath as she waited, intent and a trifle agitated.
+
+Desmond began without preamble. “When I first came to Great Oaks, one of
+the boys, Reginald it was, told me of the step on the stair.”
+
+She laid her hand on his arm, and he felt the quiver in its slim
+fingers.
+
+“I had then heard the step, once,—it was about midnight; and I heard it
+again, twice,—the night of the attack on the house.”
+
+“Oh, oh,—I cannot abide that idea,” she exclaimed, with a quiver of pain
+in her voice. “You never have heard me mention it. I am sure it must be
+some fallacy,—some”—She could not speak for gasping. Then she gathered
+her composure and resumed with dignity: “It is nothing,—it is some
+trick! It is an insult to the memory of the sacred dead. It was never
+pretended to be heard in the lifetime of Mr. Faurie.”
+
+Desmond felt on difficult ground. “I think that no one has ever
+associated his name with the manifestation, though it is very natural
+that you should deprecate that idea. But the step is genuine, for I
+heard it distinctly twice that night; the last time I waited for it to
+approach, and it entered the room, and I saw the presence in the light.”
+
+“Wait,—wait!” she exclaimed, and he paused, for she seemed unable to
+advance a step. The waters lapped about the veranda; the shadows of the
+great trees were weird and strange, falling across the surface of the
+flood flowing in the midst of the grove; the continual melancholy rise
+and fall of the voices of frogs sounded from woodsy tangles in lagoons
+and submerged marshes; the broad lunar lustre quivered on the expanse of
+the gray waters, and the moon rode high,—high in the dark sky.
+
+“Let me tell you,” he urged. “I was standing at the window in the blue
+room—”
+
+“The blue room,” she faltered, as if with some vague memory.
+
+“Yes,—where the wounded man lay. I heard the stealthy step on the stair,
+as I had heard it twice before; a mere slip and then silence, and again
+a suggestion of a footfall, coming and coming up the stair; and I waited
+in the curtained recess of the dormer window,—and the step paused at the
+threshold; the door noiselessly swung ajar,—the step entered,—and it was
+Mr. Stanlett.”
+
+“Mr. Stanlett!” she cried, standing suddenly erect and strong, her
+moonlit face showing a haughty displeasure; “why should you connect him
+with such mummery?”
+
+“Because I had heard the step twice before and recognized it; because as
+I listened to this step it came straight to the door, and, as I say, Mr.
+Stanlett entered; because I identified his aspect with the description
+of an intruder who had silently appeared and disappeared at the door
+earlier in the evening, frightening the wounded man with a vague
+terror.”
+
+“I am ashamed to listen, I am ashamed to question; but if only to have
+done with these mysteries, I will ask what action did you observe Mr.
+Stanlett to take while you lay _perdu_?” As she confronted him a proud
+indignation burned red in her cheeks and her eyes flashed in the
+moonlight.
+
+Desmond took umbrage at her tone. His spirit mounted as he felt that his
+motives were entitled to some consideration on that night of all nights,
+when he had done so much for her and hers at the risk of his life. It
+was in his mind in self-justification to tax her with this, and demand
+the respect for his deeds due to the integrity of his intentions. But
+he, too, was proud. If she could forget her gratitude, he could waive
+its cause. He continued to describe, with a certain constraint in his
+voice, how the old man cautiously advanced to the bedside, and with
+fantastic cocked hat and disguising, muffling cloak watched the sleeping
+man to make sure of his unfeigned unconsciousness. She winced as she
+learned that the swift, skulking step took him straight to the press, in
+which he hid within an interior drawer a scroll of paper.
+
+Desmond was surprised by her next words. “He locked the door of the
+press? I know that it has a key,” she stipulated.
+
+“He _thought_ he locked it; but I saw that the bolt did not go home.”
+
+She had every trait of wild agitation. “Did you not speak to him? Did
+you not warn him?”
+
+“Why should I? Would he not have resented my presence as spying on him?
+when even you resent my disclosure of the fact that you may give the
+matter such weight as it deserves.”
+
+“Resent it?—oh, no! no!” She laid both her cold hands on his as she
+stood looking up into his face. “I resent nothing from you; we all owe
+you too much, far too much! But I am frightened, mortified, uncertain.
+Can’t you see that that paper must be of the first importance to be so
+secreted—setting such a superstition afloat in a simple, domestic
+household—by the frankest, the kindest, the most gentle of men? Don’t
+you connect and interpret now the story of the step?—always heard just
+before we complete our preparations to quit the country, for he carries
+the paper with him,—always heard just when we return, for he brings it
+back and hides it again. And last week, that dark and dreadful evening
+when you say you passed the presence, the step on the stair, he thought
+that we must quit the house and he was doubtless bringing it down. But
+after you had rescued us—never, never imagine that I forget it for one
+moment!—he felt safe again and took it to its hiding-place once more.
+And oh, Edward, how could you—so unthinking, so heedless!— let him leave
+the door ajar believing that he had locked it,—an old man, Edward, a
+very old man,—and make off with the useless key in his simple
+satisfaction while that scoundrel lay on the bed,—oh, I shouldn’t speak
+harshly of the unjudged dead!—and his suspicions had already been
+excited, and perhaps he secured it, only having pretended slumber,—and
+oh, we must see if it is really there still. Say nothing to Uncle
+Clarence; let us go up first to the blue room and see if it is gone; get
+a lamp,—let us go.”
+
+Desmond laid a restraining hand upon her wrist. “It is not there,” he
+said, looking down into her wild, eager, agitated eyes. “I saw the
+danger of leaving it there, and I secured it for safe-keeping until I
+could consign it to your care.”
+
+“And what—what—is it?” she faltered.
+
+“Can you imagine that I would so much as glance at it?” he replied
+sharply. “Stop; here we are at the library. I will give it to you now.”
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XV
+
+
+The fire was dully drowsing on the hearth; a lamp on the desk burned
+dimly with the wick turned low. Desmond had a quick, nervous touch as he
+stirred the embers into flames, threw on a fresh stick of wood, and set
+the lamp aglow. His sensibilities, despite his vigor and youth, had felt
+the inroads of all the agitation to which the household had been
+subjected. The renewed cheer of the room dispensed, however, its cordial
+influence. We are at last but animal mechanism, and must needs shiver
+with cold, and burn with heat, and gloom in darkness, and hope in the
+glad light. Everything seemed suddenly more facile of adjustment, more
+possible of optimistic interpretation, and at all events the period of
+suspense was terminated when, seated at the desk, he turned the key in
+the lock of the drawer and wheeled in his swivel-chair, the envelope in
+his hand.
+
+“Here it is, at last,—all safe,” he said, in his firm, clear voice.
+
+Mrs. Faurie, who had sunk down on the end of the sofa, almost collapsing
+in uncertainty and agitation and dubious foreboding, her hands pressed
+to her eyes, roused herself as the room sprang into its wonted cheerful
+guise and lifted her head. She did not immediately take the paper as
+Desmond held it out to her. She adjusted a sofa-pillow under her elbow,
+and set her dainty foot on a hassock on the floor, and piled up the
+supporting cushions,—hesitating, contriving hindrance, postponing the
+evil moment.
+
+“I am afraid of entering upon some hasty action and that I may afterward
+regret my precipitancy,” she temporized.
+
+“I should advise you to be deliberate,” he rejoined. “From what we know
+of the history of this paper, it would not seem to press for action.”
+
+“And yet delay might be prejudicial,” she said, eager when not opposed.
+She held out her hand for it, and then drew back, once more doubtful.
+She had grown calm, and she looked deeply meditative as she leaned
+forward in her soft, clinging white dress from amongst the dull crimson
+silk cushions, her slim, jeweled hand extended, yet not touching the
+paper that he held out to her as he sat near by in the chair before the
+desk. “But have I the right to examine it?” she argued. “It may not
+concern me or mine. Mr. Stanlett has affairs of his own, no doubt, into
+which I am not privileged to intrude.”
+
+“His course has been very eccentric,” said Desmond, tingling with
+impatience to reach a conclusion, yet not willing to urge her decision,
+and weighing considerately her every argument and scruple. “He has
+carried on for years, apparently, a very elaborate and mysterious
+emprise of concealing a document which, if it were his own, might be
+considered safe enough among his valuable papers. His midnight comings
+and goings have given rise, as he knew, to a theory of spectral
+manifestation in the house which might be very injurious to young minds,
+and even, in default of all explanation, to elder people. He went so far
+as to foster this theory by a semi-disguise as a precaution against
+recognition should he be unwarily glimpsed.”
+
+Then they both sat silent while the freshened fire glowed red in the
+room, and the lamp dispensed its steady, white light, and the great
+windows revealed the moon shoaling on the vast stretch of silvery water,
+with the shadows of the trees on its expanse below, and the dendroidal
+forms towering high into the pearl-tinted sky,—all seeming some strange,
+mystic, illuminated tangle of enchanted forest and lake, full of dreams
+and vagaries, of quivering radiance and yearning melancholy, under a
+spell, perpetual, somehow, and far away from to-morrow.
+
+“But I feel as you do,” Desmond recommenced after a moment of
+reflection. “From the first I doubted my right to touch it. Still, it
+has occurred to me that in view of his age and its possible relation to
+his eccentric actions in this matter, and also in view of your position
+as the head of this house in which these practices have come to your
+knowledge, you might justifiably open the package, and glance at its
+contents sufficiently to discern if they concern you. If they do not,
+then I will restore the papers to him and apologize as well as I can for
+my interference.”
+
+“I believe you are right,” she conceded. She took the envelope from his
+hand. Even then she drew back. “The seal!” she exclaimed. “I cannot
+break a seal.”
+
+“That is only my seal,” Desmond explained. “I put it on to protect the
+papers from interference.”
+
+She leaned toward the desk to catch the light on the papers, broke the
+seal, and drew out two inclosures, one a document of length, the other
+evidently a letter.
+
+“It is mine!—mine!” she cried wildly. She gave a gasp, her free hand
+fluttering nervously. “It is my husband’s handwriting,” she whispered in
+a reverent, awed tone, as if consciously in an unseen presence.
+
+Then, as her brilliant eyes scanned the lines, shifting from side to
+side as she read, the color surged up into her cheeks and her lips
+curved in a radiant smile. Suddenly she burst into a flood of tears, her
+words, as she sought to speak, breaking into gusts of happy laughter,
+her brimming eyes looking into his with eagerness to disclose the tenor
+of the papers, yet in her agitation her powers of speech failing,
+inadequate. “It is such happiness,—happiness,—happiness” was all that
+she could say.
+
+Once more she strove to read, but her voice broke and trailed off into a
+sob that was yet like a gurgle of laughter. “Read it,”—she handed it to
+him. “Read the letter—I’d rather have it than all the diamonds of
+Golconda!”
+
+As Desmond straightened the pages, he saw that it was addressed to a
+lawyer of Memphis, whom he knew to be the executor of the will of the
+late Mr. Faurie, and in fact this letter related to that instrument. He
+desired to alter certain dispositions of this will, the writer said,
+although mailed so recently as by the last packet, and he stated that he
+had set forth these changes in a paper that he inclosed, duly signed and
+witnessed, and which he pronounced a codicil to his last will and
+testament.
+
+“It is, I doubt not, a poor performance,” he wrote, “in comparison with
+the admirable instrument that you drew with such care and skill; but it
+will hold, and I cannot hope to have a lawyer to come to Great Oaks in
+time to take my instructions for the codicil, for I fear that my days
+are at an end indeed.” The writer went on to explain that he had grown
+dissatisfied with the provision which he had directed to be made in the
+will for his wife. He had desired that she should enjoy as large an
+income as practicable, and that she should not be burdened with the
+management of real estate other than her home place, unless she should
+herself elect to make such investments with the surplusage of her
+income. Hence he had thought best not to assign to her the usual one
+third life-interest in his property, but an annuity of thirty thousand
+dollars during widowhood, which was a larger income than her statute
+right to dower in Tennessee could justify, and chargeable upon the whole
+estate, and he had given her also, subject to the same restrictions, his
+plantation, Great Oaks, the annual yield from which necessarily
+fluctuated according to the season. Under these circumstances, the
+interest of the three sons in the rest of the property was to remain
+undivided during minority, that the estate could be nursed to better
+advantage. It was to be partitioned, or sold for division, when the
+youngest became twenty-one years of age, the elder two, however, to
+receive a certain sum of money upon attaining majority, for the purchase
+of business interests, that they might not pass in inaction the years of
+waiting for the division of the whole and the possession of their
+respective shares.
+
+“So thoughtful,” murmured Mrs. Faurie.
+
+It had seemed to him, the writer stated, that the three sons would be
+rich enough when they came severally to their majority, and could well
+spare the aggregations of such portion of the income of the estate as he
+had assigned to the use of their mother, over and above her rightful
+share, in order that she might have no reasonable wish ungratified.
+
+“Oh, to be thinking of that in those awful last days!” she interpolated,
+her flush fluctuating, and once more bursting into tears.
+
+“I should like her to travel, for this she enjoys,” the letter
+continued. “I should like her to see the world, and that others might
+have the privilege and benefaction of seeing her, as I could wish that
+no one should be beyond the reach of the sunshine. And with all this in
+view I directed you, as you know, to draw the will as it stands.”
+
+Forthwith he entered upon a systematic defense of his motives and views
+in the corollaries necessitated by these provisions embodied in the
+instrument. While he had no crude jealousy, he protested, and would not
+seek to curb his widow’s independence in making a second marriage, he
+was not willing that the extra income allotted to her should go into the
+control of a stranger at the expense of the estates of his sons. It was
+one thing, he argued, to restrict the wealth of his sons for their
+mother’s benefit. It was quite another thing to take from them to enrich
+a stranger, who might or might not be of mercenary motives, of
+ungenerous temper, or of undue domestic ascendency, and who might or
+might not permit her the free use of what was her own. Then, too, the
+subjection of the estates of the sons to the charge of her income under
+the circumstances of a second marriage was of discordant suggestion;
+possibly, in the unforeseen mutations of human affairs, even subversive
+of their independence, and inimical to family peace. Therefore he had
+had the clause inserted revoking the allotment of her income should she
+marry again, and substituting as her provision one fourth of the
+Mississippi property in fee, and a life-interest in one third of the
+Tennessee realty including, in lieu of Great Oaks, his town residence in
+the city of Nashville, the rest of the estate in that event to be sold
+for division, that the portion of each devisee might be ascertained and
+set apart.
+
+These were his reasons for such disposition as he had made of his
+property. Now, however, since he had executed and forwarded the will to
+his executor, he had begun to fear that this matrimonial clause would be
+misunderstood by Mrs. Faurie, whose feeling for him it might possibly
+affect, all unexplained as it was.
+
+“But never!—never!” she sobbed. “I always realized that you were
+actuated by the best motives for what you deemed the welfare of all
+concerned. But I am so happy to know _why_ you did it!”
+
+Desmond paused, a strange thrill at his heart as he gazed at her. She
+might have been some young girl in the childlike abandonment to her
+tears, as she leaned on the arm of the sofa, her long white dress
+a-trail on the dark carpet, her scarlet cheek against her upheld bare
+white arm, her lovely hands clasped above her drooping head. Desmond’s
+voice was strained, husky, with sudden breaks as he read on.
+
+Upon further reflection, the writer stated, the provisions he had made
+in the will for Mrs. Faurie in the event of a second marriage had become
+obnoxious to him. He had accorded her merely the equivalent of her dower
+rights, such as the law would allow her were he to die intestate, or
+were she to dissent from the will. In effect, he seemed to make a point
+of giving her nothing in the contemplated contingency that he could
+avoid giving. He had not intended thus to interdict a second marriage,
+and her right to order her life after her widowhood as she chose,
+according to her most excellent judgment.
+
+“Oh,” cried Mrs. Faurie, with a little irrelevant laugh, not for
+Desmond, but as if she rallied the writer with the extravagance of his
+approval.
+
+Therefore, the testator declared, he had revoked in set terms both the
+dispositions of a life-interest in the real estate in reference to a
+second marriage, and the imposition of a charge for her benefit upon the
+realty of the whole estate during widowhood. Instead, he had thought
+best to devise to her absolutely one fourth of the real estate in fee,
+inclusive of Great Oaks, which he considered particularly desirable
+because of its income-bearing values, the other three fourths to be
+equally divided between his three sons.
+
+He added some words setting forth arrangements for the guidance of the
+executor in regard to disbursements for maintenance, emergencies, and
+education of the minors, pending an interval which he evidently
+anticipated would endure for a considerable time, before the estate
+could be fairly administered. This depended upon the conclusion of a
+certain litigation involving some conditional increments, then in
+abeyance. When a decision should be reached, and these assets realized
+upon, he directed that the whole estate should be partitioned; and in
+order that the several shares might be justly ascertained, the portion
+of each of the minors should be chargeable with such expenditures as had
+been made for him during the interim, and the portion of the widow
+should be chargeable with such sums as she had received from the funds
+of the estate; but she should not be obliged to put also into the common
+stock for division the profits from any investments that she had made,
+or accretions of value, of whatever sort, that had accrued from means
+derived from the estate.
+
+Desmond stared blankly at the paper for a few moments after he had
+concluded the reading of the letter. “Did the executor win the suit to
+which he refers?”
+
+“Oh, yes,—in the infinitely leisurely legal fashion. It would go up to
+the Supreme Court and be remanded on a certain point, and then it would
+go up on another and come down as before. It was a sort of legal
+shuttlecock. I was amazed when I heard that the lawyers were through
+playing with it.”
+
+Desmond could not control the cadence of depression in his voice. “How
+long ago was it decided?” he asked, hoping against hope.
+
+“A little more than a year, I believe.”
+
+Evidently, the lapse of time could not be a potential factor in the
+impending future. The contingent event on which the partitioning was
+conditioned by the codicil had just fallen out, and the rest of the
+estate, save for the aggregations of income and the depletion of
+expenditures, was much as the testator had left it, for the executor had
+no general powers of sale. Desmond could see no reason why this codicil
+should not be admitted to probate and at once subvert the existing
+status. Technically, it was itself a part of the will already in force,
+though its provisions were _pro tanto_ a revocation of the previous
+testamentary disposition. The indeterminate interval after probate in
+common form allowed in Tennessee, where the bulk of the property was
+situated, for the institution of revocatory proceedings; the disability
+of non-age in the minors, to whom laches could hardly be imputed; the
+fact that it was manifestly impossible for their guardian to take any
+action in view of the unsuspected existence of the codicil of which the
+executor was the proper proponent, would seem to annul all obstacles to
+its effectiveness, despite any complications with which the conflict of
+laws in the two sovereign states might otherwise invest the situation,
+the statutes of each of course controlling the realty within their
+respective borders.
+
+There was silence for a time. Both looked out from the mellow light of
+the room through the windows on that pale scape of moonlit mist and
+water and mystic woods, all in pearly neutral tones, soft, sheeny,
+white, like some dream scene, full of weird suggestions and dim
+spectacular configurations. Now there was a floating island, distant,
+half descried; now a flying, gauzy, vaporous figure, with feet touching
+the surface of the water, and hands laid against the star-studded gates
+of the sky; now a phantom craft under full sail, with clouds of tenuous
+canvas and streaming pennants of mist. She saw naught, busied with her
+memories; and he, strangely grudging, sought for words to snatch her
+from them.
+
+“You must look at the codicil,” he said, holding the document out toward
+her.
+
+“I don’t care for that—heavens, how I love that letter!” and once more
+she burst into tears. She rose after a moment to reach for it, and then
+she read it anew, with sudden gurgles of tender laughter and sobs and
+gushes of tears.
+
+“I suppose that this codicil will, to this extent, revoke the provisions
+of the will that has stood all this time,” he said. He was no lawyer,
+but he had a definite understanding of the ways of the business world
+and the justice of its methods. A very appalling possibility began to
+open before him. He leaned forward and turned the upper corner of the
+pages of the letter, still in her hands, to look once more at the date,
+written evidently only the day before the testator’s death.
+
+“It has been a good many years,” he said, in dismal forecast.
+
+“Oh, forever!” she exclaimed, the tears coursing down her cheeks.
+
+He had begun to understand the quandary of the poor ghost, slipping
+slyly about the midnight quiet of the house to conceal this bit of
+paper, potent destroyer of its peace. He doubted the policy of putting
+into words the fear in his mind. But he must have her attention. He
+clutched at her thoughts with imperative insistence. Those memories,
+those gentle, tender memories in which he had no share,—how desolate,
+how deserted they left him! His jealous reproach was in his eyes, all
+unnoted. His indignation burned red in his cheek. A figment, a
+recollection, pervaded the room and annulled his presence. But he would
+not be ignored, forgotten, denied. He grasped at her attention as a
+child clutches the skirts of its unthinking mother, and persists in its
+plea.
+
+“In this division the executor may make a claim on you for the income
+that you have spent. It strikes me that this will operate as the
+equivalent of a refunding bond.”
+
+“Let them take everything. I have this letter!” and she clasped it to
+her bosom.
+
+He had a sense of turning aside. He could not move her. He opened the
+codicil himself and scanned its contents. It duplicated the intendment
+of the letter, but in more formal and lucid phrase. A very exact and
+strict man of business Mr. Faurie showed himself to be in this paper.
+Desmond was impressed with this fact, yet dismayed in a sort, in regard
+to the accuracy of the accounting which the testator contemplated
+between the minors and widow at the partitioning of his estate. He even
+superfluously directed that the difference of age among the children
+should be considered and the actual outlay for each charged, and not
+merely an approximation of expense as applied to each of them; since the
+expenditure for the youngest might for a time be more, in view of extra
+attendance, elaborate attire, and special liability to ailments, and
+later less than the disbursements for the elder boys. Desmond might have
+laughed, yet he could have wept, that the testator, despite his evident
+astuteness, should have permitted himself the simplicity of anticipating
+that Mrs. Faurie would have applied any portion of her receipts from the
+estate to investments of real property or the acquisition of other
+assets that would yield “accretions of value.” As well might one expect
+the sun to hoard its gold or the bird its song of spring. No! nearly
+seven years of joyous, open-handed dispensing of all her income from the
+estate were thus chargeable against the one fourth in fee of realty and
+of the personalty that formed her liberal portion. How much this might
+be, Desmond of course was not qualified to judge; but the ravages in
+this provision which the restoration of that great income for nearly
+seven years must needs work might well appall the pallid Mr. Stanlett in
+his niece’s interest, and set as talk the storied spectre, the
+Slip-Slinksy of the midnight stairs.
+
+“Mr. Stanlett must have found this paper in some unaccustomed
+receptacle,” Desmond hazarded.
+
+Mrs. Faurie sat stiffly erect. This phase troubled her more than the
+fear of the financial loss; it touched her pride. Her level eyebrows
+were corrugated into a frown. Her eyes were bright, hard, restlessly
+glancing. But she bent her faculties to the consideration calmly.
+“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully, but her lips were stiff; they moved
+with difficulty to frame the words so distasteful to her. “It was
+understood that all Mr. Faurie’s important papers were already in the
+hands of his executor. He, himself, had them transferred some time
+before his death,—it was not unexpected.”
+
+She was silent for a few moments, looking reflectively out of the
+window. “I remember that the rest of the papers, account-books, packages
+of letters, files, and all such things were taken out of the library
+soon after Mr. Faurie’s death and, without examination, placed in
+japanned boxes and locked in the press of the blue room. It was presumed
+that there was nothing of real importance among them, but they were
+preserved on the chance. He must have written this codicil and letter
+the day before his death,—both are dated on the 18th,—and had the paper
+witnessed and laid it aside among the other papers in his desk,
+intending to forward it to Mr. Hartagous in Memphis. The mail packet was
+due the next day, and passed about dusk; he died just before
+candle-light that evening, and I dare say this paper was among those in
+his desk that were packed away in the press of the blue room.”
+
+“I suppose that this codicil must have been found some years afterward,”
+Desmond dolefully suggested. “Mr. Stanlett seems to me to be a man of
+good business judgment. He would never have desired to conceal this
+paper if a great part of those liabilities had not been already
+incurred. Of course he had only your interest in view. He has sufficient
+means of his own. It is nothing to him.” She brought herself more
+willingly to follow his line of thought, since she perceived
+justification, in some poor sort, in the perspective, for Mr. Stanlett’s
+aberrations.
+
+“I remember,” she said drawlingly, as if the recollection had just begun
+to trail its dubious length into her mind, “that about three years ago
+the executor called for some old levee bonds, on which the estate was
+entitled to something, and asked that the papers here be searched for
+them.”
+
+“Who made this search,—do you recollect?”
+
+She visibly winced from the inquiry, but she answered with her usual
+directness: “I recollect very well that it was Uncle Clarence who made
+the search; and now that it seems to bear upon the question, I do recall
+that he was much out of sorts afterward. I remember that his petulance
+astonished me. He was never a profane man, but he swore violently
+because the executor had given him so much trouble, and declared that if
+he had wanted to be set to a clerk’s work, he would have asked for a
+clerk’s pay. And he said that the papers were disordered and dusty and
+devilish, and that he had broken himself down in working amongst them. I
+was a little hurt by the tone he was taking; and when I said that I was
+sorry he had put himself out to do a favor for me, he replied very
+significantly, ‘A favor,—for you, Honoria,—for _you_? Why, I would eat
+off my little finger for _you_.’ And oh, poor old Uncle Clarence! We
+must keep him from ever suspecting that we have discovered his course.
+It would humiliate him; it would bow him down to the earth with
+mortification.”
+
+Desmond looked dumfounded. “I don’t see how we can prevent it. This
+codicil must be produced, and at once.”
+
+“Of course; but will it be necessary to publish all the details, his
+fantastic masquerades and midnight vigils to protect its concealment?”
+she argued.
+
+“His course has been very strange, certainly.” Then, after a pause, “In
+fact, I am confident that concealing a document of this sort, a will or
+codicil, to prevent it from being proved and becoming operative, is
+obnoxious to the law,—a very serious matter,” said Desmond, nerving
+himself for her storm of protest.
+
+“He has not prevented it from becoming operative,” she retorted
+frostily. “The codicil is discovered and will be sent to-morrow to the
+executor, who will at once secure the two subscribing witnesses,—the
+same who swore to the will in force,—both still living, and will offer
+the codicil for probate. I will have to return the money that I have
+spent out of the different provision now made for me. I see no sense in
+telling our little yarn of Slip-Slinksy, and blue room, and secret
+drawers, for all the world to guy and laugh at, and mortify poor old
+Uncle Clarence to the soul. Oh, poor, poor Uncle Clarence,—how his
+discovery of the codicil must have tortured him! What must he have felt
+for me! It must have turned his brain,—it must have crazed him. That is
+the explanation of his course,—that is the solution of the mystery.”
+
+Desmond did not conceive it necessary to contend on this theory. At
+first glimpse it seemed to him a remarkably coherent scheme for a
+disordered brain to evolve, and one which only a strange accident had
+frustrated. Mr. Stanlett, however, was very old, and it may have been
+that at first he had withheld the paper in the frantic, senile, foolish
+expectation that another will might be found, not so destructive to his
+niece’s interest as this codicil, which, by reason of the time that had
+elapsed in her enjoyment of the estate that was not hers by right, had
+practically beggared her. Doubtless he had postponed the disclosure from
+day to day, the disaster augmented by his delay, till perchance the
+pressure on his brain had resulted in subverting his reason. He had
+always intended to bring it forth, some day,—some day,—for he had
+carefully preserved it at great cost of anxiety and suspense and
+comfort, when its easy destruction would have given him security, and
+confirmed the existing status which was so happy for all concerned.
+
+Realizing as Desmond did the magnitude of the disaster, that the
+interests of the widow so tenderly, so richly provided for, had been
+wrecked by the extreme of the solicitude exerted for her welfare, he was
+utterly unprepared for the airy lightness and consummate tact with which
+Mrs. Faurie made the disclosure without revealing the discovery of the
+concealment of the codicil.
+
+She came fluttering into the parlor the next morning when were present
+all the family, Mr. Bainbridge, the manager, and Colonel Kentopp, who
+had been out in a skiff to a passing packet and had paused on his way
+back to Dryad-Dene to leave some newspapers. “What do you suppose?” she
+cried. “I can tell you news more astonishing to our neighborhood than
+anything you are likely to hear from the outside world. You know that of
+course we had the blue room upstairs, where that wounded river pirate
+died, thoroughly overhauled, and in one of the big presses in the wall
+Mr. Desmond found a secret drawer, and in it a later will of Mr.
+Faurie’s,—are you not surprised?—a codicil it is, I should have said.”
+
+Mr. Stanlett stared for a moment blankly, rose to his feet, essayed to
+speak, and sank back very pale and entirely unobserved amidst the
+excitement of the others.
+
+“Regularly executed?” Colonel Kentopp inquired, amazed.
+
+“A codicil all in his own handwriting,” said Mrs. Faurie, “perfectly
+regular, with the same witnesses as the will.”
+
+“To your advantage, I hope,” said Colonel Kentopp, his glossy hazel-nut
+eyes glittering, his eager curiosity difficult to control.
+
+“Oh, I am perfectly satisfied,” Mrs. Faurie declared, smiling proudly;
+and Colonel Kentopp knew as well as if he had seen the instrument that
+Mrs. Faurie had been relegated to a designated share of the real estate,
+out of which she would be required to make good her lavish expenditures
+heretofore. He was not indisposed to rejoice after the manner of men of
+his kind in the disasters of others, but presently his spirits fell.
+This change boded doubtless the partitioning of the Faurie property, and
+with Great Oaks on the market, he knew that there was scant hope of
+Loring as a purchaser of Dryad-Dene. So ill at ease was he under this
+theory, so suddenly out of countenance, that he sought to avoid
+observation, and made haste to conclude his call and get himself away.
+
+He was promptly followed by Bainbridge, dully pondering on the news,
+half stunned by the revelation, and apprehensive of a change in the
+ownership of Great Oaks and the jeopardy of his own employment there.
+
+Desmond breathed more freely when both were gone; he felt that he could
+not have summoned the nerve that Mrs. Faurie had shown in risking the
+disclosure in the presence of others, although he realized that, had Mr.
+Stanlett spoken inconsiderately, it would have been ascribed to the
+vagaries of age and his natural and extreme disappointment,—in effect,
+the overthrow of his reason in so signal a misfortune to his nearest and
+dearest relative, who had always been like a duteous daughter to him.
+Nevertheless, Desmond was glad that surprise and dismay had held the old
+gentleman silent till only the family group was present. In the
+disclosure Mrs. Faurie had stated the literal truth, that Desmond had
+found the codicil in a secret drawer, and Mr. Stanlett accepted it
+without demur or suspicion of the further discovery of his knowledge of
+the cache, or agency and motive in its concealment.
+
+“But why, and how, and when, in the name of all that is sacred sir,” the
+old man said, scarlet, trembling, his eyes blazing, and scarcely able to
+keep his feet, “should _you_ go rummaging around into the secret drawers
+of a locked press?”
+
+“The press was not locked,” Desmond said, without looking up, and
+trifling with the violets in a glass bowl in the centre of the table
+beside which he sat. “The bolt did not reach the slot.”
+
+“And why did you send it off without consulting me, Honoria? Another
+will might yet be found. I have searched and searched. Another will and
+a later one is now right among those papers in the blue room. Oh, how
+many nights, how many nights I have searched!”
+
+“Dear Uncle Clarence, the codicil was written and dated and witnessed on
+the 18th, and my husband died the night of the 19th.”
+
+“Plenty of time for another will,—Faurie was a most expeditious man of
+business. He was not bedridden, as you know. He even slept in his chair
+toward the last, as you must remember. That heart trouble would not let
+him lie down in peace—queer, for a man of his physical strength. He died
+at last in his chair, in that library. Plenty of time for another will;
+it could be found! This Mr. Desmond seems to have a nose for game; set
+him after another will, and see what he can tree this time.”
+
+Mrs. Faurie broke in to prevent the old man from indulging in further
+sarcasm along this line. “And oh, Uncle Clarence, such a dear letter was
+with the document! I want Reginald and Horace and Rufus, each one, to
+read that letter, and bless God for a father so good and generous and
+considerate for us all.”
+
+As they sat and listened they had that look so pathetic in children old
+enough to appreciate their situation in matters of moment, yet realizing
+their helplessness in the hands of others, and not able to compass a
+full reliance on the direction of the course of events.
+
+“Do you understand, Honoria, that you will have to refund to the
+executor, the estate, the expenditures of all these years, the
+accumulated amount of the income, your annuity,—the money that you have
+been spending so royally with both hands for nearly seven years? It will
+certainly sweep away more than half your present provision, possibly the
+whole, into the craws of those vipers that you have warmed on your
+hearth.” The old man was piteous in his age and agitation, as he stood,
+lean, gray, wrinkled, half bent in his tremulous emphasis, his arm
+outstretched, the fingers quivering as he shook them at the group of
+aghast boys. “Do you understand that, woman?”
+
+“Why, what else, Uncle Clarence? Would you have me rob my children?” She
+had reached out for Chub when he was denominated a viper with a craw,
+and was now drawing him into that juxtaposition so unbecoming to his
+appearance, his fledgeling blond head on her bosom, his hard, round,
+freckled red cheek against the soft, exquisite whiteness of her neck. He
+struggled to speak through her tender kisses.
+
+“You will oblige me, Uncle Clarence, by not calling my mother a woman,”
+he said, in callow affront.
+
+“What else is she?—and a most ill-used, unlucky, and poverty-stricken
+woman.”
+
+“She is as ’spectable as any man!” protested Chub; and while the other
+two boys burst out laughing as usual at Chubby’s queer views, they were
+all three in tears presently, horrified that their mother should be
+impoverished to make restitution to them, and that they were powerless
+to hinder the sacrifice.
+
+“Oh, terrible! terrible!” the old man said as he strode to and fro
+before the fire, literally wringing his hands. “It is the duty of the
+executor to exact every mill, and he will do it. The executor has no
+option whatever in the matter. He is constrained by the terms of the
+codicil.”
+
+Then he fell to crying again and again, “Oh, terrible! terrible!” and
+wringing his hands as he wavered to and fro with his uncertain, senile
+step.
+
+“Uncle Clarence, why will you not set an example of composure and
+courage in adversity to these boys? The event must have fallen out this
+way, at any rate.”
+
+“Why?”—he had paused abruptly. “Why, Honoria, why? If the codicil had
+not been found, you would not have had to refund under any
+circumstances.”
+
+“I only meant that this codicil must have come to light sooner or
+later,” she explained.
+
+But he went on unheeding: “Did you intend to give up the income for a
+life-interest in the third, under the provisions of the old will? Are
+you going to marry this man Desmond?”
+
+Mrs. Faurie sat still and amazed for a moment. Then her buoyant laughter
+rang joyously through the room. “Marry?—a mere boy, like Edward? Uncle
+Clarence, you are funny,—positively funny!”
+
+“He is no boy,—he is as old as the almighty hills! And if you have not
+thought of such a possibility, _he has_,—take my word for it, _he has_.
+He has a keen eye for the main chance. He found the codicil, and now you
+have to give up the income whether or no. But he had better not be in
+too great a hurry for the fourth of the estate. Wait till you make good
+these expenditures. He hasn’t seen you spend money as I have done. Wait
+till you make good your refunding bond, for that is just what this
+amounts to.”
+
+Desmond felt the flush rising to his forehead. His heart was beating
+furiously. In his agitation he had upset the bowl of violets and the
+blossoms were scattered over the table, while the water in which they
+were steeped began to drip slowly, slowly to the floor. He did not lift
+his eyes, not even when Mrs. Faurie spoke in apology.
+
+“I cannot express to him how grateful I am for his forbearance under
+these insults,” she said gravely. “And, Uncle Clarence, you would never
+subject him to them and so tax his generosity were you yourself
+to-day—so scrupulous as you are in every relation in life,—so—”
+
+“_Too_ scrupulous! _Too_ scrupulous! Scrupulous enough to be such a
+stupendous fool as not to tear a bit of paper when I had my chance,
+and save you a gigantic fortune, as fortunes go in this
+country,—ah,—ah,—when I had my chance!”
+
+He tottered out of the room, banging the door, the three boys staring in
+dismay after the lurching figure with the feeble impetuousness of gait,
+and listening to the mutter of his impotent wrath as he went stumbling
+and cursing down the hall.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Desmond had never experienced such dejection as now overwhelmed his
+spirits. He could not rally from it. He could not understand it. He had
+recovered from the strain of the physical fatigue, even from the stress
+of excitement. He had permitted little interruption to his pedagogic
+duties, and the routine of the schoolroom continued in force as regular
+as if no river pirates had ever assailed the house, and died in the
+commission of the intended robbery; as if no coroner’s jury had ever
+grimly deliberated on the veranda; as if no codicil of the will had ever
+been found to reverse all the orderly status with a presage of future
+financial chaos.
+
+“We will take care of to-day,” Desmond had said to his restive,
+unsettled, agitated pupils, “and to-morrow will take care of itself.”
+
+They were docile under his admonition, but he could not so easily press
+its sage philosophy upon himself. Now and again he struggled with this
+gloom when he was sufficiently at leisure to cope with it. He had been
+fortunate beyond any reasonable expectation, considering his status, he
+argued. In lieu of the position of a tolerated necessity in the house, a
+tutor to boys remote from schools, he had been treated first with
+respect and courtesy, then as a valued guest, made as one of the family,
+and now as the predominant controlling element, from whose decree there
+was no appeal. More and more did Mr. Bainbridge, with his papers, and a
+furtive eye, and a deprecating hand laid over his mouth, as if resolved
+to keep his conjectures from going further than his mustache, come
+directly to Desmond, to take his advice, as he said, in fact to secure
+the annulment of some impracticable order, or to obviate unwise
+dispositions of Mrs. Faurie’s in the readjustment of the wrecked
+plantation interests. He did not directly bespeak Desmond’s influence.
+He only showed the papers and set forth the facts, coughed discreetly
+behind his hand, and if securing Desmond’s promise to place the matter
+before Mrs. Faurie, would set forth confident and alert, acting on the
+rescission of the order as if it were received; for whatever Mr. Desmond
+undertook at Great Oaks Plantation was regarded as _un fait accompli_.
+The attitude of the servants toward him for some time past was
+compounded of a deep respect and some real liking, influencing swift
+feet and dexterous hands and willing smiles in his service. “He is a
+man, shore!” was the general comment. His pupils first obeyed, then
+esteemed, and now adored him, using their utmost diligence to win the
+meed of his approval. Even they, he thought, noted his gloom, which he
+could not disguise, and which rested upon his aspect as definitely as a
+pall. He lost his readiness to sleep, which, since he had become content
+in a measure with his lot, he had recovered—in his youthful health and
+vitality. Long, long after the house was lapsed in slumber, he would
+linger in a reclining-chair at his window, the candle burning down to
+the socket, his fingers in the pages of an unread book, looking out
+dully at the lustrous scene, now grown so familiar, of the expanse of
+gray, shimmering water under the white moon and the faint stars, while
+all the room about him dulled to indiscriminate gloom and the hours wore
+on and on toward dawn.
+
+What was this obsession? he sometimes angrily asked himself. Why should
+he wince in poignant pain at the very thought of the tender music in
+Honoria Faurie’s voice as she sobbed amidst joy and laughed amidst
+sorrow, in the blended ecstasy and woe in reading her husband’s letter,
+so replete with his love and thought for her? Was he jealous of the dead
+man—dead these seven long years!—the dead man he had never seen? And how
+did her tears and smiles concern him,—whom she deemed but a boy,—at whom
+she looked with such sweet, maternal eyes? Sometimes he felt that he was
+losing his reason. Why should this evidence of her love for the dead man
+who had been her husband set an exquisite pain a-quiver in his every
+fibre? Had he thought she had forgotten—that were not to her credit. Did
+he fear that if the dead still lived so in her heart there was no place
+in her affections for him? And why had he ever hoped this? And when,
+indeed, had he first thought of it? There had grown up in his mind so
+gradually from admiration of her beauty, from approval of her
+standpoint, from confidence in her principles, from interest in the
+disclosures of her charming mind, an absolute adoration so complete, so
+possessive, that he was hardly aware of it until it absorbed him wholly.
+He had no more identity of his own. He existed only in relation to her.
+The fact became apparent to him as he reviewed the last few months. He
+had come here penniless, as a tutor to teach her sons, mere children, to
+do designated work; he had stipulated and stood stoutly on these limits,
+defining exactly what were to be his duties, that he might not be called
+upon to exceed them, to become an overworked, underpaid drudge, with
+such expenditure of vitality that he might be unable to rise to higher
+things.
+
+He recurred no more to these limitations. He controlled the boys in
+school and out, laying commands upon them with paternal freedom,
+restricting dangerous amusements, interdicting prejudicial reading,
+requiring salutary exercise, cutting off amusing associates sometimes,
+for no better reason than that their conversation tended to impair the
+grammar and parlor manners of his youthful charges,—all of which was out
+of his contract and beyond the bailiwick of his authority.
+
+He had been inducted into even more exacting occupations. He had become
+the referee in all matters of dispute about the place, which required
+some nicety of discrimination; he was often put into a position of
+extreme doubt and embarrassment in deciding the small property interests
+between servants or the plantation hands, who had agreed together to
+abide by his decision, thus exerting, indeed, the functions of justice.
+Mrs. Faurie consulted him in business correspondence. He had been led,
+by the turn of events, to risk his life in defense of the mansion and to
+hold it out in a state of siege. He had kept up the good cheer by his
+genial arts, and preserved the calmness of all in the house that
+dreadful night when, but for his stanch composure and his resources of
+management, they might have fallen victims to causeless fright and
+ghastly horror in their isolation, and become the wreck of their own
+nerves in lieu of passing the ordeal with no result but the confirmation
+of their powers and their confidence in themselves. It was he who had
+conferred with the county officials by letter and in person when they
+came to the house. Mrs. Faurie and the younger boys had been spared the
+ghastly details of the inquest through his representations to the
+coroner, and were busied in a rear room opening some boxes of potted
+plants for the approaching summer decoration of the veranda, which had
+been shipped by the packet opportunely passing on this morning, and
+which he contrived should be brought off in a skiff simultaneously to
+the house; thus they were not aware of the event in progress till the
+inquisition was concluded. His own testimony, that of Reginald and Mr.
+Stanlett, the confessions of the wounded man, who died later the same
+day, the corroborative details of the servants as to the subsequent
+events, were deemed ample evidence, and the verdict of the jury was in
+accordance with the facts.
+
+He had solved the mystery of the spectral manifestations that had
+terrorized the house for years; he had secured the cache from its
+possible wresting away by vandal hands; he was her confidant and
+counselor in all the troublous forecast of the complications to ensue
+upon the propounding of the codicil.
+
+Surely these were the services of no hireling. They were the cheerful
+tribute of love that found danger dear for her behoof, and toil light,
+and the tangles of perplexity easy of unraveling since she might elude
+their intricacies, and responsibility a broadening of the shoulders, and
+his day all too short for its devotion to her interests.
+
+And to her—he seemed but a boy! a mere springald out of college, glad to
+teach for a time,—to repeat his own lessons recently conned as a
+stepping-stone to a man’s devoir.
+
+And yet—he looked at the long lane of light, the mystic avenue of the
+moon on the water in the glade between the lines of inundated trees.
+What alluring dreams, what soft deceits were coming to him along that
+roadway of shimmering pearl,—coming to him from the moon, the home of
+fantasies, to which it stretched at the limits of the perspective. Did
+she know her own heart? She had no mind but his. She adopted his views,
+and deferred her preferences, and abated her prejudices. He had no need
+to care for his dignity; she was quicker than he to resent aught that
+seemed to touch upon it. The whole house, the whole plantation, was
+relegated to his control. She seemed in a hundred ways to ask his
+permission,—might she do this? might the boys have that? She said that
+day,—that dreadful day,—when he and Reginald held her in their arms
+between them, that she had longed for him, that she had prayed for him.
+How strange that the bell, which had never rung through all the gloomy
+day, sounded her signal for him so far away! How was it that his ears
+quickened to a peal that had never vibrated,—that her wishes, her
+prayers, drew him from far, through sloughs and slashes, through bayous
+and lakes, to her side at her utmost, her extremest peril! And why for
+him had she prayed! She knew that the time set for his return was yet
+two days distant. The manager was overdue, however, and momently
+expected. She had not contemplated the coming of Mr. Bainbridge, a
+stalwart fellow and eminently capable of coping with these familiar
+conditions. She had not thought that a steamboat might chance to pass
+and discern and respond to a signal of distress. She had longed for
+Desmond—for _him_, as the protecting ægis in all her frenzied terror.
+And love—mysterious love—had clamored at his ears, annulled the
+distance, shaken the fogs, penetrated the rains, defied, set at naught
+plain fact, and sounded her summons, her wish, her frantic hope, till he
+needs must have heed and respond. It was strange, the accord between
+them. Surely, surely she did not translate aright the tenor of her own
+emotions.
+
+Suddenly he noticed that the mystic illuminated avenue of pearly,
+shimmering waters between the giant oaks was dulling: a sort of gloating
+glister grew golden upon it; vague yearnings were in the air; unseen
+beings descended continually, their presence demonstrated only by the
+sense of motion. A wind from out the moon ruffled the surface into
+thousands of tiny wavelets, like twinkling feet half discerned.
+Fancies!—fancies hastening down, lest dawn come too soon, cut off
+communication with the ideal, and leave the poor world the prey, the
+possession of the prosaic. For, indeed, the light was fading to a
+glimmering steel, and now to an unillumined gray, and as he rose at last
+to seek an hour’s repose before the household should rouse for the day,
+he realized that with his griefs and anxieties, his fears and his waking
+dreams, he had worn the night away.
+
+He did not mistake the character of his emotions—they were strictly
+paternal!—when it developed in the next few days that Reginald, of his
+own motion, had written, unknown to all but his brothers, a letter to
+the executor of the will, Mr. Hartagous, a lawyer of Memphis. The others
+had signed it, and thus unified the solemn requirement that in the
+execution of the newly discovered codicil he should make no demands upon
+their mother for the return to the estate of the funds that she had
+spent under the provisions of the will as hitherto in force, and now to
+be charged against her portion. It seemed that they had at first
+appealed to their guardian, Mr. Keith, who had declined the discussion
+by stating that the distribution of the property was wholly in the hands
+of the executor. Therefore they called the attention of Mr. Hartagous to
+the fact that they were the owners of the estate in his hands, and
+claimed that they had a right to waive this demand upon their mother,
+against which they protested, and to impose upon him their command. It
+would be contrary to the wishes of the testator, their father, they
+argued, to impoverish for a legal quibble the widow and mother; and even
+if they should restore to her—as they were fully resolved to do, as soon
+as the eldest came of age—anything that was taken from her, that was a
+distant date, and she would spend the best years of her life in poverty,
+restricted and deprived of the comfort and luxury to which she was
+accustomed. If the executor should persist in enforcing the codicil, the
+letter sternly concluded, it would be their resolve to seek to visit
+their wrath upon him, as his evil deed merited.
+
+This truculent epistle came back to Great Oaks inclosed in a letter from
+Mr. Hartagous to Mrs. Faurie. Their sentiments did them honor, he
+declared, overlooking the puerile violence of their menace, and this
+heralded the coming of Mr. Hartagous to Great Oaks for a conference in
+the changed state of things.
+
+The Faurie boys were somewhat startled to see their valiant
+demonstration in the hands of their mother, who kissed and hugged and
+wept over them till they, too, shed tears as they clung together.
+
+“But will he, mamma, will he make you pay us all that money?” asked
+Reginald, leaning over the back of her chair and gripping hard the hand
+that she held up to him.
+
+“Oh, what a pity we are all so young,” plained Horace,—“so many years
+before we can give it back.” He knelt by her side and sobbed against her
+shoulder.
+
+Chubby sunk from her lap to the floor and clung to her, hugging her
+knees. “Oh, mamma, will you be poor till I am a man? Oh, I will work for
+you, mamma. I will—I will—I will dig in the garden.”
+
+Reginald and Horace had no laugh to-day for Chub’s unintentional
+anticlimaxes, and as Mrs. Faurie sent them away, that she might consult
+with Desmond, they carried very dreary countenances, and she still
+pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.
+
+“It is not as if the money were going to strangers,” said Desmond,
+craftily. “It will only advantage those dear fellows. I am so delighted
+with that letter of Reginald’s.”
+
+“I didn’t realize that it was in him to do that,” she said, suddenly
+smiling radiantly.
+
+“I did,” said Desmond, promptly.
+
+“I believe you love him as much as I do,” she cried joyously.
+
+“All three,” he protested. “I am jealous for the others.”
+
+“Poor little Chubby,” she said, lingering lovingly on the words.
+
+“Dear old Chubby!” he exclaimed. “So you need not mind about the money.
+It is for them.”
+
+“But how am I to get it, Edward?” She drew her level brows together in
+her pretty frown. “You have no idea of the clip I went, spending money.
+I can see now the awful mistake I made; but it seemed not so
+unreasonably extravagant then, having a large income at my disposal for
+my lifetime, and my children all independently and handsomely provided
+for. And now,—to return all that money! And that man is coming! I have
+been staying here to economize, you know, to get the old place to take
+care of me till the reservoir fills up again.”
+
+“You have something to show for the money, I suppose. Didn’t those
+wretches mention some famous emeralds?”
+
+“Ye-es,—but don’t you think it _infra dig._ to sell jewelry?”
+
+“It is _infra dig._ not to have money,” he said bitterly.
+
+Ah, how he wished that he were adequately equipped to come to her
+rescue; to let her relinquish to the Faurie estate all that the name had
+brought her; to offer commensurate resources.
+
+“I do not agree with you,” she said firmly, “_You_ have no money, and
+you can discount the world for dignity.”
+
+He had never regarded himself in this light, and he flushed with
+pleasure. As her eyes rested on him she suddenly exclaimed: “Now you
+look a little bit like yourself. This torment is telling more on you
+than on me. I assure you that _I_ shall not let myself go off in _my_
+looks for a few dollars, dimes, cents, and mills.”
+
+“About the emeralds?”
+
+“Beauty when unadorned with emeralds is as green as grass. But needs
+must—let them go! Let them go!”
+
+“Do you love them so much?” he said wistfully.
+
+“You just ought to see them on me!” she bridled.
+
+“They will never be the same on any one else,” he hazarded.
+
+“And that is one comfort,” she acceded. Her pride in the preëminence of
+her attractions was like the innocent vanity of a child, so entirely was
+her beauty acknowledged and a matter of course.
+
+“What will they bring at a forced sale?”
+
+“Thirty thousand dollars, they cost.”
+
+Desmond jotted down the sum and then went on. “About the yacht?”
+
+“The yacht? Must it be sold? Why, what will we do in the Mediterranean?”
+
+Obviously, she did not understand the situation. It must be brought home
+to her. He waved his hand to the waters of the overflow shimmering just
+outside the veranda balustrade. A dugout was rocking at a little
+distance. “There are all your facilities for voyaging for some time to
+come, Mrs. Faurie.”
+
+She burst into laughter at the incongruity. Then she said, “I cannot
+realize that it is so serious as all that. My yacht is a beauty, and
+ought to bring a pretty penny.”
+
+“Perhaps you will also have to give up the title to Great Oaks, which
+the codicil gives you in fee, to make good the sums which you have
+received from the estate,” he ventured.
+
+Her face fell. “I have begun to love this life,” she declared
+unexpectedly. “I don’t want to change. I don’t want to give up Great
+Oaks. I have forgotten the world.”
+
+A thrill stole through his heart. What had she said? She did not
+understand her own heart!
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Mr. Hartagous brought with him a metropolitan atmosphere, the manner of
+one used to good society, a portly stomach accustomed to fine feeding, a
+handsome gray-streaked beard parted in the middle, and a pair of
+searching, quickly glancing dark eyes. He landed at Great Oaks shortly
+before dinner, and it was at table that he made Desmond’s acquaintance.
+It was not he, but the guardian of the Faurie boys who had sought out
+Desmond, and through the offices of mutual friends secured his services
+as tutor, when Mrs. Faurie had placed a period to her European
+wanderings, but Mr. Hartagous, in the general family interests, had been
+apprised of all the details, and in meeting Desmond for the first time,
+inwardly congratulated all concerned upon the phenomenal opportunity of
+finding such a man for such a place. The meal was somewhat more
+elaborate than usual, in honor of the guest. Mrs. Faurie, in one of her
+Parisian gowns, was in great beauty. So marked, indeed, was the effect,
+that it seemed not inappropriate to take some notice of what was so
+obvious.
+
+“Upon my word, madam,” Mr. Hartagous declared, having progressed with
+great prosperity in feeding through the menu to the dessert, “you must
+surely lose the tally of the years as you go, else you would not have
+the effrontery to look younger than when I first met you as a bride.”
+
+“I was a skinny bride,” she smiled. “The years round out the angles. But
+they lay on fat and fads and frumpishness, and I feel really like an old
+country-woman.
+
+He looked at her beamingly, his face flushed, partly from the reflection
+of the old-fashioned red Bohemian glass finger-bowls, and partly from
+Mr. Faurie’s Madeira, which he had laid down a good many years ago, and
+which had survived him to delight other palates. Mr. Hartagous was
+pleased and surprised to find how debonair was her carriage under the
+changed prospects. He had not thought she could sustain her equanimity
+in such cruel incertitudes, nothing positively established, but great
+loss,—financial ruin, more or less complete. He had feared the visit as
+a dismal experience; but her brilliant aspect, her joyous tones, might
+enliven even a board at which sat the three downcast and indignant
+Faurie boys, thoroughly schooled as to their civility, but showing in
+every facial line how they deprecated and resented his part in the
+untoward falling out of affairs. The two younger ones asked to be
+excused shortly after the entrance of the dessert; and as Mr. Stanlett
+had not appeared at all since the arrival of the guest, sending in by
+Bob a plea of indisposition, Mrs. Faurie felt some anxiety, and a desire
+to go and inquire into his malady.
+
+“I leave you in good hands with Mr. Desmond and Reginald,” she said to
+Mr. Hartagous, as she rose from the table with a rich stir of silks and
+laces; “I will go and see how Uncle Clarence feels now, and meet you
+later in the parlor.”
+
+Reginald, pale and disaffected, and all unlike himself, lingered
+listlessly for an interval, and presently asked Desmond if he might be
+excused also.
+
+“What?—are you going to leave us, too?” Mr. Hartagous cried out
+genially, in a determinedly cheerful and friendly tone.
+
+“I am nothing of a boon companion,” said Reginald. “Mr. Desmond does not
+allow me to drink but one glass of light wine,—I shall not be missed.”
+And with a poor effort at a friendly smile, obviously insincere, he
+stayed for no more parley.
+
+“Ah, you seem to have the young fellows under good control,—excellent
+for them. A short tether,—best thing in the world for colts apt to feel
+their oats.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous was now looking about the room with considerable freedom
+and a sort of disregard of the presence of the tutor, taking _faute de
+mieux_ the part of host. “Everything is just as it used to be: old
+sylvan wall-paper, in design of tapestry hangings, hunting-scene; old
+racing-cups in that big mahogany cabinet. Faurie used to have a string
+of good horses. And there is the family silver,—very fine,—armorial
+bearings,—all just as it used to be. Can’t think what Mrs. Faurie did
+with her money,—didn’t put any of it on Great Oaks, at all events.”
+
+Desmond cloaked his failure to respond in speculations on this theme by
+passing the bottle, and Mr. Hartagous promptly refilled his glass.
+
+“Severe stroke for her,—the finding of that codicil. Pity it didn’t come
+into my hands earlier! There wouldn’t be the devil and all to pay as
+there is now.” He lifted his glass and refreshed himself bountifully.
+Perhaps he was used to livelier company at dinner, for he presently
+remarked Desmond’s serious, not to say dispirited expression, and,
+possibly because unable to appreciate that the tutor’s anxiety could be
+disconnected with a personal application, hastened to stipulate: “But it
+will not affect _you_ at all. Your salary comes out of the minors’
+estates. Mrs. Faurie is not at expenses, except such as may be voluntary
+in their education and maintenance.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous was well aware that there had been some difficulty in
+catching an appropriate man to consign to the remote depths of an
+isolated plantation in the Mississippi bottom-lands. As Mrs. Faurie was
+not willing that her sons should be separated from her for their
+schooling, already much postponed, Mr. Keith, the guardian, must needs
+secure a college graduate, of irreproachable character, of elegant
+breeding, and so piteously poor as to be willing, for a small salary, to
+turn his back on the world at the outset of his career. As by signal
+good fortune the guardian had captured this _rara avis_, it was no part
+of the executor’s scheme to interfere to set him at liberty again, or to
+foster restlessness by any suspicion that his financial interest was
+threatened in the impending changes.
+
+“But Mrs. Faurie will have to pay the piper for the dance that she has
+had,—a long and a lively one from all that I hear,—and I should think
+that it would sweep away the best part of her provision under this
+codicil. I do hope that she won’t make a fight for it,—very embarrassing
+the whole affair is for me, especially considering the attitude the boys
+take in the matter. Mr. Keith can afford to pooh-pooh it, and say they
+will think differently when they come to their majority. He is not
+called upon to sustain their resentment. Yet he would be ready at the
+drop of a hat to sue me, the executor, in their interest in this very
+matter that the little fools want to relinquish. As far as their
+interest is concerned, however, there will be no litigation in carrying
+out the provisions of the codicil. But I confess I dread the idea of
+Mrs. Faurie’s futile resistance.”
+
+“I think Mrs. Faurie has no intention of making a contest,” said
+Desmond, fearing that his silence on the subject might be misconstrued.
+
+The lawyer whirled around excitedly. “Turn over Great Oaks Plantation
+without a fight,—eh? She will have to lose it to make good.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous had a brightening aspect. There had been already
+sufficiently discordant elements in the situation fomented by the
+conflict of laws in the two states where the properties lay, a pertinent
+instance of which came to mind in the incongruity of an indeterminate
+limit of twenty or thirty years in Tennessee for the revocation of
+probate in common form, and in Mississippi a prescription, with the
+statutory savings, of only two years, which had long ago elapsed. Though
+this was hardly conclusive, by reason of the exception of the statute,
+in favor of the disability of the minors, and their financial interests
+in the revocation of the Mississippi probate, it might further be
+inoperative to render Mrs. Faurie secure in her local holdings, if her
+interest in Great Oaks, for life or widowhood, as under the will, could
+be subjected to levy as for debt to satisfy the requirements of the
+codicil in Tennessee. The guardian of the minors had been alert to
+perceive another phase of the situation incident to the discovery of the
+paper, and had indeed averred to Mr. Hartagous that, even could their
+rights of prescription be defeated, he felt that the long and
+incomprehensible delay to produce the codicil savored of concealment,
+and in the event of proof of this, the Mississippi statute allowed two
+years further for the revocation _pro tanto_ of the probate. The lapse
+of time had wrought such ruin to Mrs. Faurie’s interests that, even
+apart from her high character, which precluded such a suspicion, she
+could never be supposed to have been a party to such a disastrous scheme
+of concealment; and the diligence of the search of Mr. Hartagous among
+the valuable papers of the decedent was protected by a letter from Mr.
+Faurie himself, dated a few days before his death, stating that all
+important papers had been transferred to his keeping, as the executor,
+in view of the settlement of the estate. Mr. Hartagous had not found it
+an easy task, with its diversified interests, its complicated
+litigation, its many details, and he welcomed the thought that perhaps
+after all Mrs. Faurie might yield at once to the inevitable, and the
+settlement of the estate might yet go cannily on, including the
+provisions of the codicil, without raising the issue of _devisavit vel
+non_ and repairing to the circuit court for probate in solemn form.
+
+Desmond was a trifle embarrassed. “It may not be necessary to relinquish
+Great Oaks,” he said uneasily. “Mrs. Faurie has other convertible
+assets.”
+
+The lawyer bent his brows and cast a keen glance at him. There was a
+significant silence. “So you are in her confidence, are you?”
+
+There was so much receptivity in his aspect as he waited for the reply,
+he was so evidently ready to discriminate and utilize all manner of
+subtle and diffusive impressions and information, that Desmond grew
+unwontedly wary. “Not to the extent of being able to speak for her,” he
+stipulated. “But Mrs. Faurie is very candid, as you know, and I am in a
+position to hear much of the family conversation.”
+
+He came to a dead halt. But Mr. Hartagous had not wrestled with
+reluctant witnesses for a matter of thirty years to be baffled at this
+late day by an after-dinner interlocutor with a bottle of choice wine
+between them. He gave it a push as he said: “And I also stand in a
+quasi-confidential relation to her, having long been the friend of her
+husband and herself, as well as the executor of his will. It would
+gratify me extremely to be able to adjust this difficult matter without
+contention and the rupture of long-established amicable sentiments.” He
+gazed keenly at the handsome face of the tutor, intellectual and
+powerful beyond his years and experience, the expression of mental value
+enhancing the effect of symmetry of feature. He was about to suggest
+that it might be beneficial to Mrs. Faurie’s interests to canvass the
+matter between them, and from its incidents strike out some middle
+course of advantage to all parties concerned. But there was something in
+Desmond’s deep, steadfast eyes that admonished him that this confidence
+could come about only from inadvertence. Desmond would not of set
+purpose disclose Mrs. Faurie’s intentions. The executor began to realize
+that if he wanted such facts as the tutor knew, he must surprise them.
+
+“Mrs. Faurie would not want Great Oaks at any rate,” he hazarded. “I
+wonder at Faurie for that disposition of the plantation,—cumbrous
+property.”
+
+“It is a fine place,” said Desmond, non-committally.
+
+“Looks mighty pretty now,—a full fathom deep in water in the shallowest
+spot,” sneered the lawyer.
+
+“The land is of fine quality,—raises good crops, I am told,” Desmond
+commented.
+
+“Don’t need fertile land to raise crawfish.”
+
+“Why, even the floods that drowned the world dried off after a while;
+and Great Oaks is relying on precedent and Providence, and expects to
+raise cotton here again some day.” Desmond’s tone was crisp. He had no
+necessity that he recognized to submit to the acerbities of the
+executor. It was strain enough on his patience to make allowances for
+the infirmities and age of Mr. Stanlett.
+
+His tone, the vigor of his argument, shook the self-restraint of Mr.
+Hartagous. The lawyer’s spirit of contention responded. He wagged his
+head with an aspect of melancholy, not unrelated to his sentiment, when
+he said: “The overflow will cry down the price. I have a letter in my
+pocket now from a would-be purchaser, a Mr. Loring, formerly a resident
+of this county. His offer is low, but as much as the place can command
+for the next ten years to come.” He shook his head and filled his glass
+anew.
+
+Desmond quickly reviewed the events of the past weeks. Doubtless the
+news of the discovery of the codicil had been widely bruited abroad, and
+thus Mr. Loring, aware of the exigencies of the prospective refunding
+and of Mrs. Faurie’s depleted resources, had taken the field with the
+first offer. He had astutely approached the executor rather than its
+present owner, whose disposition to sell might be in inverse proportion
+to the necessity; and as the exacting creditor, Mr. Hartagous, knowing
+that such an opportunity of sale would not be easily duplicated, might
+press an acceptance as a ready solution of the emergency, which promised
+him a world of anxiety and perplexity. Little effort indeed might be
+requisite to urge, flatter, overpersuade a woman unaccustomed to the
+turmoils of hopeless debt and annoyed by business complications.
+
+But poor Honoria Faurie! To have unwittingly dispensed her whole fortune
+as her income, her annuity. To be called upon now to surrender the roof
+above her head as penance of those years of plenty that had held out to
+her the deceit of perpetuity. Desmond trembled for her future, for her
+sons were mere children and helpless. He feared lest she be harassed
+into precipitancy and clutch at any prospect of speedy deliverance from
+these troublous toils, willing to concede anything, to relinquish
+everything, to have peace,—when, alas! there would he no more peace. He
+realized the immense capacity to clinch tight, to hold hard, of the
+genus of which Mr. Hartagous was a type,—cool, collected, with no
+personal interest involved that might affect his judgment, ready to
+stand on a quibble, to fight for the minutest fraction, to prolong the
+contention to the uttermost, to the extremest exhaustion of his
+adversary’s slender resources of resistance. And she had not a soul to
+whom she might appeal, save indeed some lawyer, earning his fee, and
+appreciative only of the surface conditions of her case,—but no one who
+cared for her, who would think for her. The realization roused Desmond
+in her behalf.
+
+“You had best wait till morning to place the offer before her,” Desmond
+said, determined to be the first to acquaint her with the facts,
+determined that she should not meet her adversary in his guise of friend
+without consideration of the double identity in which he came. “There is
+always so much stir in the parlor after dinner,—the children and their
+dogs make a deal of noise. Mrs. Faurie always gives up her evenings to
+the entertainment of her sons.”
+
+He had no mind to offer the library, which indeed had been assigned to
+his exclusive use, and he hoped that Mr. Hartagous did not remember its
+facilities for quiet consultation, so long had it been dismantled.
+
+Mr. Hartagous was one of the most acute of men, and his facial traits
+were well under control. Few people could have interpreted the sudden
+cynical uplifting of his bushy eyebrows as he said casually, “Ah,
+well,—plenty of time,—plenty of time.”
+
+But Desmond’s perceptions were quickened in her interests and he knew
+that the hour was come, that before they separated for the night, Mrs.
+Faurie would be acquainted with the executor’s version of the
+facts,—that they were the most lucky of mortals! for property was slow
+of sale, plantations a drug upon the market, the labor questions
+impossible of solution; clouds, darkness, environed them on every side,
+and they knew not whither to grope,—and here suddenly a flood of
+financial sunlight was opening upon them in the midst of their night of
+despondency. Only the touch of her pen,—the title of Great Oaks, which
+she had always loathed, would be transferred. The millionaire’s cash and
+notes would make good her indebtedness to the estate to that extent, at
+least; the rest could be “carried”—fatal word!—arranged for a time with
+liens on smaller properties. Plausible representation!—the sense of a
+load of debt lifted, the turbulent apprehension of contention averted.
+She might adopt the executor’s conclusions, and indeed from his point of
+view there was naught else practicable. She had known him long, liked
+him well, and relied on his friendship. But his duty in the premises was
+to the estate, to make the most and the best of the testator’s
+dispositions as far as it was concerned. As to the widow, the wreck was
+her own work, unconscious though she had been, mistaken; he had no
+responsibility so far as she was interested save to enforce the
+provisions of the codicil, and to exact the terms of the refunding
+clause. She might be prevailed upon, in the first flush of relief that
+any solution of the problem was at hand, to sign at once, to-night, some
+agreement of sale; she might not commit herself beyond the possibility
+of withdrawal, but so far embrace the proposition as to be unwilling to
+recede from it. And indeed she might be persuaded into a coincidence of
+opinion. His representations might fix her resolution. Later, Desmond’s
+remonstrances might not avail. He was young, as she knew,—she had called
+him repeatedly a mere boy. He could not be sure that she seriously
+valued his business instincts, when he had no business experience. He
+desired only to put her on her guard, to excite her apprehension, to
+counsel reserve, above all delay. He could imagine the sequence, and it
+appalled him. The wishes of Mrs. Faurie, reduced to poverty, to
+insignificance, would no longer have such weight as when issued from her
+princess-like affluence and preëminence, and the wishes of the boys were
+as empty of influence as the disability of their minority would compel.
+He wondered dolorously as to her impending fate. Perhaps there might be
+accorded to her, from among the chips and blocks of the Faurie estate,
+saved from the cormorant clutch of the refunding, some cottage on a side
+street in the outskirts of Vicksburg or Natchez, some little farm of a
+few acres regularly overflowed, and raising indeed more crawfish than
+cotton.
+
+It seemed as if Desmond had intentionally misled Mr. Hartagous when he
+opened the parlor door and they entered a room of absolute silence and
+stillness. Mrs. Faurie, in a gown of sage green silk brocaded in lighter
+tones, the lace at her throat coruscating with the delicate white fires
+of a diamond “sunburst,” leaned back in a large chair, her eyes on the
+hearth, evidently moody from argument and remonstrance with her sons.
+Their faces, as they sat in a row on a sofa, were downcast, full of
+distress, and marked with the distorting trace of nervous anxiety, which
+they could feel as if they were men, but unlike men could not hope to do
+aught to abate;—only Chub gazed up at Mr. Hartagous with childish,
+lowering, resentful eyes and a half-suppressed tendency to pout. Mr.
+Stanlett, pallid, seeming more lean than usual, shrunken, and very
+perceptibly aged by the shock of the excitements of finding the codicil,
+lay in a reclining-chair on the opposite side of the fire. He greeted
+Mr. Hartagous with courtesy indeed, but with noticeably few words, and
+protesting that his indisposition had passed, welcomed him to Great Oaks
+mansion. Desmond felt the future in the instant. It would require but
+little exertion of Mr. Hartagous’s tact to inaugurate one of the
+old-time reminiscences, which seemed the delight and the resource of Mr.
+Stanlett’s failing life. His eyes would flash, his thin cheek flush, the
+boys would listen in spellbound silence, and Mr. Hartagous, already
+seated beside her, would secure an uninterrupted tête-à-tête with Mrs.
+Faurie; for the tutor, in his subsidiary position and obligatory show of
+respect, must needs accord Mr. Stanlett’s narration his attention also.
+But even should Desmond so far forget himself as to interpose in the
+discussion of business in which he had no concern, Mr. Hartagous had
+arguments which on first view would easily discomfit his crude and
+inexperienced counsels. Nevertheless, Desmond resolved anew that she
+should not hear of the offer of Mr. Loring for Great Oaks first from the
+executor. He cast about him in desperation. Mr. Stanlett was already
+replying with some spirit as to the early history of certain localities
+that Mr. Hartagous had noticed from the guards of the steamboat in
+coming down the Mississippi River from Memphis, which itself was built
+on one of the famous Chickasaw Bluffs. Mr. Stanlett’s memory reached
+back to the days before the Chickasaws and Choctaws had generally
+vanished westward, and he had then gleaned from the chiefs some
+traditions at first hand which made him an authority on moot points of
+early history, and he piqued himself on his accuracy. It was easy indeed
+to engage him in a discussion as to the site of the old Chickasaw
+towns,—seven of them together in a row, the last called Ash-wick-boo-ma
+(Red Grass),—where they defeated D’Artaguette and later Bienville, and
+the details of the battle of Ackia and its famous last charge. The young
+Fauries’ faces had brightened. Suddenly Reginald asked a breathless
+question as to the boy-commander, the Canadian, Voisin, who at sixteen
+years of age conducted the safe and skilled retreat of the troops
+through many miles of wilderness from the field of the battle which his
+superior officer, the unfortunate D’Artaguette, had lost.
+
+Mr. Stanlett needed no more prompting, nor, Desmond feared, would he
+heed interruption. Mr. Hartagous presently leaned forward with his elbow
+on the table at Mrs. Faurie’s right hand, and had begun to speak to her
+in a low voice, when Desmond asked Mr. Stanlett if he knew the ancient
+French buglecalls, and said that one claimed a Merovingian origin. He
+declared that he would like to believe that the same strain which had
+rung from the famous “Olivant,” the horn of the Paladin at Roncesvalles,
+had served to rally D’Artaguette’s motley levies of Indians, and
+_coureurs des bois_, and French soldats along the banks of the
+Mississippi, and would forever continue to sound down the centuries, to
+find echoes in the heart of the enthusiast and the metre of the poet.
+
+“Let me see if you find the old calls familiar,” Desmond exclaimed,
+lifting the lid of the piano and tangling it in his haste with its
+crimson embroidered cloth cover. It was an old piano, with the felt of
+its hammers worn hard and thin. So much the better, since he desired to
+drown out the voice of Mr. Hartagous. The martial strain, instinct with
+its imperative mandate, throbbed through the room and then died away,
+and as they listened a note was repeated, and still a vibration, as from
+some vague distance.
+
+“An echo!—an echo!” cried Chub, vociferously. “Oh, mamma, listen to our
+Mr. Desmond! He can do anything,—how he can play!”
+
+“Now, what do you suppose is the date of that call?” Mr. Stanlett’s
+cheek had flushed; his interest was roused.
+
+“The introduction of this one can be definitely fixed,” and once more a
+spirited lilting strain rang through the room. Then Desmond turned on
+the piano stool. “Where, Reginald, did you put that old book on the
+Ancient Military Orders of France? It gives some old calls. I found that
+rummaging about in the library.”
+
+“You find too much, sir, rummaging about!” said Mr. Stanlett, with a
+bent brow and a fiery eye. “You should curb your talents for rummaging
+about.”
+
+But Desmond had thrust an old folio into his hand, with a recommendation
+to examine the very quaint and antique illustrations of arms and
+accoutrements and military costume with which it was embellished. There
+were some extra inserts of military portraits, steel engravings, and Mr.
+Stanlett was turning the leaves, his thin mouth drawn in very small, his
+eye alight with a fervor of interest, his rebuke and its cause forgotten
+in an instant.
+
+Not by Mr. Hartagous. He made the serious mistake of casting a merry,
+significant glance at the tutor, expecting it to be returned in like
+genial wise. He desired to establish confidential relations with
+Desmond. He might find so accomplished, so versatile, so lightning-quick
+a fellow of special use here, where diplomatic management might be
+necessary to smooth the way for readjustments. But Desmond did not
+respond, and Mr. Hartagous felt the rising surge of anger. He realized
+that the young man was too observant to have lost the demonstration; he
+was far too keen to fail to appreciate its relish and its demand for the
+recognition of Mr. Stanlett’s pitiably funny allusion to the tutor’s
+instrumentality in discovering the codicil of the last will and
+testament of the late Mr. Faurie. Desmond’s studied insensibility was a
+covert rebuke, and the spirit of Mr. Hartagous revolted against this
+schooling, which he felt might befit some crude hobbledehoy. He would
+have liked to remind the tutor that he was the guardian’s employee and
+not Mrs. Faurie’s, and that the pedagogic office was held at his
+pleasure; to recall the fact that despite the young man’s learning and
+many accomplishments, it had been already demonstrated to him that one
+must have foothold, a starting-point, to make these felt by the world. A
+flood, quotha!—a sorry time a dove or any other fowl would have to find
+a perch, set adrift from this ark of Great Oaks mansion.
+
+Mrs. Faurie intercepted and interpreted the glance, and for a time she
+held her eyes down to the fan in her hand with which she seemed
+gracefully to toy, but Desmond had seen that they were full of tears.
+She felt that these two men, in the pride of their powers, in the flush
+of their prime, in the vigor of their health and strength, were
+ridiculing poor, dear Uncle Clarence for his distress in her loss, for
+his feeble, inadequate, unreasoning indignation at the officious
+intermeddling, as he thought it, which had brought the catastrophe
+about.
+
+But Desmond had begun to sing,—she had not known that he could sing,—and
+the room was filled with surging waves of melody. A powerful baritone
+voice he had, of no great cultivation, enough only to temper the
+crudities of his rendering, but of correct intonation, and it was
+singularly, lusciously sweet. They were military songs that he sang,
+with the triumph of the trumpets, the gay clash of the cannikin, the
+impetuous speed of the high-couraged war-horse, all infused through
+them. Now they were French and again German, and some were in quaint old
+English phrase of mediæval suggestion.
+
+“Never, never let me hear you speak another word,” cried Mr. Stanlett,
+in senile delight. “You should go singing through the world like the
+mockingbirds in spring.”
+
+He looked across the room, smiling and nodding, expectant of sympathetic
+response from Mr. Hartagous, who was as weary of it all as if the
+evening were spent in that other ark to which Great Oaks mansion was so
+often likened. Under these circumstances he could have as easily
+communicated with the ladies of the patriarchal Noah as with Mrs.
+Faurie,—the terrible Chub chasing continually from the side of the piano
+and across the room to fling himself into his mother’s arms crying,
+“Ain’t it beautiful, mamma? Ain’t it beautiful? The grand opera in Paree
+don’t touch Mr. Desmond nowhere!”
+
+So weary, indeed, did Mr. Hartagous presently look that the dispersal of
+the party for the night was obviously in order, although much earlier
+than usual.
+
+“Can you find your way back to your room, do you think?” Mrs. Faurie
+said to the guest, as the group stood at a side table in the hall and
+she lighted their bedroom candles seriatim.
+
+The house was so large and so rambling in its plan that he was not sure
+that he remembered his way about it, he replied. He had expected, and
+indeed so had she, that Desmond would come forward with his readiness
+for any emergency and officiate as guide. But Desmond, stolidly
+unmindful, snuffed out and then relighted his own candle, its tiny white
+blaze illumining his flushed, absorbed face, and after a moment’s
+hesitation Reginald offered to accompany the guest to his room. Thus Mr.
+Hartagous departed to his night’s rest, a little dissatisfied with the
+situation, and not a little doubtful of the tutor. He resented this
+incertitude, because it was partly his influence that had placed Desmond
+here. “And mighty glad he was to come, too,” he reflected. He rather
+wondered that Desmond should not discern his own interests more clearly
+than to seem to adhere to the losing side, for Mrs. Faurie’s power,
+always limited, was now definitely a thing of the past. “For she is not
+worth one red cent, as matters stand!” Mr. Keith, he was aware, had
+begun to doubt whether the redundant maternal coddling was the best
+thing for the boys, and had only agreed to their persistent retention
+under her wing in deference to her wish; but Hartagous was sure, did he
+so desire, that he could easily induce him to insist as their guardian
+upon packing them off summarily to boarding-school, where they might
+encounter some of the roughening and hardening phases of boy life. “Make
+men of them.” Although balked of the conversation which he had expected
+to have with Desmond when he should have reached the room assigned him,
+and feeling distinctly man-handled, he determined to have a definite
+understanding with the tutor on the morrow, and apprise him that he was
+expected to act in the interest of his employer, the guardian, which was
+identical with that of the executor, in smoothing the way to a pacific
+adjustment of the troublous toils in which the discovery of the codicil
+had entangled the household of Great Oaks,—and this signified, in the
+interpretation of Mr. Hartagous, an unconditional surrender of all the
+opposing interests.
+
+“It is not late, though you seem tired,—and I must speak to you
+to-night,” Desmond said to Mrs. Faurie, when the young host and the
+guest had vanished down the cross-hall.
+
+She had her lighted candle in her hand, and the flame threw into high
+relief against the dull shadows her exquisite face, with the subdued
+green of her gown, the shimmer of the lace above her bosom, the diamond
+“sunburst” at her throat. “Won’t to-morrow answer?” she replied,
+stifling a yawn.
+
+“No! Oh, no, indeed! Believe me, I would not insist, but the matter is
+urgent.”
+
+“Heavens! More business!” she remonstrated. “I imagined that with the
+arrival of Mr. Hartagous all the bother would be over. He can think for
+us all. What else is a lawyer created for?”
+
+“Your lawyer,—yes! But this man is not acting in your interest. He is
+acting for the estate.”
+
+“It is the same thing,—my sons’ interest. He will settle everything.”
+
+Desmond could scarcely have feared a more inert attitude of submission
+than this. How could the woman be so blind! “Come,” he said
+authoritatively, drawing her arm through his. “You shall hear first what
+I have to say.”
+
+She turned back to the parlor with him, dragging a little unwillingly on
+his arm. “I have always appreciated ‘gentlemen’s society,’ as it is
+called, and I have to a degree and with exceptions loved my fellow men,
+but I had no conception until lately that the creatures had it in them
+to be so wonderfully and fearfully dull and depressing as they are when
+they talk of their everlasting business. Hereafter, if I have my choice,
+I shall always prefer ‘hen parties’ as the lesser evil.”
+
+With an elaborate air of patience she seated herself on the sofa while
+he stirred up the fire and brightened the lamp. As he began to talk, she
+was inattentive at first, and interpolated irrelevant remarks. “What a
+lovely voice you have,” she said, as her eyes wandered to the open
+piano. “I shall be wanting you to sing all day.”
+
+As he began to recapitulate the details of the codicil and the
+executor’s requirements concerning the refunding clause, she broke out,
+“Wouldn’t you hate to be as chuffy and as stuffy as Mr. Hartagous when
+you come to be of his age, and look so like a weasel?”
+
+When he disclosed the real mission of Mr. Hartagous, to effect an
+immediate sale of Great Oaks, a light suddenly sprang into her face, and
+her voice broke into a sob. He saw that the situation bore far more
+heavily upon her than she had manifested. She had been whistling, as it
+were, to keep her courage up.
+
+“How providential!” she cried. “It breaks my heart now to part from
+Great Oaks, but I see that it is the only way. And oh, for liberation!
+To be free from debt. The sense of it weighs upon me; I can understand
+the agony of the old torture of death by pressing.”
+
+He was still for a moment, looking at her in sombre thought. “This is
+what I feared,” he said at last,—“your precipitancy. I want you to
+think, to survey the ground first, to test the possibilities.”
+
+He had made out from the will a schedule of the properties, with their
+approximate values, and the amounts by years of the annual income that
+must be returned. He went across the room and sat beside her on the
+sofa, that they might look over the page together. Her face paled while
+scanning the estimates,—they seemed methodically to set forth financial
+ruin, absolute, hopeless.
+
+“Then why,—how _dare_ that man come here and press Mr. Loring’s
+inadequate offer for Great Oaks?” she blazed out.
+
+“Because he is not acting in your interest, but against you.”
+
+She turned and looked Desmond in the face, her beautiful eyes
+bewildering at these close quarters. He dropped his own eyes on the
+paper in his hands.
+
+“Mr. Hartagous must distribute the estate according to the terms of the
+codicil. As executor he is constrained by law to require the refunding
+of your receipts from it. He is coerced, too, by the position of the
+guardian, who also has no option, and who will in the changed state of
+things require this amount to be charged against your portion at the
+partitioning of the estate and the ascertaining and setting aside of the
+several shares of the minors. Naturally, Mr. Hartagous is anxious to
+seize the first opportunity of converting your assets to make good,
+whatever sacrifice it may impose on _you_.”
+
+“What shall I do?—oh, what shall I do?” she cried, in despairing
+realization of the situation. “But why should I ask? I can only yield.”
+
+“You can temporize,—stand out for the full value of the property,— fight
+for terms. Time is your ally. And you have this strength in your
+position, that you might give them a contest; a lawyer might find you
+sufficient grounds,—but, at all events, you are entitled to a fair
+valuation of your property.”
+
+“But even then, Edward,” she put her hand on his and pressed it
+convulsively, “there is not a competence, not a hope from the estate for
+me.”
+
+He did not seek to encourage her by false representations. He was
+looking the disaster squarely in the eye. “And the boys are powerless
+for years to come!” he admitted despondently.
+
+Her lips were trembling piteously. “I have not a dollar that I can call
+my own. I have not a friend in the world.”
+
+“You have me,—such as I am,” he said, his eyes downcast, still on the
+papers.
+
+“I never think of you,—you are like another self. But you _are_ my
+friend, and I am not alone! You think for me,—you rescued me at the risk
+of your life. You think for me,—you care for me,—I am not alone!”
+
+“Care for you!” he broke out, tempted beyond all resistance. “I care for
+nothing else on God’s earth. I love you,—I love you,—I worship you!”
+
+She turned, staring at him in quiet surprise; then, as if she thought he
+might come nearer, she put one hand against his shoulder, holding him at
+arm’s length.
+
+“Oh, I should have eaten out my heart in silence; I should never have
+said a word but for this strange change, when you seem as poor as I! But
+since you feel alone, you may care to know now how beloved, how
+cherished, how adored you are by me.”
+
+“But suppose,—suppose,”—she was still looking hard at him, into his very
+eyes—“but suppose it might have been grateful to me earlier to know so
+much—”
+
+“I could not have spoken then; I could not have asked you to make so
+great a sacrifice for me,—to relinquish your status under the will.”
+
+She smiled radiantly at him. “It seems to me now that I might have been
+glad to make that sacrifice,—for you.” Once more her hand pressed
+against his shoulder to hold him at arm’s length. “But it can never be,
+now,” she stipulated, “when I can give you nothing.”
+
+“Nothing! You are all the world to me,” he protested.
+
+“No, you have your own difficult way to make, and I shall not burden
+you. It was only a fleeting fancy that came over me,—a sentimental
+glimpse of what I _might_ have felt for you had fortune favored us.”
+
+“You shall not decree the future,” he declared imperiously. “I shall
+fashion it for us both. It is not yours to say. You have said enough. I
+know your heart better than you do,—I believe you love me—”
+
+“Like a son,” she interrupted, with a gurgling laugh. “I am older than
+you by ten years.”
+
+“And younger by a century in spirit, and as beautiful as the angels in
+heaven. If you leave Great Oaks, we go forth together. Life in poor
+conditions would not be sordid with you. It would always be fresh and
+deliriously sweet and forever a blessing, whatever hardships fate might
+impose. I am strong and well equipped, and with this hand in mine I
+could make my way against all the world. I would have no false pride to
+hamper my efforts, so truly proud would I be in having the dear
+privilege of working for you.”
+
+“Like Chub,—would you dig in the garden?” The anticlimax was of
+conclusive import in the stress of the moment. She had not intended to
+yield, but she laughed in tender recollection of her little son’s
+childish offer of help, and in the instant of relaxation she burst into
+happy tears. Her head sank on Desmond’s shoulder, and his arm was around
+her.
+
+“Like Chub, I would even dig in the garden,” he protested.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+It was not yet a late hour when Desmond quitted the parlor, Mrs. Faurie
+having flitted away, joyously protesting that the consideration of such
+nonsense as his discourse was undermining to the reason. The evening had
+resulted in so signal a failure to entertain the guest acceptably that
+an earlier dispersal than usual had supervened. Nevertheless, as Desmond
+made his way down the veranda toward the library, intending to smoke and
+linger an hour or so in his chosen haunt, for with this tumult of joy
+and expectation and triumph in his brain and heart he knew that he could
+not soon compose himself to rest, he was surprised in turning the corner
+to see a light upon the waters at a little distance, in the midst of the
+dark, rippling expanse that surrounded the mansion.
+
+The night wind blew dank and chill across the damp purlieus of the
+veranda, the flooring of which was always splashed and reeking from the
+tossing waves of the recent landing of some dugout at various points,
+but it brought no other sound than the monotonous voices of the night,
+so accustomed that they scarcely impinged upon the consciousness: the
+stir of the foliage of the great oaks, the effect of their stately
+avenues “queered” by their diluvian surroundings; the iterative
+batrachian chorus from some insular “high ground” far away; the sudden
+bellow of a bull alligator; and always the murmur of the widespread
+shallows of the overflow under the influence of the breeze.
+
+The light was stationary, and though it was now the dark of the moon and
+Desmond had only the vague illumination of the myriad stars of the clear
+spring night, he made out behind it the dull outline of a small boat. A
+lantern was evidently carried at the prow, and despite the fact that the
+light annulled the suggestion of secrecy, Desmond fancied that the
+motionless pause bespoke observation. Suddenly he heard the impact of a
+paddle upon the water, and became aware that the craft was about to
+turn. The spy, if spy he were, intended to retrace his course;—not until
+he should have given an account of himself, Desmond resolved, and of his
+mission, scouting about on the dark waters of the overflow, making his
+secret observations of Great Oaks mansion when asleep and off its guard.
+
+“Hello, the boat!” Desmond’s strong young voice carried like a clarion
+across the flooded distance.
+
+The answer came, hearty and reassuring: “Hello, the house!”
+
+The dugout swung around once more, and as its prow was presented to
+Desmond’s eye as it advanced in a direct line, its bulk was obliterated,
+and this gave the man who stood erect plying his paddle in the Indian
+fashion the weird effect of walking on the water as he approached the
+house in the clare-obscure.
+
+“God! What _is_ that?” exclaimed Mr. Hartagous, looking out from the
+dark window close at hand. He had been roused by the tutor’s ringing
+call to the boatman, and, apprehending some disturbance, had in the
+instant’s time secured his trousers and his pistol, the two essentials
+to dignified midnight combat. The light from the lantern of the dugout,
+which now began to head for a landing at the veranda, was flung far out
+on the watery gloom, and sent a ray to the long window, illumining a
+tousled mass of gray hair and whiskers, and a puckered face of most
+discordant and disconcerted petulance.
+
+“Nare light do you show, Mr. Desmond,” said the voice of Bainbridge, the
+manager, from the dugout. “You are such owels up here at the big house
+that I made sure o’ findin’ you up, anyhow. Why, ’tain’t quite eleven
+o’clock.”
+
+“And what in hell do you mean by sidling up to Great Oaks mansion in the
+middle of the night in this enigmatic way without warning?” demanded the
+lawyer, testily,—he evidently considered Desmond a mere attaché of the
+household and with no prerogative to speak with authority. Therefore he
+took bold precedence. “And who are you?—and what mischief are you bent
+upon?”
+
+“Ah-h-h! It’s _you_ bent on mischief, Mr. Hartagous! Mischief is the
+trade of all your tribe!” tartly retorted the manager, none of whose
+interests could be imperiled by the lawyer, and whose nerves were
+already exacerbated by the jeopardy of all his prospects in the
+impending changes.
+
+“Oh, is it Mr. Bainbridge, the manager? Beg pardon, my good man. I
+didn’t recognize you in the darkness,—but you should really let people
+sleep in peace”; then with an accession of acerbity,—“buccaneering
+around in the overflow at this time of night!”
+
+It hardly affected Desmond that Mr. Hartagous should take the pas, the
+air of control in these matters appertaining to Great Oaks Plantation,
+as if the power of its possessor and her staff were already a thing of
+the past; but Mr. Bainbridge was not used to such reversals of spiteful
+fortune. Wind and weather had worked him much woe in his agricultural
+experience; desperate calamities, such as the overflow, had visited him
+more than once; but these mischances supervened in his professional
+conflict with natural forces, and were the dispensations of established
+authority, the “hand of God,” to use the pious commercial phraseology,
+and he submitted to them with such broadening of his back to the burden
+and such patience as he could muster. The disaster, however, which
+menaced the tenure of Great Oaks Plantation, this flagrant injustice,
+this legalized mischief, was the artifice of man, the deflection of the
+will of the testator rather than its execution, and he entertained scant
+toleration of the operations of law that permitted it and the person of
+its representative. It threw Mr. Bainbridge out of an employment in
+which he was well satisfied and had given satisfaction these many years,
+for he had a ghastly prevision of the overthrow of all the existing
+status which would ensue under a new owner.
+
+“Oh,” he said with jaunty bravado, as he ran the nose of the dugout
+close to the veranda and sprang heavily upon the flooring, securing the
+trace chain that served as painter around one of the columns, “me and
+Mr. Desmond go on a ‘high old lonesome’ most any time o’ night. We don’t
+keep reg’lar hours in the swamp, you see, like you cits do in
+Memphis,—early to bed and early to rise makes you-all so all-fired
+healthy, wealthy, and wise.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous sputtered, but no immediate answer occurred to him, though
+presently he found cause to admonish Mr. Bainbridge of his heavy
+footfall. “You’ll wake up the whole house,—you tramp like a grenadier.”
+
+“And what sort o’ animal might that be,—fourfooted?” queried Mr.
+Bainbridge, affecting deep ignorance.
+
+Mr. Hartagous disdained to reply, but the admonition touching his
+resonant swinging gait had not been altogether lost on Bainbridge, and
+to avoid passing on the veranda, thus noisily, the vicinity of Mrs.
+Faurie’s room, he entered unceremoniously at the long French window at
+which Mr. Hartagous stood, intending to traverse the guest’s apartment
+and thus reach the cross-hall in order to take his way thence to the
+library, where he could discuss his errand with the tutor. Desmond
+followed, meditating some lubricating word of apology. But Bainbridge
+continued in sarcastic ill-humor: “I never _did_ pretend to be one of
+your soft-steppin’, Slip-Slinksy sort o’ fellows. I could understand
+your objections to having him slying around the house of a night, but—”
+He paused abruptly as he opened the door leading into the cross-hall;
+the stoppage was a sort of galvanic shudder, such as might befit a
+cessation of steam propulsion. He turned toward the others, over his big
+brawny shoulders, a face visibly paling beneath its sunburn in the gleam
+of the candle which the saturnine Hartagous had just lighted.
+
+“Hist,” he said, and silence fell. For outside in the distance and the
+darkness, so soft that one might wonder that it should be so distinct,
+was that vague sense of an unseen progression,—a step, or rather the
+impact of a foot with the pile of the velvet carpet of the padded stair,
+a silken sibilance, then silence, and again a footfall ascending the
+flight.
+
+It was audible to Mr. Hartagous as he stood half dressed beside the
+table. A dismayed, protesting question was in the wrinkles and
+corrugations of his face as he turned it toward the door; a keen,
+excited gleam shone in his eyes, for he, too, had heard of the furtive
+spectre of Great Oaks. The blazing match in his hand burned unheeded to
+the tips of his fingers. When the flame touched the flesh he dropped the
+match, but without a word or sound. It seemed to have tangibly kindled
+his intention, his resolution. It was hardly possible to imagine a man
+of his age and so portly, who was now so light of movement. He had
+noiselessly thrust his bare feet into his bedroom slippers, great
+yawning foot-gear, placed his revolver in the pistol pocket of his
+trousers, while he held in his hand a thing that to the rustic Mr.
+Bainbridge seemed a pocketbook, but which Desmond recognized as one of
+the tiny electric lamps that have this semblance. He dropped the conical
+extinguisher over the newly lighted flame of the candle, and in a moment
+all was darkness and silence.
+
+Each of the others recognized the lawyer’s determination to see the
+thing out. Bainbridge, for all his bold initiative in matters cognate to
+daylight, fell behind him as Mr. Hartagous briskly flung the door wide
+and shuffled noiselessly along the hall. For one moment Desmond felt an
+agony of indecision. He had an unreasoning instinct to call out and give
+the forlorn old spectre some warning of the fell forces of flesh and
+blood that were even now upon his elusive track, that he might craftily
+compass his disappearance as more than once heretofore. Then he
+hesitated. He had shrunk from such knowledge as had come to him as to
+the details in the concealment of the codicil of the will, and he had
+found its only extenuation in the doubt of Mr. Stanlett’s sanity and
+responsibility. It was impossible to judge how this might have stood in
+the beginning, but now, when it was so obviously futile and the ghostly
+step was once more wandering through the midnight quiet of Great Oaks
+mansion, he became afraid of interference,—discovery could only prove
+the mental unsoundness that was at last poor Slip-Slinksy’s protection.
+Moreover, Mr. Hartagous was now halfway up the stairs; Bainbridge,
+sitting on the bottom step, had pulled off his high boots and followed
+in his stocking feet as noiseless as a cat. Nevertheless, the crafty old
+spectre had become aware of their approach. Not a sound, not a stir,
+issued from above. He was still up there somewhere in the darkness.
+Surely he could scarcely have drawn a breath as the two below stood on
+the stairs, motionless also, watching, waiting. Desmond, lingering in
+the hall beneath, one hand on the newel-post, felt a rush of
+indignation, knowing what he did. The two spies, stalwart, alert, both
+more than a score of years younger, could easily wear out the endurance
+of the poor, patient, disappointed ghost, whose lawless mission had
+always been instinct with beneficent intention. Yet not so easily,
+perhaps; for presently, when a timber of the stair creaked, Desmond knew
+that Bainbridge, his muscles stiff and cramping, had been forced to
+shift his weight.
+
+The house within was absolutely noiseless. The half-moon of glass above
+the doors at the front showed its presence in a dim gray contour, but
+shed no light. The splashing of the water of the overflow under the
+buffets of the wind was distinct in the pause. Once a gust went skirling
+with a wild, chill voice among the score of chimneys, and passed into
+the distance, and silence ensued. Suddenly a light cut the gloom like a
+knife. There, standing on the landing, was the spectre of the tradition,
+the cocked hat upon its white hair, powdered, alas! only by time, its
+cloak falling almost to its heels, its eyes blazing with that fierce yet
+consciously helpless anger of the aged, and its lips drawn close and
+thin to keep the secret that battered against their reticence.
+
+Mr. Hartagous had crept up the stairs like a panther in his eagerness
+for his prey, yet at the instant of discovery he slunk back amazed and
+disconcerted. “Mr. Stanlett,” he exclaimed, his finger failing for a
+moment in the pressure on the button, and the whole scene vanishing into
+darkness with a leaping suddenness, then as suddenly leaping into view,
+“I am astonished at you!”
+
+“And I cannot express _my_ surprise,” the old gentleman said, with a
+crisp sarcasm that had an unexpected edge. His eyes ran deliberately
+over the details of the unconventional aspect and attire of Mr.
+Hartagous: his bushy, tousled gray hair and whiskers; his burly, much
+wrinkled throat, left bare without collar or cravat; his suspenders, all
+unadjusted, still hanging from the waistband of his trousers and
+dangling sashwise almost to his heels; his bare feet and ankles revealed
+nearly in their entirety by his loose, yawning bedroom slippers. And he
+had not the wit to take his thumb from the button of the lamp. “I cannot
+express my surprise to detect you skulking, noiseless, in this unshod
+condition, about a house in which you are a guest. Fie! Fie! Mr.
+Hartagous. If you have taken a fancy to any valuables of ours, why,
+speak out, man, and we will _give_ them to you! We have lost too much
+lately not to realize the vanity of earthly hoardings.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous might have seemed of the porpoise family, so resonant were
+the deep and gusty breaths he drew. “Before God, old man, I have a mind
+to throw you down these stairs,” he cried, in fury and amaze that such
+an imputation, though forced and satiric as it was, could be cast on his
+conduct. “I have a mind to throw you down these stairs!”
+
+“Have a care, have a care of your fellow burglar, then,” cried Mr.
+Stanlett, secure in the immunity of his age and his weakness. “Stand
+from under, my good Mr. Bainbridge.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous had never dreamed how much of his acumen as a lawyer, his
+dignity as a man, his force as an individual, appertained to his usual
+smart metropolitan costume. He made a desperate effort to lay hold on
+his wonted identity.
+
+“But you have your own conduct to explain, Mr. Stanlett,” he said
+severely.
+
+“Explain?—to whom?—to you?” the old man flouted contemptuously.
+
+And Mr. Hartagous was aware that this was not the noted cross-examiner
+whom he had hitherto recognized in himself.
+
+“You surely know, Mr. Stanlett,” he began anew, “that your
+mysterious midnight rovings about this house have given rise to
+misinterpretations—”
+
+“Strange,—strange that you should think so, and yet go roving too!” said
+Mr. Stanlett, his eyes burning.
+
+Mr. Bainbridge, a good deal perturbed by the unexpected falling out of
+the event, yet nevertheless reassured too to find the familiar figure of
+the old gentleman in lieu of the unimagined spectre, in anticipation of
+which his stout heart had quailed, suddenly broke out in his burly
+voice: “Well, I ain’t faultin’ Mr. Stanlett, anyhows he chooses to do.”
+He had known him since his own early youth, and his veneration had the
+strength of long habit. “He can have his own way at Great Oaks. If he
+has a mind to sit up late of a night and loaf about the house, it is his
+own affair. No curfew here! If I had ha’ known that Slip-Slinksy was
+_you_, sir, I’d ha’ been in my dugout and a mile away by now.” The tone
+of respect, of consideration, to which the old gentleman was accustomed,
+broke down his reserve. He could meet defiance with taunts, and
+reproaches with sarcasm, but he melted before kindness.
+
+“Oh, Jerry, Jerry Bainbridge,” he wailed, holding out both hands and
+shaking his old gray head, so fantastic in its cocked hat, dismally to
+and fro, “I was just hunting for a will,—a better will than that
+poisonous paper that is to destroy us all. Faurie never intended that
+such a will should hold. Night after night, year after year, I laid it
+away and hunted for a better one. And I’m hunting for it yet, and I’ll
+hunt for it till I die,—and maybe I’ll find it yet.” Then breaking off
+suddenly, with a look of proud and deep offense, “Slip-Slinksy,—that’s
+what they call me! Slip-Slinksy!” He repeated the distasteful word,
+while a vivid flush mounted to the roots of his silver hair.
+
+“But nobody knowed ’twas you, Mr. Stanlett,” Bainbridge urged
+caressingly, yet with deep respect. “You are more looked up to than
+anybody in Deepwater Bend.”
+
+In view of the tone of this interlocutor, it seemed to Mr. Stanlett not
+derogatory to his dignity to defend himself. “It was my duty,
+Bainbridge, my duty. I had promised Faurie. My word was out.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous cocked up his head to listen and bent his brows. “What
+promise was this which you gave to Mr. Faurie, if I may ask?” he
+demanded, puzzled.
+
+“I recognize no obligation to inform you, Mr. Hartagous, and no coercion
+in your question,” replied Mr. Stanlett, with dignity. “But I would not
+willingly seem churlish and reticent. I have no objection to answer, now
+that that unfortunate codicil has been produced—none whatever. Mr.
+Faurie urged me to search for another will till I found it,—I say a
+‘will,’ but ‘paper-writing’ was the word he used.”
+
+A pause ensued, while his fantastic figure on the landing, with the
+divergent rays of the lamp full upon him, stood silent and stiff, as he
+looked down at the brilliant focus of the electric wire in the case,
+which dulled the dim group about it on the stairs.
+
+“When did Mr. Faurie tell you that?” asked the wondering lawyer.
+
+“Just about four years after he died,” the old man replied, quite
+simply.
+
+A thrill of astonished comprehension quivered through the group on the
+stairs. Hartagous, accustomed to a sedulous facial control, did not
+change countenance or speak; his thumb, however, trembled on the button
+of the lamp, and the scene fluttered back and forth, ghostly-wise,
+through the darkness. But both the other listeners exclaimed, each after
+the fashion of his wonted phraseology, though neither could have
+remembered his own words a moment later. Mr. Stanlett apprehended the
+amazement in the tones, and his interest, which had seemed but a jaded
+familiarity with an old experience, pricked up suddenly.
+
+“Very remarkable, wasn’t it?” he said. “I remember that it surprised me
+extremely at the time, though really I don’t know that it should. Faurie
+was always different from anybody else. I was in the blue room up there,
+where after his death we had packed away all of his papers which he had
+seemed to consider of no particular account, till _you_ sent here, as
+executor, for those cursed levee bonds.” He paused to glare down with
+sudden wolfish rancor at Hartagous, then resumed abruptly: “I was
+ransacking the papers again, for in searching for the levee bonds I had
+found that codicil to the will,—which I wish to God I had never seen or
+had burnt on the spot. I knew the havoc that four years of Honoria’s
+expenditures would make in her provision if they were chargeable against
+her portion in the partition of the estate. Four years’ income,—one
+hundred and twenty thousand dollars. It seemed immense then! And _now_
+it is nearly seven years’ income derived from the general estate that
+she must refund, and in addition all the yield of the crops of Great
+Oaks Plantation.”
+
+He paused, his dreary, sunken eyes lifted suddenly to the upper story
+opposite the landing, and Bainbridge began to quake so perceptibly for
+the thought of what might be leaning lightly over the balustrade, a
+graceful manly figure, which he could see well enough though he would
+not look toward it, that the stout stair-rail shook responsive to the
+quiver of his brawny hand laid upon it. He kept instead his attention
+fixed resolutely on Mr. Stanlett’s lean, pallid face, with its fantastic
+headgear and its fiery eyes. There seemed naught more definite than mere
+memory before them, for he went on as if he had been only arranging the
+sequence of the events in his mind. “It surprised me then considerably,
+but now it seems no great matter. Faurie came in suddenly, as if it were
+the most natural thing in the world, and he said,—you know that way he
+had of demanding impossibilities of people and getting them too,—‘Keep
+back that codicil, Mr. Stanlett,—there is another paper-writing; find it
+and present them both together.’ He was pale and eager. He seemed
+desperately in earnest. He was dressed for riding,—he had come from far.
+I wonder which horse he had! He held a riding-crop in his hand, and he
+struck the codicil contemptuously with it,—you remember his tempestuous
+ways when he was angered, and he had that fine air of scorn that used to
+become him so well,—he struck the codicil as the paper lay open on the
+table. And you can see the welt of his riding-crop across it now.” Mr.
+Hartagous was conscious of a vague icy touch that seemed to delineate
+the course of his spinal column in successive shivers, for he was
+remembering that he had noticed an unaccountable diagonal indentation
+athwart the paper when it had been recently produced in court.
+
+The recital had been to Mr. Stanlett a tremendous nervous strain; the
+old face began to quiver and the voice broke into whimpers, and the thin
+hands were aimlessly fluttering. “And ’twas just like Faurie to set me
+to search and never tell me for what nor where. ‘_Paper-writing!_’ have
+looked—and looked—for the paper-writing,—and I have looked for _him_,
+too, but I have never seen him since,—though—sometimes”—Mr. Stanlett
+glanced furtively over his shoulder at the ascending flight of stairs—“I
+have heard his step behind me as I went hunting—hunting—for the
+‘paper-writing.’ If I had met him once on these dark stairs, I’d have
+held on to him, dead or alive, till I got some data as to what and
+where.”
+
+As the tall, thin figure wavered to and fro and seemed about to fall,
+Bainbridge pushed hastily past Mr. Hartagous on the stair and offered a
+supporting arm to the old gentleman. “Such tiresome times, Jerry
+Bainbridge, that I have, to be sure. I need my sleep,—I need my night’s
+rest,” he plained, looking out of the deep, pathetic, sunken eyesockets
+of the aged: “to watch, and wait, and listen, and slip, and
+search,—’twas mighty hard! And then to be heard, after all. To be
+followed and spied out by this lawyer, and Desmond, and
+you,—_Slip-Slinksy_!” he repeated with a repugnant mutter.
+
+Suddenly the light went out, leaving the whole in darkness. Mr.
+Hartagous pressed the button in vain. “The battery is exhausted. It will
+have to be recharged,” he remarked impersonally, as he turned on the
+stair.
+
+Desmond was suddenly sensible of his position as quasi-host, and he felt
+the Great Oaks traditions of hospitality had hardly been maintained in
+the treatment that Mr. Hartagous had received on the stairs. “I will get
+a candle immediately. There is a fire in the library still, Mr.
+Hartagous; it has grown quite chilly. Perhaps you might care to have a
+cigar there.”
+
+He addressed the unresponsive darkness apparently, in which, however,
+the queer figure of Mr. Hartagous was scarcely invisible, so definitely
+had it impressed itself upon the memory; but it was shuffling along very
+systematically, for his voice came from out the gloom, far down the hall
+and near his own door: “Thanks, thanks, very much; I will put on
+something extra—I feel the change of the temperature—and join you
+presently.”
+
+Mr. Stanlett was not altogether self-absorbed. “Why, Desmond, why don’t
+you offer him a nightcap?” he called out genially, from the darkness of
+the landing. “Make him mix you a toddy in the library, Hartagous. He
+hasn’t got so little sense as you might think! He knows how to do that,
+at any rate!” Then with a distressful quaver: “Take something,
+Hartagous. You ain’t used to the Slip-Slinksy business like me.
+_Slip-Slinksy_,—the very boys call me that!” And now again jocund,
+though ever and anon his voice broke, “Do a little rummaging around in
+the dining-room, Desmond, and see if you can’t put two and two
+together,—a sandwich and a decanter.”
+
+“But won’t you join us, Mr. Stanlett,” demanded Desmond, cheerily, for
+he judged from the diminishing distance of his voice that the old
+gentleman was approaching on the arm of Bainbridge; but Mr. Stanlett
+fell anew to whimpering, and said that he wanted to be in his bed, and
+indeed in his grave, that ought to have been made long ago with him laid
+at peace within it, for the days had come in which he could take no
+pleasure and the nights in which he could take no rest. Then he broke
+off, smartly to reprimand Bainbridge for stumbling, and pathetically
+averred, “But I have had more practice in walking in the dark. My
+conscience! I am familiar with the face of the night. Some terrible
+features it has, too. It is made up of grimaces!”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+When Mr. Hartagous repaired to the library, he scarcely compared in
+regard to apparel with the point-device Desmond, who was still in the
+attire that he had worn at the somewhat formal dinner early in the
+evening, but the guest’s aspect was far more conventional than during
+the episode on the staircase. As he blew a refreshing whiff of cigar
+smoke from his lips and allowed a second to curl in thin tendrils
+through his nose, he sank deep in his easy chair and stretched out his
+slippered feet luxuriously to the fire. They were now encased also in
+natty black silk socks, which came well up under the trousers and hid
+the ankles, erstwhile so frankly displayed. His hair had been hastily
+brushed, and though he still wore no collar nor tie, his iron-gray
+whiskers, parted and smoothed in his swift toilet, touched the edge of a
+jaunty smoking-jacket, just donned, of quilted bronze silk faced with
+cardinal red. He was more bland now than in his demeanor hitherto;
+perhaps because of the genial influence of the decanter and glasses on
+the library table, he had reached the conclusion that suavity was the
+best method to enlist the good-will of the tutor, and throw his
+influence in the household, which might be considerable, to the
+advantage of the executor in effecting the sale of Great Oaks Plantation
+and a pacific settlement under the terms of the codicil to the will.
+
+“Why, I had no idea that Mr. Stanlett had aged so much,—greatly broken!”
+he remarked confidentially. “He is practically demented. Utterly
+irresponsible! Did you note what he said about having hidden the
+codicil? I wonder how long he has had it in his possession,—might
+approximate the time by the duration of the tradition of the ghostly
+footfall at Great Oaks.”
+
+“He couldn’t have had a nefarious intention, or he would have destroyed
+the paper; yet he must have known how disastrous delay in producing it
+would be to Mrs. Faurie’s interests,” argued Desmond, dispassionately.
+
+“You are reasoning like a sane man, but his course is insanity,”
+rejoined Mr. Hartagous. “I suppose that the shock of the discovery
+impaired his powers of discrimination. There must have been some earlier
+cerebral lesion, some obscure affection of the brain, to which this
+incident gave expression. His delusion is very curious,—the apparition
+of Faurie; great verisimilitude in that character sketch,—I could almost
+see him myself!”
+
+“What strikes me as amazing is that he should never have shared his
+secret,—that he could guard his delusion and his search for a
+‘paper-writing’ through so many years with so many narrow escapes from
+detection,” said Desmond.
+
+“Well, insanity is essentially abnormal.”
+
+“He is insane in no other respect, apparently,” Desmond suggested.
+
+“This is a case of ‘the fixed idea,’” said Hartagous. “It is a good
+thing that he is not legally responsible,—that is, if his possession of
+the codicil was not also a delusion from the beginning.”
+
+“You think that possible?” said Desmond, with raised eyebrows.
+
+“Anything is possible in this connection. But it doesn’t matter,—he is
+wholly irresponsible. Bad thing he has made out of it for Mrs. Faurie!
+It will leave her practically stranded for life, unless indeed she
+should make an advantageous second marriage, which I hope to heaven she
+may.”
+
+“That is hardly likely,” said Desmond, with his eyes on the fire.
+
+Mr. Hartagous bent his bushy gray eyebrows in insistent argument. “And
+why not? She is extremely beautiful, and the years literally make no
+impression upon her. She is as young and as handsome as she was at
+nineteen. And she is very fascinating, in the best sense of the word. A
+very charming and delightful woman! Her piteous prospects in this change
+have worried me no little. Indeed, that is doubtless the one hope,—an
+advantageous second marriage. Among us we must try and save enough to
+her out of the estate to put her in a position—temporary, of course—to
+be able to make it,—go somewhere for a while, Memphis, or New Orleans,
+or New York. Buried here in the woods, she will never see
+anybody,—unless—unless—it were somebody slying around trying to buy
+Great Oaks.” Mr. Hartagous paused reflectively. He was essentially a
+business man, and could have succeeded signally in any line to which he
+had devoted his energies; he was now unconsciously showing great
+capacities to conduct a matrimonial agency. He let off a slow,
+meditative whiff of smoke, holding his cigar in one hand as he looked
+speculatively at the ceiling. “I wonder—I _do_ wonder—whether Loring
+might not fill the bill! What a solution of the problem it would be, if
+we could capture Loring!”
+
+“We don’t want him,” said Desmond, in evident repugnance.
+
+“Why not?” Mr. Hartagous bent his brows in a cogitating frown as he
+surveyed the tutor. “Loring is a very worthy, honorable man, and
+agreeable, apart from his money,—and Mrs. Faurie will have absolutely
+nothing. He is a very brainy man, and of excellent moral character. I
+should think he could make himself very acceptable. You think that Mrs.
+Faurie would not marry him?”
+
+“I know she would not. In fact, Mrs. Faurie has promised to marry me,”
+Desmond said succinctly.
+
+In the scope of humane protection there ought to be some restraint on
+the administration of sudden shocks. The jerk, mental and moral, which
+Mr. Hartagous experienced was as if a galvanic current had thrilled
+through every sensibility. Even his physique was not exempt. As his hand
+on the arm of the chair mechanically flew up, it struck his cigar
+between his lips with such force as to break it in half, so that it hung
+bent at right angles in his mouth as he sat upright and stared at the
+tutor.
+
+Desmond wondered that he should have no qualms of conscience in thus
+interposing an insurmountable obstacle to the fair haven to which Mr.
+Hartagous was desirous of steering Mrs. Faurie’s future. But he only
+felt elated, delighted, triumphant. He did not even resent the indignant
+remonstrance, deprecation, amazement, in the executor’s face.
+
+“Did she intend really,” he demanded, in a low, tense, excited voice,
+“to relinquish her fine income during widowhood,—under the will,—for
+merely what amounts to her statute rights of dower—and _you_?”
+
+The tutor laughed aloud, so joyously, in such gay elation, that Worldly
+Wisdom could but bend its brows anew. “She never had the opportunity. I
+could not, I would not, ask her to relinquish anything for me. It was
+only when she had nothing to lose that I offered my heart and hand,—only
+this evening, in fact.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous leaned forward, the bent cigar still between his lips, to
+survey the young man who, holding his own cigar between his finger-tips,
+lightly touched off the ash and smilingly returned the mentor’s look. He
+still smiled in imperturbable good-humor when Mr. Hartagous ejaculated,
+as if involuntarily, from the depths of his conviction: “You—poor—fool!”
+
+“Thank you very much,” cried Desmond, in airy nonchalance.
+
+“My dear boy, she is ten years older than you—”
+
+“And she looks ten years younger,—but that is neither here nor there. I
+am not marrying her for her beauty any more than for her money.”
+
+“Certainly not for that,” said Mr. Hartagous, sourly. “But Mrs. Faurie’s
+friends will never consent to this; it would make her ridiculous in the
+eyes of the world.”
+
+“If I may judge by what I have learned in my own experience of
+friendship, as this world goes, Mrs. Faurie’s friends will let her very
+severely alone as soon as they are informed of the state of her
+exchequer. As to ridicule,—just as it happens, we do not care in the
+least for that.”
+
+“But you must consider her sons,—the very children will protest.”
+
+“And they alone have the right,” Desmond admitted. And Mr. Hartagous
+made a mental note to be early at their ear with crafty counsel.
+
+He again hesitated for a moment, with the bent cigar now in his hand. “I
+know that you will not thank me for my interference,” he said gravely,
+“but as a mutual friend,—yours as well as Mrs. Faurie’s,—a friend of the
+family, indeed, I must remind you of your financial position. You know
+that it was difficult to find foothold for yourself,—how can you support
+an additional burden? I should be glad to advise Keith to continue you
+in your present employment—”
+
+“I am beholden to you!” laughed Desmond.
+
+“But your common sense must show you that it would be untenable,
+unsuitable. You know that the learned professions are not paid in
+proportion to the equipment required and the talent employed. They ought
+to be—and, in fact, they generally are—filled by men who could at a
+pinch live by other resources. But what would _you_ do if you should
+find no other opportunity?”
+
+“Snap my fingers in the faces of the Nine Muses and come down from
+Olympus! I would do whatever fell to my hand. I would not now be so
+choice, so exacting, so determined on pursuing the course that I had
+laid out. If ‘letters’ are not for me, then I am not for ‘letters.’ I
+will work at anything. I will dig in a ditch. I will turn wood-chopper.
+I will ‘run the river.’”
+
+“You will make a success of whatever you turn your hand to; but ‘run the
+river’—I hope you ain’t talkin’ of leavin’ us, Mr. Desmond.”
+Bainbridge’s rough voice broke suddenly on the colloquy, as he entered,
+hearing only the last words. “I don’t know how we would get on at Great
+Oaks without you now.” Then, bethinking himself of his own insecure
+tenure of office, his face clouded and his voice fell. “Well, gents,” he
+continued, after a pause, “I have got old Mr. Stanlett resting easy, and
+I believe I’ll finish out my yerrand here and take myself home. Mr.
+Desmond, do you know if there was any of them sticks o’ giant powder
+left here at the house after we blasted that last tangle?” For a recent
+development of the dangers of the overflow was the approach of floating
+débris dislodged from the inundated forests above, now merely drift
+logs, and again gigantic trees, long since dead and easily overblown in
+the high winds that had latterly prevailed. Sometimes they came slowly
+slipping along the sluggish flood of the back waters, sometimes swiftly
+hurtling, as if flung from a catapult, down the impetuous currents of
+the mid-channel of the great river. Now they appeared singly, and again
+entangled with other growths; and these fibrous masses, difficult of
+disintegration, offered a menace in collision with boats or buildings,
+which required all the ingenuity of the skilled in “fighting water” to
+ward off. To climb upon the floating tree, insert a dynamite cartridge
+in some convenient hollow, and speed off as fast as dugout might skim
+and paddle ply before the explosion rent the floating mass asunder,
+setting it adrift in hundreds of harmless fragments, had been found an
+effective measure, though not without dangers of its own.
+
+Desmond said that he had reserved a few cartridges, which he had
+deposited in an out-of-the-way place for safety. He laid his cigar on
+the edge of the ash tray on the library table, searched one of the
+drawers for a key, and as he left the room, he remarked that dynamite
+was a commodity with which Mr. Bainbridge could not be too careful.
+
+“I ain’t going to set down on it, you can bet high on that!” the manager
+observed, with the kind of laugh attributed to the horse, with less than
+fair appreciation of equine manners. He slouched across the room in the
+big boots which he had resumed, having drawn them over his trousers to
+the knee according to his wont. His big hat was on the back of his
+straw-tinted hair, for since Mrs. Faurie was not present, he recognized
+no etiquette which required him to remove it, and he habitually wore it
+indoors; he sunk into a large chair of the reclining variety, furnished
+with a shelf at the side, which was available, turning on a pivot, for
+either book-rest or writing-desk. As he quietly waited, he began to eye
+Mr. Hartagous and his bent cigar, which was past all surgery. The lawyer
+discarded it into the smoking-tray, and spoke to avoid a question
+concerning it, for he realized that Mr. Bainbridge’s curiosity was
+unrestricted and his tact slight.
+
+“They have made great changes here, Mr. Bainbridge,” he said, glancing
+about the room,—“and yet there is no especial difference when you come
+to examine,—a mere matter of rearrangement.”
+
+“Yes, sir,—yes, sir. The kids recite here now. But Mr. Desmond has a way
+of putting his mark on things. This room reminds me only of him now, yet
+I can remember a time when it was as good as a photo of Mr. Faurie. He
+died here, you know,—and if I don’t forgit, it was in this very chair.”
+
+“Yes, yes,—of heart failure. Yes,—a good while ago,” Mr. Hartagous
+replied, and fell silent.
+
+The whole house had become silent, too, once more. If Desmond were astir
+in his search for the stick of dynamite, it was at a distance in the
+rambling old building, for there was no token of movement far or near.
+The clock on the mantelpiece was bringing the minute hand into
+occultation by the hour hand on the dial, and the silver tale of
+midnight presently rang out. The single log across the andirons, for it
+had been a bright fire rather than a great one, had charred through by
+the heat of the day’s embers below and presently fell apart, sending up
+jets of sparks and tendrils of pungent smoke. Mr. Bainbridge rose and
+nimbly kicked the ends together between the dogs, and as the flames of
+the dry wood flared up cheerily, he returned to his seat, and seemed
+disposed to moralize and favor Mr. Hartagous with his views on the
+mutation of sublunary affairs. “But I useter never come in this room but
+what I could fairly pictur’ Mr. Faurie sittin’ in this very chair. Lord!
+what a power o’ pains he did give himself about that will o’ his and all
+his papers, Mr. Hartagous. And to think! it’s all turned out as he would
+have liked least. Not that I blame _you_, sir.”
+
+“No, of course not,” acceded Mr. Hartagous, promptly, conscious that his
+position did not commend itself to the manager’s favor.
+
+“Being the executor, you have to do as the law requires. But little did
+_he_ think that he was leaving his pretty young wife a share of—river
+fog, to live off ’n all her days; no wonder it’s turned old Mr.
+Stanlett’s brain! She has been like a daughter to him. Well, well,—I
+don’t wonder that he thought he viewed Mr. Faurie up there amongst the
+old papers in the blue room. Mr. Faurie lived amongst his papers those
+few last weeks,—every lease, every lien, every mortgage, every
+promissory note, was examined in expectation of the administration of
+his estate. I useter look at him and wonder how he had the grit to fix
+and fix his papers when he warn’t able to work, so feeble as he was.
+He’d send for me as a subscribing witness in leases, and contracts, and
+such,—me and the trained nurse; we witnessed a power o’ papers in those
+last days. They mostly seemed short,—little matters hereabouts. The
+important papers had been packed and sent to you in Memphis by that
+time; but these were some renewals he had promised, and he canceled some
+obligations he held. Mr. Faurie was not what a body would call a liberal
+man,—he was rather strict: but he executed a release for old man Tynes,
+whose debt wasn’t more than half paid out, and who was likely to ha’
+been sold up; and he give a quittance to old Sloper; and he acknowledged
+a quitclaim deed on that tract o’ swampy woodland that that Irish
+wood-chopper Jessop hadn’t paid scarcely any purchase money on—’tain’t
+worth much, but ’twas riches to old Axe-helve; and he relinquished his
+rights in that steamboat, the Swamp Lily, to Captain Cleek, for old
+acquaintance’ sake; and he remembered the old niggers variously; and he
+gimme my mule Lucy, finest mare mule I ever see, as good to-day as she
+was then, and two hundred dollars in gold in a bag,—but _he_ didn’t care
+to stand for liberal. He wouldn’t ha’ put such little extras into his
+will for the public to know—indeed, no,—not for a pretty! He just
+settled his gifts beforehand. And every paper was just so!—and they all
+held together as tight as hell, except that will that he cared for more
+than all the rest. Things turn out cur’ous, they do,—for a fact!”
+Bainbridge shook his head drearily, and looked reflectively into the
+fire. Great Oaks Plantation had been home to him for many a year, and he
+was a man of scanty resources and narrow experience. He knew naught of
+the world beyond, and he deprecated change.
+
+“Of course I didn’t know the contents of the papers then,” he presently
+resumed his reminiscences. “I just heard about what they were in the
+gossip after his death, and in fact a good many were put on record in
+the court-house right away. I wasn’t expected to read ’em when he
+executed them. All I did was to witness his signature.” With his
+unemployed hands he drew before him the writing-shelf attached to the
+arm of the chair and took the position of the scribe as he meditated,
+drumming slightly on the wood with his fingers, that showed in their
+blunt, roughened tips and broken nails the hand of the toiler. “Mr.
+Faurie was a proud man,” he discriminated. “He didn’t openly admit that
+death itself could down him. He only used to remark, ‘No man can say
+that he will be here to-morrow, so I am setting some pressing affairs in
+order.’ He said that to me on that last night, just about a half hour
+before he died. Why, I hadn’t got home,—I was riding one of his
+horses,—do you remember Indian Chief, and how fast he could rack?—I
+hadn’t reached the willow slough when I saw the rocket go up at the
+landing to signal the Swamp Lily as she passed to stop and take on the
+orders for the funeral, you know.”
+
+“Yes,—oh, yes,” said Mr. Hartagous, hastily, reminded of ghastly
+details. It was not a cheering subject; he had had a troublous day; he
+had been awaiting Desmond’s return that he might have an additional word
+with him in continuance of the discussion so suddenly sprung upon him;
+but the tutor was long away, scarcely sustaining his reputation for
+rummaging. The lawyer was about to comment with acerbity on the delay,
+for he felt the need of his well-earned night’s rest, when he was struck
+by the fidelity of the mimicry of voice and manner with which the
+manager was reproducing the scene so often enacted here, so replete with
+significance to all those whom these signatures concerned. “‘Witness my
+hand and seal,—witness my hand and seal,’” he repeated more than once.
+Then, with an imperative intonation, “‘Attest, Jeremiah Bainbridge. Sign
+here.’”
+
+He glanced up with a mirthless laugh, and as he thrust the shelf away
+from him the elastic strap of a portfolio, attached on the under side,
+gave way in his rough handling and a flutter of papers slid from the
+receptacle to the floor.
+
+“Look at me!” exclaimed Bainbridge, in contrition for the mischance.
+“What’s these?—the kids’ exercises.” He read aloud in a droning voice:
+“‘And when King Xerxes marched to the north he left’—a heap of confusion
+behind him, I reckon!” he remarked facetiously, gathering up the flying
+pages of writing, inscribed in a large, boyish hand, stopping now and
+again to peruse quizzically the inapposite theme with a sort of relish
+of its incongruity with the scene, the life, and the thought of to-day.
+
+Mr. Hartagous lent his aid. The accident was of a kind peculiarly
+irritating to his prepossessions, and to his mind suggested the bull in
+the china shop. He was less animated, however, by the desire to help the
+worthy manager than to remove the débris and obviate thus any difficulty
+which might otherwise prevent Mr. Bainbridge from getting himself away
+immediately upon the return of Desmond with the stick of dynamite; Mr.
+Hartagous was capable of wishing that this might blow the manager into
+the Mississippi River, were there no other method of compassing his
+speedy withdrawal. To preserve the juvenile work from destruction, since
+several pages had flown within the big brass fender, he reached over it
+and secured them from the hearth. Then, seating himself in the chair
+just vacated by Bainbridge, who was now occupied in seeking fugitive
+papers under the table, the sofa, the globes, Mr. Hartagous addressed
+himself to replacing the pages in the portfolio.
+
+An awkward, old-fashioned device of desk arrangement, he thought it, for
+the portfolio attached to the shelf swung beneath, leaving the upper
+surface free for the writer’s needs, and it could only be drawn high
+enough to receive or disburse papers by means of the elastic strap which
+Bainbridge had burst. It now showed signs of letting the pages slip as
+soon as restored; and saying with a note of tense vexation, “Where did
+these belong, anyhow?—and how the devil does this go?” Mr. Hartagous
+drew the despoiled receptacle up on top of the shelf to aid his
+disposition of the collected sheets. As in most portfolios, the two
+gaping pockets were obvious, but as he was about to stow the remaining
+briefs concerning the Persian hero therein, another paper from an inner
+slit in a different handwriting was brought to view. His face changed
+sharply as he drew it forth, all unnoticed by Mr. Bainbridge, laughing
+over the crude views of the boy’s work as he held a page to the lamp on
+the table, his big teeth a-glimmer in the midst of his straw-tinted
+beard, the big hat and broad shoulders thrown in a Brobdingnagian shadow
+on the wall.
+
+“Will you give me your attention for a moment, sir,” Mr. Hartagous said,
+in a low, repressed voice. “Is this your signature?”
+
+Bainbridge lumbered heavily forward in startled expectation. “By gum, it
+sure is!” he cried, excited to fever heat. “And that is the last paper
+which Mr. Faurie ever signed!” he added, leaning over to scan the
+document. “I am sure of that, because Mr. Dabney witnessed it with
+me,—’twas me and the trained nurse that always subscribed as witnesses
+together, except this once. And just before I reached the willow slough
+I seen the rocket go up at the landing to signal the death to the Swamp
+Lily, that was just rounding the point off the Arkansas shore.”
+
+There were a few other papers with the document, a canceled note of
+hand, a contract for the erection of buildings, a surveyor’s plat of
+land, all memoranda of completed purpose, which had evidently been
+returned. Mr. Hartagous was running them swiftly over, while
+Bainbridge’s attention was focused upon his own scrawl as a subscribing
+witness on the sheet on the portfolio.
+
+“I never thought of it again,” Bainbridge resumed; “and I suppose that
+whoever set the room to rights after he was carried out of it must have
+laid this away among the other papers in the portfolio and desk. He must
+have intended to mail it with other inclosures,—that will that Mr.
+Stanlett found, I reckon,—for see, here is a long, stamped envelope,
+with six cents postage and an immejet delivery stamp.” Bainbridge held
+it up to the light. “He must have weighed it with the inclosures,—but it
+has got no address. I remember now that after Mr. Dabney and I had said
+good-night to him and went out into the hall, I noticed the nigger
+waiting at the library door, with the bag for Mr. Faurie’s mail, ready
+to paddle in a dugout to the Swamp Lily just sighted nigh the point off
+the Arkansas shore.”
+
+Mr. Hartagous was once more bending his bushy brows over the names of
+the witnesses to the document. “And who is this other party?” he asked.
+
+“Mr. Dabney? Richard Dabney?—why, don’t you remember him? He used to run
+a store near Great Oaks. The land it was built on fell into the river
+not long after that, and he moved away. He was living in Arkansas the
+last I heard of him, running a sawmill. He had come to Great Oaks
+mansion that evening to inquire for Mr. Faurie, hearing that he had been
+ailing,—in fact, he was taken with a short rigor while Mr. Dabney was
+here. Mr. Faurie was still sitting in this chair when he wrote his name,
+which he did easily enough, but he seemed very faint when he called upon
+us to witness his signature, and pronounced the paper a little—little
+coddle-shell, I think he called it, to his will. I never thought of it
+since. I jus’ allowed it was some of his Tennessee business, because he
+remarked sorter mumbling to himself, ’twas situated there and that he
+s’posed this coddle-shell would take effect under the laws there, it
+being his domicile, so to say, him being a resident o’ Nashville, and a
+regularly qualified voter of Davidson County,—though shucks! we claimed
+him here in the swamp country; he had been here so much at Great Oaks in
+the winters, as his health declined. I haven’t thought of it since. As
+he was always busy with his papers in them days, I didn’t taken any
+special notice of the circumstance. Is it any account, particularly,—cut
+any ice?”
+
+A codicil, indeed, it proved; and while affirming and republishing the
+main testamentary provisions of the previous codicil, the testator made
+the single change of giving to his widow all his personal property of
+whatever sort,—in lieu of one fourth of it,—stocks, bonds, and some
+hoards of special deposits in Tennessee banks; and though the vital
+importance of this bequest was altogether unforeseen by the dying man,
+the crucial emergency being far beyond the purview of his vicarious
+precautions, it was evident that it would aggregate enough to solve the
+refunding problem of Mrs. Faurie’s receipts from the estate.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER XX
+
+
+It was a joyous household the next morning, and Mr. Hartagous genially
+participated in the prevailing good cheer. He had very heartily
+deprecated the hardships to be wrought by the execution of his duty, and
+was thankful indeed that they were mitigated to the extent of the
+benefactions of this codicil. Great Oaks under water, with valuable
+machinery and livestock, miles of fencing and indispensable buildings,
+to replace, was no boon in comparison with Mrs. Faurie’s former rich
+endowments, but at all events it was not to fall to his lot to turn the
+widow out of her shelter for the behoof of her young sons. Nevertheless,
+he resolved to remonstrate very seriously with her against the proposed
+marriage, and to stint himself no whit in forceful phraseology.
+
+He did not meet her at the breakfast-table, for he was late, owing to
+the vigils of the preceding night, and when he presented himself to
+partake of the matutinal meal, he found that she had already departed,
+leaving him to the vicarious hospitality of Desmond, the jubilant Mr.
+Stanlett, and the three boys with their shining morning faces. He
+fortified himself with a good cigar after breakfast and a meditative
+stroll upon the veranda in the fresh, breezy, summery day, intending
+that his nerves should be well soothed and his tact whetted before he
+should enter upon his delicate mission.
+
+The leafage of the wide-spreading grove was green and lush, and waved
+gilded in the sunlight; hanging baskets, with trailing ferns and laden
+with parti-colored foliage plants, swung in the arches between the
+vine-draped columns of the veranda. If one could imagine one’s self
+afloat, or in some Venetian entourage, the diluvian scene might have
+seemed, instead of the dreariest expression of disaster, to have
+elements of picturesque amphibious interest. What though the Arkansas
+shore were withdrawn from view—there was not much of it visible in its
+best estate!—and instead was an expanse of rippling sunlit sea of
+indefinite bounds, of a richly tawny hue, and with enlivening and unique
+incidents,—a couple of gayly whisking dugouts in the foreground, a
+steamboat in the middle distance, puffing columns of curling smoke as in
+the centre of the channel she steadily climbed the current, and in the
+offing a white flash of sea-gulls, describing eccentric curves,
+brilliant as stars against the depressed horizon, blue and hazy and
+dimly discriminated. There was an absence of briny odors, which are not
+always acceptable, however, and instead a pungent fragrance of bark came
+from the inundated woods, and the honeysuckle twining about the
+balustrade and bravely blooming from out the floods sent forth a subtile
+and delicious perfume.
+
+“‘A life on the ocean wave,’” Mrs. Faurie exclaimed joyously, as he
+turned a corner and came suddenly upon her. She had been rifling a wire
+flower-stand that lifted its redundant growths against the wall of the
+house, and she held in her hand a cluster of pink and white carnations.
+As she stood in the blended sheen of the bland day and the refulgent
+reflection of the blazing waters, she looked not unlike the bloom
+itself. She had upon her head a wide hat of delicate pink organdy, the
+brim variously bent and shirred and frilled, and her morning dress was
+of sheer white lawn. He strove within himself to avoid its recognition
+as the simplest toilet, such as any country girl might wear, for she
+took no grace from it, but embellished its every suggestion. Her slim,
+lissome figure lent it such distinction; the exquisite fairness of her
+complexion was so emphasized by the unrelenting clarity of the tints of
+her costume; the shoaling lights and shadows of her beautiful gray eyes,
+her rich brown hair piled high amongst the carnation-like frills of the
+hat, her delicate dewy lips, her dainty hand and arm and throat, all
+were more assertive in their demand for homage in the simple not to say
+stereotyped attire. And she looked scarcely twenty years old, as her
+laughing, long-lashed eyes met his.
+
+“Can you keep your sea-legs in the contemplation of that weltering
+main?”—she glanced at the waterscape. “Will you feel less as if in an
+indigestible dream and more like a landlubber if I give you a
+boutonnière?” She selected a very perfect carnation from the cluster,
+and as she advanced to place it in the buttonhole of his coat, he caught
+her hand with the flower in it.
+
+“I want to say something very serious to you,” he protested. “I want to
+speak as freely to you as if you were my daughter.”
+
+She glanced up, gayly laughing. “Your sister, you should say.”
+
+He perceived his error,—on the very point of age, which was to be the
+gravamen of his remonstrances! But he had unconsciously been allured by
+her aspect,—as she looked scarcely twenty.
+
+“Well, hardly young enough to be my daughter, indeed,” he said craftily,
+“though Desmond is really young enough to be my son. My dear madam, you
+will make yourself a laughing-stock if you contemplate this marriage.
+You ought to remember that you are ten years older than this boy.”
+
+“Should I mind that if he does not?” she queried, holding up the cluster
+of carnations no fresher than the flush in her cheeks.
+
+“And now that, by the grace of God, you are to have Great Oaks
+unincumbered, you will put him into the position of making a mercenary
+marriage; he is sensitive on that score,—I can see that already,—though
+of course he is glad that your future comfort is assured, however
+meagrely in comparison with the old days.”
+
+“But ought we to consider the public,—if it will accord us so much
+distinction as to gossip about us as a nine days’ wonder,—or only
+ourselves, and our own mutual happiness?” She slipped the carnation into
+his buttonhole and drew off, standing in her graceful slimness, her head
+aslant, to observe the effect.
+
+“Ridicule deals a vicarious stab, which is peculiarly sharp. You should
+consider your children, dear Mrs. Faurie,” he urged.
+
+“And I will,” she promised heartily. “Trust me for that! I will do
+nothing contrary to their wishes.”
+
+He made no secret of his intentions. He turned at once. She stood
+looking after him, smiling at his haste, as he went bustling down the
+veranda to find the boys. His method of busy progression was not unlike
+that of the puffing steamboat in the channel, bustling up the river.
+Though he had no fear of her interference or adverse influence, he was
+so impressed with the importance of his mission to enlist some potent
+opposition to the marriage that he made no effort to enliven the
+seriousness of the crisis with jocose preamble, in view of the juvenile
+character of his interlocutors, or to minimize its significance. In
+logical and definite fashion he set forth the fact and its aspect to the
+world at large, with its effect on their mother’s future and their own,
+in very unvarnished phrase. They silently heard him out, seated before
+him in a row on the sofa in the front parlor, very attentive, and with
+more friendly faces than he had heretofore seen them wear.
+
+“It rests with you three,” he said in conclusion, seeking to impress
+them with a sense of their responsibility. “Your mother cares more for
+you than she ever did or ever will for any man. She is the most maternal
+woman I ever knew. You can prevent her from making a ridiculous
+marriage,—a foolish marriage,—a disastrous marriage, that will bring
+unhappiness upon everybody connected with it.”
+
+“Oh, no! Mr. Hartagous!” promptly responded the rosy and beaming Chub,
+taking the pas, perhaps instinctively on the principle that the youngest
+officer on a court-martial speaks first. “It is the very best thing that
+we can do. Ever since I have found out that Mr. Desmond was going to
+marry us, I have felt that we-all were so safe!” He gave himself an
+affectionate little hug to express his sense of security.
+
+Horace administered a rude nudge with his elbow. “Nobody is going to
+marry _you_!” he admonished his junior, shamefaced for the ignorance he
+manifested.
+
+“Oh, yes,” protested Chub, wagging his round head, evidently having
+mastered the situation; “when a gentleman marries a widow lady, he
+marries the whole family!”
+
+“You certainly have an interest to consider,” said Mr. Hartagous,
+gravely. “Your affection for your mother, your respect for your father,
+ought to urge you to a course of discreet remonstrance,—nothing
+unfilial, or likely to estrange you, but to prevent an absurd and most
+unseemly marriage that must necessarily be, too, unhappy and
+unfortunate.”
+
+“I don’t see it in that light, Mr. Hartagous,” said Horace, slowly. His
+face had an intimation of precocious force, and there was even a
+mutinous spark in the glance of his eye. His was the complex and
+difficult disposition of the three brothers. His convictions were
+obviously strong, and his opposition likely to be of a strenuous order.
+Mr. Hartagous hearkened with an access of attention. “I don’t see it
+that way. I think that Mr. Desmond cares more for her and for us than
+anybody else ever will. I think his proposal when he had reason to think
+her fairly bankrupt shows that he was willing to make every sacrifice
+for her. Then look at him! Why, you are obliged to see that he is head
+and shoulders above anybody—though he is not rich. But he is younger,
+just as you say, though he does not _seem_ young. He is old in mind and
+disposition. And Lord! the heaps he knows about everything! As to your
+fear about what people will say,—well, _I_ have seen a lot of the world,
+and it seems to me that if a certain kind of people don’t laugh at you
+for one thing, they will for another. If you stay at home, they call you
+‘a swamper’; if you travel abroad, they call you a ‘globe-trotter’; if
+you dress well, they ridicule you as ‘a dude’; if you take it easy, they
+say you are ‘tacky.’ _My_ idea is to go right ahead and do what you
+think is right and properest, and—let them laugh! I’d hate to deny
+myself anything good and valuable ’cause Mrs. Kentopp might giggle over
+it.”
+
+“She left us out of her house-party,—and we ain’t dead yet!” said Chub,
+banging the heels of his shoes back and forth against the sofa.
+
+Reginald took a deeper view. “I think, sir, that her happiness ought to
+be considered first. She is young, after all is said, and has many years
+yet to live, I hope. She ought to have her independence,—to be a free
+agent! When I was in India, there had been a recent case of suttee way
+off somewhere in some remote district,—I heard a great deal of talk
+about it. People had supposed the practice was suppressed. And without
+meaning any disrespect to my father’s will,—for I can understand how the
+idea of a stranger in the family circle would influence a division of
+property,—I always thought an objection to second marriage was a sort of
+civilized suttee. As to Mr. Desmond, himself, I should prefer him as a
+stepfather to all the world.”
+
+And thus Desmond was welcomed without a dissentient voice.
+
+At first Mrs. Kentopp, who might be taken as representing the gossips at
+large, was so rejoiced that Great Oaks Plantation would not come
+immediately on the market in competition with Dryad-Dene that it
+mitigated the acerbity of her views, and although she twinkled and
+dimpled much in commenting on the disparity in age and fortune and
+prospects of the couple, her talk had not the rancor which it developed
+later when Mr. Loring seemed indisposed to console himself with
+Dryad-Dene, and gradually drew off without making any offer.
+
+A golden era of happiness had dawned on Great Oaks; the waters of the
+overflow gradually disappeared, and during the brief interval of the
+wedding journey Mrs. Kentopp drove over through the mud, bogging down
+once or twice in the alluvial sloughs, on a tour of discovery, and
+recounted with facetious distortions of effect afterward Chub’s simple
+boastings in great pride as to the preparations that were making for the
+reception of the couple on their return. Mr. Stanlett had designed and
+supervised these, and was very important and happily busy. “I hope he
+furnished the money to pay for the changes, for otherwise I don’t see
+where it was to come from, for Desmond must have put all his pedagogic
+savings in the expense of the bridal tour,” she jovially speculated.
+Great Oaks was very judiciously embellished, and looked most genially
+hospitable on the day of her visit, for the old man had a pretty fancy
+and an accurate discrimination of the appropriate.
+
+“I always said there was another will or codicil, or, to be accurate,
+‘paper-writing,’” he cheerily averred, as he handed Mrs. Kentopp into
+her carriage. “This is not of course the provision that was intended for
+Honoria, but it passes,—it passes fairly well, and Edward, my nephew,
+Mr. Desmond, you know, does not care for money.”
+
+And when Mrs. Kentopp repeated this, she was wont to point out gayly the
+incongruity of this statement with the fact that “Edward,” Mr.
+Stanlett’s “nephew,” should have contrived to surround himself
+comfortably with that useful commodity in a wife so well endowed and
+three very rich stepsons, over whom he had now paramount influence. She
+found much joy, also, in Horace’s simplicity in believing that the
+sentimental interests between the two had been settled before the
+discovery of the last codicil which had put a new aspect on the
+financial status, and she sought to convince people in Deepwater Bend
+and elsewhere that the comfortable estate, more than the phenomenal
+beauty of the lady, had served to obviate the disadvantage of the
+disparity of years.
+
+Prosperity supplemented happiness. There was a great crop of cotton
+produced by the overflowed lands; the debts were finally settled; the
+yacht was gone, indeed, when all was done, but the emeralds remained,
+and the next carnival season the famous beauty blazed in all her wonted
+splendor upon the old coterie in New Orleans which she had frequented in
+her girlhood. But she soon became secondary in the household. Colonel
+Desmond,—how Mrs. Kentopp laughed when that brevet of consideration was
+added to him instinctively, insensibly by the community, addicted to the
+bestowal of titles on those who so manifestly were entitled to the
+insignia of supremacy,—in the serene quiet of the ensuing winter, found
+in the desk of the library the scattered sheets of a manuscript which he
+had written in his lonely leisure in the early days of his stay at Great
+Oaks. He re-read it in surprise, and withal in self-conscious doubt,
+then again with growing appreciation. He thought that he could not now
+write its like. It had the concentrated strength of complete mental
+isolation. It was the work of the seer,—one who stands apart and judges
+justly without flinching, and it was instinct with the abstract truth.
+Much of it was bitter like life, much of it was sad; but it apprehended
+an unrealized purpose, a symmetry of design in life, a divine direction,
+and it shadowed this forth. So unfamiliar had the work grown in the
+lapse of time that he was flattered by the tone of its scholarship, its
+evidences of close reasoning, deep learning, and wide scope of thought,
+and the distinction of its literary style. For this reason he showed it
+to his wife and the eldest of the stepsons, and straightway the
+household clamor arose. Greatness unsolicited had knocked at their
+doors! Fame had been busy all this time gathering laurels for their
+brows. The younger sons, although uncomprehending, were equally elated,
+and though Desmond laughed at them all, he let them have their will, and
+he became grave and respectful toward their acumen when he read the
+letter of the publisher to whom it was submitted.
+
+Mrs. Kentopp said later that its vogue—an absolutely unreadable book, on
+all sorts of political conditions, for nobody had really read it—was
+because a notable English statesman, very meddlesome with pen and ink,
+had canvassed its positions in a London quarterly, duller, if possible,
+and less read than the book itself, and another English quarterly had
+published Desmond’s reply, and for some time the counter-arguments of
+other political economists who found the work of vital interest caused
+the effusion of much printers’ ink. And when the family went to London
+the next year, Colonel Desmond was lionized in distinguished circles,
+and was given an additional learned degree at a great English university
+where he had taken one in his earlier youth.
+
+“Deepwater Bend is a literary centre now, and don’t you forget it, and
+has its learned light,” Mrs. Kentopp dimpled, “though none of us of
+course have read or ever will read the Great Book.”
+
+But even Mrs. Kentopp’s flings were destined to disregard and
+discontinuance. A javelin, however skillfully aimed, must needs have a
+point to take effect. “I don’t think there seems a disparity in age,” a
+stranger in a social company had dubiously replied to her delighted
+mention of the ten years’ difference. “Colonel Desmond does not look so
+much as ten years older.”
+
+And after the company’s somewhat mischievous burst of laughter had shown
+their comprehension of her intention and hopelessly mystified the
+stranger, who could not imagine what had been said amiss, Colonel
+Kentopp had taken occasion to admonish his wife in private. “You do
+yourself no good, Annetta, by harping on that woman’s age. People will
+only think you carping and jealous.”
+
+And, indeed, Desmond was fast growing older and graver. Other books had
+succeeded the first; and while they added distinction in differing
+degrees, they added, too, the marks of thought on brow and mien. Now the
+light always burned late from the library window on the water-side, and
+the river pilots counted its faint, far glow in their midnight bearings.
+Often they pointed it out with pride to some passenger admitted to the
+wheel-house, seeing it shining with a sort of stellular isolation amidst
+the darkling riparian forests of Great Oaks, and repeated the titles of
+his volumes, although perhaps, like Mrs. Kentopp, they had read none of
+the works.
+
+But this was really not the illuminated hour of the library, the time of
+its signal triumph. Regularly every afternoon when the western sunlight,
+striking in long, slanting bars athwart it, turned from burnished gold
+to ethereal, hazy red, his wife appeared, and seated one on each side of
+the fire in true Darby-and-Joan fashion, as Kentopp’s prophetic eye had
+long ago beheld them from the veranda, Desmond read aloud the result of
+his day’s labor, while her beautiful, listening, reflective eyes dwelt
+on the coals and his voice filled the quiet spaces of the scholastic old
+room. She never criticised. She gave no word of applause. She offered no
+monition of advice. When he laid down the papers and their eyes met, her
+comment was always the same.
+
+“What did I tell you long, long ago, the first afternoon that you and I
+ever sat here before the fire?”
+
+“Why, that I ought to write for publication,—to write books.”
+
+“And what did you say?”
+
+“Well,” he always laughed as he replied,—“that I couldn’t,—that I was
+not capable of it.”
+
+“Then,” she was wont to solemnly rejoin, while her eyes danced with joy
+and mirth and pride, “do you never _dare_ to contradict me again as long
+as you live.”
+
+
+
+
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+THE LITTLE CHEVALIER>
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+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ ● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● Enclosed blackletter font in =equals=.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76784 ***